I30 THE GIVING OF THE COMFORTER
sacrificed fathers and mothers and home and friends and business and every earthly prospect. And now He was going! In response to His call they had embarked upon a ne ?7 life. They had taken up their cross and followed Him. It was not an easy life ; it was a hard life, a toilsome life, a sacrificial life. Already they had been called upon to suffer trial and persecution for His Name's sake. But with Jesus at their side they had never faltered. With His presence to cheer and strengthen them, they had bravely held on their way. But now He was going. The whole edifice of their life seemed to fall crashing in ruins about their ears. And then to these panic-stricken disciples Jesus explained what His departure meant. He had been as God to them. In Him God had touched the very springs of their life and entered into their souls. His going did not mean that God would forsake them. If He went, they would not be left desolate ; God would send them another Advocate, another Helper, who would be to them all that Jesus Himself had been and more ; who would bring them just the same sense of God's nearness and presence ; who would inspire and help them just as effectively as Jesus Himself had done.
3. The subject, then, is the giving of the Comforter, and the passage divides itself easily into two parts : —
I. On what Conditions the Comforter is given. II. For what Purposes the Comforter is given.
I.
On what Conditions the Comforter is given.
There are two conditions expressly named that have to be fulfilled before the Comforter comes. The first condition is that the disciples must he obedient. " If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments, and . . ." The other is that Jesus prays the Father to give them the Comforter : " And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you." From these two conditions there flow two results : first, that the Comforter is a gift — " he will give you another Comforter" ; and second, that He is given to the disciples who are obedient, and not to the disobedient " world."
ST. JOHN XIV. 15-17 131
i. Obedience. " If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments."
1. Before the promises there is a proviso. It is premised that there is a state of heart and a character of life to which they belong. As the works and the gifts of power were made dependent on faith and prayer, so the experiences now foretold presuppose the life of love and duty. This appropriation is laid down to begin with, and is insisted on more largely as the promises unfold.
^ The preferable reading, " If ye love me, ye, will keep my commandments," gives the future instead of the imperative of the Authorized Version, rather describing a process than imposing a condition ; but the meaning is the same — namely, that these are promises which belong only to him who loves and obeys.^
2. In "If ye love me" we hear a confiding rather than a doubtful tone. The love is supposed, as elsewhere it is expressly recognized. But it proves true love only in one way, " If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments " ; and again, " He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." There is a voice of Divine authority in the phrase, " my command- ments." They claim obedience, but the obedience of love; and love will render it. Love is the spring of action, and is in its nature free ; but it is not left to its own impulses ; it acknowledges authority; it is placed under rule, and includes the element of obligation.
■fl The connexion between love and commandment dwelt on the mind of St. John, and reappears more than once in his Epistle. It is not according to the tendencies of human nature, as we all know, and as St. Paul has set forth in the seventh chapter of his Epistle to the Eomans in recording his experience of the law and its effects. It is, in fact, distinctive of Christian duty and of the morality of the Gospel. In Christ the claims of authority and the affections of the heart agree in one. Here, as ever, the teaching of Jesus fixes our minds on the practical side of religion — on doing what we know, on living and walking by His words.2
^ T. D. Bernard, The Central Teaching of Jesus Christ, 159. •Ibid.
132 THE GIVING OF THE COMFORTER
3. Obedience is the one test of sincerity, the one mode of retaining the warmth of love. " He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." The Bible says very little of what we call religion ; but very much of God, and of Christ, and of love. Christ does not say, " If ye love me, then ye will meet often to worship me " ; He does say, " ye will keep my commandments " ; and the chief and summary of all the com- mandments are the love of God and the love of our neighbour. The true worship of God is obedience and love. It is an idolatrous notion that God is pleased with mere worship. Just as thousands of burnt-offerings and ten thousands of rivers of oil availed nothing without the love and obedience of the worshipper, so not all our gifts or our services are precious to Him except in so far as they are the offering of our love and obedience, and as they help us in our daily life.