Missing it - Chambers, Oswald
Anything Jesus christ revealed may be missed. The disbelief of the human mind always wastes itself in the sentimental idea that god would never let us miss the greatest good. Jesus says he will, that is why we dont like him, and that is why the teaching of to-day is not the teaching of the jesus christ of the new testament.
1. What if a man gain the whole world? (mark 8:3435)
(a) his point of view
Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospels, the same shall save it. However the end of life may be conceivedwhether as blessedness, or as the kingdom of god, or as righ- teousnessone thing is indubitable in the entire teaching of jesus that he looks upon the end of life as capable of being missed.
Stalker
The word translated soul or life may be equally well translated himself, and the verses mean just what they say. Jesus is not defining the great fundamental doctrine of personality, he is talking about the man himself, the person who lives, and with whom we come in contact. Jesus says if a man gains himself, he loses himself; and if he loses himself for his sake, he gains himself.
Beware of introducing the idea of time; the instant the spirit of god touches your spirit, it is manifested in the body. Do not get the idea of a three-storied building with a vague, mysterious, ethereal upper story called spirit, a middle story called soul, and a lower story called body. We are personality, which shows itself in three phases spirit, soul and body. Never think that what energises the spirit takes time before it gets into the soul and body, it shows itself instantly, from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet. Jesus says that men are capable of missing the supreme good and his point of view is not accept- able to us because we do not believe we are capable of missing it. We are far removed from Jesus christs point of view to-day, we take the natural rationalistic line, and his teaching is no good whatever unless we believe the main gist of his gospel, viz. , that we have to have something planted into us by supernatural grace. Jesus Christs point of view is that a man may miss the chief good; we like to believe we will end all right somehow, but jesus says we wont. If my feet are going in one direction, i cannot advance one step in the opposite direction unless i turn right round.
(b) his preaching from that point of view
When he speaks of blessedness, he at the same time utters woes which will be the portion of some instead of blessedness; when he speaks of the kingdom, he distinctly thinks of some that will not be able to enter into it; and when he speaks of righteousness, he glances at many who are living in unrighteousness. In short, there is a considerable portion of the words of christ occupied with the description and denunciation of sin.
Stalker
We have, as christian disciples, to continually recognise that much of what is called Christianity to-day is not the Christianity of the new testament; it is distinctly different in generation and manifestation. Jesus is not the fountainhead of modern christianity; he is scarcely thought about. Christian preachers, Sunday school teachers, religious books, all without any apology patronise Jesus christ and put him on one side. We have to learn that to stand true to jesus christs point of view means ostracism, the ostracism that was brought on him; most of us know noth- ing whatever about it. The modern view looks upon human nature as pathetic: men and women are poor ignorant babes in the wood who have lost themselves. Jesus christs view is totally different, he does not look on men and women as babes in the wood, but as sinners who need saving, and the modern mind detests his view. Our lords teaching is based on something we violently hate, viz. , his doctrine of sin; we do not believe it unless we have had a radical dealing with god on the line of his teaching. Remember that a disciple is committed to much more than belief in jesus; he is committed to his lords view of the world, of men, of god and of sin. Take stock of your views and compare them with the new testament, and never get tricked into thinking that the bible does not mean what it says when it disagrees with you. Disagree with what our lord says by all means if you like, but never say that the bible does not mean what it says.
(c) his procedure and others
This is the point at which the ethical teaching of Jesus differs most widely from the similar teaching of philosophy. The ethics of the philosophers bear a consider- able resemblance to the teaching of jesus in so far as the Setting up of an ideal of character and conduct is con- cerned; but little or nothing is said by philosophers about the inability of men to attain to the standard, or of the manifold forms of failure exhibited in actual experience.
Stalker
People say, oh yes, the sermon on the mount is very beautiful, our ideals must be better than we can attain, we shall drift into the lords ideals in time somehow or other; but jesus says we wont, we will miss them. The manifold forms of failure exhibited in actual experience is ignored by other ethical teach- ers. They say it is never too late to mendit is; that you can start againyou cannot; that you can make the past as though it had never beenit is impossible; that anyway you can put yourself in such a condition that what you have done need not count you can- not and our lord is the only one who recognises these things. We think because we fail and forget it, there- fore it is overlooked by godit is not. Jesus christs standard remains, and the entrance into his kingdom and into a totally new life is by regeneration, and in no other way. The teachings and standards of Jesus, which are so distasteful to modern Christianity, are based on what our lord said to Nicodemus: marvel not that i said unto thee, ye must be born again; otherwise our lord was a dreamer. The reason we do not see the need to be born from above (rv mg) is that we have a vast capacity for ignoring facts. People talk about the evolution of the race. The writers of to-day seem to be incapable of a profound understanding of history, they write glibly about the way the race is developing, where are their eyes and their reading of human life as it is? We are not evolving and developing in any sense to justify what is known as evolution. We have developed in certain domains but not in all. We are nowhere near the massive, profound intellectual grasp of the men who lived before Christ was born. What brain to-day can come near Plato, or socrates? And yet people say we are developing and getting better, and we are lay- ing the flattering unction to our souls that we have left jesus christ and his ideas twenty centuries behind. No wonder jesus said that if we stand by him and take his point of view, men will hate us as they hated him.
In spite of his tendency to self-satisfaction, every man is aware some time or other of his own bro- ken bones, and he knows that there must be death before there is any prospect of climbing the heights of moral attainment.
Stalker
Have you ever noticed that in some moods you have battled bitterly against the position you know to be right, and all your tirade against it is born of a fear lest after all it might be wrong? That is the real attitude of men and women, they will accept any amount of subterfuges, but right down underneath they have a superb contempt for anything less than that which goes to the root of the matter, and the only one who does is the lord jesus christ. Sooner or later every human heart flings away as chaff the idea that we are developing and growing better.
2. What if a man lose himself ? (mark 8:3637)
(a) the possibility of the question
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Jesus habitually saw with the minds eye the spiritual development which those around him might have attained had their desire been fixed more steadily on the true end of life.
Stalker
The idea seems to be, that, even though it does not come to absolute loss, yet if gaining the world involve dam- age to the self, the moral personalitytaint, lowering of the tone, vulgarising of the soulwe lose much more than we gain.
Bruce18
In the training of art students, the master does not merely tell them what is wrong in a design, he puts the right design beside the wrong and lets them judge for themselves, and that is exactly what jesus christ did all through the sermon on the mount.
Do i accept the possibility that i may miss the highest good? There is a sentimental notion that makes us make ourselves out worse than we think we are, because we have a lurking suspicion that if we make ourselves out amazingly bad, someone will say, oh no, you are not as bad as that; but jesus says we are worse. Our lord never trusted any man, for he knew what was in man; but he was not a cynic for he had the profoundest confidence in what he could do for every man, consequently he was never in a moral or intellectual panic, as we are, because we will put our confidence in man and in the things that jesus put no confidence in. Paul says, dont glory in men; dont say, i am of paul, or i am of apollos, and dont think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but think according to the measure of faith, that is, according to what the grace of god has done in you. Never trust (in the fundamental meaning of the word) any other saving Jesus christ. That will mean you will never be unkind to anybody on the
Face of the earth, whether it be a degraded criminal or an upright moral man, because you have learned that the only thing to depend on in a man is what god has done in him. When you come to work for jesus christ, always ask yourself, do i believe Jesus christ can do anything for that case? Am i as confident in his power as he is in his own? If you deal with people without any faith in jesus christ it will crush the very life out of you. If we believe in Jesus christ, we can face every problem the world holds.
(b) property and perdition
take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. (luke 12:15) what he thought of most frequently as impeding the growth of true manhood was the pursuit of wealth and property.
Stalker
How many people do you know who have their godliness incarnated in economy? Are you one of them? If we can save and do justly with money, we are absolutely certain we are right in the sight of god. The thing about our lord and his teaching which puts him immeasurably away from us nowadays is that he is opposed to all possessions, not only of money and property, but any kind of possession. That is the thing that makes him such a deep-rooted enemy to the modern attitude to things. The two things around which our lord centred his most scathing teaching were money and marriage, because they are the two things that make men and women devils or saints. Covetousness is the root of all evil, whether it shows itself in money matters or in any way.
(c) poverty and perdition
But seek ye first the kingdom of god, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (matthew 6:33)
But jesus was hardly less sensible of the danger to which the poor were exposed of missing the prize through an opposite causeon account, not of the glamour of riches, but the pressure of poverty. . . . His was not a gospel of meat and drink, of loaves and fishes, of better clothes and better houses.
Stalker
Jesus Christ nowhere stands with the anti-property league. It is an easy business for me to mentally satirise the man who owns land and money when i dont. It is easy for me to talk about what i could do with a thousand pounds if i had it; the test is what i do with the 212d19 i have got. It may be hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven, but it is just as hard for a poor man to seek first the kingdom of god. It is not eternal perdition, it is the perdition of losing the soul for this life. Jesus thought as much of the possibility of losing the highest good through poverty as through riches. His own followers were poor, yet he said to them, seek ye firstbread and cheese?
Money? A new situation? Clothing? Food? No, the kingdom of god, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Did he know what he was talking about, this poor carpenter who had not a pillow of his own and never enough money to pay a nights lodging and yet spoke like that, and who also said that the cares of this world, and the deceit- fulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful? Have i ever tried to practise one thing that jesus taught in the sermon on the mount? Tolsto i blundered in applying the sermon on the mount practically without insisting on the need to be born again of the spirit of god first; but i am taking for granted that we are born again, now try putting into practice some- thing jesus said, and if what he said does not prove true, say so, but try it. For instance, give to him that asketh thee. Yes, you say, and be surrounded at once with a crowd of beggars! Is the almighty abso- lutely powerless? We argue like pagans and jargonise like saints. The sentimental jargon in our prayer meet- ings is exactly like the new testament language, while in practice we are pagans as if jesus had never said a word. What man who has never allowed god to lift him up would dare to stand before his fellow creatures and lift up the standard of god? There would be deep condemnation in every message he gave.
Our lord based a mans self-realisation on his spiritual relationship to god. Carlyle 20 estimated human beings by their brains and came to the con- clusion that half the human race were fools. Fancy measuring a man by the amount of grey matter in his cranium! You cannot judge a man by his head, but only by his character. One of the greatest disasters in human life is our wrong standards of judgement, we will judge men by their brains, Jesus never did. Jesus judged men and women by their relationship to his father, an implicit relationship. The brain is nothing more than a marvellous machine for expressing a mans conception of things, and when our hearts and Lives are right with god, our brains are a means of expressing a particular conception which comes from our lord. Never partake of the cynical view of life. Jesus Christ estimates that a mans real soul life is his relationship to god and nothing else, and Paul said, let no man by his philosophy beguile you away from this simplicity the simplicity of the life hid with christ in God.