[Lincoln's Inn, First Sunday after Trinity, May 25, 1856.]
St. JohnVIII. 43.
Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word.
Those words of which I spoke to you last Sunday seem to have taken a sudden hold of some who listened to them. 'While He was speaking these things, many believed on Him.' When we recollect what those words were, we may at first wonder at this impression. He spoke of 'the Father being always with Him; of His doing always those things which pleased the Father.' Was not His discourse concerning a Father that which provoked His hearers most; that which shocked some of them most? Undoubtedly. And yet, if He spoke truly, if He did come to bear witness of a Father, if the Father did bear witness of Him, this must have been the discourse whichattractedHis hearers most—which had most power over them. The revelation of a man who was always in the presence of God, who delighted in Him, in whom He delighted, was the revelation which the heart and conscience of every man was waiting for. The heart and conscience might be closed against it by sensual indulgence, still more by spiritual pride; but it could break through both; it could prove itself true by overcoming both.
In this case, then, as in like cases which have occurred before, I should be very loth to explain away St. John's words,—to criticise the quality of the faith which he attributes to these hearers of our Lord. If we say, as some people would, that it was mere head faith, I do not think we shall make our own minds clearer; I am sure we shall be in great danger of denying the facts which the Apostle reports to us. Our Lord's words did not appeal to the understanding; they were not argumentative; we cannot account for their influence by any processes of logic. So far as one can judge from a very simple statement, they went straight to the heart; the faith which they called forth was a faith of the heart.
Does it appear, then, that the men who thus believed in Christ were satisfactory to Him? Let us follow the narrative. It will tell us all upon that subject that we need to know.
'Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.'
This expression, 'If ye continue or abide in my word,' denotes very clearly, I think, that they had not merely listened to asayingwhich went forth from His lips, and been affected by it; that they had confessed the force of aword, which entered into them as light enters into the eye, as heat makes itself felt through the body. And if they traced this word to its source; if they acknowledged the living Word from whom it flowed; if they turned to Him as to one who was near them and with them,—not for a moment, but always; if they trusted in Him, and not in themselves; then they should be—what? saints? divines? doctors? No; but what is much better than any of the three,—what all the three should wish to be raised into,—disciples. They will then be learners, learners sitting continually at the feet of the true Teacher.
And this shall be the result of that daily, hourly learning, of that change from the condition of men who know everything to the condition of men who know nothing. 'They shall know theTRUTH.' The Word shall guide them, counsel them, encourage them, scourge them. He shall prepare them to see that which is. He shall lead them away from fleeting shadows to the eternal Substance, to Him who changes not. Here is a promise, the highest that the highest Being can make to man; for it is the promise of sharing His own nature, of dwelling with Him and in Him. And there is another appended to it, which, though not greater in itself, comes nearer to human experience; commends itself more directly to our sense of oppression and misery. 'The truth shall make you free.' Truth and liberty are inseparable companions; neither can live long apart from the other. The bondage to appearances, the bondage to death, the bondage to the unseen horrors which haunt the conscience,—how shall this be broken? Our Lord says, 'The truth shall make you free.' 'If you abide in my word,—if you adhere to me as the Lord of your spirit, you shall come to know Him who is truth, and He shall break every chain from your neck; He shall give you the freedom of the sons of God.'
However unintelligible His other words may have been to them, surely this magnificent promise will have looked most inviting to the Jews; to those, at least, of them who were not vehemently prepossessed against the speaker, who did not count Him an impostor. The next sentence seems to say that it was not so. 'They answered Him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?' Who were they who said this? We should certainly gather from the previous passage,—'those Jews who had believed on Him.' At any rate, St. John takes no pains to distinguish them from the rest. If they were not the only objectors to our Lord's words, they must have joined in the objection. There is deep instruction in the thought that they did. The voice of Jesus had reached them. It had not merely floated about them, but had penetrated within them. He stood before them who did always the things that pleased His Father. The first sense of having discovered the Divine Man must have been one of delight,—the greatest, keenest delight which they had ever experienced. Then this Divine Man points upwards to a truth in which He Himself is believing and resting. He says He can make them inheritors of that. But at the same moment He looks down into them. He detects a hollowness within them,—a quailing at the thought of this truth,—a secret dislike of it—a preference for that which is hostile to it. They are conscious of a chill. The keen pleasure has been succeeded by a pain as keen. The hope which He holds out to them they cannot grasp. The evil which He has laid bare is near and present. Their pride is awakened; they think of the glory of their descent; they cannot bear to be spoken of as slaves.
We often treat their words as a mere outrageous contradiction of fact. They had been in bondage, we say, to Babylonians and Persians; theywerein bondage to the Romans; they complained of the yoke; it was fretting them continually. How monstrous to say, 'We have never been in bondage!' I believe that in speaking so we are not doing them justice, and that we are likely to miss the force of our Lord's answer to them. A modern Roman, in the sight of French or Austrian bayonets, might deny indignantly that he was a slave. He might say, 'I belong to the city which has ruled the world. I am one of those citizens whom it was a shame and wickedness to beat with rods. How dare you speak to me as if I were like an American Negro, liable to be bought and sold, at the mercy of an owner or a driver?' We should not be astonished, I think, at such language. We should understand it, and not feel ourselves justified in replying to it by referring to a foreign tyranny, which may be all the more galling to him because he loathes the name of bondsman. And there was another sense in which a Jew might affirm that he, being a son of Abraham, had never been in bondage. As our Lord had spoken of truth, He might think of his privilege not to be the servant of any false god. Τίνι may serve for this sense as well as for the other. He would exclaim indignantly, 'The truth shall make us free? To what abomination,—to what lying idol have we ever yielded ourselves?'
Our Lord does not complain of them for affixing too strong a meaning to the word bondage. He does not appeal to the places for the receipt of custom, as proofs that the seed of Abraham had lost their independence. But He convicts them of having fallen into a slavery, domestic, personal, abject. He says that this slavery, though it may have caused their subjection to the Romans, would not be removed or abated if that were to cease. And, further, He affirms that slavery to a false god—that which lies beneath all idolatry—might be more justly attributed to the seed of Abraham than to any descendants of Ham.
The first of these allegations is contained in the words which contain also the justification of His assurance that He can break their fetters, and give them a higher liberty than they had ever attained or dreamed of. 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.' It is common to quote the first of these verses without the second. Preachers tell their hearers that they have committed sin, and are therefore the servants of sin. They say nothing of the Son who abideth in the house into which sin has intruded itself. I believe, brethren, that by making this separation, we put the sense of Scripture, as well as the honesty of our minds, in the utmost peril. I might use stronger language,—I might say we all but destroy both. We try to conceive of evil apart from good, of disobedience apart from obedience. We cannot do it. God's eternal law will not let us do it. If you want me to understand the corruption and depravity of my nature, you must tell me from what it is drawing me aside. You do me an infinite injury, if you tell me that sin is close to me, unless you tell me also that the great Enemy of Sin is close to me, and that I am violently tearing myself from Him when I give myself over to it. It is possible, no doubt, to find, in the height or the depth, another sense for these words than this, as it is possible to find another sense for any words, if the one which is nearest and most obvious should for some reason be disagreeable to us. And I am certain, brethren, that we shall all seek for some new, ingenious, and elaborate interpretation, or shall embrace it when it is presented to us—I am certain that we shall call the literal interpretation mystical, and shall persuade ourselves that the one we have put in the place of it is literal—unless we perceive that it corresponds both with the context of the New Testament and with our own necessities. I call upon you to see whether what I am saying is not true of each one of us. Let each man ask himself, 'Is not the sin of which Christ speaks, with me? Is not the Son of whom He speaks, with me? Has not the usurper of the house separated me from the Lord of the house? Is not the Lord of the house ready to put down the usurper, and to make me free indeed?'
The next words have led some to suppose that our Lord cannot have been speaking to those Jews who believed on Him:—'I know that ye are Abraham's seed; yet ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.' These, it will be said, were not the men who were seeking to kill Him; they had confessed His authority; His word, it is admitted, had made its power felt by them. I will not evade the objection by saying, that so far as these men took their stand upon their position as Abraham's children, so far it might fairly be said to them: 'You see what Abraham's children do; their parentage does not save them from this crime.' I believe that isnotthe meaning of the charge, or at any rate that it is only one very small part of the meaning. I think our Lord was speaking to the consciences of those whom He addressed of a sin of whichtheyhad been guilty. I think that if those consciences had been aroused toconfessHis power—in some measure to own His goodness—they will have been more ready than any other to own the charge; and if they did not own it, to be stung by it. They had not participated, it is probable, in the plots of the Scribes and Pharisees to put Jesus to death. They might not then, they might not afterwards, take up a stone to cast at Him. But why were those plots conceived? why were those stones raised? To get rid of a Judge and a Reprover; to put out a light which was shining into the heart, and making its darkness visible; to destroy the Son of Man, the King of man; that each man might be his own king—might live undisturbed by any obligations to his fellow-men; to destroy the Son of God,—the witness of God's truth and God's love; that men might claim the inheritance as theirs,—that they might take credit to themselves for all goodness and truth, and give themselves no credit for their wickedness and lies. Now, did not each one of those to whom Jesus spoke, know inwardly that he had sought to put out the light that was shining into him,—to kill his Judge and Reprover? The living Word was there,—the Son was claiming to be the Lord of the house. But He was not allowed His place there. A certain sense there was of His presence. Certain acts of homage were rendered to Him. But He was not permitted to reign. They would find a divided allegiance more and more impossible. The good Lord or the evil must be absolute. The one who was rejected must be slain.
At each turn, this conversation becomes more profound and awful. The next verse leads us into a depth into which we may well tremble to look, and yet from which it is most unsafe to turn away:—'I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.' Jesus had spoken of His Father as the root of all His loving acts,—of the wisdom, and truth, and love which were expressed in His words and in Himself. If there is a root to which all good that appears in a human life can be referred, must there not be a source to which all evil is referred? Can it be the same? If healing, restoration, life, are from the Father of Jesus, from what father come murderous thoughts,—the wish to destroy the Son of Man?
To fly from any thought which presses closely upon the conscience to some external truism,—even if it is one which has been proved to be inapplicable,—is the ordinary desire of us all. 'They answered and said unto Him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.' The question is about the paternity of certain purposes in their minds. These purposes were near to them, to their very selves. They determined their acts and their habits. Did they taketheseby descent from the father of the faithful? Were these his progeny? Of course, they would have answered, as many of us would have answered, 'That is using words in a double sense. You mean one kind of fatherhood, we mean another.' No! it was they who were guilty of this duplicity. They were calling Abraham their father, in the notion that they were deriving somespiritualprivileges from him. If they only intended that they could trace up their pedigree, according to the flesh, to him, let them say that frankly to themselves. It was just what our Lord was urging them, in this part of His conversation, to do. But if he was their parent in any other sense, then let them remember what he was, what he did. The living and true God spake to him, and called him. He heard the voice; he yielded to it. That same voice was speaking to them. He was 'telling them the truth;' and therefore 'they sought to kill Him.'
He repeats, then, the former words,—'Ye do the deeds of your father.' And now they ventured what sounds a bold defence:—'Then said they to Him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.' Had they not a right to say so? Were they not almost quoting the words of Malachi? What is more, were they not using the very words of Jesus? Had He not spoken to publicans and sinners,—to the very outcasts of the people,—of a Father who was seeking to bring home the prodigal son, as the shepherd went after the lost sheep? Would He deny to any Israelite the right to claim God as his Father? What had He taken flesh for, but that He might assert that claim, not for Israelites only, but for men? Alas! brethren, we can understand too well what the Jews understood when they used this language, 'We have one Father, even God,' because we are continually using the like ourselves. How commonly do we say, 'Oh, yes; in a general sense, all of us are God's children.' That general sense isnosense. The word 'children' is used to signifycreatures. We say men are His, as we say the cattle are His. In fact, we attach nearly as little significance to creation as to fatherhood. How can we, when we think of God as a mere ultimate explanation of our existence and the existence of the universe; when the idea of a Father ofspirits—of one who has to do first of all with us, because we are spiritual, voluntary beings—is almost banished from our minds? To say that God is our Father, or any man's Father, when we conceive of Him as a distant power,—who ceases to be imaginary only when He puts forth His wrath,—is to practise a deception upon ourselves. It is a commoner deception with us than with the Jews, because Jesus has taught us to say, 'Our Father, which art in heaven;' and every little Christendom child learns the words, and, thanks be to God, takes in something of their inward living sense. But when we become men, that sense which should have grown brighter and clearer with every day's joy and sorrow, has become utterly clouded by the world's mists, till the vision at last fades almost entirely. Then one here and there seizes the force of the word, discovers that he has really, and not in name, a Father, to whom he can pour out his whole heart. For a while he longs to persuade all that they have the same Father,—that they may cast their burdens upon Him too. He finds a few who understand him. They associate together; they speak of themselves as believers; they begin to think that they are God's children, because they believe that they are. Their ardour to convince men generally that they have a Father, becomes changed into an ardour to bring men intotheirsociety. As that passion increases, other lower and baser passions increase with it. 'The believer' contracts more and more of those habits which are of the earth, earthy. He contracts, oftentimes, a bitterness and a malice which are not of the earth, but come from beneath. These he gives himself credit for as springing from his zeal for religion, or he merely pities himself for them as the remains of indwelling sin. He has not courage to say, 'These spring from another father, not from the Father in heaven. So far as I identify myself with them, I become the child of a father in hell.' But he goes on assuming he is God's child. He tells other men that they are only children in the secondary signification; that is to say, he cherishes in them the most dangerous of all falsehoods. He prevents them from turning to their true Father, and seeking of Him a true and divine life.
These Jews qualified the assertion, that they were all God's children, even in the lowest, most unreal, sense of that word. These were so who 'were not born of fornication.' Children not born in lawful wedlock they seem to have thought of as having some dark, infernal parentage. It must have been most startling to them when the words at last came forth which appeared to fix that parentage upon themselves.
'Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but He sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.'
The Jews were proud of not worshipping false gods. The true God, then, what was He? The moment truth confronted them, they shrunk from it. They were proud of not worshipping evil gods. The good God, then, what was He? The moment goodness confronted them, they hated it, and wished to extinguish it. They shrunk from the Man who did not speak His own words, but God's. They hated the Man who did not show forth His own goodness, but God's. Whence came this mind in them, this will, this spirit? Jesus tells them plainly. 'There is a mind, a will, a spirit, which from the beginning has been a man-slayer—has compassed the destruction of the man in each man. There is a mind, a will, a spirit, who has been from the beginning a liar, who would not stand in the truth.'
I know well—we all know—what use has been made, and is made, and will be made, of this expression, 'from the beginning.' 'So, then,' the objector exclaims, 'there is a second god, another creator, coming into existence with the good God. If this is not Manichæism, what is?' The answer is simply an appeal to the words as they appear on the face of the book,—'He stood not in the truth.' There was, then, a truth to stand in; there was a truth to revolt from. The name 'murderer' implies a life to be taken away; the name 'liar' implies a contradiction of that whichIS. Yes; it implies that the evil spirit is this, andonlythis; it implies that the murderer is the author ofnolife; it implies that the liar has called nothing thatisinto existence. You ask, 'What is Manichæismbutthis?' I answer, 'It is exactly the reverse of this. It affirms that the evil powerdoesproduce some life; that some part of creation may be ascribed to him.' And those who shrink from speaking of 'him'—those who will not admit a devil at all—do, unawares, let this Manichæism continually into their thoughts, into their acts, into their words. They may talk of universal benevolence, but facts are too strong for them. They meet evil everywhere; they meet it in themselves. They do not like to say,—'It is an evil will to which I am yielding up my will. Because men are obeying this evil will, therefore there is misery and ugliness in this blessed and beautiful world.' They try to escape from that confession. They talk of evil in nature, of evil in themselves. Unawares, they have introduced it among the works of the good God. They have either made Him answerable for it, or they have said that there is some creator besides Him. The last alternative is very dreadful; but the former is, it seems to me, infinitely more dreadful. In accepting what our Lord said to the Jews in this discourse, I escape from both. I am able solemnly and habitually to deny that any insect or blade of grass is the devil's work; I am able to regard the whole universe as very good, even as it was when it came forth at the call of the divine Word; I am able to declare that humanity, standing in that divine Word, is still made in the image of God, as He declared that it was; and that there is no one faculty of the human soul, no one sense of the human body, which is not good, and blessed, and holy in God's sight. I am able, at the same time, to look facts in the face, and confess that sin has entered into the world, and death by sin; that there has been from the beginning of man's existence on this earth, and that there still is, a murderer, who is seeking to sever him from his proper life: that there has been from the beginning of man's existence upon earth, and that there still is, a liar, who is seeking to persuade men that God is not all good; that He is not all true; that He is not the Father of their spirits; that it is not His will that they should know Him, and be like Him. I can admit that this liar has been listened to, and is listened to; and that men may enter into such communion with him—may become so penetrated with his false and mendacious spirit, that they shall become in very deed his children, entirely fashioned into his likeness, understanding no lessons but his. Our Lord speaks of the Jewish people—of the most religious part of them especially—as having passed, or as rapidly passing, into this condition. He declares, in the words which I have taken as my text—and which embody, I think, some of the deepest lessons of the chapter—that they could not 'understand His speech;' that that sounded strange, monstrous, deranged to them, because they 'could not hear His word'—because their hearts and consciences were closed against that which was every moment knocking and craving for admission there. They did 'not hear God's words, because they were not of God'—because their whole minds and wills were given up to another God, because they had become Devil-worshippers.
'Then answered the Jews, and said unto Him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me. And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth.'
It is certainly most unfortunate that our translators—who had just rendered Διάβολος by Devil, in our Lord's discourse—should take the same word for δαιμόνιον, in the discourse of the Jews. I need not say that they did not mean what He meant, or anything like what He meant. They called Him a Samaritan,—evidently alluding to the Samaritan passion for enchanters. He was a possessed man, like one of those who appeared so often among the worshippers on Gerizim, and drew so many disciples after them. The reply of Jesus is, that He had not a dæmon; that He was speaking the words of no subordinate spirit or angel; that He was 'honouring His Father'—Him whom they called their God, the Father of spirits. He did not seek His own glory, as those did who came boasting that they were possessed by a spirit or dæmon, of which no others could partake. He came seeking His Father's glory, promising to make all partakers of His Spirit.
The next words are only a part of this promise. 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.' Why the translators, who have been careful in adhering to the common rendering of λόγος thus far, should suddenly have forsaken it here, and dilute it into 'saying,' I cannot conjecture. Certainly they have done much to make the whole passage unintelligible by that wilfulness.Hehas taken pains to distinguish thespeechorsayingwhich enters the ear from thewordwhich is lodged in the heart, and is to be cherished there. That His word brings life, because in Him the Divine Word is Life, He has asserted again and again. When the man loses his hold on that word, death overtakes him; if he hold it fast, he is united to that which is stronger than death; and he shall not taste of death. When it comes to his soul and body, he shall defy it. He shall rise above it, and they shall be raised with him.
'Then said the Jews unto Him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself? Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that He is your God: yet ye have not known Him; but I know Him: and if I should say, I know Him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know Him, and keep His saying.'
The sense of eternity, of a relation to the eternal God,—to a Father of spirits, had almost forsaken these Jews. The sense of time,—of a series or succession of years,—had displaced every other in their minds; they could contemplate nothing, except under conditions of time. To the mere trader,—to him who lives in calculating when so much money will become due—any conditions, except those of time, seem impossible. He laughs at those who hint at any other. But the reverence for ancestry,—the affection that binds us to a family and a nation, does not belong to time. It brings past and present into closest proximity; it leaps over distinctions of costume and circumstance, to claim affinity with the inmost heart of those who lived generations ago. For all family feeling, and all national feeling, has its root in a living God; therefore it defies death; it treats death as only belonging to the individual.
The Jewsknewthat Jesus had a dæmon, because He spoke of men who believed His word not tasting of death. For Abraham to them was dead; the prophets were dead. They had no sense of a life which united them to Abraham and the prophets; they did not really confess a God who was a God of the living and not of the dead. Jesus probes this state of mind to the quick. He tells them first, that it is their want of knowledge of God which makes what He says incredible to them,—the lying, atheistical temper which they were cultivating under the name of religion. Because He knows God,—because He keeps His word,—because He lives in communion with the truth, therefore His speech seems to them that of a possessed man.
But he was to seem to them worse than a possessed man before the dialogue ended.
'Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto Him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.'
The Jews, I said, were utterly entangled in thoughts of time. It was necessary to break these bonds at once and violently asunder. The Word who had been in the beginning with God, who was the Light of men, declares that He conversed with Abraham; that Abraham heard His voice; that Abraham saw His light; that this was the source of all his gladness. This was the reason why men in after days, who had heard the same voice, who had seen the same light, could rejoice with Abraham,—could feel that years did not sever those whom God had made one. The ears that were dull of hearing, the obtuse mammonized hearts, were proof against this paradox; it excited only a grin. Then came the other words,—'Before Abraham was, I am.' They were too familiar, too awful, not to arouse even those who were most petrified by worldliness and pride. The name which had been spoken in the bush had been spoken to them! The Man who stood before them was calling Himself the 'I Am.' A flash of light broke in upon them. Hehadmeant this. The blasphemy was now open.
'Then took they up stones to cast at Him: but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.'
And oh, brethren, may the meaning of those words flash upon us too! May they come to us not as dull sounds, but as if they proceeded fresh from Him who spoke them then! They do proceed from Him. Each day and hour He repeats them to us. When all schemes of human policy crack and crumble; when we discover the utter weakness of the leaders and teachers we have trusted most; when we begin to suspect that the world is given over to the spirit of murder and lies; He says to us, 'The foundations of the universe are not built on rottenness: whatever fades away and perishes,I am.'
[Lincoln's Inn, 2d Sunday after Trinity, June 1, 1856.]
St. John IX. 39.
And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.
The reading of the last verse of the 8th chapter, which our version has adopted, connects it directly with the first verse of the 9th. 'Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by(παÏῆγεν οὕτως).And as He passed by(καὶ παÏάγων),He saw a man blind from his birth.' Possibly the former verse ought to end at the word 'temple.' But if we lose that link between the incidents recorded in the two chapters, the internal relation between them will remain as strong as ever. The discourse of Jesus, which we have been considering on the two last Sundays, began with the sentence, 'I am the light of the world.' Every subsequent passage unfolded itself out of this opening one. The story which forms the subject of this chapter is introduced by the same announcement. Can we doubt that the words and the act had the same origin and the same object? Can we safely sever what Christ has joined together?
I am aware of the motive which induces us to sever them. I have had occasion to speak of it more than once already, and to acknowledge that an honest feeling is lurking in it. We are afraid of confounding what is sensible with what is spiritual. We are afraid of using light in two senses, and of fancying that they are the same. I complain of no desire to be religiously accurate in the use of language. Scrupulosity in this matter is far less dangerous than indifference. We are in continual peril of falling into confusions and equivocations; let all our faculties be awake to the risk,—let them all watch against it. But they will not be awake, they will not watch, unless they do homage to the fact, that light has been used, is used, must be used, in every dialect in which men express their thoughts, to denote that which the eye receives, and that which the mind receives,—the great energy of the eye, the great energy of the mind. Instead of repining at this fact, as if it were a hindrance to our perceptions of truth,—instead of labouring to reconstruct speech according to some scheme of ours,—instead of fancying that we have done a good work when we have got a scholastical or technical phrase substituted for a popular one,—let us earnestly meditate upon the principle which is latent under these forms of discourse, from which we cannot emancipate ourselves. Let us thankfully accept them as proofs that the sensible world and the spiritual, though entirely distinct, are related; and that the last is not closed any more than the first against the wayfarer and the child. This, at all events, is the doctrine which goes through Scripture, and which has made its words so mighty to those who can understand no others—so full of relief and discovery to those who do not wish to be separate from their kind, and who have convinced themselves that the deepest truths must be the commonest. Such is the doctrine implied in every parable of our Lord; such, above all, is the doctrine of St. John, who does not report many parables, but who takes us into the inmost heart of them, and shows us the divine law which is involved in the use of them.
I find an unspeakable blessing in following the order of St. John's narrative. It is the true order of human life. After we have listened to the divinest discourse, there is a sense of vacancy in the heart. We feel as if we were out of communion with the business and misery of the world,—as if the words had not proved themselves till they could be brought into collision and conflict with these. When we are in the midst of action, we want to know that it is not merely mechanical action,—that it is in conformity with some principle, and springs out of a principle. When Jesus has finished His discourse with the Jews, by assuming a name which lies beneath all discourse,—when they have finished their arguments by taking up stones to cast at Him,—He meets a man blind from his birth. He proceeds at once to do him good. But before He can enter upon that work, He must encounter a metaphysical doubt which has occurred to the fishermen who are walking with Him. A metaphysical doubt to fishermen! Yes; and if you go into the garrets and cellars of London, you will have metaphysical doubts presented to you by men immeasurably more ignorant than those fishermen were, even before Jesus called them; the very doubts which the schools are occupied with, only taking a living, practical form. Unless you can cause men not to be metaphysical beings—that is to say, unless you can take from them all which separates them from the beasts that perish—they must have these doubts. Thanks be to God, He awakens them! And thanks be to God, He, and not priests and doctors, must satisfy them for every creature whom He has made in His image!
The doubt which troubled the disciples is one that has exercised all generations—none more than our own. 'Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?' 'He came into the world under this curse. Was it for some sin he committed in another world, in some older state of existence? or is this an illustration of the doctrine, asserted in the second commandment? Are the sins of the father and mother visited on the child?' The former hypothesis has always connected itself closely with the sense of immortality in man. 'Am I merely to be hereafter? Does not the future imply a past? Do not shadows of that past pursue me? Can I interpret the facts of memory if I deny its existence?' The second doctrine is not more asserted in the law than it is justified by experience. The facts from which it is deduced belong to physiology as much at least as to theology. Every one who thinks of hereditary sickness and insanity confesses them and trembles.
'Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.'
A dogmatist who ventured, on the strength of this answer, to say that the bodily condition of this particular man, or of any man, had not been affected by the misdoings of his parents,—who should venture even to pronounce the other opinion respecting a pre-existent state a false and heretical one,—would speedily find himself at fault. To be consistent, he must take the sentence according to the letter of it, and say that the parents of this man had not sinned at all before he was born. One who really reverences our Lord's words will not trifle with them after this fashion. He will seek from them actual guidance for his own life, not an excuse for suppressing evidence or condemning the conclusions of other men. And if this is his object, he will not be disappointed. In a single case He gives us the hint of a law which is applicable to all cases. That law remains true, whatever may be the truth respecting our own sins or the sins of our parents. That law is one which reveals the mind of God, and removes all dark surmises respecting His government of the world. That law is one which we may use for the regulation of our own conduct.
The disciples were speculating about final causes. They would not have understood what any one meant who had told them they were doing so; they were doing it nevertheless. Jesus met them with themostfinal cause. 'I can give you a better reason for this man's blindness than those you have imagined. His blindness will be a means of showing forth the power and purpose of God. He will learn himself, he will be a teacher to the world through this blindness, whence light comes, who is the Father of light.'
It was not the mere announcement of a principle. Every principle He delivered embodied itself in an act. He added immediately: 'I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.' He declares that what He was going to do He must do. He did not choose His own way. When He was most exercising power, He was obeying a power,—'He was working the works of Him that sent Him.' And every such work was a revelation. It showed forth the Will and the Mind that had been creating and ruling all things. That Will was proving itself to be a Will of absolute goodness,—that Mind, a light in which is no darkness. But there is a sorrow for Him who is about to impart joy. His countrymen had taken up stones to cast at Him. He has a vision of a time when they would have their way. The light for a while would be quenched. But as long as He was in the world, He must illuminate it. Here, again, we have the feelings of the Man, the presentiments of the Sufferer—not drawn out, but just indicated—that we may have a glimpse into the heart from which they came. They cannot be divided from the divine truth He is enunciating; they are the media through which that truth is exhibited to us. The Word is indeed made flesh; it is in the Son of Man that we know the Son of God.
'When He had thus spoken, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went therefore, and washed, and came seeing.'
Every one has remarked that this cure is distinguished from most others that are recorded in the Gospels, by the careful use in it of intermediate agencies. He does not merely speak the word, and the man is healed. There is a process of healing. And I think you must confess that the use of these agencies is a part of the sign to which St. John wishes to draw our attention. If Christ's other signs testified that there is an invisible power at work in all the springs of our life,—that there is a Fountain of life from which those springs are continually refreshed and renewed,—did not this sign testify that there is a potency and virtue in the very commonest things; that God has stored all nature with instruments for the blessing and healing of His creatures? The mere miracle-worker who draws glory to himself wishes to dispense with these things, lest he should be confounded with the ordinary physician. The great Physician, who works because His Father works, who comes to show what He is doing in His world, puts an honour upon earth and water as well as upon all art which has true observation and knowledge for its basis. He only distinguishes Himself from other healers by showing that the source of their wisdom and renovating power is in Him. We have put our faith and our science at an immeasurable distance from each other. May not the separation lead to the ruin of both?
But we are not allowed to lose ourselves amidst these general characteristics of this cure. The words, 'He came seeing,' remind us that one special malady is brought before us; that we have to do, not with a sick man, but with a blind man; and that it is as the Restorer of sight that the Lord of man is declaring Himself to us. That object is kept before us as we proceed in the story. 'The neighbours therefore, and they that before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he. Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened? He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said to me, Go to the Pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight. Then said they unto him, Where isHe? He answered, I know not.' I do not introduce this passage for the sake of commenting upon it (a commentary would be very superfluous and out of place), but that we may be reminded continually how this theologian—he who has been supposed to be writing a learned, dogmatical treatise, he who has been supposed to live in an age in which plain facts had been forgotten in profound speculations—tells a story. We feel at once that to talk about its dramatical character is to spoil its effect. It is dramatical, as every childlike narrative is dramatical. The people who were alive at the time speak to us because they actually presented themselves to the writer as living beings, and because he did not want to thrust himself into their places. I do not say that these qualities belong only to a divine teacher. They belong, in their measure, to every simple narrator and poet. But they certainly do not belong to the builder up of a system; and they are precisely the gifts which we should expect would be imparted to one who had seen and handled the Word of life, and was bearing a message concerning Him to his brethren.
'They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind. And it was the sabbath-day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes. Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see. Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath-day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.'
I observed before, that the only two acts of healing which are recorded in this Gospel, as done by our Lord in Jerusalem, were done on the Sabbath-day. In the story of the man at the Pool of Bethesda, this was the most prominent circumstance; the subsequent discourse bore upon it; the strongest, and to the Jews the most offensive, proclamation by Jesus of God as His Father, arose out of it; the purpose to kill Him was first suggested by it. Apparently what He said then, and had said since at the feast of Tabernacles, was not quite lost even upon the Pharisees. There were some in this particular synagogue, if not in the Sanhedrim, who thought that to do a good act on a Saturday might not be a sin against God. The next verses show that they were a strong enough minority to force their fellows into a further inquiry respecting the fact of the cure. 'They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of Him, that He hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet. But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him that had received his sight. And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? How then doth he now see? His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind: but by what means he now seeth, we know not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him; he shall speak for himself. These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that He was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. Therefore said his parents, He is of age; ask him.'
The answer of the man, that He who healed him was a prophet, was the simplest of all forms of expressing his belief that he had been brought into contact with a Person who was higher than himself, who was sent from God. This passage would show, if it stood alone, how little even the commonest Israelite identified the prophet with the mere predicter of events. Foretelling had surely no direct connexion with opening the eyes; but one who could do that was naturally felt to be the bringer of a message and a blessing from another and a better region. These words, as we have seen before, lay very near to the others, 'He is the Christ;' only in the last the king was blended with the prophet, the Son of David with the successor of Elijah. It is probable that the rulers of the synagogue would draw a much sharper distinction between the names than the people did. The belief in Him as a Prophet might be tolerated; those who owned Him as Christ were interfering with the authority of the priests or of Rome. Positive exclusion from worship and fellowship, therefore, might be restricted to that. The parents of the blind man feared, that he had approached the borders of offence. If they made a false step, it might be passed; therefore it was prudent to keep as nearly as possible to the mere fact of his blindness. Perhaps they had no opinion about the Person who had healed their son. If they had, is it worth while to run risks for anopinion? Abeliefis another thing altogether. If a man hasthat, he must run risks for it. His belief makes this demand upon him, and perishes if the demand is not complied with.
'Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this Man is a sinner.' The two parties had probably come to a compromise. The cure was to be admitted as good; it was to be ascribed respectfully and devoutly to God; only the instrument of it must be declared to be evil. It was, of course, assumed that such an adjustment would be satisfactory to the beggar; he would not rebel against the authority of his betters. Nor did he. 'He answered and said, Whether He be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.' Was not his as fair an adjustment as theirs? He left them all their probable conclusions, all their traditional wisdom. He vindicated to himself only his pin-point of personal experience. No! it was not fair; the doctors demurred to it, as they had a right to do. Theirs was a fantastical airy possession, which every hour might diminish; he was standing on solid ground; every day he might add something to that ground. Nothing frets men like a discovery of this kind. The rulers of the synagogue showed their irritation by repeating their question. 'Then said they to him again, What did He to thee? how opened He thine eyes?' The beggar became bolder as the doctors became feebler. 'He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be his disciples? Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses' disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is.' Their self-complacency has returned. Of such people as this blind beggar did the disciples of Jesus consist!Theyhad a law and a history. Moses had been sent to them from God fourteen hundred years before. About his mission there could be no doubt; they had it in the book. What help had they to determine the pretensions of the new Teacher, but His own words? The beggar thought they must have some means of finding out what He was, if they were learned men and guides of the people. 'The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, andyet he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth His will, him He heareth. Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this Man were not of God, he could do nothing.' It was very simple, childish logic,—the logic of a man who had convinced himself that God was living then, and was ruling the world then as in the days of old. He had done what the synagogue bade him. He had given God the glory. He had confessed a good God, who cared for him an outcast. Jesus had brought him to that confession, and therefore he could not, at the bidding of any synagogue, call Him a sinner. There was only one safe and conclusive reply to a man who spoke as he did. 'They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out.'
A strange process had been going on in this man, one worthy of all study. The world of flowers and trees, of earth and sky, and of human faces, had burst upon him; a vision too wonderful to take in, which might have crushed him with its strangeness and its excess of beauty. But with that had come another vision, for which his hours of darkness had not been unfitting but perhaps preparing him,—the sense of a loving Power near him, sympathising with him, caring to restore him; the assurance that this Power must be His who made the trees and flowers, the sky and earth, and had stamped on the human face an expression that was not of the earth. This sense, this confidence, came to him not suddenly, but gradually, by a discipline scarcely less hard than that to which he had been subjected hitherto. It came to him, in part, through that strange conflict with creatures of his own flesh and blood,—with men of whom he had asked alms and whom he reverenced as his masters,—into which he was brought almost as soon as he could look into their countenances. It came through their denial of facts, of which he felt as sure as he was of the existence of those things which he had begun to see. It came to him with a feeling of his own duty, of his own power, to declare that God did not forget beggars, and that the man who had raised him out of misery must be from God. But this inner revelation was not overwhelming like the outward,—it was sustaining. The man who could look upon sun and stars found that he was more than they. God was nearer to the beggar than to them. A light was shining into him which did not come from them. Was it not a light which would go with him and cheer him, whatever synagogue cast him out; yes, if sun and stars were to disappear for ever?
He had been under a marvellous education. It was not completed. 'Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him, He said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? And he said, Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped Him.'
An incomprehensible, incredible record, if all that we have been hearing of a Life-giver and a Light of the world is untrue; if all communications come to human beings from without; if the Son of God is only revealed to us in letters; if there is not a conscience in man to which He manifests Himself. But how consistent and harmonious and consolatory a story is it, if this Gospel is indeed what it professes to be, if it does not mock us with idle sounds when it tells us of One who was with the Father before all worlds, whose light always shined in the darkness, which did not comprehend it, who came into the world to show men of this Father, and to restore them to fellowship with Him! How the narrative concerning this beggar, and the way in which the Son of God led him to the knowledge of Himself, becomes then a narrative for each of us! We need not trace any outward sorrow that has been ordained for us to the sin of our parents or to sins of our own done in some former state. Accepting in either case the punishment, we may refer it to the will of a Father, that through it we may perceive how the blank in our sensible perceptions and in our hearts may be filled,—that through it we may be led to the Son, the Life-giver and Light of the world. The like calamities in our brethren are to be the instruments through which we convey to them a message concerning the same Son. If we claim them as opportunities for showing forth God's healing power; if we own the science and the art which are needful for the exercise of that power as His gifts; if we thus work His works,—others will find, we shall find more and more, that the riddle of the world has a solution,—that Christ has solved it.
And what is true of outward sorrows—of the want of sight, the greatest of all—is true also of moral evils, of the moral blindness from which they spring and in which they terminate. Our Lord's words, those I took for my text, lead us into the heart of this mystery also; they explain some of the greatest contradictions in our own lives, and in the world's life. 'And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.'
How is He come into the world for judgment when He came not to judge the world, but to save it? He has answered the question before. He answers it more fully here. What we want to be saved from is our darkness. We can only be saved from it by His light. That light brings us into judgment. It distinguishes—it condemns! It distinguishes between that in us which seeks light, and that in us which flies from light. It does not condemn us for being dark; it condemns us for not owning our darkness. It does not condemn us for not having a power and virtue in us to escape from the darkness; but for refusing to entertain the light which would raise us out of it. Our eyes are not formed to create light, but to receive it; if they will close themselves to that which is always seeking to open them and illuminate them,thatis the sentence—that is the condemnation. The blind beggar washes in the Pool of Siloam, and comes seeing. He hears of the Son of God, and says, 'Lord, who is He that I might believe on Him?' The Pharisee grudges eyesight to the beggar,—denies that God may work good on His own Sabbath-day. He is satisfied with his power of seeing; and the light that would open God's glorious kingdom to him puts out the eyes that he had.
Dear brethren, may Christ give us honesty and courage to confess our blindness, that we may turn to Him who can make us see! May He deliver us from all conceit of our own illumination, lest we should become hopelessly dark!
[Lincoln's Inn, 3d Sunday after Trinity, June 8, 1856.]
St. John X. 27-29.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
A recent traveller in the Holy Land, who has looked on all its localities with honest and reverent eyes, and has enabled his readers to see them almost as clearly as himself, has suggested that the Mount of Olivet was the scene of the conversation, in which Jesus declared Himself as the Son of God to the man whose eyes He had opened. The man whom He had healed at the Pool of Bethesda He found in the Temple; but an excommunicated Israelite would not have been allowed to enter those precincts. If we suppose our Lord to have met him on that other ground which He visited so often, the interview may have been secret. And the words, 'For judgment am I come into the world,' which are so evident a commentary upon it, may have been addressed to persons, His disciples and others, whom He joined afterwards. Then it will appear how the concluding verses of the 9th chapter may have formed part of the same dialogue with the opening verses of the 10th,—how much closer a relation there is between them outwardly and inwardly than we at first perceive.
'And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with Him heard these words, and said unto Him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.'
These Pharisees may have fallen in by chance with Jesus and His disciples as they walked down the mount, or may have come expressly to catch Him in His words. They must have heard that He had spoken of blind leaders of the blind. They knew, at all events, that His strongest language had been directed against them,—the guides of the people,—those to whom the humble Israelites turned for light and teaching. The question, 'Are we blind also?' may have been asked in recollection of these former passages between them, or in mere scorn that a Galilæan who had learnt no letters should presume to judge them. The answer struck at the principle of the Pharisaic character. 'Alas! if you only felt that you were as blind as any of those whom you are professing to teach and show the right way, there would be no complaint to make of you. You would turn to the Source of light; you would allow the light that lighteth every man to illuminate you. "But now ye say, We see." You are satisfied with the light that is in yourselves. You think that you have a light that does not belong to these poor wretches who know not the law. "Therefore your sin remaineth." You stumble, and you cause those whom you guide to stumble.'
If this conversation took place at eventide, on the slope of the hill, no spectacle (as the traveller to whom I have referred remarks) would be more likely to meet the eyes of our Lord and these Pharisees than that of a flock of sheep, gathered from the different pastures in which they had been wandering, and entering, one by one, through a little wicket-gate into their resting-place for the night,—the shepherd, as was and is the custom in that country, going through it before them, and leading them in. There may have been a pause after the words on which I have just commented,—then Jesus may have said, pointing to the sheepfold: 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.' As if He had said, 'Look there; see how that shepherd is behaving. The sheep are not going through one door, and he through another. Of any one who took another nearer way you would say at once, not, "He is doing so because he is a man and is wiser than the sheep," but simply, "He is not the shepherd; the sheep do not belong to him; he is come to steal them, and to kill them." The sign of the shepherd—that which the porter at the gate owns at once—is, that he goeswiththe sheep. But it is not only the porter that makes this distinction. The sheep know their own shepherd as well as he does. They do not in the least confound his voice with those of other men. Whether he is, as now, leading them in for the night, or leading them out in the morning, still it is the same. He knows each of them; each of them knows him. He leads them because he does not stand aloof from them.'
'This parable,' says St. John, 'Jesus spake to them: but they understood not what things they were which He spake unto them.' They did not feel the application of it; they did not see what shepherds and sheepfolds had to do with them. They could hardly have given a greater proof how little they understood the things which were written in the books they prized most,—how their worship of the divine letter had destroyed all commerce between their minds and the realities which it is setting forth. For is not the Old Testament, from first to last, a book about shepherds? Was not Abraham a shepherd,—Moses a shepherd,—David a shepherd? Is not the shepherd of sheep, throughout, connected with the Shepherd of men? That name belongs to Greek poetry as much as to Hebrew; it is found as often in Homer as in Isaiah; it is the most universal and human of all emblems. But the Hebrew seers are the great and consistent expounders of it; they carry it from the lowest ground to the highest. 'The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,' is the song of the individual Israelite. 'He shall feed His flock like a shepherd: He shall gather His lambs in His arms, and carry them in His bosom; and shall gently lead those that are with young,' contains the highest vision which the Prophet could see of the Divine care over his nation. And no applications of this language are so numerous as those which are directed against 'the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves, and will not feed the flock.'
These passages might have occurred to those who knew them so well as the Pharisees. But they were divine texts merely,—they never connected themselves with the sheep and the shepherds that wandered over the hills in their day. The sheep would sell for so much in the market; the shepherds were hired for so much by the day or the week. There was no other measure of their worth. Clever teachers might, perhaps, resort to them occasionally for rhetorical illustrations. Secular and vulgar things might be converted, as the phrase is, to the service of religion. But it would always be felt that theywerein themselves secular and vulgar things. God had nothing to do with them till they had been reclaimed. Thus the faith that all creation is divine,—that all occupations are divine,—that God has written His mind and purpose both upon the natural and the civil order of the world, had disappeared. Men no longer walked the earth as a holy place, filled with the presence of their Lord God; it had become utterly separated from Him,—sold and sacrificed to Mammon. Then came the Son of Man, interpreting the world which He had made, and which knew Him not; drawing forth out of it treasures new and old; deciphering the hieroglyphics which wise men had perceived in every rock and cave, in every tree, and in every grain of sand; showing that in Himself was to be found the solution of that sphynx-riddle by which all ages had been tormented.
But even His parables might be turned to an evil use. It might be supposed that we can only reach the kingdom of heaven through the forms of earth; that they are not the likenesses of the invisible substances, but that the invisible substances are the likenesses of them. This danger is of such continual recurrence, it belongs so essentially to the idolatrous nature which is in us all, that it must have exhibited itself in the Christian Church before St. John wrote. Long allegories—which seem invented rather to hide the truth from common eyes than to bring it forth that it might be a possession for the wayfarer—began to be produced immediately after the apostolical age, if not within it. Nothing like them is to be found in this Gospel. Those parts of our Lord's teaching in which the parable was not used are brought into most prominence. Yet the parable is justified; all His acts are shown to be signs. And a proverb (παÏοιμία) is introduced here and there, which enables us to understand in what the worth of these natural likenesses consists, and how much the divine art which draws out the spiritual truth that is latent in them differs from the elaborate artifice of the allegorizer.
'Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.'
The formal interpreter of parables would at once decide, that the most important object in the picture which is presented to the eye, must represent Christ the Son of Man. The supposition is a natural one; perhaps it may ultimately prove to be true. But our Lord's first words seem to confute it. His conversation with the Pharisees leads Him to speak of the gate through which both the sheep and the shepherd enter into the fold, before He speaks of the shepherd. And that gate, He says, is Himself. All kings, prophets, priests, teachers, had brought light and life into the minds of men,—had served to bind men into one,—just so far as they had confessed a light and life from which theirs was derived, just so far as they had identified themselves with the people. And all that had come claiming to be the sources of life and light,—to have an independent authority,—to have a right to rule, because they were in themselves stronger, or wiser, or better than others, had been thieves and robbers, the tyrants and destroyers of the earth. There is no commentary on history, the history of the whole world, ancient and modern, so grand as this,—so perfectly able to abide the test of facts. Every prophet, and monarch, and priest of the Jews brought strength and freedom into his land, while he was the witness of an invisible Prophet, and Monarch, and Priest higher than himself, living then, one day to be made manifest. Every prophet, monarch, and priest was the cause of superstition, idolatry, and slavery to his land, when he exalted himself,—when he strove to prove that he had some rights of his own which were not conferred on him for the sake of his race,—which were not conferred that he might be a witness of the glory belonging to his race.
If we read Pagan history and literature by the light of Scripture, we should find abundance of proofs that the maxim is equally true and satisfactory with reference to them; that every Greek or Roman patriot and sage, whom we ought to love, and whom only a heartless, atheistical religion can hinder us from loving, did good and was good, so far as he did not seek his own glory,—so far as he did not attribute his wisdom and power to himself,—so far as he was in communion, amidst whatever confusions, with the Light that lighteneth every man; and that every oppressor and invader of freedom, whose character it is our duty to hate, was so because he came in his own name, claiming to be a king, a Christ, a god. With tenfold momentum do the words bear upon the ages since the incarnation, and declare to every priest, pope, emperor, philosopher, and master of a sect or school,—'In so far as thou hast assumed to be the Son of Man,—in so far as thou hast set thyself to be something when thou art nothing,—in so far as thou hast claimed to have light, which has not come from the Fountain of light,—and power, which is not imparted by the righteous Power,—so far thou hast been athief and a robber, caring for nothing but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.'
But if in this sense it is true now, and has been true always, that Christ is the only Door through which any man enters, whose designs towards human beings are good and not murderous; can it be equally true that 'the sheep did not hear' the voices of false prophets, of usurping tyrants, who climbed up some other way? How then have they prevailed so mightily? Dare we say that no true men have given heed to them? Dare we judge all that have yielded to impostors,—all that have welcomed them as deliverers? Shall we not certainly be judged if we do?
Assuredly we shall. And, therefore, let us proceed to judge ourselves first, and at once.Wehave listened to impostors,—have we not?Wehave been beguiled by men who we thought were to give us life, and really took life from us. Well, but was there nothing in us which refused to hear these teachers,—to follow these guides? Was there no inward protest against them? Where some strong external evidence, some evil fruits in ourselves, showed that a pernicious juice had issued from the tree, did we not feel that we might have known it before—that if we had been true to the light which was shining into us, we should have known it? And, even when the enchantment was strongest upon us, was there no crying for another guide,—no bleating after a better shepherd? Here, then, is the confirmation of our Lord's sentence; we need go no further to understand what He means. Something in us did follow the strange voice, but thesheep—the true man in us—did not. That could make no answer to the counterfeit voice; that detected the thief in the shepherd's dress; that was certain that there must be one who had a right to command, and whom it could obey.
I say again, this sheep is the 'true man in us.' Each of us in himself knows that it is; we may know it also by the echo which the history of our race makes to the witness in our consciences. Why have the oppressors of mankind been so short-lived? How is it that, though there may be a succession of lies, each lie wears itself out in a generation,—in much less than a generation? How is it that what seems for a while the weakest possible testimony against it waxes stronger and louder, till at last the world gives into it, and the lie and the liar are indignantly trampled underfoot? How is it, but because the spirit of humanity does not and cannot hear the voices of those who break into the fold by the wrong way? How is it, but because all their temporary power is only derived from the tones of the true Shepherd, which they are able to mimic? How is it, but because they bear witness, by their reign and by their downfal, that they do not rule the earth, and that He does?
Yes, brethren, 'He who comes, that His sheep might havelife, and that they might have it more abundantly,' does not teach us to talk of ourselves as His sheep, and of other men as having no part in Him. This is the teaching of robbers and destroyers,—of those who would sever us from our kind,—of those who would persuade us that it is a privilege to have a selfish, separate life,—to have selfish, separate rewards. This selfish, separate life is what Christ promises to save us from. The wide, free pastures into which He would lead us, are those upon which we can only graze, because we are portions of a flock; the fold into which He would bring us is for those whom He has redeemed from their separate errings and strayings to rest together in Him. We cannot, therefore, make a more deadly misapplication of this discourse, than when we turn it into an excuse for drawing lines of separation between those for whom Christ has died. While we drawtheselines, we never shall discover the deep line in ourselves between that which can only follow the Deliverer, and that which can only follow the destroyer.
'I am the good Shepherd: the good shepherd giveth His life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.'
You will say, 'The image is changed. Christ was the wicket-gate; but now He has become the person who passes through that gate.' Yes, and if you have followed the course of the thought; if you have seen why He is described as the door through which shepherd and sheep must enter in,—why the shepherds of Israel are reproved when they will not pass through that door,—you will see the necessity of the double image. You will feel that He whom all shepherds are bound to acknowledge, if they would have the sheep hear them, must be Himself, in the highest sense,theShepherd. And the test that He is this Shepherd, explains the perpetual worth and significance of the other symbol. 'He gives His life for the sheep.' The false shepherds wish to find out a way for themselves, which is not the way that the sheep take. They do not like the thought of stooping—beings of another and higher race as they are—to the conditions of these silly creatures.Heidentifies Himself with them. They have to die.Hedies. That is the first and obvious view of the sentence; and it is the one to which we come back at last, as the deepest and most wonderful of all. But before we can take it in its full force, we must recal the old sentence, 'In Him was life;' and the other which He has just uttered, 'I am come that they might have life more abundantly.' The property of death is, that it is solitary and incommunicable; the property of life is, that it must be communicated,—that from him in whom it dwells most it must be poured forth most. He in whom the source of life is, from whom all the streams of it have issued, comes into the world to encounter death, which appears to have got the mastery,—to claim them whom He has created capable of life, for life. But how can He give life? How can He overcome death? He mustgive uplife. He must die. The highest life is the life that sacrifices itself. All older shepherds had shown that it was. For their country and their brethren they had poured out their life;thatmen had received as the proof that they were from God,—that they were quickened by Him. The good Shepherd, the Shepherd of shepherds, justifies the belief. He shows that they had done what they did by inspiration from Him. He shows that, in this instance also,—in this instance especially,—they were receiving of His fulness, and grace for grace. The Word takes flesh and blood, because the children are partakers of flesh and blood. The Shepherd dies, because the sheep die.
Thus, the doctrine which He has been preaching to the Pharisees is brought out in all its power. They claimed to be shepherds of the people, because they were above them,—because they did not share their weakness and blindness. His claim to be the Shepherd of the people was, that He would not be above them; that He would bear what they bore, and sink as low as they had sunk. And this not from some great effort,—in virtue of some arrangement,—but because He had the most intimate and original sympathy with them, because they had always been His, and because He had made Himself one with them in all things. This is the contrast which He draws between the good shepherd and the hireling. The one shepherd does his work because he looks to be paid for it. He feels altogether aloof from his sheep. He regards them as beings of a different nature from his own. He is to be very great and condescending to them. He is to fold them carefully at night,—to do all needful services for them by day; not because he cares for them, but because he has sold his work for so much, and he may lose his wages if he commits any serious oversight. And this motive serves him well enough till some great danger threatens the sheep, till the wolf breaks into the fold. Then the hireling feels rightly that life is more precious than money; it is wiser to lose his pay than to run the risk of being devoured.