Sermon Bible Commentary
Hebrews 12:2
I. If man is to become good, it is, above all, needful that he should learn to hate evil; and to hate it, not alone because of its uselessness or inexpediency, but because of its inherent badness. Now here a look at the Cross of Jesus supplies the need. To those who will only open their eyes to see, in the sufferings and death of the holy Jesus, the terrible result of man's sin, looking to the cross supplies a motive for loathing and forsaking sin, such as whole volumes of moral teaching could never produce. "Looking unto Jesus" supplies man with that most irresistible of all motive impulses, the motive impulse of love.
II. And this brings me to a farther influence resulting from this upward look. I mean, that process of assimilation which is brought about by intensely beholding those whom we intensely love.
III. But if thus, from feelings of gratitude, and by a process of assimilation we become like Jesus, and love to obey His example, what must follow? Why, necessarily this: we shall be ready, like Him, to deny ourselves for the sake of our fellow-men. In other words, that vital element of goodness self-sacrifice for the sake of our fellow-men will become daily more and more the principle of our life work.
IV. Looking to Jesus has the power to make us persevere in welldoing. He, unto whom we are looking, knew all things. He was able to reconcile discrepancies, and to solve mysteries which baffle our finite minds. The perpetuation of these difficulties may be, for the present, a part of our probation. It matters not, enough for us to have before us the example of One who, knowing the meaning of what to us is inscrutable, showed us how a Christian ought to work by working even to the death Himself.
Bishop of Meath, Oxford and Cambridge Journal,June 2nd, 1881.
Self-Contemplation.
Instead of looking off to Jesus, and thinking little of ourselves, it is at present thought necessary, among the mixed multitude of religionists, to examine the heart with the view of ascertaining whether it is in a spiritual state or no.
I. This modern system certainly does disparage the revealed doctrines of the Gospel, however its more moderate advocates may shrink from admitting it. Considering a certain state of heart to be the main thing to be aimed at, they avowedly make the "truth as it is in Jesus," the definite creed of the Church, secondary in their teaching and profession. This system tends to obliterate the great objects brought to light in the Gospel, and to darken the eye of faith.
II. On the other hand, the necessity of obedience in order to salvation does not suffer less from the upholders of this modern system than the articles of the creed. Instead of viewing works as the concomitant development and evidence, as well as the subsequent result of faith, they lay all the stress upon the direct creation in their minds of faith and spiritual-mindedness, which they consider to consist in certain emotions and desires, because they can form abstractedly no better or truer notion of these qualities.
III. Is it too much to say that, instead of attempting to harmonise Scripture with Scripture, much less referring to antiquity to enable them to do so, they either drop altogether or explain away whole portions of the Bible and those most sacred ones? Is not the rich and varied revelation of our merciful Lord practically reduced to a few Chapter s of St. Paul's Epistles, whether rightly or perversely understood?
IV. The immediate tendency of these opinions is to undervalue ordinances as well as doctrines.
V. The foregoing remarks go to show the utterly unevangelical character of the system in question. Considered as the characteristic of a school, the principles in question are anti-Christian; for they destroy all positive doctrine, all ordinances, all good works; they foster pride, invite hypocrisy, discourage the weak, and deceive most fatally, while they profess to be the special antidotes to self-deception.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. ii., p. 163.
Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith.
I. Author of our faith. Faith begins often in deep, impenetrable secrecy, not within the sphere of personal observation. The soul does not observe its own faith at first, for a while; it is hardly within the sphere of personal consciousness, except fitfully. So it begins, and, like every living thing I mean, of course, in the beginning, it is delicate, tender, frail, easily hurt and wounded, and, commonly speaking, easily destroyed. Remember that Jesus Christ is the Author of your faith, little though it seems. We should try to judge of things in ourselves and others, not as they seem, but as they are. Faith is faith, and Christ its Author, whatever accidents, hindrances, human imperfections, rolling wheels, dusty whirlwinds, and biting east winds may be about it; and faith has a power of living on, of rising up, of resisting attack, of making a channel for its own life, clarifying as it flows, the power given to it by its Author the very power of His own faith and His own life, by which He, for Himself and for us, overcame the whole world, and at last ascended up to heaven. A wonderful consummation, a wonderful encouragement, that lets in the simple truth that Christ is the Author of our faith.
II. Now, observe, Christ is also the Finisher of our faith. As soon as it is begun, His whole discipline is with a view to its perfecting. There is, of course, a sense in which our faith and religious life never can be ended; it will remain with us and in us for evermore. We shall have it in heaven, of course, if we believe the word of God, and have it on the earth, and we shall trust in the providence of heaven for heaven will have a providence just as we trust in the providence of God on the earth. And we shall obey His commands without the misgivings and imperfections of service that attach to our obedience below. But this earthly time is in many ways a time by itself. We sometimes have occasion to say, because it is true, looking upon life as a continued moral progress, that death is but a circumstance, and that it marks a particular stage in the grand evolution of things. That is true, but it is equally true that death is a grand crisis. The life process is then so far complete. One epoch of it has been finished: the probationary epoch. The growing of earth is all done. There are endless diversities in the spiritual experience of believers in coming along their ten thousand divers roads to the one grand meeting-place in perfect holiness in heaven. There are many emblems used in Scripture to describe the work of progressive sanctification, and we have to remember that the Finisher is working His one great work by means of all the various methods, and that it will be the worse for us if we insist upon putting the whole of the meaning into any one. The one thing we have to remember is this, that the Finisher is at work in all, if not in the actual finishing work itself, yet in the preparatory work, which is just as important.
A. Raleigh, Penny Pulpit,New Series, No. 327.
Christian Joy.
I. What was the cause of the Saviour's joy? (1) It was the joy of redemption. (2) It was the joy of union. It was the sense that He would be united with you and me; that was the joy of Jesus Christ. (3) It was joy supremely for the glory of God; that was His joy. It was the passion of His life; it bore Him through the desolation of His death.
II. What is the power of joy? (1) It is the power of exaltation. (2) It is a principle of expansion. Joy is an expansive power the joy of God. Just because it is "of God," because it is a part out of that great broad life of our Creator, it expands the heart of the creature. What is one of the sorrows and degradations of life? Why, that we are so narrow-minded that we take narrow views of the great questions of human life. Was there ever a heart so big as the great heart of Jesus? That heart opened out to, and embraced the whole family of, poor, weak mankind. (3) It is a principle of strength. It prevents us from falling down into the mire and clay, into the darkness and sadness of sorrow. Joy raises us above the world, for it opens out what some men would call an imaginary, but what I dare to call a real, though spiritual, world.
III. Why may we have joy? Because we are immortal. If we were mortal, then, indeed, there would be sorrow. What we want is a deepening sense of immortality. The sense of life is blessedness. (1) I joy because my Christian life implies also a completeness of final union final union with all that is holy, and beautiful, and good. (2) There is further reason for our joy a reason not despicable in a life of labour we joy because "there remaineth a rest for the people of God." (3) It is a life of joy because of the abundance of grace. He came that grace might be abundant; and so it is, and the duty of Christians is the duty of cheerfulness and thanksgiving.
J. W. Knox Little, Characteristics and Motives of the Christian Life,p. 118.
Let us notice
I. What Christ endured.
II. Why He endured it.
III. The lessons that endurance teaches.
I. The sorrows of Jesus. What Christ endured crucifixion. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Jesus laid down His life for His foes! Christ had endured much for mankind before He suffered on the Holy Rood. But His other pains and sorrows fade away before the agonies of His crucifixion, even as the stars turn pale and then vanish before the overpowering light of the sun. He endured for the joy of saving souls; endured, not with the dogged callousness of the Stoic who despises his fellow-creatures, but by reason of a love that triumphed over every feeling of pain, of shame, and of sorrow. For the joy that was set before Him He endured all this.
II. Why Christ suffered; why Christ endured it. It was for the joy that was set before Him, and that joy consisted in doing good to others. It was because by this suffering Jesus redeemed mankind. It was to save men from the punishment and the power of sin. Like all true heroes, Jesus was preeminently unselfish. He had nothing to gain save the love of humanity. His joy was purely unselfish. He suffered, not to gain wealth, or renown, or power, but simply and solely to redeem mankind, to carry out to the last that obedience to the Father by which the many are made righteous. He suffered because He was obedient to the voice of conscience. There was nothing of the ascetic in Jesus. An ascetic voluntarily, purposely, goes out of the way to make himself miserable. Not so Jesus. He was preeminently the Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. But all His sorrows met Him in the path of duty. He heroically endured the shame and ignominy of the Crucifixion (a more degrading death than hanging with us), despising its shame, for the joy that was set before Him the joy of redeeming the world.
III. The lessons of endurance. It teaches professing Christians to be ready to endure the cross of self-denial, and despise the shame that the world heaps on the faithful disciple of the Lord. It appeals to every sinner, with matchless eloquence, to be a follower of the self-denying Jesus. Plato and Socrates were noble leaders for Athens in the paths of virtue, but Athens perished. She could not be saved by her one or two great men, for the mass of the people were utterly corrupt. So, too, the greatness of our fatherland depends not on one or two great men, but on the masses being brought to Jesus Christ and led to take up the cross of self-denial for His sake.
F. W. Aveling, Christian World Pulpit,Dec. 21st, 1892.
References: Hebrews 12:2. A. Maclaren, Christ in the Heart,pp. 77, 91; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. v., No. 236; Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 180; E. Cooper, Practical Sermons,vol. ii., p. 207; Bishop Ryle, Church of England Pulpit,vol. vii., p. 142; A. Raleigh, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 495; R. Tuck, Ibid.,vol. v., p. 132; H. Wonnacott, Ibid.,vol. xvi., p. 392; W. Page, Ibid.,vol. xxv., p 374; L. D. Bevan, Ibid.,vol. xxx., p. 200; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iv., p. 84.