Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. JohnMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Ephesians -- Commentaries; Bible. Epistle of John, 1st -- Commentaries; Bible. Peter -- Commentaries
That Church is not built upon a creed, but it is built upon a whole
Christ, and not a maimed one. And so we must have a love which answers
to all those sides of that great revealed character, and is warm with
human love to Jesus; and is trustful with confiding love to the Christ;
and is lowly with obedient love to the Lord. And I venture to go a step
further, and say,--and is devout with adoring love to the eternal Son of
the Father. This is the Apostle's definition of what makes a Christian:
Faith that grasps the whole Christ and love that therefore flows to Him.
It binds all who possess it into one great unity. As against a spurious
liberalism which calls them Christians who lay hold of a fragment of the
one entire and perfect chrysolite, we must insist that a Christian is
one who knows Jesus, who knows Christ, who knows the Lord, and who
loves Him in all these aspects. Only we must remember, too, that many a
time a man's heart outruns his creed, and that many a soul glows with
truer, deeper, more saving devotion and trust to a Christ whom the
intellect imperfectly apprehends, than are realised by unloving hearts
that are associated with clearer heads. Orchids grow in rich men's
greenhouses, fastened to a bit of stick, and they spread a fairer
blossom that lasts longer than many a plant that is rooted in a more
fertile soil. Let us be thankful for the blessed inconsistencies which
knit some to the Christ who is more to them than they know.
There is also here laid down for us the great principle, as against all
narrowness and all externalism, and all so-called ecclesiasticism, that
to be joined to Jesus Christ is the one condition which brings a man
into the blessed unity of the Church. Now it seems to me that, however
they may be to be lamented on other grounds, and they are to be lamented
on many, the existence of diverse Churches does not necessarily
interfere with this deep-seated and central unity. There is a great deal
said to-day about the reunion of Christendom, by which is meant the
destruction of existing communions and the formation of a wider one. I
do not believe, and I suppose you do not, that our existing
ecclesiastical organisations are the final form of the Church of the
living God. But let us remember that the two things are by no means
contradictory, the belief in, and the realising of, the essential unity
of the Church, and the existence of diverse communions. You will see on
the side of many a Cumberland hill a great stretch of limestone with
clefts a foot or two deep in it--there are flowers in the clefts, by the
bye--but go down a couple of yards and the divisions have all
disappeared, and the base-rock stretches continuously. The separations
are superficial; the unity is fundamental. Do not let us play into the
hands of people whose only notion of unity is that of a mechanical
juxtaposition held together by some formula or orders; but let us
recognise that the true unity is in the presence of Jesus Christ in the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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