Verse 13
Degrees of Glory.
We are justified casually by God's eternal grace; we are justified effectively by the blood of Jesus Christ; we are justified instrumentally by faith; we are justified evidentially by good works. Or, to put this a little more plainly, we are justified before God i.e., we are accounted righteous and acceptable only by the faith in Christ which His Spirit creates and moves in our hearts. But how are we justified to ourselves in believing that we are justified before God? how are we justified to the world in saying that we are justified? By our good works. This harmonises the apparent discrepancy between St. Paul and St. James. We are "justified by our works," as St. James says, in believing that we are "justified" before God, as St. Paul says, "by faith" only. "They rest from their labours; and their works do follow them."
I. Observe that it does not say, "They rest from their works " for that would imply that where they are gone they cease from work, which is entirely the contrary to the fact but, "They rest from their labours ; and their works do follow them." Now labour is work's distress. Work itself as such is joy. There is no happiness without work. Every man must work, some with their heads, some with their minds, some with their hands; but all must work. The secret of all the wretchedness that there is in the world is the absence of work. Whoever you are, you can never lead a happy life if you do not work, really work, work hard. If your circumstances do not define your work for you, you must define your work for yourself. You must work. It is God's universal law in His government of this world, "If any man will not work, neither let him eat" eat of any of the pleasant things which I spread for My children. But then, in this present state, the law of work has its dark shadows: fatigue, infirmity, too great tension, ill-health, disappointments, mistakes, waitings, suspensions, and sins. There is the miserable, depressing sense of inadequacy for the task; there is the perplexity of what is the line of duty and all the entanglements of self on every point; there is the feeling, "After all, all this is but a drop out of the ocean of misery!" I do not wonder that even in His work, Jesus "sighed." Now, all this, and much more, makes the labour. The Greek word has for its root the verb "to cut" it cuts to the heart. It is like that other word, "Take no thought for the morrow," which is in the original, "Do not cut or split your heart about the morrow." But yet all this that cuts to the quick is necessary now to make work what work was intended to be in this stage of existence. The labour of work is the discipline of work; it is the education, the discipline, the school. It was not the work which was the punishment of Adam and Eve doubtless they would have worked in paradise but it was the excess of the work above the power of the being of the worker, work's pressure: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." And therefore, because it is the needful discipline, the rule holds good, whether it be the bread for the body, or whether it be the bread for the mind, or whether it be the bread for the soul, you can never get what is really satisfying but by dint of real, hard fag, hard toil: "in the sweat of thy brow." It is not work only, but it is labour, which is the condition of the peace of life. Therefore it was that Christ chose the word for He knew how wide it was "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."
II. If a man is in Christ, and that man works, and that man casts the labour of his work upon Christ, its vexings and its harassings, then that man has entered into rest so far, for he does the work, and he casts the labour. Absolutely, however, death is the point when the believer perfectly and for ever exchanges labour for work. Death might be defined as going from labour to work. For do not think that those busy minds which were so active and so earnest here when they were among us, who are gone to their prepared places, are leading there a life of mere receptive enjoyment or meditative peace. They have not so unlearned their natures. "His servants shall serve Him." "They rest not day and night," while they glorify God, in His boundless ministrations, still "each upon his wing," while he soars away for activity in his vast circumference. It is tolerably clear, then, what it is the Spirit saith when He saith, "Yea, that they may rest from their labours."
III. We have now to examine a little further how it is that "their works do follow them." It certainly admits of the interpretation that those works in which Christians are engaged here continue to interest them in the next world. Why should it not be so? Do we not make too much of death if we look upon it as destroying any of the interests of life? For what is death but as if a person should go into some foreign land? He can see no longer what he used to love so well, and what he called home. But do those things which lie beyond the sea become indifferent to him? Are his affections closed to them? Nay, are not those things, in some sense, dearer to him than ever they were before? Surely we may believe that those high and busy enterprises, which had so large a place in the hearts of God's children here, are not forgotten by them in their perfected happiness! The conversion of the Jews, the missions to the heathen, the flock, the schools, things once so near and bound up with their very life-blood do you think they are passed away? And if not, if the interest lasts, and is imperishable, then may we not say that, in this way, "their works do follow them"? Nay, may we not go a step further, and hold it probable that there is a continuity between the special tastes, and occupations, and habits of thought, which characterised us here, and that which shall stamp our condition and our services in another state? Do not let us make the gulf between the two worlds greater than it is. There are two offices which the works we have done on earth are fulfilling in another world. (1) The one is to be our witnesses in the day of judgment. The matter which will be examined into at that tribunal will not be acts, but character. It will be, Did you love God? What was Christ to you? What were you to Christ? But, to determine the answer to that inquiry, acts will stand out in evidence; words will be an index. Therefore "by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned." Deeds of charity will stand out in evidence: "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these My brethren, ye did it not to Me"; "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." Thus, then, just as our justification was justified by our good works when we were here, so there God, though He needs it not, will be justified before the universe, in His final award to all men, by their works, which will be manifest then before men and angels. (2) The second purpose for which our "works will follow us" will be to determine, as I believe, the measure of our glory and our place in heaven, our place, not geographically, but morally, not so as to separate one saint from another for the communion will be perfect in all saints but just as Christians here meet in one, but yet are of various capacities and degrees, so there it will be in glory: they are all one, all filled, but the vessels are of different sizes.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 6th series, p. 90.
References: Revelation 14:13 . S. King, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxii., p. 51; R. Thomas, Ibid., vol. vii., p. 40; H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol. xviii., p. 92; Bishop Barry, Sermons for Passiontide and Easter, p. 104; R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons, 1st series, p. 262; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 83: Preacher's Monthly, vol. iii., p. 363.Revelation 14:15 . H. Robjohns, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 271; Preacher's Monthly, vol. viii., p. 142.
Be the first to react on this!
