Convinced that Jesus was a prophet, the woman proposes to Him the

standing subject of debate between Jews and Samaritans. Her statement of

it is abrupt, and offers some appearance of being intended to turn the

conversation away from herself; but this does not harmonise with her

simple and direct character, and it is quite possible that in the midst

of her confused and disappointed life she had sometimes wondered whether

all her misery did not arise from her being a Samaritan. She knew what

the Jews said of the Samaritan worship. She knew that they mocked at the

Temple which stood on the hill over against Jacob's well; and when she

found how very little her worship had helped her, she may have begun to

suspect that there was truth in the Jewish allegations. Evidently the

aspect of the Messiah, which had chiefly struck her, was His power to

lead men into all truth, to teach them all things. Persons in her

station, and quite as much overborne by sin as she, often retain their

hold upon religious teaching; and in the midst of much that is

superstitious they have a spark of true hope and longing for redemption.

Jesus shows by the gravity and importance of His answer that He

considered the woman sincere in the statement of her difficulty, and

anxious to know where God might really be found. Perplexed and

bewildered by her earthly experience, as so many of us are, she suddenly

awakes to the consciousness that here, before her, and conversing with

her, is a prophet; and at once she utters to Him what had been burning

in her heart, "Where, where is God to be found?"

And so in reply to the inquiry of one sincere woman Jesus makes that

great announcement which has ever since stood as the manifesto of

spiritual worship. Not in any particular and isolated place, He tells

the woman, is God to be found, not in the temple at Jerusalem, nor in

the rival structure on Gerizim, but in spirit. "God is a Spirit, and

they that worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth." As our Lord

intimates, this was a new kind of worship, essentially different from

that to which Jews and Samaritans, and indeed all men, had hitherto been

accustomed.

The magnitude of the contents of such sayings can as little be

comprehended as their significance can be exhausted. We have first of

all the central affirmation: "God is a Spirit." To fill out this

definition with intelligible ideas is difficult. It implies that He is a

Personal Being, that He is self-conscious, possessed of intelligence and

will; but although Personal His Personality transcends our conception.

So far as regards the immediate application of the definition by our

Lord at this time, it suffices to note its primary meaning that God has

not a body, and consequently is subject to none of the limitations and

conditions to which the possession of a body subjects human persons. He

needs no local dwelling-place, no temple, no material offerings. In

local worship there was an advantage while the world was young, and men

could best be taught by symbols. A house in their midst, of which they

might say, "God is there," was undoubtedly an aid to faith. But it had

its disadvantages. For the more a worshipper fixed his mind on the one

local habitation, the less could he carry with him the consciousness of

God's presence in all places.

Very slowly do we learn that God is a Spirit. We think nothing is more

surely believed among us. Alas! make almost any application of this

radical truth, and we find how little it is believed. Take, for example,

the appearances and voices by which intimations were made to godly men

in Old Testament times. Why are many people reluctant to allow that

these manifestations were inward and to conscience, that they came as

convictions wrought by an unseen power, rather than as outward

appearances or audible voices? Is it not because the truth that God is a

Spirit is not adequately apprehended? Or why again do we so crave for

signs, for clearer demonstrations of God's being and of His presence?

Ought we not to be satisfied if He responds to spiritual aspirations,

and if we find that our craving for holiness is met and gratified?

The inference drawn by our Lord from the truth that God is a Spirit is

one which needs still to be pressed. God seeks to be worshipped not by

outward forms or elaborate ritual but in spirit. Ordinary teachers

would have put in a saving clause to preserve some forms of worship;

Christ puts in none. Let men worship God in spirit, and let forms take

their chance. To worship God in spirit is to yield the unseen but motive

powers within us to the unseen but Almighty influences which we

recognise as Divine. It is to prostrate our spirit before the Divine

Spirit. It is in our deepest being, in will and intention, to offer

ourselves up to Him in whom goodness is personified. When a man is doing

that, what does it matter what he says to God, or with what forms of

worship he comes before Him? That alone is acceptable worship which

consists in the devout approach of the human spirit to the Divine; and

that is accomplished often as effectually in our business intercourse

with men when tempted to injustice, or in our homes when tempted to

anger or to laxity, as when we are in the house of God. Worship in the

spirit needs no words, no appointed place, but only a human soul that

bows inwardly before the goodness of God, and submits itself cordially

to His sovereign and loving will.

This certainly is a strong argument for simplicity of worship. Why, it

may indeed be said, why have any outward worship at all? Why have

churches and why have Divine service? Well, it would have been better

for the Church if there had been far less outward worship than there

commonly has been. For by its elaborate services the Church has far too

much identified religion with that worship which can only be rendered in

church. No one can be surprised that in utter disgust at the

disproportion between outward and spiritual worship, between the

gorgeous and fussy services that profess so much, and the slender and

rare devotion of the soul to God, discerning men should have turned

their back on the whole business, and declined to be partakers in so

huge and profane a farce. Milton in his later years attended no Church

and belonged to no communion. This certainly is to run to the opposite

extreme. No doubt that worship may be real and acceptable which is

offered in the silence and solitude of a man's spirit; but we naturally

utter what we feel, and by the utterance strengthen the feelings that

are good, and rid ourselves of the bitterness and strain of those that

are painful and full of sorrow. Besides, the Church is, before all else,

a society. Our religion is meant to bring us together; and though it

does so more effectually by inspiring us with kindliness and helpfulness

in life than by a formal meeting together for no purposes of active

charity, yet the one fellowship aids the other, as many of us well know.

While, then, we accept Christ's statement in its fullest significance,

and maintain that our "reasonable service" is the offering of ourselves

as living sacrifices, that spiritual worship is offered not in church

only or mainly, but in doing God's will with a hearty good-will, we all

the rather see how needful it is to utter ourselves to God as we do in

our social worship; for as the wife would need some patience who was

cared for indeed by her husband in the supply of her common wants, but

had never a word of affection spoken to her, so our relations to God are

not satisfactory unless we utter to Him our devotion as well as show it

in our life. He was one of the wisest of English writers who said, "I

always thought fit to keep up some mechanical forms of good breeding (in

my family), without which freedom ever destroys friendship." Precisely

so, he who omits the outward and verbal expression of regard to God,

will soon lose that regard itself.

But if the words of Christ were not intended to put an end to outward

worship altogether, they do, as I have said, form a strong argument for

simplicity of worship. No forms whatever are needed that our spirit may

come into communion with God. Let us begin with this. As true and

perfect worship may be rendered by the dying man, who cannot lift an

eyelid or open his lips, as by the most ornate service that combines

perfect liturgical forms with the richest music man has ever written.

Rich music, striking combinations of colour and of architectural forms,

are nothing to God so far as worship goes, except in so far as they

bring the human spirit into fellowship with Him. Persons are differently

constituted, and what is natural to one will be formal and artificial to

another. Some worshippers will always feel that they get closer to God

in private, in their own silent room, and with nothing but their own

circumstances and wants to stimulate them; they feel that a service

carefully arranged and abounding in musical effects does indeed move

them, but does not make it easier for them to address themselves to God.

Others, again, feel differently; they feel that they can best worship

God in spirit when the forms of worship are expressive and significant.

But in two points all will agree: first, that in external worship, while

we strive to keep it simple we should also strive to make it good--the

best possible of its kind. If we are to sing God's praise at all, then

let the singing be the best possible, the best music a congregation can

join in, and executed with the utmost skill that care can develop. Music

which cannot be sung save by persons of exceptional musical talent is

unsuitable for congregational worship; but music which requires no

consideration, and admits of no excellence, is hardly suitable for the

worship of God. I do not know what idea of God's worship is held by

persons who never put themselves to the least trouble to improve it so

far as they are concerned.

The other point in which all will agree, is that where the spirit is not

engaged there is no worship at all. This goes without saying. And yet,

subtract from our worship all that is merely formal, and how much do you

leave? Worse still, there are those who do not even strive after the fit

and decorous form, who do not bow their heads in prayer, who are not

ashamed to be seen looking about them during the most solemn acts of

worship, who show that they are indevout, thoughtless, profane.

The true worshippers shall worship the Father not only "in spirit," but

also "in truth." The word "truth" here probably covers two ideas--the

ideas of reality and of accuracy. It is opposed to symbolic worship and

to ignorant worship. It does not mean that worship was now to be

sincere, for that it had already been both among Samaritans and Jews.

But among the Jews the worship of God had been symbolical, and among the

Samaritans it had been ignorant.

The Jewish worship had been symbolical, every person and thing, every

colour, gesture, movement, having a meaning for the initiated. The time

for this, says our Lord, is past. We are to worship really. They need no

longer take an animal to the temple to symbolise that they gave

themselves to God; they were to spend their whole care on the _real_

thing, on giving themselves to God; they were not to set candles about

their altars to show that light was come into the world, they were

themselves to shine as lights lit by Christ; they were not to swing

censers to symbolise the sweet-smelling prayers of the saints, they were

to offer prayers from humble hearts. In effect Christ said, You are

grown up now, and can understand the realities; put away then these

childish things. And those who continue to worship with various robes,

and prescribed gesticulations and movements, and pictures, and altars,

and everything to impress the senses, write themselves down children

among grown-up people.

Truth is opposed also to error or misconception about the object of

worship. Christ, by His presence, enables men to worship the Father in

truth. He gives them the true idea of God. He makes God real, giving an

actuality to our thought of God which we could not otherwise arrive at;

and He shows us God as He truly is, connected with ourselves by love;

holy, merciful, just.

XI.

_THE SECOND SIGN IN GALILEE._

"In the mean while the disciples prayed Him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But

He said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not. The

disciples therefore said one to another, Hath any man brought Him

aught to eat? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of

Him that sent Me, and to accomplish His work. Say not ye, There are

yet four months, and then cometh the harvest? behold, I say unto

you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white

already unto harvest. He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth

fruit unto life eternal; that he that soweth and he that reapeth may

rejoice together. For herein is the saying true, One soweth and

another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye have not

laboured: others have laboured, and ye are entered into their

labour. And from that city many of the Samaritans believed on Him

because of the word of the woman, who testified, He told me all

things that ever I did. So when the Samaritans came unto Him, they

besought Him to abide with them: and He abode there two days. And

many more believed because of His word; and they said to the woman,

Now we believe, not because of thy speaking: for we have heard for

ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.

And after the two days He went forth from thence into Galilee. For

Jesus Himself testified, that a prophet hath no honour in his own

country. So when He came into Galilee, the Galilaeans received Him,

having seen all the things that He did in Jerusalem at the feast:

for they also went unto the feast. He came therefore again unto Cana

of Galilee, where He made the water wine. And there was a certain

nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus

was come out of Judaea into Galilee, he went unto Him, and besought

Him that He would come down, and heal his son; for he was at the

point of death. Jesus therefore said unto him, Except ye see signs

and wonders, ye will in no wise believe. The nobleman saith unto

Him, Sir, come down ere my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy

way; thy son liveth. The man believed the word that Jesus spake unto

him, and he went his way. And as he was now going down, his servants

met him, saying, that his son lived. So he inquired of them the hour

when he began to amend. They said therefore unto him, Yesterday at

the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew that it was

at that hour in which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and

himself believed, and his whole house. This is again the second sign

that Jesus did, having come out of Judaea into Galilee"--JOHN iv.

31-54.

The disciples, when they went forward to buy provisions in Sychar, left

Jesus sitting on the well wearied and faint. On their return they find

Him, to their surprise, elate and full of renewed energy. Such

transformations one has often had the pleasure of seeing. Success is a

better stimulant than wine. Our Lord had found one who believed Him and

valued His message; and this brought fresh life to His frame. The

disciples go on eating, and are too busy with their meal to lift their

eyes; but as they eat they talk over the prospects of the harvest in the

rich fields through which they have just walked. Meanwhile our Lord sees

the men of Sychar coming out of the town in obedience to the woman's

request, and calls His disciples' attention to a harvest more worthy of

their attention than the one they were discussing: "Were you not saying

that we must wait four months till harvest comes again[12] and cheapens

the bread for which you have paid so dear in Sychar? But lift up your

eyes and mark the eager crowd of Samaritans, and say if you may not

expect to reap much this very day. Are not the fields white already to

harvest? Here in Samaria, which you only wished quickly to pass through,

where you were looking for no additions to the Kingdom, and where you

might suppose sowing and long waiting were needed, you see the ripened

grain. Others have laboured, the Baptist and this woman and I, and ye

have entered into their labours."

All labourers in the Kingdom of God need a similar reminder. We can

never certainly say in what state of preparedness the human heart is; we

do not know what providences of God have ploughed it, nor what thoughts

are sown in it, nor what strivings are being even now made by the

springing life that seeks the light. We generally give men credit, not

perhaps for less thought than they have, for that is scarcely possible,

but for less capacity of thought. The disciples were good men, but they

went into Sychar judging the Samaritans good enough to trade with, but

never dreaming of telling them the Messiah was outside their town. They

must have been ashamed to find how much more capable an apostle the

woman was than they. I think they would not wonder another time that

their Lord should condescend to talk with a woman. The simple,

unthinking, untroubled directness of a woman will often have a matter

finished while a man is meditating some ponderous and ingenious

contrivance for bringing it to pass. Let us not fall into the mistake of

the disciples, and judge men good enough to buy and sell with, but quite

alien to the matters of the Kingdom.

"There is a day in spring

When under all the earth the secret germs

Begin to stir and glow before they bud.

The wealth and festal pomps of midsummer

Lie in the heart of that inglorious hour

Which no man names with blessing, though its work

Is bless'd by all the world. Such days there are

In the slow story of the growth of souls."

Such days may be passing in those around us, though all unknown to us.

We can never tell how many months there are till harvest. We never know

who or what has been labouring before we appear on the scene.

The woman's testimony was enough to excite curiosity. The men on her

word came out to judge for themselves. What they saw and heard completed

their conviction; "And they said to the woman, Now we believe, not

because of thy speaking: for we have heard for ourselves, and know that

this is indeed the Saviour of the world." This growth of faith is one of

the subjects John delights to exhibit. He is fond of showing how a weak

and ill-founded faith may grow into a faith that is well rooted and

strong.

This Samaritan episode is significant as an integral part of the Gospel,

not only because it shows how readily unsophisticated minds perceive the

inalienable majesty of Christ, but also because it forms so striking a

foil to the reception our Lord had met with in Jerusalem, and was

shortly to meet with in Galilee. In Jerusalem He did many miracles; but

the people were too political and too prejudiced to own Him as a

spiritual Lord. In Galilee He was known, and might have expected to be

understood; but there the people longed only for physical blessings and

the excitement of miracles. Here in Samaria, on the contrary, He did no

miracles, and had no forerunner to herald His approach. He was found a

weary wayfarer, sitting by the roadside, begging for refreshment. Yet,

through this appearance of weakness, and dependence, and lowliness,

there shone His native kindness, and truth, and kingliness, to such a

degree, that the Samaritans, although naturally suspicious of Him as a

Jew, believed in Him, delighted in Him, and proclaimed Him "Saviour of

the world."

After two days of happy intercourse with the Samaritans Jesus continues

His journey to Galilee. The proverbial expression which our Lord used

regarding His relation to Galilee--that a prophet has no honour in his

own country--is one we have frequent opportunity of verifying. The man

that has grown up among us, whom we have seen struggling up through the

ignorance, and weakness, and folly of boyhood, whom we have had to help

and to protect, can scarcely receive the same respect as one who

presents himself a mature man, with already developed faculties, no

longer a learner, but prepared to teach. Montaigne complained that in

his own country he had to purchase publishers, whereas elsewhere

publishers were anxious to purchase him. "The farther off I am read from

my own home," he says, "the better I am esteemed." The men of Anathoth

sought Jeremiah's life when he began to prophesy among them.

It is not the truth of the proverb that presents any difficulty, but its

application to the present case. For the fact that a prophet has no

honour in his own country would seem to be a reason for His declining to

go to Galilee, whereas it is here introduced as His reason for going

there. The explanation is found in the beginning of the chapter, where

we are told that it was in search of retirement He was now leaving the

popularity and publicity of Judaea, and repairing to His own country.

But, as frequently on other occasions, He now found that He could not

be hid. His countrymen, who had thought so little of Him previously, had

heard of His Judaean fame, and echoed the recognition and applause of the

south. They had not discovered the greatness of this Galilean, although

He had lived among them for thirty years; but no sooner do they hear

that He has created a sensation in Jerusalem than they begin to be proud

of Him. Every one has seen the same thing a hundred times. A lad who has

been despised as almost half-witted in his native place goes up to

London and makes a name for himself as poet, artist, or inventor, and

when he returns to his village everybody claims him as cousin. Such a

change of sentiment was not likely to escape the observation of Jesus

nor to deceive Him. It is with an accent of disappointment, not

unmingled with reproach, that He utters His first recorded words in

Galilee: "Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will in no wise believe."

This sets us in the point of view from which we can clearly see the

significance of the one incident which John selects from all that

happened during our Lord's stay in Galilee at this time. John wishes to

illustrate the difference between the Galilean and the Samaritan faith,

and the possibility of the one growing into the other; and he does so by

introducing the brief narrative of the courtier from Capernaum.

Accounts, more or less accurate, of the miracles of Jesus in Jerusalem

had found their way even into the household of Herod Antipas. For no

sooner was He known to have arrived in Galilee than one of the royal

household sought Him out to obtain a boon which no royal favour could

grant. The supposition is not without plausibility that this nobleman

was Chuza, Herod's chamberlain, and that this miracle, which had so

powerful an effect on the family in which it was wrought, was the

origin of that devotion to our Lord which was afterwards shown by

Chuza's wife.

The nobleman, whoever he was, came to Jesus with an urgent request. He

had come twenty miles to appeal to Jesus, and he had been unable to

trust his petition to a messenger. But instead of meeting this

distracted father with words of sympathy and encouragement, Jesus merely

utters a general and chilling observation. Why is this? Why does He seem

to lament that this father should so urgently plead for his son? Why

does He seem only to submit to the inevitable, if He grants the request

at all? Might it not even seem as if He wrought the miracle of healing

rather for His own sake than for the boy's or for the father's sake,

since He says, "Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will in no wise

believe"--that is, will not believe _in Me_?

But these words did not express any reluctance on the part of Jesus to

heal the nobleman's son. Possibly they were intended, in the first

instance, to rebuke the desire of the father that Jesus should go with

him to Capernaum and pronounce over the boy words of healing. The father

thought the presence of Christ was necessary. He had not attained to the

faith of the centurion, who believed that an expression of will was

enough. Jesus, therefore, demands a stronger faith; and in His presence

that stronger faith which can trust His word is developed.

The words, however, were especially a warning that His physical gifts

were not the greatest He had to bestow, and that a faith which required

to be buttressed by the sight of miracles was not the best kind of

faith. Our Lord was always in danger of being looked upon as a mere

thaumaturge, who could dispense cures merely as a physician could within

his own limits order a certain treatment. He was in danger of being

considered a dispenser of blessings to persons who had no faith in Him

as the Saviour of the world. It is therefore with the accent of one who

submits to the inevitable that He says, "Except ye see signs and

wonders, ye will in no wise believe."

But especially did our Lord wish to point out that the faith He approves

and delights in is a faith which does not require miracles as its

foundation. This higher faith He had found among the Samaritans. Many of

them believed, as John is careful to note, because of His conversation.

There was that in Himself and in His talk which was its own best

evidence. Some men who introduce themselves to us, to win our

countenance to some enterprise, carry integrity in their whole bearing;

and we should feel it to be an impertinence to ask them for credentials.

If they offer to prove their identity and trustworthiness we waive such

proof aside, and assure them that they need no certificate. This had

been our Lord's experience in Samaria. There no news of His miracles had

come from Jerusalem. He came among the Samaritans from nobody knew

where. He came without introduction and without certificate, yet they

had discernment to see that they had never met His like before. Every

word He spoke seemed to identify Him as the Saviour of the world. They

forgot to ask for miracles. They felt in themselves His supernatural

power, lifting them into God's presence, and filling them with light.

The Galilaean faith was of another kind. It was based on His miracles; a

kind of faith He deplored, although He did not quite repudiate it. To be

accepted not on His own account, not because of the truth He spoke, not

because His greatness was perceived and His friendship valued, but

because of the wonders He performed--this could not be a pleasant

experience. We do not greatly value the visits of a person who cannot

get on without our advice or assistance; we value the friendship of him

who seeks our company for the pleasure he finds in it. And although we

must all be ceaselessly and infinitely dependent on the good offices of

Christ, our faith should be something more than a counting upon His

ability and willingness to discharge these good offices. A faith which

is merely selfish, which recognises that Christ can save from disaster

in this life or in the life to come, and which cleaves to Him solely on

that account, is scarcely the faith that Christ approves. There is a

faith which responds to the glory of Christ's personality, which rests

on what He is, which builds itself on the truth He utters, and

recognises that all spiritual life centres in Him; it is this faith He

approves. They who find in Him the link they have sought with the

spiritual world, the pledge they have needed to certify them of an

eternal righteousness, they to whom the supernatural is revealed more

patently in Himself than in His miracles, are those whom the Lord

delights in.

But the lower kind of faith may be a step to the higher. The agony of

the father can make nothing of general principles, but can only

reiterate the one petition, "Come down ere my child die." And Jesus,

with His perfect knowledge of human nature, sees that it is vain trying

to teach a man in this absorbed condition of mind, and that probably the

very best way to clarify his faith and lead him to higher and worthier

thoughts is to grant his request--a hint not to be overlooked or

despised by those who seek to do good, and who are, possibly, sometimes

a little prone to obtrude their teaching at most inopportune seasons--at

seasons when it is impossible for the mind to admit anything but the one

absorbing topic. Circumstances are, in general, much better educators of

men than any verbal teaching; and that verbal teaching can only do harm

which interposes between the moving events that are occurring and the

person who is passing through them. The success of our Lord's method was

proved by the result; which was, that the slender faith of this nobleman

became a genuine faith in Christ as the Lord, a faith which his whole

household shared.

From the very greatness of Christ, and our consequent inability to bring

Him into comparison with other men, we are apt to miss some of the

significant features of His conduct. In the circumstances before us, for

example, most teachers at an early stage in their career would have been

in some excitement, and would probably have shown no reluctance to

accede to the nobleman's request, and go down to his house, and so make

a favourable impression on Herod's court. It was an opportunity of

getting a footing in high places which a man of the world could not have

overlooked. But Jesus was well aware that if the foundations of His

kingdom were to be solidly laid, there must be excluded all influence of

a worldly kind, all the overpowering constraint which fashion and great

names exercise over the mind. His work, He saw, would be most

enduringly, if most slowly, done in a more private manner. His own

personal influence on individuals must first of all be the chief agency.

He speaks, therefore, to this nobleman without any regard to his rank

and influence; indeed, rather curtly dismisses him with the words, "Go,

thy son lives." The total absence of display is remarkable. He did not

go to Capernaum, to stand by the sickbed, and be acknowledged as the

healer. He made no bargain with the nobleman that if his son recovered

he would let the cause be known. He simply did the thing, and said

nothing at all about it.

Though it was only one in the afternoon when the nobleman was dismissed

he did not go back to Capernaum that night--why, we do not know. A

thousand things may have detained him. He may have had business for

Herod in Cana or on the road as well as for himself; the beast he rode

may have gone lame where he could not procure another; at any rate, it

is quite uncalled for to ascribe his delay to the confidence he had in

Christ's word, an instance of the truth, "He that believeth shall not

make haste." The more certainly he believed Christ's word the more

anxious would he be to see his son. His servants knew how anxious he

would be to hear, for they went to meet him; and were no doubt

astonished to find that the sudden recovery of the boy was due to Him

whom their master had visited. The cure had travelled much faster than

he who had received the assurance of it.

The process by which they verified the miracle and connected the cure

with the word of Jesus was simple, but perfectly satisfactory. They

compared notes regarding the time, and found that the utterance of Jesus

was simultaneous with the recovery of the boy. The servants who saw the

boy recover did not ascribe his recovery to any miraculous agency; they

would no doubt suppose that it was one of those unaccountable cases

which occasionally occur, and which most of us have witnessed. Nature

has secrets which the most skilful of her interpreters cannot disclose;

and even so marvellous a thing as an instantaneous cure of a hopeless

case may be due to some hidden law of nature. But no sooner did their

master assure them that the hour in which the boy began to amend was the

very hour in which Jesus said he would get better, than they all saw to

what agency the cure was due.

Here lies the special significance of this miracle; it brings into

prominence this distinctive peculiarity of a miracle, that it consists

of a marvel which is coincident with an express announcement of it, and

is therefore referrible to a personal agent.[13] It is the two things

taken together that prove that there is a superhuman agency. The marvel

alone, a sudden return of sight to the blind, or of vigour to the

paralysed, does not prove that there is anything supernatural in the

case; but if this marvel follows upon the word of one who commands it,

and does so in all cases in which such a command is given, it becomes

obvious that this is not the working of a hidden law of nature, nor a

mere coincidence, but the intervention of a supernatural agency. That

which convinced the nobleman's household that a miracle had been wrought

was not the recovery of the boy, but his recovery in connection with the

word of Jesus. What they felt they had to account for was not merely the

marvellous recovery, but his recovery at that particular time. Even

though it could be shown, then,--as it can never be,--that every cure

reported in the Gospels might possibly be the result of some natural

law, even though it could be shown that men born blind might receive

their sight without a miracle, and that persons who had consulted the

best physician suddenly recovered strength--this, we are to remember, is

by no means the whole of what we have to account for. We have to account

not only for sudden, and certainly most extraordinary cures, but also

for these cures following uniformly, and in every case the word of One

who said the cure would follow. It is this coincidence which puts it

beyond a doubt that the cures can be referred only to the will of

Christ.

Another striking feature of this miracle is that the Agent was at a

distance from the subject of it. This is, of course, quite beyond our

comprehension. We cannot understand how the will of Jesus, without

employing any known physical means of communication between Himself and

the boy, without even appearing before him so as to seem to inspire him

by look or word, should instantaneously effect his cure. The only

possible link of such a kind between the boy and Jesus was that he may

have been aware that his father had gone to seek help for him, from a

renowned physician, and may have had his hopes greatly excited. This

supposition is, however, gratuitous. The boy may quite as likely have

been delirious, or too young to know anything; and even though this

slender link did exist, no sensible person will build much on that. And

certainly it is encouraging to find that even while on earth our Lord

did not require to be in contact with the person healed. "His word was

as effective as His presence." And if it is credible that while on earth

He could heal at the distance of twenty miles, it is difficult to

disbelieve that He can from heaven exercise the same omnipotent will.

NOTE.--It is not apparent why John appends the remark, "This is again

the second sign that Jesus did, having come out of Judaea into Galilee."

He may, perhaps, have only intended to call attention more distinctly to

the place where the miracle was wrought. This idea is supported by the

fact that John shows, on parallel lines, the manifestation of Christ in

Judaea and in Galilee. It is just possible that he may have wished to

warn readers of the Synoptical Gospels, that Jesus had not yet begun the

Galilaean ministry with which these Gospels open.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] The words (ver. 35) have quite the ring of a proverb--a proverb

peculiar to seed-time and for the encouragement of the sower. If uttered

on this occasion in seed-time, this gives December as the date.

[13] This is lucidly taught in Mozley's _Bampton Lectures_.

XII.

_SABBATH CURE AT BETHESDA._

"After these things there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up

to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool,

which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches. In these

lay a multitude of them that were sick, blind, halt, withered. And a

certain man was there, which had been thirty and eight years in his

infirmity. When Jesus saw him lying, and knew that he had been now a

long time in that case, He saith unto him, Wouldest thou be made

whole? The sick man answered Him, Sir, I have no man, when the water

is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another

steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Arise, take up thy

bed, and walk. And straightway the man was made whole, and took up

his bed and walked. Now it was the Sabbath on that day. So the Jews

said unto him that was cured, It is the Sabbath, and it is not

lawful for thee to take up thy bed. But he answered them, He that

made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk.

They asked him, Who is the man that said unto thee, Take up thy bed,

and walk? But he that was healed wist not who it was: for Jesus had

conveyed Himself away, a multitude being in the place. Afterward

Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art

made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee."--JOHN v.

1-14.

The miracle here recorded is selected by John because in it Jesus

plainly signified that He had power to quicken whom He would (v. 21),

and because it became the occasion for the unbelief of the Jews to begin

the hardening process and appear as opposition.

The miracle was wrought when Jerusalem was full; although whether at the

Feast of Tabernacles, or Purim, may be doubted. The pool at the

sheep-gate or sheep-market is commonly identified with the Fountain of

the Virgin, which still supplies a bath known as _Hammam esh Shefa_, the

Bath of Healing. It seems to have been an intermittent spring, which

possessed some healing virtue for a certain class of ailments. Its

repute was well established, for a great multitude of hopeful patients

waited for the moving of the waters.[14]

To this natural hospital Jesus wended His way on the Sabbath of the

feast. And as the trained eye of the surgeon quickly selects the worst

case in the waiting-room, so is the eye of Jesus speedily fixed on "a

man which had an infirmity thirty and eight years," a man paralysed

apparently in mind as well as in body. Few employments could be more

utterly paralysing than lying there, gazing dreamily into the water, and

listening to the monotonous drone of the cripples detailing symptoms

every one was sick of hearing about. The little periodic excitement

caused by the strife to be first down the steps to the bubbling up of

the spring was enough for him. Hopeless imbecility was written on his

face. Jesus sees that for him there will never be healing by waiting

here.

Going up to this man, our Lord confronts him with the arousing question,

"Are you desiring to be made whole?" The question was needful. Not

always are the miserable willing to be relieved. Medical men have

sometimes offered to heal the mendicant's sores, and their aid has been

rejected. Even the invalid who does not trade pecuniarily on his disease

is very apt to trade upon the sympathy and indulgence of friends, and

sometimes becomes so debilitated in character as to shrink from a life

of activity and toil. Those who have sunk out of all honest ways of

living into poverty and wretchedness are not always eager to put

themselves into the harness of honest labour and respectability. And

this reluctance is exhibited in its extreme form in those who are

content to be spiritual imbeciles, because they shrink from all arduous

work and responsible position. Life, true life such as Christ calls us

to, with all its obligations to others, its honest and spontaneous

devotion to spiritual ends, its risks, its reality, and purity, does not

seem attractive to the spiritual valetudinarian. In fact, nothing so

thoroughly reveals a man to himself, nothing so clearly discloses to him

his real aims and likings, as the answer he finds he can give to the

simple question, "Are you willing to be made whole? Are you willing to

be fitted for the highest and purest life?"

The man is sufficiently alive to feel the implied rebuke, and

apologetically answers, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool. It

is not that I am resigned to this life of uselessness, but I have no

option." The very answer, however, showed that he was hopeless. It had

become the established order of things with him that some one

anticipated him. He speaks of it as regularly happening--"another steps

down before me." He had no friend--not one that would spare time to wait

beside him and watch for the welling up of the water. And he had no

thought of help coming from any other quarter. But there is that in the

appearance and manner of Jesus that quickens the man's attention, and

makes him wonder whether He will not perhaps stand by him and help him

at the next moving of the waters. While these thoughts are passing

through his mind the words of Jesus ring with power in his ears, "Rise,

take up thy bed, and walk." And he who had so long waited in vain to be

healed at the spring, is instantaneously made whole by the word of

Jesus.

John habitually considered the miracles of Jesus as "signs" or object

lessons, in which the spiritual mind might read unseen truth. They were

intended to present to the eye a picture of the similar but greater

works which Jesus wrought in the region of the spirit. He heals the

blind, and therein sets Himself before men as the Light of the world. He

gives the hungry bread, but is disappointed that they do not from this

conclude that He is Himself the Bread sent by the Father to nourish to

life everlasting. He heals this impotent man, and marvels that in this

healing the people do not see a sign that He is the Son who does the

Father's works, and who can give life to whom He will. It is legitimate,

therefore, to see in this cure the embodiment of spiritual truth.

This man represents those who for many years have known their infirmity,

and who have continued, if not very definitely to hope for spiritual

vigour, at least to put themselves in the way of being healed--to give

themselves, as invalids do, all the chances. This crowding of the pool

of Bethesda--the house of mercy or grace--strongly resembles our

frequenting of ordinances, a practice which many continue in very much

the state of mind of this paralytic. They are still as infirm as when

they first began to look for cure; it seems as if their turn were never

to come, though they have seen many remarkable cures. Theoretically they

have no doubt of the efficacy of Christian grace; practically they have

no expectation that they shall ever be strong, vigorous useful men in

His Kingdom. If you asked them why they are so punctual in attendance on

all religious services, they would say, "Why, is it not a right thing to

do?" Press them further with our Lord's question, "Are you expecting to

be made whole? Is this your purpose in coming here?" They will refer you

to their past, and tell you how it has always seemed to be some other

person's case that was thought of, how the Spirit of God seemed always

to have other work than that which concerned them. But here they are

still--and commendably and wisely so; for if this man had begun to

disbelieve in the virtue of the water because he himself had never

experienced its power, and had shut himself up in some wretched solitude

of his own, then the eye of the Lord had never rested upon him--here

they are still; for the best part of a lifetime they have been on the

brink of health, and yet have never got it; for eight-and-thirty years

this man had seen that water, knew that it healed people, put his hand

in it, gazed on it,--yes, there it was, and _could heal him_, and yet

his turn never came. So do these persons frequent the ordinances, hear

the word that can save them, touch the bread of communion, and know that

by the blessing of God the bread of life is thereby conveyed, and yet

year by year goes past, and for them all remains unblessed. They begin

despairingly to say--

"Thy saints are comforted, I know,

And love Thy house of prayer;

I therefore go where others go,

But find no comfort there."

This miracle shows such persons that there is a shorter way to health

than a languid attendance on ordinances--an attendance that is satisfied

if there seems to be still in operation what may be useful to others. It

is the voice of Christ they need to hear. It is that voice summoning to

thought and hope that we all need to hear, "Wilt thou be made whole?"

Are you weary and ashamed of your infirmity; would you fain be a whole

man in Christ, able at last to walk through life as a living man, seeing

the beauty of God and of His work, and meeting with gladness the whole

requirements of a life in God? Does the very beauty of Christ's manhood,

as He stands before you, make you at once ashamed of your weakness and

covetous of His strength? Do you see in Him what it is to be strong, to

enter into life, to begin to live as a man ought always to live, and are

you earnestly looking to receive power from on high? To such come the

life-giving voice of the Word who utters God, and the life that is in

God.

It is important to notice that in Christ's word to the sick, "Rise, take

up thy bed, and walk," three things are implied--

1. There must be a prompt response to Christ's word. He does not heal

any one who lies sluggishly waiting to see what that word will effect.

There must be a hearty and immediate recognition of the speaker's truth

and power. We cannot say to what extent the impotent man would feel a

current of nervous energy invigorating him. Probably this consciousness

of new strength would only succeed his cordial reliance on the word of

Christ. Obey Christ, and you will find strength enough. Believe in His

power to give you new life, and you will have it. But do not hesitate,

do not question, do not delay.

2. There must be no thought of failure, no making provision for a

relapse; the bed must be rolled up as no longer needed. How do those

diseased men of the Gospels rebuke us! We seem always half in doubt

whether we should make bold to live as whole men. We take a few feeble

steps, and return to the bed we have left. From life by faith in Christ

we sink back to life as we knew it without Christ--a life attempting

little, and counting it a thing too high for us to put ourselves and our

all at God's disposal. If we set out to swim the Channel we take care to

have a boat within hail to pick us up if we become exhausted. To make

provision for failure is in the Christian life to secure failure. It

betrays a half-heartedness in our faith, a lurking unbelief which must

bring disaster. Have we rolled up our bed and tossed it aside? If Christ

fails us, have we nothing to fall back upon? Is it faith in Him that

really keeps us going? Is it His view of the world and of all that is in

it that we have accepted; or do we merely take a few steps on His

principles, but in the main make our bed in the ordinary unenlightened

worldly life?

3. There must be a continuous use made of the strength Christ gives. The

man who had lain for thirty-eight years was told to _walk_. We must

confront many duties without any past experience to assure us of

success. We must proceed to do them in faith--in the faith that He who

bids us do them will give us strength for them. Take your place at once

among healthy men; recognise the responsibilities of life. Find an

outlet for the new strength in you. Be no longer a burden, a charge to

others, but begin yourself to bear the burdens of others, and be a

source of strength to others.

Before the man could get home with his bed he was challenged for

carrying it on the Sabbath. They must surely have known that he himself,

and many more, had that very morning been carried to Bethesda. But we

can scarcely conclude from the Jews thus challenging the healed man that

they sought occasion against Jesus. They would have stopped any one

going through the streets of Jerusalem with a bundle on the Sabbath.

They had Scripture on their side, and founded on the words of Jeremiah

(xvii. 21), "Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath

day." Even in our own streets a man carrying a large package on Sunday

would attract the suspicion of the religious, if not of the police. We

must not, then, find a malicious intention towards Jesus, but merely the

accustomed thoughtless bigotry and literalism, in the challenge of the

Jews.

But to their "It is not lawful," the man promptly answers, perhaps only

meaning to screen himself by throwing the blame on another, "He that

made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed." The man quite

naturally, and without till now reflecting on his own conduct, had

listened to Christ's word as authoritative. He that gave me strength

told me how to use it. Intuitively the man lays down the great principle

of Christian obedience. If Christ is the source of life to me, He must

also be the source of law. If without Him I am helpless and useless, it

stands to reason that I must consider His will in the use of the life He

communicates. This must always be the Christian's defence when the world

is scandalised by anything he does in obedience to Christ; when he goes

in the face of its traditions and customs; when he is challenged for

singularity, overpreciseness, or innovation. This is the law which the

Christian must still bear in mind when he fears to thwart any prejudice

of the world, when he is tempted to bide his time among the impotent

folk, and not fly in the face of established usage; when, though he has

distinctly understood what he ought to do, so many difficulties

threaten, that he is tempted to withdraw into obscurity and indolence.

It is the same Voice which gives life and directs it. Shall I then

refuse it in both cases, or choose it in both? Shall I shrink from its

directions, and lie down again in sin; or shall I accept life, and with

it the still greater boon of spending it as Christ wills?

But though the man had thus instinctively obeyed Jesus, he actually had

not had the curiosity to ask who He was. It is almost incredible that he

should have so immediately lost sight of the person to whom he was so

indebted. But so taken up is he with his new sensations, so occupied

with gathering up his mats, so beset by the congratulations and

inquiries of his comrades at the porch, that before he bethinks himself

Jesus is gone. Among those who do undoubtedly profit by Christ's work

there is a lamentable and culpable lack of interest in His person. It

does not seem to matter _from whom_ they have received these benefits so

long as they have them; they do not seem drawn to His person, ever

following to know more of Him and to enjoy His society, as the poor

demoniac would have done, who would gladly have left home and country,

and who cared not what line of life he might be thrown into or what

thrown out of, if only he might be with Christ. If one were to put the

case, that my prospects were eternally and in each particular changed by

the intervention of one whose love is itself infinite blessing, and if

it were asked what would be my feeling towards such a person, doubtless

I would say, He would have an unrivalled interest for me, and I should

be irresistibly drawn into the most intimate personal knowledge and

relations; but no--the melancholy truth is otherwise; the gift is

delighted in, the giver is suffered to be lost in the crowd. The

spectacle is presented of a vast number of persons made blessed through

the intervention of Christ, who are yet more concerned to exhibit their

own new life and acquirements, than to identify and keep hold of Him to

whom they owe all.

Although the healed man seems to have had little interest in Christ,

Christ kept His eye upon him. Finding him in the Temple, where he had

gone to give thanks for his recovery, or to see a place he had so long

been excluded from, or merely because it was a place of public resort,

our Lord addressed him in the emphatic words, "Sin no more, lest a

worse thing come upon thee." The natural inference from these words is

that his disease had been brought on by sin in early life--another

instance of the lifelong misery a man may incur by almost his earliest

responsible acts, of the difficulties and shame with which a lad or a

boy may unwittingly fill his life, but an instance also of the

willingness with which Christ delivers us even from miseries we have

rashly brought upon ourselves. Further still, it is an instance of the

vitality of sin. This man's lifelong punishment had not broken the power

of sin within him. He knew why he was diseased and shattered. Every pain

he felt, every desire which through weakness he could not gratify, every

vexing thought of what he might have made of life, made him hate his sin

as the cause of all his wretchedness; and yet at the end of these

thirty-eight years of punishment Christ recognised in him, even in the

first days of restored health, a liability to return to his sin. But

every day we see the same; every day we see men keeping themselves down,

and gathering all kinds of misery round them by persisting in sin. We

say of this man and that, "How is it possible he can still cleave to his

sin, no better, no wiser for all he has come through? One would have

thought former lessons sufficient." But no amount of mere suffering

purifies from sin. One has sometimes a kind of satisfaction in reaping

the consequences of sin, as if that would deter from future sin; but if

this will not hold us back, what will? Partly the perception that

already God forgives us, and partly the belief that when Christ commands

us to sin no more He can give us strength to sin no more. Who believes

with a deep and abiding conviction that Christ's will can raise him

from all spiritual impotence and uselessness? He, and he only, can hope

to conquer sin. To rely upon Christ's word, "Sin no more," with the same

confident faith with which this man acted on His word, "Rise, take up

thy bed"--this alone gives victory over sin. If our own will is too

weak, Christ's will is always mighty. Identify your will with Christ's,

and you have His strength.

But the fear of punishment has also its place. The man is warned that a

worse thing will fall upon him if he sins. Sinning after the beginning

of deliverance, we not only fall back into such remorse, darkness, and

misery as have already in this life followed our sin, but a worse thing

will come upon us. But "worse." What can be worse than the loss of an

entire life; like this man, passing in disappointment, in uselessness,

in shame, the time which all naturally expect shall be filled with

activity, success, and happiness; losing, and losing early, and losing

by one's own fault, and losing hopelessly, everything that makes life

desirable? Few men so entirely miss life as this man did, though perhaps

our activities are often more hurtful than his absolute inactivity, and

under an appearance of prosperity the heart may have been torn with

remorse as painful as his. Yet let no man think that he knows the worst

that sin can do. After the longest experience we may sink deeper still,

and indeed must do so unless we listen to Christ's voice saying,

"Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon

thee."

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Verse 4 is omitted by recent editors on the authority of the best

ancient MSS.

XIII.

_JESUS LIFE-GIVER AND JUDGE._

"The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus which had

made him whole. And for this cause did the Jews persecute Jesus,

because He did these things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them,

My Father worketh even until now, and I work. For this cause

therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only

brake the sabbath, but also called God His own Father, making

Himself equal with God. Jesus therefore answered and said unto them,

Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself,

but what He seeth the Father doing: for what things soever He doeth,

these the Son also doeth in like manner. For the Father loveth the

Son, and sheweth Him all things that Himself doeth: and greater

works than these will He shew Him, that ye may marvel. For as the

Father raiseth the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son also

quickeneth whom He will. For neither doth the Father judge any man,

but He hath given all judgement unto the Son; that all may honour

the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the

Son honoureth not the Father which sent Him. Verily, verily, I say

unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth Him that sent Me,

hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgement, but hath passed

out of death into life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour

cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of

God; and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in

Himself, even so gave He to the Son also to have life in Himself:

and He gave Him authority to execute judgement, because He is the

Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all

that are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth;

they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they

that have done ill, unto the resurrection of judgement. I can of

Myself do nothing; as I hear, I judge: and My judgement is

righteous; because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of Him

that sent Me. If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true.

It is another that beareth witness of Me; and I know that the

witness which He witnesseth of Me is true. Ye have sent unto John,

and he hath borne witness unto the truth. But the witness which I

receive is not from man: howbeit I say these things, that ye may be

saved. He was the lamp that burneth and shineth: and ye were willing

to rejoice for a season in his light. But the witness which I have

is greater than that of John: for the works which the Father hath

given Me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear witness of

Me, that the Father hath sent Me. And the Father which sent Me, He

hath borne witness of Me. Ye have neither heard His voice at any

time, nor seen His form. And ye have not His word abiding in you:

for whom He sent, Him ye believe not. Ye search the scriptures,

because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are

they which bear witness of Me; and ye will not come to Me, that ye

may have life. I receive not glory from men. But I know you, that ye

have not the love of God in yourselves. I am come in My Father's

name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in his own name,

him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive glory one of

another, and the glory that cometh from the only God ye seek not?

Think not that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that

accuseth you, even Moses, on whom ye have set your hope. For if ye

believed Moses, ye would believe Me; for he wrote of Me. But if ye

believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?"--JOHN v.

15-47.

As soon as the impotent man discovered who it was that had given him

strength, he informed the authorities, either from sheer

thoughtlessness, or because he considered that they had a right to know,

or because he judged that, like himself, they would rather admire the

miracle than take exception to the Sabbath-breaking. If this last was

his idea, he had not gauged the obtuseness and self-righteous spite of

honest and pious literalism. "For this cause did the Jews persecute

Jesus, because He did these things on the Sabbath."[15] In what

particular form the charge of Sabbath-breaking was brought against our

Lord, whether formal or conversational and tentative, John does not say.

He is more concerned to give us in full the substance of His apology.

For the first time our Lord now gave in public an explanation of His

claims; and this five minutes' talk with the Jews contains probably the

most important truth ever uttered upon earth.

The passage embodies the four following assertions: that the healing of

the incurable on the Sabbath resulted from and exhibited His perfect

unison with the Father; that this giving of life to an impotent man was

an illustration or sign of His power to quicken whom He would, to

communicate life Divine and eternal to all in whatsoever stage of

spiritual or physical deadness they were; that His claim to possess this

supreme power was not mere idle assertion, but was both guaranteed by

this miracle, and otherwise was amply attested; and that the real root

of their rejection of Him and His claims was to be found, not in their

superior knowledge of God and regard for His will, but in their worldly

craving for the applause of men.[16]

1. Our Lord's reply to the charge of Sabbath-breaking is, "My Father

worketh hitherto, and I work." He did not make any comment on the

Sabbath law. He did not defend Himself by showing that works of mercy

such as He had done Were admissible. On other occasions He adopted this

line of defence, but now He took higher ground. The rest of God is not

inactivity. God does not on the Sabbath cease to communicate life to all

things. He does not refrain from blessing men till the sun of the

Sabbath is set. The tides rise and fall; the plants grow; the sun

completes his circuit on the Sabbath as on other days. "Why does not God

keep the Sabbath?" a caviller asked of a Jew. "Is it not lawful," was

the answer, "for a man to move about in his own house on the Sabbath?

The house of God is the whole realm above and the whole realm below."

For God the Sabbath has no existence; it is a boon He has given to His

creatures because they need it. His untiring beneficence is needful for

the upholding and for the happiness of all. And it is the same

superiority to the Sabbath which Jesus claims for Himself. He claims

that His unceasing work is as necessary to the world as the Father's--or

rather, that He and the Father are together carrying out one work, and

that in this miracle the Jews find fault with He has merely acted as the

Father's agent.

From this statement the Jews concluded that He made Himself equal with

God. And they were justified in so concluding. It is only on this

understanding of His words that the defence of Jesus was relevant. If He

meant only to say that He imitated God, and that because God did not

rest on the Sabbath, therefore He, a holy Jew, might work on the

Sabbath, His defence was absurd. Our Lord did not mean that He was

imitating the Father, but that His work was as indispensable as the

Father's, was the Father's. My Father from the beginning up till now

worketh, giving life to all; and I work in the same sphere, giving life

as His agent and almoner to men. The work of quickening the impotent man

was the Father's work. In charging Him with breaking the Sabbath they

were charging the Father with breaking it.

But this gives Jesus an opportunity of more clearly describing His

relation to God. He declares He is in such perfect harmony with God that

it is impossible for Him to do either that miracle or any other work at

His own instigation. "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He

seeth the Father doing." "I can of myself do nothing." He had power to

do it, but no will. He had life in Himself, and could give it to whom

He pleased; but so perfect was His sympathy with God, that it was

impossible for Him to act where God would not have Him act. So trained

was He to perceive the Divine purpose, so habituated to submit Himself

to it, that He could neither mistake His Father's will nor oppose it. As

a conscientious man when pressed to do a wrong thing says, No, really I

_cannot_ do it; as a son who might happen to be challenged for injuring

His father's business would indignantly repudiate the possibility of

such a thing. "What do I live for," he would say, "but to further my

father's views? My father's interests and mine are identical, our views

and purposes are identical. I _cannot_ do anything antagonistic to him."

So Jesus had from the first recognised God as His Father, and had so

true and deep a filial feeling that really it was the joy of His life to

do His will.

This, then, was the idea the Lord sought to impress on the people on the

first occasion on which He had a good opportunity of speaking in public.

He cannot do anything save what is suggested to Him by consideration of

God's will. Even as a boy He had begun to have this filial feeling.

"Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?" That in Him

which is most conspicuous and which He wishes to be most conspicuous is

perfect sonship; filial trust and duty carried to its perfect height. It

is this perfect filial unanimity with the Father which makes His life

valuable, significant, different from all other lives. It is this which

makes Him the perfect representative of the Father; which enables Him to

be God's perfect messenger to men, doing always and only the will of God

in men's sight. He is in the world not for the sake of fulfilling any

private schemes of His own, but having it as His sole motive and aim to

do the Father's will.

This perfect filial feeling had no doubt its root in the eternal

relation of the Son to the Father. It was the continuance, upon earth

and under new conditions, of the life He already had enjoyed with the

Father. Having assumed human nature, He could reveal Himself only so far

as that nature allowed Him. His revelation, for example, was not

universal, but local, confined to one place; His human nature being

necessarily confined to one place. He did not assert superiority to all

human law; He paid taxes; He recognised lawful authority; He did not

convince men of His Divinity by superiority to all human infirmities; He

ate, slept, died as ordinary men. But through all this He maintained a

perfect harmony with the Divine will. It was this which differentiated

Him from ordinary men, that He maintained throughout His life an

attitude of undoubting trust in the Father and devotion to Him. It was

through the human will of the Lord that the Divine will of the Eternal

Son uniformly worked and used the whole of His human nature.

It is in this perfect Sonship of Christ we first learn what a son should

be. It is by His perfect loyalty to the Father's will, by His uniform

adoption of it as the best, the only, thing He can do, that we begin to

understand our connection with God, and to recognise that in His will

alone is our blessedness. Naturally we resent the rule of any will but

our own; we have not by nature such love for God as would put His will

first. To our reason it becomes manifest that there is nothing higher or

happier for us than to sink ourselves in God; we see that there is

nothing more elevating, nothing more essential to a hopeful life than

that we make God's purposes in the world our own, and do that very thing

which He sees to be worth doing and which He desires to do. Yet we find

that the actual adoption of this filial attitude, natural, rational, and

inviting as it seems, is just the most difficult of all difficulties, is

indeed the battle of life. Who among us can say that we do nothing of

ourselves, nothing at our own instance, that our life is entirely at

God's disposal?

To this filial disposition on the part of the Son the Father responds:

"The Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself

doeth" (ver. 20). If we ask how Jesus saw the Father's works, or how,

for example, He saw that the Father wished Him to heal the impotent man,

the answer must be that it is by inward sympathy the Son apprehends what

the Father wills. We in our measure can see what God is doing in the

world, and can forward God's work. But not by mere observation of what

God had done and was doing through others did Jesus see what the Father

did, but rather by His own inward perception of the Father's will. By

His own purity, love, and goodness He knew what the Father's goodness

willed. But the Father was not passive in the matter, merely allowing

the Son to discover what He could of His will. Godet illustrates this

active revelation on the Father's part by the simile of the father in

the carpenter's shop at Nazareth showing the son the things he made and

the method of making them. This simile, however, being external, is apt

to misdirect the mind. It was by a wholly inward and spiritual process

the Father made known to the Son His purposes and mind.

2. This quickening of the impotent man was meant to be an object lesson,

a sign of the power of Jesus to communicate life, Divine and eternal, to

whom He would. "Greater works" than this of curing the paralytic "will

the Father show to the Son, that ye may marvel" (ver. 20). As through

His word vigour had been imparted to the impotent man, so all who listen

to His word will receive everlasting life (ver. 24). As the impotent

man, after thirty-eight years of deadness, found life on the moment by

believing Christ's word, so every one who listens to that same voice as

the word of God receives life eternal. Through that word he connects

himself with the source of life. He becomes obedient to the life-giving

will of God.

The question, How can the spiritually dead hear and believe? is the

question. How could the impotent man rise in response to Christ's word?

Psychologically inexplicable it may be, but happily it is practically

possible. And here, as elsewhere, theory must wait upon fact. One thing

is plain: that faith is the link between the Divine life and human

weakness. Had the impotent man not believed, he would not have risen.

Christ quickens "whom He will;" that is to say, there is no limit to His

life-giving power; but He cannot quicken those who will not have life or

who do not believe He can give it. Hence necessarily "the Father hath

committed all judgement unto the Son." To the impotent man Jesus put the

question, "Wilt thou be made whole?" and by that question the man was

judged. By the answer he gave to it he determined whether he would

remain dead or receive life. Had he not on the moment believed, he would

have doomed himself to permanent and hopeless imbecility. Christ's

question judged him.

Precisely so, says Jesus, are all men judged by My presence among them,

and My offer of life to them. For the Father has not only given to the

Son to have life in Himself, that He may thus communicate it (ver. 26),

but "He hath given Him authority to execute judgement also, because He

is a Son of man." For these words do not mean that Jesus will be Judge

because men should be judged by one who shares their nature,[17] or

because they must be judged by the holiest and most loving of

men[18]--as if God Himself were not sufficiently loving--but, as the

object-lesson shows us, Jesus is necessarily Judge by appearing as God's

messenger, and by offering to men life everlasting. By becoming a son of

man, by living in human form as the embodied love and life of God, and

by making intelligible God's good-will and His invitation to life,

Christ necessarily sifts men and separates them into two classes. Every

one who hears the word of Jesus is judged. He either accepts quickening

and passes into life, or he rejects it and abides in death. This human

appearance, Jesus seems to say, which stumbles you, and makes you think

that My pretensions of judging all men are absurd, is the very

qualification which makes judgment one of My necessary functions.

And this explains why we find Christ uttering apparent contradictions:

at one time saying, "For judgment came I into this world," and at

another time saying, "I came not to judge the world." The object of His

coming into the world was to give life, not to condemn men, not to cut

them off finally from life and from God, but to open a way to the

Father, and to be their life. But this very coming of Christ and the

offers He makes to men constitute the critical test of every soul that

is brought into contact with them. Judgment is the necessary

accompaniment of salvation. Man's will being free, it must be so. And

this judgment, determined in this life, will one day appear in final,

irreversible, manifested result. "The hour is coming, in the which all

that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they

that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have

done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."

3. But naturally the Jews would say: "These are extraordinary and

apparently extravagant claims to make. It is not easily credible that

this voice which now so quietly speaks to us is one day to wake the

dead. It is not easily credible that one whom we can carry before our

courts is to judge all men." To which thoughts Jesus replies: "I do not

expect you to take My word for these things, but there are three

guarantees of My truth to which I point you. There is first of all (1)

the testimony of John[19]--a man in whose prophetic gift you for a while

prided yourselves, rejoicing that God had sent you so powerful and

enlightening a messenger. His whole function was to testify of Me. This

lamp, in the light of which you rejoiced, was lit solely for the purpose

of making quite visible to you that which you now say you cannot see.

But this is not the best witness I have, although those of you who

cannot see for themselves might be saved if only you would believe

John's testimony. But (2) I have greater witness than that of John. John

said that I should come as the Father's agent. Well, if you cannot

believe John's words, can you not believe the things you see? This

impotent man raised to health, is this not a little hint of the Divine

power that is in your midst? And are not all the works I do the Father's

works, done by His power and for His purposes? Is not My whole career

its own best evidence? But besides, (3) the Father Himself has borne

witness to Me. He has not appeared to you. You have not heard His voice

nor seen His shape, but His _word_, His own sufficient account of His

nature and connection with you, you have. You search the Scriptures, and

rightly, for they are they which testify of Me. They are the Father's

word which, had you listened to, you would have known Me as sent by Him.

Had you not mumbled only the husk of Scripture, counting its letters and

wearing it on your foreheads, but had you, through God's law, entered

into sympathy with His purpose on earth, had you, through all that

Scripture tells you of Him, learned His nature, and learned to love Him,

you would at once have recognised Me as His messenger. "Ye have not His

word abiding in you;" ye have not let it lie in your minds and colour

them; ye have not chewed, and digested, and assimilated the very

quintessence of it, for had you done so you would have learned to know

God and seen Him in Me.[20] But "whom He sent, Him ye believe not."

The very Scriptures which had been given to guide them to Christ they

used as a veil to blind themselves to His presence. Jesus points out

where their mistake lay. "You search the Scriptures, because you suppose

that in them, a mere book, you have eternal life; the truth being that

life is in Me. The Scriptures do not give life, they lead to the

Life-giver. The Scriptures, by your superstitiously reverent and shallow

use of them, actually prevent you from finding the life they were meant

to point you to. You think you have life in them, and therefore will not

come to Me." So may a book, lifted out of its subordinate place, be

entirely perverted from its use, and actually hinder the purpose it was

given to promote. To worship the Bible as if it were Christ is to

mistake a finger-post for a house of shelter. It is possible to have a

great zeal for the Bible and yet quite to misapprehend its object; and

to misapprehend its object is to make it both useless and dangerous. To

set it on a level with Christ is to do both it, Him, and ourselves the

gravest injustice. Many who seem to exalt the Scriptures degrade them;

and those who give them a subordinate place truly exalt them. God speaks

in Scripture, as this passage shows, but He speaks for a definite

purpose, to reveal Christ; and this fact is the key to all difficulties

about the Bible and inspiration.

4. The unbelief of the Jews is traced by Jesus to a moral root. They

seemed very zealous for God's law, but beneath this superficial and

ostentatious championing of God there was detected a deep-seated

alienation from God which unfitted them for knowing either Him or His

messenger. "Glory from men I do not receive (ver. 41). But the reason of

this is that ye have not the love of God in you, and cannot appreciate

Divine glory or recognise it when you see it. How can you believe, when

your hearts crave the glory you can give to one another, your ambition

rising no higher than to be spoken of by ignorant people as the

upholders of religion? You have taught yourselves to measure men by a

wholly spurious standard, and cannot believe in one who is a

transparency through which the glory of God shines upon you." Had some

one come in his own name, seeking a glory the Jews could give him,

adapting himself to their poor conceptions, him they would have

received. But Jesus being sent by God had that glory which consisted in

being a perfect medium of the Father's will, doing the Father's work and

never seeking His own glory.

This, then, was the reason why the Jews could not believe in Jesus.

Their idea of glory was earthly, and they were unfitted to see and

appreciate such glory as He showed in deeds of kindness. And those

sayings of Jesus penetrate deeply into the permanent roots of unbelief.

It was certainly a great demand on their faith which Jesus made. He

asked them to believe that the most Divine of prerogatives, life-giving

and judging, belonged to Him. But He gave them evidence. He only asks

them to believe what they have seen exemplified. He does not as yet even

ask them to draw inferences. He does not blame them for not seeing what

is implied regarding His eternal relation to the Father. He adduces

evidence "that they may be saved;" that they may be induced to partake

of the life He dispenses; and He laments that they will not believe that

He is commissioned by God to speak words of life to men, although He has

given them demonstration of His commission and power to give life.

To us also He speaks--for plainly such powers as He here claims are not

such as can be capriciously given and withdrawn, rendered accessible to

one age but not to another, exhibited on earth once but never more to be

exercised. They are not powers that could be given to more than one

messenger of God. To suppose more than one source of spiritual life or

more than one seat of judgment is against reason.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Similarly in the Synoptical Gospels the hostility of the Jews is

traced to His apparent breach of the Sabbath law.

[16] The following division of the former part of this Apology may help

the reader to follow the sequence of thought. In vv. 19, 20, Jesus

enounces the general features of His relation to the Father. In vv.

21-23 the works dictated by this relation and resulting from it are

spoken of generally as "quickening" and "judging." These works are in

vv. 24-27 exhibited in the spiritual sphere, and in vv. 28, 29, in the

physical sphere. The first part of the defence is closed in ver. 30 with

a re-affirmation of His absolute unison with the Father.

[17] Westcott.

[18] Stier.

[19] It is very doubtful whether ver. 32 refers to John. I think it

refers to the Father. Still Jesus, in vv. 33-35, refers the Jews to the

testimony of John, although for His own part He depends on higher

testimony.

[20] The same idea is resumed in vv. 45-47. If you have not understood

the writings of Moses which you have heard from Sabbath to Sabbath, and

have not received the knowledge of God they were meant to give you, how

shall ye believe the once heard words of Him whose coming was meant to

be prepared for, and His identification made easy by all that Moses

wrote and by the institutions he established.

XIV.

_JESUS THE BREAD OF LIFE._

JOHN vi. 1-59.

In this chapter John follows the same method as in the last. He first

relates the sign, and then gives our Lord's interpretation of it. As to

the Samaritan woman, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so now to the

Galileans, Jesus manifests Himself as sent to communicate to man life

eternal. The sign by means of which He now manifests Himself is,

however, so new that many fresh aspects of His own person and work are

disclosed.[21]

The occasion for the miracle arose, as usual, quite simply. Jesus had

retired to the east side of the sea of Tiberias, probably to a spot near

Bethsaida Julias, that He might have some rest. But the people, eager to

see more miracles, followed Him round the head of the lake, and, as they

went, their number was augmented by members of a Passover caravan which

was forming in the neighbourhood or was already on the march. This

inconsiderate pursuit of Jesus, instead of offending Him, touched Him;

and as He marked them toiling up the hill in groups, or one by one, some

quite spent with a long and rapid walk, mothers dragging hungry

children after them, His first thought was, What can these poor tired

people get to refresh them here? He turns therefore to Philip with the

question, "Whence are we to buy bread that these may eat?" This he said,

John tells us, "to prove" or test Philip. Apparently this disciple was a

shrewd business man, quick to calculate ways and means, and rather apt

to scorn the expectations of faith. Every man must rid himself of the

defects of his qualities. And Jesus now gave Philip an opportunity to

overcome his weakness-in-strength by at last boldly confessing his

inability and the Lord's ability,--by saying, We have neither meat nor

money, but we have Thee. But Philip, like many another, missed his

opportunity, and, wholly oblivious of the resources of Jesus, casts His

eye rapidly over the crowd and estimates that "two hundred

pennyworth"[22] of bread would scarcely suffice to give each enough to

stay immediate cravings. Philip's friend Andrew as little as himself

divines the intention of Jesus, and naively suggests that the whole

provision he can hear of in the crowd is a little boy's five loaves and

two fishes. These helpless, meagrely furnished and meagrely conceiving

disciples, meagre in food and meagre in faith, are set in contrast to

the calm faith and infinite resource of Jesus.

The moral ground being thus prepared for the miracle in the confessed

inability of the disciples and of the crowd, Jesus takes the matter in

hand. With that air of authority and calm purpose which must have

impressed the onlookers at all His miracles, He says, "Make the men sit

down." And there where they happened to be, and without further

preparation, on a grassy spot near the left bank of the Jordan, and

just where the river flows into the lake of Galilee, with the evening

sun sinking behind the hills on the western shore and the shadows lying

across the darkened lake, the multitude break up into groups of hundreds

and fifties, and seat themselves in perfect confidence that somehow food

is to be furnished. They seat themselves as those who expect a full

meal, and not a mere snack they could eat standing, though where the

full meal was to come from who could tell? This expectation must have

deepened into faith as the thousands listened to their Host _giving

thanks_ over the scanty provision. One would fain have heard the words

in which Jesus addressed the Father, and by which He caused all to feel

how near to each was infinite resource. And then, as He proceeded to

distribute the ever-multiplying food, the first awe-struck silence of

the multitude gave way to exclamations of surprise and to excited and

delighted comments. The little lad, as he watched with widening eyes his

two fishes doing the work of two thousand, would feel himself a person

of consequence, and that he had a story to tell when he went back to his

home on the beach. And ever and anon, as our Lord stood with a smile on

His face enjoying the congenial scene, the children from the nearest

groups would steal to His side, to get their supplies from His own hand.

1. Before touching upon the points in this sign emphasised by our Lord

Himself, it is perhaps legitimate to indicate one or two others. And

among these it may first of all be remarked that our Lord sometimes, as

here, gives not medicine but food. He not only heals, but prevents

disease. And however valuable the one blessing is--the blessing of being

healed--the other is even greater. The weakness of starvation exposes

men to every form of disease; it is a lowered vitality which gives

disease its opportunity. In the spiritual life it is the same. The

preservative against any definite form of sin is a strong spiritual

life, a healthy condition not easily fatigued in duty, and not easily

overcome by temptation. Perhaps the gospel has come to be looked upon

too exclusively as a remedial scheme, and too little as the means of

maintaining spiritual health. So marked is its efficacy in reclaiming

the vicious, that its efficacy as the sole condition of healthy human

life is apt to be overlooked. Christ is needful to us not only as

sinners; He is needful to us as men. Without Him human life lacks the

element which gives reality, meaning, and zest to the whole. Even to

those who have little present sense of sin He has much to offer. A sense

of sin grows with the general growth of the Christian life; and that at

first it should be small need not surprise us. But the present absence

of a profound sorrow for sin is not to bar our approach to Christ. To

the impotent man, conscious of his living death, Christ offered a life

that healed and strengthened--healed by strengthening. But equally to

those who now conversed with Him, and who, conscious of life, asked Him

how they might _work_ the work of God, He gave the same direction, that

they must believe in Him as their life.

2. Our Lord here supplied the same plain food to all.

In the crowd were men, women, and children, old and young, hard-working

peasants, shepherds from the hillside, and fishermen from the lake; as

well as traders and scribes from the towns. No doubt it elicited remark

that fare so simple should be acceptable to all. Had the feast been

given by a banqueting Pharisee, a variety of tastes would have been

provided for. Here the guests were divided into groups merely for

convenience of distribution, not for distinction of tastes. There are

few things which are not more the necessity of one class of men than of

another, or that while devotedly pursued by one nation are not despised

across the frontier, or that do not become antiquated and obsolete in

this century though considered essential in the last. But among these

few things is the provision Christ makes for our spiritual well-being.

It is like the supply of our deep natural desires and common appetites,

in which men resemble one another from age to age, and by which they

recognise their common humanity. All the world round, you may find wells

whose water you could not say was different from what you daily use, at

any rate they quench your thirst as well. You could not tell what

country you were in nor what age by the taste of the water from a living

well. And so what God has provided for our spiritual life bears in it no

peculiarities of time or place; it addresses itself with equal power to

the European of to-day as it did to the Asiatic during our Lord's own

lifetime. Men have settled down by hundreds and by fifties, they are

grouped according to various natures and tastes, but to all alike is

this one food presented. And this, because the want it supplies is not

fictitious, but as natural and veritable a want as is indicated by

hunger or thirst.

We must beware then of looking with repugnance on what Christ calls us

to, as if it were a superfluity that may reasonably be postponed to more

urgent and essential demands; or as if He were introducing our nature

to some region for which it was not originally intended, and exciting

within us spurious and fanciful desires which are really alien to us as

human beings. This is a common thought. It is a common thought that

religion is not an essential but a luxury. But in point of fact all that

Christ calls us to, perfect reconcilement with God, devoted service of

His will, purity of character,--these are the essentials for us, so that

until we attain them we have not begun to live, but are merely nibbling

at the very gate of life. God, in inviting us to these things, is not

putting a strain on our nature it can never bear. He is proposing to

impart new strength and joy to our nature. He is not summoning us to a

joy that is too high for us, and that we can never rejoice in, but is

recalling us to that condition in which alone we can live with comfort

and health, and in which alone we can permanently delight. If we cannot

now desire what Christ offers, if we have no appetite for it, if all

that He speaks of seems uninviting and dreary, then this is symptomatic

of a fatal loss of appetite on our part. But as Jesus would have felt a

deeper compassion for any in that crowd who were too faint to eat, or as

He would quickly have laid His healing hand on any diseased person who

could not eat, so does He still more deeply compassionate all of us who

would fain eat and drink with His people, and yet nauseate and turn from

their delights as the sickly from the strong food of the healthy.

3. But what Jesus especially emphasises in the conversation arising out

of the miracle is that the food He gives is Himself. He is the Bread of

Life, the Living Bread. What is there in Christ which constitutes Him

the Bread of Life? There is, first of all, that which He Himself

constantly presses, that He is sent by the Father, that He comes out of

heaven, bringing from the Father a new source of life into the world.

When our Lord pointed out to the Galileans that the work of God was to

believe in Him, they demanded a further sign as evidence that He was

God's Messenger: "What sign doest Thou that we may see and believe Thee?

What dost Thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; they had

bread from heaven, not common barley loaves such as we got from You

yesterday. Have You any such sign as this to give? If You are sent from

God, we may surely expect you to rival Moses."[23] To which Jesus

replies: "The bread which your fathers received did not prevent them

dying; it was meant to sustain physical life, and yet even in that

respect it was not perfect. God has a better bread to give, a bread

which will sustain you in spiritual life, not for a few years but for

ever" (vv. 49, 50). "I am the living bread which came down out of

heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever."

This they could not understand. They believed that the manna came from

heaven. Not the richest field of Egypt had produced it. It seemed to

come direct from God's hand. The Israelites could neither raise it nor

improve upon it. But how Jesus, "whose father and mother we know," whom

they could trace to a definite human origin, could say that He came from

heaven they could not understand. And yet, even while they stumbled at

His claim to a superhuman origin, they felt there might be something in

it. Everyone with whom He came in contact felt there was in Him

something unaccountable. The Pharisees feared while they hated Him.

Pilate could not classify Him with any variety of offender he had met

with. Why do men still continually attempt afresh to account for Him,

and to give at last a perfectly satisfactory explanation, on ordinary

principles, of all that He was and did? Why, but because it is seen that

as yet He has not been so accounted for? Men do not thus strive to prove

that Shakespeare was a mere man, or that Socrates or Epictetus was a

mere man. Alas! that is only too obvious. But to Christ men turn and

turn again with the feeling that here is something which human nature

does not account for; something different, and something more than what

results from human parentage and human environment, something which He

Himself accounts for by the plain and unflinching statement that He is

"from heaven."

For my part, I do not see that this can mean anything less than that

Christ is Divine, that in Him we have God, and in Him touch the actual

Source of all life. In Him we have the one thing within our reach which

is not earth-grown, the one uncorrupted Source of life to which we can

turn from the inadequacy, impurity, and emptiness of a sin-sick world.

No pebble lies hid in this bread on which we can break our teeth; no

sweetness in the mouth turning afterwards to bitterness, but a new,

uncontaminated food, prepared independently of all defiling influences,

and accessible to all. Christ is the Bread from heaven, because in

Christ God gives Himself to us, that by His life we may live.

There is another sense in which Christ probably used the word "living."

In contrast to the dead bread He had given them He was alive. The same

law seems to hold good of our physical and of our spiritual life. We

cannot sustain physical life except by using as food that which has

been alive. The nutritive properties of the earth and the air must have

been assimilated for us by living plants and animals before we can use

them. The plant sucks sustenance out of the earth--we can live upon the

plant but not on the earth. The ox finds ample nourishment in grass; we

can live on the ox but not on the grass. And so with spiritual

nutriment. Abstract truth we can make little of at first hand; it needs

to be embodied in a living form before we can live upon it. Even God is

remote and abstract, and non-Christian theism makes thin-blooded and

spectral worshippers; it is when the Word becomes flesh; when the hidden

reason of all things takes human form and steps out on the earth before

us, that truth becomes nutritive, and God our life.

4. Still more explicitly Christ says: "The bread which I will give is My

flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." For it is in this

great act of dying that He becomes the Bread of Life. God sharing with

us to the uttermost; God proving that His will is our righteousness; God

bearing our sorrows and our sins; God coming into our human race, and

becoming a part of its history--all this is seen in the cross of Christ;

but it is also seen that absolute love for men, and absolute submission

to God, were the moving forces of Christ's life. He was obedient even

unto death. This was _His_ life, and by the cross He made it ours. The

cross subdues our hearts to Him, and gives us to feel that

self-sacrifice is the true life of man.

A man in a sickly state of _body_ has sometimes to make it matter of

consideration, or even of consultation, what he shall eat. Were anyone

to take the same thought about his spiritual condition, and seriously

ponder what would bring health to his spirit, what would rid it of

distaste for what is right, and give it strength and purity to delight

in God and in all good, he would probably conclude that a clear and

influential exhibition of God's goodness, and of the fatal effects of

sin, a convincing exhibition, an exhibition in real life, of the

unutterable hatefulness of sin, and inconceivable desirableness of God;

an exhibition also which should at the same time open for us a way from

sin to God--this, the inquirer would conclude, would bring life to the

spirit. It is such an exhibition of God and of sin, and such a way out

of sin to God, as we have in Christ's death.

5. How are we to avail ourselves of the life that is in Christ? As the

Jews asked, _How_ can this man give us His flesh to eat? Our Lord

Himself uses several terms to express the act by which we make use of

Him as the Bread of Life. "He that believeth on Me," "He that cometh to

Me," "He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life."

Each of these expressions has its own significance. Belief must come

first--belief that Christ is sent to give us life; belief that it

depends upon our connection with that one Person whether we shall or

shall not have life eternal. We must also "come to Him." The people He

was addressing had followed Him for miles, and had found Him and were

speaking to Him, but they had not _come_ to Him. To come to Him is to

approach Him in spirit and with submissive trust; it is to commit

ourselves to Him as our Lord; it is to rest in Him as our all; it is to

come to Him with open heart, accepting Him as all He claims to be; it is

to meet the eye of a present, living Christ, who knows what is in man,

and to say to Him "I am Thine, Thine most gladly, Thine for evermore."

But most emphatically of all does our Lord say that we must "eat His

flesh and drink His blood" if we are to partake of His life. That is to

say, the connection between Christ and us must be of the closest

possible kind; so close that the assimilation of the food we eat is not

too strong a figure to express it. The food we eat becomes our blood and

flesh; it becomes our life, our self. And it does so by our eating it,

not by our talking of it, not by our looking at it, and admiring its

nutritive properties, but only by eating it. And whatever process can

make Christ entirely ours, and help us to assimilate all that is in Him,

this process we are to use. The flesh of Christ was given for us; by the

shedding of Christ's blood, by the pouring out of His life upon the

cross, spiritual life was prepared for us. Cleansing from sin and

restoration to God were provided by the offering of His life in the

flesh; and we eat His flesh when we use in our own behalf the death of

Christ, and take the blessings it has made possible to us; when we

accept the forgiveness of sins, enter into the love of God, and adopt as

our own the spirit of the cross. His flesh or human form was the

_manifestation_ of God's love for us, the visible material of His

sacrifice; and we eat His flesh when we make this our own, when we

accept God's love and adopt Christ's sacrifice as our guiding principle

of life. We eat His flesh when we take out of His life and death the

spiritual nutriment that is actually there; when we let our nature be

penetrated by the spirit of the cross, and actually make Christ the

Source and the Guide of our spiritual life.

This figure of _eating_ has many lessons for us. Above all, it reminds

us of the poor appetite we have for spiritual nourishment. How

thoroughly by this process of eating does the healthy body extract from

its food every particle of real nutriment. By this process the food is

made to yield all that it contains of nourishing substance. But how far

is this from representing our treatment of Christ. How much is there in

Him that is fitted to yield comfort and hope, and yet to us it yields

none. How much that should fill us with assurance of God's love, yet how

fearfully we live. How much to make us admire self-sacrifice and fill us

with earnest purpose to live for others, and yet how little of this

becomes in very deed _our_ life. God sees in Him all that can make us

complete, all that can fill and gladden and suffice the soul, and yet

how bare and troubled and defeated do we live.[24]

6. The mode of distribution was also significant. Christ gives life to

the world not directly, but through His disciples. The life He gives is

Himself, but He gives it through the instrumentality of men. The bread

is His. The disciples may manipulate it as they will, but it remains

five loaves only. None but He can relieve the famishing multitude. Still

not with His own hands does He feed them, but through the believing

service of the Twelve. And this He did not merely for the sake of

teaching us that only through the Church is the world supplied with the

life He furnishes, but primarily because it was the natural and fit

order then, as it is the natural and fit order now, that they who

themselves believe in the power of the Lord to feed the world should be

the means of distributing what He gives. Each of the disciples received

from the Lord no more than would satisfy himself, yet held in his hand

what would through the Lord's blessing satisfy a hundred besides. And it

is a grave truth we here meet, that every one of us who has received

life from Christ has thereby in possession what may give life to many

other human souls. We may give it or we may withhold it; we may

communicate it to the famishing souls around us or we may hear

unconcerned the weary heart-faint sigh; but the Lord knows to whom He

has given the bread of life, and He gives it not solely for our own

consumption but for distribution. It is not the privilege of the more

enlightened or more fervent disciple, but of all. He who receives from

the Lord what is enough for himself holds the lives of some of his

fellows in his hand.

Doubtless the faith of the disciples was severely tried when they were

required to advance each man to his separate hundred with his morsel of

bread. There would be no struggling for the first place then. But

encouraged in their faith by the simple and confident words of prayer

their Master had addressed to the Father, they are emboldened to do His

bidding, and if they gave sparingly and cautiously at first, their

parsimony must soon have been rebuked and their hearts enlarged.

Theirs is also our trial. We know we should be more helpful to others;

but in presence of the sorrowful we seem to have no word of comfort;

seeing this man and that pursuing a way the end of which is death, we

have yet no wise word of remonstrance, no loving entreaty; lives are

trifled away at our side, and we are conscious of no ability to elevate

and dignify; lives are worn out in crushing toil and misery, and we feel

helpless to aid. The habit grows upon us of expecting rather to get good

than to do good. We have long recognised that we are too little

influenced by God's grace, and only at long intervals now are we ashamed

of this; it has become our acknowledged state. We have found that we are

not the kind of people who are to influence others. Looking at our slim

faith, our stunted character, our slender knowledge, we say, "What is

this among so many?" These feelings are inevitable. No man seems to have

enough even for his own soul. But giving of what he has to others he

will find his own store increased. "There is that scattereth abroad and

yet increaseth," is the law of spiritual growth.

But the thought which shines through all others as we read this

narrative is the genial tenderness of Christ. He is here seen to be

considerate of our wants, mindful of our weaknesses, quick to calculate

our prospects and to provide for us, simple, practical, earnest in His

love. We see here how He withholds no good thing from us, but considers

and gives what we actually need. We see how reasonable it is that He

should require us to trust Him. To every fainting soul, to every one who

has wandered far and whose strength is gone, and round whom the shadows

and chills of night are gathering, He says through this miracle:

"Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your

labour for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto Me, and

eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in

fatness."[25]

FOOTNOTES:

[21] At the risk of omitting points of interest, I have thought it

advisable to treat this whole representation of Christ, as far as

possible, within the limits of one chapter.

[22] Roughly speaking, L8.

[23] From Psalm lxxii. 16 the Rabbis gathered that the Messiah when He

came would renew the gift of manna.

[24] The figure of eating reminds us that the acceptance of Christ is an

act which each man must do for himself. No other man can eat for me. It

also reminds us that as the food we eat is distributed, without our own

will or supervision, to every part of the body, giving light to the eye

and strength to the arm, making bone or skin in one place, nerve or

blood-vessel in another, so, if only we make Christ our own, the life

that is in Him suffices for all the requirements of human nature and

human duty.

[25] On verses 37, 44, and 45 see note at the end of this volume.

XV

_THE CRISIS IN GALILEE._

"Many therefore of His disciples, when they heard this, said, This

is a hard saying; who can hear it? But Jesus knowing in Himself that

His disciples murmured at this, said unto them, Doth this cause you

to stumble? What then if ye should behold the Son of man ascending

where He was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh

profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit,

and are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus

knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it

was that should betray Him. And He said, For this cause have I said

unto you, that no man can come unto Me, except it be given unto him

of the Father. Upon this many of His disciples went back, and walked

no more with Him. Jesus said therefore unto the twelve, Would ye

also go away? Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go?

thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and know

that Thou art the Holy One of God. Jesus answered them, Did not I

choose you the twelve, and one of you is a devil? Now He spake of

Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he it was that should betray

Him, being one of the twelve."--JOHN vi. 60-71.

The situation in which our Lord found Himself at this stage of His

career is full of pathos. He began His ministry in Judaea, and His

success there seemed to be all that could be desired. But it soon became

apparent that the crowds who followed Him misunderstood or wilfully

ignored His purpose. They resorted to Him chiefly, if not solely, for

material advantages and political ends. He was in danger of being

accounted the most skilful metropolitan physician; or in the greater

danger of being courted by politicians as a likely popular leader, who

might be used as a revolutionary flag or party cry. He, therefore, left

Jerusalem at an early period in His ministry and betook Himself to

Galilee; and now, after some months' preaching and mingling with the

people, things have worked round in Galilee to precisely the same point

as they had reached in Judaea. Great crowds are following Him to be

healed and to be fed, while the politically inclined have at last made a

distinct effort to make Him a king, to force Him into a collision with

the authorities. His proper work is in danger of being lost sight of. He

finds it necessary to sift the crowds who follow Him. And He does so by

addressing them in terms which can be acceptable only to truly

spiritual men--by plainly assuring them that He was among them, not to

give them political privileges and the bread that perisheth, but the

bread that endureth. They found Him to be what they would call an

impracticable dreamer. They profess to go away because they cannot

understand Him; but they understand Him well enough to see He is not the

person for their purposes. They seek earth, and heaven is thrust upon

them. They turn away disappointed, and many walk no more with Him. The

great crowd melts away, and He is left with His original following of

twelve men. His months of teaching and toil seem to have gone for

nothing. It might seem doubtful if even the twelve would be faithful--if

any result of His work would remain, if any would cordially and lovingly

adhere to Him.

One cannot, I think, view this situation without perceiving how

analogous it is in many respects to the aspect of things in our own day.

In all ages of course this sifting of the followers of Christ goes on.

There are experiences common to all times and places which test men's

attachment to Christ. But in our own day exceptional causes are

producing a considerable diminution of the numbers who follow Christ, or

at least are altering considerably the grounds on which they profess to

follow Him. When one views the defection of men of influence, of

thought, of learning, of earnest and devout spirit, one cannot but

wonder what is to be the end of this, and how far it is to extend. One

cannot but look anxiously at those who seem to remain, and to say, "Will

ye also go away?" No doubt such times of sifting are of eminent service

in winnowing out the true from the mistaken followers, and in summoning

all men to revise the reason of their attachment to Christ. When we see

men of serious mind and of great attainments deliberately abandoning the

Christian position, we cannot but anxiously inquire whether we are right

in maintaining that position. When the question comes to us, as in

Providence it does, "Will ye also go away?" we must have our answer

ready.

The answer of Peter clearly shows what it was that bound the faithful

few to Jesus; and in his answer three reasons for faith may be

discerned.

1. Jesus satisfied their deepest spiritual wants. They had found in Him

provision for their whole nature, and had learned the truth of His

saying, "He that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and He that believeth

on Me shall never thirst." They could now say, "Thou hast the words of

eternal life." His words made water into wine, and five loaves into five

thousand, but His words did what was far more to their purpose,--they

fed their spirit. His words brought them nearer to God, promised them

eternal life, and began it within them. From the lips of Jesus had

actually fallen words which quickened within them a new life--a life

which they recognised as eternal, as lifting them up into another world.

These words of His had given them new thoughts about God and about

righteousness, they had stirred hopes and feelings of an altogether new

kind. And this spiritual life was more to them than anything else. No

doubt these men, like their neighbours, had their faults, their private

ambitions, their hopes. Peter could not forget that he had left all for

his Master, and often thought of his home, his plentiful table, his

family, when wandering about with Jesus. They all, probably, had an

expectation that their abandonment of their occupations would not be

wholly without compensation in this life, and that prominent position

and worldly advantage awaited them. Still, when they discovered that

these were mistaken expectations, they did not grumble nor go back, for

such were not their chief reasons for following Jesus. It was chiefly by

His appeal to their spiritual leanings that He attracted them. It was

rather for eternal life than for present advantage they attached

themselves to Him. They found more of God in Him than elsewhere, and

listening to Him they found themselves better men than before; and

having experienced that His words were "spirit and life" (ver. 63), they

could not now abandon Him though all the world did so.

So is it always. When Christ sifts His followers those remain who have

spiritual tastes and wants. The spiritual man, the man who would rather

be like God than be rich, whose efforts after worldly advancement are

not half as earnest and sustained as His efforts after spiritual health;

the man, in short, who seeks first the kingdom of God and His

righteousness, and lets other things be added or not to this prime

requisite, cleaves to Christ because there is that in Christ which

satisfies his tastes and gives him the life he chiefly desires. There is

in Christ a suitableness to the wants of men who live in view of God and

eternity, and who seek to adjust themselves, not only to the world

around them so as to be comfortable and successful in it, but also to

the things unseen, to the permanent laws which are to govern human

beings and human affairs throughout eternity. Such men find in Christ

that which enables them to adjust themselves to things eternal. They

find in Christ just that revelation of God, and that reconcilement to

Him, and that help to abiding in Him, which they need. They cannot

imagine a time, they cannot picture to themselves a state of society, in

which the words and teaching of Jesus would not be the safest guide and

the highest law. Life eternal, life for men as men, is taught by Him;

not professional life, not the life of a religious rule that must pass

away, not life for this world only, but life eternal, life such as men

everywhere and always ought to live--this is apprehended by Him and

explained by Him; and power and desire to live it is quickened within

men by His words. Coming into His presence we recognise the assuredness

of perfect knowledge, the simplicity of perfect truth. That which

outrides all such critical times as the disciples were now passing

through is true spirituality of mind. The man who is bent on nourishing

his spirit to life everlasting simply cannot dispense with what he finds

in Christ.

We need not then greatly fear for our own faith if we are sure that we

covet the words of eternal life more than the path to worldly advantage.

Still less need we tremble for the faith of others if we know that their

tastes are spiritual, their leanings Godward. Parents are naturally

anxious about their children's faith, and fear it may be endangered by

the advances of science or by the old props of faith being shaken. Such

anxiety is in great measure misdirected. Let parents see to it that

their children grow up with a preference for purity, unselfishness,

truth, unworldliness; let parents set before their children an example

of real preference for things spiritual, and let them with God's aid

cultivate in their children an appetite for what is heavenly, a craving

to live on terms with God and with conscience; and this appetite will

infallibly lead them to Christ. Does Christ supply the wants of our

spirits? Can He show us the way to eternal life? Have men found in Him

all needed help to godly living? Have the most spiritual and ardent of

men been precisely those who have most clearly seen their need of Him,

and who have found in Him everything to satisfy and feed their own

spiritual ardour? Has He, that is to say, the words of eternal life? Is

He the Person to whom every man must listen if he would find his way to

God and a happy eternity? Then, depend upon it, men will believe in

Christ in every generation, and none the less firmly because their

attention is called off from non-essential and external evidences to the

simple sufficiency of Christ.

2. Peter was convinced not only that Jesus had the words of eternal

life, but that no one else had. "To whom shall we go?" Peter had not an

exhaustive knowledge of all sources of human wisdom; but speaking from

his own experience he affirmed his conviction that it was useless to

seek life eternal anywhere else than in Jesus. And it seems equally

hopeless still to look to any other quarter for sufficient teaching, for

words that are "spirit and life." Where but in Christ do we find a God

we can accept as God? Where but in Him do we find that which can not

only encourage men striving after virtue, but also reclaim the vicious?

To put anyone alongside of Christ as a revealer of God, as a pattern of

virtue, as a Saviour of men, is absurd. There is that in Him which we

recognise as not merely superior, but of another kind. So that those who

reject Him, or set Him on a level with other teachers, have first of all

to reject the chief part of what His contemporaries were struck with and

reported, and to fashion a Christ of their own.

And it should be observed that Christ claims this exceptional homage

from His people. The "following" He requires is not a mere acceptance of

His teaching alongside of other teaching, nor an acceptance of His

teaching apart from Himself, as if a man should listen to Him and go

home and try to practise what he has heard; but He requires men to form

a connection with Himself as their King and Life, as that One who can

alone give them strength to obey Him. To call Him "the Teacher," as if

this were His sole or chief title, is to mislead.

The alternative, then, as Peter saw, was Christ or nothing. And every

day it is becoming clearer that this is the alternative, that between

Christianity and the blankest Atheism there is no middle place. Indeed

we may say that between Christianity, with its supernatural facts, and

materialism, which admits of no supernatural at all, and of nothing

spiritual and immortal, there is no logical standing-ground. A man's

choice lies between these two--either Christ with His claims in all

their fulness, or a material universe working out its life under the

impulse of some inscrutable force. There are of course men who are

neither Christians nor materialists; but that is because they have not

yet found their intellectual resting-place. As soon as they obey reason,

they will travel to one or other of these extremes, for between the two

is no logical standing-ground. If there is a God, then there seems

nothing incredible, nothing even very surprising, in Christianity.

Christianity becomes merely the flower or fruit for which the world

exists, the element in the world's history which gives meaning and glory

to the whole of it: without Christianity and all it involves the world

lacks interest of the highest kind. If a man finds he cannot admit the

possibility of such an interference in the world's monotonous way as

the Incarnation implies, it is because there is in his mind an Atheistic

tendency, a tendency to make the laws of the world more than the

Creator; to make the world itself God, the highest thing. The Atheist's

position is thoroughgoing and logical; and against the Atheist the man

who professes to believe in a Personal God and yet denies miracle is

helpless. And in point of fact Atheistic writers are rapidly sweeping

the field of all other antagonists, and the intermediate positions

between Christianity and Atheism are becoming daily more untenable.