Development by Crises
J. Clifford, D. D. Jeremiah 31:10-11 Hear the word of the LORD, O you nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him… This is an entirely reassuring message for a nation passing through an ecclesiastical crisis. It tells us that vast upheavals of thought and life have their place in the plan of God, advance under His sovereign leadership, and are compelled to contribute to the carrying-out of His purpose to redeem, remake, and reunite with Himself, the whole race of man. It is a rigid truth, "God scatters Israel"; the Israel He Himself called and created; and his an infinite solace to know that the "scattering" is His and not another's. It is an equally indisputable fact that the God who scatters Israel gathers him again and keeps him as a shepherd his flock. He gathered before He scattered, and He will gather again after He has scattered. Israel will not perish. Never! The social and ecclesiastical moulds in which her life is cast may be broken again and again; but the life endures. God is the God of salvation. He is always mindful of His own. Hope in Him, and hope for evermore! That swift upleap of faith and hope to the summits of clearest vision is vindicated by the whole story of the Exile. The joy that was set before the strong soul of the seer in these days of crushing disaster was realised in the experiences of the succeeding centuries. The prophecy was fulfilled. The crisis was educational, purifying, expanding, uplifting, and unifying; divisive for the day and the hour, but uniting on purer principles and for broader and higher ideals for evermore. As men are educated by their mistakes, and even their sins become as staves in a ladder by which they climb to God, so the Israelites "rose on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things." The sevenfold blessing of the Exile stands written in the unimpeachable Chronicles of Israel, and the world. But, a greater than Jeremiah, describing the facts of His own day and ministry, says, "The wolf scattereth the sheep." For again, nearly six hundred years after the time of the prophet, mere was another "crisis in the Church" of Israel, and another exile was at the doors. Once more the holy city was to be trodden under foot of men, and the holy people were already seized by the "wolf," and about to be "scattered" to the ends of the earth! The significance of the first exile was forgotten. The lessons of experience were unheeded by the leaders of the Jewish people. Priest, and scribe, and Pharisee had corrupted religion again; taught that the outward rites of worship were of more importance than keeping the commandments of God; substituted ceremonialism for obedience, and the use of the sacraments for loving service of man. And so the sheep were scattered. But this is exactly the same spirit which broke the heart of the prophet Jeremiah until he saw it overtaken by the Divine punishment; and then, passing by the iniquity of the leaders of the people, and looking at the penalty which, because it was inflicted by God, had in it an element of recuperation and of hope, he said, God scatters; but "He that scattered Israel will gather him." These are, then, two ways of regarding two similar crises, and both are necessary to a just and full interpretation of their meaning. Jesus, speaking to the authoritative religious leaders of Israel, who have, sincerely enough, it may be, but mistakenly, made themselves the foes of God and men, seeks to lay bare their guilt, and therefore fixes upon and exposes the wolf-like ravages wrought on the religious life of the people by their absolute want of the veriest shreds of real religion. His aim is to convict these leaders of the wrong they are doing to their God and to their country. Not so Jeremiah: he is anticipating the great word, "Comfort ye My people; speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; that she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins." But the richest draught of consolation in Jeremiah's Gospel is in the assertion of the principle on which these national and institutional changes proceed. God's goal, he says, is always constructive, not destructive; the gathering together in one the children of God that are scattered abroad, and not the driving them away from home and fatherland. He shatters the social form of Israel's life for the sake of the more perfect and adequate rebuilding of the nobler Israel on the basis of His original redemptive idea. This law is older than all Churches, more fundamental than all States, and as wide and deep as our human life. It is the vital condition of progress. God is at war with the obsolete. He is the living God, and seeks life, and promotes life. The Churches are secondary to the kingdom. They exist for religion, and not religion for them. As words are to ideas, tools to service, so are Churches to the kingdom of God and the service of man, and therefore "the crisis in the Church" is not likely to be inimical to religion in the end. It will promote real religion, expand it, clear it of the accretions of the past, set it free of the false alliances into which it has entered, convert it from its paganisms, and restore it to its original purity and vigour. And now, what is to be our attitude to these crises in the religious life of our country? Surely, not merely one of silent acquiescence in and gratitude for the work of God, but rather of intelligent, prayerful, large-hearted, and wise co-operation. We are called to be co-workers with Him, to fall in with His laws, to take part in the furtherance of His beneficent work of scattering and gathering His Israel. Our first business is to get on the side of His laws, of His justice and righteousness, at all costs; not to seek the pleasant paths of neutrality and indifference, but to accept boldly the responsibilities placed upon us by our subjection to Christ, and by the exposition and application of His Gospel to the manifold needs of our time. We must begin with ourselves. He who would free others must himself be free. (J. Clifford, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Hear the word of the LORD, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock. WEB: Hear the word of Yahweh, you nations, and declare it in the islands afar off; and say, He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as shepherd does his flock.