disposed to turn away and walk no more with Christ, should view the
alternative, and consider what it is with which he must throw in his
lot. To retain what is called the spirit of Christ, and reject all that
is miraculous and above our present comprehension, is to commit oneself
to a path which naturally leads to disbelief in God. We must choose
between Christ as He stands in the gospels, claiming to be Divine,
rising from the dead and now alive; and a world in which there is no God
manifest in the flesh or anywhere else, a world that has come into being
no one knows how or whence, and that is running on no one knows whither,
unguided by any intelligence outside of itself, wholly governed by laws
which have grown out of some impersonal force of which nobody can give
any good account. Difficult as it is to believe in Christ, it is surely
still more difficult to believe in the only alternative, a world wholly
material, in which matter rules and spirit is a mere accident of no
account. If there are inexplicable things in the gospel, there are also
in us and around us facts wholly inexplicable on the atheistic theory.
If the Christian must be content to wait for the solution of many
mysteries, so certainly must the materialist be content to leave
unsolved many of the most important problems of human life.[26]
3. The third reason which Peter assigns for the unalterable loyalty of
the Twelve is expressed in the words, "We have believed and know that
Thou art the Holy One of God." By this he probably meant that he and the
rest had come to be convinced that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah,
the consecrated One, whom God had set apart to this office. The same
expression was used by the demoniac in the synagogue at Capernaum.[27]
But although the idea of consecration to an office rather than the idea
of personal holiness is prominent in the word, it may very well have
been the personal holiness of their Master which bore in upon the minds
of the disciples that He was indeed the Messiah. By His life with them
from day to day He revealed God to them. They had seen Him in a great
variety of circumstances. They had seen His compassion for every form of
sorrow and misery, and His regardlessness of self; they had marked His
behaviour when offered a crown and when threatened with the cross; they
had seen Him at table in gay company, and they had seen Him fasting and
in houses of mourning, in danger, in vehement discussion, in retirement;
and in all circumstances and scenes they had found Him holy, so holy
that to turn from Him they felt would be to turn from God.
The emphasis with which they affirm their conviction is remarkable: "We
have believed and we know." It is as if they felt, We may be doubtful of
much and ignorant of much, but this at least we are sure of. We see men
leaving our company who are fit to instruct and guide us in most
matters, but they do not know our Lord as we do. What they have said has
disturbed our minds and has caused us to revise our beliefs, but we
return to our old position, "We have believed and we know." It may be
true that devils have been cast out by the prince of the devils; we do
not know. But a stainless life is more miraculous and Divine than the
casting out of devils; it is more unknown in the world, referrible to no
freak of nature, accomplished by no sleight of hand or jugglery, but due
only to the presence of God. Here we have not the sign or evidence of
the thing but the thing itself, God not using man as an external agent
for operating upon the material world, but God present in the man,
living in his life, one with him.
Upon our faith nothing is more influential than the holiness of Christ.
Nothing is more certainly Divine. Nothing is more characteristic of
God--not His power, not His wisdom, not even His eternal Being. He who
in his own person and life represents to us the holiness of God is more
certainly superhuman than he who represents God's power. A power to work
miracles has often been delegated to men, but holiness cannot be so
delegated. It belongs to character, to the man's self; it is a thing of
nature, of will, and of habit; a king may give to his ambassador ample
powers, he may fill his hands with credentials, and load him with gifts
which shall be acceptable to the monarch to whom he is sent, but he
cannot give him a tact he does not naturally possess, a courtesy he has
not acquired by dealing with other princes, nor the influence of wise
and magnanimous words, if these do not inherently belong to the
ambassador's self. So the holiness of Christ was even more convincing
than His power or His message. It was such a holiness as caused the
disciples to feel that He was not a mere messenger. His holiness
revealed _Himself_ as well as Him that sent Him; and the self that was
thus revealed they felt to be more than human. When, therefore, their
faith was tried by seeing the multitudes abandon their Lord, they were
thrown back on their surest ground of confidence in Him; and that surest
ground was not the miracles which all had seen, but the consecrated and
perfect life which was known to them.
To ourselves, then, I say, by the circumstances of our time this
question comes, "Will ye also go away?" Will you be like the rest, or
will exceptional fidelity be found in you? Is your attachment to Christ
so based on personal conviction, is it so truly the growth of your own
experience, and so little a mere echo of popular opinion, that you say
in your heart, "Though all men should forsake Thee, yet will not I"? It
is difficult to resist the current of thought and opinion that prevails
around us; difficult to dispute or even question the opinion of men who
have been our teachers, and who have first awakened our mind to see the
majesty of truth and the beauty of the universe; it is difficult to
choose our own way, and thus tacitly condemn the choice and the way of
men we know to be purer in life, and in every essential respect better
than ourselves. And yet, perhaps, it is well that we are thus compelled
to make up our own mind, to examine the claims of Christ for ourselves,
and so follow Him with the resolution that comes of personal conviction.
It is this our Lord desires. He does not compel nor hasten our decision.
He does not upbraid His followers for their serious misunderstandings of
His person. He allows them to be familiar with Him even while labouring
under many misconceptions, because He knows that these misconceptions
will most surely pass away in His society and by further acquaintance
with Him. One thing He insists upon, one thing He asks from us--that we
follow Him. We may only have a vague impression that He is quite
different from all else we know; we may be doubtful, as yet, in what
sense some of the highest titles are ascribed to Him; we may be quite
mistaken about the significance of certain important parts of His life;
we may disagree among ourselves regarding the nature of His kingdom and
regarding the conditions of entrance into it; but, if we follow Him, if
we join our fortunes to His, and wish nothing better than to be within
the sound of His voice and to do His bidding; if we truly love Him, and
find that He has taken a place in our life we cannot ever give to
another; if we are conscious that our future lies His way, and that we
must in heart abide with Him, then all our slowness to understand is
patiently dealt with, all our underrating of His real dignity is
forgiven us, and we are led on in His company to perfect conformity,
perfect union, and perfect knowledge.
All that He desires, then, is, in the first place, not something we
cannot give, not a belief in certain truths about which doubt may
reasonably be entertained, not an acknowledgment of facts that are as
yet beyond our vision; but, that we follow Him, that we be in this world
as He was in it. Shall we, then, let Him pursue His way alone, shall we
do nothing to forward His purposes, shall we show no sympathy, address
no word to Him, and pretend not to hear when He speaks to us? To drag
ourselves along murmuring, doubting, making difficulties, a mere dead
weight on our Leader, this is not to follow as He desires to be
followed. To take our own way in the main, and only appear here and
there on the road He has taken; to be always trying to combine the
pursuit of our own private ends with the pursuance of His ends, is not
to follow. Had we seen these men asking leave of absence two or three
times a month to go and look after the fishing, even though they
promised to overtake their Master somewhere on the road, we should
scarcely have recognised them as His followers. Had we found them, on
reaching a village at night, leaving Him, and preferring to spend their
leisure with His enemies, we should have been inclined to ask an
explanation of conduct so inconsistent. Yet is not our own following
very much of this kind? Is there not too little of the following that
says, "What is enough for the Lord is enough for me; His aims are enough
for me"? Is there not too little of the following that springs from a
frank and genuine dealing with the Lord from day to day, and from a
conscientious desire to meet His will with us, and satisfy His idea of
how we should follow Him? May we each have the peace and joy of the man
who, when this question, "Will ye also go away?" comes to him, quickly
and from the heart responds, "I will never forsake Thee."
FOOTNOTES:
[26] "Those who turn their backs on the Eternal Son must understand,
then, that they are on their way to a creed which denies an Eternal
Father, and puts in His place an unconscious impersonal soul of nature,
a dead central force, of which all the forces in the universe are
manifestations; or an unknown, unknowable cause, remaining to be
postulated after the series of physical causes has been traced as far
back as science can go; and which robs mortal man of the hope that the
seed sown in the churchyard shall one day be reaped in the harvest of
the resurrection.... Your so-called Christianity independent of dogmas
is but the evening twilight of faith, the light which lingers in the
spiritual atmosphere after the sun of truth has gone down."--Dr. Bruce,
_Training of the Twelve_, p. 154, a book to which I am greatly indebted
here and elsewhere.
[27] Mark i. 24.
XVI.
_JESUS DISCUSSED IN JERUSALEM._
"And after these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for He would not
walk in Judaea, because the Jews sought to kill Him. Now the feast of
the Jews, the feast of tabernacles, was at hand. His brethren
therefore said unto Him, Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that Thy
disciples also may behold Thy works which Thou doest. For no man
doeth anything in secret, and himself seeketh to be known openly. If
Thou doest these things, manifest Thyself to the world. For even His
brethren did not believe on Him. Jesus therefore saith unto them, My
time is not yet come; but your time is alway ready. The world cannot
hate you; but Me it hateth, because I testify of it, that its works
are evil. Go ye up unto the feast: I go not up yet unto this feast;
because My time is not yet fulfilled. And having said these things
unto them, He abode still in Galilee. But when His brethren were
gone up unto the feast, then went He also up, not publicly, but as
it were in secret. The Jews therefore sought Him at the feast, and
said, Where is He? And there was much murmuring among the multitudes
concerning Him: some said, He is a good man; others said, Not so,
but He leadeth the multitude astray. Howbeit no man spoke openly of
Him for fear of the Jews. But when it was now the midst of the feast
Jesus went up into the temple, and taught. The Jews therefore
marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never
learned? Jesus therefore answered them, and said, My teaching is not
Mine but His that sent Me. If any man willeth to do His will he
shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak
from Myself. He that speaketh from himself seeketh his own glory:
but he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, the same is
true, and no unrighteousness is in him. Did not Moses give you the
law, and yet none of you doeth the law? Why seek ye to kill Me? The
multitude answered, Thou hast a devil: who seeketh to kill Thee?
Jesus answered and said unto them, I did one work, and ye all
marvel. For this cause hath Moses given you circumcision (not that
it is of Moses, but of the fathers); and on the Sabbath ye
circumcise a man. If a man receiveth circumcision on the Sabbath,
that the law of Moses may not be broken; are ye wroth with Me,
because I made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath? Judge not
according to appearance, but judge righteous judgement. Some
therefore of them of Jerusalem said, Is not this He whom they seek
to kill? And lo, He speaketh openly, and they say nothing unto Him.
Can it be that the rulers indeed know that this is the Christ?
Howbeit we know this man whence He is; but when the Christ cometh,
no one knoweth whence He is. Jesus therefore cried in the temple,
teaching and saying, Ye both know Me, and know whence I am; and I am
not come of Myself, but He that sent Me is true, whom ye know not. I
know Him; because I am from Him, and He sent Me. They sought
therefore to take Him: and no man laid his hand on Him, because His
hour was not yet come. But of the multitude many believed on Him;
and they said, When the Christ shall come, will He do more signs
than those which this man hath done? The Pharisees heard the
multitude murmuring these things concerning Him; and the chief
priests and the Pharisees sent officers to take Him. Jesus therefore
said, Yet a little while am I with you, and I go unto Him that sent
Me. Ye shall seek Me, and shall not find Me: and where I am, ye
cannot come. The Jews therefore said among themselves, Whither will
this man go that we shall not find Him? will He go unto the
Dispersion among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks? What is this word
that He said, Ye shall seek Me, and shall not find Me: and where I
am, ye cannot come? Now on the last day, the great day of the feast,
Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto
Me and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said,
out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake
He of the Spirit, which they that believed on Him were to receive:
for the Spirit was not yet given: because Jesus was not yet
glorified. Some of the multitude therefore, when they heard these
words, said, This is of a truth the prophet. Others said, This is
the Christ. But some said, What, doth the Christ come out of
Galilee? Hath not the Scripture said that the Christ cometh of the
seed of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was? So
there arose a division in the multitude because of Him. And some of
them would have taken Him; but no man laid hands on Him. The
officers therefore came to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they
said unto them, Why did ye not bring Him? The officers answered,
Never man so spake. The Pharisees therefore answered them, Are ye
also led astray? Hath any of the rulers believed on Him, or of the
Pharisees? But this multitude which knoweth not the law are
accursed. Nicodemus saith unto them (he that came to Him before,
being one of them), Doth our law judge a man, except it first hear
from himself and know what he doeth? They answered and said unto
him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and see that out of Galilee
ariseth no prophet."--JOHN vii.
After describing how matters were brought to a crisis in Galilee, and
pointing out that, as the result of our Lord's work there, only twelve
men adhered to Him, and in even this final selection not all were to be
trusted,--John passes on to describe the state of feeling towards Jesus
in Jerusalem, and how the storm of unbelief gathered until it broke in
violence and outrage.[28] This seventh chapter is intended to put us in
the right point of view by exhibiting the various estimates that were
formed of the work and person of Jesus, and the opinions which any one
might hear uttered regarding Him at every table in Jerusalem.
But the motive of His going to Jerusalem at all calls for remark. His
brothers, who might have been expected to understand His character best,
were very slow to believe in Him. They only felt He was different from
themselves, and they were nettled by His peculiarity. But they felt that
the credit of the family was involved, and also that _if_ His claims
should turn out to be true, their position as brothers of the Messiah
would be flattering. Accordingly they betray considerable anxiety to
have His claims pronounced upon; and seeing that His work in Galilee had
come to so little, they do their utmost to provoke Him to appeal at once
to the central authority at Jerusalem. They did not as yet believe in
Him, they could not entertain the idea that the boy they had knocked
about and made to run their messages could be the long-expected King;
and yet there was such trustworthy report of the extraordinary things He
had done, that they felt there was something puzzling about Him, and for
the sake of putting an end to their suspense they do what they can to
get Him to go again to Jerusalem. The lever they use to move Him is a
taunt: "_If_ these works of yours are genuine miracles, don't hang about
villages and little country towns, but go and show yourself in the
capital. No one who is really confident that he has a claim on public
attention wanders about in solitary places, but repairs to the most
crowded haunts of men. Go up now to the feast, and your disciples will
gather round you, and your claims will be settled once for all."
To this Jesus replies that the hour for such a proclamation of Himself
has not yet come. That hour is to come. At the following Passover He
entered Jerusalem in the manner desired by His brethren, and the result,
as He foresaw, was His death. As yet such a demonstration was premature.
The brothers of Jesus did not apprehend the virulence of hatred which
Jesus aroused, and did not perceive how surely His death would result
from His going up to the feast as the acknowledged King of the
Galilaeans. He Himself sees all this plainly, and therefore declines the
plan of operation proposed by His brothers; and instead of going up
with them as the proclaimed Messiah, He goes up quietly by Himself a few
days after. To go up as His brothers' nominee, or to go up in the way
they proposed, was counter to the whole plan of His life. Their ideas
and proposals were made from a point of view wholly different from His.
Very often we can do at our own instance, in our own way and at our own
time, what it would be a vast mistake to do at the instigation of people
who look at the matter differently from ourselves, and have quite
another purpose to serve. Jesus could safely do without display what He
could not do ostentatiously; and He could do as His Father's servant
what He could not do at the whim of His brothers.
The feast to which He thus quietly went up was the Feast of Tabernacles.
This feast was a kind of national harvest home; and consequently in
appointing it God commanded that it should be held "in the end of the
year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field;" that is
to say, in the end of the _natural_ year, or in early autumn, when the
farm operations finished one rotation and began a new series. It was a
feast, therefore, full of rejoicing.[29] Every Israelite appeared in
holiday attire, bearing in his hands a palm-branch, or wearing some
significant emblem of earth's fruitfulness. At night the city was
brilliantly illuminated, especially round the Temple, in which great
lamps, used only on these occasions, were lit, and which possibly
occasioned our Lord's remark at this time, as reported in the following
chapter, "I am the Light of the world." There can be little doubt that
when, on the last day of the feast, He stood and cried, "If any man
thirst, let him come unto Me and drink," the form of his invitation was
moulded by one of the customs of the feast. For one of the most striking
features of the feast was the drawing of water in a golden vessel from
the pool of Siloam, and carrying it in procession to the Temple, where
it was poured out with such a burst of triumph from the trumpets of the
Levites, aided by the Hallelujahs of the people, that it became a common
Jewish saying, "He who has not seen the rejoicing at the pouring out of
the water from the pool of Siloam has never seen rejoicing in his life."
This pouring out of the water before God seemed to be an acknowledgment
of His goodness in watering the corn-lands and pastures, and also a
commemoration of the miraculous supply of water in the desert; while to
some of the more enlightened it bore also a spiritual significance, and
recalled the words of Isaiah, "With joy shall ye draw water out of the
wells of salvation."
But this feast was not solely a celebration of the ingathering, or a
thanksgiving for the harvest. The name of it reminds us that another
feature was quite as prominent. In its original institution God
commanded, "Ye shall dwell in booths or tabernacles seven days; all that
are Israelites born shall dwell in booths," the reason being added,
"that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to
dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt." The
particular significance of the Israelites dwelling in booths seems to be
that it marked their deliverance from a life of bondage to a life of
freedom; it reminded them how they had once no settled habitation, but
yet found a booth in the desert preferable to the well-provided
residences of Egypt. And every Feast of Tabernacles seemed intended to
recall these thoughts. In the midst of their harvest, at the end of the
year, when they were once more laying up store for winter, and when
every one was reckoning whether it would be an abundant and profitable
year for him or no, they were told to live for a week in booths, that
they might think of that period in their fathers' experience when God
was their all, when they had no provision for the morrow, and which was
yet the most triumphant period of their history. All wealth, all
distinctions of rank, all separation between rich and poor, was for a
while forgotten, as each man dwelt in his little green hut as well
sheltered as his neighbour. And to every one was suggested the thought,
that let the coming winter be well provided or ill provided, let it be
bleak to some and bright to others, at bottom the provision of this
world is to all alike but as a green bough between them and destitution;
but that all alike, reduce them if you will to a booth which has neither
store nor couch in it, have still the Most High God for their deliverer,
and provider, and habitation.[30]
Even before Jesus appeared at this feast He was the subject of much talk
and exchange of opinions.
1. The first characteristic of the popular mind, as exhibited here by
John, is its subservience to authority. Those who had a favourable
opinion of Jesus uttered it with reserve and caution, "for fear of the
Jews"--that is, of the Jerusalem Jews, who were known to be adverse to
His claims. And the authorities, knowing the subservience of the people,
considered it a sufficient reply to the favourable reports brought them
by their own officers, to say, "Have any of the rulers or of the
Pharisees believed on Him?" This seems a very childish mode of settling
a great question, and we are ready to charge the Jews with a singular
lack of independence; but we reflect that among ourselves great
questions are settled very much by authority still. In politics we take
our cue from one or two newspapers, conducted by men who show themselves
quite fallible; and in matters of even deeper moment, how many of us can
say we have thought out a creed for ourselves, and have not accepted our
ideas from recognised teachers? And whether these teachers be the
accredited representatives of traditional theology, or have secured an
audience by their departure from ordinary views, we have in our own
conscience a surer guide to the truth about Christ. For much that we may
build upon the foundation we must be indebted to others; but for that
which is radical, for the determination of the relation we ourselves are
to hold to Christ, we must follow not authority but our own conscience.
Our equanimity need not, then, be greatly disturbed by the fact that so
many of the rulers of public opinion do not believe in Christ. We need
not tremble for Christianity when we see how widely extended is the
opinion that miracles are the fancy of a credulous age. We need not be
over-anxious or altogether downcast when we hear philosophers sublimely
talk as if they had seen all round Christ, and taken His measure, and
rendered satisfactory account of the pious delusions He Himself was
subject to, and the groundless hallucinations which misled His followers
into unheard-of virtue, and made them good men by mistake. Consider the
opinions of men of insight and of power, but do not be overawed by them,
for you have in yourself a surer guide to truth. Look at Christ with
your own eyes, frankly open your own soul before Him, and trust the
impression He makes upon you.
2. Again, John notices the _perplexity_ of the people. They saw that,
much as the authorities desired to put Him out of the way, they shrank
from decisive measures. And from this they naturally gathered that the
rulers had some idea that this was the Christ. Then besides, they saw
the miracles Jesus did, and asked whether the Christ would do more
miracles. They saw, too, that He was "a good Man," and on the whole,
therefore, they were disposed to look favourably on His claims; but then
there always recurred the thought, "We know this Man whence He is; but
when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence He is." They thought they
could account for Christ and trace Him to His origin; and therefore they
could not believe He was from God. This is the common difficulty. Men
find it difficult to believe that One who was really born on earth and
did not suddenly appear, nobody knew whence, can in any peculiar sense
be from God. They dwell upon the truly human nature of Christ, and
conceive that this precludes the possibility of His being from God in
any sense in which we are not from God.
To this perplexity Jesus addresses Himself in the words (ver. 28), "Me
you do in a sense know, and also whence I come, but that does not give
you the full knowledge you need, for it is not of Myself I am come; your
knowledge of _Me_ cannot solve your perplexity, because I am not sent by
Myself; He that sent Me is the real[31] one, and Him you do not know. I
know Him because I am from Him, and He hath sent Me." That is to say:
Your knowledge of Me is insufficient, because you do not, through Me,
recognise God. Your knowledge of Me is insufficient so long as you
construe Me into a mere earthly product. To know Me, as you know Me, is
not enough; for not in Myself can you find the originating cause of what
I am and what I do. You must go behind my earthly origin, and the human
appearance which you know, if you are to account for My presence among
you, and for My conduct and teaching. It matters little what you know of
Me, if through Me you are not brought to the knowledge of God. He is the
real One, He is the Supreme Truth; and Him, alas! you do not know while
you profess to know Me.
3. John notes the insufficient tests used both by the people and by the
authorities for ascertaining whether Jesus was or was not their promised
King. The tests they used were such as these, "Will Christ do more
miracles?" "Will He come from the same part of the country?" and so
forth. Among ourselves it has become customary to speak as if it were
impossible to find or apply any sufficient test to the claims of Christ;
impossible to ascertain whether He is, in a peculiar sense, Divine, and
whether we can absolutely trust all He said, and accept the views of God
He cherished and proclaimed. Certainly Christ Himself does not
countenance this mode of speaking. In all His conversations with the
unbelieving Jews He condemned them for their unbelief, ascribed it to
moral defects, and persistently maintained that it was within the reach
of any man to ascertain whether He was true or a pretender. There is a
class of expressions which occur in this Gospel which clearly show what
Jesus Himself considered to be the root of unbelief. To Pilate He says,
"Every one that is _of the truth_ heareth My voice." To the Jews He
says, "He that is of God, heareth God's words; ye therefore hear them
not, because ye are not of God." And again in this seventh chapter, "If
any man is desirous to do the will of God, he will know of My doctrine
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself." All these
statements convey the impression that Christ's person and teaching will
uniformly be acceptable to those who love the truth, and who are anxious
to do the will of God.
Faith in Christ is thus represented as an act rather of the spiritual
nature than of the intellect, and as the result of sympathy with the
truth rather than of critical examination of evidence. A painter or
art-critic familiar with the productions of great artists feels himself
insulted if you offer him evidence to convince him of the genuineness of
a work of art over and above the evidence which it carries in itself,
and which to him is the most convincing of all. If one of the lost books
of Tacitus were recovered, scholars would not judge it by any account
that might be given of its preservation and discovery, but would say,
Let us see it and read it, and we will very soon tell you whether it is
genuine or not. When the man you have seen every day for years, and
whose character you have looked into under the strongest lights, is
accused of dishonesty, and damaging evidence is brought against him,
does it seriously disturb your confidence in him? Not at all. No
evidence can countervail the knowledge gained by intercourse. You know
the man, directly, and you believe in him without regard to what other
persons advance in his favour or against him. Christ expects acceptance
on similar grounds. Look at Him, listen to Him, pass with Him from day
to day of His life, and say whether it is possible that He can be a
deceiver, or that He can be deceived. He Himself is confident that those
who seek the truth, and are accustomed to acknowledge and follow the
truth always, will follow Him. He is confident that they will find that
He so fits in with what they have already learnt, that naturally and
instinctively they will accept Him.
It is at the point in which all men are interested that Christ appeals
to us--at the point of life or conduct; and He says that whoever truly
desires to do God's will, will find that His teaching leads him right.
And if men would only acknowledge Christ in this respect, and begin, as
conscience bids them, by accepting His life as exhibiting the highest
rule of conduct, they would sooner or later acknowledge Him in all. A
man may not at once see all that is involved in the fact that Christ
exhibits, as no one else exhibits, the will of God; but if He will but
acknowledge Him as _the_ Teacher of God's will, not coming to Him with a
spirit of suspicion but of earnest desire to do God's will, that man
will become a convinced follower of Christ. There are, of course,
persons of a sound moral disposition who get entangled intellectually in
perplexing difficulties about the person of Christ and His relation to
God; but if such persons are humble--and humility is a virtue of
decisive consequence--they will, by virtue of their experience in moral
questions, and by their practical knowledge of the value of harmony with
God, prize the teaching of Christ, and recognise its superiority, and
submit themselves to its influence.
It was on the last day of the feast that our Lord made the most explicit
revelation of Himself to the people. For seven days the people dwelt in
their booths; on the eighth day they celebrated their entrance into the
promised land, forsook their booths, and, as it is said in the end of
the chapter, "went every man to his own _house_." But on this great day
of the feast no water was drawn from the pool of Siloam. On each of the
preceding days the golden pitcher was in request, and the procession
that followed the priest who carried it praised God who had brought
water out of the rock in the desert; but on the eighth day,
commemorating their entrance into "a land of springs of water," this
rite of drawing the water ceased.
But the true worshippers among these Israelites had been seeing a
spiritual meaning in the water, and had been conscious of an uneasy
feeling of thirst still in the midst of these Temple services--an uneasy
questioning whether even yet Israel had passed the thirsty desert, and
had received the full gift God had meant to give. There were thinking
men and thirsty souls then as there are now; and to these, who stood
perhaps a little aside, and looked half in compassion, half in envy, at
the merry-making of the rest, it seemed a significant fact that, in the
Temple itself, with all its grandeur and skilful appliances, there was
yet no living fountain to quench the thirst of men--a significant fact
that to find water the priest had to go outside the gorgeous Temple to
the modest "waters of Siloah that go softly." All through the feast
these men wondered morning by morning when the words of Joel were to
come true, when it should come to pass that "a fountain should come
forth of the house of the Lord," or when that great and deep river
should begin to flow which Ezekiel saw in vision issuing from the
threshold of the Lord's house, and waxing deeper and wider as it flowed.
And now once more the last day of the feast had come, the water was no
longer drawn, and yet no fountain had burst up in the Temple itself,
their souls were yet perplexed, unsatisfied, craving, athirst, when
suddenly, as if in answer to their half-formed thoughts and longings, a
clear, assured, authoritative voice passed through their ear to their
inmost soul: "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that
believeth on Me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."
In these words Christ proclaims that He is the great Temple-fountain; or
rather, that He is the true Temple, and that the Holy Ghost proceeding
from Him, and dwelling in men, is the life-giving fountain.[32] All the
cravings after a settled and eternal state, all the longings for purity
and fellowship with the Highest, which the Temple services rather
quickened than satisfied, Christ says He will satisfy. The Temple
service had been to them as a screen on which the shadows of things
spiritual were thrown; but they longed to see the realities face to
face, to have God revealed, to know the very truth of things, and set
foot on eternal verity. This thirst is felt by all men whose whole
nature is alive, whose experience has shaken them out of easy
contentment with material prosperity; they thirst for a life which does
not so upbraid and mock them as their own life does; they thirst to be
able to live, so that the one half of their life shall not be condemned
by the other half; they thirst to be once for all in the "ampler ether"
of happy and energetic existence, not looking through the bars and
fumbling at the lock. This thirst and all legitimate cravings we feel
Christ boldly and explicitly promises to satisfy; nay more, all
illegitimate cravings, all foolish discontent, all vicious
dissatisfaction with life, all morbid thirst that is rapidly becoming
chronic disease in us, all weak and false views of life, He will rid us
of, and give us entrance into the life that God lives and imparts--into
pure, healthy, hopeful life.
Christ stands and cries still in the midst of a thirsting world:
"Whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely." Has His voice
become so familiar that it has lost all significance? For all who can
hear and believe, His truth remains. There is life--abundant life for
us. Drink of any other fountain, and you only intensify thirst, and make
life more difficult, spending energy without renewing it. Live in Christ
and you live in God. You have found the centre, the heart, the eternal
life. As Christ stood and cried to the people He was conscious of power
to impart to them a freshly welling spring of life--a life that would
overflow for the strengthening and gladdening of others besides
themselves. He has the same consciousness to-day; the deep, living
benefits He confers are as open to all ages as the sunshine and the air;
there is no necessity binding any one soul to feel that life is a
failure, an empty, disappointing husk, serving no good purpose, bringing
daily fresh misery and deeper hopelessness, a thing perhaps manfully to
fight our way through but certainly not to rejoice in. If any one has
such views of life it is because he has not honestly, believingly, and
humbly responded to Christ's word and come to Him.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] It will be observed that the remaining part of the Gospel goes into
very small compass as regards time. Chapters vii.-x. 21 are occupied
with what was said and done at the Feast of Tabernacles, chapters
xii.-xx. with the last Passover.
[29] A mixture of religious thanksgiving and unrestrained social
hilarity, analogous to the English celebration of Christmas.
[30] Psalm xc. 1.
[31] =alethinos=.
[32] On ver. 39 see p. 48 of this volume.
XVII.
_THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY._
"And they went every man unto his own house: but Jesus went unto the
mount of Olives. And early in the morning He came again into the
temple, and all the people came unto Him; and He sat down, and
taught them. And the scribes and the Pharisees bring a woman taken
in adultery; and having set her in the midst, they say unto Him,
Master, this woman hath been taken in adultery, in the very act. Now
in the law Moses commanded us to stone such; what then sayest Thou
of her? And this they said, tempting Him, that they might have
whereof to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down, and with His finger
wrote on the ground. But when they continued asking Him, He lifted
up Himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you,
let him first cast a stone at her. And again He stooped down, and
with His finger wrote on the ground. And they, when they heard it,
went out one by one, beginning from the eldest, even unto the last:
and Jesus was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the
midst. And Jesus lifted up Himself, and said unto her, Woman, where
are they? did no man condemn thee? And she said, No man, Lord. And
Jesus said, Neither do I condemn thee; go thy way; from henceforth
sin no more."--JOHN vii. 53-viii, 11.
This paragraph, from chap. vii. 53-viii. 11 inclusive, is omitted from
modern editions of the Greek text on the authority of the best
manuscripts. Internal evidence is also decidedly against its admission.
The incident may very well have happened, and it bears every appearance
of being accurately reported. We are glad to have so characteristic an
exposure of the malignity of the Jews, and a view of our Lord which,
although from a novel standpoint, is yet quite consistent with other
representations of His manner and spirit. But here it is out of place.
No piece of literary work is so compact and homogeneous as this Gospel.
And an incident such as this, which would be quite in keeping with the
matter of the synoptical Gospels, is felt rather to interrupt than to
forward the purpose of John to record the most characteristic and
important self-manifestations of Christ.
But as the paragraph is here, and has been here from very early times,
and as it is good Gospel material, it may be well briefly to indicate
its significance.
1. First, it reveals the unscrupulous malignity of the leading citizens,
the educated and religious men, "the Scribes and Pharisees." They
brought to Jesus the guilty woman, "tempting Him" (ver. 6); not because
they were deeply grieved or even shocked at her conduct; nay, so little
were they impressed with that aspect of the case, that, with a
cold-blooded indelicacy which is well-nigh incredible, they actually
used her guilt to further their own designs against Jesus. They
conceived that by presenting her before Him for judgment, He would be
transfixed on one or other horn of the following dilemma: If He said,
Let the woman die in accordance with the law of Moses, they would have a
fair ground on which they could frame a dangerous accusation against
Him, and would inform Pilate that this new King was actually adjudging
life and death. If, on the other hand, He bid them let the woman go,
then He could be branded before the people as traversing the law of
Moses.
Underhand scheming of this kind is of course always to be condemned.
Setting traps and digging pitfalls are illegitimate methods even of
slaughtering wild animals, and the sportsman disdains them. But he who
introduces such methods into human affairs, and makes his business one
concatenated plot, does not deserve to be a member of society at all,
but should be banished to the unreclaimed wilderness. These men posed as
sticklers for the Law, as the immovably orthodox, and yet had not the
common indignation at crime which would have saved them from making a
handle of this woman's guilt. No wonder that their unconscious and
brazen depravity should have filled Jesus with wonder and embarrassment,
so that for a space He could not utter a word, but could only fix His
eyes on the ground.
Making all allowance for the freedom of Oriental manners from some
modern refinements, one cannot but feel some surprise that such a scene
should be possible on the streets of Jerusalem. It reveals a hardened
and insensible condition of public opinion which one is scarcely
prepared for. And yet it may well be questioned whether it was a more
ominous state of public sentiment than that in the midst of which we are
living, when scenes, in _character_ if not in appearance similar to
this, are constantly reproduced by our novelists and play-writers, who
harp upon this one vile string, professing, like these Pharisees, that
they drag such things before the public gaze for the sake of exposing
vice and making it hateful, but really because they know that there is a
large constituency to whom they can best appeal by what is sensational,
and prurient, and immoral, though to the masculine and healthy mind
disgusting. Many of our modern writers might take a hint from our German
forefathers, who, in their barbarian days, held that some vices were to
be punished in public, but others buried quickly in oblivion, and who,
therefore, punished crime of this sort by binding it in a wicker crate,
and sinking it in a pit of mud out of sight for ever. We certainly
cannot congratulate ourselves on our advancement in moral perception so
long as we pardon to persons of genius and rank what would be loathed in
persons of no brilliant parts and in our own circles. When such things
are thrust upon us, either in literature or elsewhere, we have always
the resource of our Lord; we can turn away, as though we heard not; we
can refuse to inquire further into such matters, and turn away our eyes
from them.
Few positions could be more painful to a pure-minded man than that in
which our Lord was placed. What hope could there be for a world where
the religious and righteous had become even more detestable than the
coarse sin they proposed to punish? No wonder our Lord was silent,
silent in sheer disturbance of mind and sympathetic shame. He stooped
down and wrote on the ground, as one who does not wish to answer a
question will begin drawing lines on the ground with his foot or his
stick. His silence was a broad hint to the accusers; but they take it
for mere embarrassment, and all the more eagerly press their question.
They think Him at a loss when they see Him with hanging head tracing
figures on the ground; they fancy their plot is successful, and, flushed
with expected victory, they close in and lay their hands on his shoulder
as He stoops, and demand an answer. And so He lifts Himself up, and they
have their answer: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast
a stone at her." They fall into the pit they have digged.
This answer was not a mere clever retort such as a self-possessed
antagonist can always command. It was not a mere dexterous evasion. What
these scribes would say of it to one another afterwards, or with what
nervous anxiety they would altogether avoid the subject, we can scarcely
conjecture; but probably none of them would affect to say, as has since
been said, that it was a confounding of things that differ, that by
demanding that every one who brought an accusation, against another
should himself be open to no accusation Jesus subverted the whole
administration of law. For what criminal could fear condemnation, if his
doom were to be suspended until a judge whose heart is as pure as his
ermine be found who may pronounce it? Might not these scribes have
replied that they were quite aware that they themselves were guilty men,
but no law could lay hold of any outward actions of theirs, and that
they were there not to talk of their relation to God or of purity of
heart, but to vindicate the outward purity of the morals of their city
by bringing to judgment this offender? They did not thus bandy words
with our Lord, and they could not; because they knew that it was not He
who was trying to confound private morality and the administration of
law but themselves. They had brought this woman to Jesus as if He were a
magistrate, though often enough He had declined to interfere with civil
affairs and with the ordinary administration of justice. And in His
answer He still shows the same spirit of non-interference. He does not
pronounce upon the woman's guilt at all. Had they taken her before their
ordinary courts He would have raised no word in her favour; did her
husband after this prosecute her he can have feared no interference on
the part of Jesus. His answer is the answer not of one pronouncing from
a judgment-seat, nor of a legal counsel, but of a moral and spiritual
teacher. And in this capacity He had a perfect right to say what He did.
We have no right to say to an official who in condemning culprits or in
prosecuting them is simply discharging a public duty, "See that your own
hands be clean, and your own heart pure, before you condemn another,"
but we have a perfect right to silence a private individual who is
officiously and not officially exposing another's guilt, by bidding him
remember that he has a beam in his own eye which he must first be rid
of, a stain on his own hands he must first wash out. The public
prosecutor, or judge is a mere mouthpiece and representative among us of
absolute justice; in him we see not his own private character at all,
but the purity and rectitude of law and order. But these scribes were
acting as private individuals, and came to Jesus professing that they
were so shocked with this woman's sin that they wished the long-disused
punishment of stoning to be revived. And therefore Jesus had not only a
perfect right, as any other man would have had, to say to them, "Thou
that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit
adultery?" but also, as the searcher of hearts; as He who knew what is
in man, He could risk the woman's life on the chance of there being a
single man of them who was really as shocked as he pretended to be, who
was prepared to say he had in his own soul no taint of the sin he was
loudly professing his abhorrence of, who was prepared to say, Death is
due to this sin, and then to accept such proportionate punishment as
would fall to his own share.
Having given His answer His eye again falls, His former stooping
attitude is resumed. He does not mean to awe them by a defiant look; He
lets their own conscience do the work. But that their conscience should
have produced such a result deserves our attention. The woman, when she
heard His answer, may for a moment have trembled and shrunk together,
expecting the crashing blow of the first stone. Could she expect that
these Pharisees, some of them at least good men, were all involved
somehow in her sin, tainted in heart with the pollution that had wrought
such destruction in herself, or supposing they were so tainted, did they
know it; or supposing they knew it, would they not be ashamed to own it
in the face of the surrounding crowd; would they not sacrifice her life
rather than their own character? But every man waited for some other to
lift the first stone; every man thought that some one of their number
would be pure enough and bold enough, if not to throw the first stone,
at least to assert that he fulfilled the condition of doing so that
Jesus had laid down. None was willing to put himself forward to be
searched by the eyes of the crowd, and to be exposed to the still more
trying judgment of Jesus, and to risk the possibility of His, in some
more definite way, revealing his past life. And so they edged their way
out through the crowd from before Him, each desiring to have no more to
do with the business; the oldest not so old as to forget his sin, the
youngest not daring to say he was not already corrupt.
This reveals two things, the amount of unascertained guilt every man
carries with him, guilt that he is not distinctly conscious of, but that
a little shake awakens, and that weakens him all through his life in
ways that he may be unable to trace.
Further, this encounter of Jesus with the leading men gives significance
to His subsequent challenge: "Which of you convinceth Me of sin?" He had
shown them how easy it was to convict the guilty; but the very ease and
boldness with which He had touched their conscience convinced them His
own was pure. In a society honeycombed with vice He stood perfect,
untouched by evil.
This searching purity, this stainless mirror, the woman felt it more
difficult to face than the accusing scribes. Alone with Him who had so
easily unmasked their wickedness, she feels that now she has to do with
something much more awful than the accusations of men--the actual
irrevocable sin. There was no voice now accusing her, no hand laid in
arrest upon her. Why does she not go? Because, now that others are
silent, her own conscience speaks; now that her accusers are silenced,
she must listen to Him whose purity has saved her. The presence among us
of a true and perfect human holiness in the person of Christ, that is
the true touchstone of character; and he who does not feel that this is
what actually judges all his own ways and actions, has but a dim
apprehension of what human life is--of its dignity, its
responsibilities, its risks, its reality. Our sin, no doubt, hems us
round with a thousand disabilities, and fears, and anxieties in this
world, often dreadful to bear as the shame of this woman; there
gradually gathers round us a brood of mischiefs we have given birth to
by overstepping God's law, a brood that throngs our steps, and makes a
peaceful and happy life impossible. Other men come to recognise some of
our infirmities, and we feel the depressing influence of their
unfavourable judgment, and in the secresy of our own self-reflection we
think meanly of ourselves; but this, overwhelming as it sometimes
becomes, is not the worst of sin. Were all these evil consequences
abated or removed, were we as free from accusing voices, either from the
reflected judgment of the world or from our own memory, as that woman
when she stood _alone_ in the midst, yet there would then only the more
clearly emerge into view the essential and inseparable evil of sin, the
actual breach between us and holiness. The accusation and misery which
sin brings generally either make us feel that we are expiating sin by
what we suffer, or put us into a self-defensive attitude. It is when
Jesus lifts His true eye to meet ours that the heart sinks humbled, and
recognises that apart from all punishment and in itself sin is sin, an
injury to God's love, a grievous wrong to our own humanity. In the
attitude of Christ towards sin and the sinner there is an exposure of
the real nature of sin which makes an ineffaceable impression.
But what will Jesus do with this woman thus left on His hands? Will _He_
not visit her with punishment, and so assert His superiority to the
accusers who had slunk away? He shows His superiority in a much more
real fashion. He sees that now the woman is self-condemned, lies under
that condemnation in which alone there is hope, and which alone leads to
good. She could not misunderstand the significance of her acquittal. Her
surprise must only have deepened her gratitude. He who had stood her
friend and brought her through so critical a passage in her history
could scarcely be forgotten. And yet, considering the net she had thrown
around herself, could our Lord say "Sin no more" with any hope? He knew
what she was going back to--a blighted home-life, a life full now of
perplexity, of regret, of suspicion, probably of ill-usage, of contempt,
of everything that makes men and women bitter and drives them on to sin.
Yet He implies that the legitimate result of forgiveness is renunciation
of sin. Others might expect her to sin; He expected her to abandon sin.
If the love shown us in forgiveness is no barrier to sin, it is because
we have not been in earnest as yet about our sin, and forgiveness is but
a name. Do we need an external scene such as that before us as the
setting which may enable us to believe that we are sinners, and that
there is forgiveness for us? The entrance to life is through
forgiveness. Possibly we have sought forgiveness; but if there follows
us no serious estimate of sin, no fruitful remembrance of the holiness
of Him who forgave us, then our severance from sin will last only until
we meet the first substantial temptation.
We do not know what became of this woman, but she had an opportunity of
regarding Jesus with reverence and affection, and thus of bringing a
saving influence into her life. This scene, in which He was the chief
figure, must always have remained the most vivid picture in her memory;
and the more she thought of it the more clearly must she have seen how
different He was from all besides. And unless in our hearts Christ finds
a place, there is no other sufficient purifying influence. We may be
convinced He is all He claims to be, we may believe He is sent to save,
and that He can save; but all this belief may be without any cleansing
effect upon us. What is wanted is an attachment, a real love that will
prompt us always to regard His will, and to make our life a part of His.
It is our likings that have led us astray, and it is by new likings
implanted within us that we can be restored. So long as our knowledge of
Christ is in our head only, it may profit us a little, but it will not
make new creatures of us. To accomplish that, He must command our heart.
He must control and move what is most influential within us; there must
arise in us a real and ruling enthusiasm for Him.
Perhaps, however, the chief lesson taught by this incident is that the
best way to reform society is to reform ourselves. There is of course a
great deal done in our own day to reclaim the vicious, to succour the
poor, and so on; and nothing is to be said against these efforts when
they are the outcome of a humble and sympathising charity. But they are
very often adulterated with a spirit of condemnation and a sense of
superiority, which on closer inspection is found to be unjust. These
scribes and Pharisees, when they dragged this woman before Jesus, felt
themselves on quite another platform than that which she occupied; but
a word from Christ convinced them how hollow this self-righteous spirit
was. He made them feel that they too were sinners even as she, and none
of them was sufficiently hardened to lift a stone against her. This is
creditable to the Pharisees. There are many among us who would very
quickly have lifted the stone. Even while striving to reclaim the
drunkard, for example, they arraign him with an implacable ferocity that
shows they are quite unconscious of being sharers in his sin. If you
challenged them, they would clear themselves by vehemently protesting
that they had not touched strong drink for years; but do they not
consider that the almost universal intemperance of the lowest class in
society has a far deeper root than individual appetite; that it is
rooted in the whole miserable condition of that class, and cannot be
cured till the luxuries of the rich are by some means sacrificed for the
bitter need of the poor, and the rational enjoyments which save the
well-to-do from coarse and open vice are put within reach of the whole
population? Poverty, and the necessity it entails of being content with
a wage which barely keeps in life, are not the sole roots of vice, but
they are roots; and so long as we ourselves, in common with the society
in which we live, are involved in the guilt of upholding a social
condition which tempts to every kind of iniquity, we dare not cast the
first stone at the drunkard, the thief, or even their more sunken
associates. No one man, and no one class, is more guilty than another in
this great blot on our Christianity. _Society_ is guilty; but as members
who happen by the accident of our birth to have enjoyed advantages
saving us from much temptation which we know we could not have stood, we
must learn at least to _consider_ those who in a very real sense are
sacrificed for us. Among certain savage tribes, when a chief's house is
built, slaughtered slaves are laid in pits as its foundation; the
structure of our vaunted civilisation has a very similar basement.
Still it is one of the most hopeful features of present-day Christianity
that men are becoming sensible that they are not mere individuals, but
are members of a society; and that they must bear the shame of the
existing condition of things in society. Intelligent Christian men now
feel that the saving of their own souls is not enough, and that they
cannot with complacency rest satisfied with their own happy condition
and prospects if the society to which they belong is in a state of
degradation and misery. It is by the growth of this sympathetic shame
that reformation on a great scale will be brought about. It is by men
learning to see in all misery and vice their own share of guilt that
society will gradually be leavened. To those who cannot own their
connection with their fellow-men in any such sense, to those who are
quite satisfied if they themselves are comfortable, I do not know what
can be said. They break themselves off from the social body, and accept
the fate of the amputated limb.
XVIII.
_CHRIST THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD._
"Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of
the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness, but
shall have the light of life. The Pharisees therefore said unto Him,
Thou bearest witness of Thyself; Thy witness is not true. Jesus
answered and said unto them, Even if I bear witness of Myself, My
witness is true; for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye
know not whence I come, or whither I go. Ye judge after the flesh; I
judge no man. Yea and if I judge, My judgement is true; for I am not
alone, but I and the Father that sent Me. Yea and in your law it is
written, that the witness of two men is true. I am He that beareth
witness of Myself, and the Father that sent Me beareth witness of
Me. They said therefore unto Him Where is Thy Father? Jesus
answered, Ye know neither Me, nor My Father: if ye knew Me, ye would
know My Father also."--JOHN viii. 12-19.
At the Feast of Tabernacles Jesus, who knew that He was sent to confer
upon men the realities which had been symbolised and promised in all
religious rites, proclaimed that He was the fountain of life (vii. 37);
and thus responded to the unuttered prayer of those who looked with some
weariness at the old routine of drawing water in remembrance of the
provision God had made for their fathers in the desert. Another feature
of the same Feast leads Him now to declare a further characteristic of
His person. In commemoration of the Pillar of Fire that led their
fathers in the trackless desert, the people lit large lamps round the
Temple, and gave themselves up to dancing and revelry. But this, too,
was no doubt felt to be for the superficial souls that can live upon
rites and symbols, and do not seek to lay bare their inmost being to the
very touch of eternal reality. Not merely the cynic would smile as
venerable men joined in the lamp-light dance, but possibly even the
grave and pious onlooker, looking back on his own mistakes in life, and
conscious of the blind way in which he was still blundering on, stood
wondering where the true Guide of Israel, the real Light of human life
was to be found. In sympathy with all such longing after truth and
clear vision Jesus cries, "I am the light of the world; he that
followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of
life."
His words must be interpreted by their reference to the light which was
then being celebrated. Of that light we read that "the Lord went before
them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way, and by night in
a pillar of fire, to give them light." This was a customary mode of
directing the movements of large bodies of men, whether caravans or
armies. In the case of an army a tall pole was erected in front of the
chief's tent, and from it a basket of fire was suspended, so that the
glare of it was visible by night, and its smoke by day. The head of a
marching column could thus be descried from a great distance, especially
in wide level tracts with little or no vegetation and few inequalities
of surface to interrupt the view. The distinctive peculiarity of the
Israelitish march was that Jehovah was in the fire, and that He alone
controlled its movements, and thereby the movements of the camp. When
the pillar of cloud left its place and advanced the tents were struck,
lest they should be separated, from Jehovah and be found unfaithful to
Him. During the whole course of their sojourn in the wilderness their
movements were thus controlled and ordered. The beacon-fire that led
them was unaffected by atmospheric influences. Dispelled by no gales,
and evaporated by no fiercest heat of the Eastern sun, it hovered in the
van of the host as the guiding angel of the Lord. The guidance it gave
was uninterrupted and unerring; it was never mistaken for an ordinary
cloud, never so altered its shape as to become unrecognisable. And each
night the flame shot up, and assured the people they might rest in
peace.
Two obvious characteristics of this guiding Light must be kept in view.
1. God's people were not led by a road already made and used, and which
they could have studied from beginning to end on a map before starting;
but they were led day by day, and step by step, by a living guide, who
chose a route never before trodden. In the morning they did not know
whether they were to go forward or back, or to stay where they were.
They had to wait in ignorance till their guiding pillar moved, and
follow in ignorance till it halted. Our passage through life is similar.
It is not a chart we are promised but a guide. We cannot tell where next
year or next month may be spent. We are not informed of any part of our
future, and have no means of ascertaining the emergencies which may try
us, the new ingredients which may suddenly be thrown into our life, and
reveal in us what till now has lain hidden and dormant. We cannot tell
by what kind of path we shall be led onwards to our end; and our
security from day to day consists not at all in this, that we can
penetrate the future, and see no dangers in it, but our security is that
we shall always be guided by infallible and loving wisdom. We have
learned a chief article of human wisdom if we have learned to leave
to-morrow to God and faithfully follow Him to-day. A road as it lies in
the distance often looks impassably steep, but as we approach and walk
it step by step, we find it almost level and fairly easy.
2. This light was to guide, not their conduct, but their movements. All
men need similar guidance. All men have practical matters to determine
which often greatly perplex them; they must make a choice between one or
other course of action that is possible. Steps which will determine
their whole subsequent life must be taken or declined; and for the
determining of such alterations in the place or mode of their life there
is often felt great need of a guidance which can be entirely relied
upon. Sometimes, indeed, our course is determined for us, and we are not
consulted in the matter; as the pillar of fire was silent, assigning no
reasons, condescending to no persuasion or argument, but simply moving
forwards; passing over rugged and steep mountain ridges, past inviting
and sheltered glens, offering no present explanation of the route, but
justified always by the result. So we often find that our course is
determined apart from our own choice, wishes, judgment, or prayers. But
this we commonly resent, and crave a guidance which shall approve itself
to our own judgment and yet be infallible; which shall leave us our
freedom of choice, and yet carry us forwards to all possibilities of
good. In fact, we would rather have our freedom of choice and the
responsibility of guiding our own life, with all its risks, than be
carried forward without choice of our own.
This is the great distinction between the light which Christ is and the
light by which the Israelites were led from day to day. They had an
external means of ascertaining promptly which way they should go. Their
whole life was circumscribed, and its place and mode determined for
them. The guidance offered to us by Christ is of an inward kind. A God
without might seem perfect as a guide, but a God within is the real
perfection. God does not now lead us by a sign which we could follow,
though we had no real sympathy with Divine ways and no wisdom of our
own; but He leads us by communicating to us His own perceptions of right
and wrong, by inwardly enlightening us, and by making us ourselves of
such a disposition that we naturally choose what is good.
When matters difficult to handle and to manage come into our life, and
when we are tempted to long for some external sign which would show us
infallibly the right thing to do and the right way to follow, let this
be our consolation, that this very exercise of judgment and bearing of
responsibility in matters where right and wrong are not broadly
distinguished are among the chief instruments for the formation of
character; and that _even though we err_ in the choice we make, yet by
our error and by all honest effort to keep right with God in the matter,
we shall certainly have made growth in ability to understand and to do
what is right. No doubt it is easier to believe in a guide we can see
and that moves before us like a pillar of fire; but supposing for a
moment that this dispensation under which we are living is not a great
deception, supposing for a moment that God is doing that one thing which
He pledged Himself to do, namely, giving a Divine Spirit to men, Himself
dwelling with men and in them, then we cannot fail to see that this
guidance is of a much higher kind, and has much more lasting results
than any external guidance could have. If, by allowing us to determine
our own course and find our own way through all the hazards and
perplexities of life, God is teaching us to estimate actions and their
results more and more by their moral value, and if thereby He is
impregnating you with His own mind and character, surely that is a much
better thing than if He were keeping us in the right way merely by
outward signs and irrespective of our own growth in wisdom.
Persons whose opinion is not to be lightly esteemed say that if we
honestly seek God's guidance in any matter we cannot err, and have no
business to reflect afterwards on our conduct as if we had made a wrong
choice. I cannot think that is so. Sincere people who ask God's
guidance, it seems to me, frequently make mistakes. In fact, our past
mistakes are a great part of our education. Unless we are _habitually_
in sympathy with God we are not infallible even in matters where a moral
judgment is all that is required; and sometimes more is required of us
than to say what is right and what is wrong. Other points have to be
considered--points which call for a knowledge of life, of places, and
professions, of the trustworthiness of other men, and a thousand matters
in which we are liable to err. It is of course a great satisfaction to
know that we wished to do right, even if we discover we have blundered;
and it is also a satisfaction to know that God can use us for good in
any position, even in that we have blundered into, although meanwhile we
have lost some present good.
The light which Christ brought to the world was the light "of life."
This additional description "of life" He commonly appended to
distinguish the real and eternal good He bestowed from the figure by
which it had been hinted at. He calls Himself the Bread _of life_, the
Water _of life_, to point out that He is really and eternally what these
material things are in the present physical world. All this present
constitution of things may pass away, and the time may come when men
shall no longer need to be sustained by bread, but the time shall never
come when they shall not need life; and this fundamental gift Christ
pledges Himself evermore to give. And when He names Himself the light
_of life_ He indicates that it is on the true, eternal life of man He
sheds light.
There may, then, be many things and important things on which Christ
sheds no direct light, although there is nothing of importance on which
He does not shed light indirectly. He brought into the world no direct
light upon scientific questions; He did not hasten the development of
art by any special light thrown on its objects and methods. There was no
great need for light on such matters. These are not the distressing
difficulties of human existence. Indeed, men find stimulus and joy in
overcoming these difficulties, and resent being told nature's secrets,
and not being allowed to find them out. But the darkness that settles on
the life of the individual, and upon the condition of large classes of
people through what is human, personal, and practical is often
overwhelming, and compels men to cry for light. The strange miscarriage
of justice in the life of many individuals; the compulsion put upon them
to sin and to disbelieve through the pressure of unceasing failure and
privation; the triumph of cold-hearted villainy; the bitterness of
separation and death; the impenetrable darkness of the future; the
incomprehensible dimness, in which the most important truths are
involved--all this men find no pleasure in, but rather a torment that is
sometimes maddening, often destructive of all faith, and always painful.
This is the kind of darkness that causes men to sink; they run upon the
rocks, and go down in darkness, no living soul hearing their cry. This
is the darkness which wrings from many a heart at this moment the
question of despair, "What has become, of God?"
The darkness regarding conduct in which men are involved has largely a
moral root. Men are blinded by their appetites and passions, so that
they cannot see the best ends and enjoyments of life. It is the strong
craving we have for gratifications of sense and of worldly desire that
misleads us in life. As some creatures have the faculty of emitting a
dark and turbid matter that discolours the water, and hides them from
their pursuers, so it is a self-evolved and home-made darkness that
involves us. False expectations are the atmosphere of our life; we live
in an unreal world created by our own tastes and desires, which
misinform us, and bid us seek the good of life where it is not to be
found.
It is then this light that Christ is and brings, light upon human life,
light upon all that most intimately concerns human character, human
conduct, and human destiny. What each of us chiefly needs to know is,
what is the best kind of human life--how can I best spend my energies,
and how can I best sustain them? Are there any results of life which are
satisfying and which are certain; and if so, how can I attain them? Do
not all things happen alike to all; is it not with the wise man and the
righteous as with the fool? Is life worth serious devotion; will it
repay what is spent upon it? Is not cynical indifference, or selfish
caring for present interests, the most philosophical as well as the most
pleasant and easy attitude towards life to assume? These are the
questions which we find answered in Christ.
The expression, "the light of life," may, however, have a somewhat
different meaning. It may mean that he who follows Christ shall have
that light which accompanies, and is fed by, the life which Christ
gives. At the outset of the Gospel John declared that "the Life was the
light of men." And this is true in the sense that they who accept Christ
as their life, and truly live in Him and by Him, walk in light and not
in darkness. The clouds and gloom which overhung their life are
dissipated. Their horizon is widened, their prospect cleared, and all
things with which they have presently to do are seen in their true
dimensions and relations. They who live with the life of Christ have a
clear light regarding duty. The man who has entered into the life Christ
opens to us, however slow and dull in intellect he may be, may indeed
make many mistakes, but he will find his way through life, and issue
from it, in his measure, triumphant.
It is further to be remarked that Jesus does not content Himself with a
place beside other teachers, saying, "I will give you light," but
affirms that the light is inseparable from His own person. "I am the
light." By this He means, as already observed, that it is by receiving
Him as our life that we have light. But His words also mean that He
imparts this light not by oral teaching, but by being what He is, and
living as He does. Teaching by word and precept is well, when nothing
better can be had;[33] but it is the Word made flesh that commands the
attention of all. This is a language universally intelligible. "A life,
the highest conceivable, on almost the lowest conceivable stage, and
recorded in the simplest form, with indifference to all outward
accompaniments attractive whether to the few or to the many, is set
before us as the final and unalterable ideal of human life, amid all
its continual and astonishing changes." It is by this life led here on
earth He becomes our Light. It is by His faith maintained in the utmost
of trial; His calmness and hopefulness amidst all that shrouds human
life in darkness; His constant persuasion that God is in this world,
present, loving, and working. It is by His habitual attitude towards
this life, and towards the unseen, that we receive light to guide us. In
His calmness we take refuge from our own dismay. In His hopefulness we
refresh ourselves in every time of weariness. In His confidence our
timorous anxieties are rebuked. Upon the darkest parts of our life there
falls from Him some clear ray that brightens and directs. Thousands of
His followers, in every age, have verified His words: "I am the light of
the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall
have the light of life."
And as the Teacher taught by living so must the scholar learn by living.
Christ brings light by passing through all human experiences and
situations, and "he that followeth" Him, not he that reads about Him,
"shall have the light of life." There are very few men in the world who
can think to much purpose on truths so abstruse and complicated as the
Divinity of Christ and the Atonement and Miracles; but there is no man
so dull as not to see the difference between Christ's life and His own.
Few men may be able to explain satisfactorily the relation Christ holds
to God on the one hand and to us on the other; but every man who knows
Christ at all even as he knows his friend or his father, is conscious
that a new light falls upon sin of all kinds, upon sins of appetite and
sins of temper and sins of disposition, since Christ lived. It is in
this light Christ would have us walk, and if we follow as He leads on,
we shall never lack the light of life. We need not be seriously
disturbed about the darkness that hangs round the horizon if light falls
on our own path; we need not be disturbed by our ignorance of many
Divine and human things, nor by our inability to answer many questions
which may be put to us, and which indeed we naturally put to ourselves,
so long only as we are sure we are living so as to please and satisfy
Christ. If our life runs on the lines His life marked out, we shall
certainly arrive where He now is, in the happiest and highest human
condition.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] "Many had spoken wonderfully the truths concerning our state, and
even concerning our hopes; they had sounded great depths in the sea of
wisdom; they had drawn the line between what is solid and what is vain
in life; they had caught, firmly and clearly, what was worth living for;
they had measured truly the relative value of the flesh and the
Spirit."--Dean Church, _Gifts of Civilisation_, p. 105.
XIX.
_JESUS REJECTED IN JERUSALEM._
"He said therefore again unto them, I go away, and ye shall seek Me,
and shall die in your sin: whither I go, ye cannot come. The Jews
therefore said, Will He kill Himself, that He saith, Whither I go,
ye cannot come? And He said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am
from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. I said
therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for except ye
believe that I am He, ye shall die in your sins. They said therefore
unto Him, Who art Thou? Jesus said unto them, Even that which I have
also spoken unto you from the beginning. I have many things to speak
and to judge concerning you: howbeit He that sent Me is true; and
the things which I heard from Him, these speak I unto the world.
They perceived not that He spake to them of the Father. Jesus
therefore said, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye
know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself, but as the
Father taught Me, I speak these things. And He that sent Me is with
Me; He hath not left Me alone; for I do always the things that are
pleasing to Him. As He spake these things, many believed on Him.
Jesus therefore said to those Jews which had believed Him, If ye
abide in My word, then are ye truly My disciples; and ye shall know
the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered unto
Him, We be Abraham's seed, and have never yet been in bondage to any
man: how sayest Thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the
bondservant of sin. And the bondservant abideth not in the house for
ever: the son abideth for ever. If therefore the Son shall make you
free, ye shall be free indeed. I know that ye are Abraham's seed;
yet ye seek to kill Me, because My word hath not free course in you.
I speak the things which I have seen with My Father: and ye also do
the things which ye heard from your father. They answered and said
unto Him, Our father is Abraham. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were
Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye
seek to kill Me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I heard
from God: this did not Abraham. Ye do the works of your father. They
said unto Him, We were not born of fornication; we have one Father,
even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would
love Me: for I came forth and am come from God; for neither have I
come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do ye not understand My speech?
Even because ye cannot hear My word. Ye are of your father the
devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. He was a
murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth, because
there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his
own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof. But because I say the
truth, ye believe Me not. Which of you convicteth Me of sin? If I
say truth, why do ye not believe Me? He that is of God heareth the
words of God: for this cause ye hear them not, because ye are not of
God. The Jews answered and said unto Him, Say we not well that Thou
art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? Jesus answered, I have not a
devil; but I honour My Father, and ye dishonour Me. But I seek not
mine own glory: there is One that seeketh and judgeth. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, If a man keep My word, he shall never see
death. The Jews said unto Him, Now we know that Thou hast a devil.
Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and Thou sayest, If a man keep My
word, he shall never taste of death. Art Thou greater than our
father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom
makest Thou Thyself? Jesus answered, If I glorify Myself, My glory
is nothing: it is My Father that glorifieth Me; of whom ye say, that
He is your God; and ye have not known Him: but I know Him; and if I
should say, I know Him not, I shall be like unto you, a liar: but I
know Him, and keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My
day; and he saw it, and was glad. The Jews therefore said unto Him,
Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham? Jesus
said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was,
I am. They took up stones therefore to cast at Him: but Jesus hid
Himself, and went out of the temple."--JOHN viii. 21-59.
John has now briefly detailed the self-manifestations of Jesus which He
considered sufficient to induce the Jews to believe in Him; and he has
shown us how, both in Galilee and in Jerusalem, the people, with few
exceptions, remained unconvinced. He has also very clearly shown the
reason of His rejection in Galilee. The reason was that the blessings He
proposed to bestow were spiritual, while the blessings they craved were
physical. Their Messianic expectation was not satisfied in Him. So long
as He healed their sick, and by His mere will furnished famishing
thousands with food, they thought, This is the King for us. But when He
told them that these things were mere signs of higher blessings, and
when He urged them to seek these spiritual gifts, they left Him in a
body.
In Jerusalem opinion has followed a similar course. There also Jesus has
exemplified His power to impart life. He has carefully explained the
significance of that sign, and has explicitly claimed Divine
prerogatives. But although individuals believe, the mass of the people
are only perplexed, and the authorities are exasperated. The rulers,
however, find it impossible to proceed against Him, owing to the
influence He has with the people, and even with their own servants.
This state of matters, however, was not destined to continue; and in the
eighth chapter John traces the course of popular opinion from a somewhat
hopeful perplexity to a furious hostility that, at length, for the first
time, broke out in actual violence (viii. 59). Jesus did not indeed
immediately retire, as if further efforts to induce faith were useless,
but when the storm broke out a second time (x. 39, 40) He finally
withdrew, and taught only such as sought Him out.
At this point, then, in the history we are invited to inquire what
grounds of faith Jesus had presented, and what were the true reasons of
His rejection.
1. But first we must ask, In what character or capacity did Jesus
present Himself to men? What did He declare Himself to be? What demand
did He make on the faith of those to whom He presented Himself? When He
required that they should believe in Him, what exactly did He mean?
Certainly He did not mean less than that they should believe He was the
Messiah, and should accept Him as such. The "Messiah" was an elastic
title, perhaps not conveying to any two minds in Israel precisely the
same idea. It had indeed for all Israelites some contents in common. It
meant that here was One upon earth and accessible, who was sent to be
the Bearer of God's good-will to men, a Mediator through whom God meant
to make His presence felt and His will known. But some who believed
Jesus was the Christ had so poor a conception of the Christ, that He
could not accept theirs as a sound faith. The minimum of acceptable
faith must believe in the actual Jesus, and allow the idea of the Christ
to be formed by what was seen in Jesus. Those who believed must so trust
Jesus as to be willing that He should fashion the Messiahship as He saw
fit. It was therefore primarily in Himself the true believer trusted. He
did not, in the first instance, believe He was this or that, but he
felt, "Here is the greatest and best I know; I give myself to Him." Of
course this involved that whatever Christ claimed to be, He was believed
to be. But it is of importance to observe that the confession, "I
believe that Jesus is the Christ," was not enough in Christ's own day to
guarantee the soundness of the faith of the confessor. He had further to
answer the question, "What do you mean by 'the Christ'? For if you mean
a national Messiah, coming to give you political freedom and social
blessings only, this faith cannot be trusted." But if any one could say,
"I believe in Jesus," and if by this he meant, "I so believe in Him that
whatever He says He is, I believe He is, and whatever be the contents
with which He fills the Messianic name, these contents I accept as
belonging to the office," this faith was sound and acceptable.
And, according to this Gospel, Jesus at once made it plain that His idea
of the Messianic office was not the popular idea, It was "eternal life"
He constantly proclaimed as the gift the Father had commissioned Him to
bestow; not physical life, not revived political life. So that it very
shortly became impossible for any one to make the confession that Jesus
was the Christ, in ignorance of what He Himself judged the Christ to be.
It may be said, therefore, that when Jesus required men to believe in
Him, He meant that they should trust Him as mediating efficiently
between God and them, and should accept His view of all that was needful
for this mediation. He meant that they should look to Him for life
eternal and for perfect fellowship with God. What was doctrinally
involved in this, what was implied in His claim regarding His eternal
nature, might or might not at once be understood. What must be
understood and believed was, that Jesus was empowered by God to act for
Him, to represent Him, to impart to men all that God would impart.
II. This being so, we may now inquire, what sufficient reason Jesus, as
already reported in this Gospel, has given why the people should accept
Him as the Christ. In these eight chapters what do we find related which
should have furnished the Jews with all the evidence which reasonable
minds would require?
1. He was definitely identified as the Christ by the Baptist. It was
John's function to recognise the person sent by God to fulfil all His
will, and to found a kingdom of God among men. For this John lived; and
if any man was in a position to say "yes" or "no" in response to the
question, Is this the Christ, the Anointed and commissioned of God? John
was that man. No man was in himself better qualified to judge, and no
man had such material for judging, and his judgment was explicit and
assured. To put aside this testimony as valueless is out of the
question. It is more reasonable to ask whether it is even possible that
in this matter the Baptist should be mistaken.
Jesus Himself indeed did not rest upon this testimony. For His own
certification of His dignity He did not require it. He did not require
the corroborative voice of one human being. It was not by what He was
told regarding Himself that He became conscious of His Sonship; nor was
it by an external testimony, even from such a man as John, that He was
encouraged to make the claims He made. John was but a mirror reflecting
what was already in Him, possibly stimulating self-consciousness, but
adding nothing to His fitness for His work.
2. He expected that His claim to have come forth from God would be
believed _on His own word_. The Samaritans believed Him on His own word.
This does not mean that they believed a mere assertion; they believed
the assertion of One whom they felt to be speaking the truth. There was
that in His character and bearing which compelled their faith. Through
all He said there shone the self-evidencing light of truth. They might
not have been able to stand a cross-examination as to the reason of the
faith that was in them, they might not have been able to satisfy any
other person or induce him to believe, but they were justified in
following an instinct which said to them, This man is neither deceiver
nor deceived. There was nothing in the claim of Jesus absolutely
incredible. Nay, it rather fell in with their idea of God and with the
knowledge of their own needs. They wished a revelation, and saw nothing
impossible in it. This may nowadays be judged a homely rather than a
philosophical view to take of God and of His relation to men. But
primary and universal instincts have their place, and, if scientific
knowledge does not contradict them, should be trusted. It was because
the Samaritans had not tampered with their natural cravings and hopes,
and had not allowed their idea of the Messiah to harden into a definite
conception, that they were able to welcome Jesus with a faith which He
rarely met with elsewhere.
And the main authentication of Christ's claim at all times is simply
this, that He makes the claim, and that there is that in Him which
testifies to His truth, while there is that in the claim itself which is
congruous to our instincts and needs. There was that in the bearing of
Christ which commanded belief in natures which were not numbed and
blunted by prejudice. The Capernaum courtier who came to Jesus expecting
to bring Him down with him to heal his boy, when he saw Him felt he
could trust Him, and returned alone. Jesus was conscious that He spoke
of what He knew, and spoke of it truly. "I speak that which I have seen
with My Father" (ver. 38). "My record is true" (ver. 14). "If I say the
truth, why do ye not believe Me?" (ver. 46.) This consciousness, both of
an intention to speak the truth and of a knowledge of the truth, in a
mind so pellucid and sane, justly impressed candid minds in His own day,
and is irresistibly impressive still.
Again, we judge of what is probable or improbable, credible or
incredible, mainly by its congruity with our previous belief. Is our
idea of God such that a personal revelation seems credible and even
likely? Does this supposed revelation in Christ consist with previous
revelations and with the knowledge of God and His will which those
revelations have fostered? Does this final revelation actually bring us
the knowledge of God, and does it satisfy the longings and pure
aspirations, the thirst for God and the hunger for righteousness, which
assert themselves in us like natural appetites? If so, then the
untutored human heart accepts this revelation. It is its own
verification. Light is its own authentication. Christ brings within our
ken a God whom we cannot but own as God, and who is nowhere else so
clearly revealed. It is this immediacy of authentication, this
self-verification, to which our Lord constantly appeals.
3. But a great part of the self-revelation of Christ could best be made
in action. Such a work as the healing of the impotent man was visible to
all and legible by the dullest. If His words were sometimes enigmatic,
such an action as this was full of significance and easily understood.
By this compassionate restoration of the vital powers He proclaimed
Himself the Father's Delegate, commissioned to express the Divine
compassion and to exercise the Divine power to communicate life. This
was meant to be an easy lesson by which men might learn that God is full
of compassion, ceaselessly working for the good of men; that He is
present among us seeking to repair the mischief resulting from sin, and
to apply to our needs the fulness of His own life, and that Jesus Christ
is the medium through whom He makes Himself accessible to us and
available for us.
These works were done by our Lord not only to convince the people that
they should listen to Him, but also to convince them that God Himself
was present. "If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if
I do, though ye believe not Me, believe the works, that ye may know, and
believe, that the Father is in Me, and I in Him." It was this He strove
to impress on the people, that God was with them. It was not Himself He
wished them to recognise, but the Father in Him. "I seek not Mine own
glory" (ver. 50). And therefore it was the kindness of the works He
pointed to: "Many _good_ works have I showed you from My Father" (x.
32). He sought through these works to lead men to see how in His Person
the Father was applying Himself to the actual needs of mankind. To
accept God for one purpose is to accept Him for all. To believe in Him
as present to heal naturally leads to belief in Him as our Friend and
Father. Hence these signs, manifesting the presence and good-will of
God, were a call upon men to trust Him and accept His messenger. They
spoke of gifts still more akin to the Divine nature, of gifts not merely
physical, but spiritual and eternal. Possibly in allusion to these
intelligible and earthly signs our Lord said to Nicodemus, "If I have
told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I
tell you of heavenly things?" If ye are blind to these earthly signs,
what hope is there of your understanding things eternal in their own
impalpable essence?
III. What were the true reasons of our Lord's rejection?
1. The first reason no doubt was that He so thoroughly disappointed the
popular Messianic expectation. This comes out very conspicuously in His
rejection in Galilee, where the people were on the point of crowning
Him, but at once deserted Him as soon as it became clear that His idea
of the needs of men was quite different from their's. The same reason
lies at the root of His rejection by the authorities and people of
Jerusalem. This is brought out in this eighth chapter. "Many had
believed on Him" (ver. 30); that is to say, they believed on Him as
Nicodemus had believed; they believed He was the Christ. But as soon as
He explained to them (vers. 32, 34) that the freedom He brought was a
freedom attained through knowing the truth, a freedom from sin, they
either were unable to understand Him or were repelled, and from
believers became enemies and assailants.
It may have been with reluctance our Lord disclosed to those who had
some faith in Him, that in order to be His disciples (ver. 31) they must
accept His word, and find in it the freedom He proclaimed. He knew that
this was not the freedom they sought. But it was compulsory that He
should leave them in no dubiety regarding the blessings He promised. It
was impossible that they should accept the eternal life He brought to
them, unless there was quickened within them some genuine desire for it.
For what prevented them from receiving Him was not a mere easily
rectified blunder about the Messianic office, it was an alienation in
heart from a spiritual conception of God. And accordingly in depicting
the climax of unbelief John is careful in this chapter to bring out that
our Lord traced His rejection by the Jews to their inveterate repugnance
to spiritual life, and their consequent blinding of themselves to the
knowledge of God. "He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore
hear them not, because ye are not of God" (ver. 47). "Ye seek to kill
Me, because My word hath no place in you [finds no room in you]. I speak
that which I have seen with My Father; and ye do that which ye have seen
with your father" (vers. 37, 38).
2. Here, as elsewhere, therefore, our Lord traces the unbelief of the
Jews to the blindness induced by alienation from the Divine. They do not
understand Him, because they have not that thirst for truth and
righteousness which is the best interpreter of His words. "Why do ye not
understand My speech? even because ye cannot bear My word." It was this
word of His, the truth regarding sin and the way out of it, which sifted
men. Those who eagerly welcomed salvation from sin because they knew
that bondage to sin was the worst of bondages (ver. 34), accepted
Christ's word, and continued in it, and so became His disciples (ver.
31). Those who rejected Him were prompted to do so by their indifference
to the Kingdom of God as exhibited in the person of Christ. He was not
their ideal. And He was not their ideal, because however much they
boasted of being God's people God was not their ideal. "If God were your
Father, ye would love Me; for I proceeded forth and came from God" (ver.
42). Jesus is conscious of adequately representing God, so that to be
repelled by Him is to be repelled by God. It is really God in Him that
they dislike. This is not only His own judgment of the matter. It is not
a mere fancy of His own that He truly represents the Father, for
"neither came I of Myself, but He sent me." He was sent into the world
because He could represent the Father.
The rejection of Jesus by the Jews was therefore due to their moral
condition. Their condition is such that our Lord does not scruple
pungently to say, "Ye are of your father the devil." Their blindness to
the truth and virulent opposition to Him proved their kinship with him
who was from the beginning a liar and a murderer. They are so completely
under the influence of sin that they are unable to appreciate
emancipation from it. They look for satisfaction so determinedly in an
anti-spiritual direction, that they are positively enraged at One who
certainly has power, but who steadfastly uses it for spiritual purposes.
Out of this condition they can be rescued by believing in Christ. Into
the mystery which surrounds the possibility that such a belief should be
cherished by any one in this condition, our Lord does not here enter.
That it is possible, He implies by blaming them for not believing.
It is, then, those who are unconscious of the bondage of sin who reject
Christ. One of the sayings with which He sifted His profoundly attached
followers from the mass is this: "If ye continue in My word, then are
ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free." The "word" of which Jesus here speaks is His whole
revelation, all He taught by word and action, by His own habitual
conduct and by His miracles. This it is which gives knowledge of the
truth. That is to say, all the truth which men require for living they
have in Christ. All knowledge of duty, and all that knowledge of our
spiritual relations, out of which we can draw perennial motive and
unfailing hope, we have in Him. The "truth" disclosed in Christ, and
which emancipates from sin, must not be too carefully defined. But while
leaving it in all its comprehensiveness, it must be noted that the truth
which especially emancipates from sin and gives us our place as children
in God's house, is the truth revealed in Christ's Sonship, the truth
that God, in love and forgiveness, claims us as His children. In its own
measure every truth we learn gives us a sense of liberty. The truth
emancipates from superstition, from timorous waiting upon the opinion of
authorities, from all that cramps mental movement and stunts mental
growth; but the freedom here in view is freedom from sin, and the truth
which brings that freedom is the truth about God our Father, and Jesus
Christ whom He has sent.
XX.
_SIGHT GIVEN TO THE BLIND._
"And as He passed by, He saw a man blind from his birth. And His
disciples asked Him, saying, Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his
parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered, Neither did
this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be
made manifest in him. We must work the works of Him that sent Me,
while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can work. When I am
in the world, I am the Light of the world. When He had thus spoken,
He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and anointed
his eyes with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of
Siloam (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went away, therefore,
and washed, and came seeing. The neighbours therefore, and they
which saw him aforetime, that he was a beggar, said, Is not this he
that sat and begged? Others said, It is he: others said, No, but he
is like him. He said, I am he. They said therefore unto him, How
then were thine eyes opened? He answered, The man that is called
Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to
Siloam, and wash: so I went away and washed, and I received sight.
And they said unto him, Where is He? He saith, I know not. They
bring to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind. Now it was the
sabbath on the day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes.
Again therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he received his
sight. And he said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I
washed, and do see. Some therefore of the Pharisees said, This man
is not from God, because He keepeth not the sabbath. But others
said, How can a man that is a sinner do such signs? And there was a
division among them. They say therefore unto the blind man again,
What sayest thou of Him, in that He opened thine eyes? And he said,
He is a prophet. The Jews therefore did not believe concerning him,
that he had been blind, and had received his sight, until they
called the parents of him that had received his sight, and asked
them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then
doth he now see? His parents answered and said, We know that this is
our son, and that he was born blind: but how he now seeth, we know
not; or who opened his eyes, we know not: ask him; he is of age; he
shall speak for himself. These things said his parents, because they
feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man
should confess Him to be Christ, he should be put out of the
synagogue. Therefore said his parents, He is of age; ask him. So
they called a second time the man that was blind, and said unto
him, Give glory to God: we know that this man is a sinner. He
therefore answered, Whether He be a sinner, I know not: one thing I
know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. They said therefore unto
him, What did He to thee? how opened He thine eyes? He answered
them, I told you even now, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye
hear it again? would ye also become His disciples? And they reviled
him, and said, Thou art His disciple; but we are disciples of Moses,
We know that God hath spoken unto Moses: but as for this man, we
know not whence He is. The man answered and said unto them, Why,
herein is the marvel, that ye know not whence He is, and yet He
opened mine eyes. We know that God heareth not sinners: but if any
man be a worshipper of God, and do His will, him He heareth. Since
the world began it was never heard that any one opened the eyes of a
man born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.
They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins,
and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out. Jesus heard that they
had cast him out; and finding him, He said, Dost thou believe on the
Son of God? He answered and said, And who is He, Lord, that I may
believe on Him? Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen Him, and He
it is that speaketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he
worshipped Him. And Jesus said, For judgment came I into this world,
that they which see not may see; and that they which see may become
blind. Those of the Pharisees which were with Him heard these
things, and said unto Him, Are we also blind? Jesus said unto them,
If ye were blind, ye would have no sin: but now ye say, We see: your
sin remaineth."--JOHN ix.
We have already considered the striking use our Lord made of the Temple
illumination to proclaim Himself the Light of the world. A still more
striking physical symbol of this aspect of our Lord's person and work is
found in His healing of the blind man. It is, as we have already had
occasion to see, the manner of this evangelist to select for narration
those miracles of Christ's which are especially "signs," outward
embodiments of spiritual truth. Accordingly he now proceeds to exhibit
Christ as the Light of the world in His bestowal of sight on the blind.
The disciples of Jesus had apparently been exercised by one of the
outstanding problems of human life which perplex all thoughtful men:
What regulates the distribution of suffering; why is it that while many
of the most criminal and noxious men are prosperous and exempt from
pain, many of the gentlest and best are broken and tortured by constant
suffering? Why is it that inexplicable suffering seems so often to fall
on the wrong people, on the innocent not on the guilty, on those who
already are of refined and chastened disposition, not on those who seem
urgently to need correction and the rod? Is suffering sent that
character may be improved? But in Job's case it was sent because he was
already irreproachable, not to make him so. Is it sent because of a
man's early transgressions? But this man was _born_ blind; his
punishment preceded any possible transgression of his own. Was he then
the victim of his parent's wrong-doing? But suffering is often the
result of accident or of malice, or of mistake, which cannot be referred
to hereditary sin. Are we then to accept the belief that this world is
far from perfect as yet; that God begins at the beginning in all His
works, and only slowly works towards perfection, and that in the
progress, and while we are only moving towards an eternal state, there
must be pains manifold and bitter? They are the shavings and sawdust and
general disorder of the carpenter's workshop, which are necessarily
thrown off in the making of the needful article.[34] It is to it, to the
finished work, we must look, and not to the shavings, if we would
understand and be reconciled to the actual state of things around us.
When Jesus said, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but
that the works of God should be made manifest in him," He of course did
not mean to suggest that there is no such thing as suffering for
individual or hereditary sin. By breaking the great moral laws of human
life men constantly involve both themselves and their children in
lifelong suffering. There is often so direct a connection between sin
and suffering that the most hardened and insensible do not dream of
denying that their pain and misery are self-inflicted. Sometimes the
connection is obscure, and though every one else sees the source of a
man's misfortunes in his own careless habits, or indolence, or bad
temper, he himself may constantly blame his circumstances, his
ill-luck, his partners, or his friends. It was our Lord's intention to
warn the disciples against a curious and uncharitable scrutiny of any
man's life to find the cause of his misfortunes. We have to do rather
with the future than with the past, rather with the question how we can
help the man out of his difficulties, than with the question how he got
himself into them. The one question may indeed be involved in the other,
but all suffering is, in the first place, a field in which the works of
God may be exhibited. Wherever suffering has come from, there can be no
manner of doubt that it calls out all that is best in human
nature--sympathy, self-denial, gentleness, compassion, forgiveness of
spirit, patient forbearance, all that is most Divine in man. To seek for
the cause of suffering in order to blame and exonerate ourselves from
all responsibility and claim on our pity and charity is one thing, quite
another to inquire into the cause for the sake of more effectually
dealing with the effect. No matter what has caused the suffering, here
certainly it is always with us, and what we have to do with it is to
find in it material and opportunity for a work of God. To rid the world
of evil, of wretchedness, lonely sorrow, destitution, and disease is, if
anything, the work of God; if God is doing anything He is carrying the
world on towards perfection, and if the world is ever to be perfect it
must be purged from agony and wretchedness, irrespective of where these
come from. Our duty then, if we would be fellow-workers with God in what
is real and abiding, is plain.
To the work of healing the blind man Jesus at once applies Himself.
While the lifted stones were yet in His pursuers hands He paused to
express His Father's love. He must, He says, work the works of Him who
sent Him. He represented the Father not mechanically, not by getting
well off by rote the task His Father had set Him, not by a studied
imitation, but by being Himself of one mind with the Father, by loving
that blind man just as the Father loved him, and by doing for him just
what the Father would have done for him. We do the works of God when in
our measure we do the same, becoming eyes to the blind, feet to the
lame, help any way to the helpless. We cannot lay our hand on the
diseased and heal them; we cannot give sight to the blind and make a man
thus feel, this is God's power reaching to me; this is God stooping to
me and caring for my infirmity; but we can cause men to feel that God is
thinking of them, and has sent help through us to them. If we will only
be humble enough to run the risk of failure, and of being held cheap, if
we will only in sincerity take by the hand those who are ill-off and
strive to better them, then these persons will think of God gratefully;
or if they do not, there is no better way of making them think of God,
for this was Christ's way, who had rarely need to add much explanation
of His kind deeds, but letting them speak for themselves, heard the
people giving God the glory. If men can be induced to believe in the
love of their fellow-men, they are well on the road to belief in the
love of God. And even though it should _not_ be so, though all our
endeavours to help men should fail to make them think of God as their
helper, who has sent us and all help to them, yet we have helped them,
and some at least of God's love for these suffering people has got
itself expressed through us. God has got at least a little of His work
done, has in one direction stopped the spread of evil.
Neither are we to wait until we can do things on a great scale, and
attack the evils of human life with elaborate machinery. Our Lord was
not a great organiser. He did not busy Himself with forming societies
for this, that, and the other charitable work. He did not harangue
assemblies convened to consider the relief of the poor; He did not press
the abolition of slavery; He did not found orphanages or hospitals; but
"as He passed by," He saw one blind man, and judged this a call
sufficiently urgent. Sometimes we feel that, confronted as we are with a
whole world full of deep-rooted and inveterate evils, it is useless
giving assistance to an individual here and there. It is like trying to
dry up the ocean with a sponge. We feel impatient with individual acts,
and crave national action and radical measures. And that is very well,
so long as we do not omit to use the opportunities we actually have of
doing even little kindnesses, of undergirding the shattered life of
individuals, and so enabling them to do what otherwise they could not
do. But we shall never do our part, either to individuals or on a large
scale, until we apprehend that it is only through us and others that God
works, and that when we pass by a needy person we prevent God's love
from reaching him, and disappoint the purpose of God. It was this
feeling that imparted to Christ so intense and wakeful an energy. He
felt it was God's work He was on earth to do. "I must work the works of
Him that sent Me while it is day." He recognised that God was in the
world looking with compassion on all human sorrow, but that this
compassion could find expression only through His own instrumentality
and that of all other men. We are the channels or pipes through which
the inexhaustible source of God's goodness flows to the world; but it is
in our power to turn off that flow, and prevent it from reaching those
for whom it is intended. We do less than we ought for our fellow-men
until we believe that we are the bearers of God's gifts to men; that to
however few a number and in however small a way we are the media through
which God finds way for His love to men, and that if we refuse to do
what we can we disappoint and thwart His love and His purpose of good.
The blind man, with the quickened hearing of the blind, heard with
interest the talk about himself; and a new awe fell upon his spirit as
he heard that his blindness was to be the object of a work of God. He
had learned to judge of men by the tones of their voice; and the firm,
clear, penetrating voice which had just uttered these all-important
words, "I am the Light of the world," could not, he knew, belong to a
deceiver. In other ways also Jesus compensated for his lack of sight,
and encouraged his faith by touching him and by laying on the closed
eyes an extemporised ointment. But the miracle was not completed on the
spot. The patient was required to go to the pool of Siloam and wash.
John tells us that the name Siloam means Sent, and evidently connects
this name with the claim Jesus constantly made to be the Sent of God.
But as the peculiarity of the miracle consisted in this, that the man
was sent to the pool to be healed, we may be sure this arrangement was
made to meet some element in the case. The man, with his bespattered
eyes, had to grope his way to the pool, or get some kindly soul to lead
him through the scoffing, doubtful crowd. And whatever this taught the
man himself, it is to us a symbol of the truth that light does not come
by the instantaneous touch of Christ's hand so much as by our
faithfully doing His bidding. It is He who gives and is the light; but
it does not stream in suddenly upon the soul, but comes upon the man
who, though blindly, yet faithfully, gropes his way to the place Christ
has bid him to, and uses the means prescribed by Him. "He that doeth the
will of God, shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." All the
commands of Christ are justified in their performance; and clear light
upon the meaning of much that we are commanded to do is only found in
the doing of it.
But no doubt the special significance of the man's being sent to the
pool of Siloam lay in the circumstance that it was in John's eyes a
symbol of Christ Himself. He was sent by God. The people found it
difficult to believe this, because He had slowly and unostentatiously
grown up like any other man. "We know this Man, whence He is." "Is not
this the carpenter's Son?" "How sayest Thou, I came down from heaven?"
They could trace Him to His source. He did not appear fullgrown in their
midst, without home, without any who had watched over His boyhood and
growth. He was like the river whose sources were known, not like the
stream bursting in full volume from the rock. The people felt ashamed to
laud and celebrate as sent by God One who had grown up so quietly among
themselves, and whose whole demeanour was so unostentatious. So had
their fathers despised the waters of Siloam, "because they went softly;"
because there was no mighty stream and roar, but a quiet pool and a
little murmuring stream.
So might this blind man have reasoned when sent to Siloam: "Why, herein
is a marvellous thing that I am to be healed by what has been within my
reach since I was born, by the pool I used to dip my hand in when a boy,
and wonder what like was the coolness to the sight. What hidden virtue
can there be in that spring? Am I not exposing myself to the ridicule of
all Jerusalem?" But, as this blind man's conduct afterwards showed, he
was heedless of scorn and independent of other people's opinion, a
fearless and trenchant reasoner who stands alone in the Gospel history
for the firmness and sarcasm with which he resisted the bullying tone of
the Pharisees, and compelled them to face, even though they would not
acknowledge, the consequences of incontrovertible facts. This
characteristic contempt of contempt, and scorn of scorn served him well
now, for straight he went to the pool in the face of discouragements,
and had his reward.
And the Pharisees might, with their gift of interpreting trifles, have
deduced from this cure at the humble and noiseless Siloam some
suggestion that though Jesus did seem a powerless and common Man, and
though for thirty years His life had been flowing quietly on without
violently changing the established order of things, yet He might, like
this pool, be the Sent of God, to whom if a man came feeling his need of
light and expecting in Him to find it, there was a likelihood of his
blindness being taken away. This, however, as our Lord had afterwards
occasion to tell them, was precisely what they could not submit to do.
They could not, in the presence of a wondering and scorning crowd, admit
that they needed light, nor could they condescend to seek for light from
so commonplace a source. And no doubt it was a very severe trial--it was
well-nigh impossible, that men in high esteem for religious knowledge,
and who had been accustomed to reckon themselves the protectors of the
faith, should own that they were in darkness, and should seek to be
instructed by a youth from the benighted district of Galilee. Even now,
when the dignity of Jesus is understood, many are prevented from giving
themselves cordially to the life He insists upon by mere pride. There
are men in such repute as leaders of opinion, and so accustomed to teach
rather than to learn, and to receive homage rather than to give it, that
scarcely any greater humiliation could be required of them, than to
publicly profess themselves followers of Christ. For ourselves even, who
might not seem to have much on which to pride ourselves, it is yet
sometimes difficult to believe that a mere application to Christ, a mere
sprinkling of this fountain, can change our inborn disposition, and make
us so different from our former selves, that close observers might well
doubt our identity, some saying, "This is he," others more cautiously
only venturing to assert, "He is like him."