I will sing with the spirit, and
. .. the understanding also. (1 Corinthians 14:15)

 

One Sunday evening some years
ago, I heard a large congregation singing the hymn, "Sweet Savior, bless
us ere we go," with the refrain at the end of each stanza, "O gentle
Jesu, be our light."

 

As I listened to verse after
verse, I sought to realize who the "Jesus" was whom these people
worshiped. In the course of my reverie, I tried to think of relationships and
circumstances which would make it natural and right for men to hold such
language in addressing others dear to them. I supposed, for example, some one
speaking to his father in this way:"Sweet father, gentle William,"
and I saw at once that a parent who could tolerate it must be utterly unworthy
of honor or respect. Such a mode of speaking never could be proper in
addressing a person with any claim to superiority. On the other hand it might
sometimes be natural and charming for a parent to yearn over a darling child
with words like these upon the lips; or for a husband to turn to the woman at
his side and call her his sweet, gentle wife.

 

Here, then, was the problem
solved. Mariolatry, under its own name, Protestantism forbids; so the
Protestant cloaks it under a more subtle guise by degrading the Lord and Savior
to the level of the Virgin Mary of the Roman Catholic. The errors of every
false religion have generally their source in human nature. The same perverted
instinct, which leads men to worship the traditional Mary, has led them also to
set up the idol of a "sweet, gentle Jesus" in the place of Him who is
King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

 

Strength delights to lean on
weakness just as truly as weakness leans on strength. The strongest man in the
hour of his triumph may be led by a gentle woman or a loving child. This is a
homage paid to qualities of a wholly different order from those he boasts in.
It does not wound his pride; it does not hurt his self-respect. So the proud
self-satisfied heart of the natural man desires a God possessed of the
qualities he delights to lean on here—a gentle loving creature, whose moral
excellence he can acknowledge without offending his own self-esteem. If it be
Mary, her womanhood is enough; if it be "Jesus," He must be pre-eminently
gifted with womanly qualities. It is His "gentleness and sweetness"
that must be insisted on.

 

Every man has within him by
nature instinctive desires to be better than he is. The object of these desires
is his god. The god of a so-called atheist is himself become as good as he
thinks he ought to be. The god of a nominal Christian is his own ideal, raised
and improved upon by what he has learned from the Scriptures. But there is this
in common to all unconverted men that between them and their god there is no
absolute break, or insuperable barrier. Their efforts, therefore, to seek him
and to do his will are pleasing to their self-love, flattering to their pride.
Their very leaning upon them is a token of their own independence. On the other
hand, the first step towards true conversion is to learn that the living God is
righteous and holy, whom an unrighteous and unholy sinner can never approach.
Man’s religion comes to a deadlock at once. There is no longer room for pride.
The language of the heart is. "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the
ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust
and ashes." How natural and right in the presence of a holy, holy, holy
God!

 

But, some one will say, this is
God out of Christ. I answer, there is no God out of Christ. There is but one
God; of the Son it is written, "This is the true God, and eternal
life." "Our God is a consuming fire," who must be served
"with reverence and godly fear." "Unto the Son He saith, Thy
throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever." But what of the Father? "He
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," is His word. He is "the
brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person." Are there
not the Father and the Son? Yes, and how distinct they are; witness Gethsemane
and Calvary! We have the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, but we have one God.
If we seek God we must look to Him who was "God . . . manifest in the
flesh." "This is eternal life that they might know Thee the only true
God, [even] Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."

 

Whether then we have to do with
the Father, the Son, or the Spirit, we have to do with a thrice-holy God, who
cannot behold iniquity, "a jealous God," "even a consuming
fire." Need I pause here to tell how this God has become a Savior— how the
Son took on Him the form of a servant and was obedient even unto death, so that
now in virtue of that sacrifice the sinner can stand before this holy and
righteous God and be at peace? My purpose is rather to warn men against
supposing that there is any mediator to screen them from this God of holiness
and majesty. There is a Mediator, whose work is not to shield the sinner from
God nor to hide God from the sinner but to bring the sinner into the presence
of God and to present him there "holy and unblameable. and unreproveable
in His sight."

 

And I would say to the
Christian, beware of setting up an idol ”Jesus" whom you may approach,
though you judge yourself unfit to come near to God. Your fitness depends not
on yourself but on Him who died the Just for the unjust to this very end that
He might bring you to God. Tell Him, if you will, that you are unworthy of the
bread you eat, or of the roof that covers you, but never doubt the power of
that mighty Name nor distrust the value of that precious blood. Never question
your title to the place which that name and that blood have given you, if
indeed you are His own. Beware of a false peace, which depends on having a
false Christ, less holy and therefore less terrible than God. When in
hymn-singing or in prayer you hear mawkish irreverent words addressed to such a
"Jesus," let your heart turn away to thoughts of Him who sits upon
the throne, surrounded by the rainbow, the lightnings and thunderings, the
living creatures that cease not day and night to proclaim Him "Holy, holy,
holy, Lord God Almighty," the elders who cast their golden crowns before
Him, as they ascribe to Him glory and honor and power, and the chorus of ten
thousand times ten thousand voices, echoed back by the whole creation of God (Rev.
4 & 5).

 

FRAGMENT
Wherefore also God highly exalted Him and granted Him a name, that which is
above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of heavenly
and earthly and infernal beings, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to God the Father’s glory. (Phil- 2:9-11, J.N.D. trans.).