In the previous chapters we have covered five factors vital to the recovery of the church life: Christ, the Spirit, the divine life, the proper practice of the church life, and the Spirit’s operation through the cross. In this message we shall see the sixth vital factor: the transformed human virtues.
In the church life we need the human virtues. I prefer not to use the word morality, but the word virtues. We need not just one virtue, but many virtues. The word virtue actually denotes a higher quality than the word morality. A man may be moral but still not have many virtues. Virtues are higher than morality. Morality is merely to be right. As long as you do not deceive others, steal from others, or mistreat others, you may be considered right. You may be righteous and moral, yet not have virtues.
For example, you may purchase a Bible from the bookstore and pay the proper price. This is right and moral. However, if you deceive the store owner and pay a lower amount, you are not right. You are not moral because you are not honest. But if in the transaction, you receive too much back and return the difference, you are right. This is morality, but it is not virtue. Virtue may be illustrated by helping a poor neighbor. Suppose you do not owe him anything and he did not do anything for you, but out of love you give him two hundred dollars to help him pay his rent. This is not merely morality; this is virtue. Though you do not owe him anything, and though he did not do anything for you, yet you love him and give him two hundred dollars, expecting nothing in return. This is virtue. This is not merely the level of morality; this is the higher level of virtue.
In the church life, if we only have morality, then we may become quite legal. But we need to have virtue instead of legality. Legality is merely at the level of morality, at the level of being right or wrong. But virtue is at a higher level. If you are legal, you may demand an apology when you are offended by someone. Furthermore, you may not be satisfied with the apology once it is given; you may require further apology. This is legality. But if you have virtue, you will not care whether the person apologizes to you or not. Furthermore, you will not be concerned about the standard of his apology. Rather, you will forgive him; you will give in to him.
We must be impressed that virtue is higher than morality and legality. In the church life we should not be legal. If someone wants your books and takes them from you, you should not demand that he give them back. To do so would indicate that you are legal. If you have virtue, you will realize that he loves your books. Then you will say, “Brother, do you love that book? I would like to give you another one. I would like to give you all of them.” This is virtue. In human society, what is demanded, what is required, is merely morality. But in the church life, what is required is virtue, which is much higher than morality.
To continue this illustration, a third brother may ask the brother who took your books if it was right for him to do that. However, this brother should not be the judge. He should not judge the brother who took your books, for the Lord is within him. Today, he may take all your books and be quite happy about it. But tomorrow the Holy Spirit may touch his heart and give him no peace to keep the books. The Spirit may convict him that the reason you gave him all your books was that he intended to steal them. Then the Spirit will work within him and cause him to return all the books to you, plus an additional hymnal. This giving of an additional hymnal is also virtue, something higher than mere morality. You may be very happy about receiving an additional hymnal. However, the next day the Lord may touch you to give the hymnal to another brother. This illustrates the virtue needed for the church life.
By these illustrations we can see that in the church life the standard of morality is much higher than the morality in human society. The standard in the church life is not morality; it is virtue. Let us further illustrate this by an incident which happened in Taipei. In the early 1950’s we did not use chairs in the meetings. Instead, we used benches, and each bench was long enough for four persons. Sometimes a heavy person would come who occupied more than one fourth of the bench. This would cause the other three to suffer. On one occasion these three contended with the heavy brother over how much space each should occupy on the bench. They were unable to solve this problem themselves, and eventually they brought the matter to the elders. Their fighting for one fourth of the bench was merely legality. How could such people have the church life? Then I told the others to love the heavy one and help him to take care of his heaviness. Because he continually bore his heaviness, they needed to sympathize with him and have mercy upon him. I told them that one of the three brothers should have been willing to stand, if necessary, and allow the heavy brother to occupy his space on the bench. This is virtue. By this illustration we can see the difference between morality and virtue. In the church life we should have no legality. Furthermore, in the church life we should not have mere morality, because we have something higher—we have virtue. To quarrel, to fight, to insist, to grasp what is rightfully ours, is legality. This is common in human society, but it should not be the case in the church life.
Knowing that in the church life everyone practices virtue, some clever saints may take advantage of others. They may require others to practice virtue and so take advantage of them. If you are heavier or older you should not require others to show virtue towards you. If you do, you become a robber, robbing others’ virtue. But virtue is not gained by robbing; it is gained by others’ giving. If I am a heavy person, when I come to the meeting and I realize that the bench is for four people, I should not occupy more than one fourth. I should give more space to others. This is to practice virtue.
Even in human society, there are those who practice virtue. I saw this when traveling this year on a bus to the airport in Stuttgart, Germany. The bus was full of passengers and there was no seat for us. But two young Germans, when they saw that my wife and I were older, stood up and gave their seats to us. I was very touched that the local young people would give their seats to us foreigners. That was not only morality; that was virtue.
This principle should always be kept in the church life. We should always show virtue toward others and never take advantage of others. In the church life there should not be merely a standard of morality. The standard must be a higher standard of virtue. This is the church life: always giving others something and never taking advantage of others. Because we love others, we desire to give them something and not take advantage of them. The church life is higher than legality and even higher than morality. The church life remains in virtue.
The word virtue implies beauty. You may be moral, but in your morality there may be no beauty. At times you are right, but you may even argue with people in order to claim your rights. This kind of morality is ugly; it is not beautiful. Sometimes our righteousness is neither beautiful nor sweet. In the church life all the righteousness should be beautiful and sweet. When our morality becomes beautiful and sweet, that is virtue. In the church life, we should not only be right; we must be full of virtue. Whatever we do, we should do it in a way that is so sweet, so beautiful, in the eyes of all the others. This is virtue.