This, my brethren, I regard not as the text of my sermon, but of St. John's Gospel. I conceive that Gospel is nothing more nor less than the setting forth how Jesus Christ proved Himself in human flesh to be that Word of God in whom was life, and whose life was the light of men, who had been in the world, and by whom the world was made, and whom the world knew not; how in that flesh He manifested forth the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father; how He manifested the fulness of grace and truth. It is because the theology of St. John comes forth in these human facts that I affirmed it to be a theology not merely different from the systematic school theology, but the great deliverance from it. I should, therefore, be departing from my object and belying my professions, if instead of waiting for the gradual discovery of the meaning of these words in St. John's story, I began with thrusting my own meaning into them. All I ought to do,—and this I must do, for the very purpose of showing you how strict and beautiful the Apostle's method is, and how much wrong we do to ourselves and him when we forsake it,—is to point out, very shortly, the connexion which I trace between this verse and the one that immediately precedes it.
The Evangelist had said of those who received the Word, 'to them, gave He power to become the sons of God.' A new expression—to a certain extent, a new thought—is brought before us here. We had heard of the Word as One in whom is life; we had heard that His life was the light of men. All the language concerning Him had been such as applies—not to an abstraction, not to an essence, but—to a Person. But now it is said that those who accept His government, who are penetrated by His light, acquire apowerwhich they had not before. They discover arelationwhich had been hidden from them. It was the greatest of all their earthly blessings that they had fathers according to the flesh. A higher blessing is conferred upon them now; they can act as if they had a heavenly Father.As ifthey had a heavenly Father! But are they never to know certainly whether they have or not? Is the power of becoming sons not to be associated with the clear consciousness that this is their proper and original state? 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.' He became a man among men. We beheld Him, and we know that He was—what He told us that He was—not an independent Being, but a Son. He was not merely a Light of lights. We are sure that He was the ground of all human sonship; that He was the only-begotten of a Father. That higher, more blessed, more perfect name thenceforth mingled itself with all our thoughts of that God whom no man hath seen or can see; it turned our thoughts into trust and worship. The Absolute Truth and Goodness shone forth through Him. The only-Begotten revealed Him who had been from the beginning. He opened a new dispensation, because He made us know that God who had been speaking to us in the old.
[Lincoln's Inn, 2d Sunday in Lent, February 17, 1856.]
St. John I. 29.
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
John the Baptist is represented throughout this chapter as speaking of One who had been before him, though He was coming after him. This is the burden of his discourse. It has been asked by the bold critics of another country, whether such language does not presume a belief in the preexistence of our Lord, which might belong to one of his apostles, but could scarcely belong to his forerunner. English divines ordinarily reply, that the question is one which cannot be entertained. 'How can we dispute the right of the Divine Wisdom to make a special revelation of this doctrine to one person or to another?'
This may be the right method of treating such an objection; but if the remarks which I made in my two last sermons were true, we are not under any necessity of resorting to it. I endeavoured to show you that the principle which St. John asserts in the opening verses of his Gospel, was far from being characteristically a doctrine of the New Testament. It belongs to the Old. It is involved in the words, acts, lives of the Jewish Prophets. It could not indeed be enunciated by them as it is enunciated by the beloved disciple. There is a largeness in it which could not be fully realized till the barrier between Jews and Gentiles had been broken down. Still it was as a Jew—as an interpreter of the Jewish records—that the writer of the fourth Gospel spoke of the Word of God. He was not using new language, which would have startled his hearers. He was expressing, in simple and familiar language, what others of his countrymen had hidden from the vulgar under learned phrases and dark conceits. Why is it difficult to believe that, in doing so, he was recording some of the lessons which he had first received from the preacher in the wilderness? Was it strange that he, the last of the Prophets, should utter in more distinct terms that which all the Prophets before him had been imperfectly uttering? External evidence would be in favour of such a supposition. The Baptist was a contemporary of teachers who notoriously spoke of the light in men's hearts and of the Word from whom it issued. Many ofhisdisciples became, we know, afterwards blended withtheirdisciples. There was, however, one all-important distinction between him and them. He spoke to the hearts of the multitude,—to the publicans and the soldiers; they spoke to students. He appealed to those who were conscious of folly and sin; they spoke of the illumination which was granted to the righteous and the wise. And that is just the difference which we have recognised between the statements of the Apostle, the disciple of the Baptist, and those Alexandrian teachers whom some suppose him to have imitated. It is not only that his style is simple and childlike. Throughout he speaks of the light as making men aware of thedarknessthat is in them. Throughout he speaks of the light as lighteningallmen.
Are these reports of the Baptist inconsistent with those which we derive from the other Evangelists? Are we not told that he came to level the hills, and exalt the valleys? Are we not told that he bade his countrymen not say within themselves that they had Abraham to their father, because God was able of the stones to raise up children to Abraham? What finer commentary can we find on these announcements than the words, 'He testified of the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world'?
Still the reader of St. John's Gospel will continue to ask himself, 'Is not the lesson which I am taught here, in some sense or other, a more advanced lesson than that which was imparted even by the first Evangelists,—à fortiori, than that which was imparted before the day of Pentecost, before the resurrection, the death, even the preaching, of Jesus Christ?' I think, my brethren, that there is a confusion latent in this word 'advanced'—a confusion which besets other studies as well as theological. We speak of Bacon's discovery of the true method of physical investigation, as the greatest step in advance which it was possible for the man of science to take. But in another sense that discovery involved a retrogression. The schoolman, who had proceeded with the greatest satisfaction to himself in building a tower of speculations respecting nature, is stopped in his work and bidden to look back to his foundations. Classifications and generalizations, which had appeared convenient and indispensable, are disallowed, because they hinder direct intercourse with the facts. And the laborious collector of facts, though he is commended for his diligence, is told that every one of them must be submitted to tests before we can know what it is worth. Is it not true, in this and in all similar instances, that the greatest progress consists in the assertion and elucidation of first principles; that when they are asserted and elucidated, all faithful effort is seen to have been directed to the search for them,—all unfaithful, self-seeking efforts, to the construction of systems on hypothetical sand?
Applying this remark to the case before us, I conceive we may freely say, as some of the early Fathers said, that St. John's Gospel is the most spiritual and divine of all the Gospels. And we may maintain its claim to that honour, by showing that it leads us to a grand primary truth, affecting all human beings, capable of being apprehended by those who have least of what is called culture, capable of making itself manifest to the consciences of the most guilty. Does not his Gospel,for this reason, establish the truth of the other Gospels and Epistles, which had been unfolding the ways of God to men? May it not, for the same reason, have brought a number of false gospels to the test, and have scattered a number of windy theories and popular systems, which, under philosophical or theological pretences, were separating God from His creatures? Nor can I find anything inconsistent with reason and probability—or with the doctrine of Scripture that the Spirit of God brings back to the remembrance of those whom He is teaching the lessons they received, the states of mind they passed through in days long past—in the supposition that the Apostle owed his clear perception of this universal truth, in a great measure, to the vividness with which the experiences of his youth were revived in him; the sixty or seventy wonderful years which had passed over his head since he stood by the Jordan, and saw the shaggy form and awful eye of him who first spoke to him of a kingdom of heaven, helping him to take in the meaning of the words which seized and possessed him then, though he was not able to seize and possess them.
I have been anxious to make these observations, because it seems to me that the passage of St. John's Gospel of which I am to speak to-day will be utterly obscure to us—nay, that the whole Gospel will be obscure—if we forget them. St. John can in nowise separate the idea of the Baptist from that of a witness concerning the Light, a messenger to declare the divine Word that in Him all men might believe. This he considers the fundamental, radical meaning of his mission, apart from which his baptism of repentance had no sense or purpose whatever. But to identifya manas connected with this teaching—as the subject of it—this was the difficulty. To do this the Baptist needed a special, formal revelation, accompanied by an outward sign. The baptism of Jesus, and the visible token that the Spirit was given Him, are said to have been the assurance which was required. While he was without it, he was a preacher of the Word who was with God and was God. He was a preacher of a light of men. He was announcing, as the prophets of old had announced, that a day of the Lord was at hand; that there would be a manifestation of the light. Thenceforth he began to mingle his previous message with announcements concerningthe Word made flesh. These announcements are not repeated as if they were parts of a continuous discourse, like his words to the crowds that had flocked to him from every part of Palestine. They come forth as if they were the effect of sudden intuitions—lightning flashes which must often have been followed by periods of dimness and darkness. John knew that a crisis was at hand which would try the hearts of all men. He knew that he was sent by God to speak to their hearts of Him, as being the same now that He had been in the days of their fathers. He knew that whatever good was awaiting his countrymen must come from a fuller revelation of God. This was the preparation, the only possible preparation in his own mind, for the recognition of Jesus as the Christ,—the only way in which he could prepare his countrymen forsucha Christ.
We are all aware—we dwell upon the assertion—that the Jews were at this time expecting a Christ, but that their expectations were of a wrong kind; that they pointed to a deliverer different in most respects from the One who had been promised them. We cannot, perhaps, exaggerate this error, but we may make considerable mistakes when we try to state in what it consisted. We sometimes say that the Jews were looking for a greatPrince. Undoubtedly they were. If they read the Prophets, they must have looked for a king. The other Evangelists say that Jesus proved Himself to be a King, and so fulfilled the words of the Prophets. We shall find that St John says the same. 'Yes,' we go on, 'a King in a certain sense, but not atemporalking' What! is not our Lord said to have been born in the days of Herod—to have been baptized when He was about thirty years old—to have been tempted forty days—to have kept annual feasts—to have risen the third day—to have tarried forty days among His disciples after the resurrection? All the acts which are recorded of Him in the Gospels were acts done in time. 'Yes,' we resume, 'if you define temporal in this exact manner. But the Jews thought He was to be an "earthly" king.' And were not all the powers by which He showed Himself to be a king, exercised upon earth for the sons of earth, for the removal of the plagues and diseases to which earth is liable? We make another experiment. We say, they supposed that He was to be aJewishking. Could they suppose otherwise? Was not David to have an heir to his throne? Do not the Evangelists take pains to speak of their Master as the Son of David?
The Jews of that time cannot be fairly condemned on these grounds; and yet our conviction that they were under some grievous mistake, gains strength from all we read of them—nay, from our very failures to define the quality of it. May not St. John himself explain the error which had caused him such unspeakable sorrow, better than we can? Have we not the explanation here?
The Jews looked for one who wascomingto be a leader and deliverer. He might come with the manifest tokens of royalty. He might come as one of the old prophets had come. It was not impossible that he might be born in some humble station, for David had been a shepherd. It was probable that he would be born in a lowlyvillage, for Bethlehem was associated with the name of David. Hemightbe this John, for his coarse food and raiment certainly did not show him not to be an Elijah, or an Isaiah, or a Daniel. And John had given this proof of power, that he was drawing multitudes to hear discourses that had no apparent charm—that were stern and terrible. It was not at all impossible, nay, it might be presumed, that when the Christ came, He would introduce some new ordinance, or give a new force to one already in use. The river of Jordan had a sacred historical importance; to wash men in that might denote that he was preparing Israelites for conquests like those of Joshua. No doubt, other signs might be added to this in due time; there would probably be strange appearances in the heavens,—some of the tokens which had accompanied the rare visits of angels that are recorded in the Old Testament. For who could tell whether the Christ might notbean angel, the visitant from another region? Who could tell whether He might not be an old seer returning to the earth again? There were all these possibilities. One was stronger in this mind, and one in that. Which was the truest, the scribes hoped in due time to discover, by studying the letter of the divine oracles, and ascertaining what particulars of time and place were indicated in them as necessary conditions of the deliverer.
What was there faulty in such speculations? What was there to complain of in the test which was applied to ascertain their worth? St. John suggeststhisanswer to us. They were expecting one that should come after all prophets, not one that had been before all. They were looking for a son of David, a prophet, an angel; they were not looking for One who had been with God, and was God. They were looking for one whom they should recognise with their eyes; they were not looking for One whose light had been always shining in their hearts. They were looking for a king who should reign over men; they did not think that that King must be One who had from the beginning been the Light of men. They thought of one who should be born into the world; they did not think that He who was to be born into the world was One who was in the world, and by whom the world was made, though the world knew Him not.
It was precisely to bring this information, in the only way in which it could be brought to any human being, that we are told the man John was sent from God. And because the whole mind of the Prophet was possessed with this conviction, he was able to receive the communication which told him that a Man, without any signs of royalty, without any signs of prophetical dignity, One who had apparently been born and brought up in Galilee, One who had given no proof that He possessed any power of commanding the services of multitudes or of individuals,—was that Christ in whom all the characteristics of King and Prophet were to meet. This Man, he says, this carpenter's son, was He of whom I spake, 'He that cometh after me is preferred before me; for He was before me.' Possibly a better translation of the last clause might be found, but the one we have is good enough; it conveys the sense of the original, though it be a little diluted. The next verse, as I said last Sunday, is naturally connected with this. Both, I believe, must be taken as part of John's witness. Here is that divine Word of God, out of whom all grace has issued. Each right and true man has had some grace, denoting him to be of divine origin. In Him dwelt that fulness of grace and glory, of which these were the scattered rays. Then the Evangelist comments upon this witness, and connects it with what he had said in the fifteenth verse. 'For the law was given through Moses, but the grace and the truth became through Jesus Christ.' Outward law, literal commands, tables of stone, had been given through a mere man, a mere servant or messenger. But all the grace and the truth, which were the essence of the law, which could not be expressed in letters, but only in the lives and acts of human beings,—these became parts of any man's character through Jesus Christ. For these belonged to the nature of God Himself,—these constituted His being. In Himself they could not be seen: 'No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father.' He it is who in all ages has brought forth the divine perfection, in distinct qualities, and has exhibited them to men, and in men.
So far we have the testimony of John, originally addressed, it would appear, to his own disciples—now illustrated and expounded by the matured wisdom of one of them. Next we have the record of John, 'when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask Him, Who art thou?' They had a right to know. A new pretender had started up. Slight as his credentials seemed to be, the people were crowding about him. He was baptizing, not Gentiles, but Jews; he was treating the most religious and exalted as if they were impure, as if they needed the same cleansing as those needed who had not been born in the covenant. What did it all mean? The messengers must get some clear distinct satisfaction on this point before they returned to their masters. 'And he confessed, and denied not, but confessed, I am not the Christ.' The questioners must have been surprised. If he did not actually claim a title which so many had claimed, they might have expected a little hesitation. He might have left the point open; he might have allowed his scholars to assert the dignity for him. There was another possibility. Malachi had said that an Elijah would come. John certainly had few marks of grandeur about him; but he dwelt in a desert; he did not fear the face of kings; he could have denounced Ahab and Jezebel, as he afterwards denounced Herod and Herodias. He evidently understood the question literally, for the messengers intended it literally. They supposed that Elijah had been carried away into some invisible region, and that from thence he himself would descend. Seeing, therefore, that John was not one who trafficked with words in a double sense, or who would convey a falsehood in the terms of truth, he answered to this demand also, 'I am not.' But Isaiah, Jeremiah, all the Jewish seers, had not only spoken of a great Conqueror,—they had spoken also of a Sufferer. A few might try to identify the characters. The prevailing opinion among the Jews was of course then, as it is now, that they were separated,—one description denoted a King, the other a Prophet. If he was not a King, was he that Prophet? And again he answered, 'No.'
The messengers have exhausted their guesses; they begin to be provoked. It will not do to go back merely with a set of negatives. 'Then said they, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us: What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.' You see how carefully he associates his message with that of the old prophets; how confident he is that he is preparing a way just as they were; how sure he is that it is the way of the Lord—that wonderful road between the unseen Being and the heart of His creatures, of which they had one and all spoken. So far he was using language which belongs to every psalmist and every prophet. In adopting the words in the 40th chapter of Isaiah, as the description of his calling and his work, he proved more distinctly that he was 'sent to bearwitness of the Light, that all men through Him might believe.' For the burden of that chapter is, that Jerusalem should lift up her voice, and say to the cities of Judah, 'Behold your God;' and it is the beginning of a series of prophetical inspirations, in which the Jew is represented as holding up the true image of God to all nations, that the images which they had made of Him might be confounded. John was preparing the way, then, for a declaration or manifestation of God; he was clearing away the thorns and briers which blocked up the path between the Word of God and the conscience of man.
St. John significantly intimates how little language of this kind could be intelligible to the Jewish emissaries, for he adds, 'They that were sent were of the Pharisees.' Very characteristically they relieved themselves of the embarrassment which the Scripture always caused them, when it could not be measured by lines and rules, when it appealed to the hearts of living men, by asking, 'Why baptizest thou, then, if thou art not the Christ, neither Elias, neither that Prophet?' They had an excuse for urging that demand. It was an audacious thing for a man to practise such a rite, to press it upon all, to speak of it as a baptism for repentance and the sending away of sins, if he had not some divine authority for what he was doing. Yet he had produced none. And now he refused all the titles which would seem to have been the warrants for such an innovation. Nor does he tell the Pharisees when or how he received his commission. His answer is, 'I baptize with water: but in the midst of you there standeth One whom ye know not; He it is who, coming after me, was preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy that I should unloose.' More is not said here. The messengers are not told what this Person who is in the midst of them would do, which John could not do; that announcement is reserved for another occasion. The thought which he still dwells upon is, that there is a mysterious Being in the midst of them, their Lord and his; One who has power to command, One whom he is bound to obey. By speaking of the latchet of the sandal, he clearly intimates that this Person is among them in a visible form. But neither in that form, nor in His own proper nature, do they know Him. They would know Him as little if they were told His name, if He stood out before them, even if He exhibited His power to them, as they did then. I am warranted in believing thatthisis the sense of the words; for we shall find how continually our Lord resorts to the same phrase in His conversations with the Jews, and assures them that though they saw Him, theyknewHim not.
We have now reached the words of the text. They are carefully separated by the Evangelist from the discourse with the Pharisees. 'These things,' he says, 'were done, in Bethabara, beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.The next day John seeth Jesus coming to him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.' But though the sentence formed no part of that discourse, it is immediately joined to the words which have recurred so often: 'This is He of whom I said, After me cometh a Man which is preferred before me; for He was before me.'
It is evident, then, I think, that we shall never enter into the force of this wonderful sentence, which has exercised more power over eighteen centuries, than perhaps any which was ever spoken or written, if we take it apart from the context of John the Baptist's life and of his preaching. All have felt that the preacher must have meant those to behold the Taker-away of sin, who had come confessing their sins, and to whom he had spoken of the remission of sins; that upon others the words must have fallen as dull, dead words, in which they had no interest. Is it not equally true that the words, 'sin of the world,' must have been connected by them with what they had heard of One who was in the world, and whom the world knew not? and with what they had heard of a light which lighteneth every man who came into the world, and of a darkness that had not comprehended it? I do not mean that this discovery to each man of his own darkness, this perception of a light near him which he had resisted, this conviction in each man that his sinwasthe sin of the world, were of themselves sufficient to unfold the infinite mystery which lay in the Baptist's words. I say of them, what I said of the verse, 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, as of the only-begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth;' all this Gospel is written to expound them. We must decipher them by degrees, as the Apostle and Evangelist himself deciphered them; he will lead us along with him, if we are content to follow. And do not let us be chary and timid in the demands we make upon him. Let us endure no half explanations that rob us of any portion of the meaning which must be hid in such an utterance. Let us have no imperfect substitute for any syllable of it. For the sake of our own inmost being, for the sake of our brethren, we want the whole meaning in its fullest strength. If we are told that there is One who takes awaysin, we must not be content that He should be shown to take away some accident or consequence of sin. If He is said to take away the sin of theworld, we must not be told that the world is a metaphor for a few individuals. We must ask why He who takes away sin is called aLamb,—why he is called the Lamb ofGod? If a lamb is associated in our minds with innocence and purity, we must learn how that idea is fulfilled inthisLamb. If it was connected in the mind of every Jew with the sacrifice of the Paschal feast, we must ask how this Lamb includes whatever is expressed in that sacrifice and that feast? I do not anticipate St. John's answers to these demands; but as he has himself excited them, I am sure he will prove himself to be an honest and a God-inspired man, by telling us how they were satisfied for him, how they may be for us.
One thing more he must tell us also, and may God open our hearts to receive his instruction! John the Baptist says, that he had come baptizing with water, in order that He might be manifested to Israel who would baptize with the Spirit. Here is evidently the turning-point of the two dispensations; here the teaching of John melts away into the teaching of Jesus; here the witness of the servant is changed for the witness of the Son. Seeing, then, that St. John takes so much pains to mark this transition; seeing that the office of Christ, as the Baptizer with the Spirit, is evidently that which he will especially dwell upon in the after portions of his Gospel,—let us not doubt, but earnestly believe, that what we have heard respecting the Word will be a preparation for this more especially Christian lore, provided we have not only heard with our outward ear, but have suffered the light which is shining now, as it shone of old, to penetrate our consciences and hearts, and to turn them from their own darkness to the God who dwelleth in perfect light, in whom is no darkness at all.
[Lincoln's Inn, 3d Sunday in Lent, February 24, 1856.]
St. John I. 46.
And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.
I made no attempt to explain the verse which I took for my text last Sunday. I merely endeavoured to show you how it was connected with those which preceded it. I was sure that it would receive abundance of light from those which come after it. A series of ages, I said, had confessed the force of the words. We must take care that we do not allow the strength of any one of them to evaporate in our hands.
Some have been surprised that John should speak of aLambwho beareth or taketh away the sin of the world. Was there not another image which would present itself more naturally to a subject and a student of the law of Moses? Might not the scapegoat, upon whose head the priest's hands were laid, over whose head the sins of the people were confessed, be said more strictly to bear away sins than the Paschal Lamb? Did not the scenery by which John was surrounded far more naturally recal the animal who went away into a land not inhabited? Why should the man whose food was locusts and wild honey go to a feast for his emblem? Why should the preacher in the wilderness think of thePaschalfeast, which belonged to the city and the family?
A modern preacher would attach great weight to these considerations. As a rhetorician, he would be careful to choose the topics which are most likely to impress his immediate audience. There can be little doubt that among (what he would call) the types of the Old Testament, the scapegoat would seem to him far the most impressive. I am not drawing too much upon your reverence for the man who was 'more than a prophet,' if I ask you to believe that he may have had reasons, almost as good, for his course. Some of these we may see more clearly hereafter; one of them, I think, we may divine now. The disciples whom John was addressing had heard his call to repentance, had received his baptism of repentance. They had the sense of a sin close to themselves,inthemselves. To men who have this awakened consciousness, sin presents itself as a present burden; as such, the most ignorant, the most simple, feel it and speak of it. We often fancy that the conscience of poor men only responds to palpable pictures of future torments. Multitudes of religious tracts and books, Romish and Protestant, are composed upon this calculation; they are writtenforthe people. There is one English religious book writtenbya man of the people, by one who had endured all possible anticipations of future misery himself, the habits of whose school would have led him to press them as the most powerful motives upon others. The genius of the book has been confessed of late years by scholars; its power has been felt by peasants in this land, and in all lands into the language of which it has been translated, almost since it issued from the writer's gaol. To what is thePilgrims Progressindebted for this influence? Certainly to the strength with which the feeling of evil, as an actual load too heavy to be borne, is brought home to its readers. It is the man groaning with the burden upon his back, whom rich and poor sympathise with, whom each recognises as of his own kindred, who is suffering something which is incommunicable, and yet which every other man is suffering from, or has suffered from, or should suffer from. So it is with the tinkers and ploughmen of England, when they are aroused out of their sensual sleep; so it was with the fishermen and publicans who were gathered about the Jordan. They knew they had a burden, an actual burden, upon them. John's baptism had given them a pledge and witness that it might be taken from them. Already it seemed to be lightened; sometimes they could think they were free from it. How could they be delivered from it altogether? To confess themselves to God was an infinite relief; they rose up happier men. But did the confession really ascend to God? Was it possible in deed and truth to approach Him? Was there nothing to intercept the communion? Was there any one who could interpret them to Him, and Him to them? Was there any one who knew what they were feeling? Was there any one who could bear the burden that was crushing them, not into an uninhabited land, but into the very presence of God? For was not this burden, after all, a sense of separation from a Being to whom they ought to be united, apart from whom they could not live? Had not the light which had come from Him into their hearts brought this discovery with it? The scapegoat contained, no doubt, a deep lesson to those who pondered it well; but it was notthislesson—it was not one which those could take in who were feeling sin as an inward torment pressing upon their hearts. The PaschalLambspoke of a deliverance from bondage; it spoke of a deliverance as coming from God; it spoke of an offering to God. The thoughts which the name suggested might not be distinct; they might be hard to reconcile with each other. But the cravings which it met, though importunate, were also apparently contradictory. It awakened hopes; the satisfaction of them might come hereafter.
But if John had merely spoken of an animal, let it have what associations with Jewish or with human feeling it might—let it be the aptest symbol in the world—the impression upon disciples who had been stirred in the inmost depths of their souls as his had been, would have been a very faint one. It was because he pointed to an actual Man, and said of Him, 'Behold the Lamb of God,' that he spoke with power. Those who were suffering from a burden might desire to cast it upon God, might doubt if any one but He could sustain it. But who could understand their grief, who could feel its pressure, except a Man? All their sympathies and wishes pointed to a Man. Yet hitherto John had discoursed of a Light and of a Word. To that message their hearts had replied. It was that which had effected all the change within them. Was he now altering the tone of his preaching? Was he beginning to tell them of some one of whom they had not heard before? He removes that suspicion at once. The old sentence recurs again, but with a variation: 'This is He of whom I said, After me cometh aManwhich is preferred before me; for He was before me.' He goes on: 'And I knewHim not.' This assurance jars with some of the thoughts which pictures that are dear to us have awakened in our minds. We can hardly separate the infant Christ from the infant Baptist. We feel as if the reverence expressed in the words, 'His shoe's latchet I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose,' had begun in the earliest years of their sojourn upon earth, and had been maturing ever since. I rather fancy we weaken the effect which we might derive from the artist's symbols, by endeavouring to give them an historical value to which they can certainly make no pretension. It is not that these pictorial traditions are based upon passages in the other Evangelists, and that they are only at variance with St. John. St. Luke speaks of Jesus as being taken by His parents into Galilee after His circumcision. He speaks of John being in the deserts until the day of his showing to Israel. St. Matthew interposes the flight into Egypt between our Lord's nativity and His dwelling at Nazareth. Both surely favour, rather than contradict, the strictest interpretation of the saying, 'I knew Him not.' I do not say that we are absolutely obliged to adopt that strictest interpretation. But we are, I conceive, obliged to conclude that no external acquaintance or relationship had the least effect upon John's knowledge of Jesus, in that character in which He was revealed to him at His baptism. The Apostle is evidently very anxious to impress us withthisconviction. Few as are the words of his old Master which he reports, these are emphatically repeated. It belongs, I think, to the very design of this Gospel, to show us that John came to testify, first, of the Light of the world, then of that Light as manifested. 'That He should be manifested to Israel,' he says in the next verse, 'therefore am I come baptizing with water.' That He might be revealed as what He is; that through His flesh the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father might shine forth; that the inward eye of men might be purged to behold Him in His true character and in His true relation to them,—this has been the end of my preaching, and of the outward rite that accompanied it.
'And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him. And I knew Him not: but He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.' That there should be an outward sign visible to the eye, a Dove lighting upon the head of a Man,—that there should be a Voice speaking to Him,—this is a great scandal to many readers and critics in our day. 'Are not these,' they say, 'the ordinary tokens of mythical narratives? Are they not what always awaken our suspicion in the records of the Old World or of the Middle Ages?' Yes, brethren, in the Old World and in the Middle Ages, men alike felt the need of outward signs to testify of inward realities. They felt it because theyweremen, separated from each other by place, by customs, by language, by religion,—but alike in being men; alike in their conviction that there must be an outward world which they could see, and an inward world which they could not see. It is equally true that in the Old World and in the Middle Ages, the sensible thing was confounded with the spiritual, the sign was substituted for the thing signified; and that hence arose all kinds of superstition and idolatry. It is true, also, that in those days and in later days—inthesedays most especially—people create for themselves a middle world, neither sensible nor spiritual, in which there are no signs, because there is nothing to be signified; in which there are only forms and abstractions of the intellect, some of which are distinguished as religious forms, some as ethical or philosophical, pleasant to the vanity of those who have need of nothing, and can keep themselves alive by talking and disputing, but vague, unreal, utterly tormenting to men who are seeking a home and a father. St. John does not dwell in this limbo of vanity. He islikethe writers of legends, in so far as he assumes that there are signs, and that there are realities which correspond to the signs. He tells us that when God was about to reveal the greatest of all realities to the spirits of men, He vouchsafed a sign of it which was discernible by the eye. He isunlikethe writers of those legends, in so far forth as they rested in signs, or forgot in the signs that which they denoted. The Dove is to him the sign of a Spirit, which would enable Him in whom it dwelt without measure, to rule his own senses and the world of sense. The Voice was a witness that a Man who had flesh and blood was really and actually the Son of God.
John the Baptist has still more to declare concerning signs, and that which they signify. He had baptized withwater. The water had spoken in language clearer than any which can be put into letters, of cleansing, of purification. Those who had received it had come to it because they were sure that they needed the blessing of which it testified. They had come because they believed, more or less clearly, that God had ordained the rite, and that He alone could bestow the blessing. But the preaching of repentance for the remission of sins had made them aware that the evil was in a region which the water could not reach. Had it, then, been all a delusion? Was this rite, new at least for Jews, a mere phantasy, less powerful even than the rite of circumcision which had not prevented them from being treacherous to each other, and from blaspheming the name of God? Was the stern speaker of truth a mere mocker, trifling with the consciences which he had himself aroused? If his baptism was from himself, he was. If it was bearing witness of One who had come to men in past days, and given them power to become sons of God, the baptism was good because it was His sign and instrument. But the sign of what? Surely the sign of some process that was taking place in the spirits of men. And if so, would not that process be declared whensoever He was declared? Would not the baptism thenceforth be the assurance that a power adequate to the purification of that which was defiled, to the restoration of that which was decayed—adequate to the renewal of the whole man—was bestowed by Him who had in all times given those who received Him power to become sons of God? 'Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, the same is He which shall baptize with the Holy Ghost.'
'Again, the next day after, John stood, and two of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus as He walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God.' The words, 'which taketh away the sin of the world,' are not repeated, at least not in the best manuscripts. They had been spoken once. Now the Lamb of God had been connected with a new and higher name. John had borne record that this was theSonof God. All the dignity and wonder of the former title were attached to Him still. There was an awe aboutthiswhich must have made the disciples wonder, but yet which attracted them. 'They heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.' The story of their intercourse is most simple. There is no mysterious concealment; there are no surprising incidents. 'Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto Him, Rabbi, (which is, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest Thou? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day; for it was about the tenth hour.' What is there in such a record to detain us for an instant? Onlythis, brethren; it is the beginning of the history of Christendom, of the whole new world. This meeting of these two men—one of whose names we do not know, the other whom we do know to have been a Galilæan fisherman—with Jesus of Nazareth is the first step in a movement which has in some way or other changed the life, polity, relations of mankind. If it is so, we may consider with ourselves, in some quiet hour,whyit is so? Perhaps we may find some other explanation than that which St. John gives—that the Man to whom these disciples came was the Light of men, and that He proved, by contact with those who had least light of their own, that He wastheirLight. Or perhaps we may find that interpretation, on the whole, the best: and then we shall not seek further, but lay that to heart.
The three next verses bring us a step further in the history; they are still of the same character. 'One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, He said, Thou art Simon, the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, whichis by interpretation, A stone.' We found how hard it was for the Pharisees to make out a conception of the Christ, though they pored continually over the Scriptures, and had a series of interpreters to assist in divining the sense of them. And here this unlettered fisherman—unlettered probably in the strictest sense—boldly tells his brother that he has found the Christ. He is sure that he has. He can bid him come and see whether it is a mistake. 'What fanatical confidence!' every scribe would have exclaimed—nay, did exclaim—as soon as he learnt what these fishermen were believing. Should not most of us say the same if we spoke our minds? For what had Andrew to convince him? He had seen none of the miracles upon which we say the evidence of Christ's mission rests. We may be sure that he had not heard Jesus say that He was the Christ; for He scarcely ever did say so. And on what, then, was his faith grounded, that faith which England has accepted for somewhat more than a thousand years? I do not know, unless the Light of the world made him feel that He was the Light of the world—unless the King of men made him feel that He was his King. But I also do not know, brethren, upon what your faith and mine is founded—on what the faith of all the men that have believed during the last eighteen hundred years has been founded—upon what the order and civilization of all the earth has been founded, except it be upon that same revelation of a Light and of a King, which made Andrew say these words to his brother Simon.
And now He who has received this name from a disciple, bestows a name upon a disciple: 'Thou art Simon; thou shalt be called a Stone.' The creatures were brought to the first Adam, that he might say what was the name of each. If this was the second Adam, He could say to any one of His human creatures, 'That is thy name; understand by it what is the work I have given thee to do.' Simon Peter, after many perplexities and falls, did learn fully the meaning and force of his new name. He declared to the Jews at Pentecost, he declared to Cornelius the heathen, that Jesus had been proved to be both Lord and Christ. A society of Jews and Gentiles grew up which recognised Jesus as its Corner-stone. Lest they should fancy that he or any mere man could be a rock or resting-place for them, he wrote an Epistle specially to show that his Master is the Corner-stone, elect, precious, on which men are builded together a spiritual house; that such a spiritual house cannot be overthrown; that any spiritual house which is built on any weaker foundation, which has any other stone or rock, must be destroyed.
'The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me. Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.' Philip does not go in search of the Lamb of God, as those did who heard John speak. Jesus is said to find him, and to speak the words, 'Follow me,' which he obeys. The effect is the same as in the former case—only Philip is, perhaps, a little more courageous: he speaks confidently of this as the Person to whom all the holy men of old were pointing. He speaks so even while he makes the offensive announcement, 'He is Jesus ofNazareth, the son of Joseph.' From what place the new teacher came, was nothing to the young disciple. He had proved Himself to him to be the King over his heart. Whose son He was called was nothing. In the most living sense He must be what John had called Him—the Son of God. Hereafter doubts and questions might arise upon these points; the Prophet's words respecting the city of David might have to be reconciled with this apparently Galilæan origin of the new Teacher; explanations might be given respecting His parentage. For Philip all this was premature and unnecessary. The deepest knowledge must come first; the other would follow when it was wanted.
The same truth forces itself upon us still more mightily in the answer of Nathanael to his friend: 'Nathanael said to Philip, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! Nathanael saith unto Him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus saith unto Him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee. Nathanael answered and saith unto Him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel.'
Nathanael, who was apparently a Galilæan, might not have the same prejudice against Nazareth which would have been natural in an inhabitant of Judæa. But there is another prejudice, often hinted at by our Lord, which is quite as hard to overcome. Can a prophet appear inourneighbourhood, close to us? Must he not come upon us from some more sacred region? The Galilæans, who were despised by others, must have learnt to despise themselves. All their habits of mind must have prepared them to expect that Jerusalem, or some place near it, would be the seat and birthplace of the great King. There was, therefore, at least as much ground for doubt and unbelief in this man's mind as in that of any learned scribe. Nevertheless he comes, and he is hailed a genuine Israelite, an Israelite without guile. The first title might seem only to claim the dweller in any part of Palestine as of the same stock, a true child of Jacob; but that which is joined to it marks out the man himself as a wrestler with God—one who had sought to purge his soul from deceptions—one who believed that God desired truth in his inward parts, and would make him to know wisdom secretly. It was a wonderful commendation; but what was the warrant for it? Till then Nathanael supposed that his face had not been known to the speaker; how much less his heart.Hadthey met for the first time? Had he never sat and kneeled beneath the fig-tree, the favourite place of secret devotion to the pious Israelite? Had he never wrestled for light to himself, for blessings to his country? for the scattering of its worst enemies—which were also his own—covetousness, pride, falsehood? for the revelation of its promised Deliverer? 'There, before Philip called thee, I saw thee;—I had conversed with thee.' Nathanael heard and wondered; there was no more debating within him about Galilee or Judæa, Nazareth or Bethlehem. A flood of light was poured into his soul, not through chinks and apertures in the prophetical oracles, but from the clear heaven where God dwelt. 'Rabbi, Thou art He whom I have sought after with cries and tears, that none but Thou hast known of. Thou hast often been with me before. I behold Thee now. Thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.'
And then came a promise and assurance of a mightier blessing, of a fuller revelation hereafter to him, and to multitudes unborn, 'Because I said, I saw thee under the fig-tree,believest thou? Thou shalt see greater things than these. And He saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.'
'Faithful and true Israelite! the vision to thy progenitor who first bore that name shall be substantiated for thee, and for those who trust in me in lonely hours, through clouds and darkness, as thou hast done. The ladder set upon earth and reaching to heaven,—the ladder upon which the angels of God ascended and descended,—is a ladder for thee and for all. For the Son of Man, who joins earth to heaven, the seen to the unseen, God and Man in one, He is with you; through Him your spirits may arise to God,—through Him God's Spirit shall come down upon you.'
[Lincoln's Inn, 4th Sunday in Lent, March 2, 1856.]
JohnII. 11.
This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth His glory; and His disciples believed on Him.
The word 'Miracles,' which our translators have adopted in this verse, gives little trouble to a reader. He thinks of some singular, glaring effect, which makes men wonder, and which they can refer to no known principle. That effect he calls a miracle. To produce astonishment is the immediate object of him who works it; to convince those who see it, and those who are told of it afterwards, that he is not subject to ordinary laws, and has the power of setting laws aside, is his ultimate object.
Such thoughts, I say, are suggested naturally enough by the word Miracle. It is otherwise with the word 'Sign' (Σημεῖον), which St. John uses himself. That word is simpler in sound than the other, but it gives rise to a longer and more troublesome inquiry. Outward display, the excitement of wonder, departure from rule, have no necessary or natural connexion with it. The name drives us to the question, 'A sign of what?' And all these qualities—supposing they were present in the sign—would not help us to answer the question. In the case before us, the act of turning water into wine—in which the miracle is supposed to consist—cannot be separated from the other parts of the narrative: together they constitute the sign. And to find the signification of the sign, we must have recourse to the first chapter of the Gospel; we must ask St. John himself to tell us why he has introduced it, and how it bears upon the subject of the history.
'On the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there.' On the third day, no doubt, after the events which we were speaking of last Sunday. What were those events? A preacher who had drawn crowds by his word, who had attached to him some devoted disciples, had spoken of One mightier than he, who was coming after him, but had been before him. He had pointed to a certain man. He had said of Him, 'Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.' He had said that he came baptizing with water, on purpose that this person might be manifested to Israel as the Son of God, who would baptize with the Holy Ghost. Two of those who heard these words, we are told, followed Jesus. They invited others, saying that they had found the Christ. One or two more Jesus Himself called to come after Him.
What expectations were these men likely to form of their new Master? All their deepest impressions had been received from John. Would not He whom John declared to be greater than himself exhibit all His characteristics in a higher degree? They had first seen Jesus in the desert. Might not that be His favourite home? Would not He be more of a solitary, more of an ascetic, than His predecessor? Would not He, whose origin was said to be heavenly, be more withdrawn from the things of earth, than the man who said he was not worthy to unloose the latchet of His sandal? This was a reasonable supposition. There was another, which would strike many as even more reasonable. The Christ was associated with thoughts of royalty. He might be the very reverse of John; not one who could converse familiarly with disciples; not one who could speak words of friendly admonition to publicans and soldiers; but one who would walk aloft, asserting the dignity of His descent, claiming to rule the people, impatient of even seeming to belong to them.
On the third day came a sign which showed how far either of these expectations corresponded to the truth. There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and Jesus was sitting there beside His mother. This is the appearance He made to those disciples who had heard Him described by such magnificent titles,—to those disciples who had learnt to look upon the desert life, the life that is withdrawn from all family relations and sympathies, as the specially holy and prophetical life. And yet it is clearly no august regal marriage which is taking place at Cana. A homely, rustic wedding,—one in which there is feasting and merriment, but no pomp. To this He is bidden; and those fishermen who had joined Him are bidden too. They are called His disciples. They had but lately seen Him or known Him, but they are already fast bound to Him. As His disciples they go with Him, not into a far-off desert, but to a wedding-feast in a little town.
Here is surely the sign of a change,—a change the very reverse, perhaps, of what we were looking for. We are coming nearer to the common earth, to those bonds which connect the inhabitants of earth with each other, to those which touch all earthly feelings and earthly interests. The next incident surely does not weaken this impression. The wine at the feast is said to have failed. We might easily have formed some vague notion of a festival that was different from all others, marked by no vulgar events; at least we might have wished that these should be kept out of sight—that we should not be informed of them. St. John, the divine, the theologian, does not indulge us in this wish. He is determined that we should understand it to have been an ordinary wedding-feast, at which men drank as at others. 'The mother of Jesus saith unto Him, They have no wine.' Whatever meaning we may discover in the words when we know who spoke them and to whom they were spoken, they are plain words, the announcement of the plainest fact. Some interpreters suppose that Mary only intended to say, 'Let us withdraw, that the deficiency may not be apparent.' I like their honesty, their determination to find the simplest sense they can; but if we consider whatmusthave been the intercourse between Mary and her Son for so many years; if we remember that a crisis had come in His life, which must have appeared to her the fulfilment of all her expectations concerning Him; if we remember that He was now gathering about Him a set of disciples; it surely is most reasonable to suppose that these words expressed her desire that He should, and her belief that He would, put forth some unwonted power which had been latent in Him hitherto. The old Scriptures told how Elisha had used his divine powers for the relief of ordinary necessities,—to heal, for instance, the waters which might have poisoned the sons of the prophets. Was it strange that a devout reader of these Scriptures should think that her Son might prove He had divine endowments in like manner? It belongs to the very nature of a woman, to the finest part of her nature, to think that power is best exerted in individual cases, for individual needs. What we are apt to regard as too mean and minute occasions for a divine might, she measures by a wiser and more loving rule. The distinctions of little and large are forgotten, as they ought to be, when the Eternal is in question. The most blessed of women ought to have exhibited this tendency in its highest degree. In doing so, she was not degrading Him whom she loved and reverenced most; she was judging rightly for what ends His powers on earth would nearly always be put forth.
But yet therewasa weakness in this feminine eagerness. There was a thought that a mere circumstance or necessity could determine the exercise of an internal energy. And this is what He appears to rebuke in the next sentence. 'Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.' A comparison of this passage with one in the seventh chapter of our Gospel, in which Jesus uses a similar expression to His brethren when they urged Him to go up to the feast at Jerusalem that He might make Himself known openly, shows that He designed to tell His mother that no events or outward motives could decide when it was right for Him to do a work,—that the Spirit which He had received without measure was regulating His acts—that He must be always doing His Father's business. Such an intimation, conveyed to the one who in all this world knew Him best, who had most inward sympathy with Him, was no discouragement to her faith,—rather was certain to awaken it. The power would come forth, not in obedience to her call, but to a more lofty, more divine, impulse. She could say, therefore, to the servants, without hesitation or anxiety, 'Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.'
I believe, my brethren, that all these passages in the story just as much belong to the sign, are quite as essential elements of it, as anything which follows. Nothing can be more simple or brief than the passage which comes next. 'There were set there six water-pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the water-pots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And He saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew:) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.' It cannot have escaped you how carefully St. John informs us that not even the ruler of the feast, the taster of the wine himself, knew whence the wine came; he merely makes an idle, merry observation about it. Most of those who sat round him were probably just as ignorant and as little concerned about the matter as he was. The servants may have wondered at what they saw; but their wonder had so little to do with the intention of the act that the Apostle does not stop to notice it. Very little, then, of the notion which we affix—honestly and etymologically affix—to the wordmiraclehas any application here. There was no effort to produce surprise; if surprise was produced, it led to no conviction. Not one of those who tasted the water that was made wine,simply on that groundbelieved that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God.
What, then, was signified by this act? What force lay in it? I can only beg St. John to tell us. He says, 'This beginning of signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth His glory; and His disciples believed on Him.' What glory did He manifest? In all fairness and reason, we must again consult the writer of the words about the sense which he puts upon them. He had said, 'And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.' I said, when we met with this passage in the last chapter, that it was evidently the text of the whole Gospel. The Gospel would either show how the Word made flesh manifested His glory to those among whom He dwelt, and how that glory was as of the only-begotten Son full of grace and truth, or it would fail of its purpose, it would belie its name. Of the Word it has been said before, 'that all things were made by Him: that in Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men.' The manifestation of His glory, we might surely then expect, would include a manifestation of Him as one who exercised creative power, as one in whom the Life that quickens all things dwells inexhaustibly. One might expect that this Life, if it was exhibited uponthings, would still be in some very remarkable sense an illumination ofmen. But one would be certain that that illuminationcouldnot be outward to the eye. As life is internal, as all its movements and operations are secret, though its effects are so palpable; so the Light which proceeds from this Life—that which is emphatically the Light ofmen, as distinguished from mere animals—must be light penetrating into the inner being, filling the heart, reason, and conscience, scattering darkness inthem, preparingthemhereafter,—since the Light is not put into any one to be hid under a bushel, but to be set upon a candlestick,—to show forth what had so marvellously affected and changed them, to the world.
Now, if we consider the sign in Cana of Galilee with these thoughts in our minds,—which we have not invented for ourselves, but derived straight from the Evangelist,—I cannot doubt that all its different aspects will come out very harmoniously before us.
The first aspect of it is that which is brought before us in our own Marriage Service. Christ is said to have 'adorned and beautified the holy estate of matrimony with His presence and first miracle that He wrought in Cana of Galilee.' This has been the conclusion at which the reason of the most thoughtful men has arrived, and to which the instinctive feeling in all has responded. If Jesus was the Word made flesh, if the order of the world was established by Him, then His acts upon earth would be done for the purpose of vindicating this order. By them He would claim it as His. By them He would say that it did not belong to the evil one. Marriage, as one of the fundamental parts of this order, as one of the earliest institutes of humanity, as one that had suffered most from abuse, would be one of the first over which He would assert His dominion. And because the ordinance is one in which all are interested, we should look for the assertion to come in some distinct and yet very general way; not, I mean, in a broad proclamation, or in a maxim which is forgotten speedily or frittered away in the application to each individual instance; not again in some case clothed with circumstances that take it out of the common range of cases, not the wedding of a king or of a saint, but one of which every peasant as well as every king might say, 'This tells me to whomImust look to bless my wedlock, because He is the Author of it.'
Then, again, that part of the story which refers to the mother of Jesus becomes, I think, clearer when we contemplate it in this light. Romanists are puzzled by it, Protestants exult in it, because it seems to put a kind of slight upon the Virgin. But Protestants and Romanists agree that Jesus had a divine Father and a human mother. If this act was one of the manifestations of Him as the Son of God, can anything be more natural or consistent than that it should be introduced by words which declare that He could not be in subjection to any earthly authority, while yet the act itself was an act of ministry to even the commonest necessities of the sons of earth? Is not this apparent contradiction the accomplishment of His work, the exhibition of Him in His complete character? He willnotbe the servant of His creatures, not even of His mother; He obeys the Will, which all are created to obey. Hewillbe the servant of His creatures: He is come into the world for that end. He is doing the will of His Father when He is stooping to the lowest of all.
But if this be our judgment of two parts of the sign, it must, I think, greatly modify, if not alter altogether, the apprehensions which we have formed of the third part, that which concerns the turning of the water into wine. We cannot regard the main characteristic of the marriage and the marriage-feast as being their commonness, their similarity to what is going on in every part of the world—to what is going on among ourselves; and then make the essence of that which our Lord did at the feast consist in its uncommonness, in its unlikeness to everything that is done elsewhere—to everything that is done among ourselves. We must abandon one habit of feeling or the other. Which we shall abandon depends, it seems to me, upon the strength or the weakness of our faith in St. John's assertion, that in Him who sat at that feast was life and that all things were made by Him. If we take those words literally, if we suppose the Evangelist to mean what he says, then we must assume that what happened then was but an instance of the working of a universal law. We shall conclude that all living processes—be they slow or rapid, be they carried on in the womb of nature or through the intervention of human art—have their first power and principle in Him, that without Him nothing could become that does become. Such a belief undoubtedly carries us into great depths and heights. It increases the wonder with which we regard every dynamical discovery. But it does not interfere with any discovery. It gives solemnity and awfulness to the investigations of science. It forbids trifling in them. It stimulates courage and hope in them. It makes all superstitious dread of them sinful. The Word, who is the Light of men, will Himself teach those who seek humbly and diligently to enter into those operations of life of which He is the first Mover.
But there are other thoughts connected with this wordLife, which it is impossible to sever from it in any case, and which suggest themselves more directly than any others when the subject is a wedding-feast and the turning of water into wine. Life has a relation to joy, which is as close as the relation of death to sadness. Our minds become confused upon this point. We talk of the burden of life. We talk of death as delivering us from this burden. But these are careless expressions, against which the conscience of man rebels. The Scripture is in harmony with the conscience. It speaks of our carrying about with us a burden ofdeathfrom which we need to be delivered. If it ever speaks of the moment of departure from the world as a moment of deliverance, it is because, as the poet says, 'Death itself there dies.' In creating the wine, then, which is said in the old Scriptures to make glad the heart of man, which had been a symbol of joy as well as of life to the heathen—the symbol of high inspirations even when it was actually acknowledged to be the cause of the lowest animal degradation—the Son of Man was claiming to be the Giver of all joy, to be the Redeemer of all joy, even in its humblest earthliest forms, from that which had made it base and inhuman. In what sense the Source of Joy was also the Man of Sorrows, St. John will tell us in due time. There is something which binds this very story of the feast at Cana to His deepest sorrow. Mary has not appeared before in this Gospel; she never appears again till we meet her beside the cross. She knew that a sword was to pierce through her soul, at the very time when she was asking her Son to prove Himself the Lord of nature and the Giver of delights to man. One work did not interfere with the other. He could not be really the Word made flesh unless He fulfilled both.
And now, then, we may understand why we are told so expressly in the text that 'He manifested forth His glory, and that His disciples believed on Him.' Who were these disciples? One of them must have been that Andrew who told his own brother Simon, 'We have found the Christ.' One would have been that Philip who said to Nathanael, 'We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and the Prophets, did write.' One would have been that Nathanael who said, 'Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.' Not one of these had received a sign or a miracle to impart to them these convictions. The witness of John concerning the Light, met by the witness in their own hearts, the manifestation to those hearts that Jesus was the Light of whom they had heard,—this was their preparation for the marriage-feast and for what passed there. Because theyhadacknowledged Jesus andhadbecome His disciples, with a feeble, imperfect, confused knowledge of course, but with a desire of the knowledge which they should receive from continual converse with Him;thereforethe sign of the water being made into wine had a meaning for them which it had not for others;thereforeit was to them a manifestation of His glory;thereforeit gave them a belief in Him, as answering to John's testimony, which they had not had before. An outward exercise of power strengthened their belief in a power which lay entirely beyond the region of their senses. They were sure that a sign had been given them that He who blesses marriage, He through whom all things live, He from whom all men derive their light and joy, was actually dwelling among them.
I have been the more careful in considering this subject, my brethren, because St. John records it as thebeginningof the signs which Jesus did. It is not recorded in the other Evangelists. It is told here as if the whole scene had come back to the mind of the old Apostle; as if he had been at that feast, and felt himself transported there again from his chamber at Ephesus. I think there must have been a reason why that day was brought again to his remembrance, why he was enabled to describe it so briefly yet with such distinctness. People in that age, as we know from St. Paul's Epistles, as we might have guessed if we had not this decisive information, were prone to set great store by the powers which had been bestowed upon the Church to manifest the presence of the Holy Spirit within it. From magnifying the powers, they had passed, by a natural process, to magnify the outward effects of these powers; then, to exult in them because they were strange and peculiar. St. Paul had urged the Corinthians to remember that all gifts were bestowed for use, and not for show; that it was better to speak five words which could be understood and might be profitable, than to speak a thousand words in an unknown tongue, unless it were interpreted. In spite of these exhortations, thesignwas no doubt gradually losing itself in themiracle. The unseen Presence, which could not be recollected without a sense of awful responsibility, was far less thought of than the display which could be made in the eyes of the ignorant. Whenever such a temper begins to prevail, we may be sure that tricks, impostures, lies in the name of Christ and of God, will spread rapidly; the spirit of falsehood will creep into the heart which has confessed its allegiance to the Spirit of truth. Ephesus, we know from the Acts of the Apostles, had been a favourite home of the magician and the enchanter. In the first fervour of their belief in Him who is the way and the truth and the life, the Christians had burnt their books and abjured their lying trade. But St. Paul, as he told the elders of the city, dreaded that after his departure grievous wolves might come in among them. There was no sheep's clothing these wolves were more likely to wear than this. Reverence for Christ's miracles might be made an excuse for practising all old heathen arts and enchantments in His name. How suitable a work for the aged disciple of Christ to lay his axe to the root of this deception! How fitting a thing was it for him to say, 'You talk of the miracles of the Christ. I remember the first of them all. I remember what it taught me then, what it teaches me still. It was not an enchantment; it was not a wonderment. It was a sign of His presence in whom is all grace and truth, who was manifested that He might put down all falsehoods whatsoever, and who will put them down at the last.'
It was the beginning of signs. I do not say that our examination of it will save us from the trouble of examining each new sign as it comes before us. By rigorously adhering to that name, as St. John does, we assume that each has a signification of its own. We shall find them all very different from this in their circumstances, in some of their internal characteristics. But I believe that if we follow out the line of thought into which I have endeavoured to lead you this afternoon, and if we make St. John's first chapter the expounder of his object in every subsequent narrative, we shall be delivered from innumerable difficulties by which the study of miracles generally, and of each particular miracle is beset. To those who tell us that a Church which can work miracles is a true Church—to those who speak of miracles done with a serious purpose in former days, or of miracles done for the amusement of men that crave for some new thing in our days—we may make the same answer. The Scriptures teach us to care for no miracles except so far as they are signs. Of what are your miracles signs? Do they signify that the Word who was made flesh is not continually acting in the affairs of men now? If so, they contradict those signs which we confess to be true signs, those which have signified to us and to our forefathers that all life is in Him, that all light is from Him. Ordothey say this? Then they say what every marriage is saying just as clearly; what our ordinary food and wine, what the growth of trees and flowers, what the plough of the husbandman and the laboratory of the chemist are such pledges of as your miracles can never be. God may perform wonders to break the chains of sense, to make us aware that He is always at work. We are sure that He will not enact wonders to rivet the chains of sense upon us, to turn away our thoughts from Him to some low earthly agent. Only a wicked and adulterous generation seeks for such wonders, for such signs. The signs which will be given to it, if it does not repent, are signs of fire and of blood, the slaughter of the first-born, the cry in the Temple, 'Let us depart.' But if we receive the beginning of signs which Christ gave us in Cana of Galilee, all common things will become sacraments of His presence. The husband and the wife will confess that He has united them. We shall receive the water and the wine both as His gifts. He will drink the new wine with those who come at His bidding to give thanks for the blood which He poured out for the redemption of the world.