EMB BLOG
Faith Is The Victory By Professor EM Blaiklock MA., Litt. D.
THE WORLD'S HATE:
"Do not therefore wonder," he says, "if the world hate you." The words are another echo of the Lord's own language.
The prophecy of persecution emerges as early as the Beauti-tudes. It continues, a sombre thread, through the discourses of the Master, as far as the last words to Peter on the beach by the lake.
Is such a dark view of the Christian's lot in society justified? There would be no need to ask that question over vast tracts of earth's surface, where the blanket of the dark lies heavily, and all the ancient forms of persecution, from Herod's to Caesar's, find their modern counterpart. It is our fortune to live in a community whose thinking was once permeated by Christianity, which still bears the old mark of Christian leadership, and in which, again thanks to the faith, persecution is traditionally viewed with the loathing that persecution always deserves.
John's words, nevertheless, express a universal truth which Christians must weigh and appreciate. We have already met
"the world" in John's epistle. It is well linked with "the flesh and the devil." It is the ancient tradition of Cain, the old hostility of rebel man to God and good, translated into political action, social attitude, public policy, or private demeanour.
It is sometimes a monstrous thing, armed and powerful like the persecuting Roman Empire. It is sometimes diabolically clothed in the trappings of religion, the very robes of Cai-aphas. It is sometimes a flavour permeating some level of society, some section of a community. It is everywhere, changeful as old Proteus in the myth, varied as Satan whose disguises range from those of an angel of light to the shape of a raging lion.
And its consistent opposition to all that savours of God and good is a fact of history and experience. It remains for Christians, if they are to obey the injunction of John and
"marvel not" at the situation, to understand clearly the motives and methods of persecution, for into persecution hate always translates itself. Righteousness, all through history and everywhere, challenges evil, and evil will have none of it. The smell of burning flesh, the reek of man's intolerance for man, fills history. Man will not have before his eyes the reproach of human goodness, if by stone, stick, or sword he can dash it from sight. And those sunnier generations which have imagined that such evil has at last been purged, have ended always like our own in sharp and rude awakening.
Plato himself, outside the Jewish tradition, and four centuries before Christ, had said:
"The Just Man will be scourged,
racked, thrown into chains; he will have his eyes burnt out and after enduring every pain he will be crucified."
The whole pattern of history shows those who seek righteousness as a minority, and over against them the conforming multitude, the few against the crowd. And the conforming multitude hate the few who persist in standing out. They resent the challenge. "Crucify him, away with him, not this man but Barabbas, he has a devil." "Then said Mr. No-Good,
'Away with such a fellow from the earth!' 'Ay, said Mr.
Malice, 'for I hate the very looks of him.' Then said Mr. Love-lust, 'I could never endure him. Nor I, said Mr. Live-loose,
'for he would be ever condemning my ways.' 'A sorry scrub, said Mr. High-mind. . .
Consider, for example, the reaction to the person who presumes in modern society to abstain from alcohol. It ranges from amusement to irritation and dislike. Why? I can refuse coffee, I can pass the mustard by, I can abstain from sugar on my porridge, and no one comments. But if I refuse to drink a chemical compound, the effect of which on the human constitution has produced half the road fatalities and half the crime of the year's statistics, I am considered odd, and in a subtle fashion made to feel so, whether the context be a road construction-camp, or the dons' common-room. Why? Because liquor, from the vulgar glass of beer to the elegant Mayfair cocktail, has become a foolish badge of established society and I am seldom free to refuse without umbrage on the par of those my action is felt to criticise and rebuke.
Hence the toleration of the same world for the Nicolaitan the professing Christian who is prepared to compromise, an on one pretext or another adapt his attitude to that of th secular environment which uncomfortably surrounds him
"Worship in the land," said Pharaoh, "or go not very fa away," and his words have often been used to point an allegory, Rather must true Christians, in the words of anothe allegory, go with their Lord "without the camp, bearing His reproach.
Christ is not truly followed save by those who will take this stand and tread this road. Christ, after all, called for two actions which ran mortally counter to that "proud boast of life" which is the very spirit of the world. He called first for the abandonment of sin and its fancied advantages at all costs.
He called secondly for the sacrifice of pride and human self-esteem. Both demands have always contradicted human instincts, for man's view of man and God's view of man are diametrically opposed. Man loves to glory in his greatness. A magnificent ode in Sophocles' greatest play, the Antigone, pictures the questing, restless spirit which has led man to the domination of the earth, the lordship of creation, and to manifold invention, and it is in this way, from fifth century Athens until now, that man has loved to view himself, dominant, clever, ingenious, wise. The Bible admits all this, but adds, disconcertingly, the fact of sin. As in the story of Naaman, a "but" spoils all. . .. "Now Naaman, captain of the host of the King of Syria, was a great man with his master and honourable . . . but he was a leper." Some such adversative clause caps all eulogy of man. Nor is the glum ending confined to the statements of theology. It is as apparent in history. The Greeks invented democracy, but their history illustrates and documents democracy's decay and fall. Rome was given to rule the world, but was unable to save her empire. The Jews gave us the Old Testament, but crucified Christ. The twentieth century was heralded with guns and bells as the coming golden age of progress and of plenty but ... The First World War was fought "to make the world safe for democracy," but ... Rutherford unlocked the secret of the atom, but ... Man, in ultimate madness, and logically pursuing his self-exaltation, has deified himself. John saw the rising abomination of Caesar-worship, and poured his horror into the apocalyptic imagery of a chapter in the Book of Revelation. "And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns... and upon his heads the name of blasphemy ... and they worshipped the beast saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him ... and he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God ... and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. . . ." Änd as though to confound all humanism, all facile doctrines of progress, all godless optimism, the twentieth century has seen the old Beast emerge again, stamped as ever with the name of blasphemy, and more mightily efficient than any Caesar, to brand with his mark the right hand and servile brow of nations. Christ was crucified because He challenged vitally and uncompromisingly the spirit behind this mass of evil. The Church has borne His Cross because, in loyalty, it has carried on the same challenge. There can be no peace, while evil lives, finds expression in society, and resists, as it always must, the good.
It will not stray from John's theme if the methods of persecution are reviewed. They are three, violence, slander, and ridicule. The grim close of Chapter 11 of Hebrews is the classic passage for the first. For Christ's sake, Christians of all ages have "had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonments; they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword : they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins being desti-tute, afflicted, tormented; they wandered in deserts and in mountains, in dens and caves of the earth." Such has been the violence of men against the good.
Slander, the Master bore. "A gluttonous man and a wine-bibber," they called Him. When the Christians enter secular history, in the famous passage in which Tacitus describes the great fire of Rome in A.D. 64, and the first imperial persecution of the Christians which followed, the little Roman community is described as "a people hated for their abominations, and popularly known as Christians." The next Roman reference is that of Pliny, governor of Bithynia, describing in a letter to the emperor, the Christians he found in his province.
It was A.D. 110. He mentions the crimes attributed to the group, and adds his surprise that his security officers had found no evidence of their truth. Slander and misrepresentation is the Christian's not uncommon lot.
Ridicule, in this sophisticated world, is more common. It is still "the way the Master went." "They laughed him to scorn. . . and those that passed by mocked him and wagged their heads at him, and said 'He saved others, Himself He cannot save'." Mockery, it should always be remembered, is
"the fume of little hearts," and so small-minded has man in general been, that ridicule through the ages has become almost the test of truth. There is pain in being laughed at, but the ridiculed are in the most distinguished and honourable com-pany.
Blessed are the persecuted, and woe to the persecutor. Let us then, without courting persecution, as folly has sometimes courted it, not wonder if the godless world around us runs true to form, and hates us for Christ's sake. This one verse has detained us long, but it is of deep importance. Let it occasion no shock, no disappointment, no disillusionment, if a Christian testimony bring damage to popularity, rejection, even loss of position, profit, and advantage, as the world views such things.
For solace, the Christian, says John, should turn inwards, and contemplate the new society into which he has been born. There, says John, is love, love which flows from Cal-vary, sacrificial, merciful. We are thus faced with a challenging picture of the Church as it should be, a community knit by the bonds of love, membership of which, indeed, has one sign and certificate, the love of Christ outworked in practical brotherliness. It was a happy division of verse and chapter which gave the New Testament this second "John-Three-Six-teen." And yet, lest Christian love should lose itself in starry thoughts of martyrdom, John, as his fashion is, brings it firm-footed to earth with a simple and practical illustration. A heart untouched by a brother's need makes idle claim to love.
The petty sacrifice and self-denial which no crowd cheers, and none see with appreciation, is more often the test of reality than the spectacular renunciation.
PRAYER: Help us to set the unearthly love of Christ over against the spite of men. Help us daily to rest in that love and never to fear what man can do. Grant us to translate into practical living the love of Christ, and in the stern strife of life not to move, not to compromise, not to bend under the pressure of the evil which set the cross on Calvary mocked the dying Lord.