'He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that
Light.'—JOHN i. 8.
'He was a burning and a shining light; and ye were willing for a season
to rejoice in His light.'—JOHN v. 35.
My two texts both refer to John the Baptist. One of them is the
Evangelist's account of him, the other is our Lord's eulogium upon him.
The latter of my texts, as the Revised Version shows, would be more
properly rendered, 'He was a lamp' rather than 'He was a light,' and
the contrast between the two words, the 'light' and 'the lamps,' is my
theme. I gather all that I would desire to say into three points: 'that
Light' and its witnesses; the underived Light and the kindled lamps;
the undying Light and the lamps that go out.
I. First of all, then, the contrast suggested to us is between 'that
Light' and its witnesses.
John, in that profound prologue which is the deepest part of Scripture,
and lays firm and broad in the depths the foundation-stones of a
reasonable faith, draws the contrast between 'that Light' and them
whose business it was to bear witness to it. As for the former, I
cannot here venture to dilate upon the great, and to me absolutely
satisfying and fundamental, thoughts that lie in these eighteen first
verses of this Gospel. 'The Word was with God,' and that Word was the
Agent of Creation, the Fountain of Life, the Source of the Light which
is inseparable from all human life. John goes back, with the simplicity
of a child's speech, which yet is deeper than all philosophies, to a
Beginning, far anterior to 'the Beginning' of which Genesis speaks, and
declares that before creation that Light shone; and he looks out over
the whole world, and declares, that before and beyond the limits of the
historical manifestation of the Word in the flesh, its beams spread
over the whole race of man. But they are all focussed, if I may so
speak, and gathered to a point which burns as well as illuminates, in
the historical manifestation of Jesus Christ in the flesh. 'That was
the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.'
Next, he turns to the highest honour and the most imperative duty laid,
not only upon mighty men and officials, but upon all on whose happy
eyeballs this Light has shone, and into whose darkened hearts the joy
and peace and purity of it have flowed, and he says, 'He was sent'—and
they are sent—'to bear witness of that Light.' It is the noblest
function that a man can discharge. It is a function that is discharged
by the very existence through the ages of a community which, generation
after generation, subsists, and generation after generation manifests
in varying degrees of brightness, and with various modifications of
tint, the same light. There is the family character in all true
Christians, with whatever diversities of idiosyncrasies, and national
life or ecclesiastical distinctions. Whether it be Francis of Assisi or
John Wesley, whether it be Thomas a Kempis or George Fox, the light is
one that shines through these many-coloured panes of glass, and the
living Church is the witness of a living Lord, not only before it, and
behind it, and above it, but living in it. They are 'light' because
they are irradiated by Him. They are 'light' because they are 'in the
Lord.' But not only by the fact of the existence of such a community is
the witness-bearing effected, but it comes as a personal obligation,
with immense weight of pressure and immense possibilities of joy in the
discharge of it, to every Christian man and woman.
What, then, is the witness that we all are bound to bear, and shall
bear if we are true to our obligations and to our Lord? Mainly, dear
brethren, the witness of experience. That a Christian man shall be able
to stand up and say, 'I know this because I live it, and I testify to
Jesus Christ because I for myself have found Him to be the life of my
life, the Light of all my seeing, the joy of my heart, my home, and my
anchorage'—that is the witness that is impregnable. And there is no
better sign of the trend of Christian thought to-day than the fact that
the testimony of experience is more and more coming to be recognised by
thoughtful men and writers as being the sovereign attestation of the
reality of the Light. 'I see'; that is the proof that light has touched
my eyeballs. And when a man can contrast, as some of us can, our
present vision with our erstwhile darkness, then the evidence, like
that of the sturdy blind man in the Gospels, who had nothing to say in
reply to the subtleties and Rabbinical traps and puzzles but only 'I
was blind; now I see'—his experience is likely to have the effect that
it had in another miracle of healing: 'Beholding the man which was
healed standing amongst them, they could say nothing against it.' I
should think they could not.
But there is one thing that will always characterise the true witnesses
to that Light, and that is self-suppression. Remember the beautiful,
immovable humility of the Baptist about whom these texts were spoken:
'What sayest thou of thyself?' 'I am a Voice,' that is all. 'Art thou
that Prophet?' 'No!' 'Art thou the Christ?' 'No! I am nothing but a
Voice.' And remember how, when John's disciples tried to light the
infernal fires of jealousy in his quiet heart by saying, 'He whom thou
didst baptise, and to whom thou didst give witness'—He whom thou didst
start on His career—'is baptising,' poaching upon thy preserves, 'and
all men come unto Him,' the only answer that he gave was, 'The friend
of the Bridegroom'—who stands by in a quiet, dark corner—'rejoices
greatly because of the Bridegroom's voice.' Keep yourself out of sight,
Christian teachers and preachers; put Christ in the front, and hide
behind Him.
II. Now let me ask you to look at the other contrast that is suggested
by our other text. The underived light and the kindled lamps.
It is possible to read the words of that second text thus—'He was a
lamp kindled and (therefore) shining.' But whether that be the meaning,
or whether the usual rendering is correct, the emblem itself carries
the same thought, for a lamp must be lit by contact with a light, and
must be fed with oil, if its flame is to be sustained. And so the very
metaphor-whatever the force of the ambiguous word—in its eloquent
contrast between the Light and the lamp, suggests this thought, that
the one is underived, self-fed, and therefore undying, and that the
other owes all its flame to the touch of that uncreated Light, and
burns brightly only on condition of its keeping up the contact with
Him, and being fed continually from His stores of radiance.
I need not say more than a word with regard to the former member of
that contrast suggested here. That unlit Light derives its brilliancy,
according to the Scriptural teaching, from nothing but its divine union
with the Father. So that long before there were eyes to see, there was
the eradiation and outshining of the Father's glory. I do not enter
into these depths, but this I would say, that what is called the
'originality' of Jesus is only explained when we reverently see in that
unique life the shining through a pure humanity, as through a sheet of
alabaster, of that underived, divine Light. Jesus is an insoluble
problem to men who will not see in Him the Eternal Light which 'in the
beginning was with God.' You find in Him no trace of gradual
acquisition of knowledge, or of arguing or feeling His way to His
beliefs. You find in Him no trace of consciousness of a great horizon
of darkness encompassing the region where He sees light. You find in
Him no trace of a recognition of other sources from which He has drawn
any portion of His light. You find in Him the distinct declaration that
His relation to truth is not the relation of men who learn, and grow,
and acquire, and know in part; for, says He, 'I am the Truth.' He
stands apart from us all, and above us all, in that He owes His
radiance to none, and can dispense it to every man. The question which
the puzzled Jews asked about Him, 'How knoweth this Man letters, having
never learned?' may be widened out to all the characteristics of His
human life. To me the only answer is: 'Thou art the King of glory, O
Christ! Thou art the Everlasting Son of the Father.'
Dependent on Him are the little lights which He has lit, and in the
midst of which He walks. Union with Jesus Christ—'that Light'—is the
condition of all human light. That is true over all regions, as I
believe. 'The inspiration of the Almighty giveth understanding.' The
candle of the Lord shines in every man, and 'that true Light lighteth
every man that cometh into the world.' Thinker, student, scientist,
poet, author, practical man—all of them are lit from the uncreated
Source, and all of them, if they understand their own nature, would
say, 'In Thy light do we see Light.'
But especially is this great thought true and exemplified within the
limits of the Christian life. For the Christian to be touched with
Christ's Promethean finger is to flame into light. And the condition of
continuing to shine is to continue the contact which first illuminated.
A break in the contact, of a finger's breadth, is as effectual as one
of a mile. Let Christian men and women, if they would shine, remember,
'Ye are light in the Lord'; and if we stray, and get without the circle
of the Light, we pass into darkness, and ourselves cease to shine.
Brethren, it is threadbare truth, that the condition of Christian
vitality and radiance is close and unbroken contact with Jesus Christ,
the Source of all light. Threadbare; but if we lived as if we believed
it, the Church would be revolutionised and the world illuminated; and
many a smoking wick would flash up into a blazing torch. Let Christian
people remember that the words of my text define no special privilege
or duty of any official or man of special endowments, but that to all
of us has been said, 'Ye are My witnesses,' and to all of us is offered
the possibility of being 'burning and shining lights' if we keep
ourselves close to that Light.
III. Lastly, the second of my texts suggests—the contrast between the
Undying Light and the lamps that go out.
'For a season ye were willing to rejoice in His light.' There is
nothing in the present condition of the civilised and educated world
more remarkable and more difficult for some people to explain than the
contrast between the relation which Jesus Christ bears to the present
age, and the relation which all other great names in the
past—philosophers, poets, guides of men—bear to it. There is nothing in
the world the least like the vividness, the freshness, the closeness,
of the personal relation which thousands and thousands of people, with
common sense in their heads, bear to that Man who died nineteen hundred
years ago. All others pass, sooner or later, into the darkness.
Thickening mists of oblivion, fold by fold, gather round the brightest
names. But here is Jesus Christ, whom all classes of thinkers and
social reformers have to reckon with to-day, who is a living power
amongst the trivialities of the passing moment, and in whose words and
in the teaching of whose life serious men feel that there lie
undeveloped yet, and certainly not yet put into practice, principles
which are destined to revolutionise society and change the world. And
how does that come?
I am not going to enter upon that question; I only ask you to think of
the contrast between His position, in this generation, to communities
and individuals, and the position of all other great names which lie in
the past. Why, it does not take more than a lifetime such as mine, for
instance, to remember how the great lights that shone seventy years ago
in English thinking and in English literature, have for the most part
gone out, and what we young men thought to be bright particular stars,
this new generation pooh-poohs as mere exhalations from the marsh or
twinkling and uncertain tapers, and you will find their books in the
twopenny-box at the bookseller's door. A cynical diplomatist, in one of
our modern dramas, sums it up, after seeing the death of a
revolutionary, 'I have known eight leaders of revolts.' And some of us
could say, 'We have known about as many guides of men who have been
forgotten and passed away.' 'His Name shall endure for ever. His name
shall continue as long as the sun, and men shall be blessed in Him; all
generations shall call Him blessed.' Even Shelley had the prophecy
forced from him—
'The moon of Mahomet
Arose and it shall set,
While blazoned as on heaven's eternal noon,
The Cross leads generations on.'
We may sum up the contrast between the undying Light and the lamps that
go out in the old words: 'They truly were many, because they were not
suffered to continue by reason of death, but this Man, because He
continueth ever… is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto
God through Him.'
So, brethren, when lamps are quenched, let us look to the Light. When
our own lives are darkened because our household light is taken from
its candlestick, let us lift up our hearts and hopes to Him that
abideth for ever. Do not let us fall into the folly, and commit the
sin, of putting our heart's affections, our spirit's trust, upon any
that can pass and that must change. We need a Person whom we can clasp,
and who never will glide from our hold. We need a Light uncreated,
self-fed, eternal. 'Whilst ye have the Light, believe in the Light,
that ye may be the children of light.'
'THREE TABERNACLES'
'The Word … dwelt among us.'—JOHN i. 14.
'… He that sitteth on the Throne shall dwell among them.'—REV. vii. 15.
'… Behold, the Tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with
them.'—REV. xxi. 3.
The word rendered 'dwelt' in these three passages, is a peculiar one.
It is only found in the New Testament—in this Gospel and in the Book of
Revelation. That fact constitutes one of the many subtle threads of
connection between these two books, which at first sight seem so
extremely unlike each other; and it is a morsel of evidence in favour
of the common authorship of the Gospel and of the Apocalypse, which has
often, and very vehemently in these latter days of criticism, been
denied.
The force of the word, however, is the matter to which I desire
especially to draw attention. It literally means 'to dwell in a tent,'
or, if we may use such a word, 'to tabernacle,' and there is no doubt a
reference to the Tabernacle in which the divine Presence abode in the
wilderness and in the land of Israel before the erection. In all three
passages, then, we may see allusion to that early symbolical dwelling
of God with man. 'The Word tabernacled among us'; so is the truth for
earth and time. 'He that sitteth upon the throne shall spread His
tabernacle upon' the multitude which no man can number, who have made
their robes white in the blood of the Lamb; that is the truth for the
spirits of just men made perfect, the waiting Church, which expects the
redemption of the body. 'God shall tabernacle with them'; that is the
truth for the highest condition of humanity, when the Tabernacle of God
shall be with redeemed men in the new earth. 'Let us build three
tabernacles,' one for the Incarnate Christ, one for the interspace
between earth and heaven, and one for the culmination of all things.
And it is to these three aspects of the one thought, set forth in rude
symbol by the movable tent in the wilderness, that I ask you to turn
now.
I. First, then, we have to think of that Tabernacle for earth. 'The
Word was made flesh, and dwelt, as in a tent, amongst us.'
The human nature, the visible, material body of Jesus Christ, in which
there enshrined itself the everlasting Word, which from the beginning
was the Agent of all divine revelation, that is the true Temple of God.
When we begin to speak about the special presence of Omnipresence in
any one place, we soon lose ourselves, and get into deep waters of
glory, where there is no standing. And I do not care to deal here with
theological definitions or thorny questions, but simply to set forth,
as the language of my text sets before us, that one transcendent,
wonderful, all-blessed thought that this poor human nature is capable
of, and has really once in the history of the world received into
itself, the real, actual presence of the whole fulness of the Divinity.
What must be the kindred and likeness between Godhood and manhood when
into the frail vehicle of our humanity that wondrous treasure can be
poured; when the fire of God can burn in the bush of our human nature,
and that nature not be consumed? So it has been. 'In Him dwelleth all
the fulness of the Godhead bodily.'
And when we come with our questions, How? In what manner? How can the
lesser contain the greater? we have to be content with the recognition
that the manner is beyond our fathoming, and to accept the fact,
pressed upon our faith, that our hearts may grasp it and be at peace.
God hath dwelt in humanity. The everlasting Word, who is the
forthcoming of all the fulness of Deity into the realm of finite
creatures, was made flesh and dwelt among us.
But the Tabernacle was not only the dwelling-place of God, it was also
and, therefore, the place of Revelation of God. So in our text there
follows, 'we beheld His glory.' As in the tent in the wilderness there
hovered between the outstretched wings of the silent cherubim, above
the Mercy-seat, the brightness of the symbolical cloud which was
expressly named 'the glory of God,' and was the visible manifestation
of His real presence; so John would have us think that in that lowly
humanity, with its curtains and its coverings of flesh, there lay
shrined in the inmost place the brightness of the light of the manifest
glory of God. 'We beheld His glory.' The rapturous adoration of the
remembrance overcomes him, and he breaks his sentence, reckless of
grammatical connection, as the fulness of the blessed memory floods
into his soul. 'That glory was as of the Only Begotten of the Father.'
The manifestation of God in Christ is unique, as becomes Him who
partakes of the nature of that God of whom He is the Representative and
the Revealer.
And how did that glory make itself known to us? By miracle? Yes! As we
read in the story of the first that Christ wrought, 'He manifested
forth His glory and His disciples believed upon Him.' By miracle? Yes!
As we read His own promise at the grave of Lazarus: 'Said I not unto
thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of
God?' But, blessed be His name, miracle is not the highest
manifestation of Christ's glory and of God's. The uniqueness of the
revelation of Christ's glory in God does not depend upon the deeds
which He wrought. For, as the context goes on to tell, the Word which
tabernacled among us was 'full of grace and truth,' and therein is the
glory most gloriously revealed.
The lambent light of stooping love that shone forth warning and
attracting in His gentle life, and the clear white beam of unmingled
truth that streamed from the radiant purity of Christ's life, revealed
God to hearts that pine for love and spirits that hunger for truth, as
no others of God's self-revealing works have done. And that revelation
of the glory of God in the fulness of grace and truth is the highest
possible revelation. For the divinest thing in God is love, and the
true 'glory of God' is neither some symbolical flashing light nor the
pomp of mere power and majesty; nor even those inconceivable and
incommunicable attributes which we christen with names like Omnipotence
and Omnipresence and Infinitude, and the like. These are all at the
fringes of the brightness. The true central heart and lustrous light of
the glory of God lie In His love, and of that glory Christ is the
unique Representative and Revealer, because He is the only Begotten
Son, and 'full of grace and truth.'
Thus the Word tabernacled amongst us. And though the Tabernacle to
outward seeming was covered by curtains and skins that hid all the
glowing splendour within; yet in that lowly life that was lived in the
body of His humiliation, and knew our limitations and our weaknesses,
'the glory of the Lord was revealed; and all flesh hath seen it
together' and acknowledged the divine Presence there.
Still further the Tabernacle was the place of sacrifice. So in the
tabernacle of His flesh Jesus offered up the one sacrifice for sins for
ever. In the offering up of His human life in continuous obedience, and
in the offering up of His body and blood in the bitter Passion of the
Cross, He brought men nigh unto God.
Therefore, because of all these things, because the Tabernacle is the
dwelling-place of God, the place of revelation, and the place of
sacrifice, therefore, finally is it the meeting-place betwixt God and
man. In the Old Testament it is always called by the name which our
Revised Version has accurately substituted for 'tabernacle of the
congregation,' namely 'tent of meeting.' The correctness of that
rendering and the meaning of the name are established by several
passages in the Old Testament, as for instance, 'There I will meet with
you, to speak there unto thee, and there I will meet with the children
of Israel.' So in Christ, who by His Incarnation lays His hand upon
both, God touches man and man touches God. We who are afar off are made
nigh, and in that 'true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man'
we meet God and are glad.
'And so the word was flesh, and wrought
With human hands the creed of creeds,
In loveliness of perfect deeds.'