Saturday, May 12, 2007
Comic Art
Anybody note any coincidental appearance here? Maybe just a little? Think it is an accident? Guess again. Hermes is not just luggage. Hermes, the statue on the left, in the Greek pantheon and Mercury in the Roman were the god of speed and they were a classic image in the public mind long before comic books. I have seen such statues dating back, of course to the Roman Empire, but also through the centuries since the fall of that empire and the invention of the comic book. On the right, of course, is the original comic book speedster, the Golden Age Flash.
Of course the comics knew they could be too derivative so they simply co-opted the mythological characters for the comics. The model became the derivative in this instance. You have to admit that such is incredible creative power.Other things associated with Hermes/Mercury are the caduseus, the symbol of medicine used to this day, and; of course, the FTD Florist network. There could be some interesting lawsuits here.
The winged feet are also a very cool imagery, picked up most notably in the Marvel character of Namor. Anyway, when you think about it, there are no new ideas under the sun, even comic speedsters.
Related Tags: comics, comic books, comic art, speedsters, Golden Age Flash, Hermes, Mercury
Friday, May 11, 2007
Therapy or Confession?
Justin Taylor linked a while back to a WSJ piece on the increasing acceptance of psychology amongst the religious. I found this paragraph rather troubling:
So, for example, in cases of clinical depression (something I have more historical experience with than I commonly admit) the medication certainly provides an easy way of dealing with it, but can it be said to be curative? But more importantly, can it be said to be developmental?
Is coping enough? I, for one, do not think so. Christ does not intend for us to cope, He intends for us to be remade. I cannot help but believe that mental illness and disease are symptoms of our fallen state, not our recreated state. If we are true to Christ's calling, should we not seek; wherever possible, to cure rather than cope?
But where the line? - that is the important question. In some cases on mental illness, cure simply is not possible. I have a close family member that has been variably diagnosed as schizophrenic for more than 30 years. One thing is for sure. No amount of time "on the couch" is going to help him. Medication has been a Godsend. While he has never achieved "productive member of society" status, he has been brought to a point of individual independence and not harming himself or others.
But then there is my personal struggle, long enough ago that today's rip-one-off-the-script-pad solutions did not exist. Was overcoming that hard work? Some of the hardest I have ever known. It would have been much easier to reach for the pill bottle. But through it I discovered Christ in ways I am confident I never would have otherwise.
You see in the end, I had to succumb completely to the feelings of hopelessness and lack of control that drove my depression, at the bottom of them I discovered that I really had no hope and I genuinely had no control. But there was Jesus, who gave me hope and into whose control I had to place myself to survive.
I am all for physchoanalytical stuff, I actually think it is the protestant equivalent of the confessional - it was for me and as such it was a blessing. But I think we need to be careful about the medical, I think we can stand in God's way.
Related Tags: psychology, medicine, moods, confession
But Christians have also been more willing to engage in psychology thanks to recent advances in science. "Mental illnesses are now more often understood as being diseases rather than character flaws," says Jay Pope, a professor of psychology at Fresno Pacific University, a Christian college. "Christians," he notes, "never begrudge a person for taking anticonvulsants for epilepsy; nowadays the stigma attached to taking psychotropic medications for psychological problems has lessened."There are mental illnesses, I do not deny that, but the ability to treat a condition of any sort with medication is not, to my mind useful for delineating between a disease and a character flaw. We simply do not understand the chicken-and-egg question concerning mental state and brain chemistry well enough. Do moods control chemistry, or is it the other way around? Best I can tell, it is a cycle into which we arbitrarily drive a stake and say it starts here.
So, for example, in cases of clinical depression (something I have more historical experience with than I commonly admit) the medication certainly provides an easy way of dealing with it, but can it be said to be curative? But more importantly, can it be said to be developmental?
Is coping enough? I, for one, do not think so. Christ does not intend for us to cope, He intends for us to be remade. I cannot help but believe that mental illness and disease are symptoms of our fallen state, not our recreated state. If we are true to Christ's calling, should we not seek; wherever possible, to cure rather than cope?
But where the line? - that is the important question. In some cases on mental illness, cure simply is not possible. I have a close family member that has been variably diagnosed as schizophrenic for more than 30 years. One thing is for sure. No amount of time "on the couch" is going to help him. Medication has been a Godsend. While he has never achieved "productive member of society" status, he has been brought to a point of individual independence and not harming himself or others.
But then there is my personal struggle, long enough ago that today's rip-one-off-the-script-pad solutions did not exist. Was overcoming that hard work? Some of the hardest I have ever known. It would have been much easier to reach for the pill bottle. But through it I discovered Christ in ways I am confident I never would have otherwise.
You see in the end, I had to succumb completely to the feelings of hopelessness and lack of control that drove my depression, at the bottom of them I discovered that I really had no hope and I genuinely had no control. But there was Jesus, who gave me hope and into whose control I had to place myself to survive.
I am all for physchoanalytical stuff, I actually think it is the protestant equivalent of the confessional - it was for me and as such it was a blessing. But I think we need to be careful about the medical, I think we can stand in God's way.
Related Tags: psychology, medicine, moods, confession
Links From West Virignia
I'm on the road...
Look Ma! - Stupid people - Sickeningly so...
Jerk!
Everytime I see these stories, I cry and cry....
OMG!!! I shouldn't make fun, it's sad.
That's what made it special.
Ribbet...
Adapt and overcome.
Monomaniacal?
Related Tags: silly people, joke, humor, wisecrack, sarcasm
Look Ma! - Stupid people - Sickeningly so...
Jerk!
Everytime I see these stories, I cry and cry....
OMG!!! I shouldn't make fun, it's sad.
That's what made it special.
Ribbet...
Adapt and overcome.
Monomaniacal?
Related Tags: silly people, joke, humor, wisecrack, sarcasm
Friday Humor
After having dug to a depth of 1000 meters last year, Scottish scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 1000 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 1000 years ago.
Not to be outdone by the Scots, in the weeks that followed, English scientists dug to a depth of 2000 meters, and shortly after headlines in the UK newspapers read: "English archaeologists have found traces of 2000 year old copper wire and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a thousand years earlier than the Scots."
One week later, Texas newspapers reported the following: "After digging as deep as 5000 meters in West Texas, Texas A&M scientists have found absolutely nothing. They have therefore concluded that 5000 years ago, Texas inhabitants were already using wireless technology."
MORAL: Don't Mess with Texas
Not to be outdone by the Scots, in the weeks that followed, English scientists dug to a depth of 2000 meters, and shortly after headlines in the UK newspapers read: "English archaeologists have found traces of 2000 year old copper wire and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a thousand years earlier than the Scots."
One week later, Texas newspapers reported the following: "After digging as deep as 5000 meters in West Texas, Texas A&M scientists have found absolutely nothing. They have therefore concluded that 5000 years ago, Texas inhabitants were already using wireless technology."
MORAL: Don't Mess with Texas
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Christ and Happiness
Justin Taylor recently linked to a philosophical arguement on "eudaimonia" - that is to say, true happiness. This idea can be summed up simply - the pursuit of Christ is moving towards something good, not the restrictive constraint of an otherwise happy life. I couldn't agree more, but consider this key quote
Here is the real problem though, the church has largely recognised that the general idea of happiness is what moves people, but rather than alter the perception of happiness, they pander to it. We ask people whose understanding of what happiness is is flawed what would make them happy and then give it to them. You want church where you are not asked to do anything? - Here you go! You want a church service you could watch on TV as easily as attend? - Here you go! You want church to keep you squarely in your comfort zone? - Here you go!
The point to all this is that there ought to be a "positive" way to sell discipleship, it is after all a positive. But my experience tells me that ultimately there is not. Let's consider this by analogy.
Regular readers know of my very significant weight loss of the last few years. the inevitable and perpetual question is, "How did you do it?" Most assume bariatric surgery of some sort, but nope - 1000-1500 calories a day, that's it, that's all. "Well aren't you hungry all the time?" comes the standard retort.
"EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY," is my standard reponse. My perception of hunger is skewed. When most people feel satisfied, I remain hungry. When I allow myself to have sweets, for example, all it creates in me is a desire for more - even if my stomach is full to the point of distention. There is sacrifice and self-control involved - no way around it. I simply must retrain myself to value the ability to walk away (as opposed to roll away) from the table more than the satisfaction of continuing to eat. After three years, I can honestly say I am maybe 10% of the way through that retraining. I can feel satisfied at the end of a terribly small meal, which I couldn't when I started, but an hour later....
So, the question becomes, does my "philosopical" understanding that the lighter me is better than the fat me aid in this sacrifice? - and the answer is not a whit. the only thing that did it was the pain in my knees - I had to suffer. Philosophy is wonderful, but the church has a difficult call. That cannot be changed.
Related Tags: discipleship, happiness, sacrifice
Everyone, so Aristotle thought, agrees that in fact all human beings aim at some conception of eudaimonia as the ultimate objective of all their action. Differences in ethical views, according to Aristotle, arise because of what different people understand eudaimonia actually to consist in, e.g. pleasure, wealth, honors, or virtue. But they agree that eudaimonia is our chief aim.True enough; however, no amount of philosophy can overcome the fact the perceptively, Christian discipleship feels sacrificial. Thus to effectively build Christan disciples we must either alter perception, or demand sacrifice. In fact, I would argue that it is only through the perceived sacrifice that one's perception can be adequately altered to understand the true happiness available.
Here is the real problem though, the church has largely recognised that the general idea of happiness is what moves people, but rather than alter the perception of happiness, they pander to it. We ask people whose understanding of what happiness is is flawed what would make them happy and then give it to them. You want church where you are not asked to do anything? - Here you go! You want a church service you could watch on TV as easily as attend? - Here you go! You want church to keep you squarely in your comfort zone? - Here you go!
The point to all this is that there ought to be a "positive" way to sell discipleship, it is after all a positive. But my experience tells me that ultimately there is not. Let's consider this by analogy.
Regular readers know of my very significant weight loss of the last few years. the inevitable and perpetual question is, "How did you do it?" Most assume bariatric surgery of some sort, but nope - 1000-1500 calories a day, that's it, that's all. "Well aren't you hungry all the time?" comes the standard retort.
"EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY," is my standard reponse. My perception of hunger is skewed. When most people feel satisfied, I remain hungry. When I allow myself to have sweets, for example, all it creates in me is a desire for more - even if my stomach is full to the point of distention. There is sacrifice and self-control involved - no way around it. I simply must retrain myself to value the ability to walk away (as opposed to roll away) from the table more than the satisfaction of continuing to eat. After three years, I can honestly say I am maybe 10% of the way through that retraining. I can feel satisfied at the end of a terribly small meal, which I couldn't when I started, but an hour later....
So, the question becomes, does my "philosopical" understanding that the lighter me is better than the fat me aid in this sacrifice? - and the answer is not a whit. the only thing that did it was the pain in my knees - I had to suffer. Philosophy is wonderful, but the church has a difficult call. That cannot be changed.
Related Tags: discipleship, happiness, sacrifice
Illuminated Scripture
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Boy Howdy!
So, upon reflection, this is the best Lenten blog post I read. It's from John Mark Reynolds and it reviews Augustine and looks at transformation.
The point is so well taken. Have you ever noticed that you only complain about the cost of something when it is something you have to buy, but probably do not want? Cost is unimportant when the desire is strong enough, and so it is with the gospel. So why when the news is so good is the desire so low?
Could it be, as JMR says, "because we have not tasted enough of divine love?" I think so. The best way to make new Christians is to become better Christians ourselves. we have to show why it is "worth it."
Our vision is so narrow.
Related Tags: Augustine, John Mark Reynolds, transformation, gospel
So yes, becoming a Christian costs happiness and promises pain. We are not the religion of the Cross for nothing.Indeed, Christianity is a "hard sell." And so often we respond to this fact by selling only a part of the gospel, and yet in so doing we deny people the real benefits of the product.
[...]
Christianity promises long term happiness, but to obtain it requires giving up short-term joys. Now in a culture where almost nobody can even work up the discipline to save for their own retirement (where the benefit is obvious, fairly certain, and not that far off!) this is a hard sell.
[...]
Christianity, when it is really accepted, results in a change in the believer. The believer is “born again” and can begin to desire new things. The old quest for meaning and true happiness is fulfilled, at least in part, even in this life. The things he has to “give up” do not seem like “giving up” compared to what he has gained!
[...]
All our love must end in God. To love even the good things He has made creates an idol and causes love to stagnate far from its source. And yet many of us are afraid to give up our little, unsatisfying passions, because they are ours, seem certain, and are all we have.
[...]
We read of Holy Martyrs, Missionaries, and Ascetics and can only think how rigorous their lives were. We see only what they have lost and ignore what they claim they have gained. Is this because we have not tasted enough of divine love?
[...]
Compared to the joys of the martyrs and other great saints, no opposition matters. The temptation of respectability in this life seems hollow when we can gain the favor of the High King of Heaven. The endless attempt to find pleasure and rest in earthly things seem almost funny, when we see that loving God has given us a keener appreciation for the goods He returns to us in super-abundance. [emphasis added]
The point is so well taken. Have you ever noticed that you only complain about the cost of something when it is something you have to buy, but probably do not want? Cost is unimportant when the desire is strong enough, and so it is with the gospel. So why when the news is so good is the desire so low?
Could it be, as JMR says, "because we have not tasted enough of divine love?" I think so. The best way to make new Christians is to become better Christians ourselves. we have to show why it is "worth it."
Our vision is so narrow.
Related Tags: Augustine, John Mark Reynolds, transformation, gospel
Do I Spend Too Much Time Reading Links?
Hmmmm....
This takes me back to the earliest days of word processing.
This makes me wish I had more spare time.
Giddyup you furry little critter.
Use the force, call me.
There are perks and then THERE ARE PERKS.
Oh baby, where were you when I remodelled?
I wonder if Eric Clapton sued?
You know you have always wondered.
We need more alliteration!
Well, Wisconsin is the home of American socialism.... BTW, such restrictions are what acocunt for the demise of full-service fuel sales and the rise of convenience stores with gas stations - they have to make money somehow.
Now I can have all the superhero statues I want!
I should hope so.
Litigation with which I have some sympathy.
Related Tags: joke, humor, wisecrack, sarcasm
This takes me back to the earliest days of word processing.
This makes me wish I had more spare time.
Giddyup you furry little critter.
Use the force, call me.
There are perks and then THERE ARE PERKS.
Oh baby, where were you when I remodelled?
I wonder if Eric Clapton sued?
You know you have always wondered.
We need more alliteration!
Well, Wisconsin is the home of American socialism.... BTW, such restrictions are what acocunt for the demise of full-service fuel sales and the rise of convenience stores with gas stations - they have to make money somehow.
Now I can have all the superhero statues I want!
I should hope so.
Litigation with which I have some sympathy.
Related Tags: joke, humor, wisecrack, sarcasm
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Narnia Easter
Holidays are funny things to me. Too often instead of celebrating the important, they are the ONLY TIME we think about the really important. So, though Easter was a month ago, I think this post from Common Grounds Online looking at some of the Easter lessons in the Narnia books is worth a look right now.
Confession time, I love my God/King, but am most uncomfortable with the idea of myself in such a position, even as an "underKing." Some of that is my Americanism, some of it is my absolute lostness in sin, and a bunch of it I just cannot put my finger on.
But one thing is certain, what God created us to be, what He is making us into, is something much larger, much purer, much better than our conception allows. Whether it is royalty or superheroes, we are so stuck in the here-and-now, that I think the then is beyond our comprehension.
I think we set our sights too low too often. We struggle so hard to just make the immediate decent that we forget altogether the promise that the then will be glorious. When we do try to focus on the then, we let its outlines be defined by the now.
In the end we must focus on God and God alone, for only of Him, through Christ, can we have any decent vision of what the future portends for us. That and the solid promise that it will be far more glorious than I can possibly understand.
Related Tags: future, king, Narnia, Lewis, Perelandra
For it isn’t just in Narnia that all is not right until a human being sits on the throne. This is true of our world too. This is the picture in Genesis 1 where our creation as the “image of God” seems best understood as the way in which humans reflect God’s rulership into the world. This is the picture in Psalm 8 where the psalmist marvels at the royal position granted human beings by God. This is the point the Davidic kingship was supposed to make, even as the reality often made a mockery of the ideal. Eventually Israel’s prophets spoke of a true human king—an anointed one, a messiah—who would rule and reign wisely and well, at whose advent “the evil time [would] be over and done.”The kingship of humanity is a theme well developed in Lewis, best formulated, I think, in Perelandra. It is also a theme that I think Brits understand much better than we Americans, becssue well, we gave all that royal stuff up a while ago.
And this is where the resurrection comes in, the fulfillment of such prophecies. In the biblical way of looking at things, it is at the resurrection of Jesus that humans finally come into their own. Indeed, for the first time in the history of the universe, a human being is sitting on the throne. The empty, abdicated throne of Adam is now finally filled by the Greater Adam, the one ruling as the human representative of God in the way God always intended. And what’s more—here’s the astounding good news—Jesus, our human king, invites us to rule and reign with him. It turns out that the children’s destiny in Narnia is anything but arbitrary; it is the Narnian expression of our Christian hope.
Confession time, I love my God/King, but am most uncomfortable with the idea of myself in such a position, even as an "underKing." Some of that is my Americanism, some of it is my absolute lostness in sin, and a bunch of it I just cannot put my finger on.
But one thing is certain, what God created us to be, what He is making us into, is something much larger, much purer, much better than our conception allows. Whether it is royalty or superheroes, we are so stuck in the here-and-now, that I think the then is beyond our comprehension.
I think we set our sights too low too often. We struggle so hard to just make the immediate decent that we forget altogether the promise that the then will be glorious. When we do try to focus on the then, we let its outlines be defined by the now.
In the end we must focus on God and God alone, for only of Him, through Christ, can we have any decent vision of what the future portends for us. That and the solid promise that it will be far more glorious than I can possibly understand.
Related Tags: future, king, Narnia, Lewis, Perelandra
T. Link Hooker
Fascinating, Captain! Which is why you may want to shove this graph in the face of your next environmental doomsayer.
So what would happen if one was exposed to radiation? A "B" movie I'm thinking.
Gil Grissom lives!
People need a life.
Class. NOT!
Still musta been a slow news day.
Dare to be stupid.
Proof of original sin?
Amazing science and a new expletive - "Oh, Lizard Spit!"
It is hard to steer when you are that fat. I should know!
Related Tags: global warming, joke, humor, sarcasm, bizarre, wisecrack
So what would happen if one was exposed to radiation? A "B" movie I'm thinking.
Gil Grissom lives!
People need a life.
Class. NOT!
Still musta been a slow news day.
Dare to be stupid.
Proof of original sin?
Amazing science and a new expletive - "Oh, Lizard Spit!"
It is hard to steer when you are that fat. I should know!
Related Tags: global warming, joke, humor, sarcasm, bizarre, wisecrack
Kitty Kartoons
Monday, May 07, 2007
Survival
Justin Taylor linked to a short meditation at Desiring God that may be one of the best things I have EVER read.
Christ is not our model, not our example, HE IS OUR GUIDE - we must follow Him down the path He has taken, and that path leads to death. The good news is that like Issac, a substitute sacrifice will appear. But if we do not go all the way, if we do not lay ourselves on the altar, we will never discover that substitute. WE WILL NEVER BE FREE.
God does not let us take this for granted. Too often we think we know the substitute will be there so we don't even bother to walk out and build the altar. But then we are never really saved either.
If we do not risk it all, we can not get it all.
Related Tags: survival, sacrifice, salvation, substitute, faith
If we make survival the chief goal, we very often can survive, but what do we become in the process? To survive we pay the price of bondage. But if we can settle the issue of survival, we are truly free. Survival wasn’t the issue for Jesus. Jesus was willing to die, hence no one could make him do anything that would compromise his integrity or mission.Two scriptures immediately popped into my head:
Matt 16:25 - For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it.We are called to follow Christ - all the way to the cross - all the way into death.
Gal 2:20a - I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live...
Christ is not our model, not our example, HE IS OUR GUIDE - we must follow Him down the path He has taken, and that path leads to death. The good news is that like Issac, a substitute sacrifice will appear. But if we do not go all the way, if we do not lay ourselves on the altar, we will never discover that substitute. WE WILL NEVER BE FREE.
God does not let us take this for granted. Too often we think we know the substitute will be there so we don't even bother to walk out and build the altar. But then we are never really saved either.
If we do not risk it all, we can not get it all.
Related Tags: survival, sacrifice, salvation, substitute, faith
Link-De-Dink-Dink (Think Dragnet)
BHT spent the better part of the weekend discussing Brian Beckwith's (President of the Evangelical Theology Society)reconversion to Roman Catholicism. All I an say is way too many of us confuse our church institution and theology with our Lord. It makes me very sad.
OK, I thought this kind of stuff had been totally discredited a couple of decades ago. (HT: Holy Coast) But apparently, some of his buddies are willing to take it a step further, declaring children 'bad for the planet.' Isn't this where ideas about master races and genocides get started?
SALUTE!
Well, given the movie box office over the weekend, are we surprised?
Suing over the perfect job. Go figure.
Why didn't I think of that?
Linked because my inner-geek demands it.
Related Tags: church, theology, population, environment, A.J. Foyt, joke, humor, sarcasm, wisecrack
OK, I thought this kind of stuff had been totally discredited a couple of decades ago. (HT: Holy Coast) But apparently, some of his buddies are willing to take it a step further, declaring children 'bad for the planet.' Isn't this where ideas about master races and genocides get started?
SALUTE!
Well, given the movie box office over the weekend, are we surprised?
Suing over the perfect job. Go figure.
Why didn't I think of that?
Linked because my inner-geek demands it.
Related Tags: church, theology, population, environment, A.J. Foyt, joke, humor, sarcasm, wisecrack
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Spidey 3 Links
The movie was, frankly, better than expected, but still not that good. It was the superhero equivalent of the space opera. Melodrama substituing for genuine drama; stick figures for characters. Now that is not all bad, I think much in comics now is too deep and not enough fun, but the melodrama centered on the love relationships instead of the action, that's the genuine big oops in this film. But they are making money hand-over-fist. Maybe IV will settle down? And believe me with this kind of cash involved, there will be a IV.
The single and extraordinary highlight of the entire film was Stan Lee's actually getting a line for his cameo in this film and that line was: "'Nuff Said" I applauded, and the crowd of 15 and under looked at me like I was from another planet. Their loss.
Why they hate us? Talk about majoring in the minors....
YES!
Could this spell the end of this? Let's hope not!
Given the events of yesterday, this may not be wholly appropriate, but I have an absolute fascination with this kind of stuff. (HT: Instapundit) I guess it comes from psending my elementary school years in Amarillo, TX. Anyway, Enjoy:
Related Tags: Spider-man 3, tornadoes, MST3K
The single and extraordinary highlight of the entire film was Stan Lee's actually getting a line for his cameo in this film and that line was: "'Nuff Said" I applauded, and the crowd of 15 and under looked at me like I was from another planet. Their loss.
Why they hate us? Talk about majoring in the minors....
YES!
Could this spell the end of this? Let's hope not!
Given the events of yesterday, this may not be wholly appropriate, but I have an absolute fascination with this kind of stuff. (HT: Instapundit) I guess it comes from psending my elementary school years in Amarillo, TX. Anyway, Enjoy:
Related Tags: Spider-man 3, tornadoes, MST3K
Sermons and Lessons
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Henry Parry Liddon was born at North Stoneham, Hampshire, in 1829. His intellectual power and fearless and earnest preaching attracted immense congregations to St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. He sought to meet the speculative fallacies of his day by truth clearly and boldly proclaimed. Probably his greatest fault in delivery was that he tied himself slavishly to a manuscript in all his preaching. There was a force and intensity to his delivery, however, that often projected his words towards his bearers like great projectiles across a battlefield. Dr. Arthur S. Hoyt recommends him for study in these words: “Canon Liddon brings the riches of exegesis and theology and philosophy to the pulpit, and gives to the sermon the distinction of his refined and spiritual personality.” He died in 1890.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. - St. John 3:8.
Who has not felt the contrast, the almost tragic contrast, between the high station of the Jewish doctor, member of the Sanhedrin, master in Israel, and the ignorance of elementary religious truth, as we Christians must deem it, which he displayed in this interview with our blest Lord? At first sight it seems difficult to un¬derstand how our Lord could have used the simile in the text when conversing with an educated and thoughtful man, well conversed in the history and literature of God’s ancient people; and, indeed, a negative criticism has availed itself of this and of some other fea¬tures in the narrative, in the interest of the theory that Nicodemus was only a fictitious type of the higher classes in Jewish society, as they were pictured to itself by the imagination of the fourth Evangelist. Such a supposition, opposed to external facts and to all internal probabilities, would hardly have been entertained, if the critical ingenuity of its author had been seconded by any spiritual experience. Nicodemus is very far from being a caricature; and our Lord’s method here, as elsewhere, is to lead on from familiar phrases and the well-remembered letter to the spirit and realities of religion. The Jewish schools were acquainted with the expression “a new creature”; but it had long since become a mere shred of official rhetoric. As applied to a Jewish proselyte, it scarcely meant more than a change in the outward relations of religious life. Our Lord told Nicodemus that every man who would see the kingdom of God which He was founding must undergo a second birth; and Nicodemus, who had been accustomed to the phrase all his life, could not understand it if it was to be supposed to mean anything real. “How,” he asks, “can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?” Our Lord does not extricate him from this blundering literalism; He repeats His own original assertion, but in terms which more fully express His meaning: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” Our Lord’s reference to water would not have been unintelligible to Nicodemus; every one in Judea knew that the Baptist had insisted on immersion in water as a symbol of the puri¬fication of the soul of man. Certainly, in connecting “water” with the Spirit and the new birth, our Lord’s language, glancing at that of the prophet, went very far beyond this. He could only be fully understood at a later time, when the sacrament of baptism had been instituted, just as the true sense of His early allusions to His death could not have been apprehended until after the crucifixion. But Nicodemus, it is plain, had not yet advanced beyond his original difficulty; he could not conceive how any second birth was possible, without altogether violating the course of na¬ture. And our Lord penetrates His thoughts and answers them. He answers them by pointing to that invisible agent who could achieve, in the sphere of spiritual and mental life, what the Jewish doctor deemed so impossible a feat as a second birth. Nature, indeed, contained no force that could compass such, a result; but nature in this, as in other matters, was a shadow of something beyond itself.
It was late at night when our Lord had this interview with the Jewish teacher. At the pauses in conversation, we may conjecture, they heard the wind without as it moaned along the narrow streets of Jerusalem; and our Lord, as was His wont, took His creature into His service - the service of spiritual truth. The wind was a figure of the Spirit. Our Lord would not have used the same word for both. The wind might teach Nicodemus something of the action of Him who is the real Author of the new birth of man. And it would do this in two ways more especially.
On a first survey of nature, the wind arrests man‘s attention, as an unseen agent which seems to be moving with entire freedom. “The wind bloweth where it listeth.” It is fettered by none of those conditions which confine the swiftest bodies that traverse the surface of the earth; it sweeps on as if independent of law, rushing hither and thither, as the obeying its own wayward and momentary impulse. Thus it is an apt figure of a self-determining invisible force; and of a force which is at times of overmastering power. Sometimes, indeed, its breath is so gentle, that only a single leaf or blade of grass will at distant intervals seem to give the faintest token of its action; yet, even thus, it “bloweth where it listeth.” Sometimes it bursts upon the earth with destructive violence; nothing can resist its onslaught; the most solid buildings give way; the stoutest trees bend before it; whatever is frail and delicate can only escape by the completeness of its submission. Thus, too, it “bloweth where it listeth” Beyond anything else that strikes upon the senses of man, it is suggestive of free supersensuous power; it is an appropriate symbol of an irruption of the invisible into the world of sense, of the action, so tender or so imperious, of the divine and eternal Spirit upon the human soul.
But the wind is also an agent about whose proceedings we really know almost nothing. “Thou hearest the sound thereof”; such is our Lord‘s concession to man‘s claim to knowledge. “Thou canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth”; such is the reserve which He makes in respect of human ignorance. Certainly we do more than hear the sound of the wind; its presence is obvious to three of the senses. We feel the chill or the fury of the blast; and, as it sweeps across the ocean, or the forest, or the field of corn, we see how the blades rise and fall in graceful curves, and the trees bend, and the waters sink and swell into waves which are the measure of its strength. But our Lord says, “Thou hearest the sound thereof.” He would have us test it by the most spiritual of the senses. It whispers, or it moans, or it roars as it passes us; it has a pathos all its own. Yet what do we really know about it? “Thou canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.” Does the wind then obey no rule; is it a mere symbol of unfettered caprice? Surely not. If, as the psalmist sings, “God bringeth the winds out of his treasuries,” lie acts, we may be sure, here as always, ‘whether in nature or in grace, by some law, which his own perfections impose upon His action. He may have given to us of these later times to see a very little deeper beneath the surface of the natural world than was the case with our fathers. Perchance we explain the immediate antecedents of the phenomenon; but can we explain our own explanation? The frontier of our ignorance is removed one stage farther back; but “the way of the wind” is as fitting an expression for the mysteries now as it was in the days of Solomon. We know that there is no cave of Aeolus. We know that the wind is the creature of that great Master who works everywhere and incessantly by rule. But, as the wind still sweeps by us who call ourselves the children of an age of knowledge, and we endeavor to give our fullest answer to the question, “Whence it cometh, and whither it goeth?” we discover that, as the symbol of a spiritual force, of whose presence we are conscious, while we are unable to determine, with moderate confidence, either the secret principle or the range of its action, the wind is as full of meaning still as in the days of Nicodemus.
When our Lord has thus pointed to the free¬dom and the mysteriousness of the wind, He adds, “So is every one that is born of the Spirit.” The simile itself would have led us to expect - ”So is the Spirit of God.” The man born of the Spirit would answer not to the wind itself, but to the sensible effect of the wind. There is a break of correspondence between the simile and its application. The simile directs attention to the divine Author of the new birth in man. The words which follow direct attention to the human subject upon whom the divine agent works. Something similar is observable when our Lord compares the kingdom of heaven to a merchantman seeking goodly pearls; the kingdom really corresponds not to the merchantman, but to the pearl of great price which the merchantman buys. In such cases, we may be sure, the natural correspondence between a simile and its appli¬cation is not disturbed without a motive. And the reason for this disturbance is presumably that the simile is not adequate to the full purpose of the speaker, who is anxious to teach some larger truth than its obvious application would suggest. In the case before us, we may be allowed to suppose, that by His reference to the wind our Lord desired to convey something more than the real but mysterious agency of the Holy Spirit in the new birth of man. His language seems designed, not merely to correct the materialistic narrowness of the Jewish doctor, not merely to answer by anticipation the doubts of later days as to the spiritual efficacy of His own sacrament of regeneration, but to picture, in words which should be read to the end of time, the general work of that divine person whose mission of mercy to our race was at once the consequence and the completion of His own.
It may be useful to trace the import of our Lord’s simile in three fields of the action of the holy and eternal Spirit; His creation of a. sacred literature, His guidance of a divine society, and His work upon individual souls.
I. As, then, we turn over the pages of the Bible, must we not say, “The wind of heaven bloweth where it listeth”? If we might reverently imagine ourselves scheming beforehand what kind of a book the Book of God ought to be, how different would it be from the actual Bible. There would be as many bibles as there are souls, and they would differ as widely. But in one thing, amid all their differences, they would probably agree; they would lack the variety, both in form and substance, of the holy Book which the Church of God places in the hands of her children. The self-assertion, the skepticism, and the fastidiousness of our day would meet like the men of the second Roman triumvirate on that island in the Reno, and would draw up their lists of proscription. One would condemn the poetry of Scripture as too inexact; another its history as too largely secular; another its metaphysics as too transcendental, or as hostile to some fanciful ideal of “simplicity,” or as likely to quench a purely moral enthusiasm. The archaic history of the Pentateuch, or the sterner side of the ethics of the psalter, or the supernaturalism of the histories of Elijah or of Daniel, or the so-called pessimism of Ecclesiastes, or the alleged secularism of Esther, or the literal import of the Song of Solomon, would be in turn condemned. Nor could the apostles hope to escape: St. John would be too mystical in this estimate; St. James too legal in that; St. Paul too dialectical, or too metaphysical, or too easily capable of an antinomian interpretation; St. Peter too undecided, as if balancing between St. Paul and St. James. Our new Bible would probably be uniform, narrow, symmetrical; it would be entirely made up of poetry, or of history, or of formal propositions, or of philosophical speculation, or of lists of moral maxims; it would be modeled after the type of some current writer on English history, or some popular poet or metaphysician, or some sentimentalist who abjures history and philosophy alike on principle, or some composer of well-intentioned religions tracts for general circulation. The inspirations of heaven would be taken in hand, and instead of a wind blowing where it listeth, we should have a wind, no doubt, of some kind, rustling earnestly enough along some very narrow crevices or channels, in obedience to the directions of some one form of human prejudice, or passion, or fear, or hope.
The Bible is like nature in its immense, its exhaustless variety; like nature, it reflects all the higher moods of the human soul, because it does much more; because it brings us face to face with the infinity of the divine life. In the Bible the wind of heaven pays scant heed to our anticipations or our prejudices; it “bloweth where it listeth.” It breathes not only in the divine charities of the gospels, not only in the lyrical sallies of the epistles, not only in the great announcements scattered here and there in Holy Scripture of the magnificence, or the compassion, or the benevo¬lence of God; but also in the stern language of the prophets, in the warnings and lessons of the historical books, in the revelations of divine justice and of human responsibility which abound in either Testament. “Where it listeth.” Not only where our sense of literary beauty is stimulated, as in St. Paul’s picture of charity, by lines which have taken captive the imagination of the world, not only where feeling and conscience echo the verdict of authority and the promptings of reverence, but also where this is not the case; where neither precept nor example stimulates us, and we are left face to face with historical or ethical material, which appears to us to inspire no spiritual enthusiasm, or which is highly suggestive of critical difficulty. Let us be patient; we shall understand, if we will only wait, how these features of the Bible too are integral parts of a living whole; here, as elsewhere, the Spirit breathes; in the genealogies of the Chronicles as in the last discourse in St. John, though with an admitted difference of manner and degree. He “bloweth where He listeth.” The apostle’s words respecting the Old Testament are true of the New: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” And,” Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”
“But thou hearest the sound thereof, and canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.” The majesty of Scripture is recognized by man, wherever there is, I will not say a spiritual faculty, but a natural sense of beauty. The “sound” of the wind is perceived by the trained ear, by the literary taste, by the refinement, by the humanity of every generation of educated men. But what beyond? What of its spiritual source, its spiritual drift and purpose, its half-concealed but profound unities, its subtle but imperious relations to conscience? Of these things, se precious to Christians, a purely literary appreciation of Scripture is generally ignorant; the sacred Book, like the prophet of the Chebar, is only “as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument.” Or again, the “sound thereof” is heard in the admitted empire of the Bible over millions of hearts and consciences; an empire the evidences of which strike upon the ear in countless ways, and which is far too wide and too secure to be affected by the criticisms that might occasionally seem to threaten it. What is the secret of this influence of Scripture? Not simply that it is the Book of Revelation; since it contains a great deal of matter which lay fairly within the reach of man ‘s natural faculties. The Word or eternal Reason of God is the Revealer; but Scripture, whether it is a record of divine revelations or of naturally observed facts, is, in the belief of the Christian Church, throughout “inspired” by the Spirit. Inspiration is the word which describes the pres¬ence and action of the Holy Spirit everywhere in Scripture. We know not how our own spirits, hour by hour, are acted upon by the eternal Spirit, though we do not question the fact; we content ourselves with recognizing what we can not explain. If we believe that Scripture is inspired, we know that it is instinct with the presence of Him whose voice we might hear in every utterance, but of whom we cannot tell whence He cometh or whither He goeth.
II. The history of, the Church of Christ from the days of the apostles has been a his¬tory of spiritual movements. Doubtless it has been a history of much else; the Church has been the scene of human passions, human speculations, human errors. But traversing these, He by whom the whole body of the Church is governed and sanctified, has made His presence felt, not only in the perpetual proclamation and elucidation of truth, not only in the silent, never-ceasing sanctification of souls, but also in great upheavals of spiritual life, by which the conscience of Christians has been quickened, or their hold upon the truths of redemption and grace made more intelligent and serious, or their lives and practice restored to something like the ideal of the Gospels. Even in the apostolic age it was necessary to warn Christians that it was high time to awake out of sleep; that the night of life was far spent, and the day of eternity was at hand. And ever since, from generation to generation, there has been a succession of efforts within the Church to realize more worthily the truth of the Christian creed, or the ideal of the Christian life. These revivals have been inspired or led by devoted men who have represented the highest conscience of Christendom in their day. They may be traced along the line of Christian history; the Spirit living in the Church has by them attested His presence and His will; and has recalled lukewarm generations, paralyzed by indifference or degraded by indulgence, to the true spirit and level of Christian faith and life.
In such movements there is often what seems, at first sight, an element of caprice. They appear to contemporaries to be one-sided, exaggerated, narrow, fanatical. They are often denounced with a passionate fervor which is so out of proportion to the reality as to border on the grotesque. They are said to exact too much of us, or to concede too much. They are too contemplative in their tendency to be sufficiently practical, or too energetically practical to do justice to religious thought. They are too exclusively literary and academic, as being the work of men of books; or they are too popular and insensible to philosophical considerations, as being the work of men of the people. Or, again, they are so occupied with controversy as to forget the claims of devotion, or so engaged in leading souls to a devout life as to forget the un¬welcome but real necessities of controversy. They are intent on particular moral improvements so exclusively as to forget what is due to reverence and order; or they are so bent upon rescuing the Church from chronic slovenliness and indecency in public worship as to do less than justice to the paramount interests of moral truth. Sometimes these movements are all feeling; sometimes they are all thought; sometimes they are, as it seems, all outward energy. In one age they produce a literature like that of the fourth and fifth centuries; in another they found orders of men devoted to preaching or to works of mercy, as in the twelfth; in another they enter the lists, as in the thirteenth century, with a hostile philosophy; in another they attempt a much-needed reformation of the Church; in another they pour upon the heathen world a flood of light and warmth from the heart of Christendom. It is easy, as we survey them, to say that something else was needed; or that what was done could have been done better or more completely; or that, had we been there, we should not have been guilty of this onesidedness, or of that exaggeration. We forget, perhaps, who really was there, and whose work it is, though often overlaid and thwarted by human weakness and human passion, that we are really criticizing. If it was seemingly onesided, excessive or defective, impulsive or sluggish, speculative or practical, esthetic or experimental, may not this have been so because in His judgment, who breatheth where He listeth, this particular characteristic was needed for the Church of that day? All that contemporaries know of such movements is “the sound thereof”; the names with which they are associated, the controversies which they precipitate, the hostilities which they rouse or allay, as the case may be. Such knowledge is superficial enough; of the profound spiritual causes which really engender them, of the direction in which they are really moving, of the influence which they are destined permanently to exert upon souls, men know little or nothing. The accidental symptom is mistaken for the essential characteristic; the momentary expression of feeling for the inalienable conviction of certain truth. The day may come, perhaps, when more will be known; when practice and motive, accident and substance, the lasting and the transient, will be seen in their true relative proportions; but for the time this can hardly be. He is passing by, whose way is in the sea, and His paths in the deep waters, and His footsteps unknown. The Eternal Spirit is passing; and men can only say, “He bloweth where He listeth.”
III. Our Lord’s words apply especially to Christian character. There are some effects of the living power of the Holy Spirit which are invariable. When He dwells with a Christian soul, He continually speaks in the voice of conscience; He speaks in the voice of prayer. He produces with the ease of a natural process, without effort, without the taint of self-consciousness, “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” Some of these graces must be found where He makes His home. There is no mistaking the atmosphere of His presence: in its main features it is the same now as in the days of the apostles. Just as in natural morality the main elements of “goodness” do not change; so in religious life, spirituality is, amid great varieties of detail, yet, in its leading constituent features, the same thing from one generation to another. But in the life of the individual Christian, or in that of the Church, there is legitimate room for irregular and exceptional forms of activity or excellence. Natural society is not strengthened by the stern repression of all that is peculiar in individual thought or practice; and this is not less true of spiritual, or religious society. From the first, high forms of Christian , excellence have often been associated with unconscious eccentricity. The eccentricity must be unconscious, because con¬sciousness of eccentricity at once reduces it to a form of vanity which is entirely inconsistent with Christian excellence. How many excellent Christians have been eccentric, deviating more or less from the conventional type of goodness which has been recognized by contemporary religious opinion. They pass away, and when they are gone men do justice to their characters; but while they are still with us bow hard do many of us find it to remember that there may be a higher reason for their peculiarities than we think. We know not the full purpose of each saintly life in the designs of Providence; we know not much of the depths and heights whence it draws its inspirations; we can not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. Only we know that He whose workmanship it is bloweth where He listeth; and this naturally leads us to remark the practical interpretation which the Holy Spirit often puts upon our Lord’s words by selecting as His chosen workmen those who seem to be least fitted by nature for such high service. The apostle has told us how in the first age He set Himself to defeat human anticipations. “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called”; learned academies, powerful connections, gentle blood did little enough for the gospel in the days when it won its first and greatest victories. The Holy Spirit, as Nicodemus knew, passed by the varied learning and high station of the Sanhedrin, and breathed where He listed on the peasants of Galilee; He breathed on them a power which would shake the world. And thus has it been again and again in the generations which have followed. When the great Aquinas was a student of philosophy under Albertus Magnus at Cologne, he was known among his contemporaries as “the dumb Ox”; so little did they divine what was to be his place in the theology of Western Christendom. And to those of us who can look back upon the memories of this University for a quarter of a cen¬tury or more, few things appear more remarkable than the surprizes which the later lives of men constantly afford; sometimes it is a failure of early natural promise, but more often a rich development of intellectual and practical capacity where there bad seemed to be no promise at all. We can remember, perhaps, some dull quiet man who seemed to be without a ray of genius, or, stranger still, without anything interesting or marked in character, but who now exerts, and most legitimately, the widest influence for good, and whose name is repeated by thousands with grateful respect. Or we can call to mind another whose whole mind was given to what was frivolous, or even degrading, and who now is a leader in everything that elevates and improves his fellows. The secret of these transfigurations is ever the same. In those days these men did not yet see their way; they were like travelers through the woods at night, when the sky is hidden and all things seem to be other than they are.
Since then the sun has risen and all has changed. The creed of the Church of Christ, in its beauty and its power, has been flashed by the Divine Spirit upon their hearts and understandings; and they are other men. They have seen that there is something worth living for in earnest; that God, the soul, the future, are immense realities, compared with which all else is tame and insignificant. They have learned something of that personal love of our crucified Lord, which is itself a moral and religious force of the highest order, and which has carried them forwards without their knowing it. And what has been will assuredly repeat itself.
Related Tags: sermon, lesson, Henry Parry Liddon
Henry Parry Liddon was born at North Stoneham, Hampshire, in 1829. His intellectual power and fearless and earnest preaching attracted immense congregations to St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. He sought to meet the speculative fallacies of his day by truth clearly and boldly proclaimed. Probably his greatest fault in delivery was that he tied himself slavishly to a manuscript in all his preaching. There was a force and intensity to his delivery, however, that often projected his words towards his bearers like great projectiles across a battlefield. Dr. Arthur S. Hoyt recommends him for study in these words: “Canon Liddon brings the riches of exegesis and theology and philosophy to the pulpit, and gives to the sermon the distinction of his refined and spiritual personality.” He died in 1890.
INFLUENCES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. - St. John 3:8.
Who has not felt the contrast, the almost tragic contrast, between the high station of the Jewish doctor, member of the Sanhedrin, master in Israel, and the ignorance of elementary religious truth, as we Christians must deem it, which he displayed in this interview with our blest Lord? At first sight it seems difficult to un¬derstand how our Lord could have used the simile in the text when conversing with an educated and thoughtful man, well conversed in the history and literature of God’s ancient people; and, indeed, a negative criticism has availed itself of this and of some other fea¬tures in the narrative, in the interest of the theory that Nicodemus was only a fictitious type of the higher classes in Jewish society, as they were pictured to itself by the imagination of the fourth Evangelist. Such a supposition, opposed to external facts and to all internal probabilities, would hardly have been entertained, if the critical ingenuity of its author had been seconded by any spiritual experience. Nicodemus is very far from being a caricature; and our Lord’s method here, as elsewhere, is to lead on from familiar phrases and the well-remembered letter to the spirit and realities of religion. The Jewish schools were acquainted with the expression “a new creature”; but it had long since become a mere shred of official rhetoric. As applied to a Jewish proselyte, it scarcely meant more than a change in the outward relations of religious life. Our Lord told Nicodemus that every man who would see the kingdom of God which He was founding must undergo a second birth; and Nicodemus, who had been accustomed to the phrase all his life, could not understand it if it was to be supposed to mean anything real. “How,” he asks, “can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?” Our Lord does not extricate him from this blundering literalism; He repeats His own original assertion, but in terms which more fully express His meaning: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” Our Lord’s reference to water would not have been unintelligible to Nicodemus; every one in Judea knew that the Baptist had insisted on immersion in water as a symbol of the puri¬fication of the soul of man. Certainly, in connecting “water” with the Spirit and the new birth, our Lord’s language, glancing at that of the prophet, went very far beyond this. He could only be fully understood at a later time, when the sacrament of baptism had been instituted, just as the true sense of His early allusions to His death could not have been apprehended until after the crucifixion. But Nicodemus, it is plain, had not yet advanced beyond his original difficulty; he could not conceive how any second birth was possible, without altogether violating the course of na¬ture. And our Lord penetrates His thoughts and answers them. He answers them by pointing to that invisible agent who could achieve, in the sphere of spiritual and mental life, what the Jewish doctor deemed so impossible a feat as a second birth. Nature, indeed, contained no force that could compass such, a result; but nature in this, as in other matters, was a shadow of something beyond itself.
It was late at night when our Lord had this interview with the Jewish teacher. At the pauses in conversation, we may conjecture, they heard the wind without as it moaned along the narrow streets of Jerusalem; and our Lord, as was His wont, took His creature into His service - the service of spiritual truth. The wind was a figure of the Spirit. Our Lord would not have used the same word for both. The wind might teach Nicodemus something of the action of Him who is the real Author of the new birth of man. And it would do this in two ways more especially.
On a first survey of nature, the wind arrests man‘s attention, as an unseen agent which seems to be moving with entire freedom. “The wind bloweth where it listeth.” It is fettered by none of those conditions which confine the swiftest bodies that traverse the surface of the earth; it sweeps on as if independent of law, rushing hither and thither, as the obeying its own wayward and momentary impulse. Thus it is an apt figure of a self-determining invisible force; and of a force which is at times of overmastering power. Sometimes, indeed, its breath is so gentle, that only a single leaf or blade of grass will at distant intervals seem to give the faintest token of its action; yet, even thus, it “bloweth where it listeth.” Sometimes it bursts upon the earth with destructive violence; nothing can resist its onslaught; the most solid buildings give way; the stoutest trees bend before it; whatever is frail and delicate can only escape by the completeness of its submission. Thus, too, it “bloweth where it listeth” Beyond anything else that strikes upon the senses of man, it is suggestive of free supersensuous power; it is an appropriate symbol of an irruption of the invisible into the world of sense, of the action, so tender or so imperious, of the divine and eternal Spirit upon the human soul.
But the wind is also an agent about whose proceedings we really know almost nothing. “Thou hearest the sound thereof”; such is our Lord‘s concession to man‘s claim to knowledge. “Thou canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth”; such is the reserve which He makes in respect of human ignorance. Certainly we do more than hear the sound of the wind; its presence is obvious to three of the senses. We feel the chill or the fury of the blast; and, as it sweeps across the ocean, or the forest, or the field of corn, we see how the blades rise and fall in graceful curves, and the trees bend, and the waters sink and swell into waves which are the measure of its strength. But our Lord says, “Thou hearest the sound thereof.” He would have us test it by the most spiritual of the senses. It whispers, or it moans, or it roars as it passes us; it has a pathos all its own. Yet what do we really know about it? “Thou canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.” Does the wind then obey no rule; is it a mere symbol of unfettered caprice? Surely not. If, as the psalmist sings, “God bringeth the winds out of his treasuries,” lie acts, we may be sure, here as always, ‘whether in nature or in grace, by some law, which his own perfections impose upon His action. He may have given to us of these later times to see a very little deeper beneath the surface of the natural world than was the case with our fathers. Perchance we explain the immediate antecedents of the phenomenon; but can we explain our own explanation? The frontier of our ignorance is removed one stage farther back; but “the way of the wind” is as fitting an expression for the mysteries now as it was in the days of Solomon. We know that there is no cave of Aeolus. We know that the wind is the creature of that great Master who works everywhere and incessantly by rule. But, as the wind still sweeps by us who call ourselves the children of an age of knowledge, and we endeavor to give our fullest answer to the question, “Whence it cometh, and whither it goeth?” we discover that, as the symbol of a spiritual force, of whose presence we are conscious, while we are unable to determine, with moderate confidence, either the secret principle or the range of its action, the wind is as full of meaning still as in the days of Nicodemus.
When our Lord has thus pointed to the free¬dom and the mysteriousness of the wind, He adds, “So is every one that is born of the Spirit.” The simile itself would have led us to expect - ”So is the Spirit of God.” The man born of the Spirit would answer not to the wind itself, but to the sensible effect of the wind. There is a break of correspondence between the simile and its application. The simile directs attention to the divine Author of the new birth in man. The words which follow direct attention to the human subject upon whom the divine agent works. Something similar is observable when our Lord compares the kingdom of heaven to a merchantman seeking goodly pearls; the kingdom really corresponds not to the merchantman, but to the pearl of great price which the merchantman buys. In such cases, we may be sure, the natural correspondence between a simile and its appli¬cation is not disturbed without a motive. And the reason for this disturbance is presumably that the simile is not adequate to the full purpose of the speaker, who is anxious to teach some larger truth than its obvious application would suggest. In the case before us, we may be allowed to suppose, that by His reference to the wind our Lord desired to convey something more than the real but mysterious agency of the Holy Spirit in the new birth of man. His language seems designed, not merely to correct the materialistic narrowness of the Jewish doctor, not merely to answer by anticipation the doubts of later days as to the spiritual efficacy of His own sacrament of regeneration, but to picture, in words which should be read to the end of time, the general work of that divine person whose mission of mercy to our race was at once the consequence and the completion of His own.
It may be useful to trace the import of our Lord’s simile in three fields of the action of the holy and eternal Spirit; His creation of a. sacred literature, His guidance of a divine society, and His work upon individual souls.
I. As, then, we turn over the pages of the Bible, must we not say, “The wind of heaven bloweth where it listeth”? If we might reverently imagine ourselves scheming beforehand what kind of a book the Book of God ought to be, how different would it be from the actual Bible. There would be as many bibles as there are souls, and they would differ as widely. But in one thing, amid all their differences, they would probably agree; they would lack the variety, both in form and substance, of the holy Book which the Church of God places in the hands of her children. The self-assertion, the skepticism, and the fastidiousness of our day would meet like the men of the second Roman triumvirate on that island in the Reno, and would draw up their lists of proscription. One would condemn the poetry of Scripture as too inexact; another its history as too largely secular; another its metaphysics as too transcendental, or as hostile to some fanciful ideal of “simplicity,” or as likely to quench a purely moral enthusiasm. The archaic history of the Pentateuch, or the sterner side of the ethics of the psalter, or the supernaturalism of the histories of Elijah or of Daniel, or the so-called pessimism of Ecclesiastes, or the alleged secularism of Esther, or the literal import of the Song of Solomon, would be in turn condemned. Nor could the apostles hope to escape: St. John would be too mystical in this estimate; St. James too legal in that; St. Paul too dialectical, or too metaphysical, or too easily capable of an antinomian interpretation; St. Peter too undecided, as if balancing between St. Paul and St. James. Our new Bible would probably be uniform, narrow, symmetrical; it would be entirely made up of poetry, or of history, or of formal propositions, or of philosophical speculation, or of lists of moral maxims; it would be modeled after the type of some current writer on English history, or some popular poet or metaphysician, or some sentimentalist who abjures history and philosophy alike on principle, or some composer of well-intentioned religions tracts for general circulation. The inspirations of heaven would be taken in hand, and instead of a wind blowing where it listeth, we should have a wind, no doubt, of some kind, rustling earnestly enough along some very narrow crevices or channels, in obedience to the directions of some one form of human prejudice, or passion, or fear, or hope.
The Bible is like nature in its immense, its exhaustless variety; like nature, it reflects all the higher moods of the human soul, because it does much more; because it brings us face to face with the infinity of the divine life. In the Bible the wind of heaven pays scant heed to our anticipations or our prejudices; it “bloweth where it listeth.” It breathes not only in the divine charities of the gospels, not only in the lyrical sallies of the epistles, not only in the great announcements scattered here and there in Holy Scripture of the magnificence, or the compassion, or the benevo¬lence of God; but also in the stern language of the prophets, in the warnings and lessons of the historical books, in the revelations of divine justice and of human responsibility which abound in either Testament. “Where it listeth.” Not only where our sense of literary beauty is stimulated, as in St. Paul’s picture of charity, by lines which have taken captive the imagination of the world, not only where feeling and conscience echo the verdict of authority and the promptings of reverence, but also where this is not the case; where neither precept nor example stimulates us, and we are left face to face with historical or ethical material, which appears to us to inspire no spiritual enthusiasm, or which is highly suggestive of critical difficulty. Let us be patient; we shall understand, if we will only wait, how these features of the Bible too are integral parts of a living whole; here, as elsewhere, the Spirit breathes; in the genealogies of the Chronicles as in the last discourse in St. John, though with an admitted difference of manner and degree. He “bloweth where He listeth.” The apostle’s words respecting the Old Testament are true of the New: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” And,” Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”
“But thou hearest the sound thereof, and canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.” The majesty of Scripture is recognized by man, wherever there is, I will not say a spiritual faculty, but a natural sense of beauty. The “sound” of the wind is perceived by the trained ear, by the literary taste, by the refinement, by the humanity of every generation of educated men. But what beyond? What of its spiritual source, its spiritual drift and purpose, its half-concealed but profound unities, its subtle but imperious relations to conscience? Of these things, se precious to Christians, a purely literary appreciation of Scripture is generally ignorant; the sacred Book, like the prophet of the Chebar, is only “as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument.” Or again, the “sound thereof” is heard in the admitted empire of the Bible over millions of hearts and consciences; an empire the evidences of which strike upon the ear in countless ways, and which is far too wide and too secure to be affected by the criticisms that might occasionally seem to threaten it. What is the secret of this influence of Scripture? Not simply that it is the Book of Revelation; since it contains a great deal of matter which lay fairly within the reach of man ‘s natural faculties. The Word or eternal Reason of God is the Revealer; but Scripture, whether it is a record of divine revelations or of naturally observed facts, is, in the belief of the Christian Church, throughout “inspired” by the Spirit. Inspiration is the word which describes the pres¬ence and action of the Holy Spirit everywhere in Scripture. We know not how our own spirits, hour by hour, are acted upon by the eternal Spirit, though we do not question the fact; we content ourselves with recognizing what we can not explain. If we believe that Scripture is inspired, we know that it is instinct with the presence of Him whose voice we might hear in every utterance, but of whom we cannot tell whence He cometh or whither He goeth.
II. The history of, the Church of Christ from the days of the apostles has been a his¬tory of spiritual movements. Doubtless it has been a history of much else; the Church has been the scene of human passions, human speculations, human errors. But traversing these, He by whom the whole body of the Church is governed and sanctified, has made His presence felt, not only in the perpetual proclamation and elucidation of truth, not only in the silent, never-ceasing sanctification of souls, but also in great upheavals of spiritual life, by which the conscience of Christians has been quickened, or their hold upon the truths of redemption and grace made more intelligent and serious, or their lives and practice restored to something like the ideal of the Gospels. Even in the apostolic age it was necessary to warn Christians that it was high time to awake out of sleep; that the night of life was far spent, and the day of eternity was at hand. And ever since, from generation to generation, there has been a succession of efforts within the Church to realize more worthily the truth of the Christian creed, or the ideal of the Christian life. These revivals have been inspired or led by devoted men who have represented the highest conscience of Christendom in their day. They may be traced along the line of Christian history; the Spirit living in the Church has by them attested His presence and His will; and has recalled lukewarm generations, paralyzed by indifference or degraded by indulgence, to the true spirit and level of Christian faith and life.
In such movements there is often what seems, at first sight, an element of caprice. They appear to contemporaries to be one-sided, exaggerated, narrow, fanatical. They are often denounced with a passionate fervor which is so out of proportion to the reality as to border on the grotesque. They are said to exact too much of us, or to concede too much. They are too contemplative in their tendency to be sufficiently practical, or too energetically practical to do justice to religious thought. They are too exclusively literary and academic, as being the work of men of books; or they are too popular and insensible to philosophical considerations, as being the work of men of the people. Or, again, they are so occupied with controversy as to forget the claims of devotion, or so engaged in leading souls to a devout life as to forget the un¬welcome but real necessities of controversy. They are intent on particular moral improvements so exclusively as to forget what is due to reverence and order; or they are so bent upon rescuing the Church from chronic slovenliness and indecency in public worship as to do less than justice to the paramount interests of moral truth. Sometimes these movements are all feeling; sometimes they are all thought; sometimes they are, as it seems, all outward energy. In one age they produce a literature like that of the fourth and fifth centuries; in another they found orders of men devoted to preaching or to works of mercy, as in the twelfth; in another they enter the lists, as in the thirteenth century, with a hostile philosophy; in another they attempt a much-needed reformation of the Church; in another they pour upon the heathen world a flood of light and warmth from the heart of Christendom. It is easy, as we survey them, to say that something else was needed; or that what was done could have been done better or more completely; or that, had we been there, we should not have been guilty of this onesidedness, or of that exaggeration. We forget, perhaps, who really was there, and whose work it is, though often overlaid and thwarted by human weakness and human passion, that we are really criticizing. If it was seemingly onesided, excessive or defective, impulsive or sluggish, speculative or practical, esthetic or experimental, may not this have been so because in His judgment, who breatheth where He listeth, this particular characteristic was needed for the Church of that day? All that contemporaries know of such movements is “the sound thereof”; the names with which they are associated, the controversies which they precipitate, the hostilities which they rouse or allay, as the case may be. Such knowledge is superficial enough; of the profound spiritual causes which really engender them, of the direction in which they are really moving, of the influence which they are destined permanently to exert upon souls, men know little or nothing. The accidental symptom is mistaken for the essential characteristic; the momentary expression of feeling for the inalienable conviction of certain truth. The day may come, perhaps, when more will be known; when practice and motive, accident and substance, the lasting and the transient, will be seen in their true relative proportions; but for the time this can hardly be. He is passing by, whose way is in the sea, and His paths in the deep waters, and His footsteps unknown. The Eternal Spirit is passing; and men can only say, “He bloweth where He listeth.”
III. Our Lord’s words apply especially to Christian character. There are some effects of the living power of the Holy Spirit which are invariable. When He dwells with a Christian soul, He continually speaks in the voice of conscience; He speaks in the voice of prayer. He produces with the ease of a natural process, without effort, without the taint of self-consciousness, “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” Some of these graces must be found where He makes His home. There is no mistaking the atmosphere of His presence: in its main features it is the same now as in the days of the apostles. Just as in natural morality the main elements of “goodness” do not change; so in religious life, spirituality is, amid great varieties of detail, yet, in its leading constituent features, the same thing from one generation to another. But in the life of the individual Christian, or in that of the Church, there is legitimate room for irregular and exceptional forms of activity or excellence. Natural society is not strengthened by the stern repression of all that is peculiar in individual thought or practice; and this is not less true of spiritual, or religious society. From the first, high forms of Christian , excellence have often been associated with unconscious eccentricity. The eccentricity must be unconscious, because con¬sciousness of eccentricity at once reduces it to a form of vanity which is entirely inconsistent with Christian excellence. How many excellent Christians have been eccentric, deviating more or less from the conventional type of goodness which has been recognized by contemporary religious opinion. They pass away, and when they are gone men do justice to their characters; but while they are still with us bow hard do many of us find it to remember that there may be a higher reason for their peculiarities than we think. We know not the full purpose of each saintly life in the designs of Providence; we know not much of the depths and heights whence it draws its inspirations; we can not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. Only we know that He whose workmanship it is bloweth where He listeth; and this naturally leads us to remark the practical interpretation which the Holy Spirit often puts upon our Lord’s words by selecting as His chosen workmen those who seem to be least fitted by nature for such high service. The apostle has told us how in the first age He set Himself to defeat human anticipations. “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called”; learned academies, powerful connections, gentle blood did little enough for the gospel in the days when it won its first and greatest victories. The Holy Spirit, as Nicodemus knew, passed by the varied learning and high station of the Sanhedrin, and breathed where He listed on the peasants of Galilee; He breathed on them a power which would shake the world. And thus has it been again and again in the generations which have followed. When the great Aquinas was a student of philosophy under Albertus Magnus at Cologne, he was known among his contemporaries as “the dumb Ox”; so little did they divine what was to be his place in the theology of Western Christendom. And to those of us who can look back upon the memories of this University for a quarter of a cen¬tury or more, few things appear more remarkable than the surprizes which the later lives of men constantly afford; sometimes it is a failure of early natural promise, but more often a rich development of intellectual and practical capacity where there bad seemed to be no promise at all. We can remember, perhaps, some dull quiet man who seemed to be without a ray of genius, or, stranger still, without anything interesting or marked in character, but who now exerts, and most legitimately, the widest influence for good, and whose name is repeated by thousands with grateful respect. Or we can call to mind another whose whole mind was given to what was frivolous, or even degrading, and who now is a leader in everything that elevates and improves his fellows. The secret of these transfigurations is ever the same. In those days these men did not yet see their way; they were like travelers through the woods at night, when the sky is hidden and all things seem to be other than they are.
Since then the sun has risen and all has changed. The creed of the Church of Christ, in its beauty and its power, has been flashed by the Divine Spirit upon their hearts and understandings; and they are other men. They have seen that there is something worth living for in earnest; that God, the soul, the future, are immense realities, compared with which all else is tame and insignificant. They have learned something of that personal love of our crucified Lord, which is itself a moral and religious force of the highest order, and which has carried them forwards without their knowing it. And what has been will assuredly repeat itself.
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