10. 하나님을 추구하기 (The Pursuit of God)

 

(책) 하나님을 추구하기: (book) The Pursuit of God

 

(책) 하나님을 추구하기: A. W. TOZER

 

(안내) 이 책은 A. W. Tozer 목사님의 작품으로서, 우리 그리스도인들이 왜 이 시대에 하나님의 임재(Presence)의 나타남(Manifestation)을 체험하지 못하고 무기력하게 사는지 그 이유와 장애물에 대해서, 또, 우리가 능력있는 신앙생활을 위해 반드시 갖고 있어야 할 참된 믿음이 무엇인지에 대해서 명쾌하게 설명하고 있으며, 결론적으로 우리가 하나님을 어떻게 추구해야 하는지를 너무나 잘 설명하고 있습니다. 그래서, 제가 한글로 이 책을 번역하여 여러분에게 나눕니다. 부디 이 글을 여러번 읽으시고 내용을 소화하셔서 여러분의 신앙생활에 잘 적용하시길 주님의 이름으로 축원합니다 (박영진 목사).

 

(Note) This book is the work of Pastor A. W. Tozer and explains very clearly why we Christians live helplessly without experiencing the manifestation of God's presence in this era. And it clearly explains what true faith we must have for a powerful spiritual life, and explains very well how we should pursue God. So, I translate this book into Korean and share it with you. I pray in the name of the Lord that you will read this article several times, digest its contents, and apply them well to your life of faith (Pastor Young J. Park).

 

 

** (참고): 영어 원본은 한글 번역본의 마지막에 있으니 참조바랍니다.

Please refer to the English Text at the end of the Korean translation.

 

 

 

"Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning." Hosea 6:3

“그러므로 우리가 여호와를 알자 힘써 여호와를 알자 그의 나오심은 아침 빛 같이 일정하니...”호세아 6:3

by A. W. Tozer (A. W. 토저)

 

 

 

Contents 목차

 

Introduction 소개

 

Preface 머리말

 

I. Following Hard after God 하나님을 열심히 따르기

 

II. The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing 아무것도 가지지 않는 것의 축복

 

III. Removing the Veil 베일(휘장)을 벗기기

 

IV. Apprehending God 하나님을 붙잡음(인식하기)

 

V. The Universal Presence 하나님의 우주적 임재

 

VI. The Speaking Voice 말씀하는 소리(하나님의 음성)

 

VII. The Gaze of the Soul 영혼의 바라봄

 

VIII. Restoring the Creator-creature Relation 창조주와 피조물의 관계 회복

 

IX. Meekness and Rest 온유함과 안식

 

X. The Sacrament of Living 삶의 성례

 

Introduction 소개

 

여기에 하나님을 갈망하는 마음, 적어도 그분의 길의 변두리, 죄인에 대한 그분의 사랑의 심연, 접근할 수 없는 그분의 위엄의 높이를 붙잡고 싶어하는 마음의 내면 생활에 대한 훌륭한 연구서가 있습니다 -- 이 책은 시카고에서 바쁜 목회자에 의해 씌어진 것입니다.

 

데이빗이 남부 할스테드 거리에서 시편 23편을 썼다거나, 중세의 신비주의자가 끝없는 거리로 이루어진 넓고 평평한 목조 가옥 2층에 있는 작은 서재에서 영감을 얻는 것을 누가 상상할 수 있었겠습니까?

 

혼잡한 삶의 방식이 교차하는 곳, 즉, 

인종과 종족의 부르짖음들이 소리나는 곳,

비참함들과 궁핍의 나타남들속에서,

두려움으로 어두워진 그늘진 문턱에서,

그리고 탐욕의 유혹을 숨기는 길들...

 

 

그러나 뉴욕의 프랭크 메이슨 노스(Frank Mason North) 박사가 자신의 불후의 시에서 말했듯이, 토저(Tozer)는 이 책에서 다음과 같이 말합니다.

 

이기적인 다툼의 소음 너머

오 사람의 아들O Son of Man이여, 우리는 당신의 음성을 듣습니다.

 

저자와 나의 친분은 그의 교회를 잠시 방문하고 사랑의 교제를 나누는 것으로 제한됩니다. 그곳에서 나는 자수성가한 학자, 놀라운 신학서적과 묵상서적을 갖춘 잡식성 독자, 그리고 하나님을 추구하기 위해 밤낮을 가리지 않는 듯한 사람을 발견했습니다. 그의 책은 오랜 묵상과 많은 기도의 결과입니다. 그것은 설교집이 아닙니다. 그것은 강단과 회중석에 관한 것이 아니라 하나님을 갈망하는 혼에 관한 것입니다It does not deal with the pulpit and the pew but with the soul athirst for God. 이 장들은 “주의 영광을 내게 보이소서” 라는 모세의 기도나 “깊도다 하나님의 지혜와 지식의 부요함이여” 라고 한 바울의 외침으로 요약될 수 있습니다. 그것은 머리에 관한 신학이 아니라 마음에 관한 신학입니다It is theology not of the head but of the heart.

 

깊은 통찰력, 절제된 스타일, 상쾌한 전망의 보편성이 있습니다. 저자는, 어거스틴Augustine, 쿠사의 니콜라스Nicholas of Cusa, 토마스 아 켐피스Thomas à Kempis, 폰 휘겔von Hügel, 피니Finney, 웨슬리Wesley 등 수세기 동안의 성인들saints과 신비가들mystics을 인용한 적이 거의 없지만 그들을 알고 있습니다(저자가 그들의 영성을 닮았다는 말임). 그 10개의 챕터(장)들은 마음을 살피는 것이며 각 장의 마지막에 나온 기도들은 강단을 위한 것이 아니라 골방을 위한 것입니다. 나는 그 기도들을 읽는 동안 하나님이 가까이 계시다는 것을 느꼈습니다.

 

여기 모든 목사, 선교사, 독실한 기독교인을 위한 하나의 책이 있습니다. 그것은 하나님의 깊은 일들과 그분의 은혜의 풍성함들을 다룹니다. 무엇보다 그것은 진실함과 겸손함의 요점keynote을 갖고 있습니다.

 

사무엘 M. 즈웨머 (Samuel M. Zwemer), New York City

 

 

머리말

 

 

 

온 우주가 암흑에 휩싸인 이 시간에 한 가지 환한 빛이 나타납니다: 보수적인 기독교의 울타리 안에는 하나님을 향한 갈망hunger이 커져가는 신앙생활을 하는 사람들의 수가 점점 더 많아지고 있다는 것입니다. 그들은 영적인 실재들realities(하나님을 가리킴)을 갈망하고 있고, 말들words을 가지고 미루지 않을 것이며, 진리에 대한 올바른 "해석"에 만족하지도 않을 것입니다. 그들은 하나님을 갈망하며athirst, 생수의 샘the Fountain of Living Water에서 깊이 마실 때까지 만족하지 못할 것입니다.

 

이것은 내가 종교적 지평 어디에서나 발견할 수 있었던 부흥의 유일한 실제의 전조입니다. 그것은 여기저기서 몇몇 성도들이 찾고 있던 손바닥만한 구름일 수도 있습니다. 그것은 많은 혼들souls에게 생명의 부활을 가져올 수 있고, 그리스도를 믿는 믿음에 수반되어야 하는 빛나는 경이로움wonder, 즉 우리 시대에 하나님의 교회에서 거의 사라져 버린 경이로움을 다시 되찾을 수 있습니다.

 

그러나 우리 종교 지도자들은 이러한 배고픔hunger을 인식해야 합니다. 현재의 복음주의는 (형태를 바꾸기 위해) 제단을 쌓고 제사를 여러 부분으로 나누었지만 이제는 높은 갈멜 산 꼭대기에 불의 흔적이 없는지 전혀 신경 쓰지 않고 돌을 세고 조각을 재배치하는 데 만족해 보입니다. 그러나 관심을 갖고 있는 소수의 사람들이 있다는 사실에 하나님께 감사드립니다. (그러나) 그들(종교 지도자들)은 제단을 사랑하고 제사를 기뻐하면서도 계속되는 불이 없다는 사실을 받아들이지 못하는 사람들입니다. (그러나) 그들(소수의 사람들)은 무엇보다도 하나님을 갈망합니다. 그들은 모든 거룩한 선지자들이 기록하고 시편 기자들이 노래한 그리스도의 사랑의 “꿰뚫는 감미로움piercing sweetness”을 스스로 맛보고자 갈망하고 있습니다.

 

오늘날 그리스도의 교리들의 원리들을 정확하게 제시하는 성경 교사는 부족하지 않습니다. 그러나 그들 중 너무 많은 사람들이 해마다 신앙의 기초들을 가르치는 데 만족하는 것 같습니다. 이상하게도 그들의 사역에는 (하나님의) 명백한 임재가 없다는 것을 인식하지 못합니다. 그들의 개인적인 삶에는 특별한 것도 없습니다. 그들은 자신들의 가르침만으로는 만족할 수 없는 갈망을 마음속에 느끼는 신자들을 위해 끊임없이 봉사합니다(비고: 그들은 듣는 자들의 갈망을 만족시키지 못하는 가르침만을 지속한다는 말임).

 

나는 사랑으로 말한다고 믿습니다. 그러나 우리의 강단이 부족한 것은 현실입니다. 밀턴Milton의 끔찍한 문장은 그의 경우와 마찬가지로 우리 시대에도 정확하게 적용됩니다: "배고픈 양이 쳐다봐도 공급받지 못합니다." 하나님의 자녀들이 실제로 아버지의 식탁에 앉아 있으면서 굶주리는 것을 보는 것은 그(하나님) 나라에서 중대한 일이며 작은 추문(scandal)이 아닙니다. 웨슬리의 말의 진실은 우리 눈앞에 확증되어 있습니다: "정통, 즉 올바른 의견opinion은 기껏해야 종교의 아주 빈약한 부분에 불과합니다. 비록 올바른 의견이 없이 올바른 기질tempers이 존재할 수 없지만, 올바른 기질 없이 올바른 의견이 존재할 수 있습니다. 하나님을 향한 사랑이나 올바른 기질 없이도 하나님에 대한 올바른 의견이 있을 수 있습니다. 사탄이 이에 대한 증거입니다."

 

훌륭한 성서 공회와 말씀을 전파하는 기타 효과적인 기관 덕분에 오늘날 "올바른 견해"를 갖고 있는 수백만 명의 사람들이 있는데, 이는 아마도 교회 역사상 그 어느 때보다 더 많은 숫자일 것입니다. 하지만 참된 영적 예배가 쇠퇴했던 때가 있었는지 궁금합니다(비고: 과거처럼 영적으로 참된 예배를 드리면 쇠퇴할 수 없는데 지금 우리가 참된 예배를 드리지 않기 때문에 쇠퇴하는 일이 발생했다는 말임). 교회의 많은 부분에서 예배의 기술이 완전히 사라졌고, 그 자리에 "프로그램"이라고 불리는 이상하고 이질적인 것이 등장했습니다. 이 단어는 무대에서 빌려온 것이며, 현재 우리 사이에서 예배로 통하는 공공의 봉사의 유형에 슬픈 지혜를 담아 적용한 것입니다This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the type of public service which now passes for worship among us.

 

건전한 성경 강해exposition는 살아계신 하나님의 교회에서 꼭 필요한 일입니다. 그것이 없이는 어떤 교회도 그 용어의 엄격한 의미에서 신약의 교회가 될 수 없습니다. 그러나 강해는 청중이 참된 영적 자양분을 전혀 얻지 못하는 방식으로 진행될 수 있습니다. 영혼에 영양을 공급하는 것은 단순한 말이 아니라 하나님 자신이시기 때문입니다. 듣는 사람들이 개인적인 경험에서 하나님을 발견하지 않는 한 진리를 듣는 것이 더 나은 것은 아닙니다. 성경은 그 자체가 목적이 아니라, 사람들을 하나님에 대한 친밀하고 만족스럽게 하는 앎knowledge에 이르게 하는 수단입니다. 그 결과 그들이 그분 안으로 들어갈 수 있고, 그분의 임재를 기뻐할 수 있고, 그들의 마음 hearts의 핵심과 중심에서 바로 하나님 자신의 내적 달콤함을 맛보게 될 것입니다.

 

이 책은 하나님의 배고픈 자녀들이 하나님을 찾을 수 있도록 돕기 위한 겸손한 시도입니다. 나에게 가장 즐겁고 놀라운 영적 실재들을 내 마음으로 발견한 것 외에는 새로운 것이 없습니다. 나보다 앞선 다른 사람들은 나보다 이 거룩한 신비에 훨씬 더 깊이 들어갔습니다. 그러나 나의 불이 크지 않더라도 그것은 여전히 실재이며, 그 불꽃에 촛불을 켤 수 있는 사람들이 있을 수 있습니다.

 

A. W. 토저

시카고 Chicago, 일리노이

1948년 6월 16일

 

 

 

I. 하나님을 열심히 따르기 Following Hard after God

 

내 영혼이 주를 열심히 따르오니 주의 오른손이 나를 붙드시나이다. 시 63:8

 

기독교 신학은 선제적prevenient 은혜의 교리를 가르칩니다. 즉, 간단히 말해서 사람이 하나님을 찾을 수 있기 전에 하나님이 먼저 사람을 찾으셔야 한다는 뜻입니다.

 

죄 많은 사람이 하나님에 대해 올바른 생각을 할 수 있기 전에 그 안에 깨우침enlightenment의 역사가 이루어져야 합니다. 그것은 불완전할 수 있지만 그럼에도 불구하고 참된 일이며, 뒤따르는 모든 갈망desiring과 추구seeking와 기도praying의 은밀한 원인입니다.

 

우리가 하나님을 추구하는pursue 이유는 하나님께서 먼저 우리가 추구하도록 재촉하는 충동을 우리 안에 넣어주셨기 때문입니다. 우리 주님은 “나를 보내신 아버지께서 이끌지 아니하시면 아무라도 내게 올 수 없다” 고 말씀하셨습니다. 바로 이 선행적인 이끄심에 의해 하나님께서 오시는 행위에 대한 모든 영예를 우리에게서 거두시는 것입니다. 하나님을 추구하려는 충동은 하나님에게서 비롯되지만, 그 충동impulse이 작용하는 것은 우리가 그분을 열심히 따르는 것입니다. 그리고 우리가 그분을 추구하는 모든 시간 동안 우리는 이미 그분의 손 안에 있습니다: "주의 오른손이 나를 붙드시나이다."

 

이러한 하나님의 '지지'와 인간의 '따름'에는 모순이 없습니다. von Hügel이 가르치는 것처럼 하나님은 항상 이전에 계시기 때문에 모든 것은 하나님에게서 나옵니다. 그러나 실제로는(즉, 하나님의 이전 사역이 인간의 현재 반응과 만나는 곳에서) 사람은 하나님을 추구해야 합니다. 하나님의 이 은밀한 그림이 하나님에 대한 식별 가능한 경험으로 귀결되려면 우리 쪽에서는 긍정적인 보답이 있어야 합니다. 시편 42편에는 개인적인 감정이 담긴 따뜻한 언어로 다음과 같이 명시되어 있습니다. “하나님이여 사슴이 시냇물을 찾기에 갈급함같이 내 영혼이 주를 찾기에 갈급하니 내 영혼이 하나님 곧 살아 계시는 하나님을 갈망하나니 내가 어느 때에 나아가서 하나님 앞에 뵈오리이까?” 이것은 깊은 곳을 부르는 깊은 부르심이며, 갈망하는 마음heart은 그것을 이해할 것입니다.

 

믿음으로 말미암는 칭의 교리justification by faith는 성경적 진리이며, 무익한 율법주의legalism와 무익한 자기 노력으로부터의 복된 구제relief입니다. 그러나, 이 교리는 우리 시대에 악한 무리 속에 빠졌으며 실제로 사람들이 하나님을 아는 것을 막는 방식으로 많은 사람들에 의해 해석되었습니다.  종교적 개종의 모든 과정은 기계적이고 영성이 없어졌습니다. 이제 믿음은 도덕적 삶에 대한 방해 없이, 그리고 아담의 에고(자아) the Adamic ego에 대한 당혹감 없이 행사될 수 있습니다. 그리스도는 받아들이는 사람의 혼 속에 그분에 대한 특별한 사랑이 생기지 않고 받아들여질 수 있습니다. Christ may be "received" without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. 그 사람은 “구원”을 받았지만 하나님에 대해 배고프지도 목마르지도 않았습니다. 사실 그는 만족하는 법을 구체적으로 배웠고 작은 것에 만족하도록 격려 받았습니다(비고: 목회자들이 교인들에게 칭의의 교리를 지식적으로만 가르치는 것에 머물고 그들로 하여금 정작 필요한 하나님의 임재를 경험하게 하지는 못하기 때문에 그들에게 구원의 결과가 나타나지 않는다는 말임: 저자는 그것이 얼마나 큰 문제인가를 지적하고 있슴).

 

현대 과학자는 하나님의 세계의 경이로움 속에서 하나님을 잃었습니다. 우리 그리스도인들은 하나님의 말씀의 경이로움 속에서 하나님을 잃을 위험에 처해 있습니다. 우리는 하나님이 인격체이시며, 따라서 어떤 사람이 배양(양육)될 수 있는 것처럼, 우리도 그렇게 될 수 있다는 사실을 거의 잊어버렸습니다. 다른 인격을 알 수 있다는 것은 인격에 내재되어 있지만, 한 번의 만남으로 한 인격을 다른 인격이 완전히 알 수는 없습니다. 두 가지의 모든 가능성을 탐구할 수 있는 것은 길고 사랑스러운 정신적 교제long and loving mental intercourse를 거친 후에야 가능합니다.

 

인간 사이의 모든 사회적 교류는 인격에 대한 인격의 반응이며, 인간과 인간 사이의 가장 우연한 접촉에서부터 인간 영혼이 할 수 있는 가장 완전하고 가장 친밀한 친교에 이르기까지 등급이 올라갑니다. 진정한(참된) 종교는 본질적으로 창조하시는 인격체인 하나님에 대한 피조된 인격체의 반응입니다Religion, so far as it is genuine, is in essence the response of created personalities to the Creating Personality, God. “영생은 곧 유일하신 참 하나님과 그가 보내신 자 예수 그리스도를 아는 것이니이다.”

 

하나님은 인격체이시며, 그분의 전능하신 본성 깊은 곳에서 다른 모든 사람과 마찬가지로 생각하고, 뜻하고, 즐기고, 느끼고, 사랑하고, 갈망하고, 고통을 겪으십니다. 그분은 자신을 우리에게 알리실 때 친숙한 인격의 패턴을 따르십니다. 그분은 우리의 생각, 의지, 감정을 통해 우리와 소통하십니다. 하나님과 구속받은 사람의 영혼 사이의 지속적이고 부끄럽지 않은 사랑과 생각의 교환은 신약성서 종교의 고동치는 심장입니다.

 

하나님과 그 영혼 사이의 이러한 교통intercourse은 의식적인 개인적 인식awareness을 통해 우리에게 알려져 있습니다. 그것은 개인적인 것입니다. 즉, 그것은 신자들의 몸the body 자체를 통해서 오는 것이 아니라, 개인the individual에게 알려지고 몸을 구성하는 개인들을 통해 몸에 알려집니다. 그리고 그것은 의식적입니다. 즉, 그것은 의식의 문턱 아래에 머무르지 않고 영혼에게 알려지지 않는 곳에서 작용합니다(예를 들어 어떤 사람들은 유아세례가 그렇게 이루어진다고 생각합니다). 그는 경험의 다른 사실을 알고 있듯이 그것을 "알" 수 있습니다(비고: 저자는 여기서 거듭난 사람의 영의 기능을 염두에 두고 그렇게 말하고 있는 것 같다).

 

하나님은 크신 것 안에 계시지만, 당신과 나는 작은 것 안에 있습니다 (우리의 죄를 제외하고 말입니다). 우리가 그분의 형상대로 만들어졌기 때문에 우리는 그분을 알 수 있는 능력을 우리 안에 갖고 있습니다. 우리의 죄 가운데서 우리에게는 능력이 부족할 뿐입니다. 성령께서 우리의 온 존재를 중생의 삶to life in regeneration으로 살리시는 순간은 하나님에 대한 그 혈연 관계kinship를 느끼게 하고 즐거운 인식으로 뛰게 합니다. 그것이 하늘의 탄생인데 그것이 없이는 우리가 하나님의 나라를 볼 수 없습니다That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the Kingdom of God. 그러나 그것은 끝이 아니라 시작입니다. 이제 영광스러운 추구, 하나님의 무한한 풍성함에 대한 마음의 행복한 탐구가 시작되기 때문입니다It is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart's happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead. 그것은 우리가 시작하는 곳이지만, 우리가 멈추는 곳은 아직 아무도 발견하지 못했습니다. 왜냐하면 삼위일체 하나님의 두렵고 신비한 깊이에는 한계도 끝도 없기 때문입니다.

 

해안 없는 바다여, 누가 당신의 소리를 낼 수 있겠습니까?

당신 자신의 영원은 당신 주위에 있습니다.

놀라우신 신성이여! Majesty divine!

 

하나님을 발견하고 여전히 그분을 추구하는 것은 영혼의 사랑의 역설입니다. 너무 쉽게 만족하는 종교인은 참으로 경멸하지만 불타는 마음의 자녀들은 행복한 경험을 통해 정당화합니다. 성 버나드St. Bernard는 숭배하는 모든 영혼이 즉시 이해할 수 있는 음악적 4행에서 이 신성한 역설을 다음과 같이 말했습니다.

 

우리는 당신을 맛봅니다, 오 당신의 살아 있는(or 생명의) 떡이시여,

그리고 우리는 여전히 당신을 향하여 잔치하기를 갈망합니다.

우리는 그 원천이신 당신을 마십니다

그리고 우리 영혼을 당신에게서 채우려고 목말라 합니다.

 

과거의 거룩한 사람들에게 가까이 다가가십시오. 그러면 당신은 곧 하나님을 향한 그들의 열망의 열기를 느끼게 될 것입니다. 그들은 그분을 위해 애통했고, 기도하고 씨름하고 밤낮으로, 때를 막론하고 그분을 찾았습니다. 그리고 그들이 그분을 찾았을 때 그 발견은 오랫동안 추구하는 사람들에게 더욱 달콤했습니다. 모세는 하나님을 더 잘 알기 위한 논거로 자신이 하나님을 안다는 사실을 이용했습니다. “그러므로 이제 구하노니 내가 주의 목전에서 은혜를 얻었거든 이제 주의 길을 나에게 보이사 나로 주를 알게 하시고 나로 주의 목전에 은혜를 얻게 하소서”; 그리고 거기서 그는 일어나 “원컨대 주의 영광을 내게 보이소서” 라고 대담하게 요청했습니다. 하나님은 이 열광적인 표현을 솔직히 기뻐하셨고, 다음 날 모세를 산으로 부르셨고, 그곳에서 엄숙한 행렬을 이루어 그분의 모든 영광을 그 앞으로 지나가게 하셨습니다.

 

다윗의 생애는 영적인 갈망의 급류였으며, 그의 시편은 구하는 자의 부르짖음과 찾는 자의 기쁜 외침으로 울려 퍼집니다. 바울은 그리스도를 향한 불타는 열망이 그의 삶의 원동력이라고 고백했습니다. “그를 알려 하는 것”이 그의 마음의 목표였으며 이를 위해 그는 모든 것을 희생했습니다. “모든 것을 해로 여김은 내 주 그리스도 예수를 아는 지식이 가장 고상함을 인함이라 내가 그를 위하여 모든 것을 잃어버리고 배설물로 여김은 그리스도를 얻고”

 

찬송가는 하나님을 향한 그리움으로 달콤합니다. 가수가 그 하나님을 찾는 동안 그는 이미 찾았다는 것을 알고 있습니다. 불과 몇 세대 전만 해도 우리 조상들은 "나는 그의 길을 보고 나는 따르리라" 고 노래했지만, 그 노래는 더 이상 대교회에서 들리지 않습니다. 이 어두운 날에 우리가 우리의 구하는 것을 우리의 교사들에 의해서 우리를 위해 이루어지게 했다는 것은 얼마나 비극적인 일입니까? (비고: 우리 스스로가 구하는 것이 아니라 다른 사람들로 하여금 우리가 구해야 할 것을 대신 구하게 하고 또 그것이 잘못 이루어지도록 하는 것이 얼마나 모순인가라는 말임).  모든 것은 그리스도를 "받아들이는" 최초의 행위(이 용어는 성경에 나오지 않는 용어)에 중점을 두고 있으며, 그 이후에는 우리 영혼에 하나님이 더 이상 계시되기를 갈망하지 않아도 됩니다(비고: 성경 교사들이, 우리가 예수님을 구주로 영접한 것이 우리가 해야 할 모든 것이므로 우리가 그 이상의 것을 구할 필요가 없다고 말하고 있는데, 그것이 얼마나 잘못된 것인가를 말하고 있슴). 우리는 만일 우리가 그분을 찾았다면 더 이상 그분을 찾을 필요가 없다고 주장하는 가짜 논리의 덫에 걸려들었습니다. 이것이 정통의 마지막 말씀으로 우리 앞에 제시되어 있으며, 성경을 배우는 그리스도인 중 그 누구도 달리 믿지 않는다는 것은 당연하게 받아들여지고 있습니다. 그러므로 그 주제에 관해 예배하고, 찾고, 노래하는 교회의 모든 증언은 명백히 무시됩니다(비고: 그와 같이 비정상이 정상인 것처럼 되어버렸다는 말임). 향기로운 성도들의 거대한 군대에 대한 경험적 마음의 신학experiential heart-theology은 어거스틴이나 러더퍼드, 브레이너드에게는 확실히 이상하게 들릴 뻔한 성경 해석을 선호하여 거부되었습니다(비고: 어떤 사람들이, 어거스틴과 같은 올바른 신학자들이 인정하지 않을 정도로 어떤 잘못된 방식으로 성경을 해석함으로써, 지극히 타당한 경험적인 마음의 신학을 거부했다는 말임).

 

이 엄청난 냉기 속에서도 피상적인 논리에 만족하지 않는 사람들이 있다는 것을 나는 기쁘게 생각합니다. 그들은 논쟁의 힘을 인정하고 눈물을 흘리며 외로운 곳을 찾아 “오 하나님, 당신의 영광을 내게 보이소서” 라고 기도할 것입니다. 그들은 그 경이로우신 분the wonder, 하나님을 맛보고, 마음heart으로 만지고, 내면의 눈으로 보고 싶어합니다.

 

나는 의도적으로 하나님을 향한 이 강력한 갈망을 장려하고 싶습니다. 그것의 부족으로 인해 우리는 현재의 낮은 지위에 이르렀습니다. 우리의 종교적 삶에 대한 경직되고 나무 같은 특성은 우리에게 거룩한 소망이 부족하기 때문에 발생합니다. 안일함complacency은 모든 영적 성장의 치명적인 적입니다. 절실한 소망accute desire이 있어야 합니다. 그렇지 않으면 그리스도께서 그분의 백성에게 나타나시지 않을 것입니다no manifestation of Christ. 그분은 소망되어지기를 기다립니다. He waits to be wanted. 우리 중 많은 사람들과 함께 그분(예수님)이 그토록 오랫동안 헛되게 기다리신다는 것이 너무 안타깝습니다. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.

 

모든 시대에는 고유한 특징이 있습니다. 지금 우리는 종교적 복잡성의 시대에 살고 있습니다. 그리스도 안에 있는 단순함simplicity은 우리 가운데 거의 찾아볼 수 없습니다. 그 대신에는 시간과 관심을 쏟지만 결코 마음의 갈망을 만족시킬 수 없는 프로그램, 방법, 조직, 신경질적인 활동의 세계가 있습니다. 우리 내적 경험의 천박함, 예배의 공허함, 홍보 방법의 특징인 세상의 비굴한 모방 등은 모두 오늘날 우리가 하나님을 불완전하게 알고 하나님의 평강peace를 거의 알지 못한다는 것을 증거합니다.

 

우리가 모든 종교적 외적인 것 가운데서 하나님을 찾으려면 먼저 그분을 찾기로 결심한 다음 단순함의 길로 나아가야 합니다. 이제 언제나 그랬듯이 하나님은 "어린아이들"에게 자신을 나타내시고 지혜롭고 슬기 있는 자들에게는 짙은 어둠 속에 자신을 숨기십니다. 우리는 그분께 접근하는 방식을 단순화해야 합니다. 우리는 필수 요소로 제거해야 합니다We must strip down to essentials(비고: 현재 하고 있는 불필요한 것들을 제거해야 하고 최대한 단순하게 해야 한다는 말). (그러면 그것들은 다행히도 그 수가 적다는 것을 알게 될 것입니다.) 우리는 감동을 주려는 모든 노력을 버리고 어린 시절의 솔직한 솔직함으로 다가가야 합니다. 우리가 이렇게 하면 의심할 바 없이 하나님께서 신속하게 응답하실 것입니다.

 

종교가 마지막 말을 했을 때 우리에게 필요한 것은 하나님 외에는 거의 없습니다. "하나님-그리고"God-and를 찾는 것의 악한 습관(실제 하나님을 찾지 않는 것을 말함)은 우리가 완전한 계시 속에서 하나님을 찾는 것을 효과적으로 방해합니다. "그리고" 에는 우리의 큰 화가 있습니다. 만약 우리가 "그리고"를 생략한다면 우리는 곧 하나님을 발견하게 될 것이며, 우리가 평생 동안 은밀히 갈망해 왔던 것을 그분 안에서 발견하게 될 것입니다.

 

우리는 하나님을 찾는 과정에서 우리의 삶이 좁아지거나 확장되는 마음hearts의 움직임이 제한될 수 있다는 점을 두려워할 필요가 없습니다. 그 반대가 사실입니다. 우리는 하나님을 우리의 전부로 삼고 집중하고 그 한분the One을 위해 많은 것을 희생할 여유가 있습니다.

 

진귀하고 오래된 영어 고전인 The Cloud of Unknowing의 저자는 우리에게 이를 수행하는 방법을 가르쳐줍니다. "온유한 사랑의 감동으로 당신의 마음을 하나님께로 드높이십시오. 그리고 당신은 하나님 외에는 다른 어떤 것도 생각하기를 싫어하는 것을 보십시오. 그러므로 당신의 지혜나 당신의 뜻으로는 아무 일도 하지 말고 오직 하나님 자신만 일하게 하십시오. 이것이 하나님을 가장 기쁘시게 하는 영혼의 일입니다."

 

다시 한번, 그는 기도를 통해 모든 것, 심지어 우리의 신학까지도 더욱 벗겨내는 연습을 하라고 권고합니다. “하나님 외에 다른 어떤 이유도 없이 하나님께 직접 향한 순수한 의도이면 충분합니다.” 그러나 그의 모든 사고 밑에는 신약성서의 진리의 광범위한 기초가 깔려 있습니다. 왜냐하면 그는 "자신"이라는 말은 "당신을 만드시고 사셨으며 은혜롭게 당신을 당신 수준까지 부르신 하나님"을 의미한다고 설명하기 때문입니다. 그리고 그는 단순함을 추구합니다. "만일 우리가, 한 단어로 겹쳐서 접는 종교를 갖고 있다면, 왜냐하면, 당신이 그것을 붙잡는 것이 더 나을 것이기 때문인데, 당신은 한 음절의 짧은 단어만 취하십시오. 왜냐하면, 두 단어보다 더 낫기 때문이고, 짧은 단어일수록 성령의 역사에 더 부합하기 때문입니다. 그리고 그러한 단어는 바로 이 단어 GOD 또는 이 단어 LOVE입니다."

 

여호와께서 가나안을 이스라엘 지파들에게 나누어 주실 때에 레위는 땅을 분배받지 못하였습니다. 하나님은 그에게 간단히 말씀하셨습니다. "나는 네 몫이요 네 상속 재산이다." 그리고 그 말로 그를 그의 모든 형제보다, 세상에 살았던 모든 왕과 라자rajas보다 더 부유하게 만들었습니다. 그리고 여기에는 영적인 원리가 있습니다. 이는 지극히 높으신 하나님의 모든 제사장에게 여전히 유효한 원리입니다.

 

하나님을 보물로 삼는 사람은 모든 것들을 한분One 안에 갖고 있습니다. 많은 평범한 보물들이 그에게 거부될 수도 있고, 만약 그가 그것을 가지도록 허용된다면, 그것들의 즐거움은 너무 누그러져서 그것들이 그의 행복에 결코 필요하지 않을 것입니다. 또는 그들이 하나씩 가는 것을 봐야만 한다면 그는 상실감을 거의 느끼지 않을 것입니다. 왜냐하면 그가 가진 모든 것의 근원이 한 분 안에 모든 만족과 모든 즐거움을 갖고 있기 때문입니다. 그가 무엇을 잃어도 실제로는 아무것도 잃은 것이 아닙니다. 왜냐하면 그는 이제 모든 것을 하나 안에 갖고 있고 순수하고 합법적이며 영원히 소유하고 있기 때문입니다.

 

오 하나님, 나는 당신의 선하심을 맛보았고, 그것이 나를 만족시켰고 나를 더 많은 것을 위해 목마르도록 만들었습니다. 나는 나에게 더 많은 은혜가 필요하다는 사실을 고통스럽게 인식하고 있습니다. 나는 나의 바램이 부족한 것을 부끄럽게 생각합니다. 오 하나님, 삼위일체 하나님, 나는 당신을 원합니다. 나는 그리움으로 가득 차기를 갈망합니다. 나는 더욱 목마르고 싶습니다. 나에게 당신의 영광을 보여 주시어, 내가 당신을 참으로 알게 하소서. 자비로 내 안에서 새로운 사랑의 일을 시작하십시오. 내 영혼에게 “나의 사랑, 나의 어여쁜 자야 일어나서 함께 가자” 라고 말하여 주십시오. 그렇다면 제가 그토록 오랫동안 방황했던 이 안개 낀 저지대에서 일어나 주님을 따라 올라갈 수 있는 은총을 주십시오. 예수님의 이름으로 기도합니다. 아멘.

 

 

 

II. 아무것도 가지지 않는 것의 축복The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing

 

 

심령이 가난한 자는 복이 있나니 천국이 저희 것임이요. 마 5:3

 

주 하나님은 이 땅에 사람을 만드시기 전에 먼저 사람의 양식과 즐거움을 위해 유용하고 즐거운 것들의 세계를 창조하심으로써 사람을 위해 준비하셨습니다. 창조에 관한 창세기 기록에서는 이것들을 간단히 “사물things”이라고 부릅니다. 그것들은 인간의 용도를 위해 만들어졌지만 항상 인간에게 외부적이고 인간에게 복종하도록 의도되었습니다. 그 사람의 마음 깊은 곳에는 오직 하나님 외에는 올 자격이 없는 성소a shrine가 있었습니다. 그 안에는 하나님이 계셨습니다. (그것을 제외하고) 하나님께서 그에게 부어주신 수천 가지의 선물이 있었습니다.

 

그러나 죄sin는 합병증들complications을 야기했고 하나님이 주신 바로 그 선물들을 그 영혼을 파멸시킬 수 있는 잠재적인 원인source 으로 만들었습니다.

 

우리의 재앙들woes은, 하나님께서 그분의 중앙 성소(비고: 아담의 마음 속을 가리킴)에서 쫓겨나시고 (그 대신) "사물들"이 (그 안에) 들어가도록 허용되었을 때 시작되었습니다. 인간의 마음 the human heart 속에는 "사물들things"이 자리를 잡았습니다. 인간은 이제 본성적으로 그들의 마음에 평화가 없습니다. 왜냐하면 하나님께서 더 이상 그곳에서 왕관을 쓰시지 않고 도덕적 황혼기에 완고하고 공격적인 강탈자들이 보좌의 첫 자리를 놓고 서로 싸우고 있기 때문입니다there in the moral dusk stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne.

 

이것은 단순한 비유가 아니라 우리의 실제 영적 문제에 대한 정확한 분석입니다. 인간의 마음 속에는 소유하고 항상 소유하려는 본성을 지닌 타락한 생명의 견고한 섬유질 뿌리가 있습니다There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. 깊고 맹렬한 열정으로 '사물들'을 탐합니다covets. "나의"와 "내 것"이라는 대명사는 인쇄상으로는 충분히 순수해 보이지만 지속적이고 보편적으로 사용된다는 점은 중요합니다. 그들은 수천 권의 신학서가 할 수 있는 것보다 옛 아담 인간의 실제 본질을 더 잘 표현합니다. 그것은 우리의 깊은 질병의 언어적 증상입니다. 우리 마음의 뿌리들은 사물들 안쪽으로 자라났고, 우리는 죽을까 두려워서 한 줄기도 뽑지 못합니다. 모든 것이 우리에게 꼭 필요한 것이 되었습니다. 원래 의도한 바는 전혀 없었던 개발입니다. 이제 하나님의 선물이 하나님의 자리를 대신하게 되었고, 자연의 전체 과정은 괴물 같은 대치품the monstrous substitution으로 인해 뒤바뀌었습니다.

 

우리 주님은 제자들에게 이렇게 말씀하셨습니다. “아무든지 나를 따라 오려거든 자기를 부인하고 자기 십자가를 지고 나를 따를 것이니라 누구든지 자기 목숨을 구원하고자 하면 잃을 것이요. 누구든지 나를 위하여 자기 목숨을 잃으면 찾으리라." (마 16:24-25)

 

우리가 더 잘 이해할 수 있도록 이 진리를 여러 조각으로 나누면, 우리 각자 안에는 우리가 위험을 무릅쓰고 용납하는 하나의 적enemy이 있는 것 같습니다. 예수님은 그것을 “생명”과 “자기” "life" and "self," 즉 우리가 말하는 대로 자기 생명the self-life이라고 부르셨습니다. 그것의 주요 특징은 소유욕입니다. "이득"과 "이익"이라는 단어는 이를 암시합니다. 이 원수를 살려 두는 것은 결국 모든 것을 잃는 것입니다. 그것을 거부하고 그리스도를 위해 모든 것을 포기하는 것은 결국 아무 것도 잃지 않는 것이며, 모든 것을 보존하여 영생에 이르게 하는 것입니다. 그리고 아마도 이 원수를 파괴하는 유일한 효과적인 방법에 대한 힌트가 여기에 주어졌을 것입니다. 그것은 바로 십자가입니다. "자기 십자가를 지고 나를 따르게 하라."

 

하나님에 대한 더 깊은 지식(앎)에 이르는 길은 영혼의 빈곤과 모든 것에 대한 포기의 외로운 계곡을 통과하는 것입니다. 하나님 나라를 소유한 복된 사람들은 모든 외적인 것을 거부하고 모든 소유욕을 마음hearts에서 뿌리 뽑은 사람들입니다. 이들은 “심령이 가난한 자”poor in spirit입니다. 그들은 예루살렘 거리의 일반 거지의 외적 상황과 유사한 내적 상태에 이르렀습니다. 이것이 바로 그리스도께서 사용하신 "가난한"이라는 단어의 실제 의미입니다. 이 축복받은 가난한 사람들은 더 이상 사물들의 폭정의 노예가 아닙니다. 그들은 압제자의 멍에를 꺾었습니다. 그리고 그들은 싸움을 통해서가 아니라 항복함surrendering으로써 이것을 성취했습니다. 그들은 모든 소유의식에서 자유롭지만 모든 것을 소유하고 있습니다. "천국이 그들의 것임이라."

 

이것을 진지하게 받아들이도록 권면하겠습니다. 그것은 다른 교리의 불활성 덩어리와 함께 생각(or 혼) 속에in the mind 저장되는 단순한 성경의 가르침으로 이해되어서는 안됩니다. 그것은 더 푸른 초장으로 향하는 길의 표시이며, 하나님의 산의 가파른 비탈을 깎아 만든 길입니다. 우리가 이 거룩한 추구를 계속한다면 감히 그것을 우회하려고 할 수 없습니다. 우리는 한 단계씩 올라가야 합니다. 한 단계를 거부하면 우리의 발전이 끝나게 됩니다.

 

흔히 그렇듯이, 영적인 삶에 대한 신약성서의 원리는 구약성서에서 가장 잘 예시되어 있습니다. 아브라함과 이삭의 이야기에서 우리는 첫 번째 행복에 대한 훌륭한 해설뿐만 아니라 항복한 삶에 대한 극적인 그림을 볼 수 있습니다.

 

아브라함은 이삭이 태어났을 때 나이가 많았고, 참으로 그의 할아버지가 될 만큼 늙었고, 그 아이는 즉시 그의 마음heart의 기쁨이자 우상이 되었습니다. 그가 처음으로 몸을 굽혀 작은 형체를 어색하게 품에 안은 그 순간부터 그는 아들의 열렬한 사랑의 노예였습니다. 하나님은 이 애정의 힘에 대해 언급하기 위해 노력하셨습니다. 그리고 그것은 이해하기 어렵지 않습니다. 그 아기는 그 아버지의 마음에 거룩한sacred 모든 것, 즉 하나님의 약속, 언약the covenants, 수년간의 소망, 메시아에 대한 오랜 꿈the long messianic dream을 상징했습니다. 그가 유아기에서 청년기로 성장하는 것을 지켜보면서 그 노인의 마음은 그 아들의 삶과 점점 더 가까워졌고, 마침내 그 관계는 위험한 것과 접하게 되었습니다. 바로 그때 하나님께서 부정한 사랑의 결과로부터 아버지와 아들을 구원하기 위해 개입하셨습니다.

 

하나님이 아브라함에게 이르시되 "네 아들 네 사랑하는 독자 이삭을 데리고 모리아 땅으로 가서 거기서 그를 번제로 드리라 내가 너에게 말해주겠다." 그 신령한 저자는, 그 노인이 그의 하나님과 함께 싸웠을 때 브엘세바 근처 산비탈에서 그날 밤의 고통을 클로즈업하여 우리에게 보여 주지만, 존경하는 상상력은 별빛 아래서 홀로 몸이 구부러지고 경련을 일으키며 씨름하는 것을 경외심으로 볼 수 있습니다. 아마도 아브라함보다 더 크신 분이 겟세마네 동산에서 씨름하기 전까지는 그러한 치명적인 고통이 인간의 영혼을 방문했을 것입니다. 그 사람 자신만 죽도록 허용할 수 있었다면 좋았을 텐데요. 그는 이제 늙었고, 죽는 것은 오랫동안 하나님과 동행한 사람에게는 큰 시련이 아니었을 것이기 때문입니다. 게다가, 아브라함의 계보를 이어가며 오래 전에 갈대아 우르에서 하나님께서 약속하신 것을 스스로 성취하기 위해 살아갈 그의 용감한 아들의 모습에 그의 흐릿한 비전이 머물게 하는 것은 마지막으로 감미로운 기쁨이었을 것입니다.

 

그가 어떻게 그 소년을 죽여야 하는가! 설사 그가 상처받고 항의하는 마음의 동의를 얻을 수 있었다 하더라도, “이삭에게서 난 자라야 네 씨라 불릴 것임이니라In Isaac shall thy seed be called”(창 21:12; 롬 9:7)는 약속과 그 행위를 어떻게 조화시킬 수 있었겠습니까? 이것은 아브라함이 불로 연단을 받은 것이고, 그는 그 도가니에서 실패하지 아니하였습니다. 잠자는 이삭이 누워 있던 장막 위에서 별들이 여전히 날카로운 흰 점처럼 빛나고 회색 새벽이 동쪽을 밝게 하기 시작하기 훨씬 전에 늙은 성자는 결심을 했습니다. 그는 하나님께서 그에게 지시하신 대로 그의 아들을 바치고, 하나님께서 그를 죽은 자 가운데서 살리실 것을 신뢰했습니다. 히브리서 기자는 이것이 그의 아픈 마음이 어두운 밤에 발견한 해결책이었고 그는 그 계획을 실행하기 위해 “이른 아침에” 일어났다고 말합니다. 그가 하나님의 방법에 있어서는 실수를 했을지라도 하나님의 크신 마음의 비밀을 정확하게 감지했다는 것은 아름다운 일입니다. 그리고 그 해결책은 신약 성경: "누구든지 나를 위하여 잃으면 찾으리라" 와 잘 일치합니다.

 

하나님은 고통받는 노인이 물러날 수 없을 때까지 고통을 겪게 하시고 그 소년에게 손을 대는 것을 금하셨습니다. 이제 그분은 궁금해하는 그 족장에게 이렇게 말씀하십니다. "괜찮다, 아브라함. 나는 네가 실제로 그 아이를 죽여야 한다고 생각한 적이 없다. 나는 다만 너의 마음의 성전에서 그를 제거하고 그곳에서 아무런 문제 없이 다스릴 수 있기를 원했다. 나는 너의 사랑안에 존재하는 잘못된 것을 바로잡고 싶었다. 이제 너는 그 소년을 건강하게 가질 수 있다. 그를 데리고 네 천막으로 돌아가라. 네가 네 아들 네 독자라도 내게 아끼지 아니하였으니 내가 이제야 네가 하나님을 경외하는 줄을 아노라." (창 22:12)

 

그러자 하늘이 열리며 그분에게 말씀하시는 음성이 들렸습니다. "여호와께서 이르시되 내가 나를 가리켜 맹세하노니 네가 이같이 행하여 네 아들 네 독자도 아끼지 아니하였은즉 내가 네게 복을 주고 네 씨로 크게 성하여 만물의 별과 같이 번성하게 하리라 여호와의 말씀이니라 하늘과 바닷가의 모래 같으니 네 씨가 그 대적의 성문을 얻으리라 또 네 씨로 말미암아 천하 만민이 복을 받으리니 이는 네가 내 말을 순종하였음이니라.”

 

그 하나님의 노인은 그 음성에 응답하기 위해 머리를 들었고 강하고 순결하고 장엄한 산 위에 서 있었습니다. 그는 주님께서 특별한 대우를 받으라고 구별하신 사람이자 가장 높으신 분의 친구이자 총애를 받는 사람이었습니다. 이제 그는 완전히 항복한 사람, 완전히 순종하는 사람, 아무것도 소유하지 않은 사람이었습니다. 그는 그의 사랑하는 아들에게 모든 것을 집중시켰으나 하나님은 그에게서 그것을 빼앗으셨습니다. 하나님은 아브라함의 삶의 가장자리에서 시작하여 중심까지 일하실 수도 있었습니다. 그러나, 그는 차라리 마음을 재빨리 잘라내어 한 번의 날카로운 분리 행위로 끝내는 것을 선택했습니다. 이와 같이 처리하심에 있어서 그분(하나님)은 수단과 시간의 절약을 실천하셨습니다. 그것은 잔인하게 아프게 했지만 효과적이었습니다. He chose rather to cut quickly to the heart and have it over in one sharp act of separation. In dealing thus He practiced an economy of means and time. It hurt cruelly, but it was effective.

 

나는 아브라함이 아무것도 소유하지 않았다고 말했습니다. 그런데 이 가난한 사람은 부자가 아니었습니까? 그가 이전에 소유했던 모든 것, 즉 양, 낙타, 소떼, 그리고 모든 종류의 물품은 그가 여전히 즐길 수 있는 것이었습니다. 그에게는 아내와 친구들도 있었고, 무엇보다도 그의 곁에는 아들 이삭이 안전하게 있었습니다. 그는 모든 것을 가졌으나 아무것도 소유하지 못했습니다. 영적인 비밀이 있습니다. 포기renunciation의 학교에서만 배울 수 있는 마음의 아름다운 신학이 있습니다. 조직신학에 관한 책들은 이것을 간과하지만, 현명한 사람들은 이해할 것입니다.

 

그 쓰라리고 축복받은 경험 이후에, 나는, "나의 MY"와 "내것 MINE"라는 단어가 아브라함에게 다시는 같은 의미를 갖지 못했다고 생각합니다. 그 말이 암시하는 소유의 느낌은 그의 마음에서 사라졌습니다. 사물들은 영원히 버려졌습니다. 그것들은 이제 그 사람의 외적인 것이 되었습니다become external. 그의 내면은 그것들로부터 자유로웠습니다. 세상은 “아브라함은 부자다” 라고 말했지만, 늙은 족장은 미소만 지었습니다. 그는 그것을 그들에게 설명할 수 없었지만 그는 자신이 아무것도 소유하지 않았으며 그의 진정한 보물들은 내면적이고 영원하다는 것을 알았습니다. He could not explain it to them, but he knew that he owned nothing, that his real treasures were inward and eternal.

 

사물들에 대한 소유욕이 인생에서 가장 해로운 습관들 중 하나라는 것은 의심의 여지가 없습니다. 그것은 너무나 자연스럽기 때문에 그것이 악하다는 사실을 거의 인식하지 못합니다. 그러나 그 결과는 비극적입니다.

 

우리는 종종 보물의 안전에 대한 두려움 때문에 보물을 주님께 드리는 일을 방해받습니다. 특히 그 보물이 사랑하는 친척이나 친구일 때는 더욱 그렇습니다. 그러나 우리는 그러한 두려움을 가질 필요가 없습니다. 우리 주님은 멸망시키러 오신 것이 아니라 구원하러 오셨습니다. 우리가 그분께 의탁하는 모든 것은 안전하며, 그렇게 의탁하지 않는 것은 실제로 안전하지 않습니다.

 

우리의 은사gifts와 재능talents도 그분께 넘겨져야 합니다. 그것들은 하나님께서 우리에게 빌려주신 것임을 인정해야 하며 어떤 의미에서도 우리의 것으로 간주되어서는 안 됩니다. 우리는 파란 눈들이나 강한 근육들보다 (더 많은) 특별한 능력들을 위한 크레딧을 주장할 권리를 갖고 있지 않습니다. “누가 너를 남과 구별하였느냐 네게 있는 것 중에 받지 아니한 것이 무엇이냐.” (고전 4:7).

 

자신을 조금이라도 알 만큼 살아 있는 그리스도인은 이러한 소유병의 증상을 인식하고 그 증상을 자신의 마음에서 발견하고 슬퍼할 것입니다. 만일 그 사람 속에 하나님을 향한 갈망이 충분히 강하다면, 그 사람은 그 문제에 관해 뭔가를 하려고 할 것입니다. 이제 그는 어떻게 해야 할까요?

 

무엇보다도 그는 모든 방어를 제쳐놓고 자신의 눈으로나 주님 앞에서나 자신을 변명하려고 시도하지 말아야 합니다. 자신을 방어하는 사람은 자기 자신을 방어할 뿐이고 다른 사람은 없을 것입니다. 그러나 그가 무방비 상태로 주님 앞에 나아오도록 하십시오. 그러면 그는 하나님 자신을 자신의 보호자로 삼게 될 것입니다. 탐구하는 그리스도인the inquiring Christian은 거짓된 마음의 모든 교묘한 속임수를 짓밟고 주님과의 솔직하고 개방적인 관계를 주장해야 합니다.

 

그렇다면 그는 이것이 신성한 일이라는 것을 기억해야 합니다. 부주의하거나 우연한 거래는 충분하지 않습니다. 그 사람이 하나님의 말씀을 듣겠다는 온전한 결심을 가지고 하나님께 나아오도록 하십시오. 하나님께서 그의 모든 것을 받으시고, 그의 마음에서 모든 것을 거두어 가셔서 그곳에서 능력으로 통치하신다고 주장하게 하십시오. 사물과 사람의 이름을 하나씩 구체적으로 지정해야 할 수도 있습니다. 만일 그가 충분히 단호해진다면, 그는 자신의 고통의 시간을 몇 년에서 몇 분으로 단축할 수 있고, 감정을 조절하고 하나님을 대할 때 조심하라고 주장하는 느린 형제들보다 훨씬 먼저 좋은 땅에 들어갈 수 있습니다.

 

이와 같은 진리는 물리과학의 사실을 배우듯이 기계적으로 배울 수 없다는 것을 결코 잊지 맙시다. 우리가 그것들을 정말로 알기 전에 그것들은 경험되어야만 합니다. 우리가 아브라함의 가혹하고 쓰라린 경험에 뒤따르는 축복을 알고자 한다면 마음속으로 아브라함의 가혹하고 쓰라린 경험을 통해 살아야 합니다. 고대의 저주는 고통 없이 사라지지 않을 것입니다. 우리 안에 있는 강하고 늙은 구두쇠는 우리의 명령에 순종하여 누워 죽지 않을 것입니다. 그는 흙에서 식물이 뽑히듯이 우리 마음에서 뽑혀야 합니다. 그는 턱에서 나온 이빨처럼 고통과 피 속에서 뽑아내야 합니다. 그리스도께서 성전에서 돈 바꾸는 자들을 쫓아내신 것처럼 그는 폭력에 의해by violence 우리 영혼에서 추방되어야 합니다. 그리고 우리는 그의 불쌍한 구걸에 맞서 싸워야 하며, 그것이 인간 마음의 가장 비난받아야 할 죄 중 하나인 자기 연민에서 비롯된 것임을 인식해야 합니다.

 

우리가 참으로 친밀함을 키워가며 하나님을 알고자 한다면 우리는 이러한 포기의 길을 가야 합니다. 그리고 우리가 하나님을 추구한다면 그분은 조만간 우리를 이 시험에 이르게 하실 것입니다. 당시 아브라함의 시험은 그에게 알려지지 않았습니다. 그러나 만약 그가 자신이 행한 것과 다른 과정을 밟았다면 구약의 전체 역사는 달라졌을 것입니다. 하나님은 의심할 바 없이 그분의 사람을 찾으셨을 것입니다. 그러나 아브라함의 상실은 이루 말할 수 없을 만큼 비극적이었을 것입니다. 그래서 우리는 한 사람씩 시험장으로 데려가지게 될 것이며, 우리가 그곳에 언제 있는지 결코 알 수 없을 것입니다. 그 시험장에는 우리가 선택할 수 있는 선택이 수십 가지가 있을 것입니다. 오직 하나와 대안만이 있을 것입니다. 그러나 우리의 전체 미래는 우리가 하는 선택에 따라 결정될 것입니다.

 

아버지, 저는 당신을 알고 싶지만 제 겁쟁이 마음은 장난감its toys을 포기하기가 두렵습니다. 나는 내적인 피를 흘리지 않고는 그들과 헤어질 수 없으며, 이별의 공포를 당신께 숨기려고 하지 않습니다. 나는 떨면서 옵니다. 그러나 나는 옵니다. 제가 오랫동안 소중히 여기고 살아 있는 제 자신의 일부가 된 모든 것을 제 마음에서 뿌리 뽑아 주시어, 당신이 경쟁자 없이 그곳에 들어가 거하실 수 있도록 해주세요. 그러면 당신은 당신의 발이 있을 곳을 영광스럽게 만드실 것입니다. 그리하면 내 마음에는 햇빛이 비치지 아니하리니 이는 주께서 그 등불이 되사 거기에는 밤이 없음이라. 예수님의 이름으로 기도합니다. 아멘.

 

 

III. 베일을 벗기다 Removing the Veil

 

 

그러므로 형제들아 우리가 예수의 피를 힘입어 성소에 들어갈 담력을 얻었나니. 히 10:19

 

교부들의 유명한 말 중에서 어거스틴의 말보다 더 잘 알려진 것은 없습니다. "당신은 당신을 위해 우리를 지으셨으니 우리 마음은 당신 안에서 안식을 찾을 때까지 안식하지 못하리이다."

 

그 위대한 성인은 여기서 인류의 기원과 내면의 역사를 몇 마디로 언급합니다. 하나님은 자신을 위해 우리를 만드셨습니다: 이것이야말로 생각하는 사람의 거친 이성이 뭐라고 말하든 그 사람의 마음heart을 만족시키는 유일한 설명입니다. 잘못된 교육과 비뚤어진 추론은 사람으로 하여금 다른 결론을 내리게 할 것입니다. 그러면 그리스도인이 그를 위해 해줄 수 있는 일은 거의 없습니다. Should faulty education and perverse reasoning lead a man to conclude otherwise, there is little that any Christian can do for him. 그런 사람에게 나는 메시지가 없습니다. 내가 호소하는 것은 이전에 하나님의 지혜로 은밀히 가르침을 받았던 자들입니다(비고: 저자는, 불신자나 하나님의 진리를 비판하는 자들을 위해 이 글을 쓴 것이 아니라 기본적으로 예수님을 믿고 있고(즉, 이미 거듭났고) 하나님의 지혜로 인해 어느정도 진리를 알고 있고 더 알기를 갈망하는 사람들에게 이 글을 쓴다는 말임). 나는 그들 안에 있는 하나님의 손길로 갈망이 깨어난 목마른 마음들에게 말하며, 그들은 합리적인 증거가 필요하지 않습니다. 그들의 불안한 마음은 그들에게 필요한 모든 증거를 제공합니다.

 

하나님은 자신을 위해 우리를 지으셨습니다. 오래된 뉴잉글랜드 프라이머(New-England Primer)에 나와 있듯이, "웨스트민스터 목사회의 합의" 인, 소요리문답은 그 고대의 질문들, 즉, 무엇을, 그리고 왜를 묻습니다, 그리고, 영감을 받지 않은 작업에서는 거의 일치하지 않았던(세상적인 책들에서는 거의 동의하지 않았지만)  하나의 짧은 문장으로 그것들에 대해 대답합니다. "질문: 사람의 제일되는 목적은 무엇입니까? 답: 사람의 제일되는 목적은 하나님께 영광을 돌리고 영원히 즐거워하는 것입니다."  이 말에 동의한 스물네 장로들은 엎드려 영원히 살아 계시는 분에게 경배하며 이렇게 말했습니다. “주여, 영광과 존귀와 능력을 받으시는 것이 합당하오니 주께서 만물을 지으신지라. 당신의 기쁨에 그들은 존재하고 창조되었습니다."

 

하나님은 그분의 기쁨을 위해 우리를 지으셨고, 그분과 마찬가지로 우리도 신성한 친교 안에서 친족들의 달콤하고 신비한 연합을 즐길 수 있도록 우리를 지으셨습니다God formed us for His pleasure, and so formed us that we as well as He can in divine communion enjoy the sweet and mysterious mingling of kindred personalities. 그분은 우리가 그분을 보고 그분과 함께 살며 그분의 미소에서 우리의 삶을 이끌어가도록 뜻하셨습니다He meant us to see Him and live with Him and draw our life from His smile. 그러나 우리는 밀턴Milton이 사탄과 그의 군대의 반역the rebellion을 묘사할 때 말한 "불법한 반역foul revolt"으로부터 유죄가 되었습니다(죄인이 되었슴: have been guilty). 우리는 하나님의 관계가 끊어졌습니다. 우리는 그분께 순종하거나 그분을 사랑하기를 중단했으며 죄책감과 두려움으로 가능한 한 그분의 임재로부터 멀리 달아났습니다.

 

그러나 하늘과 하늘들의 하늘이 그분을 담을 수 없을 때 누가 그분의 면전에서 달아날 수 있겠습니까? 솔로몬의 지혜가 “여호와의 영이 세상에 충만하시다” 고 증거한 것은 언제입니까? 주님의 편재성(omnipresence : 모든 곳에 계심)은 한 가지이며 그것은 그분의 완전성에 필요한 엄숙한 사실입니다. (그러나) 그 명백한 임재는 전혀 다른 것이며, 그 임재로부터 우리는 아담처럼 동산 나무들 사이에 숨기 위하여 도망쳤고, 베드로처럼 다음과 같이 울부짖으며 물러났습니다: “나에게서 떠나소서. 나는 죄인이로소이다. 주님." 

 

그러므로 땅위에서 인간의 삶은, 우리의 올바르고 합당한 거처이고, 우리가 지키지 못한 첫 번째 재산estate이고, 우리의 끊임없는 불안의 원인인 것의 상실인, "그 행복한 중심"으로부터 벗어나 비틀렸습니다.

 

구속을 위한 하나님의 모든 사역은 그 더러운 반역의 비극적인 결과를 없애고 우리를 다시 그분과의 올바르고 영원한 관계로 되돌리는 것입니다. 이를 위해서는 우리의 죄가 만족스럽게 처리되어야 하고, 완전한 화해가 이루어져야 하며, 우리가 다시 하나님과의 의식적인 교제conscious communion로 돌아가서 이전처럼 하나님의 임재에서 다시 살 수 있는 길이 열려야 했습니다. 그런 다음 그분은 우리 안에서 먼저 일하심으로써 우리를 돌아오도록 감동시키십니다. 우리의 불안한 마음이 하나님의 임재를 갈망하고 속으로 “내가 일어나 아버지께로 가리라” 고 말할 때 이 사실이 먼저 눈에 띕니다. 그것이 첫 번째 단계이며, 중국 현자 노자가 말했듯이 "천 리 길도 첫 번째 단계에서 시작됩니다."

 

죄의 광야에서 하나님의 임재로 향하는 영혼의 내적 여정은 구약의 성막에 아름답게 묘사되어 있습니다. 돌아온 죄인은 먼저 바깥뜰에 들어가서 놋 제단에 피의 제사를 드리고 그 근처에 있는 물두멍에서 몸을 씻었습니다. 그런 다음 그는 휘장을 통과하여 어떤 자연광도 들어올 수 없는 성소로 들어갔습니다. 그러나 세상의 빛이신 예수님을 말하는 금촛대는 온통 부드러운 빛을 발하고 있었습니다. 또한 생명의 떡이신 예수님을 전하는 진설병과 끊임없는 기도의 상징인 분향단도 있었습니다.

 

예배자가 그토록 많은 것을 누렸음에도 불구하고 그는 아직 하나님의 임재 안으로 들어가지 못했습니다. 지성소와 분리된 또 다른 휘장은 속죄소 위에 두렵고 영광스러운 모습으로 바로 하나님 자신이 거하셨습니다. 성막이 서 있는 동안에는 오직 대제사장만이 일년에 한 번만 자기 죄와 백성의 죄를 위하여 드리는 피로써 그곳에 들어갈 수 있었습니다. 우리 주님께서 갈보리산에서 영을 버리셨을 때 찢어진 것은 바로 이 마지막 휘장이었고, 그 신령한 저자(히브리서 기자)는 이 휘장의 찢어짐이 세상의 모든 예배자들이 새롭고 살아있는 길을 통해 곧장 신성한 임재속으로 들어갈 수 있는 길을 열었다고 설명합니다.

 

신약의 모든 내용은 구약의 그림과 일치합니다. 대속함을 받은 사람들은 더 이상 지성소에 들어가기 위해 두려움 때문에 잠시 멈출 필요가 없습니다. 하나님께서는 우리가 그분의 임재 안으로 나아가서 평생 그곳에서 살기를 원하십니다. 이것은 의식적인 경험을 통해 우리에게 알려집니다. 그것은 지탱되어야 할 교리를 넘어 매일, 매 순간에 누려야 할 삶입니다.

 

이 임재의 불꽃은 레위기의 규정order의 뛰는 심장이었습니다. 그것이 없으면 성막의 모든 임명은 알려지지 않은 언어의 인물들이었습니다. 그것은 이스라엘에게도 우리에게도 아무런 의미가 없었습니다. 그 장막의 가장 큰 사실은 여호와께서 그곳에 계셨다는 것입니다. 베일 안에는 임재a Presence가 기다리고 있었습니다. 마찬가지로 하나님의 임재는 기독교의 핵심 사실입니다. 기독교 메시지의 중심에는 구원받은 자녀들이 하나님 자신의 임재를 의식적으로 인식하기를 기다리시는 하나님 자신이 있습니다. 지금 유행하고 있는 기독교 유형은 이론상으로만 이러한 임재를 알고 있습니다. 그것은 현재의 깨달음에 대한 그리스도인의 특권을 강조하지 않습니다. 그 가르침에 따르면 우리는 위치적으로 하나님의 임재 안에 있으며 실제로 그 임재를 경험할 필요성에 대해서는 아무 말도 하지 않습니다(비고: 그들은 너무 잘못 가르치고 있다는 말임). McCheyne과 같은 남성을 몰아붙였던 불 같은 충동이 아주 사라졌습니다. 그리고 현 세대의 기독교인들은 이 불완전한 법칙으로 자신을 측정합니다. 비열한 만족이 불타는 열정을 대신합니다. 우리는 법적 소유judicial possessions에 남아 있는 것에 만족하며 대부분의 경우 개인적인 경험이 없다는 것에 대해 거의 신경 쓰지 않습니다(비고: 하나님 아버지의 임재가운데  매일 매일 아버지와 교제하며 명실상부한 자녀로서 사는 것이 아니라, 아버지와의 교제도 없고 그분의 임재하심도 경험하지 못한 채 그저 법적인 자녀가 된 것에만 만족하며 살아간다는 말임).

 

휘장 안에 불의 현현manifestations 속에 거하시는 이가 누구십니까? 그 분은 바로 하나님 자신이시며, “전능하신 아버지 한 분이시니 천지와 보이는 것과 보이지 않는 만물을 지으신 하나님이시요” 그리고 “한 분 주 예수 그리스도시요, 하나님의 독생자시요, 온 세상이 있기 전에 그분의 아버지에게서 나셨으니, 하나님 중의 하나님이시요, 빛 중의 빛이시요, 참 하나님 중의 참 하나님이시라, 나셨으나 만들어지지 아니하셨고, 아버지와 함께 한 본질(substance)로 되셨느니라”, 그리고 “성령은 주님이시며 생명을 주시는 분이시며 성부와 성자로부터 나오시며 성부와 성자와 함께 경배와 영광을 받으시는 분” 입니다.” 그러나 이 거룩한 삼위일체는 한 하나님이시니, “우리는 삼위일체의 한 하나님, 일치의 삼위일체를 경배하며, 위격들을 혼동하지도 아니하고 실체를 나누지도 아니합니다. 한 위격은 아버지로, 다른 위는 아들로, 또 다른 위는 성령으로 계십니다. 그러나 성부와 성자와 성령의 신격은 모두 하나이시니, 영광은 동등하시고 위엄은 영원하십니다.” 고대 신조의 일부(예, 아타나시안 신조)가 그러하며 영감받은 말씀도 그렇게 선언합니다.

 

휘장 뒤에는 세상이 이상하게도 모순을 느끼면서 "혹시 그분을 발견할 수 있을까"라고 느꼈던 하나님, 바로 그 하나님이 계십니다. 그분은 어느 정도 자연 속에서 자신을 발견하셨지만, 성육신the Incarnation을 통해 더욱 완벽하게 자신을 발견하셨습니다. 이제 그분은 영혼이 겸손하고 마음이 청결한 자들에게 황홀한 충만함으로 자신을 나타내기를 기다리고 계십니다.

 

세상은 하나님에 대한 지식이 부족하여 멸망하고 있으며, 교회는 그분의 임재가 부족하여 굶주리고 있습니다. 대부분의 종교적 질병에 대한 즉각적인 치료는 우리가 하나님 안에 있고 하나님이 우리 안에 계시다는 것을 갑자기 깨닫게 되기 위하여 영적인 경험을 통해 임재에 들어가는 것입니다. 이것이 우리를 가련하고 좁은 상태에서 끌어올리고 우리의 마음을 넓혀 줄 것입니다. 이것은 덤불 속에 있는 불에 의해 벌레와 곰팡이가 소멸되는 것처럼 우리 삶에서 불순물을 태워버릴 것입니다.

 

이 하나님, 즉, 우리 주 예수 그리스도의 아버지께서 돌아다니실 수 있는 넓은 세상, 헤엄치실 수 있는 바다는 얼마나 넓습니까? 그분은 영원하시며, 이는 그분이 시간보다 앞서 계시며 시간으로부터 완전히 독립되어 계시다는 뜻입니다. 시간은 그분 안에서 시작되었고 그분 안에서 끝날 것입니다. 그분은 그것에 공물을 바치지 않으시며 그것으로부터 아무런 변화도 겪지 않으십니다. 그분은 불변하십니다. 즉 그분은 결코 변하지 않으셨고, 조금도 변하실 수 없다는 뜻입니다. 변화하려면 그분은 더 나은 곳에서 더 나쁜 곳으로, 더 나쁜 곳에서 더 나은 곳으로 가야 할 것입니다. 그분은 어느 쪽도 할 수 없습니다. 왜냐하면 그분은 완전하기 때문에 더 완전해질 수 없으며, 만일 그가 덜 완전하다면 그분은 하나님보다 낮을 것이기 때문입니다. 그분은 전지하시며, 이는 그분이 자유롭고 노력하지 않은 한 번의 행동으로 모든 물질, 모든 영, 모든 관계, 모든 사건을 아신다는 것을 의미합니다. 그분에게는 과거도 없고 미래도 없습니다. 그분은 존재하시며, 피조물에게 사용되는 제한적이고 한정적인 용어 중 어느 것도 그분에게 적용될 수 없습니다. 사랑과 자비와 의는 그분의 것이며, 거룩함은 형언할 수 없을 만큼 비교할 수 없으며 어떤 비유로도 표현할 수 없습니다. 오직 불만이 그것에 대한 희미한 개념조차 제공할 수 있습니다. 그분은 불 속에서 불타는 떨기나무 앞에 나타나셨습니다. 그분은 긴 광야 여행 내내 불기둥 안에 거하셨습니다. 성소에 있는 그룹들의 날개 사이에서 타오르는 불은 이스라엘의 영광의 해 동안 "쉐키나shekinah", 곧 임재the Presence라 불렸으며 옛 것이 새 것에 자리를 내주었을 때 오순절에 오셨다 불꽃처럼 각 제자 위에 머물렀습니다.

 

스피노자Spinoza는 신의 지적인 사랑에 대해 썼고, 거기에는 어느 정도의 진리가 있었습니다. 그러나 하나님의 최고의 사랑은 지적인 사랑이 아니라 영적인 사랑입니다. 하나님은 영이시며 오직 사람의 영만이 그분을 실제로 알 수 있습니다. 사람의 깊은 영 속에는 불이 타올라야 합니다. 그렇지 않으면 그의 사랑은 하나님의 참된 사랑이 아닙니다. (비고: 저자는, 그리스도인들이 성령으로 충만함을 받아야만 한다는 것을 전제로 하여 그런 말을 하는 것으로 여겨진다. 왜냐하면 그리스도인들이 성령으로 충만함을 받을 때라야 그들 안에 계시는 성령으로 말미암아 그 안에서 하나님의 사랑이 흘러나올 때 비로소 참 사랑을 할 수 있기 때문이며, 만일 우리가 성령으로 충만함을 받지 않는다면 우리가 아무리 노력해도 참 사랑을 할 수 없고 인간적인 사랑을 할 수 밖에 없기 때문임). 하나님 나라의 위대한 사람들은 다른 사람들보다 하나님을 더 사랑하는 사람들이었습니다. 우리 모두는 그들이 누구였는지 알고 있으며 그들의 헌신의 깊이와 진실성에 기꺼이 경의를 표합니다. 잠시만 멈춰도 상아궁에서 나오는 몰약과 침향과 계피 냄새를 풍기며 그들의 이름이 우리 옆으로 몰려옵니다.

 

프레드릭 페이버(Frederick Faber)는 노루가 시냇물을 갈망하듯 영혼이 하나님을 갈망하는 사람이었고, 하나님께서 그의 구하는 마음에 자신을 나타내신 정도는 선한 사람의 전 생애를 보좌 앞의 스랍의 숭배와 맞먹는 불타는 숭배로 불타오르게 했습니다. 하나님에 대한 그의 사랑은 삼위일체에게 동등하게 확장되었지만, 그는 각 위격에 대해서 오직 그분만을 위한 특별한 사랑을 느끼는 것 같았습니다. 그는 하나님 아버지에 대해 이렇게 노래합니다.

 

오직 앉아서 하나님만을 생각하며,

아, 정말 얼마나 기쁜지요!

그 생각을 생각하고 이름을 호흡합니다.

지구에는 더 큰 행복이 없습니다.

예수님의 아버지, 사랑의 상급이시여!

어떤 환희가 될 것인가,

주의 보좌 앞에 엎드려 눕고

그리고 당신을 바라보고 바라봅니다!

 

그리스도라는 인격에 대한 그의 사랑은 너무나 강해서 그를 삼켜버릴 것 같았습니다. 그것은 그의 안에서 달콤하고 거룩한 광기처럼 타올랐고, 녹인 금처럼 그의 입술에서 흘러나왔습니다. 그는 설교 중 하나에서 이렇게 말합니다. "우리가 하나님의 교회를 방문하는 곳마다 예수님이 계십니다. 그분은 우리에게 모든 것의 시작과 중간과 끝이십니다.... 그분은 그분의 종들에게 좋지 않은 것도 없고, 거룩하지 않은 것도 없고, 아름답지 않은 것도 없고, 기쁘지 않은 것은 아무것도 없습니다.   누구도 가난할 필요가 없습니다. 왜냐하면 그가 선택하기만 하면 예수님을 자신의 소유로 삼을 수 있기 때문입니다. 누구도 낙심할 필요가 없습니다. 예수님은 천국의 기쁨이시며, 슬픈 마음 속으로 들어가는 것이 그분의 기쁨이시기 때문입니다. 우리는 많은 것을 과장할 수 있지만 예수님에 대한 우리의 의무나 우리를 향한 예수님의 자비로운 사랑은 결코 과장할 수 없습니다. 그분에 대해 말할 수 있는 감미로운 말은 결코 끝나지 않습니다. 영원은 그분의 모든 존재를 배우거나 그분이 행하신 모든 것에 대해 그분을 찬양할 만큼 길지 않을 것입니다. 그러나 그렇다면 그것은 중요하지 않습니다. 우리는 항상 그분과 함께 있을 것이기 때문입니다. 그리고, 우리는 더 이상 아무것도 원하지 않습니다." 그리고 그분은 우리 주님께 직접 말씀하십니다.

 

나는 당신을 그토록 사랑합니다. 

나는 나의 황홀함을 어떻게 통제해야 할지 모릅니다. 

당신의 사랑은 내 영혼 안에서 타오르는 불과 같습니다.

 

페이버Paber의 타오르는 사랑은 성령에게까지 확장되었습니다. 그는 신학을 통해서 그분(성령)의 신성과 아버지와 아들과의 완전한 동등성을 인정하였을 뿐만 아니라, 노래와 기도를 통해 끊임없이 이를 기념하였습니다. 그는 문자 그대로 이마를 땅에 대고 하나님의 제3위께 대한 열렬하고 타오르는 듯한 예배를 드렸습니다. 성령에 대한 그의 위대한 찬송 중 하나에서 그는 그의 불타는 헌신을 다음과 같이 요약합니다.

 

오, 아름답고 두려운 성령이시여!

내 마음은 부서지기 딱 좋습니다.

우리 불쌍한 죄인들을 위하여 당신의 모든 부드러움에 대한 사랑으로

 

나는 내가 말하고자 하는 바를 예리한 예를 통해 보여주기 위해 지루한 인용의 위험을 무릅썼습니다. 즉, 하나님은 너무나 놀라우시고, 너무나 철저히 그리고 완전하게 기뻐하시므로 그분은 그분 자신 외에 다른 어떤 것도 없이 우리의 신비하고 깊은 전체 본성의 가장 깊은 요구들을 충족시키고 넘치게 하실 수 있습니다. 페이버가 알았듯이 (그는 아무도 셀 수 없는 큰 무리 중 하나일 뿐임) 그러한 예배는 결코 하나님에 대한 단순한 교리적 지식에서 나올 수 없습니다. 하나님에 대한 사랑으로 "깨지기에 적합한" 마음은 그 임재 안에 있었고 하나님의 위엄을 열린 눈으로 바라본 자들입니다. 가슴이 찢어지는 사람들에게는 일반 사람들이 알지도 못하고 이해하지도 못하는 특성이 있었습니다. 그들은 습관적으로 영적인 권세를 가지고 말했습니다. 그들은 하나님의 임재 안에 있었고 거기서 본 것을 보고했습니다. 그들은 서기관이 아니라 선지자였습니다. 서기관은 읽은 것을 우리에게 말하고 선지자는 본 것을 말하기 때문입니다.

 

그 구별은 상상의 구별이 아닙니다. 읽는 서기관과 본 선지자 사이에는 바다만큼의 차이가 있습니다. 오늘날 우리는 정통 서기관들로 가득 차 있습니다. 그런데 선지자들은 어디에 있습니까? 서기관의 딱딱한 목소리가 복음주의에 울려 퍼지지만, 교회는 휘장을 뚫고 내면의 눈으로 경이로움이신 하나님을 바라보는 성인의 다정한 목소리를 기다립니다. 그러나 이처럼 민감한 삶의 경험을 거룩한 임재 안으로 밀어넣고 침투하는 것은 하나님의 모든 자녀에게 열려 있는 특권입니다.

 

예수님의 살이 찢겨져 휘장이 벗겨졌고 하나님 편에서는 우리가 들어가는 것을 막는 것이 아무 것도 없는데 왜 우리는 밖에서 지체하고 있습니까? 왜 우리는 우리의 모든 날을 지성소 바로 바깥에 머물고 결코 하나님을 보러 들어가지 않는 데 동의합니까? 우리는 신랑이 “네 얼굴을 보게 하라 네 음성을 듣게 하라 네 음성은 감미롭고 네 얼굴은 아름답구나” 라고 말하는 것을 듣습니다. 우리는 그 부르심이 우리를 위한 것임을 느끼지만 여전히 가까이 가지 못하고 세월이 흘러 성막 바깥뜰에서 늙고 피곤해집니다. 무엇이 우리를 방해합니까?

 

일반적으로 단순히 우리가 "차갑다"는 대답은 모든 사실을 설명하지 못할 것입니다. 마음의 냉랭함coldness of heart보다 더 심각한 것이 있는데, 그 냉담함의 이면에 존재하는 원인이 될 수 있는 것이 있습니다. 그것은 무엇입니까? 우리 마음 속에 베일이 있다는 것이 아니고 무엇입니까? 그 휘장은 첫 번째 휘장처럼 벗겨지지 않고 그대로 남아 있어 빛을 차단하고 하나님의 얼굴을 우리에게서 가리고 있습니다. 그것은 우리 안에 심판받지 않고, 십자가에 못 박히고 거부당하지 않고 살아 있는 우리의 타락한 본성의 휘장입니다. It is the veil of our fleshly fallen nature living on, unjudged within us, uncrucified and unrepudiated. It is the close-woven veil of the self-life which we have never truly acknowledged, of which we have been secretly ashamed, and which for these reasons we have never brought to the judgment of the cross. 그것은 우리가 한 번도 진정으로 인정한 적이 없고, 은밀히 부끄러워해 왔으며, 이러한 이유로 결코 십자가의 심판을 받지 않은 자아 생명의 촘촘한 휘장입니다. 이 불투명한 베일은 너무 신비롭지도 않고 식별하기 어렵지도 않습니다. 우리는 우리 자신의 마음을 들여다보기만 하면 거기에서 그것을 꿰매고 꿰매고 수선한 것을 보게 될 것입니다. 그러나 그럼에도 불구하고 거기에는 우리 삶의 적enemy이자 우리의 영적 발전을 효과적으로 방해하는 것이 있습니다.

 

이 휘장은 아름다운 것도 아니고 우리가 흔히 이야기하는 것도 아닙니다. 그러나 나는 하나님을 따르기로 결심한 목마른 영혼들에게 말하고 있습니다. 그 길이 일시적으로 어두워진 언덕을 통과하기 때문에 그들이 돌아오지 않을 것이라는 것을 나는 알고 있습니다. 그들 속에 있는 하나님의 충동은 그들이 계속해서 추구하도록 보장해 줄 것입니다. 그들은 그러나 불쾌한 사실에 직면하고 그들 앞에 놓인 기쁨을 위해 십자가를 견딜 것입니다. 그래서 나는 이 내면의 휘장을 짜는 실의 이름을 담대히 언급합니다.

 

그것은 자기 생명의 가는 실, 인간의 영의 죄를 연결한 가는 실로 짜여져 있습니다. 그것들은 우리가 하는 것이 아니라 우리 자신이며, 거기에는 그 미묘함과 힘이 있습니다.

 

구체적으로 말하면, 자기 죄the self-sins는 자기 의self-righteousness, 자기 연민self-pity, 자기 확신self-confidence, 자기 충족self-sufficiency, 자기 칭찬self-admiration, 자기 사랑self-love및 그들과 유사한 수많은 다른 죄입니다. 그것들은 우리 안에 너무 깊숙이 자리 잡고 있고 우리 본성의 너무 많은 한 부분이라서 하나님의 빛이 그들 위에 집중될 때까지는 우리의 관심에 들어오지 않습니다. 이러한 죄의 더 심한 표현, 즉 이기주의egotism, 노출증exhibitionism, 자기 홍보self-promotion는 흠잡을 데 없는 정통주의 집단에 속한 기독교 지도자들에게서도 이상하게도 용인됩니다. 그것들은 실제로 많은 사람들이 복음과 동일시할 만큼 많은 증거가 있습니다. 나는 그것이 오늘날 교회의 일부 가시적인 부분에서 인기를 얻기 위한 필수 요소로 보인다고 말하는 것이 냉소적인 관찰이 아니라고 믿습니다. 그리스도를 홍보한다는 미명 하에 자신을 홍보하는 것은 (약간의) 관심을 끌기 위해 현재 너무 흔합니다.

 

어떤 사람은 인간의 타락에 대한 교리들과 오직 그리스도의 의를 통한 칭의의 필요성에 대한 적절한 교육이 우리를 자아의 죄self-sins의 세력에서 구원할 것이라고 가정합니다. 그러나 그것은 그렇게 되지 않습니다. 자아는 바로 제단에서 책망받지 않고 살아갈 수 있습니다. 그것은 피를 흘리는 희생물Victim이 죽는 것을 지켜볼 수 있으며, 보는 것에 전혀 영향을 받지 않습니다. 종교개혁자들의 신앙을 위해 싸울 수 있고, 은혜에 의한 구원의 신조를 설득력 있게 설교할 수 있으며, 그것의 노력들을 통해 힘을 얻을 수 있습니다. 사실을 말하자면, 그것은 실제로 정통 교리를 먹고 사는 것처럼 보이며 선술집보다 성경 회의에서 더 편안해집니다. 하나님을 갈망하는 우리의 바로 그 상태는 그것이 번성하고 성장할 수 있는 탁월한 조건을 제공할 수 있습니다.

 

자아Self는 우리에게서 하나님의 얼굴을 가리는 불투명한 휘장입니다. 그것은 단지 영적인 경험을 통해서만 제거될 수 있으며, 단순한 교육으로는 결코 제거될 수 없습니다. 또한 우리 시스템에서 나병을 가르치려고 노력할 수 있습니다. 우리가 자유로워지기 전에 멸망 가운데 하나님의 역사가 있어야 합니다. 우리는 십자가가 우리 안에서 치명적인 일을 하도록 초대해야 합니다. 우리는 우리 자신의 죄를 심판하기 위해 십자가로 가져가야 합니다. 우리 구주께서 본디오 빌라도 치하에서 고난을 겪으셨던 것과 같은 고난의 시련을 우리는 어느 정도 준비해야 합니다.

 

기억합시다. 휘장이 찢어지는 것에 관해 말할 때 우리는 비유적으로 말하고 있으며, 그것에 대한 생각은 시적이며 거의 유쾌합니다. 그러나 실제로는 전혀 즐거운 일이 없습니다. 인간의 경험에서 그 휘장은 살아있는 영적 조직으로 만들어졌습니다. 그것은 우리 존재 전체를 구성하는 감각적이고 떨리는 물질로 구성되어 있으며, 그것을 만진다는 것은 우리가 고통을 느끼는 곳을 만지는 것과 같습니다. 그것을 찢는 것은 우리에게 상처를 입히는 것이고, 우리에게 상처를 입히고 피를 흘리게 하는 것입니다. 다르게 말하는 것은 십자가에 십자가가 없게 하고 죽음에는 죽음이 전혀 없게 만드는 것입니다. 죽는 것은 결코 즐겁지 않습니다. 삶을 이루는 소중하고 부드러운 것들을 찢는 것은 결코 깊은 고통이 아닐 수 없습니다. 그러나 그것이 바로 십자가가 예수님에게 행한 일이며, 십자가가 그를 자유롭게 하기 위해 모든 사람에게 행할 일입니다.

 

우리 자신이 베일을 찢을 수 있기를 바라면서 우리 내면의 삶을 만지작거리는 것을 조심합시다. 하나님은 우리를 위해 모든 것을 하셔야 합니다. 우리의 역할은 양보하고 신뢰하는 것입니다. 우리는 자아의 삶을 고백하고, 버리고, 부인해야 하며, 그런 다음 그것을 십자가에 못 박힌 것으로 간주해야 합니다. 그러나 우리는 게으른 “받아들이는 것”과 하나님의 실제 사역을 구별하도록 주의해야 합니다. 우리는 작업이 완료되도록 주장해야 합니다. 우리는 자기 십자가self-crucifixion의 깔끔한 교리에 감히 만족할 수 없습니다. 그것은 사울을 본받아 양과 소 중 가장 좋은 것을 아끼는 것입니다.

 

그 일이 진실되게 행해지면 반드시 이루어질 것이라고 주장하십시오. 십자가는 거칠고 치명적이지만 효과적입니다. 피해자를 영원히 거기에 매달아 두지는 않습니다. 그 일이 끝나고 고통받는 희생자가 죽는 순간이 옵니다. 그 후에는 부활의 영광과 능력이 있고, 그 수건이 벗겨지는 기쁨으로 그 고통이 잊혀지는 것입니다. 그리고 우리는 실제적인 영적 경험을 통해 살아계신 하나님의 임재를 경험하게 되었습니다.

 

주여, 주의 길은 어찌 그리 아름다운지요, 사람의 길은 어찌 그리 사악하고 어두운지요. 우리에게 죽는 법을 보여 주십시오. 그러면 우리가 새 생명으로 다시 살아날 수 있습니다. 당신이 성전의 휘장을 찢으셨던 것처럼 우리 자아의 휘장을 위에서 아래로 찢으십시오. 우리는 완전한 믿음의 확신을 가지고 가까이 나아갈 것입니다. 우리는 여기 이 땅에서 매일의 경험으로 당신과 함께 거하여 당신과 함께 거하기 위해 당신의 하늘에 들어갈 때 영광에 익숙해질 것입니다. 예수님의 이름으로 기도합니다. 아멘.

 

 

 

IV. 하나님을 붙잡음(깨닫기) Apprehending God

 

 

너희는 여호와의 선하심을 맛보아 알지어다. 시 34:8

 

 

25여년 전에 하나님에 대한 일반 인간의 믿음의 추론적 성격에 주의를 환기시킨 사람은 인도의 캐논 홈즈(Canon Holmes)였습니다. 대부분의 사람들에게 하나님은 실재reality가 아니라 추론inference일 뿐입니다. 하나님은 그들(주로, 종교인들)이 적절하다고 생각하는 증거에서 도출된 것deduction입니다(비고: 그처럼 사람들은 하나님을 생각할 때, 실재적으로가 아니라 추상적으로 상상한다는 말임). 그러나 그분은 그 개인(일반 인간)에게 개인적으로 알려지지 않은 채로 남아 계십니다. 그들은 “그분은 틀림없이 그러하실 것입니다. 그러므로 우리는 그분이 계시다고 믿습니다” 라고 말합니다. 다른 사람들은 이 정도까지 진행하지도 않습니다. 그들은 소문으로만 그분에 대해 알고 있습니다. 그들은 결코 그 문제를 스스로 생각하려고 애쓰지 않았으며, 다른 사람들로부터 그분에 대해 들었고, 그들의 전체 신조를 구성하는 다양한 잡동사니들과 함께 그분에 대한 믿음을 그들의 마음 한구석에 두었습니다. 다른 많은 사람들에게 신(하나님)은 이상ideal일 뿐이며, 선함, 아름다움, 진실의 또 다른 이름일 뿐입니다. 또는 그분은 법이나, 생명이, 존재 현상을 뒷받침하는 창조적 충동creative impulse 입니다.

 

하나님에 대하여 이러한 (잘못된) 개념notions은 많고 다양하지만, 그것을 붙잡는 사람들에게는 한 가지 공통점이 있습니다. 그들은 개인적인 경험에서 하나님을 알지 못한다는 것입니다. 그분과 친밀하게 친해질 가능성은 그들의 정신minds 속에 들어오지 않았습니다. 그분의 존재를 인정하면서도 그들은 우리가 사물이나 사람을 안다는 의미에서 그분을 알 수 있는 존재로 생각하지 않습니다.

 

확실히 기독교인들은 적어도 이론적으로는 이보다 더 나아갑니다. 그들의 신조는 그들에게 하나님의 인격을 믿을 것을 요구하며, 그들은 "하늘에 계신 우리 아버지여" 라고 기도하도록 배웠습니다. 이제 성격과 부성애는 개인적인 친분의 가능성에 대한 아이디어를 전달합니다. 이것은 이론상으로는 인정되지만, 수백만 명의 그리스도인들에게는 그럼에도 불구하고 하나님이 비기독교인들에게 그러하시는 것보다 더욱 더 실재적인 것이 아닙니다(비고: 하나님이 그리스도인들에게는 실재적이어야 하는데, 마치 비그리스도인에게 처럼 실재적이지 않다는 말임).  God is no more real than He is to the non-Christian. (단지) 그들(그리스도인들)은 이상ideal을 사랑하고 단순한 원칙에 충실하려고 노력하며 인생을 살아갑니다.

 

이 모든 흐린 모호함cloudy vagueness 에 맞서 하나님은 개인적인 경험을 통해 알려질 수 있다는 분명한 성경적 교리가 있습니다. 사랑이 많으신 인격체가 성경을 지배하고 있으며, 정원의 나무들 사이를 거닐며 모든 장면에 향기를 불어넣고 계십니다. 항상 살아 계신 인격체, 그분의 백성이 그 나타남manifestation을 받는 데 필요한 수용력receptivity(감수성)을 가질 때 언제 어디서나 말씀하시고, 간구하시고, 사랑하시고, 일하시고, 자신을 나타내시면서 임재하십니다(비고: 그리스도인들은 이론적으로가 아니라, 삶에서 반드시 하나님의 임재의 나타남을 경험해야 한다는 취지에서 이 말을 하는 것임).

 

성경은 인간이 적어도 자신의 경험 범위 내에서 다른 사람이나 사물을 아는 것과 동일한 정도로 즉각적으로 하나님을 알 수 있다는 것을 자명한 사실로 가정합니다. 물질적인 것에 대한 지식을 표현하는 데 사용되는 것과 동일한 용어가 하나님에 대한 지식을 표현하는 데 사용됩니다. “오, 여호와의 선하심을 맛보아 알라.” “네 옷에서는 모두 상아궁에서 나오는 몰약과 침향과 계피의 향기가 난다.” "내 양은 내 음성을 듣는다." “마음이 청결한 자는 복이 있나니 그들이 하나님을 볼 것임이요.” 이것은 하나님의 말씀에 나오는 셀 수 없이 많은 구절 중 네 가지에 불과합니다. 그리고 어떤 증거 본문보다 더 중요한 것은 성경의 전체적인 의미가 이러한 믿음에 관한 것이라는 사실입니다.

 

우리가, 익숙한 오감을 통해 물질적인 것을 아는 것처럼 확실히 하나님을 알 수 있는 것에 의해서 우리 마음 속에 기관들을 갖고 있다는 것 외에 이 모든 것이 무엇을 의미할 수 있겠습니까? 우리는 그 목적을 위해 우리에게 주어진 기관들faculties을 실습함으로써 물리적 세계를 이해하며, 만일 우리가 성령의 충동에 순종하고 그 영적 기관들을 사용하기 시작한다면 우리는 하나님과 영적 세계를 알 수 있는 영적 수단들을 소유합니다.

 

구원 사업이 먼저 마음 속에서 이루어져야 한다는 것이 여기서는 당연하게 받아들여집니다. 거듭나지 않은 사람의 영적 능력은 그의 본성상 사용되지 않고 모든 목적에 있어서 죽은 채로 잠들어 있습니다. 이것이 바로 죄로 인해 우리에게 닥친 타격입니다. 그들은 중생케(거듭나게)하시는 성령의 역사하심으로 다시 활동적인 삶으로 소생될 수 있습니다. 그것은 그리스도께서 십자가에서 속죄하시는 사역을 통해 우리에게 오는 헤아릴 수 없는 유익 중 하나입니다.

 

그러나 속량함을 받은 하나님의 자녀들 자신은 왜 성경이 제공하는 것처럼 보이는 하나님과의 습관적이고 의식적인 교통에 대해 거의 알지 못합니까? 그 대답은 우리의 만성적인 불신입니다chronic unbelief (비고: 성령으로 거듭난 사람들이 하나님의 임재를 체험해야 하는데 실상은 그러지 못하고 있는데, 그 이유는 그들의 불신 때문이라고 말함). 믿음은 우리의 영적 감각이 기능하도록 해줍니다Faith enables our spiritual sense to function. 믿음에 결함이 있는 경우 그 결과는 영적인 것에 대한 내적 무감각insensibility과 무신경numbness이 될 것입니다. 이것이 오늘날 수많은 그리스도인들의 상태입니다. 그 진술을 뒷받침하는 데는 증거가 필요하지 않습니다. 우리는 우리에게 필요한 모든 증거를 얻기 위해 우리가 처음 만나는 그리스도인과 대화를 나누거나 열려 있는 첫 번째 교회에 들어가기만 하면 됩니다(비고: 그런 증거들을 어디에서나 쉽게 발견할 수 있다는 말임).

 

영적인 왕국은 우리 주위에 놓여 있으며, 우리를 둘러싸고, 우리를 포용하며, 우리의 내면이 닿을 수 있는 범위 내에 있으며, 우리가 그것을 인식하기를 기다리고 있습니다. 하나님께서는 그분의 임재에 대한 우리의 반응을 여기에서 기다리고 계십니다. 이 영원한 세계는 우리가 그 현실을 생각하기 시작하는 순간 우리에게 생생하게 다가올 것입니다.

 

나는 방금 정의를 요구하는 두 단어를 사용했습니다. 또는 정의가 불가능하다면 최소한 그 용어를 사용할 때 내가 의미하는 바를 분명히 해야 합니다. 그것은 "인식(reckon; 계산)"과 "실재(reality; 실체)"입니다.

 

실재 reality 란 무엇을 의미합니까? 그것은 어떤 생각(mind: 정신: 사람의 지정의)이 그것에 대해 가질 수 있는 어떤 생각과 떨어져 존재하고, 그것에 대한 생각을 품을 마음이 어디에도 없다고 한다해도 존재할 것이라는 것을 의미합니다(비고: 그것이 사람의 생각과는 전혀 다를지라도 실재하고, 어떤 사람도 그것을 전혀 생각하지 않는다 할지라도 실재한다는 말임). 실재적인 것은 그 자체로 존재합니다. 그것은 그것의 타당성에 대해 관찰자에게 달려 있지 않습니다 It does not depend upon the observer for its validity.

 

나는 평범한 사람의 현실관을 비웃는 것을 좋아하는 사람들이 있다는 것을 알고 있습니다. 그들은 생각the mind(지정의) 밖에서는 아무것도 실재가 아니라는 끝없는 증거를 제시하는 이상주의자들the idealists 입니다. 그들은 우주에 우리가 무엇이든 측정할 수 있는 고정된 점이 없다는 것을 보여주기를 좋아하는 상대론자relativists입니다. 그들은 높은 지적 정점에서 우리에게 미소를 짓고 우리에게 “절대주의자absolutist”라는 모욕적인 용어를 붙임으로써 우리를 그들 자신의 만족에 맞출 것입니다. 그리스도인은 이러한 경멸적인 태도로 인해 얼굴이 붉어지지 않습니다. 그는 그들에게 바로 미소를 지을 수 있습니다. 왜냐하면 그(그리스도인)는 절대자, 곧 하나님만이 (절대적으로, 영원히) 존재한다는 것을 알기 때문입니다. 그러나 그는 또한 절대자가 인간의 사용을 위해 이 세상을 만들었다는 것과, 인간 삶의 모든 목적을 위해 그 단어들의 마지막 의미(하나님께 적용되는 의미)안에 고정되거나 실재적인 것은 아무것도 없지만, 우리가 마치 거기에 있었던 것처럼 행동하도록 허용되었다는 것을 알고 있습니다. 그리고 정신병자를 제외한 모든 사람은 그렇게 행동합니다. 이 불행한 사람들도 그 실재(the reality)에 어려움을 겪고 있지만 일관적입니다. 그들은 사물에 대한 자신의 생각에 따라 살기를 고집합니다. 그들은 정직하며, 바로 그들의 정직함이 그들을 사회 문제로 만들고 있습니다.

 

이상주의자와 상대주의자는 정신병자가 아닙니다. 그들은 이론적으로 거부하는 바로 그 실재의 개념에 따라 삶을 살고, 그들이 존재하지 않는다고 증명하는 바로 그 고정된 점들을 의지함으로써 그들의 건전함을 증명합니다. 그들이 기꺼이 그 생각에 따라 생활한다면 그들의 생각에 대해 더 많은 존경을 받을 수 있습니다. 그러나 그들은 그렇게 하지 않으려고 조심합니다. 그들의 생각은 삶의 깊이가 아니라 뇌의 깊이에 있습니다. 삶이 그들에게 닿는 곳마다 그들은 그들의 이론을 거부하고 다른 사람들처럼 살아갑니다(비고: 왜인가? 그들이 틀렸다는 것을 알았기 때문임).

 

그리스도인은 자신의 이익을 위해 생각을 가지고 놀기에는 너무 진지합니다. 그는 단순히 전시를 위해 거미줄을 엮는 것만으로는 즐거움을 느끼지 않습니다. 그의 모든 신념은 실용적입니다. 그것들은 그의 삶에 맞춰져 있습니다. 그들에 의해 그는 이 세상과 다가올 모든 시대를 위해 살거나 죽고, 서거나 넘어집니다. 그는 성실하지 못한 사람에게서 돌아섰습니다.

 

진실하고 평범한 사람은 세상이 현실(실재)이라는 것the world is real을 압니다. 그는 의식에서 깨어났을 때 그것을 여기에서 발견하고, 자신이 그것을 존재한다고 생각하지 않았다는 것을 압니다. 그가 왔을 때 그것은 여기에서 그를 기다리고 있었고, 그는 그가 이 지상의 장면을 떠날 준비를 할 때 그가 떠날 때 그에게 작별 인사를 전하는 것이 여전히 여기에 있을 것이라는 것을 알고 있습니다. 인생의 깊은 지혜로 인해 그는 의심하는 수천 명의 사람보다 더 현명합니다. 그는 땅 위에 서서 얼굴에 닿는 바람과 비를 느끼며 그것이 현실이라는 것을 압니다. 그는 낮에는 태양을 보고 밤에는 별을 봅니다. 그는 어두운 뇌운 속에서 뜨거운 번개가 나오는 것을 봅니다. 그는 자연의 소리와 인간의 기쁨과 고통의 비명을 듣습니다. 그가 아는 이것들은 진짜입니다. 그는 밤에 시원한 땅에 누워 잠을 자는 동안 환상이 나타나거나 실패할 것이라는 두려움이 없습니다. 아침에는 그의 아래에 단단한 땅이 있을 것이고, 그의 위에는 푸른 하늘이 있을 것이며, 전날 밤에 그가 눈을 감았을 때처럼 그 주위의 바위와 나무들이 있을 것입니다. 그래서 그는 현실의 세계에서 살고 기뻐합니다.

 

그는 오감을 통해 이 현실 세계에 참여합니다. 인간은 자신을 창조하시고 이와 같은 세상에 두신 하나님께서 갖추어 주신 능력을 통해 자신의 육체적 존재에 필요한 모든 것을 이해합니다.

 

자, 우리가 정의한 바에 따르면 하나님 역시 실재입니다. 그분은 다른 어떤 것이 아닌 절대적이고 최종적인 의미에서 실재이십니다. He is real in the absolute and final sense that nothing else is. 다른 모든 실재(reality)는 그분의 실재에 달려 있습니다. All other reality is contingent upon His. 위대한 실재는 우리 자신을 포함하여 창조된 만물의 총체를 구성하는 하위의 종속적 실재의 창시자인 하나님이십니다. 하나님은 우리가 그분에 관해 가질 수 있는 어떤 관념과도 별개로, 독립적으로 객관적인 존재를 갖고 계십니다. 예배하는 마음은 그 대상을 창조하지 않습니다The worshipping heart does not create its Object(비고: 피조물로서 예배하는 사람은 창조주가 될 수 없다는 말임). 그것은 거듭남의 아침에 도덕적인 잠에서 깨어날 때 여기에서 그분을 발견합니다.

 

정리해야 할 또 다른 단어는 인식(reckon: 계산)이라는 단어입니다. 이것은 시각화하거나 상상한다는 의미가 아닙니다. 상상Imagination은 믿음이 아닙니다. 둘은 서로 다를 뿐만 아니라, 서로 첨예하게 대립하고 있습니다. 상상력은 마음 속에서 비현실적인 이미지를 투사하고 거기에 현실을 접목시키려고 노력합니다. 믿음은 아무것도 창조하지 않습니다. 그것은 이미 존재하는 것을 단순히 인식할 뿐입니다.

 

하나님과 영적 세계는 실재합니다. 우리는 우리 주변의 친숙한 세계를 생각하는 것만큼 확신을 가지고 그것들을 생각할 수 있습니다. 우리의 관심을 불러일으키고 우리의 신뢰에 도전하는 영적인 것들이 있습니다.

 

우리의 문제는 나쁜 생각 습관을 갖게 되었다는 것입니다. 우리는 습관적으로 보이는 세계를 현실(실재)이라고 생각하고 다른 세계의 현실(실상)을 의심합니다. 우리는 영적 세계의 존재를 부정하는 것이 아니라 그것이 그 단어의 수용된 의미에서 실재하는지 의심합니다.

 

감각의 세계는 평생 동안 밤낮으로 우리의 관심을 침해합니다. 그것은 시끄럽고, 끈질기고, 자기 과시적입니다. 그것은 우리의 믿음에 호소하지 않습니다. 그것은 바로 여기에서 우리의 오감을 공격하고 실재적이고 최종적인 것으로 받아들여지도록 요구합니다. 그러나 죄가 우리 마음의 렌즈를 너무 흐리게 했기 때문에 우리는 다른 현실(실재), 즉 우리 주위에서 빛나는 하나님의 도성을 볼 수 없습니다. 감각의 세계가 승리합니다. 보이는 것은 보이지 않는 것, 즉 일시적인 것, 영원한 것의 적(the enemy)이 됩니다. 그것은 아담의 비극적인 종족의 모든 구성원이 물려받은 저주the curse입니다.

 

그리스도인의 삶의 뿌리에는 보이지 않는 것에 대한 믿음이 있습니다. 그리스도인의 믿음의 대상은 보이지 않는 실재(실상)입니다. At the root of the Christian life lies belief in the invisible. The object of the Christian's faith is unseen reality.

 

우리의 자연적인 마음의 맹목성과 눈에 보이는 사물의 침투적 편재성에 의해 영향을 받은 우리의 교정되지 않은 사고는 영적인 것과 실재적인 것 사이에 대조를 그리는 경향이 있습니다. 그러나 실제로 그러한 대조는 존재하지 않습니다. 대조는 다른 곳에 있습니다: 실재와 상상 사이, 영적인 것과 물질적인 것 사이, 일시적인 것과 영원한 것 사이; 그러나 영적인 것과 실재적인 것 사이에서는 결코 그렇지 않습니다. 영적인 것은 실재real입니다(비고: 영체는 인간의 육체의 눈으로 보이지 않으나 실제로 존재한다는 말임. 단지 그 존재의 형태가 물체와 다를 뿐임).

 

우리가 진리의 성경을 통해 분명히 우리에게 손짓하는 빛과 능력의 영역으로 올라가려면 영적인 것을 무시하는 악한 습관을 버려야 합니다. 우리는 보이는 것에서 보이지 않는 것으로 관심을 옮겨야 합니다. 보이지 않는 위대한 실체는 하나님이시기 때문입니다. “하나님께 나아가는 자는 반드시 그가 계신 것과 또한 그가 자기를 찾는 자들에게 상 주시는 이심을 믿어야 할지니라.” 이것이 신앙생활의 기본입니다. 거기에서 우리는 무한한 높이로 올라갈 수 있습니다. 우리 주 예수 그리스도께서는 “너희가 하나님을 믿으며 또 나를 믿으라”고 말씀하셨습니다. 첫 번째가 없으면 두 번째도 있을 수 없습니다.

 

우리가 진정으로 하나님을 따르기를 원한다면 우리는 다른 세상적인(천국을 의미) 사람other-worldly이 되려고 노력해야 합니다. 나는 이 말이 이 세상의 아들들에 의해 경멸의 의미로 사용되었으며 그리스도인에게 치욕의 상징으로 적용되었다는 것을 잘 알고 있습니다. 그러면 그렇게 하도록 놔 두십시오. 모든 사람은 자신의 세계를 선택해야 합니다. 그리스도를 따르는 우리가 모든 사실을 앞에 두고 우리가 어떤 일을 하고 있는지를 알고 고의적으로 하나님의 나라를 우리의 관심 영역으로 선택한다면 누구도 반대할 이유가 없다고 생각합니다. 우리가 그로 인해 잃는다면 그 손실은 우리 자신의 것입니다. 우리가 이득을 취하더라도 그렇게 해서 아무도 빼앗지 않습니다. 이 세상의 경멸의 대상이요, 주정뱅이의 조롱의 대상이 되는 “저 세상”은 우리가 엄선한 목표이자 가장 거룩한 갈망의 대상입니다.

 

그러나 우리는 '다른 세계'를 미래로 밀어붙이는 공통의 잘못을 피해야 합니다. 그것은 미래가 아니라 현재입니다. 그것은 우리에게 친숙한 물리적 세계와 유사하며 두 세계 사이에 문들이 열려 있습니다. 히브리서 기자는 "너희가, 시온산에, 그리고 살아 계신 하나님의 도성인 하늘의 예루살렘에, 그리고 천만 천사에게, 그 총회와 하늘에 기록되어 있는 장자들의 교회에게, 그리고 만민의 심판자이신 하나님에게, 그리고 온전하게 된 의인의 영들에게, 그리고 새 언약의 중보자이신 예수님에게, 그리고 아벨의 것보다 더 나은 것을 말하는 뿌린 피에게 이르렀다"고 말합니다(그리고 그 시제는 명백히 현재입니다). 이 모든 것들은 “만질 수 있는 산”과 들을 수 있는 “나팔 소리와 말씀의 음성”과 대조됩니다. 시내산의 현실이 감각으로 파악되는 것처럼 시온산의 현실도 영혼으로 파악해야 한다고 안전하게 결론을 내릴 수 있지 않을까요? 그리고 이것은 상상의 속임수가 아니라 솔직히 현실actuality입니다. 영혼에는 볼 수 있는 눈이 있고 들을 수 있는 귀가 있습니다. 그것들은 오랫동안 사용되지 않아서 희미할 수도 있지만 그러나 지금도 살아있고 가장 날카로운 시력과 가장 민감한 청각을 사용할 수 있는 그리스도의 생명을 주시는 손길에 의해서 볼 수 있고 들을 수 있습니다.

 

우리가 하나님께 초점을 맞추기 시작하면 영의 일들이 우리 내적인 눈들 앞에 모습을 드러낼 것입니다. 그리스도의 말씀에 순종하는 것은 하나님의 내적 계시를 가져올 것입니다Obedience to the word of Christ will bring an inward revelation of the Godhead (요 14:21-23). 그것은 마음이 청결한 자에게 약속된 대로 우리가 하나님을 볼 수 있도록 예리한 지각을 줄 것입니다. 새로운 하나님 의식이 우리를 사로잡을 것이며 우리는 우리의 생명이자 전부이신 하나님을 맛보고 듣고 내적으로 느끼기 시작할 것입니다. 세상에 오는 모든 사람을 비추는 빛이 끊임없이 비치는 것을 보게 될 것입니다. 우리의 능력이 점점 더 예리해지고 확실해짐에 따라 하나님은 우리에게 위대한 전체가 되실 것이며, 그분의 임재는 우리 삶의 영광과 경이로움이 될 것입니다.

 

오 하나님, 내 안에 있는 모든 능력에 생명을 주셔서 내가 영원한 것을 붙잡게 하소서. 내 눈을 열어서 보게 하소서. 나에게 예민한 영적 인식을 주소서. 당신을 맛보고 당신이 선하신 분임을 알게 하소서. 천국은 세상의 그 어떤 것보다 나에게 더 현실적입니다. 아멘.

 

 

 

V. 보편적 임재  The Universal Presence

 

 

내가 주의 영을 떠나 어디로 갈 것입니까? 아니면 내가 주의 면전에서 어디로 도망해야 합니까?

시 139:7

 

모든 기독교 가르침에는 특정한 기본 진리들이 발견되고, 때로는 숨겨져 있으며, 주장되기보다는 가정(추정)되지만, 마치 그 원래의 색깔들이 완성된 그림 안에 발견되고 필요한 것처럼, (그 기본 진리들은) 모든 진리에 필요합니다. 그러한 하나의 진리는 하나님의 내재성immanence입니다.

 

하나님은 그분의 창조물 안에 거하시며 그분의 모든 사역 가운데 어느 곳에나 불가분하게 임재하십니다. 이것은 선지자와 사도가 담대하게 가르쳤으며 일반적으로 기독교 신학에서 받아들입니다. 즉, 책에는 나타나지만 (그러나) 어떤 이유에서인지 그것(하나님의 임재)은 일반 그리스도인의 마음 속으로 스며들어 믿는 자아의 일부가 되지 않았습니다. 기독교 교사들은 그것이 의미하는 바를 완전히 회피하며, 만약 그들이 그것을 언급하더라도 그것이 거의 의미가 없을 때까지 침묵시킵니다. 나는 이것이 범신론으로 기소되는 것에 대한 두려움 때문이라고 생각합니다. 그러나 하나님의 임재에 관한 교리는 확실히 범신론pantheism은 아닙니다.

 

범신론의 오류는 너무 뚜렷해서 누구도 속일 수 없습니다. 그것(범신론)은 하나님이 모든 피조물의 총합(the sum of all created things)이라는 것입니다. 자연과 하나님은 하나입니다, 그 결과 나뭇잎이나 돌을 만지는 사람은 누구나 하나님을 만집니다(비고: 범신론의 잘못된 주장임). 물론 그것은 부패하지 않는 하나님의 영광을 폄하하는 것이며, 모든 것을 신성하게 만들려는 노력의 일환으로 세상으로부터 모든 신성을 완전히 추방하는 것입니다(비고: 범신론의 잘못임).

 

진실은 하나님이 그의 세상에 거하시는 동안 영원히 건널 수 없는 심연으로 세상과 분리되어 있다는 것입니다The truth is that while God dwells in His world, He is separated from it by a gulf forever impassable. 아무리 밀접하게 그분이 그분의 손으로 행하신 일과 동일시될지라도 그것들은 영원히 그분과 다르며, 그분은 그들보다 앞서 계시며 그들로부터 독립되어 있어야 합니다. 그분은 그분의 모든 작품 안에 내재하시는 동안에도 그분의 모든 작품보다 초월하십니다.

 

이제 직접적인 기독교 경험에서 하나님의 내재성은 무엇을 의미합니까? 그것은 단순히 하나님이 여기에 계시다는 것을 의미합니다. 우리가 어디에 있든 하나님은 여기에 계십니다. 그분이 계시지 않는 곳은 있을 수 없습니다. 공간의 여러 지점에 서 있고 이해할 수 없는 거리로 분리되어 있는 천만 개의 지능이 각각 동일한 진리로 하나님이 여기 있다고 말할 수 있습니다. 다른 어떤 지점보다 하나님께 더 가까운 지점은 없습니다. 그것은 어느 곳에서나 다른 곳에서와 마찬가지로 정확히 하나님께 가까이 있습니다. 어느 누구도 다른 사람보다 하나님으로부터 더 멀리 있거나 더 가까이 있는 사람은 없습니다.

 

이것은 교육받은 모든 그리스도인이 믿는 진리입니다. 그것들이 우리 안에서 빛나기 시작할 때까지 그것에 대해 생각하고 기도하는 것이 우리에게 남아 있습니다.

 

"태초에 하나님이 계시니라." (하나님은) 물질matter이 아닙니다. 물질은 스스로 발생하는 것이 아니기 때문입니다. 그것(물질)은 선행하는 원인이 필요하며, 하나님이 그 원인이십니다. (하나님은) 법이 아닙니다. 왜냐하면 법은 모든 피조물이 따르는 과정을 위한 이름일 뿐이기 때문입니다. 그 과정은 계획되어야 하고, 그 계획자는 하나님이십니다. (하나님은) 생각이 아닙니다. 생각(mind: 혼: 지정의) 역시 창조된 것이며 그 뒤에 창조자가 있어야 하기 때문입니다. 태초에 하나님은 물질과 생각mind과 법의 원인이 없는 원인이셨습니다. 거기서부터 시작해야 합니다.

 

아담은 죄를 지었고, 공포에 질려 불가능한 일을 하려고 미친 듯이 노력했습니다. 그는 하나님의 면전에서 숨으려고 했습니다. 다윗도 그 임재를 피하려고 사나운 생각을 하였음이 분명합니다. “내가 주의 영을 떠나 어디로 가며 주의 목전을 떠나 어디로 피하리이까” 라고 기록하였기 때문입니다. 그런 다음 그는 하나님의 내재의 영광을 찬양하기 위해 그의 가장 아름다운 시편 중 하나를 계속 진행했습니다. “내가 하늘에 올라갈지라도 거기 계시며 음부에 내 자리를 펼지라도 거기 계시니 내가 아침 날개를 치며 바다 끝에 가서 거주할지라도 거기 계시니이다 나를 인도하소서 주의 오른손이 나를 붙드시리이다." 그리고 그는 하나님의 존재being와 하나님의 보시는 것seeing이 동일하다는 것과, 보는 존재가 그가 태어나기 전부터 그와 함께 계시며 펼쳐지는 생명의 신비를 지켜보고 계셨다는 것을 알았습니다. 솔로몬은 “하나님이 참으로 땅에 거하시리이까 하늘과 하늘들의 하늘이라도 주를 용납지 못하겠거든 하물며 내가 건축한 이 전이오리이까” 라고 외쳤습니다. 바울은 아테네인들에게 확신시켰습니다: “하나님은 우리 각 사람에게서 멀리 떠나 계시지 아니하시나니 우리가 그 안에서 살고 움직이며 존재함이라.” Paul assured the Athenians that “God is not far from any one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being.

 

만약 하나님이 공간의 모든 지점에 존재하신다면, 우리가 그분이 계시지 않는 곳으로 갈 수 없고 그분이 계시지 않는 곳을 상상조차 할 수 없다면, 그렇다면 왜 그 임재는 세계에서 보편적으로 기념되는 하나의 사실이 되지 않습니까? 족장 야곱은 “황폐하고 부르짖는 광야에서” 그 질문에 답했습니다. 그는 하나님의 환상을 보고 놀라서 “여호와께서 과연 여기 계시거늘 내가 알지 못하였도다” 라고 외쳤습니다. 야곱은 그 모든 곳에 두루 계시는 임재의 범위에서 단 한 순간도 벗어나 본 적이 없었습니다. 그러나 그는 그것을 몰랐습니다. 그것은 그의 문제였고 우리의 문제였습니다. 사람들은 하나님이 여기에 계시다는 것을 모릅니다. 그들이 안다면 얼마나 큰 변화가 생길까요?

 

임재와 그 임재의 나타남은 동일하지 않습니다. The Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same.다른 하나 없이 하나만 있을 수 있습니다. 하나님은 우리가 전혀 알지 못할 때 여기에 계십니다. 그분은 우리가 그분의 임재를 인식할 때만 나타나십니다. 우리는 하나님의 영에게 굴복해야 합니다. 왜냐하면 그분의 일은 우리에게 아버지와 아들을 보여 주는 것이기 때문입니다On our part there must be surrender to the Spirit of God, for His work it is to show us the Father and the Son. 우리가 사랑의 순종으로 그분과 협력한다면 하나님은 자신을 우리에게 나타내실 것이며, 그 나타남은 명목상의 그리스도인의 삶과 그분의 얼굴의 빛으로 빛나는 (영적인 그리스도인의) 삶의 차이가 될 것입니다If we co-operate with Him in loving obedience God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face.

 

하나님은 언제나, 어디에나 계시며, 항상 자신을 발견하려고 노력하십니다. 각 사람에게 그분은 자신이 누구인지뿐만 아니라 자신이 무엇인지도 나타내실 것입니다. 그분은 모세에게 자신을 발견하기 위해 설득될 필요가 없었습니다. “여호와께서 구름 가운데 강림하사 그와 함께 거기 서서 여호와의 이름을 선포하시니라.” 그분은 자신의 본성을 말로 선포하셨을 뿐만 아니라 모세에게 자신을 계시하셔서 모세의 얼굴 피부가 초자연적인 빛으로 빛나게 하셨습니다. 자기 계시에 대한 하나님의 약속이 문자 그대로 참되다는 사실, 즉 하나님이 많은 것을 약속하셨으나 성취하려는 것 이상은 약속하지 않으셨다는 사실을 믿기 시작하는 것은 우리 중 일부에게 아주 좋은 순간이 될 것입니다.

 

우리가 하나님을 추구하는 것은 그분이 영원히 자신을 우리에게 나타내려고 하시기 때문에 성공하는 것입니다. 어떤 사람에게든 하나님의 계시는 하나님이 그 사람의 영혼을 짧고도 중대한 방문을 하기 위해 먼 곳에서 오시는 것이 아닙니다. 그러므로 그것을 생각하는 것은 모든 것을 오해하는 것입니다. 영혼에 대한 하나님의 접근이나 하나님께 대한 영혼의 접근은 전혀 공간적인 측면에서 생각되어서는 안 됩니다. 이 개념에는 물리적 거리에 대한 아이디어가 없습니다. 그것은 마일의 문제가 아니라 경험의 문제입니다.

 

하나님과 가깝거나 멀다는 것을 말하는 것은 우리의 일상적인 인간 관계에 적용될 때 항상 이해되는 의미로 언어를 사용하는 것입니다. 어떤 남자는 "내 아들이 커갈수록 나에게 점점 더 가까워지는 것 같다" 고 말하지만, 그 아들은 태어날 때부터 아버지 곁에서 살아왔고, 한 번도 집을 떠나본 적이 없습니다: 평생 동안 하루 정도. 그러면 아버지는 무엇을 의미할 수 있습니까? 분명히 그는 경험을 말하고 있습니다. 그 말은 그 소년이 자신을 더 친밀하고 더 깊은 이해를 가지고 알게 되고, 두 사람 사이의 생각과 감정의 장벽이 사라지고, 아버지와 아들이 생각mind과 마음으로 더욱 밀접하게 연합되고 있다는 뜻입니다.

 

그러므로 우리가 "저를 더 가까이, 더 가까이 이끌어 주소서, 복되신 주님" 이라고 부를 때 우리는 장소의 가까움을 생각하는 것이 아니라 관계relationship의 가까움을 생각하는 것입니다. 우리가 기도하는 것은 인식awareness의 정도를 높이기 위해서이며, 그 하나님의 임재에 대한 더욱 완전한 의식을 위해서입니다. 우리는 공간을 가로질러 부재하시는 하나님에게 소리칠 필요가 없습니다. 그분은 우리 자신의 영혼보다 더 가까이 계시고, 우리의 가장 은밀한 생각보다 더 가까이 계십니다 He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.

 

왜 어떤 사람들은 다른 사람들이 찾지 않는 방식으로 하나님을 “찾습니까?” 왜 하나님은 어떤 사람들에게는 자신의 임재를 나타내시고 다른 사람들은 불완전한 기독교 경험의 희미한 빛 속에서 어려움을 겪도록 내버려 두십니까? 물론 하나님의 뜻은 모든 사람에게 동일합니다. 그분의 집에는 마음에 드는 사람이 없습니다. 그분은 자신의 자녀 중 누구에게나 행하신 모든 일을 자신의 모든 자녀를 위해 행하실 것입니다. 차이점은 하나님께 있는 것이 아니라 우리에게 있습니다.

 

삶과 간증이 널리 알려진 위대한 성도들을 무작위로 골라 보십시오. 그들이 성서 인물이거나 성서 이후 시대의 잘 알려진 그리스도인이 되도록 하십시오. 당신은 성도들이 서로 같지 않았다는 사실에 즉시 충격을 받을 것입니다. 때로는 그 차이가 너무 커서 긍정적으로 눈부실 수도 있습니다. 예를 들어, 모세는 이사야와 얼마나 달랐습니까? 엘리야는 다윗과 얼마나 달랐는가? 요한과 바울, 성 프란치스코와 루터, 피니와 토마스 아 켐피스는 서로 얼마나 달랐습니까? 인종, 국적, 교육, 기질, 습관, 개인적 자질 등의 차이는 인간의 삶 자체만큼이나 넓습니다. 그러나 그들은 모두 그 시대에 일반적인 길보다 훨씬 높은 영적인 삶의 높은 길을 걸었습니다.

 

그들의 차이점은 부수적인 것이었으며 하나님의 눈에는 아무런 의미도 없었을 것입니다. 어떤 중요한 특성에서 그들은 비슷했을 것입니다. 그것은 무엇이었나요?

 

나는 그들이 공통적으로 갖고 있던 한 가지 중요한 특성은 영적인 수용성(감수성)이었다고 감히 제안하고 싶습니다I venture to suggest that the one vital quality which they had in common was spiritual receptivity. 그들 안에는 하늘을 향해 열려 있는 어떤 것이 있었고, 그들을 하나님께로 나아가게 하는 어떤 것이 있었습니다. 심오한 분석 같은 것을 시도하지 않고 단순히 그들이 영적인 인식을 갖고 있었고 그것이 그들의 삶에서 가장 큰 것이 될 때까지 그것을 계속해서 계발했다고 말씀드리고 싶습니다. 그들은 내면의 갈망을 느낄 때 그것에 대해 뭔가를 한다는 점에서 보통 사람과 달랐습니다. 그들은 평생 동안 영적인 반응을 하는 습관을 얻었습니다. 그들은 하늘의 이상에 불순종하지 않았습니다. 다윗이 깔끔하게 표현한 것처럼, “주께서 내 얼굴을 찾으라 말씀하실 때에 내 마음이 주께 이르되 여호와여 내가 주의 얼굴을 구하리이다” 라고 했습니다.

 

인간 삶의 모든 좋은 것과 마찬가지로 이 수용력 뒤에는 하나님이 계십니다. 하나님의 주권은 여기에 있으며, 이를 신학적으로 특별히 강조하지 않는 사람들도 느낄 수 있습니다. 경건한 마이클 안젤로는 소네트에서 이렇게 고백했습니다.

 

내 마음unassisted heart은 메마른 진흙,

본래의 자아는 아무것도 먹일 수 없습니다.

당신은 선하고 경건한 행위의 씨앗이시며,

그것은 당신이 말씀하신 곳에서만 촉진됩니다:

당신이 우리에게 당신의 참된 길을 보여주시지 않는다면

아무도 그것을 찾을 수 없습니다: 아버지! 당신이 이끌어야 합니다.

 

이 말은 위대한 그리스도인의 깊고 진지한 간증으로서 연구에 보답할 것입니다.

 

하나님이 우리 안에서 일하신다는 것을 인식하는 것이 중요하기 때문에 나는 그 생각에 너무 집착하지 말라고 경고하고 싶습니다. 그것은 무익한 수동성을 향한 확실한 길입니다. 하나님께서는 우리에게 선택과 예정과 하나님의 주권의 신비를 이해할 책임을 묻지 않으실 것입니다. 이러한 진리를 다루는 가장 좋고 안전한 방법은 우리의 눈을 들어 하나님을 바라보고 깊은 존경심으로 “오 주여, 주께서 아시나이다” 라고 말하는 것입니다. 그러한 것들은 하나님의 전지하심의 깊고 신비로운 심오함에 속합니다. 그것들을 파헤쳐 보면 신학자가 될 수는 있지만 결코 성인이 될 수는 없습니다.

 

수용성은 단일한 것이 아닙니다Receptivity is not a single thing. 그것은 오히려 영혼 내의 여러 요소가 혼합된 혼합물입니다. 그것은 갖고자 하는 욕구에 대한 애착, 기울어짐, 동정적인 반응입니다. 이것으로부터 그것은 정도에 따라 존재할 수 있다는 것을 수집할 수 있으며, 개인에 따라 거의 또는 더 많거나 적게 가질 수 있습니다. 운동으로 인해 증가할 수도 있고, 방치로 인해 파괴될 수도 있습니다. 그것은 위로부터 압류로서 우리에게 닥쳐오는 주권적이고 저항할 수 없는 세력이 아닙니다. 그것은 참으로 하나님의 선물이지만, 그것이 주어진 목적을 실현하려면 다른 선물과 마찬가지로 인식되고 배양되어야 합니다It is a gift of God, indeed, but one which must be recognized and cultivated as any other gift if it is to realize the purpose for which it was given.

 

이것을 보지 못하는 것이 현대 복음주의의 심각한 붕괴의 원인이 됩니다. 옛 성도들이 그토록 소중하게 여겼던 수양과 운동에 대한 생각은 이제 우리의 전체 종교적인 모습에서 자리를 차지하지 않습니다. 너무 느리고 너무 일반적입니다. 이제 우리는 화려함과 빠르게 흐르는 드라마틱한 액션을 요구합니다. 푸시 버튼과 자동 기계 사이에서 자란 기독교인 세대는 목표 달성을 위한 더 느리고 덜 직접적인 방법을 참을성이 없습니다. 우리는 하나님과의 관계에 기계시대의 방법을 적용하려고 노력해 왔습니다. 우리는 장을 읽고, 짧은 헌신을 하고, 또 다른 복음 모임에 참석하거나 최근 멀리서 돌아온 종교 모험가가 전하는 또 다른 감동적인 이야기를 들음으로써 우리의 깊은 내적 파산을 만회하기 위해 달려갑니다.

 

이 정신의 비극적인 결과는 모두 우리에 관한 것입니다. 천박한 삶, 공허한 종교 철학, 복음 모임에서 우세한 재미 요소, 인간의 영광, 종교적 외부성에 대한 신뢰, 준종교적 교제, 영업 방법, 역동적인 성격을 권력으로 착각하는 것, 정신: 이것들은 사악한 질병, 즉 영혼의 깊고 심각한 질병의 증상입니다.

 

우리에게 닥친 이 큰 질병에 대해서는 어느 누구도 책임이 없는 사람이 없으며, 그리스도인도 책임이 전혀 없는 사람은 없습니다For this great sickness that is upon us no one person is responsible, and no Christian is wholly free from blame. 우리 모두는 이 슬픈 상황에 직간접적으로 기여해 왔습니다. 우리는 너무 눈이 멀어서 보지 못하거나, 너무 소심해서 말을 하지 못하거나, 너무 자기만족에 빠져 다른 사람들이 만족해 보이는 열악한 평균 식단보다 더 나은 것을 바라지 않았습니다. 다르게 말하면, 우리는 서로의 관념을 받아들이고, 서로의 삶을 모방하고, 서로의 경험을 우리 자신의 모델로 삼았습니다. 그리고 한 세대 동안 추세는 하향세를 보였습니다. 이제 우리는 모래와 탄 철풀이 있는 낮은 곳에 이르렀고, 무엇보다도 우리는 진리의 말씀을 우리의 경험에 일치시키고 이 낮은 곳을 축복받은 자들의 목초지로 받아들였습니다.

 

우리 시대의 지배에서 벗어나 성경적 방식으로 돌아가려면 결단력 있는 마음 heart과 약간 이상의 용기가 필요할 것입니다. 하지만 그것은 가능합니다. 과거에 기독교인들은 때때로 그렇게 해야 했습니다. 역사는 성 프란시스(St. Francis), 마틴 루터(Martin Luther), 조지 폭스(George Fox)와 같은 사람들이 이끄는 여러 차례의 대규모 귀환returns을 기록했습니다. 불행하게도 현재로서는 루터나 폭스가 등장하지 않는 것 같습니다. 그리스도가 오시기 전에 또 다른 그러한 재림이 기대될 수 있는지 여부는 그리스도인들이 완전히 동의하지 않는 문제이지만, 그것은 지금 우리에게 그다지 중요하지 않습니다.

 

하나님께서 주권을 가지고 세계 규모로 행하실 일을 나는 알 수 없다고 주장합니다. 그러나 그분의 얼굴을 구하는 평범한 남자와 여자를 위해 하나님께서 하실 일을 나는 알고 있으며 다른 사람들에게 말할 수 있다고 믿습니다. 누구든지 진지하게 하나님께로 향하고, 경건에 이르기까지 자신을 훈련하고, 신뢰와 순종과 겸손을 통해 영적 수용력을 발전시키도록 노력하십시오. 그 결과는 그가 더 마르고 약했던 시절에 기대했던 것 이상으로 나타날 것입니다.

 

회개하고 진실하게 하나님께로 돌아옴으로써 자신이 갇힌 틀에서 벗어나 자신의 영적 표준을 찾기 위해 성경 자체로 나아가는 사람은 누구나 거기서 발견한 것에 기뻐할 것입니다.

 

다시 말해 보겠습니다. 그 우주적 임재the Universal Presence는 하나의 사실입니다. 하나님은 여기 계십니다. 온 우주는 그분의 생명으로 살아있습니다. 그리고 그분은 이상하거나 이질적인 하나님이 아니라, 지난 수천 년 동안 죄 많은 인류를 사랑으로 감싸주신 우리 주 예수 그리스도의 친밀한 아버지이십니다. 그리고 항상 그분은 우리의 관심을 끌고, 자신을 우리에게 계시하시고, 우리와 소통하려고 노력하십니다. 우리가 그분의 제안overtures에 응답하기만 하면 우리는 그분을 알 수 있는 능력을 우리 안에 가집니다. (그리고 이것을 우리는 하나님을 추구한다고 부릅니다!) 우리의 수용력이 믿음과 사랑과 실천으로 더욱 완전해짐에 따라 우리는 점점 더 그분을 알게 될 것입니다.

 

오 하나님 아버지, 눈에 보이는 것에 집착하는 죄악을 회개합니다. 세상은 나에게 너무 많은 일을 해왔습니다. 당신은 여기에 있었지만 나는 그것을 몰랐습니다. 나는 당신의 임재에 눈이 멀었습니다. 내 눈을 열어서 내 안팎에서 당신을 볼 수 있게 하소서. 예수님의 이름으로 기도합니다. 아멘.

 

 

 

VI. 말씀하는 소리 The Speaking Voice (하나님의 음성)

 

 

태초에 말씀이 계시니라 이 말씀이 하나님과 함께 계셨으니 이 말씀은 곧 하나님이시니라.—요한복음 1:1

 

기독교의 진리를 배우지 못한 지성 있는 평범한 사람이라면 이 본문을 접하면서, 말씀하시는 것, 자신의 생각들을 다른 사람들에게 교환하시는communicate 것이 하나님의 그 본성the nature이라는 것을, 요한이 가르치고자 했다는 것을 알 것입니다. 그리고 그는 옳을 것입니다. 하나의 단어(word: 말)는 생각들이 표현되는 매체이고, 그 영원한 아들(예수님)에게 그 용어(term)의 적용은, 자기 표현이 그 신격에 내재되어 있으며, 하나님은 영원히 자신의 창조물에게 자기 자신을 말씀하시는 것을 찾으신다는 것을 우리로 하여금 믿도록 인도합니다. 성경 전체가 그 생각을 지지합니다. 하나님께서 말씀하고 계십니다. 하나님이 말씀하셨던 것이 아니라 하나님이 말씀하고 계십니다. 그분은 본성상 지속적으로 명확하게 말씀하십니다. 그분은 말씀하시는 음성으로 세상을 채우십니다.

 

우리가 다루어야 할 가장 큰 실재들realities 중 하나는 그분의 세계에서 하나님의 음성입니다. 가장 간단하고 유일하게 만족스러운 우주 발생론은 "그분이 말씀하셨고 그리고 그것이 이루어졌다" 는 것입니다. 자연적인 법의 원인은 창조물 안에 내재하는 하나님의 살아있는 음성입니다. 그리고 모든 세계를 존재being로 이끄셨던(실체로 만드셨던) 이 하나님의 말씀은 성경을 의미하는 것으로 이해될 수 없습니다(비고: 그 하나님의 말씀은 기록된 성경을 의미하지 않는다). 왜냐하면 그것은 결코 기록되거나 인쇄된 말씀이 아니라, 만물의 구조 속으로 말씀되어진 하나님의 뜻의 표현이기 때문입니다. 이 하나님의 말씀은 세상을 살아 있는 잠재력potentiality으로 채우는 하나님의 숨결the breath(호흡)입니다. 하나님의 음성은 자연에서 가장 강력한 힘이며, 실제로 자연에서 유일한 힘입니다. 왜냐하면, 모든 에너지는 오직 능력으로 가득 찬 말씀이 선포되어지고 있슴으로 인하여 여기에 있기 때문입니다(비고: 그만큼 하나님의 살아있는 음성은 능력있고 위대하다는 말임).

 

성경은 기록된 하나님의 말씀이며, 기록되었기 때문에 잉크와 종이와 가죽의 필요성에 의해 제한되고 한계가 있습니다. 그러나 하나님의 음성은 주권자 하나님이 자유롭듯이 살아있고 자유롭습니다. “내가 너희에게 이른 말들이 영이요 생명이니라.” 생명은 말하는 말에 있습니다. 성경에 있는 하나님의 말씀은 우주 안에 있는 하나님의 말씀과 일치하기 때문에 능력을 가질 수 있습니다. 기록된 말씀을 전능하게 만드는 것은 현재의 음성입니다. 그렇지 않으면 책 표지 속에 잠든 채로 잠들어 있을 것입니다.

 

창조물이 사물과 물리적으로 접촉하고, 목수처럼 모양을 만들고, 맞추고, 짓는 하나님을 생각할 때, 우리는 사물에 대해 낮고 원시적인 관점을 취합니다. 성경은 다르게 가르칩니다. " 여호와의 말씀으로 하늘이 지음이 되었으며 그 만상이 그 입 기운으로 이루어졌도다… 굳건히 서 있어." "믿음으로 우리는 모든 세계가 하나님의 말씀으로 지어진 줄을 아나니." 여기서 우리는 하나님께서 기록된 말씀이 아니라 말씀하시는 음성을 언급하고 계신다는 점을 다시 한 번 기억해야 합니다. 세상을 가득 채우는 그분의 음성은 성경보다 수 세기 전에 나오는 음성, 창조가 시작된 이래로 침묵하지 않고 우주의 먼 곳까지 여전히 울려 퍼지는 음성을 의미합니다.

 

하나님의 말씀은 빠르고 강력합니다. 처음에 그분은 아무에게도 말씀하시지 않으셨으나 그것이 무언가가 되었습니다. 혼돈은 그것을 듣고 질서가 되었고, 어둠은 그것을 듣고 빛이 되었습니다. "하나님이 이르시되... 그대로 되었느니라." 원인과 결과인 이 쌍둥이 문구는 창세기의 창조 이야기 전반에 걸쳐 등장합니다. 그 이유는 다음과 같습니다. 연속적인 현재에도 마찬가지입니다.

 

하나님이 여기 계시고 그분이 말씀하고 계시다는 것—이 진리들은 다른 모든 성경 진리들 뒤에 있습니다; 그들(성경 진리들) 없이는 계시가 전혀 있을 수 없습니다. 하나님은, 도움을 받지 않는 혼(mind: 생각)들에 의해 멀리 떨어져서 읽혀질 수 있도록 한권의 책을 쓰시지 않았고, 사자에 의해서 그것을 보내지도 않으셨습니다(비고: 아무나 성경을 읽고 하나님의 음성을 들을 수가 없다. 그 일은 절대적으로 하나님의 영의 도움과 조명이 필요하다는 말임). 그분은 한권의 책(성경)을 말씀하셨고 끊임없이 그분의 말씀들을 말씀하시고 그 말씀들의 능력이 수년에 걸쳐 지속되게 만드시면서 그분의 선포된 말씀들 안에 사십니다. 하나님이 흙에 숨을 불어넣으셨고 흙이 한 사람이 되었습니다; 그분께서 사람들에게 숨을 불어넣으시고 그들은 진흙이 됩니다. “너희 사람의 자녀들아 돌아오라”는 말씀은, 그 타락the Fall 당시에 하나님께서 모든 사람의 죽음을 선언하셨던decreed 말씀이었으며, 그분은 어떤 추가적인 말씀도 하실 필요가 없었습니다. 탄생부터 무덤까지 지구의 표면을 걷는 인류의 그 슬픈 행렬은 그분의 본래 말씀이 충분했다는 증거입니다..

 

우리는 요한복음에 나오는 "참 빛 곧 세상에 와서 각 사람에게 비취는 빛이 있었더니" 라는 깊은 말씀에 충분한 주의를 기울이지 않았습니다. 우리가 원하는 대로 구두점을 바꾸면 진리는 여전히 거기에 있습니다. 하나님의 말씀the Word of God은 영혼the soul안에서 빛으로서 모든 사람의 마음hearts에 영향을 미칩니다. 모든 사람의 마음에는 빛이 비치고 그 말씀이 울려 퍼지니 그것들을 피할 자가 없습니다. 하나님이 살아 계시고 그의 세상에 계시다면 이와 같은 일이 반드시 일어날 것입니다. 그리고 요한은 그렇다고 말합니다. 성경을 전혀 들어본 적이 없는 사람들이라도 그들의 마음에서 모든 변명을 영원히 제거할 만큼 충분히 명확하게 설교되었습니다. “이는 그 양심이 증거가 되어 그 생각이 서로 송사하며 혹은 변명하여 그 마음에 새긴 율법의 행위를 나타내느니라(롬 2:15).” “창세로부터 그의 보이지 아니하는 것들 곧 그의 영원하신 능력과 신성이 그 만드신 만물에 분명히 보여 알게 되나니 그러므로 저희가 핑계치 못할지니라(롬 1:20).”

 

이 보편적인 하나님의 음성은 고대 히브리인들이 종종 지혜라고 불렀으며, 모든 곳에서 온 땅을 울려 퍼지며 사람의 아들들로부터 어떤 응답을 구한다고 말했습니다. 잠언 8장은 “지혜가 부르지 아니하느냐 명철이 소리를 내지 아니하느냐” 라고 시작합니다. 그 다음 저자는 지혜를 “높은 곳 꼭대기와 길가에” 선 아름다운 여인으로 묘사합니다. 그녀는 누구도 그 목소리를 놓치지 않도록 매 분기마다 목소리를 냅니다. “사람들아 내가 너희를 부르며 내 소리가 인생들에게로 들리느니라.” 그런 다음 그녀는 단순하고 어리석은 사람들이 자신의 말에 귀를 기울일 것을 간청합니다. 그것은 하나님의 지혜가 간구하는 영적인 응답이며, 항상 추구해 왔지만 좀처럼 얻을 수 없는 응답입니다. 비극은 우리의 영원한 복지가 듣는 것에 달려 있다는 것입니다. (그러나) 우리는 듣지 않도록 귀를 훈련시켰습니다.

 

이 보편적인 목소리는 언제나 울려왔고, 사람들이 두려움의 근원을 이해하지 못했을 때에도 그것은 종종 사람들을 괴롭혔습니다. 인간의 마음 위에 살아있는 안개처럼 증발하는 이 음성이 기록된 역사의 여명기 이래 수백만 명이 고백한 양심의 가책과 불멸에 대한 갈망의 알려지지 않은 원인이었을 수 있습니까?(비고: 사람들이 죄의 근본 문제의 해결을 위해서는 오직 하나님의 음성을 들어야만 하기 때문에 하나님은 우리로 하여금 그 음성을 들을 수 있도록 과정 과정 인도하신다는 말임). 우리는 이 문제에 직면하는 것을 두려워할 필요가 없습니다. 말씀하시는 음성은 사실입니다. 이에 대해 사람들이 어떻게 반응했는지는 관찰하는 사람마다 알 수 있습니다.

 

하나님께서 하늘에서 우리 주님께 말씀하셨을 때, 자기 중심적인 사람들은 그것을 자연적인 원인으로 설명했습니다. 그들은 “천둥이 울렸다” 고 말했습니다. 자연 법칙에 호소하여 음성을 설명하는 이러한 습관은 현대 과학의 뿌리에 있습니다. 살아 숨 쉬는 우주에는 어떤 사람의 마음으로도 이해할 수 없을 정도로 너무 경이롭고 너무 끔찍한 신비한 것이 있습니다. 믿는 사람은 이해한다고 주장하지 않습니다. 그는 무릎을 꿇고 “하나님”이라고 속삭였습니다. 땅의 사람도 무릎을 꿇었지만 경배하기 위해 무릎을 꿇은 것은 아닙니다. 그는 사물의 원인과 방법을 검사하고, 조사하고, 찾기 위해 무릎을 꿇습니다. 바로 지금 우리는 세속적인 시대에 살고 있습니다. 우리의 사고 습관은 숭배자의 사고 습관이 아니라 과학자의 사고 습관입니다. 우리는 숭배하기보다는 설명하기를 더 좋아합니다. "천둥이 울렸다" 고 우리는 외치고 지상의 길을 갑니다. 하지만 여전히 음성이 들리고 검색됩니다. 세상의 질서와 생명은 그 음성에 달려 있습니다. 그러나 사람들은 대부분 너무 바쁘거나 고집이 세서 주의를 기울이지 못합니다.

 

우리 모두는 갑자기 외로움을 느끼거나, 우주의 광활함에 직면한 경이로움이나 경외감을 느끼는 등 설명할 수 없는 경험을 해왔습니다. 또는, 우리는 어떤 다른 태양으로부터 나오는하나의 조명처럼 빛의 항해하는 방문을 받아왔었습니다. 그것은 우리가 다른 세계에서 왔다는 것과 우리의 기원이 하나님이라는 확신을 우리에게 순식간에 줍니다. 우리가 그곳에서 보거나 느끼거나 들은 것은 우리가 학교에서 배운 모든 것과 상반될 수 있으며 이전의 모든 믿음 및 의견과도 크게 다를 수 있습니다. 잠시 동안 구름이 물러나고 우리는 스스로 보고 들었습니다. 우리가 할 그런 일들을 설명하자면, 그 결과는 그러한 경험들이 세상에 있는 하나님의 임재와 인류와 소통하려는 그분의 끊임없는 노력으로부터 발생할 그 가능성을 우리가 최소한 허용하기 전까지 우리는 그 사실들에 철저하게 되지 못했다고 나는 생각합니다. 우리는 그러한 가설을 너무 경솔하게 버리지 맙시다.

 

인간이 세상에 만들어낸 모든 선하고 아름다운 것은 지구 위에 울려 퍼지는 창조적인 목소리에 대한 인간의 잘못되고 죄로 막힌 반응의 결과였다는 것이 나 자신의 믿음입니다. 미덕에 대한 높은 꿈을 꾸었던 도덕 철학자, 신과 불멸에 대해 사색한 종교 사상가, 평범한 물건에서 순수하고 지속적인 아름다움을 창조한 시인과 예술가를 어떻게 설명할 수 있습니까? 단순히 “천재였다”고 말하는 것만으로는 부족합니다. 그렇다면 천재란 무엇인가? 천재란 말하는 목소리에 사로잡혀 자신이 막연하게만 이해하는 목적을 달성하기 위해 마치 귀신 들린 사람처럼 노력하고 분투하는 사람이 아닐까요? 그 위대한 사람이 자신의 수고에서 하나님을 놓쳤을 수도 있고, 심지어 하나님을 대적하여 말하거나 글을 썼다는 사실이 내가 발전시키고 있는 생각을 파괴하지는 않습니다. 성경에 있는 하나님의 구속적 계시는 믿음과 하나님과의 화평을 구원하는 데 필요합니다. 불멸을 향한 막연한 열망이 우리를 하나님과 편안하고 만족스러운 교통으로 인도하려면 부활하신 구주에 대한 믿음이 필요합니다. 나에게 이것은 그리스도에게서 가장 좋은 모든 것에 대한 그럴듯한 설명입니다. 그러나 당신은 훌륭한 기독교인이면서도 내 논문을 받아들이지 않을 수 있습니다.

 

하나님의 음성은 친근한 음성입니다. 이미 그것에 저항하기로 결심하지 않은 한, 그 누구도 그것을 듣는 데 두려움을 가질 필요가 없습니다. 예수님의 피는 인류뿐 아니라 모든 피조물을 덮었습니다. “그의 십자가의 피로 화평을 이루사 만물 곧 땅에 있는 것들이나 하늘에 있는 것들이 그로 말미암아 자기와 화목하게 되기를 기뻐하심이라.” 우리는 친근한 천국을 안전하게 전파할 수 있습니다. 하늘과 땅이 떨기나무 가운데 거하신 그분의 선한 뜻으로 가득 차 있습니다. 온전한 속죄의 피가 이것을 영원히 보장합니다.

 

들을 사람은 천국이 말하는 것을 들을 것입니다. 지금은 사람들이 잘 들으라는 권고를 친절하게 받아들이는 때가 확실히 아닙니다. 듣는 것이 오늘날 대중 종교의 일부가 아니기 때문입니다. 우리는 거기에서 극의 반대쪽 끝에 있습니다. 종교Religion는, (소음, 규모, 활동, 고함소리가 한 사람을 하나님께 사랑받게 만든다는), 그 괴물 같은 이단사상을 받아들였습니다(비고: 종교가 얼마나 무지한 것을 받아들여서 헛되게 가르치고 있는지를 지적함). 그러나 우리는 용기를 가질 수 있습니다. 마지막 큰 전쟁의 폭풍 속에 휩싸인 백성에게 하나님은 “가만히 있어 내가 하나님인 줄 알지어다” 라고 말씀하시고, 여전히 그 말씀을 하십니다. 마치 우리의 힘과 안전이 소음에 있는 것이 아니라 침묵에 있다는 것을 말씀하시는 것처럼 말입니다.

 

우리가 가만히 하나님을 기다리는 것이 중요합니다. 그리고 우리 앞에 성경이 펼쳐져 있는 상태에서 혼자 있는 것이 가장 좋습니다. 그러면 우리가 원하면 하나님께 가까이 다가가 그분이 우리 마음속에 말씀하시는 것을 듣기 시작할 수 있습니다. 나는 보통 사람의 진행 과정이 다음과 같을 것이라고 생각합니다. 먼저 정원을 걷는 존재의 소리입니다. 그러자 좀 더 이해하기 쉽지만 아직 명확하지 않은 목소리가 들렸습니다. 그러면 성령께서 성경을 밝히기 시작하고 단지 소리, 기껏해야 음성에 불과했던 것이 이제는 이해하기 쉬운 말이 되고, 사랑하는 친구의 말처럼 따뜻하고 친밀하고 분명한 행복한 순간이 됩니다. 그러면 생명과 빛이 올 것이며, 무엇보다도 예수 그리스도를 구세주이자 주님이자 만유이신 분으로 보고 그 안에서 안식하고 받아들일 수 있는 능력이 올 것입니다.

 

하나님이 그분의 우주 안에 분명하게 표현된다는 것을 우리가 확신할 때까지 성경은 결코 우리에게 살아있는 책이 될 수 없습니다. 죽은 비인격적인 세계에서 독단적인 성경으로 도약하는 것은 대부분의 사람들에게 너무 많은 일입니다. 그들은 성경을 하나님의 말씀으로 받아들여야 한다는 것을 인정하고 그렇게 생각하려고 노력할 수도 있지만, 그 페이지에 있는 말씀이 실제로 그들을 위한 것이라는 것을 믿을 수 없다는 것을 알게 됩니다. 어떤 사람은 "이 말씀은 나에게 하는 말씀입니다" 라고 말하면서도 마음으로는 그것이 사실이라는 것을 느끼지도 못하고 알지도 못합니다. 그는 분열된 심리학의 희생자입니다. 그는 하나님을 다른 곳에서는 벙어리로 생각하고 책에서만 말씀하시는 분으로 생각하려고 합니다.

 

나는 우리의 종교적 불신의 대부분이 진리의 성경에 대한 잘못된 개념과 잘못된 느낌에서 비롯된다고 믿습니다. 침묵의 신이 갑자기 책에서 말씀하기 시작했고, 그 책이 끝났을 때 다시 영원히 침묵 속으로 돌아갔습니다. 이제 우리는 하나님께서 잠시 동안 말씀하시는 분위기에 계셨을 때 말씀하신 내용을 기록한 책을 읽습니다. 우리 머리 속에 그런 생각이 있는데 어떻게 믿을 수 있겠습니까?(비고: 우리가 믿지 않는 이유가 무엇인가를 설명함). 사실은 하나님은 침묵하지 않으시며, 결코 침묵하신 적이 없다는 것입니다. 말씀하시는 것이 하나님의 본성입니다. 삼위일체의 두 번째 위격은 말씀(Word)이라고 불립니다. 성경은 하나님의 끊임없는 말씀의 필연적인 결과입니다. 그것은 우리에게 친숙한 인간의 말로 표현된 그분의 마음의 틀림없는 선언입니다.

 

우리가 성경을 한때 말한 책이 아니라 지금 말하고 있는 책이라는 생각으로 접근할 때, 종교적 안개 속에서 새로운 세계가 일어날 것이라고 생각합니다. 선지자들은 습관적으로 “여호와께서 말씀하시되”라고 말했습니다. 그들은 청중들이 하나님의 말씀이 계속되는 현재라는 것을 이해하도록 의도했습니다. 특정 시점에 하나님의 어떤 말씀이 말씀되었지만, 그러나 한 번 태어난 아이가 계속 살아 있는 것처럼, 한 번 창조된 세상이 계속 존재하는 것처럼, 한 번 말한 하나님의 말씀은 계속해서 전해진다는 것을 나타내기 위해 과거 시제를 적절하게 사용할 수 있습니다... 그리고 그것은 불완전한 예일 뿐입니다. 왜냐하면 어린이들은 죽고 세상은 불타 버리지만 우리 하나님의 말씀은 영원히 지속되기 때문입니다.

 

당신이 주님을 알기 위해 계속 노력하고 있다면, 그것이 당신에게 말할 것을 기대하면서 즉시 성경을 펴십시오. 그것이 당신의 편의에 따라 추진할 수 있는 일이라는 생각을 가지고 오지 마십시오. 그것은 사물 그 이상이며, 음성이요, 말씀이요, 살아계신 하나님의 말씀입니다.

 

주님, 제게 듣는 법을 가르쳐 주세요. 시대는 시끄럽고 끊임없이 들려오는 수천 개의 요란한 소리로 내 귀는 지쳤습니다. 어린 사무엘이 주께 말씀하시기를 주의 종이 듣겠나이다 하던 그 영을 내게 주소서 당신이 내 마음 속에 말씀하시는 것을 듣게 하소서. 땅의 소리가 사라지고 유일한 소리가 당신이 말하는 음성의 음악이 될 때, 당신의 음성의 소리에 익숙해지게 하소서. 아멘.

 

VII. 영혼의 바라봄 The Gaze of the Soul

 

 

믿음의 주요 또 온전하게 하시는 이인 예수를 바라보자. 히 12:2

 

6장에 언급된 지성 있는 평범한 사람이 처음으로 성경을 읽게 되었다고 생각해 봅시다. 그는 성경에 담긴 내용에 대한 사전 지식 없이 성경에 접근합니다. 그는 편견이 전혀 없습니다; 그는 증명해야 하고 또 변호해야 할 어떤 것도 갖고 있지 않습니다.

 

그러한 사람은 그의 생각이 그 (책의) 페이지에서 눈에 띄는 어떤 진리들을 관찰하기 시작할 때까지 오랫동안 읽지 않았을 것입니다(비고: 그가 성경을 읽기 시작할 때 곧 어떤 진리를 관찰하게 될 것이라는 말임). 그것들은 하나님께서 사람들을 다루신 기록 뒤에 있는 영적인 원리들이고, 거룩한 사람들이 “성령에 의해 움직이게 되었을 때” 그들의 글들 속에 섞여(woven) 있습니다. 그는 계속 읽으면서 이러한 진리가 분명해지면 번호를 매기고 각 번호 아래에 간략한 요약을 만들고 싶을 수도 있습니다. 이 요약은 그의 성경적 신조의 교리가 될 것입니다. 그가 (책을) 좀더 읽는 것은, (그가 파악한) 그 요점들을 확대하고 강화하는 것 외에는 그것들에게 영향을 미치지 않을 것입니다. 우리의 사람(그 성경 책을 읽는 사람)은 성경이 실제로 무엇을 가르치는지 알아내고 있습니다.

 

성경이 가르치는 것 중 가장 높은 곳에는 믿음faith의 교리가 있을 것입니다. 성경이 믿음에 부여하는 가장 중요한 위치는 너무나 평범해서 그가 놓칠 수가 없습니다(비고: 성경의 가르침에서 최고로 중요한 것은 믿음이므로 성경을 읽는 사람은 그 믿음에 관한 것을 놓칠 수 없다는 말임). 그는 아마도 다음과 같은 결론을 내릴 것입니다. 믿음은 영혼의 삶에서 가장 중요합니다. 믿음이 없이는 하나님을 기쁘시게 할 수 없습니다: 믿음은 나에게 무엇이든 얻을 수 있게 하고, 나를 하나님 나라의 어느 곳으로든 데려가게 할 것입니다. 그러나 믿음이 없이는 하나님께 나아갈 수 없고, 용서도 없고, 구출deliverance도 없고, 구원salvation도 없고, 교제communion도 없고, 영적인 삶도 전혀 있을 수 없습니다.

 

우리 친구가 히브리서 11장에 도달할 때쯤이면 거기에서 믿음에 대해 선언된 설득력 있는 찬송이 그에게 이상하게 느껴지지 않을 것입니다. 그는 로마서와 갈라디아서에서 바울의 믿음에 대한 강력한 변호를 읽었을 것입니다. 나중에 그가 계속해서 교회사를 공부한다면 그는 기독교에서 신앙의 중심 위치를 보여 주었던 종교 개혁자들의 가르침에 담긴 놀라운 힘power을 이해하게 될 것입니다.

 

믿음이 그토록 절대적으로 중요하고, 하나님을 추구하는 데 없어서는 안 될 필수 요소라면, 우리가 이 가장 귀중한 선물(즉, 믿음)을 소유하고 있는지 여부에 대해 깊이 있게 염려를 해야만 하는deeply concerned 것은 지극히 자연스러운 일입니다. 그리고 우리의 생각mind이 그러하기 때문에 조만간 우리가 믿음의 본질을 탐구해야 하는 것은 불가피합니다. 믿음이란 무엇입니까? '내가 믿음을 갖고 있습니까?'라는 질문에 가깝습니다. 그것(믿음)이 어디에서든지 찾아질 수 있는 곳이 있다면 대답을 요구할 것입니다(비고: 당신이 믿음을 갖고 있다는 것을 어떻게 증명할 수 있는지 대답을 요구할 것이라는 말임).

 

믿음이라는 주제에 관해 설교하거나 글을 쓰는 거의 모든 사람은 믿음에 관해 거의 같은 말을 합니다. 그것은 약속을 믿는 것이고, 하나님을 그분의 말씀대로 취하는 것이며, 성경을 진리로 여기고 그 말씀을 밟는(따라가는) 것이라고 말합니다. 그 책이나 설교의 나머지 부분은 대개 믿음의 결과로서 그들의 기도의 응답을 받은 사람들의 이야기로 채워집니다. (그러나) 이러한 답변들은 대부분, 건강, 돈, 신체적 보호나 사업의 성공과 같은 실질적이고 일시적인 성격에 관한 직접적인 선물들입니다(비고: 믿음을 영적인 측면에서 말하는 것이 아니라 육신적인 측면에서 잘못 말하고 있다는 지적임). 아니면, 그 교사가 철학적인 생각의 성향을 갖고 있다면 그는 다른 길을 택하여 우리를 엄청난 형이상학의 늪에 빠뜨리거나 그가 정의하고 재정의하는 대로 우리를 심리학적 전문 용어를 가지고 곤경에 처하게 하여 믿음의 가느다란 머리카락을 점점 더 가늘어지게 하여 마침내 비단 부스러기 속으로 사라지게 할 수도 있을 것입니다(비고: 어떤 교사는 믿음의 정의를 철학적으로 하거나 심리학적으로 내림으로써 우리의 연약한 믿음을 완전히 상실하게 할 것이라는 말임). 그가 설명을 마무리하게 되었을 때 우리는 실망하게 되고 "우리가 들어왔던 바로 그 문으로" 나갑니다. 분명 이것보다 더 좋은 무엇인가가 있음에 분명합니다(비고: 믿음을 확실하게 설명하는 것이 반드시 있어야 된다는 말임).

 

성경에는 믿음을  정의하기 위해 실질적으로 이루어진 노력이 전혀 없습니다. 히브리서 11장 1절의 간단한 14단어 정의 외에 나는 성경적 정의를 알지 못합니다. 거기에서도 믿음은 철학적으로가 아니라 기능적으로 정의됩니다. 즉, 그것은 믿음이 기능operation상으로 무엇인지에 대한 진술이지, 그것이 본질essence상으로 무엇인지에 대한 진술이 아닙니다. 그것은 믿음의 존재를 가정하고, 그리고, 그것(믿음)이 무엇인지보다는 그것(믿음)이 어떤 결과를 초래하는지를 보여줍니다. 우리는 그 정도만큼만 가고 더 이상 가지 않으려고 노력하는 것이 현명할 것입니다. 우리는 그것이 어디서 왔고, 무엇을 의미하는지 알고 있습니다: "믿음은 하나님의 선물입니다." 그리고 "믿음은 들음에서 나며 들음은 하나님의 말씀으로 말미암습니다." 이 점은 분명하며 Thomas à Kempis의 말을 빌리자면 "나는 그것의 정의를 알기보다는 믿음을 실습하는exercise faith편이 낫습니다."

 

이제부터 이 장에서 "믿음은"("faith is")이라는 단어나 그와 동등한 단어가 나올 때, 나는 그 단어들이 믿는 사람에 의해 (믿음이) 실습될 때 믿음이 기능상으로 무엇인가를 가리키는 것으로 이해되기를 요청합니다. 바로 여기서 우리는 정의라는 개념을 버리고 행동으로 경험될 수 있는 믿음에 대해 생각해 봅니다. 우리 생각의 모습은 이론적인 것이 아니라 실천적인 것이 될 것입니다.

 

민수기의 극적인 이야기에서는 믿음이 행동으로 나타나는 것을 볼 수 있습니다. 이스라엘이 낙심하여 하나님을 대적하여 말하니 여호와께서 그들 중에 불뱀을 보내셨습니다. “그들이 백성을 물어 이스라엘 백성의 많은 사람이 죽었느니라.” 모세가 그들을 위하여 여호와께 간구하매 여호와께서 들으시고 뱀에게 물린 것에 대한 치료법을 그들에게 주셨습니다. 그분은 모세에게 놋뱀을 만들어 모든 백성이 보는 앞에서 장대 위에 달으라고 명하셨고, “물린 자마다 그것을 보면 살리라” 고 하셨습니다. 모세는 순종했습니다. “뱀에게 물린 자마다 놋뱀을 쳐다본즉 살더라”(민 21:4-9).

 

신약성경에서 (그 구약시대의) 역사의 이 중요한 부분은 우리 주 예수 그리스도 자신의 권세에 의해 우리를 위해 해석이 되었습니다. 그분은 청중들에게 그들이 어떻게 구원받을 수 있는지 설명하고 계십니다. 그분은 그것이 믿음으로 말미암는다고 말씀하십니다. 그런 다음 그분은 이를 분명히 하기 위해 민수기에 있는 이 사건을 언급하셨습니다. “모세가 광야에서 뱀을 든 것 같이 인자도 들려야 하리니 이는 저를 믿는 자마다 멸망치 않고 영생을 얻게 하려 하심이니라”(요한복음 3:14-15).

 

이 글을 읽으면서 우리의 평범한 사람은 중요한 발견을 하게 될 것입니다. 그는 "본다"와 "믿는다"가 동의어라는 것을 알았습니다. 구약의 뱀을 '보는 것'은 신약의 그리스도를 '믿는 것'과 동일합니다. 즉, 보는 것과 믿는 것은 같은 것입니다. 그리고 그는 이스라엘이 외적인 눈으로 보는 동안 믿음은 마음으로 이루어진다는 것을 이해했을 것입니다. 나는 그가, 믿음이 구원하시는 하나님을 바라보는 영혼의 시선이라고 결론을 내릴 것이라고 생각합니다.

 

그가 이것을 보았을 때 그는 이전에 읽었던 구절들을 기억할 것이고, 그 의미가 그에게 넘치게 될 것입니다. “저희가 주를 앙망하고 광채를 얻었으며 그 얼굴이 부끄럽지 아니하였느니라”(시 34:5). “오 하늘에 거하시는 주여 내가 주를 바라보나이다 종의 눈이 그 상전의 손을 바라보며 소녀의 눈이 그 여주인의 손을 바라보듯이 우리 눈이 여호와 우리 하나님을 바라보며 그가 우리를 긍휼히 여기시기를 기다리나이다”(시편 123:1-2). 여기에서 자비를 구하는 사람은 자비의 하나님을 똑바로 바라보고 자비가 베풀어질 때까지 결코 그분에게서 눈을 떼지 않습니다. 그리고 우리 주님도 늘 하나님을 바라보셨습니다. “하늘을 우러러 축사하시고 떡을 떼어 제자들에게 주시며”(마 14:19). 실제로 예수께서는 항상 자신의 내면의 눈을 아버지께 두심으로써 자신의 일을 이루셨다고 가르치셨습니다. 그의 능력은 하나님을 끊임없이 바라보는 데 있었습니다(요한복음 5:19-21).

 

우리가 인용한 몇 가지 본문과 완전히 일치하는 것은 영감받은 말씀의 전체적인 취지입니다. 그것은 히브리서에서 우리가 인생의 경주를 달리도록 지시를 받을 때, “믿음의 주요 또 온전하게 하시는 이인 예수를 바라보자” 라고 우리를 위해  요약되어 있습니다. 이 모든 것에서 우리는 믿음이 단 한번-이루어지는 하나의 행위a once-done act가 아니라 마음으로 삼위일체 하나님을 계속 바라보는 것임을 배웁니다.

 

그러므로 믿는다는 것은 그 마음heart의 주목을 예수님께로 지향하는 것입니다. 그것은 그 생각mind을 “하나님의 어린양을 바라보라behold” 고 들어올리고 우리의 남은 생애 동안 그 바라봄을 결코 멈추지 않는 것입니다. 처음에는 이것이 어려울 수도 있지만, 우리가 그분의 놀라운 인격His wondrous Person을 조용하고 변형(감소) 없이 꾸준히 바라볼 때 그것은 더 쉬워집니다. 산만하게 하는 것들distractions이 방해할 수도 있지만 일단 그 마음이 그분께 헌신되어 있으면, 그 관심은 그분으로부터 잠시 멀어진 후에, 마치 하나의 방황하는 새가 다시 그 창으로 돌아오듯이, 그분께 다시 돌아와 머물게 될 것입니다.

 

나는 이 한 가지 헌신committal, 즉, 예수님을 영원히 바라보려는 그 마음의 의도를 확립하는, 이 하나의 위대한 의지적 행위volitional act를 강조하고 싶습니다. 하나님은 우리의 선택을 위해 이러한 의도를 취하시고, 이 악한 세상에서 우리를 괴롭히는 수천 가지의 산만하게 하는 것들distractions에 대해 그분이 하셔야만 하는 어떤 허용들을 만드십니다. 그분께서는 우리 마음의 방향이 예수님을 향하고 있다는 것을 아시고, 우리도 역시 그것을 알 수 있으며, 그분은 (우리의) 영혼의 하나의 습관이 형성되고 있다는 지식을 가지고 우리 자신을 위로하십니다. 그런데 이것은 우리가 우리 측에서 더 이상의 의식적인 노력을 필요로하지 않는 일종의 영적인 반사 작용이 될 것입니다..

 

믿음은 미덕들중에서 (자기) 자신을 가장 적게 존중하는 것입니다. 그것은 본질적으로 자신의 존재를 거의 의식하지 않습니다. 앞에 있는 모든 것을 보고 자신을 보지 못하는 눈처럼, 믿음은 자신이 의지하고 있는 대상에만 전념하고 그 자체에는 전혀 주의를 기울이지 않습니다. 우리가 하나님을 바라보고 있는 동안 우리는 우리 자신을 보지 못합니다. 자신을 정화하려고 애쓰고 실패를 거듭한 사람은 자신의 영혼을 만지작거리는 일을 멈추고 완전한 분을 바라볼 때 진정한 안도감을 경험하게 될 것입니다. 그가 그리스도를 바라보는 동안 그가 그토록 오랫동안 하려고 노력해왔던 바로 그 일들이 그 사람 안에서 이루어질 것입니다. 그 사람 안에서 뜻을 정하고 행하도록 일하시는 분은 하나님이실 것입니다.

 

믿음은 그 자체로 (우리의) 공로가 있는 행위가 아닙니다. 공로는 그것이 향하는 분에게 있습니다. Faith is not in itself a meritorious act; the merit is in the One toward Whom it is directed. 믿음은 우리의 시야를 바꾸는 것이며, 우리 비전의 초점에서 벗어나 하나님께 초점을 맞추는 것입니다Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus. 죄는 우리의 시야를 안쪽으로 비틀어 그것을 자기를 존중하는 것으로 만들었습니다. 불신앙은 하나님이 있어야 할 자리에 자아self를 두었고, “내가 내 보좌를 하나님의 보좌 위에 높이리라” 고 말한 루시퍼의 죄에 위험할 정도로 가까워졌습니다. 믿음은 안이 아닌 밖을 내다보며 삶 전체가 일치하게 됩니다Sin has twisted our vision inward and made it self-regarding. Unbelief has put self where God should be, and is perilously close to the sin of Lucifer who said, "I will set my throne above the throne of God." Faith looks out instead of in and the whole life falls into line.

 

이 모든 것이 너무 단순해 보일 수도 있습니다. 하지만 우리는 사과할 것이 없습니다. 도움을 받고 천국에 오르려 하거나 지옥에 내려가고자 하는 자들에게 하나님께서는 “말씀 곧 믿음의 말씀이 네게 가까이 있느니라” 고 말씀하십니다(로마서 10:8 참조). 말씀이 우리의 눈을 들어 주님을 바라보게 하며, 복된 믿음의 역사가 시작됩니다.

 

우리가 마음의 눈을 들어 하나님을 바라볼 때 우리는 반드시 우리를 바라보는 다정한 눈을 만나게 될 것입니다. 왜냐하면 주님의 눈은 온 땅을 두루 두루 감찰하신다고 기록되어 있기 때문입니다. 경험의 감미로운 언어는 "하나님이 나를 보신다" 입니다. 내다보는 그 영혼의 눈이 안을 내다보시는 하나님의 눈과 만날 때 바로 이 땅에 천국이 시작되어왔습니다.

 

“당신의 모든 노력이 나를 향하고 있기 때문에 나의 모든 노력이 당신을 향할 때, 내가 온 마음을 다해 당신만을 바라볼 때, 당신이 나를 변함없는 관심으로 감싸시기 때문에 내 마음의 눈을 결코 돌리지 않을 때, 사랑의 자아이신 당신께서 당신을 나에게만 돌이키셨기 때문에 나는 당신만을 향해 나의 사랑을 보냅니다. 그리고 주님, 당신의 기쁨의 달콤함이 나를 그토록 사랑스럽게 감싸시는 그 포옹 외에 내 삶은 무엇이겠습니까?" 400년 전에 쿠사의 니콜라스Nicholas of Cusa는 그렇게 썼습니다.

 

나는 이 하나님의 옛 사람에 대해 더 말하고 싶습니다. 그는 오늘날 기독교 신자들 사이에서는 별로 알려져 있지 않으며, 현재 근본주의자들 사이에서도 전혀 알려져 있지 않습니다. 나는 우리가 그와 같은 영적인 성향을 지닌 사람들과 그들이 대표하는 기독교 사상 학파를 조금이라도 알게 되면 많은 것을 얻을 수 있다고 생각합니다. 우리 시대의 복음주의 지도자들이 기독교 문헌을 받아들이고 승인하려면 동일한 사고 방식, 즉 이탈하기가 거의 불가능한 일종의 "당 노선"을 매우 밀접하게 따라야 합니다. 미국에서의 반세기 동안 우리는 우쭐대고 만족하게 되었습니다. 우리는 맹목적인 헌신으로 서로를 모방하며, 우리 주변의 모든 사람들이 말하는 것과 똑같은 것을 말하려고 가장 분투합니다. 그러나 그것을 말할 구실을 찾기 위해 승인된 주제에 대해 약간의 안전한 변형을 가하거나, 더 이상은 필요 없고 최소한 새로운 일러스트레이션(삽화)만 있으면 됩니다.

 

니콜라스는 그리스도의 참된 추종자였으며, 주님을 사랑하는 사람이었고, 예수님의 인격에 대한 헌신으로 빛나고 빛났습니다. 그의 신학은 정통적이었지만 예수에 관한 모든 것이 당연히 기대될 수 있듯이 향기롭고 달콤했습니다. 예를 들어, 영생에 대한 그의 개념은 그 자체로 아름다우며, 내가 착각하지 않는다면 오늘날 우리 사이에 통용되는 개념보다 영적으로 요한복음 17장 3절에 더 가깝습니다. 니콜라스는 말합니다: "영생은 당신이 나를, 심지어, 참으로 내 영혼의 은밀한 곳들을 끊임없이 바라보시는 그 축복된 관심regard 외에는 아무것도 아닙니다. 당신과 함께 바라보는 것은 생명을 주는 것입니다; 그것은 당신에 대한 가장 감미로운 사랑을 끊임없이 전하는 것입니다; 그것은 사랑의 나눔으로 당신을 사랑하도록 나에게 불을 붙이고, 불타게하심으로써 나를 먹이시고, 나의 갈망을 불타게 하여 먹이시고, 불을 붙여서 나로 하여금 기쁨의 이슬을 마시게 하시며, 마심으로써 내 안에 생명의 샘이 되도록 하는 것이며, 불어넣으심으로써 그것을 증가시키고 지속하게 만드는 것입니다."

 

이제 만일, 믿음이 하나님을 바라보는 마음의 시선이고, 이 시선이 모든 것을 보시는 하나님의 눈을 만나기 위해 내면의 눈을 들어 올리는 것이라면, 그것은 가능한 가장 쉬운 일 중 하나라는 결론이 나옵니다. 가장 중요한 일을 쉽게 만들고 그것을 우리 중 가장 약하고 가난한 사람들을 위한 가능성의 범위 안에 두는 것은 하나님과 같을 것입니다It would be like God to make the most vital thing easy and place it within the range of possibility for the weakest and poorest of us.

 

이 모든 것으로부터 몇 가지 결론이 도출될 수 있습니다. 예를 들어, 그것의 단순함입니다. 믿는 것은 보는 것이므로 특별한 장비나 종교적 도구 없이도 할 수 있습니다. 하나님께서는 삶과 죽음에 필수적인 한 가지가 결코 우연의 변덕에 좌우될 수 없도록 보살펴 주셨습니다. 장비가 고장나거나 분실될 수 있고, 물이 새어 나올 수 있고, 기록이 화재로 인해 파괴될 수 있으며, 사역이 지연되거나 교회가 불타버릴 수도 있습니다. 이 모든 것들은 영혼 외부에 있으며 사고나 기계적 고장이 발생할 수 있습니다. 그러나 바라보는 것은 마음에 속한 것이며 교회에서 수천 마일 떨어진 곳에 서 있거나 무릎을 꿇고 마지막 고통을 겪고 있는 사람이라면 누구든지 성공적으로 행할 수 있습니다.

 

믿는 것은 보는 것이므로 언제든지 행할 수 있습니다. 이 가장 감미로운 행위에 있어서 다른 계절보다 더 나은 계절은 없습니다. Since believing is looking it can be done any time. No season is superior to another season for this sweetest of all acts. 하나님께서는 결코 구원을 월삭이나 성일이나 안식일에 좌우되게 하지 않으셨습니다. 사람은 부활절 일요일이 예를 들어 8월 3일 토요일이나 10월 4일 월요일보다 그리스도께 더 가까이 있지 않습니다. 그리스도께서 중보 보좌에 앉아 계시는 한 매일은 좋은 날이고 모든 날은 구원의 날입니다. 

 

하나님을 믿는 이 복된 일에도 장소는 중요하지 않습니다. 당신의 마음을 들어 예수님께 맡기십시오. 그러면 당신은 풀먼Pullman의 숙소, 공장, 부엌일지라도 즉시 안식처에 있게 됩니다. 당신의 생각mind이 하나님을 사랑하고 순종하도록 설정되어 있으면 어디서나 당신은 하나님을 볼 수 있습니다You can see God from anywhere if your mind is set to love and obey Him.

 

이제 어떤 사람은 이렇게 물을 수 있습니다. "당신이 말하는 것은 직업의 특성상 조용한 명상에 더 많은 시간을 할애하는 승려나 목사와 같은 특별한 사람들을 대상으로 하는 것이 아닙니까? 저는 바쁜 직장인이고 혼자 보낼 시간이 거의 없습니다." 제가 설명하는 삶은 부르심에 상관없이 하나님의 자녀 모두를 위한 것임을 기쁘게 말씀드립니다. 사실 그것은 열심히 일하는 많은 사람들에 의해 매일 즐겁게 실천되고 있으며 아무도 도달할 수 없는 것을 넘는 일입니다(도달할 수 있는 일이라는 말임).

 

많은 사람들이 내가 말하는 비밀을 발견했으며 그들 안에 무슨 일이 일어나고 있는지에 대해 별로 생각하지 않고 내적으로 하나님을 바라보는 이 습관을 끊임없이 실천하고 있습니다. 그들은 마음속에 있는 무엇인가가 하나님을 보고 있다는 것을 알고 있습니다. 그들이 세속적인 일들에 종사하기 위해 그들의 의식적인 주의를 철회하도록 강요받을 때에도 그들 안에는 항상 진행되는 비밀스러운 교제가 있습니다. 그들의 관심을 잠시 동안만 필요한 일에서 벗어나게 하십시오. 그러면 그것은 즉시 다시 하나님께로 날아가게 됩니다. 이것은 많은 그리스도인들의 간증이었으며, 너무 많아서 내가 이렇게 말하면서도 인용하고 있다는 느낌이 듭니다. 비록 누구에게서, 얼마나 많은지 알 수는 없지만 말입니다.

 

나는 일반적인 은혜의 수단이 아무런 가치가 없다는 인상을 남기고 싶지 않습니다. 그것들은 확실히 가치를 갖고 있습니다. 개인 기도는 모든 그리스도인에 의해 실천되어야만 합니다. 장기간의 성경 묵상은 우리의 시선을 정화하고 방향을 제시해 줄 것입니다; 교회에 참석하면 우리의 시야가 넓어지고 다른 사람에 대한 사랑이 커질 것입니다. 섬김과 일과 활동; 모든 것은 선하며 모든 그리스도인에 의해 참여되어야 합니다. 그러나 이 모든 것의 밑바닥에 그것들에 의미를 부여하는 것은 하나님을 바라보는 내적 습관이 될 것입니다. (말하자면) 새로운 세트의 눈들은, 우리의 외부 눈들이 이 지나가는 세상의 광경들을 보는 동안에, 우리로 하여금 하나님을 바라볼 수 있도록 우리 안에서 발전할 것입니다.

 

어떤 사람은 우리가 사적인 종교를 지나치게 확대하고 있으며 신약의 "우리"가 이기적인 "나"로 대체되고 있다고 두려워할 수도 있습니다. 동일한 포크에 조율된 100대의 피아노가 자동으로 서로 조율된다는 사실을 생각해 본 적이 있습니까? 그들은 서로 조율하는 것이 아니라 각자가 개별적으로 준수해야 하는 또 다른 표준에 조율함으로써 일치합니다. 그러므로 함께 모인 100명의 예배자들은 각자가 그리스도를 바라보고 있으며, 그들이 "연합"을 의식하고 더 가까운 교제를 위해 노력하기 위해 하나님으로부터 눈을 돌릴 수 있었던 것보다 마음으로 서로 더 가까워졌습니다. 사적인 종교가 정화될 때 사적인 종교가 완성됩니다. 몸은 구성원이 건강해질수록 강해집니다.  하나님의 교회 전체는 그것을 구성하는 각 멤버들이 더 좋고 더 높은 삶을 추구하기 시작할 때 이익을 얻습니다.

 

앞서 말한 모든 것들은 참된 회개와 하나님께 대한 삶의 온전한 헌신을 전제로 합니다. 이것을 언급하는 것은 거의 필요하지 않습니다. 왜냐하면 그러한 헌신을 해온 사람만이 여기까지 읽었을 것이기 때문입니다.

 

내적으로 하나님을 바라보는 습관이 우리 안에 확고해지면 우리는 하나님의 약속과 신약성서의 분위기에 더욱 부합하는 영적 삶의 새로운 차원으로 인도될 것입니다. 우리 발이 이곳 사람들 가운데서 단순한 의무의 낮은 길을 걷는 동안에도 삼위일체 하나님Triune God은 우리의 거처가 되실 것입니다. 우리는 참으로 인생의 최고봉summum bonum을 발견하게 될 것입니다. "바랄 수 있는 모든 즐거움의 근원이 있습니다. "사람들과 천사들에 의해서 이보다 더 잘 생각될 수 없을 뿐만 아니라 존재의 방식에서도 이보다 더 나은 것이 존재할 수 없습니다! 왜냐하면 그것은, 그보다 더 크게 될 수는 없는 모든 합리적 바램desire의 절대적인 최대치이기 때문입니다."

 

오 주님, 나는 당신을 바라보고 만족하라는 좋은 말씀을 들었습니다. 내 마음은 응답하기를 갈망하지만, 죄로 인해 당신을 볼 때까지 내 시야가 흐려졌고 희미해졌습니다. 당신의 보배로운 피로 저를 깨끗하게 하시고, 저를 내적으로 순수하게 하셔서 제가 지상 순례의 모든 날 동안 수건을 벗은 눈으로 당신을 바라볼 수 있게 하여 주십시오. 그러면 당신께서 당신의 성도들에게서 영광을 받으시고 모든 믿는 자들에게서 존경을 받으시는 날에 나는 당신의 완전한 영광을 뵙게 될 것입니다. 아멘.

 

각주:

[1] Nicholas of Cusa, The Vision of God, E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York, 1928. 이 내용과 다음 인용문은 출판사의 허가를 받아 사용되었습니다.

 

 

 

VIII. 창조주-피조물의 관계 회복 Restoring the Creator-creature Relation

 

 

하나님이여 주는 하늘 위에 높이 들리시며 주의 영광이 온 땅 위에 높아지기를 원하나이다. 시 57:5

 

자연의 질서는 올바른 관계에 달려 있다(좌우된다)고 말하는 것은 사실입니다. 조화를 이루려면 각 사물이 서로에 대해 적절한 위치에 있어야 합니다. 인간의 삶에서는 다르지 않습니다.

 

나는 이전에 이 장들에서 우리 인간의 모든 불행의 원인은 근본적인 도덕적 혼란, 즉 하나님과 우리 인간 상호간의 관계의 혼란이라는 점을 암시한 바 있습니다. 타락이 무엇이었든 간에 그것은 인간과 창조주와의 관계에 있어서의 급격한 변화임이 가장 확실합니다. 그는 하나님에 대하여 변화된 태도를 취하였고, 그렇게 함으로써 자신도 모르게 그의 참된 행복이 놓여 있는 창조자와 피조물의 올바른 관계를 파괴하였습니다. 본질적으로 구원은 인간과 창조주 사이의 올바른 관계를 회복하는 것이며, 창조자와 창조물 관계를 정상으로 되돌리는 것입니다.

 

만족스러운 영적인 삶은 하나님과 죄인 사이의 관계가 완전히 변화되는 것에서부터 시작될 것입니다; 단지 사법적인 변화가 아니라 죄인의 전체 본성에 영향을 미치는 의식적이고 경험적인 변화입니다. 예수님의 보혈의 속죄는 그러한 변화를 법적으로 가능하게 하며, 성령의 역사는 그것을 감정적으로 만족스럽게 만듭니다. 탕자의 이야기는 이 후자의 단계를 완벽하게 예시합니다. 그는 그의 아버지의 아들로서 그가 완전히 보유했었던 그 지위를 저버림으로써 그 자신 위에 환난의 세상을 초래했었습니다. 근본적으로 그의 회복은 그가 태어날 때부터 존재했고 그의 죄악된 반역 행위로 일시적으로 변경되었던 아버지와 아들의 관계를 다시 확립하는 것에 지나지 않았습니다. 이 이야기는 구속의 법적 측면을 간과하지만 구원의 경험적 측면을 아름답게 분명하게 보여줍니다.

 

관계relationships를 결정할 때 우리는 어딘가에서 시작해야만 합니다. 다른 모든 것이 측정되는 고정된 중심이 어딘가에 있어야 하며, 거기에는 상대성 법칙이 적용되지 않으며 우리는 "IS"라고 말할 수 있으며 여지를 전혀 허용하지 않습니다. 그러한 중심이 바로 하나님입니다. 하나님께서 자신의 이름을 인류에게 알리실 때 “나는 스스로 있다(I AM)” 보다 더 나은 단어를 찾을 수 없었습니다. 그분이 1인칭으로 말씀하실 때 그분은 "나는 스스로 있다" 고 말씀하십니다. 우리가 그분에 관해 말할 때 우리는 "그분은 입니다" 라고 말합니다. 우리가 그분께 말할 때 “당신은 그러하시나이다” 라고 말합니다. 모든 사람과 다른 모든 것은 그 고정점에서 측정됩니다. 하나님은 “나는 나다. 나는 변하지 않는다” 고 말씀하십니다.

 

선원이 태양을 “촬영”하여 바다에서 자신의 위치를 찾는 것처럼 우리도 하나님을 바라봄으로써 도덕적인 태도를 얻을 수 있습니다. 우리는 하나님으로부터 시작해야 합니다. 우리는 하나님과 관련하여 올바른 위치에 서 있을 때만 옳고, 다른 위치에 서 있는 한 지금까지는 틀렸습니다.

 

그리스도인을 찾는 데 있어서 우리가 겪는 어려움의 대부분은 하나님을 있는 그대로 받아들이고 그에 따라 우리의 삶을 조정하려는 의지가 없는 데서 비롯됩니다. 우리는 그분을 변화시키고 그분을 우리의 형상에 더 가깝게 만들려고 노력합니다. 육체는 하나님의 냉혹한 선고에 대해 훌쩍이며 아각Agag처럼 약간의 자비와 육체의 길에 대한 약간의 방종을 간청합니다. 그것은 소용이 없습니다. 우리는 하나님을 있는 그대로 받아들이고 그분을 있는 그대로 사랑하는 법을 배움으로써만 올바른 출발을 할 수 있습니다. 계속해서 그분을 더 잘 알게 되면, 우리는 하나님이 바로 그 자체라는 사실에서 말할 수 없는 기쁨의 원천을 발견하게 될 것입니다. 우리가 알고 있는 가장 황홀한 순간 중 일부는 하나님을 경건하게 존경하며 보내는 순간일 것입니다. 그 거룩한 순간에 그분 안에서 변화에 대한 생각 자체가 견디기에는 너무 고통스러울 것입니다.

 

그러니 하나님부터 시작합시다. 모든 것 배후에, 모든 것 위에, 모든 것 이전에; 먼저 하나님이 계십니다. 순서대로 첫째이고, 지위와 직위가 위에 있고, 위엄과 명예가 높아졌습니다. 자존자로서 그분은 만물에게 존재를 주셨고, 만물은 그분에게서 나와 그분을 위해 존재합니다. “주님, 영광과 존귀와 능력을 받으시는 것이 합당하오니 주께서 만물을 지으신지라 만물이 주의 뜻대로 있었고 또 지으심을 받았나이다.”

 

모든 영혼은 하나님께 속해 있으며 하나님의 뜻에 따라 존재합니다. 하나님은 누구이시고 무엇이신지, 우리는 누구이고 무엇이기 때문에 우리 사이에 생각할 수 있는 유일한 관계는 그분의 완전한 주권과 우리의 완전한 복종입니다. 우리는 그분께 드릴 수 있는 모든 영예를 그분께 빚지고 있습니다. 우리의 영원한 슬픔은 그분께 어떤 것을 덜 드리는데 있습니다.

 

하나님을 추구하는 것은 우리의 전체 인격을 그분의 인격에 일치시키는 노력을 포함할 것입니다. 그리고 이것은 사법적으로가 아니라 실제로입니다. 나는 여기서 그리스도를 믿음으로 의롭게 되는 행위를 언급하지 않습니다. 나는 자발적으로 하나님을 우리 위에 있는 그분의 고유한 지위로 높이고, 창조주와 피조물의 상황에 따라 적절하게 만드는 경배하는 복종submission의 자리에 우리의 전 존재를 기꺼이 굴복surrender시키는 것에 대해 말합니다.

 

우리가 세상의 행진에서 나오는 모든 것 위에 하나님을 높이겠다는 결심을 갖고 계속 나아가기로 결심하는 순간 우리는 세상의 방식에 적응하지 못하고 거룩한 길로 나아갈수록 점점 더 그러해지는 자신을 발견하게 될 것입니다. 우리는 새로운 관점을 갖게 될 것입니다. 새롭고 다른 심리학이 우리 안에 형성될 것입니다; 새로운 능력이 그것의 상승과 그 소진에 의해 우리를 놀라게 하기 시작할 것입니다.

 

세상과의 단절은 하나님과 우리의 관계 변화의 직접적인 결과가 될 것입니다. 타락한 인간의 세상은 하나님을 공경하지 않습니다. 수백만 명이 자신을 그분의 이름으로 부르고, 그분께 어떤 표시적인 존경을 표하는 것은 사실입니다. 그러나 간단한 시험을 보면 그분이 그들 가운데 실제로 얼마나 존경을 받는지 보여줄 것입니다. 위에 계신 분이 누구인지에 대한 질문에 대해 보통 사람이 증명을 받게 되면 그의 참된 입장이 드러날 것입니다. 그 사람이 하나님과 돈, 하나님과 사람, 하나님과 개인적인 야망, 하나님과 자기, 하나님과 인간 사랑 사이에서 선택을 하도록 강요하면 하나님은 매번 2위를 차지할 것입니다. 다른 것들은 위에서 높아질 것입니다. 그 사람이 어떻게 항의하든 그 증거는 그가 일생 동안 매일매일 내리는 선택에 있습니다.

 

“당신이 높임받으십시오Be thou exalted” 는 승리의 영적 경험을 표현하는 말입니다. 그것은 은혜의 큰 보물로 가는 문을 여는 작은 열쇠입니다. 그것은 영혼 안에 있는 하나님의 생명의 중심입니다. 추구하는 사람이 삶과 입술이 결합하여 계속해서 “당신이 높임받으십시오” 라고 말하는 곳에 도달하게 하십시오. 그러면 수천 가지의 사소한 문제가 즉시 해결될 것입니다. 그의 그리스도인 생활은 더 이상 이전의 복잡하지 않고 단순함의 본질이 됩니다. 그는 자신의 의지를 행사하여 자신의 항로를 설정했으며, 마치 자동 조종 장치의 인도를 받는 것처럼 그 항로에 머무를 것입니다. 어떤 역풍으로 인해 잠시 동안 경로에서 벗어나면 영혼의 은밀한 굴곡에 따라 그는 반드시 다시 돌아올 것입니다. 성령의 숨은 움직임이 그에게 유리하게 작용하고 있으며, “그 길에 있는 별들”이 그를 위해 싸우고 있습니다. 그는 인생의 문제를 그 중심에서 만났고, 다른 모든 것도 따라야 합니다.

 

자신의 모든 것을 하나님께 자발적으로 팔아 인간의 존엄성을 잃게 될 것이라고는 누구도 상상하지 마십시오. 그는 이것으로 인해 자신을 인간으로서 타락시키지 않습니다. 오히려 그는 창조주의 형상대로 만들어진 자리로서 높은 영예의 합당한 자리를 찾습니다. 그의 깊은 치욕은 그의 도덕적 혼란, 하나님의 자리를 부자연스럽게 찬탈한 데 있었습니다. 빼앗긴 왕좌를 다시 회복함으로써 그의 명예가 입증될 것입니다. 그는 모든 것 위에 하나님을 높임으로써 자신의 최고의 영예가 유지되는 것을 발견합니다.

 

자신의 뜻을 다른 사람의 뜻에 맡기기를 꺼려하는 사람은 누구든지 “죄를 범하는 자마다 죄의 종이라” 라는 예수님의 말씀을 기억해야 합니다. 우리는 필연적으로 누군가의 종이 되어야 합니다. 하나님의 종이든지 죄의 종이든지 해야 합니다. 죄인은 자신의 독립성을 자랑하며 자신이 자신의 지체를 지배하는 죄의 약한 종이라는 사실을 완전히 간과합니다. 그리스도께 항복하는 사람은 잔인한 노예 운전사를 하나의 친절하고 온화한 주인으로 바꾸는데, 그 주인의 멍에는 쉽고 그 짐은 가볍습니다The man who surrenders to Christ exchanges a cruel slave driver for a kind and gentle Master whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light.

 

우리는 하나님의 형상대로 만들어졌기 때문에 하나님을 우리의 전부로 다시 취하는 것이 전혀 이상하지 않습니다. 하나님은 우리의 원래 거처였으며, 그 오래되고 아름다운 거처에 다시 들어갈 때 우리 마음은 집처럼 느껴질 수밖에 없습니다.

 

나는 하나님께서 탁월하시다는 주장God's claim to pre-eminence 뒤에 하나의 논리가 있다는 것이 분명해지기를 바랍니다. 그 곳은 땅이나 하늘에 있는 모든 권리에 의해 그분의 것입니다. 우리가 그분의 자리를 차지하는 동안 우리 삶의 모든 과정은 어긋납니다. 우리 마음이 중대한 결정을 내리기 전까지는 아무것도 질서를 회복하지 않을 것이며, 회복할 수도 없습니다: 하나님은 높임을 받으실 것입니다.

 

하나님께서 이스라엘의 한 제사장에게 “나를 존경하는 자를 내가 존중히 여기느니라” 고 말씀하신 적이 있으며, 그 나라의 고대의 율법은 시간이 흐르거나 경륜이 바뀌어도 오늘날에도 변하지 않습니다. 성경 전체와 역사의 모든 페이지는 그 율법의 영속성을 선포합니다. 우리 주 예수께서는 “사람이 나를 섬기면 내 아버지께서 저를 귀히 여기시리라” 고 말씀하시며 옛 것과 새 것을 연결하시고 그분의 길과 인간의 본질적인 통일성을 드러내셨습니다.

 

때로는 사물을 보는 가장 좋은 방법은 사물의 반대편을 보는 것입니다. 엘리와 그의 아들들은 그들의 삶과 사역에서 하나님을 공경한다는 조건 하에 제사장직에 임명되었습니다. 그들은 그렇게 하지 않았고, 하나님은 사무엘을 보내어 그 결과를 알리게 하셨습니다. 이 상호 존중의 법칙은 엘리에게는 알려지지 않았으나, 지금은 심판이 임할 때가 왔습니다. 타락한 제사장인 홉니와 비느아스가 전투에서 쓰러지고, 홉니의 아내가 아이를 낳다가 죽고, 이스라엘은 적들 앞에서 도망하고, 하나님의 궤는 블레셋 사람들에게 빼앗기고, 노인 엘리는 뒤로 넘어져 목이 부러져 죽습니다. 그리하여 그리하여 하나님께 영광을 돌리지 못하는 엘리에게 극명하고 완전한 비극이 뒤따랐습니다.

 

이제 그의 지상의 생활에서 하나님께 정직하게 영광을 돌리려고 노력한 거의 모든 성경 인물을 이 인물에 맞서게 하십시오. 하나님께서 그분의 종들에게 이루 말할 수 없는 은혜와 축복을 부어주셨을 때 어떻게 그분이 (그 종들의) 약점들을 눈감으시고 실패들을 간과하셨는지 보십시오. 그것이 아브라함, 야곱, 다윗, 다니엘, 엘리야 또는 당신이 원하는 사람이 되게 하십시오; 수확이 그 씨앗을 따른 것처럼 명예가 명예를 따랐습니다. 하나님의 사람은 모든 것 위에 하나님을 높이는 데 마음을 두었습니다. 하나님은 그의 의도를 사실로 받아들이셨고 그에 따라 행동하셨습니다. 완벽하지는 않지만 거룩한 의도가 변화를 가져왔습니다.

 

우리 주 예수 그리스도 안에서 이 법은 단순한 완전성으로 나타났습니다. 그분은 낮은 인간의 모습으로 자신을 낮추셨고 모든 영광을 하늘에 계신 그분의 아버지께 기쁨으로 돌리셨습니다. 그는 자신의 영광을 구하지 않고 그를 보내신 하나님의 영광을 구했습니다. 그는, "만일 내가 나를 영광스럽게 하면 나의 영광은 아무 것도 아니다; 나를 영화롭게 하시는 분은 내 아버지시니라” 고 한 번 말씀하셨습니다. 교만한 바리새인들은 지금까지 이 율법으로부터 떠났기 때문에 그들은 자신의 비용으로 하나님께 영광을 돌렸던 사람을 이해할 수 없었습니다. 예수께서는 그들에게 “나는 내 아버지를 공경하는데 너희는 나를 욕되게 하는도다” 라고 말씀하셨습니다(요 8:49 참조).

 

예수님의 또 다른 말씀이자 가장 충격적인 말씀은 “너희가 서로 영광을 취하고 홀로 하나님께로부터 오는 영광은 구하지 아니하니 어찌 나를 믿을 수 있느냐?” 라는 질문의 형태로 제시되었습니다. 만일 내가 이것을 올바르게 이해한다면, 그리스도께서는 사람들 중에서 명예를 얻으려는 그 욕망이 믿음belief을 불가능하게 만들었다는 그 놀라운 교리를 여기에서 가르치셨습니다. 이 죄가 종교적 불신의 뿌리에 있습니까? 사람들이, 그들의 믿지 못하는 무능력 때문에 비난하는 그들의 "지적 어려움들"은 그들 배후에 있는 그 실재 원인을 가리기 위한 연막이 될 수 있을까요? 사람들을 바리새인들로 만들었고, 바리새인들을 살해자들로 만들었던 것은 명예를 향한 인간의 탐욕스러운 욕망이었습니까? 이것이 종교적 자기-의self-righteousness와 공허한 예배의 숨은 배후입니까? 나는 그럴 수도 있다고 믿습니다. 하나님을 그분이 속한 곳에 두지 못함으로 인생의 전체 과정이 혼란스러워집니다. 우리가 하나님 대신 우리 자신을 높이면 저주가 따릅니다.

 

하나님을 갈망하는 우리는 하나님에게도 갈망이 있다는 것을 항상 명심해야 합니다. 그분의 갈망은 사람의 아들들에 대한 것이며, 특히 그분을 모든 것 위에 높이겠다는 단번의 결정을 내릴 사람들에 대한 것입니다.  이러한 것들은 땅이나 바다의 모든 보화보다 하나님께 더욱 귀중한 것입니다. 그들에게서 하나님은 그리스도 예수 안에서 우리를 향하신 그분의 넘치는 자비를 나타내실 수 있는 무대를 찾으십니다. 하나님은 그들과 함께 방해받지 않고 걸으실 수 있으며, 그들을 향해 그분(예수님)은, 그 하나님이 그리하신 것처럼 행동할 수 있습니다.

 

이렇게 말하면서 나는 한 가지 두려움을 느낍니다; 그것은 하나님께서 그 마음을 얻으시기 전에 내가 그 생각을 확신시킬지 모른다는 것입니다. 왜냐하면 모든 위치 위에 계신 이 하나님은 취하기 쉽지 않은 분이기 때문입니다. 그것을 실행되게 할 그 의지의 동의를 갖지 않더라도 그 마음은 그것을 승인할 수 있습니다. 그 상상력은 하나님께 영광을 돌리기 위해 앞서 달려갈 동안에, 그 의지는 뒤처질 수 있고 그 사람은 자신의 마음이 얼마나 분리되어 있는지 결코 짐작할 수 없습니다. 그 마음이 진정한 만족을 알 수 있기 전에 그 전 인간은 결정을 내려야만 합니다. 하나님은 우리 모두를 원하시며, 그분은 그분이 우리 모두를 얻으실 때까지 쉬지 않으실 것입니다. 그 사람의 어떤 부분도 하지 않을 것입니다.

 

하나님의 발 앞에 우리 자신을 던지고 우리가 말하는 모든 것을 의미하면서 이에 대해 자세히 기도합시다. 이렇게 진실하게 기도하는 사람은 하나님께서 받아들이신다는 표시를 오래 기다릴 필요가 없습니다. 하나님께서는 당신의 종의 눈앞에서 당신의 영광을 드러내실 것이며, 당신의 모든 보물을 그러한 사람의 손에 맡기실 것입니다. 왜냐하면 그분께서는 그분의 명예가 그러한 성별된 손에 있음을 아시기 때문입니다.

 

오 하나님, 나의 소유물 위에 당신을 높이소서. 당신께서 제 삶에서 영광을 받으신다면 세상의 어떤 보물도 제게는 소중해 보이지 않을 것입니다. 나의 우정 위에 당신을 높이소서. 비록 제가 이 땅 한가운데에 외롭게 홀로 서 있을지라도 당신은 모든 것 위에 계시리라 믿습니다. 나의 위로보다 높임을 받으소서. 그것이 육체적인 안락함을 잃고 무거운 십자가를 지는 일이 될지라도 오늘 당신 앞에서 한 서원을 지키겠습니다. 나의 명성보다 높임을 받으소서. 비록 결과적으로 제가 어둠 속으로 빠져들고 제 이름이 꿈처럼 잊혀질지라도 당신을 기쁘시게 하겠다는 야심을 갖게 하소서. 오 주님, 제 야망, 제가 좋아하는 것과 싫어하는 것, 제 가족, 제 건강, 심지어 제 삶 자체보다도 당신의 합당한 영예의 자리로 일어나소서. 당신이 흥하도록 저를 낮추시고, 당신이 위로 오르도록 저를 가라앉히게 하소서. 당신이 겸손한 작은 짐승, 곧 망아지, 망아지를 타고 예루살렘으로 입성하셨던 것처럼 저를 타고 나아가십시오. 그리고 저로 하여금 어린이들이 당신께 “가장 높은 곳에서 호산나”라고 부르짖는 것을 듣게 하소서.

 

 

 

IX. 온유함과 안식 Meekness and Rest

 

 

온유한 자는 복이 있나니 저희가 땅을 기업으로 받을 것임이요. 마 5:5

 

인류에 대한 상당히 정확한 설명이, 팔복the Beatitudes을 취하여 그것들을 반대로 뒤집어서, "여기에 너희 인류가 있다"고 말함으로써 그것(그 설명)에 친숙하지 않은 사람에게 제공될 수도 있습니다(비고: 예수님은 팔복에 관한 설교에서, 세상 사람들이 친숙하지 않은, "누가 참으로 복된 사람인가"를 선포하셨는데, 그 말씀을 뒤집어서 보면, 지금 인류가 어떤 상태인지를 알 수 있기에 저자는 그렇게 말하는 것 같다). 팔복에 있는 미덕the virtues의 정반대에는 인간의 삶과 행위를 구별하는 바로 그 특성이 있기 때문입니다.

 

인간 세상에서 우리는 예수께서 유명한 산상 수훈의 시작 부분에서 말씀하신 미덕에 가까운 것을 발견하지 못합니다. 영의 빈곤poverty of spirit 대신에 우리는 가장 지독한 종류의 교만pride을 발견합니다. 애통하는 사람mourners 대신에 쾌락을 추구하는 사람pleasure seekers을 찾습니다. 온유함meekness 대신에 오만함arrogance을; 의에 대한 배고픔hunger after righteousness 대신에 우리는 사람들이 "나는 부자라 부요하여 부족한 것이 없다" 고 말하는 것을 듣습니다. 자비mercy대신에 우리는 잔인함cruelty을 발견합니다. 마음의 순결purity of heart 대신에 부패한 상상corrupt imaginings을 하게 됩니다. 평화를 이루는 사람들peacemakers 대신에 우리는 다투고 분개하는 사람들men quarrelsome and resentful을 발견합니다. 학대(or 핍박)를 기뻐하는 대신 우리는 그들의 명령으로 모든 무기를 사용하여 반격하는 것을 발견합니다.

 

이런 (악한) 종류의 도덕적인 것들로 문명사회civilized society가 구성됩니다. 분위기가 그것으로 가득 차 있습니다. 우리는 숨을 쉴 때마다 그것을 들이마시고 모유와 함께 그것을 마십니다. 문화culture와 교육education은 이러한 것들을 약간 정제하지만 기본적으로 그것들을 타치하지 못하고 내버려둡니다(근본적인 개선 능력이 없기 때문임). 이런 종류의 삶을 단 하나의 정상적인 삶으로 정당화하기 위해 문학의 세계가 만들어져왔습니다. 이것이 인생을 더욱 쓰라린 투쟁으로 만드는 악한 것들인데, 그것이 우리 모두를 위한 것이라는 것을 보는 것에서 우리는 더욱더 놀라게 됩니다. 우리의 모든 마음의 고통heartaches과 수많은 육체적 질병ills은 우리의 죄sins에서 직접적으로 비롯됩니다. 교만Pride, 오만arrogance, 분노resentfulness, 악한 상상evil imaginings, 악의malice, 탐욕greed: 이것들은 필멸의 육체mortal flesh를 괴롭혔던 모든 질병diseases보다 더 많은 인간의 고통pain의 근원입니다.

 

이와 같은 세상속으로 예수님의 말씀의 소리가, 놀랍고도 기묘하게 오는데, 그것은 위로부터(하나님)의 한 방문입니다. 그분이 말씀하셨던 것은 좋은 일입니다. 왜냐하면 어느 누구도 그렇게 할 수 없었기 때문입니다; 그리고 우리가 듣는 것은 좋은 일입니다. 그의 말씀은 진리의 본질입니다. 그분은 하나의 의견을 제시하고 있는 것이 아닙니다; 예수께서는 결코 의견을 말씀하지 않으셨습니다. 그분은 결코 추측하지 않았습니다. 그분은 알고 계셨고, 알고 계십니다. 그분의 말씀은 솔로몬의 말들이 그러했던 것처럼, 건전한 지혜의 총체도 아니요 예리한 관찰의 결과들도 아닙니다. 그분은 그분의 신성의 충만함으로 말씀하셨고, 그분의 말씀은 바로 진리 그 자체입니다. 그분은 완전한 권세를 가지고 "복이 있다blessed"고 말할 수 있는 유일한 분입니다. 왜냐하면 그분은 인류에게 축복을 주기 위해 위 세상에서 오신 축복받은 분the Blessed One이시기 때문입니다. 그리고 그분의 말씀들은 다른 어떤 사람이 이 땅에서 행한 어떤 일보다 더 강력한 행위들로 뒷받침되었습니다. 우리가 듣는 것이 지혜입니다.

 

예수님께서 자주 그랬던 것처럼, 그분은 "온유meek"라는 단어를 짧고 명쾌한 문장으로 사용하셨고, 얼마 후에야 그것을 설명하셨습니다. 같은 마태복음에서 그분은 그것에 대해 더 자세히 말씀하시고 그것을 우리 삶에 적용하십니다. “수고하고 무거운 짐진 자들아 다 내게로 오라 내가 너희를 쉬게 하리라 나는 마음이 온유하고 겸손하니 나의 멍에를 메고 내게 배우라 그리하면 너희 마음이 쉼을 얻으리라. 이는 내 멍에는 쉽고 내 짐은 가벼움이라." 여기에는 서로 대조되는 두 가지, 곧 짐(burden)과 쉼(rest: 안식)이 있습니다. 그 짐은 처음 듣는 사람들에게만 국한된 부담이 아니라 전 인류가 짊어지는 짐입니다. 그것은 정치적 억압이나 가난, 노고로 이루어진 것이 아닙니다. 그것은 그것보다 훨씬 더 깊습니다. 그것은 가난한 사람들은 물론 부유한 사람들에 의해서도 느껴집니다. 왜냐하면, 그것은 부와 나태함이 우리를 결코 구원할 수 없는 어떤 것이기 때문입니다.

 

인류가 짊어지고 있는 짐은 무겁고 괴로운 것입니다. 예수께서 사용하신 단어는 지칠 정도로 짊어진 짐이나 수고를 의미합니다. 쉼은 단순히 그 짐에서 벗어나는 것입니다. 그것은 우리가 하는 일이 아니라, 우리가 하기를 멈출 때 우리에게 오는 일입니다. 그분(예수님) 자신의 온유함, 그것이 바로 그 쉼입니다. 

 

우리의 짐을 살펴보겠습니다. 그것은 전체적으로 내적인 것an interior one과 함께 합니다. 그것은 마음heart과 생각mind을 공격하고 내부로부터 몸에 도달합니다. 첫째, 교만의 짐이 있습니다. 자기 사랑의 수고는 참으로 무거운 일입니다. 당신의 슬픔 중 많은 부분이 누군가가 당신에 대해 멸시하는 말에서 비롯된 것은 아닌지 스스로 생각해 보십시오. 당신이 충성해야 할 작은 신a little god으로 스스로를 세우는 한, 당신의 우상your idol에게 기꺼이 모욕을 가하는 자들이 있을 것입니다. 그러면 어떻게 내적인 평화를 갖기를 바랄 수 있습니까? 모든 경멸로부터 자신을 보호하고 친구와 적의 나쁜 평판으로부터 자신의 민감한 명예를 보호하려는 마음의 맹렬한 노력은 결코 마음을 쉬지 못하게 할 것입니다. 수년에 걸쳐 이 싸움을 계속하면 그 짐은 견딜 수 없게 될 것입니다. 그러나 땅의 아들들은 계속해서 이 짐을 지고 있으며, 자신들을 반대하는 모든 말에 도전하고, 모든 비판에 움츠러들고, 상상 속의 경멸에 화를 내고, 다른 사람이 자기들보다 더 나은 사람이 있으면 잠도 못 자고 있습니다.

 

이런 짐은 짊어질 필요가 없습니다. 예수님은 우리를 그분의 안식(쉼)으로 부르시며 온유가 그분의 방법입니다. 온유한 사람은 자신보다 더 큰 사람이 누구인지 전혀 신경 쓰지 않습니다. 왜냐하면 그는 오래 전에 세상의 존경은 노력할 가치가 없다고 결정했기 때문입니다. 그는 자신을 향해 친절한 유머 감각을 키우고 이렇게 말하는 법을 배웁니다. "아, 그래서 당신은 무시돼왔나요you have been overlooked? 그들이 당신 앞에 다른 사람을 두었나요?. 그들은 결국 당신이 아주 작은 존재라고 속삭였나요? 어제만 해도 당신은 하나님께 당신은 아무 것도 아니며 단지 흙의 벌레에 불과하다고 말씀드렸습니다. 당신의 일관성은 어디에 있습니까? 자, 스스로 겸손해지십시오humble. 그리고 사람들이 어떻게 생각하는지 신경 쓰지 마십시오."

 

온유한 사람은 자신의 열등감으로 괴로워하는 인간 쥐가 아닙니다. 오히려 그는 사자처럼 담대하고 삼손처럼 강할 수도 있습니다. 그러나 그는 더 이상 자기 자신에 대해 속지 않았습니다. 그는 자신의 삶에 대한 하나님의 평가를 받아들였습니다. 그는 하나님께서 자신을 선언하신 것처럼 자신이 약하고 무력하다는 것을 알고 있습니다. 그러나 역설적으로 그는 하나님 보시기에 자신이 천사보다 더 중요하다는 것을 알고 있습니다. 그 자체로는 아무것도 아닙니다. (그러나) 하나님 안에는 모든 것이 있습니다. 그것이 그의 좌우명입니다. 그는 하나님이 그를 보시는 것처럼 세상은 결코 그를 볼 수 없을 것이라는 것을 잘 알고 있으며 그는 관심을 멈췄습니다. 그는 하나님께서 자신의 가치를 정하시도록 허락하는 것에 완전히 만족합니다. 그는 모든 것에 고유한 가격표가 붙고 실제 가치가 그 자체로 드러나는 날을 인내심을 갖고 기다릴 것입니다. 그러면 의인들은 아버지의 나라에서 빛날 것입니다. 그는 그날을 기꺼이 기다릴 것입니다.

 

그 사이에 그는 영혼의 안식처를 얻게 될 것입니다. 그가 온유하게 행할 때 그는 하나님께서 그를 보호하시도록 기꺼이 허락할 것입니다. 자신을 방어하기 위한 오래된 투쟁은 끝났습니다. 그는 온유함이 가져다주는 평화를 찾았습니다.

 

그는 또한 가식pretense의 짐에서 구원을 얻을 것입니다. 이것에 의해서, 나는 위선hypocrisy을 의미하지 않고, 최선을 다해 앞으로 나아가고, 우리의 진정한 내적 가난을 세상으로부터 숨기려는 인간의 공통된 욕망을 의미합니다(가식과 위선은 다르고 가식이 무엇인지를 말함). 죄는 우리에게 많은 사악한 속임수를 썼고, 그 중 하나는 우리에게 잘못된 수치심shame을 심어주는 것이었습니다. 인상the impression을 왜곡하지 않고 감히 현재의 모습을 드러내는 남자나 여자는 거의 없습니다. 들키는 것에 대한 두려움이 그들의 마음 안에서 쥐들rodents처럼 갉아먹습니다. 교양 있는 사람은 언젠가 자신보다 더 교양 있는 사람을 만나게 될 것이라는 두려움에 사로잡혀 있습니다. 학식 있는 사람은 자기보다 학식이 높은 사람을 만나는 것을 두려워합니다. 부자는 자신의 옷이나 차, 집이 언젠가 다른 부자의 옷과 비교했을 때 싸구려처럼 보일 것이라는 두려움 때문에 땀을 흘리고 있습니다. 소위 "사회"는 이보다 높지 않은 동기로 운영되며, 그 수준의 가난한 계층은 조금 더 나을 것입니다(비고: 가난한 사람들은 부자보다 그러한 동기가 좀 작을 것이라는 말임).

 

아무도 이것을 웃어 넘기지 못하게 해주십시오. 이러한 짐은 실제적이며, 조금씩 이 사악하고 부자연스러운 삶의 방식의 희생자들을 죽입니다. 그리고 수년간 이런 일이 만들어낸 심리학은 진정한 온유함을 꿈처럼 비현실적으로, 별처럼 초연하게 보이게 만듭니다. 예수께서는 질병으로 고통받는 모든 사람들에게 “너희는 어린 아이들과 같이 되어야 한다” 고 말씀하십니다. 어린아이들은 비교하지 않습니다. 그들은 다른 것이나 다른 사람과 관련시키지 않고 자신이 가진 것에서 직접적인 즐거움을 얻습니다. 그들이 나이가 들고 죄가 그들의 마음 속에서 일어나기 시작할 때에만 질투와 시기가 나타납니다. 그러면 그들은 다른 사람이 더 크거나 더 좋은 것을 가지고 있으면 자신이 가진 것을 즐길 수 없습니다. 그 어린 나이에 그들의 연약한 영혼은 괴로운 짐을 지게 되며, 예수께서 그들을 자유롭게 해 주실 때까지는 결코 그 짐을 떠나지 않습니다.

 

짐의 또 다른 원인은 인위성artificiality입니다. 나는 대부분의 사람들이 언젠가는 부주의하게 행동하여 우연히 적이나 친구가 그들의 가련하고 공허한 영혼을 엿볼 수 있게 될 것이라는 은밀한 두려움 속에 살고 있다고 확신합니다. 그래서 그들은 결코 편안하지 않습니다. 똑똑한 사람들은 평범하거나 어리석은 말을 하는 데 갇히지 않을까 하는 두려움에 긴장하고 경계합니다. 여행을 다녀온 사람들은 자신들이 한 번도 가본 적이 없는 외딴 곳을 묘사할 수 있는 마르코 폴로Marco Polo를 만날까 봐 두려워합니다.

 

이 부자연스러운 상태는 우리가 죄로 인해 받은 슬픈 유산의 일부이지만 오늘날 우리의 생활 방식 전체로 인해 이러한 상태가 더욱 악화되고 있습니다. 광고는 주로 이러한 가식의 습관에 기초합니다. 파티에서 빛을 발하고 싶은 피해자의 욕구에 솔직하게 호소하는 인간 학습의 이 분야 또는 저 분야에서 "강좌"가 제공됩니다. 우리 자신이 아닌 모습을 보여주고자 하는 욕망을 계속해서 활용하여 책이 팔리고, 옷과 화장품이 팔리게 됩니다. 인위적인 것은 우리가 예수님의 발 앞에 무릎을 꿇고 그분의 온유하심에 우리 자신을 내어드리는 순간 사라질 저주 중 하나입니다. 그러면 하나님이 기뻐하시는 한 우리는 사람들이 우리에 대해 어떻게 생각하든 상관하지 않을 것입니다. 그러면 우리 자신이 전부가 될 것입니다. 우리가 나타나는 것은 우리가 관심을 갖는 규모보다 훨씬 낮은 위치를 차지할 것입니다. 죄 외에는 우리가 부끄러워할 것이 없습니다. 빛나고자 하는 사악한 욕망만이 우리를 실제 모습과 다르게 나타나기를 원하게 만듭니다.

 

세상의 마음은 이러한 교만과 가식의 짐으로 인해 무너지고 있습니다. 그리스도의 온유하심과 떨어진 상태에서는 우리의 짐으로부터 해방은 없습니다. 예리한 추론이 약간 도움이 될 수 있지만, 이 악덕은 너무 강력해서 한 곳을 아래로 밀면 다른 곳에서 나타날 것입니다. 예수께서는 모든 곳의 남자와 여자에게 “내게로 오라 내가 너희를 쉬게 하리라” 고 말씀하십니다. 그분이 주시는 안식은 온유함의 안식, 즉 우리가 있는 그대로의 모습을 받아들이고 가장하는 것을 멈출 때 오는 복된 안도감입니다. 처음에는 약간의 용기가 필요하겠지만, 우리가 이 새롭고 쉬운 멍에를 하나님의 강하신 아들 자신과 공유하고 있다는 것을 배울 때 그 필요한 은혜가 올 것입니다. 그분은 그것을 "나의 멍에"라고 부르시며 우리가 다른 쪽 끝으로 걷는 동안 그분은 한쪽 끝으로 걷습니다.

 

주님, 저를 어린아이처럼 만들어 주십시오. 지위나 명성, 지위를 놓고 다른 사람과 경쟁하려는 충동에서 저를 구해 주십시오. 저는 어린 아이처럼 단순하고 예술적이지 않을 것입니다. 저를 포즈pose(자기 것이 아닌 다른 자세를 취하는 것)와 가식pretense에서 구해 주소서. 나 자신에 대해 생각하는 것을 용서해주세요. 나 자신을 잊고 주님을 바라볼 때 참된 평안을 찾을 수 있도록 도와주소서. 당신께서 이 기도에 응답하실 수 있도록 저는 당신 앞에 겸손합니다. 당신의 쉬운 자기망각의 멍에를 제게 얹으시어 제가 안식을 찾을 수 있도록 하여 주십시오. 아멘.

 

 

X. 삶의 성례  The Sacrament of  Living

 

 

그러므로 너희가 먹든지 마시든지 무엇을 하든지 다 하나님의 영광을 위하여 하라. 고전 10:31

 

그리스도인이 직면하는 내적 평화를 가로막는 가장 큰 장애물 중 하나는 우리의 삶을 신성한 영역과 세속적인 영역, 두 영역으로 나누는 일반적인 습관입니다. 이러한 영역들은 서로 분리되어 존재하며 도덕적으로나 영적으로 양립할 수 없는 것으로 인식되기 때문에, 그리고 우리가 생활의 필수품들(생활을 위해 필요한 것들)에 의해 항상 이리저리 왔다 갔다 하도록 강요당하기 때문에, 우리의 내면의 삶은 파손되어 우리는 통일된unified 삶 대신에 하나의 분리된divided 삶을 사는 경향이 있습니다.

 

우리의 문제는 그리스도를 따르는 우리가 영적인 세계와 자연적인 세계라는 두 세계에 동시에 살고 있다는 사실에서 비롯됩니다. 아담의 자녀로서 우리는 육신의 한계와 인간 본성이 물려받은 약점과 질병을 안고 이 땅에서 삶을 살아갑니다. 아담의 자녀들로서 우리는, 물려받은 인간의 본성으로, 육신의 한계들과 약함들과 질병들에 종속되어 이 땅에서 삶을 살아갑니다. 단지 사람들 중에서 산다는 것은, 우리에게 수년간의 힘든 수고와 많은 돌봄과 이 세상의 것들에 대한 많은 관심이 필요합니다. 이와는 정반대로 성령 안에 있는 우리의 삶이 있습니다. 그곳에서 우리는 또 다른, 더 높은 종류의 삶을 즐깁니다; 우리는 하나님의 자녀입니다; 우리는 하늘의 지위를 소유하고 있으며 그리스도와의 친밀한 교제를 누립니다.

 

이는 우리의 전체 삶을 두 부분으로 나누는 경향이 있습니다. 우리는 무의식적으로 두 가지 행동을 인식하게 됩니다. 첫 번째 일은 만족감과 그들이 하나님을 기쁘시게 한다는 확고한 확신을 가지고 수행됩니다. 이것들은 신성한 행위이며 일반적으로 기도, 성경 읽기, 찬송가, 교회 출석 및 신앙에서 직접적으로 나오는 기타 행위로 간주됩니다. 그것들은 이 세상과 직접적인 관계가 없으며 믿음이 우리에게 다른 세상, “손으로 지은 것이 아니요 하늘에 영원한 집” 을 보여주는 것 외에는 어떤 의미도 갖지 않는다는 사실로 알 수 있습니다.

 

이러한 신성한 행위에 반대되는 것은 세속적인 행위입니다. 여기에는 우리가 아담의 아들 딸들과 공유하는 일상적인 모든 활동, 즉 먹고, 자고, 일하고, 육체의 필요를 돌보고, 여기 지상에서 우리의 지루하고 평범한 의무를 수행하는 것이 포함됩니다. 우리는 종종 마지 못해 많은 불안을 안고 이러한 일을 하며, 시간과 힘의 낭비라고 생각하는 일에 대해 종종 하나님께 사과합니다. 이것의 결과는 우리가 대부분의 시간 동안 불안하다는 것입니다. 우리는 깊은 좌절감을 안고 일상적인 업무를 수행하며, 이 세상의 껍질을 벗겨내고 더 이상 이 세상 일에 신경 쓰지 않을 더 좋은 날이 올 것이라고 스스로에게 생각합니다.

 

이것은 오래된 신성-세속적 대조법sacred-secular antithesis입니다. 대부분의 그리스도인들은 그 함정에 빠져 있습니다. 그들은 두 세계의 주장 사이에서 만족스러운 조정을 얻을 수 없습니다. 그들은 두 나라 사이에 팽팽한 줄을 걸으려고 노력하지만 어느 나라에서도 평화를 찾지 못합니다. 그들의 힘은 약해지고, 그들의 전망은 혼란스러워지며, 그들의 기쁨은 빼앗깁니다.

 

나는 이런 상황이 전혀 불필요하다고 믿습니다. 우리는 딜레마에 빠졌습니다. 충분히 사실이지만 딜레마는 실제가 아닙니다. 그것은 오해의 창조물입니다. 신성과 세속의 대조는 신약성경에 근거가 없습니다. 의심할 바 없이 기독교 진리에 대한 보다 완벽한 이해는 우리를 그것으로부터 구원할 것입니다.

 

주 예수 그리스도께서는 우리의 완전한 모범이시며, 분리된 삶을 전혀 알지 않으셨습니다. 그분은 아버지의 임재 안에서 유아기부터 십자가에서 돌아가실 때까지 아무런 긴장strain 없이 이 땅에서 사셨습니다. 하나님은 그분(예수님)의 전체 삶의 제사를 받으셨고, 행위와 행위 사이에 아무런 구별도 만들지 않으셨습니다. “나는 항상 그분을 기쁘시게 하는 일을 행한다.” 는 말씀은 아버지와 관련된 자신의 삶을 간략하게 요약한 것입니다(요 8:29 참조). 그분은 사람들 사이에서 이동하실 때 침착하고 편안하셨습니다. 그분은 사람들 중에서 이동하실 때 침착하고 편안하셨습니다. 그분이 견디신 압박과 고통은 세상의 죄를 짊어지는 분으로서 그분의 지위에서 비롯되었습니다; 그것들은 결코 도덕적 불확실성이나 영적인 부적응의 결과가 아니었습니다.

 

“모든 것을 하나님의 영광을 위하여 하라” 는 바울의 권고는 경건한 이상주의 그 이상입니다. 그것은 신성한 계시의 필수적인 부분이며 바로 진리의 말씀으로 받아들여져야 합니다. 이는 우리 삶의 모든 행위가 하나님의 영광에 기여할 수 있는 가능성을 우리 앞에 열어줍니다. 우리가 너무 소심해서 모든 것을 포함시키지 않도록 바울은 구체적으로 먹는 것과 마시는 것을 언급합니다. 우리는 이 겸손한 특권을 멸망하는 짐승들과 공유합니다. 만일 이러한 비천한 동물적인 행위들이 하나님을 공경할 만큼 행해질 수 있다면, 그렇게 할 수 없는 행위를 상상하는 것은 어려울 것입니다.

 

일부 초기 신앙 저술가들의 작품에서 그토록 두드러지게 나타나는 육체에 대한 수도사적 미움hatred은 하나님의 말씀에서 전혀 뒷받침되지 않습니다. 일반적인 겸손은 성경에서 찾아볼 수 있는 사실입니다. 그러나 그것은 결코 신중함이나 거짓된 수치심이 아닙니다. 신약성경은 성육신에서 우리 주님이 실제 인간의 몸을 취하셨다는 사실을 당연히 인정하며, 그러한 사실이 암시하는 바를 회피하려는 노력을 전혀 하지 않습니다. 그분은 여기 사람들 가운데서 그 몸으로 살았으며 단 한 번도 신성하지 않은 행위를 행한 적이 없습니다. 인간 육체 안에 있는 그분의 임재는 인간 육체에 본질적으로 신성을 거슬리는 어떤 것이 있다는 사악한 관념을 영원히 일소합니다. 하나님은 우리 몸을 창조하셨고, 우리는 그것이 속한 곳에 책임을 두어 하나님을 거스르지 않습니다. 그분은 그분 자신의 손으로 하신 일을 부끄러워하지 않으십니다.

 

우리 인간의 능력들의 왜곡perversion, 오용misuse, 그리고, 남용abuse은 부끄러움을 받기에 충분한 이유를 우리에게 제공해야 합니다. 죄 가운데서 행하고 자연에 어긋나는 육체적 행위는 결코 하나님께 영광을 돌릴 수 없습니다. 인간의 의지가 도덕적 악을 도입하는 곳마다, 하나님이 그것들을 만드셨기 때문에, 우리는, 더 이상 우리의 순결하고 무해한 능력들을 갖지 않습니다; 대신에 우리는 그것의 창조주께 결코 영광을 돌릴 수 없는 남용되고 뒤틀린 것을 갖게 되었습니다.

 

그러나 왜곡과 학대가 존재하지 않는다고 가정해 봅시다. 회개와 거듭남이라는 두 가지 기적을 일생 동안 이룬 그리스도인 신자를 생각해 봅시다. 그는 이제 기록된 말씀에서 이해한 대로 하나님의 뜻에 따라 살고 있습니다. 그런 사람의 삶의 모든 행위는 기도나 세례, 성만찬만큼 참으로 신성하다고 말할 수 있습니다. 이렇게 말하는 것은 모든 행위를 하나의 죽은 수준으로 끌어내리는 것이 아닙니다. 오히려 모든 행위를 살아 있는 나라로 끌어올리고 삶 전체를 성찬으로 바꾸는 것입니다.

 

성찬이 내적 은혜의 외적 표현이라면 우리는 위의 주장을 주저하지 않고 받아들일 필요가 있습니다. 우리 자신 전체를 하나님께 봉헌하는 한 번의 행위로 우리는 이후의 모든 행위가 그 봉헌을 표현하도록 할 수 있습니다. 예수님께서 타고 예루살렘으로 가셨던 겸손한 짐승을 부끄러워하지 않으셨던 것처럼, 우리는 우리 몸, 곧 우리의 삶을 인도하는 육신의 종을 더 이상 부끄러워할 필요가 없습니다. “주께서 그를 쓰시느니라”는 말은 우리 죽을 몸에도 잘 적용될 수 있습니다. 만일 그리스도께서 우리 안에 거하신다면 우리는 옛날 작은 짐승이 그랬던 것처럼 영광의 주님을 품고 군중에게 “가장 높은 곳에서 호산나” 라고 외칠 기회를 줄 수 있을 것입니다.

 

우리가 이 진리를 보는 것만으로는 충분하지 않습니다. 우리가 거룩 sacred-세속적 딜레마secular dilemma의 수고에서 벗어나려면 진실이 "우리의 피 속에 흐르고" 우리 생각의 안색을 조절해야 합니다. 우리는 실제로, 결단력 있게 하나님의 영광을 위해 사는 삶을 실천해야 합니다. 이 진리를 묵상하고, 기도할 때 자주 하나님과 이야기하고, 사람들 사이를 돌아다닐 때 그것을 마음속에 자주 회상한다면, 그 놀라운 의미에 대한 감각이 우리를 사로잡기 시작할 것입니다. 낡고 고통스러운 이중성은 삶의 평화로운 통합 이전에 사라질 것입니다. 우리 모두가 하나님의 것이고 그분이 모든 것을 받으셨고 아무것도 거부하지 않으셨다는 지식은 우리의 내면 생활을 통합하고 모든 것을 우리에게 신성하게 만들 것입니다.

 

이것이 전부는 아닙니다. 오랫동안 지켜온 습관은 쉽게 죽지 않습니다. 성(거룩)-세속적 심리학에서 완전히 벗어나려면 지적인 생각과 많은 경건한 기도가 필요할 것입니다. 예를 들어, 일반 그리스도인은 자신의 일상적인 노동이 예수 그리스도에 의해 하나님께 받아들여질만한 예배 행위들로 수행될 수 있다는 생각을 이해하기 어려울 수 있습니다. 때때로 그의 마음의 평화를 방해하기 위해 오래된 대조가 그의 머리 뒤쪽에 나타날 것입니다. 또한 그 옛뱀 마귀도 이 모든 것을 (그냥) 누워서 받아들이지 않을 것입니다(비고: 마귀가 사람들로 하여금 그 진리를 믿고 따르도록 그냥 방관하지 않고 방해할 것이라는 말임). 그(마귀)는 택시 안이나 책상이나 현장에 있을 것이며 그리스도인에게 자신의 하루 중 더 나은 부분을 이 세상의 일에 바치고 종교적 의무에는 그의 시간의 극히 일부분만을 할당하고 있음을 상기시킬 것입니다. 그리고 큰 주의가 기울여지지 않으면 이것은 혼란을 야기하고 낙담과 마음의 무거움을 가져올 것입니다.

 

우리는 적극적인aggressive 믿음을 행사함으로써만 이 문제를 성공적으로 해결할 수 있습니다. 우리는 우리의 모든 행위를 하나님께 드려야 하며, 하나님께서 그것을 받으신다는 것을 믿어야 합니다. 그런 다음 그 입장을 굳게 잡고 밤낮으로 매 시간의 모든 행위가 거래에 포함되도록 계속 주장하십시오. 우리의 개인 기도 시간들에서 우리는 모든 행동이 그분의 영광을 의미한다는 것을 하나님께 계속 상기시켜 주십시오; 그런 다음 우리가 삶의 일을 갈 때 수천 번의 생각 기도들thought-prayers에 의해 그런 시간들을 보충하십시오. 모든 일을 제사장의 사역priestly ministration으로 만드는 훌륭한 기술을 실습합시다. 하나님이 우리의 모든 단순한 행위들 안에 계시다는 것을 믿고 거기서 그분을 찾는 법을 배웁시다.

 

우리가 논의한 오류에 수반되는 것은 장소들에 적용되는 거룩(sacred)-세속적(secular) 대조입니다. 우리가 신약성경을 읽으면서 여전히 다른 장소와 구별되는 장소들의 고유한 신성함을 믿을 수 있다는 사실은 놀랍게 하기에는 조금 부족합니다(비고: 사람들이 그것을 당연하게 받아들이기에 거의 놀라지 않는다는 말임). 이 오류는 너무나 널리 퍼져 있어서 사람이 그 오류와 싸우려고 할 때 외로움을 느끼게 됩니다. 그것은 종교인의 사고를 물들이는 일종의 염료 역할을 하였고, 눈에도 물을 주어 그 오류를 간파하기가 거의 불가능하였습니다. 모든 신약성경의 가르침에 반대되는 가르침에도 불구하고 그것은 수세기에 걸쳐 말하고 노래되어 왔으며 기독교 메시지의 일부로 받아들여졌습니다. 내가 아는 한, 오직 퀘이커교도들the Quakers만이 오류를 볼 수 있는 인식과 그것을 폭로할 용기를 갖고 있었습니다.

 

내가 보는 사실은 다음과 같습니다. 400년 동안 이스라엘은 가장 천박한 우상 숭배에 둘러싸여 애굽에 거주했습니다. 모세의 손에 의해 그들은 마침내 인도되어 약속의 땅을 향해 출발했습니다. 그들은 거룩하다는 생각 자체를 잃어버렸습니다. 이를 바로잡기 위해 하나님은 밑바닥부터 시작하셨습니다. 그분은 자신을 구름과 불 가운데 두셨고 나중에 성막이 건축되었을 때 지성소에서 불의 현현 가운데 거하셨습니다. 수많은 구별을 통해 하나님은 이스라엘에게 거룩한 것과 거룩하지 않은 것의 차이를 가르치셨습니다. 거룩한 날이 있었고, 거룩한 그릇이 있었고, 거룩한 옷이 있었습니다. 씻는 일과 희생 제물과 제물이 여러 종류 있었습니다. 이러한 방법으로 이스라엘은 하나님이 거룩하시다는 것을 배웠습니다. 그분께서 그들에게 가르치신 것이 바로 이것이었습니다. 사물이나 장소의 거룩함이 아니라 여호와의 거룩함이 그들이 배워야 할 교훈이었습니다.

 

그러다가 그리스도께서 나타나신 큰 날이 왔습니다. 즉시 그분은 “옛 사람이 말한 것을 너희가 들었으나 나는 너희에게 이르노니” 라고 말씀하시기 시작하셨습니다. 구약의 학교교육은 끝났습니다. 그리스도께서 십자가에 죽으시자 성소의 휘장이 위에서 아래로 찢어졌습니다. 지성소는 믿음으로 들어가는 모든 사람에게 열렸습니다. “이 산에서도 말고 예루살렘에서도 말고 너희가 아버지께 예배할 때가 이르리라… 진실로 아버지께서는 자기에게 이렇게 예배하는 자들을 찾으시느니라 하나님은 영이시니 예배하는 자가 영과 진리로 예배할지니라.”

 

얼마 지나지 않아 바울은 자유liberty를 외치며 모든 음식이 깨끗하고 모든 날이 거룩하며 모든 장소가 거룩하며 모든 행위가 하나님께서 받으실 만한 것이라고 선언했습니다. 시대와 장소의 신성함, 인류 교육에 필요한 희미한 빛이 영적 예배의 완전한 태양 앞에서 지나가 버렸습니다.

 

예배의 본질적인 영성은 세월이 흐르면서 서서히 사라질 때까지 교회의 소유로 남아 있었습니다. 그러자 인간의 타락한 마음의 자연적 합법성이 옛 구별을 도입하기 시작했습니다. 교회는 날과 절기와 때를 다시 지키러 왔습니다. 어떤 장소는 특별한 의미에서 선택되어 거룩한 곳으로 표시되었습니다. 한 날과 다른 날 사이에, 혹은, 한 장소와 다른 장소 사이에, 아니면 한 사람과 다른 사람 사이에 차이들이 관찰되었습니다. "성례전들"은 처음에는 둘이었고, 다음에는 세가지였고, 그 다음에는 로마교(로마카톨릭을 지칭)가 승리할 때까지 네가지였고 그들은 결국 일곱으로 고정되었습니다.

 

모든 자선에서, 그리고, 어떤 기독교인 위에 불친절하게 반사할 어떤 욕망도 없이, 잘못 인도된 것은, 나는 로마 카톨릭 교회가 오늘날 논리적인 결론에 도달한 거룩-세속적 이단을 대표한다는 점을 지적하고 싶습니다. 그것의 가장 치명적인 영향은 종교와 삶 사이에 완전한 분리를 가져오는 것입니다. 그 교사들은 많은 각주와 수많은 설명을 통해 이 올무를 피하려고 시도하지만, 논리에 대한 마음의 본능은 너무 강합니다. 실제 생활에서 분리는 사실입니다.

 

개혁가들과 청교도들과 신비주의자들은 우리를 이 속박에서 해방시키기 위해 노력해 왔습니다. 오늘날 보수계의 추세는 다시 그 속박으로 돌아가고 있습니다. 말은 불타는 건물 밖으로 끌려나온 후 때때로 이상한 고집 때문에 구조자로부터 풀려나 다시 건물 안으로 돌진하여 화염 속에서 죽는다고 합니다. 오류를 향한 그러한 완고한 경향으로 인해 우리 시대의 근본주의는 영적 노예 상태로 되돌아가고 있습니다. 날과 때를 지키는 일이 우리 가운데 점점 더 두드러지고 있습니다. "사순절Lent", "성주간holy week", "성금요일the good Friday"은 복음을 믿는 그리스도인들의 입에서 점점 더 자주 들리는 단어입니다. 우리는 언제 잘 지내는지 모릅니다.

 

제가 이해되고 오해되지 않도록 제가 주장해 온 가르침의 실제적인 의미, 즉 일상 생활의 성례적 품성sacramental quality을 부각시키고 싶습니다. 긍정적인 의미와는 반대로 나는 그것이 의미하지 않는 몇 가지를 지적하고 싶습니다.

 

예를 들어, 우리가 하는 모든 일이 우리가 하거나 할 수 있는 다른 모든 일과 똑같이 중요하다는 의미는 아닙니다. 선한 사람의 삶의 한 행위는 중요성에 있어서 다른 행위와 크게 다를 수 있습니다. 바울의 천막 수선은 그가 로마서를 쓰는 것과 같지는 않았지만 둘 다 하나님께 받아들여졌고 둘 다 참된 예배 행위였습니다. 확실히 정원을 가꾸는 것보다 영혼을 그리스도께로 인도하는 것이 더 중요하지만, 정원을 가꾸는 것은 영혼을 얻는 것만큼이나 거룩한 행위일 수 있습니다.

 

다시 말하지만, 이는 모든 사람이 다른 모든 사람만큼 유용하다는 의미는 아닙니다. 은사는 그리스도의 몸에 따라 다릅니다. 빌리 브레이는 교회와 세상에 대한 순전한 유용성 측면에서 루터나 웨슬리와 비교될 수 없습니다. 그러나 재능이 적은 형제의 봉사는 재능이 더 많은 형제의 봉사만큼 순수하며, 하나님께서는 두 사람 모두를 똑같은 기쁨으로 받으십니다.

 

"평신도"는 자신의 좀더 겸손한 임무가 목사의 임무보다 열등하다고 생각할 필요가 없습니다. 모든 사람으로 하여금 그가 부르심을 받은 그 부르심 안에 거하게 하십시오. 그러면 그의 일은 사역의 일만큼 거룩할 것입니다. 사람이 하는 일이 거룩한 것인지 세속적인 것인지를 결정하는 것은, 사람이 하는 무엇이 아니라, 그가 그것을 하는 이유입니다. 그 동기가 전부입니다. 사람으로 하여금 그의 마음으로 주 하나님을 거룩하게 하십시오. 그러면, 그는 그 후에 어떤 평범한(거룩하지 않은) 행동도 할 수 없습니다. 그가 행하는 모든 일은 선하고 예수 그리스도를 통해 하나님이 받으실 만한 것입니다. 그러한 사람에게는 삶 자체가 성례전적sacramental이 될 것이며 온 세상이 성소sanctuary가 될 것입니다. 그의 전 생애는 제사장적 사역이 될 것입니다. 그가 그의 결코 그렇게 단순하지 않은 임무를 수행할 때, 그는 다음과 같이 말하는, 세라빔(천사)의 음성을 듣게 될 것입니다: "거룩하다 거룩하다 거룩하다 만군의 여호와여 그 영광이 온 땅에 충만하도다."

 

주님, 저는 당신을 온전히 신뢰하겠습니다. 저는 전적으로 당신의 것이 될 것입니다. 저는 무엇보다도 당신을 높이겠습니다. 저는 당신 외에는 어떤 것도 소유하고 있다는 느낌을 갖지 않기를 원합니다. 저는 끊임없이 당신의 그늘진 임재를 인식하고 당신이 말씀하시는 음성을 듣기를 원합니다. 저는 편안하고 진실한 마음으로 살기를 갈망합니다. 저는 성령 안에서 충만하게 살기를 원합니다. 그리하여 저의 모든 생각이 당신께 올라가는 향기로운 향이 되고, 저의 삶의 모든 행위가 예배의 행위가 되기를 원합니다. 그러므로 저는 당신의 옛 종의 말씀대로 기도합니다. “말로 다 할 수 없는 당신의 은혜의 선물로 제 마음의 뜻을 깨끗하게 하사, 제가 당신을 온전히 사랑하고 합당하게 찬양하게 하소서.” 그리고 저는 이 모든 것을 당신이 당신의 아들 예수 그리스도의 공로를 통해 저에게 허락하실 것이라고 확신합니다. 아멘.

 

 

 

** English Text of (Tozer's book) "The Pursuit of God": 

 

 

 

The Pursuit of God

 

"Then shall we know,

if we follow on to know the Lord:

his going forth is prepared as the morning."

 

hosea 6:3

 

by A. W. Tozer

 

 

 

Contents

	Introduction
	Preface
I	Following Hard after God
II	The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing
III	Removing the Veil
IV	Apprehending God
V	The Universal Presence
VI	The Speaking Voice
VII	The Gaze of the Soul
VIII	Restoring the Creator-creature Relation
IX	Meekness and Rest
X	The Sacrament of Living

Introduction

 

Here is a masterly study of the inner life by a heart thirsting after God, eager to grasp at least the outskirts of His ways, the abyss of His love for sinners, and the height of His unapproachable majesty—and it was written by a busy pastor in Chicago!

Who could imagine David writing the twenty-third Psalm on South Halsted Street, or a medieval mystic finding inspiration in a small study on the second floor of a frame house on that vast, flat checker-board of endless streets

Where cross the crowded ways of life Where sound the cries of race and clan, In haunts of wretchedness and need, On shadowed threshold dark with fears, And paths where hide the lures of greed ...

But even as Dr. Frank Mason North, of New York, says in his immortal poem, so Mr. Tozer says in this book:

Above the noise of selfish strife We hear Thy voice, O Son of Man.

My acquaintance with the author is limited to brief visits and loving fellowship in his church. There I discovered a self-made scholar, an omnivorous reader with a remarkable library of theological and devotional books, and one who seemed to burn the midnight oil in pursuit of God. His book is the result of long meditation and much prayer. It is not a collection of sermons. It does not deal with the pulpit and the pew but with the soul athirst for God. The chapters could be summarized in Moses' prayer, "Show me thy glory," or Paul's exclamation, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" It is theology not of the head but of the heart.

There is deep insight, sobriety of style, and a catholicity of outlook that is refreshing. The author has few quotations but he knows the saints and mystics of the centuries—Augustine, Nicholas of Cusa, Thomas à Kempis, von Hügel, Finney, Wesley and many more. The ten chapters are heart searching and the prayers at the close of each are for closet, not pulpit. I felt the nearness of God while reading them.

Here is a book for every pastor, missionary, and devout Christian. It deals with the deep things of God and the riches of His grace. Above all, it has the keynote of sincerity and humility.

Samuel M. Zwemer

New York City

 

 

 

Preface

 

In this hour of all-but-universal darkness one cheering gleam appears: within the fold of conservative Christianity there are to be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct "interpretations" of truth. They are athirst for God, and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the Fountain of Living Water.

This is the only real harbinger of revival which I have been able to detect anywhere on the religious horizon. It may be the cloud the size of a man's hand for which a few saints here and there have been looking. It can result in a resurrection of life for many souls and a recapture of that radiant wonder which should[Pg 8] accompany faith in Christ, that wonder which has all but fled the Church of God in our day.

But this hunger must be recognized by our religious leaders. Current evangelicalism has (to change the figure) laid the altar and divided the sacrifice into parts, but now seems satisfied to count the stones and rearrange the pieces with never a care that there is not a sign of fire upon the top of lofty Carmel. But God be thanked that there are a few who care. They are those who, while they love the altar and delight in the sacrifice, are yet unable to reconcile themselves to the continued absence of fire. They desire God above all. They are athirst to taste for themselves the "piercing sweetness" of the love of Christ about Whom all the holy prophets did write and the psalmists did sing.

There is today no lack of Bible teachers to set forth correctly the principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals of the faith year after year, strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest Presence, nor anything unusual in their personal lives. They minister constantly to believers who feel within their breasts a longing which their teaching simply does not satisfy.

I trust I speak in charity, but the lack in our pulpits is real. Milton's terrible sentence applies to our day as accurately as it did to his: "The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed." It is a solemn thing, and no small scandal in the Kingdom, to see God's children starving while actually seated at the Father's table. The truth of Wesley's words is established before our eyes: "Orthodoxy, or right opinion, is, at best, a very slender part of religion. Though right tempers cannot subsist without right opinions, yet right opinions may subsist without right tempers. There may be a right opinion of God without either love or one right temper toward Him. Satan is a proof of this."

Thanks to our splendid Bible societies and to other effective agencies for the dissemination of the Word, there are today many millions of people who hold "right opinions," probably more than ever before in the history of the Church. Yet I wonder if there was ever a time when true spiritual worship was at a lower ebb. To great sections of the Church the art of worship has been lost entirely, and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the "program." This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the type of public service which now passes for worship among us.

Sound Bible exposition is an imperative must in the Church of the Living God. Without it no church can be a New Testament church in any strict meaning of that term. But exposition may be carried on in such way as to leave the hearers devoid of any true spiritual nourishment whatever. For it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself, and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience they are not the better for having heard the truth. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.

This book is a modest attempt to aid God's hungry children so to find Him. Nothing here is new except in the sense that it is a discovery which my own heart has made of spiritual realities most delightful and wonderful to me. Others before me have gone much farther into these holy mysteries than I have done, but if my fire is not large it is yet real, and there may be those who can light their candle at its flame.

A. W. Tozer

Chicago, Ill.

June 16, 1948

 

 

 

I.  Following Hard after God

 

My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.—Psa. 63:8

 

Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which briefly stated means this, that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man.

Before a sinful man can think a right thought of God, there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him; imperfect it may be, but a true work nonetheless, and the secret cause of all desiring and seeking and praying which may follow.

We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. "No man can come to me," said our Lord, "except the Father which hath sent me draw him," and it is by this very prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the out[Pg 12]working of that impulse is our following hard after Him; and all the time we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand: "Thy right hand upholdeth me."

In this divine "upholding" and human "following" there is no contradiction. All is of God, for as von Hügel teaches, God is always previous. In practice, however, (that is, where God's previous working meets man's present response) man must pursue God. On our part there must be positive reciprocation if this secret drawing of God is to eventuate in identifiable experience of the Divine. In the warm language of personal feeling this is stated in the Forty-second Psalm: "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?" This is deep calling unto deep, and the longing heart will understand it.

The doctrine of justification by faith—a Biblical truth, and a blessed relief from sterile legalism and unavailing self-effort—has in our time fallen into evil company and been interpreted by many in such manner as actually to bar men from the knowledge of God. The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be "received" without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is "saved," but he is[Pg 13] not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact he is specifically taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little.

The modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders of His world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word. We have almost forgotten that God is a Person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. It is inherent in personality to be able to know other personalities, but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored.

All social intercourse between human beings is a response of personality to personality, grading upward from the most casual brush between man and man to the fullest, most intimate communion of which the human soul is capable. Religion, so far as it is genuine, is in essence the response of created personalities to the Creating Personality, God. "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

God is a Person, and in the deep of His mighty nature He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires and suffers as any other person may. In making Himself known to us He stays by the familiar pattern of personality. He communicates with us through the avenues of our minds, our wills and our emotions. The continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thought between God and the soul of the redeemed man is the throbbing heart of New Testament religion.

This intercourse between God and the soul is known to us in conscious personal awareness. It is personal: that is, it does not come through the body of believers, as such, but is known to the individual, and to the body through the individuals which compose it. And it is conscious: that is, it does not stay below the threshold of consciousness and work there unknown to the soul (as, for instance, infant baptism is thought by some to do), but comes within the field of awareness where the man can "know" it as he knows any other fact of experience.

You and I are in little (our sins excepted) what God is in large. Being made in His image we have within us the capacity to know Him. In our sins we lack only the power. The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the Kingdom of God. It is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart's happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead. That is where we begin, I say, but where we stop no man has yet discovered, for there is in the awful and mysterious depths of the Triune God neither limit nor end.

Shoreless Ocean, who can sound Thee? Thine own eternity is round Thee, Majesty divine!

To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart. St. Bernard stated this holy paradox in a musical quatrain that will be instantly understood by every worshipping soul:

We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread, And long to feast upon Thee still: We drink of Thee, the Fountain head And thirst our souls from Thee to fill.

Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God. They mourned for Him, they prayed and wrestled and sought for Him day and night, in season and out, and when they had found Him the finding was all the sweeter for the long seeking. Moses used the fact that he knew God as an argument for knowing Him better. "Now, therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight"; and from there he rose to make the daring request, "I beseech thee, show me thy glory." God was frankly pleased by this display of ardor, and the next day called Moses into the mount, and there in solemn procession made all His glory pass before him.

David's life was a torrent of spiritual desire, and his psalms ring with the cry of the seeker and the glad shout of the finder. Paul confessed the mainspring of his life to be his burning desire after Christ. "That I may know Him," was the goal of his heart, and to this he sacrificed everything. "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may win Christ."

Hymnody is sweet with the longing after God, the God whom, while the singer seeks, he knows he has already found. "His track I see and I'll pursue," sang our fathers only a short generation ago, but that song is heard no more in the great congregation. How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initial act of "accepting" Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him. This is set before us as the last word in orthodoxy, and it is taken for granted that no Bible-taught Christian ever believed otherwise. Thus the whole testimony of the worshipping, seeking, singing Church on that subject is crisply set aside. The experiential heart-theology of a grand army of fragrant saints is rejected in favor of a smug interpretation of Scripture which would certainly have sounded strange to an Augustine, a Rutherford or a Brainerd.

In the midst of this great chill there are some, I rejoice to acknowledge, who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, "O God, show me thy glory." They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God.

I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.

Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.

If we would find God amid all the religious externals we must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity. Now as always God discovers Himself to "babes" and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few). We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood. If we do this, without doubt God will quickly respond.

When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God Himself. The evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the "and" lies our great woe. If we omit the "and" we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing.

We need not fear that in seeking God only we may narrow our lives or restrict the motions of our expanding hearts. The opposite is true. We can well afford to make God our All, to concentrate, to sacrifice the many for the One.

The author of the quaint old English classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, teaches us how to do this. "Lift up thine heart unto God with a meek stirring of love; and mean Himself, and none of His goods. And thereto, look thee loath to think on aught but God Himself. So that nought work in thy wit, nor in thy will, but only God Himself. This is the work of the soul that most pleaseth God."

Again, he recommends that in prayer we practice a further stripping down of everything, even of our theology. "For it sufficeth enough, a naked intent direct unto God without any other cause than Himself." Yet underneath all his thinking lay the broad foundation of New Testament truth, for he explains that by "Himself" he means "God that made thee, and bought thee, and that graciously called thee to thy degree." And he is all for simplicity: If we would have religion "lapped and folden in one word, for that thou shouldst have better hold thereupon, take thee but a little word of one syllable: for so it is better than of two, for even the shorter it is the better it accordeth with the work of the Spirit. And such a word is this word GOD or this word LOVE."

When the Lord divided Canaan among the tribes of Israel Levi received no share of the land. God said to him simply, "I am thy part and thine inheritance," and by those words made him richer than all his brethren, richer than all the kings and rajas who have ever lived in the world. And there is a spiritual principle here, a principle still valid for every priest of the Most High God.

The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately and forever.

O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

 

 

 

II.  The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing

 

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.—Matt. 5:3

 

Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him by creating a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight. In the Genesis account of the creation these are called simply "things." They were made for man's uses, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him. In the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come. Within him was God; without, a thousand gifts which God had showered upon him.

But sin has introduced complications and has made those very gifts of God a potential source of ruin to the soul.

Our woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and "things" were allowed to enter. Within the human heart "things" have taken over. Men have now by nature no peace within their hearts, for God is crowned there no longer, but there in the moral dusk stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne.

This is not a mere metaphor, but an accurate analysis of our real spiritual trouble. There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets "things" with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns "my" and "mine" look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God's gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution.

Our Lord referred to this tyranny of things when He said to His disciples, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it."

Breaking this truth into fragments for our better understanding, it would seem that there is within each of us an enemy which we tolerate at our peril. Jesus called it "life" and "self," or as we would say, the self-life. Its chief characteristic is its possessiveness: the words "gain" and "profit" suggest this. To allow this enemy to live is in the end to lose everything. To repudiate it and give up all for Christ's sake is to lose nothing at last, but to preserve everything unto life eternal. And possibly also a hint is given here as to the only effective way to destroy this foe: it is by the Cross. "Let him take up his cross and follow me."

The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things. The blessed ones who possess the Kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing. These are the "poor in spirit." They have reached an inward state paralleling the outward circumstances of the common beggar in the streets of Jerusalem; that is what the word "poor" as Christ used it actually means. These blessed poor are no longer slaves to the tyranny of things. They have broken the yoke of the oppressor; and this they have done not by fighting but by surrendering. Though free from all sense of possessing, they yet possess all things. "Theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Let me exhort you to take this seriously. It is not to be understood as mere Bible teaching to be stored away in the mind along with an inert mass of other doctrines. It is a marker on the road to greener pastures, a path chiseled against the steep sides of the mount of God. We dare not try to by-pass it if we would follow on in this holy pursuit. We must ascend a step at a time. If we refuse one step we bring our progress to an end.

As is frequently true, this New Testament principle of spiritual life finds its best illustration in the Old Testament. In the story of Abraham and Isaac we have a dramatic picture of the surrendered life as well as an excellent commentary on the first Beatitude.

Abraham was old when Isaac was born, old enough indeed to have been his grandfather, and the child became at once the delight and idol of his heart. From that moment when he first stooped to take the tiny form awkwardly in his arms he was an eager love slave of his son. God went out of His way to comment on the strength of this affection. And it is not hard to understand. The baby represented everything sacred to his father's heart: the promises of God, the covenants, the hopes of the years and the long messianic dream. As he watched him grow from babyhood to young manhood the heart of the old man was knit closer and closer with the life of his son, till at last the relationship bordered upon the perilous. It was then that God stepped in to save both father and son from the consequences of an uncleansed love.

"Take now thy son," said God to Abraham, "thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." The sacred writer spares us a close-up of the agony that night on the slopes near Beersheba when the aged man had it out with his God, but respectful imagination may view in awe the bent form and convulsive wrestling alone under the stars. Possibly not again until a Greater than Abraham wrestled in the Garden of Gethsemane did such mortal pain visit a human soul. If only the man himself might have been allowed to die. That would have been easier a thousand times, for he was old now, and to die would have been no great ordeal for one who had walked so long with God. Besides, it would have been a last sweet pleasure to let his dimming vision rest upon the figure of his stalwart son who would live to carry on the Abrahamic line and fulfill in himself the promises of God made long before in Ur of the Chaldees.

How should he slay the lad! Even if he could get the consent of his wounded and protesting heart, how could he reconcile the act with the promise, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called"? This was Abraham's trial by fire, and he did not fail in the crucible. While the stars still shone like sharp white points above the tent where the sleeping Isaac lay, and long before the gray dawn had begun to lighten the east, the old saint had made up his mind. He would offer his son as God had directed him to do, and then trust God to raise him from the dead. This, says the writer to the Hebrews, was the solution his aching heart found sometime in the dark night, and he rose "early in the morning" to carry out the plan. It is beautiful to see that, while he erred as to God's method, he had correctly sensed the secret of His great heart. And the solution accords well with the New Testament Scripture, "Whosoever will lose for my sake shall find."

God let the suffering old man go through with it up to the point where He knew there would be no retreat, and then forbade him to lay a hand upon the boy. To the wondering patriarch He now says in effect, "It's all right, Abraham. I never intended that you should actually slay the lad. I only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that I might reign unchallenged there. I wanted to correct the perversion that existed in your love. Now you may have the boy, sound and well. Take him and go back to your tent. Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me."

Then heaven opened and a voice was heard saying to him, "By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice."

The old man of God lifted his head to respond to the Voice, and stood there on the mount strong and pure and grand, a man marked out by the Lord for special treatment, a friend and favorite of the Most High. Now he was a man wholly surrendered, a man utterly obedient, a man who possessed nothing. He had concentrated his all in the person of his dear son, and God had taken it from him. God could have begun out on the margin of Abraham's life and worked inward to the center; He chose rather to cut quickly to the heart and have it over in one sharp act of separation. In dealing thus He practiced an economy of means and time. It hurt cruelly, but it was effective.

I have said that Abraham possessed nothing. Yet was not this poor man rich? Everything he had owned before was his still to enjoy: sheep, camels, herds, and goods of every sort. He had also his wife and his friends, and best of all he had his son Isaac safe by his side. He had everything, but he possessed nothing. There is the spiritual secret. There is the sweet theology of the heart which can be learned only in the school of renunciation. The books on systematic theology overlook this, but the wise will understand.

After that bitter and blessed experience I think the words "my" and "mine" never had again the same meaning for Abraham. The sense of possession which they connote was gone from his heart. Things had been cast out forever. They had now become external to the man. His inner heart was free from them. The world said, "Abraham is rich," but the aged patriarch only smiled. He could not explain it to them, but he knew that he owned nothing, that his real treasures were inward and eternal.

There can be no doubt that this possessive clinging to things is one of the most harmful habits in the life. Because it is so natural it is rarely recognized for the evil that it is; but its outworkings are tragic.

We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord out of fear for their safety; this is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed.

Our gifts and talents should also be turned over to Him. They should be recognized for what they are, God's loan to us, and should never be considered in any sense our own. We have no more right to claim credit for special abilities than for blue eyes or strong muscles. "For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?"

The Christian who is alive enough to know himself even slightly will recognize the symptoms of this possession malady, and will grieve to find them in his own heart. If the longing after God is strong enough within him he will want to do something about the matter. Now, what should he do?

First of all he should put away all defense and make no attempt to excuse himself either in his own eyes or before the Lord. Whoever defends himself will have himself for his defense, and he will have no other; but let him come defenseless before the Lord and he will have for his defender no less than God Himself. Let the inquiring Christian trample under foot every slippery trick of his deceitful heart and insist upon frank and open relations with the Lord.

Then he should remember that this is holy business. No careless or casual dealings will suffice. Let him come to God in full determination to be heard. Let him insist that God accept his all, that He take things out of his heart and Himself reign there in power. It may be he will need to become specific, to name things and people by their names one by one. If he will become drastic enough he can shorten the time of his travail from years to minutes and enter the good land long before his slower brethren who coddle their feelings and insist upon caution in their dealings with God.

Let us never forget that such a truth as this cannot be learned by rote as one would learn the facts of physical science. They must be experienced before we can really know them. We must in our hearts live through Abraham's harsh and bitter experiences if we would know the blessedness which follows them. The ancient curse will not go out painlessly; the tough old miser within us will not lie down and die obedient to our command. He must be torn out of our heart like a plant from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by violence as Christ expelled the money changers from the temple. And we shall need to steel ourselves against his piteous begging, and to recognize it as springing out of self-pity, one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart.

If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy we must go this way of renunciation. And if we are set upon the pursuit of God He will sooner or later bring us to this test. Abraham's testing was, at the time, not known to him as such, yet if he had taken some course other than the one he did, the whole history of the Old Testament would have been different. God would have found His man, no doubt, but the loss to Abraham would have been tragic beyond the telling. So we will be brought one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us; just one and an alternative, but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make.

Father, I want to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

 

 

 

III.  Removing the Veil

 

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.—Heb. 10:19

 

Among the famous sayings of the Church fathers none is better known than Augustine's, "Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee."

The great saint states here in few words the origin and interior history of the human race. God made us for Himself: that is the only explanation that satisfies the heart of a thinking man, whatever his wild reason may say. Should faulty education and perverse reasoning lead a man to conclude otherwise, there is little that any Christian can do for him. For such a man I have no message. My appeal is addressed to those who have been previously taught in secret by the wisdom of God; I speak to thirsty hearts whose longings have been wakened by the touch of God within them, and such as they need no reasoned proof. Their restless hearts furnish all the proof they need.

God formed us for Himself. The Shorter Catechism, "Agreed upon by the Reverend Assembly of Divines at Westminster," as the old New-England Primer has it, asks the ancient questions what and why and answers them in one short sentence hardly matched in any uninspired work. "Question: What is the chief End of Man? Answer: Man's chief End is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." With this agree the four and twenty elders who fall on their faces to worship Him that liveth for ever and ever, saying, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created."

God formed us for His pleasure, and so formed us that we as well as He can in divine communion enjoy the sweet and mysterious mingling of kindred personalities. He meant us to see Him and live with Him and draw our life from His smile. But we have been guilty of that "foul revolt" of which Milton speaks when describing the rebellion of Satan and his hosts. We have broken with God. We have ceased to obey Him or love Him and in guilt and fear have fled as far as possible from His Presence.

Yet who can flee from His Presence when the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him? when as the wisdom of Solomon testifies, "the Spirit of the Lord filleth the world?" The omnipresence of the Lord is one thing, and is a solemn fact necessary to His perfection; the manifest Presence is another thing altogether, and from that Presence we have fled, like Adam, to hide among the trees of the garden, or like Peter to shrink away crying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord."

So the life of man upon the earth is a life away from the Presence, wrenched loose from that "blissful center" which is our right and proper dwelling place, our first estate which we kept not, the loss of which is the cause of our unceasing restlessness.

The whole work of God in redemption is to undo the tragic effects of that foul revolt, and to bring us back again into right and eternal relationship with Himself. This required that our sins be disposed of satisfactorily, that a full reconciliation be effected and the way opened for us to return again into conscious communion with God and to live again in the Presence as before. Then by His prevenient working within us He moves us to return. This first comes to our notice when our restless hearts feel a yearning for the Presence of God and we say within ourselves, "I will arise and go to my Father." That is the first step, and as the Chinese sage Lao-tze has said, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a first step."

The interior journey of the soul from the wilds of sin into the enjoyed Presence of God is beautifully illustrated in the Old Testament tabernacle. The returning sinner first entered the outer court where he offered a blood sacrifice on the brazen altar and washed himself in the laver that stood near it. Then through a veil he passed into the holy place where no natural light could come, but the golden candlestick which spoke of Jesus the Light of the World threw its soft glow over all. There also was the shewbread to tell of Jesus, the Bread of Life, and the altar of incense, a figure of unceasing prayer.

Though the worshipper had enjoyed so much, still he had not yet entered the Presence of God. Another veil separated from the Holy of Holies where above the mercy seat dwelt the very God Himself in awful and glorious manifestation. While the tabernacle stood, only the high priest could enter there, and that but once a year, with blood which he offered for his sins and the sins of the people. It was this last veil which was rent when our Lord gave up the ghost on Calvary, and the sacred writer explains that this rending of the veil opened the way for every worshipper in the world to come by the new and living way straight into the divine Presence.

Everything in the New Testament accords with this Old Testament picture. Ransomed men need no longer pause in fear to enter the Holy of Holies. God wills that we should push on into His Presence and[Pg 37] live our whole life there. This is to be known to us in conscious experience. It is more than a doctrine to be held, it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day.

This Flame of the Presence was the beating heart of the Levitical order. Without it all the appointments of the tabernacle were characters of some unknown language; they had no meaning for Israel or for us. The greatest fact of the tabernacle was that Jehovah was there; a Presence was waiting within the veil. Similarly the Presence of God is the central fact of Christianity. At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His Presence. That type of Christianity which happens now to be the vogue knows this Presence only in theory. It fails to stress the Christian's privilege of present realization. According to its teachings we are in the Presence of God positionally, and nothing is said about the need to experience that Presence actually. The fiery urge that drove men like McCheyne is wholly missing. And the present generation of Christians measures itself by this imperfect rule. Ignoble contentment takes the place of burning zeal. We are satisfied to rest in our judicial possessions and for the most part we bother ourselves very little about the absence of personal experience.

Who is this within the veil who dwells in fiery manifestations? It is none other than God Himself, "One God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible," and "One Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God; begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God; begotten, not made; being of one substance with the Father," and "the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified." Yet this holy Trinity is One God, for "we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one: the glory equal and the majesty co-eternal." So in part run the ancient creeds, and so the inspired Word declares.

Behind the veil is God, that God after Whom the world, with strange inconsistency, has felt, "if haply they might find Him." He has discovered Himself to some extent in nature, but more perfectly in the Incarnation; now He waits to show Himself in ravishing fulness to the humble of soul and the pure in heart.

The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for want of His Presence. The instant cure of most of our religious ills would be to enter the Presence in spiritual experience, to become suddenly aware that we are in God and that God is in us. This would lift us out of our pitiful narrowness and cause our hearts to be enlarged. This would burn away the impurities from our lives as the bugs and fungi were burned away by the fire that dwelt in the bush.

What a broad world to roam in, what a sea to swim in is this God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is eternal, which means that He antedates time and is wholly independent of it. Time began in Him and will end in Him. To it He pays no tribute and from it He suffers no change. He is immutable, which means that He has never changed and can never change in any smallest measure. To change He would need to go from better to worse or from worse to better. He cannot do either, for being perfect He cannot become more perfect, and if He were to become less perfect He would be less than God. He is omniscient, which means that He knows in one free and effortless act all matter, all spirit, all relationships, all events. He has no past and He has no future. He is, and none of the limiting and qualifying terms used of creatures can apply to Him. Love and mercy and righteousness are His, and holiness so ineffable that no comparisons or figures will avail to express it. Only fire can give even a remote conception of it. In fire He appeared at the burning bush; in the pillar of fire He dwelt through all the long wilderness journey. The fire that glowed between the wings of the cherubim in the holy place was called the "shekinah," the Presence, through the years of Israel's glory, and when the Old had given place to the New, He came at Pentecost as a fiery flame and rested upon each disciple.

Spinoza wrote of the intellectual love of God, and he had a measure of truth there; but the highest love of God is not intellectual, it is spiritual. God is spirit and only the spirit of man can know Him really. In the deep spirit of a man the fire must glow or his love is not the true love of God. The great of the Kingdom have been those who loved God more than others did. We all know who they have been and gladly pay tribute to the depths and sincerity of their devotion. We have but to pause for a moment and their names come trooping past us smelling of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces.

Frederick Faber was one whose soul panted after God as the roe pants after the water brook, and the measure in which God revealed Himself to his seeking heart set the good man's whole life afire with a burning adoration rivaling that of the seraphim before the throne. His love for God extended to the three Persons of the Godhead equally, yet he seemed to feel for each One a special kind of love reserved for Him alone. Of God the Father he sings:

Only to sit and think of God, Oh what a joy it is! To think the thought, to breathe the Name; Earth has no higher bliss.

Father of Jesus, love's reward! What rapture will it be, Prostrate before Thy throne to lie, And gaze and gaze on Thee!

His love for the Person of Christ was so intense that it threatened to consume him; it burned within him as a sweet and holy madness and flowed from his lips like molten gold. In one of his sermons he says, "Wherever we turn in the church of God, there is Jesus. He is the beginning, middle and end of everything to us.... There is nothing good, nothing holy, nothing beautiful, nothing joyous which He is not to His servants. No one need be poor, because, if he chooses, he can have Jesus for his own property and possession. No one need be downcast, for Jesus is the joy of heaven, and it is His joy to enter into sorrowful hearts. We can exaggerate about many things; but we can never exaggerate our obligation to Jesus, or the compassionate abundance of the love of Jesus to us. All our lives long we might talk of Jesus, and yet we should never come to an end of the sweet things that might be said of Him. Eternity will not be long enough to learn all He is, or to praise Him for all He has done, but then, that matters not; for we shall be always with Him, and we desire nothing more." And addressing our Lord directly he says to Him:

I love Thee so, I know not how My transports to control; Thy love is like a burning fire Within my very soul.

Faber's blazing love extended also to the Holy Spirit. Not only in his theology did he acknowledge His deity and full equality with the Father and the Son, but he celebrated it constantly in his songs and in his prayers. He literally pressed his forehead to the ground in his eager fervid worship of the Third Person of the Godhead. In one of his great hymns to the Holy Spirit he sums up his burning devotion thus:

O Spirit, beautiful and dread! My heart is fit to break With love of all Thy tenderness For us poor sinners' sake.

I have risked the tedium of quotation that I might show by pointed example what I have set out to say, viz., that God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is. Such worship as Faber knew (and he is but one of a great company which no man can number) can never come from a mere doctrinal knowledge of God. Hearts that are "fit to break" with love for the Godhead are those who have been in the Presence and have looked with opened eye upon the majesty of Deity. Men of the breaking hearts had a quality about them not known to or understood by common men. They habitually spoke with spiritual authority. They had been in the Presence of God and they reported what they saw there. They were prophets, not scribes, for the scribe tells us what he has read, and the prophet tells what he has seen.

The distinction is not an imaginary one. Between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen there is a difference as wide as the sea. We are today overrun with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribe sounds over evangelicalism, but the Church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the Wonder that is God. And yet, thus to penetrate, to push in sensitive living experience into the holy Presence, is a privilege open to every child of God.

With the veil removed by the rending of Jesus' flesh, with nothing on God's side to prevent us from entering, why do we tarry without? Why do we consent to abide all our days just outside the Holy of Holies and never enter at all to look upon God? We hear the Bridegroom say, "Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice and thy countenance is comely." We sense that the call is for us, but still we fail to draw near, and the years pass and we grow old and tired in the outer courts of the tabernacle. What doth hinder us?

The answer usually given, simply that we are "cold," will not explain all the facts. There is something more serious than coldness of heart, something that may be back of that coldness and be the cause of its existence. What is it? What but the presence of a veil in our hearts? a veil not taken away as the first veil was, but which remains there still shutting out the light and hiding the face of God from us. It is the veil of our fleshly fallen nature living on, unjudged within us, uncrucified and unrepudiated. It is the close-woven veil of the self-life which we have never truly acknowledged, of which we have been secretly ashamed, and which for these reasons we have never brought to the judgment of the cross. It is not too mysterious, this opaque veil, nor is it hard to identify. We have but to look in our own hearts and we shall see it there, sewn and patched and repaired it may be, but there nevertheless, an enemy to our lives and an effective block to our spiritual progress.

This veil is not a beautiful thing and it is not a thing about which we commonly care to talk, but I am addressing the thirsting souls who are determined to follow God, and I know they will not turn back because the way leads temporarily through the blackened hills. The urge of God within them will assure their continuing the pursuit. They will face the facts however unpleasant and endure the cross for the joy set before them. So I am bold to name the threads out of which this inner veil is woven.

It is woven of the fine threads of the self-life, the hyphenated sins of the human spirit. They are not something we do, they are something we are, and therein lies both their subtlety and their power.

To be specific, the self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them. The grosser manifestations of these sins, egotism, exhibitionism, self-promotion, are strangely tolerated in Christian leaders even in circles of impeccable orthodoxy. They are so much in evidence as actually, for many people, to become identified with the gospel. I trust it is not a cynical observation to say that they appear these days to be a requisite for popularity in some sections of the Church visible. Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice.

One should suppose that proper instruction in the doctrines of man's depravity and the necessity for justification through the righteousness of Christ alone would deliver us from the power of the self-sins; but it does not work out that way. Self can live unrebuked at the very altar. It can watch the bleeding Victim die and not be in the least affected by what it sees. It can fight for the faith of the Reformers and preach eloquently the creed of salvation by grace, and gain strength by its efforts. To tell all the truth, it seems actually to feed upon orthodoxy and is more at home in a Bible Conference than in a tavern. Our very state of longing after God may afford it an excellent condition under which to thrive and grow.

Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. As well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us. We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment. We must prepare ourselves for an ordeal of suffering in some measure like that through which our Saviour passed when He suffered under Pontius Pilate.

Let us remember: when we talk of the rending of the veil we are speaking in a figure, and the thought of it is poetical, almost pleasant; but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free.

Let us beware of tinkering with our inner life in hope ourselves to rend the veil. God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust. We must confess, forsake, repudiate the self-life, and then reckon it crucified. But we must be careful to distinguish lazy "acceptance" from the real work of God. We must insist upon the work being done. We dare not rest content with a neat doctrine of self-crucifixion. That is to imitate Saul and spare the best of the sheep and the oxen.

Insist that the work be done in very truth and it will be done. The cross is rough, and it is deadly, but it is effective. It does not keep its victim hanging there forever. There comes a moment when its work is finished and the suffering victim dies. After that is resurrection glory and power, and the pain is forgotten for joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered in actual spiritual experience the Presence of the living God.

Lord, how excellent are Thy ways, and how devious and dark are the ways of man. Show us how to die, that we may rise again to newness of life. Rend the veil of our self-life from the top down as Thou didst rend the veil of the Temple. We would draw near in full assurance of faith. We would dwell with Thee in daily experience here on this earth so that we may be accustomed to the glory when we enter Thy heaven to dwell with Thee there. In Jesus' name, Amen.

 

 

 

IV.  Apprehending God

 

O taste and see.—Psa. 34:8

 

It was Canon Holmes, of India, who more than twenty-five years ago called attention to the inferential character of the average man's faith in God. To most people God is an inference, not a reality. He is a deduction from evidence which they consider adequate; but He remains personally unknown to the individual. "He must be," they say, "therefore we believe He is." Others do not go even so far as this; they know of Him only by hearsay. They have never bothered to think the matter out for themselves, but have heard about Him from others, and have put belief in Him into the back of their minds along with the various odds and ends that make up their total creed. To many others God is but an ideal, another name for goodness, or beauty, or truth; or He is law, or life, or the creative impulse back of the phenomena of existence.

These notions about God are many and varied, but they who hold them have one thing in common: they do not know God in personal experience. The possibility of intimate acquaintance with Him has not entered their minds. While admitting His existence they do not think of Him as knowable in the sense that we know things or people.

Christians, to be sure, go further than this, at least in theory. Their creed requires them to believe in the personality of God, and they have been taught to pray, "Our Father, which art in heaven." Now personality and fatherhood carry with them the idea of the possibility of personal acquaintance. This is admitted, I say, in theory, but for millions of Christians, nevertheless, God is no more real than He is to the non-Christian. They go through life trying to love an ideal and be loyal to a mere principle.

Over against all this cloudy vagueness stands the clear scriptural doctrine that God can be known in personal experience. A loving Personality dominates the Bible, walking among the trees of the garden and breathing fragrance over every scene. Always a living Person is present, speaking, pleading, loving, working, and manifesting Himself whenever and wherever His people have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation.

The Bible assumes as a self-evident fact that men can know God with at least the same degree of immediacy as they know any other person or thing that comes within the field of their experience. The same terms are used to express the knowledge of God as are used to express knowledge of physical things. "O taste and see that the Lord is good." "All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces." "My sheep hear my voice." "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." These are but four of countless such passages from the Word of God. And more important than any proof text is the fact that the whole import of the Scripture is toward this belief.

What can all this mean except that we have in our hearts organs by means of which we can know God as certainly as we know material things through our familiar five senses? We apprehend the physical world by exercising the faculties given us for the purpose, and we possess spiritual faculties by means of which we can know God and the spiritual world if we will obey the Spirit's urge and begin to use them.

That a saving work must first be done in the heart is taken for granted here. The spiritual faculties of the unregenerate man lie asleep in his nature, unused and for every purpose dead; that is the stroke which has fallen upon us by sin. They may be quickened to active life again by the operation of the Holy Spirit in regeneration; that is one of the immeasurable benefits which come to us through Christ's atoning work on the cross.

But the very ransomed children of God themselves: why do they know so little of that habitual conscious communion with God which the Scriptures seem to offer? The answer is our chronic unbelief. Faith enables our spiritual sense to function. Where faith is defective the result will be inward insensibility and numbness toward spiritual things. This is the condition of vast numbers of Christians today. No proof is necessary to support that statement. We have but to converse with the first Christian we meet or enter the first church we find open to acquire all the proof we need.

A spiritual kingdom lies all about us, enclosing us, embracing us, altogether within reach of our inner selves, waiting for us to recognize it. God Himself is here waiting our response to His Presence. This eternal world will come alive to us the moment we begin to reckon upon its reality.

I have just now used two words which demand definition; or if definition is impossible, I must at least make clear what I mean when I use them. They are "reckon" and "reality."

What do I mean by reality? I mean that which has existence apart from any idea any mind may have of it, and which would exist if there were no mind anywhere to entertain a thought of it. That which is real has being in itself. It does not depend upon the observer for its validity.

I am aware that there are those who love to poke fun at the plain man's idea of reality. They are the idealists who spin endless proofs that nothing is real outside of the mind. They are the relativists who like to show that there are no fixed points in the universe from which we can measure anything. They smile down upon us from their lofty intellectual peaks and settle us to their own satisfaction by fastening upon us the reproachful term "absolutist." The Christian is not put out of countenance by this show of contempt. He can smile right back at them, for he knows that there is only One who is Absolute, that is God. But he knows also that the Absolute One has made this world for man's uses, and, while there is nothing fixed or real in the last meaning of the words (the meaning as applied to God) for every purpose of human life we are permitted to act as if there were. And every man does act thus except the mentally sick. These unfortunates also have trouble with reality, but they are consistent; they insist upon living in accordance with their ideas of things. They are honest, and it is their very honesty that constitutes them a social problem.

The idealists and relativists are not mentally sick. They prove their soundness by living their lives according to the very notions of reality which they in theory repudiate and by counting upon the very fixed points which they prove are not there. They could earn a lot more respect for their notions if they were willing to live by them; but this they are careful not to do. Their ideas are brain-deep, not life-deep. Wherever life touches them they repudiate their theories and live like other men.

The Christian is too sincere to play with ideas for their own sake. He takes no pleasure in the mere spinning of gossamer webs for display. All his beliefs are practical. They are geared into his life. By them he lives or dies, stands or falls for this world and for all time to come. From the insincere man he turns away.

The sincere plain man knows that the world is real. He finds it here when he wakes to consciousness, and he knows that he did not think it into being. It was here waiting for him when he came, and he knows that when he prepares to leave this earthly scene it will be here still to bid him good-bye as he departs. By the deep wisdom of life he is wiser than a thousand men who doubt. He stands upon the earth and feels the wind and rain in his face and he knows that they are real. He sees the sun by day and the stars by night. He sees the hot lightning play out of the dark thundercloud. He hears the sounds of nature and the cries of human joy and pain. These he knows are real. He lies down on the cool earth at night and has no fear that it will prove illusory or fail him while he sleeps. In the morning the firm ground will be under him, the blue sky above him and the rocks and trees around him as when he closed his eyes the night before. So he lives and rejoices in a world of reality.

With his five senses he engages this real world. All things necessary to his physical existence he apprehends by the faculties with which he has been equipped by the God who created him and placed him in such a world as this.

Now, by our definition also God is real. He is real in the absolute and final sense that nothing else is. All other reality is contingent upon His. The great Reality is God who is the Author of that lower and dependent reality which makes up the sum of created things, including ourselves. God has objective existence independent of and apart from any notions which we may have concerning Him. The worshipping heart does not create its Object. It finds Him here when it wakes from its moral slumber in the morning of its regeneration.

Another word that must be cleared up is the word reckon. This does not mean to visualize or imagine. Imagination is not faith. The two are not only different from, but stand in sharp opposition to, each other. Imagination projects unreal images out of the mind and seeks to attach reality to them. Faith creates nothing; it simply reckons upon that which is already there.

God and the spiritual world are real. We can reckon upon them with as much assurance as we reckon upon the familiar world around us. Spiritual things are there (or rather we should say here) inviting our attention and challenging our trust.

Our trouble is that we have established bad thought habits. We habitually think of the visible world as real and doubt the reality of any other. We do not deny the existence of the spiritual world but we doubt that it is real in the accepted meaning of the word.

The world of sense intrudes upon our attention day and night for the whole of our lifetime. It is clamorous, insistent and self-demonstrating. It does not appeal to our faith; it is here, assaulting our five senses, demanding to be accepted as real and final. But sin has so clouded the lenses of our hearts that we cannot see that other reality, the City of God, shining around us. The world of sense triumphs. The visible becomes the enemy of the invisible; the temporal, of the eternal. That is the curse inherited by every member of Adam's tragic race.

At the root of the Christian life lies belief in the invisible. The object of the Christian's faith is unseen reality.

Our uncorrected thinking, influenced by the blindness of our natural hearts and the intrusive ubiquity of visible things, tends to draw a contrast between the spiritual and the real; but actually no such contrast exists. The antithesis lies elsewhere: between the real and the imaginary, between the spiritual and the material, between the temporal and the eternal; but between the spiritual and the real, never. The spiritual is real.

If we would rise into that region of light and power plainly beckoning us through the Scriptures of truth we must break the evil habit of ignoring the spiritual. We must shift our interest from the seen to the unseen. For the great unseen Reality is God. "He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." This is basic in the life of faith. From there we can rise to unlimited heights. "Ye believe in God," said our Lord Jesus Christ, "believe also in me." Without the first there can be no second.

If we truly want to follow God we must seek to be other-worldly. This I say knowing well that that word has been used with scorn by the sons of this world and applied to the Christian as a badge of reproach. So be it. Every man must choose his world. If we who follow Christ, with all the facts before us and knowing what we are about, deliberately choose the Kingdom of God as our sphere of interest I see no reason why anyone should object. If we lose by it, the loss is our own; if we gain, we rob no one by so doing. The "other world," which is the object of this world's disdain and the subject of the drunkard's mocking song, is our carefully chosen goal and the object of our holiest longing.

But we must avoid the common fault of pushing the "other world" into the future. It is not future, but present. It parallels our familiar physical world, and the doors between the two worlds are open. "Ye are come," says the writer to the Hebrews (and the tense is plainly present), "unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." All these things are contrasted with "the mount that might be touched" and "the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words" that might be heard. May we not safely conclude that, as the realities of Mount Sinai were apprehended by the senses, so the realities of Mount Zion are to be grasped by the soul? And this not by any trick of the imagination, but in downright actuality. The soul has eyes with which to see and ears with which to hear. Feeble they may be from long disuse, but by the life-giving touch of Christ alive now and capable of sharpest sight and most sensitive hearing.

As we begin to focus upon God the things of the spirit will take shape before our inner eyes. Obedience to the word of Christ will bring an inward revelation of the Godhead (John 14:21-23). It will give acute perception enabling us to see God even as is promised to the pure in heart. A new God consciousness will seize upon us and we shall begin to taste and hear and inwardly feel the God who is our life and our all. There will be seen the constant shining of the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. More and more, as our faculties grow sharper and more sure, God will become to us the great All, and His Presence the glory and wonder of our lives.

O God, quicken to life every power within me, that I may lay hold on eternal things. Open my eyes that I may see; give me acute spiritual perception; enable me to taste Thee and know that Thou art good. Make heaven more real to me than any earthly thing has ever been. Amen.

 

 

 

V.  The Universal Presence

 

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?—Psa. 139:7

 

In all Christian teaching certain basic truths are found, hidden at times, and rather assumed than asserted, but necessary to all truth as the primary colors are found in and necessary to the finished painting. Such a truth is the divine immanence.

God dwells in His creation and is everywhere indivisibly present in all His works. This is boldly taught by prophet and apostle and is accepted by Christian theology generally. That is, it appears in the books, but for some reason it has not sunk into the average Christian's heart so as to become a part of his believing self. Christian teachers shy away from its full implications, and, if they mention it at all, mute it down till it has little meaning. I would guess the reason for this to be the fear of being charged with pantheism; but the doctrine of the divine Presence is definitely not pantheism.

Pantheism's error is too palpable to deceive anyone. It is that God is the sum of all created things. Nature and God are one, so that whoever touches a leaf or a stone touches God. That is of course to degrade the glory of the incorruptible Deity and, in an effort to make all things divine, banish all divinity from the world entirely.

The truth is that while God dwells in His world He is separated from it by a gulf forever impassable. However closely He may be identified with the work of His hands they are and must eternally be other than He, and He is and must be antecedent to and independent of them. He is transcendent above all His works even while He is immanent within them.

What now does the divine immanence mean in direct Christian experience? It means simply that God is here. Wherever we are, God is here. There is no place, there can be no place, where He is not. Ten million intelligences standing at as many points in space and separated by incomprehensible distances can each one say with equal truth, God is here. No point is nearer to God than any other point. It is exactly as near to God from any place as it is from any other place. No one is in mere distance any further from or any nearer to God than any other person is.

These are truths believed by every instructed Christian. It remains for us to think on them and pray over them until they begin to glow within us.

"In the beginning God." Not matter, for matter is not self-causing. It requires an antecedent cause, and God is that Cause. Not law, for law is but a name for the course which all creation follows. That course had to be planned, and the Planner is God. Not mind, for mind also is a created thing and must have a Creator back of it. In the beginning God, the uncaused Cause of matter, mind and law. There we must begin.

Adam sinned and, in his panic, frantically tried to do the impossible: he tried to hide from the Presence of God. David also must have had wild thoughts of trying to escape from the Presence, for he wrote, "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?" Then he proceeded through one of his most beautiful psalms to celebrate the glory of the divine immanence. "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me." And he knew that God's being and God's seeing are the same, that the seeing Presence had been with him even before he was born, watching the mystery of unfolding life. Solomon exclaimed, "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee: how much less this house which I have builded." Paul assured the Athenians that "God is not far from any one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being."

If God is present at every point in space, if we cannot go where He is not, cannot even conceive of a place where He is not, why then has not that Presence become the one universally celebrated fact of the world? The patriarch Jacob, "in the waste howling wilderness," gave the answer to that question. He saw a vision of God and cried out in wonder, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not." Jacob had never been for one small division of a moment outside the circle of that all-pervading Presence. But he knew it not. That was his trouble, and it is ours. Men do not know that God is here. What a difference it would make if they knew.

The Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be the one without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of it. He is manifest only when and as we are aware of His Presence. On our part there must be surrender to the Spirit of God, for His work it is to show us the Father and the Son. If we co-operate with Him in loving obedience God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face.

Always, everywhere God is present, and always He seeks to discover Himself. To each one he would reveal not only that He is, but what He is as well. He did not have to be persuaded to discover Himself to Moses. "And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord." He not only made a verbal proclamation of His nature but He revealed His very Self to Moses so that the skin of Moses' face shone with the supernatural light. It will be a great moment for some of us when we begin to believe that God's promise of self-revelation is literally true: that He promised much, but promised no more than He intends to fulfill.

Our pursuit of God is successful just because He is forever seeking to manifest Himself to us. The revelation of God to any man is not God coming from a distance upon a time to pay a brief and momentous visit to the man's soul. Thus to think of it is to misunderstand it all. The approach of God to the soul or of the soul to God is not to be thought of in spatial terms at all. There is no idea of physical distance involved in the concept. It is not a matter of miles but of experience.

To speak of being near to or far from God is to use language in a sense always understood when applied to our ordinary human relationships. A man may say, "I feel that my son is coming nearer to me as he gets older," and yet that son has lived by his father's side since he was born and has never been away from home more than a day or so in his entire life. What then can the father mean? Obviously he is speaking of experience. He means that the boy is coming to know him more intimately and with deeper understanding, that the barriers of thought and feeling between the two are disappearing, that father and son are becoming more closely united in mind and heart.

So when we sing, "Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord," we are not thinking of the nearness of place, but of the nearness of relationship. It is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray, for a more perfect consciousness of the divine Presence. We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.

Why do some persons "find" God in a way that others do not? Why does God manifest His Presence to some and let multitudes of others struggle along in the half-light of imperfect Christian experience? Of course the will of God is the same for all. He has no favorites within His household. All He has ever done for any of His children He will do for all of His children. The difference lies not with God but with us.

Pick at random a score of great saints whose lives and testimonies are widely known. Let them be Bible characters or well known Christians of post-Biblical times. You will be struck instantly with the fact that the saints were not alike. Sometimes the unlikenesses were so great as to be positively glaring. How different for example was Moses from Isaiah; how different was Elijah from David; how unlike each other were John and Paul, St. Francis and Luther, Finney and Thomas à Kempis. The differences are as wide as human life itself: differences of race, nationality, education, temperament, habit and personal qualities. Yet they all walked, each in his day, upon a high road of spiritual living far above the common way.

Their differences must have been incidental and in the eyes of God of no significance. In some vital quality they must have been alike. What was it?

I venture to suggest that the one vital quality which they had in common was spiritual receptivity. Something in them was open to heaven, something which urged them Godward. Without attempting anything like a profound analysis I shall say simply that they had spiritual awareness and that they went on to cultivate it until it became the biggest thing in their lives. They differed from the average person in that when they felt the inward longing they did something about it. They acquired the lifelong habit of spiritual response. They were not disobedient to the heavenly vision. As David put it neatly, "When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek."

As with everything good in human life, back of this receptivity is God. The sovereignty of God is here, and is felt even by those who have not placed particular stress upon it theologically. The pious Michael Angelo confessed this in a sonnet:

My unassisted heart is barren clay, That of its native self can nothing feed: Of good and pious works Thou art the seed, That quickens only where Thou sayest it may: Unless Thou show to us Thine own true way No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead.

These words will repay study as the deep and serious testimony of a great Christian.

Important as it is that we recognize God working in us, I would yet warn against a too-great preoccupation with the thought. It is a sure road to sterile passivity. God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election, predestination and the divine sovereignty. The best and safest way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God and in deepest reverence say, "O Lord, Thou knowest." Those things belong to the deep and mysterious Profound of God's omniscience. Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints.

Receptivity is not a single thing; it is a compound rather, a blending of several elements within the soul. It is an affinity for, a bent toward, a sympathetic response to, a desire to have. From this it may be gathered that it can be present in degrees, that we may have little or more or less, depending upon the individual. It may be increased by exercise or destroyed by neglect. It is not a sovereign and irresistible force which comes upon us as a seizure from above. It is a gift of God, indeed, but one which must be recognized and cultivated as any other gift if it is to realize the purpose for which it was given.

Failure to see this is the cause of a very serious breakdown in modern evangelicalism. The idea of cultivation and exercise, so dear to the saints of old, has now no place in our total religious picture. It is too slow, too common. We now demand glamour and fast flowing dramatic action. A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar.

The tragic results of this spirit are all about us. Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit: these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul.

For this great sickness that is upon us no one person is responsible, and no Christian is wholly free from blame. We have all contributed, directly or indirectly, to this sad state of affairs. We have been too blind to see, or too timid to speak out, or too self-satisfied to desire anything better than the poor average diet with which others appear satisfied. To put it differently, we have accepted one another's notions, copied one another's lives and made one another's experiences the model for our own. And for a generation the trend has been downward. Now we have reached a low place of sand and burnt wire grass and, worst of all, we have made the Word of Truth conform to our experience and accepted this low plane as the very pasture of the blessed.

It will require a determined heart and more than a little courage to wrench ourselves loose from the grip of our times and return to Biblical ways. But it can be done. Every now and then in the past Christians have had to do it. History has recorded several large-scale returns led by such men as St. Francis, Martin Luther and George Fox. Unfortunately there seems to be no Luther or Fox on the horizon at present. Whether or not another such return may be expected before the coming of Christ is a question upon which Christians are not fully agreed, but that is not of too great importance to us now.

What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a world-scale I do not claim to know: but what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days.

Any man who by repentance and a sincere return to God will break himself out of the mold in which he has been held, and will go to the Bible itself for his spiritual standards, will be delighted with what he finds there.

Let us say it again: The Universal Presence is a fact. God is here. The whole universe is alive with His life. And He is no strange or foreign God, but the familiar Father of our Lord Jesus Christ whose love has for these thousands of years enfolded the sinful race of men. And always He is trying to get our attention, to reveal Himself to us, to communicate with us. We have within us the ability to know Him if we will but respond to His overtures. (And this we call pursuing God!) We will know Him in increasing degree as our receptivity becomes more perfect by faith and love and practice.

O God and Father, I repent of my sinful preoccupation with visible things. The world has been too much with me. Thou hast been here and I knew it not. I have been blind to Thy Presence. Open my eyes that I may behold Thee in and around me. For Christ's sake, Amen.

 

 

 

VI.  The Speaking Voice

 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.—John 1:1

 

An intelligent plain man, untaught in the truths of Christianity, coming upon this text, would likely conclude that John meant to teach that it is the nature of God to speak, to communicate His thoughts to others. And he would be right. A word is a medium by which thoughts are expressed, and the application of term to the Eternal Son leads us to believe that self-expression is inherent in the Godhead, that God is forever seeking to speak Himself out to His creation. The whole Bible supports the idea. God is speaking. Not God spoke, but God is speaking. He is by His nature continuously articulate. He fills the world with His speaking Voice.

One of the great realities with which we have to deal is the Voice of God in His world. The briefest and only satisfying cosmogony is this: "He spake and it was done." The why of natural law is the living Voice of God immanent in His creation. And this word of God which brought all worlds into being cannot be understood to mean the Bible, for it is not a written or printed word at all, but the expression of the will of God spoken into the structure of all things. This word of God is the breath of God filling the world with living potentiality. The Voice of God is the most powerful force in nature, indeed the only force in nature, for all energy is here only because the power-filled Word is being spoken.

The Bible is the written word of God, and because it is written it is confined and limited by the necessities of ink and paper and leather. The Voice of God, however, is alive and free as the sovereign God is free. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." The life is in the speaking words. God's word in the Bible can have power only because it corresponds to God's word in the universe. It is the present Voice which makes the written Word all-powerful. Otherwise it would lie locked in slumber within the covers of a book.

We take a low and primitive view of things when we conceive of God at the creation coming into physical contact with things, shaping and fitting and building like a carpenter. The Bible teaches otherwise: "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.... For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast." "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God." Again we must remember that God is referring here not to His written Word, but to His speaking Voice. His world-filling Voice is meant, that Voice which antedates the Bible by uncounted centuries, that Voice which has not been silent since the dawn of creation, but is sounding still throughout the full far reaches of the universe.

The Word of God is quick and powerful. In the beginning He spoke to nothing, and it became something. Chaos heard it and became order, darkness heard it and became light. "And God said—and it was so." These twin phrases, as cause and effect, occur throughout the Genesis story of the creation. The said accounts for the so. The so is the said put into the continuous present.

That God is here and that He is speaking—these truths are back of all other Bible truths; without them there could be no revelation at all. God did not write a book and send it by messenger to be read at a distance by unaided minds. He spoke a Book and lives in His spoken words, constantly speaking His words and causing the power of them to persist across the years. God breathed on clay and it became a man; He breathes on men and they become clay. "Return ye children of men" was the word spoken at the Fall by which God decreed the death of every man, and no added word has He needed to speak. The sad procession of mankind across the face of the earth from birth to the grave is proof that His original Word was enough.

We have not given sufficient attention to that deep utterance in the Book of John, "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." Shift the punctuation around as we will and the truth is still there: the Word of God affects the hearts of all men as light in the soul. In the hearts of all men the light shines, the Word sounds, and there is no escaping them. Something like this would of necessity be so if God is alive and in His world. And John says that it is so. Even those persons who have never heard of the Bible have still been preached to with sufficient clarity to remove every excuse from their hearts forever. "Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while either accusing or else excusing one another." "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse."

This universal Voice of God was by the ancient Hebrews often called Wisdom, and was said to be everywhere sounding and searching throughout the earth, seeking some response from the sons of men. The eighth chapter of the Book of Proverbs begins, "Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?" The writer then pictures wisdom as a beautiful woman standing "in the top of the high places, by the way in the places of the paths." She sounds her voice from every quarter so that no one may miss hearing it. "Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of men." Then she pleads for the simple and the foolish to give ear to her words. It is spiritual response for which this Wisdom of God is pleading, a response which she has always sought and is but rarely able to secure. The tragedy is that our eternal welfare depends upon our hearing, and we have trained our ears not to hear.

This universal Voice has ever sounded, and it has often troubled men even when they did not understand the source of their fears. Could it be that this Voice distilling like a living mist upon the hearts of men has been the undiscovered cause of the troubled conscience and the longing for immortality confessed by millions since the dawn of recorded history? We need not fear to face up to this. The speaking Voice is a fact. How men have reacted to it is for any observer to note.

When God spoke out of heaven to our Lord, self-centered men who heard it explained it by natural causes: they said, "It thundered." This habit of explaining the Voice by appeals to natural law is at the very root of modern science. In the living breathing cosmos there is a mysterious Something, too wonderful, too awful for any mind to understand. The believing man does not claim to understand. He falls to his knees and whispers, "God." The man of earth kneels also, but not to worship. He kneels to examine, to search, to find the cause and the how of things. Just now we happen to be living in a secular age. Our thought habits are those of the scientist, not those of the worshipper. We are more likely to explain than to adore. "It thundered," we exclaim, and go our earthly way. But still the Voice sounds and searches. The order and life of the world depend upon that Voice, but men are mostly too busy or too stubborn to give attention.

Everyone of us has had experiences which we have not been able to explain: a sudden sense of loneliness, or a feeling of wonder or awe in the face of the universal vastness. Or we have had a fleeting visitation of light like an illumination from some other sun, giving us in a quick flash an assurance that we are from another world, that our origins are divine. What we saw there, or felt, or heard, may have been contrary to all that we had been taught in the schools and at wide variance with all our former beliefs and opinions. We were forced to suspend our acquired doubts while, for a moment, the clouds were rolled back and we saw and heard for ourselves. Explain such things as we will, I think we have not been fair to the facts until we allow at least the possibility that such experiences may arise from the Presence of God in the world and His persistent effort to communicate with mankind. Let us not dismiss such an hypothesis too flippantly.

It is my own belief (and here I shall not feel bad if no one follows me) that every good and beautiful thing which man has produced in the world has been the result of his faulty and sin-blocked response to the creative Voice sounding over the earth. The moral philosophers who dreamed their high dreams of virtue, the religious thinkers who speculated about God and immortality, the poets and artists who created out of common stuff pure and lasting beauty: how can we explain them? It is not enough to say simply, "It was genius." What then is genius? Could it be that a genius is a man haunted by the speaking Voice, laboring and striving like one possessed to achieve ends which he only vaguely understands? That the great man may have missed God in his labors, that he may even have spoken or written against God does not destroy the idea I am advancing. God's redemptive revelation in the Holy Scriptures is necessary to saving faith and peace with God. Faith in a risen Saviour is necessary if the vague stirrings toward immortality are to bring us to restful and satisfying communion with God. To me this is a plausible explanation of all that is best out of Christ. But you can be a good Christian and not accept my thesis.

The Voice of God is a friendly Voice. No one need fear to listen to it unless he has already made up his mind to resist it. The blood of Jesus has covered not only the human race but all creation as well. "And having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven." We may safely preach a friendly Heaven. The heavens as well as the earth are filled with the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush. The perfect blood of atonement secures this forever.

Whoever will listen will hear the speaking Heaven. This is definitely not the hour when men take kindly to an exhortation to listen, for listening is not today a part of popular religion. We are at the opposite end of the pole from there. Religion has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity and bluster make a man dear to God. But we may take heart. To a people caught in the tempest of the last great conflict God says, "Be still, and know that I am God," and still He says it, as if He means to tell us that our strength and safety lie not in noise but in silence.

It is important that we get still to wait on God. And it is best that we get alone, preferably with our Bible outspread before us. Then if we will we may draw near to God and begin to hear Him speak to us in our hearts. I think for the average person the progression will be something like this: First a sound as of a Presence walking in the garden. Then a voice, more intelligible, but still far from clear. Then the happy moment when the Spirit begins to illuminate the Scriptures, and that which had been only a sound, or at best a voice, now becomes an intelligible word, warm and intimate and clear as the word of a dear friend. Then will come life and light, and best of all, ability to see and rest in and embrace Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord and All.

The Bible will never be a living Book to us until we are convinced that God is articulate in His universe. To jump from a dead, impersonal world to a dogmatic Bible is too much for most people. They may admit that they should accept the Bible as the Word of God, and they may try to think of it as such, but they find it impossible to believe that the words there on the page are actually for them. A man may say, "These words are addressed to me," and yet in his heart not feel and know that they are. He is the victim of a divided psychology. He tries to think of God as mute everywhere else and vocal only in a book.

I believe that much of our religious unbelief is due to a wrong conception of and a wrong feeling for the Scriptures of Truth. A silent God suddenly began to speak in a book and when the book was finished lapsed back into silence again forever. Now we read the book as the record of what God said when He was for a brief time in a speaking mood. With notions like that in our heads how can we believe? The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word. The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God's continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us put into our familiar human words.

I think a new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking. The prophets habitually said, "Thus saith the Lord." They meant their hearers to understand that God's speaking is in the continuous present. We may use the past tense properly to indicate that at a certain time a certain word of God was spoken, but a word of God once spoken continues to be spoken, as a child once born continues to be alive, or a world once created continues to exist. And those are but imperfect illustrations, for children die and worlds burn out, but the Word of our God endureth forever.

If you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience. It is more[Pg 83] than a thing, it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living God.

Lord, teach me to listen. The times are noisy and my ears are weary with the thousand raucous sounds which continuously assault them. Give me the spirit of the boy Samuel when he said to Thee, "Speak, for thy servant heareth." Let me hear Thee speaking in my heart. Let me get used to the sound of Thy Voice, that its tones may be familiar when the sounds of earth die away and the only sound will be the music of Thy speaking Voice. Amen.

 

 

 

VII.  The Gaze of the Soul

 

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.—Heb. 12:2

 

Let us think of our intelligent plain man mentioned in chapter six coming for the first time to the reading of the Scriptures. He approaches the Bible without any previous knowledge of what it contains. He is wholly without prejudice; he has nothing to prove and nothing to defend.

Such a man will not have read long until his mind begins to observe certain truths standing out from the page. They are the spiritual principles behind the record of God's dealings with men, and woven into the writings of holy men as they "were moved by the Holy Ghost." As he reads on he might want to number these truths as they become clear to him and make a brief summary under each number. These summaries will be the tenets of his Biblical creed. Further reading will not affect these points except to enlarge and strengthen them. Our man is finding out what the Bible actually teaches.

High up on the list of things which the Bible teaches will be the doctrine of faith. The place of weighty importance which the Bible gives to faith will be too plain for him to miss. He will very likely conclude: Faith is all-important in the life of the soul. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith will get me anything, take me anywhere in the Kingdom of God, but without faith there can be no approach to God, no forgiveness, no deliverance, no salvation, no communion, no spiritual life at all.

By the time our friend has reached the eleventh chapter of Hebrews the eloquent encomium which is there pronounced upon faith will not seem strange to him. He will have read Paul's powerful defense of faith in his Roman and Galatian epistles. Later if he goes on to study church history he will understand the amazing power in the teachings of the Reformers as they showed the central place of faith in the Christian religion.

Now if faith is so vitally important, if it is an indispensable must in our pursuit of God, it is perfectly natural that we should be deeply concerned over whether or not we possess this most precious gift. And our minds being what they are, it is inevitable that sooner or later we should get around to inquiring after the nature of faith. What is faith? would lie close to the question, Do I have faith? and would demand an answer if it were anywhere to be found.

Almost all who preach or write on the subject of faith have much the same things to say concerning it. They tell us that it is believing a promise, that it is taking God at His word, that it is reckoning the Bible to be true and stepping out upon it. The rest of the book or sermon is usually taken up with stories of persons who have had their prayers answered as a result of their faith. These answers are mostly direct gifts of a practical and temporal nature such as health, money, physical protection or success in business. Or if the teacher is of a philosophic turn of mind he may take another course and lose us in a welter of metaphysics or snow us under with psychological jargon as he defines and re-defines, paring the slender hair of faith thinner and thinner till it disappears in gossamer shavings at last. When he is finished we get up disappointed and go out "by that same door where in we went." Surely there must be something better than this.

In the Scriptures there is practically no effort made to define faith. Outside of a brief fourteen-word definition in Hebrews 11:1, I know of no Biblical definition, and even there faith is defined functionally, not philosophically; that is, it is a statement of what faith is in operation, not what it is in essence. It assumes the presence of faith and shows what it results in, rather than what it is. We will be wise to go just that far and attempt to go no further. We are told from whence it comes and by what means: "Faith is a gift of God," and "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." This much is clear, and, to paraphrase Thomas à Kempis, "I had rather exercise faith than know the definition thereof."

From here on, when the words "faith is" or their equivalent occur in this chapter I ask that they be understood to refer to what faith is in operation as exercised by a believing man. Right here we drop the notion of definition and think about faith as it may be experienced in action. The complexion of our thoughts will be practical, not theoretical.

In a dramatic story in the Book of Numbers faith is seen in action. Israel became discouraged and spoke against God, and the Lord sent fiery serpents among them. "And they bit the people; and much people of Israel died." Then Moses sought the Lord for them and He heard and gave them a remedy against the bite of the serpents. He commanded Moses to make a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole in sight of all the people, "and it shall come to pass, that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live." Moses obeyed, "and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived" (Num. 21:4-9).

In the New Testament this important bit of history is interpreted for us by no less an authority than our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He is explaining to His hearers how they may be saved. He tells them that it is by believing. Then to make it clear He refers to this incident in the Book of Numbers. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:14-15).

Our plain man in reading this would make an important discovery. He would notice that "look" and "believe" were synonymous terms. "Looking" on the Old Testament serpent is identical with "believing" on the New Testament Christ. That is, the looking and the believing are the same thing. And he would understand that while Israel looked with their external eyes, believing is done with the heart. I think he would conclude that faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God.

When he had seen this he would remember passages he had read before, and their meaning would come flooding over him. "They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed" (Psa. 34:5). "Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us" (Psa. 123:1-2). Here the man seeking mercy looks straight at the God of mercy and never takes his eyes away from Him till mercy is granted. And our Lord Himself looked always at God. "Looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the bread to his disciples" (Matt. 14:19). Indeed Jesus taught that He wrought His works by always keeping His inward eyes upon His Father. His power lay in His continuous look at God (John 5:19-21).

In full accord with the few texts we have quoted is the whole tenor of the inspired Word. It is summed up for us in the Hebrew epistle when we are instructed to run life's race "looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith." From all this we learn that faith is not a once-done act, but a continuous gaze of the heart at the Triune God.

Believing, then, is directing the heart's attention to Jesus. It is lifting the mind to "behold the Lamb of God," and never ceasing that beholding for the rest of our lives. At first this may be difficult, but it becomes easier as we look steadily at His wondrous Person, quietly and without strain. Distractions may hinder, but once the heart is committed to Him, after each brief excursion away from Him the attention will return again and rest upon Him like a wandering bird coming back to its window.

I would emphasize this one committal, this one great volitional act which establishes the heart's intention to gaze forever upon Jesus. God takes this intention for our choice and makes what allowances He must for the thousand distractions which beset us in this evil world. He knows that we have set the direction of our hearts toward Jesus, and we can know it too, and comfort ourselves with the knowledge that a habit of soul is forming which will become after a while a sort of spiritual reflex requiring no more conscious effort on our part.

Faith is the least self-regarding of the virtues. It is by its very nature scarcely conscious of its own existence. Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied with the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all. While we are looking at God we do not see ourselves—blessed riddance. The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do.

Faith is not in itself a meritorious act; the merit is in the One toward Whom it is directed. Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus. Sin has twisted our vision inward and made it self-regarding. Unbelief has put self where God should be, and is perilously close to the sin of Lucifer who said, "I will set my throne above the throne of God." Faith looks out instead of in and the whole life falls into line.

All this may seem too simple. But we have no apology to make. To those who would seek to climb into heaven after help or descend into hell God says, "The word is nigh thee, even the word of faith." The word induces us to lift up our eyes unto the Lord and the blessed work of faith begins.

When we lift our inward eyes to gaze upon God we are sure to meet friendly eyes gazing back at us, for it is written that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout all the earth. The sweet language of experience is "Thou God seest me." When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on this earth.

"When all my endeavour is turned toward Thee because all Thy endeavour is turned toward me; when I look unto Thee alone with all my attention, nor ever turn aside the eyes of my mind, because Thou dost enfold me with Thy constant regard; when I direct my love toward Thee alone because Thou, who art Love's self hast turned Thee toward me alone. And what, Lord, is my life, save that embrace wherein Thy delightsome sweetness doth so lovingly enfold me?"[1] So wrote Nicholas of Cusa four hundred years ago.

I should like to say more about this old man of God. He is not much known today anywhere among Christian believers, and among current Fundamentalists he is known not at all. I feel that we could gain much from a little acquaintance with men of his spiritual flavor and the school of Christian thought which they represent. Christian literature, to be accepted and approved by the evangelical leaders of our times, must follow very closely the same train of thought, a kind of "party line" from which it is scarcely safe to depart. A half-century of this in America has made us smug and content. We imitate each other with slavish devotion and our most strenuous efforts are put forth to try to say the same thing that everyone around us is saying—and yet to find an excuse for saying it, some little safe variation on the approved theme or, if no more, at least a new illustration.

Nicholas was a true follower of Christ, a lover of the Lord, radiant and shining in his devotion to the Person of Jesus. His theology was orthodox, but fragrant and sweet as everything about Jesus might properly be expected to be. His conception of eternal life, for instance, is beautiful in itself and, if I mistake not, is nearer in spirit to John 17:3 than that which is current among us today. Life eternal, says Nicholas, is "nought other than that blessed regard wherewith Thou never ceasest to behold me, yea, even the secret places of my soul. With Thee, to behold is to give life; 'tis unceasingly to impart sweetest love of Thee; 'tis to inflame me to love of Thee by love's imparting, and to feed me by inflaming, and by feeding to kindle my yearning, and by kindling to make me drink of the dew of gladness, and by drinking to infuse in me a fountain of life, and by infusing to make it increase and endure."

Now, if faith is the gaze of the heart at God, and if this gaze is but the raising of the inward eyes to meet the all-seeing eyes of God, then it follows that it is one of the easiest things possible to do. It would be like God to make the most vital thing easy and place it within the range of possibility for the weakest and poorest of us.

Several conclusions may fairly be drawn from all this. The simplicity of it, for instance. Since believing is looking, it can be done without special equipment or religious paraphernalia. God has seen to it that the one life-and-death essential can never be subject to the caprice of accident. Equipment can break down or get lost, water can leak away, records can be destroyed by fire, the minister can be delayed or the church burn down. All these are external to the soul and are subject to accident or mechanical failure: but looking is of the heart and can be done successfully by any man standing up or kneeling down or lying in his last agony a thousand miles from any church.

Since believing is looking it can be done any time. No season is superior to another season for this sweetest of all acts. God never made salvation depend upon new moons nor holy days or sabbaths. A man is not nearer to Christ on Easter Sunday than he is, say, on Saturday, August 3, or Monday, October 4. As long as Christ sits on the mediatorial throne every day is a good day and all days are days of salvation.

Neither does place matter in this blessed work of believing God. Lift your heart and let it rest upon Jesus and you are instantly in a sanctuary though it be a Pullman berth or a factory or a kitchen. You can see God from anywhere if your mind is set to love and obey Him.

Now, someone may ask, "Is not this of which you speak for special persons such as monks or ministers who have by the nature of their calling more time to devote to quiet meditation? I am a busy worker and have little time to spend alone." I am happy to say that the life I describe is for everyone of God's children regardless of calling. It is, in fact, happily practiced every day by many hard working persons and is beyond the reach of none.

Many have found the secret of which I speak and, without giving much thought to what is going on within them, constantly practice this habit of inwardly gazing upon God. They know that something inside their hearts sees God. Even when they are compelled to withdraw their conscious attention in order to engage in earthly affairs there is within them a secret communion always going on. Let their attention but be released for a moment from necessary business and it flies at once to God again. This has been the testimony of many Christians, so many that even as I state it thus I have a feeling that I am quoting, though from whom or from how many I cannot possibly know.

I do not want to leave the impression that the ordinary means of grace have no value. They most assuredly have. Private prayer should be practiced by every Christian. Long periods of Bible meditation will purify our gaze and direct it; church attendance will enlarge our outlook and increase our love for others. Service and work and activity; all are good and should be engaged in by every Christian. But at the bottom of all these things, giving meaning to them, will be the inward habit of beholding God. A new set of eyes (so to speak) will develop within us enabling us to be looking at God while our outward eyes are seeing the scenes of this passing world.

Someone may fear that we are magnifying private religion out of all proportion, that the "us" of the New Testament is being displaced by a selfish "I." Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become "unity" conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified. The body becomes stronger as its members become healthier. The whole Church of God gains when the members that compose it begin to seek a better and a higher life.

All the foregoing presupposes true repentance and a full committal of the life to God. It is hardly necessary to mention this, for only persons who have made such a committal will have read this far.

When the habit of inwardly gazing Godward becomes fixed within us we shall be ushered onto a new level of spiritual life more in keeping with the promises of God and the mood of the New Testament. The Triune God will be our dwelling place even while our feet walk the low road of simple duty here among men. We will have found life's summum bonum indeed. "There is the source of all delights that can be desired; not only can nought better be thought out by men and angels, but nought better can exist in mode of being! For it is the absolute maximum of every rational desire, than which a greater cannot be."

O Lord, I have heard a good word inviting me to look away to Thee and be satisfied. My heart longs to respond, but sin has clouded my vision till I see Thee but dimly. Be pleased to cleanse me in Thine own precious blood, and make me inwardly pure, so that I may with unveiled eyes gaze upon Thee all the days of my earthly pilgrimage. Then shall I be prepared to behold Thee in full splendor in the day when Thou shalt appear to be glorified in Thy saints and admired in all them that believe. Amen.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Nicholas of Cusa, The Vision of God, E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York, 1928. 

 

 

 

VIII  Restoring the Creator-creature Relation

 

Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth.—Psa. 57:5

 

It is a truism to say that order in nature depends upon right relationships; to achieve harmony each thing must be in its proper position relative to each other thing. In human life it is not otherwise.

I have hinted before in these chapters that the cause of all our human miseries is a radical moral dislocation, an upset in our relation to God and to each other. For whatever else the Fall may have been, it was most certainly a sharp change in man's relation to his Creator. He adopted toward God an altered attitude, and by so doing destroyed the proper Creator-creature relation in which, unknown to him, his true happiness lay. Essentially salvation is the restoration of a right relation between man and his Creator, a bringing back to normal of the Creator-creature relation.

A satisfactory spiritual life will begin with a complete change in relation between God and the sinner; not a judicial change merely, but a conscious and experienced change affecting the sinner's whole nature. The atonement in Jesus' blood makes such a change judicially possible and the working of the Holy Spirit makes it emotionally satisfying. The story of the prodigal son perfectly illustrates this latter phase. He had brought a world of trouble upon himself by forsaking the position which he had properly held as son of his father. At bottom his restoration was nothing more than a re-establishing of the father-son relation which had existed from his birth and had been altered temporarily by his act of sinful rebellion. This story overlooks the legal aspects of redemption, but it makes beautifully clear the experiential aspects of salvation.

In determining relationships we must begin somewhere. There must be somewhere a fixed center against which everything else is measured, where the law of relativity does not enter and we can say "IS" and make no allowances. Such a center is God. When God would make His Name known to mankind He could find no better word than "I AM." When He speaks in the first person He says, "I AM"; when we speak of Him we say, "He is"; when we speak to Him we say, "Thou art." Everyone and everything else measures from that fixed point. "I am that I am," says God, "I change not."

As the sailor locates his position on the sea by "shooting" the sun, so we may get our moral bearings by looking at God. We must begin with God. We are right when and only when we stand in a right position relative to God, and we are wrong so far and so long as we stand in any other position.

Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him and to bring Him nearer to our own image. The flesh whimpers against the rigor of God's inexorable sentence and begs like Agag for a little mercy, a little indulgence of its carnal ways. It is no use. We can get a right start only by accepting God as He is and learning to love Him for what He is. As we go on to know Him better we shall find it a source of unspeakable joy that God is just what He is. Some of the most rapturous moments we know will be those we spend in reverent admiration of the Godhead. In those holy moments the very thought of change in Him will be too painful to endure.

So let us begin with God. Back of all, above all, before all is God; first in sequential order, above in rank and station, exalted in dignity and honor. As the self-existent One He gave being to all things, and all things exist out of Him and for Him. "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created."

Every soul belongs to God and exists by His pleasure. God being Who and What He is, and we being who and what we are, the only thinkable relation between us is one of full lordship on His part and complete submission on ours. We owe Him every honor that it is in our power to give Him. Our everlasting grief lies in giving Him anything less.

The pursuit of God will embrace the labor of bringing our total personality into conformity to His. And this not judicially, but actually. I do not here refer to the act of justification by faith in Christ. I speak of a voluntary exalting of God to His proper station over us and a willing surrender of our whole being to the place of worshipful submission which the Creator-creature circumstance makes proper.

The moment we make up our minds that we are going on with this determination to exalt God over all we step out of the world's parade. We shall find ourselves out of adjustment to the ways of the world, and increasingly so as we make progress in the holy way. We shall acquire a new viewpoint; a new and different psychology will be formed within us; a new power will begin to surprise us by its upsurgings and its outgoings.

Our break with the world will be the direct outcome of our changed relation to God. For the world of fallen men does not honor God. Millions call themselves by His Name, it is true, and pay some token respect to Him, but a simple test will show how little He is really honored among them. Let the average man be put to the proof on the question of who is above, and his true position will be exposed. Let him be forced into making a choice between God and money, between God and men, between God and personal ambition, God and self, God and human love, and God will take second place every time. Those other things will be exalted above. However the man may protest, the proof is in the choices he makes day after day throughout his life.

"Be thou exalted" is the language of victorious spiritual experience. It is a little key to unlock the door to great treasures of grace. It is central in the life of God in the soul. Let the seeking man reach a place where life and lips join to say continually "Be thou exalted," and a thousand minor problems will be solved at once. His Christian life ceases to be the complicated thing it had been before and becomes the very essence of simplicity. By the exercise of his will he has set his course, and on that course he will stay as if guided by an automatic pilot. If blown off course for a moment by some adverse wind he will surely return again as by a secret bent of the soul. The hidden motions of the Spirit are working in his favor, and "the stars in their courses" fight for him. He has met his life problem at its center, and everything else must follow along.

Let no one imagine that he will lose anything of human dignity by this voluntary sell-out of his all to his God. He does not by this degrade himself as a man; rather he finds his right place of high honor as one made in the image of his Creator. His deep disgrace lay in his moral derangement, his unnatural usurpation of the place of God. His honor will be proved by restoring again that stolen throne. In exalting God over all he finds his own highest honor upheld.

Anyone who might feel reluctant to surrender his will to the will of another should remember Jesus' words, "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin." We must of necessity be servant to someone, either to God or to sin. The sinner prides himself on his independence, completely overlooking the fact that he is the weak slave of the sins that rule his members. The man who surrenders to Christ exchanges a cruel slave driver for a kind and gentle Master whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light.

Made as we were in the image of God we scarcely find it strange to take again our God as our All. God was our original habitat and our hearts cannot but feel at home when they enter again that ancient and beautiful abode.

I hope it is clear that there is a logic behind God's claim to pre-eminence. That place is His by every right in earth or heaven. While we take to ourselves the place that is His the whole course of our lives is out of joint. Nothing will or can restore order till our hearts make the great decision: God shall be exalted above.

"Them that honour me I will honour," said God once to a priest of Israel, and that ancient law of the Kingdom stands today unchanged by the passing of time or the changes of dispensation. The whole Bible and every page of history proclaim the perpetuation of that law. "If any man serve me, him will my Father honour," said our Lord Jesus, tying in the old with the new and revealing the essential unity of His ways with men.

Sometimes the best way to see a thing is to look at its opposite. Eli and his sons are placed in the priesthood with the stipulation that they honor God in their lives and ministrations. This they fail to do, and God sends Samuel to announce the consequences. Unknown to Eli this law of reciprocal honor has been all the while secretly working, and now the time has come for judgment to fall. Hophni and Phineas, the degenerate priests, fall in battle, the wife of Hophni dies in childbirth, Israel flees before her enemies, the ark of God is captured by the Philistines and the old man Eli falls backward and dies of a broken neck. Thus stark utter tragedy followed upon Eli's failure to honor God.

Now set over against this almost any Bible character who honestly tried to glorify God in his earthly walk. See how God winked at weaknesses and overlooked failures as He poured upon His servants grace and blessing untold. Let it be Abraham, Jacob, David, Daniel, Elijah or whom you will; honor followed honor as harvest the seed. The man of God set his heart to exalt God above all; God accepted his intention as fact and acted accordingly. Not perfection, but holy intention made the difference.

In our Lord Jesus Christ this law was seen in simple perfection. In His lowly manhood He humbled Himself and gladly gave all glory to His Father in heaven. He sought not His own honor, but the honor of God who sent Him. "If I honour myself," He said on one occasion, "my honour is nothing; it is my Father that honoureth me." So far had the proud Pharisees departed from this law that they could not understand one who honored God at his own expense. "I honour my Father," said Jesus to them, "and ye do dishonour me."

Another saying of Jesus, and a most disturbing one, was put in the form of a question, "How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God alone?" If I understand this correctly Christ taught here the alarming doctrine that the desire for honor among men made belief impossible. Is this sin at the root of religious unbelief? Could it be that those "intellectual difficulties" which men blame for their inability to believe are but smoke screens to conceal the real cause that lies behind them? Was it this greedy desire for honor from man that made men into Pharisees and Pharisees into Deicides? Is this the secret back of religious self-righteousness and empty worship? I believe it may be. The whole course of the life is upset by failure to put God where He belongs. We exalt ourselves instead of God and the curse follows.

In our desire after God let us keep always in mind that God also hath desire, and His desire is toward the sons of men, and more particularly toward those sons of men who will make the once-for-all decision to exalt Him over all. Such as these are precious to God above all treasures of earth or sea. In them God finds a theater where He can display His exceeding kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. With them God can walk unhindered, toward them He can act like the God He is.

In speaking thus I have one fear; it is that I may convince the mind before God can win the heart. For this God-above-all position is one not easy to take. The mind may approve it while not having the consent of the will to put it into effect. While the imagination races ahead to honor God, the will may lag behind and the man never guess how divided his heart is. The whole man must make the decision before the heart can know any real satisfaction. God wants us all, and He will not rest till He gets us all. No part of the man will do.

Let us pray over this in detail, throwing ourselves at God's feet and meaning everything we say. No one who prays thus in sincerity need wait long for tokens of divine acceptance. God will unveil His glory before His servant's eyes, and He will place all His treasures at the disposal of such a one, for He knows that His honor is safe in such consecrated hands.

O God, be Thou exalted over my possessions. Nothing of earth's treasures shall seem dear unto me if only Thou art glorified in my life. Be Thou exalted over my friendships. I am determined that Thou shalt be above all, though I must stand deserted and alone in the midst of the earth. Be Thou exalted above my comforts. Though it mean the loss of bodily comforts and the carrying of heavy crosses I shall keep my vow made this day before Thee. Be Thou exalted over my reputation. Make me ambitious to please Thee even if as a result I must sink into obscurity and my name be forgotten as a dream. Rise, O Lord, into Thy proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above my family, my health and even my life itself. Let me decrease that Thou mayest increase, let me sink that Thou mayest rise above. Ride forth upon me as Thou didst ride into Jerusalem mounted upon the humble little beast, a colt, the foal of an ass, and let me hear the children cry to Thee, "Hosanna in the highest."

 

 

 

IX  Meekness and Rest

 

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.—Matt. 5:5

 

A fairly accurate description of the human race might be furnished one unacquainted with it by taking the Beatitudes, turning them wrong side out and saying, "Here is your human race." For the exact opposite of the virtues in the Beatitudes are the very qualities which distinguish human life and conduct.

In the world of men we find nothing approaching the virtues of which Jesus spoke in the opening words of the famous Sermon on the Mount. Instead of poverty of spirit we find the rankest kind of pride; instead of mourners we find pleasure seekers; instead of meekness, arrogance; instead of hunger after righteousness we hear men saying, "I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing"; instead of mercy we find cruelty; instead of purity of heart, corrupt imaginings; instead of peacemakers we find men quarrelsome and resentful; instead of rejoicing in mistreatment we find them fighting back with every weapon at their command.

Of this kind of moral stuff civilized society is composed. The atmosphere is charged with it; we breathe it with every breath and drink it with our mother's milk. Culture and education refine these things slightly but leave them basically untouched. A whole world of literature has been created to justify this kind of life as the only normal one. And this is the more to be wondered at seeing that these are the evils which make life the bitter struggle it is for all of us. All our heartaches and a great many of our physical ills spring directly out of our sins. Pride, arrogance, resentfulness, evil imaginings, malice, greed: these are the sources of more human pain than all the diseases that ever afflicted mortal flesh.

Into a world like this the sound of Jesus' words comes wonderful and strange, a visitation from above. It is well that He spoke, for no one else could have done it as well; and it is good that we listen. His words are the essence of truth. He is not offering an opinion; Jesus never uttered opinions. He never guessed; He knew, and He knows. His words are not as Solomon's were, the sum of sound wisdom or the results of keen observation. He spoke out of the fulness of His Godhead, and His words are very Truth itself. He is the only one who could say "blessed" with complete authority, for He is the Blessed One come from the world above to confer blessedness upon mankind. And His words were supported by deeds mightier than any performed on this earth by any other man. It is wisdom for us to listen.

As was often so with Jesus, He used this word "meek" in a brief crisp sentence, and not till some time later did He go on to explain it. In the same book of Matthew He tells us more about it and applies it to our lives. "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Here we have two things standing in contrast to each other, a burden and a rest. The burden is not a local one, peculiar to those first hearers, but one which is borne by the whole human race. It consists not of political oppression or poverty or hard work. It is far deeper than that. It is felt by the rich as well as the poor for it is something from which wealth and idleness can never deliver us.

The burden borne by mankind is a heavy and a crushing thing. The word Jesus used means a load carried or toil borne to the point of exhaustion. Rest is simply release from that burden. It is not something we do, it is what comes to us when we cease to do. His own meekness, that is the rest.

Let us examine our burden. It is altogether an interior one. It attacks the heart and the mind and reaches the body only from within. First, there is the burden of pride. The labor of self-love is a heavy one indeed. Think for yourself whether much of your sorrow has not arisen from someone speaking slightingly of you. As long as you set yourself up as a little god to which you must be loyal there will be those who will delight to offer affront to your idol. How then can you hope to have inward peace? The heart's fierce effort to protect itself from every slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and enemy, will never let the mind have rest. Continue this fight through the years and the burden will become intolerable. Yet the sons of earth are carrying this burden continually, challenging every word spoken against them, cringing under every criticism, smarting under each fancied slight, tossing sleepless if another is preferred before them.

Such a burden as this is not necessary to bear. Jesus calls us to His rest, and meekness is His method. The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort. He develops toward himself a kindly sense of humor and learns to say, "Oh, so you have been overlooked? They have placed someone else before you? They have whispered that you are pretty small stuff after all? And now you feel hurt because the world is saying about you the very things you have been saying about yourself? Only yesterday you were telling God that you were nothing, a mere worm of the dust. Where is your consistency? Come on, humble yourself, and cease to care what men think."

The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring. He rests perfectly content to allow God to place His own values. He will be patient to wait for the day when everything will get its own price tag and real worth will come into its own. Then the righteous shall shine forth in the Kingdom of their Father. He is willing to wait for that day.

In the meantime he will have attained a place of soul rest. As he walks on in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him. The old struggle to defend himself is over. He has found the peace which meekness brings.

Then also he will get deliverance from the burden of pretense. By this I mean not hypocrisy, but the common human desire to put the best foot forward and hide from the world our real inward poverty. For sin has played many evil tricks upon us, and one has been the infusing into us a false sense of shame. There is hardly a man or woman who dares to be just what he or she is without doctoring up the impression. The fear of being found out gnaws like rodents within their hearts. The man of culture is haunted by the fear that he will some day come upon a man more cultured than himself. The learned man fears to meet a man more learned than he. The rich man sweats under the fear that his clothes or his car or his house will sometime be made to look cheap by comparison with those of another rich man. So-called "society" runs by a motivation not higher than this, and the poorer classes on their level are little better.

Let no one smile this off. These burdens are real, and little by little they kill the victims of this evil and unnatural way of life. And the psychology created by years of this kind of thing makes true meekness seem as unreal as a dream, as aloof as a star. To all the victims of the gnawing disease Jesus says, "Ye must become as little children." For little children do not compare; they receive direct enjoyment from what they have without relating it to something else or someone else. Only as they get older and sin begins to stir within their hearts do jealousy and envy appear. Then they are unable to enjoy what they have if someone else has something larger or better. At that early age does the galling burden come down upon their tender souls, and it never leaves them till Jesus sets them free.

Another source of burden is artificiality. I am sure that most people live in secret fear that some day they will be careless and by chance an enemy or friend will be allowed to peep into their poor empty souls. So they are never relaxed. Bright people are tense and alert in fear that they may be trapped into saying something common or stupid. Traveled people are afraid that they may meet some Marco Polo who is able to describe some remote place where they have never been.

This unnatural condition is part of our sad heritage of sin, but in our day it is aggravated by our whole way of life. Advertising is largely based upon this habit of pretense. "Courses" are offered in this or that field of human learning frankly appealing to the victim's desire to shine at a party. Books are sold, clothes and cosmetics are peddled, by playing continually upon this desire to appear what we are not. Artificiality is one curse that will drop away the moment we kneel at Jesus' feet and surrender ourselves to His meekness. Then we will not care what people think of us so long as God is pleased. Then what we are will be everything; what we appear will take its place far down the scale of interest for us. Apart from sin we have nothing of which to be ashamed. Only an evil desire to shine makes us want to appear other than we are.

The heart of the world is breaking under this load of pride and pretense. There is no release from our burden apart from the meekness of Christ. Good keen reasoning may help slightly, but so strong is this vice that if we push it down one place it will come up somewhere else. To men and women everywhere Jesus says, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." The rest He offers is the rest of meekness, the blessed relief which comes when we accept ourselves for what we are and cease to pretend. It will take some courage at first, but the needed grace will come as we learn that we are sharing this new and easy yoke with the strong Son of God Himself. He calls it "my yoke," and He walks at one end while we walk at the other.

Lord, make me childlike. Deliver me from the urge to compete with another for place or prestige or position. I would be simple and artless as a little child. Deliver me from pose and pretense. Forgive me for thinking of myself. Help me to forget myself and find my true peace in beholding Thee. That Thou mayest answer this prayer I humble myself before Thee. Lay upon me Thy easy yoke of self-forgetfulness that through it I may find rest. Amen.

 

 

 

X.  The Sacrament of Living

 

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.—I Cor. 10:31

 

One of the greatest hindrances to internal peace which the Christian encounters is the common habit of dividing our lives into two areas, the sacred and the secular. As these areas are conceived to exist apart from each other and to be morally and spiritually incompatible, and as we are compelled by the necessities of living to be always crossing back and forth from the one to the other, our inner lives tend to break up so that we live a divided instead of a unified life.

Our trouble springs from the fact that we who follow Christ inhabit at once two worlds, the spiritual and the natural. As children of Adam we live our lives on earth subject to the limitations of the flesh and the weaknesses and ills to which human nature is heir. Merely to live among men requires of us years of hard toil and much care and attention to the things of this world. In sharp contrast to this is our life in the Spirit. There we enjoy another and higher kind of life; we are children of God; we possess heavenly status and enjoy intimate fellowship with Christ.

This tends to divide our total life into two departments. We come unconsciously to recognize two sets of actions. The first are performed with a feeling of satisfaction and a firm assurance that they are pleasing to God. These are the sacred acts and they are usually thought to be prayer, Bible reading, hymn singing, church attendance and such other acts as spring directly from faith. They may be known by the fact that they have no direct relation to this world, and would have no meaning whatever except as faith shows us another world, "an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Over against these sacred acts are the secular ones. They include all of the ordinary activities of life which we share with the sons and daughters of Adam: eating, sleeping, working, looking after the needs of the body and performing our dull and prosaic duties here on earth. These we often do reluctantly and with many misgivings, often apologizing to God for what we consider a waste of time and strength. The upshot of this is that we are uneasy most of the time. We go about our common tasks with a feeling of deep frustration, telling ourselves pensively that there's a better day coming when we shall slough off this earthly shell and be bothered no more with the affairs of this world.

This is the old sacred-secular antithesis. Most Christians are caught in its trap. They cannot get a satisfactory adjustment between the claims of the two worlds. They try to walk the tight rope between two kingdoms and they find no peace in either. Their strength is reduced, their outlook confused and their joy taken from them.

I believe this state of affairs to be wholly unnecessary. We have gotten ourselves on the horns of a dilemma, true enough, but the dilemma is not real. It is a creature of misunderstanding. The sacred-secular antithesis has no foundation in the New Testament. Without doubt a more perfect understanding of Christian truth will deliver us from it.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our perfect example, and He knew no divided life. In the Presence of His Father He lived on earth without strain from babyhood to His death on the cross. God accepted the offering of His total life, and made no distinction between act and act. "I do always the things that please him," was His brief summary of His own life as it related to the Father. As He moved among men He was poised and restful. What pressure and suffering He endured grew out of His position as the world's sin bearer; they were never the result of moral uncertainty or spiritual maladjustment.

Paul's exhortation to "do all to the glory of God" is more than pious idealism. It is an integral part of the sacred revelation and is to be accepted as the very Word of Truth. It opens before us the possibility of making every act of our lives contribute to the glory of God. Lest we should be too timid to include everything, Paul mentions specifically eating and drinking. This humble privilege we share with the beasts that perish. If these lowly animal acts can be so performed as to honor God, then it becomes difficult to conceive of one that cannot.

That monkish hatred of the body which figures so prominently in the works of certain early devotional writers is wholly without support in the Word of God. Common modesty is found in the Sacred Scriptures, it is true, but never prudery or a false sense of shame. The New Testament accepts as a matter of course that in His incarnation our Lord took upon Him a real human body, and no effort is made to steer around the downright implications of such a fact. He lived in that body here among men and never once performed a non-sacred act. His presence in human flesh sweeps away forever the evil notion that there is about the human body something innately offensive to the Deity. God created our bodies, and we do not offend Him by placing the responsibility where it belongs. He is not ashamed of the work of His own hands.

Perversion, misuse and abuse of our human powers should give us cause enough to be ashamed. Bodily acts done in sin and contrary to nature can never honor God. Wherever the human will introduces moral evil we have no longer our innocent and harmless powers as God made them; we have instead an abused and twisted thing which can never bring glory to its Creator.

Let us, however, assume that perversion and abuse are not present. Let us think of a Christian believer in whose life the twin wonders of repentance and the new birth have been wrought. He is now living according to the will of God as he understands it from the written Word. Of such a one it may be said that every act of his life is or can be as truly sacred as prayer or baptism or the Lord's Supper. To say this is not to bring all acts down to one dead level; it is rather to lift every act up into a living kingdom and turn the whole life into a sacrament.

If a sacrament is an external expression of an inward grace than we need not hesitate to accept the above thesis. By one act of consecration of our total selves to God we can make every subsequent act express that consecration. We need no more be ashamed of our body—the fleshly servant that carries us through life—than Jesus was of the humble beast upon which He rode into Jerusalem. "The Lord hath need of him" may well apply to our mortal bodies. If Christ dwells in us we may bear about the Lord of glory as the little beast did of old and give occasion to the multitudes to cry, "Hosanna in the highest."

That we see this truth is not enough. If we would escape from the toils of the sacred-secular dilemma the truth must "run in our blood" and condition the complexion of our thoughts. We must practice living to the glory of God, actually and determinedly. By meditation upon this truth, by talking it over with God often in our prayers, by recalling it to our minds frequently as we move about among men, a sense of its wondrous meaning will begin to take hold of us. The old painful duality will go down before a restful unity of life. The knowledge that we are all God's, that He has received all and rejected nothing, will unify our inner lives and make everything sacred to us.

This is not quite all. Long-held habits do not die easily. It will take intelligent thought and a great deal of reverent prayer to escape completely from the sacred-secular psychology. For instance it may be difficult for the average Christian to get hold of the idea that his daily labors can be performed as acts of worship acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. The old antithesis will crop up in the back of his head sometimes to disturb his peace of mind. Nor will that old serpent the devil take all this lying down. He will be there in the cab or at the desk or in the field to remind the Christian that he is giving the better part of his day to the things of this world and allotting to his religious duties only a trifling portion of his time. And unless great care is taken this will create confusion and bring discouragement and heaviness of heart.

We can meet this successfully only by the exercise of an aggressive faith. We must offer all our acts to God and believe that He accepts them. Then hold firmly to that position and keep insisting that every act of every hour of the day and night be included in the transaction. Keep reminding God in our times of private prayer that we mean every act for His glory; then supplement those times by a thousand thought-prayers as we go about the job of living. Let us practice the fine art of making every work a priestly ministration. Let us believe that God is in all our simple deeds and learn to find Him there.

A concomitant of the error which we have been discussing is the sacred-secular antithesis as applied to places. It is little short of astonishing that we can read the New Testament and still believe in the inherent sacredness of places as distinguished from other places. This error is so widespread that one feels all alone when he tries to combat it. It has acted as a kind of dye to color the thinking of religious persons and has colored the eyes as well so that it is all but impossible to detect its fallacy. In the face of every New Testament teaching to the contrary it has been said and sung throughout the centuries and accepted as a part of the Christian message, the which it most surely is not. Only the Quakers, so far as my knowledge goes, have had the perception to see the error and the courage to expose it.

Here are the facts as I see them. For four hundred years Israel had dwelt in Egypt, surrounded by the crassest idolatry. By the hand of Moses they were brought out at last and started toward the land of promise. The very idea of holiness had been lost to them. To correct this, God began at the bottom. He localized Himself in the cloud and fire and later when the tabernacle had been built He dwelt in fiery manifestation in the Holy of Holies. By innumerable distinctions God taught Israel the difference between holy and unholy. There were holy days, holy vessels, holy garments. There were washings, sacrifices, offerings of many kinds. By these means Israel learned that God is holy. It was this that He was teaching them. Not the holiness of things or places, but the holiness of Jehovah was the lesson they must learn.

Then came the great day when Christ appeared. Immediately He began to say, "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time—but I say unto you." The Old Testament schooling was over. When Christ died on the cross the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom. The Holy of Holies was opened to everyone who would enter in faith. Christ's words were remembered, "The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.... But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."

Shortly after, Paul took up the cry of liberty and declared all meats clean, every day holy, all places sacred and every act acceptable to God. The sacredness of times and places, a half-light necessary to the education of the race, passed away before the full sun of spiritual worship.

The essential spirituality of worship remained the possession of the Church until it was slowly lost with the passing of the years. Then the natural legality of the fallen hearts of men began to introduce the old distinctions. The Church came to observe again days and seasons and times. Certain places were chosen and marked out as holy in a special sense. Differences were observed between one and another day or place or person, "The sacraments" were first two, then three, then four until with the triumph of Romanism they were fixed at seven.

In all charity, and with no desire to reflect unkindly upon any Christian, however misled, I would point out that the Roman Catholic church represents today the sacred-secular heresy carried to its logical conclusion. Its deadliest effect is the complete cleavage it introduces between religion and life. Its teachers attempt to avoid this snare by many footnotes and multitudinous explanations, but the mind's instinct for logic is too strong. In practical living the cleavage is a fact.

From this bondage reformers and puritans and mystics have labored to free us. Today the trend in conservative circles is back toward that bondage again. It is said that a horse after it has been led out of a burning building will sometimes by a strange obstinacy break loose from its rescuer and dash back into the building again to perish in the flame. By some such stubborn tendency toward error Fundamentalism in our day is moving back toward spiritual slavery. The observation of days and times is becoming more and more prominent among us. "Lent" and "holy week" and "good" Friday are words heard more and more frequently upon the lips of gospel Christians. We do not know when we are well off.

In order that I may be understood and not be misunderstood I would throw into relief the practical implications of the teaching for which I have been arguing, i.e., the sacramental quality of every day living. Over against its positive meanings I should like to point out a few things it does not mean.

It does not mean, for instance, that everything we do is of equal importance with everything else we do or may do. One act of a good man's life may differ widely from another in importance. Paul's sewing of tents was not equal to his writing of an Epistle to the Romans, but both were accepted of God and both were true acts of worship. Certainly it is more important to lead a soul to Christ than to plant a garden, but the planting of the garden can be as holy an act as the winning of a soul.

Again, it does not mean that every man is as useful as every other man. Gifts differ in the body of Christ. A Billy Bray is not to be compared with a Luther or a Wesley for sheer usefulness to the Church and to the world; but the service of the less gifted brother is as pure as that of the more gifted, and God accepts both with equal pleasure.

The "layman" need never think of his humbler task as being inferior to that of his minister. Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry. It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. The motive is everything. Let a man sanctify the Lord God in his heart and he can thereafter do no common act. All he does is good and acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For such a man, living itself will be sacramental and the whole world a sanctuary. His entire life will be a priestly ministration. As he performs his never so simple task he will hear the voice of the seraphim saying, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory."

Lord, I would trust Thee completely; I would be altogether Thine; I would exalt Thee above all. I desire that I may feel no sense of possessing anything outside of Thee. I want constantly to be aware of Thy overshadowing Presence and to hear Thy speaking Voice. I long to live in restful sincerity of heart. I want to live so fully in the Spirit that all my thought may be as sweet incense ascending to Thee and every act of my life may be an act of worship. Therefore I pray in the words of Thy great servant of old, "I beseech Thee so for to cleanse the intent of mine heart with the unspeakable gift of Thy grace, that I may perfectly love Thee and worthily praise Thee." And all this I confidently believe Thou wilt grant me through the merits of Jesus Christ Thy Son. Amen.

 

 

<Note>: 

 

 

If you click the individual link of No. 1 through No.11 below, you can read each of them. 

아래의 1번부터 11번까지의 링크를 각각 클릭하시면 글을 하나 하나 읽으실 수 있습니다:

1) "신앙생활의 실패요인과 해결책" ("Reasons for failure in life of faith and the solutions"): 

Please note that the difference between 'Being born of the Holy Spirit' and 'Being baptized with the Holy Spirit' is explained in the middle of this website (in Korean first and in English next). 이 웹사이트의 중간 지점에는 '성령으로 거듭난 것'과 '성령으로 세례를 받는 것'의 차이가 설명되어 있으니 참고하시기 바랍니다(한글 먼저, 영어는 다음에 기록됨). 

https://spiritruledlife.blogspot.com/2022/05/spirit.html

2) "당신의 영의 음성을 들으십시오" ("Listen to your spirit"):

https://spiritruledlife.blogspot.com/2022/06/blog-post.html

3) "예수, 치료자" ("Jesus, the healer"):

https://spiritruledlife.blogspot.com/2022/11/jesus-healer-by-e-w-kenyon.html

4) "예수, 그 놀라운 이름" ("The Wonderful Name of Jesus"): 

https://spiritruledlife.blogspot.com/2022/11/4-wonderful-name-of-jesus-by-e-w-kenyon.html

5) "하나님과 사람 사이의 유일한 중보자 예수" ("Jesus, the only mediator between God and men"):

https://spiritruledlife.blogspot.com/2022/12/mans-need-of-mediator.html

6) "성경에서 증거하는 우리의 구속" ("Our Redemption testified in the Bible"):

https://spiritruledlife.blogspot.com/2023/01/6-redemption.html

7) "이것이 성령세례다" ("This is the Baptism with the Holy Spirit"): in Korean Only: 아래의 링크를 클릭하시면 내용을 읽으실 수 있습니다.

https://spiritruledlife.blogspot.com/2023/05/7.html

8) "어떻게 성령으로 충만해 질 수 있는가?"(How to be filled with the Holy Spirit) by A. W. Tozer: In 한글(Korean) & English; click below link to read it. 아래의 링크를 클릭하시면 내용을 읽으실 수 있습니다: 

https://spiritruledlife.blogspot.com/2023/05/8.html

- A English book about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit: [The Holy Spirit and You] by Dennis & Rita Bennett: If you click the link below, you can read it: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XzL6PNaQoAbuFwFQ9VD7z3HxPoLE92cQ/view?usp=share_link

9) 어떻게 하나님의 영으로 인도받을 수 있는가? by 케네스 해긴: 

[How You Can be Led by the Spirit of God?] by Kenneth E. Hagin: 

* 한글 & 영어 (영어 텍스트는 한글 텍스트의 마지막에 놓여 있슴): Korean & English: (English text is placed at the end of Korean text):아래의 링크를 클릭하시면 내용을 읽으실 수 있습니다: please CLICK the link below.

https://spiritruledlife.blogspot.com/2023/05/9.html

10) “하나님을 추구하기” (“The Pursuit of God”) by A. W. Tozer:(이 글은 이 페이지에 나와 있슴.)

한글 & 영어 (영어 텍스트는 한글 텍스트의 마지막에 놓여 있슴:  in Korean & English (English text is placed at the end of the Korean text): (This article is on this page.)아래의 링크를 클릭하셔서 내용을 읽으시기 바랍니다: Please click read the link below to read the contents:

https://spiritruledlife.blogspot.com/2023/12/10-pursuit-of-god.html

11) “성령의 신비” (“Mystery of the Holy Spirit”) by A. W. Tozer:

한글 & 영어 (영어 텍스트는 한글 텍스트의 마지막에 놓여 있슴:  in Korean & English (English text is placed at the end of the Korean text): 아래의 링크를 클릭하셔서 내용을 읽으시기 바랍니다: Please click read the link below to read the contents:

https://spiritruledlife.blogspot.com/2023/12/11-mystery-of-holy-spirit.html

12) (book) “성막으로부터 가르침” (Teaching from the Tabernacle) by C. SUMNER. WEMP:

한글 & 영어 (영어 텍스트는 한글 텍스트의 마지막에 놓여 있슴: English text is placed at the end of the Korean text): 아래의 링크를 클릭하셔서 내용을 읽으시기 바랍니다: Please click read the link below to read the contents:

https://spiritruledlife.blogspot.com/2024/10/12-tabernacle.html