Chapter XVIII · Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots — J. C. Ryle
“ Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” Ephesians iii. 8.
IF we heard that sentence read for the first time, I think we should all feel it was a very remarkable one, even though we did not know by whom it was written. It is remarkable on account of the bold and striking figures of speech which it contains. “Less than the least of all saints;”—“Unsearchable riches of Christ;”—these are indeed “thoughts that breathe and words that burn.”
But the sentence is doubly remarkable when we consider the man who wrote it. The writer was none other than the great Apostle of the Gentiles, St. Paul—the leader of that noble little Jewish army which went forth from Palestine nineteen centuries ago, and turned the world upside down—that good soldier of Christ who left a deeper mark on mankind than any born of woman, except his sinless Master—a mark which abides to this very day. Surely such a sentence from the pen of such a man demands peculiar attention.
Let us fix our eyes steadily on this text, and notice in it three things:—
I. First, what St. Paul says of himself. He says, “I am less than the least of all saints.”
II. Secondly, what St. Paul says of his ministerial office. He says, “Grace is given unto me to preach.”
III. Thirdly, what St. Paul says of the great subject of his preaching. He calls it “the unsearchable riches of Christ.”
I trust that a few words on each of these three points may help to fasten down the whole text in memories, consciences, hearts, and minds.
I. In the first place, let us notice what St. Paul says of himself.
The language he uses is singularly strong. The founder of famous Churches, the writer of fourteen inspired epistles, the man who was “not behind the very chiefest apostles,” “in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft,”—the man who “spent and was spent” for souls, and “counted all things but loss for Christ,”—the man who could truly say, “To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,”—what do we find him saying of himself? He employs an emphatic comparative and superlative. He says, “I am less than the least of all saints.” What a poor creature is the least saint! Yet St. Paul says, “I am less than that man.”
Such language as this, I suspect, is almost unintelligible to many who profess and call themselves Christians. Ignorant alike of the Bible and their own hearts, they cannot understand what a saint means when he speaks so humbly of himself and his attainments. “It is a mere fashion of speaking,” they will tell you; “it can only mean what St. Paul used to be, when he was a novice, and first began to serve Christ.” So true it is that “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.” (1 Cor. ii. 14.) The prayers, the praises, the conflicts, the fears, the hopes, the joys, the sorrows of the true Christian, the whole experience of the seventh of Romans—all, all are “foolishness” to the man of the world. Just as the blind man is no judge of a Reynolds, or a Gainsborough, and the deaf cannot appreciate Handel’s Messiah, so the unconverted man cannot fully understand an apostle’s lowly estimate of himself.
But we may rest assured that what St. Paul wrote with his pen, he testily felt in his heart. The language of our text does not stand alone. It is even exceeded in other places. To the Philippians he says, “I have not attained, nor am I already perfect: I follow after.” To the Corinthians he says, “I am the least of the apostles, which am not meet to be called an apostle.” To Timothy he says, “I am chief of sinners.” To the Romans he cries, “Wretched man that I am I who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Phil. iii. 12; 1 Cor. xv. 9; 1 Tim. i. 15; Rom. vii. 24.) The plain truth is that St. Paul saw in his own heart of hearts far more defects and infirmities than he saw in anyone else. The eyes of his understanding were so fully opened by the Holy Spirit of God that he detected a hundred things wrong in himself which the dull eyes of other men never observed at all. In short, possessing great spiritual light, he had great insight into his own natural corruption, and was clothed from head to foot with humility, (1 Peter v. 5.)
Now let us clearly understand that humility like St. Paul’s was not a peculiar characteristic of the great apostle of the Gentiles. On the contrary, it is one leading mark of all the most eminent saints of God in every age. The more real grace men have in their hearts, the deeper is their sense of sin. The more light the Holy Ghost pours into their souls, the more do they discern their own infirmities, defilements, and darkness. The dead soul feels and sees nothing; with life comes clear vision, a tender conscience and spiritual sensibility. Observe what lowly expressions Abraham, and Jacob, and Job, and David, and John the Baptist, used about themselves. Study the biographies of modern saints like Bradford, and Hooker, and George Herbert, and Beveridge, and Baxter, and McCheyne. Mark how one common feature of character belongs to them all—a very deep sense of sin.