Though very pleasant to contemplate, it is impossible adequately to

imagine the sensations of a man who for the first time _sees_ the world

in which he has for years been living blind. The sensation of light

itself, the new sense of room and distance, the expansion of the nature,

as if ushered into a new and ampler world, the glory of colour, of the

skies; of the sun, of the moon walking in brightness, the first

recognition of the "human face Divine," and the joy of watching the

unspoken speech of its ever-changing expression, the thrill of first

meeting parent, child, or friend eye to eye; the sublimity of the towers

of Jerusalem, the glittering Temple, the marble palaces, by the base of

which he had before dimly crept, feeling with his hand or tapping with

his stick. To a man who, by the opening of one sealed sense, was thus

ushered into so new a world, nothing can have seemed "too grand and

good" for him to expect. He was prepared to believe in the glory and

perfectness of God's world, and in Christ's power to bring him into

contact with that glory. If the opening of his bodily organs of vision

had given him such exquisite pleasure, and given him entrance to so new

a life, what might not the opening of his inward eye accomplish? He had

no patience with the difficulties raised by those who had not his

experience: "How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?" "Give God

the praise; we know that this man is a sinner." To all these

slow-brained, bewildered pedants, he had but the answer, "Whether He be

a sinner or no, I know not; _one_ thing I know, that, whereas I was

blind, now I see." No arguments, happily, can rob me of the immense boon

this Man has conferred upon me. If it gives you any satisfaction to

apply your paltry tests to Him, and prove that He cannot have done this

miracle, you are welcome to your conclusions; but you cannot alter the

facts that I was blind, and that now I see. He who has given me so

Divine a gift seems to me to carry with Him in some true form the Divine

presence. I believe Him when He says, "I am the Light of the world."

This miracle was so public as to challenge scrutiny. It was not

performed in the privacy of a sick-room, with none present but one or

two disciples, who might be supposed ready to believe anything. It was

performed on a public character and in broad day. And we nowadays may

congratulate ourselves that there was a strong party in the community,

whose interest it was to minimise the miracles of our Lord, and who

certainly did what they could to prove them fictitious. In the case of

this blind man, the authorities took steps to sift the matter; the

parents were summoned, and then the man himself. They did precisely what

sceptical writers in recent years have desiderated; they instituted a

jealous examination of the affair. And so straightforward was the man's

testimony, and so well-known was he in Jerusalem, that instead of

denying the miracle, they adopted the easier course of excommunicating

him for acknowledging Jesus as the Christ.

Ready witted, bold, and independent as this man was, he cannot but have

felt keenly this punishment. His hope of employment was gone, and even

his new joy in seeing would scarcely compensate for his being shunned by

all as a tainted person. Had he been of a fainthearted and moody

disposition he might have thought it had been as well had he been left

in his blindness, and not become an object of abhorrence to all. But

Jesus heard of his punishment, and sought him out, and declared to him

more fully who He Himself was. He thus gave to the man assurance of a

friendship outweighing in value what he had lost. He made him feel that

though cut off from the fellowship of the visible Church, he was made a

member of the true commonwealth of men--numbered among those who are

united in friendship, and in work, and in destiny to Him who heads the

real work of God, and promotes the abiding interests of men. And such is

ever the reward of those who make sacrifices for Christ, who lose

employment or friends by too boldly confessing their indebtedness to

Him. They will themselves tell you that Christ makes up to them for

their losses by imparting clearer knowledge of Himself, by making them

conscious that they are remembered by Him, and by giving them a

conscience void of offence, and a spirit superior to worldly

misfortunes.

As a final reflection on the miracle and its results our Lord says: "For

judgement am I come into the world, that they which see not might see,

and that they which see might be made blind." A kind of sad humour

betrays itself in His language, as He sees how easily felt-blindness is

removed, but how absolutely blind presumed knowledge is. Humility ever

wins the day. The blind man now saw because he knew he was blind, and

trusted that Christ could give him sight; the Pharisees were stone-blind

to the world Christ opened to them and carried in His person, because

they thought that already they had all the knowledge they required. And

wherever Christ comes men thus form themselves around Him in two groups,

blind and seeing. "For judgment," for testing and dividing men, He is

come. Nothing goes more searchingly into a man's character than Christ's

offer to be to him the Light of life, to be his leader to a perfect

life. This offer discloses what the man is content with, and what he

really sighs for. This offer, which confronts us with the possibility of

living in close fellowship and love with God, discloses whether our real

bent is towards what is pure, and high, and holy, or towards what is

earthly. This man who eagerly asked, "Who is the Son of God that I might

believe on Him?" acknowledged his blindness and his longing for light,

and he got it. The Pharisees, who claimed to see, condemned themselves

by their rejection of Christ. "If," says our Lord, "ye were blind, if

you were ignorant like this poor man, your ignorance would excuse you.

But now ye say, We see, you boast that you can discern the Christ, you

have tests of all kinds that you plume yourselves on, therefore your

darkness and your sin remain." That is to say, the one sufficient test

of Christ's claim is need. He presents Himself as the Light of the

world, but if we are unconscious of darkness we cannot appreciate Him.

But surely there are many of us who feel as if we were born blind,

unable to see things spiritual as we ought; as if we had a sense too

little, and could not find our way satisfactorily through this life. We

hear of God with the hearing of the ear, but do not see Him; we have not

the close and unmistakable discernment that comes by sight.

FOOTNOTES:

[34] See the _Meditations_ of Marcus Aurelius.

XXI.

_JESUS THE GOOD SHEPHERD._

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door

into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same

is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the

shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear

his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them

out. When he hath put forth all his own, he goeth before them, and

the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will

they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice

of strangers. This parable spake Jesus unto them; but they

understood not what things they were which He spake unto them. Jesus

therefore said unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am

the door of the sheep. All that came before me are thieves and

robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by Me if

any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and go out, and

shall find pasture. The thief cometh not, but that he may steal, and

kill, and destroy: I came that they may have life, and may have it

abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd layeth down

His life for the sheep. He that is a hireling, and not a shepherd,

whose own the sheep are not, beholdeth the wolf coming, and leaveth

the sheep, and fleeth, and the wolf snatcheth them, and scattereth

them: he fleeth because he is a hireling, and careth not for the

sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know Mine own, and Mine own

know Me, even as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father; and I

lay down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are

not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My

voice; and they shall become one flock, one shepherd. Therefore doth

the Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take it

again. No one taketh it away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I

have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This

commandment received I from My Father."--JOHN x. 1-18.

This paragraph continues the conversation which arose out of the healing

of the blind man. Jesus has pointed out to the Pharisees that they are

affected with a more deplorable blindness than the born-blind beggar; He

now proceeds to contrast their harsh treatment of the healed man with

His own care of him, and uses this contrast as evidence of the

illegitimacy of their usurpation of authority and the legitimacy of His

own claim. It has been related (ix. 34) that the Jews had excommunicated

the blind man because he had presumed to think for himself, and

acknowledge as the Christ One regarding whom they had quietly enacted

(ver. 22) that if any one acknowledged Him he should be banished from

the synagogue. Very naturally the poor man would feel that this was a

heavy price to pay for his eyesight. Brought up as he had been to

consider the ecclesiastical authorities of Jerusalem as representing the

Divine voice, he would feel that this excommunication cut him off from

fellowship with all good men, and from the sources of a hopeful and

godly life. Therefore, in pity for this poor sheep, and in indignation

at those who thus assumed authority, Jesus explicitly declares, "I am

the door." Not through the word of men who tyrannize over the flock to

serve their own ends are you either admitted to or debarred from the

real sources of spiritual life and fellowship with the true and good.

Through Me only can you find access to permanent security and the free

enjoyment of all spiritual nutriment; "By Me if any man enter in he

shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture."

The primary object, then, of this allegorical passage is to impart to

those who believe in Jesus the truest independence of spirit. This our

Lord accomplishes by explicitly claiming for Himself the sole right of

admission or rejection from the true fold of God's people. He comes into

direct collision with the ecclesiastical authorities, denying that they

are the true spiritual guides of the people, and presenting Himself as

the supreme authority in matters spiritual. This uncompromising

assertion of His own authority He makes in parabolic language; but that

no one may misapprehend His meaning He Himself appends the

interpretation. And in this interpretation it will be observed that,

while the great ideas are explained and applied, there is no attempt to

make these ideas square with the figure in every particular. In the

figure, for example, the Door and the Shepherd are necessarily distinct;

but our Lord does not on that account scruple to apply both figures to

Himself. The rigidly logical explanation is thrown to the winds to make

way for the substantial teaching.

I. First, then, Jesus here claims to be the sole means of access to

security and life eternal. "I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he

shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture," Prompted by

consideration for the feelings of the blind man, this expression would

by him be interpreted as meaning, These arrogant Pharisees, then, can

after all do me no injury; they can neither exclude nor admit; but only

this Person, who has shown Himself so compassionate, so courageous, so

ready to be my champion and my friend. He is the door. And this simple

and memorable claim has remained through all the Christian centuries the

bulwark against ecclesiastical tyranny, not indeed preventing injustice

and outrage, but entirely robbing excommunication of its sting in the

conscience that is right with its Lord. Outcast from the fellowship and

privileges of so-called Churches of Christ many have been, who had yet

the assurance in their own heart that by their attachment to Him they

had entered into a more lasting fellowship and unspeakably higher

privileges.

By this claim to be the Door, Jesus claims to be the Founder of the one

permanent society of men. Through Him alone have men access to a

position of security to association with all that is worthiest among

men, to a never-failing life and a boundless freedom. He did not use His

words at random, and this at least is contained in them. He gathers men

round His Person, and assures us that He holds the key to life; that if

He admits us, words of exclusion pronounced by others are but idle

breath; that if He excludes us, the approval and applause of a world

will not waft us in. No claim could possibly be greater.

II. Jesus also claims to be the Good Shepherd, and sets Himself in

contrast to hirelings and robbers. This claim He proves in five

particulars: He uses a legitimate mode of access to the sheep; His

object is the welfare of the sheep; His Spirit is self-devoted; He knows

and is known by His sheep; and all He does the Father has given Him

commandment to do.

1. First, then, Jesus proves His claim to be the Good Shepherd by using

the legitimate means of access to the sheep. He enters by the door. The

general description of the relation between sheep and shepherd was drawn

from what might be seen any morning in Palestine. At night the sheep are

driven into a fold, that is, a walled enclosure, such as may be seen on

our own sheep farms, only with higher walls for protection, and with a

strongly-barred door in place of a hurdle or light gate. Here the sheep

rest all night, guarded by a watchman or porter. In the morning the

shepherds come, and at the recognised signal or knock are admitted by

the porter, and each man calls his own sheep. The sheep, knowing his

voice, follow him, and if any are lazy, or stubborn, or stupid, he goes

in and drives them out, with a gentle, kindly compulsion, A stranger's

voice they do not recognise, and do not heed. Besides, not only do they

disregard a stranger's voice, but the porter also would do so, so that

no robber thinks of appealing to the porter, but climbs the wall and

lays hold of the sheep he wants.

Here, then, we have a picture of the legitimate and illegitimate modes

of finding access to men and of gaining power over them. The legitimate

leader of men comes by the door and invites: the illegitimate gets in

anyhow and compels. The true shepherd is distinguished from the robber

by both the action of the porter and the action of the sheep. But who is

the porter who gives Christ access to the fold? Possibly, as some have

suggested, the mind of Christ's contemporaries would revert to John the

Baptist. The claim of Jesus to deal with men as their spiritual

protector and leader had been legitimated by John, and no other

pretended Messiah had been. And certainly, if any individual is

indicated by the porter, it must be John the Baptist. But probably the

figure includes all that introduces Jesus to men, His own life, His

miracles, His loving words, providential circumstances. At all events,

He makes His appeal openly, and has the requisite pass-word. There is

nothing of the thief or the robber about His approach--nothing underhand

and stealthy, nothing audaciously violent. On the other hand, "All that

ever came before Me are thieves and robbers." The contemporary

authorities in Jerusalem had come "before" Jesus, in so far as they had

prepossessed the minds of the people against Him, and forcibly kept the

sheep from Him. Their prior claims were the great obstacle to His being

admitted. They held the fold against Him. It must have been plain to the

people who heard His words that their own ecclesiastical authorities

were meant. And this is not contradicted by the added clause, "but the

sheep did not hear them." For these usurping leaders did not find the

ear of the people, although they terrified them into obedience.

2. The Good Shepherd is identified and distinguished from the hireling

by His object and His spirit of devotion--for these two characteristics

may best be considered together (vv. 10-13). The hireling takes up this

business of shepherding for his own sake, and just as he might take to

keeping swine, or watching vineyards, or making bricks. It is not the

work nor the sheep he has any interest in, but the pay. It is for

himself he does what he does. His object is to make gain for himself,

and his spirit is therefore a spirit of self-regard. Necessarily he

flees from danger, having more regard for himself than for the sheep.

The object of the good shepherd, on the contrary, is to find for the

sheep a more abundant life. It is regard for them that draws him to the

work. Consequently, as all love is self-devoting, so the regard of the

shepherd for the sheep prompts him to devote himself, and, at the risk

or expense of his own life, to save them from danger.

This differentiation of the hireling and the good shepherd was, in the

first instance, exemplified in the different conduct of the authorities

and Jesus towards the blind man. The authorities having fallen into the

idea which commonly ensnares ecclesiastical magnates, that the people

existed for them, not they for the people, persecuted him because he had

followed his conscience: Jesus, by interposing in his favour, risked His

own life. This collision with the Pharisees materially contributed to

their determination to put Him to death.

Probably our Lord intended that a larger meaning should be found in His

words. To all His sheep He acts the part of a good shepherd by

interposing, at the sacrifice of Himself, between them and all that

threatens (vv. 17, 18). His death was voluntary, not necessitated either

by the machinations of men or by His being human. His life was His own,

to use as He saw best; and when He laid it down He did so freely. It was

not that He succumbed to the wolf, to any power stronger than His own

will and His own discernment of what was right. We may resign ourselves

to death or choose it; but even though we did not, we could not escape

it. Christ could. He "laid down" His life; and He did so, moreover, that

He might "take it again." His sheep were not to be left defenceless,

shepherdless: on the contrary, He died that He might free them from all

danger and become to them an ever-living, omnipresent Shepherd. In these

words the figure is lost in the reality.

In the words themselves, indeed, there is no direct suggestion that the

penalty of sin is that which chiefly threatens Christ's sheep, but

Christ could hardly use the words, and His people can hardly read them,

without having this idea suggested. It was by interposing between us and

sin that our Shepherd was slain. At first sight, indeed, we seem to be

exposed to the very danger that slew the Shepherd: the wolf seems to be

alive even after slaying Him. In spite of His death, we also die. What

then is the danger from which He by His death has saved us?

The danger which threatened us was not bodily death, for from that we

are not delivered. But it was something with which the death of the body

is intimately connected. Bodily death is as it were the symptom, but not

the disease itself. It is that which reveals the presence of the

pestilence, but is not itself the real danger. It is like the

plague-spot that causes the beholder to shudder, though the spot itself

is only slightly painful. Now a skilful physician does not treat

symptoms, does not apply his skill to allay superficial distresses, but

endeavours to remove the radical disease. If the eye becomes bloodshot

he does not treat the eye, but the general system. If an eruption comes

out on the skin, he does not treat the skin, but alters the condition of

the blood; and it is a small matter whether the symptom goes on to its

natural issue, if thereby the eradication of the disease is rather

helped than hindered. So it is with death: it is not our danger; no man

can suppose that the mere transference from this state to another is

injurious; only, death is in our case the symptom of a deep disease, of

a real, fatal ailment of soul. We know death not as a mere transference

from one world to another, but as our transference from probation to

judgment, which sin makes us dread; and also as a transference which in

form forcibly exhibits the weakness, the imperfection, the shame of our

present state. Thus death connects itself with sin, which our conscience

tells us is the great root of all our present misery. It is to us the

symptom of the punishment of sin, but the punishment itself is not the

death of the body but of the soul; the separation of the soul from all

good, from all hope,--in a word, from God. This is the real danger from

which Christ delivers us. If this be removed, it is immaterial whether

bodily death remain or not; or rather, bodily death is used to help out

our complete deliverance, as a symptom of the disease sometimes promotes

the cure. Christ has tasted death for every man, and out of each man's

cup has sucked the poison, so that now, as we in turn drink it, it is

but a sleeping draught. There was a chemistry in His love and perfect

obedience which drew the poison to His lips; and absorbing into His own

system all the virulence of it, by the immortal vigour of His own

constitution, He overcame its effects, and rose again triumphing over

its lethargic potency.

It was not mere bodily death, then, which our Lord endured. That was not

the wolf which the Good Shepherd saved us from. It was death with the

sting of sin in it. It is this fact which shows us, from one point of

view, the place of Christ's death in the work of atonement Death sets

the seal on a man's spiritual condition. It utters the final word: He

that is holy, let him be holy still; he that is filthy, let him be

filthy still. The biblical view of death is that it marks the transition

from a state of probation to a state of retribution. "It is appointed

unto men once to die, and after death the judgment." There is no coming

back again to make another preparation for judgment. We cannot have two

lives, one after the flesh, and another after the spirit, but one life,

one death, one judgment. Bodily death therefore thus becomes not only

the evidence of spiritual death, but its seal. But this, falling upon

Christ, fell harmless. Separation from God must be separation of the

will, separation accomplished by the soul's self. In Christ there was no

such separation. Sinners abide in death, because not only are they

judicially separated, but they are in will and disposition separate.

Plunge iron and wood into water: the one sinks, the other rises

immediately, cannot be kept under, has a native buoyancy of its own that

brings it to the surface, immerse it as often as we please. And Christ

is as the wood cut by the prophet, that not only floats itself, but

brings to the surface the heaviest weight.

3. It is the mutual recognition of sheep and shepherd which decisively

exhibits the difference between the true shepherd and the robber. The

timid animals that start and flee at the sound of a stranger's voice

suffer their own shepherd to come among them and handle them. As the

ownership of a dog is easily determined by his conduct towards two

claimants, at one of whom he growls and round the other of whom he

joyously barks and jumps; so you can tell who is the shepherd and who is

the stranger by the different way in which a sheep behaves in the

presence of each. If a shepherd's claim were doubtful, it might be

settled either by his familiarity with its marks and ways, or by its

familiarity with him, its sufferance of his hand, its answer to his

voice. Christ stakes His claim on a similar mutual recognition. If the

soul does not respond to His call and follow Him, he will admit that His

claim is ill-founded. He may require to enter the fold, to rouse the

slumbering by a tap of His staff, to lift the sickly, to use a measure

of severity with the dull and slow; but ultimately and mainly He bases

His claim to be the true Leader and Lord of men simply on His power to

attract them to Him. If there is not that in Him which causes us to mark

Him off from all other persons, and makes us expect different things

from Him, and causes us to trust ourselves with Him, then He does not

expect that any other force will draw us to acknowledge Him.

The application of this to the attitude the blind man had assumed

towards the Pharisees and towards Jesus was sufficiently obvious. He had

disowned the Pharisees; he had acknowledged Jesus. It was plain

therefore that Jesus was the Shepherd, and it was also plain that the

Pharisees were not among Christ's sheep; they might be in the fold, but

as they did not recognise and follow Christ they showed that they did

not belong to His flock. And Christ trusts still to His own

attractiveness and fitness to our needs. It is very remarkable how

insufficient an account of their own conversion highly educated persons

can give. Professor Clifford's favourite pupil was, like himself, an

atheist; but racked by distress on account of Clifford's death, and

being obliged to pass through other circumstances fitted to disclose the

weakness of human nature, this pupil became an ardent Christian. One

reads the record of this conversion expecting to find the reasoning

power of the mathematician adding something to the demonstration of

God's personality, or building a sure foundation for Christian faith.

There is nothing of the kind. The experience of life gave new meaning to

Christ's offer and to His revelation--that was all. So too in

criticizing Renan's "Life of Christ," a French critic more profound

than himself says: "The characteristic thing in this analysis of

Christianity is that sin does not appear in it at all. Now if there is

anything which explains the success of the Good News among men, it is

that it offered deliverance from sin--salvation. It certainly would have

been more appropriate to explain a religion religiously, and not to

evade the very core of the subject. This 'Christ in white marble' is not

He who made the strength of the martyrs." All this just means that if

men have no sense of need they will not own Christ; and that if Christ's

own presence and words do not draw them, they are not to be drawn. Of

course much may be done in the way of presenting Christ to men, but

beyond the simple exhibition of His person by word or in conduct not

much can be done. It is a mystery, often oppressive, that men seem quite

unattracted and unmoved by the Figure that so transcends all others, and

gives a heart to the world. But Christ is known by His own.

This great fact of the mutual recognition of Christ and His people has

an application not only to the first acceptance of Christ by the soul,

but also to the Christian experience throughout. A mutual recognition

and deep-lying affinity not only at first forms but for ever renews and

maintains the bond between Christ and the Christian. He knows His sheep

and is known by them. Often they do not know themselves;[35] but the

Shepherd knows them. Many of us are frequently brought into doubt of our

interest in Christ, but the foundation of God standeth sure, having this

seal, "The Lord knoweth them that are His." We go astray, and get so

torn with thorns, so fouled with mire, that few can tell to what fold we

belong--our owner's marks are obliterated; but the Good Shepherd in

telling His sheep has missed us, and come after us, and recognises and

claims us even in our pitiable state. Who could tell to whom we belong

when we lie absolutely content with the poisonous pasture of this

world's vanities and rank gains; when the soul is stained with impurity,

torn with passion, and has every mark that distinguishes Christ's people

obscured? Is it surprising we should begin then ourselves to doubt

whether we belong to the true fold or whether there is any true fold?

Shameful are the places where Christ has found us, among prayerless

days, unrestrained indulgences, with hardened heart and cynical

thoughts, far from any purpose of good; and still again and again His

presence has met us, His voice recalled us, His nearness awakened once

more in us the consciousness that with Him we have after all a deeper

sympathy than with any besides.

The whole experience of Christ as our Shepherd gives Him an increasing

knowledge of us. The shepherd is the first to see the lamb at its birth,

and not one day goes by but he visits it. So needful and merciful a work

is it that it has no Sabbath, but as on the day of rest the shepherd

feeds his own children so he cares for the lambs of his flock, sees that

no harm is befalling them, remembers their dependence on him, observes

their growth, removes what hinders it, hangs over the pale of the fold,

watching with a pleased and fond observance their ways, their beauty,

their comfort. And thus he becomes intimately acquainted with his sheep.

So Christ becomes increasingly acquainted with us. We have thought much

of Him; we have again and again pondered His life, His death, His words.

We have endeavoured to understand what He requires of us, and day by day

He has somehow been in our thoughts. Not less but far more constantly

have we been in His thoughts, not a day has passed without His

recurrence to this subject. He has looked upon and considered us, has

marked the working of our minds, the forming of our purposes. He knows

our habits by watching against them; our propensities by turning us from

them. We are not left alone with our awful secret of sin: there is

another who comprehends our danger, and is bent upon securing us against

it.

Slowly but surely does Christ thus win the confidence of the soul; doing

for it a thousand kind offices that are not recognised, patiently

waiting for the recognition and love which He knows must at last be

given; quietly making Himself indispensable to the soul ere ever it

discerns what it is that is bringing to it so new a buoyancy and hope.

Slowly but surely grows in every Christian a reciprocal knowledge of

Christ. More and more clearly does His Person stand out as the one on

whom our expectation must rest. With Him we are brought into connection

by every sin of ours, and by every hope. Is it not He before whom and

about whom our hearts thrill and tremble time after time with a depth

and awe of emotion which nothing else excites? Is it not to Him we owe

it that this day we live in peace, knowing that our God is a loving

Father? Is it not still His grace we must learn more deeply, His patient

righteous way we must more exactly fall in with, if we are to forget our

loved sin in the love of God, ourselves in the Eternal One? What is

growth in grace but the laying bare of the sinner's heart to Christ,

fold after fold being removed, till the very core of our being opens to

Him and accepts Him, and the reciprocal laying bare of the heart of

Christ toward the sinner?

For this growth in mutual understanding must advance till that perfect

sympathy is attained which Christ indicates in the words: "I know My

sheep and am known of Mine, as the Father knoweth Me and I know the

Father." The mutual understanding between the Eternal Father and the Son

is the only parallel to the mutual understanding of Christ and His

people. In the loving union of husband and wife we see how intimate is

the understanding, how the one is dissatisfied if any anxiety is not

uttered and shared, how there can be no secret on either side. We see

how a slight movement, a look, betrays intention more than many words of

a stranger could reveal it; we see what confidence in one another is

established, how the one is not satisfied until his thought is ratified

by the other, his opinion reflected and better judged in the other, his

emotion partaken of and again expressed by the other. But even this,

though suggestive, is but a suggestion of the mutual intelligence

subsisting between the Father and the Son, the absolute confidence in

one another, the perfect harmony in purpose and feeling, the delight in

knowing and being known. Into this perfect harmony of feeling and of

purpose with the Supreme does Christ introduce His people. Gradually

their thoughts are disengaged from what is trivial, and expand to take

in the designs of the Eternal Mind. Gradually their tastes and

affections are loosened from lower attachments, and are wrought to a

perfect sympathy with what is holy and abiding.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] St. Augustine.

XXII.

_JESUS, SON OF GOD._

"And it was the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem: it was winter;

and Jesus was walking in the temple in Solomon's porch. The Jews

therefore came round about Him, and said unto Him, How long dost

Thou hold us in suspense? If Thou art the Christ, tell us plainly.

Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believe not: the works that

I do in My Father's name, these bear witness of Me. But ye believe

not, because ye are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I

know them, and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life;

and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of My

hand. My Father, which hath given them unto Me, is greater than all;

and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and

the Father are one. The Jews took up stones again to stone Him.

Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from the

Father; for which of those works do ye stone Me? The Jews answered

Him, For a good work we stone Thee not, but for blasphemy; and

because that Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God. Jesus answered

them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If He

called them gods, unto whom the word of God came (and the Scripture

cannot be broken), say ye of Him, whom the Father sanctified and

sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son

of God? If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I

do them, though ye believe not Me, believe the works: that ye may

know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.

They sought again to take Him: and He went forth out of their hand.

And He went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John was

at the first baptizing; and there He abode. And many came unto Him;

and they said, John indeed did no sign: but all things whatsoever

John spake of this man were true. And many believed on Him

there."--JOHN x. 22-42.

After our Lord's visit to Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles, and

owing to His collision with the authorities in regard to the blind man

whom He healed, He seems to have retired from the metropolis for some

weeks, until the Feast of the Dedication. This Feast had been instituted

by the Maccabees to celebrate the Purification of the Temple after its

profanation by Antiochus Epiphanes. It began about the 20th December,

and lasted eight days. As it was winter, possibly raining, and certainly

cold, Jesus walked about in Solomon's Porch, where at all events He was

under cover and had some shelter. Here the Jews gradually gathered,

until at length He found Himself ringed round by hostile questioners,

who bluntly, almost threateningly asked Him, "How long dost Thou make us

to doubt? If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly," a question which

shows that, although they inferred from the assertions He had made

regarding Himself that He claimed to be the Messiah, He had not directly

and explicitly proclaimed Himself in terms no one could misunderstand.

At first sight their request seems fair and reasonable. In fact it is

neither. The mere affirmation that He was the Christ would not have

helped those whom His works and words had only prejudiced against Him.

As He at once explained to them, He had made the affirmation in the only

way possible, and their unbelief arose not from any want of explicitness

on His part, but because they were not of His sheep (ver. 26). "My sheep

hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." Here, as elsewhere,

He points in confirmation of His claim to the works His Father had given

Him to do, and to the response His manifestation awakened in those who

were hungering for truth and for God. Those who were given to Him by the

Father, who were taught and led by God, acknowledged Him, and to such He

imparted all those eternal and supreme blessings He was commissioned to

bestow upon men.

But in describing the safety of those who believe in Him, Jesus uses an

expression which gives umbrage to those who hear it--"I and the Father

are one." Those who trust themselves to Christ shall not be plucked out

of His hand: they are eternally secure. The guarantee of this is, that

those who thus trust in Him are given to Him by the Father for this very

purpose of safe-keeping: the Father Himself therefore watches over and

protects them. "No man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand. I

and My Father are one." In this matter Christ acts merely as the

Father's agent. The Pharisees might excommunicate the blind man and

threaten him with penalties present and to come, but he is absolutely

beyond their reach. Their threats are the pattering of hail on a

bomb-proof shelter. The man is in Christ's keeping, and thereby is in

God's keeping.

But this assertion the Jews at once construed into blasphemy, and took

up stones to stone Him. With marvellous calmness Jesus arrests their

murderous intention with the quiet question: "Many good works have I

showed you from My Father; for which of these do you stone Me? You

question whether I am the Father's Agent: does not the benignity of the

works I have done prove Me such? Do not My works evince the indwelling

power of the Father?" The Jews reply, and from their point of view quite

reasonably: "For a good work we stone Thee not; but because Thou, being

a man, makest Thyself God." How far they were justified in this charge

we must inquire.

In this conversation two points are of the utmost significance.

1. The comparative equanimity with which they consider the claim of

Jesus to be the Messiah is changed into fury when they imagine that He

claims also equality with God. Their first appeal, "If Thou be the

Christ, tell us plainly," is calm; and His answer, though it distinctly

involved an affirmation that He was the Christ, was received without any

violent demonstration of rage or of excitement. But their attitude

towards Him changes in a moment and their calmness gives place to

uncontrollable indignation as soon as it appears that He believes

Himself to be one with the Father. They themselves would not have

dreamed of putting such a question to Him: the idea of any man being

equal with God was too abhorrent to the rigid monotheism of the Jewish

mind. And when it dawned upon them that this was what Jesus claimed,

they could do nothing but stop their ears and lift stones to end such

blasphemy. No incident could more distinctly prove that the claim to be

the Messiah was in their judgment one thing, the claim to be Divine

another thing.

2. The contrast our Lord draws between Himself and those who had in

Scripture been called "gods" is significant. It is the eighty-second

Psalm He cites; and in it the judges of Israel are rebuked for abusing

their office. It is of these unjust judges the psalm represents God as

saying, "I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the

Most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes."

To these judges this word of God, "Ye are gods," had come at their

consecration to their office. Having been occupied with other work they

were now set apart to represent to men the authority and justice of God.

But, argues our Lord, if men were called gods, to whom God's word

came,--and they are so called in Scripture, which cannot be

broken,--appointing them to their office, may He not rightly be called

Son of God who is Himself sent to men; whose original and sole destiny

it was to come into the world to represent _the Father_? The words are

overweighted with manifold contrast. The judges were persons "to whom"

the word of God came, as from without; Jesus was a person Himself "sent

into the world" from God, therefore surely more akin to God than they

were. The judges represented God by virtue of a commission received in

the course of their career--the word of God _came_ to them: Jesus, on

the other hand, represented God because "sanctified," that is, set apart

or consecrated for this purpose before He came into the world, and

therefore obviously occupying a higher and more important position than

they. But, especially, the judges were appointed to discharge one

limited and temporary function, for the discharge of which it was

sufficient that they should know the law of God; whereas it was "the

Father," the God of universal relation and love, who consecrated Jesus

and sent Him into the world, meaning now to reveal to men what lies

deepest in His nature, His love, His fatherhood. The idea of the purpose

for which Christ was sent into the world is indicated in the emphatic

use of "the Father." He was sent to do the works of the Father (ver.

37); to manifest to men the benignity, tenderness, compassion of the

Father; to encourage them to believe that the Father, the Source of all

life, was in their midst accessible to them. If Jesus failed to reveal

the Father, He had no claim to make. "If I do not the works of My

Father, believe Me not." But if He did such works as declared the Father

to be in their midst, then, as bearing the Father in Him and doing the

Father's will, He might well be called "the Son of God." "Though ye

believe not Me, believe the works; that ye may know, and believe, that

the Father is in Me, and I in Him."

There can be no question, then, of the conclusiveness with which our

Lord rebutted the charge of blasphemy. By a single sentence He put them

in the position of presumptuously contradicting their own Scriptures.

But weightier questions remain behind. Did Jesus merely seek to parry

their thrust, or did He mean positively to affirm that He was God? His

words do not carry a direct and explicit affirmation of His Divinity.

Indeed, to a hearer His comparison of Himself with the judges would

necessarily rather tend to veil the full meaning of His previous claims

to pre-existence and superhuman dignity. On reflection, no doubt the

hearers might see that a claim to Divinity was implied in His words; but

even in the saying which first gave them offence, "I and the Father are

one," it is rather what is implied than what is expressed that carries

with it such a claim. For Calvin is unquestionably right in maintaining

that these words were not intended to affirm identity of substance with

the Father.[36] An ambassador whose actions or claims were contested

might very naturally say, "I and my Sovereign are One"; not meaning

thereby to claim royal dignity, but meaning to assert that what he did,

his Sovereign did; that his signature carried his Sovereign's guarantee,

and that his pledges would be fulfilled by the entire resources of his

Sovereign. And as God's delegate, as the great Messianic Viceroy among

men, it was no doubt this that our Lord wished in the first place to

affirm, that He was the representative of God, doing His will, and

backed by all His authority. "See the Father in Me," was His constant

demand. All His self-assertion and self-revelation were meant to reveal

the Father.

But although He does not directly and explicitly say, "I am God";

although He does not even use such language of Himself as John uses,

when he says, "The Word was God"; yet is not His Divine nature a

reasonable inference from such affirmations as that which we are here

considering? Some interpreters very decidedly maintain that when Christ

says, "I and the Father are one," He means one in power. They affirm

that this assertion is made to prove that none of His sheep will be

plucked out of His hand, and that this is secured because His Father is

"greater than all," and He and His Father are one. Accordingly they hold

that neither the old orthodox interpretation nor the Arian is correct:

not the orthodox, because not unity of essence but unity of power is

meant; not the Arian, because something more is meant than moral

harmony. This, however, is difficult to maintain, and it is safer to

abide by Calvin's interpretation, and believe that what Jesus means is

that what He does will be confirmed by the Father. It is the Father's

power He introduces as the final guarantee, not His own power.

Still, although the very terms He here uses may not even by implication

affirm His Divinity, it remains to be asked whether there are not parts

of Christ's work as God's commissioner on earth which could be

accomplished by no one who was not Himself Divine. An ambassador may

recommend his offers and guarantees by affirming that his power and that

of his Sovereign are one, but in many cases he must have actual power on

the spot. If a commissioner is sent to reduce a mutinous army or a large

warlike tribe in rebellion, or to define a frontier in the face of an

armed claimant, he must in such cases be no mere lay-figure, whose

uniform tells what country he belongs to, but he must be a man of

audacity and resource, able to act for himself without telegraphing for

orders, and he must be backed by sufficient military force on the spot.

It comes therefore to be a question whether the work on which Christ was

sent was a work which could be accomplished by a man however fully

equipped? Jesus though nothing more than human might have said, if

commissioned by God to say so, "The promises I make, God will perform.

The guarantees I give, God will respect." But is it possible that a man,

however holy, however wise, however fully possessed by the Holy Spirit,

could reveal the Father to men and adequately represent God? Could He

influence, guide, and uplift individuals? Could He give life to men,

could He assume the function of judging, could He bear the

responsibility of being sole mediator between God and men? Must we not

believe that for the work Christ came to do it was needful that He

should be truly Divine?

While therefore it is quite true that Christ here rebuts the charge of

blasphemy in His usual manner, not by directly affirming His Divine

nature, but only by declaring that His office as God's representative

gave Him as just a claim to the Divine name as the judges had, this

circumstance cannot lead us to doubt the Divine nature of Christ, or

prompt us to suppose He Himself was shy in affirming it, because the

question is at once suggested whether the office He assumed is not one

which only a Divine Person could undertake. It need not stumble our

faith, if we find that not only in this passage but everywhere Jesus

refrains from explicitly saying: "I am God." Not even among His

Apostles, who were so much in need of instruction, does He definitely

announce His Divinity. This is consistent with His entire method of

teaching. He was not aggressive nor impatient. He sowed the seed, and

knew that in time the blade would appear. He trusted more to the faith

which slowly grew with the growth of the believer's mind than to the

immediate acceptance of verbal assertions. He allowed men gradually to

find their own way to the right conclusions, guiding them, furnishing

them with sufficient evidence, but always allowing the evidence to do

its work, and not breaking in upon the natural process by His

authoritative utterances. But when, as in Thomas's case, it did dawn on

the mind of any that this Person was God manifest in the flesh, He

accepted the tribute paid. The acceptance of such a tribute proves Him

Divine. No good man, whatever his function or commission on earth, could

allow another to address him, as Thomas addressed Jesus, "My Lord and my

God."

In the paragraph we are considering a very needful reminder is given us

that the Jews of our Lord's time used the terms "God" and "Son of God"

in a loose and inexact manner. Where the sense was not likely to be

misunderstood, they did not scruple to apply these terms to officials

and dignitaries. The angels they called sons of God; their own judges

they called by the same name. The whole people considered collectively

was called "God's son." And in the 2nd Psalm, speaking of the Messianic

King, God says, "Thou art My Son: this day have I begotten Thee." It was

therefore natural that the Jews should think of the Messiah not as

properly Divine, but merely as being of such surpassing dignity as to be

worthily though loosely called "Son of God." No doubt there are passages

in the Old Testament which intimate with sufficient clearness that the

Messiah would be truly Divine: "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and

ever;" "Unto us a Child is born ... and His name shall be called the

Mighty God;" "Behold the days come that I will raise unto David a

righteous Branch, and this is the name whereby He shall be called,

Jehovah our Righteousness." But though these passages seem decisive to

us, looking on the fulfilment of them in Christ, we must consider that

the Jewish Bible did not lie on every table for consultation as our

Bibles do, and also that it was easy for the Jews to put a figurative

sense on all such passages.

In a word, it was a Messiah the Jews looked for, not the Son of God.

They looked for one with Divine powers, the delegate of God, sent to

accomplish His will and to establish His kingdom, the representative

among them of the Divine presence; but they did not look for a real

dwelling of a Divine Person among them. It is quite certain that the

Jews of the second century thought it silly of the Christians to hold

that the Christ pre-existed from eternity as God, and condescended to be

born as man. "No Jew would allow," says a writer of that time, "that any

prophet ever said that a Son of God would come; but what the Jews do say

is that the Christ of God will come."

This circumstance, that the Jews did not expect the Messiah to be a

Divine Person, throws light upon certain passages in the Gospels. When,

for example, our Lord put the question, "What think ye of Christ? Whose

Son is He?" The Pharisees promptly answer, "He is the Son of David."

And, that they had no thought of ascribing to the Messiah a properly

Divine origin, is shown by their inability to answer the further

question, "How then does David call Him Lord?"--a question presenting no

difficulty at all to any one who believed that the Messiah was to be

Divine as well as human.[37]

So, too, if the Jews had expected the Messiah to be a Divine person, the

ascription of Messianic dignity to one who was not the Messiah was

blasphemy, being equivalent to ascribing Divinity to one who was not

Divine. But in no case in which Jesus was acknowledged as the Messiah

were those who so acknowledged Him proceeded against as blasphemous. The

blind men who appealed to Him as the Son of David were told to be quiet;

the crowd who hailed His entrance to Jerusalem scandalized the Pharisees

but were not proceeded against. And even the blind beggar who owned Him

was excommunicated by a special act passed for the emergency, which

proves that the standing statute against blasphemy could not in such a

case be enforced.

Again, this fact, that the Jews did not expect the Messiah to be

strictly Divine, sheds light on the real ground of accusation against

Jesus. So long as it was supposed that He merely claimed to be the

promised Christ, and used the title "Son of God" as equivalent to a

Messianic title, many of the people admitted His claim and were prepared

to own Him. But when the Pharisees began to apprehend that He claimed to

be the Son of God in a higher sense, they accused Him of blasphemy, and

on this charge He was condemned. The account of His trial as given by

Luke is most significant. He was tried in two courts, and in each upon

two charges. When brought before the Sanhedrim He was first asked, "Art

Thou the Christ?" a question which, as He at once pointed out, was

useless; because He had taught quite openly, and there were hundreds who

could testify to the claims He had put forward. He merely says that they

themselves will one day own His claim. "Hereafter shall the Son of Man

sit on the right hand of the power of God." This suggests to them that

His claim was to something more than they ordinarily considered to be

involved in the claim to Messiahship, and at once they pass to their

second question, "Art Thou then the Son of God?" And on His refusing to

disown this title, the High Priest rends His clothes, and Jesus is there

and then convicted of blasphemy.

The different significance of the two claims is brought out more

distinctly in the trial before Pilate. At first Pilate treats Him as an

amiable enthusiast who fancies Himself a King and supposes He has been

sent into the world to lead men to the truth. And accordingly after

examining Him he presents Him to the people as an innocent person, and

makes light of their charge that He claims to be King of the Jews. On

this the Jews with one voice cry out, "We have a law, and by our law He

ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God." The effect of

this charge upon Pilate is immediate and remarkable: "When Pilate heard

that saying _he was the more afraid_, and went again into the judgment

hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art Thou?" But Jesus gave him no

answer.

It is plain then that it was for blasphemy Christ was condemned; and not

simply because He claimed to be the Messiah. But if this is so, then how

can we evade the conclusion that He was in very truth a Divine person?

The Jews charged Him with making Himself equal with God; and, if He was

not equal with God, they were quite right in putting Him to death. Their

law was express, that no matter what signs and wonders a man performed,

if he used these to draw them from the worship of the true God he was to

be put to death. They crucified Jesus on the ground that He was a

blasphemer, and against this sentence He made no appeal. He showed no

horror at the accusation, as any good man must have shown. He accepted

the doom, and on the Cross prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know

not what they do." That which they considered an act of piety was in

truth the most frightful of crimes. But if He was not Divine, it was no

crime at all, but a just punishment.

But no doubt that which lodges in the heart of each of us the conviction

that Christ is Divine is the general aspect of His life, and the

attitude He assumes towards men and towards God. We may not be able to

understand in what sense there are Three Persons in the Godhead, and may

be disposed with Calvin to wish that theological terms and distinctions

had never become necessary.[38] We may be unable to understand how if

Christ were a complete Person before the Incarnation, the humanity He

assumed could also be complete and similar to our own. But

notwithstanding such difficulties, which are the necessary result of our

inability to comprehend the Divine nature, we are convinced, when we

follow Christ through His life and listen to His own assertions, that

there is in Him something unique and unapproached among men, that while

He is one of us He yet looks at us also from the outside, from above. We

feel that He is Master of all, that nothing in nature or in life can

defeat Him; that while dwelling in time, He is also in Eternity, seeing

before and after. The most stupendous claims He makes seem somehow

justified; assertions which in other lips would be blasphemous are felt

to be just and natural in His. It is felt that somehow, even if we

cannot say how, God is in Him.

FOOTNOTES:

[36] Calvin says: "The ancients misinterpreted this passage to prove

that Christ is of one substance with the Father. For Christ is not here

disputing regarding unity of substance, but regarding the harmony of

will (consensu) which he has with the Father, maintaining that whatever

He does will be confirmed by the Father's power."

[37] In this passage I borrow the convincing argument of Treffry in his

too little read treatise _On the Eternal Sonship_. He says, p. 89: "Had

the Jews regarded the Messiah as a Divine person, the claims of Jesus to

that character had been in all cases equivalent to the assertion of His

Deity. But there is not upon record one example in which any

considerable emotion was manifested against these claims; while, on the

other hand, a palpable allusion to His higher nature never failed to be

instantly and most indignantly resented. The conclusion is obvious."

[38] "Utinam quidem sepulta essent" (_Instit._, I., 13, 5).

XXIII.

_JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE._

"Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, of the village of

Mary and her sister Martha. And it was that Mary which anointed the

Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother

Lazarus was sick. The sisters therefore sent unto Him, saying, Lord,

behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick. But when Jesus heard it, He

said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God,

that the Son of God may be glorified thereby. Now Jesus loved

Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When therefore He heard that he

was sick, He abode at that time two days in the place where He was.

Then after this He saith to the disciples, Let us go into Judaea

again. The disciples say unto Him, Rabbi, the Jews were but now

seeking to stone Thee; and goest Thou thither again? Jesus answered,

Are there not twelve hours in the day? If a man walk in the day, he

stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a

man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because the light is not in

him. These things spake He: and after this he saith unto them, Our

friend Lazarus is fallen asleep; but I go, that I may awake him out

of sleep. The disciples therefore said unto Him, Lord, if he is

fallen asleep, he will recover. Now Jesus had spoken of his death:

but they thought that He spake of taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus

therefore said unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for

your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe;

nevertheless let us go unto him. Thomas, therefore, who is called

Didymus, said unto his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may

die with Him. So when Jesus came, He found that he had been in the

tomb four days already. Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about

fifteen furlongs off; and many of the Jews had come to Martha and

Mary, to console them concerning their brother. Martha, therefore,

when she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met Him; but Mary

still sat in the house. Martha, therefore, said unto Jesus, Lord, if

Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. And even now I know

that, whatsoever Thou shalt ask of God, God will give Thee. Jesus

saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto Him,

I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.

Jesus said unto her, I am the Resurrection, and the Life: he that

believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live: and whosoever

liveth and believeth on me shall never die. Believest thou this? She

saith into Him, Yea, Lord: I have believed that Thou art the Christ,

the Son of God, even He that cometh into the world. And when she

had said this, she went away, and called Mary her sister secretly,

saying, The Master is here, and calleth thee. And she, when she

heard it, arose quickly, and went unto Him. (Now Jesus was not yet

come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha met

Him.) The Jews then which were with her in the house, and were

comforting her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up quickly and

went out, followed her, supposing that she was going unto the tomb

to weep there. Mary therefore, when she came where Jesus was, and

saw Him, fell down at His feet, saying unto Him, Lord, if Thou hadst

been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her

weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned

in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him?

They say unto Him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. The Jews

therefore said, Behold how He loved him! But some of them said,

Could not this man, which opened the eyes of him that was blind,

have caused that this man also should not die? Jesus therefore again

groaning in Himself cometh to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a

stone lay against it. Jesus saith, Take ye away the stone. Martha,

the sister of him that was dead, saith unto Him, Lord, by this time

he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her,

Said I not unto thee, that, if thou believedst, thou shouldest see

the glory of God? So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up

His eyes, and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou heardest Me. And

I know that Thou hearest Me always: but because of the multitude

which standeth around I said it, that they may believe that Thou

didst send Me. And when He had thus spoken, He cried with a loud

voice, Lazarus, come forth. He that was dead came forth, bound hand

and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was bound about with a

napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go."--JOHN xi.

1-44.

In this eleventh chapter it is related how the death of Jesus was

finally determined upon, on the occasion of His raising Lazarus. The ten

chapters which precede have served to indicate how Jesus revealed

Himself to the Jews in every aspect that was likely to win faith, and

how each fresh revelation only served to embitter them against Him, and

harden their unbelief into hopeless hostility. In these few pages John

has given us a wonderfully compressed but vivid summary of the miracles

and conversations of Jesus, which served to reveal His true character

and work. Jesus has manifested Himself as the Light of the World, yet

the darkness does not comprehend Him; as the Shepherd of the Sheep, and

they will not hear His voice; as the Life of men, and they will not come

unto Him that they might have Life; as the impersonated love of God come

to dwell among men, sharing their sorrows and their joys, and men hate

Him the more, the more love He shows; as the Truth which could make men

free, and they choose to serve the father of lies, and to do his work.

And now, when He reveals Himself as the Resurrection and the Life,

possessed of the key to what is inaccessible to all others, of the power

most essential to man, they resolve upon His death. There was an

appropriateness in this. His love for His friends drew Him back at the

risk of His life to the neighbourhood of Jerusalem: it is as if to His

eye Lazarus represented all His friends, and He feels constrained to

come out from His safe retreat, and, at the risk of His own life,

deliver them from the power of death.

That this was in the mind of Jesus Himself is obvious. When He expresses

His resolve to go to His friends in Bethany, He uses an expression which

shows that He anticipated danger, and which at once suggested to the

disciples that He was running a great risk. "Let us go," not "to

Bethany" but "into Judaea again." His disciples say unto Him, "Master,

the Jews of late sought to stone Thee, and goest Thou thither again?"

The answer of Jesus is significant: "Are there not twelve hours in the

day?" That is to say: Has not every man his allotted time to work, his

day of light, in which he can walk and work, and which no danger nor

calamity can shorten? Can men make the sun set one hour earlier? So

neither can they shorten by one hour the day of life, of light, and toil

your God has appointed to you. Wicked men may grudge that God's sun

shine on the fields of their enemies and prosper them, but their envy

cannot darken or shorten the course of the sun: so may wicked men grudge

that I work these miracles, and do these deeds of My loving Father, but

I am as far above their reach as the sun in the heavens; until I have

run My appointed course their envy is impotent. The real danger begins

when a man tries to prolong his day, to turn night into day; the danger

begins when a man through fear turns aside from duty; he then loses the

only true guide and light of his life. A man's knowledge of duty, or

God's will, is the only true light he has to guide him in life: that

duty God has already measured, to each man his twelve hours; and only by

following duty into all hazards and confusion can you live out your full

term; if, on the other hand, you try to extend your term, you find that

the sun of duty has set for you, and you have no power to bring light on

your path. A man may preserve his life on earth for a year or two more

by declining dangerous duty, but his _day_ is done, he is henceforth

only stumbling about on earth in the outer cold and darkness, and had

far better have gone home to God and been quietly asleep, far better

have acknowledged that his day was done and his night come, and not have

striven to wake and work on. If through fear of danger, of straitened

circumstances, of serious inconvenience, you refuse to go where

God--_i.e._, where duty--calls you, you make a terrible mistake; instead

of thereby preserving your life you lose it, instead of prolonging your

day of usefulness and of brightness and comfort, you lose the very light

of life, and stumble on henceforward through life without a guide,

making innumerable false steps as the result of that first false step in

which you turned in the wrong direction; not dead indeed, but living as

"the very ghost of your former self" on this side of the

grave--miserable, profitless, _benighted_.

John apparently had two reasons for recording this miracle; firstly,

because it exhibited Jesus as the Resurrection and the Life; secondly,

because it more distinctly separated the whole body of the Jews into

believers and unbelievers. But there are two minor points which may be

looked at before we turn to these main themes.

First, we read that when Jesus saw Mary weeping, and the Jews also

weeping which came with her, He _groaned in spirit_ and was troubled,

and then wept. But why did He show such emotion? The Jews who saw Him

weep supposed that His tears were prompted, as their own were, by sorrow

for their loss and sympathy with the sisters. To see a woman like Mary

casting herself at His feet, breaking into a passion of tears, and

crying with intense regret, if not with a tinge of reproach, "Lord, if

Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died," was enough to bring

tears to the eyes of harder natures than our Lord's. But the care with

which John describes the disturbance of His spirit, the emphasis he lays

upon His groaning, the notice he takes of the account the Jews give of

His tears,--all seem to indicate that something more than ordinary grief

or sympathy was the fountain of these tears, the cause of the distress

which could vent itself only in audible groans. He was in sympathy with

the mourners and felt for them, but there was that in the whole scene

with which He had no sympathy; there was none of that feeling He

required His disciples to show at His own death, no rejoicing that one

more had gone to the Father. There was a forgetfulness of the most

essential facts of death, an unbelief which seemed entirely to separate

this crowd of wailing people from the light and life of God's presence.

"It was the darkness between God and His creatures that gave room for,

and was filled with, their weeping and wailing over their dead." It was

the deeper anguish into which mourners are plunged by looking upon death

as extinction, and by supposing that death separates from God and from

life, instead of giving closer access to God and more abundant life,--it

was this which caused Jesus to groan. He could not bear this evidence

that even the best of God's children do not believe in God as greater

than death, and in death as ruled by God.

This gives us the key to Christ's belief in immortality, and to all

sound belief in immortality. It was Christ's sense of God, His

uninterrupted consciousness of God, His distinct knowledge that God the

loving Father is _the_ existence in whom all live,--it was this which

made it impossible for Christ to think of death as extinction or

separation from God. For one who consciously lived in God to be

separated from God was impossible. For one who was bound to God by love,

to drop out of that love into nothingness or desolation was

inconceivable. His constant and absolute sense of God gave Him an

unquestioning sense of immortality. We cannot conceive of Christ having

any shadow of doubt of a life beyond death; and if we ask why it was so,

we further see it was because it was impossible for Him to doubt of the

existence of God--the ever-living, ever-loving God.

And this is the order or conviction in us all. It is vain to try and

build up a faith in immortality by natural arguments, or even by what

Scripture records. As Bushnell truly says: "The faith of immortality

depends on a sense of it begotten, not on an argument for it concluded."

And this sense of immortality is begotten when a man is truly born

again, and instinctively feels himself an heir of things beyond this

world into which his natural birth has ushered him; when he begins to

live in God; when the things of God are the things among which and for

which he lives; when his spirit is in daily and free communication with

God; when he partakes of the Divine nature, finding his joy in

self-sacrifice and love, in those purposes and dispositions which can be

exercised in any world where men are, and with which death seems to

have no conceivable relation. But, on the other hand, for a man to live

for the world, to steep his soul in carnal pleasures and blind himself

by highly esteeming what belongs only to earth,--for such a man to

expect to have any intelligent sense or perception of immortality is out

of the question.

2. Another question, which may, indeed, be inquisitive, but can scarcely

be reprehended, is sure to be asked: What was the experience of Lazarus

during these four days? To speculate on what he saw or heard or

experienced, to trace the flight of his soul through the gates of death

to the presence of God, may perhaps seem to some as foolish as to go

with those curious Jews who flocked out to Bethany to set eyes on this

marvel, a man who had passed to the unseen world and yet returned. But

although no doubt good and great purposes are served by the obscurity

that involves death, our endeavour to penetrate the gloom, and catch

some glimpses of a life we must shortly enter, cannot be judged

altogether idle. Unfortunately, it is little we can learn from Lazarus.

Two English poets, the one fitted to deal with this subject by an

imagination that seems capable of seeing and describing whatever man can

experience, the other by an insight that instinctively apprehends

spiritual things, and both by reverential faith, have taken quite

opposite views of the effect of death and resurrection upon Lazarus. The

one describes him as living henceforth a dazed life, as if his soul were

elsewhere; as if his eye, dazzled with the glory beyond, could not

adjust itself to the things of earth. He is thrown out of sympathy with

the ordinary interests of men, and seems to live at cross purposes with

all around him. This was a very inviting view of the matter to a poet:

for here was an opportunity of putting in a concrete way an experience

quite unique. It was a task worthy of the highest poetic genius to

describe what would be the sensations, thoughts, and ways of a man who

had passed through death and seen things invisible, and been "exalted

above measure," and become certified by face to face vision of all that

we can only hope and believe, and had yet been restored to earth. The

opportunity of contrasting the paltriness of earth with the sublimity

and reality of the unseen was too great to be resisted. The opportunity

of flouting our professed faith by exhibiting the difference between it

and a real assurance, by showing the utter want of sympathy between one

who had seen and all others on earth who had only believed,--this

opportunity was too inviting to leave room for a poet to ask whether

there was a basis in fact for this contrast; whether it was likely that

in point of fact Lazarus did conduct himself, when restored to earth, as

one who had been plunged into the full light and thronging life of the

unseen world. And, when we consider the actual requirements of the case,

it seems most unlikely that Lazarus can have been recalled from a clear

consciousness and full knowledge of the heavenly life--unlikely that he

should be summoned to live on earth with a mind too large for the uses

of earth, overcharged with knowledge he could not use, as a poor man

suddenly enriched beyond his ability to spend, and thereby only confused

and stupefied. Apparently the idea of the other poet is the wiser when

he says:--

"'Where wert thou, brother, those four days?'

There lives no record of reply,

Which, telling what it is to die,

Had surely added praise to praise.

"From every house the neighbours met,

The streets were fill'd with joyful sound,

A solemn gladness even crown'd

The purple brows of Olivet.

"Behold a man raised up by Christ!

The rest remaineth unrevealed;

He told it not; or something seal'd

The lips of that Evangelist."

The probability is, he had nothing to reveal. As Jesus said, He came "to

awake him out of sleep." Had he learned anything of the spirit world, it

must have oozed out. The burden of a secret which all men craved to

know, and which the scribes and lawyers from Jerusalem would do all in

their power to elicit from him, would have damaged his mind and

oppressed his life. His rising would be as the awaking of a man from

deep sleep, scarcely knowing what he was doing, tripping and stumbling

in the grave-clothes and wondering at the crowd. What Mary and Martha

would prize would be the unchanged love that shone in his face as he

recognized them, the same familiar tones and endearments,--all that

showed how little change death brings, how little rupture of affection

or of any good thing, how truly he was their own brother still.

To our Lord Himself it was a grace that so shortly before His own death,

and in a spot so near where He Himself was buried, He should be

encouraged by seeing a man who had been three days in the grave rise at

His word. The narrative of His last hours reveals that such

encouragement was not useless. But for us it has a still more helpful

significance. Death is a subject of universal concern. Every man must

have to do with it; and in presence of it every man feels his

helplessness. Nowhere do we so come to the limit and end of our power

as at the door of a vault; nowhere is the weakness of man so keenly

felt. There is the clay, but who shall find the spirit that dwelt in it?

Jesus has no such sense of weakness. Believing in the fatherly and

undying love of the Eternal God, He knows that death cannot harm, still

less destroy, the children of God. And in this belief He commands back

to the body the soul of Lazarus; through the ear of that dead and

laid-aside body He calls to His friend, and bids him from the unseen

world. Surely we also may say, with Himself, we are glad that He was not

with Lazarus in his sickness, that we might have this proof that not

even death carries the friend of Christ beyond His reach and power.

There is no one who can afford to look at this scene with indifference.

We have all to die, to sink in utter weakness past all strength of our

own, past all friendly help of those around us. It must always remain a

trying thing to die. In the time of our health we may say,--

"Since Nature's works be good, and Death doth serve

As Nature's work, why should we fear to die?"

but no argument should make us indifferent to the question whether at

death we are to be extinguished or to live on in happier, fuller life.

If a man dies in thoughtlessness, with no forecasting or foreboding of

what is to follow, he can give no stronger proof of thoughtlessness. If

a man faces death cheerfully through natural courage, he can furnish no

stronger evidence of courage; if he dies calmly and hopefully through

faith, this is faith's highest expression. And if it is really true that

Jesus did raise Lazarus, then a world of depression and fear and grief

is lifted off the heart of man. That very assurance is given to us

which we most of all need. And, so far as I can see, it is our own

imbecility of mind that prevents us from accepting this assurance and

living in the joy and strength it brings. If Christ raised Lazarus He

has a power to which we can safely trust; and life is a thing of

permanence and joy. And if a man cannot determine for himself whether

this did actually happen or not, he must, I think, feel that the fault

is his, and that he is defrauding himself of one of the clearest guiding

lights and most powerful determining influences we have.

This miracle is itself more significant than the explanation of it. The

act which embodies and gives actuality to a principle is its best

exposition. But the main teaching of the miracle is enounced in the

words of Jesus: "I am the Resurrection and the Life." In this statement

two truths are contained: (1) that resurrection and life are not future

only, but present; and (2) that they become ours by union with Christ.

(1) Resurrection and Life are not blessings laid up for us in a remote

future: they are present. When Jesus said to Martha, "Thy brother shall

rise again," she answered, "I know that he shall rise again in the

resurrection at the last day,"--meaning to indicate that this was small

consolation. There was her brother lying in the tomb dead, and there he

would lie for ages dead; no more to move about in the home she loved for

his sake, no more to exchange with her one word or look. What comfort

did the vague and remote hope of reunion after long ages of untold

change bring? What comfort is to sustain her through the interval? When

parents lose the children whom they could not bear to have for a day out

of their sight, whom they longed for if they were absent an hour beyond

their time, it is no doubt some comfort to know that one day they will

again fold them to their breast. But this is not the comfort Christ

gives Martha. He comforts her, not by pointing her to a far-off event

which was vague and remote, but to His own living person, whom she knew,

saw, and trusted. And He assured her that in Him were resurrection and

life; that all, therefore, who belonged to Him were uninjured by death,

and had in Him a present and continuous life.

Christ, then, does not think of immortality as we do. The thought of

immortality is with Him involved in, and absorbed by, the idea of life.

Life is a present thing, and its continuance a matter of course. When

life is full, and abundant, and glad, the present is enough, and past

and future are unthought of. It is life, therefore, rather than

immortality Christ speaks of; a present, not a future, good; an

expansion of the nature now, and which necessarily carries with it the

idea of permanence. Eternal life He defines, not as a future continuance

to be measured by ages, but as a present life, to be measured by its

depth. It is the quality, not the length, of life He looks at. Life

prolonged without being deepened by union with the living God were no

boon. Life with God, and in God, must be immortal; life without God He

does not call life at all.

In evidence of this present continued life Lazarus was called back, and

shown to be still alive. In him the truth of Christ's words was

exemplified: "He that believeth in Me, though he were dead yet shall he

live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die." He will

doubtless, like all men, undergo that change which we call death; he

will become disconnected from this present earthly scene, but his life

in Christ will suffer no interruption. Dissolution may pass on his

body, but not on his life. His life is hid with Christ in God. It is

united to the unfailing source of all existence.

(2) Such life, now abundant and evermore abiding, Christ affords to all

who believe in Him. To Martha He intimates that He has power to raise

the dead, and that this power is so much His own that He needs no

instrument or means to apply it; that He Himself, as He stood before

her, contained all that was needful for resurrection and life. He

intimates all this, but He intimates much more than this. That He had

the power to raise the dead it would, no doubt, revive the heart of

Martha to hear, but what guarantee, what hope, was there that He would

exercise that power? And so Christ does not say, I have the power, but,

I am. Is any one, is Lazarus, joined to Me? has he attached himself

confidingly to My Person: then whatever I am finds exercise in him. It

is not only that I have this power to exercise on whom I may; but I am

this power, so that if he be one with Me I cannot withhold the exercise

of that power from him.

They who have learned to obey Christ's voice in life will most quickly

hear it, and recognise its authority, when they sleep in death. They who

have known its power to raise them out of spiritual death will not doubt

its power to raise them from bodily death to a more abundant life than

this world affords. They once felt as if nothing could deliver them;

they were dead--deaf to Christ's commands, bound in bonds which they

thought would hold them till they themselves should rot away from within

them; they were buried out of sight of all that could give spiritual

life, and the heavy stone of their own hardened will lay on their ruined

and outcast condition. But Christ's love sought them out and called

them into life. Assured that He has had power to do this, conscious in

themselves that they are alive with a life given by Christ, they cannot

doubt that the grave will be but a bed of rest, and that neither things

present nor things to come can separate them from a love which already

has shown itself capable of the utmost.

XXIV.

_JESUS THE SCAPEGOAT._

"Many therefore of the Jews, which came to Mary and beheld that

which He did, believed on Him. But some of them went away to the

Pharisees, and told them the things which Jesus had done. The chief

priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said,

What do we? for this man doeth many signs. If we let Him thus alone,

all men will believe on Him: and the Romans will come and take away

both our place and our nation. But a certain one of them, Caiaphas,

being high priest that year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all,

nor do ye take account that it is expedient for you that one man

should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. Now

this he said not of himself: but being high priest that year he

prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation; and not for the

nation only, but that he might also gather together into one the

children of God that are scattered abroad. So from that day forth

they took counsel that they might put Him to death. Jesus therefore

walked no more openly among the Jews, but departed thence into the

country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim; and

there He tarried with the disciples."--JOHN xi. 45-54.

When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead He was quite aware that He was

risking His own life. He knew that a miracle so public, so easily

tested, so striking, could not be overlooked, but must decisively

separate between those who yielded to what was involved in the miracle,

and those who hardened themselves against it. It is remarkable that none

had the hardihood to deny the fact. Those who most determinedly

proceeded against Jesus did so on the very ground that His miracles were

becoming too numerous and too patent. They perceived that in this

respect Jesus answered so perfectly to the popular conception of what

the Messiah was to be, that it was quite likely He would win the

multitude to belief in Him as the long-looked-for King of the Jews. But

if there were any such popular enthusiasm aroused, and loudly declared,

then the Romans would interfere, and, as they said, "come and take away

both our place and nation." They felt themselves in a great difficulty,

and looked upon Jesus as one of those fatal people who arise to thwart

the schemes of statesmen, and spoil well-laid plans, and introduce

disturbing elements into peaceful periods.

Caiaphas, astute and unscrupulous, takes a more practical view of

things, and laughs at their helplessness. "Why!" he says, "do you not

see that this Man, with His _eclat_ and popular following, instead of

endangering us and bringing suspicion on our loyalty to Rome, is the

very person we can use to exhibit our fidelity to the Empire. Sacrifice

Jesus, and by His execution you will not merely clear the nation of all

suspicion of a desire to revolt and found a kingdom under Him, but you

will show such a watchful zeal for the integrity of the Empire as will

merit applause and confidence from the jealous power of Rome." Caiaphas

is the type of the bold, hard politician, who fancies he sees more

clearly than all others, because he does not perplex himself by what

lies below the surface, nor suffer the claims of justice to interfere

with his own advantage. He looks at everything from the point of view of

his own idea and plan, and makes everything bend to that. He had no idea

that in making Jesus a scapegoat he was tampering with the Divine

purposes.

John, however, in looking back upon this council, sees that this bold,

unflinching diplomatist, who supposed he was moving Jesus and the

council and the Romans as so many pieces in his own game, was himself

used as God's mouthpiece to predict the event which brought to a close

his own and all other priesthood. In the strange irony of events he was

unconsciously using his high-priestly office to lead forward that one

Sacrifice which was for ever to take away sin, and so to make all

further priestly office superfluous. Caiaphas saw and said that it was

expedient that one man die for the nation; but, as in all prophetic

utterance, so in these words, says John, a very much deeper sense lay

than was revealed by their primary application. It is, says John, quite

true that Christ's death would be the saving of a countless multitude,

only it was not from the Roman legions that it would long save men, but

from an even more formidable visitation. Caiaphas saw that the Romans

were within a very little of terminating the ceaseless troubles which

arose out of this Judaean province, by transporting the inhabitants and

breaking up their nationality; and he supposed that by proclaiming Jesus

as an aspirant to the throne and putting Him to death, he would cleanse

the nation of all complicity in His disloyalty and stay the Roman sword.

And John says, that in carrying out this idea of his, he unwittingly

carried out the purpose of God that Jesus should die for that

nation--"and not for that nation only, but that also He should gather

together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad."

Now it must be owned that it is much easier to understand what Caiaphas

meant than what John meant; much easier to see how fit Jesus was to be a

national scapegoat than to understand how His death removes the sin of

the world. There are, however, one or two points regarding the death of

Christ which become clearer in the light of Caiaphas's idea.

First, the very characteristics of Christ which made Caiaphas think of

Him as a possible scapegoat for the nation, are those which make it

possible that His death should serve a still larger purpose. When the

brilliant idea of propitiating the Roman government by sacrificing Jesus

flashed into the mind of Caiaphas, he saw that Jesus was in every

respect suited to this purpose. He was in the first place a person of

sufficient importance. To have seized an unknown peasant, who never had,

and never could have, much influence in Jewish society, would have been

no proof of zeal in extinguishing rebellion. To crucify Peter or John

or Lazarus, none of whom had made the most distant claim to kingship,

would not serve Caiaphas's turn. But Jesus was the head of a party. In

disposing of Him they disposed of His followers. The sheep must scatter,

if the Shepherd were put out of the way.

Then, again, Jesus was innocent of everything but this. He was guilty of

attaching men to Himself, but innocent of everything besides. This also

fitted Him for Caiaphas's purpose, for the high priest recognised that

it would not do to pick a common criminal out of the prisons and make a

scapegoat of him. That had been a shallow fiction, which would not for a

moment stay the impending Roman sword. Had the Russians wished to

conciliate our Government and avert war, this could not have been

effected by their selecting for execution some political exile in

Siberia, but only by recalling and degrading such an outstanding person

as General Komaroff. In every case where any one is to be used as a

scapegoat these two qualities must meet--he must be a really, not

fictitiously, representative person, and he must be free from all other

claims upon his life. It is not everyone who can become a scapegoat. The

mere agreement between the parties, that such and such a person be a

scapegoat, is only a hollow fiction which can deceive no one. There must

be underlying qualities which constitute one person, and not another,

representative and fit.

Now John does not expressly say that the deliverance Jesus was to effect

for men generally was to be effected in a similar manner to that which

Caiaphas had in view. He does not expressly say that Jesus was to become

the scapegoat of the race: but impregnated as John's mind was with the

sacrificial ideas in which he had been nurtured, the probability is

that the words of Caiaphas suggested to him the idea that Jesus was to

be the scapegoat of the race. And, certainly, if Jesus was the scapegoat

on whom our sins were laid, and who carried them all away, He had these

qualities which fitted Him for this work: He had a connection with us of

an intimate kind, and He was stainlessly innocent.

This passage then compels us to ask in what sense Christ was our

sacrifice.

With remarkable, because significant, unanimity the consciences of men

very differently situated have prompted them to sacrifice. And the idea

which all ancient nations, and especially the Hebrews, entertained

regarding sacrifice is fairly well ascertained. Both the forms of their

rites and their explicit statements are conclusive on this point,--that

in a certain class of sacrifices they looked on the victim as a

substitute bearing the guilt of the offerer and receiving the punishment

due to him. This seems, after all discussion, to be the most reasonable

interpretation to put upon expiatory sacrifice. Both heathens and Jews

teach that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins;

that the life of the sinner is forfeited, and that in order to the

sparing of his life, another life is rendered instead; and that as the

life is in the blood, the blood must be poured out in sacrifice.

Heathens were as punctilious as Hebrews in their scrutiny of the

victims, to ascertain what animals were fit for sacrifice by the absence

of all blemish. They used forms of deprecation as exactly expressing the

doctrines of substitution and of atonement by vicarious punishment. In

one significant, though repulsive, particular some of the heathen went

farther than the Hebrews: occasionally, the sinner who sought cleansing

from defilement was actually washed in the blood of the victim slain for

him. By an elaborate contrivance the sinner sat under a stage of open

woodwork on which the animal was sacrificed, and through which its blood

poured upon him.

The idea expressed by all sacrifices of expiation was, that the victim

took the place of the sinner, and received the punishment due to him.

The sacrifice was an acknowledgment on the sinner's part that by his sin

he had incurred penalty; and it was a prayer on the sinner's part that

he might be washed from the guilt he had contracted, and might return to

life with the blessing and favour of God upon him. Of course, it was

seen, and said by the heathen themselves, as well as by the Jews, that

the blood of bulls and goats had in itself no relation to moral

defilement. It was used in sacrifice merely as a telling way of saying

that sin was acknowledged and pardon desired, but always with the idea

of substitution more or less explicitly in the mind. And the ideas which

were inevitably associated with sacrifice were transferred to Jesus by

His immediate disciples. And this transference of the ideas connected

with sacrifice to Himself and His death was sanctioned--and indeed

suggested--by Jesus, when, at the Last Supper, He said, "This cup is the

New Testament in My Blood, which is shed for many, for the remission of

sins."

But here the question at once arises: In what sense was the Blood of

Christ shed for the remission of sins? In what sense was He a substitute

and victim for us? Before we try to find an answer to this question, two

preliminary remarks may be made--first, that our salvation depends not

on our understanding how the death of Christ takes away sin, but upon

our believing that it does so. It is very possible to accept the pardon

of our sin, though we do not know how that pardon has been obtained. We

do not understand the methods of cure prescribed by the physician, nor

could we give a rational account of the efficacy of his medicines, but

this does not retard our cure if only we use them. To come into a

perfect relation to God we do not require to understand how the death of

Christ has made it possible for us to do so; we need only to desire to

be God's children, and to believe that it is open to us to come to Him.

Not by the intellect, but by the will, are we led to God. Not by what we

know, but by what we desire, is our destiny determined. Not by education

in theological requirements, but by thirst for the living God, is man

saved.

And, second, even though we carry over to the death of Christ the ideas

taught by Old Testament sacrifice, we commit no enormous or misleading

blunder. Christ Himself suggested that His death might be best

understood in the light of these ideas, and even though we are unable to

penetrate through the letter to the spirit, through the outward and

symbolic form to the real and eternal meaning of the sacrifice of

Christ, we are yet on the road to truth, and hold the germ of it which

will one day develop into the actual and perfect truth. Impatience is at

the root of much unbelief and misconception and discontent; the

inability to reconcile ourselves to the fact that in our present stage

there is much we must hold provisionally, much we must be content to see

through a glass darkly, much we can only know by picture and shadow. It

is quite true the reality has come in the death of Christ, and symbol

has passed away; but there is such a depth of Divine love, and so

various a fulfilment of Divine purpose in the death of Christ, that we

cannot be surprised that it baffles comprehension. It is the key to a

world's history; for aught we know, to the history of other worlds than

ours; and it is not likely that we should be able to gauge its

significance and explain its _rationale_ of operation. And therefore,

if, without any sluggish indifference to further knowledge, or merely

worldly contentment to know of spiritual things only so much as is

absolutely necessary, we yet are able to use what we do know and to

await with confidence further knowledge, we probably act wisely and

well. We do not err if we think of Christ as our Sacrifice; nor even if

we somewhat too literally think of Him as the Victim substituted for us,

and ascribe to His Blood the expiatory and cleansing virtue which

belonged symbolically to the blood of the ancient sacrifices.

And, indeed, there are grave difficulties in our path as soon as we

strive to advance beyond the sacrificial idea, and try to grasp the very

truth regarding the death of Christ. The Apostles with one voice affirm

that Christ's death was a propitiation for the sins of the world: that

He died _for_ us; that He suffered not only for His contemporaries, but

for all men; that He was the Lamb of God, the innocent Victim, whose

blood cleansed from sin. They affirm, in short, that in Christ's death

we are brought face to face, not with a symbolic sacrifice, but with

that act which really takes away sin.

If we read the narrative given us in the Gospels of the death of Christ,

and the circumstances that led to it, we see that the sacrificial idea

is not kept in the foreground. The cause of His death, as explained in

the Gospels, was His persistent claim to be the Messiah sent by God to

found a spiritual kingdom. He steadily opposed the expectations and

plans of those in authority until they became so exasperated that they

resolved to compass His death. The real and actual cause of His death

was His fidelity to the purpose for which He had been sent into the

world. He might have retired and lived a quiet life in Galilee or beyond

Palestine altogether; but He could not do so, because He could not

abandon the work of His life, which was to proclaim the truth about God

and God's kingdom. Many a man has felt equally constrained to proclaim

the truth in the face of opposition; and many a man has, like Jesus,

incurred death thereby. That which makes the death of Jesus exceptional

in this aspect of it is, that the truth He proclaimed was what may be

called _the_ truth, the essential truth for men to know--the truth that

God is the Father, and that there is life in Him for all who will come

to Him. This was the kingdom of God among men--- He proclaimed a kingdom

based only on love, on spiritual union between God and man; a kingdom

not of this world, and that came not with observation; a kingdom within

men, real, abiding, universal. It was because He proclaimed this

kingdom, exploding the cherished expectations and merely national hopes

of the Jews, that the authorities put Him to death.

So much is obvious on the very face of the narrative. No one can read

the life of Christ without perceiving this at least--that He was put to

death because He persisted in proclaiming truths essential to the

happiness and salvation of men. By submitting to death for the sake of

these truths He made it for ever clear that they are of vital

consequence. Before Pilate He calmly said, "To this end was I born, and

for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto

the truth." He knew that it was this witnessing to the truth that had

enraged the Jews against Him, and even in prospect of death He could not

refrain from proclaiming what He felt it was vital for men to know. In

this very true sense, therefore, He died for our sakes--died because He

sought to put us in possession of truths without which our souls cannot

be lifted into life eternal. He has given us life by giving us the

knowledge of the Father. His love for us, His ceaseless and strong

desire to bring us near to God, was the real cause of His death. And,

recognising this, we cannot but feel that He has a claim upon us of the

most commanding kind. Not for His contemporaries alone, not for one

section of men only, did Christ die, but for all men, because the truths

which He sealed by His death are of universal import. No man can live

eternal life without them.

But again, Jesus Himself explained to His disciples in what sense His

death would benefit them. "It is expedient for you that I go away, for

if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you." The spiritual

kingdom He proclaimed could not be established while He was visibly

present. His death and ascension put an end to all hopes that diverted

their minds from that which constituted their real union to God and

satisfaction in Him. When He disappeared from earth and sent the Holy

Spirit to them, what remained to them was God's kingdom within them, His

true rule over their spirits, their assimilation to Him in all things.

What they now clearly saw to be still open to them was to live in

Christ's spirit, to revive in their memories the truths His life had

proclaimed, to submit themselves entirely to His influence, and to make

known far and near the ideas He had communicated to them, and

especially the God He had revealed. It was His death which set their

minds free from all other expectations and fixed them exclusively on

what was spiritual. And this salvation they at once proclaimed to

others. What were they to say about Jesus and His death? How were they

to win men to Him? They did so in the first days by proclaiming Him as

raised by God to be a Prince and a Saviour, to rule from the unseen

world, to bless men with a spiritual salvation, by turning them from

their iniquities. And the instrumentality, the actual spiritual

experience through which this salvation is arrived at is the belief that

Jesus was sent by God and did reveal Him, that in Jesus God was present

revealing Himself, and that His Spirit can bring us also to God and to

His likeness.

Still further, and not going beyond the facts apparent in the Gospel, it

is plain that Christ died for us, in the sense that all He did, His

whole life on earth from first to last, was for our sake. He came into

the world, not to serve a purpose of His own, and forward His own

interests, but to further ours. He took upon Him our sins and their

punishment in this obvious sense, that He voluntarily entered into our

life, polluted as it was all through with sin and laden with misery in

every part. Our condition in this world is such that no person can avoid

coming in contact with sin, or can escape entirely the results of sin in

the world. And in point of fact persons with any depth of sympathy and

spiritual sensibility cannot help taking upon them the sins of others,

and cannot help suffering their own life to be greatly marred and

limited by the sins of others. In the case of our Lord this acceptance

of the burden of other men's sins was voluntary. And it is the sight of

a holy and loving person, enduring sorrows and opposition and death

wholly undeserved, that is at all times affecting in the experience of

Christ. It is the sight of this suffering, borne with meekness and borne

willingly, that makes us ashamed of our sinful condition, which

inevitably entails such suffering on the self-sacrificing and holy. It

enables us to see, more distinctly than anything besides, the essential

hatefulness and evil of sin. Here is an innocent person, filled with

love and compassion for all, His life a life of self-sacrifice and

devotion to human interests, carrying in His person infinite benefits to

the race--this person is at all points thwarted and persecuted and

finally put to death. In this most intelligible sense He very truly

sacrificed Himself for us, bore the penalty of our sins, magnified the

law, illustrated and rendered infinitely impressive the righteousness of

God, and made it possible for God to pardon us, and in pardoning us to

deepen immeasurably our regard for holiness and for Himself.

Still further, it is obvious that Christ gave Himself a perfect

sacrifice to God by living solely for Him. He had in life no other

purpose than to serve God. Again and again during His life God expressed

His perfect satisfaction with the human life of Christ. He who searches

the heart saw that into the most secret thought, down to the most hidden

motive, that life was pure, that heart in perfect harmony with the

Divine will. Christ lived not for Himself, He did not claim property in

His own person and life, but gave Himself up freely and to the uttermost

to God: more thoroughly, more spontaneously, and with an infinitely

richer material did He offer Himself to God than ever burnt-offering had

been offered. And God, with an infinite joy in goodness, accepted the

sacrifice, and found on earth in the person of Jesus an opportunity for

rejoicing in man with an infinite satisfaction.

And this sacrifice which Christ offered to God tends to reproduce itself

continually among men. As Christ said, no sooner was He lifted up than

He drew all men to Him. That perfect life and utter self-surrender to

the highest purposes, that pure and perfect love and devotion to God and

man, commands the admiration and cordial worship of serious men. It

stands in the world for ever as the grand incentive to goodness,

prompting men and inspiring them to sympathy and imitation. It is in the

strength of that perfect sacrifice men have ceaselessly striven to

sacrifice themselves. It is through Christ they strive to come

themselves to God. In Him we see the beauty of holiness; in Him we see

holiness perfected, and making the impression upon us which a perfect

thing makes, standing as a reality, not as a theory; as a finished and

victorious achievement, not as a mere attempt. In Christ we see what

love to God and faith in God really are; in Him we see what a true

sacrifice is and means; and in Him we are drawn to give ourselves also

to God as our true life.

Looking then only at those facts which are apparent to every one who

reads the life of Christ, and putting aside all that may over and above

these facts have been intended in the Divine mind, we see how truly

Christ is our Sacrifice; and how truly we can say of Him that He gave

Himself, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. We see

that in the actual privations, disappointments, temptations, mental

strain, opposition, and suffering of His life, and in the final conflict

of death, He bore the penalty of our sins; underwent the miseries which

sin has brought into human life. We see that He did so with so entire

and perfect a consent to all God's will, and with so ready and

unreserved a sacrifice of Himself, that God found infinite satisfaction

in this human obedience and righteousness, and on the basis of this

sacrifice pardons us.

Some may be able to assure themselves better of the forgiveness of God,

if they look at what Christ has done as a satisfaction for or reparation

of the ill that we have done. He properly satisfies for an offence who

offers to the offended party that which he loves as well or better than

he hates the offence. If your child has through carelessness broken or

spoiled something you value, but seeing your displeasure is at pains to

replace it, and does after long industry put into your hands an article

of greater value than was lost to you, you are satisfied, and more than

forgive your child. If a man fails in business, but after spending a

lifetime to recover himself restores to you not only what you lost by

him, but more than could possibly have been made by yourself with the

original sum lost, you ought to be satisfied. And God is satisfied with

the work of Christ because there is in it a love and an obedience to

Him, and a regard to right and holiness, that outweigh all our

disobedience and alienation. Often, when some satisfaction or reparation

of injury or loss is made to ourselves, it is done in so good-hearted a

manner, and displays so much right feeling, and sets us on terms of so

much closer intimacy with the party who injured us, that we are really

glad, now that all is over, that the misunderstanding or injury took

place. The satisfaction has far more than atoned for it. So is it with

God: our reconciliation to Him has called out so much in Christ that

would otherwise have been hidden, has so stirred the deepest part, if

we may say so, of the Divine nature in Christ, and has called out also

so signally the whole strength and beauty of human nature, that God is

more than satisfied. We cannot see how without sin there could have been

that display of love and obedience that there has been in the death of

Christ. Where there is no danger, nothing tragic, there can be no

heroism: human nature, not to speak of Divine, has not scope for its

best parts in the ordinary and innocent traffic and calm of life. It is

when danger thickens, and when death draws near and bares his hideous

visage, that devotion and self-sacrifice can be exercised. And so, in a

world filled with sin and with danger, a world in which each

individual's history has something stirring and tragic in it, God finds

room for the full testing and utterance of our natures and of His own.

And in the redemption of this world there occurred an emergency which

called forth, as nothing else conceivably could call forth, everything

that the Divine and human natures of Christ are capable of.

Another result of Christ's death is mentioned by John: "That the

children of God which were scattered abroad might be gathered together

in one." It was for a unity Christ died, for that which formed one

whole. When Caiaphas sacrificed Christ to propitiate Rome, he knew that

none but Christ's own countrymen would benefit thereby. The Romans would

not recall their legions from Africa or Germany because Judaea had

propitiated them. And supposing that the Jews had received some

immunities and privileges from Rome as an acknowledgment of its favour,

this would affect no other nation. But if any members of other nations

coveted these privileges, their only course would be to become

naturalized Jews, members and subjects of the favoured community. So

Christ's death has the effect of gathering into one all those who seek

God's favour and fatherhood, no matter in what ends of the earth they be

scattered. It was not for separate individuals Christ died, but for a

people, for an indivisible community; and we receive the benefits of His

death no otherwise than as we are members of this people or family. It

is the attractive power of Christ that draws us all to one centre, but

being gathered round Him we should be in spirit and are in fact as close

to one another as to Him.

NOTE ON CHAP. VI., VERS. 37, 44, 45.

Three terms are used in these verses which call for

examination,--"giving," "drawing," "teaching." The two latter are used

in a connection which leaves little room for doubt as to their meaning.

"No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw

him.... It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of

God. Every man, therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of the

Father, cometh unto Me;" but, by implication, no man who has not so

learned. Both verses express the thought that without special aid from

God no man can come to Christ. There must be a Divine illumination of

the human faculties, enabling the man to apprehend that Jesus is the

Christ, and to receive Him as such. These expressions cannot refer to

the outward illumination which is communicated by Scripture, by the

miracles of Christ, and so forth; because the whole of the crowd

addressed by our Lord had such illumination, and yet not all of them

were "taught of God." The "hearing," and "learning," or "being taught of

God," here spoken of must signify the opening of the inner ear by the

unseen operation of God Himself. Most emphatically does Jesus affirm

that without this exercise of the Divine will and Divine power upon the

individual no man can receive Him. The mere manifestation of God in the

flesh is not enough: an inward and special enlightenment is required to

enable a man to recognise God manifest in the flesh. The words, then, of

ver. 44 can only mean that in order to apprehend the significance of

Christ and to yield ourselves to Him we must be aided individually and

inwardly by God.

Whether the "giving" of ver. 37 is intended to signify an act prior to

the teaching and drawing may reasonably be doubted. It is prior to the

"coming" to Christ, as the terms of the verse prove: "All that the

Father giveth Me shall come to Me: and him that cometh to Me I will in

no wise cast out." Principal Reynolds says it is "the present activity

of the Father's grace that is meant, not a foregone conclusion," No

doubt that is in strictness true. Our Lord, in the face of general

unbelief, is comforting Himself with the assurance that after all He

will draw to Himself all whom the Father gives Him; and this implies

that the Father's giving is the main factor in His success.

THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE.

EDITED BY THE REV. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.

_Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. each vol._

FIRST SERIES, 1887-88.

Colossians.

By A. MACLAREN, D.D.

St. Mark.

By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh.

Genesis.

By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.

1 Samuel.

By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.

2 Samuel.

By the same Author.

Hebrews.

By Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D.

SECOND SERIES, 1888-89.

Galatians.

By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A.

The Pastoral Epistles.

By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.

Isaiah I.--XXXIX.

By G. A. SMITH, M.A. Vol. 1.

The Book of Revelation.

By Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D.

1 Corinthians.

By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.

The Epistles of St. John.

By Rt. Rev. W. ALEXANDER, D.D.

THIRD SERIES, 1889-90.

Judges and Ruth.

By Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A.

Jeremiah.

By Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A.

Isaiah XL.--LXVI.

By G. A. SMITH, M.A. Vol. II.

St. Matthew.

By Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D.

Exodus.

By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh.

St Luke.

By Rev. H. BURTON, B.A.

FOURTH SERIES, 1890-91.

Ecclesiastes.

By Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D.

St. James and St. Jude.

By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.

Proverbs.

By Rev. R. F. HORTON, M.A.

Leviticus.

By Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D.

The Gospel of St. John.

By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. I.

The Acts of the Apostles.

By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. I.

FIFTH SERIES, 1891-92.

The Psalms.

By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. I.

1 and 2 Thessalonians.

By JAS. DENNEY, B.D.

The Book of Job.

By R. A. WATSON, D.D.

Ephesians.

By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A.

The Gospel of St. John.

By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. II.

The Acts of the Apostles.

By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. II.

LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW.