Jude 1:4

SOUND DOCTRINE AND HOLY LIVING

‘Ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness.’

Jude 1:4

Sound doctrine leads to holy living. Perverted doctrine goes with unholy living. Let us look into this.

It is not a popular doctrine. People are always ready to say that if a man’s life be good—what matters it what he believes? But the point which people commonly lose sight of is that, as a matter of fact, all true teaching has holiness for its object, and that wherever you find unholy-living men you will also find neglect of sound doctrine. Errors as to Christian doctrine do lead directly to errors in life, and there is no single point in the true doctrine of Christ’s Church which does not tend to correct the vices of ungodly men. Sound doctrine is the means to holy living: and to talk of holy living without sound teaching is to speak of flying without wings, or of being cured of sickness without medicine. Let us illustrate this.

I. Look at the doctrine of our Lord’s Incarnation.—There is, of course, a very true sense in which this includes nearly all Christian doctrine, and therefore I can only refer to one or two points in it. It is an essential element in this doctrine that our Lord was ‘perfect God and perfect man,’ or, as it would be more accurately rendered, ‘complete in His Godhead, and complete in his manhood.’ This involves that, in his manhood, He went through every item of every stage of human experience—infancy, childhood, boyhood, etc.—completely, as we do, sin only excepted; that He did this, among other purposes, as our example, and as exhibiting to us the pattern and standard of what humanity is intended to be; and, moreover, in order that all mankind, at every age and in every circumstance, might feel and know that in praying to Him for help they were praying to One Who had been through their own difficulties and trials. Now contrast this with the popular notion that it does not much matter what children are or do, that perhaps it is not much amiss for young people to sow a few ‘wild oats’ before they learn to become steady.

II. See how the true doctrine of Holy Baptism teaches the same lesson, and leads to the same result, i.e. tends to holiness, and to lead people away from sin and carelessness. Baptism tells you that a child is God’s child from the first. It tells you that Christ receives him in his earliest infancy for His own: gives the child His Holy Spirit before he can speak or think; surrounds him with His care and holy influences even in the cradle; so that as soon as ever the child’s intelligence dawns there is the power of God within him to answer to all that good teaching and good training can do to bring up the child in holy ways. When we bid a child to be good, and patient, and obedient, and truthful, and unselfish, we do so because we know that there is already God’s Holy Spirit in the child to enable it to be all that we try to teach it to be; and so we are not afraid to try and lead him or her on in goodness.

III. Look at the true doctrine of the other sacrament, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Here again we have the same contrast prevailing. We have false doctrine leading to ungodliness; we have true Christian doctrine leading to holiness. The common notion is that the Holy Communion is only to be taken by persons who are, as people say, thoroughly good; that if a man receives it, it is the same thing as publicly professing himself to be better than others, and that he has altogether overcome sin, and that none but such persons ought to come to it. Christian doctrine says that it is intended for all men to strengthen them to resist sin, that the more a man feels unable in himself to do right and resist temptation, the more he ought to come and seek Christ’s grace in Christ’s own way; and that every penitent soul, that all who believe and repent, are invited to it. What are the consequences of the two doctrines? Why, the consequence of the false doctrine is that thousands of souls which might have been strengthened to become thoroughly settled in good ways are kept back from this spiritual food, and deprived, perhaps, for nearly all their lives of its spiritual grace, while many others, perhaps, fall back just when they were beginning to do well, and never advance at all. The true doctrine says to a man who is finding out his own needs and his sinfulness—You cannot persevere of your own self, you have not the spiritual strength, but Christ offers you the precise spiritual food you require. What is the address in our Communion Service? ‘Ye that do truly and earnestly repent … Draw near with faith.’—‘Ye that intend to lead a new life, walking from henceforth in God’s holy ways, draw near with faith.’ It does not say—‘Ye that have been for a long time settled Christians, and profess yourselves to be better than other people.’ What it does say is—‘Ye that intend to lead a new life, draw near with faith, and make your humble confession ‘that in time past you have not lived as you ought. And then what follows? Why, that the penitent sinner is brought very near to his God as soon as he repents; that no sooner does he truly repent than he comes and receives grace to bring his repentance to good effect, and is strengthened to live henceforward a different life from that life of which he is repenting, and so is led on towards real holiness. So the true doctrine of Holy Communion leads a man towards holiness, while the false doctrine keeps a man back from holiness.