Christ Came to Save Sinners
"Into the World."—"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world." He left the supernal, transcendent glory of heaven to come into the world. He was "born of a woman," that He might come into this world and be a brotherman, a "kinsman," to redeem. When He came into the world, He mingled with all classes, rich and poor, formal Pharisee, skeptical Sadducee, plebeian publicans and sinners. "To Save Sinners."—The coming into the world was a wonderful thing, but it was not and is not the thing. The great purpose is the wonderful thing, that which gives meaning to the coming, without which the coming would mean nothing to us. It is a "faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." That is why He came. That was His object in coming. To that one purpose He continually held. For it He taught, prayed, suffered, died. Did He attend the Passover feast?—He did it to save sinners. Did He accept the invitation to dine with the publican?—He did it to save sinners. In all His intercourse with men and women, He held to the one unswerving purpose. Not of the World.—While Jesus came into this world, and was in the world, He was not of the world. While in the world, He was still in the bosom of His Father. He was the ladder which reached from earth to heaven, with the support from the heaven end. He knew neither the world nor its spirit. He was in harmony neither with its principles nor customs. He fellowshiped neither through fashions nor follies. While dining with a Pharisee, He was not of the Pharisees. They learned from Him, or had the privilege of so learning, but He learned naught from them save their great need. While at the feast of the publicans, where all the lower classes mingled, He was still not of the world. He went among them for the same purpose that He came into the world, to save publicans and sinners, but they, or at least the more part, heard Him gladly, and came where He was for the one purpose of hearing Him, but not with any thought of seducing Him to go with them. They felt their need, and believed that He could supply it. THE followers of Christ Jesus are to be in this world as He was. He said, "As Thou didst send Me into the world, even so sent I them into the world." If true disciples, they are from another sphere. "Except a man be born from above, He can not see the kingdom of God." Therefore "they are not of the world, even as I [Jesus] am not of the world." And therefore He prayed again: "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them from the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil one." And here is set forth the whole sweeping injunction: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vain glory of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." THUS shall God's children win every soul who desires more than this world can give. But those who will not know God, who desire only the world, will not, can not, understand the children of God. Nay more, the world will hate and persecute them, because they are not of the world, even as Christ was not of the world, and met their persecutions. But, blessed be God, in the final adjustment, nay, more, in the work of God here, His children shall lose naught; for yielding this world, they win eternal life, and "the world to come" with all its blessed fruitions of the ages, sinless, curseless, deathless, transcendently glorious. And God's children are in this world for the one sole purpose of living above the world in living not of the world, and that they may save sinners to the world to come, and so save themselves. No higher occupation soul ever knew or can know.