ST. JOHN XX. 30, 31 409
in the subjective. Faith is limited in the subjective only — it has an infinite objective. Sight has to do solely with the material, faith with the spiritual. Sight is of the body, faith is of the soul.^
(2) How do the signs of Jesus produce faith in Him ? St. John felt that the life of Christ had a perpetual value for men. The Lord Jesus was not an ordinary person, had not an ordinary career, and therefore ought not to have an ordinary fate. He was not a simple mortal with common relations to the past, and without any legacies for posterity; but One who gathered into Himself all the nobility and worth of preceding times as into a focus, and was fitted to become the fountain of strength and life for men through succeeding ages. The Son of Man had touched with His sympathetic hand and unrivalled powers the whole circle of human life, and invested every object therein with unfading beauty and exceeding grace. His " signs " spoke to the sorrows and griefs of men, and are eminently worthy of the oppor- tunity of repeating their messages to the care-burdened heart as long as man may open his ears for words from the Unseen. His " sayings " contained truths so original, and yet so pertinent to all that concerns the true progress of man, that no age ought to be without their illuminating presence. His perfect goodness, embodying in the fullest degree the Christian idea of holiness which He had created, was such that it would have been an irreparable injury to have been bereft of the story which enshrined His portrait. The redemptive work He accomplished was so freighted with the best gifts of our heavenly Father to His erring children that to bring it into human literature, and make it contemporary with every age, was to set wide open the door of Heaven and lead men to walk therein ; therefore these things were written, that men may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing they may have life in His name.
^ John the Baptist having been in prison for several months, and becoming anxious concerning the establishment of the visible dominion of which he supposed he had been the pioneer, sent two of his disciples to Jesus with the question, "Art thou he that should come, or look we for another ? " The reply of Christ claimed the Messiah's office and character on incontestable grounds. "Tell John," said He, "My miracles are wrought
* M. Brokenshire.
4IO CHIEF PURPOSE OF THE GOSPEL
amongst the poor in spirit and in goods. I give gladness to the desponding, and joy to the sad. I am the messenger of glad tidings to the people, and blessed is he who is not offended at the mode in which I work, or repulsed by the strongest evidences of my anointing of God." ^
^ In the Synoptic Gospels our Lord deals mainly with great moral and spiritual principles. He interprets the aim and inner meaning of the old law, deals with the nature of religion, and scarcely touches on His own personal claims. In St. John the prevailing subject is Himself, His relations to God, to His disciples, and to the unbelieving world. It is in St. John alone, for example, that we read of Christ's sayings, " I am the bread of life"; "the light of the world"; "the door"; "the good shepherd " ; " the resurrection and the life " ; " the true vine " ; " the way, the truth, and the life." No reader fails to feel the difference. There is a difference also in the object of the miracles recorded. Not only is there in St. John's Gospel what Dr. Sanday calls " an enhancement of the miraculous," but their object is different. In St. John the miracle appears to be a manifestation of Divine power in order to induce belief, rather than, as in the others, a work of compassion, contingent on faith in the person healed.2
^ Our Lord, during the three years of His ministry, had given extraordinary signs of omnipotence as credentials of His Divine mission. St. John makes a judicious and characteristic selection of seven of them, five of which are peculiar to his Gospel. He apparently designed to supplement the Synoptic Gospels by these additional supernatural details, although his main purpose throughout was to put in prominence the Divine side of the Person of Christ, " Tlie Lamb of God." Note attentively the symbolic import of these seven " signs."
(1) At Cana He turned the water into wine, figuring to spiritual minds the transformation of the old and weak into the new and strong, the transfiguration of earthly things and relation- ships by the new spirit of grace.
(2) At Capernaum, Christ's power of life was declared, whilst the beauty and virtue of faith was illustrated in the nobleman who at the Saviour's word believed in his son's cure.
(3) The real perennial fount of life was further shown by the cure of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda. The Father, the absolute soul, communicates all healing and life-giving powers
' John ClifTord, The Christian Certainties,' \15.
' J. M. Wilson, The Origins and Aims of the Four Qospels, 89.