Christ's Warning Against Formalism
J. B. Clark. Luke 13:24 Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say to you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. This has been called "a serious answer to an idle question." The answer is not only serious, but rendered with striking skill and power. The questioner was a single Pharisee. The answer is directed to the whole sect. The question related to the "few" that might be saved. The answer emphasizes the "many" who are in danger of being lost. The question was idle and speculative. The answer is an appeal to immediate action and earnest endeavour. I. THE MATERIAL TASTES OF MEN. It is undeniable that men love forms for their own sake. It is self-evident also that some degree of form is indispensable to spiritual religion. "I am from above, ye are from beneath." Here is the gulf opening at every point between God and men. Hence to bridge this gulf some visible forms become necessary. These forms are harmless as long as they fulfil their end. But the moment when, for any reason, the form becomes more attractive than the spiritual fact for which it stands, when the bridge detains rather than forwards the seeking faith of the soul, when for any reason a man begins to love the road more than the communion to which it leads, the altar more than the name that sanctifies it, the cross more than the Crucified, then he begins to pervert needed means of worship into unlawful ends. He is ministering to worldly tastes, and though he still call it religion, he is in fact a formalist, a promising Pharisee. II. THE SPECULATIVE TENDENCY OF THE MIND IS ANOTHER BROAD ROAD TO FORMALISM. The philosophic formalist is like a man standing on the bank of a stream, whose passage is his only salvation; but he has no thought of crossing. He is engaged in calmly trying the depth of the channel at different points. He surveys the scenery of the opposite shore with a critical eye. He measures the swiftness of the current, and .carefully estimates its force per cubic foot. He notes the colour and density of the water, and asks with considerable interest about how many make the crossing safely. All this information he shuts away in his note-book, and seems rather well content with the result. It would seem farcical if it were not sadly true that multitudes of men and women, in our own day, imagine this to be religion; or more exactly, they live and die in the hope that through these processes of inquiry they are drawing nearer to a rational faith. The progress of the intellectual formalist is a sheer delusion, tie only circles round and round the holy mystery. He is ever learning, but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. III. THE SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE NATURAL HEART IS ANOTHER FERTILE SOURCE OF FORMALISM IN RELIGION. It was on this road that the questioner in the text had gone astray. Now, our Lord's treatment of this many-headed evil was sharp and brief. "Strive to enter in at the strait gate." Here is, at once, the knell of all false hopes and the cure of all wrong methods in religion. See how much these words contain. 1. The genuine spiritual life has a single gate of entrance. It is the gate. Many shall seek to enter in by other gates — gates imagined or invented — but they shall not be able. There is but one gate. 2. This one gate is a "strait gate" also. It was too narrow for the swelling robes and expanding phylacteries of the Pharisee. It is too narrow still for the routine of the formalist or the philosophy of the intellectualist. It is too strait for inflated self-righteousness. If these shall enter, it must be by some other gate; yet there is but one, and this is strait. But this strait gate is wide enough for repentance and faith. It is high enough for humble sinners who will stoop to enter. 3. The gate is not only one gate, and narrow, but a deadly effort is required to pass it. Strive to enter in. A better word would be "agonize." Agonize to enter in at the strait gate. (J. B. Clark.) Parallel Verses KJV: Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. WEB: "Strive to enter in by the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will seek to enter in, and will not be able.