Bible Commentaries

Inheriting Eternal Life

Luke 10:25

You will observe that the man who asked this question was a lawyer, a man of education and of good standing; a Luke 10:26.)

Jesus himself answered one question by asking another; and so he not unfrequently disappointed men who had undertaken to ensnare him in his speech. They thought that if they did but put a case to him he would commit himself, and they would entrap him. Here is a man accustomed to put questions, and to put questions again upon the answers that are given, and so to cross-examine those with whom he came in contact. Jesus undertakes to deal with him according to the spirit which he presents; and before he lets him go he will show what the man's meaning is and his nature, and he will expose him as he never was exposed before. Thus quietly he begins, "What is written in the law? Thou art a lawyer, a man of reading, a man of many letters, and of much understanding probably,—how readest thou?" God has never left the greatest questions of the human heart unanswered. The great answer to this question about eternal life was not given first of all by Jesus Christ as he appeared in the flesh. Jesus himself referred to the oldest record; inferentially he said,—That question has been answered from the beginning; go back to the very first revelation and testimony of God, and you will find the answer there. Yet the question is put very significantly, "How readest thou?" There are two ways of reading. There is a way of reading the letter which never gets at the meaning of the spirit There is a way of reading which merely looks at the letter for a partial purpose, or that a prejudice may be sustained or defended. And there is a way of reading which means,—I want to know the truth; I want to see really how this case stands; I am determined to see it. He who reads so will find no end to his lesson, for truth expands and brightens as we study her revelations and her purposes. He who comes merely to the letter, will get but a superficial answer in all probability. It was, therefore, of the highest importance that the lawyer should tell how he had been reading the law.

But before passing from this point let us observe that Jesus Christ never treated the Old Testament lightly. I am afraid that some of us imagine that we have got beyond the Old Testament, and therefore hardly ever turn to its ancient pages. Believe me, the testaments are one: as the day is one—the twilight and the noontide, as the year is one—the vernal promise and the autumnal largess—so are the Testaments of God one. And no man can profoundly interpret the New Testament who is not profoundly conversant with the Old. A man will come upon the New Testament from a wrong point altogether, except he come upon it along the line of Moses and the minstrels of Israel and the prophets of Zion. He who comes so will find it to be a New Testament in the best sense; the Old Luke 10:27-28).

The lawyer, remember, knew the answer at the time when he asked the question. He said, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" and all the time the answer was in his own recollection had he but known it. Alas! we do not always turn our knowledge into wisdom. We know the fact, and we hardly ever sublimate the fact into truth. We know the law, and we fail to see that under the law there is the beauty and there is the grace of the gospel. Is there any man to be found amongst us who does not know what to do to inherit eternal life? Is there one who dare say, "If I knew what to do I would do it"? Does not every man's heart say to him, "You know perfectly well what to do and how to do it"? If you ask a question, with a view of misleading your teacher, understand that you must suffer the pain of that sin. Jesus said, "Thou hast answered right." Men can give right answers to great questions, if so be they set themselves really to do so. If the lawyer had returned a blundering or imperfect answer, Jesus would—had the man's spirit been right—have sat down for days together to talk the matter over with him, simply and tenderly as he alone could talk. But the lawyer knew the answer, at the very moment he put the question; and he intended to put the question so adroitly as to escape the application of the answer to his own case. What if at the last this be our condition; if in the winding up of things we venture to say, If we had known the right path we should certainly have taken it! God will show, out of our own mouth, that at the very time we were doing the wrong we perfectly knew the right. I charge every man who hears me, who is not in Christ, with knowing perfectly well what to do; though he may cheat himself, and wrong himself by putting questions, with a view of escaping the application of the answers, or postponing a decision upon the great question.

"This do," said Jesus, "and thou shalt live." What had the lawyer to do? To love the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength, and with all his mind. Love is life. Only he who loves lives. Only love can get out of a man the deepest secrets of his being, and develop the latent energies of his nature, and call him up to the highest possibilities of his manhood. Criticism never can do it; theology never can do it; power of controversy never can do it. We are ourselves, in all the volume of our capacity, and in all the relations of our original creation, only when life becomes love and our whole nature burns with affection towards the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hast thou knowledge? It will not save thee. Art thou well versed in ancient reading upon the deepest theological questions? It will not save thee. Dost thou know the truth when it is spoken? It will not save thee. What then will save a man? The turning of all his knowledge and all his power into love. And upon what object is that love to be concentrated? Upon the Lord God. Then is a man a loving creature in the true and proper sense of the term. The measure of our love is the measure of our life. In proportion as we love God do we live. In the degree of our affections towards purity and truth and holy service are we the heirs of a blessed immortality! Then the question becomes a very practical one. How is it with ourselves? Let us look less at our knowledge and our intellectual capability and our training and our circumstances, and more at the degree of our religious love. The end of the commandment is charity; the summing up of all true law is love. Do we, then, know this mystery of religious love? or is ours a religion that hangs itself upon the outward letter and the ceremonial form?

Then observe that the law goes still further than love to God; it includes love to one's neighbour. Mark the exact expression of the text, "And thy neighbour as thyself." Love of God means love of man. Religion is the divine side of philanthropy; philanthropy is the practical side of religion. We must first be right with God, or we never can be right with man. If we begin by endeavouring to get right with our neighbour, we shall fail. But if we begin by establishing right relations with God, according to the conditions which he himself has laid down, we shall find that being right with God our whole life is elevated and all social relationships are redeemed from error, and our neighbour is loved with a lofty and pure charity. Was the lawyer satisfied? Read:—

"But Luke 10:29.)

It was the question of a sharp Luke 10:26

Nothing would seem simpler than to open the Bible and read the verses as they came. Few people read the Bible. Many people make a charm of it; others approach it along false lines. Some treat the Bible superstitiously; it is not a divine revelation to them, but something about which they have to be mystified, and they suppose that the less they understand it the better. "How readest thou?" What is the method of reading? Have you any general principles, any guiding maxims, any philosophy of reading? Do you merely pass through chapter and verse as they come, accepting everything, testing nothing, proving nothing, but simply reading so many words, and extending towards these words so much of unintelligent respect as you may care to bestow upon them? How read you your own children's letters? Are they only a jingle of words, or is there some central meaning even in the child's communication? What is the vital point? what does the writer want to be at? what is the one thing to which he addresses himself? Except we consider these questions, and reverently obey the direction in which they point, we shall read the Bible mistakenly, we shall constantly be in fear of every assault that is made upon it; we shall suppose, with criminal ignorance, that it is in the power of some man mighty in dialectics and rich in information to take the Bible from us. There is a certain kind of Bible we ought never to have had. No man can take any revelation of God from us, if our spirit be in sympathy with the Luke 10:29

My intention is to examine some of the excuses which men make in this matter of the religious life; to ascertain some of the causes or reasons which keep men back from entireness of consecration and completeness of Christian love. If the excuses are good, verily I shall embrace them myself, and repeat them with you, and help to heighten the thunder in which you speak them, when you are called upon to avow the reason of your indifference or of your opposition. If they be bad excuses, and if they will not stand fire, I shall ask you to renounce them, to disclaim them, to be ashamed of them, and, as far as possible, to do double work in the future, to make up, in some degree, for the negligence or wastefulness of the past.

"The lawyer said—" Then comes his own particular plea or excuse, to which I intend to pay little or no attention now, it was so completely and triumphantly answered by Jesus Christ. Read his parable in reply. Next to the parable of the Prodigal son, it is the sweetest word ever spoken even by the lips of Jesus Christ. I intend each man to fill up the sentence for himself, only having from the lawyer the preface: " he, willing to justify himself, said—" What words do you insert after the word "said"? How is it with your self-justifying and self-excusing heart? Do I hear correctly when I say you are now reasoning thus: "If I am sincere in my spirit and convictions, no matter whether I believe what is in the Bible or not, all will be well with me here and hereafter"? Is that a correct statement of what you are now thinking? It sounds well. I admit, with all candour, that it seems to sound conclusive and to admit of no refutation. Yet it surely will admit of a question or two being put, in order that we may fully understand the position. You speak of sincerity. I ask, What are you sincere in? Does anything turn upon the object of your sincerity? If you are sincerely giving to a customer over your counter what you believe to be the thing he has asked for, will you be fully justified in the day that you find you have poisoned the man? You sincerely believed that you were giving him precisely the very ingredient that he asked for, and that he had paid for, but you did not give him that ingredient, but something else, and ere the sun go down the man will be dead. What does sincerity go for there? If you indicate to a traveller, sincerely, to the best of your knowledge, the road along which he ought to go to reach a certain destination; if it be the wrong road, and if in some sudden darkness the man should fall over a precipice, will your sincerity obliterate everything like self-reproach? Were you sure it was the road? "No, but I was sincere in thinking it was." Did you explain to the man that you were speaking upon an assumption? "No, I thought there was no occasion to do so, I felt so sure." But you see that the mere element of sincerity goes a very short way in cases of that kind. We love sincerity. Without sincerity life is but a mockery, the worst of irony! But what are we sincere in? Have we ascertained that the object of our sincerity is real, true, and deserving of our confidence? We are responsible not only for the light we have, but for the light we may have. It sounds very well, I have no doubt, to some young men, when a man says, "I intend to walk according to the light I have, and to take the consequences." Believe me, the man who so speaks talks in mock heroics. There is nothing in his statement that ought to deter you from investigation, or from anxious and devout pursuit of truth. I repeat, we are responsible not only for the light we have, but for the light that is offered to us. If you go into some dark chamber, and say you can find your way about well enough, and I offer you a light before you enter the apartment and you refuse it, and trust to your own power to grope your way in the dark; if you should fall into some mischief or be tripped up or thrown down, so as to injure yourself, who will be to blame? You walked according to the light you had, but the light that was in you was darkness! Your injury will be associated with a memory of neglect on your part, which, when the injury itself is healed, will yet be a sting in your recollection and your heart. Am I speaking, then, one word against sincerity? Certainly not. God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. I am speaking about that degree of sincerity which might be increased, and that quality of sincerity which might be enriched, by knowing more perfectly the object upon which it is terminating. Who are you, that you should be a revelation to yourself? Look at the mistakes of your lifetime and shut your self-written Bible. He ought to be a very wise man who can, gracefully and with aught of authoritativeness, close the Book of God and say, "I can do without it." He may be speaking sincerely, but he is speaking ignorantly. There is a sincerity of fanaticism, as well as a sincerity of philosophy. There is a sincerity of ignorance, as well as a sincerity of knowledge. Merely, therefore, to say, "I am sincere," is to say nothing. We must inquire, What is the object on which your sincerity fixes itself? What is the degree of its intelligence, and what is the degree of its conscience? When any man has returned clear earnest answers to these inquiries, my belief is, that he will find himself short of something, and that that something which is absent will be found to be the truth as it is in Jesus,—the Cross, the one Cross, out of which every other cross that is true and useful must be made!

But he, willing to justify himself, said—"I have been looking round, and it strikes me that I am every whit as good as other people that are about me." Would it be rude to contradict you? Will it be polite to admit the truthfulness, generally, of what you say? Either on the one hand or the other it does not touch the point at all. If the question lay between you and me, it would be right for each to compare himself with the other, and to exalt his superiority at the expense of his brother's infirmities. The case is not as between one man and another. We err in circumscribing the question so. The question is between the soul and God; between the heart and the absolutely right; between man and Jesus Christ; between right and wrong. How does the case stand when viewed thus? We injure ourselves by comparing ourselves one with another; setting shoulder to shoulder, and saying, "My stature is as high as yours;" laying hand beside hand, and saying, "My fingers are as clean as the fingers of other men." We are to come to the law and to the testimony; we are to proceed to the Cross of Jesus Christ; we are to go to the standards and balances of the sanctuary; we are to shut ourselves up with God, alone! He who can then boast, must be a madman or a devil! There is a disposition, I know, amongst us all, and exercised more or less, to compare ourselves with one another. One flippant and cruel man will say, looking upon a number of professing Christians, who may not exactly have been pleasing him, "Well, if this is your Christianity, I don"t think I shall have much to do with it." All the while he knows, perfectly well, that the men who have been doing anything wrong have been so doing, not because of their Christianity, but because of their want of it, or in spite of it. A man looks over a lot of copper and sees one bad penny in it, and says, "Well, if this is your currency, I do not think I shall have anything to do with it." What do you think of that man? Would you introduce him to your family? Would you make him the tutor of your boys? Would you in any way express esteem for him? A man goes into your orchard and picks up a rotten apple and says, "Well, if these are your apples, I don"t think I shall have much to do with them." What do you think of him? Do you say, "He is an admirable man; a sagacious creature; a counsellor to be consulted "? You turn aside, and you say, "The man must be a fool." Not that I am going to say so about you on these solemn questions. But shall I say to you this?—When you compare yourself with another man, especially to your own advantage, you are not in the spirit which is likely to elicit the truth and lead you to sound and useful conclusions. Your disposition is wrong; your temper is wrong. You must cease such a method of comparing advantages and honours, and must go to the absolute and final standard of righteousness.

But he, willing to justify himself, said—"Though I do not believe and act as they do who call themselves Christians, yet I trust to the mercy of God." The man who makes this plea talks in some such fashion as this: "I do not care for doctrines; I do not care for churches; theologies trouble me very little indeed; if I live as wisely as I can, and do what is tolerably fair between one man and another, I shall trust to the mercy of God, and I believe all will be right at last." Do you know what you are talking about in talking so? Do you understand the value and the force of your own words? Are you aware that the word mercy is one of the words in our language which it is very difficult to understand? What is mercy? In your estimation, perhaps, it is mere physical sensibility, simple emotion—a gush of feeling. Is that mercy? No. What is mercy? The highest point of justice,—justice returning and completing itself by the return. Mercy is justice in tears. Mercy is righteousness with a sword just transforming itself into a sceptre. Is mercy a mere freak of sentimentality? Do you think God will say at last, "Well, well, come in, come in, and say nothing more about it"? I would not go into his heaven if the conditions were such. It would be no heaven. Where there is not righteousness at the centre, there is no security at the circumference. Where the throne is not founded upon justice, mercy is but a momentary impulse, to be followed by a terrible recoil. "The mercy of God," you say, "where do I find the mercy of the Living One?" I find it in Bethlehem, in Gethsemane, on Calvary. Where is the mercy of God? It is in that dying Son of his, who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification. Your notion of mercy is superficial. You use the great word in one of its aspects only; you do not seem to understand that the word mercy is a composite word, that has within itself many elements. As peace is not death, mercy is not sentiment. You propose to trust to the mercy of God. So do I, but in a different sense. Is it right to trifle with his law, to despise his word, to crucify his Son afresh, and then to say, "I will trust to his mercy at last"? Is that decent, fair, honourable, sensible? We are all living, in so far as we are living truly, in the mercy and grace of God. We trust to his mercy now. The question is not one of ultimate conditions, but of present experiences. Every morning we hallow the day with this prayer, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" and every night we recover the mistakes, the infirmities, and the sins of the daytime with this cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" What do you mean, then, when you talk about trusting to his mercy at last? Trust to his mercy at first. Where is his mercy? It is in the life, the ministry, the death, the resurrection, and the whole mediation of Jesus Christ.

But he, willing to justify himself, said,—"There is so much mystery about religion that I cannot really attempt to understand it." I answer, There is mystery about religion, but there is ten thousand times more mystery without it. There is mystery with the Bible, but there is nothing but mystery without it. There is a mystery of grace; yes, and there is a mystery of sin. Life is a mystery. All that is great touches the mysterious. In proportion as a thing rises from vulgarity and commonplace, it rises into wondrousness,—and wondrousness is but the first round in the ladder whose head rests upon the infinite mysteries. Understand it! Who asked you to understand it? You make a mistake if you suppose that religion is to be understood in the sense that you apparently attach to the word understand. It is to be understood by the heart, to be felt as the answer to the sorrow of the soul, to be understood through the medium of love and sympathy, and not through the medium of dry intellect. Do I understand the method of salvation? No. Can I explain it intellectually, so as to chase away every lingering shadow of mystery? No. What then? I feel it to be right. My heart says, "Though you have often brought me bread I could not eat; you have now brought me this bread,—and it is life!" I cannot give the lie lo my own heart. Would I part with the mystery? Nay, verily. Are not the clouds God's as well as the blue sky? Are not the mists around the mountain tops his, as well as the bases of the mountains and the foundations of the earth? Is not He, himself, the living God, the culmination of all mysteries, the sum of all wonder—the Alpha and the Omega—not to be understood, but loved and served? There is a point in my religious inquiries where I must close my eyes, look no more, but rest myself in the grand transaction which is known as faith in the Son of God.

But he, willing to justify himself, came at last to this: "There are so many denominations of Christians that it is impossible to tell which is right and which is wrong." Think of a man going off on that line! Think of a man saying, that he has been looking round and sees that there are so many denominations, that really he has made up his mind to give up the whole thing! Does he know what he is talking about? Is he really serious when he speaks so? Shall I follow his example? If I do it will be to show how great is his folly. "I have been looking round, and see so many different regiments in the country that really it is impossible to tell which is right and which is wrong, and I do not think I shall have anything to do with the country." Yes, there are many regiments, but one army; many denominations, but one church; many creeds, but one faith; many aspects, but one life; many ways up the hill, but one Cross on the top of it. Do not lose yourself among the diversities, when you might save yourself by looking at the unities. "There are so many mountains about, that I really do not know that there can be any truth in geography." Many mountains—one globe! There are a great many denominations, and I do not regret it. I believe that denominationalism, wisely managed, may be used for mutual provocation to love and to good works. It may be better that we should be broken up externally, that each may do his own work in his own way, than that we should be bound together by merely nominal uniformity. When an enemy arises to make an attack upon the Christian citadel, when he writes a book against Christ, or against the Bible, or against any aspect of Christian truth—who answers him? Not one denomination in particular. No. When a hand is lifted up against the Cross, who seizes it? Not one section of Christendom. No. When an assault is made upon Calvary, the whole Church, in all colours, all attitudes, rushes to protect—what indeed requires no defence except as a sign of love—the Cross of Christ, which sets itself above the storms and outlives the puny assaults of puny men!

I have looked into all the excuses that I could find, and verily I now pronounce them, so far as my intelligence will enable me to judge—rubbish! Is that word understood? It is my business, as well as the business of every man, to understand really what excuses are made of; what the value of self-justification is. Because I am as anxious to be right, I trust, as most other men; and having examined all these grounds of self-justification, I say I would not risk so much as a day's health upon them, not to speak of an immortal condition. There is not one of them will hold good in the market-place if it were commercialised. Shall any one of them stand good as between us and God? If, then, there is not to be self-justification, what is there to be? Self-renunciation. A man must empty himself of himself before he is in the right condition to understand lovingly and gratefully the offer which Jesus Christ makes men. So long as there is, in the remotest chambers of his mind, anything like the shade of a shadow of a supposed reason to imagine himself in any degree right, he is not in a position to consider the offers of mercy. Who receives the Eternal One as guest and friend? Name him. Hast thou heard his name? Tell it. His name is a brokenhearted man! God guests with the contrite and companies with the self-renouncing soul. I will go to my Father, then, and will say unto him, not, "Father, I was tempted; somebody lured me away; I did not intend to leave thee, but I was beguiled;" but I will say unto him, "Father, I have sinned!"

This, then, is the ground of coming to God; the ground of self-denial, self-renunciation, self-distrust, self-hatred on account of sin. "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help." "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "Jesus cried and said, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Who accepts the invitation? Some have accepted it. Pray that this word may not be in vain. Some require just one more appeal, and they will decide. Take this, then, as the appeal you want. Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation. I want to see men decide for Christ. I want to know that men who have been thinking so long, have at last been enabled by the Spirit of God to say, "I will cast myself on Jesus, the one Saviour of a sinful race." Our fathers used to plead for decisions. The men who made the pulpit of England the grandest of its powers—pleaded with sinners that they would decide. If aught of their mantle has fallen upon me, even but for the occasion, I would speak with all their voices, now dead; I would stand upon their dead bones and turn their graves into a pulpit, and cry, "Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come ye, buy wine and milk without money and without price." "How long halt ye between two opinions?" I am not the one speaker; all the holy dead speak in my voice; the general assembly and church of the first-born written in heaven; your dead pastors, your sainted fathers and mothers, all the companions of your life who have passed away into the other world, all prophets and apostles, make me their mouthpiece when I say, Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation!