The Sabbath

Waikato Times, Volume 104, Issue 17502, 8 September 1928, Page 18 (Supplement)

The Sabbath

: {■] HOME. . Ill ! : THE LOST CHRIST. Your skill has fashioned stately creeds, But where is He, we pray— The friendly Christ of loving deeds? He is not here to-day. With sentences that twist and tease, Confusing mind and heart, You forge your worthy homilies, And bid us heed your art. But where is He—or can you tell?— Who stilled the brothers’ strife, Who urged the woman at the well To live a better life? Where is the Saint of Galilee, Crude Peter's faithful guide; The Man who wept at Bethany Because his friend had died? We weary of your musty lore Behind dead walls of grey We want His loving words once more By some Emrnaus way. 4 Give us the Christ who can bestow Some comfort-thought of death. Give us a Christ our heart can know — The Man of Narazeth. —T. C. Clark, in Chicago Christian Century. THE GOSPEL. WHAT IT IS. Rev. M. A. Rugby Pratt, the oonnexional secretary of the Methodist •Church of New Zealand, at Christchurch recently, very frankly discussed the question “What is the Gospel?” He said that the word “Gospel” was current coin. It tripped lightly from the tongue. Could we answer clearly what is meant? Some within the Church were bewildered ' with confusing definitions. Many outside the Church wondered what it was, and connected it vaguely with the alluring figure of Jesus. Some stripped the word of all its social meaning, and narrowed it down to cover only the tidings of redemption through the sacrifice of Calvary. They thought of the Gospel as bearing only on a man’s individual relationship to Jesus Christ. They stood before the Cross as a Terminus, and never glimpsed Lhe road that led from the Cross to wide fields of service. They forgot that conversion was not a mere experience in the memory, but a vital force that should stir to noblest living and most humane service. “Does such a view,” asked the preacher, “cover its whole significance?” None could guide us better out of confusion to clear comprehension than Jesus and His Apostles. They poured out their souls in expounding Us meaning. On the lips of Jesus the word “gospel” meant the good news of the kingdom He, had come lo establish. To His apostles the word signified the good news of salvation through Jesus. But that salvation was never thought of as a terminus in itself, it was simply the starting point of a newlife of service of the ideals of the Kingdom of God. The Gospel brought men to the Cross, but out of the experience of salvation through sacrifice came all the beauty and fruitfulness of a life that grows in the garden of God. The hearts of men can never cease to glow at the story of Divine love for sinners, and the souls of men can never fail to thrill to the romance of a real conversion, hut the storv of love and renewal must have a : sequel. That sequel moved to the goal j of God's Kingdom amongst men. | At LCross men disenvered the

power of the Gospel. But the working of that power knew no restrictions. It was a power almighty to save, a power to make men good. But it did this simply that renewed men might work the purpose of God. That purpose was to cast out every form of wrong and establish every form of right. A Gospel that saved the individual and left him indifferent to his fellows was Emptied of the Truo Spirit of Jesus. The man who felt the power of the Cross and realised the bigness of the evangel of Jesus would sec that he lived in a world of interlocking problems and common human interests, and would feel the challenge to embark with Jesus on the social adventure of interpenetrating every area of life with the spirit of jesus. Whenever the Church came to grips with throbbing social issues someone was sure to exclaim, “Let the Church stick to the simple gospel, save the souls of men, and leave social problems alone.” The critic urged that the gospel was concerned with principles and not with details. But abstract principles were a paltry pretence if they were not applied to the common life of men. It was a mere phantom faith that exulted in a personal salvation and side-stepped social obligations. The scope of religion was as broad as human interests. Jesus gave to His Church a social mission when He laid down the first principle of applied religion in the social law of love to our neighbour. Love W’as not neutral and passive. Holiness was not a negative quality. The love-controlled life was filled with service. The holy life must walk the streets and grapple with the realities of every-day life. To Jesus the gospel was spiritual enough to satisfy the soul of the mystic, evangelical enough to satisfy the heart of the evangelist, and wide enough to engage the zeal and energy of tile social reformer. To Jesus the gospel was a message. of such utter love to God as would rhanifest itself in spontaneous, general service of our fellows, for the sake of bringing in the kingdom of love, the law of which was to displace selfishness and pride and hale and every other evil thing. That gospel proclaimed lhe love of God, and it told of redemption through Jesus Christ, hut to those who received it it uttered its mandate. It sol them striving ’to see that human society was not

Patterned After the Junglo, but after the law of love, il bade 111 <*■ ii look at lhe world stricken before their face, lo see how bitterness separated class from class, how deep lines of cleavage ran between nation and nation and how sin was soiling and wrecking the children of the Father. It commanded men so to represent and interpret the gospel in their own living that thus they might bring in the rule of God in ail human affairs. The authority of Jesus extended over every province of life, and the business of His disciples was to work in the spirit of Jesus so as to redeem life in its every department for God. The gospel was a creative power for reforming men, rebuilding character, reshaping civilisation and reconstructing Hie world. When Christian men set themselves honestly to illustrate the gospel of Jesus in every sphere of their lives a new era would dawn for the world and lhe whole human family would become a hand of brothers.