Love to the Uttermost Part 3

"But what is Christ to thee?"

"Everything."

"Then if He be all in all to thee, thou art most certainly on G.o.d'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 G.o.d the Father is so little to me!"

"But to deal with Christ is to deal with G.o.d: to be wrapped up in the love of Christ is to make ever deeper discoveries into the heart of G.o.d. He is the Way to G.o.d: 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 G.o.d," said Nicodemus. He is more, He is the Truth of G.o.d.

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 G.o.d . . .

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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 trespa.s.ses 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 G.o.d brought life from the eternal throne, from G.o.d 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 a.n.a.lyze 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d? 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d.

'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 reestablishment 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 G.o.d's power and G.o.dhead; from the page of history, indented with the print of G.o.d's footprints; from type and ceremony and temple, though inst.i.tuted by G.o.d 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 pet.i.tioning 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 pa.s.s; 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 pa.s.sing under his eyes.

G.o.d 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 ill.u.s.trations how truly the Father dwelt in Him, and lived through His every word and work.

Are you straining after the vision of G.o.d, 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 G.o.d"; 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 pa.s.sing, 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 G.o.d, and undervaluing the religious life to which they have already attained. It is a profound mistake. To have Jesus is to have G.o.d; to know Jesus is to know G.o.d; to pray to Jesus is to pray to G.o.d. Jesus is G.o.d manifest in the flesh. Look up to Him even now from this printed page, and say, "My Lord and my G.o.d."

Jesus is not simply an incarnation of G.o.d in the sense in which, after the fashion of the Greek mythology, G.o.ds might come down in the likeness of men, adopting a disguise which they would afterward cast aside; Jesus is G.o.d. All the gentle attributes of His nature are G.o.d's; and all the strong and awful attributes of power, justice, purity, which we are wont to a.s.sociate with G.o.d, are His also.

Happy is the moment when we awake to realize that in Jesus we have G.o.d 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).