The Gospel of St. John Part 17

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. I am the Vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing._' The words in the 13th chapter, '_Ye are clean, but not all_,' led me to antic.i.p.ate what I should say about these, '_Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you_.' I said that He treated them as a pure and holy body, and that the unclean person was he who would not belong to the body, but chose to dwell in his own isolation. What is added to that statement here is, that Christ's word was that which purified them. They had no unity of their own, or purity of their own. He spoke to them in their inmost hearts, claimed them as His. That quickening, uniting, purifying word, going forth from Him, was the source of their life, their purity, their unity.

What they had to do was not to put forth self-willed efforts for the sake of making themselves better, or wiser, or more united, but simply to abide in Him, to believe that they were His, to act as if they were. I resort to other forms of expression, as if I hoped to make that which He chose clearer; but, in fact, that is immeasurably plainer, and fuller, and deeper, than any I can imagine. '_Abide in me_' at once recals the natural a.n.a.logy, while it is in strictness appropriate only to the condition of a voluntary being. It implies a possible separation, an act of adhesion; and yet it implies that this separation is altogether monstrous and anomalous; that this adhesion is merely the refusal to break a cord of love with which G.o.d is actually binding us. '_Abide in me_' is doubtless a command; but it is supported by the other clause, '_and I in you_.' 'Rest in me as if you were united to me; and a living power shall go forth from me to sustain and quicken you. And all this that you may _bear fruit_.' That part of the symbol is never for a moment lost sight of. The relation of the branch to the stem implies the pa.s.sage of a productive life from one into the other. The secret processes within are tending to a result which shall be visible. Christ tells them that they can bear nothing, that they will be utterly barren and dry, unless they retain their attachment to Him, unless He communicates a sap to them continually. He is not satisfied with the comparison; He again puts the doctrine into a more direct form, as if to a.s.sure them that He was not using metaphors, that He was taking the most direct method of bringing before them that which was not real but _the_ reality, not _a_ fact, but _the_ fact of their existence. '_I am the Vine, ye are the branches._' 'The energies and powers within you, when I quicken them, shall bring forth thoughts, deeds, words, that shall be living, and shall spread life. Without me all is dead.'

The last clause has brought the law home to the disciples themselves; but the former was more general: '_He that abideth in me, and I in him_.' And so is the 6th verse: '_Except a man_' (any one) '_abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned_.' That 'any one' gives the sentence a fearful significance. Let us think well of it. Have we never felt as if, though no voice had cut us off from the fellows.h.i.+p of our brethren, we had cut ourselves off? Have we never felt an internal withering, as if the springs of life in us were all dried up? What was the secret of this condition, which we could trace to no outward violence? Or do we ask, 'What is the cure? How may that separation be put an end to before it becomes fixed and everlasting?

How may that secret withering be arrested before it ends in absolute death?' The evil is traced to its source when we are told that we have not abided in Him; the remedy lies in that command, and in no other.

The dead sticks are gathered into a bundle and burnt. But the sap has not gone out of the Vine; that may still make the bough to sprout and bud.

The next verses take us a step further. '_If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples._' He had said, '_Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will do it_.' He can now give the words, '_in my name_,'

their full force. It is not the name of one who may have power with Him to whom they are pleading, but who is far from _them_. It is the name of Him in whom they are actually dwelling, in whom they are one.

And His words are the expression of His Father's will. So far, then, as those words dwell in them, and ascend up from them in prayer to G.o.d, so far they are asking according to His will, and He is doing that will in granting them their pet.i.tions. Not merely, as we render the pa.s.sage, '_It shall be done for you_,' but '_It shall become to you_.' G.o.d's will shall work with your will, which it is moulding to itself. And so G.o.d is glorified in the fruit which you bring forth.

The more rich you are in love and good works, the more is He Himself manifested in you, the more are you Christ's disciples.

Thus we are brought back to the ultimate ground of this relation between Christ and human beings. '_As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: abide in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love._' This is the continually recurring burden of this divine song. The love of the Father is at the root of all. The Son can do nothing but in obedience to that. He believes it, obeys it, and so lives in it. The law of the disciples' being is the same. They are to believe in the love which is the manifestation and reflection of this love, to obey it, to live in it.

And now another gift is bestowed which we expect less, on this night of sorrow, than even that gift of peace of which I spoke last Sunday.

'_These things have I said unto you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full_' (or fulfilled). Remember that this was spoken after He had been 'troubled in spirit' at the thought of His betrayal, not long before He was to pa.s.s through the agony. If any one says to himself,--who has not said it to himself?--'What is joy to me?

how can I ever be partaker of that?' let him think thus. 'Christ knew, as none of us ever have known or shall know, what the death and extinction of all joy means; what it is to be alone; what it is to feel deserted of men and deserted of G.o.d. And yet He spoke of His joy, and of communicating that joy to the disciples. Whence came it? What was it? How could it be communicated? It was obedience to His Father's commands. It came from His submitting to those commands, though they brought Him to suffering, and desertion, and death. It is communicated to men along with that same power of obedience and endurance. His joy was to do a will which He knew to be a loving will, into whatsoever heights or depths it might bring Him. That obedience with all its consequences, He says, He will impart to us if we will receive it.'

Therefore He goes on: '_This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth. But I have called you friends; for all things which I have heard from my Father, I have made known unto you._'

You see how earnestly He repeats those words which to many of us have such a paradoxical sound. 'I _command_ you to love.' 'Just the thing,'

we say in our hearts, 'which cannot be commanded, which must come from choice.' 'Just that,' He answers, 'which cannot come from choice, which must come from submission.' If a loving Being were not the Lord of our wills, were not the Lord of the universe, we might make mighty efforts to love, supposing we had been taught by some visitant from another region what love was; and every such effort would be a rebellious struggle against our Master and our destiny. If there is a perfect Love creating and sustaining all things, if men have a Father, then such efforts cannot be rebellious, must be in conformity to this law: 'Love as I have loved you.' I have said this before, while dwelling on another part of this discourse; but I must say it again and again, for it is the principle which underlies the whole of it, and upon which the distinction that is made here between servants and friends entirely depends. Christ manifests the greatest love which, He says, can be manifested. The love which He manifests is His Father's.

He lays down His life in submission to that. They become His friends by yielding to that love, by confessing it, by allowing it to have dominion over them. He calls them no longer servants, but friends, because servants only know what they are to do, without knowing why they are to do it; whereas He has told them the very secret of His Father's mind, the ground on which His acts and His precepts rest. It is not that the friend is less under authority than the servant. It is not that the one does what He is bidden, and the other may do what he likes. It is that the friend enters into the very nature of the command,--that it is a command which is addressed to his will, and which moulds his will to its own likeness.

In strict consistency with this language, He goes on: '_Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and have ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He may give it you.'_ All sectarianism, all self-seeking and self-willed religion, is based upon the idea, 'We have chosen Him. By an act of faith, or an act of love, we have entered into a relation with Him, which but for that act would not be.' And the whole Gospel turns upon the opposite maxim to this: '_I have chosen you_.' 'You are merely obeying a call.

You are merely confessing a relation, with the making of which you had nothing to do.' Even when this doctrine of election has taken a narrow form,--even when it has been recognised chiefly as exclusive,--it has had a mighty power over the hearts of men. They have given themselves up, as they never could do when they thought they had selected their own Master, or were going upon errands of their own. But when it takes the form which it has here; when Christ, who has loved them to the death, commands them to love others as He has loved; when He tells them that He has placed them in their different circ.u.mstances that they may go and bring forth fruit,--that fruit being the men whom they shall persuade that they too belong to a race for which Christ has died, and which the Father loves;--there cannot be any principle which is at once so humbling and so elevating, which so takes away all notion from the disciple that there is any worth in his own deeds or words, which gives him so confident an a.s.surance that G.o.d's word, spoken through him or through any man, will not return to Him void.

And that, if I am not mistaken, is the reason why the promise, that whatever is asked of the Father in Christ's name shall be granted, is again introduced here with the variation, '_He may give it_,' instead of 'I will do it.' A man who feels that he is called to a work, does not therefore feel power to accomplish it. He may feel--as Moses did, and as Jeremiah did--an increased feebleness, an utter childishness; but he understands that he may ask the Father, whose will he is called to do, that that will may be done; so he wins a strength which is and is not his own.

We wonder to find the command which we have heard so often, delivered once more in the 17th verse. But we presently discover that it is as an introduction to a new subject, and that in relation to that subject the old words have a new force. '_These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word which I spake to you, The servant is not greater than his Master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also._' Here the love which He commands them to have for one another--the love which is His own, and which He inspires--is contrasted with the hatred of the world. The one difference which we have already discovered between the world and those whom He chooses out of it, is that they confess a Centre, and that the world confesses none; that they desire to move, each in his own orbit, about this Centre, and that the world acknowledges only a revolution of each man about himself. The world, indeed, cannot realize its own principles. It must have companies, parties, sects,--bodies acknowledging some principle of cohesion, aspiring after a kind of unity. Still, as a world, this is the description of it; and therefore, as a world, it must hate all who say, 'We are a society bound together, not by any law of our own, not by an election of our own, but by G.o.d's law and election. And His law is a law of sacrifice. He gives up His Son; His Son gives up Himself. We are to give up ourselves in obedience to His Spirit, that we may do His work.'

As He had so lately called them friends, not servants, we may be surprised that here He gave them the old name again. But the t.i.tle, servant, is not now a dishonourable t.i.tle for those whom He has called friends. Since the Master became a servant, His friends must be content to be servants, otherwise they do not know what their Lord doeth; they cannot enter into His mind. With this service, too, they must take the hatred and persecution of the world as part of their endowment, as one of the treasures which their Lord shares with them.

If it does not hate them, they must always fear that they are not loving each other, or loving it as G.o.d loves it.

'_But all these things will they do to you for my name's sake, because they know not Him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.

He that hateth me, hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now_ _have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But this cometh to pa.s.s, that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, They hated me without a cause._' These are, perhaps, the most terrible words in the Old or New Testament. No descriptions of divine punishment which are written anywhere, can come the least into comparison with them for awfulness and horror. This gratuitous hatred--this hatred of Christ by men because they hate G.o.d, this hatred of G.o.d because He has manifested and proved Himself to be love--is something which pa.s.ses all our conceptions, and yet which would not mean anything to us if our consciences did not bear witness that the possibility of it lies in ourselves. And do not let us put away that thought, brethren, or the other which is closely akin to it, that such hatred is only possible in a nation which, like the Jewish, is full of religious knowledge and of religious profession. There, our Lord tells us Himself, was a hatred of Him and of His Father which could be found nowhere else,--there, among scribes, and Pharisees, and chief priests. Let us ask G.o.d, that none of us may say of his brother, 'This crime may be committed by thee;' but each of himself: 'G.o.d be merciful to me a sinner. Keep me by Thy love, abiding in Thy love.

Help me to keep Christ's commandment of loving my brother as well as Thee; else, if I am left to myself, I may sink into such a h.e.l.l of hatred, as would be worse than all other h.e.l.ls that men have ever feared to think of.'

Let us pray this prayer, and then our Lord's last words in this chapter will come to us as the most wonderful relief, as the very answer which we long for. '_But when the Comforter shall come, whom I will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me: and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning._' To have the Comforter, the Paraclete, with us, this is the security that the spirit of hatred shall not overcome us. To have the Spirit of truth with us, this is the security that we shall not be brought to believe a lie, or to disbelieve in the G.o.d of truth. To have Him testifying of Christ, the Son of Man and the Son of G.o.d, is the security that we shall abide in Him who has given the greatest proof of love that can be given, by laying down His life for His friends. To be able to testify of Him because we have been with Him, even when He was hidden from us, and we did not know how near He was; to testify of Him by our words and our deeds; this is the security that He is using us for His own gracious purpose, and that He will be glorified in the fruits which He will cause us to bring forth.

DISCOURSE XXV.

THE COMFORTER AND HIS TESTIMONY.

[Lincoln's Inn, 10th Sunday after Trinity (Morning), July 27, 1856.]

ST. JOHN XVI. 1.

_These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended._

The things which Jesus had just spoken to the disciples were, that His countrymen '_hated Him without a cause_;' that they '_hated both Him and His Father_.' These things were to take away the scandal which it would be to them to find that they made themselves hated by proclaiming a Gospel of peace and good will. '_They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth G.o.d service._' It would be a strange result; fellows.h.i.+p with their brethren destroyed because they proclaimed the ground of fellows.h.i.+p; death inflicted upon them because they preached that death was overcome. Might not poor Galilaeans, conscious of folly and sin, often say to themselves: 'We must be wrong; the rulers of the land must be wiser than we are. Ought we to turn the world upside down for an opinion of ours?' But '_these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me_.' 'They have not known what the Lord and Light of their spirit meant: do you think they can know what you mean? They have hated my character; they have hated G.o.d in His own essential nature: would you expect them to love you who are sent forth to testify what that nature is, and how it has been manifested?'

All His education had been gradual; no word had been spoken till it was needed. So it is now. '_And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you. But now I go my way to Him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou?_' His meaning would only be entered into fully when the events explained it; but what a difference would it make to them that they could a.s.sure themselves then, 'It _is_ His meaning! All this He told us of.' And this would be no mere act of memory, at least if memory is only concerned with the past. It would do more than anything else to remove the confusion which beset them, which His own words seemed almost to increase, as to His absence from them, and His presence with them. He had said that He was going to the Father; He had said that His going would be an elevation and a blessing to them. He had said that He should come to them. They could not see their way through these apparent inconsistencies. They had begun to ask whither He was going, but they had stopped short in the inquiry. The news of His departure possessed them; that was an unspeakable weight upon their minds. They scarcely thought that any knowledge of the 'where' would materially lighten it.

'_Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you._' It was the hardest of all truths; the hearts which grief had occupied could afford little room for it. '_It is expedient that I should go away._' Again the doubt will have come back in its full force: 'What compensation can there be for His absence? What new friend can take His place?' Before, the promise, however difficult to comprehend, '_I will come to you_,' had taken away some of the bitterness of their antic.i.p.ations. Now it was necessary that they should face the whole subject; that they should apprehend the Comforter as a distinct Person from Him who was speaking to them; that they should rise by degrees to feel how compatible this distinctness was with perfect unity. We, with our rough blundering dogmatism, may think that we can teach these lessons at once; and when we find how difficult it is for men to take them in, because they are men like ourselves--incapable of seeing more than half a truth at a time--may conclude just as rashly that no processes can ever bring any but a few learned and subtle men to such a discovery. But He who knew what was in man, was content to give His disciples line upon line; to go over the steps of His teaching often again; to make them conscious first of one need of their spirits, then of another; to present each by turns with the satisfaction which it demands; to be indifferent about apparent contradictions, so long as real contradictions were escaped. He who knew what was in man was sure that it is not the doctor or the systematizer, but the human being, who wants to be instructed in the distinction of Persons and the unity of Substance; that our minds rest upon the principles to which these opposing words are the indices; that the fisherman or the publican feels after them with his heart, and a.s.sumes them in his discourse; that he and the doctor may enter into them together, when both are willing to perform the highest demand of science as well as of faith, by becoming little children.

Here, then, He tells them that His departure out of their sight was actually necessary in order that the Paraclete--whom He had spoken of as the bond of their union, as their efficient Teacher and Friend--should come to them. You would have supposed, perhaps, that He would have gone on to tell them what blessings the coming of this Paraclete would confer upon _them_, which He would not confer upon the world, since He had said that the world would not receive Him or know Him. It may cause us some surprise, then, to read: '_And when He is come, He will reprove the_ WORLD _of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged_.' It is impossible to get rid of this difficulty by any loose interpretation of the word _world_. It is one of the characteristic and vital words in all this discourse. It is used, as I think, with great precision and uniformity throughout St.

John: to evade its force here, is to destroy his meaning altogether.

On the other hand, if we will adhere steadfastly to the language as it stands, we gain a fresh and brilliant ill.u.s.tration of the work to which our Lord had destined His disciples, and apart from their performance of which they could look for no blessings to themselves.

They were to be witnesses to a world which had forgotten its Centre, concerning that Centre; witnesses to a world which was created by a righteous G.o.d, and was meant to show forth His righteousness, in whom this righteousness dwelt, and how it was to be sought after; witnesses to a world which had set up a prince of its own, that his power must come to an end, that it had been proved to be weakness.

How could they fulfil such a mission as this? What could their arguments or their rhetoric avail to bring home such convictions to a single Jew or a single idolater, to say nothing of a world of Jews, or a world of idolaters? By their very nature, such convictions must be inward and radical. They could not play about the surface of men's hearts, but must penetrate into them. Whence could come this demonstration? Our Lord tells the disciples at once that they are to despair of its ever coming from them, that they are to be sure it will come from the Spirit with which He will endue them. Not they, but He, will convince the world; because, though the world may not receive Him neither know Him, it has been formed to receive all quickening life from Him; it must confess His presence, even if it would hide itself from His presence. And the disciples were to go forth in this faith; in the certainty that wherever they met a man, Jew or Gentile, there was one whose Head was Christ, who owed his life to Christ, who was receiving light from Christ, and who only sinned because he did not own this Head, confess this Life, open his conscience and heart to this Light. The Spirit in them would show them this truth concerning themselves, and would only show it to them concerning themselves, because they were partakers of the nature which every wors.h.i.+pper of Jupiter or Brahm had as much as they. The disciples were to go forth in the certainty that the righteous Man whom they had once seen upon earth, in whom they had beheld the grace and truth of the Father, was the same when they saw Him no more. They were to believe in Him as the Lord their righteousness; they were to believe that the righteousness of G.o.d was in Him; so they were to rise up righteous men, children bearing the image of their Father. The Spirit within them would give them this faith; the Spirit within them would make them partakers of this righteousness. And that same Spirit would convince the world of this righteousness, would bring this standard continually before it, would make this standard the real measure of its laws, its polity, its customs; the measure of its deflections from right and truth. There would be an inward conviction, a continually growing conviction among men, that nothing short of this could be the human standard, even when they were setting up another, even when they were p.r.o.nouncing this to be unattainable, even when they said that they would rather not attain it if they could. The disciples were to go forth in the belief that when the spirit of selfishness seemed strongest in themselves, strongest among their fellows,--when they were most disposed to bow to him and acknowledge him as their king,--he was not their king, but a lying usurper, whose pretensions Christ had confounded in the wilderness and on the cross, whom they could trample underfoot if they remembered that Christ's Father was their Father. The Spirit would teach them that this prince of the world was not their prince. He would teach them, therefore, that he was not indeed, and by right, any man's prince, that all might disclaim him, that for the sake of all he had been judged. And the Spirit would convince the world also of this, that the untruths to which it bows down can have only a brief dominion; that that which is, must prevail over that which is not; that all evil lingers on under a curse which has been p.r.o.nounced, and shall be fully and eternally executed.

All this they would learn hereafter; it could only be prophecy to them now. And there were many things which it would be of no avail to utter even in prophecy. '_I have yet many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now. But_,' our Lord goes on, '_when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all truth_,'--into the whole truth, not merely into scattered fragments of it. For He shall have dominion over your whole being. He shall guide it into that fulness which it longs for, the fulness of G.o.d Himself. But it shall be still a _guidance_; He will take you by regular steps along the road which leads to this satisfaction. '_For He shall not speak of Himself, but what He shall hear that shall He speak, and He shall tell you things to come._' We should not, perhaps, be able to make out the force of the words, '_He shall not speak of Himself_,' if the history of the Church and the world had not expounded them. Again and again there have been teachers in the Church who have spoken loudly of an illuminating Spirit. They have said that a dispensation of the Spirit had come, which made the old Gospel of Jesus Christ poor and obsolete; they have said that now the Spirit was all that men had to think of or believe in. So spoke a portion of the Franciscans, in the thirteenth century; some of the brethren and sisters of the Free Spirit, in the fourteenth; some of the Anabaptists, in the sixteenth; some of the Quakers, in the seventeenth; so speak not a few who are revolting against Materialism, without having found any safe standing-ground from which to oppose it, in our own. The spirit in such men speaks '_of itself_.' Such a spirit, our Lord says, is not the Holy Spirit; for He will speak whatsoever things He hears; He will bring to us the message of a Father, from whom He comes. He will not make us impatient of a Lord and Ruler, but desirous of one, eager to give up ourselves to His guidance, eager to get rid of our own fancies and conceits, and to enter more into fellows.h.i.+p with all men. He will not allow us to be satisfied with our advanced knowledge or great discoveries, but will always be showing us things that _are coming_; giving us an apprehension of truths that we have not yet reached, though they be truths which are '_the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever_.'

That may not be the whole meaning of the words, '_things to come_;'

the phrase may intimate that foresight which is given to those who study principles, meditating on the past, and believing in G.o.d. The Spirit which our Lord promises is a.s.suredly the Spirit who spoke by the prophets of old, and has spoken by all His servants who have humbled themselves, and sought light and wisdom from above. But these two senses do not contradict each other; and the first is, I think, more directly suggested by the context. It may also imply that the Spirit, who does not speak of Himself, leads men away from that incessant poring over the operations and experiences of their inner life, which is unhealthy and morbid, to dwell upon the events which are continually unfolding themselves in G.o.d's world under His providence, and teaches them to expect the final issue of those events in the complete manifestation and triumph of the Son of G.o.d.

The last meaning would connect the 13th verse with the 14th, '_He shall glorify me_.' 'Whenever the Spirit of truth is working most energetically in you, the effect will be that the glory of the Deliverer and Head of man becomes more dear to you; that you proclaim me more and more earnestly in that character.' '_For He, the Comforter, shall take of mine, and shall shew it to you._' 'He shall, in your hours of deepest gloom and despondency, reveal to you One who is above yourselves, One in whom you may forget yourselves, One in whom you may see all that perfection of your nature which it will drive you to despair to seek in yourselves. Not, indeed, that you could be satisfied with even this vision, if it were only the vision of a Son of Man, of what is most glorious in humanity.' '_But all things which the Father hath are mine._' 'All the glory of the G.o.dhead s.h.i.+nes forth in the Manhood; all that original goodness and truth and love which man is created to long for and to show forth.' '_Therefore, said I, He shall take of mine and shall shew it to you._'

He has returned to the point from which He started. His going to the Father has been the subject of His discourse ever since He met them in the upper room at the feast. That has led Him to speak of the Comforter who should tell them of His Father; afterwards of His own eternal union to them, as the root of their fellows.h.i.+p, as the spring of their life; then again of the Comforter who should teach them of both Him and the Father, who should make them witnesses of their eternal unity to men. It is no break in the discourse when He adds, '_A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father_.' The words which we translate '_see_' in the two clauses, are different. I do not know that I can discern the shades of their meaning; but I am sure that there is a reason for the variation, and that it should not be overlooked. The word ?e??e?te may, perhaps, intimate that for a time they would lose all perception of Him, even an intellectual perception; the word ??es?e, that they should see Him again with the eyes of the body as well as of the mind, may have cheered the disciples afterwards; at present it added to their confusion. '_Then said some of His disciples among themselves, What is this that He saith unto us, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me: and, Because I go to the Father?

They said therefore, What is this that He saith, A little while? we cannot tell what He saith._' They are like men awakening out of a dream, full of troubles and of joys mixed strangely together. He was departing from the earth; He was going to the Father; He was to prepare a place for them. What did it all mean? They thought He was about to tell them; these words '_a little while_' seem to throw them back into more than their old perplexity.

'_Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask Him, and said unto them, Do ye inquire among yourselves of that I said, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me?_' He knew that they were desirous to ask Him, because He had taught them to ask. The processes of their minds were under His guidance, as well as the issues of the processes. He determined nothing for them till He had led them to feel after it. So their conversations have become lesson-books for all ages; not resolutions of doubts by peremptory decisions, but histories of transactions in the hearts of men like ourselves, whom the Divine Word chose as instances of the method by which He educates us. And the sentences which follow show us something more of this method, and make us understand how little even the most celestial food can nourish us if it is taken in without being digested.

'_Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you._'

Their thoughts of the '_little while_' had been half sad, half frivolous. They supposed that He could at once tell them what He meant by telling them how long He would be absent, and in what place and under what circ.u.mstances He would meet them again. He presents the subject in an altogether different light; for He tells them that the little while in which He shall be hidden from them will be an hour of travail and of death, and that the little while of His reappearance will be the hour of the birth of a man into the world. We feel at once that these cannot be metaphors; that if the death of Christ is anything, and the resurrection of Christ is anything, this must be _the_ language, the most exact and living which Christ Himself could speak, or we could hear, to determine the signification of them. Here, as throughout the conversation, our Lord connects the world with His disciples, and at the same time contrasts the one with the other. They will mourn that they have lost a friend; the world will rejoice that it has got rid of an enemy. But their ultimate joy must be that a MAN, _the_ Man for whom the world has been waiting so long, has been born into it. They can have no joy for themselves which is not a joy for mankind, which is not a thanksgiving for its victory. '_And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you._' They should see Him returning the Conqueror of death, the Conqueror of man's enemy; that should be a joy not dependent upon the sight of their eyes, not dependent upon His visible continuance with them; it should be a joy of the heart, and it should be a joy which no man could take from them. Their own weakness, or sin, or death, could not, for this joy would raise them above themselves; this would give them an inheritance in One in whom was no sin or ignorance, and over whom death had no power. The unbelief of others could not, for the fact of His triumph would remain the same whether men confessed it or no.

He goes on: '_And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full._' This was the secret, half-understood cause of their grief, as it is one cause of the grief of all who are about to lose a friend. We can go to him no more; we can tell him of no more difficulties; we can ask him no more questions. 'But in that day,' He says, 'when you shall see me again,--in that day of full, satisfying joy,--you will not feel this want; you will not be longing to ask that which only concerns yourselves; you will feel yourselves bound together in my name, a family of brothers in an Elder Brother. The vision of a Father will open clearly upon you; and verily whatever you ask Him in my name,--in the name of Him who binds you to one another, and binds you all to the Father of heaven and earth,--He will give it you. For you will desire that which He desires, that which I have died and risen again to work out, the glory of His name, the coming of His kingdom, the doing of His will. Hitherto you have not entered into this joy. Your thoughts have been narrow, weak, limited to yourselves. When you pray to the Father in my name, when you enter into communion with Him, your joy will be full; you will attain the highest blessedness of which man is capable.'

'_These things_,' He continues, '_have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father. At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from G.o.d. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father._'

This is the climax of His discourse, one may say of all human discourse; though prayer, as I think we shall find in the next chapter, may take us into a higher region still. He has been speaking to them in symbols, proverbs, parables. He has been showing them how all nature, how human transactions, how their own lives, all implied a kingdom of heaven, were ladders upon which angels were ascending and descending. The ladder would not be thrown down; parables and proverbs would remain everlastingly true. But now His voice could be heard who was at the top of the ladder. The Father, who had been declared through all subordinate relations, would Himself be revealed. And though all prayers are ascending up to Him, yet His love would be discovered as itself the fountain of them all. Even the Son, the great Intercessor, will not say to them that He will pray for them, if they take prayer to mean anything which is to alter the Father's purpose, or augment His love. For of His will His own words are the utterance and expression. He came forth from the Father, and is come into the world. He is going back to the Father to unite the world to Him.

'_His disciples said unto Him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from G.o.d._' It seemed to the disciples as if all clouds were now scattered. They thought the Man was already born into the world. Alas! it was in their own faith they were still in part believing, not in Him. The travail-hour must be pa.s.sed through by them as by us; that which would scatter all trust in themselves, that which would leave them only G.o.d to trust in. '_Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, in which ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone._'

Their hour of weakness was at hand. It would be also His. They would be deserted, and He would be deserted. And yet He adds, '_I am not alone, because the Father is with me_.' 'Your faith will perish. Even I shall cry, "_My G.o.d, why hast thou forsaken me?_" And yet that eternal union which I have been declaring to you, which I have come into the world to manifest, will be unshaken. This desertion will make it manifest. And because that is unshaken, your union with me will be unshaken also. Nothing which I have said to you will prove untrue.

"_These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation_,"--that world which surrounds you, and in the evils and faithlessness of which you share.

"_But be of good cheer; I have overcome the world._" Its wars and divisions and hatreds have not vanquished me; I have vanquished them.

Not the king whom the world has chosen for itself, but the Son whom the Father has set over it, shall reign in it for ever and ever.'

DISCOURSE XXVI.

THE PRAYER OF THE HIGH PRIEST.