Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2052
“Now there was leaning on Jesus ‘bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom He spoke. He then lying on Jesus ‘breast said unto Him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.” John 13:23-26.
PICTURE the Lord and His Apostles at the holy Supper. A world of interest centers here. Two figures, strangely different, met in this scene—met, shortly afterwards to part and never to meet again. To look upon them, they seemed equally disciples of Jesus and from the position which one of them occupied, as leaning on the Lord’s bosom and the other as the treasurer of the Master’s little store, they seemed to be equally trusted and honored followers of the great Lord. You might not have known, by mere sight, which was the better man of the two—John or Judas.
Most probably you would have preferred the gentle manners of John. But I should suppose—for our Lord never chose a man to an office unless he had some qualification—you would also have admired the calm prudence of Judas and his quiet business tact. No doubt you would have thought that he made an excellent treasurer and you would have been glad that your Master, with so little to spare, had lighted upon so vigilant a guard and so prudent a manager. They sat at the same table, engaged in the same exercises and looked much the same kind of men. None of us would have guessed that one of them was John the Divine and the other was Judas the devil.
One of them was the seer of the Apocalypse, the other was the son of perdition. No doubt there are strange mixtures of character in this very house tonight. There will come to this Table the disciple whom Jesus loves. Him we will welcome, saying, “Come in, you blessed of the Lord.” Alas, there may come here a son of perdition. Him we cannot chase away, for we cannot read his heart. For a time both may act and even feel alike. They may even wear well for years. Apparently they may be equally sincere. And yet the day will come when to the right, in his love and his integrity, the faithful disciple will wend his way up to his Master’s bosom forever.
And to the left, the hypocrite will go to his dreadful end and to that Hell which must receive such traitors as he. There is something very solemn about this meeting of such strangely different characters in one common act and in the society of the same Divine Lord. John is here. Is Judas here? Let the question be started and passed round, “Lord, is it I?” He is the least likely to be the traitor who is nearest to his Lord’s heart. He who occupies such a place as John did is not the betrayer. Oh that we might be fired with a loving ambition to be the disciple whom Jesus loved, leaning on Jesus’ bosom!
For then, though we ask the question, “Lord, is it I?” it will not linger long upon our hearts. For His love, shed abroad within them, shall answer every question of self-examination and we shall cry, “Lord, You know all things, You know that I love You.” Let that stand as an introduction. Glance at yourself and your Brethren at the table and say— How far shall we be like our Lord and the twelve? Will Peter and James and John and Judas all live over again in the assembly of tonight for the breaking of bread? And now our remarks will be very simple.
I. And the first is this—SOME DISCIPLES ARE SPECIALLY LOVED OF THEIR LORD. We believe in the doctrine of election but the principle of election goes to be carried farther than some suppose. There is an election in the midst of the election and another within that. The wider circle contains the inner and a still more select circle forms the innermost ring of all. The Lord had a people around Him who were His disciples. Within them He had twelve. Within the twelve He had three. Within the three He had one disciple whom He loved. And I suppose that what took place
around His blessed Person on earth takes place on a larger scale around His adorable Person which is the center of His Church both militant and triumphant.
Probably our Lord’s attachment to John was partly a human one. And so far as it were human, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now after the flesh we know Him no more. Any merely human affection which our Lord Jesus bore for John may have passed away. There may, also, have been such affection in Jesus toward John as there would be in any eminent Christian towards another Christly Believer—in anyone whom the Lord made to be a leader of His Church, towards such-and-such a member of that Church in whom He could see most of the lovely characteristics of Himself. I cannot but think that it was so.
But it strikes me that our Lord Jesus loved John in some measure more than the rest, in the entirety of His character, as Jesus Christ, the Son of God as well as the Son of Man. We know that He loved all His disciples. For when my Brother read the chapter just now, how like music did those words sound, “Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end”! He loved not some of His own. But all of them. He loved all His own then and He loves all His own now. There is infinite love in the heart of Jesus towards all His people. And if there are any degrees in that love, yet the lowest degree is inconceivably great.