By Canon G. Osborne Troop, M. A. Montreal, Canada.
The whole Bible is stamped with the Divine “Hall-Mark”; but the Gospel according to St. John is primus inter pares. Through it, as through a transparency, we gaze entranced into the very holy of holies, where shines in unearthly glory “the great vision of the face of Christ”. Yet man’s perversity has made it the “storm center” of New Testament criticism, doubtless for the very reason that it bears such unwavering testimony both to the deity of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and to His perfect humanity. The Christ of the Fourth Gospel is no unhistoric, idealized vision of the later, dreaming church, but is, as it practically claims to be, the picture drawn by “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, an eye-witness of the blood and water that flowed from His pierced side. These may appear to be mere unsupported statements, and as such will at once be dismissed by a scientific reader. Nevertheless the appeal of this article is to the instinct of the “one flock” of the “one Shepherd”. “They know His voice” … “a stranger will they not follow.”
- There is one passage in this Gospel that flashes like lightning - it dazzles our eyes by its very glory. To the broken-hearted Martha the Lord Jesus says with startling suddenness, “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die.”
It is humbly but confidently submitted that these words are utterly beyond the reach of human invention. It could never have entered the heart of man to say, “I am the resurrection and the life.” “There is a resurrection and a life,” would have been a great and notable saying, but this Speaker identifies Himself with the resurrection and with life eternal. The words can only be born from above, and He who utters them is worthy of the utmost adoration of the surrendered soul.
In an earlier chapter John records a certain question addressed to and answered by our Lord in a manner which has no counterpart in the world’s literature. “What shall we do,” the eager people cry; “What shall we do that we might work the works of God?” “This is the work of God”, our Lord replies, “that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent” (John 6:28, 29). I venture to say that such an answer to such a question has no parallel. This is the work of God that ye accept ME. I am the Root of the tree which bears the only fruit pleasing to God. Our Lord states the converse of this in chapter 16, when He says that the Holy Spirit will “convict the world of sin … because they believe not on ME.” The root of all evil is unbelief in Christ. The condemning sin of the world lies in the rejection of the Redeemer. Here we have the root of righteousness and the root of sin in the acceptance or rejection of His wondrous personality. This is unique, and proclaims the Speaker to be “separate from sinners” though “the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Truly,
“He is His own best evidence,
His witness is within.”
- Pass on to the fourteenth chapter, so loved of all Christians. Listen to that Voice, which is as the voice of many waters, as it sounds in the ears of the troubled disciples: “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in ME. In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
Who is he who dares to say: “Ye believe in God, believe also in Me”? He ventures thus to speak because He is the Father’s Son. Man’s son is man: can God’s Son be anything less than God? Elsewhere in this Gospel He says: “I and the Father are one”. The fourteenth chapter reveals the Lord Jesus as completely at home in the heavenly company. He speaks of His Father and of the Holy Spirit as Himself being one of the utterly holy Family. He knows all about His Father’s house with its many mansions. He was familiar with it before the world was. Mark well, too, the exquisite touch of transparent truthfulness: “If it were not so, I would have told you.” An ear-witness alone could have caught and preserved that touching parenthesis, and who more likely than the disciple whom Jesus loved?
As we leave this famous chapter let us not forget to note the wondrous words in verse 23: “If a man love Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and WE will come unto him and make our abode with him.”
This saying can only be characterized as blasphemous, if it be not the true utterance of one equal with God. On the other hand, does any reasonable man seriously think that such words originated in the mind of a forger? “Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice”, and surely that voice is here.
- When we come to chapter 17 we pass indeed into the very inner chamber of the King of kings. It records the high-priestly prayer of our Lord, when He “lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son that Thy Son may also glorify Thee.” Let any man propose to himself the awful task of forging such a prayer, and putting it into the mouth of an imaginary Christ. The brain reels at the very thought of it. It is, however, perfectly natural that St. John should record it. It must have fallen upon the ears of himself and his fellow-disciples amidst an awe-stricken silence in which they could hear the very throbbing of their listening hearts. For their very hearts were listening through their ears as the Son poured out His soul unto the Father. It is a rare privilege, and one from which most men would sensitively shrink, to listen even to a fellow-man alone with God. Yet the Lord Jesus in the midst of His disciples laid bare His very soul before His Father, as really as if He had been alone with Him. He prayed with the cross and its awful death full in view, but in the prayer there is no slightest hint of failure or regret, and there is no trace of confession of sin or need of forgiveness. These are all indelible marks of genuineness. It would have been impossible for a sinful man to conceive such a prayer. But all is consistent with the character of Him who “spake as never man spake”, and could challenge the world to convict Him of sin.