1 W. Boyd Carpenter, Some Pages of My Life, 158.
My Lord and My God.
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Literature.
Aitken (W. H. M. H.), What is Your Life? 148. "Bellett (J. C), in Sermons for the People, i. 95. Benson (R. M.), The Final Passover, iv. 536. Bernard (J. H.), From Faith to Faith, 261. Buckland (A. R.)> Words of Help, 105. Burrows (H. W.), Parochial Sermons, iii. 122. Davidson (A. B.), The Called of God, 319. Davies (T.), Sermons, ii. 220. Hodge (C), Princeton Sermojis, 370. Hutchings (W. H.), Sermon Sketches, ii. 134. /-Jeffrey (J.), TJie Personal Ministry of the Son of Man, 276. ^awlor (H. J.), Thoughts on Belief and Life, 84. Little (J. A. S.), Salt and Peace, 162. Manning (H. E.), Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects, i. 197. Mortimer (A. G.), Jesus and the Resurrection, 184. Pearse (M. G.), The Gentleness of Jesus, 77. Smith (J.), Short Studies, 236. -Speer (R. E.), The Master of the Heart, 56.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxx. (1884) No. 205. Stanford (C), From Calvary to Olivet, 157. v-Telford (J.), The Story of the Upper Room-, 245. v'^ebb (A. B.), in Sermons for the People, i. 80.
Christian World Pulpit, Ivii. 257 (Gore) ; Ixxvii. 241 (Morgan). Church Pulpit Year Book, vii. (1910) 81. Keswick Week, 1905, p. 95 (Pierson).
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My Lord and My God.
Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.— John XX. 28.
It was a strange confession this, to be addressed by a pious Jew, who knew the meaning of his faith, to the man Christ Jesus, with whom as man he had companied, with whom he had eaten and drunk, whom he had heard speak in human words through human lips. The Jew believed in a God who had created men, who worked through them and ruled them, who was conversant with all their ways, who spoke to them and had spoken through them. But it was a God who was more immeasurably distant than imagination could bridge, whose ways were higher than men's ways, and His thoughts than men's thoughts, as high as the heaven is from the earth. He had spoken through men, but it is in that very consciousness of the prophets that the distance between God and man becomes most significant. It emphasizes just where man is highest ; for in proportion to man's goodness does he become conscious of his own sinfulness in the presence of the high and holy God. " Woe is me ! for I am undone ; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips : for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts " — that had been the cry of Isaiah. " Ah, Lord God ! behold I cannot speak : for I am a child " — that had been the confession of Jeremiah's weakness. There was not one of these holy men of God who, if we had proposed to offer him the sort of reverence that is due to God, would have hesitated for a moment to rebuke it in the language of St. Peter, " Stand up ; for I myself also am a man." The last of the prophets, he who is called greater than the prophets, is conspicuous for this self- effacement in the presence of God, though in his case he took off
the glory of his prophetic crown to cast it at the feet of Christ.
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362 MY LORD AND MY GOD
Truly a strange confession this, to see one who knew the meaning of his belief in the one and only unapproachable God, and hear him speak to One who was truly Son of Man, truly Jesus of Nazareth, in the words " My Lord and my God."
1. The text forms the climax of the Fourth Gospel. It is St. John's answer to the question, "Who then is this?" That question was asked by the people when Christ stayed the storm on the Sea of Galilee. They were astonished without measure, we are told, and said one to another, " Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him ? "
Four answers have been given to that question.
(1) First there is the answer which the people themselves gave. " Is not this the carpenter's son ? " they said. He was one of themselves. He had been born in Bethlehem ; He had followed His father's trade ; He had lived amongst them, and they believed that they knew Him. They knew Him and all His kindred: " Is not his mother called Mary ? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas ? And his sisters, are they not all with us ? " He simply made an addition of one to the population of the town of Nazareth.
And this answer is given still. In our day there is scarcely a more popular answer than this. Jesus is a man ; He makes an addition of one to the population of the world. He is a man, it is added, of supreme ability, originality, and earnestness. He is a man of most exceptional goodness. Those who make this answer have a little difficulty in agreeing as to just how good He was. Some go so far as to say that He seems to have been sinless, or at any rate that nothing sinful is reported of Him. But most will not go so far as that. They cannot believe that any man whose father and mother we know could be sinless.