PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chapters I to XIV
Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910 · 238,680 words · 333 reading sections
The Dismissal Of Judas
'… Then said Jesus unto Judas, That thou doest, do quickly.'—JOHN xiii. 27. When our Lord gave the morsel, dipped in the dish, to Judas, only John knew the significance of the act. But if we supplement the narrative here with that given by Matthew, we shall find that, accompanying the gift of the sop, was a brief dial…
683 wordsSECTION 242The Dismissal Of Judas
But, then, turn for a moment to the other thought that is suggested here—that solemn picture of a soul left to do as it will, because divine love has no other restraints which it can impose, and is bankrupt of motives that it can adduce to prevent it from its madness. Now I do not believe, for my part, that any man in …
747 wordsSECTION 243The Dismissal Of Judas
He uses his foes for the furtherance of His purpose. That has been the history of the world ever since. 'The floods, O Lord, have lifted up their voice.' And what have they done? Smashing against the breakwater, they but consolidate its mighty blocks, and prove that 'the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many …
733 wordsSECTION 244The Dismissal Of Judas
IV. And then I pass on to the last of the tones that I hear in these utterances—the voice of the willing Sacrifice for the sins of the world. 'That thou doest, do quickly.' There is nothing more obvious throughout the whole of the latter portion of the Gospel narrative than the way in which, increasingly towards its c…
649 wordsSECTION 245The Glory Of The Cross
'Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him.'—JOHN xiii. 31, 32. There is something very weird and awful in the brief note of time with which the Evangeli…
720 wordsSECTION 246The Glory Of The Cross
How did the Cross glorify Christ? In two ways. It was the revelation of His heart; it was the throne of His sovereign power. It was the revelation of His heart. All his life long He had been trying to tell the world how much He loved it. His love had been, as it were, filtered by drops through His words, through His d…
832 wordsSECTION 247The Glory Of The Cross
And so, brethren, there blend, in that last act of our Lord's—for His death was His act—in strange fashion, the two contradictory ideas of glory and shame; like some sky, all full of dark thunderclouds, and yet between them the brightest blue and the blazing sunshine. In the Cross, Death crowns Him the Prince of Life, …
664 wordsSECTION 248The Glory Of The Cross
For if the dying Christ be the Son of God dying for us, then the Cross glorifies God, because it teaches us that the glory of the divine character is the divine love. Of wisdom, or of power, or of any of the more 'majestic' attributes of the divine nature, that weak Man, hanging dying on the Cross, was a strange embodi…
671 wordsSECTION 249The Glory Of The Cross
And still further, not only have we here set forth, in most wondrous language, the reception and incorporation, if we may use such words, into the very centre of divinity, as granted to the Son of Man, but we have that glorifying set forth as commencing immediately upon the completion of God's glorifying by Christ upon…
428 wordsSECTION 250Cannot And Can
'Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek Me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go ye cannot come; so now I say to you.'—JOHN xiii. 33. The preceding context shows how large and black the Cross loomed before Jesus now, and how radiant the glory beyond shone out to Him. But it was only for …
882 wordsSECTION 251Cannot And Can
But let us remember that this 'cannot' was only a transitory cannot. For we must underscore very deeply that word in my text 'so _now_ I say to you,' and a moment afterwards, when one of the Apostles puts the question: 'Why cannot I follow Thee now?' the answer is: 'Thou canst not follow Me now; but thou shalt follow M…
656 wordsSECTION 252Cannot And Can
I have said that the act of faith, by associating a man with Jesus Christ in the power of His death and of His life, makes any who exercise it capable of passing into the presence of God. But I would remind you, too, that to make us more fit for more full and habitual communion is the very purpose for which all the dis…
858 wordsSECTION 253Seeking Jesus
'… Ye shall seek Me.'—JOHN xiii. 33. In the former sermon on this verse I pointed out that it, in its fullness, applies only to the brief period between the crucifixion and the resurrection, but that, partly by contrast and partly by analogy, it suggests permanent relations between Christ and His disciples. These rela…
874 wordsSECTION 254Seeking Jesus
To seek Him is the very hall-mark of a Christian, and that seeking comes to be an earnest desire and effort after more conscious communion with Him, and a more entire possession of His imparted life which is righteousness and peace and joy and power. According to the Rabbis, the manna tasted to each man what each man m…
744 wordsSECTION 255Seeking Jesus
I note that— II. The Christian seeker always finds. I pointed out in my last sermon the strange identity of our Lord's words to His humble friends, with those which on another occasion He used to His bitter enemies. He reminds the disciples of that identity in the verse from which my text comes: 'As I said to the Jew…
753 wordsSECTION 256Seeking Jesus
Dear brethren, there is one course of life, and I believe but one, on which we may all enter with the sure confidence that in the nature of things, in the nature of Christ, and in the nature of ourselves, there is no end to growth and progress. Think of the freshness and blessedness and energy that puts into a life. To…
380 wordsSECTION 257'As I Have Loved'
'A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another: as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.'—JOHN xiii. 34, 35. Wishes from dying lips are sacred. They sink deep into memories and mould faithful lives. The sense …
770 wordsSECTION 258'As I Have Loved'
Now then, brethren, do not let us forget that, although to obey this commandment is in some respects a great deal harder to-day than it was then, the diverse circumstances in which Christian individuals and Christian communities are this day placed may modify the form of our obedience, but do not in the smallest degree…
659 wordsSECTION 259'As I Have Loved'
But there is more than that involved in it. The very same principle which makes this love to one another imperative upon all disciples, makes it equally imperative upon every follower of Jesus Christ to embrace in a real affection all whom Jesus so loved as to die for them. If I am to love a Christian man because he an…
660 wordsSECTION 260'As I Have Loved'
I have tried to show you how the commandment was new in many particulars, and it is for ever new in this particular, that it is for ever before us, unattained, and drawing faithful hearts to itself, and ever opening out into new heroisms and, therefore, blessedness, of self-sacrifice, and ever leading us to confess the…
784 wordsSECTION 261Quo Vadis?
'Peter said unto Him, Lord, why cannot I follow Thee now! I will lay down my life for Thy sake. Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for My sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied Me thrice.'—JOHN xiii. 37, 38. Peter's main characteristics are all in operation h…
775 wordsSECTION 262Quo Vadis?
And long years after that, when he was an old man, and experience had taught him what _following_ meant, he shared his privilege with all the dispersed strangers to whom he wrote, and said to them, with a definite reference to this incident, and to the other after the Resurrection, 'leaving us an example, that we (not …
828 wordsSECTION 263Quo Vadis?
But let us remember that with regard to that future following and its completeness, the same present incapacity applies, as clogs and mars the 'following,' which is conforming our lives to His. For, as He Himself has said to us, 'I go to prepare a place for you,' and until He had passed through death and into His glory…
805 wordsSECTION 264A Rash Vow
O Lord our Father! help us, we beseech Thee, that we may be of the sheep that hear the Shepherd's voice and follow Him. Strengthen our faith in that dear Lord who has laid down His life for us, that we may daily, by self-denial and self-sacrifice, lay down our lives for Him, and follow Him here in all the footsteps of …
755 wordsSECTION 265A Rash Vow
God forbid that I should seem to deprecate emotional religion or religious emotion! that is the last thing that needs to be done in this generation. If the Churches want one thing more than another, it is that their Christianity should become far more emotional than it is, and their impulses stronger, swifter, more spo…
840 wordsSECTION 266A Rash Vow
I was once shown an old Jewish coin which had on the one side the words 'sackcloth and ashes,' and on the other side the words 'a crown of gold.' The coin meant to contrast what Israel had been with what Israel then was. The crown had come first; the sackcloth and ashes last. But we may use it for illustrating this poi…
953 wordsSECTION 267A Rash Vow
III. Let me say a word about the sad forecast here. 'Thou shalt deny me thrice.' We cannot say that poor Peter's fall was at all an anomalous or uncommon thing. He did exactly what a great many of us are doing. He could—and I have no doubt he would—have gone to the death for Jesus Christ; but he could not stand being…
794 wordsSECTION 268Faith In God And Christ
'Fall to rise; be beaten, to fight better.' If only we cling to the Lord our Strength, the promise shall be ours—whatever our failures, denials, backslidings, inconsistencies—'though he fall he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand.' 'Let not your heart be troubled … believe in God,…
798 wordsSECTION 269Faith In God And Christ
Further, note that, whatever may be this believing in Him which He asks from us or invites us to render, it is precisely the same thing which He bids us render to God. The two clauses in the original bring out that idea even more vividly than in our version, because the order of the words in the latter clause is invert…
743 wordsSECTION 270Faith In God And Christ
II. Now, secondly, notice that faith in Christ and faith in God are not two, but one. These two clauses on the surface present juxtaposition. Looked at more closely they present interpenetration and identity. Jesus Christ does not merely set Himself up by the side of God, nor are we worshippers of two Gods when we bow…
713 wordsSECTION 271Faith In God And Christ
And in like manner, all the imperfect faith that, laying hold of other fragmentary means of knowing God, has tremulously tried to trust Him, finds its climax and consummate flower in the full-blossomed faith that lays hold upon Jesus Christ. The unconscious prophecies of heathendom; the trust that select souls up and d…
750 wordsSECTION 272'Many Mansions'
'The wicked is like the troubled sea which cannot rest.' But if I trust, my soul will become like the glassy ocean when all the storms sleep, and 'birds of peace sit brooding on the charmed wave.' 'Peace I leave with you.' 'Let not your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in Me.' Help us, O Lord! to yield our…
729 wordsSECTION 273'Many Mansions'
And then consider how the conception of that Future as the Father's house suggests answers to so many of our questions about the relationship of the inmates to one another. Are they to dwell isolated in their several mansions? Is that the way in which children in a home dwell with each other? Surely if He be the Father…
692 wordsSECTION 274'Many Mansions'
And then there is a second thought to be suggested from these words, and that is of the ample room in this great house. The original purpose of the words of my text, as I have already reminded you, was simply to soothe the fears of a handful of disciples. There was room where Christ went for eleven poor men. Yes, room…
765 wordsSECTION 275'Many Mansions'
II. In the next place, note here the sufficiency of Christ's revelation for our needs. 'If it were not so I would have told you.' He sets Himself forward in very august fashion as being the Revealer and Opener of that house for us. There is a singular tone about all our Lord's few references to the future—a tone of de…
700 wordsSECTION 276The Forerunner
So let us recognise our limitations. We know in part, and we are wise if we affirm in part. Hold by the Central Light, which is Jesus Christ. 'Many things did Jesus which are not written in this book,' and many gaps and deficiencies from a human point of view exist in the contexture of revelation. 'But these are writte…
785 wordsSECTION 277The Forerunner
Old legends tell us of magic gates that resisted all attempts to force them, but upon which, if one drop of a certain blood fell, they flew open. And so, by His death, Christ has opened the gates and made the heaven of perfect purity a dwelling-place for sinful men. But the second stage of His departure is that which …
773 wordsSECTION 278The Forerunner
Now that return of our Lord, like His departure, may be considered as having two stages. Unquestionably the main meaning and application of the words is to that final and personal coming which stands at the end of history, and to which the hopes of every Christian soul ought to be steadfastly directed. He will 'so come…
780 wordsSECTION 279The Forerunner
III. Lastly, notice the Perfected Union. The departure for such a purpose necessarily involved the return again. Both are stages in the process, which is perfected by complete union—'That where I am there ye may be also.' Christ, as I have been saying, is Heaven. His presence is all that we need for peace, for joy, f…
570 wordsSECTION 280The Way
'And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know not whither Thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me. If ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also: and from henceforth ye…
691 wordsSECTION 281The Way
The patient gentleness of the Master with the slowness of the scholars is beautifully exemplified here, as is also the method, which He lovingly and patiently adopts, of sending men back to consult their own consciousness as illuminated by His teaching, and to see whether there is not lying somewhere, unrecked of and u…
702 wordsSECTION 282The Way
There are no words of the Master, perhaps, to which my previous remarks are more necessary to be applied than these. We know; and yet oh! what an overplus of glory and of depth is here that we do not know and never can know. The most fragmentary and inadequate grasp of them with heart and mind will bring light to the m…
851 wordsSECTION 283The Way
And so, because, on the one hand, He brings a God to our hearts that we can love and trust, and because, on the other, He communicates to our spirits, dead in the only true death which is the separation from God by sin, the life by which we are knit to God, He is the Way to the Father. And what about people that never…
720 wordsSECTION 284The Way
And then our Lord passes on to another thought, the new vision which at the moment was being granted to this unconscious ignorance that was passing into conscious knowledge. 'From henceforth ye know Him and have seen Him.' We must give that 'from henceforth,' as a note of time, a somewhat liberal interpretation, and ap…
373 wordsSECTION 285The True Vision Of God
'Philip saith unto Jesus, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. 9. Jesus saith unto Him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father…
715 wordsSECTION 286The True Vision Of God
I. The first is, that we all do need to have God made visible to us. The history of heathendom shows us that, in every land men have said, 'The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.' And the highest cultivation of this highly cultivated and self-conscious twentieth century has not removed us from the same …
655 wordsSECTION 287The True Vision Of God
II. Our Lord goes on to a further answer, and points to the divine and mutual indwelling by which this sight is made possible. 'Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of Myself, but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.' There are he…
719 wordsSECTION 288The True Vision Of God
The true bond of union between men and Jesus Christ is faith. We have to trust, and that is better than sight. We have to trust _Him_. He is the personal Object of our faith. In all faith there is what I may call a moral and a voluntary element. A man believes a proposition because it is forced upon him, and his intell…
801 wordsSECTION 289Christ'S Works And Ours
On the other hand, dear friends, let us remember that no faith avails itself of all the treasures laid up for it, which does not lay hold upon Christ in the character in which He presents Himself. The only adequate, worthy trust in Him is the trust which grasps Him as the Incarnate God and Saviour. Only such a faith do…
656 wordsSECTION 290Christ'S Works And Ours
For, notice the remarkable connection of the words with which we are dealing. 'He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall _he_ do,' and the ground of that is 'because I go to My Father,' and whatsoever the believer 'shall ask, _I_ will do.' So, then, there are here two very distinct paths on which Christ repre…
663 wordsSECTION 291Christ'S Works And Ours
We have not to think only of a Lord whose activity for us, beneficent and marvellous as it is, was finished in the misty past upon the Cross, nor have we only to think of a Lord whose activity for us, mighty and comforting as it is to all the solitary and struggling, is wrought as from the heights of the heavens, but w…
700 wordsSECTION 292Christ'S Works And Ours
II. Note, in the next place, the greater work of the servants on and for whom the Lord works. 'Greater works than these shall he do.' Is, then, the servant greater than his Lord, and he that is sent greater than He that sent him? Not so, for whatsoever the servant does is done because the Lord is with and in him, and t…
800 wordsSECTION 293Christ'S Works And Ours
So if Christian individuals and Christian communities are impotent, or all but impotent, there is no difficulty in understanding why. They have cut the connection, they have shut the tap. They lack faith; and so their power is weakness. 'Why could we not cast him out?' said they, perplexed when they had no need to be. …
662 wordsSECTION 294Love And Obedience
Trust yourselves to Christ, and let your desires be stilled, to listen to His voice in you, and let that voice speak. And then, dear brethren, we shall be lifted above ourselves, and strength will flow into us, and we shall be able to say, 'I can do all things, through the Christ that dwells in me and makes me strong.'…
827 wordsSECTION 295Love And Obedience
And then, if that be so, what a change passes on the aspect of law, when we take Christ as being our living embodiment of it! Everything that was hard, repellent, far-off, cold, vanishes. We have no longer 'tables of stone,' but 'fleshy tables of the heart'; and the Law stands before us, a Being to be loved, to be clun…
820 wordsSECTION 296Love And Obedience
Love does that, and love alone. That strong force brought into action in our hearts will drive out from thence all rivals, all false and low things. The true way to cleanse the Augean stables, as the old myth has it, was to turn the river into them. It would have been endless work to wheel out the filth in wheelbarrows…
749 wordsSECTION 297Love And Obedience
Nothing else will kindle a man's love than the faithful contemplation and grasp of Christ in that character and aspect. Only the redeeming Christ affords a reasonable ground for our love to Him. Here is a dead man, dead for nineteen centuries, expecting you and me to have towards Him a vivid personal affection which wi…
418 wordsSECTION 298The Comforter Given
'And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of Truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.'—JOHN xiv. 16,17. The 'and' at the beginning…
788 wordsSECTION 299The Comforter Given
But I would have you notice how, as is always the case in all utterances of Jesus Christ which express the lowest humiliation and completest identification of Himself with humanity, there is ever present some touch of obscured glory, some all but suppressed flash of brightness which will not be wholly concealed. Note t…
976 wordsSECTION 300The Comforter Given
And, says Christ, this Strengthener and Advocate is to replace Me and to carry on My work. 'He will send _another_ Comforter.' Who was the other but the Master who was speaking? So all that that handful of men had found of sweetness and shelter and assured guidance, and stay for their weakness, and enlightenment for th…
764 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.