SECTION II. THE REWARDS OF SELF-SACRIFICE
Matt. xix. 27-30; Mark x. 28-31; Luke xviii. 28-30.
The remarks of Jesus on the temptations of
riches, which seemed so discouraging to the other disciples, had a different
effect on the mind of Peter. They led him to think with self-complacency of the
contrast presented by the conduct of himself and his brethren to that of the
youth who came inquiring after eternal life. "We," thought he to himself, have
done what the young man could not do,--what, according to the statement just
made by the Master, rich men find very hard to do; we have left all to follow
Jesus. Surely an act so difficult and so rare must be very meritorious." With
his characteristic frankness, as he thought so he spoke. "behold," said he with
a touch of brag in his tone and manner, "owe have forsaken all, and followed
Thee: what shall we have therefore?"
To this question of Peter, Jesus returned a
reply full at once of encouragement and of warning for the twelve, and for all
who profess to be servants of God. First, with reference to the subject--matter
of Peter's inquiry, He set forth in glowing language the great rewards in store
for him and his brethren; and not for them only, but for all who made
sacrifices for the kingdom. Then, with reference to the self-complacent or
calculating spirit which, in part at least, had prompted the inquiry, He added
a moral reflection, with an illustrative parable appended, conveying the idea
that rewards in the kingdom of God were not determined merely by the fact, or
even by the amount, of sacrifice. Many that were first in these respects might
be last in real merit, for lack of another element which formed an essential
ingredient in the calculation, viz. right motive; while others who were last in
these respects might be first in recompense in virtue of the spirit by which
they were animated. We shall consider these two parts of the reply in
succession. Our present theme is the rewards of self-sacrifice in the divine
kingdom.
The first thing which strikes one in reference to
these rewards, is the utter disproportion between them and the sacrifices made.
The twelve had forsaken fishing-boats and nets, and they were to be rewarded
with thrones; and every one that forsakes any thing for the kingdom, no matter
what it may be, is promised an hundred-fold in return, in this present life, of
the very thing he has renounced, and in the world to come life everlasting.
These promises strikingly illustrate the
generosity of the Master whom Christians serve. How easy it would have been for
Jesus to depreciate the sacrifices of His followers, and even to turn their
glory into ridicule! "You have forsaken all! What was your all worth, pray? If
the rich young man had parted with his possessions as I counsel led, he might
have had something to boast of; but as for you poor fishermen, any sacrifices
you have made are hardly deserving of mention." But such words could not have
been uttered by Christ's lips. It was never His way to despise things small in
outward bulk, or to disparage services rendered to Himself, as if with a view
to diminish His own obligations. He rather loved to make Himself a debtor to
His servants, by generously exaggerating the value of their good deeds, and
promising to them, as their fit recompense, rewards immeasurably exceeding
their claims. So He acted in the present instance. Though the "all" of the
disciples was a very little one, He still remembered that it was their all; and
with impassioned earnestness, with a "verily" full of tender, grateful feeling,
He promised them thrones as if they had been fairly earned!
These great and precious promises, if believed,
would make sacrifices easy. Who would not part with a fishing-boat for a
throne? and what merchant would stick at an investment which would bring a
return, not of five per cent., or even of a hundred per cent., but of a hundred
to one?
The promises made by Jesus have one other
excellent effect when duly considered. They tend to humble. Their very
magnitude has a sobering effect on the mind. Not even the vainest can pretend
that their good deeds deserve to be rewarded with thrones, and their sacrifices
to be recompensed an hundred-fold. At this rate, all must be content to be
debtors to God's grace, and all talk of merit is out of the question. That is
one reason why the rewards of the kingdom of heaven are so great. God bestows
His gifts so as at once to glorify the Giver and to humble the receiver.
Thus far of the rewards in general. Looking now
more narrowly at those specially made to the twelve, we remark that on the
surface they seem fitted to awaken or foster false expectation. Whatever they
meant in reality, there can be little doubt as to the meaning the disciples
would put on them at the time. The "regeneration" and the "thrones" of which
their Master stake would bring before their imagination the picture of a
kingdom of Israel restored,--regenerated in the sense in which men speak of a
regenerated Italy,--the yoke of foreign domination thrown off; alienated tribes
reconciled and reunited under the rule of Jesus, proclaimed by popular
enthusiasm their hero King; and themselves, the men who had first believed in
His royal pretensions and shared His early fortunes, rewarded for their
fidelity by being made provincial governors, each ruling over a separate tribe.
These romantic ideas were never to be realized: and we naturally ask why Jesus,
knowing that, expressed Himself in language fitted to encourage such baseless
fancies? The answer is, that He could not accomplish the end He designed, which
was to inspire His disciples with hope, without expressing His promise in terms
which involved the risk ox illusion. Language so chosen as to obviate all
possibility of misconception caption would have had no inspiring influence
whatever. The promise, to have any charm, must be like a rainbow, bright in its
hues, and solid and substantial in its appearance. This remark applies not only
to the particular promise now under consideration, but more or less to all
God's promises in Scripture or in nature. In order to stimulate, they must to a
certain extent deceive us, by promising that which, as we conceive it, and
cannot at the time help conceiving it, will never be realized.[16.18] The
rainbow is painted in such colors as to draw us, children as we are,
irresistibly on; and then, having served that end, it fades away. When this
happens, we are ready to exclaim, "O Lord, Thou host deceived me!" but we
ultimately find that we are not cheated out of the blessing, though it comes in
a different form from what we expected. God's promises are never delusive,
though they may be illusive. Such was the experience of the twelve in
connection with the dazzling promise of thrones. They did not get what they
expected; but they got something analogous, something which to their mature
spiritual judgment appeared far greater and more satisfying than that on which
they had first set their hearts.[16.19
What, then, was this Something? A real glory,
honor, and power in the kingdom of God, conferred on the twelve as the reward
of their self-sacrifice, partially in this life, perfectly in the life to come.
In so far as the promise referred to this present life, it was shown by the
event to signify the judicial legislative influence of the companions of Jesus
as apostles and founders of the Christian church. The twelve, as the first
preachers of the gospel trained by the Lord for that end, occupied a position
in the church that could be filled by none that came after them. The keys of
the kingdom of heaven were put into their hands. They were the
foundation-stones on which the walls of the church were built. They sat, so to
speak, on episcopal thrones, judging, guiding, ruling the twelve tribes of the
true Israel of God, the holy commonwealth embracing all who professed faith in
Christ. Such a sovereign influence the twelve apostles exerted in their
lifetime; yea, they continue to exert it still. Their word not only was, but
still is, law; their example has ever been regarded as binding on all ages.
From their epistles, as the inspired expositions of their Master's pregnant
sayings, the church has derived the system of doctrine embraced in her creed
All that remains of their writings forms part of the sacred canon, and all
their recorded words are accounted by believers "words of God." Surely here is
power and authority nothing short of regal! The reality of sovereignty is here,
though the trappings of royalty, which strike the vulgar eye, are wanting. The
apostles of Jesus were princes indeed, though they wore no princely robes; and
they were destined to exercise a more extensive sway than ever fell to the lot
of any monarch of Israel, not to speak of governors of single tribes.
The promise to the twelve had doubtless a
reference to their position in the church in heaven as well as in the church on
earth. What they will be in the eternal kingdom we know not, any more than we
know what we ourselves shall be, our notions of heaven altogether being very
hazy. We believe, however, on the ground of clear Scripture statements, that
men will not be on a dead level in heaven any more than on earth. Radicalism is
not the law of the supernal commonwealth, even as it is not the law in any
well-ordered society in this world. The kingdom of glory will be but the
kingdom of grace perfected, the regeneration begun here brought to its final
and complete development. But the regeneration, in its imperfect state, is an
attempt to organize men into a society based on the possession of spiritual
life, all being included in the kingdom who are new creatures in Christ Jesus,
and the highest place being assigned to those who have attained the highest
stature as spiritual men. This ideal has never been more than approximately
realized. The "visible" church, the product of the attempt to realize it, is,
and ever has been, a most disappointing embodiment, in outward visible shape,
of the ideal city of God. Ambition, selfishness, worldly wisdom, courtly arts,
have too often procured thrones for false apostles, who never forsook any thing
for Christ. Therefore we still look forward and upward with longing eyes for
the true city of God, which shall as far exceed our loftiest conceptions as the
visible church comes short of them. In that ideal commonwealth perfect moral
order will prevail. Every man shall be in his own true place there; no vile men
shall be in high places, no noble souls shall be doomed to obstruction,
obscurity, and neglect; but the noblest will be the highest and first, even
though now they be the lowest and last. "There shall be true glory, where no
one shall be praised by mistake or in flattery; true honor, which shall be
denied to no one worthy, granted to no one unworthy; nor shall any unworthy one
ambitiously seek it, where none but the worthy are permitted to be."[16.20]
Among the noblest in the supernal commonwealth
will be the twelve men who cast in their lot with the Son of man, and were His
companions in His wanderings and temptations. There will probably be many in
heaven greater than they in intellect and otherwise; but the greatest will most
readily concede to them the place of honor as the first to believe in Jesus,
the personal friends of the Man of Sorrow, and the chosen vessels who carried
His name to the nations, and in a sense opened the kingdom of heaven to all who
believe.[16.21]
Such we conceive to be the import of the promise
made to the apostles, as leaders of the white-robed band of martyrs and
confessors who suffer for Christ's sake. We have next to notice the general
promise made to all the faithful indiscriminately. "There is no man," so it
runs in Mark, "that heath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or
mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake and the gospel's, but he
shall receive an hundred-fold now in this Timex houses, and brethren, and
sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the
world to come eternal life."
This promise also, like the special one to the
twelve, has a twofold reference. Godliness is represented as profitable for
both worlds. In the world to come the men who make sacrifices for Christ will
receive eternal life; in the present they shall receive, along with
persecutions, an hundred-fold of the very things which have been sacrificed. As
to the former of these, eternal life, it is to be understood as the minimum
reward in the great Hereafter. All the faithful will get that at least. What a
maximum is that minimum! How blessed to be assured on the word of Christ that
there is such a thing as eternal life attainable on any terms! We may well play
the man for truth and conscience, and fight the good fight of faith, when, by
so doing, it is possible for us to gain such a prize. "A hope so great and so
divine may trials well endure." To win the crown of an imperishable life of
bliss, we should not deem it an unreasonable demand on the Lord's part that we
be faithful even unto death. Life sacrificed on these terms is but a river
emptying itself into the ocean, or the morning star posing itself in the
perfect light of day. Would that we could lay hold firmly of the blessed hope
set before us here, and through its magic influence become transformed into
moral heroes! We in these days have but a faint belief in the life to come. Our
eyes are dim, and we cannot see the land that is afar off. Some of us have
become so philosophical as to imagine we can do without the future reward
promised by Jesus, and play the hero on atheistical principles. That remains to
be seen. The annals o the martyrs tell us what men have been able to achieve
who earnestly believed in the life everlasting. Up to this date we have not
heard of any great heroisms enacted or sacrifices made by unbelievers. The
martyrology of skepticism has not yet been written.[16.22] That part of
Christ's promise which respects hereafter must be taken on trust; but the other
part, which concerns the present life, admits of being tested by observation.
The question, therefore, may competently be put: Is it true, as matter of fact,
that sacrifices are recompensed by an hundredfold--that is, a
manifold[16.23--return in kind in this world? To this question we may reply,
first, that the promise will be found to hold good with the regularity of a
law, if we do not confine our view to the individual life, but include
successive generations. When providence has had time to work out its results,
the meek do, at least by their heirs and representatives, inherit the earth,
and delight themselves in the abundance of peace. The persecuted cause at
length conquers the world's homage, and receives from it such rewards as it can
bestow. The words of the prophet are then fulfilled: "The children which thou
shalt have, after thou host lost the other (by persecutor's hands), shall say
again in twine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I
may dwell."[16.24] And again: "Lift up thine eyes round about, and see; all
they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from
far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. Then thou shalt see, and
flow together, and twine heart shall throb and swell; because the abundance of
the sea shall be converted unto thee, the wealth of the Gentiles shall come
unto thee. Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the
breast of kings. For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver,
and for wood brass, and for stones iron."[16.25] These prophetic promises,
extravagant though they seem, have been fulfilled again and again in the
history of the church: in the early ages, under Constantine, after the fires of
persecution kindled by pagan zeal for hoary superstitions and idolatries had
finally died out;[16.26] in Protestant Britain, once famous for men who were
ready to lose all, and who did actually lose much, for Christ's sake, now
mistress of the seas, and heiress of the wealth of all the world; in the new
world across the Atlantic, with its great, powerful, populous nation, rivaling
England in wealth and strength, grown from a small band of Puritan exiles who
loved religious liberty better than country, and sought refuge from despotism
in the savage wildernesses of an unexplored continent.
Still it must be confessed that, taken strictly
and literally, the promise of Christ does not hold good in every instance.
Multitudes of God's servants have had what the world would account a miserable
lot. Does the promise, then, simply and absolutely fail in their case? No; for,
secondly, there are more ways than one in which it can be fulfilled. Blessings,
for example, may be multiplied an hundred-fold without their external bulk
being altered, simply by the act of renouncing them. Whatever is sacrificed for
truth, whatever we are willing to part with for Christ's sake, becomes from
that moment immeasurably increased in value. Fathers and mothers, and all
earthly friends, become unspeakably dear to the heart when we have learned to
say: "Christ is first, and these must be second." Isaac was worth an hundred
sons to Abraham when he received him back from the dead. Or, to draw an
illustration from another quarter, think of John Bunyan in jail brooding over
his poor blind daughter, whom he left behind at home. "Poor child, thought I,"
thus he describes his feelings in that inimitable book, Groce Abounding, "what
sorrow art thou like to have for thy portion in this world! Thou must be
beaten, must beg, suffer hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand calamities,
though I cannot now endure the wind should blow upon thee. But yet, thought I,
I must venture you all with God, though it goeth to the quick to leave you. Oh!
I saw I was as a man who was pulling down his house upon the heads of his wife
and children; yet I thought on those two milch Kline that were to carry the ark
of God into another country, and to leave their calves behind them." If the
faculty of enjoyment be, as it is, the measure of real possession, here was a
case in Which to forsake wife and child was to multiply them an hundred-fold,
and in the multiplied value of the things renounced to find a rich solarium for
sacrifice and persecutions. The soliloquy of the Bedford prisoner is the very
poetry of natural affection. What pathos is in that allusion to the Mitch
Kline! what a depth of tender feeling it reveals! The power to feel so is the
reward of self-sacrifice; the power to Jove so is the reward of "hating" our
kindred for Christ's sake. You shall find no such love among those who make
natural affection an excuse for moral unfaithfulness, thinking it a sufficient
apology for disloyalty to the interests of the divine kingdom to say, "I have a
wife and family to care for."
Without undue spiritualizing, then, we see that a
valid meaning can be assigned to the strong expression, "an hundred-fold." And
from the remarks just made, we see further why "persecutions" are thrown into
the account, as if they were not drawbacks, but a part of the gain. The truth
is, the hundred-fold is realized, not in spite of persecutions, but to a great
extent because of them. Persecutions are the salt with which things sacrificed
are salted, the condiment which enhances their relish. Or, to put the matter
arithmetically, persecutions are the factor by which earthly blessings given up
to God are multiplied an hundred-fold, if not in quantity, at least in
virtue.
Such are the rewards provided for those who make
sacrifices for Christ's sake. Their sacrifices are but a seed sown in tars,
from which they afterwards reap a plentiful harvest in joy. But what now of
those who have made no sacrifices, who have received no wounds in battle? If
this has proceeded not from lack of will, but from lack of opportunity, they
shall get a share of the rewards. David's law has its place in the divine
kingdom: "As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be
that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part alike." Only all must see to it
that they remain not by the stuff from cowardice, or indolence and
self-indulgence. They who act thus, declining to put themselves to any trouble,
to run any risk, or even so much us to part with a sinful lust for the kingdom
of God, cannot expect to find a place therein at the last.