"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God."-ROM. viii. 14. (R. V.)
THESE words constitute the classical passage
in the New Testament on the great subject of the "leading of the Holy
Spirit." They stand, indeed, almost without strict parallel in the New
Testament. We read, no doubt, in that great discourse of our Lord's which John
has preserved for us, in which, as He was about to leave His disciples, He
comforts their hearts with the promise of the Spirit, that "when He, the
Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth." But this
"guidance into truth" by the Holy Spirit is something very different
from the "leading of the Spirit" spoken of in our present text; and
it is appropriately expressed by a different term. We read also in Luke's
account of our Lord's temptation that He was "led by the Spirit in the
wilderness during forty days, being tempted of the devil," where our own
term is used. But though undoubtedly this passage throws light upon the
mode of the Spirit's operation described in our text, it can scarcely be looked
upon as a parallel passage to it. The only other passage, indeed, which speaks
distinctly of the "leading of the Spirit" in the sense of our text is
Gal. v. i8, where in a context very closely similar Paul again employs the same
phrase: "But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law."
It is from these two passages primarily that we must obtain our conception of
what the Scriptures mean by "the leading of the Holy Spirit."
There is certainly abundant reason why we
should seek to learn what the Scriptures mean by "spiritual leading."
There are few subjects so intimately related to the Christian life, of which
Christians appear to have formed, in general, conceptions so inadequate, where
they are not even positively erroneous. The sober-minded seem often to look
upon it as a mystery into which it would be well not to inquire too closely.
And we can scarcely expect those who are not gifted with sobriety to guide us
in such a matter into the pure truth of God. The consequence is that the very
phrase, "the leading of the Spirit," has come to bear, to many, a
flavor of fanaticism. Many of the best Christians would shrink with something
like distaste from affirming themselves to be "led by the Spirit of
God"; and would receive with suspicion such an averment on the part of
others, as indicatory of an unbalanced religious mind. It is one of the
saddest effects of extravagance in spiritual claims that, in reaction from
them, the simple-minded people of God are often deterred from entering into
their privileges. It is surely enough, however, to recall us to a careful
searching of Scripture in order to learn what it is to be "led by the
Spirit of God," simply to read the solemn words of our text: "As many
as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God." If the case be
so, surely it behooves all who would fain believe themselves to be God's
children to know what the leading of the Spirit is.
Let us, then, commit ourselves to the
teaching of Paul, and seek to learn from him what is the meaning of this high
privilege. And may the Spirit of truth here too be with us and guide us into
the truth.
Approaching the text in this serious mood,
the first thing that strikes us is that the leading of the Spirit of God of
which it speaks is not something peculiar to eminent saints, but something
common to all God's children, the universal possession of the people of God.
"As many as are led by the Spirit of
God," says the apostle, "these are sons of God." We have here in
effect a definition of the sons of God. The primary purpose of the sentence is
not, indeed, to give this definition. But the statement is so framed as to
equate its two members, and even to throw a stress upon the coextensiveness of
the two designations. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God,
these and these only are sons of God." Thus, the leading of the Spirit is
presented as the very characteristic of the children of God. This is what
differentiates them from all others. All who are led by the Spirit of God are
thereby constituted the sons of God; and none can claim the high title of sons
of God who are not led by the Spirit of God. The leading of the Spirit thus
appears as the constitutive fact of sonship. And we dare not deny that we are
led by God's Spirit lest we therewith repudiate our part in the hopes of a
Christian life. In this aspect of it our text is the exact parallel of
the immediately preceding declaration, which it thus takes up and repeats:
"But if any one hath not the Spirit of Christ, that one is not His."
It is obviously a mistake, therefore, to
look upon the claim to be led by God's Spirit as an evidence of spiritual
pride. It is rather a mark of spiritual humility. This leading of the Spirit is
not some peculiar gift reserved for special sanctity and granted as the reward
of high merit alone. It is the common gift poured out on all God's children to
meet their common need, and is the evidence, therefore, of their common
weakness and their common unworthiness. It is not the reward of special
spiritual attainment; it is the condition of all spiritual attainment. In
its absence we should remain hopelessly the children of the devil; by its
presence alone are we constituted the children of God. It is only because
of the Spirit of God shed abroad in our hearts that we are able to cry, Abba,
Father.
We observe, therefore, next that the end in
view in the spiritual leading of which Paul speaks is not to enable us to
escape the difficulties, dangers, trials or sufferings of this life, but
specifically to enable us to conquer sin.
Had the former been its object, it might
indeed have been a special grace granted to a select few of God's children, and
its possession might have separated them from among their brethren as the peculiar
favorites of the Deity. Since, however, the latter is its object, it is the
appropriate gift of all those who are sinners, and is the condition of their
conquest over the least of their sins. In the preceding context Paul
discovers to us our inherent sin in all its festering rottenness. But he
discovers to us also the Spirit of God as dwelling in us and forming the
principle of a new life. It is by the presence of the Spirit within us alone
that the bondage in which we are by nature held to sin is broken; that we are
emancipated from sin and are no longer debtors to live according to the flesh.
This new principle of life reveals itself in our consciousness as a power
claiming regulative influence over our actions; leading us, in a word, into
holiness.
If we consider our life of new obedience
from the point of view of our own activities, we may speak of ourselves as
fighting the good fight of faith; a deeper view reveals it as the work of God
in us by His Spirit. When we consider this Divine work within our souls with
reference to the end of the whole process we call it sanctification; when we
consider it with reference to the process itself, as we struggle on day by day
in the somewhat devious and always thorny pathway of life, we call it spiritual
leading. Thus the "leading of the Holy Spirit" is revealed to us as
simply a synonym for sanctification when looked at from the point of view of
the pathway itself, through which we are led by the Spirit as we more and more
advance toward that conformity to the image of His Son, which God has placed
before us as our great goal.
It is obvious at once then how grossly it is
misconceived when it is looked upon as a peculiar guidance granted by God to
His eminent servants in order to insure their worldly safety, worldly comfort,
even worldly profit. The leading of the Holy Spirit is always for good; but it
is not for all goods, but specifically for spiritual and eternal good. I
do not say that the good man may not, by virtue of his very goodness, be saved
from many of the sufferings of this life and from many of the failures of this
life. How many of the evils and trials of life are rooted in specific
sins we can never know. How often even failure in business may be traced
directly to lack of business integrity rather than to pressure of circumstances
or business incompetency is mercifully hidden from us. Nor do I say that the
gracious Lord has no care for the secular life of His people. But it surely is
obvious that the leading of the Spirit spoken of in the text is not in order to
guide men into secular goods; and it is not to be inferred to be absent when
trials come - sufferings, losses, despair of this world. It is
specifically in order to guide them into eternal good; to make them not
prosperous, not free from care or suffering, but holy, free from sin. It
is not given us to save us from the consequences of our business carelessnesses
or incompetences, to take the place of ordinary prudence in the conduct of our
affairs. It is not given us to preserve us from the necessity of strenuous
preparation for the tasks before us or from the trouble of rendering decision
in the difficult crises of life. It is given specifically to save us from
sinning; to lead us in the paths of holiness and truth.
Accordingly, we observe next that the
spiritual leading of which Paul speaks is not something sporadic, given only on
occasion of some special need of supernatural direction, but something
continuous, affecting all the operations of a Christian man's activities throughout
every moment of his life.
It has but one end in view, the saving from
sin, the leading into holiness; but it affects every single activity of every
kind physical, intellectual, and spiritual bending it toward that end. Were
it directed toward other ends, we might indeed expect it to be more sporadic.
Were it simply the omniscence of God placed at the disposal of His favorites,
which they might avail themselves of in times of perplexity and doubt, it might
well be occasional and temporary. But since it is nothing other than the power
of God unto salvation, it must needs abide with the sinner, work constantly
upon him, enter into all his acts, condition all his doings, and lead him thus
steadily onward toward the one great goal.
It is easy to estimate, then, what a
perversion it is of the "leading of the Spirit" when this great
saving energy of God, working continually in the sinner, is forgotten, and the
name is accorded to some fancied sporadic supernatural direction in the common
offices of life. Let us not forget, indeed, the reality of providential
guidance, or imagine that God's greatness makes Him careless of the least
concerns of His children. But let us much more not forget that the great evil
under which we are suffering is sin, and that the great promise which has been
given us is that we shall not be left to wander, self-directed, in the paths of
sin into which our feet have strayed, but that the Spirit of holiness shall
dwell within us, breaking our bondage and leading us into that other pathway of
good works, which God has afore prepared that we should walk in them.
All of this will be powerfully supported and
the subject perhaps somewhat further elucidated if we will seek now to
penetrate a little deeper into the inmost nature of the work of the Holy Spirit
which Paul calls here a "leading," by attending more closely to the
term which he has chosen to designate it when he calls it by this name. This
term, as those skilled in such things tell us, is one which throws emphasis on three
matters: on the extraneousness of the influence under which the movement
suggested takes place; on the completeness of the control which this influence
exerts over the action of the subject led; and on the pathway over which the
resultant progress is made. Let us glance at each of these matters in
turn.
One is not led when he goes his own way. It
is only when an influence distinct from ourselves determines our movements that
we can properly be said to be led. When Paul, therefore, declares that the sons
of God are "led by the Spirit of God," he emphasizes, first of all,
the distinction between the leading Spirit and the led sons of God. As much as
this he declares with great emphasis that there is a power within us, not
ourselves, that makes for righteousness. And he identifies this extraneous
power with the Spirit of God. The whole preceding context accentuates this
distinction, inasmuch as its entire drift is to paint the conflict which is
going on within us between our native impulses which make for sin, and the
intruded power which makes for righteousness. Before all else, then,
spiritual leading consists in an influence over our actions of a power which is
not to be identified with ourselves either as by nature or as renewed but
which is declared by the apostle Paul to be none other than the Spirit of God
Himself.
We thoroughly misconceive it, therefore, if
we think of spiritual leading as only a conquest of our lower impulses by our
higher nature, or even as a conquest by our regenerated nature of the remnants
of the old man lingering in our members. Both of these conquests are realities
of the Christian life. The child of God will never be content to be the slave
of his lower impulses, but will ever strive, and with ultimate success, to live
on the plane of his higher endowments. The regenerated soul will never abide
the remnants of sin that vex his members, but will have no rest until he
eradicates them to the last shred. But these victories of our nobler selves
natural or gracious over what is unworthy within us, do not so much
constitute the essence of spiritual leading as they are to be counted among its
fruits. Spiritual leading itself is not a leading of ourselves by ourselves,
but a leading of us by the Holy Ghost. The declaration of its reality is the
declaration of the reality of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the heart,
and of the subjection of the activities of the Christian heart and life to the
control of this extraneous power. He that is led by the Spirit of God is
not led by himself or by any element of his own nature, native or acquired, but
is led by the Holy Ghost He has ceased to be what the Scriptures call a
"natural man," and has become what they call a "spiritual
man"; that is, to translate these terms accurately, he has ceased to be a
self-led man and has become a Spirit-led man a man led and determined in all
his activities by the Holy Ghost. It is this extraneousness of the source of
these activities which Paul emphasizes first of all when he declares that the
sons of God are led by the Spirit of God.
The second matter which is emphasized by his
declaration is the controlling power of the influence exerted on the activities
of God's children by the Holy Spirit. One is not led, in the sense of our
text, when he is merely directed in the way he should go, guided, as we may
say, by one who points out the path and leads only by going before in it; or
when he is merely upheld while he himself finds or directs himself to the goal.
The Greek language possesses words which
precisely express these ideas, but the apostle passes over these and selects a
term which expresses determining control over our actions. Some of these other
terms are used elsewhere in the Scriptures to set forth appropriate actions of
the Spirit with reference to the people of God. For example, our Lord promised
His disciples that when the Spirit of Truth should come, He should guide them
into all the truth. Here a term is employed which does not express
controlling leading, but what we may perhaps call suggestive leading. It
is used frequently in the Greek Old Testament of God's guidance of His people,
and once, at least, of the Holy Spirit: " Teach us to do Thy will, for
Thou art my God; let Thy good Spirit guide us in the land of uprightness."
But the term which Paul employs in our text is a much stronger one than
this. It is not the proper word to use of a guide who goes before and
shows the way, or even of a commanding general, say, who leads an army. It has
stamped upon it rather the conception of the exertion of a power of control
over the actions of its subject, which the strength of the led one is
insufficient to withstand.
This is the proper word to use, for example,
when speaking of leading animals, as when our Lord sent His disciples to find
the ass and her colt and commanded them "to loose them and lead them to
Him" (Matt. xxi. 2); or as when Isaiah declares in the Scripture which was
being read by the Eunuch of Ethiopia whom Philip was sent to meet in the
desert, "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter." It is applied to
the conveying of sick folk as men who are not in a condition to control their
own movements; as, for example, when the good Samaritan set the wounded
traveler on his own beast and led him to an inn and took care of him (Luke x.
34); or when Christ commanded the blind man of Jericho "to be led unto
Him" (Luke xviii. 40). It is most commonly used of the enforced
movements of prisoners; as when we are told that they led Jesus to Caiaphas to
the palace (John xviii. 28); or when we are told that they seized Stephen and
led him into the council (Acts vi. 12); or that Paul was provided with letters
to Damascus unto the synagogues, "that if he found any that were of the
Way, he might lead them bound to Jerusalem" (Acts ix. 2). In a word,
though the term may, of course, sometimes be used when the idea of force
retires somewhat into the background, and is commonly so used when it is
transferred from external compulsion to internal influence as, for example,
when we are told that Barnabas took Paul and led him to the apostles (Acts ix.
2), and that Andrew led Simon unto Jesus (John i. 42) yet the proper meaning
of the word includes the idea of control, and the implication of prevailing
determination of action never wholly leaves it.
Its use by Paul on the present occasion must
be held, therefore, to emphasize the controlling influence which the Holy
Spirit exercises over the activities of the children of God in His lending of
them. That extraneous power which has come into our hearts making for
righteousness, has not come into them merely to suggest to us what we should do
merely to point out to us from within the way in which we ought to walk
merely to rouse within us and keep before our minds certain considerations and
inducements toward righteousness. It has come within us to take the helm and to
direct the motion of our frail barks on the troubled sea of life. It has taken
hold of us as a man seizes the halter of an ox to lead it in the way which he
would have it go; as an attendant conducts the sick in leading him to the
physician; as the jailer grasps the prisoner to lead him to trial or to the
jail. We were slaves to sin; a new power has entered into us to break that
bondage but not that we should be set, rudderless, adrift on the ocean of
life; but that we should be powerfully directed on a better course, leading to
a better harbor.
Accordingly Paul, when he declares that we
have been emancipated from the law of sin and of death by the advent of the law
of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus into our hearts, does not leave it so, as
if emancipation were all. He adds, "Accordingly then, we are
bound." Though emancipated, still bound! We are bound; but no longer to
the flesh, to live after the flesh, but to the Spirit, to live after the
Spirit He hastens, indeed, to point out that this is no hard bondage, but
a happy one; that sons is a name better fitted to express its circumstances
than "slaves" that it includes childship and heirship to God and
with Christ But all this blessed assurance operates to exhibit the happy
estate of the service into which we have been brought, rather than to alter the
nature of it as service. The essence of the new relation is that it also is one
of control, though a control by a beneficent and not a cruel power. We do not
at all catch Paul's meaning therefore, unless we perceive the strong emphasis
which lies on this fact that those who are led by the Spirit of God are under
the control of the Spirit of God. The extraneous power which has come into us,
making for righteousness, comes as a controlling power. The children of God are
not the directors of their own activities; there is One that dwells in them who
is not merely their guide, but their governor and strong regulator. They go,
not where they would, but where He would; they do not what they might wish, but
what He determines. This it is to be led by the Spirit of God.
It is to be observed, however, on the other
hand, that although Paul uses a term here which emphasizes the controlling
influence of the Spirit of God over the activities of God's children, he does
not represent the action of the Spirit as a substitute for their activities. If
one is not led, in the sense of our text, when he is merely guided, it is
equally true that one is not led when he is carried. The animal that is led by
the attendant, the blind man that is led to Christ, the prisoner that is led to
jail each is indeed under the control of his leader, who alone determines the
goal and the pathway; but each also proceeds on that pathway and to that goal
by virtue of his own powers of locomotion.
There was a word lying at the apostle's hand
by which he could have expressed the idea that God's children are borne by the
Spirit's power to their appointed goal of holiness, apart from any activities
of their own, had He elected to do so. It is employed by Peter when he would
inform us how God gave His message of old to His prophets. For no
prophecy," he tells us, "ever came by the will of man: but men spake
from God, being borne by the Holy Ghost. This term, borne, emphasizes, as
its fundamental thought, the fact that all the power productive of the motion
suggested is inherent in, and belongs entirely to, the mover. Had Paul
intended to say that God's children are taken up as it were in the Spirit's
arms and home, without effort on their own part, to their destined goal, he
would have used this word. That he has passed over it and made use of the word
"led" instead, indicates that, in his teaching, the Holy Spirit leads
and does not carry God's children to their destined goal of holiness; that
while the Spirit determines both the end and the way toward it, His will
controlling their action, yet it is by their effort that they advance to the
determined end.
Here, therefore, there emerges an
interesting indication of the difference between the Spirit's action in dealing
with the prophet of God in imparting through him God's message to men, and the
action of the same Spirit in dealing with the children of God in bringing them
into their proper holiness of life The prophet is "borne" of
the Spirit; the child of God is "led." The prophet's attitude in
receiving a revelation from God is passive, purely receptive; he has no part in
it, adds nothing to it, is only the organ through which the Spirit. delivers it
to men; he is taken up by the Spirit, as it were, and borne along by Him by
virtue of the power that resides in the Spirit, which is natural to Him, and
which, in its exercise, supersedes the natural activities of the man. Such is
the import of the term used by Peter to express it. On the other hand, the son
of God is not purely passive in the hands of the sanctifying Spirit; he is not
borne, but led - that is, his own efforts enter into the progress made under
the controlling direction of the Spirit; he supplies, in fact, the force
exerted in attaining the progress, while yet the controlling Spirit supplies
the entire directing impulse. Such is the import of the term used by Paul to
express it. Therefore no prophet could be exhorted to work out his own message
with fear and trembling; it is not left to him to work it out the Holy Spirit
works it out for him and communicates it in all its rich completeness to and
through him. But the children of God are exhorted to work out their own
salvation in fear and trembling because they know the Spirit is working in them
both the willing and the doing according to His own good pleasure.
In order to appreciate this element of the
apostle's teaching at its full value it is perhaps worth while to observe still
further that in his choice of a term to express the nature of the Spirit's
action in leading God's children the apostle avoids all terms which would
attribute to the Spirit the power employed in making progress along the chosen road.
Not only does he not represent us as being carried by the Spirit; he does not
even declare that we are drawn by Him. There was a term in common use which the
apostle could have used had he intended to express the idea that the Spirit
drags, by physical force as it were, the children of God onward in the
direction in which He would have them go. This term is actually used when the
Saviour declares that no man can come unto Him except the Father draw him (John
vi. 44) which is as much as to say that men in the first instance do not and
cannot come to Christ by virtue of any powers native to themselves, but require
the action upon them of a power from without, coming to them, drawing their
inert, passive weight to Christ, if they are to be brought to Him at all.
We can identify this act of drawing - "dragging" would perhaps
express the sense of the Greek term none too strongly with that act which we
call, in our theological analysis, regeneration, and which we explain in
accordance with the import of this term, as the monergistic act of God,
impinging on a sinner who is and remains, as far as this act is concerned,
purely passive, and therefore does not move, but is moved.
Such, however, is not the method of the
Spirit's leading of which Paul speaks in our text. This is not a drawing or
dragging of a passive weight toward a goal which is attained, if attained at
all, only by virtue of the power residing in the moving Spirit; but a leading
of an active agent to an end determined indeed by the Spirit, and along a
course which is marked out by the Spirit, but over which the soul is carried by
virtue of its own power of action and through its own strenuous efforts.
If we are not borne by the Spirit out of our sin into holiness with a smooth.
and easy movement, almost unnoted by us or noted only with the languid pleasure
with which a child resting peacefully on its mother's breast may note its
progress up some rough mountain road, so neither are we dragged by the Spirit
as a passive weight over the steep and rugged path. We are led. We are
under His control and walk in the path in which He sets our feet. It is His
part to keep us in the path and to bring us at length to the goal. But it is we
who tread every step of the way; our limbs that grow weary with the labor; our
hearts that faint, our courage that fails our faith that revives our sinking
strength, our hope that instills new courage into our souls as we toil on
over the steep ascent.
And thus it is most natural that the third
matter to which Paul's declaration that we are led by the Spirit of God directs
our attention concerns the pathway over which our progress is made.
One is not led who is unconscious of the
road over which he advances; such a one is rather carried. He who is led treads
the road himself, is aware of its roughness and its steepness, pants with the
effort which he expends, is appalled by the prospect of the difficulties that
open out before him, rejoices in the progress made, and is filled with exultant
hope as each danger and obstacle is safely surmounted. He who is led is in the
hands of an extraneous power, of a power which controls his actions; but the
pathway over which he is thus led is trodden by his own efforts by his own
struggles it may be and the goal that is attained is attained at the cost of
his own labor.
When Paul chooses this particular term,
therefore, and declares that the sons of God are led by the Spirit, he is in no
way forgetful of the arduous nature of the road over which they are to advance,
or of the strenuous exertion on their own part by which alone they may
accomplish it He strengthens and comforts them with the assurance that they are
not to tread the path alone; but he does not lull them into inertness by
suggesting that they are not to tread it The term he employs avouches to them
the constant and continuous presence with them of the leading Spirit, not
merely setting them in the right path, but keeping them in it and leading them
through it; for it designates not an impulse which merely initiates a movement
in a given direction, but a continuous influence unbrokenly determining a
movement to its very goal. But his language does not promise them relief from
the weariness of the journey, alleviation of the roughness of the road, freedom
from difficulty or danger in its course, or emancipation from the labor of
travel. That they have been placed in the right path, that they will be kept
continuously in it, that they will attain the goal of this he assures them;
for this it is to be led of the Spirit of God, a power not ourselves
controlling our actions, prevalently directing our movement to an end of His
choice. But He does not encourage us to relax our own endeavors; for he who is
led, even though it be by the Spirit of God, advances by virtue of his own
powers and his own efforts. In a word, Paul chooses language to express
the action of the Spirit on the sons of God which is in perfect harmony with
his exhortation to the children of God to which we have already alluded to
work out their own salvation with fear and trembling because they know it is
God that is working in them both the willing and the doing according to His own
good pleasure.
What a strong consolation for us is found in
this gracious assurance poor, weak children of men as we are! To our
frightened ears the text may come at first as with the solemnity of a warning:
"As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these and these only are sons of
God." Is there not a declaration here that we are not God's children
unless we are led by God's Spirit? Knowing ourselves, and contemplating the
course of our lives and the character of our ambitions, dare we claim to be led
by the Spirit of God? Is this life this life that I am living in the flesh
is this the product of the Spirit's leading? Shall not despair close in upon me
as I pass the dreadful judgment on myself that I am not led by God's Spirit,
and that I am, therefore, not one of His sons? Let us hasten to remind
ourselves, then, that such is not the purport nor the purpose of the text It
stands here not in order to drive us to despair, because we see we have sin
within us; but to kindle within us a great fire of hope and confidence because
we perceive we have the Holy Spirit within us.
Paul, as we have seen, does not forget the
sin within us. Who has painted it and its baleful power with more vigorous
touch? But neither would he have us forget that we have the Holy Spirit within
us, and what that blessed fact, above all blessed facts, means. He would
not have us reason that because sin is in us we cannot be God's children; but
in happy contradiction to this, that because the Holy Spirit is in us we cannot
but be God's children. Sin is great and powerful; it is too great and too
powerful for us; but the Holy Ghost is greater and more powerful than even sin.
The discovery of sin in us might bring us to despair did not Paul discern the
Holy Spirit in us who is greater than sin that he may quicken our hope.
This declaration that frightens us is not
written, then, to frighten, but to console and to enhearten. It stands here for
the express purpose of comforting those who would despair at the sight of their
sin. Is there a conflict of sin and holiness in you? asks Paul. This very
fact that there is conflict in you is the charter of your salvation. Where the
Holy Spirit is not, there conflict is not; sin rules undisputed lord over the
life. That there is conflict in you, that you do not rest in complacency in
your sin, is a proof that the Spirit of God is within you, leading you to holiness.
And all who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God; and if
children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs With Christ Jesus. This is
the purport of the message of the text to us. Paul points us not to the victory
of good over evil, but to the conflict of good with evil not to the end but
to the process as the proof of childship to God. The note of the passage is,
thus, not one of fear and despair, but one of hope and triumph. "If God be
for us who can be against us ?" that is the query the apostle would have
ring in our hearts. Sin has a dreadful grasp upon us; we have no power to
withstand it. But there enters our hearts a power not ourselves making
for righteousness. This power is the Spirit of the most high God. If God be for
us who can be against us?" Let our hearts repeat this cry of victory
to-day.
And as we repeat it, let us go onward, in
hope and triumph, in our holy efforts. Let our slack knees be
strengthened and new vigor enter our every nerve. The victory is assured.
The Holy Spirit within us cannot fail us. The way may be rough; the path may
climb the dizzy ascent with a rapidity too great for our faltering feet;
dangers, pitfalls are on every side. But the Holy Spirit is leading
us. Surely, in that assurance, despite dangers and weakness, and panting
chest and swimming head, we can find strength to go ever forward.
In these days, when the gloom of doubt if
not even the blackness of despair, has settled down on so many souls, there is
surely profit and strength in the certainty that there is a portal of such
glory before us, and in the assurance that our feet shall press its threshold
at the last. In this assurance we shall no longer beat our disheartened
way through life in dumb despondency, and find expression for our passionate
but hopeless longings only in the wail of the dreary poet of pessimism:-
"But if from boundless spaces no answering voice shall start, Except the barren echo of our ever yearning heart Farewell, then, empty deserts, where beat our aimless wings, Farewell, then, dream sublime of uncompassable things."