Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 668
Delivered on Sunday Morning, January 7, 1866
“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” John 17:20,21.
FOR several years I have thankfully received the text of the first Sabbath in the year from a venerable clergyman of a parish in the suburbs of our city. Spared by a gracious Providence, my good Brother has sent me, with his Christian salutations, these two verses for my subject. As we have enjoyed together for several years a true communion of spirit in the things of God, I can only hope, that until one or the other of us shall be taken up to dwell above, we may walk together in holy service, loving each other fervently with a pure heart.
The most tender and touching prayer of the Master contained in this chapter opens up to us His inmost heart. He was in Gethsemane and His passion was just commencing. He stood like a victim at the altar where the wood was already laid in order and the fire was kindled to consume the sacrifice. Lifting up His eyes to Heaven, with true filial love gazing upon His Father’s Throne, and resting in humble confidence upon Heaven’s strength, He looked away for a moment from the strife and resistance unto blood which was going on below. He asked for that upon which His heart was most fully set. He opened His mouth wide that His God might fill it.
This prayer, I take it, was not only the casual expression of the Savior’s desire at the last, but is a sort of model of the prayer which is incessantly going up from Him to the Eternal Throne. There is a difference in the mode of its offering. With sighs and tears He offered up His humble suit below—but with authority He now pleads enthroned in Glory! But the plea is the same—that which He desired while still below is that which His soul pants after now that He is taken up and is glorified above. It is significant, Beloved, that the Savior should, in His last moments, not only desire the salvation of all His people, but should plead for the unity of the saved ones—that being saved they might be united.
It was not enough that each sheep should be taken from the jaw of the wolf. He would have all the sheep gathered into one fold under His own care. He was not satisfied that the members of His body should, each of them, be saved as the result of His death—He must have those members fashioned into a glorious body! Unity lying so very near the Savior’s heart at such a time of overwhelming trial must have been held by Him to be priceless beyond all price! It is of this unity that we shall speak this morning—on this wise—first of all, we will have a little to say upon the unity desired. Then upon the work necessary—namely, that the chosen be gathered in. Thirdly, upon prayer offered. Fourthly, upon the result anticipated, and fifthly, upon the question suggested.
I. First, then, UPON THE UNITY DESIRED. These words of the Savior have been perverted to the doing of a world of mischief. Ecclesiastics have fallen asleep, which, indeed, is their ordinary condition. And while asleep they have dreamed a dream—a dream founded upon the letter of the Savior’s words of which they discern not the spiritual sense. They have proved in their own case, as has been proved in thousands of others, that the letter kills, and only the spirit gives life.
Falling asleep, I say, these ecclesiastics have dreamed of a great confederation presided over by a number of ministers, these again governed by superior officers, and these again by others, and these topped at last by a supreme visible head who must be either a person or a council. This great confederacy, containing within itself kingdoms and nations, becomes so powerful as to work upon States, to influence politics, to guide councils and even to gather together and to move armies. True, the shadow of the Savior’s teaching, “My kingdom is not of this World,” must have caused an occasional nightmare in the midst of their dream, but they dreamed on!
And what is worse, they turned the dream into a reality, and the time was when the professed followers of Christ were all one. When looking north, south, east, west—from the center at the Vatican—one united body covered all Europe! And what was the result? Did the world believe that God had sent Christ? The world believed the very opposite! The world was persuaded that God had nothing to do with that great crushing, tyrannous, superstitious, ignorant thing which called itself Christianity.
And thinking men became infidels, and it was the hardest possible thing to find a genuine intelligent Believer north, south, east, or west. All professors were one, but the world believed not—the fact being that this was not the unity which Jesus had so much as thought of. It was never His intention to set up a great united body to be called a Church which should dominate and lord everywhere over the souls of men. He never intended a Church within its ranks, kings, princes and statesmen who might be worldly, ungodly, hateful, sensual, and devilish. It was never Christ’s design to set up a conscience-crushing engine of uniformity.