Homiletic Magazine John 1:4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. I. THAT THIS LIFE IS ITS OWN EVIDENCE. 1. For life is a resisting force. (1) Inanimate things are submissive to the forces of nature. Thus a stone is obedient, without resistance, to the law of gravitation. (2) But things of life resist the mechanical forces. Thus even a blade of grass pushes its way upwards through the resisting soil, in the direction opposite to that of gravitation. As we ascend in the scale of life, these resistances become more remarkable. The eagle darts sun-ward, in every stroke of its pinion resisting and triumphing over the force of gravitation. (3) Men who are spiritually dead are like the stone or the feather, under the control of worldly fashion and sinful influences. They are "carried captive by the devil at his will."(4) Men who are spiritually alive resist and vanquish these influences. To do this the more effectually they avail them. selves, by prayer, of the promised help of God. So, like the eagles, they mount sun-ward (cf. Isaiah 40:31). Thus spiritual life is its own evidence. 2. Life is an appropriating force. (1) A living animal seizes the vegetables around it and appropriates them as food for its nourishment. A dead animal is a prey to the chemistry of nature. (2) Life is an appropriation, even in the vegetable form. The root of the plant performs functions analagous to those of the animal stomach, absorbing from the soil, digesting, and elaborating the juice which nourish its stem and branches. The leaves perform functions analogous to the twigs. (3) The Christian will avail himself of the means of grace, public, domestic, private. He is not in them, like the formalist, a mere observer of what is passing. He is in them as feeder. 3. Life is a propagating force. (1) Let a stone be buried, and after thousands of years it will be found as it was. Witness the Nineveh marbles. Let an acorn be buried; it will germinate and develop into an oak. (2) So the germ of religious life unfolds into the maturity of Christian manhood. It exerts a propagating influence upon the spirits of other men. (3) The waste of life in nature is enormous. So is the waste of spiritual life in the Church. The failure of the propagating energies of spritual life is serious. II. THAT THIS LIFE LIGHTS UP IMMORTALITY. 1. Life touches everything into beauty. (1) During winter the face of nature is dreary. (2) But what beauty is comparable to that of holiness which springs from spiritual life? The beauty of the saint is the reflection of the image of God. It is seen in the integrity that cannot be bribed. It is seen in the magnanimity of sacrifice. It is seen in the tenderness of kindly sympathy. 2. Life illuminates the chambers of the tomb. (1) It prevents not the dissolution of the body. The saintliest die. (2) But while spiritual life prevents not physical dissolution, it modifies death into sleep. The Christian "sleeps in Jesus." The sleeper expects an awakening. (3) The labourer sleeps expecting not only to awake, but to awake refreshed. So does the Christian worker. No more weariness. 3. Life is the germ of immortality. (1) The spiritual life here is the power of an endless life hereafter. The principle is even more than the promise of immortality. (2) Hence "the kingdom of heaven is within you." "The heaven of heavens is love."(3) Christ is eternal life. Having Him, we have eternal life (cf. John 3:16; John 5:24; John 11:25; John 14:6; John 1:1, 2; John 5:11, 12, 20). (Homiletic Magazine.) Parallel Verses KJV: In him was life; and the life was the light of men. |
    |