Verse 24
The Great Contrast.
Like the sway and swell of Christmas bells across the snow, like mournful music heard across the hurrying waves, like the haunting refrain of an enchanting song which refuses to be forgotten, come the words of this Apostle of human feeling chastened by penitence and sorrow, "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withereth; the flower thereof faileth."
I. St. Peter is writing to the scattered congregations of the Lesser Asia. He is writing to comfort, to stimulate, to encourage. These poor struggling bands of Christians, surrounded by vast and unsympathetic heathen populations, needed all the assistance which could be given them by apostolic strength, and insight, and enthusiasm. St. Peter has his feet on the track of the greatest of the prophets; and just as the children of captive Israel must have found it hard to think of the vast Babylonian power which held them as anything but invincible, just as the spectacle of the immense material splendours of that ancient empire of palaces and temples must have overwhelmed their imagination, and therefore it was necessary for the prophet, gazing forward through these years of trial and sorrow, to leave them a certain assurance that all this earthly splendour was as passing as the withering grass or the fading flower, so it was now.
II. "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass." Here, then, under the pathetic image of the withering grass and the fading flower, the Apostle illustrates the passing character of that group of phenomena which he characterises as man and his glory. The glory of man! Yes, man, in many departments of his wide-reaching activity, has the glory which thrills and excites him in this mortal life. (1) There is, for instance, his glory in relation to nature. How marvellous have been at once the discoveries and the consequent achievements in the fields of science. (2) Think, again, of the development of those arts and inventions, side by side with a more enlightened social sentiment, which have made this scene of sense and time more suitable, less painful, to man as a passing home! We are not foolish if these are viewed as among God's gifts. (3) Or think of the beauties of art, the sweet songs of sweet singers, the entrancing tones of music, the triumphs of architecture, or the development of principles of loyalty to love and duty which have created or guided the immeasurable blessings of a civilised society and a Christian home. The mind has only to rest for a moment on any of these very real blessings to feel how real, how attractive, is "the glory of man"! But we cannot close our eyes to the fact that, with all our many blessings, with all our intoxicating discoveries, the main conditions of the journey of life have not changed. There is still the mystery of bodily pain; there is still the darker mystery of moral evil; there are still disappointed hopes and broken hearts; and, still before us all
"Black-stoled, black-hooded like a dream,"
there is the inexorable form of death. If we are to make anything our own in so real a sense that it may be ours for ever, it must be something more than that which death can touch; it must be something more than the "glory of man."
III. The "glory of man" is "as the flower of the grass." Yes, but "the word of the Lord abideth for ever." The word of the Lord! What do we mean by the word of the Lord? When we speak of the word of a man, we mean his very thought, clothed in appropriate garb and equipped with suitable equipments to enable it to pass from mind to mind. When we speak of the word of the Lord, we mean the very thought of the living God, sent forth to reach the mind, and to dwell in the heart, and to become part of the life of His creature; and as it comes from the Infinite, the Eternal, it partakes of His truth, His eternity, His infinity. By it man knows God, and "this is life eternal," this is a permanent possession, this is a lasting heritage: "to know Thee, the true God." (1) The moral law abideth for ever. Right is right, and wrong is wrong, by an absolute decree. Though all appearances are against it, "though hand join in hand" appearances are one thing, and reality quite another right in the long run must prevail, and "wickedness shall not go unpunished." (2) The catholic faith abideth for ever. Call it the Divine revelation, call it the Gospel of Christ, call it the catholic faith, call it what you will; do not quarrel about names, but remember that that body of unchanging truth with regard to God's nature, and man's dealing, and man's relation to God does not change. Of all duties there is none more paramount than in heart and life to "hold the faith." (3) The Bible in its sacred and unapproached pre-eminence abideth for ever. It lives on because it has in it the life and thought of the unchanging God, felt in serious moments to be of the last importance for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for consolation to the soul in the journey of life.
W. J. Knox-Little, The Journey of Life, p. 125.
The Perpetuity of the Gospel as compared with other Religions and Philosophies.
I. Christianity must satisfy the intellectual requirements of every age. It must (1) be in accord with the demonstrations of science, (2) offer new problems of its own, (3) stimulate the understanding to greater activity.
II. It must meet the moral requirements of every age. (1) This implies that it must accord with the distinct dictates of our moral nature. (2) It must be in advance of the moral performances of every age. (3) It must enter into the world as a refining element.
III. If the Gospel is to continue to the end of time, it must continue to meet the spiritual wants of man. If it does not do this, it is inevitably doomed to extinction.
J. C. Jones, Studies in First Peter, p. 185.
Human Changes and the Divine Unchangeableness.
I. The first consolation our text has for depression is that it contrasts with our frailty the word of the Eternal God. It matters little that the worker passes if his work endures. The truth we speak lives after us. God has His purpose, and He reveals it. He uses us as we wish to use ourselves: to do a thing which shall survive us. He calls us to take up our calling in a labour that others were at before us, and that shall be consummated when we are gone. We plant for our heirs; we build for the future: we heap up riches, and know not who shall gather them. If we had but as firm a faith in "the word of God" as we have in the results of human investigation, if we were as earnest in the Divine work as in our own, despondency would be at an end.
II. The next thought suggested by our text is that man's changefulness illustrates the eternal purpose of God. The Divine intention is brought out in His dealing with the fleeting generations of men; it becomes venerable in retrospect, while it is ever revealing itself in the freshness of a progressive history. A succession of changes implies the unchangeable; there would be no movement if there were not that which endures. An unvarying history would be a history of death; we gain a vaster idea of permanence by advance than we could ever gain by the continuance of unchanging forms. "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth for ever," depository of God's creative energy. We want a varying, enlarging human history to gain a complete and worthy view of the faithfulness of God.
III. The perpetuity of the Gospel is the third subject of our thoughts. We need a revelation; an unrevealed were an unknown God. And yet how can we dream of abiding truth in a changing humanity? As mankind advances, will not men's thoughts vary concerning even such fundamental things as moral obligation, the character of virtue, the objects of our devotion, the very being of God? The answer is, all the progress of human thought and feeling, all developments of the religious consciousness which are to be enduring, will take place along the line of the Gospel revelation. There will be development in the Christian faith: a fuller apprehension of its truths; a deeper sympathy with its spirit; a larger experience of its power; a broader application of it to the varying wants of men.
IV. The enduring word of God is the pledge of our endurance. "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." "Because I live, ye shall live also."
A. Mackennal, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 51.
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