^ Men say that when they know they will do ; Jesus says that when they do they will know. He does not promise to manifest Himself to the man who dreams or debates, but to him who keeps his commandments. The seeds of truth sprout in the soil of obedience. The words of Jesus in the mind of a disobedient man are no more vital than wheat in the wrappings of a mummy. To know the Divinity of Jesus's teachings, we must do His will with definite intention. Moral disobedience is mental darkness, but to submit our wills in loyalty to His law is to open our minds to the light of His truth.^
1. "If any man." — Observe the universality of the law. "If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak from myself." The law was true of the Man Christ Jesus Himself. He tells us it is true of all other men. In God's universe there are no favourites of heaven who may transgress the laws of the universe with impunity — none who can take fire in the hand and not be burnt — no enemies of heaven who if they sow corn will reap tares. The law is just and true to all: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." In God's spiritual universe there are no favourites of heaven who can attain knowledge and spiritual wisdom apart from obedience. There are none reprobate by an
* M. D. Babcock, Thoughts for Every -Day Living^ 19.
ST. JOHN VII. 17 307
eternal decree, who can surrender self and in all things submit to God, and yet fail of spiritual convictions. It is not therefore a rare, partial condescension of God, arbitrary and causeless, which gives knowledge of the truth to some, and shuts it out from others; but a vast, universal, glorious law. The light lighteth every man that cometh into the world. "If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know."
^ Of all the insolent, all the foolish persuasions that by any chance could enter and hold your empty little heart, this is the proudest and foolishest, — that you have been so much the darling of the Heavens, and favourite of the Fates, as to be born in the very nick of time, and in the punctual place, when and where pure Divine truth had been sifted from the errors of the Nations ; and that your papa had been providentially disposed to buy a house in the convenient neighbourhood of the steeple under which that Immaculate and final verity would be beautifully proclaimed. Do not think it, child ; it is not so. This, on the contrary, is the fact, — unpleasant you may think it ; pleasant, it seems to me, — that you, with all your pretty dresses, and dainty looks, and kindly thoughts, and saintly aspirations, are not one whit more thought of or loved by the great Maker and Master than any poor little red, black, or blue savage, running wild in the pestilent woods, or naked on the hot sands of the earth ; and that, of the two, you probably know less about God than she does ; the only difiPerence being that she thinks little of Him that is right, and you much that is wrong.^
2. " Willeth to do."— The old version reads : " If any man will do his will, he shall know," but the Eevised Version takes us a step farther back, away to the preparatory conditions before any deed is yet accomplished. "If any man willeth to do ... he shall know!" Back from doing to willingness to do. We are led from the realm of conduct to the region of character, from finished deed to primary aspirations. Notice the difference this makes in the problem. Before, it looked as if the doing were to come first and then the knowing His will; but now another element is thrown in at the very beginning. The being willing comes first and then the knowing ; and thereafter the doing may follow — the doing, that is to say, if the will has been sufficiently clear to proceed. The whole stress of the passage therefore turns
* Kuskin, Sesame a^nd Lilies ( Works, xviii. 36).
3o8 THE WILL TO KNOW
on this word "willeth." And Christ's answer to the question, How shall we know the will of God ? may be simply stated thus : " If any man is willing to do God's will, he shall know," or, in plainer language still, " If any man is sincerely trying to do God's will, he shall know." The connection of all this with obedience is just that being willing is the highest form of obedience. It is the spirit and essence of obedience. There is an obedience in the world which is no obedience, because the act of obedience is there but the spirit of submission is not.
^ On John viii. 43, 44 : " Ye cannot hear my word ; and the lusts of your father ye will do," Brownlow North remarks, " The * will ' explains the * cannot.' You cannot, because your will is in opposition." ^
^ " A certain man," we read in the Bible, " had two sons ; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not : but afterward he repented and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father ? " Obedience here comes out in its true colours as a thing in the will. And if any man have an obeying will, a truly single and submissive will, he shall know of the teaching, or of the leading, whether it be of God.^