YOU may depend upon it that when a man wishes others to be what he is, he must feel himself uncommonly well off.
A Christian is well off, and if he is in the power and joy of divine life, he certainly wishes everybody to be what he is.
But a Christian is not a Pharisee. No, no. To feel yourself a poor undone sinner, having no merit in yourself or your works, pleading nothing but the precious blood of Christ, and claiming Him as your only righteousness, is the mark of true Christianity; whilst, to say, “God, I thank thee that I am not as other men,” because, forsooth, you are a shade better, and perform a few works of self-denial or of charity which they, so far as you know, leave undone, is the most patent stamp of a genuine out-and-out Pharisee. The Christian begins by owning himself the very worst of men; the Pharisee lives, dies, and maintains before the judgment seat that he is the best. Witness the brother of the prodigal, and also the wicked of Matt. 25:4444Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? (Matthew 25:44). I do not believe that these ever discovered their awful condition until they went away into “everlasting punishment,” and found the door of damnation closed upon them forever.
My reader, wake up in time! Self-righteousness is perhaps the levelest road to hell, and the most frequented. Cain took the lead, and has an enormous following.
I question if the Pharisee can truthfully wish any to be what he is. He may pity, despise, and scorn those around him, but he has no such spring of joy, no such superabundance of life, nor rivers of living water that he can afford to spare with or dispense them to others.
But the Christian can. Paul could and did. He said in his memorable address of Acts 26, to that distinguished audience of royalty and power, “I would to God... that all that hear me this day were altogether such as I am except these bonds” (vs. 29).
Never would he have used the words, “would to God,” had he been a self-righteous Pharisee on the one hand, or a heartless finger-post on the other.
These words declared, first, the grace that was in God’s heart, and second, the deep, yearning desire in Paul’s, excluding every idea of self-righteousness, and including the sweet and blessed activities of divine love for others.
And these are not the product of Phariseeism. No, never!
“That all that hear me.” I like the word “all.” It savors of heaven and a well-filled house; of love and its widest range of bliss; of grace and its rich, unstinted salvation.
“Were such as I am.” He was a prisoner, he did not wish that for them; he was an apostle, he could hardly have thought that they should all fill the apostolic office; he was a Christian, and from his inmost heart, he desired the king, the governor, and every one that heard him to be that.
Well, but they were heathen or Jews, and Christianity is an advance on all prior systems.
True, but what then?
Why, we are all Christians today, and therefore, such enthusiasm is out of date.
I have often told the following fact: ― “How does a man become a Christian?” After a pause the reply came: ―
“By saying your prayers, becoming religious, and believing on Christ.”
“Reverse your words, and you state the truth.”
“What! is it first to believe on Christ, then to be religious and prayerful?”
“Yes, that is God’s way of salvation,” and the captain, hitherto totally unconverted, though a professing Christian, was saved on his own quarterdeck that day!
Hence, there may be, and are, many professing Christians who put prayers and religion before Christ, and therefore are not Christians at all, nor saved.
Paul had believed on Christ. He was “not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” “The Lord Jesus had appeared to him in the way.” He was convicted of sin. Then “as it had been scales fell from his eyes, and he received sight.” Happy man. Then “he preached Jesus in the synagogue that he is the Son of God,” and continued by the help of God in His blessed testimony right on to the end. He began with God’s salvation, he continued by God’s help, and he ended in God’s glory, ―a path in comparison with which the crown of a king is dross. Hence his great, deep desire that all should be such as he was.
“What soul is more happy than I,
Who am for eternity saved?
Made nigh to my God,
Through Christ’s precious blood,
In whom, through His grace, I’ve believed.
In Christ, then, I stand all complete,
Whose Name be forever adored;
And now, while I live,
All glory I’ll give
To Jesus my Saviour and Lord.”
J. W. S.