The Omitted and the Eecokded Signs.
St. John has recorded only a part of what he knows, and he has recorded this for a special purpose. He and his friends have lived through a great experience ; they have been forced to consider what it really meant, and they have come to certain conclusions. Among all the events which passed under their eyes there were some that seemed specially significant. They were not merely events, they were signs; and that means that they had, as it were, two sides. On the one side something happened in the world of sight and sound — there was an historical occurrence. The Man Jesus did certain things in the world, just as Pontius Pilate the Governor, or Caiaphas the High Priest, or one of the Apostles themselves might have done. In a sense, of course, all such action has a significance, is, in some degree, a sign. Pilate, no doubt, has means of showing that what he does has ' Lonsdale Ragg, CJirisl and Our Ideals, 15.
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behind it the force of the Eoman Empire, which he represents. Perhaps Caiaphas revealed his high-priestly prerogative when, with the very last flicker of the old light that once shone upon the high priesthood, " he spake not of himself " of the necessity that one man should be sacrificed for the sake of the whole nation. Though the old gift was so sadly misused, it was still the High Priest in that predestined year who noted, cynically and brutally enough, the necessity of the sacrifice. And so Jesus did signs in the presence of His disciples, acts which carried meaning. Those who lived with Him gradually came to interpret these signs, and they drew from them the conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing we have life in His Name. They commend their faith to others. It is their mission to go and make disciples throughout the world, and they use for the ground- work of their appeal not argument, not philosophical construction, but a recital of the events, which they had come to know as signs.
1. The signs of Jesus are largely unrecorded. " Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book." What is our first thought on being told this ? Is it not this : Oh if we could only know them ; if only they had been written down, what a priceless boon; they would be just what we most need, they would clear up so many points that are now tangled in dispute. For, indeed, the recorded doings and sayings of the Lord are so pitifully, so terribly, short — just a few rapid incidents thrown together in the Synoptics, mainly out of the very last year of His life — only twenty days of all His earthly career touched upon in St. John ! How scanty, how partial, how unsatisfying ! Was ever so tremendous a venture as the Christian creed made on so slight a foundation as this ?
2. The unwritten is, and ever must be, more than the written. You cannot transcribe with pen all deeds and achievements, or tabulate the work of a life or even that of a year. Divine things cannot be compressed within the limits of a book. That which can be written can be circumscribed, and that which can be circumscribed has limits. Man looks for the unlimited, which may here be used for the infinite; and who would think of
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cramming the infinite into a report ? There are always the " many other signs which are not written " in all God's works and in all our works for God.
^ In examining and preparing the statistical returns for the year I was much struck with the thought of the " unwritten." I looked at circuits where I know a pure Gospel has been preached and special services have been held, and yet I noticed that the number of those " admitted during the year " might be counted upon the fingers of my right hand. I am certain such a tabulation does not fully express the work or the fruit of a year. The other day I received a handbill as a specimen of " invisible printing." On it were two blank spaces. I was instructed to hold the bill to the fire, and legible type would appear in the "blanks." I acted upon the said instructions, and lo ! there was the type perfectly readable. Brethren, in making up your returns I doubt not you mourned over the blank spaces; but when the record of our life and work shall be held up to the light and warmth of heaven we shall be cheered by seeing many a space " filled in " with the record of souls saved and saints succoured throu<7h our ministry. If all the signs of Christ's ministry are not written, let us not complain if some of ours remain unrecorded.^
3. We are not on the track of St. John's mind, when we begin by craving for an indefinite accumulation of Gospel material. He does not consider that that is what we need. He has another purpose in view, as he writes, than that of recording everything that he could recall or discover about our Lord, and this purpose of his is better served by a selection than by an accumulation, and therefore he spends his energy and experience not in gathering, but in sifting. His effort lies in singling out from the swarm of memories those special and typical moments which will best convey the impression he desires. How different from such a man as Papias in the later days, who had never seen the Lord, but would go about all over the world asking everywhere for some one who could tell him some new story about the Lord. That is not the Apostle, his long tarrying has taught him through the selective working of the Holy Spirit, under the pressure of daily circumstances what to keep in store, what to drop and prune, if the image of Christ is to transmit itself with faithful