and want of sympathy. We do not confess the ground of Christ's own
sympathy, of His own sacrifice. He declares to us here that His
knowledge of the sheep, and the knowledge which the sheep have of Him,
rests upon the Father's knowledge of Him and His knowledge of the
Father. He has been telling us the same thing in previous discourses.
This union of the Father with the Son,--this dependence of the Son
upon the Father,--has been the mystery which the whole Gospel has been
discovering to us. Those words, in which He tells us that this
relation is at the basis of our relation to Him and to each other,--of
all our social and spiritual sympathies,--do but carry us one step
further in the revelation. Those words, in which He tells us that He
lays down His life for the sheep, because He is one with His Father,
do but bring out more fully that love of the Father, of which His life
and death were testimonies; a love to which He yielded Himself in
simple obedience, when He gave the greatest proof He could give of
love to the sheep.
This is the answer to the question which was asked before, whether
duty to God is not as good and powerful a motive as love to man? Yes,
brethren, a more powerful motive, a deeper and safer ground to stand
upon, if we accept what our Lord says here. He boasts of no love to
man as dwelling in Himself,--it is all derived from His Father. He
merely submits to His will, merely fulfils it. And because that will
is a will of absolute love, the mere submission to it,--the mere
consenting that it should be accomplished upon Him and in
Him,--involved the most perfect love to men,--the most entire
communion with them,--the dying for them. He says this expressly in
the 17th and 18th verses, though there is one interposed between them
and that which I last quoted, which it would be shameful indeed to
pass over. '_And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them
also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be
one fold, and one shepherd. Therefore doth my Father love me, because
I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from
me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I
have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my
Father._'
Our translators have carelessly substituted _fold_ for _flock_ in the
last clause of the first of these verses. But most readers, I think,
have of themselves restored the true reading, and perceived that the
Gentiles were not to be brought into the Jewish fold, but to form one
flock with the Jews after the temporary enclosure of their fold had
been broken down. Perhaps they have been more puzzled to understand
why what we describe as the calling in of the Gentiles should be
spoken of in connexion with Christ's laying down His life. The second,
modern theology represents as an event necessary for the salvation of
individual men; the first, as an event connected with the outward
economy of the world. And so, modern theology is out of harmony with
the language of the Scriptures to which it appeals. For that
represents the death of Christ as the uniting power which breaks down
the barrier between man and man,--as the deliverance of each man from
the selfishness which sets him apart from his fellows, and apart from
His Father in heaven. If it is this, it is surely nothing strange to
speak of the union of the two different classes into which the world
was divided as the mighty effect of the death of Christ. If it is
this, the calling in of the Gentiles belongs not to outward history,
but to the most inward and spiritual part of God's dispensation. The
recognition of Christ's other sheep as His sheep,--the acknowledgment
of the heathen as having been always His, no less than those who had
been called out to be a blessing to all the families of the
earth,--was the mightiest witness that the Brother and Lord of man had
met the wolf who was destroying the fold, had redeemed all from death
by sharing their death.
It was the witness, too, of that other profound truth which the 17th
verse announces, that there was a Man in whom the Father was
perfectly satisfied, and that the ground of His satisfaction was that
this Man entirely loved men--entirely gave Himself up for men. He
could be satisfied with nothing less than this; for nothing less than
this was the expression of His own mind and will. In no act of less
love than this could His love declare itself. The thought is so
wonderful, the mystery is so deep, that men have shrunk from it as
incredible, and have invented any reason to account for Christ's death
but that which He gives Himself. That an entirely voluntary act should
be yet the fulfilment of a commandment,--that the highest power of
giving away life and taking it should be realized in the most perfect
obedience; this idea clashes so much with our natural pride and
self-glorification, that we would rather think Christ died because He
was _not_ one with the Father,--that it was not the Father's love that
was satisfied, but His wrath and fury,--than accept a statement which
shows us that His thoughts are not as our thoughts or His ways as our
ways; that He is not made after our image, though He would have us
conformed to His. But seeing that all our morality, all our relations
to one another, depend upon the question, what He is and what He has
made us to be, we must ask for strength to cast away the schemes and
theories of man's devising, and to receive simply, as little children,
the teaching of Him who is the brightness of the Father's glory, our
Brother and our Judge.
'_There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these
sayings. And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear
ye Him? Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil.
Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?_'
I do not know whether the Jews who held these different opinions were
the Pharisees to whom He originally spoke, or whether His sayings were
reported to those who were gathered at the feast of Dedication. The
opinions themselves are exactly what one would expect that such
sayings would call forth. 'How can you listen to a madman, a demoniac,
who says that He shall lay down His life and take it again,--who
denounces our teachers, and calls Himself the good Shepherd?' This is
the language of the respectable citizen of Jerusalem, the
representative of the feeling of the Jewish religious world. 'But do
we not want a Shepherd who shall guide us to something better? Are we
satisfied with our present state? May not He who can give sight to the
blind be the Light of men, as He says that He is?' These would be the
cautious suggestions of those in whom some cravings had been awakened,
which the teachers of the day could not stifle.
We may suppose that the former party would press this argument upon
the others; 'But if He is the Christ, why has He not courage to call
Himself by _that_ name? Why does He adopt these phrases, "Shepherd,"
"Light of the world," "Son of Man," which we do not understand,
instead of that with which we are familiar, the purport of which we
know?' Of some such suggestion the question in the following verses
may have been the fruit: '_And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the
dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in
Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about Him, and said unto
Him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell
us plainly._' The demand seemed most reasonable, '_Tell us plainly_.'
What an honest sound there is in those words! What can be better than
plain speaking? Why should He who denounced all lies have shrunk from
it? The question is not a new one. To have said, '_I am the Christ_,'
would have been to deceive them, unless He showed them what the Christ
was, unless He made them understand that He was in nearly all respects
unlike the Christ they had imagined for themselves. 'May we not then,
after His example, avoid direct answers? May we not use expressions
which people call ambiguous?' Yes, if the answers we give are more
perilous to ourselves than those we avoid, as His were; if the
expressions that are _called_ ambiguous bring the hearers more face to
face with facts, than those which are called straight. This is our
Lord's example. Let all who dare follow it.
'_Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that
I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not,
because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my
voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them
eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck
them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than
all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and
my Father are one._'
He had told them that He had come from the Father; He had testified by
acts what His Father was. He had shown them that the Father was
working for them on common days and Sabbath-days to bless them. This
act had begotten no faith in them; would the words, '_I am the
Christ_,' beget faith in them? Neither words nor acts, so long as they
were not seeking as sheep for the true Shepherd. He had said to them
before, that instead of looking for a shepherd who should point the
way to them and the humblest Israelite,--who should fold them
together,--they were aspiring to be independent shepherds; they were
refusing to enter by the same door as the sheep. Those who were
sheep,--those who needed a shepherd,--would own His voice. They did
not want Him to tell them that He was the Christ. A sure and divine
instinct would tell them, that He who gave up Himself, He who entered
into their death, must be the guide they were created to follow,--that
there could be no other. And He would justify their confidence. They
were longing for life,--for the life of spirits,--for the life of God;
nothing less would satisfy them. He would give them that life,--that
eternal life of love, in which He had dwelt with the Father. They were
surrounded by enemies who were seeking to rob them of life, to draw
them into death. He was stronger than these enemies. They should not
perish; neither man nor devil should take them out of His hands. The
eternal will which He came to fulfil was on their side. _The Father
who gave them to Him was greater than all._ Those who were seeking to
separate them from their Lord and Shepherd were at war with this
Father; for He had owned them, they were His.
To this mighty declaration all His discourse concerning the sheep and
the shepherd has been tending; but at the ground of it lies a mightier
still: '_I and my Father are one_.' All that He has been teaching is
without foundation, if it has not this foundation. The unity of the
Father and the Son is the only ground of the unity between the
shepherd and the sheep; undermine one, and you undermine both. And
when I say this, I mean you undermine all unity among men, all the
order and principles of human society. For if these do not rest upon
certain temporary conventions; if they have not been devised to
facilitate the exchange of commodities, and the operations of the
money market; if there is not a lie at the root of all fellowship and
all government, which will be detected one day, and which popular rage
or the swords of armed men will cut in pieces;--we must recognise, at
last, the spiritual constitution of men in one Head and Shepherd, who
rules those wills which every other power has failed and shall fail to
rule. We must recognise it. The existence of a Christendom either
means _this_,--either affirms that such a constitution is, and that
national unity and family unity imply it, and depend upon it;--or it
means nothing, and will dissolve into a collection of sects and
parties, which will become so intolerable to men, and so hateful to
God, that He will sweep them from His earth. Do you think sects would
last now for an hour, if there was not in the heart of each of them a
witness for a fellowship, which combinations and shibboleths did not
create, and which, thanks be to God, they cannot destroy? The true
Shepherd makes His voice to be heard, through all the noise and
clatter of earthly shepherds; the sheep hear that voice, and know that
it is calling them to follow Him into a common fold where all may rest
and dwell together. And when once they understand that still deeper
message which He is uttering here, and which the old creeds of
Christendom are repeating to us, '_I and my Father are one_;' whenever
they understand that the unity of the Church and the unity of mankind
depends on this eternal distinction and unity in God Himself, and not
upon the authority or decrees of any mortal pastor, the sects will
crumble to pieces, and there will be, in very deed, '_one flock and
one Shepherd_.'
But, that we may enter thoroughly and deeply into the meaning of these
words, we should meditate earnestly upon those which followed them,
those especially in which our Lord justified what the Jews declared to
be blasphemy. '_Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus
answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for
which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered Him, saying,
For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that
thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not
written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto
whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye
of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou
blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the
works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not
me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father
is in me, and I in Him._'
We are eager to quote these words of Jesus, as a proof that He is God.
I fear that, very often, we only mean, _that He took to Himself the
name of God_. We associate with that name a certain idea of power and
absoluteness; we believe that He vindicated that power and
absoluteness to Himself. No, brethren. He came--if we may believe His
own words--to show us what God is; to deliver us from our crude,
earthly, dark notions of Him; to prevent us from identifying His
nature with mere power and sovereignty, as the heathens did, as the
Jews in that day were doing. He came to show us the Father. Instead,
therefore, of eagerly grasping at the divine name, and appropriating
it to Himself, the method which He takes of proving His unity with the
Father is, to humble Himself, to identify Himself with men, to refuse
to be separate from them. 'You charge me with calling myself God.
"_But did not he call them gods, to whom the word of God came?_"' We
are startled at the defence. We ask ourselves whether He was not
abandoning the very claim which He had put forward; whether He was not
allowing others to share the incommunicable glory with Him? No! but He
was showing that a dignity and a glory had been put upon men by the
word of God itself, which proved that there must be a Son of Man who
was indeed the Son of God.
It was not only heathen sages who had spoken of man's divine
faculties, divine origin, divine destiny. The Scriptures had called
those whom God had set over men, gods. Psalmists, who were most
jealous for the honour of Jehovah, had not feared to use the language.
Prophets could not maintain the truth of their own mission--could not
declare that the word of God was speaking by them and in them--without
falling into it. There _was_ the greatest peril of men becoming
Lucifers,--of their setting themselves up in the place of God. It is
the very danger of which Christ has been speaking in this
discourse,--the temptation into which kings, prophets, priests,--even
teachers who pretended to no inspiration, who merely stood on the
ground of their traditional greatness, or of men's preference for
them,--had fallen. Nor was there any deliverance from such
pretensions, and from the robberies and murders which were the
consequence of them, unless One came who did not exalt Himself, who
did the works of His Father, who simply glorified Him. Such a One
could justify all the high words that had ever been spoken of our
race, and yet could lay low the pride of those who had aspired to be
the lords of it. He could show what the true man is; and, in doing so,
could show what the true God is. By putting Himself into the position
of the lowest of the sheep, by enduring the death to which each one of
the sheep had been subjected, He could prove that the glory of man is
to serve; He could show that the true sons of God had been the true
servants of men; He could show that the perfect servant of all must be
_the_ Son of God. All titles, honours, dignities among men, had
derived their virtue and efficacy from Him. Their virtue and efficacy
lay in His Sonship. He was content to be a Son, to be nothing else
than a Son. So He showed forth His eternal consubstantial union with
the Father. If God is merely absolute Power, then all this Christian
theology is a dream and a falsehood,--then there is no Son of God or
Son of Man, in any real sense of the words. But if God is absolute
Love, then He who died for the sheep must be His perfect image and
likeness, the '_only-begotten, full of grace and truth_;' then to
separate Him from the Father, to seek for the Father in any but Him,
must lead to the denial of both, ultimately to the glorification of an
evil spirit, a being of absolute selfishness, in place of both. From
which frightful consummation, brethren, may the Father, the Son, and
the Spirit, the one God, whose name is Love, preserve us and His whole
Church!
DISCOURSE XX.
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS.
[Lincoln's Inn, 4th Sunday after Trinity, June 15th, 1856.]
ST. JOHN XI. 25.
_Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live._
The words, '_I and my Father are one_;' '_The Father is in me and I in
Him_,' which were spoken in the porch of the Temple at the feast of
Dedication, had the same effect as the words, '_Before Abraham was, I
am_,' which were spoken after the feast of Tabernacles. In both cases
the Jews sought to take Jesus that they might stone Him; in both Jesus
escaped out of their hands. On the last occasion we are told whither
He retired: '_He went away again beyond Jordan into the place where
John at first baptized, and there He abode_.' The disciples who had
been with Him in the crowd of the city found themselves in the lonely
place where they had first heard Him proclaimed as the Lamb of God.
Since that time there had been a whirl of new thoughts and strange
hopes in their minds. The kingdom of God had appeared to be indeed at
hand; they had seen their Master exercising the powers of it; they had
exercised those powers themselves. Some day His throne would be
established; they should sit beside Him. The vision had passed away;
they were the companions of a fugitive; they were in the desert where
they had first learned, not that they were princes to sit and judge,
but sinners wanting a Deliverer.
I cannot doubt that He who was educating them, not only by His speech
but by all His acts, had devised this lesson for them, that it was
just what they needed at that time. How often do we all need just such
a discipline; the return to some old haunt that some past experience
has hallowed; the return to that experience which we seem to have left
far behind us, that we may compare it with what we have gone through
since! How good it would be for us if when circumstances take us back
to the past, we believed that the Son of Man had ordered those
circumstances, and was Himself with us to draw the blessing out of
them!
Others beside the disciples were profiting, the Evangelist tells us,
by this choice of a place. '_And many resorted unto Him, and said,
John did no miracle: but all things that John spake of this Man were
true._' They had perhaps contrasted John the preacher in the
wilderness, with Jesus who ate with publicans and sinners; John, who
said, Repent, with Jesus, who opened the eyes of the blind. Now they
were reminded of the likeness between them. Jesus drew them away from
earthly things, as John had done. Jesus made them conscious of a light
shining into them, as John had done. Only what John had said was true.
They needed a baptism of the Spirit, that the baptism for the
remission of sins might not be in vain. They needed a Lamb of God and
a Son of God, who should do for them what no miracles could do. Was He
not here? '_And many believed on Him there._'
I can conceive no diviner introduction than this to the story of the
raising of Lazarus. It prepares us to understand that what we are
about to hear of, is not one of those signs which Jesus rebuked His
countrymen as sinful and adulterous for desiring; not one of those
wonders which draw men away from the invisible to the visible,--from
the object of faith to an object of sight; but just the reverse of
this,--a witness that what _John spake of Jesus was true_,--a witness
that in Him was Life, and that this Life always had been, was then,
and always would be, the Life as well as the Light of men. With what
care the story is related so that it shall leave this impression on
our minds--how all those incidents contribute to it which would have
been passed over by a reporter of miracles, nay, which would have been
rejected by him as commonplace, and therefore as interfering with his
object--I shall hope to point out as we proceed. And I would
thankfully acknowledge at the outset, that, on the whole, the mind of
Christendom has responded to the intention of the divine narrator;
that whatever scholars and divines may have made of the story, the
people have apprehended its human and domestic characteristics, and
have refused to be cheated of its application to themselves under the
pretext that it would serve better as an evidence for Christianity if
its meaning were limited to one age. I am still more thankful that the
Church, by adopting the words of my text into her Burial Service, has
sanctified this rebellion. An attempt, therefore, to discover the
exact meaning of the Evangelist will not introduce novelties, but will
deepen old faith. And I cannot help feeling that unless we do seek to
deepen that faith, unless we are willing to learn again from St. John
some of the lessons which we may think we know very perfectly, or
have left behind us in our nurseries, we shall find that we have less
of belief than many Jews and many heathens had before our Lord came in
the flesh.
'_Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of
Mary and her sister Martha. (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord
with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus
was sick.)_' The story of Mary and the alabaster box of ointment has
not yet been told by our Evangelist. But he had too distinct and high
an object to care for preserving the conventional proprieties of a
narrator. He never pretended to be giving those who read him their
first information about the events that happened while our Lord was
upon earth. Their memories, he knew, were stored with these events.
What they wanted was to see further into the meaning of them; to see
how they exhibited the life of the Son of Man and the Son of God. He
will tell us afterwards what is the context and significance of Mary's
act. Here he assumes that it was known at Ephesus,--as it was to be
known wherever the Gospel was preached,--and he uses it to identify
Lazarus. But how could Lazarus need to be identified? Must not his
name and his fame have been spread as widely as his sister's? Was any
other more likely to be preserved in the first century, by tradition,
if not by record? The answer is contained in the narrative. Lazarus,
as a man who had been in a grave and had come forth out of it, might
be spoken of then as he is spoken of now. A glorious halo might
surround him. It would be shocking to connect him with ordinary
feelings and interests. A like halo would encircle her head who had
anointed the Lord's body for the burial. Men would refuse to look upon
her as one of the common children of earth. It was just this which
John dared to do, which it was essential to his purpose that he should
do. He would have us know that Mary dwelt in the little town of
Bethany; that she had a sister Martha; that Lazarus was her brother.
The story is stripped of its fantastical ornaments. The hero and
heroine have passed into the brother and sister. If they have to do
with an unseen world, it is not with a world of dreams, but of
realities; not with a heaven that scorns the earth, but with a heaven
that has entered into fellowship with earth.