Lecture XXVI

RIGHTEOUSNESS OR TRUTH IN BROTHERLY LOVE—ESSENTIAL TO THE ANSWER OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE IN OURSELVES AND BEFORE GOD

THE lesson here is sincerity. It is with special reference to the grace or affection of brotherly love, that this lesson is in the first instance enforced; and the manner in which the subject is introduced is noticeable.

The highest possible model or ideal has been presented for imitation: “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Then immediately, by way of contrast, the testing case put is made to turn on one of the simplest and commonest instances of the exercise of human pity: “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” It looks almost like irony or sarcasm. Your love to the brethren, to men as brethren, should reach to your laying down your lives for them. Yes! And it would, if that were necessary, or might do them good. So you say, and think. But what if, having this world’s good, and seeing your brother have need, you shut up your bowels of compassion from him? How then dwelleth the love of God in you? Is that loving as God loves?

Beware of self-deception in this matter. It is easy to imagine what you would do to win or help a brother; and you may please yourselves by carrying the imagination to any length you choose. If a great act of self-sacrifice would avail, you would not shrink from it. But what if you grudge some far readier and easier service, a gift to the needy out of your abundance, or a visit of sympathy to the widow out of your leisure, or a word in season to the weary out of the fulness of your own happier experience, or a helping hand to snatch a perishing soul from the pit and set him on the rock on which the Lord has set you? You will lay down your life for one who is, or who may be, a brother! And yet you cannot lay down for him your love of this world’s good; your love of ease and selfish comfort; your fastidious taste, that shrinks from contact with squalid wretchedness and vulgar ways; your proud or shy reserve, that keeps the humble at a distance; your false shame, that sends you in upon yourself when you should be sowing beside all waters.

Thus somewhat sternly John’s tender expostulation—for it is very tender—is introduced: “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue.” There is enough in the world of that sort of love. “Let us love in deed and in truth.” It is only thus that we can “know ourselves to be of the truth,” or to be true, and so can “assure our hearts before God.” We can have no such assurance if our consciousness hints that there is guile in our spirit. “For if our heart condemn us,” how can we face him “who is greater than our heart and knoweth all things;” all things about our heart; its secret windings and subtle refuges of lies? It is only “if our heart condemn us not,”—condemn us not, that is, as unrighteous and insincere in the matter on hand,—it is only then that we can “have confidence toward God.”

Thus John brings out into prominence a general principle connecting conscience and faith, with immediate reference to his particular topic of brotherly love.

The principle may be briefly stated. There can be no faith where there is not conscience; no more of faith than there is of conscience; no firm faith without a clear conscience. In plain terms, I cannot look my God in the face if I cannot look myself in the face. In a sense, I must be able to justify myself if I would look on God as justifying me; I must be able to acquit myself of guile if I would reckon on his acquitting me of guilt. If my heart condemns me, much more must he condemn me who is greater than my heart, and knoweth all things.

But must not my heart always condemn me? Must I not be always confessing that my heart condemns me, and that therefore the searcher of it must condemn me much more?

No. This is not the language of legitimate confession, although it is often used as such. On the contrary, it is rather a protest against the very sort of confession which it is too commonly employed to express. It rebukes all conventionalism; all formal routine or covert guile; all false dealing with myself and with God. It demands, in worship and fellowship, that I approach him who is greater than my heart and who knoweth all things, as one whose heart does not condemn him.

Reserving the special application of this principle to the grace of brotherly kindness, I ask you for the present to consider it more generally with reference to the divine love; first, as you have to receive it by faith; and, secondly, as you have to retain it and act it out in your loving walk with God and man.

I. I am a receiver of this love. And it concerns me much that my faith, by which I receive it, should be strong and steadfast; which, however, it cannot be unless my conscience, in receiving it, is guileless. David experienced this; and he describes his experience in the thirty-second Psalm. There was a time, he says, when he kept silence; when there was guile in his spirit. Then he had no rest. He was unwilling to be thoroughly searched and tried by God; to have the hurt of his soul otherwise than slightly healed; to have the deadly sore probed to the bottom, that the oil and balm to be poured in might reach the root of the disease. His heart condemned him; and there was one greater than his heart, knowing all things, whose “hand day and night was heavy upon him” (ver. 3, 4). He got enlargement and assurance only when he tried the more excellent way of full and frank confession, apprehending full and free forgiveness (ver. 5–7). Then his heart did not condemn him, and he had confidence towards God; being of the truth, he assured his heart before God.

It must be noticed, however, that the ground of this assurance or confidence is not the consciousness of integrity, thus declared to be indispensable, but that gracious dealing on the part of God for which it makes way. The negative form of John’s language is not without its meaning here,—“if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.” It describes simply the removal of an obstacle; a hindrance or obstruction taken out of the way. A haze or mist of earth is dispelled, that the sun from heaven may give light and warmth. A work of the devil is undone, that the work of God may be wrought. For this inward misgiving, this secret consciousness of insincerity, “our heart condemning us,” is of that wicked one. It comes of his lie still heeded, and, as it were, half believed. We must let it go, that the truth may make us free.

The plain question then is, Are you dealing truly with God as he deals truly with you? Are you meeting him, as he meets you, in good faith? Is reserve on your part laid aside, as it is thoroughly laid aside on his part? He makes advances to you in his gospel, advances most generous and free; he gives you assurances most firm and faithful. These are the ground and warrant of your confidence before him; these alone, and not anything in yourselves, in your own consciousness of integrity, or in your conscience acquitting you of deceit. But they can be so only when they have their free course and their perfect work in you. And that they cannot have if there is guile in your spirit, if your heart condemns you.

May not this be the explanation of that want of assurance of which some anxious souls complain? They are not at ease; they have not comfort, peace, liberty: they feel as if they could not win Christ, so as to be sure of being in him. They see how complete he is for them, as well as how complete they would be if once in him; and they would fain win him and be found in him. But they cannot. Why not? What is there between him and them? Guilt it cannot be; for guilt of deepest dye he takes away; but it may be guile. Sin it cannot be; but it may be silence; keeping silence. Let them not lay the blame of their unquiet and unsatisfied state of mind upon God, or Christ, or the Holy Spirit; upon the gospel way of salvation, or upon the gospel call. All the persons of the Godhead are in favour of their assuring their hearts before God. In the Father, they have rich, free, sovereign grace; altogether gratuitous; unbought and unconditional. In the Son, they have an infinitely precious atonement, an infinitely meritorious work of righteousness, meeting all claims in law against them and upon them. In the Spirit, they have an almighty agency, shutting them up into Christ, and taking of what is his to show to them. Then in the gospel, they have all this love of the one God,—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,—made over to them, if they will but have it, without price and without reserve; just in order that they may assure their hearts before God. The whole plan of salvation contemplates that result, and makes full and adequate provision for its being realised.

If it is not, why is it not? Look well to this question, my brother. See if there is not in you some double-dealing, for which “your heart condemns you.” Is all straightforward? Is all real and downright earnest with you? Or are you toying and playing with spiritual frames as if it were all a mere affair of sentimentalism? Or are you brooding over your own gloomy thoughts with that sort of morbid self-satisfaction that feeds on doubt and despair?

Thus, first, is it a real thirsting for God, a genuine and strong desire for his face and favour, that is moving you; such as will break through obstructions and “take the kingdom by force”? Or is it the old Israelitish temper of peevish and petulant discontent, rather pleased than not to have to complain that you cannot find the living water? And is all right as regards your perfect willingness to fall in with God’s plan? Is there no disingenuousness here; no dislike of being indebted wholly to free grace; no hesitancy about letting go your last hold of the prop on which you have been leaning, and casting yourself, as by a leap in the dark, into the arms of the waiting Saviour? Above all, thirdly, is there a clear understanding as to the terms on which you would choose to be with God? Is there no shrinking from the footing on which Christ would place you with his Father and your Father, his God and your God? Is there a sort of half-consciousness in you that you would really apprehend and welcome the mediation of Christ better than you do, if it were meant merely to establish a relation between God and you, so far amicable as to secure your being let alone now and let off at last; and that in consideration of certain specified and ascertainable acts of homage; without its being insisted on that God and you should become so completely one? If your heart misgive you and condemn you on such points as these, it is no wonder that you have not peace with him “who is greater than your heart, and knoweth all things.”

But, beloved, now your hearts condemn you not! “You are of the truth;” you are true yourselves, and truth is your object; the truth; the truth of God. Then you can have no objection to take in the truth, full and entire, no matter what humiliating discoveries it gives you of your own character and state; or what demands it makes upon you for submission to the sovereignty and grace of God. You have no quarrel with the gospel method of salvation for anything in it that abases you and exalts the Lord alone; if you are “of the truth.” Nor can you now be cleaving to any righteousness of your own. You cut the last cord that binds you to the old natural way of making your peace with God, and sink into the embrace of him who is himself your peace. And it is peace, immediate, full, free, unreserved, that you are eager to have. No truce or compromise will content you now. You cannot be too completely reconciled to God, or brought into friendship too intimate, or fellowship too close and confidential, with your Father in heaven.

Is it so? In all this your hearts condemn you not. Then why should you not “have confidence toward God”? Is it not precisely thus that he is willing, in truth and faithfulness, to deal with you? Then taste and see that God is good; suffer the love of God to dwell in you, without obstruction on your part or any partial dealing any more.

II. Not only as receiving God’s love does it concern me to see to it that my heart condemns me not; but as retaining it, and acting it out, in my walk and conduct. Otherwise, “how dwelleth the love of God in me”?

The apostle Paul speaks of “holding faith and a good conscience;” “holding the mystery of faith in a good conscience.” “Herein,” he says, “do I exercise myself, that I have always a conscience void of offence, toward God and toward men.” This was, in a large measure, the secret, or at least one indispensable condition, of his confident boldness, as a worker and a witness for Christ. His heart did not misgive or condemn him, as to any part of his habitual demeanour and behaviour. If it had, he would have been instantly smitten with a sort of moral or spiritual paralysis. For the absence of conscious, or half-conscious, guile, is not more essential to your standing right with God, as regards your acceptance and peace, than it is to your continuing to stand right with him in the whole work of faith and labour of love by which you have to glorify him.

What a source of imbecility and unhappiness, even for the Lord’s own people, is there in this; “their heart condemning them!” Peter’s heart must have condemned him, more or less consciously, when he entered the high-priest’s hall, and mingled with the servants. What had he to do there at all; getting in as he did; taking the place he did, and the character? Could he fail to have some misgivings, as he stood beside the fire warming himself, like any ordinary onlooker, while false testimony, that he could have contradicted, was swearing away his master’s life? He “kept silence” and slunk away among the menials of the office. He must have felt that either he should not have been there at all, or if there, he should have been at his master’s side. He could not “assure his heart before God,” or “have confidence toward God.” It is all the less surprising, in these circumstances, that he should have fallen when sharper trial came. He was not found “holding faith and a good conscience.”

May we not thus account for the want of joy and power that too often characterises your practical Christianity? Your experience is felt to be lacking in life; your influence somehow does not tell. May it not be because “your heart condemns you”? “Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth.” Is that happiness yours? Is there nothing in which you allow yourself about which you have a doubt? Have you a latent suspicion that you are not quite acting up to the standard of attainment at which you ought to aim; that you are not following out your convictions to the full extent to which they might lead you; that you are tolerating what may be at least of questionable expediency? You may have your excuses; your reasons why you cannot be expected to be altogether so heavenly as one, or so self-denied as another, or so decided and outspoken as a third, or so emphatic a protester against the world’s follies as a fourth. But do these reasons satisfy you? Do they keep your mind at ease? Or have you occasional qualms?

It is a great matter if the eye be single; if your heart do not condemn you. The consciousness of integrity is, of itself, a well-spring of peace and power in the guileless soul. The clear look, the erect gait, the firm step, the ringing voice, of an upright man, are as impressive upon others as they are expressive of himself. But that is not all. The assurance or confidence of which John speaks, is not self-assurance or self-confidence. No. It is “assurance before God;” it is “confidence toward God.”

Why does the apostle make “our heart condemning us” so fatal to our “assuring our heart before God”? It is because “God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” He assumes that it is with God we have to do; and that we feel this. Our own verdict upon ourselves is comparatively a small affair; we ask the verdict of God. “With me,” says Paul, “it is a very small matter that I should be judged of man’s judgment; yea I judge not mine own self.” I am not consciously self-convicted; “yet am I not thereby justified; but he that judgeth me is the Lord.”

If indeed my heart condemns me, there can be little room for question as to what I am. Even then, however, what is fatal to my peace and power, is not my heart condemning me; but God’s being greater than my heart, and knowing all things. My own heart is not likely to condemn me without God condemning me also, and still more. But does it follow that, if my heart acquit me, he must do the same? The contrary, rather, might be inferred. My heart not condemning me might be no proof or presumption that God did not condemn me. He may not acquit me as easily as I acquit myself; for he is greater than my heart, and knoweth all things. There is, therefore, not a little grace here; in our being permitted to infer, from our own heart not condemning us, a like acquittal on the part of God.

And yet how should it not be so if we are his children? Does not the Spirit witness with our spirit that we are so? And that, not merely generally, with reference to the general question of our being God’s children; but specifically, with reference to our being at each successive moment in our Christian experience, and each successive step in our Christian life, his children; his children, not in right of a past act of adoption and work of regeneration, but in virtue of a present filial heart and filial frame of mind towards him. It is thus that “the Spirit witnesseth with our spirit.”

Our spirit witnesses first; faithfully; for we are upon honour. How is it with you, brother, with reference to this present duty; this present trial? What are you thinking and feeling about it? That it is hard, too hard; that too much is asked of you, or laid upon you; but that you must do, or bear, as best you may, simply because you cannot help it? These are servile thoughts and feelings; they breathe the spirit of bondage, not the spirit of adoption. Your heart condemns you; your own spirit witnesses against you; the Divine Spirit therefore cannot witness for you. You cannot lift an honest filial eye to your Father; for “he is greater than your heart, and knoweth all things.” But if now, by grace, you get the victory over these risings of the old slavish mind in you, and have again somewhat of the same mind that was in him who was ever saying, “Abba, Father,” as to every business, every cup, every cross; ah! then your heart condemns you not of servile guile, and the sullen, dogged sense of bondage is all gone. Your own spirit witnesses, not of past but of present sonship. It is “Abba, Father,” with you and in you, here and now; you are here and now crying, “Abba, Father.” And another there is who is in you here and now crying, “Abba, Father;” the Spirit of adoption; the Spirit of God’s own Son. So he witnesses with your spirit that you are the sons of God; that you are so here and now, at this moment, in the doing of this painful business, in the drinking of this bitter cup, in the bearing of this heavy cross. And thus he gives you great enlargement and assurance, great boldness and confidence, as you walk abroad in the light of God’s loving face shining upon you, to manifest his love everywhere and always among your fellowmen, his love as “dwelling in you.”

For I must advert again to the immediate occasion of this appeal of John on the subject of sincerity or truthfulness. It is brotherly love of which he is discoursing; the duty of loving all men as brethren; loving every man as a brother; with a true and real brotherly love; a love that has respect to his being, or becoming, a brother in the Lord. Judge yourselves here, that you may not be judged. What says your heart, your conscience, as to this matter? Does it acquit you? Does it absolve you from the blame of blood-guiltiness? Paul could take the people among whom he had lived and laboured to record, the day he bade them farewell, that he was pure from the blood of them all; for he had not shunned to declare unto them the whole counsel of God. May I venture to do so? Woe is me! Can you venture? Have you done what you could? Are you doing what you can? Or have you misgivings? Here, a stumbling-block is put in the way of an inquirer by some sad inconsistency, or some cold repulse! There, a precious opportunity of showing a little kindness, or speaking a word in season, is lost irretrievably? Ah! are these hands of yours clean which you hold out to some dear friend, or some well-disposed neighbour, or some stranger at your gate; clean from the sin of careless dealing with that man, as regards the welfare of his soul for eternity? Are you conscious of indifference or insensibility about his spiritual state being your prevailing temper, in your intercourse with this or that person in your house, or in your social circle? Are you conscious of estrangement, alienation, distance, dislike? Does your conscience tell you that you are not treating him kindly as regards his own good, or not treating him faithfully as regards the claims of God? Ah! then, you cannot face your own heart; and how then can you, with open eye and upward gaze, face your God? If there be even a lurking suspicion of duty possibly neglected, or of wrong possibly done, rest not till all is righted. “If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.”

And generally I would urge the vast importance of guilelessness and unreservedness, in the whole domain of your spiritual experience. Why is it that we see so many joyless, cheerless, one might almost say useless Christians? Why so many living and walking in such a way as to give the notion of godliness being all gloomy doubt, painful discipline, self-absorbing anxiety, listless musing? Awake! Arise! Shake off the chains that bind you. Go forth in open day, under the open sky, to meet your God and Father, with your heart open to him, as his heart is open to you. Stand fast in the liberty with which Christ makes you free. Be upright. Be honest, frank, and fearless. Be yourselves; out and out yourselves. Dare to avow yourselves what you are, to God, to your own hearts, to all men. Be of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; yourselves true; receiving all truth, declaring all truth; everywhere, and always. Be honest, thoroughly honest, in the closet, in the family, in the market-place, in the parlour. Be transparently honest to yourself and to your brother. Be honest to your God and Father in heaven. Do but consent to treat him as he treats you. His whole heart, he himself wholly, is yours; all his love; all his fulness. Let your whole heart be his. Be you yourselves his; with no reserve; be altogether, now and for ever, his.