2. Some people find it hard to trace the connexion between
way, and truth, and life ; and that difficulty was well expressed
by Maldonatus in the pithy saying, "If Christ had been less
liberal in explanation, we had less labour in exposition." The
three terms, way, truth, and life, are not co-ordinate, as Luther
and Calvin hold, i.e. beginning, middle, end; neither do they
express a single notion, as Augustine's vera via vitae; nor does
Eeuss seem to express quite accurately their relation when he
combines them, by defining the way as the means of arriving at
truth and life. The phrase may be interpreted, according to
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io8 THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE
Lightfoot and others, as a Hebraism equivalent to " the true and living way " ; but it is better to take the two latter phrases as explanations of the former, Jesus means to say : "I am the means of coming to the Father, because I am the truth and the life."
L
CnRiST THE Person.
" I am."
The distinguishing feature and the chief glory of this wonderful declaration of Christ lies in its personal element. The special force of the utterance lies not in the words, " the way, and the truth, and the life," but in Christ's resolving their whole meaning into Himself. "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me." It is this presentation of a Person, as concentrating within Himself all that can be embraced in the all-comprehensive words, " the way, and the truth, and the life," that constitutes the grand peculiarity and the chief wonder of the text.
1. Man's need is satisfied only by a person. If anything is obviousTn" our everyday experience, and in the history, both secular and religious, of mankind, it is that in the formation of character, in great social changes, in shaping the destiny of our race, the great factor is not abstract truth, system, or form, but living, thinking, willing beings — mind acting on mind, heart on heart, life on life. This is human nature — on the one hand, an obvious and universal susceptibility to the influence of the person ; and, on the other, such influence at all times and in all directions at work, moulding character and gradually determining the great changes that mark our history. Take home life. What is moulding the natures there, and day after day shaping the future man and woman ? Is it the acknowledged regulations of the house, the teachings out of book, or lip, or is it the teacher — the verbal lessons of the mother, or the mother herself ? Take school life. This moulding, this gradual ripening is going on with obvious reality there ; and what is doing it ? The books, the maps, the desks, the forms, the cane ? No. It is the teacher and
ST. JOHN XIV. 6 109
the companions that are training and stamping the future man. Take a wider view of life, and the same lesson is as clearly taught. Who can calculate the personal influence of Confucius, of Zoroaster, or Mohammed? What may be fairly traced, in the Christian era, to the spirit and life of Paul, of Augustine, of Calvin, of Luther, of Wesley ? In politics, what is well done or worth doing without a leader in whom the party fully trusts ? In war, who can exaggerate the potency of the captain ? What would have been our recollections of Waterloo in the absence of Wellington ?
^ In general the progress of mankind has not been gradual, but sudden, like the burst of summer in some ice-bound clime. Still less has it been a common effort of the whole human race. If we take away two nations from the history of the world ; if we imagine further that the six greatest among the sons of men were blotted out, or had never been, the peoples of the earth would still be " sitting in darkness and the shadow of death." The two nations were among the fewest of all people : scarcely in their most flourishing period together amounting to a hundredth part of the human race. The golden age of either of them can hardly be said to extend over two or three centuries. The nations themselves were not good for much ; but single men among them have been the teachers, not only of their own, but of all ages and countries. If the Greek philosophers had never existed, is it too much to say that the very nature of the human mind would have been different ? We can hardly tell when or how the sciences would have come into being ; many elements of religion as well as of law would have been wanting ; the history of nations would have changed. So mighty has been the influence of two or three men in thought and speculation — the world has gone after them.i
^ The intense devotion which the Vaishnavas feel for Eama is merely another proof that. East and West alike, the greatest moulding force is a great personality. In the former days of the British Eaj great personalities, especially in the army, had free play. They remained long years in the country, and won not only the loyalty, but, as in Nicholson's and Sir Henry Lawrence's case, the devotion of the natives. The almost universal complaint now is that natives are not brought sufficiently into personal relations to their rulers, but are governed too much by red tape and machinery. The importance which the natives attach to personality was seen, as Sir Bampfylde Fuller points out in his * J. H. .Towett, Sermons on Faith and Doctrine, 284.