But, first, we must learn how hard it is to acknowledge either the sign or its signification. 'The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' That strife which began in the synagogue of Capernaum has gone on, in every nation of the modern world in which the name of Christ has been proclaimed, even to this day. Some think they can quiet their own minds, and settle all debate, by saying, 'Of course, the eating is metaphorical.' But I do not find that the use of that phrase has brought much contentment to any living soul. I do not think that any man'sspiritcan be satisfied with the bare imagination of a feast any more than hisbody. When vain men feed upon praises,—when angry men feed upon the acts which provoke them to rage,—when men who have received kindnesses feed on these kindnesses,—when earnest patriots feed upon the deeds that have been done by those who have saved their country,—you may, if you please, call this fantastic, imaginary, metaphorical feeding. I know that the results are real; that the vain man does vain acts, and acquires a vain character; that the angry man does acts of revenge, and becomes in spirit, if not openly, a murderer; that all gentle acts come from that upon which the grateful man has nourished himself—all that is most blessed to mankind, from the courage and self-denial which the lover of his country has cultivated in himself. These skilful intellectual explanations of facts—the haughty and self-complacent formula, 'This only means'—may serve very well the purposes of those who write books; for those who have to live and die, they are good for nothing. They take for granted that which the conscience of mankind denies,—that which every language on the face of the earth denies,—that the words which represent acts of the senses, needs of the senses, the satisfaction of the senses, do not also represent acts of the spirit, needs of the spirit, the satisfaction of the spirit. They introduce an unreal middle world between the senses and the spirit—a world of shadows, from which the most absolute materialism is a deliverance; because that, at least, is honest, and because against that there must be a re-action.
The mere animal people, who had eaten of the loaves and were filled, did not strive and fight as these intellectual people of the synagogue did. They wanted actual food; they had real hunger, if the deeper and nobler hunger had not yet been awakened in them. To them Christ could offer Himself as the Bread of Life. He does so also to these; but it is in sterner and more terrible language. 'Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he thateateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. These things said He in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum.'
Our Lord does not argue with these men. He makes an assertion, appealing to the after-history of the world for the confirmation or refutation of it. I believe the history of Christendom, from beginning to end, is nothing else than a commentary on these words; that we may read it by the light of them. Immediately after the age of the Apostles, if not in the age of the Apostles, there arose sects which affirmed Christ to be a spiritual being, an emanation from God, but which utterly denied that He was the Word made flesh,—which were utterly scandalized at the notion that He actually and literally died upon the cross. The leaders of these sects were, many of them, very able men; they had perceived some high principles of the Gospel,—they had perceived the relation of those principles to the doctrines that were current both in Jewish and Heathen schools. They were not put down by the persecutions of their brethren, for they existed before the Church could persecute,—when it was the object of persecution. They were not in themselves offensive to the Roman empire, for they were like the religious or philosophical sects which it always tolerated; they were not politically dangerous. And yet these sects came to nothing. They had no cohesion,—they had no relation to humanity; in our Lord's simpler and higher language, 'they had no life in them;' for though they dwelt upon His spiritual nature, they did not feed upon His flesh and drink His blood.
Look on through all the centuries which follow. You find divisions, hatreds, secularity, hypocrisy in the Church; you find strifes about its doctrines,—about the relation of its ministers to each other,—about its relation to civil governments,—about its sacraments. What is it that has held this strange divided body together? What is it that enables us to say there has been such a thing as Christianity in the world,—that it has had an influence upon the civilization and order of the world? I can find but one answer. I do discover through all these ages the recognition of a Son of Man who actually took human flesh and blood,—who actually offered up that flesh, and poured out that blood upon the Cross. I do find that there has been here a common centre of life to all these ages,—something that has held them together in spite of their divisions and hatreds,—something that has been stronger than the division of castes, and classes, and sects, of the lord and the serf, of the prelate and the beggar. I do find the Cross the source of all that was noble, chivalrous, self-denying in the Middle Ages,—of all that was not base, tyrannical, superstitious. I do find the flesh and blood of Christ the strength of the Reformers, the bond of Protestants, the spring of all in them that has not been sectarian, disputatious, selfish, hateful. I cannot explain this in any other way than by believing that this flesh and blood of the Son of Man has been a divine food and drink, which has been ministered by God, in ways I know not, to Christian society, to Christian men, through all these times. I cannot but believe that there is a spiritual and eternal life in that flesh and blood which has given them this quickening power. I cannot account for that quickening power by any faith, or wisdom, or virtue which I see in Roman Catholics or Protestants,—in the members of one nation or Church or another. Whatever faith, or wisdom, or virtue, I do discern in them,—and, thank God, there is no corner of the earth, no moment of history, in which they may not be seen by those whose eyes are open,—I must trace to a higher source. I can find the only interpretation of it in the words,—'As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.' I must refer the Bread itself which has come down from heaven, and all the life of faith, and hope, and love that it has sustained, not to the creature, but to the Creator; not to the child, but to the living Father. I must suppose that He has been drawing men into the state for which He created them; that He has been proving that they were originally formed in His Son; that to be separated from the Son of Man is an unnatural, inhuman condition: that every good and blessed fruit which has grown on the soil of human nature, has been produced from union with Him.
It is the next passage which contains the words that I have chosen for my text. 'Many therefore of His disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples murmured at it, He said unto them, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray Him. And He said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.'
Why does the allusion to the Ascension occur here? What has it to do with the previous discourse? I think brethren, that here again the history of Christendom is the interpreter of the words of Christ. It has been a 'hard saying,' that we must eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ, in order that we may have life in us. To make that 'hard saying' easier to the understanding, easier to the flesh, various devices have been resorted to. One has been that to which I alluded just now, of representing the saying as only metaphorical. Another has been that of supposing that we may eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ, provided He descends into the bread and wine of the Eucharist, and transmutes them into His body and blood. I call this hypothesis an experiment to make the words which were hard, easier to the carnal understanding. I fully admit that there has been a Nemesis of that understanding. That which was framed to aid its conceptions, has become the most intolerable bondage to it. Decrees must compel it, under awful penalties, to accept the explanation which its impatience craved for. And what has been the consequence? The blessed and elevating mystery which this week speaks of, has been practically lost sight of. The ascended Christ, at the right hand of the Father, has been thought at a hopeless and incredible distance from the suppliant upon earth. The glorified Humanity has been entirely overshadowed by the thought of the cradle at Bethlehem. One vast section of Christendom has acknowledged the words,—'Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.' But it has denied that other sentence which proceeded from the same lips,—'It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you,they are spirit, and they are life.' The spirit in man is as impatient of those fetters that bind it to the earth, as the carnal understanding is of all that is not of the earth, earthy. The message which Christ brings from the living Father to that spirit is,—'I can raise you above the earth; I can enable you to share those treasures of wisdom, and righteousness, and love which are the treasures of the kingdom of heaven. I can make you partakers of that Divine Humanity which I have redeemed and exalted to the Father's right hand.' And our gospel to the spirit of man is; Either you must feed metaphorically upon Christ's flesh and blood, or you must force yourselves to think that He is come down again into lower and baser conditions than those which He took when He 'did not abhor the Virgin's womb!'
But,—as the last words of the passage I have quoted remind us,—no power of man can awaken in us that faith, however greatly we may want it, which thus ascends to Christ, and dwells with Him where He is. It must be given us of the Father. That mighty drawing, which has been spoken of so often in this chapter, must lift individuals, must lift nations, out of the death of notions and opinions, into the life and freedom which the Son of Man came to bring them. Is that a reason for despondency, brethren? Is it not a reason for all hope? If we had nothing better to look for, than that the disciples of Christ, of one Church or another, should discover the meaning of His words, the power of His life, the last verses of this chapter would cause us the deepest despondency. 'From that time many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, towhom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? He spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that should betray Him, being one of the twelve.'
Those sentences which declared what is the very life of the Church, drove back the first disciples from Christ. They could believe in a prophet,—they could believe in any notions or doctrines; they could not believe in a Divine Word who would give His flesh for the life of the world. There is a sadness, a human sadness, in our Lord's question to His own apostles, which proves that even they might have been staggered by the thought that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood, and that even they might desert Him. And though Peter's answer was a noble one, because it showed that he would cling to his Master, in spite of all ignorance and confusion,—because it showed that he trusted in Him as a Person, and that he was sure there was eternal life in Him, however little he might understand the way in which that life was to be received,—yet the allusion to Judas, at the close of all, has in it a depth of sorrow and of meaning which no one can fathom. It is quite evident, I think, that the sin of Judas is in some way connected by our Lord with unbelief in that lesson which He had been teaching in the synagogue of Capernaum. But how could that unbelief convert him into a devil? I answer with trembling. Judas is represented elsewhere as a covetous man. In following Christ, he was seeking not Christ but himself. He could believe in One who would givehima place in the Church below or the Church above. He could not believe in a Son of Man who came to give life to theworld. But a person who has lived with Christ, and been a minister and an apostle of Christ, and yet sinks into a separate selfish existence, answers to the Scripture definition and idea of a devil.
If the early disciples deserted Christ,—if His own apostle betrayed Him—because He said that He would in very deed prove Himself to be the Son of Man, by pouring out His blood for men, and by feeding the spirit of man, why may not His latest disciples forsake Him; why may not His priests now betray Him because they, too, desire a Christ for themselves, and not for the universe? But if our trust is not in them, but in the living Father, we shall see all things working together for the manifestation of the Son in this His true and proper character,—for the discovery of Him to all nations as the source of their highest life. The war which we have just passed through has brought us, the most exclusive of nations, into strange proximity with nations with which we have had no previous sympathy. We have fought side by side with one which was called for ages our natural enemy; we have fought for one who has been regarded as the enemy of Christendom. The alliance will have done us harm, if it has made us value our position as Englishmen less,—if it has made us understand less the position which our fathers in the seventeenth century occupied, when they struggled against Louis XIV. for Protestantism and for national life. It will have done us good, if it has made us feel that our fathers were fighting against a tyranny which was hostile to Protestantism and nationality because it was hostile to humanity,—that there is a Son of Man who is Lord of Frenchmen as well as Englishmen, whom both in their creeds confess, whom both in their acts are continually denying, for whom each is disposed to set up some other Lord. Our struggle in behalf of Turkey will have done us harm, if it has led us to think less than our fathers did of that which divides the Crescent from the Cross,—the symbol of mere power, and the symbol of strength perfected in weakness. It will have done us good, if it has taught us that we are bound to resist injustice and wrong as much when it is done to Mahometans as Christians,—if it leads us to remember that the Son of Man gave His flesh for the life of the world,—for Mahometans, therefore, as well as for Christians.
A phrase has gone forth, and has become almost proverbial among us, which was spoken by one who was our enemy—spoken, we thought, with no honest intention, but one which has been recognised as containing a reasonable prophecy. It concerned the sickness and coming death of that empire for which we have been fighting. If sickness has overtaken, if death is to overtake, that once vigorous kingdom, this, I believe, is the explanation:—It bore at one time a strong and terrible witness for a living God, a Ruler of men, a Destroyer of idols;—God endued it with strength to bear that witness. It bore no witness for a Son of God and a Son of Man. It put humanity at a hopeless distance from God. Therefore seeds of weakness were latent in it when it was mightiest. They were certain to develop themselves in it more and more. They were certain at last to make its belief in God ineffectual, because it denied Him to be a Father. To adopt the modes of European civilization—to tolerate enemies of the prophet—may delay or may hasten the dissolution which has been foretold Certainly there is not in any of these things a power to restore life. Would the acceptance of Christianity restore it? If Christianity is taken up just as these changes have been taken up, as part of a new system—as the condition of admission into fellowship with more powerful states, I can conceive nothing so worthless, so detestable. The old Mahometan fanaticism is worthy of reverence; for it was real and honest.Thisprofession of Christ would be a pretence and a mockery. The faith in Jesus which the Moslem does cherish is better than this;—he does confess Him as a great, though an inferior, Prophet. This would be to degrade Him into the head of a rival sect, which it is convenient for state purposes to make supreme.
But how can we teach them to regard Jesus in any other light than this? The first step to such a consummation is, to see that we do not degrade Him to this level ourselves. Let our Christianity be something more than a surface thing—more than an exclusive thing—more than a particular form of opinion; then those that are without our circle may feel its power, because then it will be a power. We need not, as some fancy, reduce the Gospel into a set of moral maxims, that we may meet the believers in the Koran on a common ground. By taking that course, we enter into a foolish competition with the Koran; we do set up our religion against the Mahometan religion, and so insult the prejudices of those who profess it. We need not bring proofs that Mahomet was an impostor, or that Jesus was the Messiah. But starting from that which is the strong and vital truth of Mahometanism—proclaiming mightily an unseen God and a living God—we may go on to declare that which is the specially Christian truth,—that this God is united to His creatures in a Son; that this Son has taken man's flesh, and has given His flesh for the life of the world. The deepest mystery of our faith is the most universal; when we are most Christian, we are most human. Only we must not stop short at the Incarnation; we must go on to the Ascension;—so we do justice to the Mahometan demand that we should not exalt manhood above Godhead; so we escape the danger which Mahometans too justly imputed to Christians, that they turned the flesh of Christ into an object of idolatry;—when Christ Himself said, 'It is the spirit which quickeneth.'
There is a design of establishing an English Church at Constantinople. If it is accomplished, God grant that the Gospel which is preached there may be the same which has been preached already by English lips and English hands in the hospital at Scutari! God grant that we may not seek there or here to set up an English religion,—for that cannot be the religion of Jesus Christ; that must be a denial of the Son of Man! If we fulfil the obligations which our Church lays upon us, we shall tell all men that there is a life for them in Him who died for all. We shall show the Turks that we hold the Second Commandment as sacred as Mahomet held it; that we are Islamites, confessing the will of God to be the only foundation of all the acts and energies of man. We shall show the Greeks that we regard the Son of Man as the one universal Bishop of His Church. We shall show the Latins that we are members of a one Holy Catholic Church, to which all nations belong, and which, by its unity, is to testify of the Unity of the Father and the Son in one blessed Spirit. And so we shall vindicate our own position as Englishmen; so the Church which we build on a foreign shore will prove that the countrymen whose bones lie on that shore have not died in vain. They will have fallen in war that there might be the sacrament of a true and eternal peace between the nations. And whensoever the bread is eaten and the wine is drunk which testifies that the Son of Man has given His body and His blood for the life of man, their thanksgivings will be joined with those of the Church militant, for the sacrifice and oblation that was once made for all,—their prayers will rise with those of their brethren to the Father of spirits—through Him who has ascended on high, leading captivity captive—that all tyranny, and oppressions, and wars, may cease for ever upon that earth which He has redeemed.
[Lincoln's Inn, Whit-Sunday, May 11, 1856.]
St. JohnVII. 37-39.
In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)
In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)
If the words in the last chapter—'the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was at hand'—are genuine, it would seem as if Jesus did not go up to that feast, or to the Pentecost which must have followed it. At all events, nothing is recorded of any visits to Jerusalem; and the inference from the opening of this chapter clearly is, that 'He did not walk in Jewry' from the time that the Jews had sought to kill Him at the feast spoken of in the fifth chapter.
I did not think it was necessary to make guesses respecting the name of that feast. Whatthiswas the Apostle has told us. I have no doubt that he wished us to remember why it was instituted; what it should have meant to them who were celebrating it; what it did mean to Him whom they had sought to kill, because He had said, 'God was His Father.' It said to the Jews who were living then,—'Your fathers dwelt in tabernacles in the wilderness; they had no houses which they could transmit to their children, as you have. But the unseen God went in a tabernacle before them. That was the secret of their strength; that bound them together as a nation, before they had conquered a single walled town of Canaan. Your houses are as little stable as theirs were. Ifyournational strength and union consist in your walled cities, the Romans in a year may lay them all waste. But the living God dwells with you as He did with your fathers. The Romans cannot take that Presence from you.Youmay forget it;youmay disbelieve in it: then the tabernacle of God will not cease to be with men,—but it will cease to be withyou;youwill not be His stewards or witnesses any longer.'
Even we can feel that there was this significance in the festival; events which, we know, were soon to happen, reveal it to us, if the Law and the Prophets do not. How much more than we can divine or dream of must He have seen in it! But the persons who were about them, His own kinsfolk, had no such thoughts. To them the feast was an unusual gathering of men together,—the occasion which one who professed to be a prophet or leader of the people should take for showing Himself to them. 'Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand. His brethren therefore said unto Him, Depart hence, and go into Judæa, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest.'
Looking at this advice from the point of view which we commonly take, we should speak of it as most sensible. We suppose that Christ wrought His signs to convince the unbelieving Jews of His mission; what more strange than that He should not take pains to display them? Looking at the advice from his point of view, St. John says, 'For neither did His brethren believe in Him.' They expected Him to make a startling exhibition of His power to the eye. They did notbelievein Him,—for faith rests upon that which is not seen; it confesses an inward, vital power.
The words, 'show thyself to the world,' were doubtless used by these brethren of Christ in a very broad, vulgar sense. Jerusalem was the great world to them; there all Jews met; there were the learned men who decided what others were to think and believe; there were the rulers of the people. But they had used the right word. A Mantuan, speaking of great Rome, and wondering what he should do there, would not have been more correct in callingthatthe world, than these Galilæans were in giving the name to the city of David. The Italian metropolis might, in one sense, be the centre of the world's government and the world's wickedness; the Cæsar might be the world's god. But a society which was organized on the confession of a living and true God—which had retained its organization, and believed inthatinstead of in Him—is more exactly the world, in the sense in which the world is opposed to God, than the Roman society, or any other existing at that time, could possibly be. Jesus, therefore, adopts the expression of His kinsmen in answering them. 'Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is alway ready. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come. When He had said these words unto them, He abode still in Galilee.'
There is a greater sense of loneliness and oppression in this language, than in any which we have met with thus far,—the loneliness which comes from being altogether misunderstood; the oppression which comes from a work to be fulfilled, which those whom it was meant to bless would abhor. The Son of Man feels all the difference between those 'whose time was alway ready,'—who could go up to the feasts whenever it pleased them, merely with the expectation of meeting friends, and mixing in a crowd,—and Him who had the straitening consciousness of a message which He must bear, of a baptism which He must be baptized with. And the Son of God feels that He is to bear witness of a Father to a world which was created by Him, and did not know Him—which longed to rid itself of the sense of His Presence—which conceived of Him as a tyrant and an enemy. The world cannot hate those who fancy that the business of a divine Prophet is to persuade it to admire him and follow him. The world must hate those who tell it that the Creator of all good and truth is close to it,—that it has no good apart from that Creator,—that its works will always be evil while it is not owning Him. The world must hate Him in whom the glory of the central and eternal Good and Truth shone forth as in an 'only-begotten Son, full of grace and truth.'
'But when His brethren were gone up, then went He also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. Then the Jews sought Him at the feast, and said, Where is He? And there was much murmuring among the people concerning Him: for some said, He is a good man: others said, Nay; but He deceiveth the people. Howbeit no man spake openly of Him for fear of the Jews.'
We are carried at once into the bustle of the feast. Two or three lines give a clearer and livelier impression of the feelings of the crowds who were assembled at it, than the longest description could have given. They wonder if the Teacher from Galilee is there, or is coming. There are various thoughts about Him. 'He has done many kind acts; surely He is a good man.' So says this man and that, as they talk in the streets. 'Yes; but the multitude,—the ignorant people, who are expecting a king,—what strange, dangerous notions He is filling them with! Can you doubt that He is plotting to be their chief?' So others whisper, correcting the charitable judgments of their neighbours. But it is a hum of voices. There is a fear of something, the people do not well know of what. It is a fear of the Jews, the Apostle says. Each fears the other. There is a concentrated Jewish feeling in the Sanhedrim, among the rulers, which all tremble at. Till that has been pronounced—above all, while there is a suspicion that it will come forth in condemnation—it is not wise for any to commit themselves. Brethren, do we notknowthat this is a true story? Must it not have happened in Jerusalem then; for would it not happen in London now?
'Now about the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught. And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned? Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me.'
He went up to the feast in secret; but He goes into the Temple openly. He has as little wish to hide His doctrine as He has to display Himself. His testimony is to the world. It is borne at this time to a letter-worshipping world,—to a world which believed that certain letters had come long ago from God, but which utterly disbelieved that God could hold converse with men in their day. Such people have lost all sense of the meaning of letters. They are no longer the blessed media of intercourse between soul and soul, witnesses of spiritual communication; they are dead things, to be committed to memory, to be learnt most readily by those to whom they express least. How natural their wonder was that He who spoke with authority,—He who uttered living words, and adopted all the living symbols of nature to illustrate them,—should know letters, when there was no evidence that He had gone to any school! And though a scribe may have first spoken of His ignorance, it is quite probable that the crowd will quickly have caught the phrase, and have manifested the same astonishment that one of themselves should dare to teach them. The answer is in accordance with all that He has said before. There is a fountain within, from which His words flow. They are not His own. He speaks what He has heard. He is a Messenger from the Unseen; He is a Messenger to human beings. He can make Himself understood by them; He can prove His commission to them. And this is the way He will prove it. 'If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh His glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me?'
I have taken these three verses together. I believe we lose the force of the first, if we separate it from the other two. Oftentimes we hear the first clause of the 17th verse quoted without the second. By that violent proceeding this meaning is extracted from our Lord's words,—that if a man keeps God's commandments, he arrives at a correct apprehension of doctrinal propositions: an assertion which is surely not always borne out by evidence, and which is likely to produce quite as much self-righteousness as humility. Nay, it leads to far more doubt than satisfaction. The question is raised, whether A, or B, or C keeps God's commandments best, and therefore which may be trusted best as an expositor of doctrine. The unknown is to be ascertained by the more unknown: for who, except the Judge of all, can answer this question? Who would attempt to answer it that reverenced Christ's words,—'Judge not, that ye be not judged?'
Our Lord most carefully guarded His sentence against this construction. Our translators have honestly and righteously preserved the singular phrase,—'If any man will(or wills to)do His will.' Supposing a man really recognises a will as higher than his own, and wishes, above all things, to be conformed to that will, then Christ's words aboutHiscoming to do a Father's will,—His whole doctrine, which is grounded upon His relation to His Father, and His fulfilment of His will,—must become by degrees intelligible to that man. He may be confused about phrases, he may blunder in his statements, but he will enter into the meaning of the teaching; there will be a continual interpretation of it in his own thoughts and acts. For self-glorying, self-seeking, self-will is that which he will be continually dreading in himself, from which he will be continually flying in himself. He will know that that has been and is the cause of all falsehood in his words, his deeds, his thoughts; and therefore he will acknowledge that One in whom there is no such self-seeking, self-glorying, self-willing, who was entirely seeking the glory of another, and doing the will of another, must be true altogether, must be right altogether,—that there can be no falsehood, no wrong in Him.
Here is our Lord's famous test, which has never been superseded,—which has never failed in the case of any generation or of any man. Jesus applies it at once to those who were about Him. They had a law,—they boasted of a law. But did they bow to the law, as expressing the will of One higher than themselves? No; it was a document which they could calltheirs, which belonged to them—not a power which was to rule them; therefore this law which forbade killing was to be the very excuse for killing. They went about to kill Jesus, out of love to the law. A more tremendous illustration of a principle—tremendous, because its force has not been spent in eighteen centuries—cannot be conceived. It is possible to make God's commandments an occasion for boasting over others, for self-glorying; and so it is possible to make God's law a perpetual barrier between us and all knowledge of His will—even a reason for resisting it in our acts.
Perhaps the people at large were not aware that there had been any plot to kill Jesus at the former feast; for 'the multitude answered, Thou hast a devil: who goeth about to kill thee?' Without apparently heeding the interruption—addressing Himself to those whodidknow what had happened at the Pool of Bethesda, and what charge had been brought against Him for healing on the Sabbath-day—'Jesus answered and said unto them, I have done one work, and ye all marvel. Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision; (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers;)and ye on the sabbath-day circumcise a man. If a man on the sabbath-day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath-day? Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.'
He was enforcing in these words what He had said at the other feast. The feeling of the Jews about the Fourth Commandment illustrated their feeling about the whole law. They were glorying in it astheirday,—they were not receiving it asGod'sday; and, therefore, they were not perceiving the will of God in reference to that day. Nay, they were contradicting the very customs which they were themselves practising. They believed they were obeying Moses when they circumcised a man on the Sabbath-day; they believed they should be breaking the law if they failed to do so. Circumcision was the sign of a covenant which God had made with their fathers before He gave them the law—a covenant of grace and blessing. And yet so much were they misled by mere appearances, that they thought it an actual sin to make a man whole on the Sabbath-day. The act which inflicted pain must please God; that which gave health must offend Him!
There is more in the contradiction which He thus brought home to their minds than it is possible to express by any commentary upon His words. This misunderstanding of the very meaning of all God's dealings with them—this degradation of the law into a cruel letter—of the covenant into the mere sign or form of the covenant—was that proof of inward radical atheism (nay, as we shall find in the next chapter, of something worse than atheism) which our Lord was convicting them of in His discourses, which they were hereafter to manifest by the wickedest deeds that had ever been done upon the earth. But, besides this witness against them, He was giving a lesson to all ages and to all teachers respecting the duty and the method of piercing through the outward shell of an institution into the principle which is embodied in it—respecting the danger and the sin of omitting to do this through any affected reverence for the institution itself. In the two pregnant instances of the Sabbath-day and of circumcision, He showed that if, in any case whatever, we judge according to appearances, instead of seeking for the meaning and purport of the divine signs, we shall be likely to repeat the sin of the Jews, and to deny God when we fancy we are honouring Him most.
'Then said some of them of Jerusalem, Is not this He whom they seek to kill? But, lo, He speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto Him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ? Howbeit we know this man whence He is: but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence He is.'
These inhabitants of Jerusalem were likely to know more of the anger which Jesus had provoked by His cure, than the mere multitude which was collected from all quarters. They knew that their rulers had sought to kill Him. Their wonder was, that He should be allowed to go at large, and should show so little fear of any mischiefs that might befal Him. They thought that some change must have taken place in the sentiments of the Sanhedrim. Could they have discovered that He was not an impostor and blasphemer—that He was the very King they were looking for? Surely that was impossible. They knew exactly from whence this Man had sprung, where He dwelt, who were His kindred; but who could declare the generation of the Christ? When He came, no one would be able to say from what region He came. There would be a mystery about Him, which would sever Him from all other beings.
There was a mixture of error and truth in this thought. Jesus distinguished them in the following words:—'Then cried Jesus in the temple as He taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, but He that sent me is true, whom ye know not. But I know Him: for I am from Him, and He hath sent me.' There was, in one sense, no mystery about Him; all was simple, natural, open. He affected no reserve; He disclaimed no human relationships. He walked with fishermen; He did not avoid the company of rulers; He ate and drank with publicans or with Pharisees. The absence of strangeness and singularity was what was most characteristic of Him. He was like all other men; He did nothing to raise Himself above them. Where, then, was the mystery? He was not come of Himself. That God who had dwelt in the Tabernacle, who had guided them through the wilderness—that God who, they said, dwelt in that Temple, whom they were celebrating in that feast—was with Him, was speaking by Him. Of Him He was bearing witness. They did not know that Being, because He was true. Their falsehood kept them from Him; there was no sympathy between them. But He knew Him; He was from Him; His truth He was come to show forth.
There was something in these words very like those which had called forth their first indignation against them—'My Father worketh, and I work.' Perhaps they thought He was again speaking blasphemy; perhaps they were only indignant at His discovery of their untruth. At all events, we are told they sought to take Him. Some out of the crowd, it would appear—not officials, for they are spoken of afterwards—gave signs of an intention to seize Him; 'but no man laid hands on Him, because His hour was not yet come.' The Apostle keeps us in mind that an hour was to come when they would have their way; and that, when it did come, the will of the Lord of all would be more fully manifested than it was now in restraining them.
'And many of the people believed on Him, and said, When Christ cometh, will He do more miracles than these which this man hath done? The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning Him; and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take Him.'
The desire to treat Jesus with violence seems to have been confined to a few. But what are we to think of those many who are said to have believed on Him? What kind of belief was it? I do not know that we can answer any question of this kind, except as St. John answers it. He calls the sentiment of these peoplebelief. We have a right, therefore, to assume that a spiritual power was acting on their minds, and that they confessed it. The visible signs spoke to them of that which was invisible. On the other hand, we are told that they talked of the number of signs which the Christ might be expected to work. This was the gossip of men upon whom His words had taken no mighty or secure hold. Those who can deliberate how much evidence ought to convince them, have never yet surrendered themselves to the full force of a conviction. But the chief priests and Pharisees were not the least competent to judge what were deep and what were superficial impressions. All murmurs and questionings sounded dangerous; they ought to be suppressed, if it were possible We have heard of their plotting against Jesus; but it is the first time that we have been told of any messengers being sent formally from the Sanhedrim to take Him. He appears to have received it as the foretaste of that apprehension which would take place at another feast; for—'Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto Him that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come.' I connect these words with the appearance of the messengers; I look upon them, therefore, as a prophecy of His death. But the further we read, the more we shall find that the language in which He speaks in this Gospel of His departure out of the world, is at least as applicable to His ascension as to His passion. His going is always a return. He is here for a little while; then He must be with Him from whom He came. I beseech you, do not pass over these expressions as if they were commonplaces, or as if you were sure you understood them. They are as difficult to us who keep the festival of the Ascension every year—who say every day, 'I believe that Jesus ascended on high'—as they were to those who heard them first. Nay, unless we seize strongly the first words of this Gospel—unless we believe that the 'Word was with God, and was God,' and that Jesus was the 'Word made flesh'—I believe they may be often more difficult; that our familiarity with the mere name and notion of an ascent into heaven may make us less able to feel than they were, 'that no man hath ascended into heaven save He which came down from heaven, even the Son of Man that is in heaven.'
The guesses of the Jews respecting our Lord's meaning, when He said they should seek Him but not find Him, were wide of the mark—were as outward and material as we should expect them to be. Yet there is in them one of those curious anticipations of the truth—one of those unconscious prophecies which sometimes occur in the language of the most thoughtless or evil men.
'Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither will He go, that we shall not find Him? will He go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles? What manner of saying is this that He said, Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come?'
He had broken down the barriers between different classes of Israelites—between Galilæans, Samaritans, and Jews. Why might not He carry His designs further? Why might He not go to the dispersed tribes in heathen lands? Why might He not preach to the heathens themselves? They were right: this would be the effect of His going away. This was a part, a great part, of what He meant by it. And it is not till we realizethissense of the words—till we regard the Ascension as the redemption and glorification of Humanity at the right hand of God, and therefore as the necessary step to a Gospel which should include the dispersed among the Gentiles, and the Gentiles themselves—that we perceive how it bears upon that great passage which I took as the text of this sermon:—'In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)'
The passage through the wilderness was commemorated by the whole of this festival. This great day of it would seem to have been especially devoted to the striking of the rock, and perhaps to the celebration of those wells by which the thirst of the pilgrims was quenched. That same truth, therefore, which had been taught the woman of Samaria, as she brought her own single pitcher to Jacob's well, could here be drawn out of the history of the nation. A whole host had cried for water. God had told His servant, the shepherd of the people, where it was to be found. God had shown them that He causes the springs to flow from the hills; that He cared for the cattle who drank of them; that He cared more for the wants of the creatures whom He had made in His image, and redeemed from the oppressor.
Prophets and holy men had discovered—all men had in some measure discovered—that there are cravings which no fountains on earth can satisfy. The Jewish nation existed to declare that in God Himself is the fountain of life; that the spirit can only find its life in Him. John the Baptist had said that He who had been before Him, and was coming after Him, would baptize with the Holy Spirit. And now He who had declared that He was sent from the Father, and was a short time with them, and would return to Him, declares that whoever believed on Him should not only be satisfied out of the fulness of God Himself, but 'that from him should flow rivers of living water;' that he should receive only to give; that his blessing should be to communicate, because that is the blessing of the divine nature, of which he is admitted to participate.
Had these words stood by themselves, we might interpret them as they are so often interpreted of the individual believer. We might say,—'These are the choice gifts, the peculiar treasures, which Christ bestows upon His most favoured servants,—upon them whose faith is the most simple and the most full.' There is a true, a most important, meaning in such language; and we should have no right to complain of any one who deduced it, and it alone, from our Lord's discourse at the Tabernacle, if His own beloved disciple had not gone out of his way to point out another signification of that discourse, not inconsistent with this, but certainly far wider and deeper, and, I conceive, most necessary to save this from a perilous abuse. When he tells us that He spoke this of the Spirit, 'which was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified,' he evidently connects the fulfilment of the promise with one of the acts which Christ was to do for mankind. The Spirit had before spoken by the Prophets; when He was exalted on high, 'the tabernacle of God was indeed to be with men, and He was to dwell among them, and to be their Father, and they were to be His children.' No doubt a man must have faith in Jesus before rivers of living water can flow from him which shall bless human beings and make the world fruitful. But it must be faith in Him as the Head of man, as the Redeemer of the race; it must be faith which raises the man above self-seeking and self-glorying; it must be faith that refers its own origin to this very Spirit, which He gives because He is glorified.
Such a faith, Jesus taught the Jews at the feast of Tabernacles, was implied in those services and thanksgivings in which they were engaged. If they understood the dealings of God with their fathers, this was the blessing to which they must look forward; if they were content with less, all that had been given them would be taken from them. Such a faith, brethren, is for us who are keeping another feast to-day. Call that the Christian Pentecost, if you will; but it substantiatesthispromise. Christ ascended on high; Christ poured out His Spirit upon fishermen and tent-makers. Out of them flowed rivers of living water that have made the earth glad. A family gathered out of all kindreds and nations was declared to be the Tabernacle of God, in which He would dwell. So Whitsuntide testifies. But, oh! if it should be kept by us as the Tabernacle feast was kept by the Jews; if there should be the same self-seeking, hardness, Atheism, in us, as there was in them; what can we expect but that these words will be spoken to our nation and to the whole Church?—'Yet a little while I am with you, and then I go away. And ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and whither I go, ye cannot come.'
[Lincoln's Inn, Trinity Sunday, May 18, 1856.]
St. JohnVIII. 29.
And He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please Him.
The belief which was expressed in the question,—'When Christ cometh, will He do more miracles than this man doeth?' appeared not to be a very stable belief. The effect of the words which Jesus spoke on the last day of the feast must have been greater, if not more lasting. 'Many of the people(the crowd)therefore, when they heard this saying(these words),said, This is the Prophet; others said, This is the Christ.' There was no sign, no outward indication of His power. There was an appeal to a thirst in men's spirits; there was a promise that those spirits should drink, and that living waters should flow from them. Those who discoveredtheProphet—the representative of all prophets—in the one who spoke thus to their hearts, were confessing a Divine and living Word. Those who discovered the Christ in the person who made this promise had learnt, by some means or other, that the Christ is He who is anointed with the Spirit that He may bestow the Spirit.
'But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee?Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was? So there was a division among the people because of Him.' As I hinted before, the occurrence of this schism is no unimportant incident in St. John's Gospel. Much of the meaning of the narrative turns upon the question which produced it. Was the Christ to prove His right to the homage of His subjects by establishing His lineal descent from David, by showing that He was born in the place from which Micah had intimated that the Shepherd of Israel would come? Or was He at once to address Himself to the conscience of human beings? Was He to claim a sovereignty over them by an elder title? Were Scribes and Pharisees to bow down when they had satisfied their understandings, by spelling over texts, that Jesus possessed certain outward marks and tokens which were described in those texts? Or were publicans and sinners to hear that there was One who could give them the bread and water of life; that they might own Him, and eat, and drink, and live? Some will say that the first three Evangelists maintain the one doctrine, the fourth Gospel the other. To me it seems that St. Matthew and St. Luke, who give our Lord's genealogies from Abraham or from Adam, rest as little upon those genealogies as St. Mark or St. John, in whom they are not found; that all alike appeal to a different kind of evidence from this,—to that evidence which Pharisees and Scribes could not understand, 'because they had not repented at the preaching of John,'—because they had not come to that living Lord, of whom the Scriptures testified, but 'thought they had life in them.' But I do not doubt that in St. John's day, Christians had begun to dwell on the evidence of genealogies and of outward marvels, as the Jews had dwelt upon them; that this was a time of infinite peril to those Christians, and to the society of which they were members; that it was an especial function of the beloved disciple to show, not only that the craving for this evidence was not healthy, but that it was a principal cause of the rejection of Jesus by the people of God's ancient covenant.
This truth is strongly brought out in the last verses of the 7th chapter.
'And some of them would have taken Him; but no man laid hands on Him. Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, Why have ye not brought Him? The officers answered, Never man spake like this man. Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him? But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed. Nicodemus saith unto them, (he that came to Jesus by night, being one of them,) Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth? They answered and said unto Him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. And every man went unto his own house.'
All here is wonderfully living and characteristic. The faint effort of the officers to execute the command of their masters; the awe which held them back; their simple confession of the power which they found in the words of Jesus; the surprise of the Sanhedrim that the infection should have reached even their servants; their terror lest there might be traitors in the camp,—lest any Pharisee or lawyer (probably some eyes were turned on Nicodemus) should have been carried away by the impulse to which the crowd, naturally enough, had yielded; their scorn of the people, as wretched, 'accursed,' men utterly ignorant of the law;—who does not feel as if he were present in that convocation of doctors?—as if he were looking at their perplexed and angry faces?—as if he were hearing their contemptuous words? But the debate turns ultimately on the impossibility of a Galilæan Christ. Nicodemus timidly suggests that those who boast of the law, and call the people cursed for not knowing it, should adhere to the law in their treatment of an accused person. He is at once put down by the demand,—'Art thou of Galilee?' All arguments of conscience, even the formalities of law,—so much more precious than such arguments,—are nothing, unless, after searching and looking, he can find that a prophet could come out of Galilee. Whether he did search and look we are not told; but we are told that he found a prophet in the tomb of Joseph, if he failed to satisfy himself about His coming from Nazareth.
Then follows the story of the woman taken in adultery. That story has approved itself to the conscience of Christendom. I feel it to be most dear and venerable. Some of the Fathers disliked the moral of it, and therefore were glad to believe it not genuine. I wish I were as sure that their conclusion was wrong, as that their reason for wishing the story away was unsound. But impartial critics seem to be agreed that there is not sufficient justification for retaining it, at least in this place. I dare not dispute their authority on a question respecting the weight and value of MSS. I dare not allow affection for the passage to interfere when truth is at stake. Thoughtful students maintain that the story belongs to this Gospel, though they cannot tell to what part of the book it should be transferred. Were it a question of internal evidence simply, I should say that it does not seem to me an interpolated fragmenthere; that it supplies a link between thoughts which otherwise it is less easy to connect. If the story is withdrawn, the 8th chapter opens with the words,—'Then spake Jesus again, I am the Light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness.' Perhaps I may be deceived by habit and old association; but I feel as if these words explained how it was that, when Christ said, 'Let him that is without sin cast the first stone,' the 'accusers went out one by one.' I see in them also an answer to the charge that He was tolerating sin when He said, 'Go, and sin no more.' They show that the sharpest judgment upon sin is exercised by Him who delivers from it. And the story appears to unite that exposure of the law-worshippers—who punished breakers of the law, but did not keep the law—which we found in the last chapter, with the revelation of a Will, working in us that we may keep the law in the fullest sense of it, which we shall find in this. Nevertheless, I am afraid of using these pleas. If the story is genuine, it will defend itself; if not, the divine Oracles can do without it. The more sacred we consider them, the more we must be sure that God would have us receive them in purity, and that He will take better care of them than we can.
Whatever be the introduction to the words, 'I am the Light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness,' we perceive at once that they are in harmony with all that we have been reading in St. John. But we ought also to perceive that they are not mere repetitions of the sentences in the opening of the Gospel, and in the third chapter. The Light of the world comes forth here detecting, indeed, and manifesting the darkness in each man, but with a promise and assurance that it will prove itself mightier than the darkness. The Word made flesh says to the man who sees nothing but mists all around him, 'I can bring you into the clear sunshine.' He says to the man whose breath is stifled, whose limbs have suffered as much from the atmosphere he has dwelt in as his eyes, 'I am the Light of Life'—that which illuminates, quickens. There is certainly a progress and an order in all our Lord's teachings, whether we can trace it or not. The words on the last day of the feast, which could not be fulfilled till Christ was glorified, seem to make the conversation upon which we are now entering necessary. We want to know how the Water of Life is connected with the Light of Life; we want to know whence the Light and the Life are both derived. The answer of the Pharisees to our Lord's words—'Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true'—leads us on in this path of discovery.
This answer was no doubt suggested by a recollection of that which He had said Himself at the former feast (John v. 31). They thought they were confuting Him out of His own mouth; for surely to call Himself the Light of the world was as great a pretension as to call Himself the Christ. Could His own testimony be accepted for one assertion more than for the other? It was an all-important inquiry. The more earnestly the Pharisees pursued it—the more determined they were not to be content with any half solution of it—the better. If they had been in earnest, they would have been compelled to ask themselves—'And what evidencecanwe have that will satisfy us whether such a claim as this is well-founded or not? Whatcanconvince us whether one who says he is our Light, and the Light of the world, is uttering the most profound truth, or the most portentous falsehood?' They would then have been driven to plain facts. They must have considered how the sun proves itself to be a light to any man, or a light to all men; and what comfort there would be in learning from books that that is the function which it ought to perform, the blessing which men ought to receive from it. They were not in earnest; they would not grapple with facts. Facts were for that cursed people which did not know the law. What had doctors to do with such common things as the sun? What had the sun to do with the letters which they copied out? Something, perhaps, with the letter of that 19th Psalm, which begins with the light in the firmament, and ends with the law that enlightens the heart. But that was metaphorical language, poetical language—very beautiful, and sacred, and divine—but to be treated as if it meant nothing.
To this test, however, our Lord, who preached a Gospel to men, was bringing His own assertions, His own character, His own office. He did not, like those Prophets and Christs who bore witness of themselves, produce evidence to show how much He was above human beings. He did not, like the doctors of the law, judge and condemn. But He came speaking of a Father from whom He had proceeded, and to whom He was returning. He came speaking to men's consciences, making them judges of themselves. Either he had come from a Father, or He had not. If He had, that Father would bear witness of Him; that Father would show whether He knew Him, and was testifying truly of Him. It was not Jesus of Nazareth saying, 'I am the Christ;' it was a Father speaking of a Son, a Son of a Father, to beings who could not live without either. I have translated, as nearly as my poor language can, His mighty words. Read them and meditate upon them till you find depths in them of which I have only caught the faintest glimpse.
'The Pharisees therefore said unto Him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true. Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go. Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.'
Everything, you will perceive, turns upon this relation of a Son to a Father—upon their eternal distinctness, upon their eternal unity. The word 'Father' was now, as before, that which at once confused the Jews, and filled them with horror. 'They said therefore to Him, Where is thy Father?' 'What dost Thou mean? Dost Thou mean that the God there in those heavens is Thy Father?' No! Surely theJupiter tonans, whom they worshipped under the name of the Jehovah the God of Abraham, wasnotthe Father of whom He spake. He said therefore, 'Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye would have known my Father also.' It was a fuller, bolder assertion than was contained in the words, 'My Father worketh, and I work.' It affirmed that they could know the Father of all in a Man; that they could not know Him except in a man. This was the answer to their 'Where?' This overthrew their notion of Godhead—the frightful intellectual idol to which they were bowing down. But if He had spoken blasphemy before, He had spoken it more clearly and terribly now. St. John felt this; for he thinks it necessary to explain why Jesus was not stoned for using such language:—'These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as He taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on Him; for His hour was not yet come.'
Then He repeats the words which He spoke before at the feast, but with an addition which deepens their force. 'Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come.'
He would go away from them, and they could not follow Him. But how is that departure and that incapacity connected with their dying in sin? I believe the sense will become clearer as we read on in the chapter; but we shall not understand what follows, if we leave this question unconsidered. Throughout He has been teaching that the coming to Him with the feet, that the seeing Him with the eyes, was not that coming and that seeing which could do them any good, which could make them truer men. That belief which is not dependent upon sight—that belief which was in Him as the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever—that belief which would be in Him when He had gone away from the world—that, and that only, would raise them above themselves, would unite them to the Father, would make them partakers of His true and eternal life. Sin, the separation from God, must be the state of their spirits,—those spirits must gravitate to earth, and claim their portion with the flesh,—unless they could look upwards, and assert their share in their Lord's ascension, in His victory over the grave and hell.
The next verses will show, I think, that this is the force of the one upon which I have been commenting.
'Then said the Jews, Will He kill Himself? because He saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come. And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you, That ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins.'
The Jews did not now suppose that He was going to the dispersed among the Gentiles. They perceived that His words pointed to a departure out of the world. 'But how could He know that He was going to leave it? Would He take the matter into His own hands? Did He mean that disappointment and anger at their rejection of Him would drive Him to self-murder?' The suggestion was not a serious one; merely the mock of some priest, thrown out for the sake of degrading Him in the minds of the people. Our Lord's words are not an answer to it, but an exposition of the sentence which had provoked it, and of the cause which had made that sentence unintelligible to them. Theycouldonly think of leaving the world as adescent, by one means or another, into the grave. The idea of anascent, of a return of a spirit to its proper home, was utterly strange to them. This was a proof that they needed one to come from above, that they might be delivered from their downward, earthbound nature. This was a proof that they needed one who was not of this world to come, who might lift them above it; that they, too, might find their way to their Father's house. If they would not believe in Him as such a Messenger from the Father, as such a deliverer from the world, they must become the victims of sin, the heirs of death.
'They said therefore to Him, Who art thou?' 'What kind of being dost thou claim to be, who pronouncest judgment upon us,—who tellest us that we are to die in our sins?' There is a mixture, it seems to me, of indignation and of curiosity in the question. They want Him to tell them what He is, and what His right is to censure them and prophesy death to them. The reply, according to our translators, was, 'The same which I said unto you from the beginning.' I do not suppose they were satisfied with this rendering themselves, or that any one ever has been. Λαλεῖν is more properly to speak than to say. Λαλῶ must be the present tense, not the past. Yet I do not think we can better their version by giving, as some have done, a mystical force to the words τὴν ἀρχὴν; as if that was a name which Christ claimed for Himself. Some of the Gnostics, and some of the Fathers, no doubt, supposed that Christ is called The Beginning in the first chapter of this Gospel, as He is, undoubtedly, in the first chapter of the Apocalypse. But, were that so, I do not see what room there would be for this meaning here, or how the sentence could be construed if we introduced it. If we follow the order of the words, we may perhaps preserve the grammar of the sentence, and its connexion with the verses which follow, without deviating very widely from the signification which it conveyed to the minds of King James's translators. 'That in the beginning of which I am speaking to you. I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you. But He that sent me is true; and the things which I have heard from Him, those I speak to the world.' The answer may be either a direct one to the question, 'Who art thou?' 'I have always been that Light of the world of which I am speaking now;' or the emphasis may be on the word 'speak.' 'I am not speaking to you any different words from those which I have been always speaking to you. I am not pronouncing any judgment upon you which you have not heard pronounced in your consciences long ago. There are many dark spots in those consciences which I must bring to light; many harder speeches still which you must hear from me. I am come from a true Being; from Him who is true. I speak to the world that which I know to be His mind and will.' 'They did not understand,' says the Apostle, (this was their misery,) 'that it was the mind and will of a Father He was proclaiming to them; that it was from Him who loved them they were shrinking and turning away.'
'They understood not that He spake to them of the Father. Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.'
As He speaks oftheirlifting up the Son of Man, it is clear that He means here what He meant in the conversation with Nicodemus. 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so was the Son of Man to be lifted up.' They would be the means of raising Him to that throne. They would place Him on that cross which should declare in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, 'This is the King!' But as He addsthen ye shall know, it is clear also that He must allude to the events which would succeed the crucifixion, and not to it merely. The cross would say, 'This is the Son of Man; one with all men.' The resurrection and ascension would say, 'This is the Son of God; one with the Father.' The Cross would afterwards be felt to gather the whole message into itself, to be the witness of the love of the Father to the world; of the eternal union of the Son with the Father; of the might of that Spirit which dwells in them, and proceeds from them, to bind all things into one. But what I said before applies also here. When Christ speaks of His departure from the world, the idea of ascension, of a return to the glory which He had with the Father before the worlds were, is always coming forth through the darkness of the passion.
And even that idea is not sufficient, unless this be added to it:—'And He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please Him.'
His going to the Father is not enough without the assurance of His continual abiding in the Father. No change of place or circumstance, no progress in the world's history, no development of the Divine purpose, must interfere with the calm belief of a unity of the Father and the Son in the Spirit, which was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
It is of this unity, brethren, that this day testifies; which is therefore a more wonderful and glorious day than that which testifies of the ascension of the Son to the right hand of the Father, or of the descent of the Spirit to fill the earth and the hearts of men with rivers of living water. But we can know little of the depth and sweetness of this day, if we forget how Christ revealed the mystery of it; how He both said and proved that to know Him is to know the Father! For that blessed doctrine, upon which Fathers and Reformers lived and died, we are fast substituting one which seems to put the Son at an infinite distance from the Father; which seems to make the will of the Son not the revelation of the Father's will, but the contrast to it. Nay, our orthodoxy—so strangely like what would have been called heresy in other days—is even daring to affirm that we may believe anything dark or malignant respecting the character of the Father, if onlywegather from the Bible that that is its testimony concerning Him. Frightful contradiction! to set up a book against Him whom we believe to be its author! to say that a book, which is from first to last a denunciation of false and cruel gods, may possibly proclaim to us a false and cruel God, and that we should be bound to accept its message if it did! Gracious Father, deliver thy Church from doctrines which teach us that we are not to hallow thy name above all books and letters which thou in thy mercy hast bestowed upon us! Deliver us from those who teach us that we can see Thee anywhere except in thy Only-begotten Son; or that, if Thou art revealed in Him, Thou canst be anything but Light without darkness, Truth without falsehood, Love without cruelty. Teach us to hate all counterfeits of Thee; all notions of Thee which are derived from our darkness, our falsehood, our cruelty. Teach us to worship the Eternal Trinity, the One God of perfect charity blessed for ever.Amen.