Week 2—Friday John 5:39-40
Week 2—FRIDAY
“THE PRINCIPLE OF MOTHERHOOD”?
We are considering whether the principles of the Christian faith apart from the Person, Jesus, would be adequate or effective, and the answer is a decided “No.” For it is the Person who puts content into the principles. Apart from the Person, the principles would mean something else, something very different. Take the statement: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you” (John 13:34). Without the last portion, “even as I have loved you,” there would have been nothing new in the commandment. The old content—the content gathered from contemporaneous life—would have remained. That content would have been eros—possessive love—and not agape—sacrificial love. Jesus put the agape content into love by his illustration of agape love. But even agape love is not the norm now—the norm is Christ-like love which is a norm all its own, sui generis.
Principles may be low in content; they are also always low in power. They are moonlight, secondhand, not sunlight, firsthand. Suppose a child is crying for its mother, and you say, “Don’t cry, little child, I’ll give you the principle of motherhood.” The child would reply: “I want my mother.” In India where the highest God, Brahma, is impersonal, Tulsi Das, a great Indian poet says, “The Impersonal laid no hold on my heart.” Too cold, too unresponsive. No wonder someone described the Vedantic philosophy, which expounds the philosophy of the impersonal Brahma, in this way: “It is the philosophy of a few, the religion of none.” There are no temples to Brahma—no worship of it. Philosophy about Brahma, but no religion. Religion sets up when a person seeks communion with a Person. Then the principles embodied in the Person take on power and vitality, and we want to practice the principles because Jesus practiced and embodied them. Then principles become power, but only as they are embodied in a Person—otherwise, no. They fall faintly upon the human heart.
O blessed and only wise God, your method is sound. You have shown us in your Son that you are practicing what you require of us. In you the Word is always flesh. “For by all that God requires of me, I know that God must be.” I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Let all my principles become personal in me today.