I JOHN ii. 17.
THE present season of the year is always a vivid reminder of the fleeting character of the things of time and sense. Another period of twelve months, which seemed so long and protracted in prospect, has again (at the time we write) well nigh vanished, and has carried with it a multitude of men and issues into eternity. “One generation passeth away and another generation cometh”; and although the wise man added, “but the earth abideth for ever,” we are to understand this remark only in a relative sense, for the earth, with all that is therein, shall yet be dissolved by the hand of its Almighty Creator and Upholder. Ever since the Fall decay and death have been written upon the things of earth. Sin has reigned unto death. And this reign would have continued unbroken over the world, if another and more glorious King had not intervened, and by price and by power rescued many from its dreadful dominion, bestowing upon them a life that shall never die. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.
We now proceed to notice certain words in the First Epistle of John which may afford a suitable subject of meditation at the present season. “And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” The Apostle has already warned his readers not to love the world or the things that are in it. “If any man,” he says, “love the world, the love of the Father is not in him,” evidently meaning by “the world,” not so much the world of matter as it came from the hand of God, as the world of fallen men with its sinful ways and practices. “All that is in this world,” he adds, “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world.” And then he contrasts, in the words of our text, the perishing nature of this world and its lusts with the abiding character of the man who doeth the will of God. The fallen world whatever outward appearance of permanency it may
have, is passing away to death and destruction; but the man who walks in the commandments of God shall never be destroyed, he shall live for ever.
I.—Let us observe some particulars of “the world that passeth away.”
(1) Though not directly pointed at by the Apostle here, it is an underlying truth that the material framework of the world “passeth away.” It is changeable in its nature and destined to be dissolved. “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up” (2 Peter iii. 10). Sun, moon, and stars, earth, sea, and sky, though beautiful in their form, and apparently perpetual in their situations, are only finite and fading objects at best. Indestructible they are by any created power, but easily consumed by the hand of their infinite Creator. “They shall perish; but thou remainest.”
(2) The people of the world pass away. “It is appointed unto men once to die.” This appointment, on account of sin, has no respect of persons. Great men as well as small are dying creatures. Sin has made disease and decay universal in the race. The rich and the noble possess all the resources that are necessary to sustain life, and when they are stricken down by bodily affliction, are able to call to their assistance the most consummate skill and the most effective appliances. But when the appointed time to depart comes, all these things are utterly unavailing. The rich can no more stay the messenger of death than the poorest and meanest of the people. Not all the wealth of millionaires can buy a single moment of life. How many kings and great men in the history of the world have flourished like the green bay tree, and seemed for a time as if nothing could check their prosperity! But they passed away, and lo, they were not. And the godly as well as the ungodly must pass from this earthly scene. There is no exception. But the former depart into a fuller and more glorious life, while the latter descend into the abodes of eternal death.
(3) The possessions, honours, and pleasures of the world pass away. These are not enduring in their nature. They often pass away when the possessors of them are at the height of their enjoyment. Riches take wings and fly away. Nebuchadnezzar is thrust from his throne, when he has waxed great above all others, and is sent to eat grass like an ox. Napoleon is defeated in his career of military conquest, and, stripped of all his honours, dies in exile in a remote island of the sea. The pleasures of the world are proverbial for their temporary and vanishing nature. They are only “for a season” at longest. The worldling must leave all his good things behind him at death, and that for ever. Not so with the children of God; they only then enter upon the full enjoyment of their inheritance—“an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.”
(4) The lusts of the world pass away. The Apostle declares that “the world passeth away and the lust thereof.” Lust is an excessive desire after earthly objects, whether in themselves lawful or unlawful. The Apostle groups the lusts of the world under three heads, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” The first of these is an inordinate desire for the gratification of the lower appetites; the second is the same fondness in regard to the more refined pleasures of the eye and the mind; and the third is an excessive delight in the honours and titles of this present life. We are not to understand from our text that all sinful desire will pass away from the ungodly in eternity—no; in a sense it will be much increased—but the lusts of the world will pass away in respect of any pleasure in their exercise; or satisfaction to their demands. There may be some gratification in time, but none in the world to come. At death, the heaven of the wicked will be at an end. What a contrast in the case of God’s people! Their heaven will then begin. They will be glad to leave all their carnal desires behind in the wilderness, and to enter upon the perfect and fullest satisfaction of their best and holiest longings at God’s right hand, where there are pleasures for evermore.
II.—Let us now observe the character of the person who is contrasted with “the world,” and the statement made concerning him that he “abideth for ever.”
(1) The character of the person. He is described as one “that doeth the will of God.”
It need hardly be said that “the will of God” referred to is not that will as exhibited in the covenant of works. The first Adam broke this covenant, and the whole human race, “descending from him by ordinary generation,” sinned in him and fell with him. No fallen creature can now keep the legal covenant, or satisfy its requirements. The only person who has fulfilled all its just demands, is the man who is Jehovah’s fellow—Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. It is matter of praise that He has done the divine will in this particular for all His people, and that He abideth for ever, as “the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.” It is the divine will now, as bearing upon the sinful children of men, that they accept of what Christ has done, as the sinner’s surety and substitute—that they embrace Him as their all-sufficient righteousness, in the presence of a holy and just God. The will of God then spoken of is that revealed in the Gospel. This “will” calls sinners to a path of new obedience. It exhorts them, in the first place, to “repentance towards God, and faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ.” “Repent ye, and believe the Gospel,” is a call addressed to every sinner under heaven (Mark i. 14, 15), and obedience, by divine grace, to this call, is the first step on the part of any soul in doing the will of God under the Gospel.
The character of the person described is, that he is “not a
hearer only, but a doer of the Word.” There are many hearers of the Word that are not doers. They may give a natural assent to the Gospel message; they may even say, “I go, sir,” and yet they go not. They do not receive the truth with their whole heart and soul, and, therefore, they “obey not the Gospel.” But it is not so with the person before us. He is made a doer in real living practice of the things that the Lord wills in the Gospel.
He is a penitent believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. His eyes have been opened to see his sins as committed against God—sins of heart, and sins of life, and he has been constrained and enabled to turn from them, with genuine hatred and sorrow, unto God by Jesus Christ. He sees and believes that it is in Christ alone that eternal salvation is to be found, and in the exercise of power given from above, he lays his whole weight for eternity upon this Divine Redeemer who is a Rock that cannot be moved, and is “able to save them, to the uttermost, that come unto God by Him.” And thus does “he that doeth the will of God” proceed during the whole life of grace in this present evil world. He can never become independent for a moment of the need of the exercises of repentance and faith. “As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.” “I will go in the strength of the Lord God; I will make mention of thy righteousness and of thine only.”
He is an obedient son to all divine precepts. He is under obligation to respect and obey the commandments of the moral law. Though delivered from the law as a covenant of works, he is under the law as a rule of life. No Christian can ignore the precepts of the moral law; if he does, he becomes an immoral man. Nay more; a Christian indeed, has the law written on his heart, and he hates with his soul all covetousness, falsehood, murder, adultery, theft, disobedience to parents, Sabbath desecration, profanation of God’s name, image-worship and idolatry. Still further, he loves the positive holiness of this divine standard, and endeavours, in the strength of grace, to carry it out in his daily life. “The sum of the ten commandments is, To love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbour as ourselves” (Matt. xxii. 37, 38), and this is also the sum of what are generally called Gospel precepts. The man of our text then, endeavours to obey the whole revealed will of God for duty in all the relations in which he stands to the Most High and his fellowmen. His great questions are, “What saith the Lord? What wilt thou have me to do?” in regard to all matters pertaining to private and public life, and when he knows his Lord’s will, he endeavours to do it with his might, notwithstanding all opposition to the contrary from the world, the flesh, and the devil.
(2) The second main point here to be noted is the statement or assurance that the doer of God’s will “abideth for ever.”
He abides in the enjoyment of the divine favour. “The world
which lieth in the wicked one” is a dying, perishing object, that passeth away under divine displeasure, but the person here described is vitally united unto Christ, the Head of the Church, and possesses in Him an abiding ground of acceptance with God. “There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” He abides also in the possession of a life that shall never die—over which the second death has no power. Christ gives unto His sheep who follow Him eternal life, “and they shall never perish.” Still further, he abides in the experience of the blessed fellowship of the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ. And he abides not for a few days or years, but “for ever.” He abides in the possession of these privileges unto all eternity. Death, the last enemy, has no power to deprive him of his happiness. The Lord Jesus has destroyed its sting, and all that it can now do for him is to usher him into the mansions of perfect blessedness. The grave cannot hold his body fast in corruption. He shall rise again at the last day in the possession of a pure and glorious and incorruptible body. The great day of judgment will not be his everlasting downfall, as it will be to many foolish ones who appeared to stand well in time. He will “abide” in that great day in all his priceless privileges, and will have them more abundantly enlarged. The Son of Man in His glory will acknowledge every true and sincere doer of His will who gave Him meat when He was hungry and drink when He was thirsty in the days of time; who gave a cup of cold water to the least of His brethren, in His name and for His sake. He will say unto such, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” They shall “abide” in the full enjoyment of the love and fellowship of a Triune Jehovah and the holy angels through the ceaseless ages of a never-ending eternity.
Pliable’s Plight.—He hath since his going back been had greatly in derision, and that among all sorts of people: some do mock and despise him, and scarce will any set him on work. He is now seven times worse than if he had never gone out of the city. But why should they be so set against him since they also despise the way that he forsook? Oh, they say, Hang him, he is a turncoat, he was not true to his profession. I think God has stirred up even his enemies to hiss at him, and make him a proverb because he has forsaken the way. Had you any talk with him before you came out? I met him once in the streets, but he leered away on the other side as one ashamed of what he had done; so I spake not to him. Well, at my first setting out, says Christian, I had hopes of that man; but now I fear he will perish in the overthrow of the city, for it is happened to him according to the true proverb, “The dog is turned to his vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.”—Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.