The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-02-16
OBEDIENCE UNTO DEATH.
An Eloquent Sermon by Rev. Reuben
Jeffrey at the First Baptist Church.
The Great Importance of the Faithful Per-
formance of the Divine Commands
Services in Other Churches.

tst Church, occupied his pui pit usual yester-
day morning, and, despite the inelemency of the
weather, the church was crowded to its capacity.
DR.. Jeffrey seems to have endued the mem
berskip with new life, and his sermons are in
variably heard by large congregations He said:
You will find the text this morning in the
Epistle of Paul, the Apostle, to the Philippians,
the second chapter and last clause of the eighth
verse: And became cbedient unto death, even
the death of the cross"
This chapter contains the story of the jour
ney of Christ from the glory of His throne to
this, His lowest footstool 1t presents the points
OF contrast, and the antthesis. 1t tells of the
depths to which His humiliation carried Him.
Jesus Christ we here read dwelt in the glory
OF pre-exstent estate, in such q condition of
co equality with God, the Father, that it was
assumption on His part to claim that equality,
and yet the story of our redemption involves
His surrender of that high prerogative and His
assuming the conditions of a servant and not
only the conditions of servant-for this He
might have become and still remained the high
est Archangel in the uniVerSe-but He
assumed, also, the identity or the
dition of mankind He was made in the
likeness of man, and, as if this was not the ex-
haustiye statement Of possible humiliation, he
went still lower, and he became ''obedent unto
d eath even the death of the cross" Now, the
hi story of redemption begins with eternity! 1t
is ITS debt prior to creation! 1t existed in FORM
unbroken solitude and immensely, and undis-
puted silence, when God. as we conceive of
Him, was creatureless and alone; and, If
rightly understand the meanings and the
methods of the Divine Providence, the whole
phenomena OF the universe is but the outwork
ing and the development of the plan of God as
conceived in eternity for the redemption of man.
kind. Jesus was before the throne as lamb
who had been slain from the foundation Of the
world; and it was simply to carry out the pur
n
God created the world and all things that are
therein, and finally inaugurated that plan, the
outworkings of which involved the descent of
Christ from his uncreated condition of blessed
ness and his transition through varied
orders and conditions until he was glad
to subject himself to the inevitable
law. Our text tells us that Jesus Christ, in the
career of his humiliation, became "obedient
unto death;" and the first thought wish to con-
slider is, the element, or article to which he be-
came obedient. He became obedient unto
death" What is death9 Now, to US, death has a
very different meaning from what it hal when
first the sentence of death pronounced
against the race; very different meaning from
what it had when Jesus Christ purposes to be-
come obedient unto its law Our ideas of death
have become tinctured, nay, illumined by the
droctrine of Christian immortality. We con-
ceive of death as simply transition from con-
dition of earthliness to one of heavenlness.I We
imagine death as simply the Installation of our
mortal frame, in order that we may be clothed
WITT Immortality and eternal life To us, death
is but the surrender in weakness, in order to be
clothed in power. It is the change of the cor
ruptible into the incorrupt:hle. 1t is the release
from the environments of imperfectlcn IN order
to be introduced into the environments which
constitute the conditions of fellowship with Cos.
and life forevermore. For, to be absent
from the body, is to be the present with the SOUL
That is death as we now conceive it-especially
to the Christian But that is not death in its
originel import. Thae is not death as Christ
came to dlG not at all the antltheSlS of life;
and when make this statement I stand upon
the verge of awful mystery, and dare not.
and can not articulate the possibilities of the
thoughts which are involved in the simple
announcement that death is the antithesis of
life; for life has two meanings, and it may be the
one or the other. so far as the mere definition of
the word stself is concerned, and in order to
determine we must pass through our minds the
construction of Gods werd, to know which is
meant Death is the antIthesS of life in the
sense of a moral condition, using the word life
as the representative of all that is enjoyable all
that is pleasant. all that is consistent with the
highest conditions of our physical development
in this being and then death is it's antithesis
and misery, and woe. All death is the antithe-
sis of life as mere matter of
existence. Death is not to be. Death
is passing out of being tits ceasng to live And,
now, which of these two meanings belongs to
death2 l cannot answer here this morning ex-
cept as to the ordinary and orthodox definition;
that under the economy of God. mans immor-
tally became assured despite the law of death,
and that, while death under the law operating as
the reaction of the penalty, that it was not
meant to be the introduction of man into the
conditions of wretchedness and woe And now
Jesus Christ, we are told became obedent,
der the law, to this death All, what can be the
meaning the mystery Of that word, I ask my
SELF when Jesus Christ consented to submit to
It'll 1t Is an awful and myterious fact. l deny
that death, in its normal condition, Is simply
transition into niger state l believe that
Christianity has made it so; l believe that Christ
has taken death and changed its meaning, and
its character, so that death is the chalice with
the poison taken out; but death, to Him, was
cup embittered by the dregs of sorrow and woe.
l am here in awe and wonder at the mystery
that from the councils Of eternity,
Jesus Christ consented to take the
divine journey to unite the conditions
of our immortality, and laid that divine and
human personality upon the altar of the worlds
necessity and in obedience to the law and will
of his Father. conse nted to give up his life.
Now our text invites us to consider. still
further the methods ard processes by which He
| became obedient unto the death. We are told
He became obedient unto death; and that leads
me to say in the first place. that Jesus Christ
accepted death the objective end, or intention
of His missien to this world: that Jesus Christ
accepted death the objecti We end for the sake
of realizing, or submitting to it, and came into
this world. Now here, again, death differs, in
our regard, from the death of Christ With US
death is the great end to which we are born; it
is the inevitable result incident to the conditions
of our humanity; and we do not live for the sake
of dying; on the contrary, it is the dread alter
native; it is the dread from which we shrink
Nay! We shrink from it so strongly that even
those who are inspired with the hope of better
| condition after death find themselves greatly
strained by the thought Of leaving this world
and passing into the conditions of
the unknown. 1t is only those who
have the ecstatic emotion that Christians
feel that can triumph over death know there
persons, like the soldier on the ileid of battle
who can meet death with calmness Philosophy
| explains that phenomena. He did not go into
battle for the sake of dying, but, with the hope
of coming back with laurels of victory, he runs
the risk. and trusts to escape if he can. and he
does so with honor and heroism. and the sub
mission to it is the inevitable necessity Yet
again, we understand the law of the human
mind that under the excitement of the ecstasy