The Lord says, that the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, which should come, should take the things that were His, and skew them to us (who through grace, are His own); and all that the Father has is His. All the infinitude of the unseen heavenly, and, I may say, divine world, was to be revealed, and that in the intimacy of the relationship of the Father and the Son, so that we should have fellowship with them. And no man had gone up there, but He who descended thence. He could speak what He knew, and testified what He had seen-declare the Father as in His bosom. He and He only had seen the Father; but this is truth given by the Spirit (all of it, even what Christ said). For the rationalist all this is lost; instead, we are to have the spirit or conscience assume the throne intended for Him in the soul, and draw from the storehouse of youthful experience, and legislate upon the future without appeal, except to himself; a law which is not imposed upon us by another power, but our own enlightened will. All that God can give of the heavenly blessedness of the Son, now a glorified Man, is lost, forever lost; and man is only to seek the development of what is within man.
And this rejection of objective religion is as unphilosophical as it is unchristian; for all creatures must be formed by objects. God alone is self-sufficient. He can create objects in the display of His love; but He needs none outside Himself, a creature does. Man has no intrinsic resources within himself, whether fallen or unfallen; nor even angels. Take away God, what are they? Nothing or devils. So man: if money is his object, he is avaricious, or covetous at any rate; if power, ambitious,; if pleasure, a man of pleasure; and all other objects are judged of by the ruling one. In every case of a creature, what is objective is the source of the subjective state.
In Christianity this is connected with a new nature, because the old will not have the divine object which characterizes, and is the foundation of, faith; but the principle remains unchanged. " We all, with open [unveiled] face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." See what a magnificent picture of this we have in Stephen!-in a remarkable way, no doubt; but still exhibitory of it morally, as well as by a vision. The whole question between Christianity and rationalism is brought to an issue. The progress of human nature, with the very elements spoken of, and the contrasted result, is stated. " Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye." There is the relationship between man and the Spirit. Next," Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers." These were their ways with those who unfolded the law in a more spiritual manner, and with the great living witness of perfection Himself. Such was man-flesh in contrast with the law. Such was his state: he always resisted the Holy Ghost. Now note the contrast of the objective spiritual man. Stephen, " full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." And what was the effect, the subjective effect, in one full of the Holy Ghost, of his objective perception of heavenly objects? In the midst of rage and violence, and while being actually stoned, in all calmness he not merely bears, but kneels down and says," Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.
" So Jesus: " Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Then he said," Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," as Jesus had said, " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." He beheld, with unveiled face, the glory of the Lord, and was changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. But how full and complete a picture' -man always a resister of the Holy Ghost; under) law, not keeping it.; with prophets, persecuting.; with the. Just One, a murderer; with the witness of the Holy Ghost, gnashing his teeth and slaying in rage! Christianity, in contrast-a man full of the Holy Ghost, seeing Jesus the Son of Man in heaven, changed into His image and killed by man, falls asleep, Jesus receiving his spirit!
The rationalist goes over this ground, rejects Christianity as to an external revelation (that must be a law), takes up exactly the same elements as Stephen, and declares that man is progressively educated by them to do without that which Stephen enjoyed. Which am Ito believe? Yet I have but coldly sketched the elements of thought; I must leave you to meditate over it and appreciate the beauty and spiritual importance of it. It is a most enchanting picture, and the deepest moral principles are contained in it. But Scripture is a wonderful book. This was a vision, no doubt; but what Stephen saw is revealed, and written for my faith to act on.
The rejection of Christ in the world made evidently a turning-point in the world's history, as to the proof of what it really was; and the history of Stephen shows man resisting the testimony to Christ's heavenly glory, as they had killed Him when He was the witness of perfection and of God on earth.
There is a silent witness to the divinity of Jesus, and, while truly and really a man, a contrast between Him and all other men, which has profoundly interested me. When man is blessed, morally blessed, elevated, he must have an elevated, and, indeed (to be taken out of self) a divine object before him. Jesus was the Object even of heaven, instead of having one. When Stephen is before us, heaven is open to him as it was to Jesus; but he sees the Son of Man in the heavens, and this fixes his view, and lights up his regard with the glory he saw. Heaven is opened upon Jesus, and the angels are His servants; He sees it opened, and the Holy Ghost descends-Witness that He is Son of God; but He is changed into no other image by it; He has no object to which to look up, but heaven looks down on Him, and the Father's voice declares, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
We enjoy these revelations of His person; but the declaration that the Word was God, and many such like, is a declaration which has authority over my soul. I make God a liar, as John speaks, if I do not believe it; and so I can use it with others. God has declared it: he that believes not has made God a liar, because he has not believed the record which God has given concerning His Son. He that believes has the witness in himself. And all these traits which clothe, or rather reveal, the beloved person of Him who was humbled for us, are ineffably sweet; but the positive declaration is of all importance too.
Note, in John 1. two other ways in which Jesus is presented, besides the actual declaration that He was God and the Word made flesh. (1) He gathers round Himself. If He were not God, this would be frightful, a subversion of all truth, a destructive impossibility: He would turn men away from God. He accepts this place. All that is attracted by what is good flows around Him and finds there its perfect and all-satisfying center. That is God. No one else could or ever did do this, except in sin or violence. The Church can say, Come and drink, I have the living water; so she has, but not, Come to me. That marks the spirit of apostasy. The stream (blessed be God!) flows there, but she is no fountain to which to go. This must be divine, or it is false. But mark, this is a new gathering by a divine revealed center, not the educational progress of the race; it is the opposite, though blessed instruction for the whole race. (2) The other way Jesus is revealed is in the words, " Follow me." We have the same perfection, but now by and in Him as man there is a path revealed through this world of evil. It is one, only one—following Christ. There can be no way but a new divine one, yet necessarily a human one; there is no way for man, as man, in the world at all. When Adam was in paradise, he did not want a way. He had only, in blessed and unfeigned thankfulness, ignorant of evil, to enjoy good and worship. When man has been cast out, and the world has grown up away from God—away in nature and will, there can be no way in a rebellious world, in a sinful corrupt system, how to walk aright, as in and of the world, when its whole state is wrong. But if what is divine comes into it as man (what has motives not of it—if it gives a path in which the divine nature is displayed in grace and holiness in these circumstances, yet always itself manifesting what it is in them) now I have a way. I follow Him, truly, in everything, a Man-but a Man displaying divine qualities in the ordinary circumstances of human life. He says, " Follow me," but when He has said, " Ye are not of the world even as I am not of the world," He goes into glory, sanctifies Himself even externally, in His ascension, from the human race, that we may be sanctified by the truth.
It is the beauty of Christianity, that being objective, being truth, "the truth shall set you free," and a person, "the Son shall set you free." It works effectually in those who receive Christ, and requires no intellectual development to receive its power. Christ is received into the heart, and, dwelling there by faith, produces the effect in us. Yet it takes us out of ourselves, because it is objective, and we, filled with delight in an Object which is perfect, are like Him.
It is divine wisdom. Man would produce virtue by the love of virtue in himself; but then he thinks of himself, and all his virtue is rottenness. God gives us a human but divine Object, and our affections are divine, because we love what is so, and we are morally what we love; but we love it in another, and are delivered from self. I would just add, that I believe that this adaptation of the character of walk to our entirely new position in Christ is what is meant by " created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has afore prepared that we should walk in them." Hence, we are the epistle of Christ, engraved in the fleshy tables of the heart by the Spirit of the living God.
The very starting-point is opposite. Christianity treats man as a fallen being, not merely as imperfect but as departed from God,' and needing a new nature and redemption. Christ meets Nicodemus at once on this ground.
The rationalist or infidel system takes in Christianity by the by, as it does Greece and Rome; but man, as he is, is to be educated.