He was restored to his office, as we read in the supplement to John's
Gospel. In that wonderful conversation, full as it is of allusions to
Peter's fall, Christ asks but one question, 'Lovest thou Me?' That
includes everything. 'Hast thou learned the lesson of My mercy? hast
thou responded to My love? then thou art fit for My work, and
beginning to be perfected.' So the third stage in the triumph of
Christ's love over man's sin is, when we, beholding that love flowing
towards us, and accepting it by faith, respond to it with our own, and
are able to say, 'Thou knowest that I love Thee.'
The all-embracing question is followed by an equally comprehensive
command, 'Follow thou Me,' a two-worded compendium of all morals, a
precept which naturally results from love, and certainly leads to
absolute perfectness. With love to Christ for motive, and Christ
Himself for pattern, and following Him for our one duty, all things
are possible, and the utter defeat of sin in us is but a question of
time.
And the certainty, as well as the gradual slowness, of that victory,
are well set forth by the future history of the Apostle. We know how
his fickleness passed away, and how his vehement character was calmed
and consolidated into resolved persistency, and how his love of
distinction and self-confidence were turned in a new direction, obeyed
a divine impulse, and became powers. We read how he started to the
front; how he guided the Church in the first stage of its development;
how whenever there was danger he was in the van, and whenever there
was work his hand was first on the plough; how he bearded and braved
rulers and councils; how--more difficult still for him--he lay quietly
in prison sleeping like a child, between his guards, on the night
before his execution; how--most difficult of all--he acquiesced in
Paul's superiority; and, if he still needed to be withstood and
blamed, could recognise the wisdom of the rebuke, and in his calm old
age could speak well of the rebuker as his 'beloved brother Paul.' Nor
was the cure a change in the great lines of his character. These
remain the same, the characteristic excellences possible to them are
brought out, the defects are curbed and cast out. The 'new man' is the
'old man' with a new direction, obeying a new impulse, but retaining
its individuality. Weaknesses become strengths; the sanctified
character is the old character sanctified; and it is still true that
'every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and
another after that.'
It is very instructive to observe how deeply the experiences of his
fall, and of Christ's mercy then, had impressed themselves on Peter's
memory, and how constantly they were present with him all through his
after-life. His Epistles are full of allusions which show this. For
instance, to go a step further back in his life, he remembered that
the Lord had said to him, 'Thou art Peter,' 'a stone,' and that his
pride in that name had helped to his rash confidence, and so to his
sin. Therefore, when he is cured of these, he takes pleasure in
sharing his honour with his brethren, and writes, 'Ye also, as living
stones, are built up.' He remembered the contempt for others and the
trust in himself with which he had said, 'Though all should forsake
Thee, yet will not I'; and, taught what must come of that, he writes,
'Be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud, and giveth
grace to the humble.' He remembered how hastily he had drawn his sword
and struck at Malchus, and he writes, 'If when ye do well and suffer
for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.' He
remembered how he had been surprised into denial by the questions of a
sharp-tongued servant-maid, and he writes, 'Be ready always to give an
answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in
you, with meekness.' He remembered how the pardoning love of his Lord
had honoured him unworthy, with the charge, 'Feed My sheep,' and he
writes, ranking himself as one of the class to whom he speaks--'The
elders I exhort, who am also an elder ... feed the flock of God.' He
remembered that last command, which sounded ever in his spirit,
'Follow thou Me,' and discerning now, through all the years that lay
between, the presumptuous folly and blind inversion of his own work
and his Master's which had lain in his earlier question, 'Why cannot I
follow Thee now? I will lay down my life for Thy sake'--he writes to
all, 'Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye
should follow His steps,'
So well had he learned the lesson of his own sin, and of that immortal
love which had beckoned him back, to peace at its side and purity from
its hand. Let us learn how the love of Christ, received into the
heart, triumphs gradually but surely over all sin, transforms
character, turning even its weakness into strength, and so, from the
depths of transgression and very gates of hell, raises men to God.
To us all this divine message speaks. Christ's love is extended to us;
no sin can stay it; no fall of ours can make Him despair. He will not
give us up. He waits to be gracious. This same Peter once asked, 'How
oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?' And the
answer, which commanded unwearied brotherly forgiveness, revealed
inexhaustible divine pardon--'I say not unto thee until seven times,
but until seventy times seven.' The measure of the divine mercy, which
is the pattern of ours, is completeness ten times multiplied by
itself; we know not the numbers thereof. 'Let the wicked forsake his
way ... and let him return unto the Lord, for He will have mercy upon
him; and to our God, for He will multiply to pardon.'
'FIRST TO MARY'
'... He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast
seven devils.'--Mark xvl. 9.
A great pile of legend has been built on the one or two notices of
Mary Magdalene in Scripture. Art, poetry, and philanthropy have
accepted and inculcated these, till we almost feel as if they were
bits of the Bible. But there is not the shadow of a foundation for
them. She has generally been identified with the woman in Luke's
Gospel 'who was a sinner.' There is no reason at all for that
identification. On the contrary, there is a reason against it, in the
fact that immediately after that narrative she is named as one of the
little band of women who ministered to Jesus.
Here is all that we know of her: that Christ cast out the seven
devils; that she became one of the Galilean women, including the
mothers of Jesus and of John, who 'ministered to Him of their
substance'; that she was one of the Marys at the Cross and saw the
interment; that she came to the sepulchre, heard the angel's message,
went to John with it, came back and stood without at the sepulchre,
saw the Lord, and, having heard His voice and clasped His feet,
returned to the little company, and then she drops out of the
narrative and is no more named. That is all. It is enough. There are
large lessons in this fact which Mark (or whoever wrote this chapter)
gives with such emphasis, 'He appeared first to Mary Magdalene.'
Think what the Resurrection is--how stupendous and wonderful! Who
_might_ have been expected to be its witnesses? But see! the first eye
that beholds is this poor sin-stained woman's. What a distance between
the two extremes of her experience--devil-ridden and gazing on the
Risen Saviour!