Love to the Uttermost
by F. B. Meyer · English · Gutenberg #22376 · 510,946 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Love to the Uttermost
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Love to the Uttermost
Author: F. B. Meyer
Release date: August 23, 2007 [eBook #22376]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22376
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE TO THE UTTERMOST ***
Produced by Al Haines
LOVE TO THE UTTERMOST
EXPOSITIONS OF JOHN XIII--XXI.
BY
F. B. MEYER, B. A.
Author of
"The life and Light of Men: Expositions of John I.--XII.;"
"Old Testament Heroes;"
"The Shepherd Psalm;" etc.
NEW YORK ---- CHICAGO ---- TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
Publishers of Evangelical Literature
Copyright, 1898-1899
by
Fleming H. Revell Company
THIS BOOK ON
THE UTTERMOST LOVE OF CHRIST
IS DEDICATED
TO MY DEAR WIFE,
WHOSE PATIENT CARE OF OUR HOME
HAS ENABLED ME
TO WRITE SO MUCH AND TRAVEL SO FAR
IN HIS SERVICE.
PREFACE
The former book on the first twelve chapters of this sublime Gospel was
called, _The Life and Light of Men_. The title was naturally suggested
by the subject-matter of those chapters. We had little difficulty in
finding a title for the present book, which covers, however cursorily,
the remainder of the Gospel. It lay open before us in the opening
verses of the thirteenth chapter, as translated in the margin of the
Revised Version. "Having loved His own which were in the world, _He
loved them to the uttermost_."
It has been impossible, in the limited space at my disposal, to deal
with these chapters as I would. Indeed, to do so, it would be
necessary to know the length, and breadth, and depth, and height of the
Love of God, which passeth knowledge. Time has been allowed to elapse,
in the hope that the view would be clearer, and the expression more
adequate, of the deep things to which the Lord gave expression. But it
is useless to wait till one is satisfied of the adequacy of one's work,
else life will have run its course before a beginning has been made.
At the end of ten more years, the task would seem still more
impracticable.
In the closing chapters I have woven together the narratives of the
four evangelists, so as to give a succinct and connected account of the
last hours of our Lord's life, and especially of His death. It has
been a great delight thus to tread the _Via Crucis_, which is also the
_Via Lucis_--the Way of the Cross, which is the Way of Life, and Light,
and Love.
F. B. MEYER.
CONTENTS
I THE LAVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS
II THRICE BIDDEN TO LOVE
III HEAVEN DELAYED, BUT GUARANTEED
IV "MANY MANSIONS"
V THE REALITY OF WHICH JACOB'S DREAM WAS THE SHADOW
VI CHRIST REVEALING THE FATHER
VII THE GREAT DEEDS OF FAITH
VIII HOW TO SECURE MORE AND BETTER PRAYER
IX THE OTHER PARACLETE
X THE THREE DISPENSATIONS
XI THREE PARADOXES
XII MANY MANSIONS FOR GOD
XIII CHRIST'S LEGACY AND GIFT OF PEACE
XIV THE STORY OF THE VINE
XV "ABIDE IN ME, AND I IN YOU"
XVI PRAYER THAT PREVAILS
XVII THE HATRED OF THE WORLD
XVIII THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT ON THE WORLD
XIX CHRIST'S RETICENCE SUPPLEMENTED BY THE SPIRIT'S ADVENT
XX THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD
XXI CONSECRATED TO CONSECRATE
XXII THE LORD'S PRAYER FOR HIS PEOPLE'S ONENESS
XXIII THE LOVE THAT BOUND CHRIST TO THE CROSS
XXIV DRINKING THE CUP
XXV THE HALL OF ANNAS
XXVI HOW IT FARED WITH PETER
XXVII THE TRIAL BFFORE CAIAPHAS
XXVIII "JUDAS, WHICH BETRAYED HIM"
XXIX THE FIRST TRIAL BEFORE PILATE
XXX THE SECOND TRIAL BEFORE PILATE
XXXI THE SEVEN SAYINGS OF THE CROSS
XXXII CHRIST'S BURIAL
XXXIII THE DAY OF RESURRECTION
XXXIV THE LAKE OF GALILEE
XXXV PETER'S LOVE AND WORK
XXXVI THE LIFE-PLAN OF PETER AND JOHN
XXXVII BACK TO THE FATHER
LOVE TO THE UTTERMOST
Expositions of John xiii.-xxi.
I
The Laver in the Life of Jesus
"He poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet,
and to wipe them with a towel wherewith He was girded."--JOHN xiii. 5.
In the court of the Temple there were two objects that arrested the eye
of the entering worshipper--the Brazen Altar, and the Laver. The
latter was kept always full of pure, fresh water, for the constant
washings enjoined by the Levitical code. Before the priests were
consecrated for their holy work, and attired in the robes of the sacred
office, they washed there (Ex. xxix. 4). Before they entered the Holy
Place in their ordinary ministry, and before Aaron, on the great Day of
Atonement, proceeded to the Most Holy Place, with blood, not his own,
it was needful to conform to the prescribed ablutions. "He shall bathe
his flesh in water" (Lev. xvi. 4).
First, then, the Altar, and then the Laver; the order is irreversible,
and the teaching of the types is as exact as mathematics. Hence, when
the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews invites us to draw near, and
make our abode in the Most Holy Place, he carefully obeys the Divine
order, and bids us "draw near, with a true heart, in full assurance of
faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our
bodies washed with pure water."
In this scene (John xiii. 1-14), on the eve of our Lord's betrayal, we
find the spiritual counterpart of the Laver, just as the Cross stands
for the Brazen Altar.
I. THE CIRCUMSTANCE THAT LED TO THIS ACT OF LOVE.--In order fully to
understand this touching incident, it is necessary to remember the
circumstances out of which it sprang. On the way from Bethany to the
upper room in which the Supper had been prepared, and on entering
therein, our Lord must have been deeply absorbed in the momentous
events in which He was to be the central figure; but He was not
unmindful of a contention which had engaged His disciples, for they had
been disputing one with another as to which of them should be the
greatest. The proud spirit of the flesh, which so often cursed the
little group, broke out in this awful hour with renewed energy, as
though the prince of this world would inflict a parting blow on his
great Antagonist, through those whom He loved best. It was as if he
said, "See the results of Thy tears and teachings, of Thy prayers and
pleadings; the love which Thou hast so often inculcated is but a
passing sentiment, that has never rooted itself in the soil of these
wayward hearts. It is a plant too rare and exotic for the climate of
earth. Take it back with Thee to Thine own home if Thou wilt, but seek
not to achieve the impossible." It was heartrending that this
exhibition of pride should take place just at this juncture. These
were the men who had been with Him in His temptations, who had had the
benefit of His most careful instructions, who had been exposed to the
full influence of His personal character; and yet, notwithstanding all,
the rock-bed of pride, that cast the angels down from heaven, that led
to the fall of man, obtruded itself. This occasion in which it
manifested itself was very inopportune; already the look of Calvary was
on the Saviour's face, and the sword entering His heart. Surely, they
must have been aware that the shadow of the great eclipse was already
passing over the face of their Sun. But even this did not avail to
restrain the manifestation of their pride. Heedless of three years of
example and teaching; unrestrained by the symptoms of our Lord's
sorrow; unchecked by the memory of happy and familiar intercourse,
which should have bound them forever in a united brotherhood, they
wrangled with high voices and hot faces, with the flashing eye and
clenched fist of the Oriental, as to who should be first.
And if pride thus asserted itself after _such_ education, and under
_such_ circumstances, let us be sure that it is not far away from any
one of us. We do not now contend, in so many words, for the chief
places; courtesy, politeness, fear of losing the respect of our
fellows, restrain us. But our resentment to the fancied slight, or the
assumption by another of work which we thought our own; our sense of
hurtness when we are put aside; our jealousy and envy; our detracting
speeches, and subtle insinuations of low motive, all show how much of
this loveless spirit rankles in our hearts. We have been planted in
the soil of this world, and we betray its flavor; we have come of a
proud stock, we betray our heredity.
II. LOVE'S SENSITIVENESS TO SIN ON THE PART OF ITS BELOVED.--Consider
these epithets of the love of Christ:
_It was unusually tender_.--When the hour of departure approaches,
though slight reference be made to it, love lives with the sound of the
departing wheels, or the scream of the engine, always in its ear; and
there are given a tenderness to the tone, a delicacy to the touch, a
thoughtfulness for the heartache of those from which it is to be
parted, which are of inexpressible beauty. All that was present with
Christ. He was taking that Supper with them before He suffered. He
knew that He would soon depart out of this world unto the Father; His
ear was specially on the alert; His nature keenly alive; His heart
thrilling with unusual tenderness, as the sands slowly ran out from the
hour-glass.
_It was supreme love_.--"Having loved His own that were in the world,
He loved them unto the end." Those last words have been thought to
refer to the end of life, but it surely were superfluous to tell us
that the strong waters of death could not quench the love of the Son of
Man. When once He loves, He loves always. It is needless to tell us
that the Divine heart which has enshrined a soul will not forsake it;
that the name of the beloved is never erased from the palms of the
hands, that the covenant is not forgotten though eternity elapse. Of
course Christ loves to the end, even though that end reaches to
endlessness. We do not need to be assured that the Immortal Lover, who
has once taken us up to union with Himself, can never loose His hold.
Therefore it is better to adopt the alternative suggested by the margin
of the Revised Version, "He loved them to the uttermost." There was
nothing to be desired. Nothing was needed to fill out the ideal of
perfect love. Not a stitch was required for the needle-work of wrought
gold; not a touch demanded for the perfectly achieved picture; not a
throb additional to the strong pulse of affection with which He
regarded His own.
It is very wonderful that He should have loved such men like this. As
we pass them under review at this time of their life, they seem a
collection of nobodies, with the exception perhaps of John and Peter.
But they were His own, there was a special relationship between Him and
them. They had belonged to the Father, and He had given them to the
Son as His special perquisite and belonging. "Thine they were, and
Thou gavest them Me." May we dare, in this meaning, to apply to Christ
that sense of proprietorship, which makes a bit of moorland waste, a
few yards of garden-ground, dear to the freeholder?
"Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own . . .?"
It was because these men were Christ's own, that the full passion of
His heart set in toward them, and He loved them to the utmost bound;
that is, the tides filled the capacity of the ocean-bed of possibility.
_It was bathed in the sense of His Divine origin and mission_.--The
curtain was waxing very thin. It was a moment of vision. There had
swept across His soul a realization of the full meaning of His
approaching triumph. He looked back, and was hardly conscious of the
manger where the horned oxen fed, the lowly birth, the obscure years,
in the sublime conception that He had come forth from God. He looked
forward, and was hardly conscious of the cross, the nail, the
thorn-crown, and the spear, because of the sublime consciousness that
He was stepping back, to go to Him with whom He realized His identity.
He looked on through the coming weeks, and knew that the Father had
given all things into His hands. What the devil had offered as the
price of obeisance to himself, that the Father was about to give Him,
nay, had already given Him, as the price of His self-emptying. And if
for a moment He stooped, as we shall see He did, to the form of a
servant, it was not because of any failure to recognize His high
dignity and mission, but with the sense of Godhead quick on His soul.
The love which went out toward this little group of men had Deity in
it. It was the love of the Throne, of the glory He had with the Father
before the worlds were, of that which now fills the bosom of His
ascended and glorified nature.
_He was aware of the task to which He was abandoning these men_.--He
knew that as He was the High Priest over the house of God, they were
its priests. He knew that cleansing was necessary before they could
receive the anointing of the Holy Ghost. He knew that the great work
of carrying forward His Gospel was to be delegated to their hands. He
knew that they were to carry the sacred vessels of the Gospel, which
must not be blurred or fouled by contact with human pride or
uncleanness. He knew that the very mysteries of Gethsemane and Calvary
would be inexplicable, and that none might stand on that holy hill,
save those that had clean hands and a pure heart; and because of all
this, He turned to them, by symbol and metaphor, to impress upon their
heart and memory the necessity of participating in the cleansing of
which the Laver is the type.
The highest love is ever quickest to detect the failures and
inconsistencies of the beloved. Just because of its intensity, it can
be content with nothing less than the best, because the best means the
blessedest; and it longs that the object of its thought should be most
blessed forever. It is a mistake to think that green-eyed jealousy is
quickest to detect the spots on the sun, the freckles on the face, and
the marring discords in the music of the life; love is quicker, more
microscopic, more exacting that the ideal should be achieved. Envy is
content to indicate the fault, and leave it; but love detects, and
waits and holds its peace until the fitting opportunity arrives, and
then sets itself to remove, with its own tenderest ministry, the defect
which had spoiled the completeness and beauty of its object.
Perhaps there had never been a moment in the human consciousness of our
Lord, when, side by side with this intense love for His own, there had
been so vivid a sense of oneness with His Father, of His unity with the
source of Infinite Purity and Blessedness. We might have supposed that
this would have alienated Him from His poor friends, but in this our
thoughts are not as His. Just because of His awful holiness, He was
quick to perceive the unholiness of His friends, and could not endure
it, and essayed to rid them of it. Just because of His Divine goodness
He could detect the possibilities of goodness in them, and be patient
enough to give it culturing care.
The most perfect musician may be most tortured by incompetence; but he
will be most likely to detect true merit, and give time to its
training. "The powerfullest magnet will pick out, in the powdered dust
of the ironstone, fine particles of metal that a second or third-rate
magnet would fail to draw to itself." Do not dread the awful holiness
of Jesus; it is your hope. He will never be content till He has made
you like Himself; and side by side with His holiness, never fail to
remember His gentle, tender love.
III. THE DIVINE HUMILITY, THAT COPES WITH HUMAN SIN.--"He riseth from
supper, and layeth aside His garments; and He took a towel and girded
Himself." This is what the apostle calls taking upon Himself the form
of a servant. The charm of the scene is its absolute simplicity. You
cannot imagine Christ posturing to the ages. There was no aiming at
effect, no thought of the beauty or humility of the act, as there is
when the Pope yearly washes the feet of twelve beggars, from a golden
basin, wiping them with a towel of rarest fabric! Christ did not act
thus for show or pretence, but with an absolutely single purpose of
fulfilling a needed office. And in this He set forth the spirit of our
redemption.
_This is the key to the Incarnation_.--With slight alteration the words
will read truly of that supreme act. He rose from the throne, laid
aside the garments of light which He had worn as His vesture, took up
the poor towel of humanity, and wrapped it about His glorious Person;
poured His own blood into the basin of the Cross, and set Himself to
wash away the foul stains of human depravity and guilt.
As pride was the source of human sin, Christ must needs provide an
antidote in His absolute humility--a humility which could not grow
beneath these skies, but must be brought from the world where the
lowliest are the greatest, and the most childlike reign as kings.
_This is the key to every act of daily cleansing_.--We have been
washed. Once, definitely, and irrevocably, we have been bathed in the
crimson tide that flows from Calvary. But we need a daily cleansing.
Our feet become soiled with the dust of life's highways; our hands
grimy, as our linen beneath the rain of filth in a great city; our lips
are fouled, as the white doorstep of the house, by the incessant throng
of idle, unseemly and fretful words; our hearts cannot keep unsoiled
the stainless robes with which we pass from the closet at morning
prime. Constantly we need to repair to the Laver to be washed. But do
we always realize how much each act of confession, on our part,
involves from Christ, on His? Whatever important work He may at that
moment have on hand; whatever directions He may be giving to the
loftiest angels for the fulfillment of His purposes; however pressing
the concerns of the Church or the universe upon His broad shoulders, He
must needs turn from all these to do a work He will not delegate.
Again He stoops from the throne, and girds Himself with a towel, and,
in all lowliness, endeavors to remove from thee and me the strain which
His love dare not pass over. He never loses the print of the nail; He
never forgets Calvary and the blood; He never spends one hour without
stooping to do the most menial work of cleansing filthy souls. And it
is because of this humility He sits on the Throne and wields the
sceptre over hearts and worlds.
_This is the key to our ministry to each other_.--I have often thought
that we do not often enough wash one another's feet. We are conscious
of the imperfections which mar the characters of those around us. We
are content to note, criticise, and learn them. We dare not attempt to
remove them. This failure arises partly because we do not love with a
love like Christ's--a love which will brave resentment, annoyance,
rebuke, in its quest,--and partly because we are not willing to stoop
low enough.
None can remove the mote of another, so long as the beam is left in the
eye, and the sin unjudged in the life, None can cleanse the stain, who
is not willing to take the form of a servant, and go down with bare
knees upon the floor. None is able to restore those that are overtaken
in a fault, who do not count themselves the chief of sinners and the
least of saints.
We need more of this lowly, loving spirit: not so sensitive to wrong
and evil as they affect us, as anxious for the stain they leave on the
offender. It is of comparatively small consequence how much we suffer;
it is of much importance that none of Christ's disciples should be
allowed to go on for a moment longer, with unconfessed and unjudged
wrongs clouding their peace, and hindering the testimony which they
might give. Let us therefore watch for each other's souls: let us
consider one another to provoke to love and good works; let us in all
sincerity do as Christ has done, washing each other's feet in all
humility and tender love. But this spirit is impossible save through
fellowship with the Lamb of God, and the reception of His holy, humble
nature into the inmost heart, by the Holy Ghost.
II
Thrice Bidden to Love
"A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have
loved you, that ye also love one another."--JOHN xiii. 34.
Anacreon complains that when they asked him to sing of heroic deeds, he
could only sing of love. But the love with which he fills his sonnets
will bear as much comparison with that of which Jesus spoke in His last
discourse, as the flaring oil of a country fair with the burning of the
heavenly constellations. Even the love that binds young hearts is too
selfish and exclusive to set forth that pure ray which shone from the
heart of the Son of Man, and shines and will shine. What word shall we
use to describe it?
_Charity?_--The disposition denoted by this great word does not fulfill
the measure of the love of Christ. It is cold and severe. It can be
organized. It casts its dole to the beggar and turns away, content to
have relieved the sentiment of pity. By being employed for one
manifestation of love, charity is too limited and restricted in its
significance to become an adequate expression of the Divine love which
Drought Jesus from the throne, and should inspire us to lay down our
lives for the brethren.
_Philanthropy?_--This is a great word, "the love of man." And yet the
philanthropist is too often content with the general patronage of good
works, the elaboration of schemes, the management of committees, to do
much personal work for the amelioration of the world. The word is
altogether too distant, too deficient in the personal element, too
extensive in its significance. It will not serve to represent the
Divine compassion with which the heart of Christ was, at the moment of
speaking, in tumult.
_Complacency?_--No; for this is the emotion excited by the
contemplation of merit and virtue, which turns away from sin and
deformity; and the sentiment denoted by our Master's words is one that
is not brought into existence by virtue, nor extinguished by demerit
and vice.
Since all these words fail, we are driven to speak of love, as Christ
used the word, as being the essence of the Divine nature, for God is
love. It is the indwelling of God in the soul. It is the transmitting
through our lives of that which we have received in fellowship with the
uncreated glory of the Divine Being. That which was in the beginning
between the Father and the Son; that which constrained our Emmanuel to
sojourn in this world of sin; that which inspired His sacrifice; that
which dwells perennially in His heart, vanquishing time and distance;
which overflows all expressions, and defies definition--is the love of
which these words speak, and which we are commanded to entertain toward
each other.
_It is a commandment_: "These things I command you." "This is His
commandment: that we should believe in the name of His Son Jesus
Christ, and love one another even as He gave us commandment."
Obviously, then, obedience must be possible. Christ had gauged our
nature not only as Creator, but by personal experience. He knew what
was in man. The possibilities of our nature were well within His
cognizance; therefore it must be possible for us to love one another
qualitatively, if not quantitatively, as He has loved us. Do not sit
down before this great command and say it is impossible; that were to
throw discredit on Him who spake it. Dare to believe that no word of
His is vain. He descries eminences of attainment which it is possible
for us all to reach: let us surrender ourselves to Him, that He should
fulfill in us His ideal, and make us experts in the science of love.
_It is a new commandment_.--Archbishop Ussher on a memorable occasion
called it the eleventh. It is recorded that having heard of the
simplicity and beauty of the ordering of Rutherford's home, he resolved
to visit it for himself. One Saturday night he arrived alone at the
Manse, and asked for entertainment over the next day. A simple but
hearty welcome was accorded him; and after partaking of the frugal
fare, he was invited to join the household in religious exercises which
ushered in the Lord's day.
"How many commandments are there?" the master asked his guest, wholly
unaware who he was.
"Eleven," was the astonishing reply; at which the very servants were
scandalized, regarding the newcomer as a prodigy of ignorance. But the
man of God perceived the rare light of character and insight which
gleamed beneath the answer, and asked for a private interview. This
issued in the invitation to preach on the following day. To the
amazement of the household, so scandalized on the previous night, the
stranger appeared in the master's pulpit, and announced the words on
which we are meditating as his text, adding, "This may be described as
the eleventh commandment."
_Obedience to this fulfills the rest_.--Love is the fulfilling of the
law. Do we need to be told to have no other gods but God, to forbear
taking His name in vain, and to devote one day in seven to the
cultivation of a closer relationship with Him, if we love Him with all
our soul and mind and strength? Do we need to be warned against
killing our neighbor, stealing his goods, or bearing false witness
against his character, if we love him as ourselves? Only let a man be
filled with this divine disposition which is the unique characteristic
of God; let him be filled with the spirit of love; let him be perfected
in love, and, almost unconsciously, he will not only be kept from
infringing the prohibitions of the law of Sinai, but will be inspired
to fulfill the requirements of the Mount of Beatitudes. Love, and do
as you like. You will like to do only what God would like you to do.
_There is a very important purpose to be realized in obeying this
command_.--"By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye
have love one to another." Every Church claims to be the true
representative of Christ. The Eastern, because it occupies the lands
where Christianity was cradled. The Roman Catholic, because it
professes to be able to trace its orders to the apostles. But, amid
the hubbub of rival claims, the world, unconvinced, still awaits the
emergence of the true Bride of the Lamb. The one note of the true
Church is Love. When once men of different nationalities and countries
behold its manifestation, they do not hesitate to acknowledge the
presence of God, and to admit that those who are animated by perfect
love to Him and to one another constitute a unique organization, which
cannot have originated in the will or intellect of man, but, like the
New Jerusalem, must have come out of heaven from God. So sublime, so
transcendent, so unearthly is love, that its presence is significant of
the handiwork of God, as the fire that burned in the bush indicated
that the "I AM" was there.
Love is a supreme test, not only of the Church, but of the individual.
It has been the mistake of every age to make faith rather than love the
test of Christianity. "Tell me how much a man believes, and I shall
know how good a Christian he is!" The whole endeavor of the mediaeval
Church was to reduce the followers of Christ to a uniformity of belief.
And in our own time, a man is permitted by consent to be grasping after
money, imperious in temper, uncharitable in speech, without losing
position in the Church, so long as he assents to all the clauses of an
orthodox creed.
With Christ, however, love is all-important. A man may have faith
enough to remove mountains, but if he have not love, he is nothing, and
lighter than vanity in the estimation of heaven. Faith ranks with hope
and love, but it is destined to pass as the blossoms of spring before
the fruit of autumn, whilst love shall abide forevermore. A man may
have a very inadequate creed; like the woman of old, he may think there
is virtue in a garment, or a rite; like Thomas, he may find it
impossible to attain to the exuberant confidence of his brethren; but
if he loves Christ enough to be prepared to die for Him, if through the
narrow aperture of a very limited faith, love enough has entered his
soul from the source of love, Christ will entrust him with the tending
of His sheep and lambs, and call him into the secret place. Of course,
the more full-orbed and intelligent our faith, the quicker and intenser
will be our love. But faith, after all, is but the hand that takes,
whilst love is the fellowship of kindred hearts that flash each on the
other the enkindling gleam.
If you do not love, though you count yourself illumined with the light
of perfect knowledge, you are in the dark. "He that hateth his brother
is in the darkness, even until now."
If you do not love, you are dead. "He that loveth not, abideth in
death." The light sparkle of intellectual or emotional life may light
up your words, and fascinate your immediate circle of friends, but
there will be no life toward God. Love is the perfect tense of live.
Whoso does not love does not live, in the deepest sense. There are
capacities for richer existence that never unfold until love stands at
the portal and sounds his challenge, and summons the sleeper to awake
and arise.
If you do not love, you are under the thrall of the devil, into whose
dark nature love never comes. "Herein the children of God are manifest
and the children of the devil. Cain was of the wicked one, and slew
his brother."
"As I have loved you." Life is one long education to know the love of
God. "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us," is the
reflection of an old man reviewing the past. Each stage of life, each
phase of experience, is intended to give us a deeper insight into the
love wherewith we are loved; and as each discovery breaks upon our glad
vision, we are bidden to exemplify it to others. Does Jesus forgive to
the seventy-seventh time? We must forgive in the same measure. Does
Jesus forget as well as forgive? We, too, must forgive after the same
fashion. Does Jesus seek after the erring, and endeavor to induce the
temper of mind that will crave forgiveness? We also must seek the man
who has transgressed against us, endeavoring to lead him to a better
mind. The Christian knows no law or limit but that imposed by these
significant words, spoken on the eve of Christ's sacrifice, "As I have
loved you."
Thus all life gives opportunities for the practice of this celestial
temper and disposition. It has been said that talent develops in
solitude, whilst character is made in the strain of life. Be it so.
Then the character of loving may be made stronger by every association
we have with our fellows. Each contact with men, women, and children,
may give us an opportunity of loving with a little more of the
strength, purity, and sweetness of the love of Christ. The busiest
life can find time for the cultivation of this spirit. That which is
spent in a crowd will even have greater opportunities than the one
which is limited to solitude. The distractions and engagements that
threaten to break our lives up to a number of inconsiderable fragments
may thus conduce to a higher unity than could be gained by following
one occupation, or concentrating ourselves on one object.
Let us gird up the loins of our minds, and resolve to seek a baptism of
love from the Holy Ghost, that we may be perfected in love; that we may
love God first, and all else in Him, ascending from our failures to a
more complete conformity to the love wherewith He has loved us;
embracing the sinful and erring in the compass of our compassion, as we
embrace the Divine and Eternal in the compass of our adoration and
devotion.
III
Heaven Delayed, but Guaranteed
"Simon Peter said unto Him, Lord, whither goest Thou? Jesus answered
him. Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now; but thou shalt follow
Me afterward."--JOHN xiii. 36.
These chapters are holy ground. The last words of our dearest, spoken
in the seclusion of the death-chamber to the tear-stained group
gathered around, are not for all the world, and are recorded only to
those whose love makes them able to appreciate. And what are these
words that now begin to flow from the Master's lips, but His last to
His own? They were held back so long as Judas was there. There was a
repression caused by his presence which hindered the interchange of
confidences; but, when he was gone, love hastened to her secret stores,
and drew forth her choicest, rarest viands to share them, that they
might be in after days a strength and solace.
This marvellous discourse, which begins in chapter xiii. 31, continues
through chapters xiv., xv., xvi., and closes in the sublime prayer of
chapter xvii. Better that all the literature of the world should have
shared the fate of the Alexandrian library, than that these precious
words should have been lost amid the fret of the ages.
The Lord commences His discourse by speaking of His speedy departure.
"Little children," He said, using a term which indicated that He felt
toward them a parental tenderness, and spoke as a dying father might
have done to the helpless babes that gathered around his bed, "I am to
be with you for a very little time longer; the sand has nearly run out
in the hour-glass. I know you will seek Me; your love will make you
yearn to be with Me where I am, to continue the blessed intimacy, the
ties which within the last few weeks have been drawn so much closer;
but it will not be possible. As I said to the Jews, so must I say to
you, Whither I go, ye cannot come." He then proceeds to give them a
new commandment of love, as though He said: "The _cannot_ which
prevents you following Me now is due to a lack of perfect love on your
part, as well as for other reasons; it is necessary, therefore, that
you wait to acquire it, ere you can be with Me where I am."
Simon Peter hardly hears Him uttering these last words; he is pondering
too deeply what he has just heard, and calls the Master back to that
announcement, as though He had passed it with too light a tread: "Going
away! Lord, whither goest Thou?" To that question our Lord might have
given a direct answer: "Heaven! The Father's bosom! The New
Jerusalem! The City of God!" Any of these would have been sufficient;
but instead He says in effect: "It is a matter of comparative
indifference whither I go; I have no wish to feed curiosity with
descriptions of things in the heavens, which you could not understand."
The main point for you, in this brief life, is so to become assimilated
to Me in humility, devotion, likeness, and character, that you may be
able to be My companion and friend in those new paths on which I am
entering, as you have been in those which I am now leaving. "Whither I
go, thou canst not follow Me now; but thou shalt follow Me afterward."
The words staggered Peter; he could not understand what Christ meant;
he could not see how much had to be done before he could share in
Christ's coming glory. He made the same mistake as James and John had
done before, and wanted the throne, without perceiving that it was
conditioned on fellowship in the cup and the baptism into death. With
deep emotion he persisted in his inquiries: "Why cannot I follow Thee
now? There is no place on earth to which I would not go with Thee.
Have I not already left all to follow Thee? Have I not been with Thee
on the Transfiguration Mount, as well as in Thy journeyings? There is
but one experience through which I have not passed with Thee, and that
is death; but if that stands next in Thy life-plan, I will lay down my
life for Thy sake. Anything to be with Thee."
How little Peter knew himself! How much better did Christ know him.
"What! dost thou profess thyself willing to die with Me? Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, thou shalt deny Me thrice, between now and
cock-crow to-morrow morning." These words silenced Peter for all the
evening afterward. He does not appear to have made another remark, but
was absorbed in heart-breaking grief: though all the while there rang
in his heart those blessed words of hope: "Whither I go, thou canst not
follow Me now; but thou shalt follow Me afterward"--words which our
Lord caught up and expanded for the comfort of them all, who now with
Peter for the first time realized that they were about to be parted
from Jesus, and were almost beside themselves with grief: "Let not your
heart be troubled. . . ."
I. THE DESIRE TO BE WITH CHRIST.--This was paramount. These simple men
had little thought of heaven as such. If Christ had begun to speak of
golden pavement, gates of pearl, and walls of chrysolite, they would
have turned from His glowing words with the one inquiry, "Wilt Thou be
there?" If that question had been answered uncertainly, they would
have turned away heart-sick, saying: "If Thou art not there, we have no
desire for it; but if Thou wert in the darkest, dreariest spot in the
universe, it would be heaven to us."
There were three desires, the strands of which were woven in this one
yearning desire and prayer to be with Christ. They wanted His love,
His teaching, His leading into full, richer life. And is not this our
position also? We want Christ, not hereafter only, but here and now,
for these three self-same reasons.
_We want His love._--There is no love like His--so pure and constant
and satisfying. What the sun is to a star-light, and the ocean to a
pool left by the retiring tide, such is the love of Jesus compared with
all other love. To have it is superlative blessedness; to miss it is
to thirst forever.
_We want His light._--He speaks words that cast light on the mysteries
of existence, on the dark problems of life, on the perplexing questions
which are perpetually knocking at our doors.
_We want His life._--Fuller and more abundant life is what we crave.
It is of life that our veins are scant. We desire to have the mighty
tides of divine life always beating strongly within us, to know the
energy, vigor, vitality of God's life in the soul. And we are
conscious that this is to be found only in Him.
Therefore we desire to be with Him, to drink deeper into His
fellowship, to know Him and the power of His resurrection, to be
brought into an abidingness from which we shall never recede. We have
known Christ after the flesh; we desire to know Him after the Spirit.
We have known Him in humiliation; we want to know Him in His glory. We
have known Him as the Lamb of the Cross; we want to know Him as the
Divine Man on the throne.
II. THE FATAL OBSTACLE TO THE IMMEDIATE GRANTING OF THESE
DESIRES.--"Thou canst not follow Me _now_." There is thus a difference
in His words to His disciples, and those to the Jews. These also were
told that they could not follow Him, but the word now was omitted.
There was no hope held out to them of the great gulf being bridged.
That was the _cannot_ of moral incompatibility; this, of temporary
unfitness, which by the grace of God would finally pass away, and the
whole of their aspirations be realized (John vii. 34; viii. 21).
It is easy to see why Peter was unfit for the deeper realization of
Christ in His resurrection. Our Lord had just spoken of being
glorified through death. It was as Judas left the chamber, intent on
his betrayal, that Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified!" He
saw that the hidden properties of His being could only be unfolded and
uttered through death and resurrection. But Peter had little sympathy
with this; he might avow his determination to die, but he had never
really entered into the meaning of death, and all it might involve.
He could not detect evil. The traitor was beside him; but he had to
ask the beloved disciple to elicit from Jesus who it might be by whom
the Master would be betrayed.
He was out of sympathy with the Lord's humiliation, so that he chode
with Him for stooping to wash his feet; and if he could not understand
the significance and necessity of this lowly deed of love, how could he
enter into the spirit of that life which was planted in death, and
which bore even in resurrection the print of the nails?
He strove with the rest for the primacy. Who should be the greatest?
was the question that agitated them, as the other evangelists tell us,
in that solemn hour. And none that was possessed with that spirit of
pride and emulation could be in harmony with that blessed world where
the greatest are the lowliest, the highest the least, and the King set
on the right hand of power, because more capable of humbling Himself
than any beside.
But, besides all this, Peter was animated by the strong spirit of
self-assertion and determination. Always on the lake shore he had been
able to get to the front by his stronger voice, and broader shoulders,
and more vehement manner. Why should he not do the same now? Why
could he not keep pace with Christ even through the dark valley, and
accompany Him through unknown worlds?
It cannot be, said Christ; you are too strong in your carnal strength,
too self-reliant, too confident. It is not possible for you to be with
Me, in the life that springs from death, and to which death is the
door, till you have deeply drunk into the spirit of My death. You are
too strong to follow Me when I descend to the lowest on My way to the
highest; I must take for My companion now a forgiven malefactor; but I
will some day come for you, and receive you to Myself.
So Peter had to be broken on the wheel of a servant-girl's question,
and humbled to the dust. In those bitter hours he was thoroughly
emptied of his old proud, self-reliant, vain-glorious spirit, and
became as a little child.
This must be our path also. We must descend with Christ, if we would
ascend to sit at His side. We must submit to the laying of our pride
in the very dust. We must accept humiliations and mortifications, the
humblings of perpetual failure and shortcoming, the friction and fret
of infirmity and pain; and when we have come to an end of ourselves, we
shall begin to know Christ in a new and deeper fashion. He will pass
by and say, "Live!" The spirit of His life will enter into us; the
valley of Achor will become a door of hope, and we shall sing God's
glad new song of Hope. The ideal which had long haunted us, in our
blood, but unable to express itself, will burst into a perfect flower
of exquisite scent and hue.
III. THE CERTAINTY OF THE ULTIMATE GRATIFICATION OF EVERY DESIRE GOD
HAS IMPLANTED.--This is an absolute certainty, that God inserts no
desire or craving in our nature, for which there is no appropriate
gratification. The birds do not seek for food which is not ready for
them. The young lions do not ask for prey that is not awaiting them
somewhere in the forest glade. Hence the absoluteness of that
_shall_--"Thou _shalt_ follow Me afterward." It is as if Jesus said,
"I have taught you to love Me, and long after Me; and I will certainly
gratify the appetite which I have created."
Pentecost was the Divine fulfillment of all those conditions of which
we have been speaking. It was not enough that Peter should be an
emptied and broken man; he must become also a God-possessed, a
Spirit-filled man. Thus only could he be fitted to know Christ after a
spiritual sort, and to participate in His Resurrection Life. It was
surely to the Advent of the Holy Ghost that our Lord referred in that
significant _afterward_.
We too must seek our share in Pentecost. Do not be content with "Not
I"; go on to say, "but Christ." Do not be satisfied with the emptying
of the proud self-life; seek the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Do not
stop at the cross, or the grave; hasten to the upper room, where the
disciples are baptized in fire and glory. The Holy Spirit will enable
you to abide in Christ, because He will bring Christ to abide in you;
and life, through His dear grace, shall be so utterly imbued with
fellowship with the blessed Lord, that, whether present or absent, you
will live together with Him. It is the man who is really filled with
the Spirit of God who can follow Jesus, as Peter afterward did, to
prison and to death, who can drink of the cup of which He drank, and be
baptized with the baptism with which He was baptized.
"Why should I fear?" asked Basil, of the Roman prefect. "Nothing you
have spoken of has any effect upon me. He that hath nothing to lose is
not afraid of _confiscation_. You cannot banish me, for the earth is
the Lord's. As to _torture_, the first stroke would kill me, and _to
kill me is to send me to glory_."
IV
"Many Mansions"
"I go to prepare a place for you."--JOHN xiv. 2.
The cure for heart-trouble, when the future is full of dread, is
faith--faith directed to Jesus; and just such faith as we give God, for
He is God. He has shown Himself well worthy of that trust; all His
paths toward us have been mercy and truth; and we may therefore safely
rest upon His disclosures of that blessed life, of which the present is
the vestibule. "Let not your heart be troubled," He says, "ye believe
in God, believe also in Me." Or it might be rendered, "Believe in God,
believe also in Me."
Let us listen to Him, as He discourses of the Father's house and its
many mansions.
_Heaven is a home._--"My Father's house." What magic power lies in
that word! It will draw the wanderer from the ends of the earth; will
nerve the sailor, soldier, and explorer with indomitable endurance;
will bring a mist of tears to the eyes of the hardened criminal, and
soften the heart of stone. One night in the trenches of the Crimea the
bands played "Home, sweet Home," and a great sob went through the army.
But what makes home home? Not the mere locality or building; but the
dear ones that lived there once, now scattered never to be reunited,
only one or two of whom are still spared. It was father's house,
though it was only a shepherd's shieling; he dwelt there, and mother,
and our brothers and sisters. And where they dwell, or where wife and
child dwell, there is home.
Such is Heaven. Think of a large family of noble children, of all
ages, from the little child to the young man beginning his business
career, returning after long severance to spend a season together in
the old ancestral home, situated in its far-reaching grounds, and you
can form some idea of what it will be, when the whole Family of the
Redeemed gather in the Father's house. All reserve, all shyness, all
restraint gone forever. God has given us all the memory of what home
was, that we may guess at what awaits us, and be smitten with
homesickness. As the German proverb puts it: "Blessed are the
homesick, for they shall reach home."
_Heaven is very spacious._--There are "_many_ mansions." There is no
stint in its accommodation. In the olden Temple there were spacious
courts, long corridors, and innumerable chambers, in which a vast
multitude could find a home day and night. The children trooped about
and sang around their favorite teacher. The blind and lame sheltered
themselves from heat or storm. The priests and Levites in great
numbers lived there. All of this probably suggested the Master's words.
Heaven too will contain immense throngs, without being crowded. It
will teem with innumerable hosts of angels, and multitudes of the
redeemed which no man can number. Its children will be as the grains
of sand that bar the ocean's waves, or the stars that begem the vault
of night. But it can easily hold these, and myriads more. Yet there
is room! As age after age has poured in its crowds, still the cry has
gone forth, There is still room! The many mansions are not all
tenanted. The orchestra is not full. The complement of priests is not
complete.
Do not believe those little souls, who would make you believe that
Heaven is a little place for a select few. If they come to you with
that story, tell them to begone! tell them that they do not know your
Father's heart; tell them that all He does must be worthy of Himself.
Jesus shall see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied.
_Heaven is full of variety._--It is not like one great hall; there are
myriads of adjacent rooms, "mansions," which will be fitted up, so to
speak, differently. One for the sweet singer, another for the little
ones and their teachers, another for the student of the deep mysteries
of the Kingdom, another for those who may need further instruction in
the mysteries of God.
Heaven's life and scenery are as various as the aptitudes and
capacities of souls. Its music is not a monotone, but a chorale. It
is as a home, where the parents delight to develop the special tastes
of their children. This is surely what Jesus meant when He said, "I go
to prepare a place for you." He is ever studying our special
idiosyncrasies--what we need most, and can do best; and when He has
ascertained it, He suits our mansion accordingly.
When a gardener is about to receive some rare exotic, he prepares a
place where it will flower and fruit to the best advantage. The
naturalist who is notified of the shipment of some new specimen,
prepares a habitat as suited as possible to its peculiarities. The
mother, whose son is returning from sea, prepares a room in which his
favorite books and pictures are carefully placed, and all else that her
pondering heart can devise to give him pleasure. So our Lord is
anxious to give what is best in us its most suitable nourishment and
training. And He will keep our place against our coming. It will not
suit another, and will not be given to another.
That all this will be so, is witnessed by the instincts of our hearts,
and if it had not been so, He would have told us. That little clause
is inimitably beautiful; it seems to teach that where He permits His
children to cherish some natural presentiment of the blessed
future--its solemn troops and sweet societies; its friendships,
recognitions, and fellowships; its holy service, and special
opportunities--that He really assents to our deepest and most cherished
thoughts. If it had not been so, He would have told us.
_The charm of Heaven will be the Lord's presence._--"Where I am, ye
shall be also." We shall see His face, and be forever with Him. What
would not men give, if some old manuscripts might turn up with new
stories of His wondrous life, new parables as charming as those of the
Good Shepherd and the Prodigal Son; new beatitudes; new discourses like
that on the Vine. God might have permitted this. But what would it be
in comparison with all that lies before! The past has lost much; but
the future holds infinitely more. We shall see new Gospels enacted
before our eyes, behold Christ as a real visible person in the glory of
Divine manhood, hear Him speak to us as His friends, and shall know
what He meant when He promised to gird Himself, and come forth to serve
His servants.
If you are in doubt as to what Heaven is like, is it not enough to know
that it will be in accord with the nature and presence and choice of
Jesus Christ?
After His resurrection, He spent forty days among His disciples, that
men might see what the risen life was like. As He was, and is, so
shall we be. His body is the pattern in accordance to which this shall
be fashioned. What He was to His friends after His resurrection, we
shall be to ours, and they to us. We shall hear the familiar voices
and the dear old names, shall resume the dear relationships which death
severed, and shall speak again of the holy secrets of our hearts with
those who were our twin-spirits.
And He will come again, either in our death hour or in His Second
Advent, "to receive us" to Himself. If we only could believe this, and
trust Him who says it, our hearts could not be troubled, though death
itself menaced us; for we should realize, that to be received at the
moment of dissolution by the hands of Jesus, into the place on which He
has lavished time and thought and love, must be "far better" than the
best that earth could offer.
V
The Reality of which Jacob's Dream was the Shadow
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man
cometh unto the Father, but by Me."--JOHN xiv. 6.
We all know more truth than we give ourselves credit for. A moment
before the Lord had said, "Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know."
Thomas, the pessimist--always inclined to look at the dark side of
things--directly contradicted Him, saying, "Master, we are absolutely
ignorant of the goal to which Thy steps are bending; it is impossible,
therefore, for us to know the path that lies through the gloom, and by
which Thou art to come to it." It was a strange collision, the
Master's "Ye know," and Thomas's "We know not." Which was right?
There is no doubt that Jesus was right, and they did know. In many a
discourse He had given sufficient materials for them to construct a
true conception of the Father's house, and the way to it. These
materials were lying in some dusty corner of their memory, unused, and
Christ knew this. He said, therefore, in effect, "Go back to the
teachings I have given you; look carefully through the inventory of
your knowledge; let your instincts, illumined by My words, supply the
information you need: there are torches in your souls already lighted,
that will cast a radiant glow upon the mysteries to the brink of which
you have come."
This is true of us all. Christ never conducts to experiences for which
He has not previously prepared us. As the great ocean-steamers take in
their stores of coal and provision, day and night, for weeks previous
to their sailing; so, by insensible influences, Christ is ever
anticipating the strain and stress of coming circumstance, passing in
words which are spirit and life, though they may stand in their heavy
packing-cases in the hold, until we are driven to unpack, examine, and
use their contents. Not unseldom sorrow is sent for no other purpose
than to compel us to take cognizance of our possessions. Many a fabric
of manufacture, many an article of diet, many an ingenious process has
been suggested in days of scarcity and famine. So, old words and
truths come back in our sore need. Christ often speaks to us, as a
teacher to a nervous child, saying, "You know quite well, if you would
only think a little." More truth is stored in memory than recollection
can readily lay hands upon.
Thomas persisted in his protestations of ignorance, and so the Lord
uttered for his further information the royal sentence, which sums up
Christianity in the one simple pronoun "I." It was as if He said to
His disciples gathered there, and to His Church in all ages, "To have
Me, to know Me, to love and obey Me, this is religion; this is the
light for every dark hour, the solution for all the mysteries."
Christianity is more than a creed, a doctrinal system, a code of
rules--it is Christ.
I. CHRIST, AS THE WAY.--"I am the Way," said our Lord. The conception
of life as a pilgrimage is as old as human speech. On the third page
of our Bibles we are told that "Enoch walked with God." The path of
the Israelites through the desert was a pilgrim's progress, and the
enduring metaphor for our passage from the cross to the
Sabbath-keeping. Isaiah anticipated the rearing up of a highway which
should be called the way of holiness, which should not be trodden by
the unclean; no lion should be there, or ravenous beast go up thereon;
but the ransomed of the Lord should walk there, and go with singing to
Zion. But in the furthest flights of inspired imagination, the prophet
never dreamed that God Himself would stoop to become the trodden path
to Himself, and that the way of holiness was no other than that Divine
Servant who so often stood before Him for portrayal. "_I_ am the way,"
said Christ.
He fulfills all the conditions of Isaiah's prediction.
He saw a highway. A highway is for all: for kings and commoners; for
the nobleman daintily picking his way, and the beggar painfully
plodding with bare feet. And Jesus is for every man. "Whosoever will,
let him come"; let him step out and walk; let him commit himself to Him
who comes to our doors that He may conduct us to the pearly gate.
It was a way of holiness, where no unclean or leprous person was
permitted to travel. Neither can we avail ourselves of the gracious
help of Christ, so long as we are harboring what He disapproves, or
doing what He forbids.
It was so plain and straight, that wayfaring men though fools could not
mistake it. And the Master said, that whilst the wise and prudent
might miss His salvation, babes would find it. "Hidden from the wise
and prudent, but revealed to babes."
It afforded perfect immunity from harm. The wild beasts of the forest
might roar around it, but they were kept off that thoroughfare by an
invisible and impassable fence. Who is he that can harm us whilst we
follow that which is good? The special Divine permission was
necessary, before Satan could tempt Job, whose heart was perfect with
his God.
It was trodden with song. And who can describe the waves of joy that
sometimes roll in on the believing, loving soul. There is always
peace, but sometimes there is joy unspeakable and full of glory. The
hands of Jesus shed the oil of gladness on our heads, whilst the
lamentation and regret that haunt the lives of others are abashed, as
the spectres of the night before the roseate touch of morn.
What further thought did Christ mean to convey, when He said, "I am the
Way"? We cannot see the other side of the moon. The full import of
these words, as they touch His wonderful nature, as it lies between Him
and His Father, is beyond us; but we may at least study the face they
turn toward our lives.
The true value of a way is never realized until we are following it
through an unknown country, or groping along it in almost absolute
darkness. I remember, during a tour in Switzerland, on starting for a
long day's march, the comfort of the assurance that I had only to keep
to one road which was clearly defined, and it would inevitably bring me
to my destination. How different this to another experience of making
my way, as I might, across the hillsides in the direction which I
fancied was the right one! All that had to be done in the first
instance was to follow the roadway, to obey its sinuous windings, to
climb the hills where it climbed, to descend the valleys where it
descended, to cross the rivers and torrents at the precise point with
it. It seemed responsible for me as long as I kept to it. Whenever I
thought to better myself by wandering right or left, I found myself
landed in some difficulty, and when I returned to it, it seemed to say,
"Why did you leave me? I know that sometimes I am rough and difficult;
but I can do better for you, than you can for yourself, and indeed I am
the only possible way. Obey me, and I will bring you home." It is so
that Christ speaks to us.
Each day, as we leave our home, we know that the prepared path lies
before us, in the good works which God has prepared for us to walk in.
And when we are ignorant of their direction, and are at a loss as to
where to place our steps, we have only to concern ourselves with
Christ, and almost unconsciously we shall find ourselves making
progress on the destined way. Christ is the Way: love Christ, trust
Christ, obey Christ, be concerned with Christ, and all else will be
added. Christ is the Way. When the heart is wrapped up in Him, it is
on the way, and it is making progress, although it never counts the
rate or distance, so occupied is it with Him.
"I fear I make no progress," sighs the timid soul.
"But what is Christ to thee?"
"Everything."
"Then if He be all in all to thee, thou art most certainly on God's
way; and thou art making progress toward thy home, albeit that it is
unconsciously. Be of good cheer, Christ is the Way; remember the
ancient pilgrims, of whom it is written, that the way was in their
hearts."
"But God the Father is so little to me!"
"But to deal with Christ is to deal with God: to be wrapped up in the
love of Christ is to make ever deeper discoveries into the heart of
God. He is the Way to God: to know Him is to come to the Father."
II. CHRIST AS THE TRUTH.--The thought grows deeper as we advance.
Obedience to the Way conducts to the vision of the Truth; ethics to
spiritual optics. The truth-seeker must first submit himself in all
humility and obedience to Christ; and when he is willing to do His
will, he is permitted to know.
(1) Christ is more than a teacher. "We know that Thou art a Teacher,
come from God," said Nicodemus. He is more, He is the Truth of God.
All truth is ensphered in Him. All the mysteries of wisdom and
knowledge are hidden in Him. We fully know truth only as it is in
Jesus. When the Spirit of Truth would lead us into all truth, He can
do nothing better than take of the things of Christ, and reveal them to
us, because to know Christ is to know the Truth in its most complete,
most convenient, and most accessible form. If you know nothing else,
and know Christ intimately and fully, you will know the Truth, and the
Truth will make you free. If you love truth, and are a child of the
truth, you will be inevitably attracted to Christ, and recognize the
truth that speaks through His glorious nature. "He that is of the
truth heareth My voice."
(2) Distinguish between Christ the Truth, and truth about Him. Many
true things may be said about Him; but we are not saved by truths about
Him, but by Himself the Truth.
Not the indubitable fact that Jesus died; but the Person of Him who
died and lives forevermore.
Not the certain fact that Jesus lay in the grave; but the blessed Man
Himself, who lay there for me.
Not the incontestable facts of His resurrection and ascension; but that
He has borne my nature to the midst of the throne, and has achieved a
victory which helps me in my daily struggle.
This is the ground basis of all true saving faith. The soul may accept
truths about Christ, as it would any well-authenticated historical
fact; but it is not materially benefited or saved until it has come to
rest on the bosom of Him of whom these facts are recorded.
(3) To know Christ as Truth demands truth in heart and life. The
insincere man; the trifler; the flippant jester who takes nothing
seriously; the superficial man who uses the deepest expressions, as
counters for society talk; the inconsistent man who is daily doing
violence to his convictions, by permitting things which his conscience
condemns--must stand forever on the outskirts of the Temple of Truth:
they have no right to stand before the King of Truth. If you have
never discerned the truth as it is in Jesus, it becomes a serious
question whether you are perfectly true, or whether you are not, like
Pilate, harboring insincerity in your heart, which blinds your eyes to
His ineffable attributes.
(4) Concern yourself with Christ. Be content to let the world and its
wisdom alone. "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God . . .
He taketh the wise in their own craftiness." Give yourself to know
Christ, who is made unto us wisdom, as well as sanctification and
redemption. To know Him is to be at the fountain-head of all truth;
and the soul which has dwelt with Him by day and night will find
itself, not only inspired by an undying love for the true, but will be
able to hold fellowship with truth-lovers and truth-seekers everywhere;
nay, will be able even to instruct those who have the reputation of
great learning and knowledge in the schools of human thought. "I have
more understanding than all my teachers; for Thy testimonies are my
meditation. I understand more than the aged, because I have kept Thy
precepts." To know and to possess Christ, is to have the Word, that is
the Wisdom of God, enshrined as a most sacred possession in the heart.
III. CHRIST AS THE LIFE.--It is not enough to know; we need life. Life
is, indeed, the gate to knowledge. "This is life eternal _that_ they
should know Thee." It was imperative, therefore, that Jesus should
become a source of life to men, that they might know the Truth, and be
able to walk in the Way, and more especially since death had infected
and exhausted all the springs of the world's vitality.
It was into a world of death that the Son of God came. The spring of
life in our first parents had become tainted at its source. At the
best Adam was only a living soul. Dead--dead--dead in trespasses and
sins; such was the Divine verdict, such the course of this world.
Earth resembled the valley in the prophet's vision, full of bones, very
many and very dry. All the reservoirs of life were spent; its
fountains had died away in wastes of sand.
Then the Son of God brought life from the eternal throne, from God
Himself; and became a Life-giving Spirit. His words were spirit and
life: He was Himself the Resurrection and the Life: those that believed
in Him became partakers of the Divine Nature. The tree of life was
again planted on the earth's soil, when Jesus became incarnate. "I
give eternal life unto My sheep," He said, "and they shall never
perish." "He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life."
If, then, you are wanting life, and life more abundantly, you must have
Christ. Do not seek _it_, but _Him_: not the stream but the fountain;
not the word, but the speaker; not the fruit, but the tree. He is the
Life and Light of men.
And if you have Christ you have life. You may not be competent to
define or analyze it; you may not be able to specify the place or time,
when it first broke into your soul; you may hardly be able to
distinguish it from the workings of your own life: but if you have
Christ, trust Christ, desire Christ above all, you have the Life. "He
that hath the Son hath the Life; he that hath not the Son of God hath
not the Life." "We know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is
true . . . this is eternal life." "I," said Jesus, "am the Way, the
Truth, and the Life."
VI
Christ Revealing the Father
"Philip saith unto Him, Lord, shew us the Father and it sufficeth us.
Jesus saith unto him, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father."--JOHN
xiv. 8, 9.
The longing of the universal heart of man was voiced by Philip, when he
broke in, rather abruptly, on our Lord's discourse with the challenge
that He should answer all questions, dissipate all doubt, by showing
them the Father. Is there a God? how can I be sure that He is? what
does He feel toward us?--these are questions which men persistently
ask, and wait for the reply. And the Master gave the only satisfactory
answer that has ever been uttered in the hearing of mankind, when He
said in effect, "The knowledge of God must be conveyed, not in words or
books, in symbols or types, but in a life. To know Me, to believe in
Me, to come into contact with Me, is to know the deepest heart of God.
'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; how sayest thou then, Show
us the Father?'"
I. PHILIP'S INQUIRY.--_It bore witness to the possible growth of the
human soul_. Only three short years before, as we are told in the
first chapter of this Gospel, Christ had found him. At that time he
was probably much as the young men of his age and standing. Not
specially remarkable save for an interest in, and an earnestness about,
the advent of the Messiah; his views, however, of his person and work
were limited and narrow: he looked for his advent as the time for the
reëstablishment of the kingdom of David, and deliverance from the Roman
yoke. But three years of fellowship with Jesus had made a wonderful
difference in this young disciple. The deepest mysteries of life and
death and heaven seemed within his reach. He is not now content with
beholding the Messiah, he is eager to know the Father, and to stand
within the inner circle of His presence-chamber.
The highest watermark ever touched by the great soul of Moses was when
he said, amid the sublimities of Sinai, "I beseech Thee, show me Thy
glory." But in this aspiration Philip stands beside him. There is a
close kinship between the mighty lawgiver and the fishermen of
Bethsaida. How little there is to choose between, "Show me Thy glory,"
and "Show us the Father." Great and marvellous is the capacity of the
soul for growth!
_It truly interpreted the need of man._--"It sufficeth us." From
nature, with all her voices that speak of God's power and Godhead; from
the page of history, indented with the print of God's footprints; from
type and ceremony and temple, though instituted by God Himself; even
from the unrivalled beauty of our Saviour's earthly life--these men
turned unsatisfied, unfilled, and said, "We are not yet content, but if
Thou wouldest show us the Father, we should be."
And would it not suffice _us_?--Would it not be sufficient to give new
zest and reality to _prayer_, if we could realize that it might be as
familiar as the talk of home, or like the petitioning of a little
child? Would it not suffice to make the most irksome _work_ pleasant,
if we could look up and discern the Father's good pleasure and smile of
approval? Would it not suffice to rob _pain_ of its sting, if we could
detect the Father's hands adjusting the heat of the furnace? Would it
not suffice to shed a light across the dark mystery of _death_, if we
felt that the Father was waiting to lead us through the shadows to
Himself? How often the cry rises from sad and almost despairing
hearts, "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us."
_But surely this request was based on a mistake._--Philip wanted a
visible theophany, like that which Moses beheld, when the majestic
procession swept down the mountain pass; or as the elders saw, when
they beheld the paved sapphire work; or after the fashion of the
visions vouchsafed to Elijah, Isaiah, or Ezekiel. He wanted to see the
Father. But how can you make wisdom, or love, or purity visible, save
in a human life?
Yet this is the mistake we are all liable to make. We feel that there
must be an experience, a vision, a burst of light, a sensible
manifestation, before we can know the Father. We strain after some
unique and extraordinary presentation of the Deity, especially in the
aspect of Fatherhood, before we can be completely satisfied, and thus
we miss the lesson of the present hour. Philip was so absorbed in his
quest for the transcendent and sublime, that he missed the revelations
of the Father which for three years had been passing under his eyes.
God had been manifesting His tenderest and most characteristic
attributes by the beauty of the Master's life, but Philip had failed to
discern them; till now the Master bids him go back on the photographs
of those years, as fixed in his memory, to see in a thousand tiny
illustrations how truly the Father dwelt in Him, and lived through His
every word and work.
Are you straining after the vision of God, startled by every footstep,
intently listening till the very atmosphere shall become audible,
expecting an overwhelming spectacle? In all likelihood you will miss
all. The kingdom comes not with outward show. When men expected
Christ to come by the front door, He stole in at the back. Whilst
Philip was waiting for the Father to be shown in thunder and lightning,
in startling splendor, in the stately majesty that might become the
Highest, he missed the daily unfolding of the Divine Nature that was
being afforded in the Life with which he dwelt in daily contact.
_Philip's request emphasized the urgent need of the ministry of the
Holy Spirit._--"If ye had known Me". . . the Saviour said. "Have I
been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me?" They
failed to know the Father, because they failed to know Christ, and they
failed in this because they knew Him only after the flesh. They were
so familiar with Him as their Friend, His love was so natural, tender,
and human, He had become so closely identified with all their daily
existence, that they did not recognize the fire that shone behind the
porcelain, the Deity that tabernacled beneath the frail curtains.
Often those who dwell amid the loveliest or grandest scenery miss the
beauty which is unveiled to strangers from a distance. Certain lives
have to be withdrawn from us before we understand how fair they were,
and how much to us. And Jesus had to leave His disciples before they
could properly appreciate Him. The Holy Spirit must needs take of the
things of Christ, and reveal them, before they could realize their true
significance, symmetry, and beauty.
Two things are needful, then: first, we must know Christ through the
teaching of the Holy Ghost; and next, we must receive Him into our
hearts, that we may know Him, as we know the workings of our own
hearts. Each knows himself, and could recognize the mint-mark of his
own individuality; so when Christ has become resident within us, and
has taken the place of our self-life, we know Him as we know ourselves.
"What man knoweth the things of man save the spirit of man which is in
him?--but we have the mind of Christ?"
II. THE LORD'S REPLY.--"He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father."
He did not rebuke the request, as unfit to proffer, or impossible to
satisfy. He took it for granted that such a desire would exist in the
heart, and that His disciples would always want to be led by Him into
the Father's presence. In this His ministry resembled that of the
great forerunner, who led His disciples into the presence of the
Bridegroom, content to decrease if only He might increase. The
Master's answer was, however, widely different from John's. The
forerunner pointed to Jesus as He walked, and said, "Behold the Lamb of
God"; Jesus pointed to Himself, and said, "I and My Father are One; to
have seen Me is to have seen the Father; to have Me is to possess the
Father."
It troubled the Lord greatly that He had been so long time with them,
and yet they had not known Him; that they had not realized the source
of His words and works; that they had concentrated their thought on
Him, instead of passing, as He meant them to do, from the stream to the
source, from the die to the seal, from the beam of the Divine Glory to
its Sun. He bade them, therefore, from that moment realize that they
knew and had seen the Father in knowing and seeing Himself. Not more
surely had the Shechinah dwelt in the tabernacle of old, than did it
indwell His nature, though too thickly shrouded to be seen by ordinary
and casual eyes.
Let us get help from this. Many complain that they know Christ, pray
to Christ, are conscious of Christ, but that the Father is far away and
impalpable. They are therefore straining after some new vision or
experience of God, and undervaluing the religious life to which they
have already attained. It is a profound mistake. To have Jesus is to
have God; to know Jesus is to know God; to pray to Jesus is to pray to
God. Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. Look up to Him even now from
this printed page, and say, "My Lord and my God."
Jesus is not simply an incarnation of God in the sense in which, after
the fashion of the Greek mythology, gods might come down in the
likeness of men, adopting a disguise which they would afterward cast
aside; Jesus is God. All the gentle attributes of His nature are
God's; and all the strong and awful attributes of power, justice,
purity, which we are wont to associate with God, are His also.
Happy is the moment when we awake to realize that in Jesus we have God
manifest and present; to know this is the revelation of the Father by
the Son, of which our Saviour spoke in Matt. xi. 27.
III. A GLIMPSE INTO THE LORD'S INNER LIFE.--This Gospel is the most
lucid and profound treatise in existence on His inner life. It is the
revelation of the principles on which our Saviour lived.
So absolutely had He emptied Himself that He never spake His own words:
"The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of Myself." He never did
His own works: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. . . . The
Father abiding in Me doeth His works." This was the result of that
marvellous self-emptying of which the Apostle speaks. Our Lord speaks
as though, in His human nature, He had a choice and will of His own.
"Not My will, but Thine be done," was His prayer. Perhaps it was to
this holy and divine personality that Satan made appeal in the first
temptation, bidding Him use His powers for the satisfaction of His
hunger, and in independence of His Father's appointment. But however
much of this independence was within our Lord's reach, He deliberately
laid it aside. Before He spoke, His spirit opened itself to the
Father, that He might speak by His lips; before He acted. He stilled
the promptings of His own wisdom, and lifted Himself into the presence
of the Father, to ascertain what He was doing, and to receive the
inflow of His energy (John v. 19; xii. 44, 49).
These are great mysteries, which will engage our further consideration.
In the meanwhile, let us reason that if our Lord was so careful to
subordinate Himself to the Father that He might be all in all, it well
becomes us to restrain ourselves, to abstain from speaking our own
words or doing our own works, that Jesus may pour His energies through
our being, and that those searching words may be fulfilled in us also,
"Striving according to His working, which worketh in Me mightily."
VII
The Great Deeds of Prayer
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works
that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do;
because I go unto My Father."--JOHN xiv. 12.
Whenever our Lord was about to say something usually important, He
introduced it by the significant expression, "_Verily, verily_"; or, as
it is in the original, "Amen, amen, I say unto you." The words well
become His lips, who in the Book of Revelation is called "the Amen, the
Faithful and True Witness." They are really our Lord's most solemn
affirmation of the truth of what He was about to utter, as well as an
indication that something of importance is about to be revealed.
Indeed, it was necessary in the present case that the marvellous
announcement of the text should receive unusual confirmation, because
of its wide extent. If our Lord had ascribed this power of doing
greater works than Himself in His earthly life, to apostle, prophet, or
illustrious saint, we should have required no special assurance of its
deliberate truth; but to learn that powers so transcendent are within
the reach of any ordinary believer, to learn that any one who believes
may outdo the miracles on the outskirts of Nain, and at the tomb of
Bethany, is as startling as it is comforting. There is no reason why
the humblest soul that ponders this page should not become the medium
and vehicle through which the Christ of the glory shall not surpass the
Christ of Galilee, Jerusalem, and Judea.
The best method of treating these words is to take them clause by
clause as they stand.
I. THE FIRST NOTE IS FAITH.--"He that believeth on Me." Three
varieties of faith are alluded to in the context. Faith in His works:
"Believe the works." Faith in His words: "Believe Me." Faith in
Himself, as here. In the Greek the preposition translated _in_, would
be better rendered _into_, as though the believer was ever approaching
the heart of Christ in deeper, warmer, closer fellowship; perpetual
motion _toward_, combined with unbroken rest _in_. Each of these three
forms of faith plays an important part in the Christian life.
Arrested by the works of Christ--His irresistible power over nature,
His tender pity for those who sought His aid, the blessed and
far-reaching results of His miracles--we cry with Nicodemus, "Verily,
this is a Teacher come from God; for none can do such miracles, except
God be with him." The Master perpetually appealed to the witness borne
by His works to His Divine mission, as when He said, "If I had not done
among them the works which none other did, they had not had sin, but
now have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father." And again,
"The very works that I do bear witness of Me." But at the best the
works of Christ are only like the great bell ringing in the
church-tower calling attention to the life being unfolded within, and
are not calculated to induce the faith to which the greater works are
possible.
Next we come to the words of Christ. They are spirit and life: they
greatly feed the soul. He speaks as none other has ever spoken of the
mysteries of life, death, God, and eternity. It is through the words
that we come to the Speaker. By feeding on them we are led into vital
union with Himself. But His words, as such, and apart from Him, will
not produce works that shall surpass those He wrought in His earthly
ministry.
Therefore from works and words we come to the Lord Himself with a trust
which passes up beyond the lower ranges of faith; which does not simply
receive what He waits to give, or reckon upon His faithfulness, but
which unites us in indissoluble union with Himself. This is the
highest function of faith; it is _unitive_: it welds us in living union
with our Lord, so that we are one with Him, as He is one with God.
We are in Him in the Divine purpose which chose us in Him before the
foundation of the world; grafted into Him in His cross; partaking of a
common life with Him through the regeneration of the Holy Ghost. But
all these become operative in the union wrought by a living faith; so
that the strongest assertions which Jesus made of the close
relationship between His Father and Himself become the current coin of
holy speech, as they precisely describe the union which subsists
between us and Jesus. The living Saviour has sent us, and we live by
the Saviour. The words we speak are not from ourselves, but the
Saviour within us, He doeth His works. We are in Him and He in us, all
ours are His, and His ours.
Stay, reader, and ask thyself whether thou hast this faith which
incorporates thee with the Man who died for thee on the cross, and now
occupies the Throne, the last Adam who has become a life-giving Spirit.
II. A TRUE FAITH ALWAYS WORKS.--"He that believeth in Me, the works
that I do shall He do also."
There are many counterfeits of faith in the world. Electroplate!
veneer! They will inevitably fail in the last supreme test, if not
before. James especially calls attention to the distinction between a
living and a dead faith. It becomes us to be on our guard.
The test of genuine faith are twofold. In the _first_ place, a
genuine, living faith has Christ for its object. The hand may tremble,
but it touches His garment's hem; the eye may be dimmed by doubt, but
it is directed toward His face; the feet may stumble, but as the
fainting pilgrim staggers onward, this is his repeated cry, "Thou, O
Christ, art all I want."
In the _second_ place, a true faith works. Its works approve its
nature, and show that it has reached the heart of Christ, and becomes
the channel through which His life-forces pour into the soul. Jacob
knew that Joseph was alive and that his sons had opened communications
with him, because of the wagons that he sent; and we may know that
Jesus lives beyond the mist of time, and that our faith has genuinely
connected us with Him, because we feel the pulse of His glorious nature
within our own. And when this is so, we cannot but work out what He is
working within.
Ask me why a true faith must work! Ask why the branch can do no other
than bear clusters of ruddy grapes; its difficulty would be to abstain
from bearing; the vitality of the root accounts for its life and
productiveness. Blame the lark, whose nature vibrates in the sunshine,
for pouring from its small throat acres of sound; blame the child, full
of bounding health, for laughing, singing, and leaping; blame the
musician, whose soul has caught some fragments of the music of
eternity, for pouring it forth in song, before you wonder why it is
that the true faith which has opened the way from the believer to his
Lord produces those greater works.
III. THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF WORK INDICATED.--(1) "_The works that I do
shall he do also._"--What a blessing Christ's ministry must have been
to thousands of sufferers! He passed through Galilee as a river of
water of life. In front of Him were deserts of fever blasted by the
sirocco, and malarious swamps of ague and palsy, and the mirage of the
sufferer's deferred hope; but after He had passed, the parched ground
became a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water, the eyes of the
blind were opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame man
leaped as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sang.
How glad the sick of any district must have been when it was rumored
that He was on His way to it! What eager consultations must have been
held as to the best means of conveying them into His presence! What
sleepless nights must have been spent of speculation as to whether, and
how, He would heal!
Such results followed the labors of the apostles. The lame man at the
beautiful gate of the Temple; the palsied Aeneas; the dead Dorcas; the
crowds in the streets over-shadowed by Peter's passing figure; the
miracles wrought by Paul at Paphos, Lystra, Philippi, and Malta--all
attested the truth of the Master's words, "The works that I do shall ye
do also." There is no doubt that, if it were necessary, such miracles
might be repeated, if only the Church exercised the same faith as in
those early days of her ministry to the world. But there are greater
works than these.
(2) "_Greater works than these shall ye do._"--The soul is greater than
the body, as the jewel than the casket. All work, therefore, which
produces as great an effect on the soul-life as miracles on the
physical life, must be proportionately greater, as the tenant is
greater than the house, as the immortal than the mortal. It is a
greater work to give sight to the blind soul than to the blind body; to
raise the soul from its grave than Lazarus from his four days' sleep.
Again, eternity is also greater than time, as the ocean is greater than
a creek. The ills from which the miracles of Christ delivered the
suppliant crowds, were at the most limited by years. The flesh of the
leper became wrinkled with old age; Jairus' daughter fell again on
sleep; the generation which had been benefited by the mighty works,
passed away without handing on a legacy of health to succeeding time!
But if a sinner is turned from the error of his ways, if salvation
comes to a nature destined for immortality, and lifts it from the
slough of sin to the light of God, the results must be greater because
more permanent and far-reaching.
Moreover, the pain from which the word of the Gospel may save, is
infinitely greater than that which disease could inflict. Men have
been known to brave any physical torture rather than endure the
insupportable anguish of a sin-laden conscience. The worm that never
dies is more intolerable than cancer; the fire that is never quenched
keener than that of fever. To save a soul from these is, therefore, a
greater work.
Christ hinted at this distinction in one of His earliest miracles, when
He proposed to forgive the sick of the palsy his sins, before bidding
him walk; and bade the seventy rejoice more that their names were
written in heaven than that the devils were subject to them. The
apostles bear witness to a growing appreciation of this distinction, by
the small space given in the Acts of the Apostles to their miracles,
compared with the greater attention concentrated on their discourses;
and surely the history of Christendom bears witness to the great and
permanent character of spiritual work. The Church could not have
influenced the world as she has done, had she been nothing more than a
healer of diseases and an exorciser of demons.
IV. THE SOURCE OF THESE GREATER WORKS.--"Because I go to the Father."
Clearly the Church has had an argument to present to men which even her
Master could not use. He could not point, except indefinitely, to the
cross, its flowing blood, its testimony to a love which the cold waters
of death could not staunch. Through the ages this has been the
master-motive, the supreme argument.
Then, again, the Master could not count upon the coöperation of the
Spirit in His convicting power, as we can. "When He is come, He will
convict the world of sin"; but He did not come till after that brief
career of public ministry had closed. Speaking reverently, we may say
that the Church has an Ally that even her Master had not.
But the main reason is yet to come. Perhaps an illustration will best
explain it. Supposing the great painter, Raphael, were to infuse his
transcendent power, as he possessed it during his mortal life, into
some young brain, there is no reason why the genius of the immortal
painter should not effect, through a mere tyro in art, results in form
and color as marvellous as those which he bequeathed to coming time.
But suppose, further, that after having been three hundred years amid
the tones, forms, and colors of the heavenly world, he could return,
and express his thoughts and conceptions through some human medium,
would not these later productions be greater works than those which men
cherish as a priceless legacy? So if the Lord were to work in us such
works only as He did before He ascended to His glory, they would be
inferior to those which He can produce now that He has entered into His
glorified state, and has reassumed the power of which He emptied
Himself when He stooped to become incarnate. This is what He meant
when He said, "Because I go unto the Father."
Open your hearts to the living, risen, glorified Saviour. Let Him live
freely in your life, and work unhindered through your faith; expect Him
to pour through you as a channel some of those greater works which must
characterize the closing years of the present age. Remember how the
discourses and miracles of His earthly life even increased in
importance and meaning; for such must be the law of His ministry in the
heavenlies. According to our faith it will be unto us. The results
which we see around us are no measure of what Christ would or could do,
they indicate the straitening effect of our unbelief. Lift up your
heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye low-browed doors of
unbelief; and the King of Glory shall come in with His bright and
mighty retinue, and shall go out through human lives to do greater
works by the instrumentality of His people than ever He wrought in the
course of His earthly ministry.
VIII
How to Secure More and Better Prayer
"And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter,
that He may abide with you forever."--JOHN xiv. 16.
The great lack of our life is that we do not pray more. And there is
no failure so disastrous or criminal as this. It is very difficult to
account for it. If in all times of discouragement and vicissitude we
could have access to one of the wisest and noblest of our fellow
creatures, or to some venerated departed saint, or to the guardian
angel deputed to attend our steps, or to the archangel that presides as
vicegerent over this system of worlds, how strong and brave we should
become! Whatever our need, we would at once seek His august presence,
and obtain His counsel and assistance. How extraordinary is our
behavior then with respect to prayer, and that we make so little of our
opportunities of access into the presence of our Father, in whom
wisdom, power, and love blend perfectly, and who is always willing to
hear us--nay, is perpetually urging us to come!
The reason may lie in the very commonness of our opportunities. The
swing-door of prayer stands always waiting for the least touch of faith
to press it back. If our Father's presence-chamber were opened to us
only once a year, with how much greater reverence would we enter it,
how much more store would we set on it! We should anticipate the honor
and privilege of that interview for the whole year, and eagerly avail
ourselves of it. Alas, that familiarity with prayer does not always
increase our appreciation of its magnificence!
The cause of our apathy is probably also to be sought in the effort
which is required to bring our sensuous and earth-bound natures into
true union with the Spirit of God. True prayer is labor. Epaphras
labored in his intercessions. Our feet shrink from the steep pathway
that climbs those heights; our lungs do not readily accustom themselves
to the rare air that breathes around the summit of the Mount of
Communion.
But there is a deeper reason yet: we have not fully learned or obeyed
the laws and conditions of prayer. Until they are apprehended and
complied with, it is not possible for us to pray as we might. They are
not, however, very recondite. The least advanced in the Divine school
may read them on this page, where Christ unbares the deepest philosophy
of devotion in the simplest phrases.
It is evident that He expected that the age which Pentecost was to
inaugurate, and to which He so frequently refers as "in that day,"
would in a special sense be the Age of Prayer. Mark how frequently in
this last discourse He refers to it--(xiv. 13, 14; xv. 7, 16; xvi. 24,
26). Clearly the infilling of the Holy Spirit has a special bearing on
the prayerfulness of the individual and the Church. But this will
unfold as we proceed.
I. THE PRAYING CHRIST.--"I will pray the Father." It is true that He
sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, because He had
completed the work for which He became man. That session indicated a
finished atonement. As the Father rested from the work of creation, so
the Son entered into His rest, having ceased from the work of
redemption, so far as it could be effected in His death, resurrection,
and ascension. But as in His rest the Father worked in Providence,
sustaining that which He had created, so did the Saviour continue to
work after He had entered into His Sabbath-keeping.
We have already dealt with one branch of His twofold activity, in _His
work through those who believe_. The greater works which the risen
Saviour has been, and is, achieving through His people bear witness to
the perpetual energy streaming from His life in the azure depths. "The
apostles," Mark tells us, "went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord
working with them, and confirming their word with signs following."
The other branch of His twofold ministry is _His intercession on our
behalf_. He says, "I will pray the Father" for you.
(1) What a contrast to the assertions which we have already pondered of
His oneness with the Father, and to His assurance in almost the same
breath that He would Himself answer His people's prayers! It is
inexplicable, save on the hypothesis that He has a dual nature, by
virtue of which, on the one hand, He is God, who answers prayer, and on
the other the Son of Man, who pleads as the Head and Representative of
a redeemed race.
(2) It is, however, in harmony with Old Testament symbolism. The High
Priest often entered the Presence of God with the names of the people
on his breast, the seat of love, and on his shoulder, the seat of
power; and once a year, with a bowl of blood and sprig of thyme in his
hands, pleaded for the entire nation. What more vivid portrayal could
there be of the ceaseless intercession of that High Priest who was once
manifested to bear the sin of many, and who now appears in the presence
of God for us.
(3) In the days of His flesh, He pleaded for His _Church_, as in the
sublime intercessory prayer of chapter xvii.; for _individuals_, as
when He said, "Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you that he may
sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee"; and for _the world_, as
when He first assumed His High-priestly functions, saying from His
cross, "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do." Thus He
pleads still. For Zion's sake He does not hold His peace, and for
Jerusalem's sake He does not rest. For His Church, for individual
believers, for thee and me, He says in heaven, as on earth, "Father, I
pray for them." Perennially from His lips pours out a stream of tender
supplication and entreaty. This is the river that makes glad the city
of God. Anticipating coming trial; interposing when the cobra-coil is
beginning to encircle us; pitying us when the sky is overcast and
lowering; not tiring or ceasing, though we are heedless and unthankful;
He pleads on the mountain brow through the dark hours, whilst we sleep.
(4) These intercessions are further stimulated by our love and
obedience. "If ye love Me, keep My commandments, _and_ I will pray the
Father." He looks on us, and where love is yearning to love more
fully, and obedience falters in its high endeavors, He prays yet more
eagerly, that grace may be given us to be what we long to be. He prays
for those who do not pray for themselves; but He is even more intent on
the perfecting of those who are the objects of His special interest,
because of their loyalty and love--"I pray for them; I pray not for the
world."
(5) His special petition is that we may receive the gift of Pentecost.
"I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter." It
would almost seem as though He spent the mysterious ten days between
His ascension and Pentecost in special intercession that His Church
might be endued with power from on high. The pleading Church on earth
and the pleading Saviour in heaven were at one. The two voices agreed
in perfect symphony, and Pentecost was the Father's answer. The
Saviour prayed to the Father, and He gave another Comforter. Nor has
He ceased in this sublime quest. It is not improbable that every
revival of religion, every fresh and deeper baptism of the Spirit,
every new infilling of individual souls, has been due to our Saviour's
strong cryings on our behalf. It may be that at this hour He is
engaged in asking the Father that He would dower the universal Church
with another Pentecost; and if so, let us join Him in the prayer.
II. THE PRAYING CHURCH.--"Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name."
(1) Prayer must be addressed to the Father. As soon as we utter that
sacred name, the Divine nature responds; and, to put it vividly, is on
the alert to hear what we desire. A little child cannot utter a sigh
however slight, a sob however smothered, without awakening the quick
attention of its mother; and at the first whisper of our Father's name,
He is at hand to hear and bless. Alas! we have too often grieved His
Holy Spirit by a string of selfish petitions, or a number of formal
platitudes! To the wonderment of angels, we thus fritter away the most
precious and sacred opportunities. Be still, then, before you pray, to
consider what to ask; order your prayers for presentation: and be sure
to begin the blessed interview with words of sincere and loving
appreciation and devotion.
(2) The conditions of successful prayer are clearly defined in these
words. There must be _love_ to Christ and to all men; _obedience_ to
His will, so far as it is revealed; _recognition_ of His mediation and
intercession, as alone giving us the right to draw nigh;
_identification_ with Him, so as to be able to use His name;
_passionate desires for the Father's glory_. Where these five
conditions exist, there can be no doubt as to our receiving the
petitions which we offer. Prayer that complies with them cannot fail,
since it is only the return tide of an impulse which has emanated from
the heart of God.
(3) Note how the Saviour lives for the promotion of His Father's glory.
How often, during His earthly ministry, He declared that He was
desiring and seeking this beyond all else! Though His prayer could
only be granted by His falling into the ground to die, He never
flinched from saying, "Father, glorify Thy Name." But here He tells us
that through the ages as they pass He will still be set on the same
quest. By all means He must glorify His Father; and if, in any prayer
of ours, we can show that what we ask will augment the Father's glory,
we are certain to obtain His concurrence and glad acquiescence.
"That," He says, "will I do."
(4) We must pray "in His Name." As the ambassador speaks in the name
of queen and country; as the tax-collector appeals in the name of the
authorities; both deriving from their identification with their
superiors an authority they could not otherwise exercise; so our words
become weighted with a great importance when we can say to our Father,
"We are so one with Jesus that He is asking in and through us; these
words are His; these desires His; these objects those on which His
heart is set. We have His sanction and authority to use His name."
When we ask a favor in the name of another, that other is the
petitioner, through us; so when we approach God in the Name of Jesus,
it is not enough to append His sacred name as a formula, but we must
see to it that Jesus is pleading in us, asking through our lips, as He
is asking through His own in the heart of the sapphire throne.
III. THE LINK BETWEEN THESE TWO.--"He will give you another Comforter."
The word Comforter might be rendered Advocate. We have two Advocates;
one with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and one with us. As
the one went up, the other came down. As the one sat down at the right
hand of God, the other rested on the heads and hearts of the company in
the upper room. As the one has compassion on our infirmities, so the
other helps our infirmities. As the one ever liveth to intercede for
us in heaven, so the other maketh intercession in us for the saints
with groanings that cannot be uttered.
This is the clue to the mystery of prayer. It is all-important that
the Church on earth should be in accord with its Head in His petitions
before the Throne. Of what avail is it for a client and advocate to
enter an earthly court of justice unless they are in agreement? Of
what use is it to have two instruments in an orchestra which are not
perfectly in tune? And how can we expect that God will hear us unless
we ask what is according to His will, and, therefore, what is in the
heart and thought of Jesus?
This, then, is the problem that confronts us. How can we ascertain
what Jesus is pleading for? We may guess it generally, but how be
assured of it particularly? Who will tell us the direction in which
the current of His mighty pleadings is setting, that we may take the
same direction? These inquiries are answered in the ministry of the
Holy Spirit. On the one hand, He fills and moves the Head, and on the
other, His members. There is one Spirit of life between Jesus in the
glory and His believing people everywhere. One ocean washes the shores
of all natures in which the life of God is found.
Be still, therefore, and listen carefully to the voice of the Spirit of
God speaking in thine heart, as thou turnest from all other sounds
toward His still small whisper, and He will tell thee all. Coming, as
He does, from the heart of Jesus, He will tell thee His latest thought.
In Him we have the mind of Christ. Then, sure that we are one with
Him, and therefore with the Father, we shall ask what is according to
His will to give. Prayer goes in an eternal circle. It begins in the
heart of God, comes to us through the Saviour and by the Spirit, and
returns through us again to its source. It is the teaching of the
raindrops, of the tides, of the procession of the year; but wrought out
and exemplified in the practice of holy hearts.
IX
The Other Paraclete
"He shall give you another Comforter."--JOHN xiv. 16.
There was no doubt in our Lord's mind that His asking would be at once
followed by the Father's giving. Indeed, the two actions seemed, in
His judgment, indissolubly connected--"I will ask, and He shall give."
From which we learn that prayer is a necessary link in the order of the
Divine government. Though we are assured that what we ask is in God's
purpose to communicate--that it lies in the heart of a promise, or in
the line of the Divine procedure, yet we must nevertheless make
request. "Ye have not," said the Apostle James, "because ye ask not."
"Ask," said the Master, His eye being open to the laws of the spiritual
world, "and it shall be given you."
The prayer of the Head of the Church was heard, and He received the
Holy Spirit to bestow Him again. "Having received of the Father the
promise of the Holy Spirit," said the Apostle Peter, "He hath shed
forth this, which ye now see and hear." Thus the Holy Spirit is the
gift of the Father, through the Son, though He is equal with each of
the blessed Persons in the Trinity, and is with them to be worshipped
and glorified.
I. THE PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY GHOST.--That word, "another"--"He shall
give you _another_ Comforter"--is in itself sufficient to prove the
Divinity and Personality of the Holy Ghost. If a man promises to send
another as his substitute, we naturally expect to see a man like
himself, occupying his place, and doing his work. And when Jesus
foreannounced another Comforter, He must have intended a Person as
distinct and helpful as He had been. A breath, an afflatus, an
impersonal influence could not have stood in the same category with
Himself.
There are those who think that the Holy Spirit is to the Lord Jesus
what a man's spirit is to his body; and imagine that our Lord simply
intended that the spirit of His life-teaching and self-sacrifice would
brood over and inspire His followers; but this could not have fulfilled
the promise of "the other Comforter." It would simply have been
Himself over again, though no longer as a living Person; rather as the
momentum and energy of a receding force which gets weaker and ever
weaker as the ages pass. Thus the spirit of Napoleon or of Caesar is
becoming little more than a dim faint echo of footsteps that once shook
the world.
Jesus knew how real and helpful He had been to His followers--the
centre around which they had rallied; their Teacher, Brother, Master;
and He would not have tantalized them by promising another Paraclete,
unless He had intended to announce the advent of One who would adjust
Himself to their needs with that quickness of perception, and
sufficiency of resource, which characterize a personal Leader and
Administrator. There were times approaching when the little band would
need counsel, direction, sympathy, the interposition of a strong wise
Hand--qualities which could not be furnished by the remembrance of the
past, fading like the colors on clouds when the sun has set; and which
could only be secured by the presence of a strong, wise, ever-present
Personality. "I have been one Paraclete," said the Lord in effect;
"but I am now going to plead your cause with the Father, that another
Paraclete may take My place, to be My other self, and to abide with you
forever."
There is no adequate translation for that word _Paraclete_. It may be
rendered Comforter, Helper, Advocate, Interpreter; but no one word
suffices. The Greek simply means one whom you call to your side, in a
battle, or a law-court, to assist you by word or act. Such a One is
Christ; such a One is the Holy Spirit. He is a definite Person whom
you can call to, and lean on, and work with. If a man were drowning,
he would not call to the wandering breath of the wind; but to any
person who might be on the bank. The Spirit is One whom you can summon
to your side; and it is therefore quite in keeping with Scripture to
pray to the Holy Spirit. On the whole we are taught to direct prayer
to the Father, through the Son, and as prompted by the Holy Spirit; but
as a matter of practice and habit, it is indifferent which Person in
the Holy Trinity we address, for each is equally God. As the Father is
God, so also is the Son, and so the Holy Spirit. In her hymns and
liturgies the Church has never hesitated to summon the Holy Spirit to
her help.
It is in recognition of the Personality of the Holy Spirit that the
historian of the Acts of the Apostles quotes His solemn words,
"Separate _Me_ Barnabas and Saul"; tells us that Ananias and Sapphira
lied to Him; and records that the Church at Jerusalem commenced its
encyclical letter with the words, "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and
to us." Happy that body of Christians which has come to realize that
the Holy Ghost is as certainly, literally, and personally present in
its midst, as Jesus Christ was present when, in the days of His flesh,
He tarried among men!
II. A SEVENFOLD PARALLEL BETWEEN THE ADVENTS OF THE TWO
PARACLETES.--(1) _Each was in the world before His specific
advent._--Long before His incarnation the delights of the Son of God
were with men. In Angel-form, He visited their tents, spoke with them
face to face, calmed their fears, and fought on their behalf. He trod
the holy fields of Palestine with noiseless footfall that left no
impress on the lightest sands, long before He learned to walk with
baby-feet, or bore His cross up Calvary.
So with the Holy Spirit. He brooded over chaos, strove with men before
the deluge, moved holy men to write the Scriptures, foreshadowed the
advent of the Messiah, equipped prophets and kings for their special
mission. In restraining evil, urging to good, preparing the way for
Christ, the Holy Spirit found abundant scope for His energies. But His
influence was rather external than internal; savored rather of gift
than grace; and dealt more often with the few than with the many--with
the great souls that reared themselves to heaven like Alpine summits
touched with the fires of dawn, rather than with the generality of men,
who dwelt in the valley of daily commonplace, enwrapped in the mists of
ignorance and unbelief. It was to be the special prerogative of this
age, that He should be poured out on all flesh, so that sons and
daughters should prophesy, whilst servants and handmaidens participated
in His gracious influences.
(2) _The advent of each was previously announced._--From the Fall, the
coming of the great Deliverer was foretold in type and sign, in speech
and act, in history and prophecy. Indeed, as the time of the
Incarnation drew nigh, as Milton tells us in his sublime ode on the
Incarnation, surrounding nations had caught from the chosen people the
spirit of expectancy, and the world was in feverish anticipation of the
coming of its Redeemer. He was the Desire of all nations. All the
ages, and all the family of man, accompanied Mary to Bethlehem, and
worshipped with the Magi.
So with the Holy Spirit. Joel distinctly foretold that in the last
days of that dispensation. God would pour out of His Spirit; and His
message is echoed by Isaiah, Zechariah, Ezekiel, and others; till Jesus
came, who more specifically and circumstantially led the thoughts of
His disciples forward to the new age then dawning, which should be
introduced and signalized by the coming and ministry of the Spirit.
(3) _Each was manifested in a body._--The Lord Jesus in that which was
prepared for Him by the Father, and born of a pure Virgin. We are
told, that He took on Him the form of a servant, and was made in the
likeness of man. Similarly the Holy Spirit became, so to speak,
incorporate in that mystical Body, the Church, of which Jesus is the
Head.
On the day of Pentecost, the hundred and twenty who were gathered in
the upper room, and who, up to that time, had had no corporate
existence, were suddenly constituted a Church, the habitation and home
of the Divine Spirit. What the human body of Jesus was to the second
Person of the Holy Trinity, that the infant Church was to the third;
though it did not represent the whole body, since we must add to those
gathered in the upper room many more in heaven and on earth, who by
virtue of their union with the risen Christ constituted with them the
Holy Catholic Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who
filleth all in all. "This," said the Blessed Spirit, "is My rest
forever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it."
(4) _Each was named before His advent._--"Thou shalt call His name
Emmanuel." "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty
God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." Thus was the Lord
Jesus designated to loving hearts before His birth.
So also with the Holy Spirit. The last discourses of Jesus are full of
appellatives, each setting forth some new phase of the Holy Spirit's
ministry; some freshly-cut facet of His character. The Spirit of
Truth; the Holy Spirit; the Paraclete; the Spirit of Conviction--such
are some of the names by which He was to be known.
(5) _Each was dependent on another._--Our Lord said distinctly, "The
Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do"; and He
said of the Holy Spirit, using the same preposition, "He shall not
speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak."
What a conception is here! It is as though the Holy Spirit were ever
listening to the Divine colloquy and communion between the Father and
the Son, and communicating to receptive hearts disclosures of the
secrets of the Deity. The things which eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard, God hath revealed unto us by His Spirit; "for the Spirit
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God."
(6) _Each received witness._--The Father bore witness to His Son on
three separate occasions. On the first, at His baptism, He said, "This
is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased"; on the second, when the
three apostles were with Him on the holy mount, and He received from
the Father glory and honor; and on the third, when the inquiry of the
Greeks reminded Him of His approaching death, and the voice from heaven
assured Him that glory would accrue to the Father through His falling
into the ground to die.
So in regard to the Holy Spirit. Seven times from the throne the
ascended Lord summons those that have ears, to hear what the Spirit
saith to the churches; as though to emphasize the urgent importance of
His message, and the necessity of giving it our most earnest heed, lest
we should drift past it.
(7) _The presence of each is guaranteed during the present age._--"I am
with you," saith the Lord, and they were among the closing words of His
posthumous ministry, "all the days, even unto the end of the age"; and
here it is foretold that the Comforter would abide during the age, for
so the phrase might more accurately be rendered.
This is specially the age of the Holy Spirit. He may be grieved,
ignored, and rejected; but He will not cease His blessed ministry to
the bride, till the Bridegroom comes to claim her for Himself. Oh, let
us avail ourselves of His gracious presence to the utmost of our
opportunity, that He may realize in us the full purpose of His
ministry. Let us not pray for Him, as if in any degree He had been
withdrawn, but as believing that He is as much with the Church of
to-day as on the day of Pentecost; as near us as when awe-struck eyes
beheld Him settling in flame on each meekly-bowed head.
The Lord said, "He shall remain with you to the end of the age." The
age is not closed, therefore He must be with us here and now. There
can be no waning of His grace or power. The pot of oil is in the
Church, only she has ceased to bring her empty vessels. The mine is
beneath our feet, but we do not work it as of yore. The electric
current is vibrating around, but we have lost the art of switching
ourselves on to its flow. It is not necessary then for us to pray the
Father that He should give the Holy Paraclete in the sense in which He
bestowed Him on the Day of Pentecost in answer to the request of our
Lord. That prayer has been answered: the Paraclete is here; but we
need to have the eyes of our heart opened to perceive, and the hand of
our faith strengthened that we may receive, Him.
The work of the Holy Spirit in and through us is conditioned by certain
great laws, which call for our definite and accurate obedience. Not on
emotion, nor on hysteric appeals, nor on excitement, but on obedience,
does the power of God's Spirit pass into human hearts and lives.
Therefore, let us walk in the Paracletism of the Paraclete, continually
in the current of His gracious influences, which will bear us on their
bosom ever nearer to our Lord. Oh to glorify Him; to know and love
Him; to become passionately eager that all hearts should enthrone Him
regardless of the personal cost it may involve! Glory be to the
Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the
beginning, is now, and shall be forevermore. Amen.
X
The Three Dispensations
"The Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth
Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with
you, and shall be in you."--JOHN xiv. 17.
They are lofty themes which we have been discussing in the foregoing
pages; and just because they touch the highest matters of the spiritual
life, they involve us in profound responsibility. It was because
Capernaum had been exalted to heaven in privilege, that she could be
cast down to hell. Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
Better not to have known these truths of the inner life, if we are
content to know them only by an intellectual apprehension, and make no
effort to incorporate them into the texture of our character. Few
things harden more certainly than to delight in the presentation of the
mysteries of the kingdom, without becoming the child of the kingdom.
The object, therefore, which now engages us is less one of elucidation
than of self-examination. Let us discern ourselves. Let us see
whether we be in the faith. Let us expose soul and spirit to the
discrimination of the Word of God, which is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart.
I. THERE ARE TWO AVENUES OF KNOWLEDGE.--"Whom the world cannot receive,
because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him." Three things are
specified as beyond the range of the world's power: it does not
receive, it does not know, it does not see, the things of the unseen
and eternal world. It cannot see them, therefore it does not know
them, and therefore does not receive them, and this is especially true
of its attitude toward the Holy Ghost.
When the world hears talk of the Holy Spirit it brings to bear upon Him
those organs of cognition which it has been accustomed to apply to the
objects of the natural world, and even to the human life of Christ.
But, as might have been expected, these are altogether useless. It is
as absurd to endeavor to detect the presence of the spiritual and
eternal by the faculties with which we discern what is seen and
temporal, as it would be to attempt to receive the impression of a
noble painting by the sense of taste, or to deal with the problems of
astronomy by the tests that are employed in chemical analysis. The
world, however, does not realize its mistake. It persists in applying
tests to the Spirit of God which may be well enough in other regions of
discovery, but which are worse than useless here. "The natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know
them, because they are spiritually discerned." "Whom the world cannot
receive, for it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him."
There was a touch of this worldly spirit even in Thomas, when he said,
"Except I see in His hand the print of the nails, and thrust my hand
into His side, I will not believe"; and in so far as the world-spirit
is permitted to hold sway within us, our powers of spiritual perception
will be blunted, and become infected with the tendency to make our
intellect or imagination our sole means of apprehending Divine truth.
There is a better way than this; and our Lord indicates it when He
says, "Ye know Him, for He abideth with you, and shall be in you."
Pascal said, "The world knows in order to love: the Christian loves, in
order to know." The same thought underlies these words of Christ. The
world attempts to see the Spirit, that it may know and receive Him; the
child of God receives Him by an act of faith that he may know Him.
An illustration of this habit is given in the story of Naaman. The
spirit of the world whispered to him of the desirability of _knowing_
that the waters of Israel possessed curative properties, before he
committed himself absolutely to the prophet's directions; and if he had
waited to know before bathing in them, he would have remained a
helpless leper to the end of his days. His servants, however, had a
clearer perception of the way of faith, and persuaded him to dip seven
times in the Jordan. He acted on the suggestion, dipped seven times,
and his flesh came as that of a little child. Similarly we are called
to act upon grounds which the world would hold to be inadequate. We
hear the testimony of another; we recognize a suitability in the
promise of the Scripture to meet the deep yearnings of our soul; we
feel that the words and works of Jesus Christ constitute a unique claim
for Him, and we open our hearts toward Him. In absolute humility and
perfect obedience we yield to Him our whole nature. Though the night
be yet dark, we fling wide our windows to the warm southwest wind
coming over the sea. The result is that we begin to know, with an
intuitive knowledge that cannot be shaken by the pronouncements of the
higher criticism. We have received the Spirit, and our after life is
too short to unfold all that is involved in that unspeakable gift. We
know Him because He abideth with us, and is in us. No man knoweth the
things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him; and we can
only know the Spirit of God when He has taken up His residence within
us, and witnesses with our spirit, as One who is interwoven with the
very texture of the inner life.
Consecration is therefore the key to this higher knowledge, and if any
who read this page are yearning after a discernment of the things of
God on which they may build the house of their faith amid the swirl of
the storm and the beat of the wave of modern doubt, let them open their
entire nature, humbly to receive, diligently to obey that Spirit whom
Christ waits to give to all who seek.
II. THE CHARACTERISTIC OF THIS DISPENSATION.--"He shall be _in_ you."
It has been repeatedly said that creation is the work of the Father,
redemption of the Son, and regeneration of the Holy Spirit. It may
also be said, that there are three dispensations: that of the Father,
in the earlier history of mankind; that of the Son, culminating in our
Lord's ascension; and that of the Holy Spirit, in which we are now
living. In the history of the world these were successive. In the
history of souls they may be the contemporaneous. In the same house
one member may be in the dispensation of the Father, another in that of
the Son, and a third in that of the Holy Ghost. It is highly
necessary, says the saintly Fletcher, that every good steward of the
mysteries of God should be well acquainted with this fact, otherwise he
will not rightly divide the word of life. There is peril lest we
should give the truth of one order of dispensation to those who are
living on another level of experience.
There is a remarkable illustration of this in the life of John the
Baptist, who clearly realized the distinction on which we are dwelling,
and used it with remarkable nicety, when approached by various classes
of character. When Gentile soldiers came to him, in Roman regimentals,
he merely bade them do violence to no man, and be content with their
wages. When Jews came he said, "Behold the Lamb of God!" To his eagle
eye a further dispensation was unveiled to which he alluded when he
said, "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire."
Similarly they to whom inquirers address themselves should diagnose
their spiritual standing, that they may lovingly and wisely administer
the truth suitable to their condition.
_The dispensation of the Father_ includes those who hope that He has
accepted and forgiven them, but have no clear perception of the atoning
work of Christ; are governed rather by fear than love; tremble beneath
the thunders of Sinai more often than they rejoice at the spectacle of
Calvary; are tossed to and fro between hope and despair; desire the
favor of God, but hesitate to speak confidently of having attained it.
Such are to be found in churches where the Gospel is veiled beneath
heavy curtains of misconception and formalism. In the same class we
might put men like Cornelius, who in every nation fear God and work
righteousness.
_The dispensation of the Son_ includes those who clearly perceive His
Divine nature, and rejoice in His finished propitiation; they know that
they are accepted in the Beloved; they receive His teachings about the
Father; they submit to the rule of life which He has laid down; but
they know comparatively little of the inner life, or of their oneness
with Christ in resurrection and ascension; they understand little of
what the apostle meant by speaking of Christ being formed in the soul;
and like the disciples at Ephesus they know but little of the mission
and in-filling of the Holy Spirit.
_The dispensation of the Holy Spirit_ includes those who have claimed
their share in Pentecost. In their hearts the Paraclete dwells in
sanctifying grace, on their heads He rests in mighty anointing. The
previous class resemble Ruth the gleaner; the latter, Ruth the bride.
The one dwells in Romans vii. and Hebrews iii.; the other in Romans
viii. and Hebrews iv. For those the water has to be drawn from the
well, in these it springs up to everlasting life. Oh to know the
"in-ness" of the Holy Ghost. Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you
by the Spirit, unless ye be reprobate!
III. THE SYMPTOMS OF THE INDWELLING.--We must distinguish here, as Dr.
Steele suggests, between what is variable, and what is constant.
_These vary_--(1) The joy of realization, which is sometimes
overpowering in its intensity, at other times like the ebbing tide.
(2) Agony for souls, which would be insupportable if it were permanent.
Christ only asks us to watch in Gethsemane for one hour.
(3) Access in prayer. Sometimes the vision is face to face; at others,
though we grasp as in Jacob's night-wrestle, we cannot behold. Like
Esther, we seem to wait in the ante-chamber. As the lark of which
Jeremy Taylor speaks, we rise against the east wind.
(4) The openings of Scripture. The Bible does not seem to be always
equally interesting. At times it is like the scented letter paper,
smelling of aloes and cassia, bearing the handwriting we love; at
others it resembles the reading book of the blind man, the characters
in which, by constant use, have become almost obliterated, so as hardly
to awake answering thought.
(5) The pressure of temptation. We sometimes think that we are getting
out of the zone of temptation. The pressure is so reduced that we
think we shall never suffer again as we have done. Then, all suddenly,
it bursts upon us, as the fury of the storm, when, after an hour's
cessation, it takes the mariner unawares.
All these symptoms are too variable to be relied upon for a diagnosis
of our spiritual condition, or an evidence of the dispensation to which
we belong.
_These are constant_--(1) The consciousness of being God's. This is to
be distinguished from the outgoing of our faith and love toward God.
At the beginning of our experience we hold Him, but as the Holy Spirit
dwells more fully we realize that we are held by Him. It is not our
love to God, but His love to us; not our faith, but His faithfulness;
not the sheep keeping near the Shepherd, but the Shepherd keeping the
sheep near to Himself. A happy sense steals over the heart, as over
the spouse, "I am my Beloved's, and His desire is toward me."
(2) The supremacy of Jesus in the heart. There is no longer a double
empire of self and Christ, as in the poor Indian who said to the
missionary, "I am two Indians, good and bad"; but there is the
undivided reign of Christ, who has put down all rule and authority and
power--as in the case of Martin Luther, who said, "If any one should
ask of my heart, who dwells here, I should reply, not Martin Luther,
but Christ."
(3) Peace, which looks out upon the future without alarm, because so
sure that Christ will do His very best in every day that lies hidden
beneath the haze of the future; which forbears to press its will too
vehemently, or proffer its request too eagerly, because so absolutely
certain that Jesus will secure the highest happiness possible,
consistently with His glory and our usefulness to men.
(4) Love. When the Spirit of God really dwells within, there is a
baptism of love which evinces itself not only in the household, and to
those naturally lovable, but goes out to all the world, and embraces in
its tenderness such as have no natural traits of beauty. Thus the soft
waters of the Southern Ocean lap against unsightly rocks and stretches
of bare shingle.
Where love reigns in the inner chamber of the soul, doors do not slam,
bells are not jerked violently, soft tones modulate the speech, gentle
steps tread the highways of the world, bent on the beautiful work of
the messengers of peace, and the very atmosphere of the life is warm
and sunny as an aureole. There is no doubt of the indwelling Spirit
where there is this outgoing love.
(5) Deliverance from the love and power of sin, so that it becomes
growingly distasteful, and the soul turns with loathing from the
carrion on which it once fed contentedly. This begets a sense of
purity, robed in which the soul claims kinship to the white-robed
saints of the presence-chamber, and reaches out toward the blessedness
of the pure in heart who see God. There is still a positive rain of
smut and filth in the world around; there is a recognition of the evil
tendencies of the self-life, which will assert themselves unless
graciously restrained; but triumphing above all is the purity of the
indwelling Lord, who Himself becomes in us the quality for which holy
souls eagerly long.
XI
Three Paradoxes
"I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you."
"The world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me."
"Because I live, ye shall live also."--JOHN xiv. 18, 19.
The Bible and Christian life are full of paradoxes. Paul loved to
enumerate them; they abound also in the discourses of our Lord. Here
are three.
The Master had declared His purpose of leaving His apostles and friends
and returning to His Father: but in the same breath He says, "I will
not leave you desolate; I come to you."
Again, He had forewarned them that He would be hidden from them; yet
now He tells them that they would still behold Him.
Further, with growing emphasis and clearness, He had unfolded His
approaching death by the cruel Roman method of the cross; yet He claims
the timeless life of an ever-present tense and insists that their life
will depend on His.
Absent, yet present; hidden, yet visible; dying, yet living and
life-giving--such are the paradoxes of this paragraph in His marvellous
farewell discourse; and they reveal three facts of which we may live in
perpetual cognizance.
I. WE MAY ENJOY THE PERPETUAL RECOGNITION OF THE ADVENT OF CHRIST.--"I
will not leave you orphans, or desolate, I come unto you" (R. V.).
Note the majesty of those last words; they are worthy of Deity; He
speaks as though He were always drawing nigh those He loves: "I come
unto you."
_Christ is always present, yet He comes._--The Creator had been always
immanent in His universe, but He came in each creative act; the
Lawgiver had been ever-present in the Church in the wilderness, but He
came down on Sinai, and His glory lit up the peaks of sandstone rock;
the Deliverer was never for a moment absent from the side of the
Shepherd-King, but in answer to His cry for help He came down riding
upon a cherub, flying on the wings Of wind; the Holy Spirit had been in
the world from the earliest days of prayer and inspired speech, but He
came down from the throne to sit on each bowed head in lambent flame.
So Christ is with us all the days, yet He comes. He will come at last
to receive His own to Himself, and to judge the world; but He comes in
dark and lonely hours that we may not be desolate.
"For warm, sweet, tender, even yet
A present help is He;
And faith has yet its Olivet
And love its Galilee.
The heeling of His seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain;
We touch Him in life's throng and press,
And we are whole again."
_He comes when we need Him most._--When the storm is high, and the
water is pouring into the boat; when the house is empty because the
life that made it home has fled; when Jericho has to be attacked on the
morrow, and the Jordan crossed; when lover and friend stand aloof; when
light is fading before dimming eyes, and names and faces elude the
grasp of the aged mind; when the last coal is turning to grey ash; when
the rush of the river is heard in the valley below--Jesus says, I come.
It is in the hour of desolation, when Lazarus has been in the grave
four days already, that the glad tidings are whispered in the ear of
the mourner, "The Master is come." "I will not leave you orphans," He
said, "I come unto you." Oh, blessed orphanhood, it were well to be
bereaved, to have such comforting!
_He pays surprise visits._--He does not always wait to be invited; but
sometimes, when we lie sleeping with wakeful hearts, we hear His gentle
voice calling to us, "Arise, My love, and come away." Then as we lift
the door-latch, our hand drops with the sweet-smelling myrrh which
betrays His presence. How often when we have been losing ground,
getting lukewarm and worldly, we have suddenly been made aware of His
reviving presence, and He has said, I come. He comes, as the
wood-anemones and snowdrops (the most fragile and tender flowerets of
spring) penetrate the hard ground to announce that the winter is over
and gone, and that the time of the singing of birds is come.
_It is well to put ourselves in His way._--There are certain beaten
tracks well-worn by His feet, and if we would meet Him we must frequent
their neighborhood. Olivet, where He used to pray; Calvary, where He
died; Joseph's garden, where He rose, are dear to Him yet. When we
pray or meditate; when we commemorate His dying love at the memorial
feast; when we realize our union with Him in death and resurrection;
when we open our hearts to the breathing of the Holy Spirit--we put
ourselves in His way, and are more likely to encounter Him when He
comes. "To them that look for Him shall He appear." "Behold the
Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him"--but take the path by which
He is sure to travel. Be in the upper room, with the rest of the
disciples, so that you may not, like Thomas, miss Him when He comes.
_His footsteps are noiseless._--It is said of old, "Thy footsteps are
not known," therefore we need not be surprised if He steal in upon us
as a thief in the night, or as spring over the wolds. There is no
blare of trumpet or voice of herald; we cannot say, Lo here, or Lo
there; when the King comes there is no outward show; "He does not
strive, nor cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the
street."
"He entered not by the eyes," says St. Bernard, "for His presence was
not marked by color; nor by the ears, for there was no sound; nor by
the touch, for He was impalpable. How then did I know that He was
present? Because He was a quickening power. As soon as He entered He
awoke my slumbering soul. He moved and pierced my heart, which before
was stony, hard, and sick. He began also to pluck up and destroy, to
build and plant, to freshen the inner drought, to enlighten the
darkness, to open the prison-house, to make the crooked straight and
the rough smooth; so that my heart could bless the Lord with all that
was within me."
Oh, lonely, desolate soul, open thy door to Him; wait not on the alert
to detect His entrance, only believe that He is there; and presently,
and before ever thou art aware, thou wilt find a new fragrance
distilling through the heart-chamber, a new power throbbing in thy
pulse.
II. WE MAY ENJOY THE PERPETUAL RECOGNITION OF THE PRESENCE OF
CHRIST.--"The world beholdeth Me no more, but ye behold Me." Nothing
makes men so humble and yet so strong as the vision of Christ.
_It induces humility._--When Isaiah beheld His glory more resplendent
than the sheen of the sapphire throne, he cried that he was undone;
when Peter caught the first flash of His miraculous power gleaming
across the waves of Galilee, just when the fish were struggling in the
full net, he besought Him to depart, because he felt himself a sinful
man; and when John saw Him on the Isle of Patmos, he fell at His feet
as dead, though, surely, if any of the apostles could have faced Him
unabashed, it had been he.
This is specially noticeable in the Book of Job. Few books are so
misunderstood. It is supposed to contain the description of the
victory of Job's patience; in reality it delineates its testing and
failure. It shows how he who was perfect, according to the measure of
his light, broke down in the fiery ordeal to which he was exposed; and
finally was forced to cry, "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the
ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore I abhor myself and repent,
in dust and ashes."
Wouldst thou be humble, wouldst thou know thyself a worm and no man,
wouldst thou see that thou art verily undone, defiled, and helpless?
Then ask the blessed Spirit to reveal Jesus in all His matchless beauty
and holiness, eliciting the confession that thou are the least of
saints and the chief of sinners. This is no forced estimate, when we
take into account the opportunities we have missed, the gifts we have
misused, the time we have wasted, the light which we have resisted, the
love which we have requited with neglect.
_It produces strength._--See that man of God prone on the floor of his
chamber, shedding bitter tears of godly sorrow, not forgiving himself,
albeit that he knows himself forgiven; bowing his head as a bulrush,
crying that he is helpless, broken, and at the end of himself--Will he
be able to stand as a rock against the beat of temptation, and the
assault of the foe? Yes, verily, for the same presence which is a
source of humility in private, will inspire to great deeds of faith and
heroism when he is called to stand in the breach or lead the assault.
It is this vision of the present Lord that, in every age of the Church,
has made sufferers strong. "The Lord is on my right hand, I shall not
be moved," said one. "The Lord stood by me, and strengthened me," said
another. In many a dark day of suffering and persecution; in the
catacombs; in the dens and caves where Waldenses hid; on the hillsides
where the Covenanters met to pray; in the beleaguered cities of the
Netherlands; in prison and at the stake--God's saints have looked to
Him, and been lightened, and their faces have not been ashamed.
"Behold," said the first martyr, "I see the heavens opened, and the Son
of Man standing on the right hand of God."
Oh for more of the open vision of Jesus, ministered to us by the
gracious Spirit! Would that His words were oftener verified in our
experience: "Ye behold Me!" He is always with us; and if only our
eyes were not holden, we should behold Him with the quick perception of
the heart. Indeed, the race can only be rightly run by those who have
learned the blessed secret of looking off unto Him. "We see Jesus."
It is a most salutary habit to say often, when one is alone, "Thou art
near, O Lord." "Behold, the Lord is in this place." We may not at
first realize the truth of what we are saying. His presence may be
veiled, as the forms of mountains swathed in morning cloud. But as we
persist in our quest, putting away from us all that would grieve Him,
and cultivating the attitude of pure devotion, we shall become aware of
a Divine presence which shall be more to us than a voice speaking from
out the Infinite.
III. WE MAY ENJOY THE PERPETUAL RECOGNITION OF THE LIVING
CHRIST.--"Because I live, ye shall live also." There are many
life-verses in this Gospel which shine like stars in the firmament of
Scripture. Amongst them, in the first chapter, that, in the Word as
manifested to men, was _life_; and in the fifth chapter, that, "as the
Father had life in Himself He gave to the Son to have life also in
Himself." The Father is the fountain of life. Eternal life is ever
rising up in His infinite Being with perennial vigor; and all things
living, from the tiny humming-birds in the tropical forest to the
strongest archangel beside the sapphire throne, derive their being from
Him. Thus we have seen ferns around a fountain, nourishing their
fronds on its spray. All things owe their existence and continued
being to the unmeasured life, which has been from all eternity
treasured up in God, and is ever flowing out from God.
This life was Christ's, in the mystery of the eternal Trinity, before
the worlds were made; but it was necessary that He should receive it
into His human nature, so as to become the reservoir and storehouse
from which all who were one with Him might receive grace on grace. "I
am come," He said, "that they might have life, and that they might have
it more abundantly." This life dwelt in Him during His earthly
ministry, though comparatively few availed themselves of it; His death
set it abroach for all the world; the smitten rock yielded streams of
living water; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit; from His
throne He proclaimed Himself as He that liveth, though He became dead,
and is alive forevermore.
_We live by His life._--Our life is as dependent upon Him as a babe's
on its mother. Could ought happen to Him, we should instantly feel the
effect. Long before He succumbed, we must. We have no independent,
self-derived, or self-sustained life. Apart from Him we wither.
_We live in His life._--The tiny streamlet of our being has joined His,
is merged in it, and flows on together with it, to the great ocean of
eternity. To us to live is Christ, both here and hereafter. Our aims
and purposes are merged in His; we are enriched in all that enriches
Him; gladdened by all that promotes His happiness and glory; made more
than conquerors through our oneness with Him, in the victory that has
overcome the world.
_We live because He lives in us._--At the moment of regeneration He
came to indwell. He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath life
hath the Son. It has pleased God to reveal His Son in us. We have
found Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, and we
have found Him in our hearts. Where dwellest Thou? we asked Him; and
He replied, Come and see; and He manifested Himself as having become to
us the inward principle of an endless life. Christ dwells deep in our
heart, and we are beginning to comprehend the immensity of the Divine
love of which He is the exponent.
Let us draw on this life more confidently, availing ourselves of it
perpetually in all our time of need--in all time of our sickness and of
our wealth, in adversity and prosperity, in the hour of mortal anguish
and the day of judgment; and finding what we could not do or bear or
encounter, Jesus can do and bear and meet in and through us, to the
Father's eternal glory.
"Lord Jesus Christ, grow Thou in me,
And all things else recede."
XII
Many Mansions for God
"If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him;
and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."--JOHN xiv. 23.
The Immanence of God! That God should be willing to make His home
_with_ man is much; but that He should be willing to come in--to
indwell, occupy, and possess our nature--this is incomprehensible to
the intellect, though it may be received and rejoiced in by the heart.
This is no subject for light and thoughtless speech. We touch on the
profoundest mysteries of the Being of the Infinite, and the capacity of
human nature. Be reverent, O my soul, in the consideration of such a
theme, and take the shoes from off thy feet, for the Bush burns with
fire!
It was owing to the question of Jude, that the universal application of
our Master's words is so clear. A day or two before, our Lord had
entered Jerusalem amid the enthusiasm of the crowds, and the disciples
fondly thought the long-expected time had arrived when He would
manifest Himself to the world as the Messiah. "This is the beginning
of the Messianic reign," said each apostle in his secret heart, as the
great procession passed over the shoulder of Olivet; and each began to
wonder what special post would be allotted to him in the new empire
that seemed so close at hand. These nascent hopes, however, had been
rudely dissipated by our Lord's declaration that the world was to see
Him no more, accompanied by the promise, "But ye see Me."
The apostles therefore were inclined to think that in some special form
the manifestations of His grace and glory would be confined to them.
Hence Jude's question, "What is come to pass, Master, that Thou wilt
manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the world?" Jesus answered in
effect, "Think not that thou and thy fellows are to have the exclusive
right of beholding and communing with Me. What I offer to you is open
to all who believe, love, and obey. The gate which I throw open shall
stand wide for all who choose to enter. The veil shall be rent, that
any who fulfill the spiritual conditions may see the light, and hear
the voice, and stand in the inner court. If a _man_ love Me . . ."
Note those emphatic words, "a man,"--any man; thou and I.
I. THE DIVINE IMMANENCE.--"We will make our abode." The word "abode"
is here a translation of the Greek word which is rendered "mansions" in
a former part of this chapter. "We will make our _mansion_ with Him."
God is willing to become the mansion of the soul that believes in
Christ, but asks in return that such a one should prepare a
guest-chamber, and become a mansion in which He may dwell. As He
steals with noiseless tread into the loving, believing heart, I hear
Him say, "This is My rest forever; here will I dwell, for I have
desired it."
(1) _It is the Immanence of the Father._--Consider who this is of whom
the Saviour speaks. The infinite God! Time with all its ages is but
the flash of a moment in His eternity! Space, "beyond the soar of
angel wings," is but a corner in His dwelling-place; matter, with its
ponderous mass, but the light dust that will not affect the level of
the scale! The mighty sun, which is the centre of all worlds, but a
mote floating in the beam of His being! All the gathered wisdom of
man, stored in the libraries of the world, but as a glow-worm's spark
compared with the meridian light of His wisdom! O souls of men,
consider how marvellous that such a One, whom the heavens cannot
contain, who overflows their limits, asking for room that He may dwell,
will yet become the resident of our nature!
_Its motive is Love._--"The Father will love him." This is wonderful!
The more so as we are told that His love toward us is identical with
that which He has toward our Lord. Speaking of those who shall believe
through His apostles' words, Jesus said, "That the world may know that
Thou lovest them even as Thou lovest Me." That God should condescend
to think about our planet, which is as a leaf in the forest of being!
That He should deign to regard mankind, who, in size at least, are less
than a colony of ants that may have built their home at the foot of the
Himalaya! That He should pity our race! This were much. But that He
should _love_ the world, that He should _love_ individuals belonging to
our race, that He should love them with the love He has toward the
Only-begotten--we could not have believed this unless we had been
assured by the lips of infallible Truth. But the supreme revelation
which towers above the rest, like some great banyan tree amid the
slender growth of the Indian forest, is that the Creator should indwell
and find a mansion in the heart of His creatures.
_It is dual, yet one._--"We will come." We! Then, is there more than
One? Who is this who dares class Himself with the supreme God within
the limits of a common pronoun, that challenges the love and trust and
obedience of man, that poses as King? The meekest and humblest of men.
The One who, above all others of the human family, seemed to have least
to disturb or darken the incidence of the rays of truth upon His soul;
who has cast a light on all the dark problems of human life, and could
not possibly have been deceived in respect to His own nature. His
conceptions of the holiness, greatness, and purity of God have stood
out in unrivalled magnificence from all others whatsoever; yet it is He
who couples in one small word His humanity with Deity, His meekness
with the Infinite Majesty, His personality with God's. Is not this
proof enough that He was conscious of His Divine nature? Is not the
fact of His not counting it robbery to be equal with God evidence that
He was God? What can they make of this _We_, who hold that He was only
a good man and a great teacher? Good men are humble men, great
teachers know best their own limitations!
It is in, and with, and through the Son, and by the Spirit, that the
Father comes to indwell.
(2) _It is the Immanence of the Son. To be loved by Him were
much!_--"I will love Him." His love is of the rarest quality. Most
free of the soil of selfishness, of any human love. True and tender,
strong and sweet, inexorable in its demands upon Himself, inexhaustible
in its outflow toward the objects of His affectionate regard. Such
love as He gave to John, who grew like Him beneath the magic power of
that environment; as He gave to Mary, who perhaps most deeply
understood Him; as He gave to Peter, winning him back from his
waywardness--brings with it a heaven of bliss, for which a man may well
be prepared to count all things but loss. But there is a bliss beyond
all this. The Lover of men would indwell them.
_It were much that He should seek our love._--"He that loveth Me." We
might have supposed that He would have been satisfied with the vastness
of His dominion, and the myriad bright spirits that wait on His word!
But no, the thirst for love cannot be satisfied with gold, or bright
angelic servants. As Isaac could not find a companion among those who
tended the cattle that browsed over the wolds of Canaan, or the troops
of slaves that gathered round his father's tents, but Eliezer must
bring a bride from across the desert; so the Son of God must needs come
as a suitor to our world to find His Bride, who can share His inner
thoughts and purposes. Here is a marvel indeed. As the village
becomes famous which provides the emperor's bride, so earth, though it
be least among her sister-spheres, shall have the proud preëminence of
having furnished from her population the Spouse of the Lamb. But,
great as this marvel is, it is followed by the greater, that the
Immortal Lover is willing to tenant the poor hearts, whose love at the
best is so faint and cold.
_It were much that He should give us manifestations of His love._--"I
will manifest Myself unto him." Have you not sometimes taken up a
daisy, and looked into its little upturned eye, and thought and thought
again, till through the gate of the flower you have passed into an
infinite world of life, beauty, and mystery? There are moments when
even a flower is transfigured before us, and manifests itself to us as
a thought of God, a ray of His glory, the frail product of His infinite
mind, the wick around which trembles the fire of the Shekinah! Have
you not sometimes stood alone amid mountains, glaciers, wooded valleys,
and rushing streamlets, till nature has dropped her veil, and revealed
herself in a phase of beauty and a depth of meaning which struck you as
altogether unique and singular? So there are moments in the life of
the believer, when Christ, who is ever with us, manifests Himself as He
does not to the world. There is borne in upon the spirit a
consciousness that He is near; there is a waft of His breath, a savor
of His fragrant dress, fresh from the ivory palaces.
All this is much: but how much more to be told that this glorious
Christ, the Fellow of Jehovah, who with the Father and the Spirit is
God; the Organ of creation; the Mouthpiece of the Godhead; the Mediator
of Redemption; the Monarch of all worlds; the Supreme Teacher, Guide,
and Saviour of men--is prepared to repeat the experiences of Bethlehem,
and make His abode in man! "_We_ will come unto Him, and make our
abode with Him."
(3) _Learn to revere the work of God in the souls of others._--"For thy
meat," said the apostle, "destroy not the soul for whom Christ died."
He might have added, "and in whom Christ lives." Weak and erring,
trying and vexatious, that fellow-believer may be, yet there is a
chamber in his nature in which God has already taken up His abode. The
conflict between the light and darkness, the Christ-spirit and the
self-spirit, may be long and arduous, but the issue is certain. Help,
but do not hinder the process. Be reverent, careful, mindful of the
presence of God.
_Be hopeful for thyself._--When an art-student asked Mr. Ruskin whether
he would ever be able to paint like Turner, the great critic replied,
"It is more likely that you will become Emperor of all the Russias!"
But God never daunts a soul with such discouragement. He first sets
before it a great ideal--the faith of Abraham, the meekness of Moses,
the prayer of an Elijah, the love of a John--and then, as the source of
all perfection, enters the soul, to be in it all that He has taught it
to desire.
_Count on the indwelling of His power._--The merchant of to-day has
facilities granted to no previous age. The cablegram, telegram, and
telephone put him in communication with the markets of the world: steam
and electricity are his willing slaves in manufacture: machinery with
its unwearying iron fingers toils for him. A single human brain, which
knows how to avail itself of these resources, can multiply its
conceptions indefinitely. How vast the space between the untutored
savage, doing everything with his hands, and the merchant prince, who
has but to press the ivory-plated pushes fixed upon the walls of his
room! But not less is the difference between the work we can
accomplish by our natural resources, and that which we achieve when we
recognize that what is impossible to us is possible to Him who has come
in to abide. I cannot; but God is within me, and He can.
II. THE CONDITIONS OF THE DIVINE IMMANENCE.--(1) Love to Christ.--"He
that loveth Me shall. . . ." We would love Him, but how? Do not think
of your love, but of His. "Love is of God." Open the shutters of your
being toward the love of God; we love because He first loves. Love is
the reflection from us of what we have first received from God.
Love is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the
Spirit is Love. Seek the in-filling and in-working of the Spirit; be
careful to obey His promptings to love; avoid grieving Him by
bitterness, wrath, or evil speaking; sit as His willing pupil in the
school of love; cast on Him the responsibility of securing in your
nature obedience to the primal law which is fulfilled in the one word,
"Thou shalt love."
Beneath the nurturing grace of the Spirit, we shall be led to meditate
much on the love of Jesus to us, especially as manifested in the death
of the cross; and as we muse, the fire will burn, love will glow, and
afford the condition of soul which is infinitely attractive to the
Divine Lover, who requires our love, and produces the love which He
requires.
(2) Obedience to Christ.--Where there is true love, there will be
obedience. This rather than emotion. Many a sincere soul who
questions its love, because its emotions are low or fluctuating, would
rather die than disobey the least jot or tittle of His commandments.
Such a one loves. "He that hath My commandments" (treasured in memory
and heart), "he it is that loveth Me." Why do ye call Him, Lord, Lord,
and do not the things that He says? There may be the luscious language
of the lip, but it does not deceive Him. He looks under the leaves for
fruit.
Disobedience robs the soul of the sweet sense of Christ's indwelling.
Nothing can compensate for failure to obey. Whatever the
protestations, there is no real love to Christ where His commands are
knowingly disregarded and set at nought. But each time we dare to step
out in simple obedience to His will, it seems as though the inner light
shines deeper down into the hidden places of our being, and the
residence of Christ extends to new chambers of the heart.
XIII
Christ's Legacy and Gift of Peace
"Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world
giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it
be afraid."--JOHN xiv. 27.
It seems a little anomalous to talk of peace at a time when the
war-clouds are being swiftly blown up from the horizon, the sea
roaring, and men's hearts failing them for fear: and yet, in the
deepest aspects, this is of all times the most suitable. It is when
the storm rattles on the window-panes that the family draws closer
round the fire, and the mother clasps her babe to her breast.
The word Peace is the Eastern salutation and benediction. When one
stranger encounters another, as they meet and part, they wish each
other peace. It was befitting, therefore, that at Christ's entrance
into our world, the first salutation to men, as conveyed by the angels,
should be, "Peace on earth"; and that His parting words should be,
"Peace be unto you." But with what a wealth of meaning does the Lord
invest familiar words when they issue from His lips! Let us draw nigh,
and allow His sweet and soothing consolations to have their full effect.
I. LET US DISTINGUISH BETWEEN "PEACE" AND "MY PEACE."--"Peace I leave
with you, My peace I give unto you." There is a distinction between
these two. The former refers to the result of His work for us on the
cross: "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ"; the latter refers to _His_ indwelling, who is our
Peace. The one He has bequeathed as a legacy to all men: the testator
died, and left in His will a perfect reconciliation between God and
man, which is for all who are willing to avail themselves of it; the
other is a _gift_, which must be appropriated and used, or it will be
ineffectual.
_The order of these two varieties of peace is invariable._--We must
have peace _with_ God before we can enjoy the peace _of_ God. We must
receive the atonement, with all its blessed comfort, before we can
enter upon our heritage in Christ Jesus. A believer, whose feet were
dipping in the chill waters of the river, said to me recently, when
speaking of her enjoyment of some of the deeper aspects of Christian
experience, "I am afraid I have been building from the top. I see now,
as I come near eternity, that one's foundations must be strong and sure
before one can build on them. I need now more than ever the blood of
Christ." This, perhaps, is one of the perils of the present day. The
Church is arraying herself in her beautiful garments. The gold pieces
of Christian thought and life are becoming current coin, taken from the
coffers, where they have too long lain, and distributed broadcast.
Treatises and tractlets on the innermost aspects of the blessed life
are plentiful as flowers in May. There is a danger, therefore, of
young converts and others occupying themselves with such themes, and
not paying sufficient attention to the Divine order.
Christ dying _for_ us on the cross must precede Christ living _in_ us
by His Spirit; justification with its evidences must be well
apprehended before sanctification with its fruits; the peace _with_ God
must shed its benediction over the soul before it can enter upon the
peace _of_ God. Ah soul! thou hast experienced the former; dost thou
know the latter? Dost thou know what it is for Christ to enter into
the closed doors of the inner chamber of the heart, and say, "Peace be
unto thee"? what it is to hear His voice speaking above the tumult of
the inland lake of thy soul, and making a great calm? what it is for
Him to deal with the springs of the inner life, which lie deeper than
emotion or fancy, and pour in His infinite serenity, so that the
outflow may be pellucid and tranquil?
Christ lays stress on _His_ peace. He must mean the very peace that
filled His own heart; not something like it, but the same, always
keeping the heart with the affections, and the mind with its thoughts.
This being so, we infer--
_That His peace is consistent with a perfect knowledge of coming
sorrow._--He knew all things that awaited Him (John xviii. 4): the
treachery of Judas, the denial by Peter, the forsaking by all, the
shame and spitting, the cross and grave; and yet He spoke serenely of
His peace. It is therefore consistent with the certain outlook toward
darkness and the shadow of death. You may know from certain symptoms
that cancer has struck its fangs into your flesh, and that paralysis
has begun to creep along your spine, that your dearest is barked by the
Woodsman for felling, that your means of subsistence will inevitably
dry up; but, facing all these, as Jesus faced the cross, you may still
be conscious of a peace that passeth understanding.
_That it is consistent with energetic action._--Men are disposed to
think that peace is one of the last fruits of the tree of life, which
drops into the hand of the aged. A man says to himself, I shall have
to relinquish this active life, to settle in some quiet country home in
the midst of nature, and then perhaps I shall know what peace means. A
snug home and a competence, the culture of flowers, the slow march of
the seasons, tender home-love, far away from the hustling throng of the
world--these are the conditions of peace. Not so, says Christ: "Arise,
let us go hence." Let us leave this quiet harbor, and launch out into
the stormy deep. Let us leave this still chamber, around the windows
of which the vines cling, and go forth into the garden where the cedars
fight with the tempest, and amidst it all we shall find it possible to
enjoy the peace that passeth knowledge. Let men and women immersed in
the throng of daily toil, young men, busy men, understand that Christ's
peace is for those who hear the bugle note of duty summoning them to
arise, and go hence.
_That the chief evidence of this peace is in the leisureliness of the
heart._--Christ's possession of peace was very evident through all the
stormy scenes that followed. With perfect composure He could heal the
ear of Malchus, and stay the impetuosity of Peter; could reason quietly
with the slave that smote Him, and bid the daughters of Jerusalem not
to weep; could open paradise to the dying thief, and the door of John's
home to the reception of His mother. Few things betray the presence of
His peace more than the absence of irritability, fretfulness, and
feverish haste, which expend the tissues of life.
Oh that you may now receive from Christ this blessed gift! Let the
peace of Christ rule in your heart; it is your high privilege, be not
backward in availing yourself of it. It will be as oil to the
machinery of life.
II. THE SOURCES OF CHRIST'S PEACE.--(1) _The vision of the
Father._--"If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice because I said, I go unto
the Father."
Throughout these closing chapters He seems able to speak of nothing
else. His mind ranges from the disciples whom He was leaving to the
Father to whom He was going. Almost unconsciously He gives us a
glimpse of His self-repression in staying so long away from His
Father's manifested presence, when He says that if we loved Him we
would be glad to lose His bodily presence because He had gone to be
with the Father. He gives us to understand how real and near the
Father was to Him, and how He longed to be again in His bosom! He was
so occupied with this thought, that He reckoned little of what lay
between. Hail! ye stormy waters of death, stormy winds, and boisterous
waves, ye do but waft my soul nearer its haven in the Father's love!
It is the thought of the Father that gives peace, because it robs life
of its terrors and death of its sting. Why fear what life may bring
when the Father has arranged each successive step of its pathway! Why
dread Judas or Caiaphas, Herod or Pilate since the Father lies between
the soul and them as a rampart of rock! Why lose heart amid the
perplexities and discouragements, whose dark shadows lie heavily on the
hills, when in the green pastures of the valley the Father's love tends
the sheep! Ask Christ to reveal the Father to you. Live in His
everlasting love, and learn what He can be amid the storm and tumult as
a very present help.
(2) _Disentanglement from the world._--"The prince of this world
cometh, and hath nothing in Me." He came first at the beginning of the
Saviour's life, with temptations to his ambitions; he came again at its
close, with temptations to that natural shrinking from pain which is
characteristic of a highly organized nature. "Back, Son of Man! Thou
canst not bear the cross and spear, the nail and thorn! Thy tender
flesh will ill sustain Thee when the sorrows of death and the pains of
hell get hold upon Thee!" So Satan came; but there was no response in
the heart of Christ, no answering voice from the depths of His soul, no
traitor within to join hands with the tempter without. There was no
square inch of territory in all Christ's nature which the devil could
claim, or from which he could operate.
This is a clue to Christ's peace, which we do well to follow till it
lead us out into the open. As long as we are entangled with this
world, peace evades us, just as sleep, which comes easily to the
laboring man who has nothing beyond his daily wage, vanishes from the
pillow of the merchant, who on stormy nights thinks uneasily of the
vessels which carry his wealth far out at sea. We must stand clear of
the ambitions of the world, of the fear or favor of man, of the
avaricious craving for wealth, or the fear of poverty. We must put the
cross of Christ between us and the world, which was judged at Calvary.
We must be able to say truly that our treasure is in heaven and our
heart also, and that we seek the things where Christ sitteth at the
right hand of God. Then the stock-market may fluctuate, riches go or
come, men praise or hate, nought will affect our peace, any more than
the tumults of a continental city, in which we are spending a night in
transit, can cause us serious disturbance.
(3) _Supreme love._--"I love the Father." I have so often noticed how
a supreme love in a young girl's life seems to calm and quiet her,
because it draws the whole of her nature in one strong flow toward the
man of her choice. Before that, there was a waywardness, a
vacillation, a nervous excitement, which passed away as soon as love
dawned upon her soul. So long as the heart is subject to every
influence, it quivers and wavers as the magnet needle when swept by
streams of electricity. A strong uniting love does for us what the
strong attraction of the pole does for the needle. Christ loved the
Father. There was no difficulty in bearing what He sent, or doing what
He bade. There were no rival claimants, no questionings or debate
within the palace of His heart. Every passion and emotion of His human
nature was quieted and stilled in the set of His whole being toward the
Father. If you too would have peace, you must love; you must love
supremely Him who alone is worthy, who can never disappoint or fail.
And in proportion as you love God, you will find pleasure in all
beautiful things, in all lovely persons, in all the fair gifts of
nature and life. Oh, love the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within
me, love His holy name!
(4) _A supreme source of authority._--"As the Father gave Me
commandment, even so I do." Every soul must have a supreme source of
authority in its life, if it is to have peace. Its own whim, the
suggestion of passion, the vagrant impulse of the moment, are
inconsistent with tranquillity. There must be for each of us one voice
which is imperative, one command which is indisputable, one authority
which admits of no gainsaying. If you will search your heart you will
see that this is so. Compare the restlessness of the Book of Judges
with the tranquillity of the reign of Solomon, and you will have an apt
illustration of your own experience before consecration put Christ on
His throne, and afterward. When the true Melchizedek established his
reign within you, at once your heart became Salem, the city of peace.
When you put the government upon His shoulder, He set up His reign
within you as the Prince of Peace. Happy for you, if to the increase
of His government there is no end; for of the increase of your peace
there will be no end either.
Combine these four--the sense of God's presence and providence in the
details of life; detachment from the world; a supreme love to God; the
recognition in everything that you are His slave--and you will comply
with the conditions of participating in the peace of Christ which He
offers. Some persons have a marvellous faculty of imparting their own
tranquillity in an accident, a storm, an illness; their aspect, tones,
manner, are like the repose of a summer's evening after a sultry day:
so shall Christ be to you, and you to others.
III. CHRIST'S GIVING CONTRASTED WITH THE WORLD'S.--"Not as the world
giveth, give I unto you."
The world wishes peace, but lightly speaks the word; frequently wishing
it when there is least warrant for it; wishing it without doing
anything to produce it; wishing it whilst glorying over a wrong,
healing slightly a wound, covering with the turf the crater of a
volcano. Christ, on the other hand, lays the foundations of peace in
suitable conditions of a holy and healthy life.
With the world, peace is a passing emotion; with Christ, a settled
principle of action--the perfect balance and equilibrium of the soul,
out of which comes all that is fair, strong, wholesome.
The world's peace consists in the absence of untoward circumstances;
Christ's is altogether independent of circumstances, and consists in
the state of the heart. It matters nothing to Him that in the world we
have tribulation. He bids us be of good cheer, because in Him we shall
have peace. The wildest conjunction of outward things cannot break the
perfect peace which nestles to His heart, as Noah's dove to the hand
which plucked it in from the weltering waters.
"Let not your heart be troubled," the Master says again. You may be
troubled on every side, but be not troubled. Do not let the trouble
come inside. Watch carefully against its intrusion, as you would
against that of any other form of temptation. Let My peace, like a
sentinel, keep you; and as you look forward to the unknown future, out
of which spectral figures emerge, do not be afraid. There is a part
for you to do, as well as for Me. I can give you My peace, but you
must avoid any and everything that will militate against its possession
and growth.
XIV
The Story of the Vine
"I am the true Vine, and My Father is the Husbandman."--JOHN xv. I.
We have now a story to tell which, in the eye of heaven, will make our
world forever memorable and wonderful among her sister spheres. It is
the story of the Vine, and how it was the Divine purpose our earth
should be its fruitful soil, and our race intimately associated with
its growth and history.
"I am the _true_ Vine," said our Lord. Not improbably, as He was
passing forth with His disciples into the moonlit air, He perceived a
vine clustering around the window or door; and with an eye ever awake
to each touch of natural beauty, and a heart always alert for spiritual
lessons, He turned to them and said, What that vine is in the world of
nature I am in relation to all true and faithful souls. I am the
_true_ Vine--true, not as opposed to false, but true in the sense of
real, substantial, and enduring. The essential, as distinguished from
the circumstantial; the eternal, as distinct from the temporary and
transient.
Nature is a parable of God. In each of her forms we have a revelation
of God. Not so complete as that given through the mind of prophets, or
the life of Jesus Christ, but still a revelation of the Divine. Each
natural object, as it stood in Eden's untainted beauty, displayed some
aspect of Him, whom no man can see and live. The apple-tree among the
trees of the wood; the rose of Sharon: the lily of the vale; the cedar,
with its dark green foliage; the rock for strength; the sea for
multitudinousness; the heaven with its limpid blue, like the Divine
compassion, overarching all--these are some of the forthshadowings in
the natural world of spiritual qualities in the nature of God. The
vine was made the clinging, helpless plant it is, that it might forever
remind men of certain deep characteristics of the Divine nature.
I. THE VINE AND ITS BRANCHES.--_The unity of the vine_. The vine and
its branches constitute one plant. Some branches may be trailed along
the trellis-work outside the cottage door, others conducted through
hothouse after hothouse; yet one life, one stream of sap, one essential
quality and character pervades them all, from the dark root, buried in
the soil, to the furthest twig or leaf. Yonder branch, waving its
fronds high up against the hothouse glass, cannot say to that long
leafless branch hidden beneath the shelf, You do not belong to me, nor
I to you. No twig is independent of another twig. However different
the functions, root and branches, leaves and cluster, all together make
one composite but organic whole. So is it with Christ. All who are
one with Him are one with each other. The branches that were nearest
the root in the days of Pentecost are incomplete without the last
converts that shall be added in the old age of the world. Those
without these will not be made perfect.
This is the underlying truth of the holy Catholic Church. Men have
tried to show that it must be an outward and visible organization,
consisting of those who had received, through a long line of
apostolical succession, some mystic power for administering rites and
conferring absolution, together with those who came beneath the touch
of their priestly hands. That theory has notoriously broken down. But
the truth of which it is a grotesque travesty is presented in our
Lord's conception of the vine, deeply planted in the dark grave of
Joseph's garden, which had reached down its branches through the ages,
and in which every believing soul has a part. Touch Christ, become one
with Him in living union, abide in Him, and you are one with the
glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the
prophets, the noble army of martyrs and the Church of the First-born,
whose names are written in heaven.
_The pliancy of the vine._--More than most plants it needs a
husbandman. It cannot stand upright like other fruit-trees, but
requires a skillful hand to guide its pliant branches along the
espaliers, or to entwine them in the trellis-work. It suggests a true
thought of the appearance presented to the world by Christ and His
Church.
Mrs. Hamilton King, in her description of the sermon preached in the
hospital by Ugo Bassi, on the eve of the great movement which, by the
expulsion of the Austrians, gave Italy to the Italians, specially
dwells on this. Down five wards the prisoners are lying on the
hospital-beds from which they will never rise again. To them the deep
voice of the hero-preacher tells the story of the vine: how "it is tied
to a stake, and if its arms stretch out, it is but cross-wise; they are
also forced and bound."
Thus it was with Christ. Never following His own way; always bound to
the imperative _must_ of the Father's will; yielded to the cross as a
willing Sufferer. And so it has been with His followers. Not strong
to stand alone, but always yielded to the Father's will, that He should
lead them whither He would--to a cross, if needs were; to persecution
and shame, if this would better serve His purpose; to a Gethsemane, if
that were the only gate to life.
Yield thyself to those loving hands. They may lead thee afar from thy
original purpose--twisting thee in and out with many a contortion;
fixing thee with nail and fastening; trailing thee over the wall, to
droop thy clusters to the hands of strangers. Nevertheless, be sure to
let Him have His way with thee; this is necessary for the
accomplishment of His purpose.
_The suffering of the vine._--When, in the spring, "the grace of the
green vine makes all the land lovely, and the shoots begin to wind and
wave in the blue air," the husbandman comes in with pruning-hook and
shears, and strips it bare of all its innocent pride. Nor is this all.
Even in the vintage it is not allowed to glory in the results of the
year, "the branches are torn down and trodden in the wine-press, while
the vine stands stripped and desolate."
So it has always been. The well-being of the world has been greatly
promoted through the Church, but always at an infinite cost to herself.
Christ's people have always been a suffering people, and it is in exact
proportion to their anguish that they have enriched mankind. They have
saved others, but not themselves. The red stream of blood that has
vitalized the world, has flowed from broken hearts.
"Measure thy life by loss instead of gain,
Not by the wine drunk, but by the wine poured forth;
For Love's strength standeth in Love's sacrifice,
And whoso suffers most hath most to give."
_The interdependence of vine and branches._--In God from eternity dwelt
a wealth of love, pity, and yearning over the souls of men, that could
not express themselves directly. There was no language for the
infinite passion of the Divine heart. Hence the gift of the Son,
through whom, when He had become flesh, the Infinite might express
Himself. But even this was not sufficient. The vine-root is not
enough in itself, it must have branches to carry its rich juices to the
clusters, so that these may hang free of each other in the sun and air.
Christ must have branches--long lines of saved souls extending down the
centuries--through which to communicate Himself to men.
We have seen how necessary the root is to the branches. Only from it
can our fruit be found. But let us humbly, yet gladly, believe that we
are also necessary to Christ. He cannot do without us. The Son wants
sons; angels will not suffice. Through redeemed men alone can He
achieve His eternal purpose. I hear the Root pleading for more and yet
more branch-life, that it may cover the world with goodly shadow and
fruit.
II. FRUIT OR NO FRUIT.--From all that has been said, it is clear that
the one purpose in the vine is fruit-bearing. See, here, how the
Divine Teacher accentuates it. "Fruit," "much fruit," "more fruit."
Nothing less will content Him in any one of us. For this we were taken
out of the wild vine in which we were by nature, and grafted into Him;
for this the regeneration of the Holy Ghost, and the discipline of
life; for this the sunshine of His love, and the dew of the Holy Ghost.
It becomes each seriously to ask, "Am I bringing forth fruit unto God?
There may be orthodoxy of doctrine, correctness in life, and even
heartiness of service; but is there fruit, much fruit, more fruit?"
_Fruit!_--This is the only condition of being retained in living union
with the Vine.
_Much fruit!_--Only thus will the Father be glorified.
_More fruit._--Otherwise there must be the repeated use of the knife.
Nowhere does the Lord contemplate a _little fruit_. A berry here and
there! A thin bunch of sour, unripened grapes! Yet it is too true
that many believers yield no more than this. He comes to us hungry for
grapes, but behold a few mildewed bunches, not fit to eat!
Where there is _no fruit_, there has been no real union with the Vine.
Probably you are a professor, but not a possessor; a nominal Christian,
an attendant at church or chapel, but not really one with Christ. True
union with Him produces a temper, a disposition, a ripe and mellow
experience which certainly indicates that Christ is within. You cannot
simulate the holy joy, the thoughtful love, the tranquil serenity, the
strong self-control, which mark the soul which is in real union with
Jesus; but where there is real abiding, these things will be in us and
abound, and we shall be neither barren, nor unfruitful in the knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
III. THE KNIFE AND THE FIRE.--"Every branch in Me that beareth fruit,"
the Father who is the Husbandman "purgeth it that it may bring forth
more fruit." Too many children of God, when passing through great
physical and other suffering, account it punishment. Nay, it is not
punitive, but purgative. This is the pruning-knife, cutting away the
shoots of the self-life, that the whole energy of the soul may be
directed to the manifesting of the life of the Lord Jesus. It may seem
a grievous waste to see the floor of the hothouse or vineyard littered
with fronds and shoots and leaves, but there need be no lament: the
branches of the autumn will well repay each stroke of that keen edge
with fuller, richer fruit. So we gain by loss, we live as we die, the
inward man is renewed as the outer decays.
The knife is in the Father's hand; let us never forget that. He will
not intrust this delicate and difficult work to man or angel. Shall we
not be in subjection to the Father of our spirits and live? Blessed be
the Father of our Lord Jesus, and our Father in Him. He that spared
not Christ may be trusted to do the best for us.
Employing the same word, the Master said, "Now ye have been pruned
through the word that I have spoken to you." Perhaps if we were more
often to yield ourselves to the pruning of the Word, we should escape
the pruning of sore pain and trial. If the work were done by the
golden edge of Scripture, it might make the iron edge of chastisement
needless. Therefore, when we take the Word of God in hand, let us ask
the great Husbandman to use it for the pruning away of all that is
carnal or evil, so that His life may have unhindered sway.
But if we will not bear fruit we must be taken away. We shall lose our
sphere of Christian service, and be exposed as hollow and lifeless
professors. The vine-branch that has no wealth of purple clusters is
good for nothing. Salt which is savorless is fit neither for the land
nor the dunghill. Vine-branches that bear no fruit are cast into the
fire. Professors that lack the grace of a holy temper, and the beauty
of a consistent life are taken away. "Men cast them into the fire and
they are burned."
These three years the Divine Husbandman has come hungrily seeking fruit
of thee, yet in vain. Nevertheless, He will spare thee for this year
also, that thou mayest mend thy ways. This is the reason of thy
multiplied anxieties; He is pruning thee. If thou bearest fruit, it
will be well, eternally well; but if not, then it is inevitable that
thou shalt be cut away as dead and useless wood.
XV
"Abide in Me, and I in you"
"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,
except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in
Me."--JOHN xv. 4.
These words are so familiar by constant repetition, that their power to
awaken the soul is greatly lessened. They go and come through ear and
mind, as a lodger who has gone and come with exactly the same
appearance and at precisely the same hours for years, and no one
notices him now, because there is nothing novel about him to awake
notice or remark. How good would it be if we could hear this tender
injunction for the first time. Next to this, let us ask the Divine
Spirit to rid it of the familiarity of long use, to re-mint it, and to
make it fresh and vital, that it may seem to us that we have never
before realized how much Jesus meant, when He said, _Abide in Me_.
Perhaps it may assist us, if we adopt another English word for _abide_,
and one which, in some respects even more neatly, and certainly in
sound, resembles the Greek. It is the word _remain_; so that we may
read the Master's bidding thus: _Remain in Me, and I in you_.
This word is often employed in the New Testament in connection with
house and home. "Mary abode [or remained] with Elizabeth for three
months"; and "There abide [or remain]," said our Lord, when giving His
disciples direction for their preaching tour, and referring to some
hospitable house which has been opened to welcome them. It is used
three times in that memorable colloquy which introduced John and Andrew
to their future Teacher and Lord; "Master," they said, "where abidest
[or remainest] Thou; He saith unto them, 'Come and ye shall see.' They
came therefore, and saw where He is remaining, and they remained with
Him that day." And again: "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for
to-day I must remain in thy house." We are to remain in Christ as a
man stays in his home.
_It is inferred, of course, that we are in Christ._--It would be absurd
to bid a man remain in a house unless he were already within its doors.
We must be sure that we are in Christ. Naturally we were
outside--"Remember," says the Apostle, "that aforetime ye were separate
from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from
the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the
world." We were shoots in the wild vine, partaking of its nature,
involved in its curse, threatened by the axe which lay at its root.
But all this is altered now. The Father, who is the Husbandman, of His
abundant grace and mercy, has taken us out of the wild vine and grafted
us into the true. "Of God are ye in Christ Jesus."
It is quite true that we repented of our sins, and turned toward God;
that we have believed in Christ, and taken His yoke; that we have found
rest under the shelter of His cross, and joy in expecting His advent;
but we must never forget that behind all these movements of our will,
and choice, and faith, were the willing and doing of God Himself. It
is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. "Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath begotten us again
unto a living hope." What confidence this gives us! We are in Christ
by the act of God's grace and power, and surely He who put us in, can
keep us there. Did He not shut Noah into the ark, and keep him there
amid all the crash of the pitiless deluge! We have only to consent to
remain, and allow God to perfect that which concerneth us. Be
confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you,
will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
_The stress which the Master lays on our abiding in Him._--He appears
to summon all His forces to accentuate His parting message. You always
reserve your most important injunctions to the last, that they may
remain fresh and impressive, as the train steams out of the station, as
the boat leaves the landing-stage; so Christ left this entreaty to the
last, that it might carry with it the emphasis of a parting message
forevermore. But note how He drives it home. Its keyword occurs
eleven times in eleven consecutive verses. He depicts the terrible
result if we do not abide: we shall wither, be taken away, and
consigned to the fire. He shows how utterly we shall miss the one end
of our existence, the glorification of the Father by fruit-bearing,
unless we strenuously and continuously abide. He allures by the
thought of the much fruit; by the assurance of success in prayer; by
the promise of fullness of joy, of love, and of blessedness. He
entreats, commands, exhorts, all in one breath. It is as though He
were to say, "Children, I am leaving you; there are many things I
desire for you, many commands to utter, many cautions, many lessons;
but I am content to leave all unsaid, if only you will remember this
one all-inclusive bidding, Abide in Me, remain in Me; stay where God
has put you; deepen, emphasize, intensify the union already existing
between you and Me. From Me is your fruit found. Without Me ye can do
nothing. Abide in Me, and I in you. Grow up into Me in all things,
which am the Head, rooted and built up in Me, and stablished by your
faith, even as ye were taught."
_There are many analogies to this appeal._--The sun says to the little
earth-planet, _Abide in me_. Resist the temptation to fly into space,
remain in the solar sphere, and I will abide in the formation of thy
rocks, the verdure of thy vegetation, and all living things, baptizing
them in my fire.
Abide in me, says the ocean to the alcove, that shows symptoms of
division from its waves. Keep thy channel unsilted and open, and I
will pour my fullness up to thy farthest shore, twice in every
twenty-four hours.
_Abide in me_: the vine says it to the branch, that it may impart
supplies of life and fruit; the air says it to the lung, that it may
minister ozone and oxygen to its cells; the magnet says it to the
needle, that it may communicate its own specific quality, and fit it to
guide across the ocean the mighty steamer, laden with the freight of
human life.
_Abide in me_: the artist says it to the novice; Edison would say it to
some young Faraday; the preacher to the student. Any man who is eager
to impart his ideas to coming time is glad when some young life, eager,
quick to receive formative impressions, presents itself. Here, says
he, is my opportunity of incarnating myself afresh, and still living,
speaking, painting, when my life is done. "Stay with me, young soul,
share my home, saturate yourself with my ideas and methods of
expression, go to no other fields to glean, and I will give my best
self in return."
So, also, the mother speaks to the child. If she is wise she will be
chary of handing it over to the nurse, or sending it away to the care
of strangers, except for the hours necessary for education. Companions
and games, books and studies, shall be within the influences of her
mother's love; and she, in return, will gladly bestow herself to the
eager life that waits on her every movement, look, and word.
In all these cases, it is always the stronger that pleads with the
weaker to abide, promising the communication to fuller life. Each, in
measure, says, in the words of the glorious Christ, "I am stronger,
wiser, fuller, better than you; all is mine that it may be yours,
therefore, abide in Me, and I will abide in you."
_Notice Christ's consciousness of sufficiency for the needs of
men._--It were blasphemous audacity to speak thus, if He were not more
than man. He affirms that there can be no life apart from Him; that
souls not united with Him wither on the forest floor. He says, that
fruit-bearing is only possible to those who receive from His fullness
grace for grace. He says, that to be in union with Him will secure
union with all holy souls. He says, that if His words are carefully
pondered and obeyed, we shall make no petition which His Father will
not grant. He says, that His love, in quality and quantity, is like
the love that God has toward Himself; that His commands take rank with
those of Deity. He offers Himself to all mankind in coming ages, as
their contemporary, and as the one sufficient source of life and
godliness. All these assumptions are made in the range of these
verses; and as we ponder them, we feel that the Speaker must be
conscious of being other than human, and as possessing those infinite
attributes which are the sole property of the Eternal.
Yet, who shall say that He has offered more than He can give? Have not
we tested Him in each of these particulars, and do not we, who have
come to Him by faith, know that in no one item has He been guilty of
exaggeration? We were dead, but behold, we live! We spent our
energies in profitless work; but now we bear fruit unto God. We were
lonely and isolated, but now have come to the heavenly Jerusalem, to
the innumerable company of angels, and to the Church of the Firstborn.
Our prayers were aimless and ineffective; but now we have the petitions
we desired. New hope and joy have filled our hearts, as the ruddy
clusters hang full and ripe in the autumn. Prove Him for yourself and
see if this shall not be so for you also. Only give yourself entirely
up to Christ. Abide in Him. Remain in Him. Let thought and speech
and life be bathed in the influences of His Holy Spirit; Let the sap of
His life flow where the sap of the self-life was wont to flow; and lo!
old things will pass away, and all things will become new.
_The law and method of abiding._--There are two currents always flowing
within our reach:
The Not I, and the I.
The last Adam, and the first.
The Spirit, and the flesh.
God has put us by His grace into the first of these. The Master says,
"Stop there." Much as when a father puts his little boy in the railway
carriage, _en route_ for home, and says, "My boy, stop where you are.
Do not get out; no change is necessary." We are in Christ by
regeneration and faith. We may not always be thinking about Him; but
we remain in Him, unless by unfaithfulness or sin we consciously and
voluntarily leave Him. And if we have left Him for a single moment, it
is always possible by confession and renewal to regain our old position.
This is confessedly an inadequate figure of speech. There is a sense
in which the member cannot be amputated from the body, and the soul
cannot be divorced from its union with Christ. But we are not dealing
now with our integral oneness with Christ for life, but with our
abiding union with Him for fruit-bearing and service. And again we
say, for those who are so immersed in daily business, as to be unable
for long together to keep their minds fixed on Christ, that their
abiding in Him does not depend on their perpetual realization and
consciousness of His presence, but on the faith that they have done and
said nothing inconsistent with the holy bond of fellowship.
You are in a lift until you step out of it, though you may not be
thinking of the lift. You keep on a road until you take a turning
right or left, although, engrossed in converse with your friend, you do
not think of the road. You are in Christ amid the pressure of daily
care, and the haste of business, so long as your face is toward the
Lord, your attitude that of humble submission, and your conscience void
of offence. During the day it is therefore possible at any moment to
say, "I am in Thee, O blessed Christ. I have not all the rapture and
passion of more radiant hours, but I am in Thee, because I would not by
a single act, leave Thy secret place." If at such a moment you are
conscious that you are not able to say as much, instantly go back over
the past few hours, discover the place when you severed yourself from
your Lord, and return.
Study Godet's beautiful definition of abiding: "It is the continuous
act by which the Christian lays aside all he might draw from his own
wisdom, strength and merit, to desire all from Christ by the inward
aspiration of faith."
Whenever, therefore, temptation arises to leave the words of Christ
(ver. 7), for the maxims of the world, step back, remain in Him, deny
yourself.
Whenever you are tempted to leave the narrow path of His commandments
(ver. 10), to follow the impulses of your own nature, reckon yourself
dead to these that you may _run_ in those.
Whenever you are tempted to forsake the holy temper of Christ's love,
for jealousy, envy, hatred, step back and say, I will not go out of my
hiding-place, I elect to remain in the love of God.
The one effort of life is therefore reduced to a persistent resistance
to all the suggestions of the world, the flesh and the devil; that we
should step out of that Blessed Man into whom the Father has grafted us.
Then He abides in us. He is strong where we are weak, loving and
tender where we are thoughtless, holy where we fail. He is in us as
wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; and as the hope
of glory.
XVI
Prayer that Prevails
"If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye
will, and it shall be done unto you."--JOHN xv. 7.
Christ expected answers to His prayers, and in all His teaching leads
us to feel that we shall be able to obtain, through prayer, what
otherwise would not come to our hand. He knew all that was to be known
of natural law and the Father's heart; but notwithstanding His perfect
acquaintance with the mysteries of the Father's government, He said,
"Ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."
A careful comparison between the confident assurances of the Master,
and the experience of Christians, as detailed in their biographies or
personal confessions, discloses a wide difference between His words and
the findings of His disciples. Many have become accustomed to
disappointment in prayer. They have asked so many things which they
have never received; have sought so much without finding; have knocked
so repeatedly, but the door has remained closed. We are in the habit
of accounting for our failure by saying that probably our prayer was
not according to the will of God, or that God withheld the less that He
might give us something better. In some cases there may be even an
unspoken misgiving about the harmony of prayer with our Father's love
and wisdom, or with a perfect confidence in Him as doing the best for
us in the world. We forget that if we prayed as we should, we should
ask what was according to His will. We evade Christ's definite words,
"_Whatsoever_ ye shall ask in My Name, that will I do."
When we consider the lives of some who have wrought mightily for God,
it is clear that they had learned a secret which eludes many of us.
Take this, for instance, from the biography of Dr. Burns Thomson.
"When much together as students," writes his friend, "we agreed on
special petitions, and the Lord encouraged us by giving answers, so
early and so definite, as could only have come from Himself, so that no
room was left for the shadow of a doubt that God was the Hearer and
Answerer of prayer. Once the answer came the same day, and at another
time, whilst we were yet speaking. My friend often spoke of our
agreement, to the glory of Him who fulfilled to us His promise, and I
refer to it, to encourage others." This is but one leaf out of the
great library of prayers, intercessions, and supplications for all
saints, which stand recorded before God.
We naturally turn to our Lord's last utterances in which His
instructions about prevailing prayer are fuller than those of the
Sermon on the Mount; and than those given in the mid-passage of His
earthly life, which depict the importunity of the widow with the unjust
judge, and of the friend with his friend at midnight. The words spoken
in the chapter we are now considering are particularly pertinent to our
purpose, because they deal exclusively
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/22376