How important is Christian conduct to how the unbelieving world sees Christ?

It is the Christian, or the Church, which gives Christ His character before the world. They are His epistle to the world. We may know how to distinguish and understand the representation; but the world, the infidel, judges of what Christianity is, by what Christians are.

Nothing so effectually advertizes the Gospel as the transformed lives of those who have received it. This fact has been often noted by careful observers, but here we find that Scripture itself recognizes it. Conversely nothing so effectually stultifies the proclamation of the Gospel as breakdown and sin on the part of those who profess to have believed it. In the light of this, and of the sad conditions prevailing in the Christianized nations, can we wonder that the evangelist in these lands finds himself confronted by hard and difficult conditions today? May God give help to each one of us so that our lives may tell in favour of the Gospel and not against it.

By thus walking as their Master walked they would let their light shine before men, and constrain them to give glory to God in their day of visitations. Instead of rebuke they would have praise from all who preferred peace to lawlessness.4 The generation among whom they sojourned had their characteristic moral features, and so too should they. But they are of the light while the world lies in darkness. The way of the natural man is froward and strange,5 but their calling as new creatures in Christ Jesus was to keep the way of God. Instead of crookedness there should be found in them simplicity, and instead of the perverseness of self-will conformity to Him who pleased not Himself, and was reproachable by those only who reproached God.6 Let them shine therefore7 by keeping steadfastly the path of obedience, having their conversation honest among the Gentiles, and by well-doing silencing the ignorance of foolish men.8 If darkness still refused to comprehend the light, and their close following of Christ had no other present effect than to make them partakers of His cup of suffering, they would be abundant gainers still.9

Men could find no excuse for refusing the gospel that Paul preached because of anything in his life that would offend the conscience; because of any base motive in preaching; or because he kept back or perverted the truth. Alas! with the Corinthian saints it had been far otherwise. As the first Epistle shows, they had allowed many of the hidden things of shame. The party work amongst them had led to a walk in deceit. Some, too, had falsified the Word of God, denying even the resurrection. They had walked, and handled the Word of God, in a way that would shock the natural conscience. The true servants of God commended themselves to the consciences of men so that it would have to be admitted they were acting rightly in the sight of God. Men were not prepared to follow the Lord; but they had to admit that they found no fault in Him.

We have looked at these two striking sketches of the testimony of believers here below as the salt of the earth, the preservative energy in the midst of profession; and as the light of the world going out in the activities of love toward the poor world; and the danger of the salt losing its savour, and of the light being put under a bushel. Now we find the great object of God in this twofold testimony. It is not merely a question of the blessing of souls, for there is not a word about evangelizing or saving sinners, but of the walk of saints. There is a grave question that God raises about His saints, and this is about their own ways apart from other people. Calls to the unconverted we find abundantly elsewhere, and none can exaggerate their importance for the world; but the sermon on the mount is God's call to the converted. It is their character, their position, their testimony distinctively; and if others are thought of throughout, it is not so much a question of winning them, as of the saints reflecting what comes from above. This light is what comes from Christ. It is not, Let your good works shine before men. When people talk about this verse thinking of their own works, they are generally not good works at all; but even if they were, works are not light. Light is that which comes from God, without admixture of man. Good works are the fruit of its action upon the soul; but it is the light which is to shine before men. It is the confession of Christ that is the point before God. It is not merely certain things to be done. The light shining is the great object here, though doing good ought to flow from it. If I make doing good everything, it is a lower thought than that which is before the mind of God. An infidel can feel that a shivering man needs a coat or a blanket. The natural man may be fully alive to the wants of others; but if I merely take these works and make them the prominent aim, I really do nothing more than an unbeliever might. The moment you make good works the object, and their shining before men, you find yourself on common ground with Jews and heathen. God's people are apt thus to destroy their testimony. What so bad, in the way of a thing done professedly for God, as a work that leaves out Christ, and that shows a man who loves Christ to be on comfortable terms with those that hate Him? This is what the Lord warns the saints against. They are not to be thinking about their works, but that the light of God should shine. Works will follow, and much better works than where a person is always occupied with them. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven " (ver. 16). Let your confession of what God is in His nature and of what Christ is in His own person and ways — let your acknowledgment of Him be the thing that is felt by and brought before men; and then, when they see your good works, they will glorify your Father which is in heaven. Instead of saying, What a good man such a one is, they will glorify God on his behalf — connecting what you do with your confession of Christ.

(1 Peter 2:12-15,) "Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or to governors, as to them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men." Now the apostle turns outside. If you have your heart practically purified by the Lord, you will find yourself all right outside. But mark, you must make up your mind at once for the opposing Gentiles to speak against you. Who are the Gentiles? Unbelievers. If you are going to follow the Lord closely, you will find that, not only unbelievers, but sometimes even worldly Christians will have a good deal to say against you. What will be the result? They will have, by-and-bye, to confess before God that your works were worthy of the Lord; and though they spoke evil of you, they knew that God was working in you, and by you.

Hence the call is to have their behaviour comely (καλὴν) among the Gentiles. For there were these Christian Jews interspersed. Though the spring of conduct is the faith that looks to and calls on the Father, it is also an obligation to win the unbelieving and unfriendly by practical consistency with Christ, without affording occasion to those that seek it. For men of the world suspect the motives and the ways of the faithful, yet have a strong if not intelligent sense of their responsibilities, and are ever on the watch for their halting and failure. Therefore is the apostle earnest in urging "that in what they speak against you as evil-doers, they, as observing, may from your comely works glorify God in the day of visitation."

It was an early and common reproach among the Gentiles that Christians must be atheists, because they turned from idols; and no image of gold, silver, stone, or wood, nor picture of man's device, met the eye of man in their assemblies. The Jews well knew that this was just because a living and true God had won them from such vanities to serve Him. But bitterly jealous were they themselves that Christians did not become proselytes of the law, instead of believing in His risen Son, Jesus the Deliverer, and waiting for His coming again from the heavens; and still more furious were they, that any of the stock of Abraham should have the same faith and hope as the uncircumcised.

(V. 12). Having warned us against fleshly lusts within, the Apostle proceeds to exhort us as to our outward conduct before the world. We are to be careful to act in all honesty, so that by our good works we may give the lie to hard words, by which we are spoken against as evildoers.

There is a voice in this for us. We, too, individually or collectively, stand identified with the holy name of Christ. Is that name sullied because of our failure? Do we commend Him before the eyes of the world? Or does our carelessness, our indifference, make Him serve with our sins in the world's eyes because His name is named upon us? He is not visible; we are to be His living representatives, His ambassadors. May the impress of His image be upon us! For this we must be much in the secret place of communion, learning from Him, sitting at His blessed feet.

'Things of good report.' While the praise of men is a thing which a true servant of Christ will rather shun than seek,8 his conduct should be ever such as to command the favourable suffrage of impartial minds. God is glorified by the outshining in good works of the light that is in them before men.9 Having no evil thing to say of you1 is an effectual seal upon the lips of those haters of God's truth who watch for occasion in the halting of His people; while, on the other hand, the glaring inconsistencies of ordinary Christian walk afford too often a welcome pretext to revilers' tongues.