'Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you.
If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father:
for My Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come
to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.'—JOHN xiv.
28, 29.
Our Lord here casts a glance backward on the course of His previous
words, and gathers together the substance and purpose of these. He
brings out the intention of His warnings and the true effect of the
departure, concerning which He had given them notice, as being twofold.
In the first verse of my text His words about that going away, and the
going away itself, are represented as the source of joy, which is an
advance on the peace that He had just previously been promising. In the
second of our verses these two things—His words, and the facts which
they revealed—are represented as being the very ground and nourishment
of faith.
So, then, we have these two thoughts to look at now, the departed Lord,
the fountain of joy to all who love Him; the departed Lord, the ground
and food of faith.
I. The departure of the Lord is a fountain of joy to those who love
Him.
In the first part of our text the going away of Jesus is contemplated
in two aspects.
The first is that with which we have already become familiar in
previous sermons on this chapter—viz., its bearing upon the disciples;
and in that respect it is declared that Christ's going is Christ's
coming.
But then we have a new aspect, one on which, in His sublime
self-repression, He very seldom touches—viz., its bearing upon Himself;
and in that aspect we are taught here to regard our Lord's going as
ministering to His exaltation and joy, and therefore as being a source
of joy to all His lovers.
So, then, we have these thoughts, Christ's going is Christ's coming,
and Christ's going is Christ's exaltation, and for both reasons that
departure ought to minister to His friends' gladness. Let us look at
these three things for a little while.
First of all, there comes a renewed utterance of that great thought
which runs through the whole chapter, that the departure of Jesus
Christ is in reality the coming of Christ. The word 'again' is a
supplement, and somewhat restricts and destroys the true flow of
thought and meaning of the words. For if we read, as our Authorised
Version does, 'I go away and come again unto you,' we are inevitably
led to think of a coming, separated by a considerable distance of time
from the departure, and for most of us that which is suggested is the
final coming and return, in bodily form, of the Lord Jesus.
Now great and glorious as that hope is, it is too far away to be in
itself a sufficient comfort to the mourning disciples, and too remote
to be for us, if taken alone, a sufficient ground of joy and of rest.
But if you strike out the intrusive word '_again_,' and read the
sentence as being what it is, a description of one continuous process,
of which the parts are so closely connected as to be all but
contemporaneous, you get the true idea. 'I go away, and I come to you.'
There is no gap, the thing runs on without a break. There is no moment
of absolute absence; there are not two motions, one from us and the
other back again towards us, but all is one. The 'going' is the
'coming'; the solemn series of events which began on Calvary, and ended
on Olivet, to the eye of sense were successive stages in the departure
of Jesus Christ. But looked at with a deeper understanding of their
true meaning, they are successive stages in His approach towards us.
His death, His resurrection, His ascension, were not steps in the
cessation of His presence, but they were simply steps in the transition
from a lower to a higher kind of that presence. He changed the
limitations and externalities of a mere bodily, local nearness for the
realities of a spiritual presence. To the eye of sense, the 'going
away' was the reality, and the 'coming' a metaphor. To the eye
enlightened to see things as they are, the dropping away of the visible
corporeal was but the inauguration of the higher and the more real. And
we need to reverse our notions of what is real and what is figurative
in Christ's presence, and to feel that that form of His presence which
we may all have to-day is far more real than the form which ceased when
the Shekinah cloud 'received Him out of their sight,' before we can
penetrate to the depth of His words, or grasp the whole fullness of
blessing and of consolation which lie in them here. In a very deep and
real sense, 'He therefore departed from us for a season that we might
receive Him for ever.'
The real presence of Jesus Christ to-day, and through the long ages
with every waiting heart, is the very keynote to the solemn music of
these chapters. And again I press upon you, and upon myself, the
question, Do we believe it? Do we live in the faith of it? Does it fill
the same place in the perspective of our Christian creed as it does in
the revelation of the Scripture, or have we refined it and watered it
down, until it comes to be little more than merely the continuous
influence of the record of His past, just as any great and sovereign
spirit that has influenced mankind may still 'rule the nations from his
urn'? Or do we take Him at His word, and believe that He meant what He
said, in something far other than a violent figure for the continuance
of His influence and of the inspiration drawn from Him, 'Lo! I am with
you alway, even unto the end of the world'? 'Say not in thine heart,
Who shall ascend up into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down from
above, the Word,' the Incarnate Word, 'is nigh thee, in thy heart,' if
thou lovest and trustest Him.
Then, again, the other aspect of our Lord's coming, which is emphasised
here, is that in which it is regarded as affecting Himself. Christ's
going is Christ's exaltation.
Now observe that, in the first clause of our verse, there is simply
specified the fact of departure, without any reference to the
'whither'; because all that was wanted was to contrast the going and
the coming. But, in the second clause, in which the emphasis rests not
so much upon the fact of departure as upon the goal to which He went,
we read: 'I go _to the Father_.' Hitherto we have been contemplating
Christ's departure simply in its bearing upon us, but here, with
exquisite tenderness, He unveils another aspect of it, and that in
order that He may change His disciples' sadness into joy; and says to
them, 'If ye were not so absorbed in yourselves, you would have a
thought to spare about Me, and you would feel that you should be glad
because I am about to be exalted.'
Very, very seldom does He open such a glimpse into His heart, and it is
all the more tender and impressive when He does. What a hint of the
continual self-sacrifice of the human life of Jesus Christ lies in this
thought, that He bids His disciples rejoice with Him, because the time
is getting nearer its end, and He goes back to the Father! And what
shall we say of the nature of Him to whom it was martyrdom to live, and
a supreme instance of self-sacrificing humiliation to be 'found in
fashion as a man'?
He tells His followers here that a reason for their joy in His
departure is to be found in this fact, that He goes to the Father, who
is greater than Himself.
Now mark, with regard to that remarkable utterance, that the whole
course of thought in the context requires, as it seems to me, that we
should suppose that for Christ to 'go to the Father' was to share in
the Father's greatness. Why else should the disciples be bidden to
rejoice in it? or why should He say anything at all about the greatness
of the Father? If so, then this follows, that the greatness to which He
here alludes is such as He enters by His ascension. Or, in other words,
that the inferiority, of whatever nature it may be, to which He here
alludes, falls away when He passes hence.
Now these words are often quoted triumphantly, as if they were dead
against what I venture to call the orthodox and Scriptural doctrine of
the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. And it may be worth while to
remark that that doctrine accepts this saying as fully as it does
Christ's other word, 'I and My Father are one,' I venture to think that
it is the only construction of Scripture phraseology which does full
justice to all the elements. But be that as it may, I wish to remind
you that the creed which confesses the unity of the Godhead and the
divinity of Jesus Christ is not to be overthrown by pelting this verse
at it; for this verse is part of that creed, which as fully declares
that the Father is greater than the Son, as it declares that the Son is
One with the Father. You may be satisfied with it or no, but as a
matter of simple honesty it must be recognised that the creed of the
Catholic Church does combine both the elements of these
representations.
Now we can only speak in this matter as Scripture guides us. The depths
of Deity are far too deep to be sounded by our plummets, and he is a
bold man who ventures to say that he knows what is impossible in
reference to the divine nature. He needs to have gone all round God,
and down to the depths, and up to the heights of a bottomless and
summitless infinitude, before he has a right to say that. But let me
remind you that we can dimly see that the very names 'Father' and 'Son'
do imply some sort of subordination, but that that subordination,
inasmuch as it is in the timeless and inward relations of divinity,
must be supposed to exist after the ascension, as it existed before the
incarnation; and, therefore, any such mysterious difference is not that
which is referred to here. What _is_ referred to is what dropped away
from the Man Jesus Christ, when He ascended up on high. As Luther has
it, in his strong, simple way, in one of his sermons, 'Here He was a
poor, sad, suffering Christ'; and that garb of lowliness falls from
Him, like the mantle that fell from the prophet as he went up in the
chariot of fire, when He passes behind the brightness of the Shekinah
cloud that hides Him from our sight. That in which the Father was
greater than He, in so far as our present purpose is concerned, was
that which He left behind when He ascended, even the pain, the
suffering, the sorrow, the restrictions, the humiliation, that made so
much of the burden of His life. Therefore we, as His followers, have to
rejoice in an ascended Christ, beneath whose feet are foes, and far
away from whose human personality are all the ills that flesh is heir
to. 'If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the
Father; for My Father is greater than I.'
So then the third thought, in this first part of our subject, is that
on both these grounds Christ's ascension and departure are a source of
joy. The two aspects of His departure, as affecting Him and as
affecting us, are inseparably welded together. There can be no presence
with us, man by man, through all the ages, and in every land, unless
He, whose presence it is, participates in the absolute glory of
divinity. For to be with you and me and all our suffering brethren,
through the centuries and over the world, involves something more than
belongs to mere humanity. Therefore, the two sources of gladness are
confluent—Christ's ascension as affecting us is inseparably woven in
with Christ's ascension as affecting Himself.
Love will delight to dwell upon that thought of its exalted Lover. We
may fairly apply the simplicity of human relationships and affections
to the elucidation of what ought to be our affection to Him, our Lord.
And surely if our dearest one were far away from us, in some lofty
position, our hearts and our thoughts would ever be going thither, and
we should live more there than here, where we are 'cribbed, cabined,
and confined.' And if we love Jesus Christ with any depth of
earnestness and fervour of affection, there will be no thought more
sweet to us, and none which will more naturally flow into our hearts,
whenever they are for a moment at leisure, than this, the thought of
Him, our Brother and Forerunner, who has ascended up on high; and in
the midst of the glory of the throne bears us in His heart, and uses
His glory for our blessing. Love will spring to where the beloved is;
and if we be Christians in any deep and real sense, our hearts will
have risen with Christ, and we shall be sitting with Him at the right
hand of God. My brother, measure your Christianity, and the reality of
your love to Jesus Christ, by this—is it to you natural, and a joy, to
turn to Him, and ever to make present to your mind the glories in which
He loves and lives, and intercedes, and reigns, for you? 'If ye love
Me, ye will rejoice, because I go unto the Father.'
II. And now I can deal with the second verse of our text very briefly.
For our purpose it is less important than the former one. In it we find
our Lord setting forth, secondly, His departure and His announcement of
His departure as the ground and food of faith.
He knew what a crash was coming, and with exquisite tenderness,
gentleness, knowledge of their necessities, and suppression of all His
own feelings and emotions, He gave Himself to prepare the disciples for
the storm, that, forewarned, they might be forearmed, and that when it
did burst upon them, it might not take them by surprise.
So He does still, about a great many other things, and tells us
beforehand of what is sure to come to us, that when we are caught in
the midst of the tempest we may not bate one jot of heart or hope.
Why should I complain
Of want or distress,
Temptation or pain?
He told me no less.'
And when my sorrows come to me, I may say about them what He says about
His departure—He has told us before, that when it comes we may believe.
But note how, in these final words of my text, Christ avows that the
great aim of His utterances and of His departure is to evoke our faith.
And what does He mean by faith? He means, first of all, a grasp of the
historic facts—His death, His resurrection, His ascension. He means,
next, the understanding of these as He Himself has explained them—a
death of sacrifice, a resurrection of victory over death and the grave,
and an ascension to rule and guide His Church and the world, and to
send His divine Spirit into men's hearts if they will receive it. And
He means, therefore, as the essence of the faith that He would produce
in all our hearts—a reliance upon Himself as thus revealed, Sacrifice
by His death, Victor by His resurrection, King and interceding Priest
by His ascension—a reliance upon Himself as absolute as the facts are
sure, as unfaltering as is His eternal sameness. The faith that grasps
the Christ, dead, risen, ascended, as its all in all, for time and for
eternity, is the faith which by all His work, and by all His words
about His work, He desires to kindle in our hearts. Has He kindled it
in yours?
Then there is a second thought—viz., that these facts, as interpreted
by Himself, are the ground and the nourishment of our faith. How
differently they looked when seen from the further side and when seen
from the hither side! Anticipated and dimly anticipated, they were all
doleful and full of dismay; remembered and looked back upon, they were
radiant and bright. The disciples felt, with shrinking hearts and
fainting spirits, that their whole reliance upon Jesus Christ was on
the point of being shattered, and that everything was going when He
died. 'We _trusted_,' said two of them, with such a sad use of the past
tense, 'we _trusted_ that this _had been_ He which should have redeemed
Israel. But we do not trust it any more, nor do we expect Him to be
Israel's Redeemer now.' But after the facts were all unveiled, there
came back the memory of His words, and they said to one another, 'Did
He not tell us that it was all to be so? How blind we were not to
understand Him!'
And so 'the Cross, the grave, the skies,' are the foundations of our
faith; and they who see Him dying, rising, ascended, henceforth will
find it impossible to doubt. Feed your faith upon these great facts,
and take Christ's own explanation of them, and your faith will be
strong.
Again, we learn here that faith is the condition of the true presence
of our absent Lord. Faith is that on our side which corresponds to His
spiritual coming to us. Whosoever trusts Him possesses Him, and He is
with and in every soul that, loving Him, relies upon Him, in a
closeness so close and a presence so real that heaven itself does not
bring the spirit of the believer and the Spirit of the Lord nearer one
another, though it takes away the bodily film that sometimes seems to
part their lives.
We, too, may and should be glad when we lift our eyes to that Throne
where our Brother reigns. We too, may be glad that He is there, because
His being there is the reason why He can be here; and we, too, may feed
our faith upon Him, and so bring Him in very deed to dwell in our
hearts. If we would have Christ within us, let us trust Him dying,
rising, living in the heavens; and then we shall learn how, by all
three apparent departures, He is drawing the closer to the souls that
love and trust.