of Greeks to see Him, He answered with the word which not only
declared what was obligatory upon Him, but what was obligatory upon us
all, and for the want of which all the great endowments of the Greek
mind at last rotted down into sensuousness, when He said, 'Except a corn
of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die
it bringeth forth much fruit' and then went on to say, 'he that loveth
his life shall lose it.'

So, then, brethren, 'the word which ye heard at the beginning,' the
story of Christ, His life and His death, is a stringent commandment.
Now, this is one of the blessings of Christianity, that all which was
hard and hopeless, ministering to despair sometimes, as well as stirring
to fierce effort at others, in the conception of law or duty as it
stands outside us, is changed into the tender word, 'if ye love Me, keep
My commandments.' If any man serve Me, let him ... 'follow Me.' It is a
law; it is 'the law of liberty.' So you have not done all that is
needful when you have accepted the teaching of Christ in the Scriptures
and the teaching of the Scriptures concerning Christ. Nor have you done
all that is needful when clasping Him, and clinging simply to His Cross,
you recognise in it the means and the pledge of your acceptance with
God, and the ground and anchor of all your hope. There is something more
to be done. The Gospel is a commandment, and commandments require not
only assent, not only trust, but practical obedience. The 'old
commandment' is the 'word which ye heard from the beginning.'

II. The old Christ is perpetually new.

The Apostle goes on, in the last words of my text, to say, 'Which thing'
(viz., this combination of the old and the new) 'is true in Him and in
you.' 'True in Him'--that is to say, Christ, the old Christ that was
declared to these Asiatic Christians as they were groping amidst the
illusions of their heathenism, is perpetually becoming new as new
circumstances emerge, and new duties are called for, and new days come
with new burdens, hopes, possibilities, or dangers. The perpetual
newness of the old Christ is what is taught here.

Suppose one of these men in Ephesus heard for the first time the story
that away in Judea there had lived the manifestation of God in the
flesh, and that He, in His wonderful love, had died for men, that they
might be saved from the grip of their sins. And suppose that man barely
able to see, had yet seen that much, and clut