chosen me, but I have chosen you, and have ordained you, that ye
should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain;
that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He may give it
you.'_ All sectarianism, all self-seeking and self-willed religion, is
based upon the idea, 'We have chosen Him. By an act of faith, or an
act of love, we have entered into a relation with Him, which but for
that act would not be.' And the whole Gospel turns upon the opposite
maxim to this: '_I have chosen you_.' 'You are merely obeying a call.
You are merely confessing a relation, with the making of which you had
nothing to do.' Even when this doctrine of election has taken a narrow
form,--even when it has been recognised chiefly as exclusive,--it has
had a mighty power over the hearts of men. They have given themselves
up, as they never could do when they thought they had selected their
own Master, or were going upon errands of their own. But when it takes
the form which it has here; when Christ, who has loved them to the
death, commands them to love others as He has loved; when He tells
them that He has placed them in their different circumstances that
they may go and bring forth fruit,--that fruit being the men whom they
shall persuade that they too belong to a race for which Christ has
died, and which the Father loves;--there cannot be any principle which
is at once so humbling and so elevating, which so takes away all
notion from the disciple that there is any worth in his own deeds or
words, which gives him so confident an assurance that God's word,
spoken through him or through any man, will not return to Him void.
And that, if I am not mistaken, is the reason why the promise, that
whatever is asked of the Father in Christ's name shall be granted, is
again introduced here with the variation, '_He may give it_,' instead
of 'I will do it.' A man who feels that he is called to a work, does
not therefore feel power to accomplish it. He may feel--as Moses did,
and as Jeremiah did--an increased feebleness, an utter childishness;
but he understands that he may ask the Father, whose will he is called
to do, that that will may be done; so he wins a strength which is and
is not his own.
We wonder to find the command which we have heard so often, delivered
once more in the 17th verse. But we presently discover that it is as
an introduction to a new subject, and that in relation to that subject
the old words have a new force. '_These things I command you, that ye
love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me
before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its
own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of
the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word which I
spake to you, The servant is not greater than his Master. If they have
persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my
word, they will keep yours also._' Here the love which He commands
them to have for one another--the love which is His own, and which He
inspires--is contrasted with the hatred of the world. The one
difference which we have already discovered between the world and
those whom He chooses out of it, is that they confess a Centre, and
that the world confesses none; that they desire to move, each in his
own orbit, about this Centre, and that the world acknowledges only a
revolution of each man about himself. The world, indeed, cannot
realize its own principles. It must have companies, parties,
sects,--bodies acknowledging some principle of cohesion, aspiring
after a kind of unity. Still, as a world, this is the description of
it; and therefore, as a world, it must hate all who say, 'We are a
society bound together, not by any law of our own, not by an election
of our own, but by God's law and election. And His law is a law of
sacrifice. He gives up His Son; His Son gives up Himself. We are to
give up ourselves in obedience to His Spirit, that we may do His
work.'
As He had so lately called them friends, not servants, we may be
surprised that here He gave them the old name again. But the title,
servant, is not now a dishonourable title for those whom He has called
friends. Since the Master became a servant, His friends must be
content to be servants, otherwise they do not know what their Lord
doeth; they cannot enter into His mind. With this service, too, they
must take the hatred and persecution of the world as part of their
endowment, as one of the treasures which their Lord shares with them.
If it does not hate them, they must always fear that they are not
loving each other, or loving it as God loves it.
'_But all these things will they do to you for my name's sake, because
they know not Him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto
them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.
He that hateth me, hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them
the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now_
_have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But this cometh
to pass, that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their
law, They hated me without a cause._' These are, perhaps, the most
terrible words in the Old or New Testament. No descriptions of divine
punishment which are written anywhere, can come the least into
comparison with them for awfulness and horror. This gratuitous
hatred--this hatred of Christ by men because they hate God, this
hatred of God because He has manifested and proved Himself to be
love--is something which passes all our conceptions, and yet which
would not mean anything to us if our consciences did not bear witness
that the possibility of it lies in ourselves. And do not let us put
away that thought, brethren, or the other which is closely akin to it,
that such hatred is only possible in a nation which, like the Jewish,
is full of religious knowledge and of religious profession. There, our
Lord tells us Himself, was a hatred of Him and of His Father which
could be found nowhere else,--there, among scribes, and Pharisees, and
chief priests. Let us ask God, that none of us may say of his brother,
'This crime may be committed by thee;' but each of himself: 'God be
merciful to me a sinner. Keep me by Thy love, abiding in Thy love.
Help me to keep Christ's commandment of loving my brother as well as
Thee; else, if I am left to myself, I may sink into such a hell of
hatred, as would be worse than all other hells that men have ever
feared to think of.'
Let us pray this prayer, and then our Lord's last words in this
chapter will come to us as the most wonderful relief, as the very
answer which we long for. '_But when the Comforter shall come, whom I
will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which
proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me: and ye also shall
bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning._' To
have the Comforter, the Paraclete, with us, this is the security that
the spirit of hatred shall not overcome us. To have the Spirit of
truth with us, this is the security that we shall not be brought to
believe a lie, or to disbelieve in the God of truth. To have Him
testifying of Christ, the Son of Man and the Son of God, is the
security that we shall abide in Him who has given the greatest proof
of love that can be given, by laying down His life for His friends. To
be able to testify of Him because we have been with Him, even when He
was hidden from us, and we did not know how near He was; to testify of
Him by our words and our deeds; this is the security that He is using
us for His own gracious purpose, and that He will be glorified in the
fruits which He will cause us to bring forth.
DISCOURSE XXV.
THE COMFORTER AND HIS TESTIMONY.
[Lincoln's Inn, 10th Sunday after Trinity (Morning), July 27, 1856.]
ST. JOHN XVI. 1.
_These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended._
The things which Jesus had just spoken to the disciples were, that His
countrymen '_hated Him without a cause_;' that they '_hated both Him
and His Father_.' These things were to take away the scandal which it
would be to them to find that they made themselves hated by
proclaiming a Gospel of peace and good will. '_They shall put you out
of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you
will think that he doeth God service._' It would be a strange result;
fellowship with their brethren destroyed because they proclaimed the
ground of fellowship; death inflicted upon them because they preached
that death was overcome. Might not poor Galilæans, conscious of folly
and sin, often say to themselves: 'We must be wrong; the rulers of the
land must be wiser than we are. Ought we to turn the world upside down
for an opinion of ours?' But '_these things will they do unto you,
because they have not known the Father, nor me_.' 'They have not known
what the Lord and Light of their spirit meant: do you think they can
know what you mean? They have hated my character; they have hated God
in His own essential nature: would you expect them to love you who are
sent forth to testify what that nature is, and how it has been
manifested?'
All His education had been gradual; no word had been spoken till it
was needed. So it is now. '_And these things will they do unto you,
because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have
I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told
you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning,
because I was with you. But now I go my way to Him that sent me; and
none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou?_' His meaning would only be
entered into fully when the events explained it; but what a difference
would it make to them that they could assure themselves then, 'It _is_
His meaning! All this He told us of.' And this would be no mere act of
memory, at least if memory is only concerned with the past. It would
do more than anything else to remove the confusion which beset them,
which His own words seemed almost to increase, as to His absence from
them, and His presence with them. He had said that He was going to the
Father; He had said that His going would be an elevation and a
blessing to them. He had said that He should come to them. They could
not see their way through these apparent inconsistencies. They had
begun to ask whither He was going, but they had stopped short in the
inquiry. The news of His departure possessed them; that was an
unspeakable weight upon their minds. They scarcely thought that any
knowledge of the 'where' would materially lighten it.
'_Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I
go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you;
but if I depart, I will send Him unto you._' It was the hardest of all
truths; the hearts which grief had occupied could afford little room
for it. '_It is expedient that I should go away._' Again the doubt
will have come back in its full force: 'What compensation can there be
for His absence? What new friend can take His place?' Before, the
promise, however difficult to comprehend, '_I will come to you_,' had
taken away some of the bitterness of their anticipations. Now it was
necessary that they should face the whole subject; that they should
apprehend the Comforter as a distinct Person from Him who was speaking
to them; that they should rise by degrees to feel how compatible this
distinctness was with perfect unity. We, with our rough blundering
dogmatism, may think that we can teach these lessons at once; and when
we find how difficult it is for men to take them in, because they are
men like ourselves--incapable of seeing more than half a truth at a
time--may conclude just as rashly that no processes can ever bring any
but a few learned and subtle men to such a discovery. But He who knew
what was in man, was content to give His disciples line upon line; to
go over the steps of His teaching often again; to make them conscious
first of one need of their spirits, then of another; to present each
by turns with the satisfaction which it demands; to be indifferent
about apparent contradictions, so long as real contradictions were
escaped. He who knew what was in man was sure that it is not the
doctor or the systematizer, but the human being, who wants to be
instructed in the distinction of Persons and the unity of Substance;
that our minds rest upon the principles to which these opposing words
are the indices; that the fisherman or the publican feels after them
with his heart, and assumes them in his discourse; that he and the
doctor may enter into them together, when both are willing to perform
the highest demand of science as well as of faith, by becoming little
children.
Here, then, He tells them that His departure out of their sight was
actually necessary in order that the Paraclete--whom He had spoken of
as the bond of their union, as their efficient Teacher and
Friend--should come to them. You would have supposed, perhaps, that He
would have gone on to tell them what blessings the coming of this
Paraclete would confer upon _them_, which He would not confer upon the
world, since He had said that the world would not receive Him or know
Him. It may cause us some surprise, then, to read: '_And when He is
come, He will reprove the_ WORLD _of sin, and of righteousness, and of
judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness,
because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because
the prince of this world is judged_.' It is impossible to get rid of
this difficulty by any loose interpretation of the word _world_. It is
one of the characteristic and vital words in all this discourse. It is
used, as I think, with great precision and uniformity throughout St.
John: to evade its force here, is to destroy his meaning altogether.
On the other hand, if we will adhere steadfastly to the language as it
stands, we gain a fresh and brilliant illustration of the work to
which our Lord had destined His disciples, and apart from their
performance of which they could look for no blessings to themselves.
They were to be witnesses to a world which had forgotten its Centre,
concerning that Centre; witnesses to a world which was created by a
righteous God, and was meant to show forth His righteousness, in whom
this righteousness dwelt, and how it was to be sought after;
witnesses to a world which had set up a prince of its own, that his
power must come to an end, that it had been proved to be weakness.
How could they fulfil such a mission as this? What could their
arguments or their rhetoric avail to bring home such convictions to a
single Jew or a single idolater, to say nothing of a world of Jews, or
a world of idolaters? By their very nature, such convictions must be
inward and radical. They could not play about the surface of men's
hearts, but must penetrate into them. Whence could come this
demonstration? Our Lord tells the disciples at once that they are to
despair of its ever coming from them, that they are to be sure it will
come from the Spirit with which He will endue them. Not they, but He,
will convince the world; because, though the world may not receive Him
neither know Him, it has been formed to receive all quickening life
from Him; it must confess His presence, even if it would hide itself
from His presence. And the disciples were to go forth in this faith;
in the certainty that wherever they met a man, Jew or Gentile, there
was one whose Head was Christ, who owed his life to Christ, who was
receiving light from Christ, and who only sinned because he did not
own this Head, confess this Life, open his conscience and heart to
this Light. The Spirit in them would show them this truth concerning
themselves, and would only show it to them concerning themselves,
because they were partakers of the nature which every worshipper of
Jupiter or Brahm had as much as they. The disciples were to go forth
in the certainty that the righteous Man whom they had once seen upon
earth, in whom they had beheld the grace and truth of the Father, was
the same when they saw Him no more. They were to believe in Him as
the Lord their righteousness; they were to believe that the
righteousness of God was in Him; so they were to rise up righteous
men, children bearing the image of their Father. The Spirit within
them would give them this faith; the Spirit within them would make
them partakers of this righteousness. And that same Spirit would
convince the world of this righteousness, would bring this standard
continually before it, would make this standard the real measure of
its laws, its polity, its customs; the measure of its deflections from
right and truth. There would be an inward conviction, a continually
growing conviction among men, that nothing short of this could be the
human standard, even when they were setting up another, even when they
were pronouncing this to be unattainable, even when they said that
they would rather not attain it if they could. The disciples were to
go forth in the belief that when the spirit of selfishness seemed
strongest in themselves, strongest among their fellows,--when they
were most disposed to bow to him and acknowledge him as their
king,--he was not their king, but a lying usurper, whose pretensions
Christ had confounded in the wilderness and on the cross, whom they
could trample underfoot if they remembered that Christ's Father was
their Father. The Spirit would teach them that this prince of the
world was not their prince. He would teach them, therefore, that he
was not indeed, and by right, any man's prince, that all might
disclaim him, that for the sake of all he had been judged. And the
Spirit would convince the world also of this, that the untruths to
which it bows down can have only a brief dominion; that that which is,
must prevail over that which is not; that all evil lingers on under a
curse which has been pronounced, and shall be fully and eternally
executed.
All this they would learn hereafter; it could only be prophecy to them
now. And there were many things which it would be of no avail to utter
even in prophecy. '_I have yet many things to say to you, but ye
cannot bear them now. But_,' our Lord goes on, '_when He, the Spirit
of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all truth_,'--into the
whole truth, not merely into scattered fragments of it. For He shall
have dominion over your whole being. He shall guide it into that
fulness which it longs for, the fulness of God Himself. But it shall
be still a _guidance_; He will take you by regular steps along the
road which leads to this satisfaction. '_For He shall not speak of
Himself, but what He shall hear that shall He speak, and He shall tell
you things to come._' We should not, perhaps, be able to make out the
force of the words, '_He shall not speak of Himself_,' if the history
of the Church and the world had not expounded them. Again and again
there have been teachers in the Church who have spoken loudly of an
illuminating Spirit. They have said that a dispensation of the Spirit
had come, which made the old Gospel of Jesus Christ poor and obsolete;
they have said that now the Spirit was all that men had to think of or
believe in. So spoke a portion of the Franciscans, in the thirteenth
century; some of the brethren and sisters of the Free Spirit, in the
fourteenth; some of the Anabaptists, in the sixteenth; some of the
Quakers, in the seventeenth; so speak not a few who are revolting
against Materialism, without having found any safe standing-ground
from which to oppose it, in our own. The spirit in such men speaks
'_of itself_.' Such a spirit, our Lord says, is not the Holy Spirit;
for He will speak whatsoever things He hears; He will bring to us the
message of a Father, from whom He comes. He will not make us impatient
of a Lord and Ruler, but desirous of one, eager to give up ourselves
to His guidance, eager to get rid of our own fancies and conceits, and
to enter more into fellowship with all men. He will not allow us to be
satisfied with our advanced knowledge or great discoveries, but will
always be showing us things that _are coming_; giving us an
apprehension of truths that we have not yet reached, though they be
truths which are '_the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever_.'
That may not be the whole meaning of the words, '_things to come_;'
the phrase may intimate that foresight which is given to those who
study principles, meditating on the past, and believing in God. The
Spirit which our Lord promises is assuredly the Spirit who spoke by
the prophets of old, and has spoken by all His servants who have
humbled themselves, and sought light and wisdom from above. But these
two senses do not contradict each other; and the first is, I think,
more directly suggested by the context. It may also imply that the
Spirit, who does not speak of Himself, leads men away from that
incessant poring over the operations and experiences of their inner
life, which is unhealthy and morbid, to dwell upon the events which
are continually unfolding themselves in God's world under His
providence, and teaches them to expect the final issue of those events
in the complete manifestation and triumph of the Son of God.
The last meaning would connect the 13th verse with the 14th, '_He
shall glorify me_.' 'Whenever the Spirit of truth is working most
energetically in you, the effect will be that the glory of the
Deliverer and Head of man becomes more dear to you; that you proclaim
me more and more earnestly in that character.' '_For He, the
Comforter, shall take of mine, and shall shew it to you._' 'He shall,
in your hours of deepest gloom and despondency, reveal to you One who
is above yourselves, One in whom you may forget yourselves, One in
whom you may see all that perfection of your nature which it will
drive you to despair to seek in yourselves. Not, indeed, that you
could be satisfied with even this vision, if it were only the vision
of a Son of Man, of what is most glorious in humanity.' '_But all
things which the Father hath are mine._' 'All the glory of the Godhead
shines forth in the Manhood; all that original goodness and truth and
love which man is created to long for and to show forth.' '_Therefore,
said I, He shall take of mine and shall shew it to you._'
He has returned to the point from which He started. His going to the
Father has been the subject of His discourse ever since He met them in
the upper room at the feast. That has led Him to speak of the
Comforter who should tell them of His Father; afterwards of His own
eternal union to them, as the root of their fellowship, as the spring
of their life; then again of the Comforter who should teach them of
both Him and the Father, who should make them witnesses of their
eternal unity to men. It is no break in the discourse when He adds,
'_A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while,
and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father_.' The words which we
translate '_see_' in the two clauses, are different. I do not know
that I can discern the shades of their meaning; but I am sure that
there is a reason for the variation, and that it should not be
overlooked. The word θεωρεῖτε may, perhaps, intimate that for a time
they would lose all perception of Him, even an intellectual
perception; the word ὄψεσθε, that they should see Him again with the
eyes of the body as well as of the mind, may have cheered the
disciples afterwards; at present it added to their confusion. '_Then
said some of His disciples among themselves, What is this that He
saith unto us, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a
little while, and ye shall see me: and, Because I go to the Father?
They said therefore, What is this that He saith, A little while? we
cannot tell what He saith._' They are like men awakening out of a
dream, full of troubles and of joys mixed strangely together. He was
departing from the earth; He was going to the Father; He was to
prepare a place for them. What did it all mean? They thought He was
about to tell them; these words '_a little while_' seem to throw them
back into more than their old perplexity.