His mere presence, His character, His warm sympathy, His pra

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Quiet Talks on _John's Gospel_

By

S. D. Gordon

1915

Preface

_Everything depends on getting Jesus placed._ That lies at the root of

all--living, serving, preaching, teaching. John had Jesus placed. He had

Him up in His own place. This settles everything else. Then one gets

himself placed, too, up on a level where the air is clear and bracing,

the sun warm, and the outlook both steadying and stimulating. Get the

centre fixed and things quickly adjust themselves about it to your eyes.

It will be seen very quickly that this little book makes no pretension

to being a commentary on, or an exposition of, John's Gospel. That is

left to the scholarly folk who eat their meals in the sacred classical

languages of the past. It is simply a homely attempt to let out a little

of what has been sifting in these years past of this wondrous miniature

Bible from John's pen.

The proportions of this homely little messenger of paper and type may

seem a little odd at first. The longest chapter is devoted to only the

opening eighteen verses of John, the prologue. While the whole of the

first twelve chapters of John, excepting that prologue, is brought into

one smaller chapter. It wasn't planned so, though I felt it coming as

the wondrous mood of this book came down over me. I think it mast be

the effect of the atmosphere of John's book.

Sometimes John packs so much in so little space, and again he goes so

particularly into the details of some one incident. The prologue is a

miniature Bible. The whole Bible story is there in its cream. And on the

other hand John spends five chapters (xiii.-xvii.), almost a fifth of

the whole, on a single evening. He devotes seven chapters (xiii.-xix.),

almost a third of all, on the events of twenty-four hours. John is

controlled not by mere proportion of space or quantity, but by the finer

proportions of thought and quality.

It has been difficult to hold these homely talks down to the limit of

space they take here. So many veins of gold in this mine, showing

clearly large nuggets of pure ore, lie just at hand untouched in this

little mining venture. But it seemed clearly best to get the one clear

grasp of the whole. That helps so much. But there'll be strong

temptation to get one's pick and spade and go at this gold mine again.

But now these things are written that we common folk may understand a

bit better, and in a warm way, that Jesus was God on a wooing errand to

the earth; and that we may join the blest company of the won ones, and

become co-wooers with God of the others.

S. D. G.

Contents

I. John's Story

II. The Wooing Lover

Who it was that came.

III. The Lover Wooing

A group of pictures illustrating how the wooing was done and how

the Lover was received.

IV. Closer Wooing

An evening with opening hearts: the story of a supper and a walk in

the moonlight and the shadows.

V. The Greatest Wooing

A night and a day with hardening hearts: the story of tender

passion and of a terrible tragedy.

VI. An Appointed Tryst Unexpectedly Kept

A day of startling joyous surprises.

VII. Another Tryst

A story of fishing, of guests at breakfast, and of a walk and talk

by the edge of blue Galilee.

I

John's Story

"I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Up vistaed hopes, I sped;

And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasméd fears,

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after."

--_Francis Thompson, in "The Hound of Heaven_."

"These are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son

of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name."--_John xx.

31_.

I

John's Story

The Heart-strings of God.

There's a tense tugging at the heart of God. The heart-strings of God

are tight, as tight as tight can be. For there's a tender heart that's

easily tugged at one end, and an insistent tugging at the other. The

tugging never ceases. The strings never slack. They give no signs of

easing or getting loose.

It's the tug of man's sore need at the down-end, the man-end, of the

strings. And it's the sore tug of grief over the way things are going on

down here with men, at the other end, the up-end, the heart-end, of the

strings. It's the tense pull-up of a love that grows stronger with the

growth of man's misunderstanding.

But the heart-strings never snap. The heart itself breaks under the

tension of love and grief, grieved and grieving love. But the strings

only strengthen and tighten under the strain of use.

Those heart-strings are a bit of the heart they're tied to, an inner

bit, aye the innermost bit, the inner heart of the heart. They are the

bit pulled, and pulled more, and pulled harder, till the strings grew.

Man was born in the warm heart of God. Was there ever such a womb! Was

there ever such another borning, homing place!

It was man's going away that stretched the heart out till the strings

grew. The tragedy of sin revealed the toughness and tenderness of love.

For that heart never let go of the man whom it borned. Man tried to pull

away, poor thing. In his foolish misunderstanding and heady wilfulness

he tried to cut loose. If he had known God better he would never have

tried that. He'd never have _started_ away; and he'd never have tried to

_get_ away.

For love never faileth. A heart--the real thing of a heart, that is,

God's heart--never lets go. It breaks; but let go? not once: never yet.

The breaking only loosens the red that glues fast with a tighter hold

than ever. The fibre of the heart--God's heart--is made of too strong

stuff to loosen or wear out or snap. Love never faileth. It can't;

because it's love.

Now all this explains Jesus. It was man's pull on these heart-strings

that brought Him down. The pull was so strong and steady. It grew tenser

and more insistent. And straight down He came by the shortest way, the

way of those same heart-strings. For the heart-strings of God are the

shortest distance between two given points, the point of God's giving,

going love, and the point of man's sore need, given a sharper-pointed

end by its very soreness.

It is a sort of blind pull, this pull of man on the heart of God; a

confused, unconscious, half-conscious, dust-blinded, slippery-road sort

of pulling, but one whose tight grip never slacks. Man needs God, but

does not know it. He knows he needs _some_thing. He feels that keenly.

But he does not know that it's God whom he needs, with a very few rare

exceptions. It doesn't seem to have entered his head that he'll never

get out of his tight corner till God gets him out.

Down the street of life he goes, eyes blinded by the thick dust, ears

deafened by the cries of the crowd, by the noise of the street without,

and the noise of passions and fevered ambitions within, heart a-wearied

by the confusion of it all, groping, stumbling, jostled and jostling,

hitting this way and that, with the fever high in his blood, and his

feet aching and bleeding; sometimes the polish of culture on the

surface; _some_times rags and dirt; but underneath the same thing.

Yet under all there's a vague but very real feeling of that unceasing

pull upward upon His heart-strings. But though blind and vague and

confused that tugging is never the less tense, but ever more, and then

yet more.

Jesus was God answering the tug of man's need on His heart-strings. And

so naturally there was an answering feel in man's heart. Man felt the

answer a-coming. There was a great stir in the spirit-currents of earth

when Jesus came. A thrill of expectancy ran through the world, Roman,

Greek, Barbarian, far and wide, as Jesus drew near. The book-makers of

that time all speak of it. It was the vibration of those same

heart-strings connecting man and God.

The move at God's end was felt at man's. The coming down along the

highway of the strings thrilled and stirred and awed the hearts into

which those strings led, and where they were so tightly knotted. The

earth-currents spread the news. Man heard; he felt; he knew: vaguely,

blindly, wearily, yet very really he heard and felt and recognized that

help, a Friend, some One, was nearing.

And then when Jesus walked among men how He did pull upon their hearts!

So quietly He went about. So sympathetically He looked and listened. So

warm was the human touch of His hand. So strong was the lift of His arm

to ease their load. So potent was the spell of His unfailing power to

give relief. How He did pull! And how men did answer to that pull!

Unresistingly, eagerly, as weary child in mother's arms at close of day,

they came crowding to Him.

The Fourfold Message.

It is fascinating to find one book in this old Book of God given up

wholly to telling of this, John's Gospel. Of course the whole of the

Book is really given up to it, when one gets the whole simple view of it

at one glance. But so many of us don't get that whole simple glance.

So to make it easier for us simple common folk, and to make sure of our

getting it, there is one little book, hardly big enough to call a book,

just a few pages devoted wholly to letting us see this one thing. You

can see the whole of the sun in a single drop of water. You can see the

whole of the Book of God in this one little book that John wrote.

John's Gospel is like the small tracing of the artist's pen on the

lower corner of an etching, the remarque, put there as a signature, the

artist's personal mark that the picture is genuine, the real thing. The

whole consummate skill of the artist is revealed at a glance in the

simple outline-tracing on the margin. The whole of the God-story in the

larger picture of the whole Book is given in few simple clear lines in

this exquisite little thing commonly called John's Gospel.

It is striking to make the discovery that John's little book has _a

distinctive message as a book_. It is full of messages, of course. But I

mean that there is a distinct story told by the book as a whole, by the

very way it is put together. It is told by the very sort of language

used, the words chosen as the leading words of the book. It is told by

the picture that clearly fills John's eye as he writes, and by the very

spirit that floods the pages as a soft light, and that breaks out of

them as the subtle fragrance of locust blossoms in the spring.

The fragrance of flowers cannot be analyzed: it must be smelled and

felt. That's the only way you'll ever know it. The fine scholarly

analyses of John are helpful. But there's the subtler something that

cannot be diagramed or analyzed or synthesized. It eludes the

razor-edged knife, and the keenly critical survey. It is recognized only

by one's spirit, and then only when the spirit is warm, and in tune with

John's.

Of course each of the Gospel stories has a message of its own, quite

apart from the group of facts common to them all. And these four

messages together give us the fuller distinctive message of these four

little books. And a very winsome message it is, too, that takes hold of

one's heart, and takes a warm strong hold at that.

_Matthew_ tells us that Jesus is a _King_. For a great purpose He chose

to live as a peasant, as one of the common folks. But He was of the

blood royal. He has the long unbroken kingly lineage. He showed kingly

power in His actions, kingly wisdom in His teachings, and the fine

kingly spirit in His gracious kindliness of touch. He was gladly

accepted and served as King by those who understood Him best. He was

acknowledged as King by the Roman Governor; and He died as a King, and

as a King was laid in a newly hewn tomb.

_Mark_ adds a fine touch to this picture, a warm touch with colour in

it,--this King of ours is _a serving King_. This comes not only with a

warm feel, but it comes as a distinct surprise. Men's kings are _served_

kings. There have been kings, and are, who rendered their people a fine

high service, and do. But the overpowering impression given the common

crowd watching on the street is that kings are superior beings, to be

waited upon, humbly bowed to, and implicitly obeyed. They are to be

served.

Bat Mark's picture shows us a King whose passion is to serve. The

service which He draws out of His followers is drawn out by His warm

serving spirit towards us. The words on the royal coat-of-arms are, "Not

to be ministered unto, but to minister." And in the first meaning of the

words He Himself used that means "not to be _served_ but to _serve_." In

Mark the air is tense with rapid action. The quick executive movement of

a capable servant is felt in the terse words short sentences and swift

action of the story.

There's yet warmer colouring in _Luke's_ picture. This serving King is

_nearest of kin to us!_ He is not only of the blood royal, but of the

blood human. He is bone of our bone, blood of our blood, and life of our

common life. He came to us through a rare union of God's power with

human consent and human function, never known before nor repeated since.

This is the bit that Luke adds to the composite message of these four

little God-story books.

Here Jesus has a tenderness of human sympathy with us men, for He and we

are brothers. There's an outlook as broad as the race. No national

boundaries limit its reach. No sectional prejudices warp or shut Him off

from sympathetic touch with any. He shares our common life. He knows our

human temptations, and knows them with a reality that is painful, and

with an intensity that wets His brow and shuts His jaw hard.

This king who serves is _a man_. He _can_ be a king of men for He is a

_man_. He has the first qualification. I might use an old-fashioned word

in the first old-time meaning,--He is _a fellow_, one who shares the

bed and bread of our common experience. And so He is _kin to us_, both

in lineage and in experience, in blood and in spirit.

And John's share in this partnership message adds a simple bold touch of

colouring that makes the picture a masterpiece, _the_ masterpiece. This

King who serves, and is nearest of kin to us, is also _nearest of kin to

God_. He is not only of the blood royal, and the blood human, but of the

blood divine. He was with God before calendars came into use. He was the

God of that creative Genesis week. He came on an errand down to the

earth, and when the errand was done, and well done, He went back home,

bearing on His person the marks of His fidelity to the Father's errand.

This is John's bit of rich high colouring.

And so _we are nearest of kin to God_ through Jesus. Kinship is always a

matter of blood. There is a double kinship, through the blood of

inheritance, and the blood of sacrifice. Our _inherited_ kinship of

blood has been lost. But His blood of sacrifice has made a new kinship.

We had broken the entail of our inheritance clean beyond mending. We

were _outcasts_ by our own act. But He _cast in_. His lot with us, and

so drew us back and up and in. He made a new entail through His blood.

And that new entail is as unbreakable as the old broken one is

unmendable. And so we come into the family of a King. And we are

kingliest in character when we are Christliest in spirit and action. We

are most like the King when we are helping others.

Our true motto, in our relation to our fellows, is: "I am among you as

he that serveth." Towel and basin, bended knee and comforted

pilgrim-feet and refreshed spirit,--this is our family crest. We're kin

to all the race through Jesus. Black skin and white, yellow and brown;

round heads and long, slanting eyes and oval, in slum alley and palatial

home, below the equator and above it,--all are our kinsmen.

We are reaching highest when we are stooping lowest to help some one up.

We're nearest like God in character when we're getting nearest in touch

to those needing help. We are kingliest and Godliest and Christliest

when we're controlled by men's needs, but always under the higher

control of the Holy Spirit.

This is the composite message of the four Gospels; and this is its

practical human outworking.

God on a Wooing Errand.

But it's the other John message we are especially after just now.

There's another message of John's book quite distinct from this, though

naturally allied with it. And this other is the crowding message of his

book. Its thought crowds in upon you till every other is crowded into

second place. And as it gets hold of you it crowds your mind and heart

and life till every other is either crowded out, or crowded to a lower

place; _out_, if it jars; _lower place_, if it agrees, for every

agreeing bit yields to the lead of this tremendous message.

But one must get hold of John before John's message gets hold of him.

John was swayed by a passion. It was a fiery passion flaming through all

his life. It burned through him as the fierce forest fire burns through

the underbrush. Every base thing was eaten up by its flame. Every less

worthy thing came under its heat. It melted and mellowed and moulded his

whole being.

It was _the Jesus-passion_. It was kindled that memorable afternoon

early in his life down in the Jordan bottoms.[1] John's namesake, the

Herald, applied the kindling match. From then on the flames never

flickered nor burned low. They increased steadily, and they increased in

purity, until his whole life was under their holy heat.

John didn't always understand his Master. Sometimes he misunderstood.

But he never failed in his trust of Him, nor in his fidelity to Him. Of

the chosen inner circle John was the one who remained true through the

sorest test, that betrayal-night test. Judas betrayed; Peter denied; the

nine fled in terror down the road to save their cowardly lives; John

went in "_with_ Jesus." That fiery nature of his, that early won for him

the stormy name "son of thunder," came completely under the sway of this

holier tenderer stronger flame, and burned itself out in a passion of

love for Jesus.

The Jesus-passion swayed John completely. This explains the man, and his

career. It explains this little book of his ripe old age. And only this

can. One must read the book through John's own heart, then he begins to

understand it. This Jesus-passioned man is the key to the book, the

human key.

And the distinctive message of the book is simply this: _Jesus was God

on a wooing errand to the earth_. That simple sentence covers fully all

that is found in John's twenty-one chapters. Every line in these

fourteen or fifteen pages can be traced back into that brief statement.

Indeed this becomes an outline of the book. See: in the opening

paragraphs the wooing Lover is coming down to earth.[2] In the first

twelve chapters the Lover is pleading winsomely and earnestly for

acceptance.[3] Then He is seen in closest touch with the inner group of

those who have accepted, opening His heart yet more, wooing still

closer.[4] Then comes the last tragic pleading, pleading in intensest

action, with those who persist in rejecting.[5] And then the last close

heart-touches with the inner circle.[6]

The Water-Mark of John's Gospel.

The very words John so thoughtfully chooses as his leading words bear

the distinct impress of this, like the sharply indented stamp of the

mint on the new coin. Two such words stand out above all others,

"believe" and "witness." The first actually occurs oftenest, sounding

out like the dominant chord of music running throughout a symphony. The

second is like the chief warp-thread into which the fabric is being

woven.

The two words are really twins, born at the same time, of the same

mother. They grow up together and work in perfect accord. The witnessing

is that men may understand and believe. It's the servant leading up to

the belief that shall become the mastering thing. The belief is servant,

too, in turn, leading up to the witnessing that becomes the mastering

passion in those who believe.

These words are worth digging into for the fine gold that lies hidden

within waiting the miner's pick. The word "believe" is a nugget of pure

gold, whether you take our English word or John's word lying underneath.

The underneath word, that John uses in his own mother tongue, runs a

sliding scale of meaning.

It's a ladder rising from bottom round to topmost. It means to be

persuaded that a thing is true; then to place confidence in it, to

trust. And _trust_ always contains the idea of _risk_. The heart-meaning

always is that you _risk_ something very precious to you, risk it to the

point of heart-breaking disaster if your trust proves wrong.

Our English word is of very close kin. It runs the same sort of sliding

scale, from something valuable and precious in itself, on to something

that _satisfies you_ regarding the matter in hand. You are not only

satisfied but pleased, content. And so there is the same trusting and

risking, the same leaning your whole weight upon the thing. Deep down

at its root, _believe_ is a close kinsman to _love_. They both spring

out of the same warm creative womb.

When we dig a bit into that word _believe_ in the usage of common life

it means three distinct things, each leading straight into the

other,--knowledge, belief, trust. That is, _facts_, facts _accepted_,

facts _trusted_ in regard to something that takes hold of your life. You

hear something. You believe it's true. But there must be the third

thing, risking something valuable. There's no belief in the

heart-meaning without this thing of _risking_. The trust that risks is

the life blood of faith. The rest is only the bony skeleton with tendons

and sinews and flesh. There's no life without the blood. There's no

belief without trust.

And the word _witness_ is the same pure-gold sort of nugget, assaying

full weight. John's native word and our own are just the same in

meaning. Their meaning is _to tell what you know_. We shall be running

across this word again, and digging a bit deeper into it. But this is

the thing that stands out in it. You tell something that you yourself

know. There's personal knowledge. There's a telling some one else this

thing you know. And yet more, there's the purpose in the telling, that

others may know what you know, and get all the good that comes with

knowing it.

The _witnessing_ is that others may _believe_. It is a striking thing in

John that the _thought_ of witness is more common than the _word_. The

word occurs several times, and always in a leading way. But the thought

of witnessing is the colouring of every page, and the chief colouring.

I said that these two words were twins, born at the same time, of the

same mother. That warm-hearted brooding mother is the word _wooing_.

Originally _wooing_ means bending towards, inclining forward or reaching

out towards another. And the purpose of the reaching out is to get the

other to reach forward towards you. And that purpose puts the warm feel

into the reaching out.

All words were pictures first. Here in this word _wooing_ is a picture,

by one of the old masters, waiting to be restored, with all the dusty

accumulations of the years carefully removed. And here's the picture: a

man standing, with the light of the morning shining in His eyes, body

bending forward, hands reaching out, with an eagerness, an expectancy in

every line of His body, and tender love glowing out of His face, and

sounding in the very tones with which the voice is calling.

This picture is really the water-mark on the paper of John's Gospel.

Hold up the paper of John's Gospel to the light. The best light for the

purpose is found on Mount Calvary. High altitudes have clearer light.

You see more distinctly. Now look. Hold still that you may see all the

outlines more distinctly. There's the form of a Man standing in pleading

attitude, with outstretched hands. His face combines all the fineness of

the finest woman's face, with all the strength of the strongest man's,

and more, immensely more, all the purity and tenderness and power of

_God's_ face. It _is_ God Himself in human form coming a-wooing to

earth, and we call His name Jesus. This conception is the very

atmosphere of John's Gospel.

Jesus is the witness of the Father to men. He knew the Father. He knew

Him by closest intimacy. He lived with Him. He came down to _tell_ what

He knew. He wanted others to know too. He wanted them to know _even as_

He knew. _Telling_ is the whole of Jesus; telling men of the Father.

His mere presence, His character, His warm sympathy, His practical

helpfulness, His words, His actions, most of all His dying and His

rising, all these were a _telling_, a witnessing, a wooing; telling the

Father's love, telling the damnableness of our sin by giving His very

life blood to get it out of us; so telling us how we might really know

the mother-heart of the Father.

Jesus the Dividing Line.

There are several contrasts between the first three Gospels and John's.

It is very striking to notice one in particular in this connection. One

reading the first three Gospels for the first time is impressed with the

fact of Jesus' _rejection_. This stands out peculiarly and dominantly.

It was the great fact, told most terribly in the death of Jesus. It was

the thing that stood out sharpest in the generation to which Jesus

belonged, the generation for whom these three Gospels were written at

the first.

But John wrote his story for an after-generation, a generation that had

not known the man Jesus by personal touch and observation. And so it was

for all after-generations. And John makes it very clear that Jesus was

rejected, _and_ accepted.

He was indeed _rejected_; that fact stands out as painfully here as in

the others. He was rejected by the little inner clique that held the

national reins, and held them with fevered tenacity, and drove hard. And

the reason for it is made to stand out as plainly as the fact. The envy

and jealousy, the intense bitterness and viciousness and devilish

obstinacy back of the rejection stand as boldly out to all eyes as to

Pilate's.

But the other side stands out sharply too. Jesus was _accepted_. He was

accepted by all classes, by the cultured, and the scholarly, by

thoughtful studious leaders and officials of the nation. He was accepted

by the great middle classes and by those in lowest scale socially, and

by the moral outcasts. Intense Hebrews, Roman officials of high rank,

half-breed Samaritans, and men of outside nations group themselves

together by their full acceptance of Jesus.

He was listened to, doubted, questioned, discussed, thought over, _and

then accepted._ And He was accepted with a faith and with a love that

counted not suffering nor sacrifice for the sake of Him whom they

believed and trusted and loved. John makes this clear, rejected _and_

accepted.

Jesus divided the crowds. Down the road He comes, with quiet strength,

witnessing to the great simple truth of the Father's pure strong wooing

love. And the crowd looks and listens and--_divides_. Some reject;

clearly they are a minority, but entrenched in a position of power that

proves quite sufficient for their purpose. Though it took all the power

at their command to carry out their purpose.

Others accept. These are the crowds, the majority. Some don't

understand. Their motives are selfish or mixed, like some other folks'

motives. Some are played upon by the cunning of the leaders and swung

away. But there remain the thoughtful ones whose faith goes from

weakness to strength; it grows from more to yet more. It mellows from a

true simple faith to a deepened, seasoned, sorely-tested,

surely-toughened faith that loves, loves clear down to the roots, and

endures gladly. This is the simple warp-thread into which John's very

simple story of Jesus is woven.

Spelling God.

_I_ want to give you _a bunch of keys_, as we start into these homely

talks in John's Gospel. They are simple keys. Any one can use them. They

fit easily and smoothly into every lock, the lock of your life, the lock

of any circumstance, any sore problem that may come up to baffle all

your efforts. They bring treasures within easy reach. They open up the

way into all you need. There is a key to God, a key to the Book of God,

and then there are three keys to this little John book.

_The key to God_ is in one little word. It has two spellings, sometimes

with four letters, sometimes with five, and both correct spellings. The

four-lettered spelling is for all the world. The five-lettered spelling

is chiefly used in the western half of the earth, and along certain

lines and in certain spots here and there in the eastern half where the

word is known.

That first spelling is l-o-v-e. God is love. Love is of God. _God is

always controlled by a purpose_ in all His dealings with the race, and

with you and me. There is no chance-happening with Him, no caprice, no

shadow in His path that tells of His being swerved aside, by anything we

do, from a steady purpose.

And that controlling purpose is _always a purpose of love._ It's a

purpose of strong steady pure clinging brooding love. The bother is we

don't know what that word _love_ means; none of us. We know words but

not the real things they stand for. We don't know the real thing of love

because we don't know the real thing of God. If we knew, oh! if we but

knew it--Him--how that simple statement would melt us down, and mellow

us through, and mould us all over anew!

That's the shorter spelling. It is the universal spelling. That love is

being spelled out to all the race by every twinkling star in the upper

blue, every shade of green in the lower brown, by every cooling shading

night, and every fragrantly dewy morning. Every breath of air and bite

of food and draught of water is repeating God's spelling lesson. These

are the pages in God's primer. So we all may learn to spell out God. And

so we get the right spelling of our own lives.

Then there's the other spelling, the five-lettered, J-e-s-u-s. It's the

same thing, only spelled differently; spelled in a yet better way. The

spelling grows bigger to us when Jesus comes. When we know Him it takes

more to spell out and to tell out God's love. God grows larger to our

eyes as He comes walking among us as Jesus. No, He doesn't grow larger.

We simply begin to find out how large He is.

This is the closer, more human spelling. The letters are nearer and seem

bigger as they come walking down the street where we live, and knock at

our own door. They're easier spelled out. We can get hold of them

better. Love is a thing, we _think_. Jesus is _a person_. It's so

different to touch a person. But when we know, we know that both

spellings tell the same thing. So far, only about a third of us have

heard anything about this second, this closer spelling. Two out of three

haven't heard about it yet. But those who really know this spelling are

eager for the others to get it, too.

God is always controlled by a great simple purpose in thinking of you

and me. And it is an unfailing purpose of strong tender love. This is

the first key. Any one may take it and use it. It is unfailing. It will

fit every lock. It unlock every problem. It will open up the riches to

any life. They're brought within easy reach of any hand by the steady

use of this key.

This is the key to God. It unlocks the doors and lets Him freely into

our lives. Then we find out how much truer it is than we can understand.

Then there's _the key to the Book of God._ There are many keys here, of

course. Daily time alone with the Book, thoughtful reading, prayer, some

simple plan, putting into your life what has been put in its

pages,--these are all good keys. But there's a master-key, _the_

master-key. It is simply this: glad surrender of will to the God of the

Book. I mean a strong intelligent yielding to His mastery in all of

one's plans and life. The highest act of the strongest will is yielding

to a higher will when you find it. And you find the higher, the highest,

will here.

This is the master-key. Bending the will affects eyes and ears and mind.

The hinges of eye and ear are in the will. As the will bends those

hinges move of themselves. Eye and ear and mind open. The lower the will

bends, the more fully and habitually, the more will eyes and ears open,

the keener and more alert will be the mental processes, the more

intelligent the understanding. And there comes to be a continual mutual

shifting. With better understanding can come stronger more intelligent

yielding of will, and so again clearer light.

And it is striking to discover that there's a practical connection

between the joints of the knees and the joint of the will. The bending

of knees to a sharp right angle affects the will. It is easier to bend

it. It bends better and more. And this grows. The habitual bending of

the knees helps make habitual and stronger and more intelligent the

bending of the will.

This is the master-key to the Book of God. It opens every lock and page.

It opens us to the Book, and opens the Book to us. It frees out to us

the wondrous Spirit who is in these pages. And so through the opened

Book there come to be the direct touch with the God of the Book. We

don't come to the Book merely; we come _through_ it to Him who comes

through it to us. This is the second key in this bunch.

Three Keys.

Now, I want to give you _the three keys to John's Gospel._ There's a

back-door key, a side-door key, and a front-door key. These keys hang

outside the doors, low down, that so any one who wants to can easily

reach up, and get them. And if used faithfully and simply they will be

found to unlock every page and line and difficult question.

_The back-door key_ hangs right at the back door. It is the very last

verse of chapter twenty. That really was the last chapter at first. The

thought of the book comes to a close there. The story is complete. Then

the Holy Spirit led John to add a little, a second last-chapter, an

added touch for good measure. Love is never content. It is always adding

more.

Here is the key: "_these are written that ye may believe that Jesus is

the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life through

His name_." This was John's whole thought in telling the Jesus-story.

The practical gripped him wholly and hard. This is the thing that guides

his selection of incidents. This purpose shapes the shape of the book.

It explains everything told, and just why it is told in just the way it

is told.

John lets Jesus walk before our eyes fresh from His Father's presence.

The mere fact of His presence, the winsomeness of His personality, the

clearness of His teaching, the power of His actions, the uncompromising

purity of His character amidst sin-stained crowds and sin-dirtied

surroundings, the unflinching rigidity of His ideals, the persuasiveness

of His very manner and tone of speech, the patience and gentleness, the

rugged granite strength, the mother tenderness, above all the

willingness to suffer so terribly,--all this is a plea, a tremendous

overpowering plea, all the stronger because presented so simply and

briefly. Jesus is a Lover and this is His wooing.

And John's one thought in writing is the same as the one thought in the

Lover's heart. John has become simply an echo of Jesus. It is this, that

_you_, whoever you are, wherever, whatever, that you may _believe_. You

look and listen, question, puzzle a bit maybe, but keep on listening and

looking, thinking, weighing, till you are clear these things are just so

as John tells them. Yon accept them as trustworthy. Then you accept

_Him_, Jesus, as He comes to you, your wooing Lover, your Lover-God,

your Saviour and Lord.

You _believe_: that is you _love_. The grammar of the word works itself

out inside you thus,--believe, trust, love. The truth comes in through

eyes and ears and feeling, into brain and will; through emotion clear

down into your heart. You love. You cannot help yourself. You love

_Him_, Jesus, the One so lovable.

John says that you _may_ believe. It is possible. It is the reasonable

intelligent thing to do after such a presentation. John makes it easy

for us to believe. His telling of the story is so strong and convincing,

though so simple and short, that believing is the natural thing. Jesus

Himself, as He conies to us through John's eyes and speech, is so

believable, so trustworthy, so lovable.

Now we _may_ believe. It's the thing to do after a thoughtful kneeful

study of the case as put by John. We _may believe_ clear into and

through intellect and emotions and will, right down into the depths of

heart and love, clear out into every action of the life.

And John sweeps in the whole crowd of the world in the way he puts it

here. Listen: "that you may believe that Jesus is _the Christ_." That

was for the Jew peculiarly in the first instance. The Jew had been

taught through generations that there was One coming who was God's

chosen One for the Hebrew nation. He was the _Anointed One_. The Hebrew

said _Messiah_. The Greek said _Christ_. Both mean the same, the One

chosen of God, anointed by Him as the King and Leader of His chosen

people, and through them of all the race.

Listen further: "that Jesus is _the Son of God." That_ is for all of us,

Jew and foreigner, insider and outsider. This Jesus is in a distinctive

sense _the_ Son of God, the only begotten Son. This pure loving pleading

wooing suffering dying rising-again Jesus, this is the only begotten Son

of the Father. All there is in a Father comes to, and is in, an only

begotten son. This is God Himself coming to us in His Son.

Once let this sift into thought and heart, then who would _not_ believe,

_and_ trust, _and_ love, _and_ fall on his face in the utter devotion of

a voluntary slave before such a God!

And so believing, trusting, loving, touching, His life flows in and

fills up and floods out. We have it _now_. That word _eternal_, used so

often by John with the word _life_, is not a mere _length_ word. It is

not a calendar word. It tells the sort of life, the quality of life,

that comes in through the opening door of our believing. This is John's

back-door key, but it lets you clear in through the whole house.

Then there is _the side-door key_. It hangs at the side, a bit towards

the back. It is in the Thursday night talk, as we commonly call it, that

last heart-talk with the inner group on the betrayal night. It is in

chapter sixteen, verse twenty-eight: "_I came out from the Father, and

am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go unto the

Father_."

Run through this Gospel with that fresh in your mind, and it is

perfectly fascinating to find how much like a magnet it is, picking out

to itself so many bits from the Master's lips that fit exactly into it.

Jesus' constant thought was that He used to be with the Father; He came

down on an errand to the earth. By and by when the errand was done He

would go back home again.

This sentence becomes a simple, exact, comprehensive outline of the

entire Gospel. Notice: "_I came out from the Father_": that is chapter

one, verses one to eighteen. There Jesus is seen coming down from His

Father's own presence. Then chapter one, verse nineteen through to the

close of the twelfth chapter is fully described and covered by the next

clause, "_and am come into the world_." Here He is seen in the world, in

the midst of its crowds and contentions and oppositions.

"_Again, I leave the world_,"--chapters thirteen to nineteen. In chapters

thirteen to seventeen He is tenderly leaving the inner circle. In

chapters eighteen and nineteen He is going out of the world by the

terrible doorway of the cross it had carpentered for Him. How quietly He

says the words, though the terrible going is yet to come, and is now so

near that He can already feel the shame and the thorns and the nails.

And as quietly He looks beyond and adds, "_and go unto the Father_." In

chapters twenty and twenty-one He lingers a little for the sake of these

being left behind, but His face is already turned homeward. They would

hold Him in their midst. He quietly tells them that He is going back

home to the Father to get things ready for them, as He had said.

He Comes to His Own.

_The front-door key_ hangs right at the very front, outside, low down,

where even a child's hand can reach it. It is in chapter one, verses

eleven and twelve: "_He came unto His own, and they that were His own

received Him not. But as many as received Him to them gave He the right

to become children of God, even to them who believe on His name_." This

is the great key, the chief key to this whole house. It flings the front

door wide open and you are inside at once, and take in the whole of the

house at a glance, one glance, one wonderful glance.

The first twelve chapters tell of Jesus coming to His own, His own

nation, humanly, racially, His own chosen people. He is coming steadily

and persistently, in spite of rebuffs; coming patiently, tenderly,

earnestly; coming ever closer in the ever increasing measure of divine

power seen in His actions.

And continually, persistently, He is being rejected and accepted. He is

rejected silently and contemptuously, then aggressively and bitterly,

viciously and murderously. "His own received Him not." But many received

Him, eagerly and warmly and thoughtfully. They received Him with a

growing depth of conviction and deepening tenderness of love. And as

they come, He is ever receiving them, giving them that touch of new

life that marks only the children of God.

In chapters thirteen to seventeen He is receiving into closer fellowship

those who have received Him, and at the same time wooing them into yet

closer touch. The story of the trial and crucifixion in chapters

eighteen and nineteen, puts the most terrific emphasis on the words,

"_received Him not_." They not only keep Him out of His own possessions,

but do their worst in putting Him out of life. And the little book

closes in its last two chapters with His receivers being received into

the sweetest intimacies of tested triumphant love and into the inner

secrets of rarest resurrection power.

This is the most heart-breaking of all of John's heart-breaking

sentences. John had a hard time writing this Gospel of his. He was not

simply writing a book; that might have been fairly easy. But he was

telling about a friend of his, _the_ friend of his life, his one dearest

Friend. And when he remembers how they treated Him his eyes fill up, and

his heart beats till it thumps, and his quill sticks into the paper in

sheer reluctance to tell the story.

I think likely in the original manuscript, John's own first copy, the

writing was a bit shaky and uneven here. The dew of his wet eyes drops

and blurs the words a bit as he puts down, "He came to His own, and . .

they who were His own . . _received . . Him . . not_."

One day a young student was crossing the quadrangles of one of the old

Scottish Universities towards his quarters in the dormitory. He was not

feeling well. His eyes had troubled him and made his work very

difficult. On the advice of a friend he sought the judgment of an expert

in the treatment of the eyes. The specialist made a very thorough

examination and then informed the young student tactfully but plainly

that he would lose his eyesight, surely and not slowly.

Lose his eyesight? A sudden terrific actual blow between his eyes could

not have stunned his body more than this stunned brain and heart. Lose

his eyesight! All his plans and coveted ambitions seemed slipping clean

out from his grasp. With the loss of eyes would go the loss of

university training, and so of all his dreams. Dazed, blinded, he groped

his way rather than walked out of the physician's office.

His life was to be joined with another's. And now he turned his

distracted steps towards her home, hungry doubtless for some word or

touch of comfort for his sore heart. And he was thinking, too, that with

this utter break-up of the future she must be told. And as he talked he

said in quiet manly words that under these unexpected circumstances, and

the radical change in his prospects, she must be free to do as she

thought best.

And she took her freedom! Yet she was a woman. And a woman's mission is

to teach man love by the real thing of love, by being it herself, and

drawing it out into full flower in him. That was the second staggering

blow. A second time he groped his dazed way out of the house, down the

street, into his lone student quarters.

But another One was near, brooding over him, and tenderly holding his

breaking heart, and speaking words of warm comfort, and breathing in the

freshing breath of true love. And as he yielded to this it overcame all

else. A new mood came and dominated. And it became the fixed thing

mastering all his life. Now he sits down, and out of his torn bleeding

but newly-touched heart writes the words we have all learned to sing:

"O Love that will _not_ let me go,

I rest my weary soul in Thee,

I give Thee back the life I owe,

That in thine ocean depths its flow

May richer, fuller be.

"O Light that followest all my way,

I yield my flickering torch to Thee;

My heart restores its borrowed ray

That in Thy sunshine's glow its day

May brighter, fairer be.

"O Joy that seekest me through pain,

I cannot close my heart to Thee;

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

And feel the promise is not vain

That morn shall tearless be.

"O Cross that liftest up my head,

I dare not ask to hide from Thee;

I lay in dust life's glory dead,

And from the ground there blossoms red

Life that shall endless be."

And with but a single change, the change of a word or two in one line,

they stand as at first written. I suppose his biographer omitted the

incident for the same reason that the first three Gospels may have

omitted the incident of Lazarus while he was still living. So there was

a sheltering from personal embarrassment.

He came to his own and his own received him not. _He_--Jesus came to

_His_ own and they that were His own received Him not. Aye, there's more

to add: He _comes_ to His own--you and me--to-day. And His own--

You and I must finish that sentence, each in his own way. And we will;

and we do. We may copy out in our lives just what these men of old did

as told by John. Some of us do. We _may_ do some fine revision work on

the text of John's version as we translate it now into the experience of

our own hearts, and into the life of our own lives. That's the only way

to understand the next sentence about being taken into the family of God

and sharing the fullness of life that is common there.

And this bit that is put down here is only a bit of copy work. _These

things_ are talked and written only that we may be given a lift into

closer touch of heart and life with the Christ, the Son of God, and the

Brother and Saviour of men.

II

The Wooing Lover

_Who it Was that Came_

"But with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbed pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat--and a Voice beat

More instant than the Feet--

_'All things betray thee, who betrayest Me'_"

--"_The Hound of Heaven._"

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any

man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in

to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."

--_Rev. iii. 20._

II

The Wooing Lover

(John i. 1-18.)

In His Own Image.

Love gives. It gives freely and without stint, yet always thoughtfully.

It gives itself out, its very life. This is its life, to give its life.

It lives most by giving most. So it comes into fullness of life.

So it _gets_. A thing of life, in its own image, comes walking eagerly

with outstretched arms to its embrace. It gives that it may get. Yet the

giving is the greater. It brings most joy.

This is the very essence of life, this giving creating spirit. It is

everywhere, in lower life and higher and highest, wherever the touch of

God has come. The sun gives itself out in life and light and warmth. And

out to greet it comes a bit of itself--the fine form and sweet fragrance

of the rose, the tender blade of grass, the unfolding green of the leaf,

the wealth of the soil, the song of the bird and the grateful answer of

all nature.

The hen sits long patient days on her nest. And forth comes cheeping

life in her own image, answering the call of her mothering spirit. The

mother-bird in the nest in the crotch of the tree gives her life day by

day in brooding love. And her wee nestling offspring, in her own image,

answers with glad increase of strength and growth.

Father and mother of our human kind give of their very life that new

life may come. And under the overshadowing touch of an unseen Presence

comes a new life made in their image, and in His who broods unseen over

all three. And over the life wrecked by sin broods the Spirit of God.

And out through the doorway of an opening will, comes a new creature of

winsome life in the very image of that brooding Spirit of God.

This is the holy commonplace of all life. It is the touch of God. It is

everywhere about us, and beneath and above. The father-mother Spirit of

God broods over all our common life. And when things go wrong, He broods

a bit closer and tenderer. He meets every need of the life He has

created. And He meets it in the same way, by giving Himself.