John, the Apostle of Love, knew Him first. In religious matters, love
is the foundation of knowledge. There is no way of knowing a Person
except love. The knowledge of God and the knowledge of Christ are not
to be won by the exercise of the understanding. A man cannot argue his
way into knowing Christ. No skill in drawing inferences will avail him
there. The treasures of wisdom--earthly wisdom--are all powerless in
that region. Man's understanding and natural capacity--let it keep
itself within its own limits and region, and it is strong and good; but
in the region of acquaintance with God and Christ, the wisdom of this
world is foolishness, and man's understanding is not the organ by which
he can know Christ. Oh no! there is a better way than that: 'He that
loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.' As it is, in feebler
measure, with regard to our personal acquaintance with one another,
where it is not so much the power of the understanding, or the
quickness of the perception, or the talent and genius of a man, that
make the foundation of his knowledge of his friend, as the force of his
sympathy and the depth of his affection; so--with the necessary
modification arising from the transference from earthly acquaintances
to the great Friend and Lover of our souls in heaven--so is it with
regard to our knowledge of Christ. Love will trace Him everywhere, as
dear friends can detect each other in little marks which are
meaningless to others. Love's quick eye pierces through disguises
impenetrable to a colder scrutiny. Love has in it a longing for His
presence which makes us eager and quick to mark the lightest sign that
He for whom it longs is near, as the footstep of some dear one is heard
by the sharp ear of affection long before any sound breaks the silence
to those around. Love leads to likeness to the Lord, and that likeness
makes the clearer vision of the Lord possible. Love to Him strips from
our eyes the film that self and sin, sense and custom, have drawn over
them. It is these which hide Him from us. It is because men are so
indifferent to, so forgetful of, their best Friend that they fail to
behold Him, 'It is the Lord!' is written large and plain on all things,
but like the great letters on a map, they are so obvious and fill so
wide a space, that they are not seen. They who love Him know Him, and
they who know Him love Him. The true eye-salve for our blinded eyes is
applied when we have turned with our hearts to Christ. The simple might
of faithful love opens them to behold a more glorious vision than the
mountain 'full of chariots of fire,' which once flamed before the
prophet's servant of old--even the august and ever-present form of the
Lord of life, the Lord of history, the Lord of providence. When they
who love Jesus turn to see 'the Voice that speaks with them,' they ever
behold the Son of Man in His glory; and where others see but the dim
beach and a mysterious stranger, it is to their lips that the glad cry
first comes, 'It is the Lord!'
And is it not a blessed thing, brethren! that thus this high and
glorious prerogative of recognising the marks of Christ's presence
everywhere, of going through life gladdened by the assurance of His
nearness, does not depend on what belongs to few men only, but on what
may belong to all? When we say that 'not many wise men after the flesh,
not many mighty, not many noble, are called'--when we say that love is
the means of knowledge--we are but in other words saying that the way
is open to all, and that no characteristics belonging to classes, no
powers that must obviously always belong to but a handful, are
necessary for the full apprehension of the power and blessedness of
Christ's Gospel. The freeness and the fullness of that divine message,
the glorious truth that it is for all men, and is offered to all, are
couched in that grand principle, Love that thou mayest know; love, and
thou art filled with the fullness of God, Not for the handful, not for
the _elite_ of the world; not for the few, but for the many; not for
the wise, but for all; not for classes, but for humanity--for all that
are weak, and sinful, and needy, and foolish, and darkened He comes,
who only needs that the heart that looks should love, and then it shall
behold!
But if that were the whole that I have to say, I should have said but
little to the purpose. It very little avails to tell men to love. We
cannot love to order, or because we think it duty. There is but one way
of loving, and that is to see the lovely. The disciple who loved Jesus
was 'the disciple whom Jesus loved.' Generalise that, and it teaches us
this, that
III. They love who know that Christ loves them. His divine and eternal
mercy is the foundation of the whole. Our love, brethren, can never be
any thing else than our echo to His voice of tenderness than the
reflected light upon our hearts of the full glory of His affection. No
man loveth God except the man who has first learned that God loves him.
'We love Him, because He first loved us.' And when we say, 'Love
Christ,' if we could not go on to say, 'Nay, rather let Christ's love
come down upon you'--we had said worse than nothing. The fountain that
rises in my heart can only spring up heavenward, because the water of
it has flowed down into my heart from the higher level. All love must
descend first, before it can ascend. We have, then, no Gospel to
preach, if we have only this to preach, 'Love, and thou art saved.' But
we have a Gospel that is worth the preaching, when we can come to men
who have no love in their hearts, and say, 'Brethren! listen to
this--you have to bring nothing, you are called upon to originate no
affection; you have nothing to do but simply to receive the everlasting
love of God in Christ His Son, which was without us, which began before
us, which flows forth independent of us, which is unchecked by all our
sins, which triumphs over all our transgressions, and which will make
us--loveless, selfish, hardened, sinful men--soft, and tender, and full
of divine affection, by the communication of its own self.
Oh, then, look to Christ, that you may love Him! Think, brethren, of
that full, and free, and boundless mercy which, from eternity, has been
pouring itself out in floods of grace and loving-kindness over all
creatures. Think of that everlasting love which presided at the
foundation of the earth, and has sustained it ever since. Think of that
Saviour who has died for us, and lives for us. Think of Christ, the
heart of God, and the fullness of the Father's mercy; and do not think
of yourselves at all. Do not ask yourselves, to begin with, the
question, Do I love Him or do I not? You will never love by that means.
If a man is cold, let him go to the fire and warm himself. If he is
dark, let him stand in the sunshine, and he will be light. If his heart
is all clogged and clotted with sin and selfishness, let him get under
the influence of the love of Christ, and look away from himself and his
own feelings, towards that Saviour whose love shed abroad is the sole
means of kindling ours. You have to go down deeper than _your_
feelings, _your_ affections, _your_ desires, _your_ character. There
you will find no resting-place, no consolation, no power. Dig down to
the living Rock, Christ and His infinite love to you, and let _it_ be
the strong foundation, built into which you and your love may become
living stones, a holy temple, partaking of the firmness and nature of
that on which it rests. They that love do so because they know that
Christ loves them; and they that love see Him everywhere; and they that
see Him everywhere are blessed for evermore. And let no man here
torture himself, or limit the fullness of this message that we preach,
by questionings whether Christ loves Him or not. Are you a man? are you
sinful? have you broken God's law? do you need a Saviour? Then put away
all these questions, and believe that Christ's personal love is
streaming out for the whole world, and that there is a share for you if
you like to take it and be blessed!
There is one last thought arising from the whole subject before us,
that may be worth mention before I close. Did you ever notice how this
whole incident might be turned, by a symbolical application, to the
hour of death, and the vision which may meet us when we come thither?
It admits of the application, and perhaps was intended to receive the
application, of such a symbolic reference. The morning is dawning, the
grey of night going away, the lake is still; and yonder, standing on
the shore, in the uncertain light, there is one dim Figure, and one
disciple catches a sight of Him, and another casts himself into the
water, and they find 'a fire of coals, and fish laid thereon, and
bread,' and Christ gathers them around His table, and they all know
that 'It is the Lord!' It is what the death of the Christian man, who
has gone through life recognising Christ everywhere, may well
become:--the morning breaking, and the finished work, and the Figure
standing on the quiet beach, so that the last plunge into the cold
flood that yet separates us, will not be taken with trembling
reluctance; but, drawn to Him by the love beaming out of His face, and
upheld by the power of His beckoning presence, we shall struggle
through the latest wave that parts us, and scarcely feel its chill, nor
know that we _have_ crossed it; till falling blessed at His feet, we
see, by the nearer and clearer vision of His face, that this is indeed
heaven. And looking back upon 'the sea that brought us thither,' we
shall behold its waters flashing in the light of that everlasting
morning, and hear them breaking in music upon the eternal shore. And
then, brethren, when all the weary night-watchers on the stormy ocean
of life are gathered together around Him who watched with them from His
throne on the bordering mountains of eternity, where the day shines for
ever--then He will seat them at His table in His kingdom, and none will
need to ask, 'Who art Thou?' or 'Where am I?' for all shall know that
'It is the Lord!' and the full, perfect, unchangeable vision of His
blessed face will be heaven!
'LOVEST THOU ME?'
'Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more
than these? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love
Thee. He saith unto him, Feed My lambs.'--JOHN xxi. 15.
Peter had already seen the risen Lord. There had been that interview on
Easter morning, on which the seal of sacred secrecy was impressed;
when, alone, the denier poured out his heart to his Lord, and was taken
to the heart that he had wounded. Then there had been two interviews on
the two successive Sundays in which the Apostle, in common with his
brethren, had received, as one of the group, the Lord's benediction,
the Lord's gift of the Spirit, and the Lord's commission. But something
more was needed; there had been public denial, there must be public
confession. If he had slipped again into the circle of the disciples,
with no special treatment or reference to his fall, it might have
seemed a trivial fault to others, and even to himself. And so, after
that strange meal on the beach, we have this exquisitely beautiful and
deeply instructive incident of the special treatment needed by the
denier before he could be publicly reinstated in his office.
The meal seems to have passed in silence. That awe which hung over the
disciples in all their intercourse with Jesus during the forty days,
lay heavy on them, and they sat there, huddled round the fire, eating
silently the meal which Christ had provided, and no doubt gazing
silently at the silent Lord. What a tension of expectation there must
have been as to how the oppressive silence was to be broken! and how
Peter's heart must have throbbed, and the others' ears been pricked up,
when it was broken by 'Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me?' We may
listen with pricked-up ears too. For we have here, in Christ's
treatment of the Apostle, a revelation of how He behaves to a soul
conscious of its fault; and in Peter's demeanour an illustration of how
a soul, conscious of its fault, should behave to Him.
There are three stages here: the threefold question, the threefold
answer, and the threefold charge. Let us look at these.