Bible Commentaries

John 14:1

I would ask you to regard those words "Ye believe in God, believe also in Me" as containing in their short and simple phrase the whole sum and substance of the Christian faith. There are many religious controversies going on at the present day, but those pure words from our Lord to His disciples at the most solemn and critical moment of His life concentrate the whole of His Gospel in that short sentence.

I. The Force of this Saying of Our Lord's lay in the introductory words, "Let not your heart be troubled". Every Jew was familiar with the sayings, "We will not fear though the earth be moved. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Whatever trust of whatever kind men put in God they are called upon by our Lord to put in Him. You will observe the extraordinary and peculiar personal character which is given to our faith by this appeal. The essence of our Christian faith consists in our being in Jesus Christ. We realise that the essence of our faith should consist in putting in that Personal Human Being, Jesus Christ, exactly the same kind of faith as the Jew put in God, as we ourselves put in God the Father.

II. By Means of a Personal Belief in Jesus Christ. we are brought into immediate communication and contact with Him. We are called upon to believe not in a past, not in a distant, but in a present Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to claim every human being as His follower and as His believer. The one supreme issue in life is—Do you believe in Jesus Christ as you believe in God, do you submit to Him and trust Him?

III. When a Man Realises that He is the Living God, then the Love of Jesus Christ becomes the strongest and most active force in a man's life. How many a man has been saved from sin by the remembrance that Christ loves him! The great trouble of life is that we have not realised our Lord Jesus Christ as a living person always near us.

IV. His Appeal is surely the Most Beautiful and Sincere in all the World.—He makes it not merely because of His Christian personality, not merely in consequence of that love which His words and His acts must needs arouse in us; it is because it is the appeal of one who shed His blood in substantiation of the statements and the claim He made. It is a claim written in blood. And that is the foundation of His appeal, "If ye believe in God believe also in Me".

V. Christ Asks us to Believe in Him as our Saviour. "If any man sin," said St. John 14:1

I. It is marvellous indeed that the Lord Jesus should think of any other than Himself at such a time as this. His own awful burden of sorrows is pressing upon Him as never before. Over Him hung the black shadow of that dreadful death. Here in the upper room He sits at the last supper. And now it is that the face, so sad, so troubled, looks around on the little company. There is a great silence. We wait expecting the sorrowing Saviour to appeal to them for constancy and sympathy. But instead of that He forgets Himself. His thought is only of them. Towards them His heart goes out in eager tenderness, and yearning over them with an infinite pity He saith: "Let not your heart be troubled". Of one thing now let us be perfectly sure—nothing can ever make our Lord forget us.

II. If we turn from the Master to the disciples the words seem equally strange. For them trouble seemed to be the only fitting thing. Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in Me. What did it mean? It meant this: "Yes, all is black and dreadful, but do not let it drive you from Me Come near to Me—trust in Me. In spite of all, find in Me your strength and refuge." There never John 14:1

The word used here by our Saviour and translated "be troubled "does not signify any kind of sadness and sorrow, nor are we to understand that it is either desirable or possible to banish all sadness and sorrow from the mind of any son of man under the conditions that prevail upon this earth. The word used by Jesus signifies to be agitated, perplexed and thrown into confusion. Let us examine more closely the truth that faith in God will save us from a troubled or distracted heart; and then it will be important to note that faith in God involves faith in Jesus Christ.

I. That faith in God will save us from a troubled or distracted heart. "Belief in God" is a "living belief that rules the life. The God in whom Jesus requires belief is not any shadowy kind of God, but definitely the God of the Hebrews—an ethical God, possessing (a) Righteousness, the central idea among the Jews. (b) John 14:2

I. Christ in these words is clearly speaking of the intermediate state. "My Father's house" was the name which He gave to the Temple. He draws an analogy between the earthly and the heavenly sanctuary. The Temple had "many mansions," which were used for a threefold purpose (a) I need not say that the Temple was a place of worship. (b) Just as the Mosque of St Sophia, in Constantinople, is not only a place of worship, but also a Mohammedan college, so the Temple was a great school of instruction, (c) The Temple, like the Vatican, which with its many chambers is the dwelling of the Pontifical household, was the home of a priesthood.

II. I now call your attention to a simple argument from Nature founded on the words: "I go to prepare a place for you". Everywhere in the natural world we see a wonderful adaptation, even in the lowest forms of organic life, to their surroundings. When we consider this universal law of adaptation in the world of Nature, we see that the higher the state of organic life the more careful is the provision for the wants, the comfort, the happiness of the creature. If, then, the "intermediate state" be a higher and nobler stage of existence than this, the "God of preparations "will provide for the saints in heaven "mansions" perfectly adapted to their present condition.

—J. W. Bardsley, Church Family Newspaper, vol. xv. p960.

Many Resting-places

John 14:2

What is a mansion? What is the meaning of the word mansion as it fell from those gracious lips? Is the word translated mansion a familiar word in the New Testament? Does it occur frequently, and introduce its subtle music into the common language of the day? Or is it a peculiar word, sparsely occurring on the radiant pages of the new revelation? What is a mansion? It would be difficult, you would reply, to say in one word what it John 14:2

A candle does not go out when you blow it out, it does not really go out, it passes into another sphere, scientists tell us; and if the candle does not go out, is the personality likely to go out? Why, there was the Bishop of Lincoln, writing two days before he died letters of farewell quite himself, without much pain at the end, sending me a beautiful message which I shall treasure all my life, dictating it, quite himself, in mind, brain, loving heart, everything; do you mean to suppose that he has gone out, that he has ceased to exist? If the candle does not go out, personality cannot go out.

Now, as I think over with you what the good news amounts to—I mean when you have got it—it almost paralyses you by its glory. But when you quietly think it over, and think what the secret amounts to I think you will find it amounts to five things.

I. The first, of course, is that there is the Happy Land, this place of peace beyond the veil.

II. Secondly, we shall be the same in the other world. Five minutes after death you will be exactly the same person as five minutes before. As a matter of fact, death makes no difference whatever to a person. The real terror of death is that it is no change at all. If five minutes after death you are the same as five minutes before, you are living in a fool's paradise if you think death is going to change you from sinner into saint. You have to be changed before death, "He that is holy, let him be holy still;"

"and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still." Therefore, we make a mistake about death if we think it is going to change us from sinner into saint.

But, on the other hand, what a comfort to know that that dear friend is the same on the other side, still loving us, still caring for us, still praying for us, still the same to us! Why, it is everything.

III. Then, thirdly, as we turn over the secret, we become certain that in that world beyond the grave there will be a growth in character. I mean, people often say, and it is a real difficulty, "My friend, John 14:2

I have wondered most of my life why Christ spoke these words at the time He did. They seem unsatisfactorily explained, whether connected with the first clause of the phrase or the last clause. Dr. Marcus Dods comments: "Had there been no such place and no possibility of preparing it, He necessarily would have told them, because the very purpose of His leaving was to prepare a place for them". Somehow this does not find me. Neither is Dr. John Ker, also a writer of genuine insight, much more satisfactory. He says: "There might be some misgivings in their minds, and these words are thrown in to quiet them. Had you been deceiving yourself with falsehood, I should have felt bound to undeceive you." It is along these tracks that most of the explanations run.

But should we not rather say that Christ spoke these words with a smile? "If it were not John 14:2

Faith must be allowed its place in facing the problems of the future life. For the time being the disciples are required to depend, not so much on what they can see and feel and apprehend, as upon what their Master knows. With humble, pathetic, painstaking persuasion, He solicits their trust in His personal truth and fidelity. "If it were not John 14:6

I. Christ is the way, for He recovers man from his godless wandering. The metaphor views man in the light of his practical obliquities. A few false and fatal steps have served to separate him from the fountain of eternal good. Sin hides the Father's face. It sweeps us on its mighty and insidious current beyond reach of the Father's house. A way is that which makes movement in some specific direction possible. Movement towards God is impossible without the work of Jesus Christ the Mediator. Jesus Christ brings together in His own person the two most distant objects the whole circle of the universe can contain. God dwelling in unapproachable light, and man wallowing in guilt, worldliness, transgression. II. Christ is the truth, for He recovers man from his godless error. The metaphor looks upon man from his intellectual side. Men are estranged from God in their thinkings, "alienated from the life of God by reason of the ignorance that is in them". Christ answers our intellectual need. "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." Scientific truth puts us into intelligent relation with the world of established scientific fact Historic truth put us into intelligent relation with the facts that have determined the growth of particular types of government and civilisation. Sociological truth puts us into intelligent relation with the facts that have moulded the social life of mankind. Jesus Christ puts us into intelligent relation with all the vital facts of God's being and nature and government.

III. Christ is the life, inasmuch as He raises men from their godless insensibility and death. He is the great life-centre. He stands forth in the midst of the universe to counterwork the disintegration and decay that set in when the tie binding all life to its first centre was ruptured by transgression. Our shrinking at death will be best cured by the Divine love and friendship of which Jesus the Mediator is the minister in our hearts.

IV. Christ's words present a corrective to all distracted faith. He asks from His followers concentrated thought and attachment and expectation. All saving prerogative, all teaching John 14:6

The fullness of the precious words of our text can probably never be taken in by man. He that attempts to unfold them does little more than scratch the surface of a rich soil.

I. The Way.—Christ is "the Way"—the way to heaven and peace with God. He is not only the guide, and teacher, and lawgiver, like Moses; He is Himself the door, the ladder, and the road, through Whom we must draw near to God. He has opened the way to the tree of life, which was closed when Adam and Eve fell, by the satisfaction He made for us on the cross. Through His blood we may draw near with boldness, and have access with confidence into God's presence ( Ephesians 3:12).

II. The Truth.—Christ is "the Truth"—the whole substance of true religion which the mind of man requires. Without Him the wisest heathen groped in gross darkness, and knew nothing rightly about God. Before He came even the Jews saw "through a glass darkly," and discerned nothing distinctly under the types, figures, and ceremonies of the Mosaic law. Christ is the whole truth, and meets and satisfies every desire of the human mind.

III. The Life.—Christ is "the Life"—the sinner's title to eternal life and pardon, the believer's root of spiritual life and holiness, the surety of the Christian's resurrection life. He that believeth on Christ hath everlasting life. He that abideth in Him, as the branch abides in the vine, shall bring forth much fruit. He that believeth on Him, though he were dead, yet shall he live. The root of all life, for soul and for body, is Christ.

For ever let us grasp and hold fast these truths.

John 14:6

The way which He left trodden in the earth, the way which is Himself, was not a means of flight from a strange and hostile waste, but the token and the instrument of universal Divine care and use. It was the highway, the way which bore witness to the King's authority, and gave free movement as well as guidance to the King's servants, when they went forth to do His work or came home to His presence. The disciples who followed Him in such a way, or walked in Him as such a way, were by it brought into relations of intercourse and affection with all that surround them, while they were at the same time led to see it stretching forth into all ages and all worlds.

—Hort.

John 14:6

That the Son should say, "I am the way, no man cometh unto the Father but by Me," teaches us that sonship alone deals with fatherliness as fatherliness; that we must come to God as sons, or not come at all.

—McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement, p299 f.

References.—XIV:6.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v. No245; vol. xvi. No942 , and vol. li. No2938. W. M. Sinclair, Christ and our Times, pp137 , 153. J. T. Stannard, The Divine Humanity, pp23 , 36 , 51. N. D. Hillis, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lv. p250. F. B. Cowl, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xvii. p285. E. M. Geldart, Echoes of Truth, p118. Bishop Gore, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lix. pp249 , 271. C. Bickersteth, The Gospel of Incarnate Love, p177. E. W. Attwood, Sermons for Clergy and Laity, p154. E. J. Lyndon, Preacher's Magazine, vol. x. p132. J. Binney, King's Weigh-House Chapel Sermons, p1. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Holy-tide Teaching, p106. J. Aldis, Penny Pulpit, No1710 , p719. J. R. Illingworth, University and Cathedral Sermons, p21. J. W. Boulding, Sermons, pp191 , 207 , 231. E. A. Bray, Sermons, vol. i. p66. C. J. Ridgeway, The King and His Kingdom, pp112 , 123 , 137. Expositor (4th Series), vol. x. p129. XIV:6 , 7.—J. B. Brown, The Divine Mystery of Peace, p21. XIV:7.—Bishop Westcott, The Incarnation and Common Life, p375. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p181. XIV:8.—R. C. Cowell, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p225. G. H. Morrison, The Scottish Review, vol. i. p561. D. W. Simon, Twice Born and other Sermons, p60. D. W. Simon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv. p259. XIV:8 , 9.—H. S. Holland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p72. Bishop Creighton, The Heritage of the Spirit, p129. H. P. Liddon, Sermons on Some Words of Christ, p311. Bishop Lightfoot, Cambridge Sermons, p129. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vi. pp161 , 260. XIV:8-11.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. John 14:9

We do not consider enough the wonderful patience of Christ in His training of the Twelve, as He prepared the little patch of soil for the seed. How often it could be said even of His teaching, "They understood not His saying". It was not unbelief so much as Spiritual obtuseness. Our Lord was seeking to comfort them at His approaching departure. Thomas asked for fuller information when the Master spoke about going somewhere which He calls the Father's house. Part of Christ's reply was that to know Himself was to know the Father also. "And from henceforth," He added, "ye know Him and have seen Him." Philip's request shows that he did not understand the inference of these words; for he interrupted with the prayer, "Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us". It was a spiritual density and obtuseness on Philip's part, a want of insight; but when we charge this on Philip are we not made to pause by the thought of our own obtuseness? History is full of instances of the ultimate importance of the little, unregarded, unrecognised events, and of the ultimate triviality of some of the things that bulked large in men's eyes.

I. If this is true of events in our personal and national life, how much more true and more common are mistakes in the far subtler region of spiritual judgment. Thus it is far harder to know persons from this point of view than to estimate events. The finer a man is in temperament and the more exceptional he is in nature and character and endowments, the more readily is he misunderstood or neglected.

II. And what shall we say of the same charge of obtuseness made against us with regard to Christ? It is a charge that can be made against His Church as well as against His word. He is the unrecognised Christ still. Can His heart feel no pang that He should have been so long time with us, so long exercising His redemptive ministry and men do not know Him?

III. Yet it is not all an unhappy thought, however much self-reproach we may have for our obtuseness. There is comfort and sweet content in the thought that the love of Christ is not dependent on our complete recognition of Him. There is comfort in the thought that though we are blind to Him, though we are intermittent in our thought of Him and fickle in our love, He is the same yesterday, today, and for ever.

—Hugh Black, Edinburgh Sermons, p164.

The Patient Master and the Slow Scholars

John 14:9

I. This question of our Lord carries in it a great lesson as to what ignorance of Christ is. Not to know Christ as the manifest God is practically to be ignorant of Him altogether.

II. These words give us a glimpse into the pained and loving heart of our Lord. (1) I think we shall not misunderstand the tone of this question if we see in it wonder, pained love, and tender remonstrance. (2) But there is more than that, there is complaint and pain in the question—the pain of vainly endeavouring to teach and vainly endeavouring to help, vainly endeavouring to love. (3) But this question reveals not only the pain caused by slow apprehension and unrequited love, but also the depth and patience of a clinging love that was not turned away by the pain.

III. This is a piercing question addressed to each of us.

—A. Maclaren.

John 14:9

We think there is a touch of impatience in the, "Have I been so long time with you?" Our conscience puts the impatience there, but that does not make it really there. There is weariness, keen regret, pathetic longing, heart-sickening hope deferred in it—"So long time, and yet?" But the love of Christ has a length quite as marvellous as its breadth and depth and height. So long time! And yet He went on and explained all over again the matter which had puzzled Philip.... So long time with you and me, and yet! and yet! We look at ourselves and repeat, "Yes, Lord, and yet!" And He answers, "And yet I will not leave thee, I am here still. End the long, long, long time of wearisome waiting, and let us have no "yet" between us more."

—Henry Sloane Coffin, The Creed of Jesus, pp279 , 280.

John 14:9

A son may reveal a father in two ways; either by being like him—so entirely in his image as to be justified in saying, He that hath seen me hath seen my father—or by manifesting a constant reverential, loving trust, and thus testifying that the father is worthy of such trust. Jesus revealed the Father in both these ways.

—J. Erskine, The Spiritual Order, p250.

References.—XIV:9.—James Orr, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlv. p245. Bishop Westcott, Village Sermons, p236. H. D. Rawnsley, Church Family Newspaper, vol. xiv. p287. XIV:10.—H. Jones, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvii. p188. XIV:11.—C. S. Macfarland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p115. A. G. MacKinnon, The Scottish Review, vol. iv. p132. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ix. p390.

Going to the Father

John 14:12

You can unlock a man's whole life if you watch what words he uses most. Did you ever notice Christ's favourite words? They are such words as these: world, life, trust, love. But none of these was the greatest word of Christ. His great word was new to religion. That word was Father. The world's obligation to the Lord Jesus is that He gave us that word. Not one man in a hundred, probably, has a central word in his Christian life; and the consequence is this, that there is probably nothing in the world so disorderly and slipshod as personal spiritual experience. Now the thing which steadied Christ's life was the thought that He was going to the Father. If we take this principle into our own lives, we shall find its influence tell upon us in three ways:—I. It explains life. What is my life? Whither do I go? Whence do I come? these are the questions which are not worn down yet, although the whole world has handled them. To these questions there are but three answers. (a) The poet tells us, and philosophy says the same, only less intelligibly, that life is a sleep, a dream, a shadow. Whither am I going? Virtually the poet answers, "I am going to the Unknown". (b) The atheist's answer is just the opposite. Whither am I going? "I go to dust," he says; "death ends all." And this explains nothing. (c) But the Christian's answer explains something. Where is he going? "I go to my Father." This is not a definition of his death—there is no death in Christianity; it is a definition of the Christian life. Now this explains life. It explains the two things in life which are most inexplicable (1) For one thing, it explains why there is more pain in the world than pleasure. (2) And why there is so much that is unexplained.

II. It sustains Life. Take even an extreme case, and you will see how. Take the darkest, saddest, most pathetic life of the world's history. That was Jesus Christ's. See what this truth practically was to Him. It gave Him a life of absolute composure in a career of most tragic trials. This is the Christian's only stay in life. It provides rest for his soul, work for his character, an object, an inconceivably sublime object, for its ambition.

III. It completes Life. It is quite clear that there must come a time in the history of all those who live this life when they reach the Father. When they are yet a great way off, the Father runs and falls on their neck and kisses them. On this side, we call that Death. It means reaching the Father. "Pray moderately," says an old saint, "for the lives of Christ's people." Pray moderately. We may want them on our side, he means, but Christ may need them on His. There are three classes to whom these words come home with a peculiar emphasis: (1) They speak to those who are staying away from God. "I do not wonder at what men suffer," says Ruskin, "I wonder often at what they lose" (2) They speak, next, to all God's people. (3) And this voice whispers yet one more message to the mourning. Did death end all? Is it well with the child? It is well. The last inn by the roadside has been passed—that is all, and a voice called to us, "Good-bye! I go to my Father."

—Henry Drummond, The Ideal Life, p77.

Greater Works (For Hospital Sunday)

John 14:12

Did the Saviour really mean it? That His followers in the centuries to come were to do increasingly greater works than John 14:12

The great weakness of our religious life is that we so inadequately apprehend the greatness of God; and the consequence is that we are feeble in our religious life all round. We are feeble in our prayers, feeble in our hopes, feeble in our expectations, feeble in our faith, and therefore feeble in our efforts. It is pitiable how the children of God will be so unlike their Father, so ungenerous, so petty, so jealous, so careless about the reputation of others.

I. Yes, it would make all the difference; for those who walk with God become themselves great, and it is impossible to walk with God and keep petty insincerities, petty jealousies, and petty untruths. Therefore there will be a change, a complete change, in many a life, if we really rise and live in the greatness of God.

II. And secondly, the miracles in the Bible will become natural. We many of us remember how hard it was to believe in the miracles at first. But the difficulty and the mistake was that we did not rise high enough into the right atmosphere of the greatness of God. You will find in a book to which I have written a preface for Lenten reading, by Canon Holmes, Prayer and Action, you will find a simple illustration which will appeal to schoolboys. He pictures a cricket match, and the ball, by the law of gravitation, driven towards the boundary and certain at last to fall; but at full speed a John 14:12-13

We have here three things: a parallel, a contrast, and the secret of the contrast.

I. The text presents us with a parallel. Christ teaches that there shall be a relation of likeness or identity between His own personal works and the works carried on by believing disciples after His departure. "He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also." The first living relation in Christ's works was with the Father. They were a continuous testimony of the Father to the Son before the world. "The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." The second living relation embodied in Christ's works was with the Holy Spirit. The third living relation in Christ's works was with man. He promises that if we will only make our faith all that He wants, He will bring our poor, struggling life up to the level of His own majestic life in its faith-creating influence and efficiency.

II. The text contains a contrast. There is to be a splendid advance in the character of the believer's achievements, an advance that will make them transcend even the Lord's own personal works amongst men. "Greater works than these shall he do." Christ had always thought more of the moral elements and relations in His works and those of His disciples, than of the merely miraculous. Let us try to get a little further insight into Christ's estimate of the two different types of work. (1) The physical conditions that constituted Christ's works miraculous are often realised in connection with spiritual work upon a much more commanding scale. (2) The spiritual works effected by believers in Jesus Christ bring about that conviction which is the great end of miracle by more effective methods. (3) Our work transcends miracle because the spirit, which is the special sphere touched by it, is more delicately sensitive than the body, which is the sphere in which miracle was wrought. (4) The spiritual works it is the believer's high privilege to do outshine Christ's personal miracles, because spiritual work is the key to the final destruction of all physical evil and disability at the last day.

III. The text points out the secret of this contrast between Christ's works and those of His favoured followers. The secret has a Divine and a human side. (a) Christ's presence at the right hand of the Father is the pledge and sign that sin has been dealt with, man's unfitness to receive these high and holy gifts has been taken away, the burden which crushed human nature into impotence removed, and the Father's hand opened to His reconciled people in more than its ancient wealth of blessing, (b) This secret of transcendent power has an earthly as well as a heavenly side. "And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do." The manifestation of all the energies of the Divine can only come through the believing request of the disciples. (1) Let us never forget the dignity and beneficence of all spiritual work. It is a nobler manifestation of power than miracle, and will exalt those who are its instruments in a yet higher degree. (2) This promise suggests the plenary character of the Pentecostal endowment. Christ makes His own miracles the patterns of our spiritual works. (3) These words suggest the obligation resting upon us to maintain unbroken communion of spirit and life with Jesus Christ. Christ's wonder-working power arose within Him, as the expression of His complete union with the Father. "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do." This lofty power pledged to us must come in precisely the same way.

References.—XIV:12-14.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. John 14:18

This was one of the favourite texts of Melanchthon. He quoted it with deep feeling after the death of Luther. See especially his letters of19th February and of1March, 1546. On the latter date he wrote to Justus Jonas: "On this journey, when I was alone and my grief broke forth anew, I thought of our miseries, of the guidance of the Church and the University, and of our orphaned state. Amid these thoughts I support myself with the words of the Son of God, οὐκ αφήσω ἡμᾶς ὀρφαυοὺς."

References.—XIV:18.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. Hi. No2990. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. i. p369. Ibid. Readings for the Aged (3Series), p85. XIV:18 , 19.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. John 14:20; John 16:23

Some thoughts are suggested by the phrase "that day," used by our Lord to describe the period between Pentecost and the Return. It seemed to the disciples, as He spoke, that it was to be ushered in by a harsh and lowering dawn and a bitter east wind. But He assured them that it was to be a day of growing brightness. We who live in it are often blind to this: ignorant of its work and its reward. The work of this day John 14:23

It seems to me that there is a treasure hid in such sayings as these, "I will manifest Myself unto him," "we will make our abode with him," which few among us even guess at. We read the words as we might walk over the turf under which there is hidden gold.

—Josephine E. Butler.

References.—XIV:23.—John Watson, The Inspiration of our Faith, p179. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol1. No2895. J. Martineau, Endeavours After the Christian Life, p79. Expositor, (4th Series), vol. x. p52; ibid. (6th Series), vol. iii. p341. XIV:24-26.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi. No1842. XIV:25 , 26.—J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons (2Series), p301. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. John 14:27

What the world cannot give, the worldly cannot take. Even Christ can only give His gifts to His own. The world pays the world's work with the world's wages; Christ pays His own servants in a different coinage.

Our Lord tells us that He has a peace of His own to give, and that He gives it not as the world giveth. He does not say whether the world also has a peace of its own to give, or not; He only says that His way of giving it is not like the way in which the world gives whatever it has to give.

I. Is there a peace of the world? In point of fact, if by peace is meant inward satisfaction, freedom from any sense of inward disharmony and disappointment, I think that the world very seldom gives peace to its devoted servants. The earthly-minded has a better chance of peace than the worldly-minded, though it is a shame to use the word peace of that bovine contentment and dull insensibility which is the reward or punishment of consistently "minding earthly things". I know that there have been some successful men, not spiritually-minded, who have been able to look back with satisfaction upon their careers. But these men have not been typical worldlings. They have loved their work for its own sake, which is more than half-way to loving it for Christ's sake. We are right to love our work, and be keenly interested in it. People who run away from life, who shrink from dipping their feet in the flowing river of time, are condemning the Creator for making the world and sending them into it We are sent into the world to "serve our own generation" by the will of God. There is a work in the world which we were meant to do, and which will remain undone if we shirk it. This work must be done heartily and eagerly, as unto the Lord, even though it is apparently concerned only with perishable things. Perishable things for the sake of the imperishable, and imperishable things for their own sake—that is the rule for an immortal spirit sent by God into a world of change and chance.

II. But what does our Lord mean when He says, "Not as the world giveth, give I unto you"? What is the difference in method between His way of giving and the world"s? We have seen that the nature of the gift is probably very different But there is evidently a great difference also in the way in which the gift is bestowed.

The world says: "If you want to win my prizes you must claim them and take them. You must know exactly what you want to get, and keep your mind steadily fixed on that goal, and that only. You must allow nothing to divert your attention, and must never forget that you have one end in life and only one." There are some terrible people who really serve the prince of this world in this whole-hearted manner.

But Christ does not say to us, "Claim My gift of peace and take it". He does not say to us, "You are sent into the world to win peace for yourselves; win it at all costs". He does not bid us forget everything else, and be ready to surrender everything else, in order to be at peace with ourselves. No, the peace of Christ is the free gift of Christ It is given, not as the world giveth, which gives nothing for nothing; it is given as God giveth, who gives all for love. If peace were merely negative freedom from toil and distraction, it might be directly aimed at It is quite possible to lay our plans for reducing spiritual friction to a minimum. But against this sort of peace Carlyle cries out from the depths of his strong Puritan conscience: "Peace! a brutal lethargy is peaceable!" The noisome grave is peaceable! We hope for a living peace, not a dead one."

Peace must not be sought directly. "In God's will," says Dante, "is our peace." And "this," said another great John 14:27

"My peace I give." Now if we would rightly interpret this word we must get quite away from its ordinary everyday significance. It is usually associated with quietness, motionlessness, inactivity. We do not find the symbol of peace in some little quiet sheet of imprisoned water, whose surface is never rippled by a passing breeze. Peace is not stagnancy; it is rather superlative motion. Peace is a certain perfect relationship when everything is moving in its appointed place.

I. It is the peace of union with God. We are purposed for union with our Lord. Every call in the Scriptures is a call to a rectified communion with our Maker. That union has been broken, and broken by nothing but sin. And if peace is to be regained the union must be restored. This is peace: man's life moving in God's life in frictionless communion.

II. It is the union of peace with self. This union is consequent upon the greater union of self with God. Harmony is established among my powers when I come into union with my God. I do not mean to say that every rebellious power will be immediately brought into tune with the will of the Highest, but that is now the commanding tendency of the life.

III. It will be the peace of union with brother. Let me say at once that this will not be occasioned by the affability of weakness. There will be in his life a delicate considerateness, and he will be willing to fit in with other people with courtesy and grace.

—J. H. Jowett, The British Congregationalist, 6th August, 1908 , p122.

Christ's Legacies

John 14:27

We are in spirit gathered around the Son of man almost at the very moment of His exit from this scene of earth and time. He John 14:30

There is something of paradox in this word which arrests attention. He speaks as if He could not talk because He had to fight. The fight was manifestly to Him the gravest of all struggles—it was with the prince of the world—and yet He declared that the prince of this world had nothing in Him. What makes a conflict with the prince of evil so terrible to us is that he has so much in us. Yet to Christ the terror of the battle was that Satan had nothing in Him, and so great was this terror that He could hardly spare strength to speak.

I. Our Lord's words cost Him something: "Hereafter I will not talk much with you". "What," says a famous writer, "is anything worth until it is uttered? Is not the universe one great utterance? Utterance there must be in word or deed to make life of any worth. Every true pentecost is a gift of utterance." But for the most part our words are idle; they come with no sweat of brain or heart. Yet never can we say anything fruitful, or sweet, or strong, without cost—without labour, feeling, effort, soul behind it. Every word of Jesus will outlive earth and heaven.

II. "Hereafter I will not talk much with you." Solemn are the silencings of life, the strange hush that drops on lips once gay, free, lilting. He means it—this stilling of pulse and voice—whether it comes after the battle or before, and His purpose is that our life, if more silent to John 14:30

Our Lord hath said, "Satan cometh and findeth nothing in Me". Alas! how otherwise with us! The Holy Spirit cometh and findeth nothing in us!

—From Edward Irving's Journal.

The Call to "Go Hence"

John 14:31

Our Lord was leaving familiar scenes and tasks for new and strange circumstances and experiences. He was quitting the peaceful fellowship of that upper room for Gethsemane and the judgment hall and the cross; quitting in order to make the final and supreme sacrifice of His life.

I. The necessity indicated by the words "Arise, let us go hence," was beneficent in its influence. When the Master said to His bewildered disciples, "It is expedient for you that I go away," His declaration could only have seemed to them incredible. Yet how true it was! That going away placed the disciples of Jesus in a new position which was in itself both a revelation and an inspiration. It was with them as it often is with us. Too often our teachers and leaders must pass away from earth before their spirit can come in all its purity and power and take possession of us. His going away made Jesus more to His disciples than His continued staying would have done; but instead of an outward reliance He became an invisible inspiration; an invisible and quickening spirit, suggesting, as it were, to their own minds what to say and to do.

II. But, secondly, the words of Jesus, "Arise, let us go hence," are also full of the mystery and the pathos of our human life. For the story of the world from the beginning until now is a story of human fellowship always crossed and broken after a few years more or less by inevitable departures. If we are to live, and not merely exist, movement there must be onward, and not merely circular movement. The true growth of every truly living soul is made through a succession of goings hence out of circumstances, relations, positions, habits, into new scenes, surroundings, associations, duties, and experiences. What an echo there is of the whole world's grief in the passionate and bitter wail of Lear, "Cordelia, Cordelia, stay, a little longer stay". It is the helpless cry of our poor pleading hearts in the presence of inevitable change and loss. Things, pulsations and passions must remain, but human lives pass away. But there may be no serious disturbances and changes in our outward existence, no call out of city or neighbourhood, or from one field of labour to another, and yet there is a constant call to leave old and familiar habitations and resting-places, mental, moral, spiritual, and to arise and go hence into regions of new life, a life of new aspiration, new thought, new purpose, new endeavour. The same great necessity is often felt in the sphere of ecclesiastical relation. It is by fresh light from heaven the churches truly grow.

III. Lastly, "Arise, let us go hence". How often do we wish, like the first disciples, to remain in the bright and peaceful moods of religious feeling and communion—those moods which put far from us the care and strife of the world. And so in our seasons of holiest tranquillity and delight the inexorable call is heard. It is not enough that we are ready to sit down with the Master at His feasts of love, to be uplifted and soothed and swept away by His words, which are spirit and life. We must rise and go out with Him, to be His companions along hot and dusty roads, in rough and hidden places, where there are no eyes to see and no hands to applaud, amid scenes of danger and suffering, and in the valley of the shadow of death. And following Him, we shall always be in the right place; we shall always take the right step; we shall not lose, but find the true blessing of life.

—John Hunter, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxvi. p49.

References.—XIV:30 , 31.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. John , p392. XIV:31.—T. L. Cuyler, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv. p376. E. M. Geldart, Echoes of Truth, p295. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iv. p61. XIV:38.—E. M. Geldart, Echoes of Truth, p182.