John 3:18 He that believes on him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already… What is a test of this condemnation? Our Lord's words are so very liberal that I would not have used them if He had not; I would have been afraid of the presbyteries. He does not place the test upon inadequate belief or doctrine, or even on deficient morality, but on deadness of aspiration. This is the condemnation, that men have loved darkness rather than the light. But that alone does not prove unfitness; our Lord's liberality is not yet exhausted. There is another condition — the light must have come into the world. If you get up at midnight and enter your dark sitting-room the mirror that was wont to flash in the daytime will show no light. Why don't you smash the mirror? It seems to love the darkness, and why? Because its light had not yet come. And there are hundreds in this city in precisely the same position. They are dark because no light has come to them. Suppose I ask you if you have the spirit of a poet, and you say, "Oh no, I haven't; I never wrote a line of poetry in my life. I once tried and failed miserably. I have no idea of metre or scansion." But I take you to the top of a mountain when the light is coming, when the morning is dawning and nature is about to drench the dark world in a liquid bath of gold; and I watch the gleam of enthusiasm brighten over your countenance as from your heart rise the words, "Oh, it is beautiful!" Then, my brother, I know you are a poet, though Tennyson be ignorant of you and Wordsworth acknowledge you not. So if you want to know if you are within the pale of Christianity stand on the mountain when Jesus passes by, and should you feel one fond desire, one punting aspiration which makes you cry, O to be like Thee, to be near Thee I then, though your Thirty-Nine Articles be reduced to ten, though your morality lags faintly behind, by that thrill of aspiration in your heart you will know you have seen the Bright and Morning Star and that your light has come. How could it be possible for any man or woman to love darkness rather than light? The answer to that, too, is here, "Because their deeds are evil;" and this condition comes at the end of a long process. No man ever stretched his hands to Satan and prayed, "O Prince of the Power of the Air, I want to be bad, to break hearts, to bring tears to loving eyes, to cultivate malice and envy and all uncharitableness." No, he began by evil deeds, and his beautiful aspirations continued to survive long after. I have heard the birds singing in October, and they seemed to say, It was once summer, it is summer no longer. It is a survival of old culture and the golden summer-time. Young man, listen to them, and go back. I knew a youth, brimming over with music, poetry, and aesthetic culture, but he returned, all his high aspirations gone through a life of intemperance and debauchery. Sin had taken away the aesthetic glow and his power of admiration. Is there any hope, then, for those who have got to this stage, who have put out their eyes? Yes, by retracing their steps over past deeds, never seeking to go into the past but keeping their hands from past sins in the future; and the beauty will come back in the way by which it went. In the words of the Israelitish Psalmist, the first joy comes back after a life of abstinence. The beauty of old days returns when in God's law "he doth meditate day and night." The 33rd of Isaiah is grander still, telling us we must begin by the life of self-denial if we would see the glory of the Lord. By traversing the narrow defiles of duty, the morning at last shines. A few more strokes of the oar, a little more straining of the muscles, a few more struggles against the angry foe, and, courage! you will see the land at last. (G. Matheson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. |
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