yj the supreme demand of God. And Christ says so. " You are
not far from the truth ; you are pretty near the mark ; there is
;not very much wrong with your views." That is what Christ
/means. Certainly not that he is as hopeless as if he were
^Ci utterly astray, y' Christ meant to commend and encourage the I man.
2. " Thou art not far from the kingdom of God," said Christ,
1 and we may be sure as He said the words He accompanied them
>(f with a loving smile. And yet if there is tenderness in this word I of Christ there is severity too. Not far — no, but not in. And though not far, a man may yet be never in. Just as a ship that has buffeted the oceans of half the globe may be wrecked on the last night, when the passengers are making up their baggage, and perish almost in sight of home, so there are men who come very near Christ, and then drift away, and never have the same holy contiguity again. It is a solemn thing to be not far from the Kingdom. It is a great responsibility. May it be ours to make it also a great reward.
^ Dante, in speaking of those who lived in dead indifference, without either " infamy or praise," says that he saw in the other world the shade of him who " with ignoble spirit refused the great offer," It has been a disputed question who was in the poet's eye, enduring the eternal shame of declining to take one noble step. Those surely are in the right who find him in that young man who turned away sorrowful when the Lord said, " Come, follow me"; for, as has been observed, nothing that ever happened in the world could be so justly called, as Dante calls it, " the great
! refusal." If anything can fill the future world of sin and loss with tormenting regret, it must be that the Kingdom of God was so near, the call to it so free, and that the opportunity was fatally and totally lost. How sadly does the wise man say, " for man knoweth not his time," and what a sorrow was in the heart of Christ when He said, " If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace."
ST. MARK 345
/ Not far from the Kingdom of God, and yet this not far may lose i itallli
\ The saying is true as applied to many things, and it is equally true with regard to the soul. The penitence that is not carried through is nothing. You remember Browning's lines —
\ Oh the little more, and how much it is!
! And the little less and what worlds away !
That is just the picture of the character we have before us. You may, if you like, see him in a thousand walks of life. I once heard a criticism of a preacher — " He has just missed being a great preacher." I felt it to be true. What was lacking one could not say, for everything seemed so excellent ; but the com- bined result was just as my friend had said. He had just " come short of being a great preacher." ^
^ Golfers have a well-understood phrase, "never up, never • in." The aim of the game is to get the little ball into the little hole. And the meaning of the phrase is, if you do not play hard enough to get the length of the hole, you will not get into it. It may be a beautiful putt, " lie on the lip of the hole," " a picture." But "it is short"; "never up, never in." The same is true here.^
I 3. "What is needed to make a man decidedly belong to the O \ Kingdom of God ? Christ's words have shown that with all I that is favourable in this man, there is still something wanting. Christ had that Divine insight which let Him see into the hearts i^ of men, as well as into the heart of things, and which enabled Him to range them in their true place. We have neither the power nor the right thus to judge the inward nature of men. It is always right for us, however, to look as far as we can into the heart of things, and to use the principles we learn there for ascertaining our own true position.
(1) He appears to have had no sense of the need of 'pardon. ^ In what he says there is no apparent perception of the evil of sin, and no application for pardon and help. He perceives the claim of God's law, and admits it to be spiritual ; but, so far as we can see, there is no conviction of that hopeless violation of it which can be met only by a Divine deliverer like Christ.
" The great mystery of religion," says Bishop Westcott, " is
^ John Ker. ^ W. Mackintosh Mackay. * R. J. Drummond.
346 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
not the punishment but the forgiveness of sin." Forgiveness v/ involves repentance ; Christ came preaching the Gospel and saying, " The kingdom of God is at hand : repent ye and believe in the gospel." yEepentance, therefore, is an essential condition of entering the " kingdom." When a man experiences this sense of forgiven sin he becomes eager for something better, desirous of a higher, and, shall we add, a safer life. A change has come over that man, a change both of motive and of power. He longs for and attempts what he never cared about before ; {he is a new being. But he cannot remain content with merely understanding the Kingdom. It is a necessary sequence that he should enter it, that he should claim its gifts and privileges, that he should enrol himself as one of its citizens ; and so the change which takes place in him must be correspondingly marked, and it becomes clear what are the essentials, or in another sense, the conditions of this entrance.^