^ It is a way that never has been broken up, and never will be. All the floods of all His people's sins have never made a swamp or bog-hole in this blessed way ; all the earthquakes and upheavals of our rebellious natures have never made a gap or chasm in this glorious way. Straight from the very gates of hell, where the sinner is by nature, right up to the hilltops of heaven, this glorious causeway runs in one unbroken line, and will for ever and for ever, till every elect one shall be gathered safe into the eternal home.^
(3) Christ is the only way. — " I am the way." The saying has a negative as well as a positive aspect, an excluding as well as an assertive force ; yet there is nothing arbitrary in this assertion,
* 0. H. Spurgeon.
ST. JOHN XIV. 6 117
nor is it a warning against presumption. Christ is not announc- ing conditions on which a man shall be allowed to approach the Father, and threatening with rejection those who fail to observe them. He does not declare that no man may, but simply that no man does, come to the Father unless it be through Him. He is not a kind of angel standing at the gate of the Garden of Eden with a flaming sword, saying, " You cannot come to the Father and the happiness of heaven unless you come in just the way I point out." We are mistaken if we interpret this text in any such narrow and exclusive way as this. Christ does not say, " You must not come unless you come by Me." He says that, in point of fact, no man does come except by Him. It is the broad and general declaration that there is no coming to the Fatherhood except as men come through the knowledge of the Son ; that men have not come to a knowledge of the Father unless they have come through the revelation made by Jesus Christ His Son.
^ A pupil applies for admission to the Packer Institute, and asks to study logarithms. And the President answers, "You must begin with arithmetic." "But I don't like arithmetic; I don't want to study arithmetic; I want to study logarithms." " You cannot study logarithms unless you first study arithmetic." The pupil says, "I think that is very mean. I think it is a narrow and bigoted rule that I cannot study logarithms unless I first study arithmetic." The President replies, "There is no other road. It is not possible for you to come to an understand- ing of logarithms unless you take the only way men ever will enter into that knowledge — namely, the way of arithmetic." ^
I am the way !
Lo, as of old, one Voice is ever speaking;
Yet, all the day.
Still earnest souls another way are seeking.
Who, save the Son,
Om' condemnation in His body bearing —
With us made one —
Our likeness in His Father's presence wearing —
0 who, save He,
Could lead us safely through the night of sadness,
With Him to be.
Through an eternity of rest and gladness?
^ Lyman Abbott.
ii8 THE WAY. THE TRUTH, THE LIFE
Lord, we have heard:
Thou art the Way, and in Thyself confiding,
We trust Thy Word;
We trust ourselves in all things to Thy guiding.*
(4) Christ is the way and the end. — Here a question arises, which has often been asked : How can Christ be the way ? The way is the means to an end. When the end is gained, the means may be discarded. In common material things this is so. What we desire is the end ; we choose the means solely with a view to the end ; there is no significance or value in the means except as introductory to the end. But in higher things we cannot thus sharply distinguish means and the end : the search after truth has a worth in itself, the way to life is itself life ; the way and the end are one.
^ Here in Cambridge we are scholars all ; teachers or learners ; or rather teachers and learners at once. Learning is no doubt a mean — a mean whereby we may be enabled to serve God and our country in Church and State. Yet learning is not only a mean even to this high end, much less to those low grovelling ends which, by a corruption of language unknown to our founders, are called the rewards or prizes of knowledge. No single result is the satisfying fruit of labour, but the labour itself, steadily moving onward day by day, and proving itself not to be in vain, is the best proof that God's blessing is upon us. The work of education is the end and the reward : and that teacher and that student will labour restlessly and slavishly, not with a free and hearty enthusiam, who do not lose themselves and all distant ends in the engrossing enjoyment of the work itself.*
IIL
Chbist the Truth.
" I am the truth."
1. Were these words merely equivalent to " I speak the truth," it would be much to know this of One who tells us things of so measureless a consequence to ourselves. . The faith of the disciples