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 Comforter Given
III. Then, lastly, note the recipient disciples. Observe that the order of clauses is reversed in the last part of the text. The world cannot receive, because it does not know. The disciple knows, because he receives. Possession and knowledge reciprocally interchange places, and may be regarded as cause and effect of …
345 wordsSECTION 302The Absent Present Christ
'I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me: because I live, ye shall live also.'—JOHN xiv. 18,19. The sweet and gracious comfortings with which Christ had been soothing the disciples' fears went very deep, but hitherto they had not gone deep…
712 wordsSECTION 303The Absent Present Christ
I do not need to insist, I suppose, upon the manifest implication of absolute divinity which lies in such words as these. 'I come.' 'Being absent, I am present in all generations. I am present with every single heart.' That is equivalent to the Omnipresence of deity; that is equivalent to or implies the undying existen…
769 wordsSECTION 304The Absent Present Christ
And the promise was fulfilled. How did that dis-spirited group of cowardly men ever pluck up courage to hold together at all after the Crucifixion? Why was it that they did not follow the example of John's disciples, and dissolve and disappear; and say, 'The game is up. It is no use holding together any longer'? The pr…
698 wordsSECTION 305The Absent Present Christ
So this is what every Christian life may and should be—the continual sight of a continually-present Christ. It is His part to come. It is ours to see, to be conscious of Him who does come. Faith is the sight of the soul, and it is far better than the sight of the senses. It is more direct. My eye does not touch what I…
691 wordsSECTION 306The Absent Present Christ
And this Christ, coming to all His friends, possessor of the fullness of life in Himself, and proclaiming His absolute possession of that life, even whilst He stands within arm's-length of Calvary, is Life-giver to all that love Him and trust Him. We live _because_ He lives. In all senses of the word 'life,' as I beli…
549 wordsSECTION 307The Gifts Of The Present Christ
'At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you. He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.'—JOHN xiv. 20, 21. We have heard our Lord in the previous vers…
807 wordsSECTION 308The Gifts Of The Present Christ
The New Testament, as I read it, is full at every point of the divinity of Jesus Christ; and many profound and learned arguments on that subject have been urged by theologians, and these are all well and needful in their places, but the true way to be sure of it is to have Him dwelling with us and working in us; and th…
688 wordsSECTION 309The Gifts Of The Present Christ
'Oh but,' you say, 'this is not a fair account of the way in which Christian men and women generally feel about this matter.' Well, all that I can say about that is, so much the worse for the so-called Christian men and women. And if they are Christians, and do not know by this inward experience that Christ is divine a…
704 wordsSECTION 310The Gifts Of The Present Christ
The form of the sentence suggests how easy it is for people to delude themselves about their love to Jesus Christ. That emphatic 'he,' and the putting first of the character before its root is pointed out, are directed against false pretensions to love. The love that Christ stamps with His hall-mark, and passes as genu…
822 wordsSECTION 311Who Bring Christ
So, if 'any man wills to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine'; and if, touched by His divine love and infinite sacrifice for me, I cast my poor self upon Him, and try to love Him back again, and to keep His commandments because I love, then day by day I shall realise more and more of His strong, immortal, all-sa…
836 wordsSECTION 312Who Bring Christ
Now I need not dwell at any length upon the earlier words of this text, because we have had to consider them in previous sermons on the former verses of this chapter. I need only remark that here, as there, our Lord brings out the thought that the very life-blood of love is the treasuring of the word of the beloved One…
884 wordsSECTION 313Who Bring Christ
Brethren, one piece of honest, loving obedience is worth all the study and speculation of an unloving heart when the question is, 'How are we to see Christ?' Again, Jesus shows Himself to the obedient heart in indissoluble union with the Father. Look at the majesty, and, except upon one hypothesis, the insane presumpt…
704 wordsSECTION 314Who Bring Christ
II. Now, in the next place, my text gives us the negative side, and shows us what keeps away Christ and all His blessings. An unloving disobedience closes the eyes to the vision, and the heart against the entrance, of that dear Lord. Our Master lays down for us two principles, and leaves us to draw the conclusion for …
757 wordsSECTION 315Who Bring Christ
Another thought is, that Christ's showing of Himself to men is in no sense arbitrary. It is you that determine what you shall see. You can hermetically seal your heart against Him, you can blind yourself to all His beauty. The door of your hearts is hinged to open from within, and if you do not open it, it remains shut…
396 wordsSECTION 316The Teacher Spirit
'These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.'—JOHN xiv. 25, 26. This wonderful outpouring of consolation and i…
652 wordsSECTION 317The Teacher Spirit
There is no real knowledge of Christ and His truth without purity of heart. The man who has no music in his soul can never be brought to understand the deep harmonies of the great masters and magicians of sound. The man who has no eye for beauty can never be brought to bow his spirit before some of those embodiments of…
696 wordsSECTION 318The Teacher Spirit
II. I pass in the second place to the consideration of the Lesson which this promised Teacher gives. Mark the words, 'He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever _I_ have said unto you.' Now as we have seen in the exposition of the words 'in My name,' the whole subject-matter of…
822 wordsSECTION 319The Teacher Spirit
Then there is another practical conclusion from the words before us, on which I touch for a moment, and that is, that if Jesus Christ and the deep understanding of Him be the true lesson of the divine, teaching Spirit, then real progress consists, not in getting beyond Christ, but in getting more fully into Him. We hea…
655 wordsSECTION 320The Teacher Spirit
Now from all this take three counsels. Let this great promise fill us with shame. Look at Christendom. Does it not contradict such words as these? Disputatious sects, Christians scarcely agreed upon any one of the great central doctrines, seem a strange fulfilment. The present condition of Christendom does not prove th…
412 wordsSECTION 321Christ'S Peace
'Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.'—JOHN xiv. 27. 'Peace be unto you!' was, and is, the common Eastern salutation, both in meeting and in parting. It carries us back to a state of society in which every …
919 wordsSECTION 322Christ'S Peace
Nor is there any other way of healing the inner discord, schism, and contradiction of our anarchic nature, except in bringing it all into submission to His merciful rule. Look at that troubled kingdom that each of us carries about within himself, passion dragging this way, conscience that, a hundred desires all arrayed…
806 wordsSECTION 323Christ'S Peace
II. So, secondly, note here the world's gift, which is an illusion. 'Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.' Our Lord contrasts, as it seems to me, primarily the manner of the world's bestowment, and then passes insensibly into a contrast between the character of the world's gifts and His own. That phrase 'the worl…
659 wordsSECTION 324Christ'S Peace
The words that introduced this great discourse return again at its close, somewhat enlarged and with a deepened soothing and tenderness. There are two things referred to as the source of restlessness, troubled agitation or disturbance of heart; and that mainly, I suppose, because of terror in the outlook towards a dim …
731 wordsSECTION 325Joy And Faith, The Fruits Of Christ'S Departure
'Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for My Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.'—JOHN xiv. 28, 29. Our Lord here casts a glan…
862 wordsSECTION 326Joy And Faith, The Fruits Of Christ'S Departure
The real presence of Jesus Christ to-day, and through the long ages with every waiting heart, is the very keynote to the solemn music of these chapters. And again I press upon you, and upon myself, the question, Do we believe it? Do we live in the faith of it? Does it fill the same place in the perspective of our Chris…
800 wordsSECTION 327Joy And Faith, The Fruits Of Christ'S Departure
Now we can only speak in this matter as Scripture guides us. The depths of Deity are far too deep to be sounded by our plummets, and he is a bold man who ventures to say that he knows what is impossible in reference to the divine nature. He needs to have gone all round God, and down to the depths, and up to the heights…
716 wordsSECTION 328Joy And Faith, The Fruits Of Christ'S Departure
II. And now I can deal with the second verse of our text very briefly. For our purpose it is less important than the former one. In it we find our Lord setting forth, secondly, His departure and His announcement of His departure as the ground and food of faith. He knew what a crash was coming, and with exquisite tende…
727 wordsSECTION 329Christ Foreseeing His Passion
We, too, may and should be glad when we lift our eyes to that Throne where our Brother reigns. We too, may be glad that He is there, because His being there is the reason why He can be here; and we, too, may feed our faith upon Him, and so bring Him in very deed to dwell in our hearts. If we would have Christ within us…
798 wordsSECTION 330Christ Foreseeing His Passion
But note, as yet more important, that tremendous and unique consciousness of absolute invulnerability against the assaults. 'He hath nothing in Me.' He is 'the Prince of the world,' but His dominion stops outside My breast. He has no rule or authority there. His writs do not run, nor is His dominion recognised, within …
712 wordsSECTION 331Christ Foreseeing His Passion
There is one Man who died, not of physical necessity, but because of free choice. There is one Man who chose to be born, and who chose to die; who, in His choosing to be born, chose humiliation, and who, in choosing to die, chose yet deeper humiliation. This sacrifice was a voluntary sacrifice, or, to speak more accura…
712 wordsSECTION 332Christ Foreseeing His Passion
To speak of Christ's acceptance of the Father's commandment, then, is but another way of saying that Christ, in all the fullness of His self-surrender, entered into and took as His own the great, eternal divine purpose, that the world should be redeemed by His death upon the Cross. The heavenward side of His love to ma…
774 wordsSECTION 333*** End Of The Project Gutenberg Ebook Expositions Of Holy Scripture: St. John Chapters I To Xiv ***
Let us adore the steadfast will, which never faltered, though the natural human weakness was there too, and which, as impelled by some strong spring, kept persistently pressing towards the Cross that on it He might die, the world's Redeemer. And do not let us forget that He summoned His lovers and disciples to follow …
390 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.