ONE of the most amazing superstitions that can possess the mind of one calling himself a professing Christian is reverence for relics. “We honor them,” says the controversial catechism, “as precious remains, which bring to our remembrance distinguished sanctity, and as dear pledges, which animate our confidence in the communion and intercession of saints.” We pity the untutored savage, bowing before his fetish tree, adorned with rags and similar tributes of his reverence; we stand in wonder at the man, educated in the knowledge of the living God, who holds in religious honor old garments and metals, teeth and bones! “Why seek ye the living among the dead?”
Such reverence does not arise from any right thought of God, it is merely for the exaltation of man—yes, of dead men! Speaking of it in the gentlest way, it is “of the earth, earthy,” and of the Christian it is written, “our conversation is in heaven.” Heaven and its citizenship, heaven and its character, has nothing to say to such substances as cloth, or wood, or jewels. How utterly contrary to the thoughts of Paradise, where the spirits of the saints are, is reverence of their bones and garments! It seems superfluous to write that the living God has no pleasure in such things. Nevertheless, since His compassion is as infinite as His glory, the Christian, who knows the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ should regard with pity all who, bearing Christ’s Name upon them, have fallen so low in their thoughts of the Christian religion as to give religious honor to the relics of the dead.
Some little time ago we were looking over a magnificent old church, where every sign of wealth was in profusion. Presently we found ourselves before a very handsome tomb, whereon lay a figure robed in sumptuous apparel. We gazed upon the superb garments that adorned the recumbent figure of the saint, when, on close inspection, lo! from beneath the broidered cap a skull grinned into our eyes, and out of the sleeve of the coat a skeleton hand beckoned with its ghastly finger! Allowing that the skeleton in question was really that of the saint before whose tomb we stood, and allowing, further, that the saint in question had really lived a saintly life, of what sense or use could his skeleton be to the living who stood before them? “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” is all that can be said of the decaying bones, denied a decent burial! Devout men carried Stephen to his grave, and buried him with great lamentations; thus did they honor his remains. Such crude, low feelings as would expose the holy dust of a martyr to gaze did not enter into their conceptions.
In Cologne Cathedral—one of the most refined and lovely buildings in the world, a very masterpiece of human genius and power—there is a relic chamber, where, in cases of most choicely wrought silver and gold, adorned with rare jewels, amounting in value to many thousands of pounds, there are various curiosities. It cannot be pleaded that these relics are retained in the cathedral, which is the pride of Germany, for the benefit of half-formed minds, for the crude and the ignorant; no, they are there to appeal to the cultured and the learned, to men whose intellectual power is the very opposite of that of the African savages who surround their fetish tree. Amongst these relics is an ivory knob, said to have been attached to the staff of the Apostle Peter, having in it, it is asserted, inherent miraculous power. Also, among the relics are to be seen part of the skull of Saint Sebastian, and, more extraordinary still, the reputed remains of the Magi!
Relics are of considerable value to the buildings which contain them, or, rather to the custodians of these buildings, for, quoting again from the book already referred to, we have it stated, “God has often granted great favors through them.” The building or the shrine where the relics are placed, attracts very frequently large sums of money in gifts because of the supposed good accruing from them. Thus, the ivory knob, attributed to the supposed staff of the apostle, is stated to have raised the first bishop of Cologne to life again after he had been dead forty days. Such wonder-working treasures, therefore, are held in high honor, for why should they not work miracles still?
When the apostles were living, mighty miracles were wrought through them, as the Scriptures testify. But the miracles were wrought by living men, not after these men were dead, by their sticks. The secret of the power of those days was the Spirit of God who dwelt in them. “By the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people,” and such was the divine power flowing out from Peter, that “they brought forth the sick into the streets... that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.” (Acts 5:12, 1512And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch. (Acts 5:12)
15Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them. (Acts 5:15)). This divinely used agent thus spoke to the people, as to the power which issued from him and others, “Why look ye so earnestly onus, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? The God of our fathers hath glorified His Son Jesus... and His Name, through faith in His Name, hath made this man strong... yea, the faith which is by Him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all” (ch. 3). The apostles gave all the glory to the Name of Jesus. Not one particle of honor did they collect for themselves. On the contrary, most earnestly did St. Peter protest against “distinguished sanctity” in connection with the miracles wrought by him, and most earnestly did he declare they were wrought for the glory of the Son of God.
Reverence for relics, and adoration of the saints to whom the articles, now relics, formerly belonged, are very closely united. Indeed, relic-reverence is but a link between the saint the relic brings to mind, and the person whose confidence in that saint is animated by the relic. Relic-reverence does not contain in it what the Apostle Peter spoke of, “His Name, through faith which is by Him.”
A lady, who once devoutly accepted relics, tells us how she had been shown two linen threads, carefully preserved in a glass case, which she was assured had belonged to a dress worn by the Virgin Mary while on earth! These two threads were held in high esteem by the possessors of them, who regarded them as wealth of the best kind. What possible good could a dress of the blessed Virgin do our souls? The notion that spiritual virtue can emanate from clothes, old or new, worn by persons long since dead, is simply a barbarism of pagans.
The ancient pagans, who had not heard of the living God, honored the bones of their heroes—they were relics precious in their eyes. The Buddhists, too, have their relics—as, for example, the sacred dress of Buddha, and they also have their shrines for their sacred articles. Going back to the days of the ancient Egyptians we find, according to their traditions, that the limbs of the body of their great god, Osiris, were all held as sacred, and were each of them the occasion of temples being built in different parts of Egypt to their honor. How terribly alike are the heathen superstitions and those of Christendom. The ancient pagans had their sacred arms and legs of their god, as in our own days “Christians” have the sacred arms and legs of their saints! Man worship, man exaltation is the soul and spirit of relic-reverence, and such worship and exaltation is dishonor cast upon the living God and His Son.
The actual worthlessness of some reputed old tooth of Peter, such as, not so many years ago, the Pope presented to the Emperor of Austria in token of his regard for that monarch, or the essential uselessness of a dress said to have been worn by a saint a thousand years back, should be apparent to everyone. There is moreover a painful absurdity in relic reverence, for such is the demand for them, that the reputed arms of the Apostle Peter are several in number, while at least three heads—each of which is said to be genuine—are attributed to him!
The altars and the shrines which contain relics, naturally are held to be peculiarly sacred, and to these pilgrimages are made. Now God once had His holy place on earth, and this must not be forgotten. He chose to place His Name in a special locality, and such a place was accordingly holy. This might be, for example, His holy hill of Zion, in the holy city of Jerusalem, where was the holy place of His Temple. Not to honor the place set apart by Him for sacred use was rebellion against Him, while to set up other sacred places in opposition to that of His appointment was a grievous and terrible sin.
In our day Christ has been rejected upon the earth, and, therefore, there is no holy place here. The earth is stained with His blood, and awaits judgment. And not until He has come from heaven and has executed judgment upon the rebellious, and has set up His throne here, will there be a holy place again on earth. Until that day the only holy place the Scriptures recognize for Christians is heaven itself. “Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” (Heb. 9:2424For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: (Hebrews 9:24)).
Not to recognize the holy place on high is to fail in seeing one great characteristic of Christianity; but to set up a holy place on earth, and to place in it relics of the dead, is rebellion against God and His Son. The idolaters in Israel of old set up their golden calves to attract the people from the holy place of Jerusalem, where God dwelt; and the erection of holy places on earth with their relics is a similar kind of sin, for such things blind men’s souls to the only holy place God now allows—even heaven itself.
A holy place on earth was for God’s earthly people the Jews, but speaking of earthly hopes and of Christ Himself as the Messiah, the Apostle Paul says, “Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more.” (2 Cor. 5:1616Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. (2 Corinthians 5:16)). The Christian’s connection with Christ is with Him risen from among the dead, and all right thoughts of the true holy place will be regulated by the reality of His resurrection.
Pilgrimages to holy places are, therefore, each and all of them false to the truth that God’s people are strangers and pilgrims on earth, and that heaven is our home. The great book of Christian pilgrimage is the Epistle to the Hebrews; there Christ is presented to us as the Priest on High, with heart of perfect tenderness, and arm of perfect strength, “able to succor” (ch 2:18), “able also to save” (ch. 7:25), and Him we are exhorted to “consider” (3:1). And there believers are presented as pilgrims passing through this wilderness, on their way to rest—enterers into rest—the rest of God, but not yet at home (4:1, 3, 9). Alas, that the great pilgrimage character of the Christian should be lowered through little journeys by boat or train to shrines where Christ in heaven is not considered, but where it is asserted some vision of a saint has once been seen. The great reality, Christ Himself, is rejected, in order that some one’s dream or vision may be exalted.
“Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling,” and such all Christians are, let us see to it that our zeal in our pilgrimage is not less vigorous than that of those whose calling is earthly to their sacred spot below! Christians are exhorted, “as strangers and pilgrims” (1 Peter 2:1111Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; (1 Peter 2:11)), to carry themselves through the world as on their way to heaven. They are not exhorted to go from holy place to holy place on the earth as pilgrims, but to go through the evil world itself as pilgrims to heaven, and this is quite another thing. According to Scripture teaching the world is under sentence of divine judgment for the crucifixion of the Son of God, and holy places on it are a notion in defiance of the solemn fact of its real condition. What contempt upon the cross is the pilgrimage paid to the reputed sepulcher of Jesus! What blindness to the glory of His resurrection has fallen on those who, instead of looking up to heaven and seeing Jesus there, occupy themselves with visits to His supposed place of burial.
Neither is the exhortation to walk as a stranger and pilgrim given in view that some favor may be obtained by such behavior. No, in the possession of the favor of God’s love, being redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, being born again by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever, the believer is exhorted to demean himself in the world in such a manner that God may be glorified. He is going home to his God and Father, and passing through the world itself to that home.
Pilgrims on their way to a holy place on earth hoping to gain a favor from God by their journey are a spectacle of unbelief in the Gospel. Every step they take is a denial of the truth that God has blessed His people with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. Passing through the world to the “better country,” the “heavenly,” is the pilgrimage which pleases God, for of all true pilgrims He has said, “God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city.” (Heb. 11:1616But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:16)).