'As soon then as He had said unto them, I am He, they went backward,
and fell to the ground. Then asked He them again, Whom seek ye? And
they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you that I am
He: if therefore ye seek Me, let these go their way: That the saying
might be fulfilled, which He spake, Of them which Thou gayest Me have I
lost none.'--JOHN xviii. 6-9.
This remarkable incident is narrated by John only. It fits in with the
purpose which he himself tells us governed his selection of the
incidents which he records. 'These things are written,' says he, near
the end of the Gospel, 'that ye might believe that Jesus is the Son of
God, and that, believing, ye might have life in His name.' The whole of
the peculiarities of the substance of John's Gospel are to be explained
on the two grounds that he was writing a supplement to, and not a
substitute for, or a correction of, the Gospels already in existence;
and that his special business was to narrate such facts and words as
set forth the glory of Christ as 'the Only Begotten of the Father.'
The incident before us is, as I think, one of these. The Evangelist
would have us see in it, as I gather from his manner of narrating it,
mainly three things. He emphasises that strange recoil of the would-be
captors before Christ's majestic, calm 'I am He'; that was a
manifestation of Christ's glory. He emphasises our Lord's patient
standing there, in the midst of the awe-struck crowd, and even inciting
them, as it would seem, to do the work for which they had come out;
that was a manifestation of the voluntariness of Christ's sufferings.
And He emphasises the self-forgetting care with which at that supreme
moment He steps between His faithless, weak friends and danger, with
the wonderful words, 'If ye seek Me, let these go their way'; to the
Evangelist that little incident is an illustration, on a very low
level, and in regard to a comparatively trivial matter, of the very
same principle by which salvation from all evil in time and in
eternity, is guaranteed to all that believe on Him:--
I. First, then, consider this remarkable, momentary manifestation of
our Lord's glory.
'I am He!' When the Band were thus doubly assured by the traitor's kiss
and by His own confession, why did they not lay hands upon Him? There
He stood in the midst of them, alone, defenceless; there was nothing to
hinder their binding Him on the spot. Instead of that they recoil, and
fall in a huddled heap before Him. Some strange awe and terror, of
which they themselves could have given no account, was upon their
spirits. How came it about? Many things may have conspired to produce
it. I am by no means anxious to insist that this was a miracle. Things
of the same sort, though much less in degree, have been often enough
seen; when some innocent and illustrious victim has for a moment
paralysed the hands of his would-be captors and made them feel, though
it were but transiently, 'how awful goodness is.' There must have been
many in that band who had heard Him, though, in the uncertain light of
quivering moonbeams and smoking torches, they failed to recognise Him
till He spoke. There must have been many more who had heard of Him, and
many who suspected that they were about to lay hands on a holy man,
perhaps on a prophet. There must have been reluctant tools among the
inferiors, and no doubt some among the leaders whoso consciences needed
but a touch to be roused to action. To all, His calmness and dignity
would appeal, and the manifest freedom from fear or desire to flee
would tend to deepen the strange thoughts which began to stir in their
hearts.
But the impression which the narrative seems intended to leave, appears
to me to be of something more than this. It looks as if there were
something more than human in Christ's look and tone. It may have been
the same in kind as the ascendency which a pure and calm nature has
over rude and inferior ones. It may have been the same in kind as has
sometimes made the headsman on the scaffold pause before he struck, and
has bowed rude gaolers into converts before some grey-haired saint or
virgin martyr; yet the difference is so great in degree as practically
to become quite another thing. Though I do not want to insist upon any
'miraculous' explanation of the cause of this incident, yet I would
ask, May it not be that here we see, perhaps apart from Christ's will
altogether, rising up for one moment to the surface, the indwelling
majesty which was always there?
We do not know the laws that regulated the dwelling of the Godhead,
bodily, within that human frame, but we do know that at one other time
there came upon His features a transfiguration, and over His very
garments a lustre which was not thrown upon them from without, but rose
up from within. And I am inclined to think that here, as there, though
under such widely different circumstances and to such various issues,
there was for a moment a little rending of the veil of His flesh, and
an emission of some flash of the brightness that always tabernacled
within Him; and that, therefore, just as Isaiah, when He saw the King
in His glory, said, 'Woe is me, for I am undone!' and just as Moses
could not look upon the Face, but could only see the back parts, so
here the one stray beam of manifest divinity that shot through the
crevice, as it were, for an instant, was enough to prostrate with a
strange awe even those rude and insensitive men. When He had said 'I am
He,' there was something that made them feel, 'This is One before whom
violence cowers abashed, and in whose presence impurity has to hide its
face.' I do not assert that this is the explanation of that panic
terror. I only ask, May it not be?
But whatever we may think was the reason, at all events the incident
brings out very strikingly the elevation and dignity of Christ, and the
powerful impressions made by His personality, even at such a time of
humiliation. This Evangelist is always careful to bring out the glory
of Christ, especially when that glory lies side by side with His
lowliness. The blending of these two is one of the remarkable features
in the New Testament portraiture of Jesus Christ. Wherever in our
Lord's life any incident indicates more emphatically than usual the
lowliness of His humiliation, there, by the side of it, you get
something that indicates the majesty of His glory. For instance, He is
born a weak infant, but angels herald His birth; He lies in a manger,
but a star hangs trembling above it, and leads sages from afar, with
their myrrh, and incense, and gold. He submits Himself to the baptism
of repentance, but the heavens open and a voice proclaims, 'This is My
beloved Son!' He sits wearied, on the stone coping of the well, and
craves for water from a peasant woman; but He gives her the Water of
Life. He lies down and sleeps, from pure exhaustion, in the stern of
the little fishing-boat, but He wakes to command the storm, and it is
still. He weeps beside the grave, but He flings His voice into its
inmost recesses, and the sheeted dead comes forth. He well-nigh faints
under the agony in the garden, but an angel from Heaven strengthens
Him. He stands a prisoner at a human bar, but He judges and condemns
His judges. He dies, and that hour of defeat is His hour of triumph,
and the union of shame and glory is most conspicuous in that hour when
on the Cross the 'Son of Man is _glorified_, and God is glorified in
Him.'
This strange blending of opposites--the glory in the lowliness, and the
abasement in the glory--is the keynote of this singular event. He will
be 'delivered into the hands of men.' Yes; but ere He is delivered He
pauses for an instant, and in that instant comes a flash 'above the
brightness of the noonday sun' to tell of the hidden glory.
Do not forget that we may well look upon that incident as a prophecy of
what shall be. As one of the suggestive, old commentators on this verse
says: 'He will say "I am He," again, a third time. What will He do
coming to reign, when He did this coming to die? And what will His
manifestation be as a Judge when this was the effect of the
manifestation as He went to be judged?' 'Every eye shall see Him'; and
they that loved not His appearing shall fall before Him when He cometh
to be our Judge; and shall call on the rocks and the hills to cover
them.
II. There is here, secondly, a manifestation of the voluntariness of
our Lord's suffering.
When that terrified mob recoiled from Him, why did He stand there so
patiently? The time was propitious for flight, if He had cared to flee.
He might have 'passed through the midst of them and gone His way.' as
He did once before, if He had chosen. He comes from the garden; there
shall be no difficulty in finding Him. He tells who He is; there shall
be no need for the traitor's kiss. He lays them low for a moment, but
He will not flee. When Peter draws his sword He rebukes his ill-advised
appeal to force, and then He holds out His hands and lets them bind
Him. It was not their fetters, but the 'cords of love' which held Him
prisoner. It was not their power, but His own pity which drew Him to
the judgment hall and the Cross.
Let us dwell upon that thought for a moment. The whole story of the
Gospels is constructed upon the principle, and illustrates the fact,
that our Lord's life, as our Lord's death, was a voluntary surrender of
Himself for man's sin, and that nothing led Him to, and fastened Him
on, the Cross but His own will. He willed to be born. He 'came into the
world' by His own choice. He 'took upon Him the form of a servant.' He
'took part' of the children's 'flesh and blood.' His birth was His own
act, the first of the long series of the acts, by which for the sake of
the love which He bore us, He 'humbled Himself.' Step by step He
voluntarily journeyed towards the Cross, which stood clear before Him
from the very beginning as the necessary end, made necessary by His
love.
As we get nearer and nearer to the close of the history, we see more
and more distinctly that He willingly went towards the Cross, Take; for
instance, the account of the last portion of our Lord's life, and you
see in the whole of it a deliberate intention to precipitate the final
conflict. Hence the last journey to Jerusalem when 'His face was set,'
and His disciples followed Him amazed. Hence the studied publicity of
His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Hence the studied, growing severity
of His rebukes to the priests and rulers. The same impression is given,
though in a somewhat different way, by His momentary retreat from the
city and by the precautions taken against premature arrest, that He
might not die before the Passover. In both the hastening toward the
city and in the retreating from it, there is apparent the same design:
that He Himself shall lay down His life, and shall determine the how,
and the when, and the where as seems good to Him.
If we look at the act of death itself, Jesus did not die because He
must. It was not the nails of the Cross, the physical exhaustion, the
nervous shock of crucifixion that killed Him. He died because He would.
'I have power to lay down My life,' He said, 'and I have power'--of
course--'to take it again.' At that last moment, He was Lord and Master
of death when He bowed His head to death, and, if I might so say, He
summoned that grim servant with a 'Come!' and he came, and He set him
his task with a 'Do this!' and he did it. He was manifested as the Lord
of death, having its 'keys' in His hands, when He died upon the Cross.
Now I pray you to ask yourselves the question, if it be true that
Christ died because He would, why was it that He would die? If because
He chose, what was it that determined His choice? And there are but two
answers, which two are one. The divine motive that ruled His life is
doubly expressed: 'I must do the will of My Father,' and 'I must save
the world.'
The taunt that those Jewish rulers threw at Him had a deeper truth than
they dreamed, and was an encomium, and not a taunt. 'He saved
others'--yes, and _therefore_, 'Himself He cannot save.' He cannot,
because His choice and will to die are determined by His free love to
us and to all the world. His fixed will 'bore His body to the tree,'
and His love was the strong spring which kept His will fixed.
You and I have our share in these voluntary sufferings, and our place
in that loving heart which underwent them for us. Oh! should not that
thought speak to all our hearts, and bind us in grateful service and
lifelong surrender to Him who gave Himself for us; and _must_ die
because He loved us all so much that He _could not_ leave us unsaved?
III. We have, lastly, here, a symbol, or, perhaps, more accurately, an
instance, on a small scale, of Christ's self-sacrificing care for us.
His words: 'If ye seek Me, let these go their way,' sound more like the
command of a prince than the intercession of a prisoner. The calm
dignity of them strikes one just as much as the perfect
self-forgetfulness of them.
It was a very small matter which He was securing thereby. The Apostles
would have to die for Him some day, but they were not ready for it yet,
and so He casts the shield of His protection round them for a moment,
and interposes Himself between them and the band of soldiers in order
that their weakness may have a little more time to grow strong. And
though it was wrong and cowardly for them to forsake Him and flee, yet
these words of my text more than half gave them permission and warrant
for their departure: 'Let these go their way.'
Now John did not think that this small deliverance was all that Christ
meant by these great words: 'Of them which Thou gavest Me have I lost
none!' He saw that it was one case, a very trifling one, a merely
transitory one, yet ruled by the same principles which are at work in
the immensely higher region to which the words properly refer. Of
course they have their proper fulfilment in the spiritual realm, and
are not fulfilled, in the highest sense, till all who have loved and
followed Christ are presented faultless before the Father in the home
above. But the little incident may be a result of the same cause as the
final deliverance is. A dew-drop is shaped by the same laws which mould
the mightiest of the planets. The old divines used to say that God was
greatest in the smallest things, and the self-sacrificing care of Jesus
Christ, as He gives Himself a prisoner that His disciples may go free,
comes from the same deep heart of pitying love, which led Him to die,
the 'just for the unjust.' It may then well stand for a partial
fulfilment of His mighty words, even though these wait for their
complete accomplishment till the hour when all the sheep are gathered
into the one fold, and no evil beasts, nor weary journeys, nor barren
pastures can harass them any more.
This trivial incident, then, becomes an exposition of highest truth.
Let us learn from such an use of such an event to look upon all common
and transitory circumstances as governed by the same loving hands, and
working to the same ends, as the most purely spiritual. The visible is
the veil which drapes the invisible, and clings so closely to it as to
reveal its outline. The common events of life are all parables to the
devout heart, which is the wise heart. They speak mystic meanings to
ears that can hear. The redeeming love of Jesus is proclaimed by every
mercy which perishes in the using; and all things should tell us of His
self-forgetting, self-sacrificing care.
Thus, then, we may see in that picture of our Lord's surrendering
Himself that His trembling disciples might go free, an emblem of what
He does for us, in regard to all our foes. He stands between us and
them, receives their arrows into His own bosom, and says, 'Let these go
their way.' God's law comes with its terrors, with its penalties, to us
who have broken it a thousand times. The consciousness of guilt and sin
threatens us all more or less, and with varying intensity in different
minds. The weariness of the world, 'the ills that flesh is heir to,'
the last grim enemy, Death, and that which lies beyond them all, ring
you round. My friends! what are you going to do in order to escape from
them? You are a sinful man, you have broken God's law. That law goes on
crashing its way and crushing down all that is opposed to it. You have
a weary life before you, however joyful it may sometimes be. Cares, and
troubles, and sorrows, and tears, and losses, and disappointments, and
hard duties that you will not be able to perform, and dark days in
which you will be able to see but very little light, are all certain to
come sooner or later; and the last moment will draw near when the King
of Terrors will be at your side; and beyond death there is a life of
retribution in which men reap the things that they have sown here. All
that is true, much of it is true about you at this moment, and it will
all be true some day. In view of that, what are you going to do?
I preach to you a Saviour who has endured all for us. As a mother might
fling herself out of the sledge that her child might escape the wolves
in full chase, here is One that comes and fronts all your foes, and
says to them, 'Let these go their way. Take Me.' 'By His stripes we are
healed.' 'On Him was laid the iniquity of us all.'
He died because He chose; He chose because He loved. His love had to
die in order that His death might be our life, and that in it we should
find our forgiveness and peace. He stands between our foes and us. No
evil can strike us unless it strike Him first. He takes into His own
heart the sharpest of all the darts which can pierce ours. He has borne
the guilt and punishment of a world's sin. These solemn penalties have
fallen upon Him that we, trusting in Him, 'may go our way,' and that
there may be 'no condemnation' to us if we are in Christ Jesus. And if
there be no condemnation, we can stand whatever other blows may fall
upon us. They are easier to bear, and their whole character is
different, when we know that Christ has borne them already. Two of the
three whom Christ protected in the garden died a martyr's death; but do
you not think that James bowed his neck to Herod's sword, and Peter let
them gird him and lead him to his cross, more joyfully and with a
different heart, when they thought of Him that had died before them?
The darkest prison cell will not be so very dark if we remember that
Christ has been there before us, and death itself will be softened into
sleep because our Lord has died. 'If therefore,' says He, to the whole
pack of evils baying round us, with their cruel eyes and their hungry
mouths, 'ye seek Me, let these go their way.' So, brother, if you will
fix your trust, as a poor, sinful soul, on that dear Christ, and get
behind Him, and put Him between you and your enemies, then, in time and
in eternity, that saying will be fulfilled in you which He spake, 'Of
them which Thou gavest Me, have I lost none.'