they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy
word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the
world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the
evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world._' The
idea of men living as children of God, members of Christ's body,
inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, with a world and a flesh and an
evil spirit striving against them which they can renounce and can
overcome, is not one which is strange to any of us. It is only too
familiar. We know the sounds so well, and we have repeated them so
often and so idly, that the words have lost their significance; we
think they are words of art, or words of course. Here we have the
beginning and ground of them. Throughout, St. John has been speaking
of a race born, not of flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of men,
but of God. Christ here declares that He has founded such a race upon
the earth. He prays His Father to keep it in the world, not to take it
out of the world; to keep it by His word, His quickening, uniting
word, which a world that is divided and is seeking death must hate; to
keep it in the confession of Him who is not of the world, but is the
Son of God; to keep it from that evil spirit who would make it
selfish, divided, hating, and therefore the worst portion of the world
against which it is to bear witness.
'_Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast
sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be
sanctified through the truth._' Surely, brethren, there are no words
that we need to meditate on more than these: for it cannot be denied
that sanctity and truth have become strangely separated among those
who call themselves by Christ's name. Oftentimes it would seem as if
holiness were pursued to the utter denial and dereliction of truth;
nay, as if it courted an alliance with falsehood. Oftentimes, again,
it would seem as if men who desired truth and pursued it, regarded it
as a dead and abstract thing, which has no affinity with the life of
man, which has no effect in making him purer or better. Nevertheless,
the voice has ascended on high, 'Make them holy by truth,' for truth
only can make holy. Whatever is contrary to it or mixed with
falsehood, must defile and make base. And the prayer has been heard,
and will be answered completely at last; for the Son of God, who is
the way, and the truth, and the life, took our flesh upon Him, and met
falsehood in all the forms in which it presents itself in this world,
and sanctified Himself, and kept Himself from all contact with it,
only by the might and energy of truth, only by submitting in all
things to His Father, who is the God of truth. And these temptations
He underwent, and this battle He fought, for the sake of His
disciples, that they also might be sanctified by truth and truth only,
that it might be an armour to them on the right hand and on the left,
that they might live for it, and die for it.
In this second part of the prayer, all has had direct reference to the
disciples who surrounded Him, whatever ultimate reference it might
have to the remotest corner of the universe. But in the third part of
it, He says expressly: '_Neither pray I for these alone, but for them
also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may
be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may
be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And
the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be
one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be
made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent
me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me._' Here is a prayer for
the whole state of Christ's Church militant here on earth from age to
age; a prayer offered by the Head of that Church to His Father,
offered on the night before His sacrifice was to be perfected; a
prayer grounded not upon some wish or high aspiration hard to be
realized, but, as He has just said, upon truth, upon the eternal truth
that the Father is in Him and He in the Father, and that He is the
Head of all men and that all live by Him. This glory, He says, He has
given not to those eleven who were sitting about Him then, but to all
everywhere who should believe in Him through their words. He has put
this glory upon them; He has given them the name of Himself, and of
His Father, and of the Holy Spirit the Comforter, to be _their_ name,
that they might dwell in it and abide in it. And He prays for them,
that they may not choose to be divided when He has made them one, that
they may not make themselves the curses of the world by sharing in all
its envies and hatreds, and by pleading God's name as the excuse for
them, when He has sent them into the world to be the witnesses that
His own Son has declared His love to it, and has gone forth from Him
to bring it into the circle of His love.
He began by saying, that eternal life was to know the only true God
and His Son Jesus Christ; He ends with saying, that this is the glory
which all are created to seek after, and which He has taken flesh that
they may attain and possess with Him. '_Father, I will that they also,
whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold
my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the
foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known
thee_' (has not known thy righteousness, but has supposed thee to be
altogether unrighteous like itself; has not known thee by that name of
Father, but has taken thee to be hard-hearted and grudging like
itself): '_but I have known thee_,' (known thee as the image of thy
righteousness, known thee as thy Son,) '_and these have known that
thou hast sent me_.' These have seen thy light shining forth through
me. These have beheld my glory as the glory of an only-begotten Son,
full of grace and truth. '_And I have declared unto them thy name, and
will declare it_' (to the end of all things): '_that the love
wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them_.'
DISCOURSE XXVII.
THE PASSION.
[Lincoln's Inn, 11th Sunday after Trinity (Morning), August 3, 1856.]
ST. JOHN XIX. 37.
_And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they
have pierced._
In our services for the earlier days of Passion Week we read carefully
and at length the narratives of the first three Evangelists. The
narrative of St. John is reserved for Good Friday.
There is great wisdom, I think, as well as courage in this course. The
diversities in these narratives, instead of being concealed from us,
are forced upon our notice; we are taught that we shall gain insight
into the whole purpose of the writers of the Gospels, of God Himself,
by considering them. We are taught, at the same time, that it is here
we are to look for the unity of the Gospels; that all the lines in
them have been tending to this point; that we must learn what they
signify at the Cross itself. The special honour which is given to St.
John may have been suggested by the name of 'beloved disciple.' But it
has, I think, a higher justification. St. John's Gospel takes us into
the very heart of the Good Friday mystery. The passages in his
narrative of the Passion, which do not occur in the other Gospels,
throw back a light upon them, while they explain the special end for
which he wrote. But they do much more. They show us why the death of
Christ has been, and must be, the centre of the Gospel concerning Him;
why all His discourses, nay, even that prayer I was trying to speak of
last Sunday, would be worthless and unmeaning without it. How we
should tremble to overlay the record of it with our words! How careful
the Evangelists are that we should not be hindered from seeing the
facts, and the Person, even by listening to their words! I shall
attempt little more this morning than to seize those points of the
narrative contained in the 18th and 19th chapters of St. John, which
are different from the narratives in St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St.
Luke. But, that we may feel the force of these differences, it is
necessary to say a word respecting their essential agreement.
This agreement is negative as well as positive. In contemplating the
passion of our Lord, one class of devout persons have encouraged a
sentimental habit of mind. They have dwelt upon the seven wounds, upon
the crown of thorns, upon the circumstances either of mental or bodily
anguish which seem to separate this Divine death from every other. A
second class has meditated less upon the suffering and upon the Person
of the Sufferer; much more upon the effects which the suffering would
produce either upon men or upon God I do not condemn these courses;
none can tell what good for life or for death may have been extracted
from either. I only say, that the method in the four Gospels is
equally different from both; and seeing that those who have chosen the
one or the other acknowledge the authority of Scripture as paramount
and divine, I cannot offend them if I add that the Gospel method is
simpler, deeper, and more reverent than theirs, and that probably any
blessing which they have divided between them will be ultimately
possessed in fulness by those who follow it.
In trying to discover what this method is, the reader is likely to be
struck with the importance which all the Evangelists attach to the
arraignment of Christ before Caiaphas and before Pontius Pilate.
Perhaps, if they were honest with themselves, they would confess that
they have been surprised at finding so much said upon this part of the
subject, so little comparatively of the crucifixion itself. But the
more we reflect, the more clearly we shall perceive that in this,
which seems to them the legal portion of the history, the ground is
laid for that part of it which is most transcendent and divine, and
also which is nearest to the sympathies of all human beings. The
charge before the Sanhedrim was, that Jesus claimed to be the Son of
God; the charge before the Roman governor was, that Jesus claimed to
be a king. To set Him forth in that double character, as the Witness
of the Father whom Jewish rulers were denying, as the true human King
whose power the absolute emperor was counterfeiting and
usurping,--this was the business of the Evangelists in their records
of all Christ's discourses and acts. And it was this which gave the
significance to His death. It was _the_ divine death and _the_ human
death, the death which manifested the mind and will of the Father; it
was the death in which all men were to see their own. In this respect
St. John does not in the least differ from his predecessors. It was
certainly not _less_ his purpose than theirs to exhibit the Son of God
and the Son of Man. What was spoken against Jesus, and what He spoke
before Caiaphas and before Pilate, could not therefore be passed over
or dwelt upon with less emphasis in the fourth Gospel than in the
other three. It must be dwelt on with more emphasis. He can tell us
nothing of Calvary till he has made us understand Who was brought
there, and why He was brought.
And as in this main characteristic of the other Evangelists St. John
resembles them, so also he follows them in all the chief incidents
which they record. The night scene when He is apprehended by Judas and
the band of officers from the chief priests; St. Peter's attempt to
defend Him by cutting off the ear of Malchus; St. Peter's denial; the
cry of the multitude for Barabbas; the purple robe and the crown of
thorns; Pilate's efforts to release Him; the inscription on the cross;
and the burial in the tomb of Joseph; are told as carefully in St.
John as if no previous narratives of them had been known in the
Church.
Yet under each of these heads points are brought out by St. John to
which there is nothing corresponding in the earlier Evangelists, and
which one feels instinctively would have been out of place in them.
The first is this in the story of the apprehension: '_Jesus therefore,
knowing all things that should come upon Him, went forth, and said
unto them, Whom seek ye? They answered Him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus
saith unto them, I am He. And Judas also, which betrayed Him, stood
with them. As soon then as He had said unto them, I am He, they went
backward, and fell to the ground. Then asked He them again, Whom seek
ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you
that I am He: if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way: that
the saying might be fulfilled, which He spake, Of them which thou
gavest me have I lost none._'
The last quotation is taken from the prayer which St. John alone has
given us. But I think the words, '_I am_' which made the officers
stagger as they drew near with their torches in the dark night to the
Nazarene prophet, have also their interpretation in previous words
which belong exclusively to this Gospel. We are told in the 8th
chapter that the Jews in the Temple took up stones to cast at Jesus,
because He appeared to them to be claiming the words spoken in the
bush as if they were spoken of Him. Was there not a recollection of
those words as He stood before them now? Did not the clear light of
righteousness and truth in His face carry them home to the conscience
of the officers, and make them feel for a moment that One was using
them who had a right to use them, One to whom they owed homage?
The struggle was soon over; they had been sent to do a work, and they
went through it. Then came that other sentence, '_Let these go their
way_,' which fulfilled, St. John says, the words, '_Of them which thou
gavest me have I lost none_.' What! we say to ourselves, Were not
those words spoken for all time? Did not they refer to a deliverance
from ultimate perdition? Could they be accomplished in the deliverance
of the eleven Apostles from the immediate peril of being apprehended
with their Lord? I answer, the more we become acquainted with the
letter and with the spirit of St. John's narrative, the more we
understand that he regards every act done by our Lord, to effect ever
so temporary a redemption, for ever so small a body, or so
insignificant an individual, as a sign of what He is, of the work in
which He is always engaged, of the blessing which He has wrought out
and designs for the universe. If we do not like to take this as a sign
that the words of that prayer were uttered on earth and accomplished
in heaven, we may form what sublime notions we will about Christ's
redemption, but they will be notions only; they will not belong to
reality; at best they will point to some good which we expect for
ourselves; they will not glorify Him from whom all good comes.
The incident of Peter smiting the high-priest's servant follows
immediately upon this sentence. The sequence is, I think, significant.
The Apostle begins to defend his Master; he does not know that his
Master is defending him. Of His disciples He loses none; but '_the cup
which His Father has given Him, He must drink_.' Then the vigorous
champion is chilled. He must warm himself at the fire, for it is cold,
while his Master is in the hall before the high-priest; the faces of
maid-servants terrify him; he forgets that he was in the garden with
Christ; he forgets his own violence; and the cock crows. The story is
told with peculiar vividness by St. John, but it is the same in
substance with that which the Hebrew Matthew told of the Apostle of
the Hebrews; which Mark told of his own kinsman and master, writing
perhaps from his dictation.
But the answer of Jesus to the high-priest is found only in St. John.
'_I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in
the temple, whither the Jews always resort, and in secret have I said
nothing. Why askest thou me? Ask them which heard me, what I have said
unto them: behold, they know what I said._' I do not quote these words
only or chiefly because they show that He who when He was reviled
reviled not again, could answer in a way which the bystanders thought
offensive to the dignity of the high-priest; so justifying words that
have been pronounced unseemly in many of his followers, when they
have been brought before priests and rulers; nor because they show how
easily affected reverence for an administrator of the law may be
joined with an outrage upon the law itself. I quote them much more
because they occur in that Evangelist, who has been suspected of
revealing a secret lore which Christ had kept back from those who
heard Him in the synagogue and in the Temple. That inference has been
grounded upon those Paschal discourses which I have been considering
lately; discourses especially designed to prepare the disciples for
delivering a message to the world; discourses of which the main
characteristic is, that they contain the promise of a Comforter who
should deliver them from their narrowness, and who should convince the
world. But here is a testimony, coming after those discourses, from
the lips of Christ himself, that He had no esoteric lore, that His
doctrine may be learnt from that which He spoke openly, and that His
disciples are teaching another doctrine than His, if theirs is not one
which can be proclaimed as good news to the universe.
It is St. John who tells us that the Jews did not '_go into the
judgment-hall lest they should be defiled, that they might eat the
passover_.' This most characteristic trait of a religious and godless
nation ever put upon record, should be thought of by each of us in
silence and awe, since every age has brought some terrible repetitions
of it. What cautions have not inquisitors taken lest they should be
defiled! what care have they not used to prepare themselves for
feasts, at which their hands were to be dipped deep in blood for the
honour of their god! They never fancied that they were copying the
Pharisees of Jerusalem. We wrap ourselves in our Protestantism, and
think we are quite secure that we shall not follow them. Alas! there
is our peril! to dream that there is one evil tendency in Jews or in
Romanists which is not in us, that there is one crime of theirs which
we may not commit!
It is from St. John that we learn that Pilate would have wished the
people to take Jesus, and judge Him according to their own law; and
that they, acting in the spirit of the advice of Caiaphas, waived the
privilege which perhaps they might have asserted, that He might die
the Roman death of the cross, and perish as a traitor against the
Cæsar. And it is St. John who gives us that dialogue in Pilate's hall,
of which we are only beginning, after eighteen hundred years, to spell
out the sense, though during all those eighteen hundred years the
sense has been declaring itself in wonderful ways. '_Then Pilate
entered into the judgment-hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto
Him, Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Sayest thou
this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? Pilate
answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have
delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? Jesus answered, My
kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then
would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews:
but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto Him,
Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To
this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I
should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth
heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he
had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I
find in him no fault at all._'
The other Evangelists have spoken to us of a kingdom of heaven, a
kingdom the nature of which might be explained by parables of nature,
the powers of which were manifested in acts of healing and blessing to
men. It was a kingdom in the strictest sense, a kingdom set up on
earth to rule over the earth. But it was not of this world. Its
capacity of blessing men arose from its not being created by them, or
dependent upon them. It was God's kingdom, therefore it was as unlike
as possible to the tyrannies by which the world had tormented itself.
St. John had gone in his Gospel to the root of this doctrine. He had
spoken of a Word by whom the world is created, who is the Source of
its life, though it knows Him not. He had spoken of this Word as the
Light of men. He had shown how the Word, being made flesh, proved
Himself by all His acts and discourses to be the same who had taught
the hearts and consciences of men in all ages. He had spoken of this
Word as setting forth the Father from whom He came. He had said that
in manifesting Him, he manifested the truth which would make men free.
In this dialogue all these lessons are gathered up. Jesus will not
tell Pilate that He is _not_ a king, for that would be to contradict
all His preaching and all His acts; He will not tell him that He _is_
a king, for how could a poor official and slave of Roman absolutism
understand Him? But He says: '_For this cause was I born, and for this
cause came I into the world, that I might bear witness_ (to Jews, to
Romans, to thee) of the truth. And I know that those who seek truth
and love truth will hear my voice.' This was that 'good confession'
which he witnessed before Pontius Pilate, the ground and pattern of
all confessions that were to be borne afterwards in the world; all
these deriving their virtue from this, all being witnesses of a
kingdom which is not of the world, but overcomes the world; all being
true because He is the truth.
I have said already that Jesus is represented in all the Gospels as
wearing the purple robe and the crown of thorns. But the words of
Pilate, when he brought Him forth with these signs of royalty,
'_Behold the Man!_' occur only in St. John. The answer of the chief
priests and of the officers was, '_Crucify Him, crucify Him._' Pilate
said, '_Take ye Him, and crucify Him: for I find no fault in Him. The
Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law He ought to die,
because He made Himself the Son of God_.' These words, like so many of
which he speaks in his Gospel, may have fallen lightly upon St. John's
ears at first; but after that '_Jesus was risen from the dead, then
would he have remembered what things were spoken of Him, and what
things were done unto Him_.' Then will the sentence, '_Behold the
Man_,' have seemed to him the most wonderful inspiration which an evil
ruler, who spoke not of himself, was ever visited with. Then the cry,
'_Crucify Him_,' will indeed have meant, 'Crucify _the_ Man, the Son
of Man, the Representative of Humanity.' Then the attempt of the chief
priests to sustain their charge of treason against Rome when that was
failing, with the charge which Pilate could not understand, and which
therefore made him the more afraid, of treason against God, will have
appeared to him a startling testimony that they could not crucify the
Son of Man without crucifying the Son of God.