James T. Cleland - "A Gospel of Salvation" (October 20, 1963)

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	("Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow)	0:06
	♪ Praise God from whom all blessings flow ♪	1:03
	♪ Praise Him all creatures here below ♪	1:10
	♪ Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts ♪	1:19
	♪ Praise God from whom all blessings flow ♪	1:28
	♪ Amen ♪	1:40
-	We give thee but thine own,	1:48
	whate'er the gift may be.	1:51
	All that we have is thine alone.	1:53
	A trust, O Lord, from thee.	1:56
	Amen.	1:59
	(reverent music)	2:03
-	Let us pray.	2:28
	Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts	2:31
	be acceptable in thy sight,	2:37
	O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.	2:38
	Amen.	2:48
	Many of us have been in London.	2:56
	While there, some of us have visited Westminster Abbey,	3:02
	the parish church of the British empire.	3:09
	Those of us who have not visited Westminster Abbey,	3:15
	know it through television.	3:19
	The scene of the coronation,	3:23
	the mausoleum of Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth,	3:27
	the place of memory of Milton and Handel	3:33
	and Darwin and Gladstone.	3:39
	The grave of the unknown soldier.	3:44
	It is an unforgettable spot.	3:48
	Yet one visitor declined to be overly impressed	3:53
	with the deceased celebrities	3:58
	in this all-British hall of fame.	4:02
	She finally blurted out to the guide, "Young man.	4:06
	All this is very interesting, but what I want to know is	4:12
	has anyone been saved here recently?"	4:19
	Has anyone been saved here recently?	4:26
	It's a valid question to ask in a church.	4:30
	And Westminster Abbey is a church.	4:34
	The church's business is in part salvation.	4:38
	You've all heard that before,	4:45
	but you're probably muttering to yourselves,	4:47
	"Okay, but what is salvation?"	4:49
	Etymologically the word is derived	4:56
	from the Latin adjective salvus, which means well.	4:58
	That in turn points to the noun salus, which means health.	5:05
	And so the lady's question to the astonished guide	5:14
	may be paraphrased, has anybody been put back	5:17
	into good condition here recently?	5:22
	Has anyone discovered what it means	5:27
	to be healthy here recently?	5:30
	It's a shocking question to hear,	5:36
	especially if all one wanted to see in Westminster Abbey	5:39
	was the coronation chair,	5:43
	which has as its seat the Stone of Scone,	5:48
	stolen by the English long ago from Scotland.	5:53
	But the lady asked a haunting question	6:02
	and we'd better have a look at it together.	6:07
	Now, one of the best ways to understand what health is	6:11
	may be to consider the opposite: disease, sickness.	6:15
	Moreover, it's wise to remember	6:21
	that sickness is often a psychosomatic problem,	6:24
	an illness of the body and soul thought of as one entity	6:30
	with no hyphen between psycho and somatic.	6:35
	This sickness of man, which disturbs him in soul and body,	6:42
	may reveal itself in any or all of the three manifestations.	6:48
	There is first a sense of helplessness, of impotence.	6:54
	This is more than the weakness of a child,	7:02
	which can be counteracted	7:07
	by a confident dependence on his parents.	7:09
	It is the hopeless helplessness of to the adult	7:15
	who may well desire to return to the safety of the womb.	7:21
	It may express itself in the blurted-out sincerity of,	7:29
	"I wish I had never been born."	7:33
	May be caused by fear of that	7:38
	which is new and strange and unexpected	7:40
	or by an overwhelming sense	7:47
	of the uselessness of one's toil.	7:50
	One who feels hopelessly helpless is sick,	7:55
	psychically and maybe psychosomatically.	8:02
	The human sickness may secondly reveal itself	8:10
	in a purposelessness,	8:13
	an uncertainty about where to turn, where to go.	8:16
	Life makes no sense.	8:22
	Now you're recalling the words	8:26
	which Shakespeare put into the mouth of Macbeth:	8:28
	"Life's but a walking shadow,	8:33
	a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage	8:39
	and then is heard no more.	8:44
	It is a tale told by an idiot,	8:49
	full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."	8:54
	Life signifies nothing and death makes even less sense.	9:02
	You remember of the epitaph on the grave of a child.	9:09
	Child, age three weeks.	9:14
	Three weeks in Cheltenham Churchyard.	9:16
	"It was so soon that I am done for,	9:21
	I wonder what I was begun for."	9:27
	No wonder there was wonder.	9:31
	We wonder regularly in the sense	9:35
	of puzzlement, bewilderment, perplexity.	9:37
	We are nonplussed, dumbfounded,	9:40
	we are tired of living and scared of dying, like Hamlet.	9:44
	We really don't know where we're going,	9:54
	but we're on our way.	9:56
	We think enough along this line,	10:00
	we become sick, psychosomatically.	10:02
	Helplessness, purposelessness.	10:07
	There's a third manifestation of man's sickness: guilt.	10:11
	Now this is not the same as wickedness or perversity	10:20
	though it's connected with them.	10:23
	It is the realization that one may be justly charged,	10:26
	justly charged with responsibility for his improper conduct.	10:34
	He knows he is guilty, even if no one else does.	10:44
	He may even be guilty before God.	10:50
	It is bad enough to be an embarrassed criminal	10:54
	standing before a judge or a dean.	10:58
	It's worse to be a sensible sinner	11:05
	standing with head bowed in the presence of God.	11:09
	One of the Psalmists caught that when he wrote,	11:13
	"But I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.	11:16
	Against thee, thee only have I sinned	11:23
	and done that which is evil in thy sight.	11:27
	So that thou art justified in thy sentencing	11:31
	and blameless in thy judgment.	11:36
	Paul went even deeper into the guilt sickness,	11:42
	even deeper than the Psalmist.	11:47
	"For of the good that would I do not,	11:51
	but the evil which I would not, that I do."	11:58
	And one can almost hear the man yelling,	12:05
	"Oh, wretched man that I am!	12:11
	Who shall deliver me from this body of death?"	12:15
	Now this has to be a really sick,	12:20
	smitten with guilt, conscience.	12:24
	All right, there is the sickness in three manifestations.	12:28
	But our topic is salvation.	12:32
	Health.	12:37
	Is there a remedy?	12:41
	Is there a doctor in the house?	12:43
	The Christian answer is yes.	12:47
	Jesus the Christ is a physician sent by God.	12:52
	Listen to him.	12:59
	"Those who are well have no need of a physician,	13:01
	but those who are sick.	13:05
	I came not to call the righteous,"	13:09
	that is, those who out in good condition, "but sinners."	13:14
	That is the spiritually sick, the hopeless,	13:20
	the purposeless, the guilty.	13:23
	Do you recall the meaning of the name Jesus?	13:26
	It is savior.	13:30
	That is he who brings salvation, help.	13:33
	Paul Tillich translates it precisely the healer.	13:38
	Now Jesus' technique of healing was	13:44
	to refer his patients to God,	13:48
	to a God who wished men well,	13:53
	to a God who wanted people to be in good condition.	13:57
	That is, in right relations	14:01
	with themselves and with their fellows.	14:03
	To a God who had sent Jesus to cure the sick.	14:07
	Yes, the psychosomatically sick.	14:11
	To the helpless, Jesus brought the good news	14:17
	that they should rely on God	14:24
	as a child relies on his parents.	14:28
	You remember what he said to his disciples	14:33
	who were safeguarding him against a stampede of children?	14:36
	"Let the children come to me.	14:41
	Don't hinder them, for such belongs the Kingdom of God.	14:44
	Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive	14:52
	the Kingdom of God like a child shall not enter therein."	14:57
	Now, this is not a plea for the Christian	15:05
	to be a spiritual Dennis the Menace or a pious sweetie pie,	15:09
	or even a member of some ecclesiastical	15:18
	Peanuts youth fellowship.	15:21
	It asks that we recognize, accept	15:28
	and rely upon our utter dependence	15:34
	on God who created us, sustains us	15:39
	and who will put us back into good condition	15:46
	if we will but accept the dependent relation	15:49
	of a child to a father.	15:54
	Now, this may seem to some of you	15:57
	what an Englishman has called	16:00
	the acceptance of bleeding charity.	16:02
	Well, it is just that.	16:06
	Well, you've got to spell bleeding charity	16:09
	a capital B and a capital C.	16:11
	It is the acceptance of bleeding charity.	16:14
	And it's one way to cure helplessness.	16:19
	To the purposeless, Jesus gave direction.	16:26
	Love God, love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.	16:31
	Now this offers a spiritual polestar by which to steer.	16:37
	It means that even here on Earth,	16:41
	we shall so far as in us lies	16:45
	live the life of the Kingdom of God.	16:49
	And because we act in goodwill,	16:54
	giving cups of cold water to the thirsty,	16:59
	or building up a pipeline of pure water	17:04
	for a droughty community, we shall one day	17:07
	walk right through the gates of the new Jerusalem.	17:11
	Purposelessness will be supplanted by a goal,	17:17
	a goal which will be reached, hereafter if not here.	17:21
	And to the guilty, Jesus brought good news.	17:28
	The gospel of forgiveness for the guilt of sin	17:34
	and deliverance from the power of sin.	17:39
	This was discovered by folk like the woman at the well	17:44
	and Mary Magdalene, Simon Peter.	17:49
	And after his death and resurrection,	17:55
	this double victory over sin, forgiveness and deliverance,	17:59
	was the experience of a host whom no man can number,	18:04
	but some of whom you and I can name	18:12
	in our hearts right now.	18:16
	Jesus not only forgave sin while on Earth,	18:22
	His spirit still takes away the sin of the world.	18:28
	The guilty are not merely acquitted, they are absolved.	18:35
	Now this is the message of the New Testament.	18:43
	God, of His own free will, through Jesus Christ,	18:47
	brought and brings the salvation which is health	18:53
	to the helpless, the purposeless, the guilty.	18:58
	He does it not because we are worthy,	19:04
	we know we're not, but because He can't help it.	19:10
	You see, His nature is love.	19:18
	And throughout the centuries, the church has sought	19:26
	not only to teach this fact, but to explain it.	19:29
	And right here, the trouble begins,	19:32
	because the explanations differ.	19:36
	The advocates squabble among themselves	19:40
	and the divisions of Christiandom perpetuate the difference.	19:45
	For example, the epistle to the Hebrews	19:51
	pictures the Christ in Jewish terms,	19:54
	an eternal high priest who carries himself daily	19:58
	into the celestial holies of holy	20:04
	to atone for the sins of the world.	20:08
	But we are not Jews.	20:12
	Anselm tackles the problem like a Roman lawyer.	20:17
	The problem of how the eternal law of justice	20:22
	can be satisfied in a scheme of salvation,	20:28
	which accentuates divine forgiveness.	20:32
	How can you tie together justice and forgiveness?	20:36
	But we are not Romans.	20:42
	Abelard works out a model theory of man's atonement with God	20:45
	based on the fact that the revelation of God's love in Jesus	20:52
	stirs man's heart to a repentance,	20:57
	which makes him whole, healthy again.	21:00
	But if you read Abelard,	21:05
	you'll have difficulty grasping the whole of it.	21:06
	And the classic theory concentrates on the resurrection,	21:11
	where Jesus broke the power of death,	21:16
	therefore He broke the power of sin	21:20
	because the wages of sin are death,	21:22
	Therefore He broke the power of Satan,	21:24
	and He enables man to share in the victory.	21:29
	And this annoys those of us	21:33
	who would make the cross central in God's saving act.	21:35
	But if we ask the proponents of these four theories	21:41
	if there were any basic agreement among them,	21:45
	they might well answer, if they'd calm down enough, "Yes."	21:50
	The forgiveness, the redemption, the salvation,	21:58
	the renewed health of man is primarily,	22:04
	solely due to God and to His agent, Jesus Christ.	22:08
	And if we, surprised at their unanimity,	22:16
	asked another question, "Can you prove it?"	22:19
	They might well answer, "Yes."	22:25
	Go and talk with someone who has experienced	22:28
	the fact of salvation, renewed health.	22:32
	Well, let's try it.	22:36
	Saint Paul, what was your problem?	22:39
	Why did you become a Christian?	22:44
	I became a Christian because Judaism didn't work for me.	22:50
	I kept the law, how I kept it.	22:57
	But it never gave me the confidence it was supposed to give	23:02
	that I was right with God.	23:08
	Even persecuting the Christians,	23:10
	I had a feeling of hopeless helplessness.	23:13
	And then I discovered	23:18
	that one is right with God if he wants to be.	23:22
	Know why?	23:31
	Because God wants it.	23:33
	That's what He was telling us in Jesus Christ.	23:36
	You just accept that, and you're well again,	23:40
	the bottom drops out of your helplessness.	23:43
	You remember what I wrote to the Romans?	23:46
	"Wretched man that I am,	23:48
	who will deliver me from this body of death?	23:51
	Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord."	23:55
	It worked.	24:02
	Now let's ask someone else.	24:06
	What about purposelessness?	24:08
	A British officer, a confessed Christian,	24:11
	in the First World War,	24:17
	has told us how he steadied a battalion	24:20
	before it went over the top against the German lines.	24:24
	He just said three things.	24:29
	"If we live, it's victory.	24:32
	If we're wounded, it's blighted, that's home.	24:38
	If we are killed, it's the resurrection."	24:45
	Oh, they couldn't lose on that faith.	24:51
	Three goals. All good.	24:55
	And the Christian faith,	24:59
	which removes purposelessness within the third.	25:01
	"If we are killed, it's the resurrection."	25:04
	The troops weren't safe, no.	25:08
	But they could be saved.	25:13
	What about guilt?	25:16
	Well, here I'd like to talk with Zacchaeus.	25:18
	He was a sinner.	25:22
	In fact, he was an official sinner.	25:24
	Anyone who collected taxes was automatically a sinner.	25:26
	Maybe that's a sound idea, I don't know.	25:31
	He was a sinner, an official sinner, because though a Jew	25:37
	he collected Roman taxes from his fellow Jews.	25:40
	He therefore knew ostracism.	25:45
	He probably also knew guilt.	25:48
	His response to Jesus' visit to his home	25:52
	suggests that he was well aware of the economic shenanigans	25:54
	through which a tax collector lined his own pockets.	25:59
	Jesus talked with him.	26:04
	And what a response Zacchaeus made.	26:06
	"Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor.	26:09
	And if I have defrauded anyone of anything,	26:17
	I'll restore it fourfold."	26:22
	400%.	26:25
	Now, when you touch a man's pocket like that,	26:28
	you've touched his heart.	26:30
	And Jesus gave him His blessing.	26:34
	"Today, salvation," that is, health,	26:36
	"has come come to this house."	26:42
	Freed from guilt, delivered from the sin	26:46
	which so easily beset him, found of God,	26:50
	Zacchaeus began to act at once in Godlike fashion.	26:53
	His past had been redeemed, his present transformed,	26:58
	and his future redirected.	27:01
	Now it is known that in each of these three cases,	27:06
	salvation began here, on Earth.	27:10
	It'll have to wait for its completion until after death,	27:16
	but this Earth is the site of God's saving work	27:21
	and of men's restoration to health.	27:27
	Jesus was and is God's physician.	27:31
	Has anyone been saved here recently?	27:40
	In Duke Chapel?	27:45
	The answer is with us, in person.	27:50
	There are alumni who found health here	27:55
	when they were undergraduates,	28:00
	and worship with us today on homecoming Sunday.	28:04
	It's not surprising to find them.	28:10
	Our legend of Zacchaeus tells us why they are here with us.	28:14
	Zacchaeus used to disappear	28:20
	from the bustle of the marketplace now and again.	28:23
	One day an inquisitive person followed him	28:26
	and saw him stop at a certain tree	28:32
	and touch it almost with a caress.	28:37
	When he was asked why he did it, Zacchaeus answered,	28:41
	"It was from this tree that I first saw my Lord.	28:44
	And when I get all hot and bothered and worried,	28:52
	I come out here and I stand beside it and I meet Him again."	28:58
	And he, and some of our alumni, and many of us can add,	29:09
	"And we are well again."	29:21
	This is one aspect of the gospel of salvation.	29:27
	Let us pray.	29:35
	Almighty and eternal God, thou healer of men,	29:42
	we do give thee humble and hearty thanks	29:47
	for thy goodness to thy creatures	29:49
	in curing our helplessness	29:53
	in giving direction to our lives	29:56
	and in forgiving and delivering us	30:00
	from the guilt and power of sin,	30:02
	through the life, death and resurrection of thy son,	30:07
	Jesus Christ our Lord.	30:11
	And may the blessing of the Lord come upon you abundantly.	30:15
	May it keep you strong and tranquil	30:20
	in the truth of His promises this day and forever more.	30:23
	(reverent music)	30:32

Item Info

Title:

James T. Cleland - "A Gospel of Salvation" (October 20, 1963)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4ng4mt0h

Date:

October 20, 1963

Speaker:

Cleland, James T. (James Tough), 1903-1974

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0243
ref5691_tnn
uachapelsermaud
duke:627995
dcrau002248
ark:/87924/r4ng4mt0h
367bfb09-d0f7-41f6-a115-86deba6db6fa

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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James T. Cleland - "A Gospel of Salvation" (October 20, 1963)

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James T. Cleland - "A Gospel of Salvation" (October 20, 1963)

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