BOTH mortal and immortal, its effects are everlasting! Forty-four years ago, to the hour, I was struck by an arrow which had been shot by the divine Archer. That arrow struck and stuck. The wound it made remains to this day. Oh, how keen its point, how well directed, how clean driven home! Now what was this wonderful arrow? Hearken, it was ten words of Scripture―
“What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” That was all, but it was enough. That brief, pointed query, taken from the quiver of eternal truth, and applied by the Spirit of God in living power to my conscience, effected an inward work, made a spiritual wound which must last forever. After this fashion it struck me: ―
1. “His soul! “Its value; its existence; its indestructibility; of more importance than the body;
“Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul!”
No, it referred only to the body, for the soul, breathed as it was into the nostrils of man by his Creator, was certainly not made of the dust of the ground. The body perishes. The soul is one’s proper and responsible self, which has to do with God, and God with it. Man is responsible to God.
2. “Exchange.” What equivalent can be found? If the soul be of infinite value, so must its equivalent be; but who can find infinite wealth? The gold of a millionaire, ten thousand rivers of oil, the fruit of your body — these are all too mean. The soul far outweighs the gold of the world, or a thousand of them. “Exchange” is therefore impossible.
3. “What shall a man give?” Well, what? The labor of your hands, or the strength of your body; the efforts, vows, resolutions, or good deeds of a lifetime are unavailing. Our righteousnesses are but filthy rags, and our best doings but splendid sins. Can such be given? Nay, the case is utterly hopeless. “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” What?
A mighty arrow this when it has pierced the conscience. There it lodges; no power can extract it thence, nor pleasure, nor oblivion heal its awful wound; the mark remains.
The wound may be deep and painful; it may lead to bitter soul-exercise; it may show sin to be “exceeding sinful”; and it may demonstrate the lack of all power and fitness. It must cast the wounded man on the healing power of another. And, thank God, it is He who can and does heal. No matter how deep the wound, how sinful the sin, how powerless the soul, or how desperate the case, there is Balm in Gilead and a Physician there. How grand the question put by Him to the impotent man at Bethesda, “Wilt thou be made whole?” He carried health in His hand and love in His heart. The competency lay with Him. The poor cripple wished, indeed, to be healed, but saw no plan beyond the troubled waters of the pool. He told his dreary tale of blasted hopes to the tender Inquirer, and how he had “no man” to help him when the moment came. “Rise, take up thy bed and walk,” fell upon his ear; and at once health and power reached him from this great Physician — he was “made whole.”
Now it is an immense comfort for the wounded soul to know that the only question is the “Wilt thou?”
All the battle is in the will; all the power is with the Healer. When the “I will” of the sinner meets the blessed “I will” of the Saviour, the case is settled. Unity of will signifies peace, pardon, health, and salvation.
The wound is given in order to break the will — the wicked, perverse will; and the will implies the sin which had to be borne and atoned for by Him who “was made sin for us,” so that, on the solid ground of atonement, and the settlement of every question of sin, the heart might be won, and its affections set upon the Healer.
“I wound!” Reader, have you been wounded? “And I heal!” Have you been healed?
“The sinner who believes is free,
Can say, ‘The Saviour died for me:’
Can point to the atoning blood,
And say, ‘This made my peace with God.’”
J.W.S.