GOSPEL MESSENGER

Williamston, N.C., June 1906 

"The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" Matt. vi. 22, 23.

In these impressive verses, as well as in the whole chapter, and, indeed, in the entire Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus Christ sets forth most powerfully the total distinction that exists between the spiritual and the unspiritual professor of religion. As repeatedly shown in this greatest of all sermons, by God manifest in the flesh, the spiritual professor of religion is a child of God, his Heavenly Father, and has therefore been born again or from above or of God or of the Spirit of God (John 3:3-8; 1:12, 13; 1 John 5:1), the Spirit of life and light and love (1 John 1:2,5; 4:1-21), and has the graces of that Sprit in his heart, and desires and humbly and lovingly strives to exemplify them in his conduct and conversation, in that way which will most glorify God and benefit his fellow-men. He knows that he does this imperfectly, and feels the need of the Divine forgiveness for his sins and of the Divine strength to keep him from temptation and evil, and he heartily forgives his fellow-men their trespasses against him, and fervently desires that God's name may be hallowed in his own heart and in those of other men, and that God's holy and spiritual kingdom may come and His perfect will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. He loves and desires to obey every part of the holy law of God; he is poor in spirit; mourns for sin; is meek and humble; hungers and thirsts after righteousness; is merciful; is pure in his renewed heart; desires to live and for others to live in peace; and suffers persecution for righteousness' sake, and loves his enemies (through not their sins); and thus proves that he is a child of his Father in heaven, who is good to all and whose tender mercies are over all His creatures. He desires to pray and do alms and fast as unto God not unto man, and to lay up, by Divine grace, not corrupt and corrupting and fading treasures upon earth, but pure and purifying and enduring treasures in heaven. He, like his Lord in His earthly ministry, seeks, first of all, the kingdom of God and His righteousness, being persuaded that all needed temporal things will be added to him by his Heavenly Father, who feeds the fowls of the air that neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and who clothes the flowers of the field, that neither toil nor spin, with a glory with which the wealthy King Solomon was not arrayed. He desires to do to all men as he would have them do to him; and, instead of yielding thorns and thistles, he yields grapes and figs for the good of men; and, instead of disobeying, he desires always to obey the word of the Lord; and he will be eternally saved when the storm of God's wrath is poured out upon this world. In the text at the head of this article, Christ compares spiritual to natural light, spiritual to natural sight, and the whole body of a man to his whole soul or whole life. The light (or rather the lamp) of the body is the eye; the sun is the great light of the body, but, without the lamp of the eye, the sun would not guide us. But, if we have a single, simple, or clear, or sound eye, it takes in the light of the sun, and, as it were, fills our whole body with light, that is, it directs the whole body aright, or in the way in which we would go. On the contrary, if our eye is double, or confused, or dim, or unsound, or blinded, our whole body is, as it were, full of darkness, and we are misguided, taking darkness for light, night for day, and, thinking that we are right when we are really wrong, we go in the way in which we should not go, and may stumble and fall and hurt and destroy ourselves.

The light we think we have is really darkness, and this false light ruins us. Even so, says our Lord, the true light by which we are guided in this world is God, who reveals Himself to us through the lamp of our soul--our heart, our conscience, as well as our mind; and if our mind, our heart, our conscience are regenerated and illuminated by the Divine revelation, by the Spirit of God as He shines in His word, if our eye or motive is thus single to the glory of God and the good of man, our whole life, our conduct and conversation, will be bright and shining, and this heavenly light will shine more and more unto the perfect day. God will be glorified and our fellow-men will be benefited by our having lived in the world. But, on the other hand, if we are unregenerated by the Divine Spirit and unilluminated by Divine revelation; if the religion that we profess is a false religion; if we put error for truth, and wrong for right, and Antichrist for Christ, and the god of this world for the God of the universe, and earthly wisdom for heavenly wisdom, and earthly riches for heavenly riches, and the service of sin and Satan for the service of holiness and God; if the leading motive by which we are actuated is selfish, worldly and temporal, instead of unselfish, heavenly, and eternal, if the central and leading principle by which we are guided is false and wrong, and thus the very light that we think we have in us is the grossest darkness, our whole mortal life will be one of spiritual darkness, notwithstanding all our pretensions to religion, all our pharisaical hypocrisy, and, without a Divine and miraculous change, a new birth from on high, it will end in the rayless, hopeless, and everlasting darkness of the second death--endless banishment from the holy and blissful presence of God. It is impossible, no matter who says differently, either Jew or Gentile, it is impossible to serve God and Mammon. Mammon is the personification of worldly wealth or property, of worldly and selfish and sinful pleasure; it is the "idol of all unrenewed hearts; the basest of idols; the idol of all times and places; the idol of all idols; whose service is utterly hateful to God, and results in the everlasting destruction of soul and body in hell."

Behold the difference between the spiritual and the unspiritual professor of religion, whether Jew or Gentile--the vast difference in their origin, their character, and their destiny. When the burning day of God's wrath comes, as come it will, upon this sin-defiled world, the whole human race, both the proud and wicked as well as the humble and righteous will discern the difference between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not (Mal. 3:18; 4:1-3; Matt. 25:31-46; John 5:28,29; 2 Thess. 1:5-10; Rev. 20:12-15; 21:8).

S. H.