Sermon Bible Commentary
Matthew 5:14
I. Contemplate the Christian man as light in himself. Notice some of the instances in Scripture in which light is spoken of in reference to the people of God. (1) The Psalmist says, "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart." Here light is viewed as something distinct from the righteous, as something which he may possess and which he may enjoy, just as the husbandman enjoys the fruits of the earth of which he has cast in the seeds. (2) The Apostle, in addressing Christians, says, "Ye are the children of the light." Here we are conducted to a still higher view of the believer's privileged condition and estate. There is not only light sown for him that he may reap and enjoy, he is himself a child or son of light a Hebraistic mode of strongly expressing the luminosity that completely suffuses, as it were, the Christian man. (3) But to a still higher reach we are conducted by the Apostle when he says to believers, "Ye are light in the Lord." Here they are identified with the light itself; and just as God is said to be a light, so are His people in their measure and in their degree said to be a light.
II. "Ye are the light of the world." Our Saviour seems to say to His people, "Not only have ye light for yourselves, not only has God in His grace given you light and made you to be light; but you are to be the light by which others are to be spiritually illuminated and guided for their souls' salvation." We do not need to make efforts to make the light shine, it shines of its own accord. Christianity is essentially diffusive. Its light cannot be confined. Its law is the law of beneficence. It has freely received, and it freely gives. The light with which the true Christian has to shine is (1) the light of Divine knowledge, (2) the light of moral purity. If Christian people would be true benefactors of the world, they must let their light shine, that men seeing their good works may glorify their Father who is in heaven.
L. Alexander, Penny Pulpit,New Series, No. 524.
I. We read of a time when this earth, so full of fair shapes and wonderful provisions, was without form and void. The Lord that giveth life was pleased to summon out of this confusion the arrangements and the capacities of a world. But before all this His work one word was uttered one element called into being which was necessary for every function of created nature. God said, "Let there be light, and there was light;" and from that first day to this the natural light of this world has never failed. There must be light in nature, or the plant will dwindle, the animal will pine, the world will become joyless and waste; there must be light, too, in the world of spirits, or discord and confusion will reign where harmony and order ought to be. And man's spirit hadlight, even the only light which can light it to its well-being the light of the consciousness of God.
II. Let this conformity with God's appointment be established in nature, and as long as nature lasts God will be glorified. But in the higher world of spirits there is another necessary condition which nature has not. Wherever there is spirit there must be responsibility, and there cannot be responsibility without free will. Nature, in her lower and more rigidly prescribed arrangements, cannot extinguish the light of her world; but man's spirit may extinguish the light of his. And man's spirit did extinguish that light, and the spiritual world became anarchy and confusion.
III. If nature decays, she possesses no power of self-renewal. Her extinct tribes she may not recall; her faded flowers she cannot recover. Not thus did God create His more wonderful spiritual world. That the spirit should, by His aid, struggle upwards through darkness into the recovery of light, was His own purpose respecting us. In God's good time the Light which was to lighten every man came into the world. Now, the whole passage of man's life, from the cradle to the grave, is full of light. According to our place in life, so God expects from us that we should shine out in the darkness of the world which yet knows not Him.
H. Alford, Sermons,vol. iii., p. 406.
There is little difficulty in fixing the dominant idea contained in the metaphor. The city upon a hill is the landmark for all the country round. It is at once the crown of the district and the central point round which the life of the neighbourhood turns. It is visible afar off; it overtops the lower country, so that the people cannot, if they wish, shut their eyes and refuse to see it. The one idea is that of publicity. What does this teach us as to the Church of Christ? There are two sides of religion neither in the least degree opposed to the other, though entirely distinct. In one point of view it is a secret principle, working noiselessly in the soul of a man, subduing gradually his evil propensities, weakening and destroying his corrupt appetites. There is another side of the Christian religion namely, that of witnessing for God in the midst of perverse generations. This is the way in which it fulfils the language of the text. This witness is maintained in two ways: (1) by creeds; (2) by the maintenance of forms of outward worship.
II. From what has been said we may enter into the full meaning of that article in the Creed, "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church." In what sense is the Church a proper object of belief or faith? Belief has nothing to do with that which is obvious to sight. We do not believe in that which we see. Do you ask what I mean by the words "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church"? The answer is, "I believe that Jesus Christ founded, eighteen centuries ago, a Christian kingdom a city, a community, having certain fixed laws of order and rules of living, a principle of continuity by a ministerial succession for the purpose of maintaining certain truths and dispensing certain heavenly gifts; that Christ pledged to it His own perpetual presence and superintending providence." This, you perceive at once, is a thing to be received by faith. Get rid of the Divine origin of the Church, make it the creation of. man's policy, or the outgrowth of circumstances, and the mention of it has no business in the Creed. I must refer its beginning to a power not of this earth before it can present itself as an object of my faith.
Bishop Woodford, Sermons on Subjects from the New Testament,p. 1.
Profession without Ostentation.
I. Much might be said on that mode of witnessing Christ which consists in conforming to His Church. He who simply did what the Church bids him do (if he did no more) would witness a good confession in the world, and one which cannot be hid, and at the same time with very little, if any, personal display.
II. Consider how great a profession, and yet a profession how unconscious and modest, arises from the mere ordinary manner in which any strict Christian lives. Your lifedisplays Christ without your intending it. Your words and deeds will show where your treasure is, and your heart.
III. Still it is quite true that there are circumstances under which a Christian is bound openly to express his opinion on religious subjects and matters; and this is the real difficulty how to do so without display. (1) We must never countenance sin and error. Now the more obvious and modest way of discountenancing evil is by silence, and by separating from it: for example, we are bound to keep aloof from deliberate and open sinners. Such conduct on our part requires no great display, for it is but conforming to the rules of the Church. (2) A more difficult duty is that of passing judgment (as a Christian is often bound to do) on events of the day and public men. This may be done without injury to our Christian gentleness and humbleness, though it is difficult to do it. We need not be angry nor use contentious words, and yet may firmly give our opinion and be zealous towards God in all active good service, and scrupulously and pointedly keep aloof from the bad men whose arts we fear. (3) Another and still more difficult duty is that of personally rebuking those we meet with in the intercourse of life who sin in word or deed, and testifying before them in Christ's name. It is difficult at once to be unassuming and zealous in such cases. Supposing it be clearly our duty to manifest our religious profession in this pointed way before another, in order to do so modestly we must do it kindly and cheerfully, as gently as we can; not making matters worse than they are, or showing our whole Christian stature when we need but put out a hand or give a glance.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. i., p. 152.