In the multiplied questions of courtship and married life one of the strongest assets is the purity demanded by the Christian marriage code. Unshackled apostles of “the new marital morality” (as though true morals could ever change!) may rise up to contradict and preach devotion to instincts rather than to ideals. But they have helped produce the cynical, world-worn young person for whom life offers no mysteries and few genuine thrills — parodies of the finer existence. They may champion the pursuit of the forbidden; but what of the bitter after-taste, the repulsive memories, the nightmare of regret, and the dawn of delusion? There may be a beckoning invitation in this alluring appeal of the ages, "Your eyes shall be opened," but youth that has focused its gaze on the flares of forbidden fire will find that its vision has become blurred.
In concise terms does Christ's faith demand stainlessness in thought and life. "Keep thyself pure" (1 Tim. 5:22) is the plea of the fatherly apostle to his young assistant Timothy; and the Savior Himself, summing up the contents of a hundred Scriptural statements, lays this high premium on chastity: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8).
The temptations to impurity are the most insistent and alluring of all enticements. Young people who repudiate the very suggestion of stealing, who shrink from the mere thought of injuring their fellow-men, to whom slander and profanity are repulsive; leaders who zealously guard a loyal interest in their homes and in their Church, often find that the lure of lust has a tremendous persistence. The powers of morbid memory sharpen the imprint of attractive sins. The flare-back of an inflamed imagination conjures up sensual pictures. The baser impulses beat their enchanting tattoo against all too human hearts. And the cry goes out from every Christian soul: "How can I keep pure?"
Jesus answers this appeal, first of all, by removing the sins of impurity. In the midst of His busy ministry our Savior once dined with a Pharisee, unidentified except by the not uncommon name Simon. The welcome which our Lord received at the hands of His host was not marked by any noteworthy warmth; for the usual conventions of hospitality, the washing of the feet, the anointing of the head, and the kiss of salutation, were omitted. During the progress of the dinner, while the Pharisees conversed with Christ, an unwelcome intrusion suddenly interrupted the table-talk. An abandoned woman, notorious even for the none too squeamish morals of her community, has gained access to the dining-room and fallen to the Savior's feet. Almost desperate in her shame, but repentant, she entreats Him for forgiveness — a scarlet woman before the stainless Christ. Pharisaical pride and prejudices object. "If He were a prophet," self-righteous Simon remonstrates within himself, "He would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth Him.” Yet Christ, who reads the innermost thoughts, does not shrink back when the penitent begins to perform the neglected rites of foot washing and anointing; and after a protest to Simon in the form of a pointed parable He turns to the prostrate woman and speaks peace to her harassed soul. He does not overlook her moral lapses nor minimize the depth of her fall. Unfailing Friend of sinners that He is, He rejoices at her repentance, and with a divine pardon He declares: "Thy sins are forgiven. . . . Thy faith hath saved thee."
The name of the penitent has not been immortalized in the records of the gospel. Perhaps delicate restraint has kept her identity secret. Yet an early tradition of the Church, one of several, designates her as Mary of Magdala, and, whether warranted or not, this identification has found popular perpetuation in the name Magdalene. No doubt remains, however, concerning the glorious comfort of this record. Jesus' benediction "Thy sins are forgiven" still breathes pardon and peace into souls distracted by sin.
The keystone of the Christians' creed, without which its arching beauties collapse into shapeless ruins, is the unhesitant acknowledgment of the Savior's suffering and death, by which our multiplied sins are forgiven and removed. Let us guard against the delusion that sin can be removed by a few spoken words. To give His promise of pardon everlasting validity, our Savior died the atoning death on the cross. Thus, our pardon comes from a righteous and merciful God: righteous, because His divine holiness would not permit sin to remain unpunished; merciful, because of the unfathomable love of Christ, who took upon Himself all the sins of all lands and all ages of all history, so that "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities."
Let no young man or woman recall any fracture of the moral code in their own lives, however serious and repulsive it may be, without the positive, Heaven-blessed assurance: "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Rom. 5:20). No ugly sin in your private life is too loathsome to be forgiven by the all-comprehensive mercy of Christ. He who in the days of His flesh offered His grace to those of impure hearts and stained lives calls out to His wavering, sinful children as they approach Him with contrite, trusting hearts: "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37).
This forgiveness, offered to all sinners and for all sins, is not acquired, earned, or merited by the best that we can do or say, by an interminable series of good resolutions, by a lifetime of regrets. In the most exalted love which the omnipotence of Heaven could bestow this release from sin is granted us fully, freely, and for all times without any merit or worthiness on our part, without any cooperation from human agencies, — solely by the eternal mercies of God, through faith in the priceless blood of our Savior. More positive in its power than thousands of the accepted verities of science is this fundamental truth of pure and divine revelation that "the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).
Hold fast to this sacred promise! When the pangs of remorse shake our souls; when the accusing voice of our conscience indicts us on distressing charges; when the inexorable Law, demanding a clean, holy life, confronts us and by contrast we survey our own favorite follies and vices, let us cling to the cross more closely and, beholding our wounded, bleeding, dying Savior, find in Him the fulfillment of the prophet's ancient pledge: "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (Is. 1:18).
There is an added glory. The depth of the Savior's love is not exhausted by the removal of sin. This is the essential prelude to a consecrated life; for there can be no successful program of purity before impurity is removed. Yet in addition to this forgiving mercy Christ also bestows a dynamic power for the attainment of a clean, moral life, the basic foundation for marital joy. It is an axiom of God's Word that, "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Cor. 5:17). As soon as we accept the redemption of Christ and trust our lives to His leadership, we have the sanctifying guidance which comes from the indwelling of His Spirit. Ours becomes a directed destiny, which continually presses forward "toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:14).
Now, this is not theological theory; it is rather a truth that may be shown by personal analysis and statistical evidence. Why is it that the purest souls on God's earth are twice-born, Spirit-filled men and women? Why has the Church of Jesus Christ been the foremost of the forces contending for the virtues of purity, honor in marriage, happiness in home-life? Why is it that the exemplary modesty of Christian women has elicited expressions of recognition even from pagan scoffers; that Christian homes have become the solid foundation of our best national life, with babies welcomed as the heritage of the heavenly Father, children brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and parents loved, honored, and obeyed? How else can we explain all this unless the Scriptural truth is conceded that the abiding presence of God's Spirit in the heart or home of any Christian is the only influence that can permanently mold lives for a lasting appreciation of the truest, purest, and best?
Church history is written with close lines to accommodate records in which youth, swayed by the lustful philosophies of heathen life, became paragons of purity through the miraculous rebirth in Christian, faith. And these miracles are not restricted to the records of a hoary past. Christ's pledge "Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. 21:5) was never more potent than it is today; for Jesus, not by any trial-and-error method nor by vague suggestion but by the hallowed pledge of His own holiness, offers the victorious life to all who believe in His Saviorhood and leadership.
If these pages meet the eyes of young men and women who have never accepted the free mercy of Christ for their souls, may they pause at this place and, directing their gaze to this Savior's cross, pray the prayer: "If Thou wilt. Thou canst make me clean." Then, by Jesus' own promise, they can rise with the assurance which once blessed a tormented leper (Matt. 8:3) that Christ is not only able to forgive iniquity, but that He also has the power to create and stimulate purity and chastity.
Now, it is an axiom of our faith that without Christ there can be no permanent, achieving impulse to purity. "Without Me," He warns, "ye can do nothing"; for "I am the Vine, ye are the branches" (John 15:5). We have tried to legislate purity; indeed, the code of laws framed to promote individual and organized decency was never so large as it is today. But multiplied laws mean multiplied transgressions. When the circuit, superior, and appellate courts of Chicago tabulated their calendar for 1938, it was found that 24,771 cases were filed during these twelve months. Of these, about 5,300 (more than one fifth) were docketed for divorce hearings, while in 1934 divorce litigation assumed a smaller proportion, slightly more than one sixth of the total. Because legal decrees cannot permanently elevate the soul but at best can exert only a negative, restraining force, the young man who sets out to capture the stronghold of sin guided only by a battle plan of "Thou shalt nots" will face surrender sooner than he knows.
Nor can education and culture be substitutes for Christ's soul-sanctifying teachings. It is true that even a shrewd, worldly-wise attitude recognizes the advantages of living up to a high moral code. Pagan philosophers have preached that cleanness and honesty bring unmistakable rewards. But how many have followed their own teachings? Our high schools and colleges have stressed ethics; but in contradiction we are forced to admit that there has been little advance in applied ethics. While we develop minds and train intellects, our modern processes of Christless enlightenment have not bridged the gap between the brain and the heart or at best have left our higher impulses untouched.
Only the Christian religion, no creed of any other kind, is a guarantee for moral strength. Can Buddhism show a single transformed soul and an advance toward chastity? Did the temples and convents that crowded Asshur's capital raise the morality of that metropolis? Has the modern apostasy from fundamental Christianity, with its belittling of sin and magnifying of self, made men and women cleaner and truer? Travelers in the Orient refer in veiled terms to the filth and the nasty perversions depicted on the walls of pagan shrines. Translators of the so-called sacred writings of ancient religions are forced to omit entire sections of these "holy" books because of their glorified vileness. Modernism confesses its own failure. Harry Emerson Fosdick admits: “You see, we Modernists . . . pare down and dim our faith by negative abstractions until we have left only the remainder of what was once a great religion. Then, seeing how few our positive convictions are and how little they matter, we grow easy-going about every one else's convictions and end in a mush of general concessions." Thomas Huxley, British Liberalist concedes: "The doctrines of predestination, of original sin, of the innate depravity of man, and the evil fate of the greater part of the race, . . . faulty as they are, appear to me to be vastly nearer the truth than the ‘liberal’ popular illusions that babies are all born good; ... that it is given to everybody to reach the ethical ideal if he will only try; that all partial evil is universal good, and other optimistic figments." Paul Elmer More, humanist, professor of philosophy at Princeton University and once a Liberal leader, confessed that the social sermon "leaves me often wondering whether I am listening to a sermon or a political harangue. The call of religion is, first of all and last of all, to a soul conscious of its own guilt. The function of religion is, first and last of all, to offer to a despairing soul the promise of eternal life. When under the shadow of an atrocious death Christ said to His disciples: ‘These things I have spoken unto you that in Me ye might have peace,’ ... He was not announcing a gospel of social regeneration or postponing the hope of peace until the iniquities of capitalism should be overcome."
Because Modernism rejects the conviction that in the Scriptures we have divine authority, it surrenders the basis for true morality. Candidly does Walter Lippmann admit (A Preface to Morals, p. 50): "The sanction of a divine morality is the certainty of the believer that it originated with God. But if he has once come to think that the rule of conduct has a purely human, local, and temporal origin, its sanction is gone. His obedience is transformed, as ours has been by knowledge of that sort, from conviction to conformity or calculated expediency."
While there may be a hundred smaller, incidental forces in a young person's resolution to uphold honor and to defeat the encroachments of uncleanness, there is, the Church repeats, only one fountainhead from which the crystal-clear waters of purification flow, and that is Christ. The foundation upon which every pure and Christian life must be built is the heart-deep faith in Christ, the confession clothed in the immortal words of the great Reformer:
"I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true."
It follows as the day the dawn that every life which prizes purity for its profound blessings should be Christ-centered; that our faith must continually be deepened. As the followers of the Savior in Antioch were called Christians because they bore the imprint of the Crucified in their lives, so we, too, must live in evident companionship with the Savior. Worship at church should be esteemed an opportunity for strengthening the mystic union between Christ and our souls. Our homes should radiate the purifying Christ even externally by banning the voluptuous, nude pictures and statuary and the graceless, Christless literature which sometimes abounds in church-members' homes. Our individual lives must be marked by a restless ambition to learn more about Christ, to appropriate the blessings of His power, to see Him more clearly day by day.
When men cry, as did certain Greeks in the days of our Lord's earthly pilgrimage, "We would see Jesus," through the constant vision of His love and His holiness, our heavenly Father offers us eminently practical helps for the preserving of constant companionship with the Lord Jesus Christ. We have the purifying Word, the inspired utterances of a holy God, which will guide us to a purer life. We have the purifying Sacrament, the mysterious, but divine bestowal of the very body and blood of our Savior, offered to seal the forgiveness of our sins and to energize our ideals of moral honesty and chastity. We have prayer and with it the vast resources of Heaven's omnipotence, placed in the means of grace, which will help us overcome our baser passions, defeat temptations, and rise to the higher, purer levels of the consecrated life.