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| What It is to Have Christ for a Foundation, and Who They are to Whom Salvation as by Fire is Promised.
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Chapter 26.—What It is to Have
Christ for a Foundation, and Who They are to Whom Salvation as by
Fire is Promised.
But, say they, the catholic
Christians have Christ for a foundation, and they have not fallen
away from union with Him, no matter how depraved a life they have
built on this foundation, as wood, hay, stubble; and accordingly
the well-directed faith by which Christ is their foundation will
suffice to deliver them some time from the continuance of that
fire, though it be with loss, since those things they have built on
it shall be burned. Let the Apostle James summarily reply to
them: “If any man say he has faith, and have not works, can
faith save him?”1571
And who then is it, they ask, of
whom the Apostle Paul says, “But he himself shall be saved, yet
so as by fire?”1572
Let us join them in their
inquiry; and one thing is very certain, that it is not he of whom
James speaks, else we should make the two apostles contradict one
another, if the one says, “Though a man’s works be evil, his
faith will save him as by fire,” while the other says, “If he
have not good works, can his faith save him?”
We shall then ascertain who it is
who can be saved by fire, if we first discover what it is to have
Christ for a foundation. And this we may very readily learn from
the image itself. In a building the foundation is first.
Whoever, then, has Christ in his heart, so that no earthly or
temporal things—not even those that are legitimate and
allowed—are preferred to Him, has Christ as a foundation. But
if these things be preferred, then even though a man seem to have
faith in Christ, yet Christ is not the foundation to that man; and
much more if he, in contempt of wholesome precepts, seek forbidden
gratifications, is he clearly convicted of putting Christ not first
but last, since he has despised Him as his ruler, and has preferred
to fulfill his own wicked lusts, in contempt of Christ’s commands
and allowances. Accordingly, if any Christian man loves a harlot,
and, attaching himself to her, becomes one body, he has not now
Christ for a foundation. But if any one loves his own wife, and
loves her as Christ would have him love her, who can doubt that he
has Christ for a foundation? But if he loves her in the world’s
fashion, carnally, as the disease of lust prompts him, and as the
Gentiles love who know not God, even this the apostle, or rather
Christ by the apostle, allows as a venial fault. And therefore
even such a man may have Christ for a foundation. For so long as
he does not prefer such an affection or pleasure to Christ, Christ
is his foundation, though on it he builds wood, hay,
stubble; and
therefore he shall be saved as by fire. For the fire of
affliction shall burn such luxurious pleasures and earthly loves,
though they be not damnable, because enjoyed in lawful wedlock.
And of this fire the fuel is bereavement, and all those calamities
which consume these joys. Consequently the superstructure will be
loss to him who has built it, for he shall not retain it, but shall
be agonized by the loss of those things in the enjoyment of which
he found pleasure. But by this fire he shall be saved through
virtue of the foundation, because even if a persecutor demanded
whether he would retain Christ or these things, he would prefer
Christ. Would you hear, in the apostle’s own words, who he is
who builds on the foundation gold, silver, precious stones? “He
that is unmarried,” he says, “careth for the things that belong
to the Lord, how he may please the Lord.”1573
Would you hear who he is that
buildeth wood, hay, stubble? “But he that is married careth for
the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.1574
“Every
man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare
it,”—the day, no doubt, of tribulation—“because,” says
he, “it shall be revealed by fire.”1575
He calls tribulation fire, just
as it is elsewhere said, “The furnace proves the vessels of the
potter, and the trial of affliction righteous men.”1576
And
“The fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If
any man’s work abide”—for a man’s care for the things of
the Lord, how he may please the Lord, abides—“which he hath
built thereupon, he shall receive a reward,”—that is, he shall
reap the fruit of his care. “But if any man’s work shall be
burned, he shall suffer loss,”—for what he loved he shall not
retain:—“ but he himself shall be saved,”—for no
tribulation shall have moved him from that stable
foundation,—“yet so as by fire;”1577
for that which he possessed with
the sweetness of love he does not lose without the sharp sting of
pain. Here, then, as seems to me, we have a fire which destroys
neither, but enriches the one, brings loss to the other, proves
both.
But if this passage [of
Corinthians] is to interpret that fire of which the Lord shall say
to those on His left hand, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into
everlasting fire,”1578
so that among these we are to
believe there are those who build on the foundation wood, hay,
stubble, and that they, through virtue of the good foundation,
shall after a time be liberated from the fire that is the award of
their evil deserts, what then shall we think of those on the right
hand, to whom it shall be said, “Come, ye blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you,”1579
unless that they are those who
have built on the foundation gold, silver, precious stones? But
if the fire of which our Lord speaks is the same as that of which
the apostle says, “Yet so as by fire,” then both—that is to
say, both those on the right as well as those on the left—are to
be cast into it. For that fire is to try both, since it is said,
“For the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be
revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what
sort it is.”1580
If,
therefore, the fire shall try both, in order that if any man’s
work abide—i.e., if the superstructure be not consumed by
the fire—he may receive a reward, and that if his work is burned
he may suffer loss, certainly that fire is not the eternal fire
itself. For into this latter fire only those on the left hand
shall be cast, and that with final and everlasting doom; but that
former fire proves those on the right hand. But some of them it
so proves that it does not burn and consume the structure which is
found to have been built by them on Christ as the foundation; while
others of them it proves in another fashion, so as to burn what
they have built up, and thus cause them to suffer loss, while they
themselves are saved because they have retained Christ, who was
laid as their sure foundation, and have loved Him above all. But
if they are saved, then certainly they shall stand at the right
hand, and shall with the rest hear the sentence, “Come, ye
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you;” and
not at the left hand, where those shall be who shall not be saved,
and shall therefore hear the doom, “Depart from me, ye cursed,
into everlasting fire.” For from that fire no man shall be
saved, because they all shall go away into eternal punishment,
where their worms shall not die, nor their fire be quenched, in
which they shall be tormented day and night for ever.
But if it be said that in the
interval of time between the death of this body and that last day
of judgment and retribution which shall follow the resurrection,
the bodies of the dead shall be exposed to a fire of such a nature
that it shall not affect those who have not in this life indulged
in such pleasures and pursuits as shall be consumed like wood, hay,
stubble, but shall affect those others who have carried with them
structures of that kind; if
it be said that such
worldliness, being venial, shall be consumed in the fire of
tribulation either here only, or here and hereafter both, or here
that it may not be hereafter,—this I do not contradict, because
possibly it is true. For perhaps even the death of the body is
itself a part of this tribulation, for it results from the first
transgression, so that the time which follows death takes its color
in each case from the nature of the man’s building. The
persecutions, too, which have crowned the martyrs, and which
Christians of all kinds suffer, try both buildings like a fire,
consuming some, along with the builders themselves, if Christ is
not found in them as their foundation, while others they consume
without the builders, because Christ is found in them, and they are
saved, though with loss; and other buildings still they do not
consume, because such materials as abide for ever are found in
them. In the end of the world there shall be in the time of
Antichrist tribulation such as has never before been. How many
edifices there shall then be, of gold or of hay, built on the best
foundation, Christ Jesus, which that fire shall prove, bringing joy
to some, loss to others, but without destroying either sort,
because of this stable foundation! But whosoever prefers, I do
not say his wife, with whom he lives for carnal pleasure, but any
of those relatives who afford no delight of such a kind, and whom
it is right to love,—whosoever prefers these to Christ, and loves
them after a human and carnal fashion, has not Christ as a
foundation, and will therefore not be saved by fire, nor indeed at
all; for he shall not possibly dwell with the Saviour, who says
very explicitly concerning this very matter, “He that loveth
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that
loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”1581
But he
who loves his relations carnally, and yet so that he does not
prefer them to Christ, but would rather want them than Christ if he
were put to the proof, shall be saved by fire, because it is
necessary that by the loss of these relations he suffer pain in
proportion to his love. And he who loves father, mother, sons,
daughters, according to Christ, so that he aids them in obtaining
His kingdom and cleaving to Him, or loves them because they are
members of Christ, God forbid that this love should be consumed as
wood, hay, stubble, and not rather be reckoned a structure of gold,
silver, precious stones. For how can a man love those more than
Christ whom he loves only for Christ’s sake?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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