2. Just in the same way as Paul, who had no other means of support, was compelled, like most of us, to earn a wage if he was to live, so the soul by nature is compelled, for lack of spiritual resource, to serve sin, for its wage of death. Man must serve ; his only choice being which of two masters he will serve, Satan or God — sin or righteousness — he cannot serve both, as is plainly taught throughout this sixth chapter of Komans. And just as
1 C. E. Walters. ACTS & KOM. — 23
354 THE WAGES AND THE GIFT
the loving gift of the Philippians released Paul from this necessity to work for the tent-maker's wage, and set him at liberty to give himself up entirely to the preaching of the Gospel, so acceptance by man of the gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus, which God freely offers to all, alone liberates him from the bondage of serving sin, and, at the same time, gives him strength to serve God, wherever he goes, by preaching the Gospel from the living epistle of a regenerate life.
3. The word used by the Apostle {charisma) means more than " gift " ; every gift is not a charisma ; a charisma is a " free gift," a " gift of grace," a gift in which all merit on the part of the receiver is unthought of, and only the free, spontaneous love of the giver is revealed. And it is so, Paul declares, that the eternal life, " the life which is life indeed," comes from God to man. The Gospel was to Paul — to borrow a convenient distinction — not good advice, but good news ; it told, first of all, not of something to do, but of something done. No word indicates more clearly the whole drift of Paul's thinking on this matter than the word " grace." By " grace " are we saved ; and " grace " speaks not of the doing of man, but of the giving of God. Salvation is not a hard- won wage paid by the just Overseer of life ; it is the bounty of love, the gift of grace.
^| If there is one truth which God has of late helped me to see for myself it is this. Of course, I have always believed in what we call salvation by grace, as distinguished from salvation by works ; but never until the last few months has the truth really lived for me. For years, like so much, alas ! of one's theology, it has lain — to use the words of a great writer — in that " dim twilight land that surrounds every living faith ; the land not of death, but of the shadow of death — the land of the unrealized and the in- operative." And now that it is beginning to emerge from the darkness I want others to stand by my side, that, if possible, we may see together the truth that made glad the heart of Paul. I do not speak as a theologian, but as a Christian man to Christian men, eager with them to know the blessedness of eternal life.1
4. Not at the outset of the regenerate life only, and not only when it issues into the heavenly ocean, but all along the course, the life eternal is still " the free gift of God." Let us now, to-day, to-morrow, and always, open the lips of surrendering and obedient
1 George Jackson.
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faith, and drink it in, abundantly, and yet more abundantly. And let us use it for the Giver.
Tf I heard a well-known preacher relate his experience. For long years he had prayed that he might realize abundant life in Christ. He had often agonized and sought this gift from God, but without avail. One day, as he travelled in a railway train, he was thinking about this wonderful gift. It happened that there was, as he journeyed, a great downfall of rain, the rain beating ceaselessly against the carriage windows. He said, "I looked out of the window, and as we passed a farmhouse I noticed a number of vessels placed outside to receive the welcome rain. Some were large, others were small; but both large and small received the rain. I said to myself, ' The gift of life has been outpoured by God. When Jesus ascended on high He granted gifts unto men. 1 may receive that gift, unworthy as I am, even as the noblest and most saintly may receive it.' " *
5. What are the advantages of receiving eternal life as a free gift?
(1) One advantage is the Gladness that accompanies it. Why is it that so many of us have so little gladness in our Christian life ? Is it not just for this very reason that we have put self instead of God at the centre of it ? We have talked and lived as if the whole responsibility of our salvation rested on our own weak shoulders. And since, naturally enough, we doubt our own strength, we are never sure, never at rest ; even our joy has the worm of fear busy at the heart of it. " I am persuaded that I am
able to keep " We dare not say that ; and as we never knew