The imperishable, spiritual part of man is here inseparably connected with his living body, though not in its nature, yet manifestly in its functions. They act and react on each other, in
sleeping and in waking, in health and in disease, for weal and for woe. What tends to injure or benefit the body, therefore, may in some sense be held as tending to affect similarly, and to some extent, the soul also. But it is most important that we consider the latter separately.
It has no material existence. It never wholly sleeps. It never dies, save in a spiritual sense. Always, in this sense, it dies once; and that, strange as it may seem, at the very hour of its birth. From the very first moment of its union with flesh and blood, it appears as a thing tainted and defiled; spiritually it is “dead in sin.” “The wages of sin is death.” If not “born again” by the same Almighty power from which it first came forth, at death of the body it dies spiritually the second time—”The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” But if quickened and renewed—having received “life from the dead”—if, of His infinite grace and power, restored to the “image” from which it fell, it can never again fall utterly during its remaining stay in the mortal flesh; for, when disencumbered from this, it enters at once upon that other world which is peopled with the redeemed—”Neither can they die any more; for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection” (Luke xx. 36).
Man may be said to be possessed of three kinds of life. 1. Organic, which he shares with vegetables: breathing, circulating, secreting. 2. Animal life, which he has in common with the lower animals: feeling, moving, and exercising instinct; and so placed in quick and sensitive communication with the surrounding world. 3. Rational and moral life, shared by man with no other earthly creature: examining and stating to himself the grounds of his acts, opinions, feelings; discriminating between good and evil; approving or condemning self as well as others, and on every hand “taking forth the precious from the vile;” capable of communication not only with the surrounding world, but with that other, the world of spirits, and with the great Origin and Centre of all, from whom man’s own spirit first came forth, and to whom it must and shall return.
Is this immaterial and immortal part of man—the subject and principle of this peculiar life—complex or single? Does it consist in part of something possessed in common with the lower animals, through which sensation, appetite, thought even, and reasoning forecast, may to some extent be competent; in part of something else of a far higher, and purer, and nobler kind, peculiar to man alone—that immortal and responsible part which returns to God, lost or redeemed? Or is the soul of man, in the totality of its capacities and endowments, one? Without entering here on this abstruse question, suffice it to say that it seems agreed, by the most competent authorities, that the latter statement is true. The living, everlasting soul of man, is one indivisible whole. And when the inspired Apostle writes of the “whole spirit and soul and body” (1 Thess. v. 23), he does not mean formally and
philosophically to teach that the soul and spirit are each a distinct part of the man, but merely accommodates his writing to the existing phraseology of the time in which he wrote, so as to include with certainty the whole soul, however that may be expressed.
But how are the different results of mental operation produced, if it be not by the working of different parts of the mind? An immaterial and indivisible substance may have various susceptibilities and powers—the capability of exhibiting a variety of phenomena; much as a portion of matter, be it ever so minute, might still have a variety of properties. Sufficient cause to elicit at a given time one of these capabilities, rather than a different one, may be found partly in the particular state, at the moment, of the conjoined organism—the brain; partly in the immediately prior condition of the mind itself, which may be the natural appointed antecedent for evoking in the very same substance another and a different phenomenon. Either of these conditions will account for the change; and each does in point of fact occasion change of state, or at least appear as the main element in occasioning change, in innumerable instances. Usually, however, both together concur in the production of change; one ingredient or the other being the more prominent and influential, according to circumstances.
It is plain that the kind of phenomena produced must depend on the condition, as to integrity, vigour, and health, of the agents which are concerned in them. If the material part, the brain, be imperfect, debilitated, or diseased, the immaterial will evolve only what is abnormal, discordant, or in some other way imperfect and unsatisfactory. And, again, the brain may be sound in all respects as regards healthy structure and capability of function; and the result may, nevertheless, be imperfect or erroneous by reason of defect or fault in the immaterial agent. The right result can only be when both agents, material and immaterial, brain and soul, are “prospering and in health.”
We have already spoken of the right management of the material part; it is time we addressed ourselves to the other.
I.—THE SOUL, LIKE THE BODY, IS INVIGORATED BY HEALTHFUL WORK.—It is sent into the world to acquire and exercise a twofold wisdom: the wisdom which fits it for the labour and work of this world; and the wisdom which is from above, and is profitable for all things, both for the life that now is and for that which is to come.
Like the muscle and its contractility, the soul and its peculiar power seem to grow and abide in strength through exercise of that power. This is seen plainly in the consequences. Conscience, unexercised, fails and fades; the soul, in that part of its function, grows weak; and some corresponding chord of the material organ, which ought to vibrate in unison, or some special mode of exercise of the whole, grows feeble too; at last the faculty may become wholly silent, as if extinct, seared with a hot iron. Not absolutely
extinct, however. For, like the muscle which has been long disused, and grown atrophied, and shrivelled, and useless in consequence, the power itself, and the possibility of the resumption of its function, are still there; reduced, it may be, to a very minimum, yet capable of being roused and redeveloped, and brought back ultimately to a healthful and vigorous play.
The soul, mind, spirit of man (call it still what we may), grows by use in all its attributes. Passion strengthens by its gratification, emotion by its indulgence, intellect by its culture. In commerce, in literature, in design, in discovery, the mind seems, by dint of healthful exercise, to expand and grow, at the same time becoming more active and powerful. In the wide range of worldly wisdom, this is matter of every-day observation. It need not be illustrated.
And what of the soul regenerate, and its busying with the better wisdom? By the breathing of the Spirit of God something else is given, some unseen, but not unfelt power; by virtue of which the carnal heart is made anew, as if born again; melted down and recast once more after His own image. This something the Apostle Peter calls an “incorruptible seed, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter i. 23). Paul calls it a “law,” to which the soul is brought into subjection; a ruling power introduced ab extra; “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom. viii. 2). The soul, thus made “a clean heart and a right spirit,” owns its new birth, inherits from the Father who begat its new tendencies, is endowed with new appetencies and affections; equally capable as before of cultivating worldly wisdom to the highest acmé of human progress, yet holding this as a second and subsidiary aim and function; possessed of a new power in relation to the higher and better wisdom, not, however, of aggressively forcing its advance there as into secular knowledge, but of learning in the meekness and simplicity of a child; not acquiring but receiving; not growing, as a material organ may do, by an inherent power of its own, ab intra, but nourished and strengthened wholly ab extra, from without, from above, from God. “God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea-shore” (1 Kings iv. 29).
The muscle and brain have their constant waste supplied by the ever-circulating arterial blood. The soul has its hourly want ministered to by direct communication from the Spirit of God, grace made sufficient for every time of need. The “spiritual seed” has increase given to it. “To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundance.” This “seed,” nourished and tended by the Spirit who gave it, grows more and more, filling the soil, crushing and casting out every “root of bitterness;” first as a grain of mustard-seed, afterwards as a great tree. The “law” goes on exerting increased power to deliver, by progressive influence, from “the law of sin and death,” “casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against
the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. x. 5). And so the soul is renewed day by day.
And may not the material part, too, receive a further development and higher power, that when conjoined with an unregenerate soul it could ever hope to know? Keys and chords it may have had—for purer affections and holier desires—which the carnal heart neither knew nor cared to waken. These now improve by use; and the man in both his parts approaches nearer to perfection. This only for a time, however; the material part must soon wear out; the cord, though of silver, must be loosed. Feebler and feebler grows the material life, at length “rounded by a sleep.” But the soul renewed knows no slumber, or death, or decay. Better and better it grows—not continuously, as will afterwards be seen, but progressively—and when burst from the earthly tenement, at length it expands at once into the full proportions and perfect bliss of a creature wholly sanctified, completely redeemed.
Thus the soul improves by healthful use, like the material part, though in a different way. But—
II.—LIKE THE BODY, THE SOUL SUFFERS LOSS IN ITS WORKING.—Born again, it receives at the moment of its new birth a new life or power; and that from time to time is refreshed and maintained by further infusion from the parent source. But in the work it has to do in conjunction with its frail consort the body, the soul is every hour counteracting that life; its livingness is being borne down by the sin and death which still seek to reign in the body through lust; its purity is stained, its power trammeled. Even were it possible to plod on for hours and days in mere earthworm work (as the worms of earth seem born to do), and that without sin—still the soul would tarnish in the using from very contact with the earthiness. But there is even more than this. In every believer’s soul there are two influencing principles; “the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” In every “Shulamite” there is “as it were the company of two armies.” This life is a constant fight and warfare. Satan, the world, and the flesh, are joined in deadly enmity and hate against the renewed soul of man. And even the best of men, faint in the arduous and prolonged struggle—”faint yet pursuing”—may be heard bemoaning thus:—”I find a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. vii. 21, etc.) Without are fightings; and within are both fightings and fears. But greater is He that is with him than all that can come against him. The Spirit of the Lord fights in and for the soul. And the man, so strengthened and “taught to war,” finds himself in the end “more than conqueror.” “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. viii. 38, 39).
The soul’s loss and injury in working, then, consists in this:—The “incorruptible seed” is grown over and choked by the weeds and tares—the “roots of bitterness;” or is in danger of becoming so. The better “law” is like a wrestler cast down, or like an army beaten back, by “the law of sin and death.” The reaction and recovery must be by the “seed” growing afresh, expanding and occupying again the whole soil, pushing forth “the roots of bitterness” as it grows. The “law of the Spirit” must fight with renewed energy against “the law of the flesh,” resting not till this be cast down and subdued. The “weary soul” is not tired, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. The “seed,” the “law,” the “better part,” is of God, and cannot be essentially weakened or exhausted. The “weary soul” is one encumbered with the flesh; like a bright and polished instrument clogged and heavy, burthened with adherence of the soil it works in. There may be “weariness” from the strong and continuous, and as yet unaccustomed tension of the will in a direction opposite to the natural bias—for Grace, “the seed,” “the law,” works victory and increase of holiness only by and through the will; and to the weariness of this is superadded oftentimes that more painful still of self-loathing and dissatisfaction, with earnest fear of possible failure in the great work and contest. But the feebleness or sense of exhaustion mainly consists in the soul’s having been constrained by earth and carnality to cease from spiritual and Godward exercise. Its refreshing will be by ceasing from earth and carnality, and resuming its functions spiritually and Godward. Not idly; or only in fitful starts. It must ever abound—though more especially at certain times and seasons—in active spiritual exercise; and to this end, looking to God for help, in His appointed means and way, His strength is made sufficient for its weakness. “My flesh and my heart may faint and fail; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.”
How, then, is this refreshment and invigoration to be obtained? “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord” (Prov. xx. 27). And it needs frequent trimming at His hand.
(To be continued).
OUR Redeemer’s sign is the glorious Gospel: it exhibits and declares what is to be enjoyed in the chambers of presence and in the house eternal in the heavens. Ministers are His sign that bear His name before the Gentiles; preach His unsearchable riches; and, alas! too many of them, like signs, invite others to go in, taste, and see that God is good, but never do it themselves.—John Brown.
THE soul is the life of the body. Faith is the life of the soul. Christ is the life of faith.—Flavel.
Notes of a Sermon.
BY THE LATE REV. DUNCAN M’BEATH, FREE CHURCH,
NESS, LEWIS.*
“This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.”—I TIMOTHY i. 15.
THE Apostle Paul addressed this Epistle to Timothy whom he calls his own “son in the faith,” and who was an excellent young evangelist. Timothy’s father was a Greek, and his mother a pious Jewess, as we find in the sixteenth chapter of the Acts, verses one to three. He was carefully educated in the Old Testament Scriptures from his childhood. Afterwards he came under the ministry of the Apostle who had such affection for him, and chose him for an assistant in the work of the ministry. By writing to Timothy on the glorious things pertaining to the Kingdom of Christ, the Apostle left divine directions for the use of the Church and its ministers in all succeeding ages. The Apostle asserts his apostolic office as an inspired servant of Christ, which binds his instructions on the conscience, for they bear the divine authority.
Having given various instructions and warnings for the Church’s benefit, the Apostle touches on his favourite theme, the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, by which, attended by the effectual power of the Holy Spirit, he himself was turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. The preaching of this gospel was intrusted to him by divine revelation and commission, for which he expressed his grateful sense in ascribing all praise and glory to God who qualified, authorised, and strengthened him for this eminent service. And considering what he was previously, he saw unspeakable cause to declare the exceeding, abundant grace of God towards such an obstinate, self-deluding wretch as he was, that in him and by him there might be seen the Lord’s all-sufficiency for the salvation of the very worst, or chief of sinners. Such reflections as these led the Apostle to give expression to the language of the text which may be said to be a summary of the Gospel. In the passage before us, we have the substance of the whole Gospel.
I.—There is a Statement made, namely, “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
* The Rev. D. M’Beath, who died in October, 1891, at the age of about 70 years, was highly esteemed as a faithful preacher of the Gospel. He was for many years a lay missionary, and was so much valued by the people at Ness that, with the consent of the General Assembly, they gave him a call to be their minister, which he accepted. He was then ordained, and laboured there for 13 years. Mr. M’Beath was a native of Fernamore, Applecross, where his father, Mr. John M’Beath, was a catechist. The present “Notes,” sent by a friend at Diabaig, Torridon, appear to be from his own manuscript.—Ed.
II.—A Commendation of the doctrine contained in the Statement—“a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation.”
III.—An instance by which it is illustrated—“of whom I am chief.”
IV.—The application.
I.—The statement made by the Apostle clearly shows: (1) the Person by whom this salvation was wrought out; (2) the nature of this salvation; and (3) the means by which it was executed.
(1) The divine record testifies that the Saviour is God manifested in the flesh. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him” (John i. 1-3). Here we have the clearest testimony to His eternity—His existence before He assumed our nature. This is confirmed by other passages, as, “He is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Col. i. 17). It would be an easy matter to accumulate passages from the Old and New Testaments in confirmation of this doctrine that He is a divine Redeemer. To prove the divinity of our Saviour the Scriptures ascribe to Him the essential attributes of God, such as omnipotence, omnipresence, and also names and titles that are given to the Father. But we also learn from the divine record that He is truly and properly man. “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth” (John i. 14). Those whose minds were enlightened saw this glory in Him who became “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” and who was “despised and rejected of men.” “Forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same” (Heb. ii. 14). It was necessary for the execution of His undertaking as our Redeemer that He should be both God and man in one person. By the personal union of the divine and human natures He was constituted to be a fit Mediator between God and sinful men. “There is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” He is called Jesus, because He saves His people from their sins, and Christ, because He was anointed with the Spirit unto His mediatorial offices. He was furnished with a complete supply of all power and grace for the discharge of the glorious trust committed to Him.
We have the design of His mission into the world, “to save sinners.” This implies the condition in which they were by their apostasy from God by violating the covenant of works. They came under the sentence of a broken law. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” “The wages of sin is death.” They lost the image of God in which they were created, and an image the very opposite was set up in their heart. Darkness took possession of the mind, rebellion, of the will, and sensuality of the affections. The law of God demanded an obedience which man could not now yield, and the justice of God a punishment which he could neither sustain
nor satisfy. He became liable to the miseries of this life and of that which is to come. The good gifts of God designed for his comfort, the privileges and advantages conferred for his benefit, he now made the occasion of departing farther from his bountiful Benefactor, of aggravating his guilt, and destroying his soul. Peace removed from the earth. Men became enemies to their Maker, and to one another. Violence, envy, rage, and oppression overspread the whole world. Eternal truth denounced tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil. All flesh corrupted themselves before Him; they became the slaves of sin, Satan, and the world, and deserving everlasting death. Such was the state of those He came to seek and to save.
(2) The nature of this Salvation. It is salvation from the guilt of sin. Guilt binds the transgressor of the law to eternal punishment. Divine justice demands the infliction of this merited punishment on the sinner, or the Surety. This, as already said, could neither be sustained nor satisfied by man. But satisfaction having been made by the Surety, God is just in pardoning sin, in removing the guilt of it, and in dissolving the obligation upon the sinner to eternal punishment. It is, again, salvation from the corruption of sin, unto the renewal of the divine image by the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification. Moreover, it is also salvation from the punishment due to sin. He that believeth in Him shall not come into condemnation. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.”
(3) The means by which this salvation was accomplished. The source from which it proceeded was the free, sovereign, boundless grace of God; the medium or means is the mediation of Jesus, the Son of God; the effectual application of it is effected by the agency of the Holy Spirit—this is His office and work in the economy of salvation.
Further, on this point, Jesus Christ by His incarnation, and perfect sinless obedience to the divine law, sustaining their deserved punishment, wrought out a righteousness of infinite merit, by which the law is magnified and made honourable. Thus, Jesus, who is the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person, assumed our nature, undertook our cause, bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and suffered the due punishment. Thus, the truth of God was indicated; justice satisfied, all the divine perfections glorified, and the salvation of sinners meritoriously procured. “I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” He is set forth to be the propitiation “through faith in his blood.” He endured the temptations of Satan, the scorn, rage, and malice of men, and above all, the wrath of God, “the curse of the law.” “For it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief; when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed; he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand” (Isaiah liii. 10). He shall see of the travail
of His soul, and shall be satisfied. Now, He is exalted at the right hand of God that by His prevalent intercession the salvation wrought out may be applied to all those given Him by the Father. He constantly executes His mediatorial offices, prophet, priest and king, in relation to His people.
II.—Next, let us consider briefly the commendation of the grand gospel statement by the Apostle. “It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance.”
“A faithful saying.” After the apostasy of man in the garden of Eden, God, in the riches of His grace and mercy, revealed for the first time His purpose to save from sin by the incarnation, death, and triumph of His own Son. The first promise was that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head. In every succeeding age, this was confirmed by promises, types, and predictions. The Lord gave His oath that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us (Hebrews vi. 17, 18). In fulfilment of the promise Christ appeared in the fulness of the time. Witnesses were chosen to bear testimony to the faithfulness of God in fulfilling His promise. John the Baptist, Christ’s forerunner, bore testimony. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Christ’s personal teaching, miracles, resurrection and ascension, testified to the truth of this “faithful saying.” The Holy Spirit, on the day of Pentecost, by the rich effusion of His grace, also bore testimony. The Apostles, as faithful witnesses, by their preaching, inspired writings, holy lives, and suffering deaths, confirmed the truth stated in the text by the most convincing and overwhelming evidence. Was there such accumulated evidence adduced in support of any statement made in the world, to be compared for a moment to this?
But we have yet to bring forward another evidence which is of great importance, namely, the experience of those to whom this salvation was effectually applied. Multitudes of those saved have borne testimony to the faithfulness of this glorious message. Finally, on this point, God gave testimony to the word of His grace by many “signs and wonders,” wrought by the hands of the Apostles. They bore testimony by words and works to Jesus Christ as the divine Saviour, and said, “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts x. 39-43).
The saying is not only faithful, but “worthy of all acceptance.” This is not the estimate the world forms of this glorious message, and consequently the cold reception which the Gospel has met with in all ages. But there are others who have been convinced that they are poor, guilty, unworthy, sinful creatures, and it is hard to persuade them that such sinners as they can be saved. It is therefore stated that the saying is worthy of all acceptance, “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Of
whatever rank, class, or degree they may be, He is able to save those to the uttermost who come to God by Him. To such as have a sense of their unworthiness and demerit and the greatness of their sins, this is recommended to them as a faithful saying. There are many who, from a mistaken notion of their own goodness or good deeds, or a mistaken dependence on something of their own, undervalue this faithful saying. To them also the Apostle says it is worthy of all acceptance.
III.—His own case was a sufficient illustration of the truth of the statement. A greater proof and a more encouraging instance of this faithful saying can scarcely be imagined. He was “a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious,” but he obtained mercy. If he, who exceeded all others in malignant blasphemy of Christ, and persecution of His members, obtained mercy, may not the chief of sinners look to God for mercy on the ground of Christ’s merit? This affords the greatest encouragement to the vilest of sinners to plead for mercy and pardon, through the righteousness of Christ.
IV.—Lastly, in the way of application, it may be said that, if it holds forth the greatest encouragement, it also shows the greatest danger of neglecting the great salvation. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” What must be the aggravated guilt of those who are privileged with the gospel and its ordinances if they continue to reject this great salvation! He that believeth not maketh God a liar. How highly aggravated this sin of unbelief must be in the sight of God. How precious this passage of Scripture must be to true believers! “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom (the Apostle said) I am chief.”