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John 6:40:
40And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Of all things among men the chief thing is to believe on Christ.
In every note of the musical scale it is proclaimed to us in Scripture that God hath given "his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life." And there is added to this with equal emphasis that, "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:16, 36).
When asked what the great work is which in obedience to God we have to do, Jesus answered: "The work of God which ye have to do is, that ye believe on me." (John 6:29).
It is faith in Christ that shall one day bring about the division of mankind in eternity, and it is this same faith that already here on earth leads to this result.
Not a general religiousness, not personal pious inclination, and not, again, a general faith in God, but, solely and very positively, the faith in Jesus—according to its presence or its absence—denotes eternal destiny, and answers the question whether one already here belongs to the flock of the Good Shepherd or whether he stands outside of it.
Upon this faith is based the entire Gospel.
It is this faith in Christ towards which the whole Revelation of God—read it in the epistle to the Hebrews (11)—was directed.
The sola fide, by faith alone, is still in another sense than that in which Luther proclaimed it, the ground thesis for all higher human life.
There are among men at large all sorts of other marks and badges and rules and relationships which indicate other movements in our life, or which impart other tendencies to it. And all these can be worthy causes, and have significance of their own.
Only, all these other movements in life can interest but limited circles, for a limited period of time, in limited measures. Sympathy, inclination, predilection, affection—all blossoms with a silvery blossom, but all together never dominate the whole human existence, do riot transpose the ground of existence, have no results that make final decisions and eternally abide.
And, for this reason, faith on the Son of God stands so highly exalted above all else that flourishes among men and unites and inspires.
All these other interests are only in part, they all lack the deep fullness of life, they are all as grass that flourishes in order, presently, when the wind passes over it, to wither.
What alone remains as foundation of the inner life, and decides as to what the tone of life must be, and guarantees this life in endless unfolding, is the faith in the only-begotten Son of the Father, or as was said in the prison at Philippi: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."
Saved; this is in itself the all-embracing, the all-permeating, the complete and perfect happiness; the happiness that endures until and throughout the eternal morning.
What this faith is, how it operates, wherein it consists, needs no consideration here. It is a mystery which the Church of Christ has repeatedly endeavored to express in terms of speech, but she has never been able to express the fullness thereof in words, and to exclude all misunderstanding.
When the Church defined the faith too zealously it led to cold and barren intellectualism without spiritual glow. When she entered more deeply into the mystery of the hidden life of the heart, she crowned too frequently a feverish mysticism which presently evaporated in excitement.
Only this is, and always was, the heart of the matter, that a lost world, a human heart in its self-inflicted insolvency cried out for deliverance; and that age upon age, all human genius, all human heroism, all human compassion had ineffectually endeavored to bring this deliverance about, until at length God wrought it for us.
He imparted it to us not in the form of a gift but in a most holy Person. And this person was not one taken from among us, but One Who came down to us from heaven. He came down not as an angel who as God's servant and our helper stands outside of both the Divine and human natures, but as One Who was sent down from heaven and Who came to us as the only begotten Son of the Father, Who having entered into our nature brought God Himself to our view. "Philip, he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, show us the Father?" (John 14:9).
And therefore the faith in Christ cannot be otherwise than the highest, the one and the only thing that counts.
Where God in Christ gives Himself to the world and enters so deeply into our human life, that this Son assumes our nature, that the Word becomes Flesh, on the ground of which angels proclaim the Immanuel, God with us—there the absolute, the infallible, the in itself perfect revelation of Divine compassion has come to us.
There it cannot go higher, it cannot go farther. There the boundary has been reached of what is eternally complete in itself.
And, therefore, nothing transcends the faith in Christ. There is nothing that can be placed by the side of it. There is nothing that you can compare with it. It far excels all human invention. Nothing can be substituted for it, it can be surpassed by nothing.
The faith in the Son of God brings deliverance, or there is no deliverance.
No deliverance for the lost world, and no deliverance for your self-lost heart.
For the rise of this star of faith in the life of your soul, Jesus Himself demands an activity on the part of your soul.
Not, as is self-evident, that any activity whatever on the part of your soul would be able to create the faith in Christ, produce it, imprint and implant it. The seed of faith is a Divine kind of seed. The faith in Jesus itself is a gift, even as the Christ Himself is a gift. Faith is a product of Divine compassion wrought by the Holy Ghost.
But all faith in Christ is peculiar and necessary in this particular, that it must be taken up into our consciousness, and that to this end it enters into our consciousness with irresistible power. It makes entrance for itself as a sensation, as a driving power, as an inspiring principle, as a power that rules and transfigures our whole life.
And, therefore, this faith must obtain for our consciousness a content, a form, a figure. Truly it brings emotions with it, unspeakable emotions of extraordinary power. But, above and beyond all this, it has an intellectual content, which wills that it be understood, a content which fills itself with what we know from the Sacred Revelation of the Person of the Son of God, of His life on earth, of His works, of His words, of His sitting at the right hand of God, and of His continued activity from heaven, after His Ascension.
And herein consists what is learned by rote. There is memory-work in it, memory of names, facts, conversations; memory of words and deeds, mortal sufferings and glorious Resurrection.
But the memory does not nurse the faith. Conceptions are not one in essence with your faith. In your faith, learning does not ignite the glow.
And, therefore, says Jesus, that your faith, in order to become ever clearer, stronger and more inspiring, needs this one thing, viz., that you see the Son of God.
"Every one which seeth the Son and believeth on Him, he hath everlasting life" (John 6:40).
This seeing of the Son of God, this alone supplies such enchantment to the soul as keeps the glow of faith alive and causes it to burn brightly.
All the content of your memory, therefore, must be reduced to the unity of the Image of the Son of God. It must all be united and epitomized in order to bring this Im age in its sacred purity before the eye of your soul. And when this Image perfects itself in you, every inner impulse and sensation, every holy emotion in you must merge in this Image, in order that you too may enjoy it. And this living Image of the Son of God must impress you, must interest you, must not loosen its hold on you, must keep you engaged, must transport you in holy ecstacy.
Not as a knowing after the flesh. No, it must be a spiritual vision, but always in such a way that the name of Jesus passes over into the Person of Christ, and that from this Person of the Christ the inner Divine Being takes hold of you and draws you with magnetic power.
No Jesus-glorification which fathers the vain wish that He were still on earth, so we could hasten to Him. That would be to descend from the high to the low. The spiritual vision, the seeing of the Son of God with the eye of the soul, stands incomparably higher than the experience vouchsafed to the disciples, who saw and handled the Person of Jesus on earth.
The Apostle knows the Savior in a far richer way than the disciple has ever known Him. The Ascension has not impoverished but enriched us. And the seeing of the only-begotten Son of the Father, which cultivates the faith, feeds it, and continually refreshes it, is such a conscious fellowship of the soul with the Lord of glory, that, in and through Him, you make approach to the Eternal Being Himself, and seeing the Son spiritually with the soul, you as child of God, know and feel yourself one with the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Listen to the petition in the high priestly prayer: Holy Father, I pray thee, 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 (John 17:21).
* * * * * * *This devotional classic offers 110 meditations on a single thought from Psalm 73: "As for me, it is good to be near to God." The author states, "The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality ... it must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence."
The meditations reflect the blending of spiritual vigor with doctrinal loyalty so consistently expressed in the life of Abraham Kuyper. These are devotions with true substance, avoiding the extremes about which Kuyper adds a word of caution: "Stress in creedal confession, without drinking from the Living Fountain, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the bog of sickly mysticism."
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch political leader and Calvinist theologian. Elected to parliament in 1874, he became Prime Minister in 1901 and served in that capacity until 1905. As a theologian, he revived a systematic, orthodox Calvinism. He founded the Free Reformed Church and the Free University of Amsterdam. His other works include Principles of Sacred Theology, Lectures on Calvinism, and The Work of the Holy Spirit
Further information about Abraham Kuyper's life can be seen in the translator's "Biographical Note"; further information about To Be Near Unto God can be Abraham Kuyper's "Preface" to that book.
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