(Concluded from, p. 72)
AND having thus referred to Christianity, the apostle turns aside for the moment to look at its profession. To profess Christianity is one thing, to be a Christian is another. Millions in England profess the Christian faith, few are really believers. And a man may have each and all of the five characteristics which are now set out, and after all be only a professor. It may be said of him—
(1) Once enlightened,
(2) Tasted of the heavenly gift,
(3) Made partaker of the Holy Ghost,
(4) Tasted the good word of God,
(5) And the powers of the world to come;
but still, it may be added, not a Christian, not one who has life in Christ.
The picture is drawn of a Jew in the midst of his temple worship, priests and sacrifices, being enlightened. His mind opened to the fact that Christ had been crucified, and had gone up to heaven. No longer in the dark about it. No longer, like his brother Jews, an avowed rejecter of the Messiah. No longer calling the risen Jesus, as they did, “that deceiver” (see Matt. 27:6363Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. (Matthew 27:63)). We may say that in this sense most men in Christendom are enlightened. They are neither heathen, Mahommedans, nor Jews, but men whose souls have been enlightened by the word of God with the truth that His Son has come from heaven to earth, died, and risen, and gone to heaven again. It is a very grave responsibility to be so enlightened. Millions upon this earth are utterly in the dark about Christ. Millions worship demons, millions regard Mahomet as the prophet of God, and the Jews, as a body, reject the Messiah. We do not sufficiently weigh the solemnity of being enlightened. But this is not salvation, this does not make us true believers.
Now suppose a Jew so enlightened joining himself outwardly with the early Christians, by so doing he would treat Judaism as a thing of the past, and its sacrifices and priests as shadows; but perhaps by reason of persecution, or because of worldly influences, he would return to Judaism, and turn his back upon Christianity. It would be impossible to renew such an one unto repentance. Or, applying the case to our times, suppose a professing Christian to become a Jew, Mahommedan, or idolater! He would become an apostate, give up Christianity. It would be impossible to renew him to repentance. His case would be hopeless.
The next characteristic is that the man has tasted of the heavenly gift.
Christ is not called the heavenly gift; this is what we are given to know of God by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. The professor, having outwardly associated himself with the Christian assembly of early times, by so doing would be in a position for tasting and partaking of the four things next spoken of. It would be an entirely new thing to his soul to taste the heavenly ministrations of the Spirit, accustomed as he had been to the earthly ministry of the temple service.
We can in some measure suppose what it would be like, by picturing to ourselves a man, whose very soul has been educated in the idea that the way to God is by sacraments, penances, priests, saints and angels, finding himself listening to the simplicity of God’s love told in the power of the Holy Ghost. What a taste such an one would have of Divine things! How different from all that to which he had been accustomed!
Now the Jew, who apostatized from this, had no way back to blessing. It was impossible to renew him again to repentance. He had retreated from Christ, and had burnt the bridge behind him; there was no recovery possible.
(3) Made partakers of the Holy Ghost.
This, at first sight, may seem alarming. What! Could any one not really a Christian be made a partaker of the Holy Ghost? Mark, it does not say, partaker of Christ and of the benefits of His work. It is the case of one who had entered within the circle of the Church of God, where the Holy Ghost is, and who being there, participated of the Holy Ghost with those who were there. Even unconverted children brought up in the blessings of the Christian faith, attending the various privileges of their parent’s faith, partake with them of the Holy Ghost, though the marked difference of Jew, Gentile, and Church of God, does not so evidently exist in our days. It is a question of privilege. And he who apostatized from this great privilege had cut himself off from all hope of blessing, for there was no blessing outside the Church of God.
(4) Tasted the good word of God.
The emphasis must be placed on good. The law was holy, just, and true. But it was not the good word of God—that word is the gospel of His grace. We may again find help in suggesting to ourselves what this really was to a Jew, by thinking of a poor soul, who has heard only, Do this and thou shalt live, and the strains of legal teaching continually, finding himself in a place where his soul has a taste of the full, free gospel. To feed on such good things would be new indeed. And, perhaps, no little of the difficulty in understanding this passage is to be traced to the fact that those who are tried by it, are deeply influenced by legal teaching.
(5) The powers of the world to come.
These powers were the signs and wonders wrought by the early Christians through the Holy Ghost. The world to come, as we read in chap. 2:5, is the millennial world. Miracles of various kinds were wrought in those early days, and such miracles were a foretaste of the blessing of the time when Christ shall reign over this earth, and when the power of sin and evil shall be overwhelmed by His greater power.
It would be quite possible for such a professor, as we have kept before our minds, to receive in his own body the witness of the power of the Holy Ghost on earth. He might be healed of a disease: but the healing of his body would not be the work of the Holy Ghost in his soul. Many an one healed by the blessed Lord, returned not even to give Him thanks, and some proved themselves His bitter enemies. We must, in order to be saved, have Christ Himself for our Saviour.
The apostate crucified to himself the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame. To forsake Christianity and return to Judaism, was acting as if Christ had not died once for all, and as if He had not risen again. Such a man, despite the blessings he had received, the rain which had fallen on him from heaven, was unprofitable soil. His soul only brought forth the fruits of earth’s curse, thorns and briars. He was lost beyond recovery. His awful doom was near. He was about to be cursed; it was not simply changing his religion. He had deliberately rejected Christ. His end was the eternal fire of eternal judgment.
What oftentimes makes this subject so trying to the unestablished believer, is the fact that he finds in himself, excepting the fifth, each characteristic which we have sought to explain. The possessor of Christianity has many things in common with the mere professor; but the professor has not Christ, and this makes all the difference. Whether we be babes, or of full age, Christ is our life, and therefore we shall “never perish.”
H. F. W.