Annas and Caiaphas said to each other: 'Ah, these two have been with
that Jesus! That is where they have got their boldness. They are like
Him.'
As is the Master, so is the servant. That is the broad, general
principle that lies in my text. To be with Christ makes men Christlike.
A soul habitually in contact with Jesus will imbibe sweetness from Him,
as garments laid away in a drawer with some preservative perfume absorb
fragrance from that beside which they lie. Therefore the surest way for
Christian people to become what God would have them to be, is to direct
the greater part of their effort, not so much to the acquirement of
individual characteristics and excellences, as to the keeping up of
continuity of communion with the Master. Then the excellences will
come. Astronomers, for instance, have found out that if they take a
sensitive plate and lay it so as to receive the light from a star, and
keep it in place by giving it a motion corresponding with the apparent
motion of the heavens, for hours and hours, there will become visible
upon it a photographic image of dim stars that no human eye or
telescope can see. Persistent lying before the light stamps the image
of the light upon the plate. Communion with Christ is the secret of
Christlikeness. So instead of all the wearisome, painful, futile
attempts at tinkering one's own character apart from Him, here is the
royal road. Not that there is no effort in it. We must never forget nor
undervalue the necessity for struggle in the Christian life. But that
truth needs to be supplemented with the thought that comes from my
text--viz. that the fruitful direction in which the struggle is to be
mainly made lies in keeping ourselves in touch with Jesus Christ, and
if we do that, then transformation comes by beholding. 'We all,
reflecting as a mirror does, the glory of the Lord, are transformed
into the same image.' 'They have been with Jesus,' and so they were
like Him.
But now look at the specific kinds of excellence which seem to have
come out of this communion. 'They beheld the _boldness_ of Peter and
John.' The word that is translated 'boldness' no doubt conveys that
idea, but it also conveys another. Literally it means 'the act of
saying everything.' It means openness of unembarrassed speech, and so
comes to have the secondary signification, which the text gives, of
'boldness.'
Then, to be with Christ gives a living knowledge of Him and of truth,
far in advance of the head knowledge of wise and learned people. It was
a fact that these two knew nothing about what Rabbi _This_, or Rabbi
_That_, or Rabbi _The Other_ had said, and yet could speak, as they had
been speaking, large religious ideas that astonished these hide-bound
Pharisees, who thought that there was no way to get to the knowledge of
the revelation of God made to Israel, except by the road of their own
musty and profitless learning. Ay! and it always is so. An ounce of
experience is worth a ton of theology. The men that have summered and
wintered with Jesus Christ may not know a great many things that are
supposed to be very important parts of religion, but they have got hold
of the central truth of it, with a power, and in a fashion, that men of
books, and ideas, and systems, and creeds, and theological learning,
may know nothing about. 'Not many wise men after the flesh, not many
mighty, are called.' Let a poor man at his plough-tail, or a poor woman
in her garret, or a collier in the pit, have Jesus Christ for their
Companion, and they have got the kernel; and the gentlemen that like
such diet may live on the shell if they will, and can. Religious ideas
are of little use unless there be heart-experiences; and
heart-experiences are wonderful teachers of religious truth.
Again, to be with Christ frees from the fear of man. It was a new thing
for such persons as Peter and John to stand cool and unawed before the
Council. Not so very long ago one of the two had been frightened into a
momentary apostasy by dread of being haled before the rulers, and now
they are calmly heroic, and threats are idle words to them. I need not
point to the strong presumption, raised by the contrast of the
Apostles' past cowardice and present courage, of the occurrence of some
such extraordinary facts as the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the
Descent of the Spirit. Something had happened which revolutionised
these men. It was their communion with Jesus, made more real and deep
by the cessation of His bodily presence, which made these unlearned and
non-official Galileans front the Council with calmly beating hearts and
unfaltering tongues. Doubtless, temperament has much to do with
courage, but, no doubt, he who lives near Jesus is set free from undue
dependence on things seen and on persons. Perfect love casts out fear,
not only of the Beloved, but of all creatures. It is the bravest thing
in the world.
Further, to be with Christ will open a man's lips. The fountain, if it
is full, must well up. 'Light is light which circulates. Heat is heat
which radiates.' The true possession of Jesus Christ will always make
it impossible for the possessor to be dumb. I pray you to test
yourselves, as I would that all professing Christians should test
themselves, by that simple truth, that a full heart must find
utterance. The instinct that drives a man to speak of the thing in
which he is interested should have full play in the Christian life. It
seems to me a terribly sad fact that there are such hosts of good, kind
people, with some sort of religion about them, who never feel any
anxiety to say a word to any soul concerning the Master whom they
profess to love. I know, of course, that deep feeling is silent, and
that the secrets of Christian experience are not to be worn on the
sleeve for daws to peck at. And I know that the conventionalities of
this generation frown very largely upon the frank utterance of
religious convictions on the part of religious people, except on
Sundays, in Sunday-schools, pulpits, and the like. But for all that,
what is in you will come out. If you have never felt 'I was weary of
forbearing, and I could not stay,' I do not think that there is much
sign in you of a very deep or a very real being with Jesus.
III. The last point to be noted is, the impression which such a
character makes.
It was not so much what Peter and John said that astonished the
Council, as the fact of their being composed and bold enough to say
anything.
A great deal more is done by character than by anything else. Most
people in the world take their notions of Christianity from its
concrete embodiments in professing Christians. For one man that has
read his Bible, and has come to know what religion is thereby, there
are a hundred that look at you and me, and therefrom draw their
conclusions as to what religion is. It is not my sermons, but your
life, that is the most important agency for the spread of the Gospel in
this congregation. And if we, as Christian people, were to live so as
to make men say, 'Dear me, that is strange. That is not the kind of
thing that one would have expected from that man. That is of a higher
strain than he is of. Where did it come from, I wonder?' 'Ah, he
learned it of that Jesus'--if people were constrained to speak in that
style to themselves about us, dear friends, and about all our brethren,
England would be a different England from what it is to-day. It is
Christians' lives, after all, that make dints in the world's conscience.
Do you remember one of the Apostle's lovely and strong metaphors? Paul
says that that little Church in Thessalonica rung out clear and strong
the name of Jesus Christ--resonant like the clang of a bugle, 'so that
we need not to speak anything.' The word that he employs for 'sounded
out' is a technical expression for the ringing blast of a trumpet. Very
small penny whistles would be a better metaphor for the instruments
which the bulk of professing Christians play on.
'Adorn the doctrine of Christ.' And that you may, listen to His own
word, which says all I have been trying to say in this sermon: 'Abide
in Me. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the
vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.'