PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI
Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910 · 128,057 words · 183 reading sections
The Title On The Cross
We may further ask why Jesus did not clear up the mistakes, if they were mistakes, that led to His condemnation. Surely He owed it to the two tribunals before which He stood, no less than to Himself and His followers, to disown the erroneous interpretations on which the charges against Him were based. Even a Caiaphas w…
767 wordsSECTION 122The Title On The Cross
III. The Title as prophesying Christ's universal dominion. The three tongues in which it was written were chosen simply to make it easy to read by the crowd from every part of the Empire assembled at the Passover. There were Palestinian Jews there who probably read Aramaic only, and representatives from the widely dif…
740 wordsSECTION 123The Irrevocable Past
'What I have written I have written.'--JOHN xix. 22. This was a mere piece of obstinacy. Pilate knew that he had prostituted his office in condemning Jesus, and he revenged himself for weak compliance by ill-timed mulishness. A cool-headed governor would have humoured his difficult subjects in such a trifle, as a just…
681 wordsSECTION 124Christ'S Finished And Unfinished Work
Memory may remain, but its sting is gone, and new hopes, and joys, and work may fill the pages of our record. 'He took away the handwriting that was against us, nailing it to His Cross.' Our lives and characters may become a palimpsest. 'I will write upon him My new name.' 'Ye are an epistle of Christ ministered by u…
655 wordsSECTION 125Christ'S Finished And Unfinished Work
Christ rendered a complete obedience. All through His life we see Him, hearing with the inward ear the solemn voice of the Father, and responding to it with that 'I must' which runs through all His days, from the earliest dawning of consciousness, when He startled His mother with 'I must be about My Father's business,'…
694 wordsSECTION 126Christ'S Finished And Unfinished Work
II. Now, secondly, note the work which began from the Cross. Between my two texts lie untold centuries, and the whole development of the consequences of Christ's death, like some great valley stretching between twin mountain-peaks on either side, which from some points of view will be foreshortened and invisible, but w…
678 wordsSECTION 127Christ'S Finished And Unfinished Work
Now, that continuous operation of Jesus Christ in the midst of men is not to be weakened down to the mere continued influence of the truths which He proclaimed, or the Gospel which He brought. There is something a great deal more than the diminishing vibrations of a force long since set in operation, and slowly ceasing…
687 wordsSECTION 128Christ Our Passover
So for ourselves, in regard to the one part of the work, let us listen to Him saying 'It is finished!' abandon all attempts to eke it out by additions of our own, and cast ourselves on the finished Revelation, the finished Obedience, the finished Atonement, made once for all on the Cross. But as for the continuous work…
892 wordsSECTION 129Christ Our Passover
What does it imply? It implies two things, and I must say a word about each of them. It implies that Christ regarded the whole of the ancient system of Judaism, its history, its law, its rites of worship, as pointing onwards to Himself, that He recognised in it a system the whole _raison d'etre_ of which was anticipato…
675 wordsSECTION 130Christ Our Passover
And so, dear brethren! when our Lord said, 'Do this in remembrance of Me,' I pray you to ask yourselves, What did that involve in regard to His nature and the source of His authority over us? And what did it involve in regard to His relation to that ancient Revelation? II. And now another point that I would suggest is…
733 wordsSECTION 131Christ Our Passover
III. Now, lastly, let me ask you to notice how, in this regal and authoritative dealing by our Lord with that ancient festival, there lies a loving provision for our weakness. Surely we may venture to say that Jesus Christ desired to be remembered, even by that handful of poor people, and by us, not only for our sakes…
529 wordsSECTION 132Joseph And Nicodemus
'And after this Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; ... And there came also Nicodemus which at the first came to Jesus by night.'--JOHN xix. 38, 39. While Christ lived, these two men had been unfaithful to their c…
672 wordsSECTION 133Joseph And Nicodemus
I do not mean to say--God forbid that I should--that connection with any existing church is the same as a connection with Jesus Christ, or that the neglect to be so associated is tantamount to secret discipleship; I know there are plenty of other ways of acknowledging Him than that, but I am quite sure that this is one…
706 wordsSECTION 134Joseph And Nicodemus
Now the reasons for this unfaithfulness to conviction and to Christ, are put by the Apostle here in a very blunt fashion--'For fear of the Jews.' That is not what we say to ourselves; some of us say, 'Oh! I have got beyond outward organisations. I find it enough to be united to Christ. The Christian communities are ver…
761 wordsSECTION 135Joseph And Nicodemus
II. I have spent too much time upon this part of my subject, and I must deal briefly with the following. Let me say a word about the illustrations that we have in this text of the miseries of this secret discipleship. How much these two men lost--all those three years of communion with the Master; all His teaching, al…
707 wordsSECTION 136Joseph And Nicodemus
That Cross will kindle a love which will not rest concealed, but will be 'like the ointment of the right hand which bewrayeth itself.' I can fancy men to whom Christ is only what He was to Nicodemus at first, 'a Teacher sent from God,' occupying Nicodemus' position of hidden belief in His teaching without feeling any n…
527 wordsSECTION 137The Grave In A Garden
'In the garden a new tomb.'--JOHN xix. 41 (R.V.). This is possibly no more than a topographical note introduced merely for the sake of accuracy. But it is quite in John's manner to attach importance to these apparent trifles and to give no express statement that he is doing so. There are several other instances in the…
693 wordsSECTION 138The Resurrection Morning
It changes shadowy hopes of continuous life into a solid certainty of resurrection life. The former is vague and powerless. It is impossible to conceive of the future with vividness unless as a bodily life. And this is the strength of the Christian conception of the future life, that corporeity is the end and goal of t…
713 wordsSECTION 139The Resurrection Morning
I. The open sepulchre and the bewildered alarm it excited. The act of resurrection took place before sunrise. 'At midnight,' probably, 'the Bridegroom came.' It was fitting that He who was to scatter the darkness of the grave should rise while darkness covered the earth, and that no eye should behold 'how' that dead wa…
710 wordsSECTION 140The Resurrection Morning
Here had been no hostile hands, or there would not have been this deliberation; nor friendly hands, or there would not have been such dishonour to the sacred dead as to carry away the body nude. What did it mean? Could He Himself have done for Himself what He had bade them do for Lazarus? Could He have laid aside the g…
729 wordsSECTION 141The Resurrection Morning
Be that as it may, it is noteworthy that His voice, which was immediately to reveal Him, at first suggested nothing to her; and even His gentle question, with the significant addition to the angels' words, in 'Whom seekest thou?' which indicated His knowledge that her tears fell for some person dear and lost, only made…
713 wordsSECTION 142The Risen Lord'S Charge And Gift
Such were the immortal hopes and new thoughts which Mary hastened from the presence of her recovered Lord to bring to the disciples. Fragrant though but partially understood, they were like half-opened blossoms from the tree of life planted in the midst of that garden, to bloom unfading, and ever disclosing new beauty …
868 wordsSECTION 143The Risen Lord'S Charge And Gift
We Nonconformists pride ourselves upon our freedom from what we call 'sacerdotalism.' Ay! and we Nonconformists are quite willing to assert our priesthood in opposition to the claims of a class, and are as willing to forget it, should the question of the duties of the priest come into view. You do not believe in priest…
711 wordsSECTION 144The Risen Lord'S Charge And Gift
Now let us turn to II. The Christian Equipment. 'He breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost!' The symbolical action reminds us of the Creation story, when into the nostrils was breathed 'the breath of life, and man became a living soul.' The symbol is but a symbol, but what it teaches us is that every C…
685 wordsSECTION 145The Risen Lord'S Charge And Gift
Let me remind you, too, that the words which our Lord here employs about these great gifts, when accurately examined, do lead us to the thought that we, even we, are not altogether passive in the reception of that gift. For the expression, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost' might, with more completeness of signification, be r…
667 wordsSECTION 146Thomas And Jesus
And so, Christian men and women have to feel that to them is entrusted a solemn message, that they walk in the world charged with a mighty power, that by the preaching of the Word, and by their own utterance of the forgiving mercy of the Lord Jesus, they may 'remit' or 'retain' not only the punishment of sin, but sin i…
785 wordsSECTION 147Thomas And Jesus
May we not learn a lesson? I venture to apply these words, dear friends, to our gatherings for worship. The worst thing that a man can do when disbelief, or doubt, or coldness shrouds his sky, and blots out the stars, is to go away alone and shut himself up with his own, perhaps morbid, or, at all events, disturbing th…
857 wordsSECTION 148Thomas And Jesus
So I come to the third point, and that is: III. The revelation that turned the denier into a rapturous confessor. What a strange week that must have been between the two Sundays--that of the Resurrection and the next! Surely it would have been kinder if the Christ had not left the disciples, with their new-found, tre…
789 wordsSECTION 149Thomas And Jesus
IV. A last Beatitude that extends to all generations. 'Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.' I need not do more than just in a sentence remind you that we shall very poorly understand either this saying or this Gospel or the greater part of the New Testament, if we do not make it very clear to our…
763 wordsSECTION 150The Silence Of Scripture
'And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name.'--JOHN XX. 30, 31. It is evident that these words were originally th…
857 wordsSECTION 151The Silence Of Scripture
And then, if you turn to the whole Book, the same thing is true, though in a modified sense there. I have no time to dwell upon that fruitful field, but the silence of Scripture is quite as eloquent as its speech. Think, for instance, of how many things in the Bible are taken for granted which one would not expect to b…
662 wordsSECTION 152The Silence Of Scripture
This was his purpose, and this representation of Jesus Christ is that which shapes all the facts and all the phenomena of this Gospel, from the very first words of it to its close. And so, although it is wide from my present subject, I may just make one parenthetical remark, to the effect that it is ridiculous in the …
682 wordsSECTION 153The Silence Of Scripture
And all its incompleteness, its fragmentariness, its carelessness about persons, are intended, as are the slight parts in a skilful artist's handiwork, to emphasise the beauty and the sovereignty of that one central Figure on which all lights are concentrated, and on which the painter has lavished all the resources of …
662 wordsSECTION 154The Silence Of Scripture
III. Now, lastly, notice the ultimate purpose of the whole. Scripture is not given to us merely to make us know something about God in Christ, nor only in order that we may have faith in the Christ thus revealed to us, but for a further end--great, glorious, but, blessed be His Name! not distant--namely, that we may '…
752 wordsSECTION 155An Eloquent Catalogue
'There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of His disciples.'--JOHN xxi. 2. This chapter, containing the infinitely significant and pathetic account of our Lord's appearance to these disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, is evidentl…
687 wordsSECTION 156An Eloquent Catalogue
Thus, then, to the original little group that had gathered round Him at the first, and to whom He had been so often manifested in this very scene where they were standing now, He is revealed again. There, along the beach, is the place where James and John and Simon and Andrew were called from their nets three short yea…
700 wordsSECTION 157An Eloquent Catalogue
Well, then, take the next: he was 'Nathanael, of Cana in Galilee'; a guileless 'Israelite indeed,' so swift to believe, so ready with his confession, so childlike in his wonder, so ardent in his love and faith. The only thing that Christ is recorded as having said to him is this: 'Because I said... believest thou? Thou…
744 wordsSECTION 158An Eloquent Catalogue
III. The last point that I touch is this, that the purpose of this group is significant. What did they thus get together for? 'Simon Peter saith, I go a fishing. They say, We also go with thee.' So they went back again to their old trade, and they had not left the nets and the boats and the hired servants for ever, as…
539 wordsSECTION 159The Beach And The Sea
'When the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore; but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.'--JOHN xxi. 4. The incident recorded in this appendix to John's Gospel is separated from the other appearances of our risen Lord in respect of place, time, and purpose. They all occurred in and about Jerusalem; this…
689 wordsSECTION 160The Beach And The Sea
So they go, and there follow the incidents which I need not repeat, because we all know them well enough. Only I wish to mark the distinct allusion throughout the whole narrative to the earlier story of the first miraculous draught of fishes which was connected with their call to the Apostleship, and was there by Chris…
694 wordsSECTION 161The Beach And The Sea
The simple prose fact of the story, in its plain meaning, is more precious than any 'spiritualising' of it. Take the fact. Jesus Christ, fresh from the grave, who had been down into those dark regions of mystery where the dead sleep and wait, and had come back into this world, and was on the eve of ascending to the Fat…
804 wordsSECTION 162The Beach And The Sea
Though we be on the tossing sea and He on the quiet shore, between us there is a true union and communion, His heart is with us, if our hearts be with Him, and from Him will pass over all strength, grace, and blessing to us, if only we know His presence, and owning our weakness, obey His command and expect His blessing…
654 wordsSECTION 163The Beach And The Sea
But then, besides that, the supply of all other deeper and loftier necessities is here guaranteed. The symbolism of our text divides, necessarily, the two things which in fact are not divided. It is not all toiling on the restless sea here, any more than it is all rest and fruition yonder; but all that your spirit need…
737 wordsSECTION 164'It Is The Lord!'
'Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord.--JOHN xxi. 7. It seems a very strange thing that these disciples had not, at an earlier period of this incident, discovered the presence of Christ, inasmuch as the whole was so manifestly a repetition of that former event by which the commence…
775 wordsSECTION 165'It Is The Lord!'
No man will understand the world aright, to begin with, who cannot say about all creation, 'It is the Lord!' Nature is but the veil of the invisible and ascended Lord: and if we would pierce to the deepest foundations of all being, we cannot stop until we get down to the living power of Christ our Saviour and the Creat…
761 wordsSECTION 166'It Is The Lord!'
'the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky,' see that Form which these disciples saw in the morning twilight. Let 'It is the Lord!' be the word on our lips as we gaze on them all, and nature will then be indeed to us the open secret, the secret of the Lord which 'He will sh…
711 wordsSECTION 167'It Is The Lord!'
'They that went before and they that came after,' when He entered into the holy city in His brief moment of acceptance and pomp, surrounded Him with hosannas and jubilant gladness. It is a deep and true symbol of the whole history of the world. All the generations that went before Him, though they knew it not, were pre…
1,063 wordsSECTION 168'It Is The Lord!'
And is it not a blessed thing, brethren! that thus this high and glorious prerogative of recognising the marks of Christ's presence everywhere, of going through life gladdened by the assurance of His nearness, does not depend on what belongs to few men only, but on what may belong to all? When we say that 'not many wis…
936 wordsSECTION 169'It Is The Lord!'
There is one last thought arising from the whole subject before us, that may be worth mention before I close. Did you ever notice how this whole incident might be turned, by a symbolical application, to the hour of death, and the vision which may meet us when we come thither? It admits of the application, and perhaps w…
378 wordsSECTION 170'Lovest Thou Me?'
'Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him, Feed My lambs.'--JOHN xxi. 15. Peter had already seen the risen Lord. There had been that interview on Easter morning, on which the seal of sacred secrecy wa…
699 wordsSECTION 171'Lovest Thou Me?'
The same intention to drive Peter back to the wholesome remembrance of a stained past is obvious in the first form of the question. Our Lord mercifully does not persist in giving to it that form in the second and third instances: 'Lovest thou Me more than these?' More than these, what? I cannot for a moment believe tha…
665 wordsSECTION 172'Lovest Thou Me?'
Christ asks for love. Surely that indicates the depth of His own! In this commerce He is satisfied with nothing less, and can ask for nothing more; and He seeks for love because He is love, and has given love. Oh! to all hearts burdened, as all our hearts ought to be--unless the burden has been cast off in one way--by …
675 wordsSECTION 173'Lovest Thou Me?'
Brethren! a Christian man ought to be sure of his love to Jesus Christ. You do not study your conduct in order to infer from it your love to others. You do not study your conduct in order to infer from it your love to your wife, or your husband, or your parents, or your children, or your friend. Love is not a matter of…
655 wordsSECTION 174Youth And Age, And The Command For Both
Love to Jesus Christ is the qualification for all such service. If we are knit to Him by true affection, which is based upon our consciousness of our own falls and evils, and our reception of His forgiving mercy, then we shall have the qualities that fit us, and the impulse that drives us, to serve and help our fellows…
918 wordsSECTION 175Youth And Age, And The Command For Both
Again, girding _one's self_ implies independent self-reliance, and that is a gift and a stewardship given (as all gifts are stewardships) to the young. We all fancy, in our early days, that we are going to build 'towers that will reach to heaven.' Now _we_ have come, and we will show people how to do it! The past gener…
660 wordsSECTION 176Youth And Age, And The Command For Both
II. Now let me ask you to turn with me for a moment to the second one--What you will certainly become if you live. I have already explained that putting this meaning on the latter portion of our first verse is somewhat forcing it from its original signification. And yet it is so little of violence that the whole of th…
725 wordsSECTION 177Youth And Age, And The Command For Both
III. And now, lastly, what in the view of both these stages it is wise for you to do. 'When He had spoken thus, He saith unto him, Follow Me.' What do we mean by following Christ? We mean submission to His authority. 'Follow Me' as Captain, Commander, absolute Lawgiver, and Lord. We mean imitation of His example. Thes…
739 wordsSECTION 178'They Also Serve Who Only Stand And Wait'
'Peter, seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do! Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me.'--John xxi. 21, 22. We have seen in a former sermon that the charge of the risen Christ to Peter, which immediately precedes these verses, allotted to h…
736 wordsSECTION 179'They Also Serve Who Only Stand And Wait'
So, in this entirely incidental fashion, you have one of the strongest and plainest instances of the quiet, unostentatious and habitual manner in which Jesus Christ claimed for Himself properly divine prerogatives. Remember that He who thus spoke was standing before these seven men there, in the morning light, on the …
816 wordsSECTION 180'They Also Serve Who Only Stand And Wait'
John, on the other hand, seldom appears in the narrative. When he does so he stands a silent figure by the side of Peter, and disappears from it altogether before very long. We do not hear that he did anything. He seems to have had no part in the missionary work of the Church. He 'tarried,' that was all. The word is t…
659 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.