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2 Corinthians 13:11:
11Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.
When Asaph wrote: "But it is good for me to be near unto God," and thus expressed in words a deep avowal of his soul, which age after age has found an echo in thousands of hearts, he who sought God had more help from life than we do now.
Even now it is still the custom in the East where Asaph lived, to relate everything that happens to God; in everything to remember God, and to pronounce the name of God. There is so much that draws us away from Him, and therefore religious usage demanded that the child from earliest infancy should be trained to the habit of purposely bringing to mind God's Name with every occurrence of life. Under the Islam this is still so. It is even so much overdone that it must give rise to abuse.
But in the matter itself there is something that attracts. The call to prayer from the pinnacle of the minarets has the same tendency. Where so unspeakably much draws us away from God, a counterpoise was sought in life by which to bind the soul to God.
The Christian Church did the same in the Middle Ages. The ringing of bells, the Stations of the Cross, the crucifixes, and so on, all tended to quicken the thought of Christ. And in the age of the Reformation our fathers sought to obtain the same effect by giving prayer a place in everything, by multiplying church services, and by sanctifying in God every event of life. Not only last wills and testaments but even contracts of rent were begun in God's Name. On coins the words appeared: "God with us," and wherever it was possible God's holy Name was brought to mind.
Thus an atmosphere prevailed which was impregnated with something from the higher spheres of holiness, sometimes even too much so. To this was added that in Asaph's time and in the days of our fathers, the religious undulation was far stronger, and religion took a far broader place in life.
But we have everything against us. In the broad circle of society and community life God's Name is scarcely ever mentioned. Bells are scarcely ever rung. An altogether different world of thought fills minds and hearts. One is called old-fashioned, if not scorned, when he attempts to hold fast to holy usages. A life divested of God and His Name is deemed most desirable. And as regards the religious backward and forward movement, it still prevails in small circles, but the tidal-wave of life goes purely materially for money and sensual pleasure.
In such times as these, to be near unto God demands double exertion. Nothing can be neglected that here may have effect, neither positively nor negatively. Positively every means must persistently be applied to cause our soul to exercise itself every day longer and more intimately with God; and negatively everything must be opposed and resisted that militates against our fellowship with Him.
Does the Church of Christ understand, is it felt in the Church of Christ what high issue is here at stake? Can it be said that there is an endeavor in evidence, at least within the church's domain, to realize this high ideal?
The Apostle points out to us, as one of the means to be near unto God, that we should live in peace. "Be of one mind," says he, "live in peace, and the God of love and of peace shall be with you" (2 Corinthians 13:11).
And yet there is a continual disturbance of this peace.
Understand it well. It is not said that no serious differences can arise, neither that with every difference salvation can be sought in indifference. Even Paul did not do this.
No, it here hinges on the spirit in which differences are faced and settled.
A twofold impulse can here arise. On one side the holy impulse, when there is a point of difference at stake, to be doubly on our guard that love suffer no loss and that no unholy word shall proceed from our lips or from our pen. And on the other side the unholy impulse, in so much as there is now dissension anyway to allow one's bitter mind free play, to give free rein to one's passion for annoying and inflicting whatever pain one can.
With the first, one places himself in an atmosphere of love and peace. With the second, one breathes in an atmosphere of bitterness and anger.
It is in the Church as it is in the family.
Between husband and wife, between parents and children, and among the children themselves, dissensions constantly arise. This can not be helped. Interests, insights, efforts diverge.
But see what difference there is between one family and the other.
In a family of high moral standing, each strives to limit these dissensions, and a tone predominates which of itself opens a way of escape. And where love thus dwells, the Lord commands this blessing, namely, that the hearts remain one.
Alongside of this, alas, how many other families we find, in which no pains are spared to aggravate each dissension as much as possible, to put the sharpest, if not a poisonous, arrow to one's bow, and where husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters again and again, face one another like furies.
This is always the same contrast as that to which we have pointed. A world, a family, a Church, without dissensions, this sinful world does not bring us. But it all depends on this: whether the point of dispute in the family or in the congregation finds an atmosphere of love and peace, or one of bitterness and anger.
And now the Apostle points out to us that the cherishing of such an atmosphere of love and peace is not alone by itself a Christian duty which makes life sunny and comfortable, but that it is likewise a necessary requisite in order to advance the life near unto God.
Of course a child of God can, yea, he must, even when he finds everywhere around him a spirit of unrest and unpeace, be near to his God and live in close nearness to Him. And he who perseveres obtains this blessed end. But it is made unspeakably more difficult thereby.
Where the atmosphere that surrounds us is charged with evil electricity, and the tongue is not held in leash, and estrangement loosens the tie of love, and the passion of strife blazes forth, everything draws your heart away from communion with God. There "the peace of God that passeth all understanding" cannot fill your soul. There you miss the calm and inward rest that comes from lifting yourself out from this earthly sphere into the world above and blessedly enjoying the nearness of God.
And then in a twofold respect harm is done. First it robs you of one of the most precious means of being near unto God; and secondly you become subject to the dominion of an element that with separating effect throws itself in between you and your God.
A gently tempered mind can with respect to this be a blessing to a whole family, to a whole community; and, likewise one mind that is poisoned as with the bitterness of gall, can entirely corrupt the tone and spirit of it, and cause the godliness in that family and in that community to suffer bitter loss.
For every unbecoming and unholy word, and equally for every bitter, irritable frame of mind, we must one day give account unto God.
For do not forget, nothing influences tone and spirit so strongly as the custom and the habit that form and dominate the condition and the temper of our mind and heart.
If you have once become accustomed to hold back and control yourself, and when Satan plays the poison into your hands, at once to reach out after the alabaster box of softening balsam, then gradually the fight becomes lighter, the effort to create stillness more lovely, and the joy of having nursed peace and love increasingly rich.
But if once you give way to your sharpness, to your passionate temper, to your bitterness of mind, then you lose ever more and more control over yourself and occasion for yourself and for your environment, indescribably much harm.
With insipidity, with not daring to speak one's mind, with letting everything pass—the "peace" which the Apostle here speaks of has nothing to do.
Indifference is no sacred art, but cowardice.
But this is sacred art, in everything to stand strong and courageous, and yet so to take hold of everything, so to treat, and so to bring to an end, that in your own mind no unholy spark starts fire, and, for no moment you disturb the inward peace in the minds of those who are around you.
He whose godliness is more semblance than reality cares for none of this. But he who strives unto the end in every way to maintain his hidden walk with God, and constantly to be near Him, he cannot resist the stress of the apostolic word.
He realizes to the full that the atmosphere of love and peace makes him dwell near to his God, and therefore avoids, or seeks immediate escape from, a sphere of strife and unrest because it draws him away from Him.
* * * * * * *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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