SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 6 December 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

By

leaving the first principles.

“Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the • foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and’of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this will we do, if God permit.” , —Hebrews, VI., 1 to 3. Whoever may have been the author of this letter to the Hebrews, and that is a very open question, the letter itself is perhaps one of the greatest theological arguments in the world. It gives its unknown author a place with the very chiefest doctors of the Church. It proves him to have been not only a man of intellectual mark but one singled out by the inspiring Spirit for the fullest revelation of truth. Nothing feeble in conception, or ignoble in utterance, proceeds from his pen. He is essentially and at every point a man m Christ. Jesus. When occasion required he could be simple as a little child, tender as a woman, reverent as an angel of the Lord; and yet because of the clearness of hi’s perception, the tenacity of his faith, and the splendour of his moral courage, the milder qualities of 'the soul were made contributary to the upbuilding of a character of unusual vigour and masculine strength. • Remember this, and you have the clue to- this passage. He is astounded to find the reverend greybeards of the Church still babes in knowledge and experience.- With excusable impatience he upbraids them for their spiritual sloth. He declares that when by reason of the times they ought to be teachers of others, thev still have need that one should teach them “the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God.” There, are two forms of infancy. There is the infancy of childhood and the melancholy infancy of old age. There is the infancy of flesh, opening, unworn life, and the infancy which is the result of arrest, .exhaustion and senile decay. It is to men ’of the latter clan these stirring words are addressed. They looked like men of ripe experience, they wore the Christian badge, and’grasped the pilgrim’s staff; but they asked for infant’s food, and could only find nutriment in the “milk” of outward forms, and elementary teachings, whilst the great lessons and deeper experience of the Christian life were unread and unused. They stopped in the primary department with the pictures and the sand trays when they should have been in the teaching staff. A CRISP EXHORTATION; Then, having administered rebuke, he drops into the" language of exhortation. “Wherefore • let us cease to speak of \ the first principles.” There is another translation of the. text which has not the rhythm and stately diction of the authorised version, but states the writer’s meaning in free, colloquial speech. “Therefore let us get' beyond elementary teaching about Christ, to something more advanced. Do not let us be always laying over again a foundation of repentance for a lifeless formality of faith in G-od, teachings con-

cerninn- baptisms, and laying on of hands, 0 the resurrection of the dead and a final judgment. Yes, and with God s help so -ive will.” Now as I have said, this rendering is not equal m dignity to that of the authorised version, but is crisper and perhaps clearer. Itsets the author’s meaning in the mould or the twentieth century speech, and is what we want. But there is another word needed before we have the writer’s point clearly before us. By “leaving the first principles” he does not, of course, mean the abandonment of the elementary truths of the Christian gospel. On our loyalty to these our life and the life of the Church depend. They are the saving salt of every evangelical ministry. In w-liat sense then, are we to leave “first principles” without impairing their vigour or diminishing their authority? Plainly it is in the sense of development and not abandonment. We are to leave them as the scholar leaves the letters of the alphabet, leaving them only to use them, in! new and fuller combinations, as the instrument for acquiring and imparting knowledge. Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” does not contain a single letter outside the English alphabet, yet that profound study in human motive is just the masterly use of the elements of our mother tongue. To change the figure we are to leave “the first principles” as the plant leaves the root, when it rises into a majestic tree, always leaving it, and vet more and ever more depending on it, and day by day drawing from it fresh supplies of vital sap, which it pours into leaves and boughs and luscious • fruit. One more figure: We are to leave “the first principles of the doctrine or Christ,” as the builder leaves the foundation, that he may carry stone upon stone, tower above tower, from dusky basement to sunlit pinnacles, always leavino- the foundation, and yet always on it “with massive pressure, and complete dependence. # CLOSER .TO CHRIST. And now in no spirit of recrimination, and saying nothing which I have not said more sternly to my own shamed heart, I dare to say that the need for this form of speech has not passed away. For who of us would stand up and say that his knowledge and experience are equal to his opportunities? Who does not feel that, making all allowance for circumstance, all these could not have held us back as they .have done, if we had been less careless and kept closer to Christ’s side? We are still amongst rudimentary things of Christian life, and there are vast° continents of truth, and a vast range of Christian experience, of which we have apparently not so much as dreamed. • . , Most of our troubles are infantile ailments, and would pass away with our coming to the full stature of men in Christ 1 Jesus. Fifty per cent, of our difficulties about the Bible would be non-existent if we had. got beyond the child’s stage of reading it. Such ques-tions-as “Does God hear prayer?” would o'ive us no trouble if communion with the Father of our spirits were the habit of our life. A lad just beginning to learn the Greek alphabet and conjugate Greek verbs gets tangled up and perplexed al every turn and cannot move a step in the work of tianslar tion without his lexicon at his side. The master of the Greek tongue moves with ease and confidence, and needs no lexicon. “A little knowledge is a dangerous'thing” and nowhere more dangerous than in the realm of religion. We had better have nothing to do with religion than simply hold >u to the rudiments. Just think what is the source of the bitterest controversies m Christendom to-day, Not maturities, but rudimentary things. Nobody troubles his head

REV. A. H. COLLINS

about Newman's theology and High Churchism when singing “Lead Kindly Light.” Not one person in 1000 knows anything about Toplady’s controversial writings, but the whole 1000 thank God for the hymn, “Rock of Ages.” For every ten persons who read John Wesley’s “Notes on the New Testament,” 10,000 eing Charles Wesley’s lyrics of the . heart. What is the explanation? Surely it is this, that such hymns are the direct, spontaneous expression of experience. Our controversies range round inferior things, which have no more- to do with Christian powers and progress, than the fly on the hub of a carriage wheel has to do with the revolutions of the wheel.'. THE DEEPER CHRISTIAN LIFE

When a man wants me to discuss whether a Free Church minister, has been properly ordained unless a kind old gentleman in lawn, sleeves has laid hands on him, I say, “My dear fellow, yet us talk about something sensible.” Any medical man will tell you that the one effectual safeguard against in-

fection i» to tone up the system. If your lungs are acting healthily you will know nothing about breathing. If your heart is sound you will have no use for a stethoscope. “Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a. mist, but by ascending a little you may look over it altogether.” You catch my meaning; a deeper, richer, fuller Christian life would solvo doubts and end controversies.

Now I can imagine somedne saying, “Yes, that ie all very true; but human nature is weak.” Some earnest soul hears these words, and they are clear and challenging as an alpine horn. He sees that to be Christian means the adoption of Jesus Chriet’s interpretation of life. That is the Holy Grail, and he resolves to seek after it. He is in a spasm of earnestness. He resolves to rub and pound himself into shape. He means to fetch off some of the angles of his nature. You kngw the result. He becomes hard, stern, suspicious, lie grows gloomy an d unsociable. His one thought being hie own salvation, he becomes self-centred, self-conscious, and less, not more, like Christ. The ;truggle ends in six feet of polished egotism! A capital ‘‘l” by which to measure all the world! But suppose instead of that we yield our nature to Christ. The. way of progress is not scaling slippery, heights with bleeding - feet and aching heart; it is receiving Jesus Christ, and letting Him work His will in us.. We are the spiritual creatures of the infinite Christ life. 'We are >the subjects of.-the Eternal

Atonement. We are enswathed in th# infinite pity of the Christ love. Wo have not an inch of standing room save in the mercy of God in Christ. We ar« redeemed by His fathomless suffering. We are the heirs of His exhaustless grace. Our -weakness is npborne and enfolded by His Almighty strength - and tenderness. He brings to us as a free gift all that makes up the character of God. What I need, He can supply me, Longing He can grant, In Him is exhailstleßS fulness. For each want.