Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1631
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, November 6, 1881
“Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, you might have life through His name.” John 20:30,31.
THE public life of our most blessed Lord Jesus Christ was brief. Few suppose it to have exceeded three and a half years but yet, what a full life it was! It had in it not only enough to compose the four Gospels, each one of which is sufficient to lead men to saving faith, but so much remained over and above that, the Apostle John makes this remarkable statement—“And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written, every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” Our Lord’s life was as ample as His own festivals—it feeds thousands—and with the fragments that remain many baskets might be filled!
A man may complete a great and fruitful life in two or three years, while another may have existed as long as an antediluvian and yet his life may be poor and powerless. Not only did the Lord Jesus speak and do great things as to number, but there was a world ofpower in each word and work. He did not display a multitude of feeblenesses, but each individual outcome of His life was grand enough to have been a marvel if considered by itself! As was the Doer, in whom “dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” such were the deeds—they, also, were full of Grace and the Truths of
God!
There was a fullness of Divine wisdom, Grace and power about each act of Jesus. Hence the Apostle, here, speaks of the Lord’s acts as signs—“many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples.” There was a mass of instruction in all our Lord’s movements. Nothing about Him was trivial. He preached by His entire life, preached a marvelous array of Truths and preached them with living freshness! Never is He twice the same, though always the same. When we find Him repeating His discourses, as we sometimes do, if the Sermon on the Mount sounds like the Sermon on the Plain, yet a different drift, aim and tone create a singular variety. Each separate act of the Lord is a sign of something beyond itself and the whole of the acts put together display an ocean of doctrine without bottom or shore.
What a Christ was this! Oh that His Spirit may dwell in us, that our lives, also, may be rich and full! Rich to the Glory of God, and full to the blessing of our fellow men. Yet, dear Friends, though the whole of Christ’s life has not been written, we perceive in our text that what has been recorded is the most useful part of it and that it was preserved for our benefit. The Inspired record was written with a purpose—the facts were wisely culled and collected out of the entire mass on account of their bearing upon the desired objective and enough has been preserved to effect a design which, above all others, is most important to us. “These are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, you might have life through His name.”
May our reverence to the Inspired Gospels lead us to give earnest heed to their design and objective, for it would be profane to baffle their purpose by refusing their testimony. First, this morning, let me speak a little with you upon the design of all Scripture, which is faith. Secondly, upon the great Object of true faith, which is Jesus the Christ, the Son of God. And then, thirdly, let as further commune together upon the true life of the soul which is linked and wrapped up with the name of Jesus Christ, in whom we are led to believe by the testimony of the things written concerning Him.
I. First, then, dear Friends, THE OBJECTIVE OF ALL SCRIPTURE IS TO PRODUCE FAITH. There is no text in the whole Book which was intended to create doubt. Doubt is a seed self-sown, or sown by the devil—and it usually springs up with more than sufficient abundance without our care. The practice of reading skeptical works is a very dangerous one—we have enough tendency to sickness in our own constitutions without going to fever hospitals to test the
atmosphere. Holy Scripture is no mother or nurse of doubt—it is the creator of a holy confidence by revealing a sure line of fact and truth.
It has been thought by many expositors that John here refers only to the things which Jesus did after His Resurrection—“Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples.” But I think there are abundant reasons, with which I need not trouble you just now, to show that John must have referred to the whole of our Savior’s life and to all the acts of it—and that the book which he speaks of is his own book, the Gospel which contains his own life of Christ. John includes the whole story of Jesus of Nazareth in the reference of the text. I venture to go much farther and to say that the statement that John made here, though it must refer to his own Gospel, is equally true of the entire Scriptures.