The Gospel of St. John Part 10

Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. And every man went unto his own house._'

All here is wonderfully living and characteristic. The faint effort of the officers to execute the command of their masters; the awe which held them back; their simple confession of the power which they found in the words of Jesus; the surprise of the Sanhedrim that the infection should have reached even their servants; their terror lest there might be traitors in the camp,--lest any Pharisee or lawyer (probably some eyes were turned on Nicodemus) should have been carried away by the impulse to which the crowd, naturally enough, had yielded; their scorn of the people, as wretched, 'accursed,' men utterly ignorant of the law;--who does not feel as if he were present in that convocation of doctors?--as if he were looking at their perplexed and angry faces?--as if he were hearing their contemptuous words? But the debate turns ultimately on the impossibility of a Galilaean Christ. Nicodemus timidly suggests that those who boast of the law, and call the people cursed for not knowing it, should adhere to the law in their treatment of an accused person. He is at once put down by the demand,--'_Art thou of Galilee?_' All arguments of conscience, even the formalities of law,--so much more precious than such arguments,--are nothing, unless, after searching and looking, he can find that a prophet could come out of Galilee. Whether he did search and look we are not told; but we are told that he found a prophet in the tomb of Joseph, if he failed to satisfy himself about His coming from Nazareth.

Then follows the story of the woman taken in adultery. That story has approved itself to the conscience of Christendom. I feel it to be most dear and venerable. Some of the Fathers disliked the moral of it, and therefore were glad to believe it not genuine. I wish I were as sure that their conclusion was wrong, as that their reason for wishing the story away was unsound. But impartial critics seem to be agreed that there is not sufficient justification for retaining it, at least in this place. I dare not dispute their authority on a question respecting the weight and value of MSS. I dare not allow affection for the pa.s.sage to interfere when truth is at stake. Thoughtful students maintain that the story belongs to this Gospel, though they cannot tell to what part of the book it should be transferred. Were it a question of internal evidence simply, I should say that it does not seem to me an interpolated fragment _here_; that it supplies a link between thoughts which otherwise it is less easy to connect. If the story is withdrawn, the 8th chapter opens with the words,--'_Then spake Jesus again, I am the Light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness_.' Perhaps I may be deceived by habit and old a.s.sociation; but I feel as if these words explained how it was that, when Christ said, '_Let him that is without sin cast the first stone_,' the '_accusers went out one by one_.' I see in them also an answer to the charge that He was tolerating sin when He said, '_Go, and sin no more_.' They show that the sharpest judgment upon sin is exercised by Him who delivers from it. And the story appears to unite that exposure of the law-worshippers--who punished breakers of the law, but did not keep the law--which we found in the last chapter, with the revelation of a Will, working in us that we may keep the law in the fullest sense of it, which we shall find in this. Nevertheless, I am afraid of using these pleas. If the story is genuine, it will defend itself; if not, the divine Oracles can do without it. The more sacred we consider them, the more we must be sure that G.o.d would have us receive them in purity, and that He will take better care of them than we can.

Whatever be the introduction to the words, '_I am the Light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness_,' we perceive at once that they are in harmony with all that we have been reading in St. John. But we ought also to perceive that they are not mere repet.i.tions of the sentences in the opening of the Gospel, and in the third chapter. The Light of the world comes forth here detecting, indeed, and manifesting the darkness in each man, but with a promise and a.s.surance that it will prove itself mightier than the darkness.

The Word made flesh says to the man who sees nothing but mists all around him, 'I can bring you into the clear sunshine.' He says to the man whose breath is stifled, whose limbs have suffered as much from the atmosphere he has dwelt in as his eyes, 'I am the Light of Life'--that which illuminates, quickens. There is certainly a progress and an order in all our Lord's teachings, whether we can trace it or not. The words on the last day of the feast, which could not be fulfilled till Christ was glorified, seem to make the conversation upon which we are now entering necessary. We want to know how the Water of Life is connected with the Light of Life; we want to know whence the Light and the Life are both derived. The answer of the Pharisees to our Lord's words--'_Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true_'--leads us on in this path of discovery.

This answer was no doubt suggested by a recollection of that which He had said Himself at the former feast (John v. 31). They thought they were confuting Him out of His own mouth; for surely to call Himself the Light of the world was as great a pretension as to call Himself the Christ. Could His own testimony be accepted for one a.s.sertion more than for the other? It was an all-important inquiry. The more earnestly the Pharisees pursued it--the more determined they were not to be content with any half solution of it--the better. If they had been in earnest, they would have been compelled to ask themselves--'And what evidence _can_ we have that will satisfy us whether such a claim as this is well-founded or not? What _can_ convince us whether one who says he is our Light, and the Light of the world, is uttering the most profound truth, or the most portentous falsehood?' They would then have been driven to plain facts. They must have considered how the sun proves itself to be a light to any man, or a light to all men; and what comfort there would be in learning from books that that is the function which it ought to perform, the blessing which men ought to receive from it. They were not in earnest; they would not grapple with facts. Facts were for that cursed people which did not know the law. What had doctors to do with such common things as the sun? What had the sun to do with the letters which they copied out? Something, perhaps, with the letter of that 19th Psalm, which begins with the light in the firmament, and ends with the law that enlightens the heart. But that was metaphorical language, poetical language--very beautiful, and sacred, and divine--but to be treated as if it meant nothing.

To this test, however, our Lord, who preached a Gospel to men, was bringing His own a.s.sertions, His own character, His own office. He did not, like those Prophets and Christs who bore witness of themselves, produce evidence to show how much He was above human beings. He did not, like the doctors of the law, judge and condemn. But He came speaking of a Father from whom He had proceeded, and to whom He was returning. He came speaking to men's consciences, making them judges of themselves. Either he had come from a Father, or He had not. If He had, that Father would bear witness of Him; that Father would show whether He knew Him, and was testifying truly of Him. It was not Jesus of Nazareth saying, 'I am the Christ;' it was a Father speaking of a Son, a Son of a Father, to beings who could not live without either. I have translated, as nearly as my poor language can, His mighty words.

Read them and meditate upon them till you find depths in them of which I have only caught the faintest glimpse.

'_The Pharisees therefore said unto Him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true. Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go. Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me._'

Everything, you will perceive, turns upon this relation of a Son to a Father--upon their eternal distinctness, upon their eternal unity. The word '_Father_' was now, as before, that which at once confused the Jews, and filled them with horror. '_They said therefore to Him, Where is thy Father?_' 'What dost Thou mean? Dost Thou mean that the G.o.d there in those heavens is Thy Father?' No! Surely the _Jupiter tonans_, whom they worshipped under the name of the Jehovah the G.o.d of Abraham, was _not_ the Father of whom He spake. He said therefore, '_Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye would have known my Father also_.' It was a fuller, bolder a.s.sertion than was contained in the words, '_My Father worketh, and I work_.' It affirmed that they could know the Father of all in a Man; that they could not know Him except in a man. This was the answer to their '_Where?_' This overthrew their notion of G.o.dhead--the frightful intellectual idol to which they were bowing down. But if He had spoken blasphemy before, He had spoken it more clearly and terribly now. St. John felt this; for he thinks it necessary to explain why Jesus was not stoned for using such language:--'_These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as He taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on Him; for His hour was not yet come_.'

Then He repeats the words which He spoke before at the feast, but with an addition which deepens their force. '_Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come._'

He would go away from them, and they could not follow Him. But how is that departure and that incapacity connected with their dying in sin?

I believe the sense will become clearer as we read on in the chapter; but we shall not understand what follows, if we leave this question unconsidered. Throughout He has been teaching that the coming to Him with the feet, that the seeing Him with the eyes, was not that coming and that seeing which could do them any good, which could make them truer men. That belief which is not dependent upon sight--that belief which was in Him as the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever--that belief which would be in Him when He had gone away from the world--that, and that only, would raise them above themselves, would unite them to the Father, would make them partakers of His true and eternal life. Sin, the separation from G.o.d, must be the state of their spirits,--those spirits must gravitate to earth, and claim their portion with the flesh,--unless they could look upwards, and a.s.sert their share in their Lord's ascension, in His victory over the grave and h.e.l.l.

The next verses will show, I think, that this is the force of the one upon which I have been commenting.

'_Then said the Jews, Will He kill Himself? because He saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come. And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you, That ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins._'

The Jews did not now suppose that He was going to the dispersed among the Gentiles. They perceived that His words pointed to a departure out of the world. 'But how could He know that He was going to leave it?

Would He take the matter into His own hands? Did He mean that disappointment and anger at their rejection of Him would drive Him to self-murder?' The suggestion was not a serious one; merely the mock of some priest, thrown out for the sake of degrading Him in the minds of the people. Our Lord's words are not an answer to it, but an exposition of the sentence which had provoked it, and of the cause which had made that sentence unintelligible to them. They _could_ only think of leaving the world as a _descent_, by one means or another, into the grave. The idea of an _ascent_, of a return of a spirit to its proper home, was utterly strange to them. This was a proof that they needed one to come from above, that they might be delivered from their downward, earthbound nature. This was a proof that they needed one who was not of this world to come, who might lift them above it; that they, too, might find their way to their Father's house. If they would not believe in Him as such a Messenger from the Father, as such a deliverer from the world, they must become the victims of sin, the heirs of death.

'_They said therefore to Him, Who art thou?_' 'What kind of being dost thou claim to be, who p.r.o.nouncest judgment upon us,--who tellest us that we are to die in our sins?' There is a mixture, it seems to me, of indignation and of curiosity in the question. They want Him to tell them what He is, and what His right is to censure them and prophesy death to them. The reply, according to our translators, was, '_The same which I said unto you from the beginning_.' I do not suppose they were satisfied with this rendering themselves, or that any one ever has been. ?a?e?? is more properly to speak than to say. ?a?? must be the present tense, not the past. Yet I do not think we can better their version by giving, as some have done, a mystical force to the words t?? ?????; as if that was a name which Christ claimed for Himself. Some of the Gnostics, and some of the Fathers, no doubt, supposed that Christ is called The Beginning in the first chapter of this Gospel, as He is, undoubtedly, in the first chapter of the Apocalypse. But, were that so, I do not see what room there would be for this meaning here, or how the sentence could be construed if we introduced it. If we follow the order of the words, we may perhaps preserve the grammar of the sentence, and its connexion with the verses which follow, without deviating very widely from the signification which it conveyed to the minds of King James's translators. '_That in the beginning of which I am speaking to you. I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you. But He that sent me is true; and the things which I have heard from Him, those I speak to the world._' The answer may be either a direct one to the question, '_Who art thou?_' 'I have always been that Light of the world of which I am speaking now;' or the emphasis may be on the word '_speak_.' 'I am not speaking to you any different words from those which I have been always speaking to you. I am not p.r.o.nouncing any judgment upon you which you have not heard p.r.o.nounced in your consciences long ago. There are many dark spots in those consciences which I must bring to light; many harder speeches still which you must hear from me. I am come from a true Being; from Him who is true. I speak to the world that which I know to be His mind and will.' 'They did not understand,' says the Apostle, (this was their misery,) 'that it was the mind and will of a Father He was proclaiming to them; that it was from Him who loved them they were shrinking and turning away.'

'_They understood not that He spake to them of the Father. Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things._'

As He speaks of _their_ lifting up the Son of Man, it is clear that He means here what He meant in the conversation with Nicodemus. '_As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so was the Son of Man to be lifted up._' They would be the means of raising Him to that throne. They would place Him on that cross which should declare in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, 'This is the King!' But as He adds _then ye shall know_, it is clear also that He must allude to the events which would succeed the crucifixion, and not to it merely. The cross would say, 'This is the Son of Man; one with all men.' The resurrection and ascension would say, 'This is the Son of G.o.d; one with the Father.' The Cross would afterwards be felt to gather the whole message into itself, to be the witness of the love of the Father to the world; of the eternal union of the Son with the Father; of the might of that Spirit which dwells in them, and proceeds from them, to bind all things into one. But what I said before applies also here. When Christ speaks of His departure from the world, the idea of ascension, of a return to the glory which He had with the Father before the worlds were, is always coming forth through the darkness of the pa.s.sion.

And even that idea is not sufficient, unless this be added to it:--'_And He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please Him_.'

His going to the Father is not enough without the a.s.surance of His continual abiding in the Father. No change of place or circ.u.mstance, no progress in the world's history, no development of the Divine purpose, must interfere with the calm belief of a unity of the Father and the Son in the Spirit, which was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

It is of this unity, brethren, that this day testifies; which is therefore a more wonderful and glorious day than that which testifies of the ascension of the Son to the right hand of the Father, or of the descent of the Spirit to fill the earth and the hearts of men with rivers of living water. But we can know little of the depth and sweetness of this day, if we forget how Christ revealed the mystery of it; how He both said and proved that to know Him is to know the Father! For that blessed doctrine, upon which Fathers and Reformers lived and died, we are fast subst.i.tuting one which seems to put the Son at an infinite distance from the Father; which seems to make the will of the Son not the revelation of the Father's will, but the contrast to it. Nay, our orthodoxy--so strangely like what would have been called heresy in other days--is even daring to affirm that we may believe anything dark or malignant respecting the character of the Father, if only _we_ gather from the Bible that that is its testimony concerning Him. Frightful contradiction! to set up a book against Him whom we believe to be its author! to say that a book, which is from first to last a denunciation of false and cruel G.o.ds, may possibly proclaim to us a false and cruel G.o.d, and that we should be bound to accept its message if it did! Gracious Father, deliver thy Church from doctrines which teach us that we are not to hallow thy name above all books and letters which thou in thy mercy hast bestowed upon us!

Deliver us from those who teach us that we can see Thee anywhere except in thy Only-begotten Son; or that, if Thou art revealed in Him, Thou canst be anything but Light without darkness, Truth without falsehood, Love without cruelty. Teach us to hate all counterfeits of Thee; all notions of Thee which are derived from our darkness, our falsehood, our cruelty. Teach us to worship the Eternal Trinity, the One G.o.d of perfect charity blessed for ever. AMEN.

DISCOURSE XVII.

THE TWO FATHERS.

[Lincoln's Inn, First Sunday after Trinity, May 25, 1856.]

ST. JOHN VIII. 43.

_Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word._

Those words of which I spoke to you last Sunday seem to have taken a sudden hold of some who listened to them. '_While He was speaking these things, many believed on Him._' When we recollect what those words were, we may at first wonder at this impression. He spoke of '_the Father being always with Him; of His doing always those things which pleased the Father_.' Was not His discourse concerning a Father that which provoked His hearers most; that which shocked some of them most? Undoubtedly. And yet, if He spoke truly, if He did come to bear witness of a Father, if the Father did bear witness of Him, this must have been the discourse which _attracted_ His hearers most--which had most power over them. The revelation of a man who was always in the presence of G.o.d, who delighted in Him, in whom He delighted, was the revelation which the heart and conscience of every man was waiting for. The heart and conscience might be closed against it by sensual indulgence, still more by spiritual pride; but it could break through both; it could prove itself true by overcoming both.

In this case, then, as in like cases which have occurred before, I should be very loth to explain away St. John's words,--to criticise the quality of the faith which he attributes to these hearers of our Lord. If we say, as some people would, that it was mere head faith, I do not think we shall make our own minds clearer; I am sure we shall be in great danger of denying the facts which the Apostle reports to us. Our Lord's words did not appeal to the understanding; they were not argumentative; we cannot account for their influence by any processes of logic. So far as one can judge from a very simple statement, they went straight to the heart; the faith which they called forth was a faith of the heart.

Does it appear, then, that the men who thus believed in Christ were satisfactory to Him? Let us follow the narrative. It will tell us all upon that subject that we need to know.

'_Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free._'

This expression, '_If ye continue or abide in my word_,' denotes very clearly, I think, that they had not merely listened to a _saying_ which went forth from His lips, and been affected by it; that they had confessed the force of a _word_, which entered into them as light enters into the eye, as heat makes itself felt through the body. And if they traced this word to its source; if they acknowledged the living Word from whom it flowed; if they turned to Him as to one who was near them and with them,--not for a moment, but always; if they trusted in Him, and not in themselves; then they should be--what?

saints? divines? doctors? No; but what is much better than any of the three,--what all the three should wish to be raised into,--_disciples_.

They will then be learners, learners sitting continually at the feet of the true Teacher.

And this shall be the result of that daily, hourly learning, of that change from the condition of men who know everything to the condition of men who know nothing. '_They shall know the_ TRUTH.' The Word shall guide them, counsel them, encourage them, scourge them. He shall prepare them to see that which is. He shall lead them away from fleeting shadows to the eternal Substance, to Him who changes not.

Here is a promise, the highest that the highest Being can make to man; for it is the promise of sharing His own nature, of dwelling with Him and in Him. And there is another appended to it, which, though not greater in itself, comes nearer to human experience; commends itself more directly to our sense of oppression and misery. '_The truth shall make you free._' Truth and liberty are inseparable companions; neither can live long apart from the other. The bondage to appearances, the bondage to death, the bondage to the unseen horrors which haunt the conscience,--how shall this be broken? Our Lord says, '_The truth shall make you free_.' 'If you abide in my word,--if you adhere to me as the Lord of your spirit, you shall come to know Him who is truth, and He shall break every chain from your neck; He shall give you the freedom of the sons of G.o.d.'

However unintelligible His other words may have been to them, surely this magnificent promise will have looked most inviting to the Jews; to those, at least, of them who were not vehemently prepossessed against the speaker, who did not count Him an impostor. The next sentence seems to say that it was not so. '_They answered Him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?_' Who were they who said this? We should certainly gather from the previous pa.s.sage,--'_those Jews who had believed on Him_.' At any rate, St. John takes no pains to distinguish them from the rest. If they were not the only objectors to our Lord's words, they must have joined in the objection. There is deep instruction in the thought that they did. The voice of Jesus had reached them. It had not merely floated about them, but had penetrated within them. He stood before them who did always the things that pleased His Father. The first sense of having discovered the Divine Man must have been one of delight,--the greatest, keenest delight which they had ever experienced. Then this Divine Man points upwards to a truth in which He Himself is believing and resting. He says He can make them inheritors of that. But at the same moment He looks down into them. He detects a hollowness within them,--a quailing at the thought of this truth,--a secret dislike of it--a preference for that which is hostile to it. They are conscious of a chill. The keen pleasure has been succeeded by a pain as keen. The hope which He holds out to them they cannot grasp. The evil which He has laid bare is near and present. Their pride is awakened; they think of the glory of their descent; they cannot bear to be spoken of as slaves.

We often treat their words as a mere outrageous contradiction of fact.

They had been in bondage, we say, to Babylonians and Persians; they _were_ in bondage to the Romans; they complained of the yoke; it was fretting them continually. How monstrous to say, 'We have never been in bondage!' I believe that in speaking so we are not doing them justice, and that we are likely to miss the force of our Lord's answer to them. A modern Roman, in the sight of French or Austrian bayonets, might deny indignantly that he was a slave. He might say, 'I belong to the city which has ruled the world. I am one of those citizens whom it was a shame and wickedness to beat with rods. How dare you speak to me as if I were like an American Negro, liable to be bought and sold, at the mercy of an owner or a driver?' We should not be astonished, I think, at such language. We should understand it, and not feel ourselves justified in replying to it by referring to a foreign tyranny, which may be all the more galling to him because he loathes the name of bondsman. And there was another sense in which a Jew might affirm that he, being a son of Abraham, had never been in bondage. As our Lord had spoken of truth, He might think of his privilege not to be the servant of any false G.o.d. ???? may serve for this sense as well as for the other. He would exclaim indignantly, 'The truth shall make us free? To what abomination,--to what lying idol have we ever yielded ourselves?'

Our Lord does not complain of them for affixing too strong a meaning to the word bondage. He does not appeal to the places for the receipt of custom, as proofs that the seed of Abraham had lost their independence. But He convicts them of having fallen into a slavery, domestic, personal, abject. He says that this slavery, though it may have caused their subjection to the Romans, would not be removed or abated if that were to cease. And, further, He affirms that slavery to a false G.o.d--that which lies beneath all idolatry--might be more justly attributed to the seed of Abraham than to any descendants of Ham.

The first of these allegations is contained in the words which contain also the justification of His a.s.surance that He can break their fetters, and give them a higher liberty than they had ever attained or dreamed of. '_Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed._' It is common to quote the first of these verses without the second. Preachers tell their hearers that they have committed sin, and are therefore the servants of sin. They say nothing of the Son who abideth in the house into which sin has intruded itself. I believe, brethren, that by making this separation, we put the sense of Scripture, as well as the honesty of our minds, in the utmost peril. I might use stronger language,--I might say we all but destroy both. We try to conceive of evil apart from good, of disobedience apart from obedience. We cannot do it. G.o.d's eternal law will not let us do it. If you want me to understand the corruption and depravity of my nature, you must tell me from what it is drawing me aside. You do me an infinite injury, if you tell me that sin is close to me, unless you tell me also that the great Enemy of Sin is close to me, and that I am violently tearing myself from Him when I give myself over to it. It is possible, no doubt, to find, in the height or the depth, another sense for these words than this, as it is possible to find another sense for any words, if the one which is nearest and most obvious should for some reason be disagreeable to us. And I am certain, brethren, that we shall all seek for some new, ingenious, and elaborate interpretation, or shall embrace it when it is presented to us--I am certain that we shall call the literal interpretation mystical, and shall persuade ourselves that the one we have put in the place of it is literal--unless we perceive that it corresponds both with the context of the New Testament and with our own necessities. I call upon you to see whether what I am saying is not true of each one of us. Let each man ask himself, 'Is not the sin of which Christ speaks, with me? Is not the Son of whom He speaks, with me? Has not the usurper of the house separated me from the Lord of the house? Is not the Lord of the house ready to put down the usurper, and to make me free indeed?'

The next words have led some to suppose that our Lord cannot have been speaking to those Jews who believed on Him:--'_I know that ye are Abraham's seed; yet ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you_.' These, it will be said, were not the men who were seeking to kill Him; they had confessed His authority; His word, it is admitted, had made its power felt by them. I will not evade the objection by saying, that so far as these men took their stand upon their position as Abraham's children, so far it might fairly be said to them: 'You see what Abraham's children do; their parentage does not save them from this crime.' I believe that is _not_ the meaning of the charge, or at any rate that it is only one very small part of the meaning. I think our Lord was speaking to the consciences of those whom He addressed of a sin of which _they_ had been guilty. I think that if those consciences had been aroused to _confess_ His power--in some measure to own His goodness--they will have been more ready than any other to own the charge; and if they did not own it, to be stung by it. They had not partic.i.p.ated, it is probable, in the plots of the Scribes and Pharisees to put Jesus to death. They might not then, they might not afterwards, take up a stone to cast at Him. But why were those plots conceived? why were those stones raised? To get rid of a Judge and a Reprover; to put out a light which was shining into the heart, and making its darkness visible; to destroy the Son of Man, the King of man; that each man might be his own king--might live undisturbed by any obligations to his fellow-men; to destroy the Son of G.o.d,--the witness of G.o.d's truth and G.o.d's love; that men might claim the inheritance as theirs,--that they might take credit to themselves for all goodness and truth, and give themselves no credit for their wickedness and lies. Now, did not each one of those to whom Jesus spoke, know inwardly that he had sought to put out the light that was shining into him,--to kill his Judge and Reprover? The living Word was there,--the Son was claiming to be the Lord of the house. But He was not allowed His place there. A certain sense there was of His presence. Certain acts of homage were rendered to Him. But He was not permitted to reign. They would find a divided allegiance more and more impossible. The good Lord or the evil must be absolute. The one who was rejected must be slain.

At each turn, this conversation becomes more profound and awful. The next verse leads us into a depth into which we may well tremble to look, and yet from which it is most unsafe to turn away:--'_I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father_.' Jesus had spoken of His Father as the root of all His loving acts,--of the wisdom, and truth, and love which were expressed in His words and in Himself. If there is a root to which all good that appears in a human life can be referred, must there not be a source to which all evil is referred? Can it be the same? If healing, restoration, life, are from the Father of Jesus, from what father come murderous thoughts,--the wish to destroy the Son of Man?

To fly from any thought which presses closely upon the conscience to some external truism,--even if it is one which has been proved to be inapplicable,--is the ordinary desire of us all. '_They answered and said unto Him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of G.o.d: this did not Abraham._' The question is about the paternity of certain purposes in their minds. These purposes were near to them, to their very selves. They determined their acts and their habits. Did they take _these_ by descent from the father of the faithful? Were these his progeny? Of course, they would have answered, as many of us would have answered, 'That is using words in a double sense. You mean one kind of fatherhood, we mean another.' No! it was they who were guilty of this duplicity. They were calling Abraham their father, in the notion that they were deriving some _spiritual_ privileges from him. If they only intended that they could trace up their pedigree, according to the flesh, to him, let them say that frankly to themselves. It was just what our Lord was urging them, in this part of His conversation, to do. But if he was their parent in any other sense, then let them remember what he was, what he did. The living and true G.o.d spake to him, and called him. He heard the voice; he yielded to it. That same voice was speaking to them. He was '_telling them the truth_;' and therefore '_they sought to kill Him_.'

He repeats, then, the former words,--'_Ye do the deeds of your father_.' And now they ventured what sounds a bold defence:--'_Then said they to Him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even G.o.d_.' Had they not a right to say so? Were they not almost quoting the words of Malachi? What is more, were they not using the very words of Jesus? Had He not spoken to publicans and sinners,--to the very outcasts of the people,--of a Father who was seeking to bring home the prodigal son, as the shepherd went after the lost sheep?

Would He deny to any Israelite the right to claim G.o.d as his Father?

What had He taken flesh for, but that He might a.s.sert that claim, not for Israelites only, but for men? Alas! brethren, we can understand too well what the Jews understood when they used this language, '_We have one Father, even G.o.d_,' because we are continually using the like ourselves. How commonly do we say, 'Oh, yes; in a general sense, all of us are G.o.d's children.' That general sense is _no_ sense. The word 'children' is used to signify _creatures_. We say men are His, as we say the cattle are His. In fact, we attach nearly as little significance to creation as to fatherhood. How can we, when we think of G.o.d as a mere ultimate explanation of our existence and the existence of the universe; when the idea of a Father of _spirits_--of one who has to do first of all with us, because we are spiritual, voluntary beings--is almost banished from our minds? To say that G.o.d is our Father, or any man's Father, when we conceive of Him as a distant power,--who ceases to be imaginary only when He puts forth His wrath,--is to practise a deception upon ourselves. It is a commoner deception with us than with the Jews, because Jesus has taught us to say, '_Our Father, which art in heaven_;' and every little Christendom child learns the words, and, thanks be to G.o.d, takes in something of their inward living sense. But when we become men, that sense which should have grown brighter and clearer with every day's joy and sorrow, has become utterly clouded by the world's mists, till the vision at last fades almost entirely. Then one here and there seizes the force of the word, discovers that he has really, and not in name, a Father, to whom he can pour out his whole heart. For a while he longs to persuade all that they have the same Father,--that they may cast their burdens upon Him too. He finds a few who understand him.

They a.s.sociate together; they speak of themselves as believers; they begin to think that they are G.o.d's children, because they believe that they are. Their ardour to convince men generally that they have a Father, becomes changed into an ardour to bring men into _their_ society. As that pa.s.sion increases, other lower and baser pa.s.sions increase with it. 'The believer' contracts more and more of those habits which are of the earth, earthy. He contracts, oftentimes, a bitterness and a malice which are not of the earth, but come from beneath. These he gives himself credit for as springing from his zeal for religion, or he merely pities himself for them as the remains of indwelling sin. He has not courage to say, 'These spring from another father, not from the Father in heaven. So far as I identify myself with them, I become the child of a father in h.e.l.l.' But he goes on a.s.suming he is G.o.d's child. He tells other men that they are only children in the secondary signification; that is to say, he cherishes in them the most dangerous of all falsehoods. He prevents them from turning to their true Father, and seeking of Him a true and divine life.

These Jews qualified the a.s.sertion, that they were all G.o.d's children, even in the lowest, most unreal, sense of that word. These were so who '_were not born of fornication_.' Children not born in lawful wedlock they seem to have thought of as having some dark, infernal parentage.

It must have been most startling to them when the words at last came forth which appeared to fix that parentage upon themselves.

'_Jesus said unto them, If G.o.d were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from G.o.d; neither came I of myself, but He sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the l.u.s.ts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of G.o.d heareth G.o.d's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of G.o.d._'

The Jews were proud of not worshipping false G.o.ds. The true G.o.d, then, what was He? The moment truth confronted them, they shrunk from it.

They were proud of not worshipping evil G.o.ds. The good G.o.d, then, what was He? The moment goodness confronted them, they hated it, and wished to extinguish it. They shrunk from the Man who did not speak His own words, but G.o.d's. They hated the Man who did not show forth His own goodness, but G.o.d's. Whence came this mind in them, this will, this spirit? Jesus tells them plainly. 'There is a mind, a will, a spirit, which from the beginning has been a man-slayer--has compa.s.sed the destruction of the man in each man. There is a mind, a will, a spirit, who has been from the beginning a liar, who would not stand in the truth.'