Sunday Morning at the Birmingham Christadelphian Ecclesia, No. 160
“Exhort one another daily.”—Paul.
p. 400We meet here (in the Birmingham Town Hall) in a different place from that which usually witnesses our assembly for the breaking of bread. The difference of place makes no difference to the object of our meeting, nor to those recollections and spiritual pre-occupations which it is calculated and intended to engender. Nevertheless, it may be that the circumstance of our meeting here may help, in a certain way, to give more vividness to our thoughts. We cannot help thinking of the very different meetings that are usually held here—of the very different hope that underlies our assembly this morning, from that which is entertained and pursued by the multitudes that, from time to time, come together in this place.
The people who principally meet here are politicians and religious sectarians. They represent what may be called the national and individual hopes of the town in which we live. Public men harangue applauding multitudes from the platform of this hall, in advocacy of the hope connected with politics. It is a poor hope, looked at every way. At its highest, it means greater liberty as between man and man. This, no doubt, is a great boon, as compared with the oppressions from which the community has suffered in past times, and inevitably suffers at the hands of an oligarchy. To the benefit that has come from political agitation, we cannot be insensible; but we take it from God, who has used the politicians for the development of freedom in the same way that He used Nebuchadnezzar as the unwitting tool of His anger against Israel’s disobedience. But after all, it is a poor thing supposing you could get all that the people shout and agitate for—poor that is, when considered in the light of what we really require in the way of well-being. It really means liberty to look after yourself—liberty to make the best you can of the present evil world, which may mean, as it does in many cases mean, liberty to starve, and in all cases must mean, liberty to be a powerless, and, if you are wise, a distressed spectator, or if you like, an active participator in a state of life based on human insubmission to divine law—a state of life which is a demoralising self-assertive struggle in all departments, in which the weakest go to the wall.
We require something better than this in the way of political reform. We want many things that are unattainable by any human measures. We want a Government that draws the inspiration of its policy from above and not from below: that gives law by inherent wisdom and not by the consent of unenlightened multitudes—a Government that cannot be influenced by popular clamour, or overthrown by popular violence, whose right is both might and right of divine origin; whose laws will over-ride monopoly and obstruction; who will judge righteous judgment, who will shew no respect of persons—a government that will be able to achieve and preserve a right division of the land, a right distribution of property, a right organisation of human life in all that concerns occupation and surroundings—the state of towns, the hours of labour, and the form and spirit of public institutions. We want a government that will bring God to the front; that will encourage and develop the nobleness of earnest submission to His will, and repress p. 401and finally extinguish the frivolities and follies in which human energy is now ignobly expended. We want glory to God, in its real and rational form; peace and goodwill among men as the result of intelligence and godliness.
The hopes of the politicians do not lead us one step in these directions. They are of the world, and the world is the enemy of God, and nothing can come of enmity to God but disappointment, failure, and death. Our hope is not their hope at all. Our hope is what Paul has described as the hope of Israel—described so because it is so—the hope of the promise made of God unto the fathers on which the service of the twelve tribes, day and night, was founded. This hope is represented by the symbols on the table. It is a hope that converges in Christ, apart from whom there is no hope at all. We are looking for his appearing, because we love it, and we love it because we love him and everything associated with him. At his coming, the world will receive all it needs—a king, strong of hand, and wise of heart, who will judge for the poor and needy, and break in pieces the oppressor: who will put away all the wicked of the earth like dross and surround himself with the righteous only—those who fear God alone, and delight in His word and in His service. This King will give laws framed in godliness, and intended to bring the world to God, in whom, the world will find peace, and rest, and joy. We are invited to be of those who will assist him in this glorious work. We are called to be partakers with him in his kingdom. By the gospel, we are asked to prepare for a place among those who will share his throne, who will exercise with him power over the nations, and possess the glory, honour, and immortality of the kingdom which has been in purpose, prospect, and preparation from the foundation of the world. We have accepted the invitation, and having, like Abraham, embraced the promises, like him, we confess, that meanwhile we are strangers and pilgrims upon the earth. We have no place in the political assemblies that in this building often glorify the nostrums of the world’s leaders. If we are in the Town Hall this morning, it is to bring him to our remembrance who is shortly coming in power and great glory, of whom the world has no care to hear, but who has said to his faithful servants “Do this in remembrance of men;” “Occupy till I come.”
With the religious hope of our townsmen, as represented in the frequent assemblies that are held in this place, we have also entirely broken—both as regards the nature of that hope, and the principle upon which it is to be realised, even if true. With that hope we are very well acquainted, for we have all shared it. It assumes the immortality of our mental being, which, if a separable entity, would, of course, be our true being. It looks to death for the disengagement of this being from the cumbrance of a bodily organisation, and its transportation to another state in which a perfect blessedness will be enjoyed if the qualification exist apart from which, it teaches the alternative of endless unhappiness and worse—everlasting torment. As regards the qualification that will ensure the blessedness and avert the woe, it may be summed up in a word—morality. Let a man be kind and just and true, in a respectable degree, it will be immaterial what may be his attitude towards God and his appointments as expressed in the truth. Morality will save him, where an ardent adhesion to the Bible and its teachings may be a crime of narrowmindedness that will bring him within range of perdition.
Against this, we take our stand with a determination which is not a pleasure, but which simple duty requires at our hands. We reject as a lie the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. We recognise the reality of death. We believe the declaration of the Scriptures that death has p. 402entered into the world through sin; that all men die, and that the dead know not anything. We believe that dead men are as truly non-alive, for the time being, as if they had never existed at all. Consequently, our hope has no reference to a disembodied state at all. We look to resurrection—the great fact testified by the apostles concerning Christ and concerning those who are Christ’s. Our hope is the one expressed by Paul before the Jewish Council, when arraigned as a prisoner, “We have hope towards God . . . that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust.” The nature of it we accept as finally illustrated in Christ himself, with whose experience Paul parallelises the prospects of believers: “He that raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by Jesus.” Thus our hope is a hope of coming to life again as our real bodily selves—the same identical persons that lived before—but to bodily conditions as far superior to those of our present mortal body as incorruption is superior to the decomposition of the grave. We place entire faith in the inspired declarations of Paul and John: “He shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his own glorious body:” “We shall be like him:” “We shall all be changed: . . . this mortal shall put on immortality.”
Unlike our neighbours, we disown a present immortality, but “look for it” “in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.” And with regard to the conditions of its attainment, we are not less at issue with them than with regard to its nature and time. We deny that morality of itself will save men already condemned because of their sins. We implicitly accept the teaching of the apostles, that all have sinned: that only forgiven men can be saved: and that those only will be forgiven who submit to the system of justification that God has provided in His son, Jesus Christ: holding, furthermore, that this submission consists of believing the truth concerning Christ (as embracing both the fact and meaning of his first and second appearings), and of obeying the commandments delivered for the observance of his disciples, commencing with the assumption of his name in the act of a believing immersion in water. A patient continuance in this line of well-doing alone we hold to be the way of salvation, outside of which men are walking without hope.
These convictions we hold for reasons which we know to be unimpeachable. They are inconvenient convictions for the present evil world. They operate as a bar to present honour and advancement. The very holding of them condemns us in popular estimation as disagreeable and unneighbourly people. To lie under this odium is a severe discipline to the natural man. We know the imputation is untrue; and we know that the entertaining of it by the world is due to the lack of sympathy on their part for divine things which are the best things. Therefore, it is a great cross that we have to carry,—this cross of being looked upon as narrow-minded, for a reason that really proves a contrary state of mind; as illiberal, when our hearts yearn in broadest kindness to all men: as uncharitable, when charity, in its real form, is the one thing we are aiming to cultivate, in the endeavour to administer the revealed kindness of God to men in the promulgation of His truth.
Well, the advantages of our position are so great that we can well afford to endure, for the few years we are here, the disgrace inseparable from faithfulness to the word of Jehovah’s testimony. The position is one of honour when rightly estimated, All men will strongly see it when its issues become visible at the coming of Christ. What an honour to be invited to be the children of God in an age when all the world is astray from Him: what an honour to maintain the declaration of His truth and the integrity of His testimonies p. 403in an age when (for the purposes of probation) He has consigned these to the faithfulness of His children, and when the duty has to be performed in the face of a world in arms against them. Our position is a nobler one than we may at all times realise in the midst of the weaknesses and vexations of mortal experience. Let us look at it from time to time thus, and strive to rise up to it. Let us walk worthy of the vocation to which we are called.
We have every encouragement so to do. There is no hope for life in any other direction. In the direction of Israel’s hope, there is everything we can aspire to, or conceive to be desirable. What a comforting glimpse we have had of this in our readings in Jeremiah. It was said of the Jews in Paul’s day, “They knew not the voices of the prophets read every Sabbath day in their synagogues.” This is the unhappy position of the people of our day from among whom we have been gathered, with this difference against them, that whereas Israel did have the prophets read in their midst, the moderns do not have them read. From this unhappy position we have been delivered, with the result of discerning the great consolation we have in those things “written for our learning.” The chapters in question tell us of the promised restitution of all things of which Peter made mention as associated with the sending of Christ again from the heavens. They tell us that God will redeem Jacob and ransom him from the hand of him that is stronger than he. “They shall come and sing in the height of Zion and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord . . . Their souls shall be as a watered garden, and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together, for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness.” Adopted in Christ, though Gentiles, we have become fellow-heirs with Israel of these great and precious promises. They depict for us the perfect wellbeing that waits the faithful children of God in His Kingdom. Oh, the unutterable release from the rigours of this evil time, when the yearning soul hungers and thirsts in a dry and parched land. How much is contained in those eight words from the mouth of God: “My people shall be satisfied with my goodness.” How great is that goodness, as David exclaims. We should think it great if it even took no higher form than deliverance from all burdens and anxieties in the present state, and the conferring of opulence: but how unspeakably great when so glorious a foundation for it all is laid as immortality: the perennial delight of an incorruptible nature: the certainty that our health, and our wealth, and our joy, are for ever, and that there will never more be any encroachment of Adamic barbarism upon the delights of a society founded upon perfect holiness—the rapturous love of God, and of every member of His glorified family.
Our present distresses often afflict us. There is not a son of God who does not come to fitness for God’s Kingdom through great tribulation of some sort or other. The moment when we bear the affliction the easiest, is the moment when we remember the fact the distinctest that this affliction is the very thing that is fitting us for “the eternal weight of glory.” One of the grandest attractions of the throng of saints that will be counted “worthy of that world and the resurrection from the dead,” lies in the fact, 1st, that they are delivered, by sifting, from all the unspiritual company in which they are compelled to mingle, without and within, during the process of their development in the dark day of probation; and, secondly, that every individual in the accepted multitude will have been purified and perfected by having had a bad time of it p. 404during the process. There is deep meaning in the words of Christ, “Woe unto you that are full now: blessed are ye that weep now.” Realising these things, we shall be strengthened to endure, We shall even get to the point of rejoicing in tribulation, comforted by a knowledge of its divine meaning, and resting with satisfaction on the assurance that after the clouds and tears of night, will dawn upon us the light and gladness of the promised day of God.