It is instructive to note how the Apostle Paul describes, if not defining, the Spirit we have received. It is not the spirit of fearfulness that characterized the heathen religions, which, where they ceased to be frivolous, appealed to human misgivings and apprehensions, making clear at any rate that man has a conscience. It need hardly be said that “reverence and godly fear” are another thing; nor can the attitude of the seraph, who, having six wings, used but two for flying and four for veiling his face and his feet, be forgotten by a child of God. Lowly reverence and self-abasement go hand in hand with the fullest confidence and repose in the Divine favor.
But if it is wholesome to be impressed with our own nothingness, it is necessary that we should rise to the dignity of Christian; position for the Spirit we have received is one “of power and of love and of a sound mind.” Mark the three distinct characteristics, truly potent for good when blended, but inadequate when one or other is absent. For everything is duly balanced in the ways of God. There is a series of checks and counter-checks. We may illustrate it by a consideration of the condition§ essential to the healthy condition of the human frame, viz., a due inter-subordination of the various functions. No intelligent person can deny that there are such analogies in God's methods in things natural and spiritual. They only but greatly err who from analogy would assert identity. So we have the conjunction of love with power, of a sound mind with both. For power and love without the concomitant of a wise judgment would be as a noble ship impelled by favoring wind and tide but bereft of helm. Power and a sound mind without the incentive of love will lack all that has value in God's eyes, and be as worthless as the “sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.” Lastly, love and a sound mind may and do fail of effect if there be a lack of energy and zeal. But with love (the love of God shed abroad in the heart) as the motive, with God-given energy as the more active principle, not without a weighing of all things in the balances of the sanctuary, surely then the “man of God” will be “thoroughly furnished unto every good work” (2 Timothy 3:1717That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. (2 Timothy 3:17)).
From the context with which this forcible verse is linked we learn that the apostle was treating of service, and urging his son in the faith to get the better of a diffidence which, if not carried to excess, is even seemly, especially in the young, but which might become a positive hindrance where boldness for the truth was imperative. Perhaps that is why power is put first, as the dominant tone in the harmony. It was evidently, of the three, the characteristic in which Timothy was most deficient. Undoubtedly there are but few in whom all three seem equally active; but that is only saying that we are uneven, that, if the great apostle of the Gentiles had all three traits in uncommon measure, still the Master alone was perfect.
It might be easy, if not very profitable, to call to mind not a few in whom one or two of the three great marks of the Christian spirit have been conspicuous, but who were handicapped by the want of prominence of the third. The more excellent way is to see to it by prayer and dependence that in our measure, however small, the three work harmoniously. But seeing that we are bidden to be subject one to another, perhaps there is room for thus mutually supplying what we individually lack.
R. B. Junr.