THE FOUNDATION AND THE SEAL - Alexander Maclaren

THERE was a great deal in the Apostle Paul’s last days to excuse despondency and sadness. For himself he was poor, and a prisoner, lonely and old, looking forward to the near approach of a bloody death. For the gospel and the Church the outlook was black too. Evil had already begun to lift its head, and was threatening to increase. So this, his last letter, is full of gloomy vaticinations, but in it there is none of the pessimism that belongs to old people, none of the despondency which so often seizes upon leaders of thought and action when they come to the end of their lives, and see how little they have done, and how threateningly the clouds are gathering. But throughout, side by side with the clearest perception of evil symptoms and growing dangers, there is unconquerable confidence.

This text is a remarkable illustration of that. He has just been speaking about errors that are threatening to flood the Church, and he speaks with very grave and vehement words. And then all at once with this ‘nevertheless’ he, as it were, swings right round, and his whole soul leaps up in the glad confidence that, whatever may happen, and whatever has to be abandoned, and whoever may go away, ‘the foundation of God stands sure.’ So he heartens up his young brother Timothy, who seems to have been of a great deal softer stuff than the old man, and bids him be of good cheer and quit himself like a man.

The words of my text, then, seem to me to be very precious to us in regard to the widest interests of Christianity, and in regard to our own individual standing, especially in times like those in which our lot is east; times of transition, when a great deal is going that past generations used to think sacred, and a great many timid people are trembling for the Ark of God; and a great many old people like me are thinking that the old gospel is in danger of passing away from the face of the earth. ‘Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure.’ So let me just say a word or two about this text.

I. Look at this joyous confidence of the old man, side by side with the clearest perceptions of encircling dangers. The ‘foundation,’ in the New Testament, is generally Jesus Christ Himself. Here the metaphor is used in a somewhat different fashion. The ‘foundation’ in the present case is not a part of a building, but the whole building, conceived of as being founded by God. ‘The foundation of God’ is, in other words, that which is founded by God – that is to say, the whole house, whatever that may be, which he himself has ‘established on the tops of the mountains.’ And you will find that that explanation is borne out by the fact that in the very next verse the Apostle speaks about ‘the house,’ which he also meant when he spoke of the foundation of God. Of course that ‘house’ is, in one aspect, the Church, but the Church not as a mere institution or external organisation, but as being the witness to the gospel It is that, and the Christ who is the gospel, which stands firm, whatever may happen. There is a great deal of idolatry of the Church. What makes it precious, and what makes it eternal, is the message that is committed to its charge.

Now it seems to me to be of very prime importance that this joyous confidence, calm and assured, should be the habitual temper of us all. The more distinctly and clearly we apprehend, and the more painfully we feel the perils, the imperfections, and the threatening errors of the present, the more should we take our stand upon this one truth, that what God has founded is indestructible, and, standing there, we may look all round the three hundred and sixty degrees of the horizon, and no matter what formidable dangers may arise, and hurry across, darkening the sea like the thunder-clouds in the heavens, we may be sure that no tempest can break which will damage the ship that carries Christ and His fortunes. Man may go, ‘nevertheless’; errors may arise, ‘nevertheless’; Churches, individuals, may become unfaithful, ‘nevertheless’; candlesticks may be removed, lights quenched, communities may be honeycombed by worldliness, if the salt may lose its savour, ‘nevertheless that which is founded by God stands sure.’ The history of the past tells us that. Why, it is the miracle of miracles that Christian people having been what they have been, and being what they are, the Church of God has not been annihilated long, long ago. Why is it? Only because that which it bears and He who is in it are indestructible, and whilst the envelope may be changed, the central Truth and the living Person who is in the Church, in spite of all its corruptions and infirmities, cannot die, nor be suppressed nor removed.

So, brethren, standing firmly as we may upon this rock of a Church indestructible, because of the immortal Christ who is in it and the eternal gospel which is committed to it, it does not become us to have our hearts in our mouths at every change that may be passing, and that must necessarily pass, upon the external organisation, which is subject, like other institutions, to time and change. What can go, let it go. It is the dead leaves that are blown off the trees. Men make breakwaters with endless pains, and deposit great blocks of concrete that they think will fling back the wildest waves in vain spray, and a winter storm comes, and one wave puts out its tongue and licks up the whole structure, and it is a mass of ruins. Yes; and the same storm that smashed the breakwater runs up harmlessly on the humble sand which God has made to be His breakwater, and which has the power to say to the wildest tempest: ‘Here shall thy proud waves be stayed.’ Much may go, ‘nevertheless the foundation of God stands sure.’ So do not be frightened out of your wits – that is to say, out of your confidence – by ‘higher criticism’ and ‘advanced views, ‘ and right-hand defections and left-hand corruptions, and the failures of communities that call themselves churches to live up to the height of their responsibilities, or at the approach of new ways of looking at old truths. And do not fancy that because the cart that carries the ark jogs, and the oxen stumble, there is any harm coming to the ark. ‘The foundation of God standeth sure.’ So let us welcome change of all that is human in the doctrine, and polity, and practice of God’s Church, and never mind what becomes of men-made creeds, and men-made ceremonies, and men-made churches. What is of God will stand. Let us be glad when ‘the things that can be shaken’ are ‘removed,’ that ‘the things which cannot be shaken’ may stand all the more firmly.

II. Notice here the divine side of the guarantee of this confidence.

‘The firm foundation of God stands’; and then the Apostle goes on, in a very picturesque fashion, ‘having this seal.’ That is a mixture of metaphors which makes a rhetorician’s hair stand on end. Paul does not mind about mingling metaphors. You cannot very well seal a foundation, but the idea in his mind is that of the confirmation, the guarantee, the pledge of the confidence that he has just been expressing. He goes on to expand the metaphor. The seal has two inscriptions on it, like the obverse and reverse of a coin, or like two sentences which might be written on the two lintels of a door. The one gives the divine and the other the human sides of the guarantee. As for the former, the divine, it is, ‘The Lord knoweth them that are His.’ ‘The Lord’ here is, I take it, Christ. And what is the guarantee that is contained in these words? If you seek for the explanation of that phrase in its deepest, most blessed, most courage-giving sense, listen to diviner words than Paul’s. ‘I know My sheep, and am known of Mine, as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father.’ That knowledge is not the mere divine attribute of omniscience, which may have in it consolation, or may not, but it is something far more tender, close, gracious, and strength-giving than the bare thought of an all-seeing eye. The ‘knowledge’ which Jesus has of His sheep is a knowledge based upon, and perfected in, closest love and tenderest sympathy, and of which that ineffable communion from the depths of eternity, in which the Father knoweth the Son, and the Son knoweth the Father, and the two knowledges intertwine and interflow into one sacred, and, to us, inconceivable bond, is the example. Thus close, though we cannot say so close; thus tender, though we cannot say so tender; thus loving, though we cannot say so loving, is the bond of that knowledge which unites Jesus Christ to every soul that belongs to Him. And with that guarantee of a knowledge which means the closest union that is possible, the individuality of the two united persons being preserved, surely there comes, floated, as it were, like some precious treasure in a cedar ark upon the surface of that ocean of divine knowledge, the assurance that such a knowledge will guard against all evil and all danger its peaceful and happy objects. If the Lord thus ‘knows them that are His,’ the knowledge will be a wall of fire round about them, as well as a glory in the midst of them.

That knowledge means, then, protection and care. He will not lose what belongs to Him. He is not such a careless Owner as that a sheep may stray out of the fold and the Shepherd never notice it. He is not such a careless Householder as that from His purse there may drop, and into some dusty corner may roll away, a coin, and He not know that He has lost one of the pieces. He is not such a heartless Brother as that the younger brother may go away into the far-off land and there be starving, and the Brother’s heart at home have no pangs and no sense of separation. But He ‘knows them that are His,’ and, knowing them, He holds them with the grip of tenacious possession as well as of tender love.

So there is the deep, the sure, the divine guarantee that the foundation standeth firm. So, brethren, it is wise for us to look at the dangers, to be fully aware of the perils, to be tremblingly conscious of our own weakness, but it is folly and faithlessness to look at the danger so exclusively, or to feel our own weakness so keenly as that either one or the other, or both of them combined, shall obscure to our sight the far greater and confidence-giving truth of the knowledge, the sympathy, and the extended protecting hand, of our Brother and our Lord. We belong to Him if we have yielded our hearts to Him, and He will not ‘suffer His Holy One to see corruption,’ here or hereafter. If you look down from the narrow ledge of the Alpine arrete to the thousand feet of precipice on either side of the two or three inches where you have your footing you will get giddy and fall. If you look up you will walk steadily. Do not ignore the danger, nor pro-sumptuously forget your own weakness, but remember ‘when I said my foot slippeth Thy mercy held me up.’ Recognise the slippery ice and the feeble foot, and couple with them the other thought, ‘The Lord knoweth them that are His.

‘ III. Now, lastly, here we have the human side of the guarantee.

The reverse of the coin, the other side of the foundation bears, deep-cut, this inscription: ‘Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity,’ and the two inscriptions are always to be held together. Look how they fit one another. The one is a promise; the other is a commandment. The one says a deep thing about God; the other says a plain thing about us. It is of no use going up into the heights of ‘the Lord knoweth them that are His,’ unless you also come down to the simple teaching,’ Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. The Jews believed the first of these two inscriptions, and it was all their religion; look what wild work it made of them and their morality, and their whole nation. There have been plenty of Christian people who have been so absorbed in the contemplation of ‘unconditional election,’ ‘eternal predestination,’ ‘final perseverance,’ and all the rest of the theological formularies that have been spun out of these words, that they have forgotten the other side altogether. And so there has been licence, and a presumptuous building upon a supposed past; there has been a contempt for the ‘outsiders,’ and the driving of a coach and six through the plainest teachings of common righteousness and morality. And the only way to keep ‘the Lord knoweth them that are His’ from being a minister of sin is, in the same breath, to say, ‘Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.’ To name the Name of Christ is the same as to say that you are His. And if you are, the best proof that you do belong to Jesus Christ is your living the life of plain, practical righteousness, and putting away from yourself everything that is evil. People talk about looking into themselves for evidences of their being ‘saved,’ as they say. I would rather take your neighbour’s opinion as to whether you are saved or not than yours; and you will be far more likely to come to the possession of calm assurance that you do belong to Jesus Christ, if your assurance is based upon this, ‘I am living as He would have me to do.’ That is the infallible sign that you are His. That homely, pedestrian righteousness, down amongst the commonplaces of daily life, and the little things of it, that, and not emotions, however soaring; not aspirations, however ardent; not the consciousness of communion apart, however deep and sweet, is the sign that we are Christ’s. However necessary all these things are, still they are necessary mainly as means to an end, and the end of all the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, and of all these joys and experiences of the individual Christian soul, is to make us live righteously, soberly, godly, in this present world. And the more we do thus live, the more we shall get, not only the consciousness of belonging to Jesus Christ, but the help by which we shall be able to stand.

So, dear brethren, my one last word to you is, hold these two things ever together in your minds and thoughts. ‘What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.’ You have a right to be confident, because, far deeper than, and prior to, anything that you do, there are the knowledge, the love, the sympathy, and the outstretched hand of the loving and upholding Saviour. But you have only the right to the confidence based upon his knowledge of you, if that confidence is working in you a departing from iniquity. If you know that you are trying, in your poor way, to do that, and that you are trying to do it for His sake, and because you think that you are His, then, whatever may happen to others, whatever may befall some of the outworks of your faith or belief, whatever changes may impend, you may be sure of this, that ‘the foundation of God standeth sure,’ and that, weak as we are, building upon Him who is the foundation, we shall be able to resist all the assaults of evil

Only remember, that Christ Himself has told us that many would come to Him and say, ‘Lord! Lord! have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name done many wonderful works?’ And He will say unto them,

‘ Depart from Me, I never knew you,’ and the proof that He never did is that He has to address them as ‘Ye that work iniquity’