And this was the least of it, that in this act He became a public and

marked character. The glory that here shed a single ray into the rustic

home of Cana must grow to that dazzling and perfect noon which shone

from the cross to the remotest corner of earth. The same capacity and

willingness to bless mankind which here in a small and domestic affair

brought relief to His embarrassed friends, must be adapted to all the

needs of men, and must undauntedly go forward to the utmost of

sacrifice. He who is true King of men must flinch from no

responsibility, from no pain, from no utter self-abandonment to which

the needs of men may call Him. And Jesus knew this: in those quiet hours

and long, untroubled days at Nazareth He had taken the measure of this

world's actual state, and of what would be required to lift men out of

selfishness and give them reliance upon God. "I, if I be lifted up, will

draw all men unto Me"--this was even now present to His mind. His glory

was the glory of absolute self-sacrifice, and He knew what that

involved. His kingship was the rendering of service no other could

render.

The _manner_ in which the miracle was performed deserves attention.

Christ does all while the servants seem to do all. The servants fill in

the water and the servants draw off the wine, and there is no apparent

exercise of Divine power, no mysterious words of incantation uttered

over the waterpots, not so much as a command given that the water should

become wine. What is seen by the spectators is men at work, not God

creating out of nothing. The means seem to be human, the result is found

to be Divine. Jesus says, "Fill the water pots with water," and they

_filled_ them; and filled them not as if their doing so were a mere

form, and as if they would leave room for Christ to add to their work;

no, they filled them up to the brim. Again He says, "Draw out now, and

bear to the governor of the feast," and they _bore_. They knew very well

they had only put in water, and they knew that to offer water to the

governor of a marriage feast would be to insure their own punishment;

but they did not hesitate. There seemed every reason why they should

refuse to do this, or why they should at least ask some explanation or

security that Jesus would bear the evil consequences; but there was one

reason on the other side which outweighed all these--they had the

command of Him whom they had been ordered to obey. And so, where

reasoning would have led them to folly, obedient faith makes them

fellow-workers in a miracle. They took their place and served, and they

who serve Christ and do His will must do great things; for Christ wills

nothing that is useless, futile, not worth doing. But this is how we are

tried: we are commanded to do things which seem unreasonable, and which

we have no natural ability to do. We are commanded to repent, and are

yet told that repentance is the gift of Christ; we are commanded to come

to Christ, and are at the same time assured that we cannot come except

the Father draw us; we are commanded to be perfectly holy, and yet we

know that as the leopard cannot change his spots, nor one of us add a

cubit to his stature, so neither can we put away the sins that stain

our souls and walk uprightly before God. And yet these commands are

plainly given us, not only to make us feel our helplessness, but to be

performed. We feel our inability, we may say it is unreasonable to

demand from us what we cannot perform, to require that out of the thin

and watery substance of our human souls we should produce wine that may

be poured out as an offering on the holy altar of God; but this is not

unreasonable. It is our part in simplicity to obey God; what is

commanded we are to do, and while we work He Himself will also work. He

may do so in no visible way, as Christ here did nothing visibly, but He

will be with us, effectually working. As the will of Christ pervaded the

water so that it was endowed with new qualities, so can His will pervade

our souls, with every other part of His creation, and make them

conformable to His purpose. "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it;" this

is the secret of miracle-working. Do it, though you seem to be but

wasting your strength and laying yourself open to the scorn of

onlookers; do it, though in yourself there is no ability to effect what

you are aiming at; do it wholly, up to the brim, as if you were the only

worker, as if there were no God to come after you and supply your

deficiencies, but as if any shortcoming on your part would be fatal; do

not stand waiting for God to work, for it is only in you and by you that

He performs His work among men.

The significance of this incident is manifold. First, it gives us the

key to the miracles of our Lord. It has become the fashion to depreciate

miracles, and it is often thought that they hamper the gospel and

obscure the true claim of Christ. It is often felt that so far from the

miracles verifying Christ's claim to be the Son of God, they are the

greatest obstacle to His acceptance. This is, however, to misunderstand

their significance. The miracles unquestionably formed a most important

element in Christ's life; and, if so, they must have served an important

purpose; and to wish them away just because they are so important and

make so large a demand upon faith seems to me preposterous. To wish them

away precisely because they alter the very essence of the religion of

Christ, and give it that very power which through all past ages it has

exerted, seems unreasonable.

When the Jews discussed His claims among themselves or with Him, the

power to work miracles was always taken into account as weighing heavily

in His favour. He Himself distinctly stated that the crowning

condemnation of those who rejected His claims arose from the

circumstance that He had done among them the works which none other man

had done. He challenges them to deny that it was by the finger of God

that He wrought these works. After His withdrawal from earth the miracle

of the Resurrection was still appealed to as the convincing proof that

He was all He had given Himself out for. There can be no doubt,

therefore, that the power of working miracles was one great evidence of

the Divine mission of Christ.

But though this is so, we are not on that account warranted in saying

that the only purpose for which He wrought miracles was to win men's

belief in His mission. On the contrary, we are told that it was one of

His temptations, a temptation constantly resisted by Him, to use His

power for this object without any other motive. It was the reproach He

cast upon the people that except they saw signs and wonders they would

not believe. He would never work a miracle merely for the sake of

manifesting His glory. Whenever the unsympathetic, ignorant crowd

clamoured for a sign; whenever with ill-concealed dislike they cried,

"How long dost Thou make us to doubt? Show us a sign from heaven, that

we may believe," He was silent. To create a mere compulsory consent in

minds which had no sympathy with Him was never a sufficient motive. Was

there a sick child tossing in fever, was there a blind beggar by the

roadside, was there a hungry crowd, was there even the joy of a feast

interrupted: in these He could find a worthy occasion for a miracle; but

never did He work a miracle merely for the sake of removing the doubts

of reluctant men. Where there was not even the beginning of faith

miracles were useless. He could not work miracles in some places because

of their unbelief.

What then was the motive of Christ's miracles? He was, as these first

disciples owned Him, the King of God's kingdom among men: He was the

ideal Man, the new Adam, the true Source of human goodness, health, and

power. He came to do us good, and the Spirit of God filled His human

nature to its utmost capacity, that it might do all that man can do.

Having these powers, He could not but use them for men. Having power to

heal, He could not but heal, irrespective of the result which the

miracle might have on the faith of those who saw it; nay, He could not

but heal, though He straitly charged the healed person to let no man

know what had been done. His miracles were His kingly acts, by which He

suggested what man's true life in God's kingdom should be and will be.

They were the utterance of what was in Him, the manifestation of His

glory, the glory of One who came to utter the Father's heart to His

strayed children. They expressed good-will to men; and to the spiritual

eye of a John they became "signs" of spiritual wonders, symbols and

pledges of those greater works and eternal blessings which Jesus came to

bestow. The miracles revealed the Divine compassion, the grace and

helpfulness that were in Christ, and led men to trust Him for all their

needs.

We must, therefore, beware of falling into the error that lies at either

extreme. We must neither, on the one hand, suppose that Christ's

miracles were wrought solely for the purpose of establishing His claim

to be God's Viceroy on earth; nor, on the other hand, are we to suppose

that the marvels of beneficence by which He was known did nothing to

prove His claim or promote His kingdom. The poet writes because he is a

poet, and not to convince the world that he is a poet; yet by writing he

does convince the world. The benevolent man acts just as Christ did when

He seemed to lay His finger on His lips and warned the healed person to

make no mention of this kind act to anyone; and therefore all who do

discover his actions know that he is really charitable. The act that a

man does in order that he may be recognised as a good and benevolent

person exhibits his love of recognition much more strikingly than his

benevolence; and it is because the miracles of Christ were wrought from

the purest and most self-denying compassion that ever explored and bound

up the wounds of men, that we acknowledge Him as incontestably our King.

2. In what respects, then, did this first miracle manifest the glory of

Christ? What was there in it to stir the thought and attract the

adoration and trust of the disciples? Was it worthy to be the medium of

conveying to their minds the first ideas of His glory they were to

cherish? And what ideas must these have been? The first impression they

must have received from the miracle was, no doubt, simple amazement at

the power which so easily and unostentatiously turned the water into

wine. This Person, they must have felt, stood in a peculiar relation to

Nature. In fact, what John laid as the foundation of his Gospel,--that

the Christ who came to redeem was He by whom all things were at first

made,--Jesus also advanced as the first step in His revelation of

Himself. He appears as the Source of life, whose will pervades all

things. He comes, not as a stranger or interloper who has no sympathy

with existing things, but as the faithful Creator, who loves all that He

has made, and can use all things for the good of men. He is at home in

the world, and enters physical nature as its King, who can use it for

His high ends. Never before has He wrought a miracle, but in this first

command to Nature there is no hesitation, no experimenting, no anxiety,

but the easy confidence of a Master. He is either Himself the Creator of

the world He comes to restore to worth and peace, or He is the Delegate

of the Creator. We see in this first miracle that Christ is not an alien

or an usurper, but one who has already the closest connection with us

and with all things. We receive assurance that in Him God is present.

3. But it was not only the Creator's power which was shown in this

miracle, but some hint was given of the ends for which that power would

be used by Christ. Perhaps the disciples who had known and admired the

austere life of the Baptist would expect that He whom the Baptist

proclaimed as greater than himself would be greater in the same line,

and would reveal His glory by a sublime abstemiousness. They had

confessed Him to be the Son of God, and might naturally expect to find

in Him an independence of earthly joys. They had followed Him as the

king of Israel; was His kingly glory to find a suitable sphere in the

little family difficulties that poverty begets? It is almost a shock to

our own ideas of our Lord to think of Him as one of a marriage party; to

hear Him uttering the ordinary salutations, civilities, and enquiries of

a friendly and festive gathering; to see Him standing by while others

are the principal figures in the room. And we know that many who had

opportunity to observe His habits could never understand or reconcile

themselves to His easy familiarity with all kinds of people, and to His

freedom in partaking in mirthful scenes and hilarious entertainments.

And just because of this difficulty we find in reconciling religion with

joy, God with nature, does Christ reveal His glory first at a

marriage-feast, not in the temple, not in the synagogue, not by taking

His disciples apart to teach them to pray, but at a festive gathering,

that thus they may recognise in Him the Lord of all human life, and see

that His work of redemption is co-extensive with human experience. He

comes among us, not to crush or pour contempt on human feelings, but to

exalt them by sharing in them; not to show that it is possible to live

separate from all human sympathies, but to deepen and intensify them;

not to do away with the ordinary business and social relations of life,

but to sanctify them. He comes sharing in all pure feelings and joys,

sanctioning all natural relationships; Himself human, with interest in

all human interests; not a mere spectator or censor of human affairs,

but Himself a man implicated in things human. He shows us the folly of

fancying that God looks with an austere and morose eye upon outbursts

of human affection and joy, and teaches us that to be holy as He is holy

we are not required to abandon the ordinary affairs of life, and that

however we make them the apology for worldliness, it is not the

necessary duties or relations of life that prevent our being Christlike,

but these are the very material in which His glory may be most clearly

seen, the soil in which must grow and ripen all Christian graces and

fruits of righteousness.

This, then, was the glory Christ wished His disciples first of all to

see. He was to be their King, not by drilling men to fight for Him, nor

by interrupting the natural order and upsetting the established ways of

men, but by entering into these with a gladdening, purifying, elevating

spirit. His glory was not to be confined to a palace or to a small

circle of courtiers, or to one particular department of activity, but

was to be found irradiating all human life in its most ordinary forms.

He came, indeed, to make all things new, but the new creation was the

fulfilment of the original idea: it was not to be achieved by thwarting

nature, nor by a one-sided development of some elements of nature, but

by guiding the whole to its original destination, by lifting the whole

into harmony with God. We see the glory of Christ, and accept Him as our

Ruler and Redeemer, because we see in Him perfect sympathy with all that

is human.

4. While enjoying the bounty of Christ at the marriage feast, John

cannot have yet understood all that was involved in His Master's purpose

to bring new life and happiness to this world of men. Afterwards, no

doubt, he saw how appropriately this miracle took the first place, and

through it read his Lord's own thoughts about His whole work on earth.

For it is impossible that Christ Himself should not have had His own

thoughts about the significance of this miracle. He had, during the

previous six weeks, passed through a time of violent mental disturbance

and of supreme spiritual exaltation. The measureless task laid upon Him

had become visible to Him. Already He was aware that only through His

death could the utmost of blessing be imparted to men. Is it possible

that while He first put forth His power to restore the joy of these

wedding guests, He should not have seen in the wine a symbol of the

blood He was to shed for the refreshment and revival of men? The

Baptist, whose mind was nourished with Old Testament ideas, called

Christ the Bridegroom, and His people the Bride. Must not Jesus also

have thought of those who believed in Him as His bride, and must not the

very sight of a marriage have set His thoughts working regarding His

whole relation to men? So that in His first miracle He no doubt saw a

summary of His whole work. In this first manifestation of His glory

there is, to Himself at least, a reminder that only by His death will

that glory be perfected. Without Him, as He saw, the joy of this wedding

feast had been brought to an untimely close; and without His free

outpouring of His life for men there could be no presenting of men to

God unblemished and blameless, no fulfilment of those high hopes of

mankind that nourish pure characters and noble deeds, but a swift and

dreary extinction of even natural joys. It is to the marriage supper of

the _Lamb_, of Him who was slain, and has redeemed us by His blood, that

we are invited. It is the "Lamb's wife" that John saw adorned as a bride

for her Husband. And whosoever would sit down at that feast which

consummates the experience of this life, terminating all its

vacillation of trust and love, and which opens eternal and unlimited joy

to the people of Christ, must wash and make white his garments in this

blood. He must not shrink from the closest fellowship with the purifying

love of Christ.

5. His disciples, when they saw His power and His goodness in this

miracle, felt more than ever that He was the rightful King. They

"believed on Him." To us this first of signs is merged in the last, in

His death. The joy, the self-sacrifice, the holiness, the strength and

beauty of human character which that death has produced in the world, is

the great evidence which enables many now to believe in Him. The fact is

indubitable. The intelligent secular historian, who surveys the rise and

growth of European nations, counts the death of Christ among the most

vital and influential of powers for good. It has touched all things with

change, and been the source of endless benefit to men. Are we then to

repudiate Him or to acknowledge Him? Are we to act like the master of

the feast, who enjoyed the good wine without asking where it came from;

or are we to own ourselves debtors to the actual Creator of our

happiness? If the disciples believed on Him when they saw Him furnish

these wedding guests with wine, shall we not believe, who know that

through all these ages He has furnished the pained and the poor with

hope and consolation, the desolate and broken-hearted with restoring

sympathy, the outcast with the knowledge of God's love, the sinner with

pardon, with heaven, and with God? Is not the glory He showed at this

marriage in Cana precisely what still attracts us to Him with confidence

and affection? Can we not wholly trust this Lord who has a perfect

sympathy guiding His Divine power, who brings the presence of God into

all the details of human life, who enters into all our joys and all our

sorrows, and is ever watchful to anticipate our every need, and supply

it out of His inexhaustible and all-sufficient fulness? Happy they who

know His heart as His mother knew it, and are satisfied to name their

want and leave it with Him.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Modern topography inclines to identify this Cana, not, as formerly,

with Kafr-Kenna, but with Kanet-el-Jelil, some six miles N.E. of

Nazareth. It is called Cana of Galilee to distinguish it from Cana in

Asher, S.E. from Tyre (Joshua xix. 28).

VI.

_THE CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE._

"After this He went down to Capernaum, He, and His mother, and His

brethren, and His disciples: and there they abode not many days. And

the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to

Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep

and doves, and the changers of money sitting: and He made a scourge

of cords, and cast all out of the temple, both the sheep and the

oxen; and He poured out the changers' money, and overthrew their

tables; and to them that sold the doves He said, Take these things

hence; make not My Father's house a house of merchandise. His

disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of Thine house

shall eat me up. The Jews therefore answered and said unto Him, What

sign showest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou doest these things?

Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three

days I will raise it up. The Jews therefore said, Forty and six

years was this temple in building, and wilt Thou raise it up in

three days? But He spake of the temple of His body. When therefore

He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He spake

this; and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had

said."--JOHN ii. 12-22.

Whether the Nazareth family returned from Cana to their own town before

going down to Capernaum, John does not inform us. Neither are we told

why they went to Capernaum at all at this time. It may have been in

order to join one of the larger caravans going up to Jerusalem for the

approaching Feast. Not only the disciples, some of whom had their homes

on the lake-side, accompanied Jesus, but also His mother and His

brothers. The manner in which the brothers are spoken of in connection

with His mother suggests that He and they bore to her the same relation.

They remained in Capernaum "not many days," because the Passover was at

hand. Having come to Jerusalem, and appearing there for the first time

since His baptism, He performed several miracles. These John omits, and

selects as more significant and worthy of record one authoritative act.

The circumstances which occasioned this act were familiar to the

Jerusalem Jew. The exigencies of Temple worship had bred a flagrant

abuse. Worshippers coming from remote parts of the Holy Land, and from

countries beyond, found it a convenience to be able to purchase on the

spot the animals used in sacrifice, and the material for various

offerings--salt, meal, oil, frankincense. Traders were not slow to

supply this demand, and vying with one another they crept nearer and

nearer to the sacred precincts, until some, under pretence perhaps of

driving in an animal for sacrifice, made a sale within the outer court.

This court had an area of about fourteen acres, and was separated from

the inner court by a wall breast high, and bearing intimations which

forbade the encroachment of Gentiles on pain of death. Round this outer

court ran marble colonnades, richly ornamented and supported by four

rows of pillars, and roofed with cedar, affording ample shade to the

traders.

There were not only cattle-dealers and sellers of pigeons, but also

money-changers; for every Jew had to pay to the Temple treasury an

annual tax of half a shekel, and this tax could be paid only in the

sacred currency. No foreign coin, with its emblem of submission to an

alien king, was allowed to pollute the Temple. Thus there came to be

need of money-changers, not only for the Jew who had come up to the

feast from a remote part of the empire, but even for the inhabitant of

Palestine, as the Roman coinage had displaced the shekel in ordinary

use.

There might seem, therefore, to be room to say much in favour of this

convenient custom. At any rate, it was one of those abuses which, while

they may shock a fresh and unsophisticated mind, are allowed both

because they contribute to public convenience and because they have a

large pecuniary interest at their back. In point of fact, however, the

practice gave rise to lamentable consequences. Cattle-dealers and

money-changers have always been notorious for making more than their own

out of their bargains, and facts enough are on record to justify our

Lord calling this particular market "a den of thieves." The poor were

shamefully cheated, and the worship of God was hindered and impoverished

instead of being facilitated and enriched. And even although this

traffic had been carried on under careful supervision, and on

unimpeachable principles, still it was unseemly that the worshipper who

came to the Temple seeking quiet and fellowship with God should have to

push his way through the touts of the dealers, and have his devotional

temper dissipated by the wrangling and shouting of a cattle market. Yet

although many must have lamented this, no one had been bold enough to

rebuke and abolish the glaring profanation.

Jesus on entering the Temple finds Himself in the midst of this

incongruous scene--the sounds and movements of a market, the loud and

eager exclamations of competing traders, the bustle of selecting one

animal out of a flock, the loud talk and laughter of the idle groups of

onlookers. Jesus cannot stand it. Zeal for the honour of His Father's

house possesses Him. The Temple claims Him as its vindicator from abuse.

Nowhere can He more appropriately assert His authority as Messiah. Out

of the cords lying about He quickly knots together a formidable scourge,

and silently, leaving the public conscience to justify His action, He

proceeds single-handed to drive out cattle and traders together. A scene

of violence ensued,--the cattle rushing hither and thither, the owners

trying to preserve their property, the money-changers holding their

tables as Jesus went from one to another upsetting them, the scattered

coin scrambled for; and over all the threatening scourge and the

commanding eye of the Stranger. Never on any other occasion did our Lord

use violence.

The audacity of the act has few parallels. To interfere in the very

Temple with any of its recognized customs was in itself a claim to be

King in Israel. Were a stranger suddenly to appear in the lobby of the

House of Commons, and by sheer dignity of demeanour, and the force of

integrity, to rectify an abuse of old standing involving the interests

of a wealthy and privileged class, it could not create a greater

sensation. The Baptist might be with Him, cowing the truculent with his

commanding eye; but there was no need of the Baptist: the action of

Christ awakening conscience in the men themselves was enough to quell

resistance.

No doubt Jesus began His work at the house of God because He knew that

the Temple was the real heart of the nation; that it was belief in God

which was their strength and hope, and that the loss of that belief, and

the consequent irreverence and worldliness, were the most dangerous

features of Jewish society. The state of matters He found in the Temple

could not have been tolerated had the people really believed God was

present in the Temple.

Such an act could not pass without being criticised. It would be keenly

discussed that evening in Jerusalem. At every table it would be the

topic of conversation, and a most serious one wherever men in authority

were meeting. Many would condemn it as a piece of pharisaic ostentation.

If He is a reformer, why does He not turn His attention to the

licentiousness of the people? Why show such extravagant and unseemly

zeal about so innocent a custom when flagrant immoralities abound? Why

not spend His zeal in clearing out from the land the polluting

foreigner? Such charges are easy. No man can do everything, least of

all can he do everything at once. And yet the advocate of temperance is

twitted with his negligence of other causes which are perhaps as

necessary; and he who pleads for foreign missions is reminded that we

have heathen at home. These are the carping criticisms of habitual

fault-finders, and of men who have no hearty desire for the advancement

of what is good.

Others, again, who approved the act could not reconcile themselves to

the manner of it. Might it not have been enough to have pointed out the

abuse, and to have made a strong representation to the authorities? Was

it fair to step in and usurp the authority of the Sanhedrim or Temple

officials? Was it consistent with prophetic dignity to drive out the

offenders with His own hand? Even those most friendly to Him may have

felt a little jarred as they saw Him with uplifted scourge and flaming

eyes violently driving before Him men and beasts. But they remembered

that it was written, "The zeal of Thine house will consume Me." They

remembered perhaps how the most popular king of Israel had danced before

the ark, to the scandal indeed of dull-souled conventionalists, but with

the approval of all clear-seeing and spiritually-judging men. They might

also have remembered how the last of their prophecies had said, "Behold,

the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His temple. But who may

abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth?"

This zeal at once explained and justified His action. Some abuses may be

reformed by appeal to the constituted authorities; others can be

abolished only by the blazing indignation of a righteous soul who cannot

longer endure the sight. This zeal, conquering all consideration of

consequences and regard to appearances, acts as a cleansing fire,

sweeping before it what is offensive. It has always its own risks to

run: the authorities at Jerusalem never forgave Jesus this first

interference. By reforming an abuse they should never have allowed, He

damaged them in the eyes of the people, and they could never forget it.

Zeal also runs the risk of acting indiscreetly and taking too much upon

it. In itself zeal is a good thing, but it does not exist "in itself."

It exists in a certain character, and where the character is imperfect

or dangerous the zeal is imperfect or dangerous. The zeal of the proud

or selfish man is mischievous, the zeal of the ignorant fraught with

disaster. Still, with all risks, give us by all means rather the man who

is eaten up, possessed and carried away, by a passionate sympathy with

the oppressed and neglected, or with unquenchable zeal for rectitude and

honourable dealing or for the glory of God, than the man who can stand

and be a spectator of wrong because it is no business of his to see that

injustice be withstood, who can connive at unrighteous practices because

their correction is troublesome, invidious, hazardous. He who lays a

sudden hand on wrong-doing may have no legal authority to plead in his

defence when challenged, but to all good men such an act justifies

itself. It was a similar zeal which at all times governed Christ. He

could not stand by and wash His hands of other men's sins. It was this

which brought Him to the cross, this which in the first place brought

Him to this world at all. He had to interfere. Zeal for His father's

glory, zeal for God and man, possessed Him.

It was therefore no concern of Jesus to make Himself very intelligible

to those who could not understand the action itself and demanded a

sign. They did not understand His answer; and it was not intended they

should. Frequently our Lord's answers are enigmatical. Men have

opportunity to stumble over them, if they will. For frequently they

asked foolish questions, which admitted only of such answers. The

present question, "What sign showest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou

doest these things?" was absurd. It was to ask for a light to see light

with, a sign of a sign. His zeal for God that carried the crowd before

it, and swept God's house clean of the profane, was the best proof of

His authority and Messiahship. But there was one sign which He could

promise them without violating His principle to do no miracle merely for

the sake of convincing reluctant minds. There was one sign which formed

an integral part of His work; a sign which He must work, irrespective of

its effect on their opinion of Him--the sign of His own Resurrection.

And therefore, when they ask Him for a sign of His authority to reform

the abuses of the Temple, He promises them this sign, that He will raise

the Temple again when they destroy it. If He can give them a Temple He

has authority in it. "Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will

raise it up."

What did He mean by this enigmatical saying, which not even His

disciples understood till long afterwards? We cannot doubt that in their

resistance to His first public act, righteous and necessary, and welcome

to all right-hearted men, as it was, He plainly saw the symptom of a

deep-seated hatred of all reform, which would lead them on to reject His

whole work. He had meditated much on the tone of the authorities, on the

religious state of His country--what young man of thirty with anything

in him has not done so? He had made up His mind that He would meet with

opposition at every point, and that while a faithful few would stand by

Him, the leaders of the people would certainly resist and destroy Him.

Here in His very first act He is met by the spirit of hatred, and

jealousy, and godlessness which was at last to compass His death. But

His rejection He also knew was to be the signal for the downfall of the

nation. In destroying Him He knew they were destroying themselves, their

city, their Temple. As Daniel had long ago said, "The Messiah shall be

cut off ... and the people of a prince who shall come shall destroy the

city and the sanctuary."

To Himself therefore His words had a very definite meaning: Destroy this

Temple, as you certainly will by disowning My authority and resisting My

acts of reform, and at length crucifying Me, and in three days I will

raise it. As by denying My authority and crucifying My Person you

destroy this house of My Father, so by My resurrection will I put men in

possession of God's true dwelling-place, and introduce a new and

spiritual worship. "It is in Christ's person this great drama is

enacted. The Messiah perishes: the Temple falls. The Messiah lives

again: the true Temple rises on the ruins of the symbolical temple. For

in the kingdom of God there is no simple restoration. Every revival is

at the same time an advance" (Godet). A living Temple is better than a

Temple of stone. Human nature itself, possessed and inspired by the

Divine, that is the true Temple of God.

This sign was in two years given to them. As Jesus drew His last breath

on the cross the veil of the Temple was rent. There was no longer

anything to veil; the unapproachable glory was for ever gone. The Temple

in which God had so long dwelt was now but a shell, mocking and

pathetic in the extreme, as the clothes of a departed friend, or as the

familiar dwelling that remains itself the same but changed to us for

ever. The Jews in crucifying the Messiah had effectually destroyed their

Temple. A few years more and it was in ruins, and has been so ever

since. That building which had once the singular, wonderful dignity of

being the spot where God was specially to be found and to be worshipped,

and where He dwelt upon earth in a way apprehensible by men, was from

the hour of Christ's death doomed to vacuity and destruction.

But in three days a new and better Temple was raised in Christ's body,

glorified by the presence of the indwelling God. Forty and six years had

the Jews spent in rearing the magnificent pile that astonished and awed

their conquerors. They had thus themselves rebuilt more splendidly the

Temple of Solomon. But to rebuild the Temple they destroyed in

crucifying the Lord was beyond them. The sign of rebuilding their Temple

of marble, which they scouted as a ridiculous extravagance, was really a

far less stupendous and infinitely less significant sign than that which

He actually gave them in rising from the dead. If it was impossible to

rear that magnificent fabric in three days, yet something might be done

towards it: but towards the raising of the dead body of Christ nothing

could be done by human skill, diligence, or power.

But it is not the stupendous difficulty of this sign which should

chiefly engage our attention. It is rather its significance. Christ rose

from the dead, not to startle godless and truth-hating men into faith,

but to furnish all mankind with a new and better Temple, with the means

of spiritual worship and constant fellowship with God. There was a

necessity for the resurrection. Those who became intimately acquainted

with Christ slowly but surely became aware that they found more of God

in Him than ever they had found in the Temple. Gradually they acquired

new thoughts about God; and instead of thinking of Him as a Sovereign

veiled from the popular gaze in the hidden Holy of holies, and receiving

through consecrated hands the gifts and offering of the people, they

learned to think of Him as a Father, to whom no condescension was too

deep, no familiarity with men too close. Unconsciously to themselves,

apparently, they began to think of Christ as the true Revealer of God,

as the living Temple who at all hours gave them access to the living

God. But not till the Resurrection was this transference complete--nay,

so fixed had their hearts been, in common with all Jewish hearts, upon

the Temple, that not until the Temple was destroyed did they wholly

grasp what was given them in the Resurrection of Jesus. It was the

Resurrection which confirmed their wavering belief in Him as the Son of

God. As Paul says, it was the resurrection which "declared Him to be the

Son of God with power." Being the Son of God, it was impossible He

should be held by death. He had come to the Temple calling it by an

unheard-of name, "_My_ Father's house." Not Moses, not Solomon, not

Ezra, not the holiest of high priests, would have dreamt of so

identifying himself with God as to speak of the Temple, not even as "our

Father's house" or "your Father's house," but "my Father's house." And

it was the Resurrection which finally justified His doing so, declaring

Him to be, in a sense no other was, the Son of God.

But it was not in the body of Christ that God found His permanent

dwelling among men. This sacred presence was withdrawn in order to

facilitate the end God has from the first had in view, the full

indwelling and possession of each and all men by His Spirit. This

intimate fellowship with all men, this free communication of Himself to

all, this inhabitation of all souls by the ever-living God, was the end

aimed at by all that God has done among men. His dwelling among men in

the Temple at Jerusalem, His dwelling among men in the living Person of

Christ, were preliminary and preparatory to His dwelling in men

individually. "Ye," says Paul, "are built up a spiritual house." "Ye are

builded together for a habitation of God." "Ye are the temple of the

living God." This is the great reality towards which men have been led

by symbol--the complete pervasion of all intelligence and of all moral

beings by the Spirit of God.

For us this cleansing of the Temple is a sign. It is a sign that Christ

really means to do thoroughly the great work He has taken in hand. Long

ago had it been said, "Behold the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly

come to His Temple; and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of

silver." He was to come where holiness was professed, and to sift the

true from the false, the worldly and greedy religious from the devoted

and spiritual. He was not to make pretence of doing so, but actually to

accomplish the separation. To reform abuses such as this marketing in

the Temple was no pleasant task. He had to meet the gaze and defy the

vindictiveness of an exasperated mob; He had to make enemies of a

powerful class in the community. But He does what is called for by the

circumstances: and this is but a part and a sample of the work He does

always. Always He makes thorough, real work. He does not blink the

requirements of the case. We shrug our shoulders and pass by where

matters are difficult to mend; we let the flood take its course rather

than risk being carried away in attempting to stem it. Not so Christ.

The Temple was shortly to be destroyed, and it might seem to matter

little what practices were allowed in it; but the sounds of bargaining

and the greedy eye of trade could not be suffered by Him in His Father's

house: how much more shall He burn as a consuming fire when He cleanses

that Church for which He gave Himself that it might be without spot or

blemish. _He will cleanse it._ We may yield ourselves with gladness to

His sanctifying power, or we may rebelliously question His authority;

but cleansed the house of God must be.

VII.

_NICODEMUS._

"Now when He was in Jerusalem at the passover, during the feast,

many believed on His name, beholding His signs which He did. But

Jesus did not trust Himself unto them, for that He knew all men, and

because He needed not that any one should bear witness concerning

man; for He Himself knew what was in man. Now there was a man of the

Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came unto

Him by night, and said to Him, Rabbi, we know that Thou art a

teacher come from God: for no man can do these signs that Thou

doest, except God be with Him. Jesus answered and said unto him,

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born anew, he

cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto Him, How can a

man be born when he is old? can he enter a second time into his

mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say

unto thee, Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot

enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is

flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not

that I said unto thee, Ye must be born anew. The wind bloweth where

it listeth, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not

whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born

of the Spirit."--JOHN ii. 23-iii. 8.

The first visit of Jesus to Jerusalem was not without considerable

effect on the popular mind. Many who saw the miracles He did believed

that He was a messenger from God. They saw that His miracles were not

the clever tricks of an impostor, and they were prepared to listen to

His teaching and enrol themselves as members of the kingdom He came to

found. Yet our Lord did not encourage them. He saw that they

misunderstood Him. He recognised their worldliness of heart and of aim,

and did not admit them to the intimacy He had established with the five

simple-minded Galileans. The Jerusalem Jews were glad to fall in with

one who seemed likely to do honour to their nation, and their belief in

Him was the belief men give to a statesman whose policy they approve.

The difference between them and those who rejected Christ was not a

difference of disposition such as exists between godly and ungodly men,

but consisted merely in the circumstance that they were convinced that

His miracles were genuine. Had our Lord encouraged these men they would

ultimately have been disappointed in Him. It was better that from the

first they should be stimulated to reflect on the whole matter by being

coldly received by the Lord.

It is always a point that calls for reflection: we have to consider not

only whether we have faith in Christ, but whether He has faith in

us--not only whether we have committed ourselves to Him, but whether

that committal is so genuine that He can build upon and trust it. Can He

count upon us for all service, for fidelity in times when much is

needed? Thoroughgoing confidence must always be reciprocal. The person

you believe in so utterly that you are entirely his, believes in you and

trusts himself to you--his reputation, his interests are safe in your

keeping. So is it with Christ. Faith cannot be one-sided here any more

than elsewhere. He gives Himself to those who give themselves to Him.

They who so trust Him that He is sure they will follow Him even when

they cannot see where He is going; they who trust Him, not in one or two

matters which they see He can manage, but absolutely and in all

things,--to these He will give Himself freely, sharing with them His

work, His Spirit, His reward.

To illustrate the state of mind of the Jerusalem Jews and Christ's mode

of treating them, John selects the case of Nicodemus. He was one of

those who were much impressed by the miracles of Jesus, and were

prepared to attach themselves to any movement in His favour. He belonged

to the Pharisees; to that party which, with all its narrowness,

pedantry, dogmatism, and bigotry, still preserved a salt of genuine

patriotism and genuine godliness, and reared high-toned and cultivated

men like Gamaliel and Saul. Nicodemus, whether a member of the

Sanhedrim's deputation to the Baptist or not, certainly knew the result

of that deputation, and was aware that a crisis in the national history

had arrived. He could not wait for the community to move, but felt that

whatever conclusion regarding Christ the Pharisees as a body might

arrive at, he must on his own responsibility be at the bottom of those

extraordinary events and signs that clustered round the person of Jesus.

He was a modest, reserved, cautious man, and did not wish openly to

commit himself till he was sure of his ground. He has been blamed for

timidity. I would only say that, if he felt it dangerous to be seen in

the company of Jesus, it was a bold thing to visit Him at all. He went

by night; but he went. And would that there were more like him, who,

whether cautious to excess or not, do still feel constrained to judge

for themselves about Christ; who feel that, no matter what other men

think of Him, there is an interest in Him which they cannot wait for

others to settle, but must for themselves settle before they sleep.

Probably Nicodemus made his visit by night because he did not wish to

precipitate matters by calling undue attention to the position and

intentions of Jesus. He probably went with the purpose of urging some

special plan of action. This inexperienced Galilean could not be

supposed to understand the populace of Jerusalem as well as the old

member of the Sanhedrim, who was familiar with all the outs and ins of

party politics in the metropolis. Nicodemus would therefore go and

advise Him how to proceed in proclaiming the kingdom of God; or at least

sound Him, and, if he found Him amenable to reason, encourage Him to

proceed, and warn Him against the pitfalls that lay in His path.

Modestly, and as if speaking for others as much as for himself, he says:

"Rabbi, we know that Thou art a Teacher come from God, for no man can do

these miracles that Thou doest except God be with Him!" There is here

neither patronizing acknowledgment nor flattery, but merely the natural

first utterance of a man who must say something to show the state of his

mind. It served to reveal the point at which Nicodemus had arrived, and

the ground on which the conversation might proceed. But "Jesus knew what

was in man." In this acknowledgment of His miracles on the part of

Nicodemus, Jesus saw the whole mental attitude of the man. He saw that

if Nicodemus had uttered all that was in his mind he would have said: "I

believe you are sent to restore the kingdom to Israel, and I am come to

advise with you on your plan of operation, and to urge upon you certain

lines of action." And therefore Jesus promptly cuts him short by saying:

"The kingdom of God is quite another thing than you are thinking of; and

the way to establish it, to enlist citizens in it, is very different

from the way you have been meditating."

In fact, Jesus was becoming embarrassed by His own miracles. They were

attracting the wrong kind of people--the superficial worldly people; the

people who thought a daring and strong hand with a dash of magic would

serve all their turn. His mind was full of this, and as soon as He has

an opportunity of uttering Himself on this point He does so, and assures

Nicodemus, as a representative of a large number of Jews who needed this

teaching, that all their thoughts about the kingdom must be ruled by

this principle, and must start from this great truth, that it was a

kingdom into which the Spirit of God alone could give entrance, and

could give entrance only by making men spiritual. That is to say, that

it was a spiritual kingdom, an inward rule over the hearts of men, not

an outward empire--a kingdom to be established, not by political craft

and midnight meetings, but by internal change and submission in heart to

God--a kingdom, therefore, into which admission could be given only on

some more spiritual ground than the mere circumstance of a man's natural

birth as a Jew.

In our Lord's _language_ there was nothing that need have puzzled

Nicodemus. In religious circles in Jerusalem there was nothing being

talked of but the kingdom of God which John the Baptist had declared to

be at hand. And when Jesus told Nicodemus that in order to enter this

kingdom he must be born again, He told him just what John had been

telling the whole people. John had assured them that, though the King

was in their midst, they must not suppose they were already within His

kingdom by being the children of Abraham. He excommunicated the whole

nation, and taught them that it was something different from natural

birth that gave admission to God's kingdom. And just as they had

compelled Gentiles to be baptized, and to submit to other arrangements

when they wished to partake of Jewish privileges, so John compelled them

to be baptized. The Gentile who wished to become a Jew had to be

symbolically born again. He had to be baptized, going down under the

cleansing waters, washing away his old and defiled life, being buried by

baptism, disappearing, from men's sight as a Gentile, and rising from

the water as a new man. He was thus born of water, and this time born,

not a Gentile, but a Jew.

The language of our Lord then could scarcely puzzle Nicodemus, but the

idea did stagger him that not only Gentiles but Jews must be born again.

John had indeed required the same preparation for entrance to the

kingdom; but the Pharisees had not listened to John, and were offended

precisely on the ground of his baptism. But now Jesus presses upon

Nicodemus the very same truth, that as the Gentile had to be naturalized

and born again that he might rank as a child of Abraham, and enjoy the

external privileges of the Jew, so must the Jew himself be born again if

he is to rank as a child of God and to belong to the kingdom of God. He

must submit to the double baptism of water and of the Spirit--of water

for the pardon and cleansing of past sin and defilement, of the Spirit

for the inspiration of a new and holy life.

Our Lord here speaks of the second birth as completed by two agencies,

water and the Spirit. To make the one of these merely the symbol of the

other is to miss His meaning. The Baptist baptized with water for the

remission of sins, but he was always careful to disclaim power to

baptize with the Holy Ghost. His baptism with water was of course

symbolical; that is to say, the water itself exercised no spiritual

influence, but merely represented to the eye what was invisibly done in

the heart. But that which it symbolised was not the life-giving

influence of the Holy Spirit, but the washing away of sin from the soul.

Assurance of pardon John was empowered to give. Those who humbly

submitted to his baptism with confession of their sins went from it

forgiven and cleansed. But more than that was needed to make them new

men--and yet more he could not give. For that which would fill them with

new life they must go to a Greater than he, who alone could bestow the

Holy Ghost.

These then are the two great incidents of the second birth--the pardon

of sin, which is preparatory, and which cuts our connection with the

past; the communication of life by the Spirit of God, which fits us for

the future. Both of these are represented by Christian baptism because

in Christ we have both; but those who were baptized by John's baptism

were only _prepared_ for receiving Christ's Spirit by receiving the

forgiveness of their sins.

Having thus declared to Nicodemus the necessity of the second birth, He

goes on to give the reason of this necessity. Birth by the Spirit is

necessary, because that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and the

kingdom of God is spiritual. Of course our Lord does not mean by flesh

the mere tangible substance of the body; He does not mean that our first

and natural birth puts us in possession of nothing but a material frame.

By the word "flesh" He signifies the appetites, desires, faculties,

which animate and govern the body, as well as the body itself--the whole

equipment with which nature furnishes a man for life in this world. This

natural birth gives a man entrance into much, and for ever determines

much, that has important bearings on his person, character, and destiny.

It determines all differences of nationality, of temperament, of sex;

apart altogether from any choice of his it is determined whether he

shall be a South Sea Islander or a European; an antediluvian living in a

cave or an Englishman of the nineteenth century. But the kingdom of God

is a spiritual kingdom, into which entrance can be had only by a man's

own will and spiritual condition, only by an attachment to God which is

no part of a man's natural equipment.

As soon as we clearly see what the kingdom of God is, we see also that

by nature we do not belong to it. The kingdom of God so far as man is

concerned is a state of willing subjection to Him--a state in which we

are in our right relation to Him. All irrational creatures obey God and

do His will: the sun runs his course with an exactness and punctuality

we cannot rival; the grace and strength of many of the lower animals,

their marvellous instincts and aptitudes, are so superior to anything in

ourselves that we cannot even comprehend them. But what we have as our

speciality is to render to God a willing service; to understand His

purposes and enter sympathetically into them. The lower creatures obey a

law impressed upon their nature; they cannot sin; their performance of

God's will is a tribute to the power which made them so skilfully, but

it lacks all conscious recognition of His worthiness to be served and

all knowledge of His object in creation. It is God serving Himself: He

made them so, and therefore they do His will. So it is with men who

merely obey their nature: they may do kindly, noble, heroic actions, but

they lack all reference to God; and however excellent these actions are,

they give no guarantee that the men who do them would sympathize with

God in all things, and do His will gladly.

Indeed, to establish the proposition that flesh or nature does not give

us entrance into God's kingdom, we need go no further than our own

consciousness. Remove the restraints which grace puts upon our nature,

and we are aware that we are not in sympathy with God, fond of His will,

disposed for His service. Let nature have its swing, and every man knows

it is not the kingdom of God it takes him to. To all men it is natural

to eat, drink, sleep, think; we are born to these things, and need to

put no constraint on our nature to do them; but can any man say it has

come naturally to him to be what he ought to be to God? Do we not to

this hour feel drawn away from God as if we were not in our element in

His presence? Flesh, nature, in God's presence is as much out of its

element as a stone in the air or a fish out of water. Men who have had

the deepest religious experience have seen it most clearly, and have

felt, like Paul, that the flesh lusts against the spirit, and draws us

ever back from entire submission to God and delight in Him.

Perhaps the necessity of the second birth may be more clearly

apprehended if we consider it from another point of view. In this world

we find a number of creatures which have what is known as animal life.

They can work, and feel, and, in a fashion, think. They have wills, and

certain dispositions, and distinctive characteristics. Every creature

that has animal life has a certain nature according to its kind, and

determined by its parentage; and this nature which the animal receives

from its parents determines from the first the capabilities and sphere

of the animal's life. The mole cannot soar in the face of the sun like

the eagle; neither can the bird that comes out of the eagle's egg burrow

like the mole. No training can possibly make the tortoise as swift as

the antelope, or the antelope as strong as the lion. If a mole began to

fly and enjoy the sunlight it must be counted a new kind of creature,

and no longer a mole. The very fact of its passing certain limitations

shows that another nature has somehow been infused into it. Beyond its

own nature no animal can act. You might as well attempt to give the

eagle the appearance of the serpent as try to teach it to crawl. Each

kind of animal is by its birth endowed with its own nature, fitting it

to do certain things, and making other things impossible. So is it with

us: we are born with certain faculties and endowments, with a certain

nature; and just as all animals, without receiving any new, individual,

supernatural help from God, can act according to their nature, so can

we. We, being human, have a high and richly-endowed animal nature, a

nature that leads us not only to eat, drink, sleep, and fight like the

lower animals, but a nature which leads us to think and to love, and

which, by culture and education, can enjoy a much richer and wider life

than the lower creatures. Men need not be in the kingdom of God in order

to do much that is admirable, noble, lovely, because their nature as

animals fits them for that. If we were to exist at all as a race of

animals superior to all others, then all this is just what must be found

in us. Irrespective of any kingdom of God at all, irrespective of any

knowledge of God or reference to Him, we have a life in this world, and

a nature fitting us for it. And it is this we have by our natural birth,

a place among our kind, an animal life. The first man, from whom we all

descend, was, as St. Paul profoundly says, "a living soul," that is to

say, an animal, a living human being; but he had not "a quickening

spirit," could not give to his children spiritual life and make them

children of God.

Now if we ask ourselves a little more closely, What is human nature?

what are the characteristics by which men are distinguished from all

other creatures? what is it which marks off our kind from every other

kind, and which is always produced by human parents? we may find it hard

to give a definition, but one or two things are obvious and

indisputable. In the first place, we could not deny human nature to men

who do not love God, or who even know nothing of Him. There are many

whom we should naturally speak of as remarkably fine specimens of human

nature, who yet never think of God, nor in any way acknowledge Him. It

is plain, therefore, that the acknowledgment and love of God, which

give us entrance into His kingdom, are _not_ a part of our nature, are

not the gifts of our birth.

And yet is there anything that so distinctly separates us from the lower

animals as our _capacity_ for God and for eternity? Is it not our

capacity to respond to God's love, to enter into His purposes, to

measure things by eternity, that is our real dignity? The capacity is

there, even when unused; and it is this capacity which invests man and

all his works with an interest and a value which attach to no other

creature. Man's nature is capable of being born again, and that is its

peculiarity; there is in man a dormant or dead capacity which nothing

but contact with God, the touch of the Holy Ghost, can vivify and bring

into actual exercise.

That there should be such a capacity, born as if dead, and needing to be

quickened by a higher power before it can live and be of use, need not

surprise us. Nature is full of examples of such capacities. All seeds

are of this nature, dead until favouring circumstances and soil quicken

them into life. In our own body there are similar capacities, capacities

which may or may not be quickened into life. In the lower

animal-creation many analogous capacities are found, which depend for

their vivification on some external agency over which they have no

control. The egg of a bird has in it the capacity to become a bird like

the parent, but it remains a dead thing and will corrupt if the parent

forsakes it. There are many of the summer insects which are twice-born,

first of their insect parents, and then of the sun: if the frost comes

in place of the sun, they die. The caterpillar has already a life of its

own, with which, no doubt, it is well content, but enclosed in its

nature as a creeping thing it has a capacity for becoming something

different and higher. It may become a moth, or a butterfly; but in most

the capacity is never developed, they die before they reach this

end--their circumstances do not favour their development. These

analogies show how common it is for capacities of life to lie dormant:

how common a thing it is for a creature in one stage of its existence to

have a capacity for passing into a higher stage, a capacity which can be

developed only by some agency peculiarly adapted to it.

It is in this condition man is born of his human parents. He is born

with a capacity for a higher life than that which he lives as an animal

in this world. There is in him a capacity for becoming something

different, better and higher than that which he actually is by his

natural birth. He has a capacity which lies dormant or dead until the

Holy Ghost comes and quickens it. There are many things, and great

things, man can do without any further Divine assistance than that which

is lodged for the whole race in the natural laws which make no

distinction between godly and ungodly; there are many and great things

man may do by virtue of his natural birth; but one thing he cannot

do--he cannot quicken within himself the capacity to love God and to

live for Him. For this there is needed an influence from without, the

efficient touch of the Holy Spirit, the impartation of His life. The

capacity to be a child of God is man's, but the development of this lies

with God. Without the capacity a man is not a man, has not that which is

most distinctive of human nature. Every man is born with that in him

which the Spirit of God may quicken into Divine life. This is human

nature; but when this capacity is so quickened, when the man has begun

to live as a child of God, he has not lost his human nature, but has

over and above become a partaker of the Divine nature. When the image of

God, as well as of his earthly parents, becomes manifest in a man, then

his human nature has received its utmost development,--he is born again.

Of the Agent who accomplishes this great transformation there is need

only to say that He is free in His operation and also inscrutable. He is

like the wind, our Lord tells us, that blows where it lists. We cannot

bring the Spirit at will; we cannot use Him as if He were some

unintelligent passive instrument; neither can we subject all His

operations to our control. The grub must wait for those natural

influences which are to transform it; it cannot command them. We cannot

command the Spirit; but we, being free agents also, can do more than

wait,--we can pray, and we can strive to put ourselves in line with the

Spirit's operation. Seamen cannot raise the wind nor direct its course,

but they can put themselves in the way of the great regular winds. We

can do the same: we can slowly, by mechanical helps, creep into the way

of the Spirit; we can set our sails, doing all we think likely to catch

and utilize His influences--believing always that the Spirit is more

desirous than we are to bring us all to good. Why He breathes in one

place while all around lies in a dead calm we do not know; but as for

the wind's variations so for His, there are doubtless sufficient

reasons. We need not expect to see the Spirit's working separate from

the working of our own minds; we cannot see the Spirit in Himself--we

cannot see the wind that moves the ships, but we can see the ships

moving, and we know that without the wind they could not move.

If this, then, be the line on which our human nature can alone be

developed, if a profound harmony with God be that which can alone give

permanence and completeness to our nature, if in accordance with all

that we see in the world around us some men fail of attaining the end of

their creation, and lie for ever blighted and useless, while others are

carried forward to fuller and more satisfying life, we cannot but ask

with some anxiety to which class we belong. Good and evil are in the

world, happiness and misery, victory and defeat; do not let us deceive

ourselves by acting as if there were no difference between these

opposites, or as if it mattered little in our case whether we belong to

the one side or the other. It matters everything: it is just the

difference between eternal life and eternal death. Christ did not come

to play with us, and startle us with idle tales. He is the centre and

fountain of all truth, and what He says fits in with all we see in the

world around us.

But in endeavouring to ascertain whether the great change our Lord

speaks of has passed upon us, our object must be not so much to

ascertain the time and manner of our new birth as its reality. A man may

know that he has been born though he is not able to recall, as no man

can recall, the circumstances of his birth. Life is the great evidence

of birth, natural or spiritual. We may desire to know the time and place

of birth for some other reason, but certainly not for this, to make sure

we have been born. Of that there is sufficient evidence in the fact of

our being alive. And spiritual life quite as certainly implies spiritual

birth.

Again, we must keep in view that a man may be born though not yet full

grown. The child of a day old has as truly and certainly a human nature

as the man in his prime. He has a human heart and mind, every organ of

body and soul, though as yet he cannot use them. So the second birth

impresses the image of God on every regenerate soul. It may not as yet

be developed in every part, but all its parts are there in germ. It is

not a partial but a complete result which regeneration effects. It is

not one member, a hand or a foot that is born, but a body, a complete

equipment of the soul in all graces. The whole character is regenerated,

so that the man is fitted for all the duties of the Divine life

whensoever these duties shall come before him. A human child does not

need additions made to it to fit it for new functions: it requires

growth, it requires nurture, it requires education and the practice of

human ways, but it requires no new organ to be inserted into its frame;

once born it has but to grow in order to adapt itself with ease and

success to all human ways and conditions. And if regenerate we have that

in us which with care and culture will grow till it brings us to perfect

likeness to Christ. If we are not growing, if we remain small, puny,

childish while we should be adult and full grown, then there is

something seriously wrong, which calls for anxious enquiry.

But above all let us bear in mind that it is a new birth that is

required; that no care spent on our conduct, no improvement and

refinement of the natural man, suffices. For flying it is not an

improved caterpillar that is needed, it is a butterfly; it is not a

caterpillar of finer colour or more rapid movement or larger

proportions, it is a new creature. We recognise that in this and that

man we meet there is something more than men naturally have; we perceive

in them a taming, chastening, inspiring principle. We rejoice all the

more when we see it, because we know that no man can give it, but only

God. And we mourn its absence because even when a man is dutiful,

affectionate, temperate, honourable, yet if he have not grace, if he

have not that peculiar tone and colour which overspread the whole

character, and show that the man is living in the light of Christ, and

is moved by love to God, we instinctively feel that the defect is

radical, that as yet he has not come into connection with the Eternal,

that there is that awanting for which no natural qualities, however

excellent, can compensate--nay, the more lovely and complete the natural

character is, the more painful and lamentable is the absence of grace,

of Spirit.

VIII.

_THE BRAZEN SERPENT._

"Nicodemus answered and said unto Him, How can these things be?

Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou the teacher of Israel,

and understandest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee,

We speak that we do know, and bear witness of that we have seen; and

ye receive not our witness. If I told you earthly things, and ye

believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you heavenly things?

And no man hath ascended into heaven, but He that descended out of

heaven, even the Son of man, which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted

up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be

lifted up: that whosoever believeth may in Him have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that

whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that

the world should be saved through Him. He that believeth on Him is

not judged: he that believeth not hath been judged already, because

he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God.

And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and

men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were

evil. For every one that doeth ill hateth the light, and cometh not

to the light, lest his works should be reproved. But he that doeth

the truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest,

that they have been wrought in God."--JOHN iii. 9-21.

There are two great obstacles to human progress, two errors which retard

the individual and the race, two inborn prejudices which prevent men

from choosing and entering into true and lasting prosperity. The first

is that men will always persist in seeking their happiness in something

outside themselves; the second is that even when they come to see where

true happiness lies they cannot find the way to it. In our Lord's time

even wise and godly people thought the permanent glory and happiness of

men were to be found in a free state, in self-government, lightened

taxes, impregnable fortresses, and a purified social order. And they

were not altogether wrong; but the way to this condition, they thought,

lay through the enthronement of a strong-handed monarch, who could

gather round his throne wise counsellors and devoted followers. This was

the form of worldliness which our Lord had to contend with. This was the

tendency of the unspiritual mind in His day. But in every generation and

in all men the same radical misconceptions exist, although they may not

appear in the same forms.

In dealing with Nicodemus, a sincere and thoroughly decent but

unspiritual man, our Lord had difficulty in lifting his thoughts off

what was external and worldly and fixing them on what was inward and

heavenly.[10] And in order to effect this, He told him, among other

things, that the Son of man was indeed to be lifted up--yes, but not on

a throne set up in Herod's palace. He was to be conspicuous, but it was

as the Brazen Serpent was conspicuous, hanging on a pole for the healing

of the people. His lifting up, His exaltation, was secure; He was to be

raised above every name that is named; He was destined to have the

pre-eminence in all things, to be exalted above all principalities and

powers; He was to have all power in heaven and in earth; He was to be

the true and supreme Lord of all,--yes; but this dignity and power were

to be attained by no mere official appointment, by no accidental choice

of the people, by no mere hereditary title, but by the sheer force of

merit, by His performing services for men which made the race His own,

by His leaving no depth of human degradation unexplored, by a sympathy

with the race and with individuals which produced in Him a total

self-abandonment, and suffered Him to leave no grievance unconsidered,

no wrong unthought of, no sorrow untouched. There is no royal road to

human excellence; and Jesus could reach the height He reached by no

swift ascension of a throne amidst the blare of trumpets, the flaunting

of banners, and the acclamations of the crowd, but only by being exposed

to the keenest tests with which this world can confront and search

human character, by being put through the ordeal of human life, and

being found the best man among us; the humblest, the truest; the most

faithful, loving, and enduring; the most willing servant of God and man.

It was this which Christ sought to suggest to Nicodemus, and which we

all find it hard to learn, that true glory is excellence of character,

and that this excellence can be reached only through the difficulties,

trials, and sorrows of a human life. Christ showed men a new glory and a

new path to it--not by arms, not by statesmanship, not by inventions,

not by literature, not by working miracles, but by living with the poor

and becoming the friend of forsaken and wicked men, and by dying, the

Just for the unjust. He has been lifted up as the Brazen Serpent was, He

has become conspicuous by His very lowliness; by a self-sacrifice so

complete that He gave His all, His life, He has won to Himself all men

and made His will supreme, so that it and no other shall one day

everywhere rule. He gave Himself for the healing of the nations, and the

very death which seemed to extinguish His usefulness has made Him the

object of worship and trust to all.

This is certainly the point of analogy between Himself and the Brazen

Serpent which our Lord chiefly intended to suggest--that as the serpent

was _lifted up_ so as to be seen from every part of the camp, even so

the death of the Son of man was to make Him conspicuous and easily

discernible. It is by their death that many men have become immortalized

in the memory of the race. Deaths of gallantry, of heroism, of

self-devotion have often wiped out and seemed to atone for preceding

lives of dissipation and uselessness. The life of Christ would have been

inefficient without His death. Had He only lived and taught, we should

have known more than was otherwise possible, but it is doubtful whether

His teaching would have been much listened to. It is His death in which

all men are interested. It appeals to all. A love that gave its life for

them, all men can understand. A love that atoned for sin appeals to all,

for all are sinners.

But though this is the chief point of analogy there are others. We do

not know _precisely_ what the Israelites would think of the Brazen

Serpent. We need not repeat from the sacred narrative the circumstances

in which it was formed and lifted up in the wilderness. The singularity

of the remedy provided for the plague of serpents under which the

Israelites were suffering, consisted in this, that it resembled the

disease. Serpents were destroying them, and from this destruction they

were saved by a serpent. This special mode of cure was obviously not

chosen without a reason. To those among them who were instructed in the

symbolic learning of Egypt there might be in this image a significance

which is lost to us. From the earliest times the serpent had been

regarded as man's most dangerous enemy--more subtle than any beast of

the field, more sudden and stealthy in its attack, and more certainly

fatal. The natural revulsion which men feel in its presence, and their

inability to cope with it, seemed to fit it to be the natural

representative of the powers of spiritual evil. And yet, strangely

enough, in the very countries in which it was recognised as the symbol

of all that is deadly, it was also recognised as the symbol of life.

Having none of the ordinary members or weapons of the wilder lower

creatures, it was yet more agile and formidable than any of them; and,

casting its skin annually, it seemed to renew itself with eternal youth.

And as it was early discovered that the most valuable medicines are

poisons, the serpent, as the very "personification of poison," was

looked upon as not only the symbol of all that is deadly, but also of

all that is health-giving. And so it has continued to be, even to our

own days, the recognised symbol of the healing art, and, wreathed round

a staff, as Moses had it, it may still be seen sculptured on our own

hospitals and schools of medicine.

But whatever else the agonised people saw in the brazen image, they must

at any rate have seen in its limp and harmless form a symbol of the

power of their God to make all the serpents round about them as harmless

as this one. The sight of it hanging with drooping head and motionless

fangs was hailed with exultation as the trophy of deliverance from all

the venomous creatures it represented. They saw in it their danger at an

end, their enemy triumphed over, their death slain. They knew that the

manufactured serpent was only a sign, and had in itself no healing

virtue, but in looking at it they saw, as in a picture, God's power to

overcome the most noxious of evils.

That which Moses lifted up for the healing of the Israelites was a

likeness, not of those who were suffering, but of that from which they

were suffering. It was an image, not of the swollen limbs and

discoloured face of the serpent-bitten, but of the serpents that

poisoned them. It was this image, representing as slain and harmless the

creature which was destroying them, which became the remedy for the

pains it inflicted. Similarly, our Lord instructs us to see in the cross

not so much our own nature suffering the extreme agony and then hanging

lifeless, as sin suspended harmless and dead there. All the virus seemed

to be extracted from the fiery, burning fangs of the snakes, and hung up

innocuous in that brazen serpent; so all the virulence and venom of sin,

all that is dangerous and deadly in it, our Lord bids us believe is

absorbed in His person and rendered harmless on the cross.

With this representation the language of Paul perfectly agrees. God, he

tells us, "made Christ to be sin for us." It is strong language; yet no

language that fell short of this would satisfy the symbol. Christ was

not merely made man, He was made sin for us. Had He merely become man,

and thus become involved in our sufferings, the symbol of the serpent

would scarcely have been a fair one. A better image of Him would in that

case have been a poisoned Israelite. His choice of the symbol of the

brazen serpent to represent Himself upon the cross justifies Paul's

language, and shows us that He habitually thought of His own death as

the death of sin.

Christ being lifted up, then, meant this, whatever else, that in His

death sin was slain, its power to hurt ended. He being made sin for us,

we are to argue that what we see done to Him is done to sin. Is He

smitten, does He become accursed, does God deliver Him to death, is He

at last slain and proved to be dead, so certainly dead that not a bone

of Him need be broken? Then in this we are to read that sin is thus

doomed by God, has been judged by Him, and was in the cross of Christ

slain and put an end to--so utterly slain that there is left in it not

any so faint a flicker or pulsation of life that a second blow need be

given to prove it really dead.

When we strive to get a little closer to the reality and understand in

what sense, and how, Christ represented sin on the cross, we recognise

first of all that it was not by His being in any way personally tainted

by sin. Indeed, had He Himself been in the faintest degree tainted by

sin this would have prevented Him from representing sin on the cross. It

was not an actual serpent Moses suspended, but a serpent of brass. It

would have been easy to kill one of the snakes that were biting the

people, and hang up its body. But it would have been useless. To exhibit

one slain snake would only have suggested to the people how many were

yet alive. Being itself a real snake, it could have no virtue as a

symbol. Whereas the brazen serpent represented all snakes. In it each

snake seemed to be represented. Similarly, it was not one out of a

number of real sinners that was suspended on the cross, but it was one

made "in the likeness of sinful flesh." So that it was not the sins of

one person which were condemned and put an end to there, but sin

generally.

This was easily intelligible to those who saw the crucifixion. John the

Baptist had pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin

of the world. How does a Lamb take away sin? Not by instruction, not by

example, but by being sacrificed; by standing in the room of the sinner

and suffering instead of him. And when Jesus, Himself without sin, hung

upon the cross, those who knew His innocence perceived that it was as

the Lamb of God He suffered, and that by His death they were delivered.

Another point of analogy between the lifting-up of the serpent and the

lifting-up of the Son of Man on the cross is to be found in the

circumstance that in each case the healing result is effected through a

moral act on the part of the healed person. A look at the brazen

serpent was all that was required. Less could not have been asked: more,

in some cases, could not have been given. If deliverance from the pain

and danger of the snake-bite had been all that God desired, He might

have accomplished this without any concurrence on the part of the

Israelites. But their present agony was the consequence of their

unbelief, and distrust, and rebellion; and in order that the cure may be

complete they must pass from distrust to faith, from alienation to

confidence and attachment. This cannot be accomplished without their own

concurrence. But this concurrence may be exercised and may be exhibited

in connection with a small matter quite as decisively as in connection

with what is difficult. To get a disobedient and stubborn child to say,

"I am sorry," or to do the smallest and easiest action, is quite as

difficult, if it be a test of submission, as to get him to run a mile,

or perform an hour's task. So the mere uplifting of the eye to the

brazen serpent was enough to show that the Israelite believed God's

word, and expected healing. It was in this look that the will of man met

and accepted the will of God in the matter. It was by this look the

pride which had led them to resist God and rely upon themselves was

broken down; and in the momentary gaze at the remedy appointed by God

the tormented Israelite showed his reliance upon God, his willingness to

accept His help, his return to God.

It is by a similar act we receive healing from the cross of Christ. It

is by an act which springs from a similar state of mind. "Every one that

_believeth_,"--that is all that is required of any who would be healed

of sin and its attendant miseries. It is a little and an easy thing in

itself, but it indicates a great and difficult change of mind. It is so

slight and easy an action that the dying can do it. The feeblest and

most ignorant can turn in thought to Him who died upon the cross, and

can, with the dying thief, say, "Lord, remember me." All that is

required is a sincere prayer to Christ for deliverance. But before

anyone can so pray, he must hate the sin he has loved, and must be

willing to submit to the God he has abandoned. And this is a great

change; too difficult for many. Not all these Israelites were healed,

though the cure was so accessible. There were those who were already

insensible, torpid with the heavy poison that ran through their blood.

There were those whose pride could not be broken, who would rather die

than yield to God. There were those who could not endure the thought of

a life in God's service. And there are those now who, though they feel

the sting of sin, and are convulsed and tormented by it, cannot bring

themselves to seek help from Christ. There are those who do not believe

Christ can deliver them; and there are those to whom deliverance

weighted with obligation to God, and giving health to serve Him, seems

equally repugnant with death itself. But where, there is a sincere

desire for reconcilement with God, and for the holiness which maintains

us in harmony with God, all that is needed is trust in Christ, the

belief that God has appointed Him to be our Saviour, and the daily use

of Him as our Saviour.

In proceeding to make a practical use of what our Lord here teaches, our

first duty, plainly, is to look to Him for life. He is exhibited

crucified--it is our part to trust in Him, to appropriate for our own

use His saving power. We need it. We know something of the deadly nature

of sin, and that with the first touch of its fang death enters our

frame. We have found our lives poisoned by it. Nothing can well be a

fitter picture of the havoc sin makes than this plague of serpents--the

slender weapon sin uses, the slight _external_ mark it leaves, but,

within, the fevered blood, the fast dimming sight, the throbbing heart,

the convulsed frame, the rigid muscles no longer answering to our will.

Do we not find ourselves exposed to sin wherever we go? In the morning

our eyes open on its vibrating fangs ready to dart upon us; as we go

about our ordinary employments we have trodden on it and been bitten ere

we are aware; in the evening, as we rest, our eye is attracted, and

fascinated, and held by its charm. Sin is that from which we cannot

escape, from which we are at no time, nor in any place, secure; from

which, in point of fact, no one of us has escaped, and which in every

case in which it has touched a man has brought death along with it.

Death may not at once appear; it may appear at first only in the form of

a gayer and intenser life; as, they tell us, there is one poison which

causes men to leap and dance, and another which distorts the face of the

dying with a hideous imitation of laughter. Is that not a diseased soul

which has no vigour for righteous and self-sacrificing work; whose

vision is so dim it sees no beauty in holiness?

Of this condition, faith in God through Christ is the true remedy.

Return to God is the beginning of all healthy spiritual life. Faith

means that all distrust, all resentment at what has happened in our

life, all proud and all despondent thoughts, are laid aside. To believe

that God is loving us tenderly and wisely, and to put ourselves

unreservedly into His hand, is eternal life begun in the soul.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] In saying, "Art thou the teacher of Israel, and knowest not these

things?" our Lord hints that it is bad enough for an ordinary Israelite

to be so ignorant, but for a teacher how much worse. If the teacher is

thus obtuse, what are the taught likely to be? Is this the state of

matters I must confront? And in saying that the subjects of conversation

were "earthly" (ver. 12) He meant that the necessity of regeneration or

entrance into the kingdom of God was a matter open to observation and

its occurrence a fact which might be tested here upon earth.

IX.

_THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA._

"When therefore the Lord knew how that the Pharisees had heard that

Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although

Jesus Himself baptized not, but His disciples), He left Judaea, and

departed again into Galilee. And He must needs pass through Samaria.

So He cometh to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near to the parcel

of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph: and Jacob's well was

there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus by

the well. It was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of

Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give Me to drink. For

His disciples were gone away into the city to buy food. The

Samaritan woman therefore saith unto Him, How is it that Thou, being

a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a Samaritan woman? (For Jews

have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said unto her,

If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee,

Give Me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have

given thee living water. The woman saith unto Him, Sir, Thou hast

nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast

Thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob,

which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his sons, and

his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Every one that

drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of

the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water

that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing

up unto eternal life. The woman saith unto Him, Sir, give me this

water, that I thirst not, neither come all the way hither to draw.

Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither."--JOHN

iv. 1-16.

Jesus left Jerusalem because His miracles were attracting the wrong kind

of people, and creating a misconception of the nature of His kingdom. He

went into the rural districts, where He had simpler, less sophisticated

persons to deal with. Here He gained many disciples, who accepted

baptism in His name. But here again His very success endangered His

attainment of His great end. The Pharisees, hearing of the numbers who

flocked to His baptism, fomented a quarrel between His disciples and

those of John; and would, moreover, have probably called Him to account

for presuming to baptize at all. But why should He have feared a

collision with the Pharisees? Why should He not have proclaimed Himself

the Messiah? The reason is obvious. The people had not had sufficient

opportunity to ascertain the character of His work; and only by going

about among them could He impress upon susceptible spirits a true sense

of the nature of the blessings He was willing to bestow. To the woman of

Samaria He did not hesitate to proclaim Himself, because she was a

simple-minded woman, who was in need of sympathy and spiritual strength.

But from controversial Pharisees, who were prepared to settle His claims

by one or two trifling theological tests, He withdrew. The time would

come when, after conferring on many humble souls the blessings of the

kingdom, He must publicly proclaim Himself King; but as yet that time

had not arrived, and therefore He left Judaea for Galilee.

A line drawn from Jerusalem to Nazareth would pass through the entire

breadth of Samaria, and quite close to the town of Sychar. Between

Judaea, where Jesus was, and Galilee, where He wished to be, the province

of Samaria intervened. It stretched right across from the sea to the

Jordan, so that the Jews, who were too scrupulous to pass through

Samaritan territory, were compelled to cross the Jordan twice, and make

a considerable _detour_ if they wished to go to Galilee. Our Lord had no

such scruples; besides, the springs near Salim, where John was

baptizing, were not far from Sychar, and He might wish to see John on

His way north. He took, therefore, the great north road, and one day at

noon[11] found Himself at Jacob's well, where the road divides, and

where, at any rate, it was natural that a tired traveller should rest

during the mid-day hours. Jacob's well is still extant, and is one of

the few undisputed localities associated with our Lord's life.

Travellers of all shades of theological opinion and of no theological

opinion are agreed that the deep well, now much choked with _debris_,

lying twenty minutes east of Nablus, is the veritable well on the stone

rim of which our Lord sat. Ten minutes' walk north of this well lies a

village now called El-Askar, which represents in name and partly in

locality the Sychar of the text. Partly in locality I say, for

"Palestine was ten times as populous in the days of our Lord as it is

at present;" and there is therefore good ground for the supposition that

although now but a little village or hamlet, Sychar was then

considerably larger, and extended nearer to the well. Coming, then, to

this well, and being tired with the forenoon's walk, our Lord sat down,

while the disciples went forward to the town to buy bread.

And thus arose that conversation with the woman of Sychar, which has

brought hope and comfort to many a thirsting and weary soul besides.

That which struck the woman herself and the disciples is not that which

is likely to impress us most distinctly. We all feel the unsurpassed

delicacy and grace of the whole scene. No poet ever imagined a situation

in which the free movements of human nature, the picturesqueness of

outward circumstance, and the profoundest spiritual interests were so

happily, easily, and effectively combined. Yet the chief thing which

struck the woman herself and the disciples was the ease with which Jesus

broke down the wall of partition which the hatred of centuries had

erected between Jew and Samaritan.

To estimate aright the magnanimity and originality of our Lord's action

in making Himself and His salvation accessible to this woman, the marked

separation that had hitherto existed must be borne in mind. The

Samaritans were of heathen origin. In the Second Book of Kings, chap,

xvii., we read that Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, pursuing the usual

policy of his empire, carried the Israelites to Babylonia, and sent

colonists from Babylonia to occupy their cities and land. These

colonists found the country overrun by wild beasts, which had multiplied

during the years of depopulation; and accepting this as proof that the

God of the land was not pleased, they begged their monarch to send them

an Israelitish priest, who would teach them the manner of the God of the

land. Their application was granted, and an adulterated Judaism was

grafted on their native religion. They accepted the five Books of Moses,

and looked for a Messiah--as indeed they still do. The origin of their

hatred of the Jews is told in Ezra. When the Jews returned from exile

and began to rebuild the temple, the Samaritans begged to be allowed to

share in the work. "Let us build with you," they said, "for we seek your

God as ye do; and we sacrifice unto Him since the days of Esarbaddon."

But their request was bluntly refused; they were treated as heathens,

who had no part in the religion of Israel. Hence the implacable

religious enmity which for centuries manifested itself in all sorts of

petty annoyances, and, when occasion offered, more serious injuries.

This Samaritan woman, then, was taken quite aback when the quiet figure

on the well, which by dress and accent she had recognised as that of a

Jew, uttered the simple request, "Give me to drink." As any Samaritan

would have done, she twitted the Jew with showing a frankness and

friendliness which she supposed were wholly due to His own keen thirst

and helplessness to quench it. But, to her still greater surprise, He

does not wince before her thrust, nor awkwardly apologise, or seek to

explain, but gravely and earnestly, and with dignity, utters the

perplexing but thought-provoking words: "If thou knewest the gift of

God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest

have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water." He

perceived the interest of the situation, saw with compassion her entire

ignorance of the presence in which she stood, and of the possibilities

within her reach. So do the most important issues often hinge on slight,

trivial, every-day incidents. The turning-points in our career have

often nothing to show that they are turning-points. We unconsciously

determine our future, and bind ourselves with chains we can never break,

by the way in which we deal with apparent trifles. We do not know the

forces that lie hidden all around us; and for want of knowledge we miss

a thousand opportunities. The sick man drags out a miserable existence,

incapacitated and useless, while within his reach, but unrecognised, is

a remedy which would give him health. It is often by a very little that

the scientific or philosophical student fails to make the discovery he

seeks; one more fact known, one idea fitted into its proper place, and

the thing is done. The gold-digger throws aside his pick in despair at

the very point where another stroke would have turned up the ore. So

with some among ourselves; they pass through life alongside of that

which would make all eternity different to them, and yet for lack of

knowledge, for lack of consideration, the thin veil continues to hide

from them their true blessedness. Like the crew that were perishing from

thirst, though surrounded by the fresh waters of the River Amazon that

penetrated far into the salt ocean, so we, surrounded on all hands by

God and upheld by Him, and living in Him, yet do not know it, and

refrain from dipping our buckets and drawing out of His life-giving

fulness. How often, looking on those who, like this Samaritan woman,

have gone wrong and know no recovery, who go through their daily duties

sad and heavy at heart and weary of sin--how often do these words rise

to our lips, "If only thou knewest." How often does one long to be able

to shed a sudden and universal light into the minds of men that would

reveal to them the goodness, the power, the all-conquering love of God.

Yes, and even in those who can speak intelligently of things Divine and

eternal, how much blindness remains. For the knowledge of words is one

thing, the knowledge of things, of realities, is another. And many who

can speak of God's love have never yet seen what that means for

themselves. Certainly it is true of us all, that if we are not deriving

from Christ what we recognise as living water, it is because there is a

defect in our knowledge, because we do not know the gift of God.

In two particulars this woman's knowledge was defective: she did not

know the gift of God, nor who it was that spoke to her.

She did not know the gift of God. She was not expecting anything from

that quarter. Her expectations were limited by her earthly condition and

her physical wants. With affections worn out, with character gone, with

no purifying joy, she came out listlessly day by day, filled her

pitcher, and went her weary way. She had no thought of God's gift, no

belief that the Eternal was with her, and desired to communicate to her

a spring of deep and ever-flowing joy. Doubtless she would have

acknowledged God as the Giver of all good; but she had no idea of the

completeness of His giving, of the freeness of His love, of His

perception and understanding of our actual wants, of the joy with which

He provides for them all. Through all ages and for all men there remains

this gift of God, sought and found by those who know it; different from

and superior to the best human gifts, inheritances, and acquisitions;

not to be drawn out of the deepest, most cherished well of human

sinking; steadily arrogating to itself an infinite superiority to all

that men have regarded and busily sunk their pitchers in; a gift which

each man must ask for himself, and having for himself knows to be the

gift of God to him, the recognition by God of his personal wants, and

the assurance to him of God's everlasting regard. This gift of God, that

carries to each soul the sense of His love, is His deliverance from

evil. It is His answer to the misery and vanity of the world which He

has resolved to redeem to worth and blessedness. It is all that is given

in Christ, the hope, the holy impulses, the new views of life--but above

all it is the means of conveyance that brings God to us, His love to our

hearts.

What, then, can teach a man to know this gift? What can make a man for a

while forget the lesser gifts that perish in the using? What can

reasonably induce him to turn from the accredited sources round which

men in all ages have crowded, what can induce him to forego fame,

wealth, bodily comfort, domestic happiness, and seek first of all God's

righteousness? May we not all well pray with Paul, "that we may have not

the spirit of the world but the Spirit of God, _that we may know the

things that are freely given us of God_;" that we may see the small

value of wealth or power or any of those things which can be won by mere

worldly prudence or greed; and may learn fixedly to believe that the

things of true value are the internal, spiritual possessions, which the

unsuccessful may have as well as the successful, and which are not so

much won by us as given by God?

Jesus further describes this gift as "living water," a description

suggested by the circumstances, and only figurative. Yet it is a figure

of the same kind as pervades all human language. Water is an essential

of animal and vegetable life. With a constantly recurring appetite we

seek it. To have no thirst is a symptom of disease or death. But the

soul also, not having life in itself, needs to be sustained from

without; and when in a healthy state it seeks by a natural appetite that

which will sustain it. And as most of our mental acts are spoken of in

terms of the body, as we speak of _seeing_ truth and _grasping_ it, as

if the mind had hands and eyes, so David naturally exclaims, "My soul

_thirsts_ for the living God." In the living soul there is a craving for

that which maintains and revives its life, which is analogous to the

thirst of the body for water. The dead alone feel no thirst for God. The

soul that is alive sees for a moment the glory and liberty and joy of

the life to which God calls us; it feels the attraction of a life of

love, purity, and righteousness, but it seems continually to sink from

this and to tend to become dull and feeble, and to have no joy in

goodness. Just as the healthy body delights in work, but wearies and

cannot go on exerting itself for many hours together, but must repair

its strength, so the soul soon wearies and sinks back from what is

difficult, and needs to be revived by its appropriate refreshment.

And this woman, if for a moment she felt as if Christ were playing with

her or making her enigmatical offers that could never bring her any

substantial good, was immediately made aware that He who made these

offers had fully in view the harshest facts of her domestic life.

Mystified, she is also attracted and expectant. She cannot mistake the

sincerity of Jesus; and, scarcely knowing what she asks, and with her

mind still running on relief from her daily drudgery, she says, "Sir,

give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw." In

prompt response to her faith Jesus says, "Go, call thy husband, and come

hither." The water which He means to give cannot be given before thirst

for it is awakened. And in order to awaken her thirst He turns her back

upon the shameful wretchedness of her life, that she may forget the

water of Jacob's well in thirst for relief from shame and misery. In

requiring her thus to face the facts of her guilty life, in encouraging

her to bring clear before Him all her sinful entanglement, He responds

to her request, and gives her the first draught of living water. For

there is no abiding spiritual satisfaction which does not begin with a

fair and frank consideration of our past, and which does not proceed

upon the actual facts of our own life. If this woman is to enter into a

hopeful and cleansed life, she must enter through confession of her need

of cleansing. No one can slink out of his past life, forgetting or

huddling up what is shameful. It is only through truth and

straightforwardness we can enter into that life which is all truth and

integrity. Before we drink the living water we must truly thirst for it.

If the inquiry be more closely pressed, and if it be asked what this

Samaritan woman would find to be living water to her, what it was which,

after Christ had gone, would daily renew in her the purpose to live a

better life and to bear her burden cheerfully and hopefully, it will be

seen that it must have been simply the remembrance of Christ; the

knowledge that in Christ God had sought her, had claimed her in the

midst of her evil life for some better and holier thing, had, in a word,

loved her through all her sin, and sent deliverance to her. It is

still, and always, this knowledge which comes with fresh exhilarating

power to every disconsolate, despairing, fainting soul. The knowledge

that there is One, the Holiest of all, who loves us, and who will be

satisfied with nothing short of the purest blessedness for us; the

knowledge that our God follows us, forgives us, elevates and purifies us

by His love, this is living water to our souls; this revives us to the

love of goodness, and braces us for all effort. It is not a little

cistern that soon runs dry. To the end of a Christian's life this fact

of God's love in Christ comes as fresh and as reviving to the soul as at

first; to us this day it has the same power of supplying motive to our

life as it had when Christ spoke to the woman.

He further defines the gift as "a well of water _in the soul_ itself

springing up to everlasting life." This peculiarity of the water He

would give was remarked upon here for the sake of contrasting it with

the well outside the city to which the woman in all weathers had to

repair; often wishing, no doubt, as she went out in the heat or in the

rain, that she had a well at her door. The source of spiritual life is

within; it cannot be inaccessible; it does not depend on anything from

which we may be separated. And this is man's victory and end when within

himself he has the source of life and joy, so that he is independent of

circumstances, of position, of things present and things to come. It was

a commonplace even of heathen philosophy, that no man is happy until he

is superior to fortune; that his happiness must have an inward source,

must depend on his own spiritual state, and not on outward

circumstances. Similarly Solomon thought it a saying worthy of

preservation that "the good man is satisfied from himself;" that is, he

shall not look to success in life, or to comfortable circumstances, or

even to domestic happiness or the society of old friends, as a sure and

unfailing source of joy; but shall be at bottom independent of

everything save what he carries always and everywhere in himself.

Nothing is more pitiable than the restlessness one sees in some people;

how they can find nothing in themselves, but are ever going from place

to place, from entertainment to entertainment, from friend to friend,

seeking something to give them rest, and finding nothing, because they

seek it without and not within. It is Christ dwelling in the heart by

faith that is alone the fountain of living water. It is His inward

presence, apprehended by faith, by imagination, by knowledge, that

revives the soul continually. It is thus that God makes us partakers of

the life that is only in Him, linking us to Himself by our will, by all

that is deepest in us, and so producing true and lasting spiritual life.

The woman was blinded by her ignorance on a second point; she did not

know who it was that said to her, "Give Me to drink." Until we know

Christ we cannot know God: it is to Christ we owe all our best thoughts

about God. This woman, when she had met the absolute goodness and

kindness of Christ, had for ever different thoughts of God. So as we

look at Christ our thought of God expands, and we learn to expect

substantial good from Him. Yet often, like this woman, we are in

Christ's presence without knowing it, and listen, like her, to His

appeals without understanding the majesty of His person and the

greatness of our opportunity. He does offer largely; He speaks as if He

were perfect master of the human heart, knew its every experience, and

could satisfy it. He speaks of the gift He has to bestow in terms which

convict Him of silly and heartless extravagance if that gift be not

perfect; He has, in plain words, misled and deceived a large part of

mankind, and especially those who were well inclined and thirsting for

righteousness, if He cannot perfectly satisfy the soul. He challenges

men in the most grievous and undone conditions to come to Him; He calls

them off from every other source and stay, and bids them trust to Him

for everything. If a man expects to find in Him all that the human heart

can contain of joy, and all that the human nature is susceptible of, he

does not expect more than the explicit offers of Christ Himself warrant.

Manifestly such offers are at least worth considering. May it not be

true that if we were to awake to the knowledge of Christ, we might now

find His pretensions to be well founded? He professes to bestow what is

worth our immediate acceptance, His friendship, His Spirit. What if it

should be now that He seeks to come to _our_ heart with these words, "If

_thou_ knewest who it is that speaketh." Yes, if but for one hour we saw

God's gift, and Him through whom He offers it, _we_ should become the

suppliants. Christ would no longer need to knock at our door; we should

wait and knock at His.

For in truth it is always the same request He urges to all. In His words

to the woman, "Give Me to drink," there was more than the mere request

that He would lift her pitcher to His lips. Driven from Judaea, wearied

as much with the blindness of men as with His journey, He sat on the

well. Everything He saw had that day some spiritual meaning for Him. The

bread His disciples brought reminded Him of His true support, the

consciousness that He was doing His Father's will; the fields whitening

for harvest suggested to Him the nations unconsciously ripening for the

great Christian ingathering. And when He said to the woman, "Give Me to

drink," He thought of the intenser satisfaction she could give Him by

confiding in Him and accepting His help. In her person there stands

before Him a new, untried race. Oh that she may prove more accessible

than the Jews, and may allay His thirst for the salvation of men! His

parched tongue seems forgotten in the interest of His talk with her. And

to which of us has He not in this sense said, "Give Me to drink"? Is it

cruelty to refuse a cup of cold water to a thirsting child, and none to

refuse to quench the thirst of Him who hung upon the cross for us? Ought

we to feel no shame that the Lord is still in want of what we can give?

This woman knew it was a real thirst which could induce a Jew to ask

drink from her. Has He not sufficiently shown the reality of His thirst

for our friendship and trust? Could it be a feigned desire that led Him

to do all He has done? Are we never to have the joy of appropriating His

love as spent upon us; are we never with humble ecstasy to exclaim:--

"Weary satst Thou seeking _me_,

Diedst redeeming on the tree.

Can in vain such labour be"?

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Some good authorities hold that John reckoned the hours of the day

from midnight, not from sunrise. It is, however, probable that John

adopted the Roman reckoning, and counted noon the sixth hour.

X.

_JESUS DECLARES HIMSELF._

"The woman answered and said unto Him, I have no husband. Jesus

saith unto her, Thou saidst well, I have no husband: for thou hast

had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband:

this hast thou said truly. The woman saith unto Him, Sir, I perceive

that Thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain;

and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to

worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh,

when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship

the Father. Ye worship that which ye know not: we worship that which

we know: for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour cometh, and

now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit

and in truth: for such doth the Father seek to be His worshippers.

God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship in spirit

and truth. The woman saith unto Him, I know that Messiah cometh

(which is called Christ): when He is come, He will declare unto us

all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am

He."--JOHN iv, 17-26.

In this conversation at Jacob's well the woman for some time, quite

naturally, misses the point of what Jesus says. It does not occur to her

that by "water" He means anything else than what she could carry in her

pitcher. Even when He speaks of causing a well to spring up "within

herself," she still thinks merely of the domestic convenience of some

such arrangement, and begs Him to give what would save Her the endless

trouble of coming to draw water out of Jacob's well. This simplicity has

its good side, as also has her obvious confidence in His words. Jesus

sees in this child-like simplicity and directness a much more hopeful

soil for His message than He had found even in a thoughtful man of

education like Nicodemus. He seeks, therefore, to prepare the soil

further by quickening within her a sense of spiritual want. This may

best be effected by backing her into her actual life. Therefore He says,

"Go, call thy husband, and come hither." And in this simple way He leads

the woman at once to recognise His prophetic insight into her condition,

and to bring His offers into connection with her character and her life.

And there was that in her manner of owning Him as a prophet, a frankness

and a simplicity in uttering her mind and listening to His

explanations, that prompted Him explicitly to say, "I that speak unto

thee am the Messiah."

To this unfortunate and ill-living alien woman, then, Jesus declared

Himself as He had not declared Himself to the well-to-do, respectable

Jewish rabbis. The reason of this difference in our Lord's treatment of

individuals arises from the different dispositions they manifest.

Acknowledgment of His power to work miracles may seem at first sight as

good a certificate for Christian discipleship as acknowledgment of His

prophetic power. But it is not so; because such an acknowledgment of His

prophetic insight as this woman made is an acknowledgment of His power

over the human heart and life. He who is thus felt to penetrate to the

hidden acts, and to lay His hand upon the deepest secrets of the heart,

is recognised as in a personal connection with the individual; and this

is the foundation on which Christ can build, this is the beginning of

that vital connection with Him which gives newness of life. Those who

are merely solving a problem when they are considering the claims of

Christ, are not likely to have any personal revelation made to them. But

to every one, who, like this woman, shows some desire to receive His

gifts, and who is not above owning that life is a very poor affair

without some such thing as He offers; to every one who is conscious of

sin, and who looks to Him as able to deliver from all its foul

entanglement, He does make Himself known. To such persons He will

disclose Himself when He sees that they are ripe for the disclosure. To

such the moment of moments will come, when to them He will say: "I that

speak unto thee am He."

This distinction between the chemist who analyses the living water, and

the thirsting soul that uses it, runs very deep, and may be commended

to the consideration of any who are apt to be carried away by the

current of unbelief that characterizes much of our literature. I think

it may be said that in writers distinguished by a lack of Christian

belief there will commonly be found an absence of what is popularly and

fitly called "an awakened conscience." It will be found that they do not

know what it is to look at Christ from the point of view of this woman,

from the point of view of a shattered and wretched life, and a

conscience that day by day is saying, It is I myself who have broken my

life, and doing so I have become a transgressor, and need pardon,

guidance, strength. Acute thought, an admirable faculty of explaining

and enforcing what is thought, we find in abundance; but we certainly do

not find a spirit humbled by a sense of sin and a conscience alive to

the deepest obligations. So far as can be gathered from the writings of

the most conspicuous unbelievers, they do not possess the first

requisite for discerning a Saviour--namely, a sense of need. They lack

the prime preparation for speaking on such a subject; they have never

dealt fairly with their own sin. We do not consult a deaf man if we wish

to ascertain whether the noise we have heard is thunder or the rumbling

of a cart; neither can we expect that those will be the best teachers

regarding God in whom the faculty by which we chiefly discern God--viz.,

the conscience--has been less exercised than any other. It is through

the conscience God makes Himself most distinctly felt; it is in

connection with the moral law we come most clearly in contact with Him;

and convictions of God's Being and connection with us root themselves in

the soul that a sense of sin has ploughed.

I am far from saying that in deciding upon the claims of Christ the

understanding is to have no voice. The understanding must have a voice

here as elsewhere. But it is a strong presumption in Christ's favour

that He offers precisely what sinners need; and it is decisive in His

favour when we find that He actually gives what sinners need. If it is

practically found that He is the force that lifts thousands and

thousands of human beings out of sin; if He has, in point of fact,

brought light to those in deep darkness, comfort and courage to the

desolate and heavily burdened, consecration and purity to the outcast

and the corrupt, then, plainly, He is what He claims to be, and we owe

Him our faith.

If God is to reveal Himself at all, the revelation must be made not

solely or chiefly to the understanding, but to that part of us which

determines character, and is capable of appreciating character. The

revelation must be moral not intellectual. As our Lord's ministry

proceeded He recognised that it was always the simple who most readily

accepted and trusted Him; and He recognised that this was a thing to be

thankful for: "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that

Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed

them unto babes." And every one who thinks of it sees that it must be

so--that a man's destiny must be decided not by his understanding, but

by his character and leanings; not by his ability or disability to

believe this or that, or to prove that his belief is well grounded, but

by his aspirations, by the real bent of his heart. We should feel that

there was something very far wrong if our faith depended upon proofs

that not every one could master, and if thus the clever man had an

advantage over the humble and contrite. "The evidence must be such that

spiritual character shall be an element in the acceptance of it." And

such we find it to be. The reality and the significance of the

revelation of God in Christ are more readily apprehended by the

spiritually than by the intellectually gifted. Persons who are either by

nature humble and docile, or whom life has taught to be so, persons who

feel their need of God, and deeply long for an eternal state of peace

and purity, these are the persons to whom God finds it possible to make

Himself known. And if it be thought that this circumstance, that simple

and docile spirits are convinced while hard-headed men are unconvinced,

throws some suspicion on the reality of the revelation, if it be thought

that the God and the eternity they believe in are but fancies of their

own, it may fairly be replied, that there is no more reason for such a

thought than for supposing that the rapture of a trained musician is

fanciful and self-created, and not excited by any corresponding reality,

because it is not shared by those whose taste for music is unawakened.