John 8:38-47 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and you do that which you have seen with your father.… Notwithstanding the multitude of books written on the life of Christ we want one more. We have outward lives more than enough that tell us about places and date and occurrences. We want an inner "life" of thoughts, purposes, feelings. Until we study this inner life, all the outward life will be a plague to our intellect and a mortification to our heart. The inward always explains the outward. 1. Suppose we saw one of the miracles of Christ, the raising of the dead. Here is the dead man, there the living Christ, yonder the mourning friends; presently the dead man rises. But how? Is it trick or miracle — an illusion or a fact? I cannot determine, because my eyes have been so often deceived. I saw a man get up — but the conjuror comes along and says, "I will show you something equally deceiving." I see his avowed trick; it does baffle me; and if then he says, "It was just the same with what you thought the raising of the dead," he leaves me in a state of intellectual torment. Then what am I to do? Leave the outward. Watch the miracle Worker — listen to Him. If His mental triumphs are equal to His physical miracles, then admire, trust, and love Him. Take the conjuror: when on the stage he seems to be working miracles, but when he comes off and talks on general subjects I feel my equality with him rising and asserting itself. So when I go to Christ as a mere stranger and see His miracles, I say, "This Man may be but the cleverest of the host." But when He begins to speak His words are equal to His works. He is the same off the platform as on. I am bound to account fur this consistency. All other men have been manifestations of self-inequality. We know clever men who are fools, strong men who are weak, etc., and this want of self-consistency is a proof of their being merely men. But if I find a Man in whom this inequality does not exist, who says that if I could follow Him still higher I should find Him greater in thinking than is possible for any mere man to be in acting, then I have to account for this consistency, which I have found nowhere else, and listen to His explanation of it. "I proceeded forth and came from God." That explanation alone will cover all the ground He permanently occupies. 2. It will be interesting to make ourselves as familiar with His thoughts as we are with His works. We shall then come to value His miracles as He did. Did He value them for their own sake? Sound a trumpet and convoke a mighty host to see them? Never. He regarded them as elementary and introductory — examples and symbols. Why? Because He was greater within than without. Had He performed them with His fingers only, He might have been proud of them, but when they fell out of the infinity of His thinking they were mere drops trembling on the bucket. We might as well follow some poor breathing of ours, and say, "How wonderful that sighing in the wind!" It is nothing because of the greater life. It is very remarkable that this Man once said, "Greater works than these shall ye do," but never "Greater thoughts than these shall ye think." Let us look at this inner life of Christ from two or three points. I. I watch this man, struck with wonder at His power, and the question arises, WHAT IS THE IMPELLING SENSE OF HIS DUTY? He answers, "I must be about My Father's business." Never did prophet give that explanation before. In working from His Father's point of view, He gives us His key. Put it where you like, the lock answers to it; and is no credit to be given to a speaker, who at twelve years of age, put the key into the hands of inquirers, and told them to go round the whole circle of His life with that key. Can he keep up that strain? Listen, "My Father worketh hitherto and I work." Can He sustain that high key when He is in trouble? "Father, into Thy hands I commend my Spirit." II. Arguing from that point, if this Man is about His Father's business, WHAT IS HIS SUPREME FEELING? Concern for the dignity of the law? Jealousy for the righteousness of God! No; from beginning to end of His life He is "moved with compassion," and when people come to Him they seemed to know this sympathetically, for they cried, "Have mercy on us." He speaks like a Son and is thus faithful to His Father's message. What explanation does He give of His own miracles, "Virtue hath gone out of Me." He did not say "I have performed this with My fingers" — no trickster, but a mighty sympathizer. Whatever He did took something out of Him. Behold the difference between the artificial and the real. The healing of one poor sufferer took "Virtue out of Him." What did the redemption of the world take out of Him when He said, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" The last pulse is gone and He is self — consistent still. III. TO WHAT ARE ALL HIS TRIUMPHS EVENTUALLY REFERRED? Not to intellectual ability, skill of finger or physical endurance, but to His soul — "He shall see of the travail of His soul," etc. You know the meaning of the word in some degree. One man paints with paint, another with His soul. One man speaks with his tongue, another with his soul; they are the same words, but not the same, as the bush was not the same before the fire came into it. Thus Christ shall see the travail of His soul, etc. He was often wearied with journeying, when was He wearied with miracles? His bones were tired, when was His mind enfeebled — when did the word ever come with less than the old emphasis — the fiat that made the sun? (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. |
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