Hence one cannot but feel that the modern fashion of singing the gospel, in an elaborate solo or perhaps a very lively “service of song,” seems singularly unapostolic and a dangerous innovation. The levity of it is most opposed to the whole spirit of the Day of Atonement which suggests the remark. What is the soul being brought to God by the gospel, but the present application of that great Day to such a one? Look at the contrast between the word of God and the prevalent style in our day. Perhaps it may be hitting rather hard some who are near and valued for their work's sake. While wishing to be as far from personality as possible, I yet mean to set aside unsparingly anything which is contrary to God's word; and if brethren complain of not being let alone, surely so much the worse for them. After all it is much better to try all by the word, lest the truth of God be sacrificed to human zeal and popular ways. How will it stand at the latter end? Surely it is a great boon to be delivered from mistake that we may do the will of God.
The history of this word “gladly” really is that it comes from another part of the Acts of the Apostles (21:17). It is a word occurring but this once in the N. T. and rightly applied to receiving beloved servants of the Lord. This curiously illustrates how a word, sometimes a clause, gets occasionally where it ought not. We can understand how brethren who saw the apostle with other servants of the Lord would gladly receive them. One feels how proper this was for men who were at rest and peace with God. But in Acts 2 souls were first brought face to face with their sins, and this in the presence of God. Did not solemnity become them at the most important epoch of their lives? It is not questioned that, whatever may be the difficulties, the result will be joy and peace; but we are speaking now of the process, and of the proper, legitimate, and desirable effect of the word of God in dealing with souls submitting to it and for the first time taking their stand as confessors of Christ as individuals in the light.
Further, one may notice how one part of the scriptures tallies with another. When the Israelites, with the blood sprinkled on their doors, were eating the body of the lamb, was it with the blowing of trumpets or the striking of cymbals? Do not fancy that they did not sing at other times. Only two chapters afterward we find the song of Moses, and of Miriam, &c., with their timbrels. They sang on the Arabian bank of the Red Sea, but we hear of no song when they first celebrated the Paschal night. They ate the body of the lamb “with bitter herbs.” What does this mean? Certainly not “gladly” receiving His word. They did indeed receive His word, but with deep solemnity and self-judgment. It was in the due sense of their sins; and sin is not a matter to sing, smile, or talk lightly about. No wonder that the fruits of the work, on our modern lines, are so unlike apostolic simplicity and depth.
It seems dangerous to invite souls to gladness not merely for the unconverted, but those ostensibly under conviction of sin and in the process of conversion, souls that you seriously charge to receive God's word. Is it not true then that what answers to one type or another, as well as the plain account of scripture, is the need of solemn dealing with the conscience? For one must be inwardly cleared before God, in order that the heart in due time may go out with freedom of affection. Until the soul is set at large by faith in the work of Christ, it is not rightly fitted for sharing the expression of joy. Still less is it advisable to reason or persuade souls into believing prematurely that they are saved. Thus is the conscience injured, as well as the grace of the Lord. It would make internal dealing quite superfluous, and substitute a call to the affections, instead of ministering Christ's work of atonement to the burdened spirit. The proper thing is that the conscience first be awakened and cleared: then the affections have their suited work and expression afterward.
Thus exactly was the way of the Lord with the woman of Samaria, who was at first without self-judgment. Christ knew that she had no husband, and by His word her sin was laid upon her conscience, and in this way she was truly brought before God. It was the same with the prodigal. There was no gladness till after he met his father, though enough hope in his mercy to draw him on. Not that there was not misery, but conscience was made to work within him. Therefore it may be fittingly pressed, as an urgent duty, that care be taken, not only in preaching but in the service one sanctions, that there be no departure from the plainly revealed will of God. It is for Christians to carry truth out, not merely in this or in that, but in everything. With the atonement God's word insists on the afflicting of the soul. Not that doubt or distrust can be ever right or tolerable. Anything of the kind differs wholly from humiliation before God. To cherish questions or fears is rather to hinder than to help on the afflicting of the soul, which should surely be real; and of this there can scarce be too much where the heart is looking to Christ and His atonement. The more this is rested on, the more can you praise God for the truth which humbles, and for His grace in that precious blood which cleanses from all sin. The name of Jesus for saving the soul ill consorts with levity of spirit or fleshly excitement; and the expression of joy does not surely befit the moment when God is bringing His all-searching word to bear on the heart as well as the life in His sight.
But this is not all. There was another thing which was particularly bound up with the Day of Atonement: not only “ye shall afflict your souls,” put also “do no work at all.” Is not this injunction remarkable at such a time? It was not a question whether it was the usual sabbath or not. The Day of Atonement peremptorily excluded man's works in that connection. It is impossible to deny that work is a most weighty part of a Christian's duty. Our Lord was always doing the work that the Father gave Him to do; as every Christian is called to do the good works which God afore prepared that he should walk in them. The Christian is not made to be only a meditative being with heart and mind pondering the truth. This is all-important in its place; but he is called to dependence yet diligence, to obedience and even energy in serving the Lord. But the energy should always follow the meditation. Let the activity flow out of that which passes between himself and God. It is a dangerous thing, when God is showing the evil of sin and His atonement by Christ for all who believe Him to turn aside into merriness of heart. The soul at such a moment should be afflicted, instead of being transported by music and singing, by a solo, or a choir, or any form whatever of exhilaration.
When one can rest in faith, rejoicing cannot but be. The singing of saints is quite another matter. What more proper when filled with the Spirit than to speak to one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs? This wholly differs from introducing music to soothe or stimulate; the soul whom the Spirit would exercise in self-judgment. Among happy saints it is a question perfectly settled: the outbursts of thanksgiving and praise may well fill up the ordinary life of the Christian. But the first injunction to which God calls in the presence of the Day of Atonement is grief of heart because of our sins, though God is covering them with the blood of propitiation.
Connected with this is this second call to no work of man on that day. Had our works been as good as alas we had to own them bad, how suitable for us to rest before the infinite work of the Savior in atoning for sinners! “Lo, I come, to do Thy will, O God.” “By which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” What has God's will not done? In the perfection of His sacrifice it has not only blotted out our sins, but set us apart to God as a settled fact. Sacrifice and offering, holocaust and sacrifice for sin, are all swallowed up in that one offering. By one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified. What more is needed by man? What more could God do rightly for us in our present pilgrimage on earth? Therefore, as the just mark of recognizing that it was all His work, unmixed with anything on our part, His people, and even the stranger sojourning among them, were forbidden all manner of work on that day. “It is a sabbath of solemn rest among you, and ye shall afflict your souls; it is a sabbath forever” (ver. 31). No levity of heart on the one hand, and on the other no presumptuous adding of their works to the great atoning work which was then wrought and made known to the people of God.
Look at the apostle Paul. There we have a man who afflicted his soul, and eschewed all merit on his part, though found blameless as to righteousness that is in law. His was a case of deeply wrought conversion; he was so, absorbed that he neither ate nor drank for three days and nights; so filled was he with the sense of utter sinfulness as well as with the truth of God's atonement in Christ. Blinded with excess of light, he had no room for another person or other works. Self was profoundly judged. He was completely shut up to Christ's glorious Person and the triumph of grace reigning through righteousness, which God had revealed to his once proud but now afflicted soul.
It is allowed that conversion may be real where every trait is feebler. The jailor in the prison at Philippi was one who soon emerged from his overwhelming horror after he received the Lord Jesus. We may hope he got well through the perils of the wilderness, and have no reason to doubt it. But still his was a case very different from the apostle's; and it is not hard to discern a considerable difference in the way in which people are brought to God, as a general rule. There was affliction, but ere long rejoicing on the jailor's part and his whole house. Not that he did not truly repent, for we may be sure he did. In every true case there is the afflicting of the soul; but if there be not a deep searching of heart, the affliction soon passes. Ordinarily the heart rebounds, and one gets ere long occupied far more with the joy of the good things grace has given. A deeper self-judgment casts one on Christ, yet more than on the deliverance from evil, however truly this may be felt before God.
Passingly we may notice that some are charged with not enough valuing the Old Testament; but assuredly this can scarcely apply to such as give it the importance we here claim and enforce. We believe it to be of God, no less divinely inspired than the New. It is true you have in the Levitical institutions only the shadows, but also most instructive dealings of God, promises, and prophecies, besides examples for good and warnings of evil, all fruitful indeed. You cannot safely and profitably read Exodus or Leviticus without the full light of the New Testament; but the believer accepts the word as a whole. The sacred letters (2 Tim. 3:1515And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 3:15)) throughout were written by the Holy Ghost. Thankfully, humbly, one accepts all as good for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, as also for comfort and admonition. So what has been brought before us at this time is not without holy and serious import, as in an important way it bears on the habits growing up during this degenerate day in Christendom.