Week 50 Sunday
Week 50 Sunday
Is the Christian Way the Only Way?
John 14:6; Acts 4:10-12
We come now in our pilgrimage to the place where we can face this question, “Is the Christian way the only way? Cannot people find God through other ways? What about people who sincerely follow other faiths—are they lost? And what about those who lived before the coming of Christ—are they lost? Do we have to be exclusive?”
The Christian way is not a way set alongside of others; it is the Way that fulfills all others. Jesus said, “I am not come to destroy; but to fulfil” (Matt. 5:17 KJV). This was locally applied to the Law and the Prophets, but it is a generic statement, capable of being applied to all truth anywhere. His very attitude was fulfillment, gathering up the fragments of truth found anywhere, completing and perfecting them in himself. He is no enemy of truth found anywhere. How could he be, when he is the Truth? All the lesser truths are guideposts pointing to him who is the Truth. In the others they are all ideas; in Christ they become Fact. In him, the divine ideas that have wandered through the world at last clothed themselves in flesh and blood; the idea and the fact became wedded forevermore.
As for those who lived before Christ, the answer is that nobody has ever lived before Christ. “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). Of course, people lived before the Christ became the incarnate Jesus. This eternal Christ is “the true light that shines on all people was coming into the world” (John 1:9 CEB). The light that was in conscience, in insight, in illumination, in ideals, was the light of the excarnate Christ. If people lived according to that light, they will be saved and be saved by Christ, however unconscious they may have been of him as Christ. People are judged according to the light they have. To whom little has been given, little will be required; and to whom much has been given, much will be required (see Luke 12:48). A varying standard of judgment according to light will give people equality before God. But why didn’t Jesus come in the beginning of history instead of at the middle? He came at the very first moment he could, for preparation for his coming had to take place. Even then, people misunderstood him and crucified him.
O Christ, I thank you that you have not left out anyone, anywhere at any time. Always you are pursuing Love. And always you are redeeming. I let your burning love into my heart, and I am evermore held by it. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “It is in Christ that the entire Fulness of deity has settled bodily, it is in him that you reach your full life” (Col. 2:9 Moffatt).
Week 50 Monday
The Judgments of Christ and the Judgments of Life
John 5:22, 24, 27; 6:35
As we discuss this matter of Jesus as the Way and not a way among ways, we must get hold of the fact that he did not come to bring a religion but to be Religion. He didn’t come to bring a set of truths but to be the Truth. He didn’t come to tell us about life but to be the Life. He didn’t come to show us the way but to be the Way.
And all life is corroborating that. The judgments of life and the judgments of Christ are the same. That will be the area of the great discoveries in religion in the future. Said a minister, “This saying that Christianity is written in the universe is long overdue.” As long as we thought the Way was written only in books, we fought about the authenticity of books. Now we go beyond that and say that if you should wipe out the books, you would find the same facts written into reality. Of course, the books bring into focus the scattered rays, and therefore we can never dispense with the books, but the corroboration is universal. Scratch life anywhere, and you find a witness to the Way.
For instance, take Epicurus, who taught that pleasure is the only good and the end of all morality. He placed great importance on friendship, and asserted that justice is necessary to a true life of pleasure. Why? The way of unfriendliness or injustice will not bring pleasure; the nature of the universe determines that. You can’t have pleasure without relationship to the Way. If you don’t fit into the Way, then the way of pleasure turns out to be not-the-way. At the bottom of a liquor price list in a dining car was the item, “Aspirin—25 cents.” It was expected that the quest for pleasure through liquor would end in a headache, so provision was made for it. At the end of the Beatitudes is no item that provides the equivalent of aspirin, for there are no headaches, no kickbacks, and no hangovers. Rather, “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad” (Matt. 5:12 KJV). You have hold of a growing joy as well as a growing answer in Christ.
Epicurus saw that pleasure could not be had when in violation of the moral law. When you go against that moral law, you go against your own self and hence your own pleasure. “He who spits against the wind spits in his own face.”
O God, I know that this Way is inescapable, for how can I escape you? I cannot run away from myself and the laws written within me. Nor do I want to, for I would be escaping from salvation. Help me to obey and live and live abundantly. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “That in everything he might be pre-eminent” (Col. 1:18).
*Epicurus (341–270 BC) was a Greek philosopher. See “Principal Doctrines,” http://classics.mit.edu/Epicurus/princdoc.html.
Week 50 Tuesday
“Ship the Universal Way”
Acts 17:22-31
We continue our emphasis on the Christian way as the Way—the Way universally.
I saw a sign that read, “Ship the Universal Way.” Inwardly I said, “I am!” The Way is the universal Way. There isn’t a realm in heaven or on earth or under the earth where it isn’t valid now. And there isn’t a realm anywhere where the unchristian thing isn’t the foolish and impossible thing. In an address in Canada, I said I was no statesman, but the Chinese ambassador came up and said, “You are not a statesman? If the statesmen had your point of view, our problems would be settled overnight.” But my point of view was not my point of view; it was the Way! When Gladstone said, “Nothing that is morally wrong can be politically right,”* he was simply saying that when you run against the Way, it is bad politics.
A representative from Tennessee said in one of our meetings in Washington, “I used to plant corn, and I knew I was not doing the growing; the laws of nature were doing it. I knew I couldn’t do anything except work with God. But I come up here, and I find the only people in the world who think they can do things alone, without reference to God and with their eyes on the exigencies of the next election.” That is what is wrong with our politics; people are substituting their ways for the Way. And we pay for their stupidities.
The account says that Jesus was crucified at “the place of a skull” (Luke 23:33), at the place of brainlessness. To take something else and crucify Jesus is not only bad; it is brainless. For instance, they thought they could crucify Jesus quietly without anybody knowing it, and they succeeded only in spreading his gospel over the world. When you crucify Jesus, you are brainless as well as bad.
Jesus said, “The word I have spoken will judge him on the last day” (John 12:48 Moffatt). Yes, and it judges now. Anyone who goes against the Way is judged by that very act. There is no need of pronouncing sentence on the last day, for life pronounces sentence now. When anyone lives according to the Way, “he will incur no sentence of judgment” (John 5:24 Moffatt). Life approves of such people.
O God, how can I thank you enough for showing me the Way and for putting my feet upon it? I am atingle in every fiber of my being at the glory and wonder of it. Gratitude spreads its benediction over my soul. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “I am Alpha and Omega” (Rev. 1:8)—the Christ of the Beginning Word and the Christ of the Final Word.
*Gladstone may have been quoting Hannah More, Complete Works, vol. 2 (Derby & Jackson, 1857), 53.
Week 50 Wednesday
All Authority in Heaven and in Earth
John 6:45-51
We are studying the Way as the Way. It must be burned into us. Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18). Many people wonder if it is on earth. Daniel Webster answers with this profound word, “Everything that makes a man a good Christian makes him a good citizen.”* Christians, when Christian, have authority on earth by their very fitness for living. And note, the authority is “on earth”—in its very structure. It is not imposed; it is inherent. The laws of everything are the laws of the Way. And this is for the nation as well as for the individual, for we are commanded to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). The nation was to become a disciple of the kingdom. Instead of that, the nation acts as if it were God. Result? These periodic hells called wars—the nations’ payoff days for acting as if they were God. Again Jesus said, “I have come as light into the world” (John 12:46 Moffatt). He is light in heaven? Yes, but he is also light now, in the world. In every situation, he is light, and everything else is darkness. If you don’t believe that, then you will have to find it out through experience. As an English professor put it, “Through an experience of good and evil we find that the good is best.” Or as G. B. Shaw said in reference to forgiveness, “Forgiveness is the great way; it may turn out to be the only way.”* By trial, we see that Jesus is the great way; by further trial, we see that he is the Way. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words never!” (Luke 21:33 Moffatt). Why? Because Reality cannot pass away, and his words are distilled Reality. “Everyone who falls on that stone will be shattered” (Luke 20:18 Moffatt). You go against him, and you will be shattered; life will go to pieces. And there are no exceptions, “everyone.” Even if God should go against the Way, God would be hurt; God would cease to be God. Nothing can go against this Way. As Goethe says, “I am a part of that power which always wills evil and always works good.”**
The Way will triumph:
That cause can never be lost nor stayed
Which takes the course of what God has made.***
O God, my soul exults. The Invincible has hold of me. We together cannot be defeated. For the sum total of Reality is behind us. We are working with the grain of the universe and not against it. We are therefore treading the way of the unconquerable. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Cling to the Rock, or break on the rocks.
*No published source was found for these quotations.
**This version of the quotation by Mephistopheles to Faust is from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part I (New York: New Directions Books, 1957), 40.
***Kristian C. Østergaard (1855–1931), “That Case Can Never Be Lost nor Stayed,” Østergaard was a Danish American Lutheran pastor and author.
Week 50 Thursday
The Invincibility of the Way
John 6:66-69; 7:37-38
We continue our study of the invincibility of the Way: Two men—sons of the South, one white and the other black, but both children of the same Father—stood and earnestly talked, “We win—we win,” said George Carver, the African American saint and scientist. To which Rufus Moseley, also a saint and a scientist in spiritual things, replied, “Who wins? Those who live by the will of God?” “Yes, that’s it, that’s it,” Carver replied with glowing face.* They were both invincible, for they both lived by “the good Spirit,” by the Way.
A judge said to a minister, “You ministers try to prove your message. You should proclaim it, and it will approve itself to people.” He was right, for the Way is self-verifying.
John Foster Dulles, adviser to international conferences, went to these conferences for many years and found they were getting nowhere because the spirit and outlook were wrong. Discouraged, he drew up a list of the qualities of character that would make for a successful international conference, and to his amazement, he found that every single quality of character was a Christian quality. He saw that you couldn’t make an international conference work without the Christian spirit. So he who was skeptical became a convinced and committed Christian, pushed into it by the very pressures of life.
Dale Carnegie, in speaking and writing on how to win and hold friends, says in essence that you must think of the other person. If you are self-centered, you won’t win others. In other words, you must love your neighbor as you love yourself. Carnegie gets paid for expounding a Christian principle and applying it to relationships. Take any way of life, and if it leads to real living, it merges into the Way. Someone asked Lord Grey, foreign secretary of Great Britain (1905–16), if he had any difficulty reconciling his private morality and his public acts, and he replied, “No, for the right thing is always the right thing to do.”*
Paul sums it all up thus, “That all things in heaven and earth alike should be gathered up in Christ” (Eph. 1:10 Moffatt). Both in heaven and earth “alike,” all things find their fulfillment in him. In him, they are “gathered up”; out of him, they fall apart.
O Christ, my eyes are open to your universal significance. There is no place you are not relevant. For there is nothing that isn’t made by you and for you. In you, I reach my full life; out of you, I am stunted forevermore. I am grateful I am in you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “May Christ dwell in your hearts as you have faith!” (Eph. 3:17 Moffatt).
*No published source was found for this exchange.
**Grey’s attempts to mediate disputes that would forestall war were unsuccessful. No published source was found for this quotation.
Week 50 Friday
Was Jesus Relative or Absolute?
Ephesians 1:17-23
“But,” says the critic, “when you speak of the absolute relevancy of Jesus, you forget the relativisms in the life of Jesus. Are there not a lot of relativisms there?” Yes, there are. He was a babe, growing in wisdom and stature, getting his guidance through prayer. And yet amid all these relativisms was an Absolute. Whenever you discover his mind, and not the mind of his disciples, you discover an Absolute. He is always right on every question and always final. In him is the meeting place of the absolute and the relative: the God-man.
You can’t put your finger on a thing that is good that isn’t Christian, and on anything Christian that isn’t good. But some ask, “Aren’t people getting along pretty well without Jesus Christ?” The answer is that nobody anywhere is getting along pretty well without Christ. “Christ Jesus is within you. Otherwise you must be failures” (2 Cor. 13:5 Moffatt). Christ or failure. For “it is in him that you reach your full life” (Col. 2:9 Moffatt). Everything remains arrested in development, stunted, unless somewhere along the line life touches Christ in some way or another.
Take this picture: Here is a man, hands drawn up over chest, his feet drawn up; he couldn’t walk. This outer tying up in knots was symbolic of the inner knots of the spirit; he was all tied up with sex. He had gone all over the country to doctors, and they couldn’t do anything for him. But a simple Christian got him to surrender his sex life to Christ and to confess it. He did, his hands straightened out, and he is now walking. He is completely released.
Here is another picture: I was being introduced to a high school audience of four thousand by a girl obviously chosen because of her poise, her quiet ability, and her radiance. A pastor whispered to me as she stood up, “Six months ago that girl was the most disorganized girl in the whole school. Surrender to Christ has made the difference.”
Another picture: A Jewish woman studied at various universities in Europe, and ended with a box full of degrees, but she said, “I knew nothing. I found Christ, and I knew everything.” Her glowing face told everybody she had the Key.
O Christ, your law is our life, and when we take your law, we find our own liberty. In you, we are free—free to be what you have designed for us. I thank you, thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: In Christ I am alive. Cut off from Christ I am a withered branch.
Week 50 Saturday
“Upon the Patient’s Body”
1 Corinthians 15:46, 53-38
We saw yesterday that the Way works universally. An army general said to me, “If we don’t do something like you suggested, we will be back at this business of war every twenty-five years.” You can’t get away from Christ, for when you do, you’re up against it.
A doctor said, “In the first lecture on anatomy we got in medical college the professor said, ‘Young men, from today you’ve got to be materialists. There is no such thing as soul.’ ” It was all material tissue. And now? The spiritual put out at the door came back by the window, and came back with a bang! Materialistic doctors had a generation on their hands filled with conflicts, neuroses, and complexes. And these things could not be dealt with by physical instruments of science. As a member of the Mayo clinic put it, “We can deal with 25 percent of the people who come to us by the physical instruments of science; 75 percent we don’t know what to do with, for they are passing on the sicknesses of their minds and their souls to their bodies.” The mental and spiritual was back, and back in charge of the situation for good or ill. Dr. John Finney, of Johns Hopkins, said, “Upon a patient’s body we read his present, his past, and his future. More than a priest, we should be worthy of a patient’s confidence.”* And what is written in the body? Our spiritual and mental attitudes in very large measure. Paul says, “That the life of Jesus may come out in my body” (2 Cor. 4:10 Moffatt). “The life of Jesus may come out.” It is already there, written in nerve and blood and tissue. The laws of our physical life are the laws of Christ.
A brilliant woman made this observation, “The only objection I have against Christianity is that it makes everything digest and makes me fat!” Christianity not only makes everything digest; it makes all life work, everywhere. Life approves it and is against all that is unchristian. The universe backs the Way. The Way is easy. Only “the way of transgressors is hard” (Prov. 13:15 KJV).
The Way is not a way. Paul says, “According to the Way, which they call a sect, I worship” (Acts 24:14). The Way is not a “sect,” dealing with a section of life; it is the whole of Life.
O Christ, I thank you that your yoke is easy and your burden light—I have found it so, I have found it so. In you, I have the Key; everything unlocks with your Spirit. O Christ, give me sanity and sense, that I may follow your Way—to the full. In your name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: In Christ all Reality is behind me. Outside of Christ, all Reality is against me.
*No published source was found for this quotation.