Zealous '--the word suggests, I suppose, pictures of men, devoted to a cause, and going out into the world to try and persuade other people to believe it, becoming the apostles and missionaries of some truth, or of some movement, or of some great principle, religious or social. But Paul suggests here another region in which zeal is to find exercise--zealous for good works.'
Now do not let us interpret these last two words in the narrow, conventional sense which they have come to bear in the Church. It is a very significant and a very sad thing that this wide expression good works,' which in the Apostle's mind covered the whole ground of Christian morality, has been narrowed down to mean specific acts of beneficence, bits of charity, giving away blankets and soup, visiting the poor, and the like, which have got stamped on them, with just a soupcon of contempt in the expression, the name good works.' He means a great deal more than that. He means exactly the same thing which he has already twice described as being the end of the gospel, that we should live soberly, righteously, godly,' and again, that we should be redeemed from all iniquity, and purified. Within the four corners of this expression, good works,' lie whatsoever things are lovely and of good report,' every virtue and every praise. That is the width of the object which the Apostle here proposes for Christian zeal.
Now the word which he here employs, and which is rightly translated zealous,' is literally a Zealot.' In Jewish history the Zealots were a class of men who, from the days of the Maccabees downwards, were fanatically devoted to the ritual and law of Judaism, and vehemently opposed any relaxation of or departure from it. But their religious zeal, as they thought it, did not keep them from the blackest crimes, and there were no more turbulent and no more immoral men in the dying agonies of the Jewish State than these zealots who had a zeal for God, but neither according to knowledge nor according to morality. One of the apostles, Simon Zelotes--the Zealot--had probably belonged to that class, and had found out a better Object for his zeal, when he turned to Jesus Christ and became an apostle. Paul uses the word in reference to himself when he speaks about himself as having been exceedingly zealous for the traditions of the fathers,' and it is used in Acts of the many Jewish Christians who are spoken of as being all zealous for the Law.' That is one type of zeal--a zeal that fastens on externals, that tries to enforce specific acts of conduct, that is devoted to ceremonial and regulations and red tape. And Paul points us here to another type, Zealous for good works.' Jehu, with His hands carmined with wholesale slaughter, turned to the son of Rechab and said, Come and see my zeal for the Lord.' Yes, a little bit for the Lord, and a great deal for Jehu. That is the sort of thing that goes about the world as zeal. A turbid river in spate picks up and carries along a great many foul elements; and zeal is always in danger of becoming passionate indignation against a man who will not believe what I want him to believe, not so much because it is true as because I think it is. A great many very impure elements mix themselves up with our zeal, when it is directed to amending the world. If we set to amend ourselves, and direct our zeal in that direction, we shall find ample scope and verge enough' for its operations.
And, brethren, what different lives we should live if instead of feeling bound to the exercise of virtues and graces which do not come sweet and easy to us, and instead of feeling that we ought to do so and so, and that we do not one bit wish to do it, we had this overmastering enthusiasm for holiness and passion for perfection which is involved in the words before us. To be zealous of good works' is to be eagerly desirous of being beautiful and pure and true and noble and Christlike, to be panting after perfection, and casting ourselves with all the energy of our nature into the work of growing like Christ. That is what Paul wants us all to be. Let us ask ourselves, is it the least like what I am? Does my Christian zeal go all out in the work of amending other people, or do I begin with amending myself?
