Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chapters I to XIVMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chapters I to XIV
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. John -- Commentaries
What we have in Christ is not law, but grace. Law, as I said, has no
heart; the meaning of the Gospel is the unveiling of the heart of God.
Law commands and demands; it says: 'This shalt thou do, or else—'; and
it has nothing more that it can say. What is the use of standing beside
a lame man, and pointing to a shining summit, and saying to him, 'Get
up there, and you will breathe a purer atmosphere'? He is lying lame at
the foot of it. There is no help for any soul in law. Men are not
perishing because they do not know what they ought to do. Men are not
bad because they doubt as to what their duty is. The worst man in the
world knows a great deal more of what he ought to do than the best man
in the world practises. So it is not for want of precepts that so many
of us are going to destruction, but it is for want of power to fulfil
the precepts.
Grace is love giving. Law demands, grace bestows. Law comes saying 'Do
this,' and our consciences respond to the imperativeness of the
obligation. But grace comes and says, 'I will help thee to do it.' Law
is God requiring; grace is God bestowing. 'Give what Thou commandest,
and then command what Thou wilt.'
Oh, brethren! we have all of us written upon the fleshly tablets of our
hearts solemn commandments which we know are binding upon us; and which
we sometimes would fain keep, but cannot. Is this not a message of hope
and blessedness that comes to us? Grace has drawn near in Jesus Christ,
and a giving God, who bestows upon us a life that will unfold itself in
accordance with the highest law, holds out the fulness of His gift in
that Incarnate Word. Law has no heart; the Gospel is the unveiling of
the heart of God. Law commands; grace is God bestowing Himself.
And still further, law condemns. Grace is love that bends down to an
evildoer, and deals not on the footing of strict retribution with the
infirmities and the sins of us poor weaklings. And so, seeing that no
man that lives but hears in his heart an accusing voice, and that every
one of us knows what it is to gaze upon lofty duties that we have
shrunk from, upon plain obligations from the yoke of which we have
selfishly and cowardly withdrawn our necks; seeing that every man,
woman, and child listening to me now has, lurking in some corner of
their hearts, a memory that only needs to be quickened to be a torture,
and deeds that only need to have the veil drawn away from them to
terrify and shame them—oh! surely it ought to be a word of gladness for
every one of us that, in front of any law that condemns us, stands
forth the gentle, gracious form of the Christ that brings pardon, and
'the grace of God that bringeth salvation unto all men.' Thank God! law
needed to be 'given,' but it was only the foundation on which was to be
reared a better thing. 'The law was given By Moses'—'a schoolmaster,'
as conscience is to-day, 'to bring us to Christ' by whom comes the
grace that loves, that stoops, that gives, and that pardons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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