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
Still further, there is another antithesis here. The Gospel which comes
by Christ is not law, but truth. The object of law is to regulate
conduct, and only subordinately to inform the mind or to enlighten the
understanding. The Mosaic Law had for its foundation, of course, a
revelation of God. But that revelation of God was less prominent,
proportionately, than the prescription for man's conduct. The Gospel is
the opposite of this. It has for its object the regulation of conduct;
but that object is less prominent, proportionately, than the other, the
manifestation and the revelation of God. The Old Testament says 'Thou
shalt'; the New Testament says 'God is.' The Old was Law; the New is
Truth.
And so we may draw the inference, on which I do not need to dwell, how
miserably inadequate and shallow a conception of Christianity that is
which sets it forth as being mainly a means of regulating conduct, and
how false and foolish that loose talk is that we hear many a
time.—'Never mind about theological subtleties; conduct is the main
thing.' Not so. The Gospel is not law; the Gospel is truth. It is a
revelation of God to the understanding and to the heart, in order that
thereby the will may be subdued, and that then the conduct may be
shaped and moulded. But let us begin where it begins, and let us
remember that the morality of the New Testament has never long been
held up high and pure, where the theology of the New Testament has been
neglected and despised. 'The law came by Moses; truth came by Jesus
Christ.'
But, still further, let me remind you that, in the revelation of a God
who is gracious, giving to our emptiness and forgiving our sins—that is
to say, in the revelation of grace—we have a far deeper, nobler, more
blessed conception of the divine nature than in law. It is great to
think of a righteous God, it is great and ennobling to think of One
whose pure eyes cannot look upon sin, and who wills that men should
live pure and noble and Godlike lives. But it is far more and more
blessed, transcending all the old teaching, when we sit at the feet of
the Christ who gives, and who pardons, and look up into His deep eyes,
with the tears of compassion shining in them, and say: 'Lo! This is our
God! We have waited for Him and He will save us.' That is a better
truth, a deeper truth than prophets and righteous men of old possessed;
and to us there has come, borne on the wings of the mighty angel of His
grace, the precious revelation of the Father-God whose heart is love.
'The law was given by Moses,' but brighter than the gleam of the
presence between the Cherubim is the lambent light of gentle tenderness
that shines from the face of Jesus Christ. Grace, and therefore truth,
a deeper truth, came by Him.
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