The Purifying Influence of Hope

by ALEXANDER MACLAREN (1826-1910) If you hope to be like Christ there, you will be trying your best to be like Him here.

“And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” —I John 3:3

That is a very remarkable "and" with which this verse begins. The Apostle has just been touching the very heights of devout contemplation, soaring away up into high regions where it is very hard to follow, "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." And now, without a pause, and linking his thoughts together by a simple "and" he passes from the unimaginable splendours of the heavenly vision to the plainest practical talk. Here is the most heavenly-minded teacher of the New Testament insisting on plain morality as vehemently as his friend James could have done.

The combination is very remarkable. Like the eagle he rises, and like the eagle, with the impetus gained from his height, he drops right down on the earth beneath. And that is a characteristic of of all the New Testament morality — its highest revelations are intensely practical. Its light is at once set to work, like the sunshine that comes ninety million miles in order to make the little daisies open their crimson-tipped petals; so the profoundest things that the Bible has to say are said to you and me, not that we may know only, but that knowing we may do.

The thought is a very simple one, though sometimes it is somewhat mistakenly apprehended. Put into its general form it is just this: — If you expect, and hope to be like Jesus Christ there, you will be trying your best to be like Him here. It is not the mere purifying influence of hope that is talked about, but it is the specific influence of this one hope, the hope of ultimate assimilation to Christ leading to strenuous efforts, each a partial resemblance of Him, here and now. And that is the subject I want to say a word or two about this morning.

I. — First, then, notice the main principle that is here, which is—If we are to be pure, we must purify ourselves.

There are two ways of getting like Christ, spoken about in the context. One is the blessed way, that is more appropriate for the higher Heaven, the way of assimilation and transformation by beholding —"If we see Him" we shall be "like Him." That is the blessed method of the Heavens. But even here on earth it may to some extent be realised. Love always breeds likeness. And there is such a thing, here on earth and now, as gazing upon Christ with an intensity of affection, and simplicity of trust, and rapture of aspiration, and ardour of desire which shall transform us in some measure into His own likeness. Where did John get his style from? He got it by much meditating upon Christ's words. And so he himself stands before us as an instance of the possibility, even on earth, of this most blessed and holiest method of getting like the Master, by simple gazing, which is the gaze of love and longing.

But, dear brethren, the law of our lives forbids that that should be the only way in which we grow like Christ. The very word "purify" speaks to us of another condition; it implies impurity, it implies a process which is more than contemplation, it implies the reversal of existing conditions, and not merely the growth upwards to unattained conditions. And so growth is not all that Christian men need; they need excision, they need casting out of what is in them; they need change as well as growth. They need "purifying" because they are impure, and growth is only half the secret of Christian progress.

Then there is the other consideration—if there is to be this purifying it must be done by myself. Ah! "you say, "done by yourself? That is not Evangelical teaching." Well, let us see. Take two or three verses out of this Epistle which at first sight seem to be contradictory of this. Take the very first that bears on the subject: — "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin " (1. 7). "If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (4: 9). "He that abideth in Him sinneth not " (3:6). “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith" (5:4).

Now, if you put all these passages together, and think about the general effect of them, it comes to this: that our best way of cleansing ourselves is by keeping firm hold of Jesus Christ and of the cleansing powers that lie in Him. To take a very homely illustration — soap and water wash your hands clean, and what you have to do is simply to rub the soap and water on to the hand, and bring them into contact with the foulness. You cleanse yourselves. Yes! because without the friction there would not be the cleansing. But is it you, or is it the soap, that does the work? Is it you or the water that makes your hands clean? And so when God comes and says, "Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings, your hands are full of blood," He says in effect, "Take the cleansing that I give you and rub it in, and apply it: and your flesh will become as the flesh of a little child, and you shall be clean."

That is to say, the very deepest word about Christian effort of self -purifying is this —keep close to Jesus Christ. You cannot sin as long as you hold His hand. Christ's fellowship is our cleansing, and the first and main thing that we have to do in order to make ourselves pure is to keep ourselves in union with Him, in whom abides all the energies that cleanse men's souls. There have to be distinct and specific efforts, constantly repeated, to subdue and suppress individual acts of transgression. We have to fight against evil, sin by sin. We have not the thing to do all at once; we have to do it in detail. It is a war of outposts, like the agonies of war…Holiness is not feeling; it is character. You do not get rid of your sins by the act of Divine amnesty only. You are not perfect because you say you are, and feel as if you were, and think you are. God does not make any man pure in his sleep. Then, dear brethren, lay to heart this, as the upshot of the whole matter. First of all, let us turn to Him from whom all the cleansing comes ; and then, moment by moment, remember that it is our work to purify ourselves by the strength and the power that is given to us by the Master.

II. — The second thought here is this: This purifying of ourselves is the link or bridge between the present and the future.

"Now are we the sons of God," says John, in the context. That is the pier upon the one side of the gulf. "it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him.” That is the pier on the other. How are the two to be connected ? There is only one way by which the present sonship will blossom and fruit into the future perfect likeness, and that is; if we cross the gulf, with God's help day by day our effort acts as a bridge to reach our future perfection.

So the one link between sonship here and likeness to Christ hereafter is this link of present, strenuous effort to become like Him day by day in personal purity. For unless there be this daily effort on our part to become like Jesus Christ by personal purity, we shall not be able to "see Him as He is." Death will take a great many veils off men's hearts. It will reveal to them a great deal that they do not know, but it will not give the faculty of beholding the glorified Christ in such fashion as that the beholding will mean transformation.

III. — Now, I must briefly add finally: that this self-cleansing of which I have been speaking is the offspring and outcome of that "hope" in my text.

Purification is the child of hope. And not a worldy hope. It is a certain kind of hope — the hope of being like Jesus Christ when "we see Him as He is.” This kind of hope will strengthen us in our weakness. In this daily battle for purity we can become disillusioned and despondent because of a lack of progress. We are like a snail creeping up a wall, advancing an inch or two, and then suddenly sliding downward in defeat. These constant and bitter experiences make it seem the work of purification is of no use at all.

To such moods then there comes, like an angel from Heaven, that holy, blessed message, "Cheer up, man!” “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” Every inch that you make now will tell then, and it is not all of no use. Set your heart to the work, it is a work that will be blessed and will prosper.

A great deal of the religious contemplation of a future state is pure sentimentality. But here are two things are brought into clear juxtaposition, the bright hope of Heaven and the hard work done here below. Now is that what the gleam and expectation of a future life does for you?

This is the only time in John's Epistle that he speaks about hope. The good man, living so near Christ, finds that the present, with its "abiding in Him," is enough for his heart. And though he was the Seer of the Apocalypse, he has scarcely a word to say about the future in this letter and when he does it is for a simple and intensely practical purpose, in order that he may enforce on us the teaching of labouring earnestly in purifying ourselves.

All is gathered up into the one lesson. First, let us go to that dear Lord whose blood cleanseth from all sin, and let us say to Him, "Purge me, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." And then, receiving into our hearts the powers that purify, in His love and His sacrifice and His life, "having these promises" and these possessions, "Dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord."

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