How to be a good Christian

Here we have unfolded before our eyes some of the glories of true, practical, vital Christianity, in striking contrast with all the barren and dreary forms of carnal and worldly religiousness. Christian life does not consist in the observance of certain rules, commandments or traditions of men. It is a divine reality. It is Christ in the heart, and Christ reproduced in the daily life, by the power of the Holy Ghost. It is the new man, formed on the model of Christ Himself, and displaying itself in all the most minute details of our daily history, in the family, in the business, in all our intercourse with our fellow men, in our temper, spirit, style, deportment, all. It is not a matter of mere profession, or of dogma, or of opinion, or of sentiment; it is an unmistakable, living reality. It is the kingdom of God, set up in the heart, asserting its blessed sway over the whole moral being, and shedding its genial influence upon the entire sphere in which we are called to move, from day to day. It is the Christian walking in the blessed footsteps of Him who went about doing good; meeting, so far as in him lies, every form of human need; living not for himself but for others; finding his delight in serving and giving; ready to soothe and sympathise wherever he finds a crushed spirit or a bereaved and desolate heart.

Christianity is the life of Christ communicated to the believer — dwelling in him — and flowing out from him, in the ten thousand little details which go to make up our daily practical life. It has nothing ascetic, monastic, or sanctimonious about it. It is genial, cordial, lightsome, pure, elevated, holy, heavenly, divine. Such is the Christianity of the New Testament. It is Christ dwelling in the believer, and reproduced, by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the believer's daily practical career. This is Christianity — nothing else, nothing less, nothing different.

So far from good works proving the existence of faith, they may be the fruit of unbelief itself, as when the Romanist, or Pharisee, rests on them as a ground of salvation, or a help towards it, instead of resting entirely upon the precious blood of Christ. Again, they may be the fruit of natural kindness of heart, though this is probably very rare, apart from the direct or indirect influences of Christianity. But let us remember that grace cannot exist in the heart and good works be absent. For instance, the very hour of the night in which the jailor is converted, and before he is baptized, he washes the stripes of Paul and Silas. What God looks for in the saints - that is, in justified sinners - is, that they should be good people. Of old He planted a vineyard to get fruit. That was Israel. We now are branches in the true vine in order to bear fruit. So in John 5, those who rise to life are those "that have done good." This of course shows that none can truly do good apart from faith and the new birth; but it makes manifest God's delight in those that do good. So again, in the judgment of Matt. 25 (where we know that the Church does not appear), only those are saved whose faith found practical expression in good works. "I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink," etc. See how the apostle presses good works on us in Titus 3: "Put them in mind … to be ready to every good work … I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men." And again, "Let our's also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful." Would it not be much for the health of our souls if, when we had a little time, or strength, or money that we could spare, we looked round to see what good we could do? This kind of a soul Dorcas was. Her death was such a loss that she was given back again. People of this kind also adorned the corrupt church of Thyatira. See, too, what is said of the widow in 1 Tim. 5, "Well reported of for good works;" and "if she have diligently followed every good work;" and this woman had brought up children as well. Now we happily see people around us bearing this character. Here is one sitting up a night with a sick person. Another running in in a spare hour to make a dying saint's bed. Another taking charge of the little children to let a mother get to the meeting. There are numbers of such things to be done that would relieve many an honest groan, but could we be enrolled among those who have diligently followed every good work?

Here we have life-works insisted upon in a way which ought to speak home, in the most solemn and forcible way, to our hearts. There is an appalling amount of empty profession — shallow, powerless, worthless talk in our midst. We have a wonderfully clear gospel — thanks be to God for it! We see very distinctly that salvation is by grace, through faith, not by works of righteousness, nor by works of law. Blessedly true, and our heart praises God for it. But when people are saved, ought they not to live as such? Ought not the new life to come out in fruits? It must come out if it be in; and if it does not come out, it is not there.

Bearing fruit is the test of life. These things are stated in the strongest terms all through Scripture. In John 5:28-29 it is said, "The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation," or "judgment." There is no disguising the solemn truth that God will and must have that which is good and holy and righteous in His own people. They are not God's people at all who are not characterized as the doers of that which is acceptable in His sight. If this were put before a sinner as a means of reconciliation with God, or of having sins blotted out before Him, it would be the denial of Christ and of His redemption. But only hold fast that all the means of being brought nigh to God are found in Christ — that the sole way by which a sinner is connected with the blessing of Christ is by faith, without the works of the law — only maintain this, and there is not the least inconsistency nor difficulty in understanding that the same God who gives a soul to believe in Christ, works in that soul by the Holy Ghost to produce what is practically according to Himself. For what purpose does God give him the life of Christ and the Holy Ghost, if only the remission of the sins were needed? But God is not satisfied with this. He imparts the life of Christ to a soul, and gives that soul the Holy Spirit to dwell in him; and as the Spirit is not the spring of weakness or of fear "but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind," God looks for suited ways and for the exercise of spiritual wisdom and judgment in passing through the present trying scene.

The Epistle to the Ephesians, after blessedly unfolding the mystery of the Church, continues — "I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called" (Eph. 4:1). Law made standing to depend on walk. Grace makes walk to depend on standing. It sets us in heavenly places in Christ, and then demands a walk worthy of the position. This is God's present way, as remote from legalism on the one hand as from antinomianism on the other; equally clear in rejecting good works as the ground of acceptance, and in demanding them as the result of acceptance; proclaiming with the same emphasis that there can be no fruit except we abide in the vine, and that there must be fruit if we abide in the vine.

The Christian is called to prove, in his daily life, that grace can produce results that law could never reach. It is one of the moral glories of Christianity to enable a man to surrender self and live for others. Law never could do this. It occupied a man with himself. Under its rule, every man had to do the best he could for himself. If he tried to love his neighbour, it was to work out a righteousness for himself. Under grace, all is blessedly and gloriously reversed. Self is set aside as a thing crucified, dead and buried. The old "I" is gone, and the new "I" is before God in all the acceptability and preciousness of Christ. He is our life, our righteousness, our holiness, our object, our model, our all. He is in us and we are in Him; and our daily practical life is to be simply Christ reproduced in us, by the power of the Holy Ghost. Hence, we are not only called to love our neighbour, but our enemy; and this, not to work out a righteousness, for we have become the righteousness of God in Christ; it is simply the outflow of the life which we possess, which is in us; and this life is Christ. A Christian is a man who should live Christ. He is neither a Jew, "under law;" nor a Gentile "without law;" but "a man in Christ," standing in grace, called to the same character of obedience as that which was rendered by the Lord Jesus Himself.

For the Christian it is the same principle as for Christ, save only that He is God and wrought atonement for us. We have life too before we enter on practice, as the Lord had it in Him throughout eternity. Ours is therefore acting from life, not for life as a man under the law. Christian walk is the exercise of the new life, impossible for any who have not life, and only possible for the one who has that life by his eye being fixed upon Jesus. Otherwise the eye is no longer single; it may be occupied with this one or that thing, when the walk can no longer be according to the light. "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light"; and it is only Christ that makes the eye single.

Blessed fact! Blessed relationship! But Israel had to be reminded of the conduct suited to such a relationship — conduct which could only flow from a loving heart. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Here lies the secret of all true practical religion. Without this all is valueless to God. "My son, give me thine heart." Where the heart is given, all will be right. The heart may be compared to the regulator of a watch which acts on the hair-spring, and the hair-spring acts on the main-spring, and the main-spring acts on the hands, as they move round the dial. If your watch goes wrong, it will not do merely to alter the hands, you must touch the regulator. God looks for real heart-work, blessed be His Name! His word to us is, "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth."

He comprises the pith of the law of God in these two extracts — the love of God, which is unlimited; the love of one's neighbour, not with all the soul and strength, but "as thyself." The first is loving God more than oneself, to the exclusion of every other object as a competitor; the second is loving one's neighbour as oneself. In effect, he that loves God and his neighbour has fulfilled the law, as the Apostle says. Grace goes farther than that — even to the total renunciation of self. The grace of God, which assimilates the Christian spirit, according to the power of his faith, to the revelation which he has made of Christ, leads a person even to death for his brother's sake. "We ought to lay our lives down for the brethren" (1 John 3:16), still more for God and the truth. "And the scribe said unto Him, Right, Teacher, Thou hast said the truth; for He is one, and there is none other; and to love Him with all the heart, and with all the intelligence, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love neighbour as oneself, is more than the burnt-offerings and sacrifices." "He": so ℵABKLM and later uncials, 1, 33, Amiat. "God" is in (D)EF(G)H, 69, Syrsin hcl (corr) Arm., etc.