“Once, in King James’ day, Scripture led the English language. Now, it follows it to the dump….” ~ P. Kreeft

Sometimes in striking places and in subtle ways one finds a notable tribute to the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, along with a sharp warning of what happens when you tinker with God’s Word, as many modern translations do. Such as this one, in the book noted at the bottom:

Besides undermining their faith, we’ve [the devil’s minions] also given them the impression that the world’s most popular book could be understood only by professional scholars (in fact, they’re the only ones who can misunderstand it that badly!); that the world’s most exciting book is the dullest book in the world, and that the millions who fed at that table for millennia were simply superstitious simpletons mumbling misunderstood formulas for their private fantasies.

Fortunately for us, Christendom is now so well divided that they’ll never get together on one standard translation again. We keep them moving, and inspire new translations every year: the Liturgical Fidget must be supplemented by the Biblical Fidget. After all, the Bible has to keep up with the ‘progress’ of the language (i.e., the decay of words).

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Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,  Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.  How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:  So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.

‘It is a shame’-said the heathen philosopher-‘not to learn morals from the small animals’ Yet what a proof is it of the degradation of the fall, that “man, created in the image of God,” and made wiser than the creation (Gen. 1:26. Job, xxxv. 11), should be sent, as here, to this insignificant school for instruction! The ant, having no guide to direct her work, no overseer to inspect her, or ruler to call her to account yet I gathereth with diligent foresight the summer and harvest store for her winter need. Let the sluggard consider her ways, and be wise. He sleeps over his work, and, if for a moment half-hearted by some rousing call, still pleads for a little sleep, and folds his hands to sleep. Present ease is all he calculates on, all he provides for. The future he carefully keeps out of sight, to be provided for, like the present, when it comes. Thus life runs to waste. Poverty comes step by step as one that travelleth, and, like an armed man. With irresistible violence. (Chapter 10:4; 13:4; 19:15, 24; 20: 4; 21:25; 24:33, 34.)

Perhaps he perverts his Master’s word to excuse his sloth. But, if we are to “take no anxious thought for the morrow” (his true meaning), are we to take none at all? Care is a duty, a parental obligation (2 Cor. 12:14. Comp. Gen. 30:30; 41:33), and therefore, a component part of godliness. Carefulness is a sin (Luke 10: 41. 1 Cor. 7:32), a needless burden to ourselves and unworthy distrust of God. (Matt. 6:25-33.) The diligent use of providential means honours God. (Chapter 10:5; 24:27.)

But much more loudly would we call to the spiritual sluggard. Thou art sleeping away the opportunities of grace “striving to enter in at the strait ate” (Luke 13:24); taking thy salvation for granted; hoping that thou shalt “reap that which thou hast not sown, and gather where thou hast not strawed” (Matthew 25:26)-Go o the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Improve, after this pattern, the summer and harvest season-the time of youth, the present, perhaps the only, moment. The ant hath no guide. How many guides have you-conscience-the Bible-ministers! (Job 32: 8. Ps. 119: 105. Mal. 2:7.) She has no overseer. You are living before Him, whose eyes are as a flame of fire.” (Chapter 15:3, Rev. 1:14, 2:18.) She has no ruler callingher to account. “Every one of us must give account of himself unto God.” (Rom. 14:2.) How long hen wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? – is the solemn remonstrance of ty God. (Comp. chapter 1:22. 1 Kings 18:21.) Thy sleep is not like that of the body refreshing at the dawn of day; but it is that of the poisoned draught, heavier and heavier; the slumber of death, “Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.” (Eph. 5:14.) Slight not the call of the present moment. The spell grows stronger as resistance is delayed. Ever day’s slumber makes it more improbable, whether thou wilt ever awaken at all. The intended struggle of to-morrow is a delusion. A thousand such tomorrows there may be; and yet thou mayest be found at last perishing in thy poverty, and the King of terror will come as an armed man to summon thee to judgment.

But how one is made to feel that from this dep slumber no voice but Omnipotence can rouse! Enter the sluggard’s chamber; put aside his curtain; hang over is bed; sound a solemn cry in his ears-How long? Endeavour even to open his eyelids to see the light of day; and yet the spell is too strong for man. He shifts his posture, murmurs his cry-a little more sleep-and slumbers again. Christian! You feel the helplessness of your work. Then call in the power of God in your brother’s behalf-“Lighten his eyes, lest he sleep the sleep of death.” (Ps. 13:3.)

And then as for thyself-grow in intense energy in thy high calling. Remember, faith without diligence is slumbering delusion. Faith is the practical energy of a living faith. Always, therefore, look at sloth, not as n infirmity, but as a sin, affecting the whole man; growing upon us with unperceived power. Allow it therefore no rest, no time to root itself. Resist it in all its forms-bodily mental, spiritual: indulgence of sleep and appetite: self-pleasing in all its subtle and plausible workings. Live by rule. Have your time strictly arranged. Be employed in early work for God. Store the mind with useful knowledge; ever reserving the first place for an industrious and prayerful study of the book of God. “Mortify” this baneful lust “through the Divine Spirit” (Rom. 8:13); drawing all your motives from the death (Ibid. 6:6), the life (Mark. 1.32-35), the rules of Christ (Luke 9:23. Rom. 13:11-14.) Victory will soon declare for you; and how enriching will be the spoil!

  Charles Bridges

FOREVER WITH THE LORD

The Clouds Of The Christian, The Chariot Of God
“Who maketh the clouds his chariot” (Psalm l04:3).

If God were perfectly comprehensible in his being and government to a finite mind, then either he must forego his claim to divinity, or we must cease to be human. And yet in nothing, scarcely, is the Christian more at fault than in attempting to fathom those dispensations of his government in which he conceals his purposes and enshrouds himself, and failing, he then questions the wisdom and rectitude of his procedure! But how gently does the result rebuke and confound our misapprehension and distrust. When from the secret place of thunder he utters his voice, when in his dealings darkness is under his feet, when he makes darkness his secret place, his pavilion round about him dark waters and thick clouds of the skies (Psa. 18:11), even then he is but making a way for his love to us, which shall appear all the more real and precious by the very cloud-chariot in which it travels.

The believer in Christ has nothing slavishly to dread, but everything filially to hope from God. So fully is he pardoned, so completely is he justified, so perfectly is he reconciled to God, that even the darkest dispensations in which he hides himself shall presently unveil the brightest views of his character and love; and thus the lowering cloud that deepened in its darkness and grew larger as it approached shall dissolve and vanish, leaving no object visible to the eye but him whose essence and name is love. Oh, it is because we have such shallow views of God’s love that we have such defective views of God’s dealings! We blindly interpret the symbols of his providence because we so imperfectly read the engraving of his heart. Faith finds it difficult to spell the word ‘love’ as written in the shaded characters of its discipline; to believe that the cloud which looks so somber and threatening is the love-chariot of him who for our ransom gave himself unto the death because he so loved us!

The subject on which this chapter engages our thoughts presents another path heavenward for the Christian. And as this path is frequently trodden by many, we desire to present it in such an aspect as shall help onward those who are walking in darkness having no light, or around whose way the dense dark clouds of divine dispensations are gathering, filling the soul with fear and trembling. He makes the clouds his chariot; and soothed with this assurance, the beclouded, benighted traveler may be still and know that he is God. Let us view some of those clouds of the Christian pilgrimage which Christ makes his chariot.

The heavens are draped with many clouds of varied forms and hues. Such are, figuratively, the dealings of God with his people. Our Lord has many chariots. It is recorded of Solomon that his chariots were fourteen hundred; but the chariots of God are twenty thousand. In every cloud in the history of the church and in the experience of the saints is a divine chariot, and every chariot is, like the King of Israel’s, paved in the midst with love. We may illustrate this by a reference to Christ’s state-chariot, or, in other words, the Lord’s appearance to his people in the cloud of his essential and divine glory. It was in this cloud he entered and filled the tabernacle ‘so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD’ (I Kings 8:11). In this same cloud, too, he descended upon Mount Sinai: And a cloud covered the mount. And the glory of the LORD abode upon mount Sinai’ (Exod. 24:15-16). The same glorious chariot was seen descending and lighting upon Mount Tabor, in that sublime and expressive scene of our Lord’s transfiguration, when ‘he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’ (2 Pet. 1: 1 7). The same chariot of state waited his ascension and bore him back to heaven, reinvested with the glory which he had with the Father before the world was; for as he went up and his form disappeared from the gaze of his disciples, ‘a cloud received him out of their sight’ (Acts 1:9). In like manner, descending in the state-chariot of his own glory and the glory of his Father, shall he come again. Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him’ (Rev. 1:7). Solemn scene! Sublime advent! Blessed hope of those who love and look and long for his appearing! Saints of God, it speedeth on! The day of your full redemption draweth nigh. The state-chariot of our Immanuel is preparing for its descent to the world, conveying him to his church, his loving, longing bride. Lord, why tarry the wheels of thy chariot? Come, quickly come, and terminate the reign of sin and sorrow and death in the dominion of holiness and happiness and endless life, and take thy wearying church to thyself.

Come, great Redeemer, open wide
The curtains of the parting sky;
On a bright cloud in triumph ride,
And on the wind’s swift pinions fly.

Come, King of kings, with thy bright train,
Cherubs and seraphs, heavenly hosts;
Assume thy right, enlarge thy reign,
As far as earth extends her coasts.

Come, Lord, and where thy cross once stood,
There plant thy banner, fix thy throne;
Subdue the rebels by thy Word,
And claim the nations as thine own.

May we not pause at this part of our subject and ask the reader, have you seen the King riding in his chariot of state? To drop the figure, have you seen his glory, as the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth? Oh, it is a grand spectacle, the glory that is in Christ Jesus, the glory of his person, his atoning work, his redeemed church! Blessed are the eyes enlightened to behold it! Deem not your Christianity as true, nor your religion as sound, nor your hope as valid, unless you have seen by faith’s spiritual, far-discerning eye Jesus in his divinity, the King riding in majesty and beauty in this cloud-chariot of his essential dignity and glory. It is only in the beaming effulgence of this glory that all our demerit and deformity is absorbed and annihilated. So divine, blinding, and overpowering is the essential glory of our redeeming God that a believing sinner, enveloped by its beams, is changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. All his unrighteousness, his sins, and hell-deservings are consumed and destroyed by the divine Sun of righteousness. Jesus makes this cloud his chariot and waits to bless us with its vision.

There are, too, divine truths—the mysteries of the gospel, for example—which may be regarded as the cloud chariots of God. It is a favorite maxim with the objector to Christianity—plausible yet fallacious—that where mystery begins faith terminates. And yet never did the genius of error forge a weapon more weak and powerless with which to attack our divine and holy faith! If the Bible be the revelation of God, mysteries must necessarily form an essential part, if not its very substance. It would indeed be astonishing if God should not know more than man; or that if, in condescending to reveal to man his being, his will, and his heart, there should not be problems in divine truth man cannot solve, depths he cannot reach, mysteries he cannot unravel, and revelations he may not reconcile. Such, for example, are the revealed doctrines of the Trinity, the incarnation, atonement, election, sovereignty, the new birth, and resurrection. We own the mystery which envelops so much connected with these great verities of our faith; that there are depths too profound for reason’s line to touch, modes of existence which forbid the rash doubts of the skeptic and the vain speculation of the philosopher, while they demand the unquestioning faith and profound homage of the believing mind.

And yet are we then to reject them? We may, we do, believe a thousand things in nature which the mind cannot fully comprehend. Our very existence is a mystery; every movement of the body, every action of mind, every volition of will, every emotion and affection of the heart encompasses us with mystery. Yet on that account do we doubt our own existence? My being confounds, but does it transcend my reason? And are we not at every step confronting mysteries in nature and in providence which we accept as credible, which otherwise we must reject as incomprehensible? If, then, my reader, your mind is perplexed, agitated, and distressed respecting these clouds which veil so much connected with the revealed truths of the gospel, learn this lesson—that Christ makes these very clouds his chariot. In each and all of these profound yet glorious verities of our faith, these great and precious doctrines of the gospel, Christ is revealed Christ is embodied, Christ travels. The gospel is the vehicle in which Christ makes his constant advent to our souls; and if our reason may not be able perfectly to comprehend all the parts of the vehicle, let it content our faith that Jesus, the revelation ‘ the substance, and glory of all divine truth, occupies it; and that ere long the cloud of mystery into which we entered with trembling will, as in the transfiguration, dissolve into light and splendor, pure and soothing, and we shall see Jesus only.

Regard it as one of your chief mercies that your salvation depends not upon reason but upon faith. You are not called upon fully to comprehend, but unquestioningly to believe and love. You are not the less saved because your faith deals with obscurity, nor is your faith less real, precious, or saving because it abjures the wisdom of the sage for the docile spirit of the child, and the learning of the philosopher for the humility of the disciple. Let your great study be the mystery of Christ’s love to sinners—the mystery of Christ’s love to you. The apostle was content to leave all mysteries to the day of perfect knowledge, if he could but attain unto love. Though I know all mysteries, and have not love, I am nothing. Study that grand truth, ‘God is love’, as embodied in the cross of Christ, and you can well afford to refer all that is obscure and hard to understand in revealed truth to the day when we shall know all, as we also are known. Cease to dispute, cavil, and speculate on the subject of religion and revealed truth, and receive the gospel and enter into the kingdom of Christ as a little child.

In the momentous matter of your future destiny, you have but to deal with two specific and distinct facts – your sinnership and Christ’s Saviorship. What if you solve all the problems of science, and fathom all the depths of learning, and unravel all the mysteries of truth, and yet are lost! What will your speculations, and researches, and discoveries avail, if at last they be found ineffectual to distil one drop of the water of life upon the tongue, now caviling and profane, then fevered and tormented in the quenchless flame? Are you not, by your present persistent course of unbelief, pride, and rejection of truth, in danger of finding yourself there? Oh, it is of infinite importance to you that you come as sinful to the blood of Christ, as condemned to his righteousness, as ignorant and unlearned to the feet of Christ. The great problem you have to work out is your own salvation. The grand mystery you have to unravel is the mystery of your union with Jesus. The momentous questions you have to decide are the place, the society, and the employment of your endless future! Where, with whom, and how will you spend your long eternity? Compared with these grave considerations, all your doctrinal hair-splitting and your religious speculations, your vain disputes and your dreamy hopes, are as the follies of driveling idiocy, or the aberrations of a mind insane.

Shakespeare portrays his ‘Lear’ as gathering straws with the hand that had wielded a scepter, and devoting to childish thoughts a mind which once gave laws to a kingdom. With a yet more powerful hand the sacred historian describes the monarch of Babylon quitting the occupation and abodes of men and betaking himself to the pursuits and companionship of irrational animals. But what are these sad pictures of a mind diseased, wrecked, and ruined, compared with the moral madness of the man who disbelieves the gospel, cavils at truth, and perils the eternal interests of his soul—who employs the rational powers with which God has endowed him in attempting to subvert the foundations of Christianity, to extinguish the beacon light erected on the headlands and the shores of time to guide the spiritual voyager safe to eternity, involving in the destruction of others Ws own personal salvation?

The clouds of God’s providential government are no less his chariot. ‘Clouds and darkness are round about him’ (Psa. 97:2), and in these dispensations of his government he moves among men, and especially his saints. It is by a ‘cloudy pillar’, sometimes turning towards us gleams of light, at other times casting deep and dark shadows on our way, that God is conducting us heavenward. Oh, how many and how varied in form and in hue are the trying, afflictive, and disciplinary dealings of our heavenly Father! How soon the bright blue sky smiling down upon us may be wreathed with the drapery of clouds, each one dark and portentous. God blows upon wealth and it vanishes, touches health and it droops, smites the creature and it dies, and we exclaim in the words of David, ‘I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears’ (Psa. 6:6). But the night of cloud and gloom is to the kingdom of grace what the darkness of night is to the kingdom of nature. Darkness possesses the twofold property of concealing and revealing; and it would perhaps be impossible to say in which it most excelled, whether it does not reveal as much, if not more, beauty and wonder than it veils. Those clouds of providential dispensations which turn our day into night bring out to view such constellations of divine promises, discover such perfection of the divine character, and present such discoveries of divine love, as to make even night more wonderful and resplendent than day. Ah, beloved, we should know but little what Christ’s chariot of love was, but for the clouds in which he comes to us! Are cloudy dispensations gathering around you? Are God’s ways such as fill you with fear and foreboding, agitation and alarm? Does sickness threaten, do resources fail, friendships chill, changes in the relations or social position of life approach? Is separation feared, death anticipated, followed in its gloomy wake by weakened dependencies, closed channels, sundered ties, the sad farewell to a parent’s society, the home of childhood, and the dearest, sweetest ties of earth? Oh, these gathering clouds are but the Lord’s chariot, in which he rides to thee in all the wisdom of His dealings, the faithfulness of his covenant, the tenderness of his love, and the righteousness of his procedure.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace,
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

But consider who it is that rides in this chariot. It is the Lord your God. Many of God’s people are so absorbed in their contemplation of the chariot as to overlook the one who sits in it. Their emotions vary according to the appearance which it presents. If the cloud is bright and promising, their feelings and hopes are correspondingly so; but should it wear a somber, threatening appearance, faith sinks and fears rise. But faith has nothing to do with the chariot, whatever may be its magnitude, shape, or hue, but with Christ in the chariot and with God in the cloud. For example, with regard to divine truth, it is not with the vehicle of truth itself, but with Christ as revealed in the truth, that our faith must deal. I may not be able to comprehend and understand all the parts of the chariot—its complexity may baffle, its gorgeousness may blind me—but I may be able to see and understand who is enthroned upon its seat.

If the mystery of the doctrine of the Trinity, and of the incarnation, and of the atonement, and of election, is so profound that I cannot explain or comprehend it, I still may discern in them one glorious object, and discerning that object, it were enough for my salvation. I can see Jesus in the Trinity, Jesus in the incarnation, Jesus in the atonement, Jesus in election, and this will suffice until the night of divine mysteries gives place to the meridian sunshine of a perfect and eternal day of knowledge and glory; and then I shall as fully understand the mysterious construction and comprehend all the different parts of the chariot as my mind will be capable of knowing, and my heart of loving him, whose name is Wonderful, who rode in it to my salvation. Then shall we know even as also we are known. Oh, how fully and blessedly shall we know Jesus then! How gloriously will this great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, unveil to our enlarged and sanctified intellect. We shall no more see the King in his beauty as through a glass darkly, nor the good land very far off. With souls perfected in holiness, how clear will be the vision, how transparent the medium, how glorious the Object! There shall be no more night of mystery, no more night of obscurity, no more night of sin, no more night of weeping. No disease shall shade the intellect, no prejudice shall warp, no shock shall unhinge it. No adversity shall touch the heart, no bereavement shall sadden, no changed and chilled affection shall collapse it.

That there will be gradations of knowledge and degrees of glory, I think is probable. There are so in the Church of God on earth; I see nothing to exclude the same from the Church of God in heaven. But this will not in the slightest degree affect the happiness or glory of the saints. Is there less beauty in a tuhp-bed, or in a conservatory of flowers, because there is so rich an assemblage of varied colors? Or, is there less splendor in the heavenly bodies because there is so great a variety of magnitude, effulgence, and orbit? And will there be less enjoyment, or less beauty, or less song amidst the countless numbers who throng the temple above, because ‘One star differeth from another star in glory’ (1 Cor. 15:41)? Oh, no, the glory and the happiness of each will be full and perfect! Every spirit will possess a happiness and reflect a glory equal to its capacity. As two luminous bodies in the celestial system may shine in perfection, though in widely different orbits and with different degrees of splendor, and as two streams, the rivulet and the river, may course their way through landscape, the one gliding in simple, pensive beauty, the other rolling in majestic waves, and yet each filling its channel, both equally charming the eye and declaring the glory of God; so the ‘spirits of just men made perfect’ (Heb. 12:23) shall each be a differing, yet full, vessel of happiness. The image of God will shine with full-orbed splendour in both, though with different intensity, and by each one shall Christ perfect to himself endless praise.

Oh, beloved, if we but reach that world of purity and of bliss, we shall be so satisfied with the orbit we roll in, the glory we emit, and the happiness we feel, as never to question the goodness or the righteousness of God in the sphere assigned us! Christ will then be all in all to us, and we shall be satisfied with all that Christ has done. I think that our bliss will be so complete, our joy so full, and our glory so resplendent, we shall scarcely be conscious that there is another saint fuller, happier, or more glorious than ourselves. Blessed world of glory, we long to be within thy walls! Open, ye everlasting doors, and admit us, that we may eat of the tree of life and recline upon the sunlight banks of the crystal river that makes glad the city of our God.

Salem, city of the holy,
We shall be within thy walls:
There, beside yon crystal river,
There, beneath life’s wondrous tree,

There, with nought to cloud or sever,
Ever with the Lamb to be!
Heir of glory!
That shall be for thee and me!

The Lord, too, is equally in all the providential clouds which unfold his government and trace our pilgrimage heavenward. It is our wisdom and our happiness to know that there is not an event or circumstance, a cloud or a sunbeam, in our personal history and experience that is not a vehicle of Christ. He makes the clouds his chariot; and his providential dispensations, whatever their form or their hue, are his means of approaching and visiting us. ‘The LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet’ (Nahum 1:3). Fear not, oh Christian traveler, that dark, lowering cloud rising above thee. It grows large, and it looks threatening, and thou thinkest it will overtake and consume thee before thou hast crossed the plain and reached the shelter. Tremble not, it will roll no thunder, it will flash no lightning! The cross of Christ is the great lightning conductor for the Church of God. Around that cross, law and justice met in awful array, the thunderbolt struck and the lightning scathed the Son of God, and upon him they spent their force. And now beneath the shelter of that cross, the penitent sinner may safely stand, and the darkest cloud, and the loudest thunder, and the most vivid lightning that gathers and verberates and illumines above shall pass him by untouched, for there is now ‘no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus’ (Rom. 8:1).

Why, then, fear the dealings, and the readings, and the chastenings of God in providence? That somber chariot that appears at thy door, enters thy abode, mounts into thy chamber, is the chariot of love, the chariot of Jesus. Christ is in that adversity, Christ is in that loss, Christ is in that bereavement, Christ is in that sickness; in a word, that cloud, whatever may be its nature, its form, and its darkness what it may, is one of the twenty thousand chariots of God in which he rideth to thy help, in his excellency, on the sky. Oh, learn to see Christ and to deal closely with God in all his dispensations and dealings with you. No enemy bent on destruction, no foe armed with vengeance, sits in the cloud chariot that approaches you—it is your Father, your covenant God, your Redeemer. It is he to whose heart you are more precious than the universe, in whose eye you are more beautiful than angels, and on whose ear the accents of your voice fall with a melody infinitely surpassing the sweetest cherub before the throne.

Look not, I beseech you, at the somber hue of the chariot, but rather at the love and loveliness and graciousness of him who sits within it. It is your beloved Lord! His person is white and ruddy, human and divine. His countenance is brighter than the sun shining in its strength. His voice is gentle, tender, and winning, uttering the speech and the accent and the words of love. Then be not afraid. Christ will never send an empty chariot to his people. When his chariot lights at our door, we may be assured that he is in it. No angel, no ransomed spirit shall occupy the seat, but he himself. Welcome, then, the visit of your gracious King. He comes laden with the ‘sure mercies of David’, freighted with covenant blessings and bearing the sweet grapes and the fragrant flowers gleaned from the vineyards and the paradise of heaven. He comes in this cloud to talk with and to manifest himself to you and to make you more intimately and personally acquainted with himself, with his truth and his love. Welcome him to your dwelling, receive him into your heart, and bid him abide with you there, never to leave you again. Be not satisfied unless you discern the Ying in the chariot. This only will dispel your fears and reconcile you to the dispensation, however dark and painful it may be. The moment you realize, ‘Thou art near, O Lord’—that moment your heaving, panting bosom will be at rest. The disciples feared as they entered into the cloud upon the Mount of Transfiguration, but discovering the Lord in it, their trembling was changed into confidence, their apprehension into joy, and they desired to build their tabernacle on its summit and no more descend to the toil and the strife below.

Beloved, are you entering some overshadowing cloud trembling and apprehensive? Fear not! Thy Lord is in it, and a Father’s voice of love shall speak to thee from out of its veiling shadows, saying, ‘When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior’ (Isa. 43:2-3). Glorious cloud that enshrines the form of my redeeming God! Welcome, thou coming chariot, that brings Jesus near to my soul. Thy vesture is dark, thy form gigantic, thy appearance threatening, but my heart shall not fear, nor my faith falter, for in this will I be confident, that he makes the clouds his chariot, and in this chariot comes my Savior to shelter, to soothe, and to bless me. Truly, ‘there is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms’ (Deut. 33:26-27). Ere long another chariot will appear at your door, the chariot sent to bear you home to God, to Christ, to heaven. We know not what form this messenger will as- sume, whether it will be Christ’s state-chariot, which shall convey him in person to us, or whether it shall be Christ’s chariot of death, which will convey us to him; but this we believe and are assured of, that in a very little while we shall see the Lord and be with him forever. The chariot is preparing for us, let us be preparing for the chariot. Let us so live detached from, and above, the world, and creatures, and earthly delights; let us so live in fellowship with God and in communion with divine and eternal things, that when the Lord’s chariot gently knocks at our door, we may have nothing to do but to step into it and away to heaven! Aged saint, art thou looking through the window and the lattice of thy frail tabernacle, exclaiming, ‘Why is his chariot so long in coming. Why tarry the wheels of his chariots?’ (Judg. 5:28).

Be patient and trustful; the Lord’s time is best, and ere long thou shalt exclaim, ‘It is the voice of my Beloved that knocketh! The Master is come and calleth for me. Earth, farewell! Friends, farewell! Parents, kindred, wife, children, home, farewell! Sorrow, suffering, trial, sin, farewell! I go to be with Jesus forever!’ And then a cloud of glory shall receive you out of their sight, and so shall you ever be with the Lord.

Forever with the Lord!
Amen; so let it be,
Life from the dead is in that word,
‘Tis immortality.

Here in the body pent,
Absent from Him I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent
A day’s march nearer home.

My Father’s house on high,
Home of my soul, so near,
At times, to faith’s far-seeing eye
Thy golden gates appear!

Yet clouds will intervene,
And all my prospect flies,
Like Noah’s dove, I flit between
Rough seas and stormy skies.

And the clouds depart,
The winds and waters cease,
While sweetly o’er my gladdend heart
Expands the bow of peace.

In darkness as in light,
Hidden alike from view,
I sleep, I wake, as in His sight,
Who looks all nature through.

Forever with the Lord!
Father, if ’tis Thy will,
The promise of that faithful word
Even here to me fulfil.

Be Thou at my right hand,
Then can I never fail,
Uphold Thou me, and I shall stand,
Fight, and I must prevail.

Knowing as I am known,
How shall I love that word!
And oft repeat before the throne,
Forever with the Lord!

Forever with the Lord!
Amen; so let it be,
Life from the dead is in that word,
‘Tis immortality

Octavius Winslow

 Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
Let us be thankful for the institution of the Christian Sabbath.

It is a thing wherein God hath shown His mercy to us and His care for our souls. He shows that He by His infinite wisdom is contriving for our good. Christ teaches us that the Sabbath was made for man: “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” (Mar. 2:27). It was made for the profit and for the comfort of our souls.

The Lord’s Day is a day of rest: God hath appointed that every seventh day we should rest from our worldly labors. Instead of that, He might have appointed the hardest labors for us to go through, some severe hardships for us to endure. It is a day of outward, but especially of spiritual, rest. It is a day appointed of God that His people thereon may find rest unto their souls; that the souls of believers may rest and be refreshed in their Savior. It is a day of rejoicing: God made it to be a joyful day to the Church…They that receive and improve the Sabbath aright, call it a delight and honorable (Isa. 58:13-14). It is a pleasant and joyful day to them; it is an image of the future heavenly rest of the Church: “There remaineth therefore a rest” (or Isabbatism, as it is in the original) “to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest” (Heb. 4:9-11).

 The Christian Sabbath is one of the most precious enjoyments of the visible Church. Christ showed His love to His Church in instituting it; and it; [is appropriate for] the Christian Church to be thankful to her Lord for it. The very name of this day-the Lord’s Day or Jesus’ day-should endear it to Christians, as it intimates the special relation it has to Christ and the design of it, which is the commemoration of our dear Savior and His love to His Church in redeeming it.

Be exhorted to keep this day holy. God hath given such evidences that this is His mind, that He will surely require it of you, if you do not strictly and conscientiously observe it. And if you do thus observe it, you may have this comfort in the reflection upon your conduct: (1) that you have not been superstitions in it, but have done as God hath revealed it to be His mind and will in His Word that you should do; and (2) that in so doing you are in the way of God’s acceptance and reward.

Here let me lay before you the following motives to excite you to this duty:           

1. By strict observation of the Lord’s Day, the name of God is honored, and that in such a way as is very acceptable to Him. “If thou…call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him” (Isa. 58:13). God is honored by it, as it is a visible manifestation of respect to God’s holy Law and a reverencing of that which has a peculiar relation to God Himself…If a person, with evident strictness and care, observe the Sabbath, it is a visible manifestation of a conscientious regard to God’s declaration of His mind, and [this is] a visible honor done to His authority.

 By a strict observance of the Sabbath, the face of religion is kept up in the world. If it were not for the Sabbath, there would be but little public and visible appearance of serving, worshipping, and reverencing the supreme and invisible Being. The Sabbath seems to have been appointed very much for this end, to up hold the visibility of [Christianity] in public…By how much greater the strictness is with which the Sabbath is observed and with how much more solemnity the duties of it are observed among a people, by so much the greater is the manifestation among them of respect to the Divine Being.

This should be a powerful motive with us to the observation of the Sabbath. It should be our study above all things to honor and glorify God. It should be the great thing with all that bear the name of Christian to honor their great God and King… 

2. That which is the business of the Lord’s Day is the greatest business of our lives, that of religion. To serve and worship God is that for which we were made and for which we had our being given us. Other business, which is of a secular nature and on which we are wont to attend on week days, is but subordinate and ought to be subservient to the higher purposes and ends of religion. Therefore, surely we should not think much of devoting one-seventh part of our time to be wholly spent in the business and to be set apart to exercise ourselves in the immediate duties of religion.

3. Let it be considered that all our time is God’s. Therefore, when He challenges of us one day in seven, He challenges His own. He doth not exceed His right: He would not have exceeded it if He had challenged a far greater proportion of our time to be spent in His immediate service. But He hath mercifully considered our state and our necessities here; and, as He hath consulted the good of our souls in appointing a seventh day for the immediate duties of religion, so He hath considered our outward necessities and hath allowed us six days for attendance on our outward affairs. What unworthy treatment therefore will it be of God, if we refuse to allow Him even the seventh day!
4. As the Lord’s Day is a day that is especially set apart for religious exercises, so it is a day wherein God especially confers His grace and blessing. As God hath commanded us to set it apart to have converse with Him, so hath He set it apart for Himself to have converse with us. As God hath commanded us to observe the Sabbath, so God observes the Sabbath too….His eyes are open upon it. He stands ready then especially to hear prayers, to accept of religious services, to meet His people, to manifest Himself to them, to give His Holy Spirit and blessing to those who diligently and conscientiously sanctify it.

That we should sanctify the Lord’s Day, as we have observed, is according to God’s institution. God in a sense observes His own institutions, i.e., [He] is wont to cause them to be attended with a blessing. The institutions of God are His appointed means of grace; and with His institutions, He hath promised His blessing: “In all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee” (Exo. 20:24). For the same reason, we may conclude that God will meet His people and bless them, waiting upon Him not only in appointed places, but at appointed times and in all appointed ways….God hath made it our duty, by His institution, to set apart this day for a special seeking of His grace and blessing. [Therefore,] we may argue that He will be especially ready to confer His grace on those who thus seek it. If it is the day on which God requires us especially to seek Him, we may argue that it is a day on which especially He will be found. That God is ready on this day especially to bestow His blessing on them that keep it aright is implied in that expression of God’s blessing the Sabbath day (Gen. 2:3)….So here is great encouragement for us to keep holy the Sabbath, as we would seek God’s grace and our spiritual good. The Sabbath day is an accepted time, a day of salvation, a time wherein God especially loves to be sought and loves to be found. The Lord Jesus Christ takes delight in His own day: He delights to honor it. He delights to meet with and manifest Himself to His disciples on it, as He showed before His ascension by appearing to them from time to time on this day. He delights to give His Holy Spirit on this day, as He intimated by choosing it as the day on which to pour out the Spirit in so remarkable a manner on the primitive church (Acts 2:1-4), and on which to give His Spirit to the apostle John (Rev. 1:10).

Of old, God blessed the seventh day or appointed it to be a day whereon especially He would bestow blessings on His people, as an expression of His own joyful remembrance of that day and of the rest and refreshment that He had in it: “Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath…for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed” (Ex. 31:16-17).

But how much more has Christ to bless the day of His resurrection, to delight to honor it, and to confer His grace and blessed gifts on His people on this day. It was a day whereon Christ rested and was refreshed in a literal sense. It was a day of deliverance from the chains of death, the day of His finishing that great and difficult work of redemption, which had been upon His heart from all eternity; the day of His [vindication] by the Father; the day of the beginning of His exaltation, and the fulfillment of the promises of the Father; the day when He had eternal life, which He had purchased, put into His hands. On this day, Christ doth indeed delight to distribute gifts, blessings, joy, and happiness, and will delight to do the same to the end of the world.

O therefore, how well is it worth our while to improve this day, to call upon God and seek Jesus Christ! Let awakened sinners be stirred up by these things to improve the Lord’s Day, as they would lay themselves most in the way of the Spirit of God. Improve this day to call upon God, for then He is near. Improve it for reading the Holy Scriptures and diligently attending His Word preached; for then is the likeliest time to have the Sprit accompanying it. Let the saints who are desirous of growing in grace and enjoying communion with Christ improve the Lord’s Day in order to it.

From: “The Perpetuity and Change of the Sabbath” in the Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 2, in the public domain        

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So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.—Ephesians 5:28

The husband must realize that his wife is a part of himself. He will not feel this instinctively; he has to be taught it, and the Bible in all its parts teaches it. In other words, the husband must understand that he and his wife are not two: they are one. The apostle keeps on repeating that: “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself…They two shall be one flesh…We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones” (Eph 5:28, 31, 30). That is all true of our relationship to the Lord; it is true also in this other relationship.

I would therefore put it in this way: it is not sufficient for us even to regard our wives as partners. They are partners, but they are more than partners. You can have two men in business who are partners, but that is not the analogy. The analogy goes higher than that. It is not a question of partnership, though it includes that idea. There is another phrase that is often used—at least, it used to be common—that puts it so much better and that seems to me to be an unconscious statement of the Christian teaching. It is the expression used by men when they refer to their wives as “my better half.” Now that is exactly right. She is not a partner; she is the other half of the man. “They two shall be one flesh.” “My better half.” The very word half puts the whole case that the apostle elaborates here. We are not dealing with two units, two entities, but dealing with two halves of one—“They two shall be one flesh.” Therefore, in the light of this, the husband must no longer think singly or individually. That should be quite impossible in marriage, says the apostle, because, “He that loveth his wife loveth himself.” He is in a sense not loving somebody else, he is loving himself. Such is the difference that marriage makes.

On the practical level, therefore, the whole of the husband’s thinking must include his wife also. He must never think of himself in isolation or in detachment. The moment he does so, he has broken the most fundamental principle of marriage. Everybody sees it when it happens on the physical level, but the real damage is done before that, on the intellectual and the spiritual level. In a sense, the moment a man thinks of himself in isolation, he has broken the marriage. And he has no right to do that! There is a sense in which he cannot do it because the wife is a part of himself. But if it happens, he is certain to inflict grievous damage on his wife; and it is a damage in which he himself will be involved because she is a part of him. He is therefore even acting against himself, did he but realize it. His thinking, therefore, must never be personal in the sense of being individualistic. He is only the half, and what he does involves of necessity the other half. The same applies to his desires. He must never have any desire for himself alone. He is no longer one man, he is no longer free in that sense; his wife is involved in all his desires. It is his business therefore to see that he is always fully alive to these considerations. He must never think of his wife, in other words, as an addition. Still less—I am sorry that I have to use such an expression—as an encumbrance;⁵⁶ but there are many who do so…

[A husband] must therefore deliberately remind himself constantly of what is true of him in this married state, and that must govern and control all his thinking, all his wishing, all his desiring, indeed the totality of his life and activity.

But we can go further and put this more strongly. Verse 28 closes with the words, “He that loveth his wife loveth himself ”; but we remember that the apostle, in describing the relationship between the Lord and the church, has used the analogy of the body. “So,” he further says in the same verse, “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.” Then he elaborates it in verse 29: “For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.” Here, then, is the teaching: that we not only have to realize that the husband and wife are one, but the husband must realize that the wife is actually a part of himself according to this analogy of the body. A man’s attitude to his wife, says the apostle, should be his attitude, as it were, to his body. That is the analogy, and it is more than an analogy…The woman was originally taken out of the man (Gen 2:21-22). There we have the proof of the fact that she is a part of the man, and that describes the characteristic of the unity. The man, therefore, is told this: “So ought men to love their wives as their own body.” Now that little word as is a most important and vital one because we can easily misunderstand it. Paul does not say, “So ought men to love their wives in the same way as they love their bodies.” That is not the meaning. The meaning is, “So ought men to love their wives because they are their own bodies.” A man loves his wife as his body—that is what he is saying. Not “as” he loves his body so must he love his wife. No! A man must love his wife as his body—as a part of himself. As Eve was a part of Adam, taken out of his side, so the wife is to the man because she is a part of him.

I am stressing this because the apostle brings out clearly, namely, to show that there is this element of indissolubility⁵⁷ about marriage, which, as I understand the biblical teaching, can only be broken by adultery. But what we are concerned to say now is that the apostle puts it in this form in order that a husband may see that he cannot detach himself from his wife. You cannot detach yourself from your body, so you cannot detach yourself from your wife. She is a part of you, says the apostle, so remember that always. You cannot live in isolation; you cannot live in detachment. If you realize that, there will be no danger of your thinking in detachment, no danger of your wishing and willing and desiring any detachment. Still less can there be any antagonism or hatred. Notice how he puts it: “No man,” he says, to ridicule the thing, “no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.” So, any element of hatred between husband and wife is sheer madness; it shows that the man has no conception at all as to what marriage means. “No man hated his own flesh”—but his wife is his own flesh; she is his body. So, he is to love his wife as his own body.

What does this lead to in practice? Here I come to very detailed teaching that is needed by all—Christian people as well as others. God knows, we all have failed; we all have sinned by failing to understand this teaching and to apply it in detail. The principle is that the wife is, as it were, the body of the man. So, what his body is to his personality, his wife should be to him. Out of that comes the apostle’s detailed teaching. How is a man to treat his wife? Let me give some negatives first.

He is not to abuse her. It is possible for a man to abuse his body, and many men do abuse their bodies—by eating too much, by drinking too much, and in various other ways. That is to abuse the body, to maltreat it,⁵⁸ to be unkind to it. Now, says the apostle, a man who does that is a fool because if a man maltreats his body and abuses it, he himself is going to suffer. You cannot detach yourself from your body; and if you think you can, and abuse your body, you will be the one to suffer. Your mind will suffer, your heart will suffer, the whole of your life will suffer. You may say, “I do not care about my body, I am living a life of the intellect”; but if you keep on doing that, you will soon find that you no longer have the intellect that you once had, and you will not be able to think as you once did. If you abuse your body, you are the one who is going to suffer. Not only the body, but you yourself will suffer as well. It is the same in the married relationship. If a man abuses his wife, he will suffer as well as the wife. So, apart from the inherent wrongfulness, the man is a fool. If a man abuses his wife, there is going to be a breakdown not only in the wife, but also in the man, and in the relationship between the two. Surely this is what is happening so commonly in the world today. It should be unthinkable that a Christian man should abuse his wife.

But not only should the husband not abuse his wife, in the second place, he should not neglect her. Come back again to the analogy of the body. A man can neglect his body. It often happens, and again, it always leads to trouble. To neglect the body is bad, it is foolish, it is wrong. Man has been so constituted that he is body, mind, and spirit, and the three are in intimate relationship one with another. We are all surely aware of this. Take an example in terms of the frailty of the body. If I am suffering from laryngitis, I cannot preach, though I may want to do so. I may be full of ideas and of a desire to preach; but if my throat is inflamed, I cannot speak. And it is so with the whole of the body. If you neglect the body, you yourself will suffer for it. Many a man has done that, many a scholar has done that, and through neglect of the body his work has suffered. That is because of the essential unity between these parts of our personalities.

It is the same in the married relationship, says the apostle. How much trouble is caused in the realm of marriage simply because of neglect! Very recently there has been evidence in the papers by medical men who have reported that large numbers of wives today have been driven to chain smoking. Why? Simply because they have been neglected by their husbands. The husbands spend their nights out at sports, or in their public house, or playing games with their friends; and the poor wife is left at home with the children and the work. The husband comes home at night just in time to go to bed and to sleep; and he gets up and goes out in the morning. Neglect of the wife is leading to these nervous conditions that reveal themselves in excessive smoking and other manifestations of nervous tension. It is lamentable that a man should get married and then proceed to neglect his wife. In other words, here is a man who has married, but who in essential matters goes on living as if he were still a bachelor. He is still living his own detached life; he still spends his time with his men friends.

I could elaborate on this very easily, but the facts are so familiar that it is unnecessary. But I have a feeling that I detect a tendency even in Christian circles, and even in evangelical circles, to forget this particular point. A married man must no longer act as if he were a single man; his wife should be involved in everything…Of course, the man in his business has to be alone, and there are other occasions when he has to be alone; but if it is a social occasion, something into which a wife can enter, she should enter; and it is the business of the husband to see to it that she does enter…But there is another aspect of this matter that at times causes me great concern. I am constantly hearing of what sometimes has been called “evangelical widows.” The expression means that the husband of that particular type of woman is a man who is out every night at some meeting or other. His explanation, indeed his argument, is that he is engaged in good Christian work; but he seems to forget that he is a married man…The conduct of such a husband is grievously sinful. Though it is done in the name of active Christian work, a man cannot and must not contract out of his married relationship in that way because the wife is a part of him—his “better half,” not his slave.

Christian husbands must therefore examine themselves in this matter. A home is not a dormitory where a man returns to sleep. No! There is to be this active, ideal, positive relationship; and we must ever be holding it in the forefront of our mind. A man therefore must seek wisdom from God to know how to divide himself up in this respect. But I care not what a man is; if he is a married man, he must not behave as a single man, even in connection with Christian work, because in so doing he is denying the very teaching of the gospel that he claims to be preaching. There can be untold selfishness just at that point…So, I move on to the practical outworking of the teaching.

The husband must not abuse his wife, he must not neglect his wife, and, thirdly, he must never take her for granted. The positive element must always be there. A man’s wife is not just his housekeeper; there is this positive element. How can that best be brought out? Let me take the apostle’s own terms. He puts it like this: “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. No man ever yet hated his own flesh; but”—What? “Nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the Lord the church”…Once more, this can be worked out in terms of the analogy that a man does not hate his own body, but nourishes it and cherishes it. How does he do so? We can divide it up simply thus:

First of all, there is the question of diet. A man must think about his diet, about his food. He must take sufficient nourishment, he must take it regularly, and so on. All that must be worked out in terms of husband and wife. The man should be thinking of what will help his wife, what will strengthen his wife. As we take our food, we not only think in terms of calories or protein, fat, and carbohydrate; we are not purely scientific, are we? Another element comes into this question of food. We are influenced also by what appeals to the palate, by what gives us pleasure and enjoyment. So ought the husband to treat his wife. He should be thinking of what pleases her, what gives her pleasure, what she likes, what she enjoys. Of course, before he got married, he went out of his way to do this; but then after he gets married, he often stops doing so. Is that not the difficulty?…Consider her whole personality and her soul. There has to be this active thought about the development of the wife and her life in this amazing relationship that God Himself has established.

Again, there is the question of exercise. The analogy of the body suggests that at once. Exercise for the body is essential; exercise is equally essential in the married relationship. It can mean as simple a thing as this—just talking. Alas, I have known trouble in marriages so often, simply because of an absence of conversation. We all know how much there is to be said by way of excuse. A man is tired, he has been at his work or his office all day, and he comes home weary and tired and wants rest and peace. Yes, but the same thing is also true of his wife, with the difference that perhaps she has been alone all day or only had the society of little children. Whether we feel like it or not, we must talk. The wife needs exercise in this sense. Tell her about your business, about your worries, about your affairs;⁵⁹ bring her into it. She is your body, she is a part of you, so allow her to speak concerning it. Consult her, let her bring her understanding to bear. She is a part of your life, so bring her into the whole of your life. Make yourself talk…I repeat once more that I know all the excuses, and how difficult it often can be; but let me put it like this—I think it is a fair argument. This man was equally tired and working equally hard before he got married; but in the days before marriage, whatever he had been doing, he was most anxious to talk to his fiancée and to bring her into everything. Why should that stop when they get married? It should not stop, says the apostle. The husband and wife are one. Look at her, and consider her as you do your body, and remember this element of exercise. Bring her into everything deliberately. It will be wonderful for her, for her development; and it will be good for you yourself because the whole marriage will grow and develop as you do so.

And that brings us to the fourth point, which is the element of protection. Here is this body—it needs food, it needs exercise; but in addition, every man has to learn to understand his own body. The apostle works out the argument. The apostle Peter, you remember, puts it like this. He tells the husband to remember that his wife is “the weaker vessel.” This means that these bodies of ours are subject to certain things. We are all different even in a physical sense. Some of us are subject, perhaps, to feeling the cold, or subject to chills in a way that does not seem to worry other men. Some of us are so constituted that we have these minor problems; and we are subject to odd infections and various other things that come to try us. What does a wise man do? He takes great care about such things: he puts on a heavy overcoat in winter, he may put on a scarf; and he refrains from doing certain things. He is protecting himself and his weak constitution against some of the hazards that come to meet us in life. “So ought men to love their wives.” Have you discovered that your wife has some peculiar temperamental weakness? Have you discovered that she has certain special characteristics? Is she nervous and apprehensive, or is she too outspoken? It does not matter what it is in particular; she has certain characteristics that are, in a sense, weaknesses. What is your reaction to them? Are you irritated or annoyed? And do you tend to condemn them and to dismiss them? Act as you do with your body, says the apostle. Protect her against them, guard her against them. If your wife happens to have been born with that worrying temperament, well, save her from it, protect her. Do everything you can to safeguard her from the weaknesses and the infirmities and the frailties; as you do so for your body, do so for your wife…She is “the weaker vessel”…

We leave it at that…We have been looking at one big principle that is most important. A man has to love his wife “even as”—because she is—his own body. “No man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.”

From Life in the Spirit in Marriage, Home, and Work: An Exposition of Ephesians 5:18-6:9 (Edinburgh; Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 213-221,

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981)

Ulrich Zwingli: HISTORY

 

 

In 1983 churches all over the world commemorated the 500th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther. Ulrich Zwingli should have gotten the same sort of celebration a year later, when his own 500th birthday came and went on January 1, 1484. But Zwingli (1484-1531) has had to stand somewhat “in the shadows” of such giants as Luther and Calvin.

But Zwingli’s person, work, and life merit some more attention than he has received through the years. The call to “remember your leaders” (Hebrews 13:7) extends also to this man and the work he was enabled to do by the Lord.

Early life

Ulrich Zwingli was born into a relatively prosperous family living in the mountainous region of Wildhaus, Switzerland, as one of many children. Already at a very young age he left home, first to learn from an uncle, Bartholomew Zwingli, who was priest in the town of Wiesen.

When he was ten years old, Zwingli proceeded to the grammar schools in Basel and Bern. Fearing that, because of his beautiful singing voice, Zwingli would be inducted into monastery life, his parents sent him on to Vienna, where he studied (natural) science and literature.

Here in Vienna, Zwingli was drenched in the humanistic philosophy of his time. In 1506 Zwingli returned to Basel where he was promoted to magister artium (Master of Arts). After a brief training in (mostly scholastic) theology, Zwingli was ordained as priest in the village of Glarus. At this time Zwingli is a typical priest: well educated but humanistically oriented in his thinking.

Taking a pacifistic turn

Zwingli’s period of service in Glarus is significant in many ways. It is here that he begins to study both Christian and secular classics, and becomes attracted to the works of Erasmus, the Dutch humanist. Here, also, Zwingli displays some of the patriotism for which he will become legendary. Although he twice accompanies Swiss infantry in battle for the Pope against the French, Zwingli begins to discourage young Swiss men from becoming mercenaries in foreign service. He expresses these sentiments strongly in an Aesop-like morality tale, The Fable of the Ox. Having experienced the ugly, mass slaughter of the battlefield, Zwingli turned to a more pacifistic philosophy.

In 1516, Zwingli left Glarus and took up ministry in Einsiedeln. Here Zwingli further refined his emerging pacifistic views. During this time he considered all service in foreign armies a curse, although he maintained that it is one’s patriotic duty to defend one’s homeland.

While in Einsiedeln, Zwingli met Erasmus and discovered Erasmus’ edition of the Greek New Testament. As he proceeded to study this edition, Zwingli began to distance himself more and more from Erasmus’ humanistic views and from the prevailing allegorical interpretation of Scripture.

He began to study the Word of God in its own light and began to understand that Scripture require a literal interpretation. He realized that the scholastic and philosophical approach to the Bible and theology must be rejected.

It is during this same time that Zwingli made a serious study of the works of Augustine and came to condemn the worship of relics and the adoration of saints. This growing resistance gradually deepened into a carefully-worded warning against the worship of Mary, and into a ridiculing of the indulgences.

Ministry in Zurich

In 1519 Zwingli was installed in Zurich, and it is in this city that he clearly made himself known as a prophetic reformer of great influence. It became evident that Zwingli wanted to let the Scriptures speak for themselves, and that he understood traditions and precepts of men that are made binding for the church are to be rejected.

The sola Scriptura of the Reformation began to take powerful form in his ministry! Zwingli supported those who rejected the Romanist laws of fasting. He spoke out against celibacy and himself married a widow of class, Anna Reinhart, a marriage which became officially known two years later, in 1524. That same year Zwingli broke with the Church of Rome by declaring that he can no longer accept the Pope as the “head of the church,” instead accusing the Pope of abusing worldly power. Christ is declared as the only Head of the church and His Word as its only guide.

Spurred on by Zwingli’s preaching, the city council of Zurich refused to give in to the objections of the Bishop of Constanz, but it did agree to conduct a public disputation. The first of these disputations — not unknown in the days of the Reformation — took place in January 1523 between Zwingli and the influential Romanist prelate, Johann Faber. The result was a smashing victory for the Reformation, for at its conclusion the city council of Zurich decrees that from then on nothing may be preached which is not in full accord with the gospel.

Growing divisions

Many Swiss cities, such as Basel and Bern, took the side of the Reformation in Zurich and, in 1528, formed a Christian federation. However, the Roman Catholic cantons were also organized against the influence of Zwingli and Zurich. This situation ultimately led to battle and bloodshed.

On October 11, 1531, in a battle near Kappel, Zwingli was killed along with 400 other citizens of Zurich. After having declared him to be a heretic, a hastily formed court lets his body be quartered and burned. Zwingli paid the price in blood; at age 47, his earthly course suddenly came to an end.

While the rift between the Romanist and Reformed factions in Switzerland was inevitable, there also emerged other, perhaps not so expected, divisions. In the years before Zwingli’s death, there were radicals in Zurich who felt that Zwingli was not going far enough in his reforms. These radicals, such as Konrad Grebel and Felix Mantz, began to reject all civil authority. The Anabaptist movement was born and it causes so much dissension and confusion that the city council of Zurich arrested its leaders. One of these, Felix Mantz, is executed by drowning in 1527, and the Anabaptist movement then also had a martyr.

All this was a source of great sorrow for Zwingli; many of the Anabaptist leaders were former associates and close friends. Of greater significance, perhaps, was the growing division between Zwingli and Luther. In 1529, in a meeting in Marburg, Luther and Zwingli discussed at length the matter of the Lord’s Supper but could not come to agreement. Luther’s theory of consubstantiation is too far from Zwingli’s symbolic interpretation. Although both agree that Christ is present in bread and wine, they cannot agree as to the manner. Luther and Zwingli depart bitterly from each other and become estranged. This controversy, of course, greatly damaged the cause of the Reformation. Since it furthered Zwingli’s isolation, it also contributed to his death.

Conclusion

It is not easy to estimate the significance of the work of a person such as Zwingli. Because of his own development and changing insights, Zwingli’s significance cannot be caught in an easy formula. In liberal circles, Zwingli is hailed as the reformer who was a true humanist, a worthy forerunner of contemporary radical and political theologians. His humanistic background and patriotic zeal, perhaps, cause him to recede somewhat to the background in Reformed appreciation. We generally turn to Calvin for advice.

Yet it cannot be denied that Zwingli’s basic convictions and personal endeavors are true to the spirit of the Great Reformation. Zwingli wanted nothing else than to live by the Scriptures alone and to let the Scriptures explain themselves under the illumination of the Holy Spirit and not under the tradition of the church. For Zwingli it was without doubt that it is not the church with its sacramental administration that governs the flow of grace, but that men are reconciled to God only by the death of His Son. He clearly rejected the “cursed idolatry” of the mass and its excesses in the worship of saints and relics, proclaiming that our salvation lies only in the sacrifice of Christ, once offered on the cross.

Zwingli did not tire in defending the just cause of the Reformation over against the Anabaptists, remaining firm with respect to the Scriptural doctrine of infant baptism.

Although in many ways a disciple of Erasmus, he refuted the teaching of the master that the will of man is free. Man cannot save himself, Zwingli emphasized time and again, but must have true knowledge of God and sin, knowledge learned only from the Word of God. Man has no saving knowledge in himself!

It is clear, then, that in these key issues there is a direct line from Ulrich Zwingli to John Calvin. In the turbulent era of the Reformation, Zwingli maintained the Scriptures over against the prevailing humanism and emerging radicalism of his time. In this respect he is still an example for the church, some five hundred years later. It would be good if in this commemorative year his works were rediscovered and studied anew. Since we are faced in our time with similar extremes, humanism and radicalism, we can learn from Zwingli’s struggle. Zwingli definitely does not belong in the shadows between Luther and Calvin.

Rev. Clarence Stam (1948-2016) was the editor of Reformed Perspective for eight years, from 1985-1993, and was a contributor for many more. This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in the June, 1984 edition.

Taken from:Reformed Perspective

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Agustus Toplady

ABASEMENT

The sweetest seasons on this side heaven are, when the soul sinks into nothing before the face of God, and is absorbed in the sight of Christ and the love of the Spirit: when we feel the presence of Deity, and silently wait on him, at the feet of the cross, with weeping eyes, affections, and bleeding hearts.

ACCEPTANCE

What coming and what returning sinner need despair of acceptance? No man can be worse than St. Paul was before his conversion; and no man can be worse than St. Peter was after his conversion.

ACTIONS

Where Scripture is to any silent concerning the lawfulness or unlawfulness of any action, consult the book of your own conscience, and follow its dictates. Observe also, what does or does not, tend to take off from your mind that exquisite sense of divine love which a believer would ever wish to cultivate and cherish.

AFFECTIONS

A Believer’s affections are, too often, like a cascade, or waterfall, that flows downward; instead of being like a fountain, which rises and shoots upwards toward heaven.

AFFLICTIONS

If you thoroughly exhaust a vessel of the air it contains, the pressure of the air on the outside will break that vessel into (perhaps) millions of pieces; because there is not a sufficiency of air to resist and counteract the weight of the atmosphere from without. A person who is exercised by severe affliction, and who does not experience the divine comforts and supports in his soul, resembles the exhausted receiver above describes; and it is no wonder if he yields, and is broken to shivers, under the weight of God’s providential hand. But affliction to one who is sustained by the inward presence of the Holy Ghost, resembles the aerial pressure on the outer surface of an unexhausted vessel. There is that within which supports it, and which preserves it from being destroyed by the incumbent pressure from without.

    Some persons are apt to walk in their sleep. They are said to be effectually cured of this dangerous habit by only once horse whipping them soundly until they awake. God’s people are apt to dose, and run themselves into danger; on which Providence takes the horsewhip of affliction, and brings them to themselves. Was he to spare the rod, his children would be spoiled.

   The world is a sea of glass, affliction scatters our path with sand and ashes and gravel, in order to keep our feet from sliding.

   In a long sunshine of outward prosperity, the dust of our inward corruptions is apt to fly about and lift itself up. Sanctified affliction, like seasonable rain, lays the dust, and softens the soul, and keeps us from carrying our heads too high.

  The earth must be ploughed, and sown, and harrowed, and weeded, and endure many frosty nights and scorching days. In order to its being made and preserved fruitful. Gentle showers, soft days, and moderate sun-shine will not suffice always. So it is with the soul of a faithful Christian.

    A person was lately observing of some fine ornamental china on his chimney-piece, that the “elegance of its figures, and the perpetuity of its colours were owing to its having been consolidated by passing through the fire.” Is not the same remark applicable to the afflicted people of God?

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