2. The next stage in the development of evil is that of moral offensiveness. Moral "uncleanness" rapidly becomes moral " abomination." In spite of the sinfulness of human nature, sin at a certain Suage becomes offensive to the moral sense of the bulk of the people. There is an early point in the career of sin where the personal consciousness of moral obliquity far outweighs its moral offensiveness to others. The external relations of sin have not developed to the point of its becoming an abomination to men, though it is already an abomination to the all-holy God. But the road from " uncleanness " to " abomination " is an open way. The
2,z(> THE CITIZENS OF THE CITY
sphere is one, and the path is continuous. The beginnings of moral evil must be cleansed, otherwise the godless man that has not yet forfeited the respect of society by offensiveness of life is destined, some day, to walk side by side with the miscreant, the savour of whose evil deeds reeks through the land.
^ You will observe the seer is speaking not of persons, but of things. One might wonder at first sight why he does not from the outset use the masculine form. Why does he not say, " There shall in no wise enter into it any man that worketh abomination " ? In the case of the second clause, the Kevised Version has inserted the personal element, ''he that worketh a lie." Yet I have no hesitation in saying that in so doing it has weakened, and not strengthened, the original sense. The writer is speaking primarily and mainly, not of actors, but of the influence of their acts. Indeed, it is a great blessing for the human race that it should be so. Personal salvation would be impossible except on the sup- position that a man shall be enrolled in the membership of the Kingdom while yet he is in a state of uncleanness. This has always been regarded as the pith and marrow of the evangelical doctrine. It is as philosophical as it is orthodox, and it is as comforting as it is philosophical. The man who would enter the Kingdom of Christ must, according to St. Paul, enter by faith alone. He must not wait until he is pure. He must be content to come with the intention of purity, with the desire to be what he is not. He must be allowed to put his foot on the sacred threshold "just as he is, without one plea." He must be accepted for an aspiration. If he would have his name written in the book of life, it must be written there in advance of his life. He must be justified before he is sanctified — pronounced fit for the Kingdom in the light of days to come. The only hope for him is his per- mission to survive, his permission to enter within the gates of gold, while yet his own life has not transcended the brass.^
3. The final stage of evil is the complete perversion of the moral judgment as well as of the moral life — " maketh (or worketh) a lie." In the 22nd chapter we find the fuller phrase — " loveth, and maketh a lie." Sin, having grown into an abomina- tion, acts upon the inner life of the sinner no less powerfully than it does on the moral sense of the beholders. Its external offensiveness goes hand in hand with internal destructiveness, until the life becomes perverted into fossilized evil and its every
* G, Matheson, SideligMs from Patmos, 327.
REVELATION xxi. 27 337
activity becomes a living lie. At last evil is loved as good, and good as evil. The true meaning of things becomes entirely dis- torted, and the soul lives and moves in an environment of absolute falsehood. Herein lies the consummation of the city of darkness, the barren and foul realm of untruth, which stands out in sharply defined contrast to the city that shines with the glory of God, with the blaze of the infinite Truth.
The words " to make j(or do) a lie " are like our Lord's words, " He that doeth truth." To " make a lie " is to act contrary to the truth of man's being in his relation to God. Those who thus " make a lie " will always love darkness, and " hate the light " that shines from the City of God. But those who " do the truth " will love the light and come to the light which shines from her.
II Why does the seer of Patmos say " maketh a lie " and not " telleth a lie " ? It is because he is not thinking of a sjpoken lie. He is thinking of what we call the principle of make-believe. He is contemplating the efforts of men to make the appearance pass for the reality, to give a gloss to circumstances, to cause things to seem what they are not, and not to seem what they are. And he declares that the result of these attempts is ever the same — evanescence. He maintains that nothing which is unreal can be permanent, that no sham can live, that everything false is, by its very nature, doomed to perish. And here again he has prophesied truly. Is there any sphere where the principle of Divine survival is so clearly manifest as in the region of illusions ? Even the destruction of impurity is not so rapid. It is often left for a future generation to behold the dissolution of what was base and defiled. But every man, within his own lifetime, within a corner of his own lifetime, has been privileged to witness the death of make-believe. All this is no accident ; it is a law, God's law, that law of Divine survival by which nothing lives on the stream of history which has won its pre-eminence by " making a lie." 1