1 A. T. Pierson. « J. Clilford, The Secret of Jems, 96.
^ 2i8 THE AMAZING GIFT OF LOVE
IV.
The Would and God.
"Should not perish, but have eternal life."
1. Perishing. — Pardon is not wrung from the Father by the Son. It is from the Father's love that salvation flows. But this love of God to our sinful world does not form a contradiction to that wrath which suspends judgment over it. It is not in reality the love of communion with which God embraces the pardoned sinner ; it is a love of compassion like that which is felt for the unhappy or for enemies, a love the intensity of which arises from the very greatness of the punishment which awaits the obdurate sinner. Thus the two ideas which form the beginning and end of the verse — Divine love and threatening perdition — are closely joined together.
(1) Perishing in its more obvious and terrible forms we have all seen. We have seen bright young lives clouded, over- darkened, devastated, destroyed. But there is such a thing as perishing respectably, and that is far more common. A man may succeed in life, and attain his low ambitions, and pass well among his fellow-townsmen, and yet when you contemplate him you know that he has perished, that his ideals are gone, that there is now no longer any communication between him and his Maker, that his soul is gone out of him. There are more who perish in silk and broadcloth than there are who perish in rags.
^ There is a danger, which only the mission of Jesus Christ averts, that men may perish. That is a danger which is as universal as the love of God, for it is " the world " that is in danger of perishing ; and it is a danger which is as individualizing and specific as the love itself, for " the world " that " perishes " is made up of single souls. In that category you have a place, and I, and all our brethren. Whoever stands in the great class of the objects of Divine love belongs also to the class of those who are in risk of destruction. It does not become me to fling about the thunderbolts of God, or to threaten and lighten as He has the right to do; but I do believe that much of the preaching of this generation is toothless, impotent, unblessed, because men have got too falsely tender-hearted and sentimental to talk about the necessary issue of alienation from God. Be you
ST. JOHN III. i6 219
sure of this, that in whatever form it may be realized — and that is of secondary importance — the world — and especially you that have heard the Gospel all your days — stands in peril of destruc- tion. " To perish," whether it mean to be reduced into non-being, or whether it mean, as I believe it means, to be so separated from the one Source of life that, conscious existence continuing, every- thing that made life beautiful and blessed and desirable is gone — to "perish" is the necessary end of the man who wrenches himself away from God.^
C(2) There is a terrible significance in that short negative clause " should not perish but " — most terrible. For, regarded in the Hght of the rest of the text, to perish — what is to perish ? It is to fall beyond the outermost sphere of God's love, as to be saved is to be drawn into its innermost circle. To perish is to feel that the sweet attraction of all that is good, all that is lovely, has lost its hold on the soul, to feel that another horrible attraction working in a contrary direction is bearing the spirit away into the abyss of malignant sin and of eternal death. The fearful anti- climax of eternal life ! The two are mutual alternatives : the absence of the one is the presence of the other. There is a strange antagonistic correspondence between the two. The punishment of the lost is not merely in proportion to sin, but seems to be in some proportion to the parallel eternity of the glory offered but refused. It is the punishment of beings to whom eternal life has been tendered but rejected, of beings who have had an option and taken their choice. "This is the con- demnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light."
If One day in America, near the Falls of Niagara, Moore saw this scene : — An Indian whose boat was moored to the shore was making love to the wife of another Indian; the husband came upon them unawares ; he jumped into the boat, when the other cut the cord, and in an instant it was carried into the middle of the stream, and before he could seize his paddle was already within the rapids. He exerted all his force to extricate himself from the peril, but finding that his efforts were vain, and his canoe was drawn with increasing rapidity towards the Falls, he threw away his paddle, drank off at a draught the contents of a bottle of brandy, tossed the empty bottle into the air, then quietly
* A. Maclaren, Paul's Prayers^ 187.