Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are… I think it may be demonstrated from human experience that the human race can never ascend toward civilisation, and that it can still less ascend toward the higher ranges of civilisation, which include moral and spiritual development, without the real or fancied help of a superior intelligence in the invisible world. What we need is a priest, and a high priest, that is sensibly, intimately affected and concerned with our — what? virtues? dignities? attainments? No, with our " infirmities." Our virtues, dignities, and attainments, such as they are, get along very well; but our infirmities and transgressions need succour. We need a God whose attributes and dispositions lead Him to be helpful just at the time of our need — not a God that simply acts according to His own will abstractly, as He is represented to do, thinking of things according to His pleasure as it is said in the old formulas. To be a good teacher, one must come down to the level of the scholar, and know his difficulties. He must adapt his training to the hardness of the task and the limitations of the faculties of the scholar. And what we need is the conception of a God who is personal in the same sense in which our father and our mother were personal to us — namely, in adapting themselves to our want, that by and by we might be raised up to them, conforming to the universal law of education. There are great difficulties in this conception, and there are some hindrances to it. It is intrinsically a thing of not a little perplexity for men to form a definite idea of invisible spiritual existence. We do it by transferring, through the influence of the imagination and the reason, the familiar facts of our mental experience to the Being whom we call God. There are two great difficulties in this matter. One is, that we have been trained so largely to use our senses that when we undertake to move in the hi-her realm of life we find it hard to fashion ideas that are not sensuous — that are impalpable and immeasurable. The other is, that goodness and fineness in us are so small, that magnanimity in us is so difficult to be distinguished from minanimity, that we are so little sensitive to the various excellences of moral character, that life requires knives with such a hard and cutting edge, and that our training is such that we are not apt to have the material out of which to create our God, unless we return to the mother, the father, the brother and the sister in our own households. It is mainly to expound these difficulties that I have selected this subject. I shall find it difficult to make a statement of the matter which shall not lead to misconception, but I shall not on that account any the less endeavour to state it. First, there has been an unfortunate substitute for a personal God of theologic ideas which just as effectually takes away personality from Him in the conceptions of men as pantheistic doctrines. The use of symbols has been such, they have been so unwisely or ignorantly employed, that they have led people into substantial idolatry. In books and sermons and exhortations innumerable men are urged to "come to the Cross"; to "hold on to the Cross"; " to forget not the Cross," to "weep at the foot of the Cross." What idolatry! Is there no Jesus Christ that is a living God? Do we now, after two thousand years, need to have Him interpreted by a symbol of two thousand years ago? Is not the thing signified a hundred times more desirable than any symbol of it? In ancient times, right under the eaves of the crucifixion, it had a function that cannot be overestimated; but it has performed that function; and by the use of the Cross men interpret to the world the thing that it was set to interpret: and I say that to attempt to represent the Lord Jesus Christ any longer by that symbol is unwise in the preacher, and bewildering and misleading to the hearer. Instead of bringing us to a personal God, a present Help in time of need, it hinders our access to I-lira, and we find ourselves wandering on Calvary when we have a living Saviour in the New Jerusalem. Another thing that hinders the access of men to a living, personal God is the presentation that is continually made of the atonement of Christ. I do not undertake to rail at the doctrine of the atonement, nor to say that it is an unnecessary doctrine; but I resist vehemently the substitution of a "plan of salvation," as it is sometimes called, or the term "atonement," for the phrase, "the Lord Jesus Christ" — for, really, in preaching, men are urged to accept Christ's atonement, instead of accepting Christ. They are asked to be saved through the atonement, instead of being asked to be saved by the loving power and loving influence of Christ. What the sick man wants to know is, not bow the pill which he takes was compounded, but whether, taking it, the chills and fever will stop. If they do, he does not care what is in it; and if they do not, he rices not care what is in it. What mankind want is salvation; and it is brought to them through the presentation of Jesus Christ, who attempts to save them, not by buoying them up by a system of physical laws and mechanical observances, or by abstract conceptions of right and duty, but by bringing them on to a new ground of personal liberty. The Lord stands to you and to me as a living Saviour. He is your personal Saviour and my personal Saviour; He is your Redeemer and my Redeemer; He is your Brother and my Brother. I do not come to Him any longer through the atonement; that is His look-out. I do not come to Him by the way of the Cross; that is history's business. I come directly to Him. I come to Him because every throb of my nature tells me that I need elevation and spiritualisation, and because I have faith that these are to be found in Him. I come to Him because I am impelled to by the whole volume of my wants. I come to Him because I am drawn toward Him by all the ardour of my confidence and love. There is one more point which is even more exceptionable. I refer to the use of blood. There was a time when that symbol was needed. In the Old Testament dispensation blood was significant of moral qualities. But what possible use, in modern association, has blood? Here and there a man sheds his blood for his country, in which ease blood represents his willingness to sacrifice himself for his country. It may be necessary under certain circumstances to take blood as an emblem of self-denial, heroism and suffering as they exist in God, in order to give a conception of them to low-minded people; but when it has been employed for a certain time, and these conceptions have been involved and enfolded to a given point, they become stronger than the symbol: and the symbol, instead of benefiting them, stands in their way, and constantly tends to draw them back from the spiritual truth to the carnal representation of it. If these criticisims are valid, the question naturally comes back, How would you proceed? What would you do? In the first place, I will say that I do not believe you could collect an audience so ignorant and degraded as to be incompetent to understand the revelation of God in Christ Jesus as a personal Saviour. the thing itself is simpler than any figure by which you can represent it. And the great want of the Church to-day, it seems to m-, is such a presentation of Christ to men as that every man and every woman shall feel that they have a living Friend in heaven who thinks of them, who knows them by name, and who understands their birth, their parentage, their education, their liabilities, the various influences which operate upon them, but which they are not responsible for, their culture, their surroundings, everything that belongs to them; that they have a Brother who has gone there to take all power into His hands and exercise it in their behalf. What every person needs is the sense of a living Jesus Christ, to whom in trial or in want he can turn and be conscious that He hears, and is present to help. In time of need, when your expectations are disappointed, when your plans are broken up, when your life seems a wreck, and when despair has taken possession of you, and you know not which way to turn for succour — then you need to have a faith that there is One in heaven who knows you, who loves you, and who will stand by yon, and will stand by you to the end, whatever may befall you. Such a Saviour you have in Christ Jesus; and nothing shall separate you from His love. And he who has such a Saviour as that need not ask philosophers anything. He will have written in his own soul the philosophy of his own experience; and buoyed up by the joy and gladness which are ministered to him, he will have the wherewith to draw other men upward, saying, "This has Christ been to me, and this will Christ be to you if you will accept Him." I beseech of you now — and above all in times of depression and trouble — see to it that you have a hold upon the living Christ: not upon a doctrine, not upon a symbol, but upon a Person, throbbing, vital, near, and overflowing with generous love. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. |
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