Bible Commentaries

The Mightiness of Redemption

Psalm 80:2

The greatest of all helps to realize the magnitude of redemption is the experimental sense, the unwrought consciousness of "the exceeding sinfulness of sin". Take this for an axiom. He thinks lightly of the greatness of redemption who thinks lightly of the power of sin. He regards Jesus as a superfluous helper who regards Satan as a contemptible foe. The two spiritual conceptions are co-equal, correlative. It is when like David we cry out, "Innumerable troubles are come about me: my sins have taken such hold upon me that I am not able to look up," that like David also, we stretch out our hands to our mighty Succourer, and feel the force of the prayer which may often have passed our lips before, "O Lord, let it be Thy pleasure to deliver me: make haste, O Lord, to help me. Thou art my Helper and Redeemer; make no long tarrying, O my God."

I. I refuse to limit the great work of redemption to what is called, in the language of popular theology, "the saving of the soul". Wherever sin in its remotest consequences has reached, there Christ's work reaches also. We do a fatal injury, as it seems to me, to the work of redemption, as a practical human idea, when we disconnect it, as some are fond of doing, from the temporal and even the material interests of mankind. It is my full belief that the Cross of Christ has done, proportionately to the matter on which it works, as much for us in this world as it will do in the next. The "Kingdom of Heaven" in the idea of its great founder began with St. John's baptism—runs its first course in this lower world—throws its light on "life" as well as on immortality. For the law of the kingdom of God is progress—development—of the species, speaking generally; and of the individual, too, where it has free course and is not frustrated. It works more effectually in the nobler parts of our nature; in the spirit than in the soul; in the soul than in the body. But there is nothing in human nature that is too high to need it, too low to be susceptible of its influence. Even "our vile bodies" are to be changed into the "likeness of Christ's glorious body" according to the working whereby He "is able to subdue all things unto Himself. The fullness of spiritual discernment—the great gift of heaven first; sanctification, that which now worketh in us mightily, next; but "the redemption of the body" also has its place in the scale of regeneration, though the quickening spirit of the last Adam has not yet swallowed up death in the completeness of His victory.

II. It is no reflection on the Divine power that in this or that instance it may seem to us to have failed in its purpose or to have wrought out its end by imperfect or even evil agencies. For to us is committed the scarcely less wonderful power of antagonism; we worms of the earth can frustrate as regards ourselves—ay, and as regards others—" the grace of God". It is the inexplicable mystery of human free will, concurrent with Divine omnipotence. And if the treachery of a Judas, or the malice of a Caiaphas, or the moral weakness of a Pilate, or the fickleness of an ignorant crowd, were really agencies in the salvation of the world, what can we do but admire the resources of that omnipotence which by a Divine alchemy can transmute human evil into human good, and vindicate its sovereignty even by submitting to the use of base instrumentalities, and, like the light of the blessed sun, can pass through the foulest media, clouded perhaps, and robbed of some of its brightness, but yet uncontaminated and undefiled.

—J. Fraser, University and Other Sermons, p248.

References.—LXXX:14.—C. Perren, Revival Sermons, p185. LXXX.—International Critical Commentary, vol. ii. p201.

The Preparation for a Religious Life

Psalm 80:18

I. This is a singular prayer from the worldly point of view. The common notion is that religion is a dulling process—a cooling down of the pulses of life. We speak of the yielding to temptation as fast living, and we blame for it what we call the ardour of youth. When a man begins to think seriously, we say that he has sobered down, grown mellow, abated in the fire of early years. All this implies one idea—that seriousness of life is a deadening of life. The Psalmist takes exactly the opposite view, "Quicken us, and we will call upon Thy name". To him religion is not a dulling, but a vivifying process—a process which does not diminish but which increases the heart's ardour, which does not retard but which accelerates the pulses of the being. He would suggest that to become religious a man needs, not less life, but more, not a narrowing but an enlargement of the stream.

II. It is generally supposed that when we begin to live in God we must subside in our life for the world. The Psalmist, on the contrary, says that before religion can dawn there must be a natural vivifying of the worldly powers, "Quicken us, and we will call upon Thy name". Religion in the heart is made the result of intensified natural life. And I think it will be found that the Psalmist is right. For what is the prevailing cause of irreligion? I say "irreligion"—not "doubt," for doubt is a form of religious seriousness. What, I ask, is the prevailing cause of irreligion? It is indifference; and what is indifference? Is it not simply deadness—want of interest in the things of life. If you would make a religious man serious, you must quicken his pulse to the objects around him. It is this quickening of the pulse that the irreligious man resists. It is to resist intense feeling about worldly things that he flies from flower to flower of pleasure, deadening his appetite as he goes. It is to resist intense feeling about worldly things that he rests not in any spot, however green, but changes his place each hour lest he should read its solemnity. It is by veiling my sight of earth that I lose my sight of heaven.

—G. Matheson, Messages of Hope, p233.

Reference.—LXXX:19.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v. p284.