“NEITHER DO I CONDEMN THEE.”

BY MRS. S. M. I. HENRY.

                 

WHEN Christ came into the world, he expected to find sin of the vilest types. He followed the law, which had been teaching God's standard of judgment, and making man know that someone, between whom and himself there was much in common, measured the possibilities of both sin and purity, although the experience of each man revealed the fact that he, of himself, was unable to avoid the one or attain to the other. Imperfection was his lot. Personal condemnation —the mother of despair — was a companion from whom there was no escape.

The mission of Christ was to break this spell which caused despair, and to create hope. To do this he must not tolerate anything which could separate him from man. Sin had done that already, and this he must take out of the way, by putting himself between it and him whom sin would destroy, and he would save. He could not afford to bring with him into the world anything else that would necessarily keep him and man apart.

Nothing can ever be so effectual a barrier between individuals who ought to love and help one another, as a spirit of judgment and criticism.  Hence he, the Judge of the whole earth, must empty himself of his eternal prerogative, disguise his knowledge of the sinner and sin, and treat him as a friend. However amenable to the law the culprit might be, Christ must condescend to win him to himself and to love of the law which condemned him to punishment, which punishment this strangely disguised Judge had taken upon himself.

Only the “mind of Christ” could ever have conceived such a scheme. Only those who have “partaken” of that mind can comprehend it.  The Pharisees who brought the guilty woman to Christ (John 8:3-5) thought they knew the law, and the poor sinner believed they represented it, and was afraid, as well she might be; for, not knowing the mind which framed the law, neither she nor they could comprehend the depths of love of which its most arbitrary power was only an expression.  There is nothing so arbitrary as love. It will stop at nothing that can compass the welfare of the loved object.

The sinful woman and the unloving scribes and Pharisees had no foundation for a knowledge of the deep, fatherly tenderness out of which the law had come, with all its penalties, as well as this Christ, who was charged with its fulfilment, and the revelation of the spirit which inspired it. This ignorance not only caused the sinner to despair, but made the scribes and Pharisees arrogant. Christ had to meet both this arrogance and fear with a spirit which was the life of the law; and also teach those to whom he was to leave his-unfinished work how, through all time, to meet them as he had, until he should come again with judgment.

By nothing is the work of God hindered more than by failure to learn this lesson of “no judgment.” “Neither do I condemn thee,” said Christ; because condemnation is fatal to a work of salvation, and he came to save. Whom the judge condemns is never led away to liberty, to honor, to safety, but to punishment. Condemnation is the seal of doom. The work of salvation and of judgment can never be done at the same time and in the same office. So imperative was it that Christ should observe this necessity, in his work, that he refused to judge those who denied his own words. He said: “If any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.” John 12:47.

In keeping with this he has forbidden the work of judgment to his fellow laborers in the gospel, but has, instead, committed to us the “ministry of reconciliation.”  2 Cor. 5:18, 19. The work of the gospel is still to seek and to save those whom the law has doomed, and who, once they know their guilt, must stand overwhelmed with foreboding. Nothing will make a strong man so weak, a proud woman so desolate, as to become genuinely convicted of sin. To be found out by the search-light of the eternal law will turn the brightest and happiest soul sick unto death. Pitiable beyond compare, even in the sight of one who knows how quickly hope and joy may replace despair, is the condition of such a soul until it has heard the word of Him who said, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.”

The most terrible mistake which any Christian worker can make, outside of actual sin, is to build up a wall of criticism and prejudice between him and those who ought to receive a message of warning and salvation from him. It is of no use to carry a message if one cannot deliver it. Many a would-be messenger has made his message of non-effect, because he has gone first as a judge into the house of sin and the presence of the foolish, where only a Saviour could be tolerated. If any man ever walked the earth who had the right to judge and condemn those who did not look at things from his standpoint, or know what he knew, or believe what he said, it was Jesus Christ; for he had the words which are life. If any man would not receive those words, he must die, and yet Christ said, “I judge him not.” Even if he says to me that I have not told the truth, he said, “I judge him not.”

How can the Lord withhold judgment when he knows so perfectly?  some one may ask. Because “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved,” would be his reply now as then. John 3:17.

“But,” says one, “did not the Lord say that ‘by their fruits ye shall know them’? Is not that equivalent to judgment?” —Not to the mind of Christ, which must be in us  if we are in him. He knew what was in man better than man himself knew. But that knowledge moved him to pity and brotherly love, to that sort of tenderness which will keep it all a secret between himself and the poor, vile heart. This is a matter, says this Lover of our soul,  that must not be bruited abroad.  It must be kept between us; since he (the sinner) knows it of himself, he will have all that he can endure from the law, which has already condemned him. I must make him know me, as well as the law. “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father : there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust.” John 5:45.

Then notice how this Lover of the soul begins to excuse the poor sinner, and lay out his work for his relief. I know where the trouble is, he says, in 'effect; you have not believed. Something is wrong that we, together, must set right, so that you may be able to believe the law first, and then me, and the love which I am. If you cannot believe the one, how can you the other? “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?”  Verses   46,  47.  I, as your Advocate, must see that you have sufficient evidence to force conviction of truth. I must gather it, and pile it up before you. My love is great enough to wait for this evidence and the witness to do their work. “The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things.”  John 14:26. “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.”  John 15:26.  “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”  John 14:20.

The witness has done his work; the testimony has been received; and the result, even to the one who was waiting for condemnation, is knowledge that brings assurance and joy; and also a commission to take the same testimony and carry it farther on, with the requirement to avoid anything that would spoil its  effectiveness.

So great was the necessity that those messengers should be fully qualified, that Christ himself prayed for them; not alone for his disciples, but for us, that we might be kept “from the evil” — that particular evil — which would injure us as bearers of the testimony of the gospel.

“Neither pray  I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. John 17:20. This brings his prayer down to our own time, and to you and me. “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and. I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” Verse 21, The  supreme gift given of God through Christ is the power of the Holy Spirit; and -this is given for one purpose, — thoroughly to qualify a true witness, one who will bear unimpeachable evidence of the truth.

“Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me.”  Acts 1:8.  It would be assuming a most terrible responsibility for one called to be a witness, as every Christian is, to cultivate, or even tolerate, anything in himself which would destroy the effectiveness of this power in his work, or make it impossible for him to lodge that testimony where it would tell in establishing the truth, and secure the salvation of a soul. And yet just that thing is done every day by the critical spirit of judgment which is abroad in the church.

We must of course know the evil as well as the good in the lives of men, but we should know it as Christ did; that is, we must recognize the sinner's lack, and his need of that radical change which shall make it possible for the wild olive to bring forth good fruit. By such knowledge only shall we be able to apply what we know of Christ. We must cultivate that sort of acquaintance with men that will arouse tenderness and not judgment; concern, not criticism; that will make us realize the desperate need of the poor sinner, so that we shall be ready to live for the same purpose for which Christ died; that will beget in us the instincts of the good physician and nurse combined, which produces that motherly nature, as it came out from God, by which alone the world can be won to him.

The time will be when Christ will judge men; when men will be made judges of one another; but then salvation will have become a history without a future. Let us fear to anticipate that time by one thought concerning any human soul. In my work with the most unfortunate classes of sinners, I have come to believe more and more that only God, who knows the heart, is capable of estimating the proportion of good or evil in any man, or of measuring out his responsibility. God was wise to reserve judgment unto himself, and his own set time; and he was good to us with a great benevolence, in that he gave us a message of pure, unadulterated truth to carry abroad to our fellows. Happy is he who does his part faithfully, and leaves God's part carefully alone. ~

ADVENT REVIEW AND & SABBATH HERALD.

 Jan 5, 1897  VOL. 74, No. 1.

(Written from the Sanitarium in Battle Creek MI)