By Rev. John Macbeath, M.A., D.D.
IT has been said that we spend our lives in learning the meaning of great words. Some words narrow and contract as we grow old, some broaden and expand as our mind develops. The Uttermost is one of the biggest words in our language. Thought and imagination are strained to compass its meaning.
No one has ever seen the Uttermost, no one has ever come to it. We have charted continents and land surfaces, we have fixed the boundaries of nations, we have located the North and South Poles, we have divided out the remote corners of the earth. We have made a map of the heavens, located the stars, measured the distances of the planets, but neither in heaven nor in earth have we located the uttermost. Let us make some attempt at the meaning of this great word. Look at one or two of its uses in the Divine literature.
(1) It is the measure of Divine passion. “Having loved His Own which were in the world, He loved them unto the uttermost.” (John 13:1, R.V) That is, to the extreme limit, to the complete effusion of love. Love is the master passion of the heart. Where it comes, it comes to reign. Let anyone love knowledge, that love will make him scorn delights and live laborious days; he will keep company with the late-lit lamp and the early dawn. Let anyone love money, that love of money will make him eager, selfish, grasping, hard, unscrupulous. Let anyone love his country, that love may make him put his very life at hazard; he will seek his country’s good above his own. Let any of us love another, that love will mean the effacement of one’s own desire the frequent surrender of one’s own delights.
Love is a great commitment. Jesus accepted the commitment of His love, and went on loving. When He was disappointed with His disciples because of their slow, dull manner, the obstinacy of some, the unbelief of others, the denial and desertion of one and another, was He ever tempted to take back His vow, to break His bond, to withdraw His love? Did He not sometimes ask whether it was worthwhile going on? If He ever asked that question, it got a swift reply, for having loved, He went on loving to the uttermost bound of sacrifice. You cannot tell the measure of His love, because you cannot estimate the uttermost, the far distance that it travels.
I think no better approach to a definition of the uttermost can be found than the saying of a little girl on a pleasure steamer. Soon after the steamer set out on its cruise, the children formed happy friendships. A few of them running up to the side of the ship were led by an older girl who got there first. Grasping the rails with firm fingers, she feasted her eyes on the brightness of the sea and the blueness of the sky. “What a lovely day” she exclaimed. “And look how clear the horizon is!” A younger girl, not quite up to the older one’s vocabulary, looked to see what new bird the horizon was, but there was no wing in the sky. She searched the sea for some new kind of fish, but there was nothing there. Then, turning her puzzled eyes to the older girl, she asked, “What is the horizon, where is it?” The older girl, pointing with her finger to the far line in the distance, said, “Why, look there, see where the sky seems to meet the sea, and the sea to meet the sky, that is the horizon, and when you get there, there is another one, and then another one after that. You never really come to it. It’s always further on.”
The love of God is always farther on. No matter how far you travel in experience, no matter what demands you make upon it through obstinacy and continual sin, you cannot pass the limits of His love. Farther than our farthest wandering, deeper than our deepest sin, greater than our greatest need, enduring as eternity is His matchless love.
Augustine Birrell said that “To love Carlyle is a task of much heroism, almost meriting a pension.” There are multitudes of people far less lovable than Carlyle; people’ we could not love, no, not for a pension, but the mystery: is, God loves them.
“We make His love too narrow,
With fake limits of our own,
For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of man’s mind.”
There is no limit to it. Its length and breadth and depth and height are incalculable. It passes knowledge it is the one love that will not let us go, and follows us fastest and farthest to the uttermost. There is no proof of love like the Cross. Your summer gardens are not proof of love, because changing weather may wither them, and dying autumn make them perish. Happy homes afford no proof, for sickness and death may come with shattering sorrow, and change delight to despair. But Christ’s Cross is always there in summer day and the winter night of the soul, in loss and gain, in shadow and in sunshine. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Having loved His Own, He loved them to the uttermost.
(2) The uttermost suggests the range of His power. Because His passion was on this infinite scale, His power is in corresponding degree. “He is able to save to the uttermost all them that come unto God by Him.” (Heb. 7:25). It is not enough to say that God is willing to save. Many a mother is willing to take her child’s suffering upon herself and bear it alone, but she is not able to transfer the pain. Many a doctor has tried to save a life from death; he did his best, but was not able to pull the patient through to health again. To be willing to try, to do one’s best, may be great endeavors, but they may all fail. They break down somewhere, they fall short of the event.
I have stood on the desert sands of the East and looked towards Khartoum, and thought of General Gordon and his little company surrounded by fierce and relentless foes. Britain had sent him out on a military commission. His country knew that he was surrounded and held captive and that his life was threatened. Britain was eager to save Gordon, Britain tried to save him, perhaps Britain did its best to save its hero, but Britain failed. It was not able.
Here, then, is the great thing in our faith. Jesus Christ is not only willing, is not only going to try, and is not merely going to do His best, but is able to save to the uttermost. Therefore, there is no need for our timidity or fear. There is ample ground for encouragement. No life is beyond hope, no heart need despair, Christ succeeds where others fail. When the disciples could not cast the evil spirit out of the demented youth, Jesus said, “Bring him unto Me.” He prevailed where others failed. When the tragic King asked the court physician if he could heal “a mind diseased,” the doctor confessed that this disease was beyond his practice. A greater Physician is here to Whom with confidence the most broken and bereft life can say—
“Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind;
Sight, riches, healing of the mind;
Yea, all I need in Thee I find.
O! Lamb of God, I come.
To the uttermost means that He can save our disposition from bitterness, our mind from suspicion, our hearts from fear. He can change our hate, cleanse our defilement, purify our emotion, and give us a new heart and a new mind. There is no more any excuse for bitterness and dislike and irritability, no more excuse for failure and for sin. Set no bounds to His power. Let unbelief create no barrier, establish no limit to what He can do. Go all out for Him, and with Him. He is able to save to the uttermost.
(3) That great word defines for us the sweep of His purpose. Power on such a scale must find exercise on the same scale. If He is able to save to the uttermost, He will want to prove His power in the same degree. If He condemns our unused talents, He must use His Own talents to the uttermost. Here, then, is the promise, “Ask of Me and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession” (Psa. 2). This is the sweep of His massive dream — “The uttermost parts of the earth.”
Christ’s Kingdom is not to be limited to the frontiers of Israel, or to the boundaries of any continent or creed or caste. His Kingdom is to compass the whole earth. The Old Testament urge was, “Go in and possess the land.” But the more majestic urge of the New Testament is “Go out and possess the world.” “God so loved the world,” said Jesus. “Go ye into all the world,” He said again. “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.” He confronts all the diversities of human nature and all varieties of character and circumstance with quiet assurance that His power goes far out beyond all our need.
He includes all ages from the youngest to the oldest, all temperaments from the slowest to the swiftest, all levels of culture from the meanest to the greatest, all conditions of mankind from the low-born to the high-born, all varieties of people. Jew and Gentile, Hottentot and Hindu, Kaffir and Turk. He admits no limitation of climate, condition, or tongue.
“Where cross the crowded ways of life,
Where sound the cries of race and clan,
Above the noise of selfish strife
We hear Thy voice, O Son of Man!”
In Him the ends of the earth come together, in Him alone all races unite.
(4) The same inclusive word suggests the scale of His requirement. “Thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou has paid the uttermost farthing.” (Matt. 5:26). This may sound exacting and severe, but we cannot forget that on this same scale He paid our debt, and to this same degree He suffered our shame. We are right when we say, “Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.” The measure of His gift is the measure of our obligation. Under the law of the Old Testament, men brought their tithes to God — tithes of all their possessions, tithes of the harvest, and of the flock, and of the field. The tithe was a tenth part of what a man owned or gathered. But under the constraint of the Gospel, the consecrated offering is all that a man has, to the uttermost farthing.
It is singular how often that little word ALL occurs in this reference. The widow who cast two mites into the treasury gave “All her living,” and Jesus commended her act. When the young man came to inquire how he might enter into the Kingdom, Jesus gave the simple and sufficient counsel, “Go and sell all that thou hast.” The laborer who found the treasure hid in the field sold all he had, so that he might buy that field. The merchant who found the goodly pearl sold all his stock that he might possess that one gem. True devotion does not stop short of the complete gift.
The grace of consecration covers all that we have and are. The shame of Ananias was that he kept back part of the price. It was a double deceit it was not all the price, but he pretended that it was. Our consecrations are too often of the same specious sort. We pretend, we profess, we persuade ourselves that we are fully consecrated, that we are doing and giving our utmost, whereas the sheer honesty and truth of the situation is, we are mere triflers with the big issues of the Gospel and its demands upon us. The good people of the earth are not good enough. They have set limits to piety and devotion, to discipleship and sacrifice. They follow Christ afar off, serve Him with small fragments of their time and puny portions of their possessions. Jesus Christ, Who gave the completeness of His gift, is waiting for a corresponding completeness in our consecration. His love constrains the sacrifice. The whole realm of nature would not repay His passion, but the whole realm is not ours to give. We have only our lives and all they hold, and He asks for that to the uttermost farthing. He asks: He will not take. He will not use His power to compel the gift. His Own gift persuades, His love constrains it.
“What has stripped the seeming beauty
From those idols of the earth?
Not the sense of right or duty,
But the sight of peerless worth.
“Not the crushing of the idols
With its bitter void and smart,
But the beaming of His beauty,
The unveiling of His heart.
“‘Tis the look that melted Peter,
‘Tis the face that Stephen saw,
‘Tis the eye that wept with Mary —
Can alone from idols draw….
“Draw and win and fill completely,
Till the cup o’erflow the brim.
What have we to do with idols,
Who have companied with Him.”