contrast must not be regarded in this sense,--that love was withheld
from Judas. We are occupied with that awful mystery of a human will
and its relation to the divine will, where every step is perilous,
respecting which the truest statements must wear the appearance of
contradictions. But it has been the belief of all earnest men of all
schools that the sop given to Judas was a last love-token, and that
the entrance of Satan into him, after it had been received, expresses
that last defiance of love, that utter abandonment to the spirit of
selfishness, which precedes the commission of the greatest conceivable
crime. After that perdition has come, the Lord speaks words to the man
which he can understand, and he only. They may mean nothing to the
bystanders; they may be capable of the most frivolous construction. To
him they testify,--'There is one who knows thy heart; who knows thee.
He restrains thee no longer. Nay, He bids thee be quick. It is to be;
thou hast decreed it. Go and do thy new master's bidding faithfully.
Then it will be seen whether he or I shall prevail at last.'
And as Judas goes out into the night, a new hymn rises to heaven, and
a new commandment is given on earth. '_Now is the Son of man
glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him,
God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify
Him. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek
me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now
I say to you. A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one
another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this
shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to
another._'
Does it not sound tremendous that the Son of Man is exalted, in the
voluntary exile of a human being from the society of his fellow-men,
from all communion with his Lord? It is tremendous; but must it not be
so? Is not the spirit of selfishness that which has destroyed human
society, that which wars against the Son of Man, that which declares
that man shall not show forth the image of the perfect and unselfish
God? Must it not, shall it not be cast forth utterly from the Church
of God? And ought not all humanity, all nature, to join in the Song of
praise of the Great High Priest, that Judas did go out into the night
to achieve that purpose, to bring about that death, by which God was
glorified in His Son, and which led to the glorification of the Son in
Himself?
Perhaps the other portion of the passage seems to you plain enough.
'The command to the disciples to love one another--that sounds so
beautiful! there is nothing in that to which every heart must not
respond.' Brethren, I will tell you plainly: I find far greater
difficulty in this commandment than in all the rest of the discourse.
The Church has been trying to construe it for eighteen hundred years,
and has succeeded miserably ill. I will go further. I will say that,
if it is a mere precept written in letters in a book, it is the
cruelest precept that was ever uttered. Men say so when they are
honest: they say, 'Tell us to do anything but this. We will give, if
it is necessary, ten thousand rivers of oil, the first-born of our
body for the sin of our soul. But do not tell us to love. That we can
do in obedience to no statute, from dread of no punishment.' Even so.
If God demands that we should bring this offering to Him or perish, we
must perish. But if He says, 'My name and nature is love; my Son has
manifested my name and nature to you: you are created in Him; you are
created to obey Him: you need not resist Him: His Spirit shall be
with you that you may do His will as He has done mine,'--then the
precept is not cruel, but blessed and divine. For then in the
commandment is life--life for those who first heard it, life for us.
He was going away from them where they could not follow Him, that He
might make it effectual for those who never saw Him, but over whom He
reigns the same Son of Man, the same Son of God, to-day and for ever.
'_Simon Peter said unto Him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered
Him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now: but thou shalt follow
me afterwards. Peter said unto Him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee
now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Wilt
thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice._'
This is the commentary on the new commandment and on the whole
discourse. Let St. Peter's-day fix it deeply in our hearts. Where lay
his error? Why was it inevitable that he should fall? He thought he
loved. He fancied his love would stand him in some stead. That
delusion must be thoroughly purged away from him. The washing of the
feet did not cleanse him as long as he gave himself credit for
possessing that which was God's own possession, which none can enter
into till he gives up himself. The prophecy to Peter, fearful as it
was to him, fearful as it should be to every one of us, is yet the
induction to the words, '_Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe
in God, believe also in me_,' and to all the depths of consolation
which Christ opened to His disciples in His Paschal discourses.
DISCOURSE XXIII.
THE FATHER'S HOUSE.
[Lincoln's Inn, 8th Sunday after Trinity, July 13, 1856.]
ST. JOHN XIV. 25, 26.
_These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with
you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the
Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things,
and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have
said unto you._
The words to St. Peter, with which the 13th chapter closes, must have
been a cause of dismay and confusion to all the disciples as well as
to him. But it was not the only cause. The words, '_Whither I go, ye
cannot follow me_,' had called forth his passionate question, and the
expression of his readiness to lay down his life. They were terrible
enough in themselves, even without reference to betrayal and denial.
They must have mixed with the prophecies of both. He spoke of going
away. He must mean that a death, a violent death, was awaiting Him.
Why He did not say so plainly they could not tell. The darkness of the
language added to the gloom of their spirits.
Then He spake again, '_Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in
God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it
were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and
receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And
whither I go ye know, and the way ye know._'
He addresses Himself here to all the causes of their trouble. The
first was the deepest; for they had been told that a love which they
supposed nothing could shake would be shaken to its foundations. They
had believed in themselves; that belief would be found to rest upon
the sand. The refuge was in another kind of belief altogether. Our
translation assumes that they had a belief in God already; that it was
to be fortified by a belief in Jesus. There is a justification for
that rendering; perhaps it is the right one. But if we take both verbs
to be in the imperative, the sense will be good. 'For your faith in
your own willingness to follow me substitute a faith in me.' The
result of the two constructions is not very different. The disciples
had no doubt a faith in God, however feeble a one. It might be made
firm and efficient if faith in His Son was joined with it. They wanted
a faith as well in God as in Him. Neither could live without the
other.
And here also is the deliverance from the other source of anxiety. By
uniting the belief in God to the belief in Him, by no longer accepting
the first as a tradition from their fathers, the second as belonging
especially to themselves, by perceiving that the one is involved in
the other, they would enter into the mystery of His speech respecting
His own departure; they would see that it was not wilfully obscure;
they would know what hindered them from following them, and how they
might follow Him. He could not talk of going to the grave--that would
convey altogether a false impression about Him and themselves. He had
not come out of the grave; that had not been His original home; and
to His original home He was returning. There was no other mode of
speaking: He was going to His Father's house. And that was their house
too. He was not entering it to claim it for Himself, but for them.
There were dwellings in it for them all; if not so, He '_would have
told them_.'
Why would He have told them? Because He had been continually speaking
to them of a Father who had sent Him, of a Father whom they were to
know, of a Father who was drawing them towards Him. If there was no
issue of His mission; if He had done all His work by merely giving
them a glimpse of a divine kingdom; if they and He were not to rest in
it together; would He not have scattered the false hopes which they
were beginning to form, which His own language had kindled?
Yes, brethren! that awful dream which shook the heart of the German
poet,--the dream of Christ coming into the world with the message,
'There is no God. You have no Father,' must have been realized, if He
did not come with the other message, 'I can declare to you the name of
your God. You have a Father. I am come to lead you to Him.' He himself
shows us that this is the alternative. 'I would have told you,--I
would have sent you to tell the world,--that all the thoughts it has
ever entertained of an intercourse between earth and heaven, of a
ladder by which man may ascend to God, are lying thoughts, inspired by
the spirit of lies; unless I could have said, "There is a Father's
house; there are many mansions in it; and I am going to prepare a
place for you."' Oh! let us consider it well. Our Christianity must
either sweep away all that has sustained the life and hopes of human
creatures to this hour; it must become the most inhuman, the most
narrow, the most God-denying system that the world has yet seen; it
must prepare the way for a general atheism; or it must proclaim a Son
of Man who unites mankind to God, who is a way by which the spirit of
every man may ascend to the Father who is seeking it.
He had a right then to say, '_Whither I go ye know_;' for the
knowledge of a Father was that which He had been all along imparting
to them. It was that which the whole heart of humanity, expressing
itself through songs, myths, forms of worship, had been aiming at.
Doctors might have crushed it out of their hearts; peasants could not.
And had not the disciples heard of a way to God? What had John the
Baptist come for but to prepare such a way? What had the call to
repentance, what had the message concerning a kingdom of heaven at
hand, and a Word who is the light of men, been, but an opening of this
way?
The difficulty was to connect this way with that by which Jesus said
He was going. Thomas gave utterance to the difficulty with singular
frankness. '_Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know not whither thou
goest; and how can we know the way?_'
Would that we were all as honest in asking questions as he was; then
we should be prepared to receive the answer. '_Jesus saith unto him, I
am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the
Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father
also: and from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him._'
Are you so familiar with the first of these verses that it leaves no
impression upon you? Connect it with the second, from which, in
general, it is widely disjoined, and you will see how much of its
meaning we have all still to learn. We think of a way to _heaven_.
Christ, we say, is that way. Even so. But the old question which we
saw was so intensely puzzling to the people of Capernaum--which is not
less so to us--recurs at each step, 'What is heaven?' Jesus answers by
saying that He is the way to the Father. '_No man cometh to the Father
but by me._' So the words, '_I am the truth_,' acquire an infinite
significance. Christ is the way to the eternal truth, which makes
free. He is both the way and the truth, because He is one with the
Father, who is that eternal truth. And the words, '_I am the life_,'
are but the same, proceeding from His own lips, which we heard before
from the lips of His Evangelist--'_In the Word was life_.' They are
but the gathering up of all the signs which have manifested Him as the
Life-giver to the bodies of men,--as Giver of a divine and eternal
life to their spirits. But if we forget that Christ's work is to bring
men to their Father; and that He is distinct from the Father, as well
as one with the Father: if we exchange this evangelical statement for
some miserable one of our own, about 'the happiness of a future
state,' the announcement of Christ as the way and the truth becomes a
mere self-contradiction.
Our Lord's teaching was not in vain. One of the disciples perceived
that to know the Father was all in all,--that he wanted nothing but
this. '_Philip saith unto Him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it
sufficeth us._'
We are now, surely, ready for the reply, wonderful as it is: '_Jesus
saith unto Him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou
not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and
how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?_'
The revelation of the Father in the Son was then the revelation of
the kingdom of heaven; it was the revelation of God Himself. There
could be no higher. It was a revelation to that which was highest in
man, to that which really constitutes the man. And for the man really
to enter into the knowledge and communion of God, to be able to pass
out of the fetters and limitations of mortality into this blessedness,
this eternal life, must be the consummation of all that Jesus came to
do.
He therefore adds: '_Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and
the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of
myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me He doeth the works. Believe
me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me
for the very works' sake._'
Perhaps, when the question took this form, Philip might be startled.
He might say to himself, 'Do I believe this? Is this what I mean?' And
he might, for a while, be at a loss for the answer. But he could not
say, 'I do not believe it,' without saying, 'I do not believe this,
and this, and this, which I have heard Jesus say, and seen Jesus do.'
However he might wonder at the strangeness and awfulness of the truth,
yet he had been led into it most carefully and gradually. It had
seemed to come out of himself; to be implied in his acts, and
thoughts, and intuitions. It was not like something new which had been
given him, but something very old, which he had now for the first time
been able to recognise. And his Teacher still deals with him in the
same gentle, even method. 'Believe this,' He says, 'on its own ground,
on its own evidence, because it explains to you what would be else
inexplicable in yourself and in others. Or else believe it for the
very works' sake. That, too, is a legitimate process,--for some
minds, the easiest and most natural. The works lead back to the
Worker. The laws and principles in His mind lead back to the original
of them in the mind of the Father.
The works lead back to the Worker. They would do so even when Jesus
was no longer the visible instrument in effecting them. '_Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do
shall he do also. And greater works than these shall he do; because I
go to the Father._' St. Luke says, in the beginning of the Acts of the
Apostles, that he had written before a treatise of all that Jesus
_began_ both to do and to teach. He intimates that he is now going to
continue that treatise, to show how much more Jesus did and taught,
after He ascended into heaven, than when He was on earth. Here, in the
most solemn manner, Jesus makes the same assertion to His disciples.
The works that He did upon earth were only the beginning of what He
would do--the signs, as St. John has expressed it so constantly, of a
power to be more completely exerted, of a purpose to be fulfilled. His
returning to the Father is to be the crisis and commencement of a new
life to the world,--the pledge that all the influences for health and
renovation which the Son of Man had put forth, instead of being
exhausted, were to go on proving their vigour and winning their
victories from generation to generation.
In the next verse He assigns the reason: '_And whatsoever ye shall ask
in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the
Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it._' He had
taught them to pray, saying, '_Our Father_.' No doubt they had done as
He had bidden them. And the thought, 'He taught us so to speak,' must
have been a mighty help when the effort was hardest, when it seemed
most impossible to conceive that they had a Father. But to pray _in
His name_, what a new world was opened to them, if they might do that!
If there was One who did bind them all together, One in whom they were
one, what an emphasis was there in that word, 'Our!' If this Son of
Man were indeed the Son of God, what life, what reality there was in
the word 'Father!' It was not that the prayer wanted its virtue till
the name of Christ was openly, formally introduced into it. If that
had been so, His own prayer must have been unfit for the Apostles and
for us. All prayer that had ever ascended to God had ascended in His
name. The Word was with God; the Word was the light of men. All things
were created by Him, and in Him. When He had taught His spiritual
creatures to feel they had need of a Father of their spirits, He had
awakened in them the impulse to pray. The Father of those spirits was
seeking such to worship Him, and owned their worship as that of
children made in His image, unable to live apart from Him. In the
Mediator, He could meet those to whom He had thus given power to
become sons of God; He could own them as the spokesmen of humanity.
But now it could be declared in what name men had prayed; how it was
that the spirits in them answered to each other; in whom God had
looked upon them, and been satisfied. No such revelation had yet been
made, no such assurance had been given, that every beggar who desired
that God's will might be done on earth as it is in heaven, was praying
for that which Christ Himself must certainly accomplish. He goes on,
'_If ye love me, keep my commandments_.' The Apostles thought, as we
saw last Sunday, that they could suffer for Christ because they loved
Him. They were right in believing that love is the ground of all
action and of all suffering, but they were utterly wrong in supposing
that their own love could be the ground of either. If this love were
in any degree an effort of their own, if it were not God's love
working in them, it would prove, as He had warned Peter that it would,
the weakest of all things; before the cock crowed, it might be found
good for nothing. But if they loved Him, let them keep His
commandments; let them submit themselves to the will of One in whom
love dwells perfectly, from whom it flows forth freely. '_And I will
pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may
abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth, whom the world
cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him. But ye
know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you._'
This promise, I believe, is the characteristical one of those Paschal
conversations; it is that which distinguishes them from our Lord's
discourses to the multitude. It is most important, therefore, to
observe how the subject is introduced, and how it is connected with
the passages we have just been considering. The new commandment, which
we find in the previous chapter, had been, '_Love one another, as I
have loved you_;' which was further expounded by the words, '_As I
have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet_.' It had
been a social commandment. Each obeyed it in so far as he regarded
himself as one of a family, under a Master who was his Elder Brother.
The loss of fellowship was the loss of allegiance; the loss of
allegiance was the loss of fellowship. Since He had given them this
commandment, He had been speaking to them of His own union with the
Father, of His own obedience to the Father. One truth lay beneath the
other; they must be learnt together. _Their_ union would be the way to
the apprehension of this union. _Their_ obedience would enable them to
enter into this obedience. But, on the other hand, they would find
union among themselves impossible till they had a glimpse of the
fundamental unity; they would find human obedience impossible till
they believed that there was a divine obedience.
But how should they bind these two truths together in their hearts?
What would save them from revolving in a hopeless circle, never
knowing whether the divine lesson or the human practice must come
first?
Before they well knew what they wanted, what deliverer they could have
in their infinite perplexity, He, their Head, would pray the Father,
and He would give them a Paraclete, one who would be always ready to
help when they called for Him, one who should not be with them to-day
and gone to-morrow, but with them for ever; not an external Teacher,
but a Guide of their spirits; not a Spirit who would obey their
fancies or notions, but a Spirit of truth, to whom they must yield,
that they might be freed from their confusions and falsehoods. This
Spirit, it is added, '_the world could not receive_.' That world or
order which does not own a Head, which is made up of sections and
parties, to which the Word of God comes, and which rejects Him,--such
a world is not capable of a uniting, fusing Spirit, not capable even
of conceiving how there can be such a Spirit, how He can enter into
human beings with all their different tastes and propensities, all
their contradictions, to mould them into one, how He can give them one
heart and one soul. But the Apostles did know it. They had the germs
of unity within them; amidst all their rivalries and discords, they
aspired to be one. The Spirit was dwelling _with_ them even then; He
should be _in_ them.
I wish you to observe how every word and every symbolical act of
Christ has pointed to the disciples as a body, as a family; how all
commandments and all promises have reference to them in this
character; how the difference between them and the world was not that
they were individually better than the persons of whom it consisted,
not that they had blessings which the world was not intended to be a
partaker of, but simply that the Son of Man had chosen them, and had
constituted them His witnesses to the world. And to those who owned
Him as the Head of their body, whether they saw Him or not, He would
come. '_I will not leave you orphans_,' He says; '_I will come to
you_.' If they were left without Him who alone had told them of a
Father, who was their only bond to a Father, they would be in the
strictest sense orphans. These last words took off the rough edge of
that sentence which, with all its apparent fulness and richness, must
have sounded sorrowful in the ears of the disciples, as if there could
be a substitute for Him, another Paraclete. In some wonderful manner
He would Himself be among them; in some wonderful manner His Father
would be among them. Else why did He speak of orphans? And the next
words made His meaning more definite, if not at once more clear, to
them: '_Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see
me. Because I live, ye shall live also._' 'The world, which judges
only by sense, which _believes_ nothing, will have no organ by which
to apprehend me. I shall seem to it to be far away. It will proclaim
that it has got rid of me. But you will apprehend me through the
spirit's organ. Your inner life will rest upon my life. In your own
selves you will be in contact with me.'
'_At that day_,' He goes on, '_ye shall know that I am in my Father,
and ye in me, and I in you_.' 'In that day, when you shall begin truly
to see me, when you shall know me more fully than you have ever known
me yet, in that day the great mystery of my union with the Father will
come out fully before you. It will come forth to explain another
mystery, which without it would be incredible, that as I am in Him, so
you are in me; that as He is in me, so am I in you.'