2. All natural sons are not spiritual sons. The natural son becomes a spiritual son when the Father's will and purpose are made his will and purpose. We find this beautifully illustrated in the story of the Prodigal Son. The youth chafes under parental restraint, he is now a dissatisfied son ; he leaves home and makes his abode in a far country, he is now an absent son ; he spends his time and money in riotous living, he is now a sinful son ; sin is always sooner or later followed by punishment, he becomes, there- fore, a suffering son; grief and remorse follow suffering, as the morning follows the sunrise, he is now a sad and sorry son ; sorrow turns into self-condemnation, he is now a humble son ; he says, " I will arise and go to my father," he is now a penitent son ; his father welcomes him home with outstretched arms, he is now a forgiven son ; the fatted calf is killed, a ring is placed upon his finger, and a robe upon his shoulders, he is now a restored son ; from henceforth he makes his father's will his will, his father's
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pleasure, his pleasure, and he does all, not from duty, but from love; he is now, therefore, a spiritual son.
^ In dealing with a man of fine moral character we are l^ dealing with the highest achievement of the organic kingdom, but in dealing with a spiritual man we are dealing with the lowest form of life in the spiritual world. To contrast the two, there- fore, and marvel that the one is apparently so little better than the other, is unscientific and unjust. The spiritual man is a mere unformed embryo, hidden as yet in his chrysalis-case, while the natural man has the breeding and evolution of ages represented in his character. But what are the possibilities of this spiritual organism ? What is yet to emerge from the chrysalis-case ? The natural character finds its limits within the organic sphere, but who is to define the limits of the spiritual ? Even now it is very beautiful. Even as an embryo it contains some prophecy of its future glory, but the point to mark is that "it doth not yet appear what we shall be." ^
3. Though children of God by faith in Christ Jesus we are still imperfect, but we have in us the seeds of a great destiny. When we find fault with the child's lesson because he has not begun his sentence with a capital or ended his question with an interrogation mark, the mother excuses him by saying, "He is only a boy." Yes, but it is a great thing to be a boy, it carries the promise that some day he will be a man. The child who can as yet only stammer brokenly through a sentence, if in an educated home, or who can only blunder as yet through a sum in long division, if in a good school, has promise of one day speaking correctly and calculating the distance of the stars. Only a child, but it is a great thing to be even a child in such a home and in such a school. (/ ^ I have stood on a projecting spur of a mountain range and looked backward on the road I have climbed and then far down into the valley below where I could see the farm-fields and the river. As I have rested there for a moment, I have felt something of the joy which comes with the heights ; but as I have turned to continue the climb, I have found the way blocked with blinding mists and the higher ranges wrapped about with the dense folds of cloud and completely shut from view. I knew the heights were there before me, but I could not see them. They did not appear. And 80 I had to plunge into the thickening mist and continue the
/ 1 Henry Drummond.
284 WHAT WE ARE, WHAT WE SHALL BE
ascent without scenery. It is thus that John paints the second stage. The road winds through the mist. " It doth not yet appear what we shall be," but the way is still upward and onward. We have not reached the summit, with adoption. Sonship is followed by development and growth. Here is the marvellous thing about the soul. It seems possessed of an infinite capacity. Man is ever becoming.^
Tl An acorn is an oak-tree now ; but it is not made manifest what it will be. You may bring all your microscopes and all your chemic tests to the acorn, and you will not solve the question. Had you never seen aught but an acorn — and you have never seen aught but a child of God in this reference, and most of them very young children — had you never seen aught but an acorn, no imagination within your reach, or the reach of any poet God ever gave to earth, would have brought you any- where near the truth. Again, go back, with the help of the scientist, in the long history of this physical world and universe, and he will tell you of some such thing they have seen as this : that this earth and all related to it was, in primeval times, a fire- mist. Before the stars, before the suns were here, was some such thing, as unlike this earth as a globe of fire-mist would be. It was the solar universe; but it was not made manifest what it would be. And great as is the difference between the primeval fire and the solar universe of to-day, unimaginable as is the progress from the protoplasm, undifferentiated, to the human form in its athletic beauty, indescribable as is the difference between the acorn and the oak-tree, those differences, peradventure, are small compared with the difference between what we now are and what we shall be. In the acorn is the oak-tree, in the protoplasm is the lily, in the fire-mist, so they say, was the earth ; in you is the Christlikeness, folded more deeply, with more convolutions, fchan the finest folded bud. Deep within you is the Christlikeness that yet shall be part of the final manifestation of God's purpose and will.^