The Apostle has been describing believers as "sons" and "heirs." He drops from these transcendent heights to contrast their present apparent condition with their true character and their future glory.
The sad realities of suffering darken his lofty hopes, even although these sad realities are to his faith tokens of joint-heirship with Jesus, and pledges that if our inheritance is here manifested by suffering with him, that very fact is a prophecy of common glory hereafter. He describes that future as the revealing of a glory, to which the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared; and then, in our text he varies the application of that thought of revealing and thinks of the subjects of it as being the "sons of G.o.d." They will be revealed when the glory which they have as joint-heirs with Christ is revealed in them. They walk, as it were, compa.s.sed with mist and cloud, but the splendour which will fall on them will scatter the envious darkness, and "when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall His co-heirs also appear with Him in glory."
We may consider--
I. The present veil over the sons of G.o.d.
There is always a difference between appearance and reality, between the ideal and its embodiments. For all men it is true that the full expression of oneself is impossible. Each man"s deeds fall short of disclosing the essential self in the man. Every will is hampered by the fleshly screen of the body. "I would that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me," is the yearning of every heart that is deeply moved. Contending principles successively sway every personality and thwart each other"s expression. For these, and many other reasons, the sum-total of every life is but a shrouded representation of the man who lives it; and we, all of us, after all efforts at self-revelation, remain mysteries to our fellows and to ourselves. All this is eminently true of the sons of G.o.d. They have a life-germ hidden in their souls, which in its very nature is destined to fill and expand their whole being, and to permeate with its triumphant energy every corner of their nature. But it is weak and often overborne by its opposite. The seed sown is to grow in spite of bad weather and a poor soil and many weeds, and though it is destined to overcome all these, it may to-day only be able to show on the surface a little patch of pale and struggling growth. When we think of the cost at which the life of Christ was imparted to men, and of the divine source from which it comes, and of the sedulous and protracted discipline through which it is being trained, we cannot but conclude that nothing short of its universal dominion over all the faculties of its imperfect possessors can be the goal of its working. Hercules in his cradle is still Hercules, and strangles snakes. Frost and sun may struggle in midwinter, and the cold may seem to predominate, but the sun is steadily enlarging its course in the sky, and increasing the fervour of its beams, and midsummer day is as sure to dawn as the shortest day was.
The sons of G.o.d, even more truly than other men, have contending principles fighting within them. It was the same Apostle who with oaths denied that he "knew the man," and in a pa.s.sion of clinging love and penitence fell at His feet; but for the mere onlooker it would be hard to say which was the true man and which would conquer.
The sons of G.o.d, like other men, have to express themselves in words which are never closely enough fitted to their thoughts and feelings.
David"s penitence has to be contented with groans which are not deep enough; and John"s calm raptures on his Saviour"s breast can only be spoken by shut eyes and silence. The sons of G.o.d never fully correspond to their character, but always fall somewhat beneath their desire, and must always be somewhat less than their intention. The artist never wholly embodies his conception. It is only G.o.d who "rests from His works" because the works fully embody His creative design and fully receive the benediction of His own satisfaction with them.
From all such thoughts there arises a piece of plain practical wisdom, which warns Christian men not to despond or despair if they do not find themselves living up to their ideal. The sons of G.o.d are "veiled" because the world"s estimate of them is untrue. The old commonplace that the world knows nothing of its greatest men is verified in the opinions which it holds about the sons of G.o.d. It is not for their Christianity that they get any of the world"s honours and encomiums, if such fall to their share. They are _un_known and yet _well_-known. They live for the most part veiled in obscurity.
"The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not." They are G.o.d"s hidden ones. If they are wise, they will look for no recognition nor eulogy from the world, and will be content to live, as unknown by the princes of this world as was the Lord of glory, whom they slew because their dim eyes could not see the flashing of the glory "through the veil, that is to say, His flesh."
But no consciousness of imperfection in our revelation of an indwelling Christ must ever be allowed to diminish our efforts to live out the life that is in us, and to shine as lights in the world; nor must the consciousness that we walk as "veiled," lead us to add to the thick folds the criminal one of voluntary silence and cowardly hiding in dumb hearts the secret of our lives.
II. The unveiling of the sons of G.o.d.
That unveiling is in the text represented as coming along with the glory which shall be revealed to usward, and as being contemporaneous with the deliverance of the creation itself from the bondage of corruption, and its pa.s.sing into the liberty of the glory of the children of G.o.d. It coincides with the vanishing of the pain in which the whole creation now groans and travails, and with the adoption--that is, the redemption of our body. Then hope will be seen and will pa.s.s into still fruition. All this points to the time when Jesus Christ is revealed, and His servants are revealed with Him in glory. That revelation brings with it of necessity the manifestation of the sons of G.o.d for what they are--the making visible in the life of what G.o.d sees them to be.
That revelation of the sons of G.o.d is the result of the entire dominion and transforming supremacy of the Spirit of G.o.d in them. In the whole sweep of their consciousness there will in that day be nothing done from other motives; there will be no sidelights flashing in and disturbing the perfect illumination from the candle of the Lord set on high in their being; there will be no contradictions in the life. It will be one and simple, and therefore perfectly intelligible. Such is the destined issue of the most imperfect Christian life. The Christian man who has in his experience to-day the faintest and most interrupted operation of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has therein a pledge of immortality, because nothing short of an endless life of progressive and growing purity will be adequate to receive and exemplify the power which can never terminate until it is made like Him and perfectly seeing Him as He is.
But that unveiling further guarantees the possession of fully adequate means of expression. The limitations and imperfections of our present bodily life will all drop away in putting on "the body of glory" which shall be ours. The new tongue will perfectly utter the new knowledge and rapture of the new life; new hands will perfectly realise our ideals; and on every forehead will be stamped Christ"s new name.
That unveiling will be further realised by a divine act indicating the characters of the sons of G.o.d by their position. Earth"s judgments will be reversed by that divine voice, and the great promise, which through weary ages has shone as a far-off star,--"I will set him on high because he hath known my name"--will then be known for the sun near at hand. Many names loudly blown through the world"s trumpet will fall silent then. Many stars will be quenched, but "they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament."
That revelation will be more surprising to no one than to those who are its subjects, when they see themselves mirrored in that gla.s.s, and so unlike what they are here. Their first impulse will be to wonder at the form they see, and to ask, almost with incredulity, "Lord, is it I?" Nor will the wonder be less when they recognise many whom they knew not. The surprises when the family of G.o.d is gathered together at last will be great. The Israel of Captivity lifts up her wondering eyes as she sees the mult.i.tudes flocking to her side as the doves to their windows, and, half-ashamed of her own narrow vision, exclaims, "I was left alone; these, where had they been?" Let us rejoice that in the day when the sons of G.o.d are revealed, many hidden ones from many dark corners will sit at the Father"s table.
That revelation will be made to the whole universe; we know not how, but we know that it shall be; and, as the text tells us, that revelation of the sons of G.o.d is the hope for which "the earnest expectation of the creature waits" through the weary ages.
THE REDEMPTION OF THE BODY
"The adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body."--ROMANS viii. 23.
In a previous verse Paul has said that all true Christians have received "the Spirit of adoption." They become sons of G.o.d through Christ the Son. They receive a new spiritual and divine life from G.o.d through Christ, and that life is like its source. In so far as that new life vitalises and dominates their nature, believers have received "the Spirit of adoption," and by it they cry "Abba, Father."
But the body still remains a source of weakness, the seat of sin. It is sluggish and inapt for high purposes; it still remains subject to "the law of sin and death"; and so is not like the Father who breathed into it the breath of life. It remains in bondage, and has not yet received the adoption. This text, in harmony with the Apostle"s whole teaching, looks forward to a change in the body and in its relations to the renewed spirit, as the crown and climax of the work of redemption, and declares that till that change is effected, the condition of Christian men is imperfect, and is a waiting, and often a groaning.
In dealing with some of the thoughts that arise from this text, we note--
I. That a future bodily life is needed in order to give definiteness and solidity to the conception of immortality.
Before the Gospel came men"s belief in a future life was vague and powerless, mainly because it had no Gospel of the Resurrection, and so nothing tangible to lay hold on. The Gospel has made the belief in a future state infinitely easier and more powerful, mainly because of the emphasis with which it has proclaimed an actual resurrection and a future bodily life. Its great proof of immortality is drawn, not merely from ethical considerations of the manifest futility of earthly life which has no sequel beyond the grave, nor from the intuitions and longings of men"s souls, but from the historical fact of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and of His Ascension in bodily form into heaven. It proclaims these two facts as parts of His experience, and a.s.serts that when He rose from the dead and ascended up on high, He did so as "the first-born among many brethren," their forerunner and their pattern. It is this which gives the Gospel its power, and thus transforms a vague and shadowy conception of immortality into a solid faith, for which we have already an historical guarantee. Stupendous mysteries still veil the nature of the resurrection process, though these are exaggerated into inconceivabilities by false notions of what const.i.tutes personal ident.i.ty; but if the choice lies between accepting the Christian doctrine of a resurrection and the conception of a finite spirit disembodied and yet active, there can be no doubt as to which of these two is the more reasonable and thinkable. Body, soul, and spirit make the complete triune man.
The thought of the future life as a bodily life satisfies the longings of the heart. Much natural shrinking from death comes from unwillingness to part company with an old companion and friend. As Paul puts it in 2nd Corinthians, "Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon." All thoughts of the future which do not give prominence to the idea of a bodily life open up but a ghastly and uninviting mode of existence, which cannot but repel those who are accustomed to the fellowship of their bodies, and they feel that they cannot think of themselves as deprived of that which was their servant and instrument, through all the years of their earthly consciousness.
II. "The body that shall be" is an emanc.i.p.ated body.
The varied gifts of the Spirit bestowed upon the Christian Church served to quicken the hope of the yet greater gifts of that indwelling Spirit which were yet to come. Chief amongst these our text considers the transformation of the earthly into a spiritual body. This transformation our text regards as being the partic.i.p.ation by the body in the redemption by which Christ has bought us with the great price of His blood. We have to interpret the language here in the light of the further teaching of Paul in the great Resurrection chapter of 1st Corinthians, which distinctly lays stress, not on the ident.i.ty of the corporeal frame which is laid in the grave with "the body of glory," but upon the entire contrast between the "natural body," which is fit organ for the lower nature, and is informed by it, and the "spiritual body," which is fit organ for the spirit. We have to interpret "the resurrection of the body" by the definite apostolic declaration, "Thou sowest not that body that shall be...
but G.o.d giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him"; and we have to give full weight to the contrasts which the Apostle draws between the characteristics of that which is "sown" and of that which is "raised." The one is "sown in corruption and raised in incorruption."
Natural decay is contrasted with immortal youth. The one is "sown in dishonour," the other is "raised in glory." That contrast is ethical, and refers either to the subordinate position of the body here in relation to the spirit, or to the natural sense of shame, or to the ideas of degradation which are attached to the indulgence of the appet.i.tes. The one is "sown in weakness," the other is "raised in power"; the one is "sown a natural body," the other is "raised a spiritual body." Is not Paul in this whole series of contrasts thinking primarily of the vision which he saw on the road to Damascus when the risen Christ appeared before him? And had not the years which had pa.s.sed since then taught him to see in the ascended Christ the prophecy and the pattern of what His servants should become? We have further to keep in view Paul"s other representation in 2nd Corinthians v., where he strongly puts the contrast between the corporeal environment of earth and "the body of glory," which belongs to the future life, in his two images: "the earthly house of this tabernacle"--a clay hut which lasts but for a time,--and "the building of G.o.d, the house not made with hands and eternal." The body is an occasion of separation from the Lord.
These considerations may well lead us to, at least, general outlines on which a confident and peaceful hope may fix. For example, they lead us to the thought that that redeemed body is no more subject to decay and death, is no more weighed upon by weakness and weariness, has no work beyond its strength, needs no sustenance by food, and no refreshment of sleep. "The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them," suggests strength constantly communicated by a direct divine gift. And from all these negative characteristics there follows that there will be in that future bodily life no epochs of age marked by bodily changes. The two young men who were seen sitting in the sepulchre of Jesus had lived before Adam, and would seem as young if we saw them to-day.
Similarly the redeemed body will be a more perfect instrument for communication with the external universe. We know that the present body conditions our knowledge, and that our senses do not take cognisance of all the qualities of material things. Microscopes and telescopes have enlarged our field of vision, and have brought the infinitely small and the infinitely distant within our range. Our ear hears vibrations at a certain rate per second, and no doubt if it were more delicately organised we could hear sounds where now is silence. Sometimes the creatures whom we call "inferior" seem to have senses that apprehend much of which we are not aware. Balaam"s a.s.s saw the obstructing angel before Balaam did. Nor is there any reason to suppose that all the powers of the mind find tools to work with in the body. It is possible that that body which is the fit instrument of the spirit may become its means of knowing more deeply, thinking more wisely, understanding more swiftly, comprehending more widely, remembering more firmly and judging more soundly. It is possible that the contrast between then and now may be like the contrast between telegraph and slow messenger in regard to the rapidity, between photograph and poor daub in regard to the truthfulness, between a full-orbed circle and a fragmentary arc in regard to the completeness of the messages which the body brings to the indwelling self.
But, once more, the body unredeemed has appet.i.tes and desires which may lead to their own satisfaction, which do lead to sordid cares and weary toil. "The flesh l.u.s.ts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh." The redeemed body will have in it nothing to tempt and nothing to clog, but will be a helper to the spirit and a source of strength. Glorious work of G.o.d as the body is, it has its weaknesses, its limitations, and its tendencies to evil. We must not be tempted into brooding over unanswered questions as to "How do the dead rise, and with what body do they come?" But we can lift our eyes to the mountain-top where Jesus went up to pray. "And as He prayed the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment became white and dazzling"; and He was capable of entering into the Shekinah cloud and holding fellowship therein with the Father, who attested His Sonship and bade us listen to His voice. And we can look to Olivet and follow the ascending Jesus as He lets His benediction drop on the upturned faces of His friends, until He again pa.s.ses into the Shekinah cloud, and leaving the world, goes to the Father. And from both His momentary transfiguration and His permanent Ascension we can draw the certain a.s.surance that "He shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself."
III. The redeemed body is a consequence of Christ"s indwelling Spirit.
It is no natural result of death or resurrection, but is the outcome of the process begun on earth, by which, "through faith and the righteousness of faith," the spirit is life. The context distinctly enforces this view by its double use of "adoption," which in one aspect has already been received, and is manifested by the fact that "now are we the sons of G.o.d," and in another aspect is still "waited"
for. The Christian man in his regenerated spirit has been born again; the Christian man still waits for the completion of that sonship in a time when the regenerated spirit will no longer dwell in the clay cottage of "this tabernacle," but will inhabit a congruous dwelling in "the building of G.o.d not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
Scripture is too healthy and comprehensive to be contented with a merely spiritual regeneration, and is withal too spiritual to be satisfied with a merely material heaven. It gives full place to both elements, and yet decisively puts all belonging to the latter second.
It lays down the laws that for a complete humanity there must be body as well as spirit; that there must be a correspondence between the two, and as is the spirit so must the body be, and further, that the process must begin at the centre and work outwards, so that the spirit must first be transformed, and then the body must be partic.i.p.ant of the transformation.
All that Scripture says about "rising in glory" is said about believers. It is represented as a spiritual process. They who have the Spirit of G.o.d in their spirits because they have it receive the glorified body which is like their Saviour"s. It is not enough to die in order to "rise glorious." "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." The resurrection is promised for all mankind, but it may be a resurrection in which there shall be endless living and no glory, nor any beauty and no blessedness. But the body may be "sown in weakness," and in weakness raised; it may be "sown in dishonour" and in dishonour raised; it may be sown dead, and raised a living death. "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Does that mean nothing? "They that have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation." Does that mean nothing? There are dark mysteries in these and similar words of Scripture which should make us all pause and solemnly reflect. The sole way which leads to the resurrection of glory is the way of faith in Jesus Christ. If we yield ourselves to Him, He will plant His Spirit in our spirits, will guide and growingly sanctify us through life, will deliver us by the indwelling of the Spirit of life in Him from the law of sin and death. Nor will His transforming power cease till it has pervaded our whole being with its fiery energy, and we stand at the last men like Christ, redeemed in body, soul, and spirit, "according to the mighty working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself."
THE INTERCEDING SPIRIT
"The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."--ROMANS viii. 26.
Pentecost was a transitory sign of a perpetual gift. The tongues of fire and the rushing mighty wind, which were at first the most conspicuous results of the gifts of the Spirit, tongues, and prophecies, and gifts of healing, which were to the early Church itself and to onlookers palpable demonstrations of an indwelling power, were little more lasting than the fire and the wind. Does anything remain? This whole great chapter is Paul"s triumphant answer to such a question. The Spirit of G.o.d dwells in every believer as the source of his true life, is for him "the Spirit of adoption" and witnesses with his spirit that he is a child of G.o.d, and a joint-heir with Christ. Not only does that Spirit co-operate with the human spirit in this witness-bearing, but the verse, of which our text is a part, points to another form of co-operation: for the word rendered in the earlier part of the verse "helpeth" in the original suggests more distinctly that the Spirit of G.o.d in His intercession for us works in a.s.sociation with us.
First, then--
I. The Spirit"s intercession is not carried on apart from us.
Much modern hymnology goes wrong in this point, that it represents the Spirit"s intercession as presented in heaven rather than as taking place within the personal being of the believer. There is a broad distinction carefully observed throughout Scripture between the representations of the work of Christ and that of the Spirit of Christ. The former in its character and revelation and attainment was wrought upon earth, and in its character of intercession and bestowment of blessings is discharged at the right hand of G.o.d in heaven; the whole of the Spirit"s work, on the other hand, is wrought in human spirits here. The context speaks of intercession expressed in "groanings which cannot be uttered," and which, unexpressed though they are, are fully understood "by Him who searches the heart."
Plainly, therefore, these groanings come from human hearts, and as plainly are the Divine Spirit"s voicing them.
II. The Spirit"s intercession in our spirits consists in our own divinely-inspired longings.
The Apostle has just been speaking of another groaning within ourselves, which is the expression of "the earnest expectation" of "the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body"; and he says that that longing will be the more patient the more it is full of hope.
This, then, is Paul"s conception of the normal att.i.tude of a Christian soul; but that att.i.tude is hard to keep up in one"s own strength, because of the distractions of time and sense which are ever tending to disturb the continuity and fixity of that onward look, and to lead us rather to be satisfied with the gross, dull present. That redemption of the body, with all which it implies and includes, ought to be the supreme object to which each Christian heart should ever be turning, and Christian prayers should be directed. But our own daily experience makes us only too sure that such elevation above, and remoteness from earthly thoughts, with all their pettinesses and limitations, is impossible for us in our own strength. As Paul puts it here, "We know not what to pray for"; nor can we fix and focus our desires, nor present them "as we ought." It is to this weakness and incompleteness of our desires and prayers that the help of the Spirit is directed. He strengthens our longings by His own direct operation. The more vivid our antic.i.p.ations and the more steadfast our hopes, and the more our spirits reach out to that future redemption, the more are we bound to discern something more than human imaginings in them, and to be sure that such visions are too good not to be true, too solid to be only the play of our own fancy. The more we are conscious of these experiences as our own, the more certain we shall be that in them it is not we that speak, but "the Spirit of the Father that speaketh in us."
III. These divinely-inspired longings are incapable of full expression.
They are shallow feelings that can be spoken. Language breaks down in the attempt to express our deepest emotions and our truest love. For all the deepest things in man, inarticulate utterance is the most self-revealing. Grief can say more in a sob and a tear than in many weak words; love finds its tongue in the light of an eye and the clasp of a hand. The groanings which rise from the depths of the Christian soul cannot be forced into the narrow frame-work of human language; and just because they are unutterable are to be recognised as the voice of the Holy Spirit.
But where amidst the Christian experience of to-day shall we find anything in the least like these unutterable longings after the redemption of the body which Paul here takes it for granted are the experience of all Christians? There is no more startling condemnation of the average Christianity of our times than the calm certainty with which through all this epistle the Apostle takes it for granted that the experience of the Roman Christians will universally endorse his statements. Look for a moment at what these statements are. Listen to the briefest summary of them: "We cry, Abba, Father"; "We are children of G.o.d"; "We suffer with Him that we may be glorified with Him"; "Glory shall be revealed to usward"; "We have the first-fruits of the Spirit"; "We ourselves groan within ourselves"; "By hope were we saved"; "We hope for that which we see not"; "Then do we with patience wait for it"; "We know that to them that love G.o.d all things work together for good"; "In all these things we are more than conquerors"; "Neither death nor life... nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of G.o.d." He believed that in these rapturous and triumphant words he was gathering together the experience of every Roman Christian, and would evoke from their lips a confident "Amen." Where are the communities to-day in whose hearing these words could be reiterated with the like a.s.surance? How few among us there are who know anything of these "groanings which cannot be uttered!" How few among us there are whose spirits are stretching out eager desires towards the land of perpetual summer, like migratory birds in northern lat.i.tudes when the autumn days are shortening and the temperature is falling!