WE HAVE STUDIED how the nations have sought after wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification and have failed. Why have they failed? They failed because of a lack of the last thing mentioned which Jesus becomes to us: redemption. “In Christ Jesus, whom God made our . . . redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). This redemption comes last. We would have thought it would be first. We would have thought so because we are Christian and have looked into the face of Jesus and know thereby that all our best and our worst needs redemption. The Greeks, the Jews, and the Hindus, however, have not looked into the face of Jesus and, hence, felt they had the answers in themselves. So they went out to establish a wisdom of their own, a righteousness of their own, and a sanctification of their own. It became in each case a self-wisdom, a self-righteousness, a self-sanctification. In each case it resulted in a self-pride, which destroyed itself.
The Christian faith believes and starts from the starting point of redemption—we need redemption not only from our worst sins and corruption, but from our best—from our wisdom, our righteousness, and our sanctification. At the center of our wisdom, our righteousness, and our sanctification is the unsurrendered ego, which keeps intruding into our wisdom and making it strutting egoism; into our righteousness, making it bad-smelling self-righteousness; into our sanctification, making it uninviting sanctimoniousness. As Shakespeare said, “Lilies that fester smell worse than weeds”—virtues that have a basis of egoistic pride become bad-smelling vices. They need redemption, and the wonder of Jesus is that He came to redeem the Pharisee as well as the publican, the proud duchess as well as the prostitute. He is redemption—full stop—redemption to everything that needs it, and everything does need it, including our virtues.
O Redeemer, redeem our bad and make it good, our good and make it better, and our better and make it best, and our best and make it Thy best—for Thy best is ultimate. We cannot go beyond it, nor do we want to. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: In the South Sea islands are flowers which when alone are evil-smelling, but mingled with the scents of other flowers are attractive—learn thy lesson, O, my soul.
