Post by Shepherd on Dec 3, 2008 8:46:11 GMT -6
87 HERESY; AND EXPOSITION AND AN APPEAL.
JAMES 5:19-20
IF ANY OF YOU DO ERR FROM THE TRUTH.
Men may think falsely, and live virtuously; or they may live immorally, and think correctly. The one class are intellectual sinners; the other moral transgressors.
They are to be judged by different standards, and classified as not to be swept away in one common anathema. If error proceeds from sheer intellectual inability to see as the majority see, charity should be exercised in all its power and tenderness; but if error proceeds from a putrid heart–if it is cherished because truth is too regardful of the conduct, and too restraining for the wildness of passion -- their indignation may be excited, and consequences allowed to discharge their retributive fires.
I. THE POSSIBILITY OF TRUTH-POSSESSOR BECOMING A TRUTH-LOSER.
Through a daring, speculative turn of thought. We are not of those who would close the inquiring eye and bind the exploring wing; yet our duty is to warn the student that there are dangerous latitudes in every sea, and that many a gallant vessel has been shivered on the hidden rick.
Through want of sympathy in their intellectual difficulties. Woe unto the Church when honest thought and honest speech are repressed. When intellect is stagnant, its putrid effluvium may corrupt the heart’s holiest feeling.
Through intellectual pride. Some men are ever in minorities through a love of singularity. They confound impertinence with candor, and mistake rudeness of originality.
II. THE PRINCIPLE OF MUTUAL OVERSIGHT IN SPIRITUAL LIFE IS RECOGNIZED.
Go to the erring one with a brother’s gentleness, and you may win his soul form
destruction.
The nearer he is to the edge of the precipice, the more caution is required on the part of those who have his interest at heart.
III. THE SALVATION OF THE SOUL IS THE SUBLIMED OF MORAL TRIUMPHS.
Christ deemed it worthy of His incarnation and sacrifice. The mission of God’s spirit is thus fulfilled. The sum or moral goodness is augmented.
WANDERING FROM THE TRUTH
Truth is the purest, the most powerful, and the most enduring thing in the universe.
Truth makes God to be God, and when God came in the flesh, the brightest crown He could place upon His own head, the noblest name He could give to His personality was “The Truth”.
All the wrongs in the universe begin by a wandering from the truth. This is so in every department of human thought, emotion, an action. It is because the sin begins in some slight departure, in the man, from that which is true, leading to a departure of the affections, which produces a departure in the outward life, that men should be strenuously anxious to know the truth, especially the truth as to their highest things, their highest connections; the truth as to God, their own nature, their relations to God, and their own character.
When men talk of the valuelessness of doctrine, and say it does not matter what a man believes so that his life is right, they show their absolute ignorance of the whole subject.
It is as if one should say, it is no matter what disease a man has so long as he has health. The outward life of a man is the product of his character, and his character is the product of his creed. If there be one rule without an exception this must be the rule. It certainly is the counterpart in the spiritual world of the fact in physies that no stream ever rises above its source.
Now, the source of the outer life is the creed. Nay, it is something still stronger than that. A man is just what he believes, no more, no less. Neither God nor the devil can make him any more or any less. To make any change in him the good of the bad need not strive to mould his outer life, or by any other profess attempt to change his character except by efforts to make a change in his creed.
If he have believed error, to make him a good man he must be brought to faith in the truth; if he have such faith, to make him a bad man all that is necessary it to break the hold of his faith on the truth. AS A MAN THINKS IN HIS HEART, SO IS HE. Now the phrase, THINKS IN HIS HEART, is equivalent to creed, creed being compounded of two words, signifying that form of belief to which I give my heart.
If anyone shall object to this that there are so many who profess a good freed and lead a bad life, the reply is ready. In such a case the creed is only professed, not held. Indeed, a creed is not that which a man holds at all; it’s that which holds him. When a man once comes into vital connection with the creed, he is never its master; it is always his.
THE ERRING TO BE RECLAIMED
JAMES 5:19...IF ANY OF YOU DO ERR FROM THE TRUTH.
Another practical precept to conclude with; abrupt, as regards the verse immediately preceding, but embodying that thought of the duty of brotherhood which runs like a golden thread through the tissue of the Epistle.
It has been treated negatively, “do the brethren no ill; repay no injuries”; then positively, “Minister to them, and pray with for bodily an spiritual healing” and now, lastly, “seek them out; reclaim for Christ His lost sheep.”
This is the climax of love; more than brotherly, Christlike. In connection with the exhortation to prayer, this may be looked on as praying with the hands, working as God’s ministers towards the fulfilment of that has been uttered by the lips.
JAMES 5:19-20
IF ANY OF YOU DO ERR FROM THE TRUTH.
Men may think falsely, and live virtuously; or they may live immorally, and think correctly. The one class are intellectual sinners; the other moral transgressors.
They are to be judged by different standards, and classified as not to be swept away in one common anathema. If error proceeds from sheer intellectual inability to see as the majority see, charity should be exercised in all its power and tenderness; but if error proceeds from a putrid heart–if it is cherished because truth is too regardful of the conduct, and too restraining for the wildness of passion -- their indignation may be excited, and consequences allowed to discharge their retributive fires.
I. THE POSSIBILITY OF TRUTH-POSSESSOR BECOMING A TRUTH-LOSER.
Through a daring, speculative turn of thought. We are not of those who would close the inquiring eye and bind the exploring wing; yet our duty is to warn the student that there are dangerous latitudes in every sea, and that many a gallant vessel has been shivered on the hidden rick.
Through want of sympathy in their intellectual difficulties. Woe unto the Church when honest thought and honest speech are repressed. When intellect is stagnant, its putrid effluvium may corrupt the heart’s holiest feeling.
Through intellectual pride. Some men are ever in minorities through a love of singularity. They confound impertinence with candor, and mistake rudeness of originality.
II. THE PRINCIPLE OF MUTUAL OVERSIGHT IN SPIRITUAL LIFE IS RECOGNIZED.
Go to the erring one with a brother’s gentleness, and you may win his soul form
destruction.
The nearer he is to the edge of the precipice, the more caution is required on the part of those who have his interest at heart.
III. THE SALVATION OF THE SOUL IS THE SUBLIMED OF MORAL TRIUMPHS.
Christ deemed it worthy of His incarnation and sacrifice. The mission of God’s spirit is thus fulfilled. The sum or moral goodness is augmented.
WANDERING FROM THE TRUTH
Truth is the purest, the most powerful, and the most enduring thing in the universe.
Truth makes God to be God, and when God came in the flesh, the brightest crown He could place upon His own head, the noblest name He could give to His personality was “The Truth”.
All the wrongs in the universe begin by a wandering from the truth. This is so in every department of human thought, emotion, an action. It is because the sin begins in some slight departure, in the man, from that which is true, leading to a departure of the affections, which produces a departure in the outward life, that men should be strenuously anxious to know the truth, especially the truth as to their highest things, their highest connections; the truth as to God, their own nature, their relations to God, and their own character.
When men talk of the valuelessness of doctrine, and say it does not matter what a man believes so that his life is right, they show their absolute ignorance of the whole subject.
It is as if one should say, it is no matter what disease a man has so long as he has health. The outward life of a man is the product of his character, and his character is the product of his creed. If there be one rule without an exception this must be the rule. It certainly is the counterpart in the spiritual world of the fact in physies that no stream ever rises above its source.
Now, the source of the outer life is the creed. Nay, it is something still stronger than that. A man is just what he believes, no more, no less. Neither God nor the devil can make him any more or any less. To make any change in him the good of the bad need not strive to mould his outer life, or by any other profess attempt to change his character except by efforts to make a change in his creed.
If he have believed error, to make him a good man he must be brought to faith in the truth; if he have such faith, to make him a bad man all that is necessary it to break the hold of his faith on the truth. AS A MAN THINKS IN HIS HEART, SO IS HE. Now the phrase, THINKS IN HIS HEART, is equivalent to creed, creed being compounded of two words, signifying that form of belief to which I give my heart.
If anyone shall object to this that there are so many who profess a good freed and lead a bad life, the reply is ready. In such a case the creed is only professed, not held. Indeed, a creed is not that which a man holds at all; it’s that which holds him. When a man once comes into vital connection with the creed, he is never its master; it is always his.
THE ERRING TO BE RECLAIMED
JAMES 5:19...IF ANY OF YOU DO ERR FROM THE TRUTH.
Another practical precept to conclude with; abrupt, as regards the verse immediately preceding, but embodying that thought of the duty of brotherhood which runs like a golden thread through the tissue of the Epistle.
It has been treated negatively, “do the brethren no ill; repay no injuries”; then positively, “Minister to them, and pray with for bodily an spiritual healing” and now, lastly, “seek them out; reclaim for Christ His lost sheep.”
This is the climax of love; more than brotherly, Christlike. In connection with the exhortation to prayer, this may be looked on as praying with the hands, working as God’s ministers towards the fulfilment of that has been uttered by the lips.
