Luminescence, Volume 2. C. K. Barrett
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who do by nature the things of the Law, showing the effects of the Law written on their hearts, and they will condemn you who talk so loudly about the Law but do not keep it. “Fine,” say the Gentiles in Rome and elsewhere; “the Jews are out, like unwanted branches cut out of the olive tree and we are taking their place. It’s our turn now.” What that means is that the warning Paul had previously addressed to the Jews, he now addresses to the Gentiles. “Be not high minded, but fear.”
Now: I see no prophets of Baal before me. Nor can I divide my congregation into Jews and Gentiles, as Paul could at Antioch and Rome. I do see a group of people distracted as all such groups are in all sorts of ways, not fundamentally into the religious and the irreligious—Paul’s Jews and Gentiles. The religious suppose that they can stand on their own prior works, and immediately begin to boast about them. The irreligious discover that it is faith alone, trust in God’s mercy, that counts; and forthwith proceed to have faith in their own kind of pious work. Each of them thinks he is a superior fellow, and that is the way out—the way to incur God’s severity.
Commenting on this verse, Emil Brunner said “We cannot give ourselves faith, yet we are responsible if we lose it.” He could have added that the best way to lose faith is to start bragging about it. There is a clear pointer to this in Paul’s chosen words. “You will say, ‘branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast only through faith. . . . Note then the kindness and severity of God, severity towards those who have fallen, but God’s kindness towards you, provided you continue . . .” in what? The context leads us to think that Paul will say, “continue in your faith.” But he says, “continue in his kindness.” It is not in my faith but in God’s kindness that security is to be found. The new pietism is no different from the old; religionless Christianity is no better than the old religion. Our hope is in God and in his goodness only. That means it is now time to speak about God.
ABOUT GOD
Where will you find the truth about God? Again, begin with Elijah. On Mt. Carmel he had declared, “the God who answers by fire, he is God.” But now he learns that God is not in the fire—or the wind, or the earthquake. If he is to be heard at all, he is to be heard in a voice that is no voice at all, but silence. He is known not in nature, but in his own Word.
How can God be both kind and severe? Perhaps that is not so hard a question. Do we not know something of it ourselves? Is not the key that there is something constant, invariable behind both the kindness and the severity and expressing itself in both? It is not hard to understand this. We practice it ourselves. I feel rather more free to use university illustrations than I did, so let me say this is done year by year as the university puts the examination system into operation. The same respect for the university as an institution, the same respect for sound learning, has to be expressed in kindness and severity. It is impossible to be universally kind; if one were kind to bad candidates one would be unjust to good ones, because the value of their degree would be depressed.
This is a dreadful illustration. May I take it one step further and make it more objectionable still? Of all the jobs I have given up, there is none I am so glad to be rid of as examining. Why? Because it is a frightful chore to read fifty answers to the same question? Well, yes, that comes into it. But mainly because it is such a moral and emotional strain. There are not many sheer failures at Durham; we are proud of our low dropout rate. But there are disappointments, people who hoped for firsts get 2.1’s, and so on. And year after year the examiner knows that in order to keep the standard where it ought to be, he must disappoint X, Y, and Z. I won’t use the wearisome cliché and say that it hurts me more than it hurts you, but it hurts.
Do you understand why I am saying this? It is God’s love, God’s righteousness—in biblical usage these are not very different—that is experienced in both kindness and severity. And the hurt this does to God is experienced in the central manifestation of his love and righteousness (Rom 5.8; 3.21). “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.” “The Gospel is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes . . . for in it the righteousness of God is revealed.”
In this sermon I am leaving you any number of loose ends, which it will be your business to tie up. I am not worried about them because I am not concerned to make a neat and watertight dogmatic statement. I am using this difficult theological text in the interests of responsible Christianity. Many of us, most of us no doubt, are well meaning enough in our faith, but intellectually and morally, and in our churchmanship shockingly irresponsible. So I go back to the place where we began. There is something to be said for the short, sharp, shock. Consider the kindness and the severity of God.
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“A LIVING SACRIFICE”—Romans 12. 1–2
[Preached three times from 1/7/45 at Bondgate to 1/7/62 at Leamside]
I will tell you at once what I’m going to do. This is Covenant Sunday. For nearly (if not quite) two hundred years Methodists have had the custom of making or renewing their covenant with God on the first Sunday of the year. I have been studying John Wesley’s Journal to find out just how old the custom is, but I cannot say precisely. The first reference is on Sunday January 1, 1764. He says, “At every place this week I endeavored to prepare our brethren for renewing their covenant with God. We met in the evening for that solemn purpose. I believe the number of those that met was considerably larger than last year, and so was the blessing. Truly, the consolations of God were not small with us. Many were filled with peace, joy; many with holy fear, and several backsliders were healed.” So they had certainly had at least one such meeting before that. At least the custom is very old, and a very good Methodist custom.
Now in the service book which we use for the Covenant Service, you will find a quite considerable little document that I am prepared to say not one in ten of you has ever read. It is called “Directions to Penitents and Believers for Making and Renewing their Covenant with God.” I would urge you very strongly to read it. What I want to do now is to use the exposition of this text for the same purpose. I am convinced of this, that if we could recover that real original Methodist concentration upon our real message, we shall be an infinitely stronger power as a Church. I hardly dare use such strong language as the old directions use. We are not used to it in these days. But I shall give you as much as I can.
The form of the text is significant for us. Paul, of course, is looking back over the first eleven chapters of the epistle, in which he has discussed with incomparable grandeur and breadth the whole merciful plan of God’s redemption. And he says, “Now brothers and sisters, such is God’s mercy—what about you?” “What are you going to do about it?” There is no question here of a sacrifice offered to win God’s mercy. God’s mercy is there, freely given; cannot you in return give the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving?
We too are looking back and look on. We are looking back over a year that, for good or ill, is a closed book now. We are looking ahead to the unknown. What I have to do now is to recall for you—for myself—the mercies of God, and to ask what we are prepared to do about them. There are of course the two sides of the covenant—God’s promise and love—and our response. “Christian morality (Dodd ad loc) is the response to all the mercy of God. . . . It does not begin with a person’s ambition to make himself a fine specimen of virtuous humanity . . . it begins with the thankful recognition that God . . . has done for him what he never could do for himself.” I invite you to think first of the mercies of God.
THE MERCIES OF GOD
I am not so foolish as to think that I can read through the covers of your diaries and count the blessings of 1944 for you. The task would be too big for you, and therefore infinitely too difficult for anyone else. Instead I want to ask a very bold question. Did anything happen to you in 1944 which might not have been used by God as some sort of blessing for you? Don’t misunderstand me. I know that 1944 brought to some of you experiences of the sharpest sorrow. The last thing on earth I want to say (and if you know me at all, you know I speak the truth) is—“it can’t have been so bad after all. Pull yourselves up and never mind.” I don’t mean that nor do I mean simply Henry V’s “there is some soul of goodness in things evil