power of man can awaken in us that faith, however greatly we may want
it, which thus ascends to Christ, and dwells with Him where He is. It
must be given us of the Father. That mighty drawing, which has been
spoken of so often in this chapter, must lift individuals, must lift
nations, out of the death of notions and opinions, into the life and
freedom which the Son of Man came to bring them. Is that a reason for
despondency, brethren? Is it not a reason for all hope? If we had
nothing better to look for, than that the disciples of Christ, of one
Church or another, should discover the meaning of His words, the power
of His life, the last verses of this chapter would cause us the
deepest despondency. '_From that time many of His disciples went back,
and walked no more with Him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye
also go away? Then Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we
go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure
that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered
them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? He
spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that should
betray Him, being one of the twelve._'
Those sentences which declared what is the very life of the Church,
drove back the first disciples from Christ. They could believe in a
prophet,--they could believe in any notions or doctrines; they could
not believe in a Divine Word who would give His flesh for the life of
the world. There is a sadness, a human sadness, in our Lord's question
to His own apostles, which proves that even they might have been
staggered by the thought that they must eat His flesh and drink His
blood, and that even they might desert Him. And though Peter's answer
was a noble one, because it showed that he would cling to his Master,
in spite of all ignorance and confusion,--because it showed that he
trusted in Him as a Person, and that he was sure there was eternal
life in Him, however little he might understand the way in which that
life was to be received,--yet the allusion to Judas, at the close of
all, has in it a depth of sorrow and of meaning which no one can
fathom. It is quite evident, I think, that the sin of Judas is in some
way connected by our Lord with unbelief in that lesson which He had
been teaching in the synagogue of Capernaum. But how could that
unbelief convert him into a devil? I answer with trembling. Judas is
represented elsewhere as a covetous man. In following Christ, he was
seeking not Christ but himself. He could believe in One who would give
_him_ a place in the Church below or the Church above. He could not
believe in a Son of Man who came to give life to the _world_. But a
person who has lived with Christ, and been a minister and an apostle
of Christ, and yet sinks into a separate selfish existence, answers to
the Scripture definition and idea of a devil.
If the early disciples deserted Christ,--if His own apostle betrayed
Him--because He said that He would in very deed prove Himself to be
the Son of Man, by pouring out His blood for men, and by feeding the
spirit of man, why may not His latest disciples forsake Him; why may
not His priests now betray Him because they, too, desire a Christ for
themselves, and not for the universe? But if our trust is not in them,
but in the living Father, we shall see all things working together for
the manifestation of the Son in this His true and proper
character,--for the discovery of Him to all nations as the source of
their highest life. The war which we have just passed through has
brought us, the most exclusive of nations, into strange proximity with
nations with which we have had no previous sympathy. We have fought
side by side with one which was called for ages our natural enemy; we
have fought for one who has been regarded as the enemy of Christendom.
The alliance will have done us harm, if it has made us value our
position as Englishmen less,--if it has made us understand less the
position which our fathers in the seventeenth century occupied, when
they struggled against Louis XIV. for Protestantism and for national
life. It will have done us good, if it has made us feel that our
fathers were fighting against a tyranny which was hostile to
Protestantism and nationality because it was hostile to
humanity,--that there is a Son of Man who is Lord of Frenchmen as
well as Englishmen, whom both in their creeds confess, whom both in
their acts are continually denying, for whom each is disposed to set
up some other Lord. Our struggle in behalf of Turkey will have done us
harm, if it has led us to think less than our fathers did of that
which divides the Crescent from the Cross,--the symbol of mere power,
and the symbol of strength perfected in weakness. It will have done us
good, if it has taught us that we are bound to resist injustice and
wrong as much when it is done to Mahometans as Christians,--if it
leads us to remember that the Son of Man gave His flesh for the life
of the world,--for Mahometans, therefore, as well as for Christians.
A phrase has gone forth, and has become almost proverbial among us,
which was spoken by one who was our enemy--spoken, we thought, with no
honest intention, but one which has been recognised as containing a
reasonable prophecy. It concerned the sickness and coming death of
that empire for which we have been fighting. If sickness has
overtaken, if death is to overtake, that once vigorous kingdom, this,
I believe, is the explanation:--It bore at one time a strong and
terrible witness for a living God, a Ruler of men, a Destroyer of
idols;--God endued it with strength to bear that witness. It bore no
witness for a Son of God and a Son of Man. It put humanity at a
hopeless distance from God. Therefore seeds of weakness were latent in
it when it was mightiest. They were certain to develop themselves in
it more and more. They were certain at last to make its belief in God
ineffectual, because it denied Him to be a Father. To adopt the modes
of European civilization--to tolerate enemies of the prophet--may
delay or may hasten the dissolution which has been foretold Certainly
there is not in any of these things a power to restore life. Would the
acceptance of Christianity restore it? If Christianity is taken up
just as these changes have been taken up, as part of a new system--as
the condition of admission into fellowship with more powerful states,
I can conceive nothing so worthless, so detestable. The old Mahometan
fanaticism is worthy of reverence; for it was real and honest. _This_
profession of Christ would be a pretence and a mockery. The faith in
Jesus which the Moslem does cherish is better than this;--he does
confess Him as a great, though an inferior, Prophet. This would be to
degrade Him into the head of a rival sect, which it is convenient for
state purposes to make supreme.
But how can we teach them to regard Jesus in any other light than
this? The first step to such a consummation is, to see that we do not
degrade Him to this level ourselves. Let our Christianity be something
more than a surface thing--more than an exclusive thing--more than a
particular form of opinion; then those that are without our circle may
feel its power, because then it will be a power. We need not, as some
fancy, reduce the Gospel into a set of moral maxims, that we may meet
the believers in the Koran on a common ground. By taking that course,
we enter into a foolish competition with the Koran; we do set up our
religion against the Mahometan religion, and so insult the prejudices
of those who profess it. We need not bring proofs that Mahomet was an
impostor, or that Jesus was the Messiah. But starting from that which
is the strong and vital truth of Mahometanism--proclaiming mightily an
unseen God and a living God--we may go on to declare that which is the
specially Christian truth,--that this God is united to His creatures
in a Son; that this Son has taken man's flesh, and has given His
flesh for the life of the world. The deepest mystery of our faith is
the most universal; when we are most Christian, we are most human.
Only we must not stop short at the Incarnation; we must go on to the
Ascension;--so we do justice to the Mahometan demand that we should
not exalt manhood above Godhead; so we escape the danger which
Mahometans too justly imputed to Christians, that they turned the
flesh of Christ into an object of idolatry;--when Christ Himself said,
'_It is the spirit which quickeneth_.'
There is a design of establishing an English Church at Constantinople.
If it is accomplished, God grant that the Gospel which is preached
there may be the same which has been preached already by English lips
and English hands in the hospital at Scutari! God grant that we may
not seek there or here to set up an English religion,--for that cannot
be the religion of Jesus Christ; that must be a denial of the Son of
Man! If we fulfil the obligations which our Church lays upon us, we
shall tell all men that there is a life for them in Him who died for
all. We shall show the Turks that we hold the Second Commandment as
sacred as Mahomet held it; that we are Islamites, confessing the will
of God to be the only foundation of all the acts and energies of man.
We shall show the Greeks that we regard the Son of Man as the one
universal Bishop of His Church. We shall show the Latins that we are
members of a one Holy Catholic Church, to which all nations belong,
and which, by its unity, is to testify of the Unity of the Father and
the Son in one blessed Spirit. And so we shall vindicate our own
position as Englishmen; so the Church which we build on a foreign
shore will prove that the countrymen whose bones lie on that shore
have not died in vain. They will have fallen in war that there might
be the sacrament of a true and eternal peace between the nations. And
whensoever the bread is eaten and the wine is drunk which testifies
that the Son of Man has given His body and His blood for the life of
man, their thanksgivings will be joined with those of the Church
militant, for the sacrifice and oblation that was once made for
all,--their prayers will rise with those of their brethren to the
Father of spirits--through Him who has ascended on high, leading
captivity captive--that all tyranny, and oppressions, and wars, may
cease for ever upon that earth which He has redeemed.
DISCOURSE XV.
THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES.
[Lincoln's Inn, Whit-Sunday, May 11, 1856.]
ST. JOHN VII. 37-39.
_In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood
and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me
and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath
said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on
him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given;
because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)_
If the words in the last chapter--'_the Passover, a feast of the Jews,
was at hand_'--are genuine, it would seem as if Jesus did not go up to
that feast, or to the Pentecost which must have followed it. At all
events, nothing is recorded of any visits to Jerusalem; and the
inference from the opening of this chapter clearly is, that '_He did
not walk in Jewry_' from the time that the Jews had sought to kill Him
at the feast spoken of in the fifth chapter.
I did not think it was necessary to make guesses respecting the name
of that feast. What _this_ was the Apostle has told us. I have no
doubt that he wished us to remember why it was instituted; what it
should have meant to them who were celebrating it; what it did mean to
Him whom they had sought to kill, because He had said, '_God was His
Father_.' It said to the Jews who were living then,--'Your fathers
dwelt in tabernacles in the wilderness; they had no houses which they
could transmit to their children, as you have. But the unseen God went
in a tabernacle before them. That was the secret of their strength;
that bound them together as a nation, before they had conquered a
single walled town of Canaan. Your houses are as little stable as
theirs were. If _your_ national strength and union consist in your
walled cities, the Romans in a year may lay them all waste. But the
living God dwells with you as He did with your fathers. The Romans
cannot take that Presence from you. _You_ may forget it; _you_ may
disbelieve in it: then the tabernacle of God will not cease to be with
men,--but it will cease to be with _you_; _you_ will not be His
stewards or witnesses any longer.'
Even we can feel that there was this significance in the festival;
events which, we know, were soon to happen, reveal it to us, if the
Law and the Prophets do not. How much more than we can divine or dream
of must He have seen in it! But the persons who were about them, His
own kinsfolk, had no such thoughts. To them the feast was an unusual
gathering of men together,--the occasion which one who professed to be
a prophet or leader of the people should take for showing Himself to
them. '_Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand. His brethren
therefore said unto Him, Depart hence, and go into Judæa, that thy
disciples also may see the works that thou doest._'
Looking at this advice from the point of view which we commonly take,
we should speak of it as most sensible. We suppose that Christ wrought
His signs to convince the unbelieving Jews of His mission; what more
strange than that He should not take pains to display them? Looking
at the advice from his point of view, St. John says, '_For neither did
His brethren believe in Him_.' They expected Him to make a startling
exhibition of His power to the eye. They did not _believe_ in
Him,--for faith rests upon that which is not seen; it confesses an
inward, vital power.
The words, '_show thyself to the world_,' were doubtless used by these
brethren of Christ in a very broad, vulgar sense. Jerusalem was the
great world to them; there all Jews met; there were the learned men
who decided what others were to think and believe; there were the
rulers of the people. But they had used the right word. A Mantuan,
speaking of great Rome, and wondering what he should do there, would
not have been more correct in calling _that_ the world, than these
Galilæans were in giving the name to the city of David. The Italian
metropolis might, in one sense, be the centre of the world's
government and the world's wickedness; the Cæsar might be the world's
god. But a society which was organized on the confession of a living
and true God--which had retained its organization, and believed in
_that_ instead of in Him--is more exactly the world, in the sense in
which the world is opposed to God, than the Roman society, or any
other existing at that time, could possibly be. Jesus, therefore,
adopts the expression of His kinsmen in answering them. '_Then Jesus
said unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is alway ready.
The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it,
that the works thereof are evil. Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up
yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come. When He had
said these words unto them, He abode still in Galilee._'
There is a greater sense of loneliness and oppression in this
language, than in any which we have met with thus far,--the loneliness
which comes from being altogether misunderstood; the oppression which
comes from a work to be fulfilled, which those whom it was meant to
bless would abhor. The Son of Man feels all the difference between
those '_whose time was alway ready_,'--who could go up to the feasts
whenever it pleased them, merely with the expectation of meeting
friends, and mixing in a crowd,--and Him who had the straitening
consciousness of a message which He must bear, of a baptism which He
must be baptized with. And the Son of God feels that He is to bear
witness of a Father to a world which was created by Him, and did not
know Him--which longed to rid itself of the sense of His
Presence--which conceived of Him as a tyrant and an enemy. The world
cannot hate those who fancy that the business of a divine Prophet is
to persuade it to admire him and follow him. The world must hate those
who tell it that the Creator of all good and truth is close to
it,--that it has no good apart from that Creator,--that its works will
always be evil while it is not owning Him. The world must hate Him in
whom the glory of the central and eternal Good and Truth shone forth
as in an '_only-begotten Son, full of grace and truth_.'
'_But when His brethren were gone up, then went He also up unto the
feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. Then the Jews sought Him
at the feast, and said, Where is He? And there was much murmuring
among the people concerning Him: for some said, He is a good man:
others said, Nay; but He deceiveth the people. Howbeit no man spake
openly of Him for fear of the Jews._'
We are carried at once into the bustle of the feast. Two or three
lines give a clearer and livelier impression of the feelings of the
crowds who were assembled at it, than the longest description could
have given. They wonder if the Teacher from Galilee is there, or is
coming. There are various thoughts about Him. 'He has done many kind
acts; surely He is a good man.' So says this man and that, as they
talk in the streets. 'Yes; but the multitude,--the ignorant people,
who are expecting a king,--what strange, dangerous notions He is
filling them with! Can you doubt that He is plotting to be their
chief?' So others whisper, correcting the charitable judgments of
their neighbours. But it is a hum of voices. There is a fear of
something, the people do not well know of what. It is a fear of the
Jews, the Apostle says. Each fears the other. There is a concentrated
Jewish feeling in the Sanhedrim, among the rulers, which all tremble
at. Till that has been pronounced--above all, while there is a
suspicion that it will come forth in condemnation--it is not wise for
any to commit themselves. Brethren, do we not _know_ that this is a
true story? Must it not have happened in Jerusalem then; for would it
not happen in London now?
'_Now about the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and
taught. And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters,
having never learned? Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is
not mine, but His that sent me._'
He went up to the feast in secret; but He goes into the Temple openly.
He has as little wish to hide His doctrine as He has to display
Himself. His testimony is to the world. It is borne at this time to a
letter-worshipping world,--to a world which believed that certain
letters had come long ago from God, but which utterly disbelieved
that God could hold converse with men in their day. Such people have
lost all sense of the meaning of letters. They are no longer the
blessed media of intercourse between soul and soul, witnesses of
spiritual communication; they are dead things, to be committed to
memory, to be learnt most readily by those to whom they express least.
How natural their wonder was that He who spoke with authority,--He who
uttered living words, and adopted all the living symbols of nature to
illustrate them,--should know letters, when there was no evidence that
He had gone to any school! And though a scribe may have first spoken
of His ignorance, it is quite probable that the crowd will quickly
have caught the phrase, and have manifested the same astonishment that
one of themselves should dare to teach them. The answer is in
accordance with all that He has said before. There is a fountain
within, from which His words flow. They are not His own. He speaks
what He has heard. He is a Messenger from the Unseen; He is a
Messenger to human beings. He can make Himself understood by them; He
can prove His commission to them. And this is the way He will prove
it. '_If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. He that speaketh
of himself seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh His glory that
sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. Did not
Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye
about to kill me?_'
I have taken these three verses together. I believe we lose the force
of the first, if we separate it from the other two. Oftentimes we hear
the first clause of the 17th verse quoted without the second. By that
violent proceeding this meaning is extracted from our Lord's
words,--that if a man keeps God's commandments, he arrives at a
correct apprehension of doctrinal propositions: an assertion which is
surely not always borne out by evidence, and which is likely to
produce quite as much self-righteousness as humility. Nay, it leads to
far more doubt than satisfaction. The question is raised, whether A,
or B, or C keeps God's commandments best, and therefore which may be
trusted best as an expositor of doctrine. The unknown is to be
ascertained by the more unknown: for who, except the Judge of all, can
answer this question? Who would attempt to answer it that reverenced
Christ's words,--'_Judge not, that ye be not judged_?'
Our Lord most carefully guarded His sentence against this
construction. Our translators have honestly and righteously preserved
the singular phrase,--'_If any man will_ (or wills to) _do His will_.'
Supposing a man really recognises a will as higher than his own, and
wishes, above all things, to be conformed to that will, then Christ's
words about _His_ coming to do a Father's will,--His whole doctrine,
which is grounded upon His relation to His Father, and His fulfilment
of His will,--must become by degrees intelligible to that man. He may
be confused about phrases, he may blunder in his statements, but he
will enter into the meaning of the teaching; there will be a continual
interpretation of it in his own thoughts and acts. For self-glorying,
self-seeking, self-will is that which he will be continually dreading
in himself, from which he will be continually flying in himself. He
will know that that has been and is the cause of all falsehood in his
words, his deeds, his thoughts; and therefore he will acknowledge
that One in whom there is no such self-seeking, self-glorying,
self-willing, who was entirely seeking the glory of another, and doing
the will of another, must be true altogether, must be right
altogether,--that there can be no falsehood, no wrong in Him.
Here is our Lord's famous test, which has never been
superseded,--which has never failed in the case of any generation or
of any man. Jesus applies it at once to those who were about Him. They
had a law,--they boasted of a law. But did they bow to the law, as
expressing the will of One higher than themselves? No; it was a
document which they could call _theirs_, which belonged to them--not a
power which was to rule them; therefore this law which forbade killing
was to be the very excuse for killing. They went about to kill Jesus,
out of love to the law. A more tremendous illustration of a
principle--tremendous, because its force has not been spent in
eighteen centuries--cannot be conceived. It is possible to make God's
commandments an occasion for boasting over others, for self-glorying;
and so it is possible to make God's law a perpetual barrier between us
and all knowledge of His will--even a reason for resisting it in our
acts.
Perhaps the people at large were not aware that there had been any
plot to kill Jesus at the former feast; for '_the multitude answered,
Thou hast a devil: who goeth about to kill thee_?' Without apparently
heeding the interruption--addressing Himself to those who _did_ know
what had happened at the Pool of Bethesda, and what charge had been
brought against Him for healing on the Sabbath-day--'_Jesus answered
and said unto them, I have done one work, and ye all marvel. Moses
therefore gave unto you circumcision; (not because it is of Moses, but
of the fathers;) and ye on the sabbath-day circumcise a man. If a
man on the sabbath-day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses
should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man
every whit whole on the sabbath-day? Judge not according to the
appearance, but judge righteous judgment._'