2.—FATHERLY WATCHFULNESS AND CARE.
(Gal. 6:11Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. (Galatians 6:1): Acts 20:28-3128Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. 29For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. 30Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. 31Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. (Acts 20:28‑31); Thess. 2:11-12; 1 Tim. 5:19; 219Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses. (1 Timothy 5:19) Tim. 4:2; 1 John 2:13-1413I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. 14I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. (1 John 2:13‑14).)
The second kind of Christian discipline is that of fatherly watchfulness and pastoral care. It has, like the preceding, a personal character. The church, as such, has nothing to do with it. Its intention is the prevention of church discipline.
But whilst in the preceding case it was the question of a personal matter between brother and brother, this second kind supposes, and indeed requires, spiritual experience, wisdom and grace, on the part of the one who is to exercise it. He is to speak as a father to his children, as one whose superiority is not merely that of age and greater experience and knowledge, but of grace and a godly walk. “Ye are witnesses, and God also,” the apostle of the church could say, “how holily, and justly, and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe.” Then he continues, “As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children, that ye should walk worthy of God, Who hath called you unto His kingdom and glory.” The same we find in Gal. 6:11Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. (Galatians 6:1). The apostle first exhorts them (chap. 5:25-26), “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.” He then continues, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”
Not he who assumes the air of a father, is a father. The real father behaves himself and acts as a father simply because he is one. “For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth.” True spiritual superiority does not assert itself but makes itself felt. It does not look out for acknowledgment, but is acknowledged because real. Some at Corinth carried themselves like fathers, but in fact were babes.
Fatherly authority in the church should be coupled with motherly tenderness, as was the case with the apostle. He not only exhorted the Thessalonians as his children; he also knew how to comfort them. He wrote to them, “We were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children.” Are not perfect power and perfect tenderness united in our God? His hand is as tender as it is mighty. It will cast the unbelieving into the lake of fire and wipe for heaven all tears from the faces of His beloved children.
“ Fathers” are those who “know Him that is from the beginning,” to Whom not only “all power in heaven and on earth is given,” but Who, is also “meek and lowly of heart.” They have “learned Christ,” Whose yoke is easy, and His burden light, and are thus able as such “that are spiritual,” with a father's authority, tenderness and care, to restore those that have been overtaken in a fault “in the spirit of meekness,” and to “bear one another's burdens, so fulfilling the law of Christ."
Such an one goes to his erring brother, whose sin and burden he has taken before God upon himself as his own, and speaks to him words of grace and truth.
Words of truth, thus spoken to an erring brother in loving gentleness, will always find a good place with him, even when not received well at the beginning. In these last days, when pride and self-will, not only in the world, but, alas! in the church of God, lift up the head, the Christian service of washing one another's feet must frequently expect an unkind reception. There are men whose skin is so thin, that a slight scratch causes bleeding difficult to be stilled. And so there are now-a-days not a few Christians with such a tender, or shall I say? slender, spiritual constitution, that at the slightest accidental scratch, so to speak, they start up as if they had been pierced by a dagger. They only prove how little their hearts have been established through grace, and how little they have learned of Him Who is meek and lowly of heart. But this ought not to deter us from our duty under grace, to wash one another's feet, which our gracious and lowly Master, Who is love but also the “holy” and “true,” so solemnly did enjoin upon His own on the eve of His death on the cross, after He Himself had set us the example.
“ Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call Me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”
Christian meekness and humility, so closely connected with Christian love, are most essential requisites in the service of feet-washing.
When our Lord said, “I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you,” He certainly did not mean that we should imitate Him in the mere preparations for that service, such as the “girding with the towel,” and the “pouring water into the basin.” Many show great aptitude for such preparations, but break down in the act of feet washing, because they spurn to kneel down to get at the brother's feet. They enter into his presence with an air which says, I have come to wash your feet. Such preparations resemble rather those of a barber than the humble service of a Christian feet-washing, and generally do more harm than good. A well-known servant of Christ has truly observed, “If I do not judge first in myself the flesh I see active in my brother (for the same exists in myself), I am not fit to wash his feet.” If before going to a brother to wash his feet, I have been in the dust before the Lord, I shall appear little before my brother, and thus be able gently to remove the defilement.
The important service of Christian foot-washing forming such an integral part of the wider range of fatherly watchfulness and pastoral care, I thought a few remarks as to the general Christian duty of foot-washing might be seasonable amidst the increasing difficulties that beset the “house of the living God” in these last days.