(2) It is an all-erribracing plea — " for the whole world." — In Christ all mankind rendered obedience to that law, and suffered beneath its penalty. All mankind, therefore, in that act was redeemed from the incidence of Adam's sin. Topsy, in Unxile Tom's Cabin, says : " Why should I be punished ? I never ate that apple ! " Certainly ; neither Topsy nor any one else will go to hell because Adam ate that apple ; for whatever loss accrued to the race from that act of sin has been more than made good by the act of righteousness of the One Man Jesus Christ.
^ Why, then, is the world in darkness ? Suppose an Act of Parliament capable of conferring great benefits on the working class, and out of which they may contract themselves. The Act may be rendered quite inoperative. So men by their sin may contract themselves out of the benefits of Christ's death. Our Lord tells of a man who had been forgiven, but shortly after took his brother by the throat, and insisted that he should pay him what he owed. In that act he cancelled his own forgiveness, and his lord directed that he should be given over to the tormentors till he should pay all the original debt. So, by their wilful rejection of Christ, men may contract themselves out of the benefits of His work on their behalf. The sin of which the world is guilty since the great sacrifice for sin has been made is the sin of rejection — " because they believe not on me." ^
* F. B. Meyer, In tJu Beginning Ood, 188.
The Love that Confers Sonship.
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Literature.
AitVen (W. H. M, H.), Mission Sermotis, iii. 129.
Banks (L. A.), John and his Friends, 108.
Bourdillon (F.), Our Possessions, 34.
Cooper (T. J.), Love's Unveiling, 144.
Drummond (R. J.), Faith's Certainties, 149.
Eadie (J.), The Divine Love, 104.
Farrar (F. W.), Truths to Live By, 184.
Gordon (A. J.), The Twofold Life, 77.
Greenhougli (J. G.), The Cross in Modern Life, 63.
Gregg (J.), Sermons Preached in Trinity Church, Dublin, ii. 267.
Haslam (W.), The Threefold Gift of God, 66.
Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year: Christmas — Epiphany, 367.
Knight (J. J.), Sermons in Brief, 62.
Landels (W.), Until the Day Break, 79.
Mackennal (A.), The Eternal Son of God and the Human Sonship, 67.
Maclagan (P. J.), The Gospel View of Things, 57.
Matheson (G.), Thoughts for Life's Journey, 192.
Newbolt (W. C. E.), The Gospel Message, 120.
Newman (J. H.), Parochial and Plain Sermons, iii. 172.
Oosterzee (J. J. van), The Year of Salvation, ii. 295.
Perren (C), Revival Sermons, 282.
Scott (M.), Harmony of the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, 55.
Smith (D.), Man's Need of God, 135.
Temple (F.), Sermons in Bugby School Chapel, ii. 71.
Thomas (J.), Myrtle Street Pulpit, iii. 323.
West (R.), The Gh-eatest Things in the World, 75.
Wordsworth (E.), Onward Steps, 40.
Christian World Pulpit, vi. 184 (Mahan) ; xxvi. 107 (Beecher).
Church of England Magazine, xvi. 153 (Hitchen) ; Ixx. 312 (Stevenson).
Churchman's Pulpit : Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, iv. 220 (Moore).
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rMri.«te«>. Hfili
The Love that Confers Son
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowe should be called children of God : and such we are. — i John iii. t,
1. St. John writes this Epistle on the highest peak of'*' sunlit summits of God's new revelation in Jesus Christ. The Epistle is full of brightness. Every sentence tingles, and pulses, and throbs with the joy of the daylight, and flashes back the glory in streaming brightness to heaven. " A new commandment write I unto you," so the music flows on, " because the darkness is passing away, and the true light already shineth." How John basks and revels in the sunlight ! Light streams everywhere around him. "God is light." "The light is shining." "We walk in the light, even as he is in the light." What has happened ? The Dayspring has appeared from on high. The Sun of Eighteousness has risen upon the world with healing in His beams. And then John sees the eternal light mirror itself on the clouded sky of this world in an arch of holy beauty, and his music grows soft and sweet as he sings, " God is love. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God." ^
^ The Missionary Ziegenbalg tells us that in translating this text with the aid of a Hindu youth, the youth rendered it " that we should be allowed to kiss His feet." When asked why he thus diverged from the text he said, " * Children of God ! ' that is too much — too high ! " Such shrinking was excusable in heathen converts, to whom these truths came in a burst of light too dazzling for their weak eyes. It is not excusable in us. In us it involves nothing less than a denial of the faith which is the sole source of that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.'''
1 J. Thomas, Myrlle Street Pulint, iii. 323.
2 F. W. Farrar, Truths to Live By, 188.
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266 THE LOVE THAT CONFERS SONSHIP
2. The Apostle uses the word "children," not "sons" as in the Authorized Version. He would call attention, not as St. Paul, who uses " sons," to the adoptive act, but to the antecedent, eternal, natural relation. God has freely given us His love, in order that our title may be children of God — and, in the true reading, he adds, " and such we are." Children we now are, in recognized name, in real fact; what we shall be hereafter we know not ; but that shall be manifested in due time ; and when it is manifested, then, beloved, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He; is. When we wake up after His likeness, we shall be satipf-cd with it. The image which we now bear shall become the perfect semblance. We shall be like clouds, cradled near the sun, dyed, bathed, transfused with its glowing beams ; their lurid menace softened, their darkness palpitating with reflected splendour — their very substance transformed from gloom to whiteness, from whiteness to crimson, from crimson to gold, from gold to sunbeams — changed into the same image, from glory to glory.