Light Affliction and Eternal Glory 2
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II. But I pass on, as proposed, in the second place, to show what this light affliction PRODUCES– what, in the hands of the Holy Spirit, is its blessed fruit and effect. For let this truth be ever deeply impressed upon our mind, that there is not in affliction any power or tendency in itself to sanctify or save. It is at best but an instrument in the hands of the Lord, and can no more work by itself than any mechanical instrument can execute any work without the hand of the craftsman. But viewed as such by the apostle, it is declared towork for us "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." And if that be the case, well may it be called "light!"– well may it be declared to be "but for a moment!"
But how does it work for us this far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory? Is there any MERIT in affliction and suffering? I have no doubt many think so. When I was a minister in the Church of England, I was usually very assiduous in visiting my parishioners, and especially the sick and afflicted among them, having for nearly seven years two parishes under my care. Being a 'fellow' of Oxford College, I was not required to reside in either parish, nor did I do so for the first year, except for the long vacation; but as eternal things pressed with greater weight and power on my mind, I turned my back upon the University, and though much to my temporal disadvantage, went to reside in one of my parishes. The good of the people and the profit of my own soul were, I believe, my only two motives for this step. But when I went to reside in this country village, having a good deal of zeal and earnestness and a desire for the people's good, I was very assiduous in visiting them, and usually spent a portion of every day in going from house to house among the poor to converse with them as far as I could upon the weighty matters of eternity.
And how often have my ears been pained with a speech like this (because I visited all who were sick, whether they professed religion or not)– "I hope I shall have all my sufferings in this life;" clearly meaning, if not expressed in so many words, that their hope was their sufferings in this life would be accepted as an atonement for their sins; that God was now punishing them for their offences and that thereby he gave them, as it were, some pledge that by afflicting them here, he would not afflict them hereafter. I name what I thus used to hear, not as if those who used such words were more ignorant or more benighted than others, but as a specimen of the view generally taken about afflictions; for such is the innate self-righteousness of man's heart, and so deep his ignorance of the ways of the Lord, that his bodily pains, and the very sickness that is to terminate in death, become invested with a certain MERIT in his eye.
But do you think there can be any MERIT in affliction? in pain of body, distress of mind, loss of children, poverty and need, widowhood and old age, or in any amount whatever of bodily or mental suffering? Is that to be the price at which heaven is to be bought and glory won? Is there any fair exchange between the two? Will God, do you think, barter heaven, an immortality of bliss and glory– for a toothache, a bad cough, an aching back, or a broken limb; for poverty, however distressing; of family afflictions, however grievous? Perish the thought! It is one which a spiritual mind can never entertain for a single moment, but at once rejects. No greater dishonor could be cast upon the blood and obedience of an incarnate God than to invest human affliction with any degree of merit, or put any amount of natural suffering upon a level with the sorrows and agonies of the Son of God. If, then, it works for us "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," it cannot do so, on the footing of merit, or by the possession of any intrinsic worth or value.
How, then, can it work, if it does not work meritoriously? But is all work confined to merit? May it not work effectually, if all merit is discarded; work instrumentally, if it possesses no innate power or tendency? Yes; surely there is no merit in the spade that turns up the soil, or in the sickle that reaps the corn. The merit is in the hand of him that wields them. Their efficacy lies in his strength and skill, not in their own.
In this way, then, affliction works. It is an instrument in God's hand to cut down all our schemes of happiness and salvation; that the counsel of his heart and the work of his hands may stand forever and ever. We cannot have both worldly happiness and spiritual bliss– we cannot have the heart given up to everything carnal, sensual, selfish, and ungodly, and at the same time filled up with everything sacred, holy, and divine. Here we see how affliction works for us an exceeding and eternal weight of glory. By preparing our heart for it; by its being sanctified, through the grace of God, to produce in us that state of soul to which heavenly realities are so blessedly suited.
You have lately had, say, a great deal of bodily affliction, or have passed through many and severe family trials, or are at this present moment steeped up to the neck in poverty. Now, if you are a partaker of grace and are able to weigh in the 'balance of the sanctuary' the Lord's dealings with you, look at the effect of those trials and afflictions upon your soul, and what spiritual profit you have reaped from them. Have they brought you in any measure nearer to the Lord? Have they been in any measure sanctified to your soul's good? Can you find in them any of those fruits that the Scripture speaks of, such as this– "And not only so, but we glory in tribulation also– knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience experience, and experience hope; and hope makes not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us."
Can you say– "This is my comfort in my affliction, for your word has quickened me;" or, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn your statutes?" Have your afflictions wrought in you rebellion, peevishness, fretfulness, self-pity, unbelief, and despair– or have they wrought prayer, supplication, confession, desires for the manifestation of Christ's love to your soul? Have they broken your spirit, laid you in the dust, weaned you from the world, made sin hateful and Christ precious, brought heaven before your eyes, and put earth under your feet?
But when we speak of afflictions being sanctified, and especially of 'working instrumentally an eternal weight of glory', it is not so much temporal as SPIRITUAL afflictions, that the Lord makes use of for that purpose. There is a certain preparation necessary for the manifestation of that grace to the soul which is the beginning and the pledge of eternal glory. For instance, 'guilt of conscience' prepares the soul for the blood of sprinkling. The arrows of the Almighty, shot into the heart from his unerring bow, prepare it for the balm of Gilead; a taste of hell for a taste of heaven; the thunders of the law for the consolations of the gospel; views of self for views of Christ. Apprehensions of the wrath to come hunt the soul out of every false refuge, convince it of its need of an imputed righteousness, and preserve it from resting in a name to live. It is thus that the deepest trials usually issue in the greatest deliverances, the sorest distress in the sweetest consolation, and the pangs of hell in the joys of heaven.
Our heart, too, is so full of the world that there is in it no room for Christ until he himself drives out the intruders, as he scourged the buyers and sellers out of the temple. Affliction in his hands, and especially spiritual affliction, convinces us of the sin and folly of loving the world, embitters it to us, and detaches our heart from it by loosening those strings that bind it so fast to time and sense! What power also sin exercises in our carnal mind, and what a need there is for chastisements to teach us the folly of our ways, and to convince us that none but Christ can save us from the wrath to come! Thus, in the mysterious wisdom of God, making all things to work together for good to those who love him, affliction itself is made to work an exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
But I must not pass by this beautiful expression. I must, with God's blessing, open a little of the force and beauty of this remarkable language.
1. "The WEIGHT of glory." The Hebrew word "glory" literally signifies "weight;" and the apostle seems to have some allusion to that circumstance by connecting, as he does, the two words together. There is indeed a natural connection between what is weighty and what is solid and substantial. He would thus represent future glory as something solid, lasting, and durable, and therefore utterly distinct from the light, vain trifles of time, and even the passing afflictions of the day or hour. But he seems chiefly to be alluding to the exceeding greatness of that glory which is to be revealed as compared with our present faculties of body and mind and all our present conceptions. It is as though he would say– "In our present imperfect state, with our limited faculties of mind, and our weak, frail body, we could not bear the weight of that immortal glory which is prepared for the saints in the realms of bliss." "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love him."
Heaven, with its opening bliss, would crush our present body and soul at once into the dust. "No man," said God to Moses, "can see me and live." When John in Patmos had a view of the glory of his risen Lord, though he had lain in his bosom at the last supper, yet he fell at his feet as dead. Therefore, we must have our soul purified from all stain of sin and expanded to the utmost of its immortal powers, and our body glorified and conformed to the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, that soul and body may alike be able to bear the weight of eternal glory with which they are to be clothed. As the apostle speaks, "Our dying bodies make us groan and sigh, but it's not that we want to die and have no bodies at all. We want to slip into our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by everlasting life." 2 Cor. 5:4
2. But there is something in the word "GLORY"that I must not pass by. The Lord, in that touching chapter John 17 thus prays, or rather thus expresses his heavenly will– "Father, I will that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which you have given me." This is the "weight of glory" that the apostle speaks of– not merely freedom from sin and sorrow– not merely seeing Christ as he is, but beholding and enjoying that unutterable glory which the Father gave him, which is all the glory of Godhead as revealed in and shining through his human nature. The fullness and perfection of this glory is reserved for the saints of God to enjoy when they shall see him as he is and know even also as they are known. We see a 'gleam' of it when Christ is revealed to the soul; when the heavens are opened to faith; when his beauty and blessedness are manifested to our heart by the power of God. But the "exceeding and eternal weight of glory" can never be fully comprehended in the present life.
3. How striking, too, are the words,"a far more exceeding"– and if I may be allowed to refer to the original, I may say that even they but feebly and imperfectly express the full and majestic meaning of the inspired apostle. It is literally, "by excess to excess," as if simple language were deficient, and the word must be repeated to give any idea of the exceeding vastness and immensity of that glory– that is beyond all hyperbole. But taking the words as they stand– and they are very beautifully translated– well may we say that this weight of glory as far exceeds all earthly cares and sorrows as eternity exceeds time, as Christ surpasses man, as heaven excels earth!
Now it is affliction, as sanctified by the Holy Spirit, which instrumentally works this "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;" because through affliction grace is given, for GRACE is 'glory in the bud', as GLORY is 'grace in the flower'. I believe I may say that I have never had any blessing which has not, more or less, come through affliction. The work began in affliction, is being carried on in affliction, and will doubtless be finished in affliction. In saying so, I speak the language of all God's suffering saints. In fact, without affliction, we are not fit for a blessing; there is no room in our heart for it. Affliction comes with stretched out hand and empties the soul of all earthly happiness, all perishing joys, and all carnal delights; and by sweeping out of it all these anti-Christs; for anti-Christs they are– prepares it for Christ. He comes riding upon the 'storms of affliction'; he appears amid the 'dark night of sorrow'; he beams in upon the heart when the heavens are hung in black and the soul is dressed in mourning. Then his visits are sweet, highly prized, dearly beloved; and most for this reason– because they come at a moment when they are made suitable by previous distress. It is in this way, and not by any meritorious efficacy that there is in suffering, that "our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."
Contrast the terms– see how the apostle puts them in a blessed antithesis– "light affliction," "weight of glory." Affliction "for a moment," glory "eternal." And thus he would cheer our desponding spirits, and would bid us look up and bear the cross, drink the cup, and endure the suffering, by setting before our eyes this blessed truth– that all these sufferings and sorrows are but for a moment, will cease with time, and issue in a glory without measure and without end!
III. This leads me to our third and last point– "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen– for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."
The apostle speaks here of two separate things which sanctified affliction produces– the one thing is the taking of our eyes from off the things which are seen, which are temporal; and the other the fixing of our eyes upon the things which are not seen, which are eternal.
1. Our natural disposition is ever to be looking at "the things which are seen;" nor can we raise our eyes from them except grace enables us. Day by day we are ever looking to the things presented to our natural eyes, to the objects by which we are surrounded, and with which in our time-state we have to do. Our daily business or employment, the station of life we occupy, our families and friends, the circle of hourly recurring duties– all are saying, as with so many uplifted voices– "Look to me! think of me! I want you and must have you! Whatever you neglect you must not neglect me! Give me all your heart!"
And we are prone, too prone, to hear their voice. As Abraham incautiously and unwisely listened to Sarah when she gave him that carnal advice to take Hagar for his wife, thereby bringing bondage and confusion into his house; so are we ever listening to the voice of the flesh, bidding us fix our eyes on the things which are seen. The things which are seen include everything upon which the natural eye of man can rest; the natural ear of man hear; the natural heart of man conceive; or the tongue of man utter– in a word, the expression embraces all the things by which we are daily surrounded, and in the employment or enjoyment of which our natural life consists.
Now in proportion as we look at the things which are seen– the occupations, the amusements, the cares, the anxieties, or even the daily duties of this passing scene– the more do they engross our thoughts, occupy our hearts, entangle our affections, and drag us from heaven to earth. It is not the being surrounded by them, or the being occupied in them as our lawful calling, that is to be condemned, but the being so much taken up by them as to exclude the things of God and steal away our heart. So that it is to be feared that some who we dare not say are not the children of God, may pass pretty well the whole day without a spiritual thought– yes, shame be to them, without a spiritual cry or sigh after God. I must repeat the expression– shame be to them, so drowned and swallowed up are they in the poor perishing things of time and sense, as not to have room for a spiritual desire after the Lord Jesus.
Now the Lord will not allow this. It may be that for a time he permits the soul to drag on in this poor, cold, dying life; but he will not always allow it to live at such a distance from him, and be so buried alive in this tomb of death and corruption. He has a 'rod in Zion' that he in due time brings forth; he has an 'affliction in his treasure-house' that he commissions as a messenger; and as he said of old, "Sword, go through the land," so he says– "Affliction, go to that house! Illness, seize that man! Family trial, fall upon that woman! They are forgetting me. Their hearts are in the world. Their business and their families are engrossing all their thoughts. Go into that house. Arouse and awake those sleepy ones out of their slumber!"
At his command the commissioned messenger comes; the rod descends upon the back; the stripes fall hard and fast, and the trials and sorrows, like Job's messengers, rush in, each worse than the previous. Now the man begins to awake. "What," he says, "have I been doing and where have I been all this time? My shop, my farm, my business, my family, my occupation have been engrossing all my thoughts. I have not been living to the Lord. He has had little or no place in my affections– Lord, forgive me this wrong. Lord, heal these base backslidings, and deliver my soul from the darkness and bondage which they have brought upon me."
He prays and begs of the Lord to forgive him for having been so earthly and sensual, so carnally minded, for neglecting his best, his only Friend; and to make him spiritually-minded, for he feels that this alone is "life and peace." If the Lord hears his prayer, this is the fruit– he begins to look away from the things which are seen, which are temporal, and to look at those things which are not seen, which are eternal; and as sanctified affliction purifies his eyes, and makes the scales drop from them, eternal things come with solemn weight and power into his conscience, and present themselves to his view as such vast realities that everything else falls into the shade before them.
If blessed with faith and hope, he looks up and what does he see? Jesus at the right hand of the Father; the glorified spirits in heaven; the exceeding and eternal weight of glory. And he sees that compared with these eternal realities, the things of time are not worth a serious thought; at any rate, that they are not worth a consuming affection. As, then, sanctified affliction is made in the hands of the Spirit a means of opening his eyes to see the power and blessedness of eternal things, the affections of his heart flow heavenward; Jesus makes himself precious; the "weight of glory" is seen in the dim distance; and under affliction's sharp discipline, he begins to press forward towards heaven and glory! Thus he looks away from "the things which are seen," which are merely temporal, all passing away, and he looks at "the things which are not seen," which are eternal. These will never come to a close, but stretch into ages of ever revolving ages, until, lost in the thought, he says– " May the Lord forgive me that ever my mind should have been drawn away from heaven to earth! May the Lord pardon my sin that I ever should have been so drowned in these poor, perishing things of sense and time, and have forgotten those blessed realities that once were the whole joy of my soul!"
Now he begins to see the effect of affliction– the sanctifying effect it produces; and he blesses God that ever he was kind enough to lay his rod upon him, subscribing with heart and soul to the testimony of David– "Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now I have kept your word."
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