THE GRACE OF GOD AND ITS MISSION.
By Lucius Hawkins
[By Lucius Hawkins, in the Gospel Message.] “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men, hath appeared, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Titus 2:11–13, margin. IN the text the grace of God is personified as a messenger bringing salvation; and it is brought as a gift, and no favoritism is shown; for the gift is brought to all men. And no greater gift was ever brought to any man; it is the gift of God Himself. Altho it is a gift, costing no money, and its value above estimate, and offered to all men, yet how few there are who accept it! . . . This messenger’s coming is not looked for. He is not wanted nor welcomed, and his priceless gift of salvation is refused with contempt and scorn. But the grace and love of God in bringing salvation have appeared, or been manifested. How?—By giving His only-begotten Son to provide the salvation; by providing it for all men; by making it free; by making it conditional on simply believing and receiving. All this is of grace. But the grace or love of God is further manifested in the effect or influence this salvation has upon the hearts and lives of those who embrace it. It transforms men into new creatures. The old things of sin all pass away, and the new things of love appear. The grace of God is personified as a teacher; and he comes teaching two lessons—a negative and a positive. The negative lesson is the denial of ungodliness and worldly lusts. This settles the question of sin, and settles in favor of its entire prohibition. Whoever enters this school of salvation, taught by the grace of God, will be compelled to learn as the first lesson, denial, or abandonment of all sin, and not only gross or actual sin, as defined by the term “ungodliness,” but all sinful desires and motives and purposes, as expressed in the phrase “worldly lusts.” Nor will a scholar in this school be promoted to the next grade till his lessons have been well learned and practised. The sin question must be settled, and settled right, at the very outset of a religious career. Thousands of professed Christian lives are failures because the question of sin is not properly settled. There can be no compromise or dallying with sin. The prohibition must be absolute; the denial must be complete, even if it cuts off a right hand or foot or plucks out a right eye. No pupil can graduate in this school and receive a diploma till this primary lesson—the utter denial of every phase of sin—has been thoroly mastered. When this has been done, then the pupil is ready to be promoted to the higher grade, where the positive lesson of living soberly, righteously, and godly will be learned. Instead of one there are really three lessons to be learned in this grade in the school of salvation. To learn to live soberly is a lesson we have to learn for ourselves. Man possesses a three-fold nature,—spirit, soul, and body. To live soberly is to so live that the highest interests of every department of our nature are promoted. . . . No habits or practises are to be indulged in that in the least degree militate against the health and strength and purity of the body. To live soberly is ever to remember that the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and nothing is to be done that would in any measure grieve or offend Him, or render our bodies unfit for His dwelling-place. Of course we can not live soberly without making a clean sweep of all intoxicating drinks, and also of the filthy tobacco habit. In the second place, to live soberly is to attend to the interests of our souls, or intellectual natures; and that does not admit of our living in ignorance. In the third place, to live soberly is to live for the best welfare of our highest nature, and constantly to work in His light, and keep all His commandments. The second positive lesson the grace of God teaches us is that we are to live righteously. And this has reference to all our relations to our fellow-creatures, and to all the duties and obligations growing out of these relations. To live righteously is to live right, and to live right in all these varied relations is to live according to Christ’s rule of righteousness which He enunciated in His Sermon on the Mount: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets;” and he might have added, the Gospel also. This is the rule by which all our conduct, in all our relations to all our fellow-creatures, is to be measured and controlled. In our family relations this is to be the rule; and if it was, how much of selfishness and all kinds of ugliness would be driven from the home! In our neighborhood relations this is to be the rule. And if it was, how little bickering and strife and unpleasantness there would be in the community! In our church relations this is to be the rule. If it were, there would be no envies, or jealousies, or animosities, or heart-burnings, or divisions among God’s professed children. . . . In all our business relations, this is to be the rule, to do to others just as we would have them do to us, were our relations exchanged. Or, as the psalmist expresses it, if we swear to our own hurt, we are not to change. The strictest integrity is to characterize all our dealings with our fellow-men. The third positive lesson that the grace of God teaches us is that we are to live godly. This takes us into a higher sphere of living. This takes us into our relations to God, and defines the character of those relations, and the character of the duties and obligations involved in those relations. In order to live a godly life we must be godly. Our life is the expression, or manifestation, of what we are. God’s claim upon us admits of nothing less than a godly life; and this is a holy life. God does not allow us to live below that. This is His standard, and to this we must measure up. But we can not live a holy life without a holy heart. The heart is the fountain, the life is the stream, and the stream never rises above the fountain. God’s claim upon our heart is, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” This requirement is all-inclusive. When we give to God this measure of love, we have no love for the world, neither for the things of the world. And we can not live a godly life without this godliness of heart. Godliness is godlikeness, and to live a godly life we are to live a godlike life, and what this life is we see in the life of Jesus when on earth; for he was God manifest in the flesh, and Peter tells what kind of life he lived: “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power; who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him.” Acts 10:38. Jesus is our example; and the apostle John tells us that we are to be pure even as He is pure; that we are to be righteous even as He is righteous; and that we are to walk even as He walked. And when we do this we shall live godly, and measure up to the divine requirements. And the grace of God that teaches us this lesson will give us the strength thus to live. When and where are we to live this sober, righteous, godly life?—Right here and now, “in this present world.” Some people teach that we can not live holy lives here; that we must carry our sins with us till death. But such is not the teaching of the Scripture. This present life is the sphere for the practise of godliness. When we are thus living righteously, soberly, godly, we are then in the right attitude to be “looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.” This is one of the multitude of passages in the Bible where the second coming of Christ is clearly taught, and to those who are living soberly, righteously, godly, the hope of His coming is a “blessed hope;” and when He shall appear, to all such His appearing will be a “glorious appearing;” because that event will be the consummation of the dearest and cherished expectations of the godly. It was the “blessed hope” of the personal coming of the Lord that animated Paul in all his arduous labors, and strengthened him to endure his untold afflictions. We hear him saying but little, if anything, of his hope of dying and going to heaven; but we do hear him exulting in the hope of meeting Christ when He comes, of having a share in the first resurrection, and of reigning with Him when He shall set up His kingdom upon the earth. “Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” Here Paul sweeps back to Christ’s first advent, stating the principle that prompted Him to come to the world, and the object of His coming. “Who gave Himself for us.” Here we have the doctrine of the atonement, and the principle on which it was made,—a gift of Himself, prompted by pure love. Christ is a gift, and all that is included in the salvation He purchased for us is a gift—all of grace. The object of this gift of Himself to us?—It is twofold. First, to redeem us from all iniquity. This He did on the cross, and the redemption was universal: He died for all men; no member of the human family was left out. And the redemption was not only universal, including all men, but it was complete, redeeming from all iniquity. And He not only gave Himself unto us to be our Redeemer from all iniquity, but also to purify unto Himself a peculiar people. It is one thing to be redeemed and another thing to be purified. Redemption is unconditional, and includes all men. Purification has been made possible by redemption, but is conditional, and is received and enjoyed only by those who meet the conditions of repentance and faith. The fact must also be recognized that Christ purifies us for Himself. He gave Himself to us to redeem and purify us; and having done this, we are to give ourselves back to Him in an entire, irrevocable, and eternal consecration. And we are to become a “peculiar people.” In what sense peculiar?—Peculiar by an entire separation from the world, and to live unlike the world. There is very little distinction to-day between those who profess godliness and those who do not. But Christ intends that the people He purifies unto Himself shall be a peculiar people, unlike the world in every respect. But the peculiar peculiarity that is to characterize this redeemed and purified people is zeal in good works. Zeal may be laudable in many other directions, but that which distinguishes the purified people belonging to Christ is zeal in good works. And when the heart is purified from all iniquity, and filled with the love of Christ, then it is a joy and delight to do good works. Christ said in His Sermon on the Mount, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” That which convinces the world of the genuineness and value of the religion of Jesus Christ is not so much the profession of the lips as a life consecrated to the uplifting and betterment of humanity. This is the test of a purified heart and life.