The Mysterious Aspect of the Gospel to the Men of the World
Ezekiel 20:49
Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! they say of me, Does he not speak parables?


1. There are certain experiences of human life so oft repeated, and so familiar to all our recollections, that when we perceive, or think we perceive, an analogy between them and the matters of religion, then religion does not appear to us to be mysterious. There is not a more familiar exhibition in society than that of a servant who performs his allotted work, and who obtains his stipulated reward; and we are all servants, and one is our Master, even God. There is nothing more common than that a son should acquit himself to the satisfaction of his parents — and we are all the children of a universal Parent, whom it is our part to please in all things. Now, so long as the work of religious instruction can be upheld by such analogies as these, — so long as the relations of civil or of domestic society can be employed to illustrate the relation between God and the creatures whom He has formed, — a vein of perspicuity will appear to run through the clear and rational exposition of him who has put all the mists and all the technicals of an obscure theology away from him. All his lessons will run in an easy and direct train. Can anything be more evident than that there is a line of separation between the sensual and the temperate, between the selfish and the disinterested, between the sordid and the honourable; or, if we require a distinction more strictly religious, between the profane and the decent keeper of all the ordinances? Here then at once we witness the two grand divisions of human society, in a state of real and visible exemplification; and what more is necessary than just to employ the most direct and intelligible motives of conduct for persuading men to withdraw from one of these divisions, and pass over to the other of them? It is needless to say how much this process is reversed by many a teacher of Christianity. It is true that they hold out most prominently the need of some great transition; but it is a transition most mysteriously different from the act of crossing that line of separation to which we have just been adverting. They reduce the men of all casts, and of all characters, to the same footing of worthlessness in the sight of God; and speak of the evil of the human heart in such terms as will sound to many a mysterious exaggeration — and, like the hearers of Ezekiel, will these not be able to comprehend the argument of the preacher when he tells them, though in the very language of the Bible, that they are the heirs of wrath; that none of them is righteous, no, not one; that all flesh have corrupted their ways, and have fallen short of the glory of God; that the world at large is a lost and a fallen world, and that the natural inheritance of all who live in it is the inheritance of a temporal death and a ruined eternity. When the preacher goes on in this strain, those hearers whom the Spirit has not convinced of sin will be utterly at a loss to understand him; nor are we to wonder if he seem to speak to them in a parable when he speaks to the disease, — that all the darkness of a parable should still seem to hang over his demonstrations when, as a faithful expounder of the revealed will and counsel of God, he proceeds to tell them of the remedy. Now, it is when the preacher is unfolding this scheme of salvation, — it is when he is practically applying it to the conscience and the conduct of his hearers, — it is when the terms of grace and faith and sanctification are pressed into frequent employment for the work of these very peculiar explanations, — it is when, instead of illustrating his subject by those analogies of common life, which might have done for men of an untainted nature, but which will not do for the men of this corrupt world, he faithfully unfolds that economy of redemption which God hath actually set up for the recovery of our degenerate species, — it is then that, to a hearer still in darkness, the whole argument sounds as strangely and as obscurely as if it were conveyed to him in an unknown language, — it is then that the repulsion of his nature to the truth as it is in Jesus finds a willing excuse in the utter mysteriousness of its articles and its terms; and gladly does he put away from him the unwelcome message, with the remark that he who delivers it is a speaker of parables, and there is no comprehending him.

2. Now, if there be any hearers present who feel that we have spoken to them, when we spoke of the resistance which is held out against peculiar Christianity on the ground of that mysteriousness in which it appears to be concealed from all ordinary discernment, we should like to take our leave of them at present with two observations. We ask them, in the first place, if they have ever, to the satisfaction of their own minds, disproved the Bible? — and if not, we ask them how they can sit at ease, should all the mysteriousness which they charge upon evangelical truth, and by which they would attempt to justify their contempt for it, be found to attach to the very language and to the very doctrine of God's own communication? He actually does say that no man cometh unto the Father but by the Son — and that His is the only name given under heaven whereby men can be saved — and that He will be magnified only in the appointed Mediator — and that Christ is all and all — and that there is no other foundation on which man can lay — and that he who believeth on Him shall not be confounded. He further speaks of our personal preparation for heaven; and here, too, may His utterance sound mysteriously in your hearing, as He tells that without holiness no man can see God — and that we are without strength while we are without the Spirit to make us holy — and that unless a man be born again he shall not enter into the kingdom of God — and that he should wrestle in prayer for the washing of regeneration — and that he should watch for the Holy Ghost with all perseverance — and that he should aspire at being perfect through Christ strengthening him — and that be should, under the operation of those great provisions which are set up in the New Testament for creating us anew unto good works, conform himself unto that doctrine of grace by which he is brought to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present evil world. Secondly, let us assure the men who at this moment bid the stoutest defiance to the message of the Gospel, that the time may yet come when they shall render to this very gospel the most striking of all acknowledgments, even by sending to the door of its most faithful ministers, and humbly craving from them their explanations and their prayers. We never saw the expiring mortal who could look with an undaunted eye on God as his Lawgiver; but often has all its languor been lighted up with joy at the name of Christ as his Saviour. We never saw the dying acquaintance who, upon the retrospect of his virtues and of his doings, could prop the tranquillity of his spirit on the expectation of a legal reward. Oh no; this is not the element which sustains the tranquillity of deathbeds: it is the hope of forgiveness. It is a believing sense of the efficacy of the atonement. It is the prayer of faith, offered up in the name of Him who is the Captain of all our salvation. It is a dependence on that power which can alone impart a meetness for the inheritance of the saints, and present the spirit holy and unreprovable and unblamable in the sight of God. Now, what we have to urge is, that if these be the topics which, on the last half hour of your life, are the only ones that will possess, in your judgment, any value or substantial importance, why put them away from you now?

(T. Chalmers, D. D.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! they say of me, Doth he not speak parables?

WEB: Then I said, Ah Lord Yahweh! they say of me, Isn't he a speaker of parables?




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