2. The ascension was, so to speak, the last sacrament of Christ's life on earth. It closed by completing the manifestation of the Son of God. Hitherto the disciples had walked with Jesus, had talked with Him, had seen Him, had touched Him, and the visible and personal presence of Christ had been ever with them ; henceforth the invisible and spiritual and universal presence of the same Lord is to take the place of the visible and local and temporal. They lost the human Jesus only to gain the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence it is that the ascension ends the gospel and begins the Acts of the Apostles, which are rather the Acts of the Holy Ghost in the Church. The last revelation of Christ is the first word in the life of His Church. The same act that closed the gospel of Jesus began the gospel of the Holy Ghost. That promise of power, that command of service, those hands lifted in blessing, that slowly disappearing Form — these were the beginning of the new life of the Church on earth. The life of Christ on earth and the life of the Church are inseparably bound together. The ascension ends the first only to begin the second.
^ The more we contemplate " the inner life " of the historical Jesus, the more shall we realize the inner life of the living Christ within us. Paul concentrated his attention on the Crucifixion
* E. Finlayson.
I TIMOTHY III. i6 119
and Resurrection, and found those events spiritually reproduced in himself in separation from sin and dedication unto God. These events must continue to be the centre of our interest also, but we may extend Paul's method to the whole life of Jesus. This, and this only, is salvation, to be one in spirit with the Saviour, to have that mind in us which was also in Christ Jesus, that grace which exchanged riches for poverty to enrich the poor. Evangelicalism has sometimes been ethically unimpressive and uninfluential, because it substituted belief in a plan of salvation for union with the living Christ as Saviour, and because when it conceived the living Christ it was as a theological abstraction, and not as the con- crete personality of the Jesus of history. The full meaning and the whole worth of the gospel of the grace of God can be discovered only in the Gospels, in the " Inner Life " of Jesus, which is not merely a past event but a present experience to all to whom Christ crucified is the power and wisdom of God unto salvation.^
He is gone — we heard Him say, " Good that I should go away." Gone is that dear Form and Face, But not gone His present grace; Though Himself no more we see. Comfortless we cannot be : No, His Spirit still is ours, Quickening, freshening all our powers.
He is gone — towards their goal, World and Church must onwards roll : Far behind we leave the past; Forwards are our glances cast; Still His words before us range Through the ages, as they change : Wheresoe'er the Truth shall lead, He will give whate'er we need.
He is gone — but we once more Shall behold Him as before : In the Heaven of Heavens the same, As on earth He went and came. In the many mansions there, Place for us will He prepare: In that world, unseen, unknown. He and we may yet be one.^
* A. E. Garvie, Studies in the Inner Life of Jesus, 466. ' Dean Stanley.
The Value of Godliness,
Literature.
Beveridge (W.), Theological Works, iv. 424.
Brown (J. B.), The Divine Life in Man, 175.
Caird (J.), University Sermons, 282.
Davies (J. P.), The Same Things, 76.
Edgar (S.), Sermons, 164.
Fox (W. J.), Collected Works, iii. 155.
Fiirst (A.), Christ the Way, 221.
Gotwald (L. A.), Joy in the Divine Government, 87.
Grant (W.), Christ our Hope, 10.
Gurney (T. A.), The First Epistle to Timothy, 191.
Home (C. S.), The Life that is Easy, 31.
Horton (R. F.), This Do, 133.
Lambert (J. C), The Omnipotent Cross, 128.
Leach (C), Sermons to Working Men, 101.
Little (J.), Glorying in the Lord, 211.
Lynch (T. T.), Tliree Months' Ministry, 25.
Norton (J. N.), Every Sunday, 359.
Peabody (F. G.), Mornings in the College Chapel, i. 15.
Pulsford (J.), Our Deathless Hope, 115.
Talmage (T. de W.), Sermons, iv. 232.
Williams (T. L.), Thy Kingdom Come, 128.
Bible Cliampion, xvi. 22 (C. H. Fowler).
Cambridge Review, x. Supplement No. 245 (G. Salmom).
Christian World Pulpit, xli. 116 (R. F. Horton) ; liv. 151 (T. Stephens);
Ixviii. 299 (C. Gore) ; Ixxv. 216 (R. F. Horton). Church of England Pulpit, x. 168 (T. W. Drury). Twentieth Century Pastor, xxxiv. 17 (J. G. Henderson).
The Value of Godliness.
Bodily exercise is profitable for a little ; but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come. — I Tim. iv. 8.
The figure here employed is a favourite one with St. Paul. It is that of the gymnasium, the athletic contest, that physical training which played so large a part in the education of Greece. Some- times it is the race; sometimes the wrestling or boxing match. " I therefore so run, not as uncertainly ; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air." "Every one that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things," " Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life." In these and many other passages, St. Paul would have us learn that life must be taken seriously and in earnest. It is a fight for the mastery, a race for a crown. In this passage he teaches by a contrast — the contrast between "bodily exercise" and "exercise unto godliness." The one is profitable " for a little," the other " for all things." The one has a promise for this life, the other both for this life and for that which is to come. We can see at once that over against what is at best but partial, the Apostle places that which is complete and eternal.