Press enter after choosing selection

The Gospel Of Love And Pardon

The Gospel Of Love And Pardon image
Parent Issue
Day
1
Month
May
Year
1903
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Rev. Dr. William S. Rainsford, rector of St. George's church in New York. delivered the address before the Hobard Guild In St. Andrew's church Sunday evening. It was a powerful discourse delivered by a powerful man, by a man who does his own thinking and casting aside the dry trappings of theology, preaches the truth as it appears to him.

The church was crowded to its fullest capacity in the morning and Dr. Rainsford preached a feeling sermon on the "Gospel of Love." In the evening his subject was "The Gospel of Pardon" and the church was not large enough in accommodate all those who wished to hear it. His text was First Epistle of St. John, 1:9, "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

This great country needs as never before the gospel of Jesus Christ The gospel is one that every Christian can believe in, be he Roman Catholic, Episcopalian or Methodist. It is a gospel of God's love. This great world is a love work. It is not simply a love work, but a love work in which God has intermingled the mystery of pain. Love wins its way out and what is worth having has an element of the everlasting about it. Take the case of your own affection. As your affections grow you learn to estimate values you never saw before. The person Ioved is the same as before, but you see values you did not see before. Love does not create value: it only discovers value. Jesus Christ did not come down to change things, but only to give us some knowledge of values.

The idea of God as a ruler pronouncing judgment is simply that wretched old Latin concept of 1500 years ago. The ruler was the old Roman concept of one who ruled with a rod of law. It is a terrible and incongruous idea of that Jesus Christ came down to change God's attitude.  He came down to explain his love. In the beginning was that love. Dr. Rainsford instanced a careless nurse letting her charge fall and crippling it. God is not a tripping nurse to let his little world fall. Man's salvation is not based on the attainments of man. It does not rest on anything so ephemeral, so spotted.

When Jesus came into the world he found a very clear and distinct idea of pardon. It was the old Jewish idea. Jesus was brought up in that idea, taught it as a child. By the time Jesus was 30 years old He came out with a totally different doctrine. The Jews regarded disease as a sin. Jesus regarded sin as a disease. He spoke of the superstition of the Jews regarding lepers, and our later superstitions regarding witches. Jesus did not threaten. He warned. Adopting language which those in Jerusalem, where refuse was burned without the walls, could understand, He said if you don't want to be burned like this useless refuse, don't do this, don't do that. We have have got to face the fact that the abnormal in the end must perish, but we must also know that it is not the abnormal that nature creates. To say that Jesus Christ came into the world to pronounce judgment against sin simply reverses his teachings. He did not come to treat sin as the Jews treated it. He came as a physician comes to treat a sick person. Jesus came to teach men that sin was a disease. Jesus never came to demand a sacrifice for sin. God calls us to sacrifice in the fullest sense our lives. Sacrifice was a free will offering to God. Each man brought what he could. There were aeons and aeons of ages of involuntary sacrifice before man was reached. Man's sacrifice is voluntary. The world is not saved by one cross but by thousands. The world is not saved by one life laid down but by millions of lives laid down.

When the blind man came, Jesus didn't say, Do you want to be good? When the impotent man came Jesus didn't say, Do you want to be good? We have draped the Master with the drapery of 2,000 years ago. Jesus does not bargain with the sick man, with the impotent man, with the little child. There is decidedly a danger that we cover up the teachings of Jesus by our traditions. Jesus makes no conditions before he imparts his blessings.

Dr. Rainsford pleaded for our own message for our own times. The result of new height and new truth is that a tremendous light has been cast upon the nature of sin. We are learning more about life and naturally our knowledge will modify our views of life. We are beginning to understand that life is an emergence from the lower order to the higher.

At one point there is no such thing as sin in the world. You do not think of a sinning shark or a sinning tiger.  What you mean by man is a being who can choose - at first much more monkey than man, and then more man than monkey.

Sin is a vestigia. The speaker instanced things that remained with man although their use had long since passed, which he called vestigia, as marks of gills In some children, the vermiform appendix, etc. Sin is a vestigia. Sin is a monkey trying to keep on as a man. Sin is a peacock trying to keep on as a man. It is not wrong for the ape to try to grab the biggest bunch of cocoanuts. It is wrong for a man. It is not wrong for a bird to spread its plumage in the sun. It is wrong for a man to follow only his pleasure or beauty merely for beauty's sake. 

God made the world. We are coming to think of the all-responsible God. lf we confess our sins, God is faithful,  God is just. The prodigal son came back to his father, not because when he carne back he was a son, but because he was a son before he went away.

Dr. Rainsford concluded his address with an appeal for young men to enter the ministry. The land needs ministers today. It is a grand chance to keep hearts high and lives pure. The best men are wanted In the ministry. We want men of brains. Fortunately we are getting men of that stamp now, but we want more of them.