Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Volume I Part 11

'Eternal life'; do not bring that down to the narrow and inadequate conception of unending existence. It involves that, but it means a great deal more. It means a life of such a sort as is worth calling life, which is a life in union with G.o.d, and therefore full of blessedness, full of purity, full of satisfaction, full of desire and aspiration, and all these with the stamp of unendingness deeply impressed upon them. And that is what comes to us through the look.

Not only is the process of dying arrested, but there is subst.i.tuted for it a new process of growing possession of a new life. You 'must be born again,' Christ had been saying to Nicodemus. The change that pa.s.ses upon a man when once he has anch.o.r.ed his trust on Jesus Christ, the uplifted Son of Man, is so profound that it is nothing else than a new birth, and a new life comes into his veins untainted by the poison, and with no proclivity to death.

'May have eternal life'--now, here, on the instant. That eternal life is no future gift to be bestowed upon mortal men when they have pa.s.sed through the agony of death, but it is a gift which comes to us here, and may come to any man on the instant of his looking to Jesus Christ.

'May in Him have eternal life'--union with Christ by faith, that profound incorporation--if I may use the word--into Him, which the New Testament sets forth in all sorts of aspects as the very foundation of the blessings of Christianity; that union is the condition of eternal life. So, dear brethren, we all need that the poison shall be cast out of our veins. We all need that the tendency downwards to a condition which can only be described as death may be arrested, and the motion reversed. We all need that our knowledge shall be vitalised into faith. We all need that the past shall be forgiven, and the power of sin upon us in the present shall be cancelled. 'The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin,' because it was shed for the remission of the sins of the many, and is transfused, an untainted principle of life, into our veins. What Jesus said to Nicodemus by night in that quiet chamber in Jerusalem, what He said in effect and act upon the Cross, when uplifted there, is what He says to each of us from the Throne where He is now lifted up: 'Whosoever believeth shall in Me have eternal life.' Take Him at His word, and you will find that it is true.

CHRIST'S MUSTS

'... Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.'--JOHN iii. 14.

I have chosen this text for the sake of one word in it, that solemn 'must' which was so often on our Lord's lips. I have no purpose of dealing with the remainder of this clause, nor indeed with it at all, except as one instance of His use of the expression. But I have felt it might be interesting, and might set old truths in a brighter light, if we gather together the instances in which Christ speaks of the great necessity which dominated His life, and shaped even small acts.

The expression is most frequently used in reference to the Pa.s.sion and Resurrection. There are many instances in the Gospels, in which He speaks of that _must_. The first of these is that of my text. Then there is another cla.s.s, of which His word to His mother when a twelve-year-old child may be taken as a type: 'Wist ye not that I _must_ be about My Father's business?' where the mysterious consciousness of a special relation to G.o.d in the child's heart drew Him to the Temple and to His Father's work. Other similar instances are those in which He responded to the mult.i.tude when they wanted to keep Him to themselves: 'I _must_ preach in other cities also'; or as when He said, 'I _must_ work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day.'

Yet another aspect of the same necessity is presented when, looking far beyond the earthly work and suffering, He discerned the future triumph which was to be the issue of these, and said, 'Other sheep I have... them also I _must_ bring.'

And yet another is in reference to a very small matter: His selection of a place for a few hours' rest on His last fateful journey to Jerusalem, when He said, 'Zaccheus,... to-day I _must_ abide at thy house.'

Now, if we put these instances together, we shall get some precious glimpses into our Lord's heart, and His view of life.

I. Here we see Christ recognising and accepting the necessity for His death.

My text, if we accept John's Gospel, contributes an altogether new element to our conception of our Lord as announcing His death. For the other three Gospels lay emphasis on it as being part of His teaching, especially during the later stage of His ministry. But it does not follow that He began to think about it or to see it, when He began to speak about it. There are reasons for the earlier comparative reticence, and there is no ground for the conclusion that then first began to dawn upon a disappointed enthusiast the grim reality that His work was not going to prosper, and that martyrdom was necessary. That is a notion that has been frequently upheld of late years, but to me it seems altogether incongruous with the facts of the case. And, if John's Gospel is a true record, that theory is shivered against this text, which represents Him at the very beginning of His career--the time when, according to that other theory, He was full of the usual buoyant and baseless antic.i.p.ations of a reformer commencing His course--as telling Nicodemus, 'Even so _must_ the Son of Man be lifted up.' In like manner, in the previous chapter of this same Gospel, we have the significant though enigmatical utterance: 'Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up'; with the Evangelist's authoritative comment: 'He spake of the Temple of His body.' So, from the beginning of His career, the end was clear before Him.

And why _must_ He go to the Cross? Not merely, as the other Evangelists put it, in order that 'it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the prophets.' It was not that Jesus must die because the prophets had said that Messiah should, but that the prophets had said that Messiah should because Jesus must. There was a far deeper necessity than the fulfilment of any prophetic utterance, even the necessity which shaped that utterance. The work of Jesus Christ could not be done unless He died. He could not be the Saviour of the world unless He was the sacrifice for the sins of the world.

We cannot see all the grounds of that solemn imperative, but this we can see, that it was because of the requirements of the divine righteousness, and because of the necessities of sinful men. And so Christ's was no martyr's death, who had to die as the penalty of the faithful discharge of His duty. It was not the penalty that He paid for doing His work, but it was the work itself. Not that gracious life, nor 'the loveliness of perfect deeds,' nor His words of sweet wisdom, nor His acts of transcendent power, equalled only by the pity that moved the power, completed His task, but He 'came to give His life a ransom for many.'

'Must' is a hard word. It may express an unwelcome necessity. Was this necessity unwelcome? When He said, 'The Son of Man must be lifted up,'

was He shrinking, or reluctantly submitting? Ah, no! He _must_ die because He _would_ save, and He _would_ save because He _did_ love.

His filial obedience to G.o.d coincided with His pity for men: and not merely in obedience to the requirements of the divine righteousness, but in compa.s.sion for the necessities of sinners, necessity was laid upon Him.

Oh, brethren! nothing held Christ to the Cross but His own desire to save us. Neither priests nor Romans carried Him thither. What fastened Him to it was not the nails driven by rude hands. And the reason why He did not, as the taunters bade Him do, come down from it, was neither a physical nor a moral necessity unwelcome to Himself, but the yielding of His own will to do all which was needed for man's salvation.

This sacrifice was bound to the altar by the cords of love. We have heard of martyrs who have refused to be tied to the stake, and have kept themselves motionless in the centre of the fierce flames by the force of their wills. Jesus Christ fastened Himself to the Cross and died because He would.

And, oh! if we think of that sweet, serene life as having clear before it from the very first steps that grim end, how infinitely it gains in pathetic beauty and in heart-touchingness! What wonderful self-abnegation! How he was at leisure from Himself, with a heart of pity for every sorrow, and loins girt for all service, though during all His life the Cross closed the vista! Think that human shrinking was felt by Him, think that it was so held back that His purpose never faltered, think that each of us may say, 'He _must_ die because He _would_ save me'; and then ask, 'What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?'

II. In a second cla.s.s of these utterances, we see Christ impelled by filial obedience and the consciousness of His mission.

'Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?' That was a strange utterance for a boy of twelve. It seems to negative the supposition that what is called the 'Messianic consciousness' dawned upon Jesus Christ first after His baptism and the descent of the Spirit. But however that may be, it and the similar pa.s.sages to which I have already referred, bearing upon His discharge of His work prior to His death, teach that the necessity was an inward necessity springing from His consciousness of Sonship, and His recognition of the work that He had to do. And so He is our great Example of spontaneous obedience, which does violence to itself if it does not obey. It was instinct that sent the boy into the Temple. Where should a Son be but in His Father's house? How could He not be doing His Father's business?

Thus He stands before us, the pattern for the only obedience that is worth calling so, the obedience which would be pained and ill at ease unless it were doing the work of G.o.d. Religion is meant to make it a second nature, or, as I have ventured to call it, an instinct--a spontaneous, uncalculating, irrepressible desire--to be in fellowship with G.o.d, and to be doing His will. That is the meaning of our Christianity. There is no obedience in reluctant obedience; forced service is slavery, not service. Christianity is given for the specific purpose that it may bring us so into touch with Jesus Christ as that the mind which was in Him may be in us; and that we too may be able to say, with a kind of wonder that people should have expected to find us in any other place, or doing anything else, 'Wist ye not that because I am a Son, _I_ must be about my Father's business?' As certainly as the sunflower follows the sun, so certainly will a man animated by the mind that was in Jesus Christ, like Him find his very life's breath in doing the Father's will.

So then, brethren, what about our grudging service? What about our reluctant obedience? What about the widespread mistake that religion prohibits wished-for things and enforces unwelcome duties? If my Christianity does not make me recoil from what it forbids, and spring eagerly to what it commends, my Christianity is of very little use. If when in the Temple we are like idle boys in school, always casting glances at the clock and the door, and wishing ourselves outside, we may just as well be out as in. Glad obedience is true obedience. Only he who can say, 'Thy law is within my heart, and I do Thy will because I love Thee, and cannot but do as Thou desirest,' has found the joy possible to a Christian life. It is not 'harsh and crabbed,' as those that look upon it from the outside may 'suppose,' but musical and full of sweetness. There is nothing more blessed than when 'I choose'

covers exactly the same ground as 'I ought.' And when duty is delight, delight will never become disgust, nor joy pa.s.s away.

III. We see, in yet another use of this great 'must,' Christ antic.i.p.ating His future triumph.

'Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd.' Striking as these words are in themselves, they are still more striking when we notice their connection; for they follow immediately upon His utterance about laying down His life for the sheep. So, then, this was a work beyond the Cross, and whatever it was, it was to be done after He had died.

I need not point out to you how far afield Christ's vision goes out into the dim, waste places, where on the dark mountains the straying sheep are torn and frightened and starving. I need not dwell upon how far ahead in the future His glance travels, or how magnificent and how rebuking to our petty narrowness this great word is. 'There shall be one _flock_' (not fold); and they shall be one, not because they are within the bounds of any visible 'fold,' but because they are gathered round the one Shepherd, and in their common relation to Him are knit together in unity.

But what sort of a Man is this who considers that His widest work is to be done by Him after He is dead? 'Them also I _must_ bring.' Thou?

how? when? Surely such words as these, side by side with a clear prevision of the death that was so soon to come, are either meaningless or the utterance of an arrogance bordering on insanity, or they antic.i.p.ate what an Evangelist declares did take place--that the Lord was 'taken up into heaven and sat at the right hand of G.o.d,'

whilst His servants 'went everywhere preaching the Word, the Lord also working with them and confirming the Word' with the signs He wrought.

'Them also I must bring.' That is not merely a necessity rooted in the nature of G.o.d and the wants of men. It is not merely a necessity springing from Christ's filial obedience and sense of a mission; but it is a 'must' of destiny, a 'must' which recognises the sure results of His pa.s.sion; a 'must' which implies the power of the Cross to be the reconciliation of the world. And so for all pessimistic thoughts to-day, or at any time, and when Christian men's hearts may be trembling for the Ark of G.o.d--although, perhaps, there may be little reason for the tremor--and in the face of all blatant antagonisms and of proud Goliaths despising the 'foolishness of preaching,' we fall back upon Christ's great 'must.' It is written in the councils of Heaven more unchangeably than the heavens; it is guaranteed by the power of the Cross; it is certain, by the eternal life of the crucified Saviour, that He will one day be the King of humanity, and _must_ bring His wandering sheep to couch in peace, one flock round one Shepherd.

IV. Lastly, we have Christ applying the greatest principle to the smallest duty.

'Zaccheus! make haste and come down; to-day I _must_ abide in thy house.' Why must He? Because Zaccheus was to be saved, and was worth saving. What was the 'must'? To stop for an hour or two on His road to the Cross. So He teaches us that in a life penetrated by the thought of the divine will, which we gladly obey, there are no things too great, and none too trivial, to be brought under the dominion of that law, and to be regulated by that divine necessity. Obedience is obedience, whether in large things or in small. There is no scale of magnitude applicable to the distinction between G.o.d's will and that which is not G.o.d's will. Gravitation rules the motes that dance in the sunshine as well as the ma.s.s of Jupiter. A triangle with its apex in the sun, and its base beyond the solar system, has the same properties and comes under the same laws as one that a schoolboy scrawls upon his slate. G.o.d's truth is not too great to rule the smallest duties. The star in the East was a guide to the humble house at Bethlehem, and there are starry truths high in the heavens that avail for our guidance in the smallest acts of life.

So, brethren, bring your doings under that all-embracing law of duty--duty, which is the heathen expression for the will of G.o.d. There are great regions of life in which lower necessities have play.

Circ.u.mstances, our past, bias and temper, relationship, friendship, civic duty, and the like--all these bring their necessities; but let us think of them all as being, what indeed they are, manifestations to us of the will of our Father. There are great tracts of life in which either of two courses may be right, and we are left to the decision of choice rather than of duty; but high above all these, let us see towering that divine necessity. It is a daily struggle to bring 'I will' to coincide with 'I ought'; and there is only one adequate and always powerful way of securing that coincidence, and that is to keep close to Jesus Christ and to drink in His spirit. Then, when duty and delight are conterminous, 'the rough places will be plain, and the crooked things straight, and every mountain shall be brought low, and every valley shall be exalted,' and life will be blessed, and service will be freedom. Joy and liberty and power and peace will fill our hearts when this is the law of our being; 'All that the Lord hath spoken, that _must_ I do.'

THE LAKE AND THE RIVER

'G.o.d so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'--JOHN iii. 16.

I venture to say that my text shows us a lake, a river, a pitcher, and a draught. 'G.o.d so loved the world'--that is the lake. A lake makes a river for itself--'G.o.d so loved the world that He _gave_ His... Son.'

But the river does not quench any one's thirst unless he has something to lift the water with: 'G.o.d so loved the world that He gave His...

Son, that whosoever _believeth_ on Him.' Last comes the draught: 'shall not perish, but have _everlasting life._'

I. The great lake, G.o.d's love.

Before Jesus Christ came into this world no one ever dreamt of saying 'G.o.d _loves_.' Some of the Old Testament psalmists had glimpses of that truth and came pretty near expressing it. But among all the 'G.o.ds many and lords many,' there were l.u.s.tful G.o.ds and beautiful G.o.ds, and idle G.o.ds, and fighting G.o.ds and peaceful G.o.ds: but not one of whom worshippers said, 'He loves.' Once it was a new and almost incredible message, but we have grown accustomed to it, and it is not strange any more to us. But if we would try to think of what it means, the whole truth would flash up into fresh newness, and all the miseries and sorrows and perplexities of our lives would drift away down the wind, and we should be no more troubled with them. 'G.o.d loves' is the greatest thing that can be said by lips.

'G.o.d ... loved the world.' Now when we speak of loving a number of individuals--the broader the stream, the shallower it is, is it not?

The most intense patriot in England does not love her one ten-thousandth part as well as he loves his own little girl. When we think or feel anything about a great mult.i.tude of people, it is like looking at a forest. We do not see the trees, we see the whole wood.

But that is not how G.o.d loves the world. Suppose I said that I loved the people in India, I should not mean by that that I had any feeling about any individual soul of all those dusky millions, but only that I ma.s.sed them all together; or made what people call a generalisation of them. But that is not the way in which G.o.d loves. He loves all because He loves each. And when we say, 'G.o.d so loved the world,' we have to break up the ma.s.s into its atoms, and to think of each atom as being an object of His love. We all stand out in G.o.d's love just as we should do to one another's eyes, if we were on the top of a mountain-ridge with a clear sunset sky behind us. Each little black dot of the long procession would be separately visible. And we all stand out like that, every man of us isolated, and getting as much of the love of G.o.d as if there was not another creature in the whole universe but G.o.d and ourselves. Have you ever realised that when we say, 'He loved the world,' that really means, as far as each of us is concerned, He loves _me_? And just as the whole beams of the sun come pouring down into every eye of the crowd that is looking up to it, so the whole love of G.o.d pours down, not upon a mult.i.tude, an abstraction, a community, but upon every single soul that makes up that community. He loves us all because He loves us each. We shall never get all the good of that thought until we translate it, and lay it upon our hearts. It is all very well to say, 'Ah yes! G.o.d is love,'

and it is all very well to say He loves 'the world.' But I will tell you what is a great deal better--to say--what Paul said--'Who loved _me_ and gave Himself for _me_.'

Now, there is one other suggestion that I would make to you before I go on, and that is that all through the New Testament, but especially in John's Gospel, 'the world' does not only mean men, but _sinful_ men, men separated from G.o.d. And the great and blessed truth taught here is that, however I may drag myself away from G.o.d, I cannot drive Him away from me, and that however little I may care for Him, or love Him, or think about Him, it does not make one hairs-breadth of difference as to the fact that He loves me. I know, of course, that if a man does not love Him back again, G.o.d's love has to take shapes that it would not otherwise take, which may be extremely inconvenient for the man. But though the shape may alter, _must_ alter, the fact remains; and every sinful soul on the earth, including Judas Iscariot--who is said to head the list of crimes--has G.o.d's love resting upon him.

II. The river.

Now, to go back to my metaphor, the lake makes a river. 'G.o.d so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.'

So then, it was not Christ's death that turned G.o.d from hating and being angry, but it was G.o.d's love that appointed Christ's death. If you will only remember that, a great many of the shallow and popular objections to the great doctrine of the Atonement disappear at once.

'G.o.d so loved ... that He gave.' But some people say that when we preach that Jesus Christ died for our sins, that G.o.d's wrath might not fall upon men, our teaching is immoral, because it means 'Christ came, and so G.o.d loved.' It is the other way about, friend. 'G.o.d so loved ... that He gave.'