Preached by him as Retiring Moderator before the Opening of Synod at Inverness, on Tuesday evening, 16th May, 1916.
IN this Second Epistle the Apostle Peter exhorts those to whom he writes to grow in grace, to add one virtue to another, as the fruits of the Spirit, and thus to manifest in their practice that they were true Christians. By their fruit they were to be known. He exhorts them especially to give diligence to make their calling and election sure. By doing so he assures them that they shall never fall away from the faith, as many nominal Christians did, but persevere to the end, when an entrance would be ministered unto them abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. They would enter heaven with light and liberty, while others of the Lord’s people, who neglected to give the same diligence to make their calling and election sure, would enter heaven in darkness, doubts, and fears, and escape as a man escapes with his life when his house is burning. The apostle is more earnest in pressing his exhortations by the consideration that he is soon to put off the tabernacle of the body, as the Lord Jesus Christ had shown him. He reminds them of the truth of the doctrines of the Christian religion, which he and the other apostles taught. Those doctrines were not cunningly-devised fables, as some said they were, but doctrines which could be proved to be of divine origin. Christ, the author of Christianity, was the principal subject of their preaching. His power and coming they made known to their hearers. The Jews denied that He was the Messiah promised. But they declared, on the strongest evidence, His Godhead, humanity, death, resurrection, and ascension, and exaltation at the right hand of the Father in heaven. The Messiah came and finished the work the Father gave Him to do, and He shall come again at the last day to judge the quick and the dead. The evidence the apostle adduces in proof of this was the testimony of his own eyes and the eyes of others who saw Christ; the testimony of God the Father, who spake from heaven, saying, “This is my well-beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him”; and the testimony of Old Testament prophets, who foretold His coming.
In speaking from the text, as the Lord may enable me, I shall notice four things, viz.:—
I.—The word of prophecy.
The apostle here refers to Old Testament prophecy. There were many prophets under the Old Testament dispensation. Their work was chiefly to reveal the mind of God concerning future events. We have a great deal of prophecy recorded in Scripture. When prophecy was fulfilled—as much of it has been fulfilled—it passed into history. The New Testament is a history of Old Testament prophecy fulfilled. For instance, Old Testament prophets foretold the coming of Christ in the flesh. This is now a matter of history. The Messiah, who was to come, came, and we are not to look for another. John the Baptist pointed Him out to his disciples, saying, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” In speaking further on this head I wish to call attention to two points: (1) the divine origin of prophecy, and (2) the interpretation of prophecy.
(1) The divine origin of prophecy.
In the 21st verse of this chapter it is written:—”For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” The first thing to be noticed here is that the prophets whom the Lord employed to reveal His mind to men were holy men. They were subjects of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Sanctification as well as the Spirit of Inspiration. Some men, as Balaam and others, spoke what was true, but they had not the Spirit as the Spirit of Sanctification. Second, the prophets themselves were inspired as well as the revelation they gave of the mind of the Lord. They were “moved by the Holy Ghost.” It was not their own will they declared, but the will of God, and in order to that they were under the control and guidance of the Spirit in such a manner as that their message was infallible and inerrant. Third, their words by which they expressed the matter which the Spirit revealed to them were inspired. There are some who deny verbal inspiration, but the Apostle Peter tells us that the prophets “spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” The Apostle Paul speaks to the same effect:—”Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1 Cor. ii. 13). If the words were not inspired we could not depend upon Scripture as our warrant of faith. But the Psalmist said, “My hope is in thy word.” We believe in verbal inspiration, and our hope is in God’s word, which is our warrant to come to Christ, as the only way to the Father. And I cannot understand what warrant those who deny verbal inspiration can have to come to Christ. We have now the canon of Scripture completed, and there are not any inspired men now. This is denied by many in our day. They say that, inasmuch as Christians are taught by the Spirit, they are inspired. But they say this in ignorance of the distinction between inspiration and spiritual illumination. All Christians, who are effectually taught by the Spirit, are illuminated in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ whom He hath sent, but no Christian now is inspired. No Christian now can justly presume to receive a new revelation from heaven, which is implied in being inspired. That Christians now are inspired has been held, and is still held, by men of whom better things might be expected. When the new Creed, contained in the Declaratory Act of 1892, was being framed, a minister, who was a classfellow of mine in Divinity, wrote a book in support of the change, in which he stated something to the effect that Christians now were inspired in the same sense as the Apostle Paul was. I was at Kilmallie then, and the late Dr. Ross Taylor, who spent his holidays at Kilmallie for several years, had a copy of the book, and gave me a reading of it. When I returned the book, Dr. Taylor asked me what I thought of the book. I said that the writer of the book made one great mistake, that he made no distinction between inspiration and spiritual illumination. Dr. Taylor said nothing. Having studied theology, he must have known that there was a difference between the two things, though he did not seem to have observed the mistake in the book. At a meeting of the General Assembly I met the writer of the book, and I pointed out the error he made. When professing Christians forsake the Word of God and adopt in its place their own carnal notions, they are given up to spiritual blindness, so that they cannot see their error, unless they are brought to repentance.
(2) The interpretation of prophecy.
“Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation” (verse 20). We have spoken of the divine origin of Scripture; we are now to consider the interpretation of Scripture. All who have the Scriptures have a right to read them, and it is their duty to seek divine guidance to understand them; and it is the duty of ministers of the Gospel to expound the Scriptures to their congregations. Christ expounded the Scriptures to His disciples, and opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures (Luke xxiv. 27, 45). The key to open Scripture is Scripture itself. Scripture is its own interpreter. That readers of the Bible might understand the Word of God, there are texts of Scripture put on the margin of the Book for reference—one passage of Scripture throwing light on another passage. No other key can open the Word of God. Christ charged the lawyers—those whose duty was to interpret the law or Word of God—with having taken away the key of knowledge. They took another key—the tradition of men—to open the Scriptures, but they could never ascertain the meaning of Scripture in that way; and they excluded themselves, and those who received their false teaching, from the kingdom of heaven. They have many followers in this backsliding age.
II.—That our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was the chief subject of prophecy.
If there were no Saviour provided for sinners of the human race we would have no prophecy, no Bible, and no Gospel. Jesus Christ is the very heart and soul of the Scriptures. Take away Christ from the Bible, and it is an empty Book—like a dead body without a soul. A Popish clergyman said that the religion of Protestants was without a soul because they had no Mass in it. What is the Christ they have in the Mass? A wafer! Away with the wafer-Christ; we will have nothing to do with it. We welcome the personal and real Christ, the only-begotten Son of God the Father, and Saviour of the world, to our poor and needy souls. All our hope for salvation, grace, and glory is in Him. “Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts iv. 12). Peter had no wafer-Christ. The prophets foretold and made known the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was powerful as God, healing by word of mouth all manner of sickness among the people, calming the tempest, casting out devils, and raising the dead to life. He had only to say to Lazarus, dead in the grave, “Come forth,” and he that was dead came forth, alive again. The two disciples, going to Emmaus on the day of Christ’s resurrection, said that He was “a prophet, mighty in deed and word.” The officers sent by the priests and Pharisees to apprehend Him said, “Never man spake like this man”; that is, Jesus of Nazareth must be more than a mere man; He is God. The first account we have in the Old Testament of our blessed Saviour is in the third chapter of Genesis and fifteenth verse, where it is foretold that He, as the seed of the woman, would bruise the head of the serpent, the devil, and that in doing so the devil would bruise His heel. It is to be observed that in the first revelation given of Him He is spoken of as in human nature—“God manifest in the flesh.” His heel implies a body, though He did not actually assume human nature till four thousand years after the first promise. It was by His death in human nature He bruised the head of the devil (Heb. ii. 14). It is remarkable that the higher critics say that the first three chapters of Genesis are a myth. By this they would overthrow the doctrine of sin and the fall of man; and they would overthrow a greater doctrine—that of salvation; for both doctrines are taught in the third chapter. Great is the guilt of these men, and if they die without repentance they shall be lower in hell than the devil and his angels. And those they were the means of bringing to hell by their error shall be cursing them throughout eternity!
It would take up too much time to refer to all the passages of Scripture where Christ is spoken of in the Old Testament. But all the prophets spoke of Him, as Christ himself reminded two of His disciples when he said, “O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken, ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke xxiv. 25-27). The prophet Isaiah, in the fifty-third chapter of his prophecy, speaks of the sufferings of Christ as if he had been an eye-witness of His crucifixion:—”He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.” (5th verse). He speaks of His sufferings as past, though Christ did not suffer till about six hundred years after the prophet spoke these solemn words, to show the certainty of the fulfilment of prophecy. Christ referred the Jews, who denied that he was the promised Messiah, to the Scriptures (of the Old Testament), saying, “Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John v. 39). Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the chief subject of prophecy. He is all in all in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. He is all in all in the preaching of the prophets and apostles, and He is all in all in the preaching of His ministering servants in all ages. “We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.” Where Christ is not preached, the Gospel is not preached. Peter and the other apostles made known the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He came first in human nature to work out everlasting redemption for His people. He shall come again the second time at the end of the world to judge the quick and the dead. “He shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power” (2 Thes. i. 7-9). He shall also glorify the bodies of His redeemed in union with their souls in heaven, where they shall be for ever with the Lord. The state of the lost in hell shall be as everlasting as the state of the saved in heaven. In the original it is the same word that is used in both cases.
III.—That the word of prophecy is “more sure” than what is seen by the eye or heard by the ear.
Peter, James, and John saw a glorious sight of Christ on the mount of transfiguration. “Christ was transfigured before them: and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light.” (Matt. xvii. 2). The glory of His Godhead broke forth through His human body, and even through His raiment, to show that in His state of humiliation, when He vailed the glory of His Divine person, He was the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person. It was also an earnest of the glorification of His human nature after His ascension to heaven, to be glorified with the Father with the glory which He had with Him before the world was (John xvii. 5). They also heard a voice from heaven which said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.” But, notwithstanding what they saw and heard on the mount, Peter says that the word of prophecy is “more sure.” It is not more sure as to the truth of what they saw and heard. But the word of prophecy is more sure, as it is more lasting—written in the Bible for the benefit of coming generations to the end of time—whereas what was seen and heard on the mount was transient and confined to a few individuals, Peter, James, and John. What they saw and heard is past, but we have the word of prophecy present with us always. “The word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you” (1 Peter i. 25).
IV.—Our duty in regard to the Word of God.
Our duty is to take heed to it. “Whereunto ye do well that ye take heed.” We are not now to expect to see Christ by the bodily eye, or to hear a voice from heaven. The days of extraordinary visions and voices from heaven are past. God now speaks to us, in His written word, in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. It is our duty therefore to read and search the Scriptures, which “principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.” All we need to know in order to be saved and to serve the Lord is clearly set forth in the Scriptures. The Bible is our only rule of faith and practice. We need not ascend to heaven to know what we ought to do. “The word is nigh unto us.” It is our duty to take heed to this Word of the Lord, because it is a light—the only true light—to guide us to Christ, the Saviour, and to God the Father, through Christ, the only Mediator between God and men. The Word of God in the Scriptures is “a light that shineth in a dark place.” The world would be a dark place without the Word of God. Scotland was a very dark place under the reign of Druidism before the Word of the Lord came to our land, but when it pleased the Lord to send us this light it exposed and dispelled the darkness. Druidism was banished from our coasts, and the light of the Gospel shined in our country. Heathen countries that are still without the Bible are dark places, and our fellow-creatures in these dark places are dying in their sins, and are lost for ever. We who have the Bible ought to send it to the heathen. The heart of man by nature is a dark place—very dark, indeed—without the least ray of the knowledge of God which man had at his creation. So great is this darkness that the fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” But God, in His infinite love, mercy, and grace, gave us His Word as the means of enlightening the dark heart of man; so that those who were not only dark, but darkness itself, were made light in the Lord. The Word of God is a light to show the state of all men, by nature, as sinful and lost. It shows, also, the inability of man to satisfy God’s law for his sins by anything he can do or suffer, and it reveals the way of salvation by the obedience unto death of Jesus Christ—the only but all-sufficient ground on which sinners can be saved from sin and its penalty. The Word is the means of salvation; it is the Spirit that makes the Word effectual unto salvation. To those to whom the Word is blessed as the means of their salvation, it continues to enlighten them more and more during their time on earth, until the day dawn and the day-star arise in their hearts.
I understand by the day here the day of glory in heaven, where there is no night or shadow of darkness of any kind. Our text speaks of the dawn of that day, and also of the day-star arising in the heart. In nature the day-star or morning star rises before the sun rises, and when one sees the morning star the light of day is not far away. The day-star arises inwardly in the hearts of believers before they pass from time to eternity, to give them light going through the valley of the shadow of death, and to dispel their doubts and fears, by which they had often been harassed in the wilderness, and to enable them to say in the full assurance of faith, “We are going home to behold the glory of Christ, and to sing, ‘Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen’” (Rev. i. 5, 6). When the Lord manifests Himself graciously to the believer, when hearing the Gospel or preaching the Gospel, and pours abundantly the comforts of the Spirit into his soul, he does not dread to enter eternity that moment, though he is willing to wait the Lord’s time.
In conclusion, I wish to make the following practical remarks:—
i. As we as a Church took up a separate position in defence of the doctrines of the Word of God, twenty-three years ago, when the great majority of ministers and other office-bearers in the Free Church repudiated these doctrines, as they are contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith, and adopted an unscriptural creed instead, let us adhere faithfully to that position to the end. Some called us seceders; but we are not seceders. The word “secede,” according to its literal meaning, is to step aside from the position in which one is. But we refused to step aside from the position of the Church of Christ in Scotland for centuries. It is those who left that position that are seceders.
-
The Lord has been sifting our Church for some years, with the result that a number of students and ministers left our Church from selfish motives; but we are getting on with our work better without them.
-
Like Peter, we, ministers, should put our congregations in remembrance of the doctrines of God’s Word, though the Lord’s people know them, and are established in them. We need precept upon precept, and line upon line, in order to persevere in the faith to the end, that each of us may be able to say, “I have kept the faith.” We should keep the faith so as to hand it down pure and entire to coming generations, as others handed it to us. If we do so, as we resolve by grace to do, we shall go to eternity with a clear conscience.
-
Although the Lord did not make known to me as He did to Peter, that I must soon put off the tabernacle of the body, yet at my time of life I cannot expect, according to the course of nature, to live many more years in the world. It will be a wonder to me if I shall be at a meeting of Synod again at Inverness, and it is not at all likely that I shall ever be Moderator of Synod again. This thought should make me more earnest in pressing on all present here this evening the duty of adhering steadfastly to the “more sure word of prophecy.” And I should be more diligent in serving the Lord while it is day, remembering that the night of death cometh when no man can work. One of the reasons of regret which Christ’s ministers shall have when they are about to leave the world is that they have to give up preaching the glorious Gospel. But when they get to heaven they shall be fully satisfied to be among the hearers of the only Preacher there—the Lord Jesus Christ—who shall feed them, and lead them to fountains of living waters, for ever. May the Lord add His blessing, and to His name be the praise for ever and ever! Amen.
JOHN WELSH.—This eminent sufferer in the cause of Christ, although he died in exile, was yet so overwhelmed and transported, upon his deathbed, with a sense of the divine presence and favour that he was overheard exclaiming, “O Lord, hold Thy hand; it is enough. Thy servant is a clay vessel, and can hold no more.”
DAVID ROSS, one of “the men” of Sutherland, when referring to the troubles and persecution of the Lord’s people, would remark, “Never was there a babe born in Bethlehem but there was a Herod in pursuit of it.”
As God, out of Christ, stands in no relation to us sinners but that of an enemy and a consuming fire, so the nature, essence, and immensity of God, and what He is in Himself, is not the great, Christian question, but rather, What He is to us, and so what He is in Christ.—Ralph Erskine.