THE SURETY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20586, 8 December 1928, Page 27

THE SURETY.

Written for the, Otago Daily Times. By the Rev. D. Gardner Miller. ■lt might be said that the chief concern of the New Testament is to win men over to a certain view of God. Religion depends almost entirely on what God ,is like. 'Curiously enough, men cling more tightly to their view of God than to any other phase’ of religion. There is more conservatism regarding God in the mind of the average man than he' would probably care to admit. Now, the New Testament is concerned about the Christian view, of God, You can almost feel the heat of the argument, the passion, of the plea, as it places before men ■ a God who, in practically all essentials, cannot be distinguished from Jesus. One,can sense.tc 3 rushing eagerness of Paul to convince the converts from paganism that the God of the Christian'religion is really the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. To them Christianity meant, at first, not a new idea of God,' but the conquering and replacing by Christ of the demons that haunted their hearts and minds. And did not Jesus Himself bend all his energies to make clear, even to the recognised leaders of Judaism, the great and astounding fact that God was more concerned ‘ about mercy than He .was about vindicating Israel before the Gentiles ? Even in the , present day, it is astounding to find so many Christian people who place Jesus ■ and God in different categories. There still lingers in the minds of many, the perfectly awful idea that somehow or other Jesus had to.placate the wrath, of God before mercy could become operative.' It ’ is ; surely ■ essential, not only to the understanding of the Gospel and therefore, of Salvation, that, to put it frankly, God should be as Christian as Jesus is! Nothing less is exhibited; in the New Testament, Not that human mind will, ever, evfen in Eternity, be able to grasp all that God is and means. . , But, the revelation of the New Testa- , meat shows us a God, who is infinitely near. One- who understands and helps and Who meets us in a spiritual way when we gather > together in public worship. For this latter reason especially Up I emphasise the more frequent use of the Benediction at the close of the epistle of Jude: " Now unto Him that is able to guard you from stumbling, and to set you' before the presence of His glory without, blemish in exceeding joy. To the only God ’ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and power, before all time, and now, and, for evermore.” I wrote briefly on the Benediction last week and promised to say something more this week. Note the, human quality of God!' 'He keeps you from SLIPPING. " Kept from slipping ” is a more homely rendering than "Guard you from stumbling.” If' you turn ’to Isaiah LXIII,. 13, you will get "a vivid picture of what lies behind this statement in the-, Benediction;—“That led them through the depths, as an horse in the wilderness, ‘that they stumbled not.” You can see the-rider bolding his horse’s bridle as it stumbles in the loose sand. So with us. God upholds us when our feet slip. It is better to he kept from slipping than to ho- when we fall. When we trust God and let Him hold the bridle of our lives >ve ! find that the stumbling stones become stepping stones, - the sand,becomes rock. Let me no more my comfort draw From iny frail hold on Thee; In this alone rejoice with awe. Thy mighty grasp of me. And then the writer goes on to emphasise the keeping and triumphant power of God. We shall be presented at last ■ UNBLEMISHED AND EXULTANT. What a wide sweep the writer takes! He telescopes life and history for the sake of helping ■ his readers as they struggle against the insidious encroachments, of paganism and shows them, in one brief moment, the end of the journey, the close of'the struggle, standing before God exultant. And the joy of- Gqd is no less than the joy of those who overcome. But we must not read into the words “ without blemish ” the idea of “ faultless!” We shall not be presented faultless. Our characters will still havS their twists and warps. The perfection of character will be our task as we progress in knowledge and in power, in the home of the spirit after we have thrown off the robe and discarded the staff of our earthly pilgrimage. We shall be presented unblemished—quite another thing altogether. Presented without stain and grime! Think of an old , picture, dusty ‘with years of neglect, just restored by an expert. The painting is the same—with all its points good and bad—but now it is clean. The blemishes have been removed. So with us at the end of the journey. Here, a life of scars and wounds, light and shadows, spots and stains; —then the end, shining and glorious and joyous. . To whom is all this due? To none other than God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. HE IS ABLE. Let these words live in your minds. He is, our. surety for this life and the life to come. Not a God who is far off, but. one who is wondrously near. This is the God of the New Testament. Listen to the great apostle as he cries out: “I am not ashamed; for I know Him Whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep (guard) that which I have committed to Him against that day.” When we can speak, of God like that, then ,-we heed never fear what the world or man can do to us. The epistle of Jude was worth being included in the New Testament for the picture he gives us of a God whose Divinity is seen in 1 His humanity.