We know nothing of what did pass; we know what must have passed.
There is only one way by which a burdened soul can get rid of its
burden. There is only one thing that a conscience-stricken denier
can say to his Saviour. And--blessed be God!--there is only one
thing that a Saviour can say to a conscience-stricken denier. There
must have been penitence with tears; there must have been full
absolution and remission. And so we are not indulging in baseless
fancies when we say that we know what passed in that conversation,
of which no word ever escaped the lips of either party concerned. So
then, with that knowledge, just let me dwell upon one or two
considerations suggested.
One is that the consciousness of Christ's love, uninterrupted by our
transgression, is the mightiest power to deepen penitence and the
consciousness of unworthiness. Do you not think that when the
Apostle saw in Christ's face, and heard from His lips, the full
assurance of forgiveness, he was far more ashamed of himself than he
had ever been in the hours of bitterest remorse? So long as there
blends with the sense of my unworthiness any doubt about the free,
full, unbroken flow of the divine love to me, my sense of my own
unworthiness is disturbed. So long as with the consciousness of
demerit there blends that thought--which often is used to produce
the consciousness, viz., the dread of consequences, the fear of
punishment--my consciousness of sin is disturbed. But sweep away
fear of penalty, sweep away hesitation as to the divine love, then I
am left face to face with the unmingled vision of my own evil, and
ten thousand times more than ever before do I recognise how black my
transgression has been; as the prophet puts it with profound truth,
'Thou shalt be ashamed and confounded, and never open thy mouth any
more, because of thy sins, when I am pacified towards thee for all
that thou hast done.' If you would bring a man to know how bad he
is, do not brandish a whip before his face, or talk to him about an
angry God. You may bray a fool in a mortar, and his foolishness will
not depart from him. You may break a man down with these violent
pestles, and you will do little more. But get him, if I may continue
the metaphor, not into the mortar, but set him in the sunshine of
the divine love, and that will do more than break, it will melt the
hardest heart that no pestle would do anything but triturate. The
great evangelical doctrine of full and free forgiveness through
Jesus Christ produces a far more vital, vigorous, transforming
recoil from transgression than anything besides. 'Do we make void
the law through faith? God forbid! Yea, we establish the law.'
Then, further, another consideration may be suggested, and that is
that the acknowledgment of sin is followed by immediate forgiveness.
Do you think that when Peter turned to his Lord, who had come from
the grave to soothe him, and said, 'I have sinned,' there was any
pause before He said, 'and thou art forgiven'? The only thing that
keeps the divine love from flowing into a man's heart is the barrier
of unforgiven, because unrepented, sin. So soon as the acknowledgment
of sin takes away the barrier--of course, by a force as natural as
gravitation--the river of God's love flows into the heart. The
consciousness of forgiveness may be gradual; the fact of forgiveness
is instantaneous. And the consciousness may be as instantaneous as
the fact, though it often is not. 'I believe in the forgiveness of
sins'; and I believe that a man, that you, may at one moment be held
and bound by the chains of sin, and that at the next moment, as when
the angel touched the limbs of this very Apostle in prison, the
chains may drop from off ankles and wrists, and the prisoner may be
free to follow the angel into light and liberty. Sometimes the change
is instantaneous, and there is no reason why it should not be an
instantaneous change, experienced at this moment, by any man or woman
among us. Sometimes it is gradual. The Arctic spring comes with a
leap, and one day there is thick-ribbed ice, and a few days after
there are grass and flowers. A like swift transformation is within
the limits of possibility for any of us, and--blessed be God! within
the experience of a good many of us. There is no reason why it should
not be that of each of us, as well as of this Apostle.
Then there is one other thought that I would suggest, viz., that the
man who is led through consciousness of sin and experience of
uninterrupted love which is forgiveness, is thereby led into a
higher and a nobler life. Peter's bitter fall, Peter's gracious
restoration, were no small part of the equipment which made him what
we see him in the days after Pentecost--when the coward that had
been ashamed to acknowledge his Master, and all whose impulsive and
self-reliant devotion passed away before a flippant servant-girl's
tongue, stood before the rulers of Israel, and said: 'Whether it be
right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God,
judge ye!' The sense of sin, the assurance of pardon, shatter a
man's unwholesome self-confidence, and develop his self-reliance
based upon his trust in Jesus Christ. The consciousness of sin, and
the experience of pardon, deepen and make more operative in life the
power of the divine love. Thus, the publicans and the harlots do go
into the Kingdom of God many a time before the Pharisees. So let us
all be sure that even our sins and faults may be converted into
stepping stones to higher things.
III. Lastly, notice the deep silence in which this interview is
shrouded.
I have already pointed to the occupations of that Resurrection day
as bearing on their face the marks of veracity. It seems to me that
if the story of the Resurrection is not history, the talk between
the denier and the Master would have been a great deal too tempting
a subject for romancers of any kind to have kept their hands off. If
you read the apocryphal gospels you will see how eager they are to
lay hold of any point in the true gospels, and spin a whole farrago
of rubbish round about it. And do you think they could ever have let
this incident alone without spoiling it by expanding it, and putting
all manner of vulgarities into their story about it? But the men who
told the story were telling simple facts, and when they did not know
anything they said nothing.
But why did not Peter say anything about it? Because nobody had
anything to do with it but himself and his Master. It was his
business, and no one else's. The other scene by the lake reinstated
him in his office, and it was public because it concerned others
also; but what passed when he was restored to his faith was of no
concern to any one but the Restorer and the restored. And so, dear
friends, a religion which has a great deal to say about its
individual experiences is in very slippery places. The less you
think about your emotions, and eminently the less you talk about
them, the sounder, the truer, and the purer they will be. Goods in a
shop-window get fly-blown very quickly, and lose their lustre. All
the deep secrets of a man's life, his love for his Lord, the way by
which he came to Him, his penitence for his sin, like his love for
his wife, had better speak in deeds than in words to others. Of
course while that is true on one side, we are not to forget the
other side. Reticence as to the secret things of my own personal
experience is never to be extended so as to include silence as to
the fact of my Christian profession. Sometimes it is needful, wise,
and Christlike for a man to lift the corner of the bridal curtain,
and let in the day to some extent, and to say, 'Of whom I am chief,
but I obtained mercy.' Sometimes there is no such mighty power to
draw others to the faith which we would fain impart, as to say,
'Whether this Man be a sinner or no, I know not; but one thing I
know, that whereas I was blind now I see.' Sometimes--always--a man
must use his own personal experience, cast into general forms, to
emphasise his profession, and to enforce his appeals. So very
touchingly, if you will turn to Peter's sermons in the Acts, you
will find that he describes himself there (though he does not hint
that it is himself) when he appeals to his countrymen, and says, 'Ye
denied the Holy One and the Just.' The personal allusion would make
his voice vibrate as he spoke, and give force to the charge.
Similarly, in the letter which goes by his name--the second of the
two Epistles of Peter--there is one little morsel of evidence that
makes one inclined to think that it is his, notwithstanding the
difficulties in the way, viz., that he sums up all the sins of the
false teachers whom he is denouncing in this: 'Denying the Lord that
bought them.' But with these limitations, and remembering that the
statement is not one to be unconditionally and absolutely put, let
the silence with regard to this interview teach us to guard the
depths of our own Christian lives.
Now, dear brethren, have you ever gone apart with Jesus Christ, as
if He and you were alone in the world? Have you ever spread out all
your denials and faults before Him? Have you ever felt the swift
assurance of His forgiving love, covering over the whole heap, which
dwindles as His hand lies upon it? Have you ever felt the increased
loathing of yourselves which comes with the certainty that He has
passed by all your sins? If you have not, you know very little about
Christ, or about Christianity (if I may use the abstract word) or
about yourselves; and your religion, or what you call your religion,
is a very shallow and superficial and inoperative thing. Do not
shrink from being alone with Jesus Christ. There is no better place
for a guilty man, just as there is no better place for an erring
child than its mother's bosom. When Peter had caught a dim glimpse
of what Jesus Christ was, he cried: 'Depart from me, for I am a
sinful man, O Lord!' When he knew his Saviour and himself better, he
clung to Him because he was so sinful. Do the same, and He will say
to you: 'Son, thy sins be forgiven thee; Daughter, thy faith hath
made thee whole. Go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.'