John the Divine
“This is the disciple who wrote these things.**
By the Cross of Jesus there were standing “His mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own house.” And so the beloved disciple became the Saviour’s trustee. In ministering to her through whose soul a sword had now pierced, but who, as long as she survived, must have been unspeakably endeared to discipleship as Mary the Lord’s mother, he found at once a labour of love and a touching memento of his Master’s confidence.
But this sacred charge was not the only purpose for which John tarried. He had his share in preaching the first Gospel and organizing the primitive Church; and it is interesting to find that one of his earliest missions was to the Samaritans, and that he went to impart to them the same gifts which were already enjoyed by believers at Jerusalem; * showing how his views had expanded and his temper had softened since the day when, rather than invoke on such separatists the descent of the Spirit, he would have called for fire from heaven, and showing, too, how Samaria was changed now that many of its villagers had received into their houses that Saviour whom a little while ago they had driven from their doors, t For many years he tarried at J erusalem J and it would seem as if it had been late in life before he commenced those labours which have identified his name with Ephesus and the Asiatic Churches. Christ’s ascension he must have survived for nearly seventy years. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, who received the crown of martyrdom A.D. 167,
* Acts viii. 14 — 17. + Luke ix. 51 — 56.
J Acts xv. 6.
was John’s disciple. Two other links of equal length would have joined the birth of Christ to the reign of Constantine.
This suggests another end which was doubtless accomplished by his long continuance. There is a living impress or likeness of themselves which the master spirits stamp, partlj on the surrounding society, and still more strikingly on individual adherents or devotees, and which, to a certain extent, secures the repetition of their virtues. But if this be true in the case of mere human excellence — if in Elisha there survive traits of Elijah — if in J oshua you detect features of Moses reappearing — how much more likely was this transmission to obtain in the case of Christ and His disciples! Where the die was not only faultless but Divine, and where the receiving surface was such an amalgam of personal attachment and reverential adoration, and where the arm of the Lord was the power — where, soul to soul, His Spirit gave the pressure — can we doubt that on every one would survive an image and superscription at once carrying back the beholder to Jesus of Nazareth (l But amongst these disciples who is there that does not feel as if, in its more delicate details, as well as in its pervasive spirit, Christ’s character had been especiallyrevealed to that disciple whom He loved — whose open eye could take in the entire manifestation — whose sanctified affinity could so completely take it on? As in water face answereth to face, so we feel that to the thoughts of Jesus answers the silent walk of J ohn, and that those who had never seen the Divine Original saw in him the most life-like copy. Far more precious than any picture or any relic — far more helpful to that early Church than Veronica’s miraculous portrait, or the King of Edessa’s fabled holograph, was the living epistle in which Christ had registered so many of His deepest thoughts and fondest desires — the living likeness which had looked at the express image of the Father so long as to carry away His very mind and manner. Hence we presume it comes to pass that in all our notions of the highest lsanctity, we find commingled more or less some image of St. John. Paul is the hero, and Apollos is the orator, and Stephen is the martyr; but with all earthliness sublimed away and superseded by elements from another world, our associations with John are those of purest saintliness. The planet which beams down on us from the noon of night, does not necessarily suggest the centre of our system: in that remoteness from the source of light you might almost fancy it a separate star which had kindled its own lamp of silver or of ruby; but the worlds which circle closest to the centre you seldom see, except in a sky still luminous with the orb of day, and in which they float, not so much a contrast to the darkness, as a concentration of the lingering radiance. Like Mercury or the evening star, J ohn is a planet near the sun. In a horizon from which the Light of the World has not long disappeared, he emits a ray so soft and heavenly that you cannot mistake its source, and you are glad to think that the Sun of Righteousness, gone* down from our hemisphere, is still looked upon by him.
And J ohn tarried to add some of its most precious portions to the Bible — to the Evangelists the closing Gospel — to the Canon the closing Book.
The Word of God is a magnificent domain, vast in its extent, and with features boundlessly diversified. Like an outer park or forest, the Old Testament histories offer endless scope to the explorer; whilst there is invigoration in the exercise, there is a rich reward in the curious and instructive discoveries awaiting diligent research, and, as showing the Hand most high which guides our human destinies, they furnish the true introduction to universal history. Starting up here and there like rugged cliffs, the genealogies claim more than a sterile grandeur; for bleak and barren though they seem, there is a wellspring at their foot. It is from these dreary crags that the fountain of Christ’s manhood takes its rise; and as you follow the stream from IJr of the Chaldees to the manger of Bethlehem, you find how faithful was the Promiser and how watchful the Providence which through all the eventful centuries kept afloat and guided on the ark of the Advent. Fulfilled and unfulfilled, the prophecies are mountains and valleys, — mountains from whose gilded summits you may look on vistas through the fog, — straths of sunshine in the vapour-flood, where glorious things and gladsome stand revealed, whilst, from the echoing sides of ravines still dark and misty, comes up the heavy footfall or terrific cry of sorrows not seen as yet. The Psalms, the Canticles, the poetic books, are the singing groves, the tinkling rills, the pastures green. Rich in doctrine, laden with the finest of the wheat, the Epistles are the frcPLtful fields which fill the Church’s granary. The Gospels are the garden inclosed, with its blossomed mounts and blazing parterres, and every several path leading up to that Tree of Life in the midst of the garden, conspicuous from every corner. But, as when a house is built on a garden’s edge, the inmates are best acquainted with the rose-bush at the door, and the flower-plat mSxt the window; as, when Spring invites them forth, it is there that the children play; as it is at these they look when drizzling days have kept them prisoners; and as it is amongst these sweet plants of the threshold that the chair is planted for the wasted invalid when carried out for a last look of earthly summer; so it would seem as if the new nature’s home stood somewhere on the verge of J ohn’s Gospel. For though believers may be found expatiating through the whole field of Scripture — some resting under Abraham’s oak, and some in Jeremiah’s bower of weeping cypress, pensively musing; some with Moses on the mount, and some with Elijah in the desert; some rubbing the ears of corn in the doctrinal Epistles, and some stringing the pearls thickly strewti on the strand of the Proverbs; — yet, when the sky lowers, or evening shadows fall, as if homewards, the general movement is Gospel-wards, and, of all Gospels, towards the record of St. John. Near home it must be. The children of the house are familiar with it. Here babes in knowledge may wander at their will; here the dim eye is conscious of the landmarks, and does not lose its way. As on the lawn before the family residence, the last-born youngest child of grace may safely disport him here; and here, leaning on his staff for very age, the old disciple feels that he is breathing native air. Yes, it is near home; so full of Jesus, that you can get no nearer unless you were actually going in — in where J ohn himself now is — into the “prepared place” where Christ’s own presence makes it home.
And his Epistles, — the first, especially, — the essence of his Gospeb — the golden fruit from that fragrant, silvery flower. “The Word — God heard: the Light — God seen: the Life — God felt: in one word, Jesus Christ God manifest,5’* such is the purport of his Gospel, and such is an epitome of his Epistle. The lesson throughout is, “That the means of union with God are, on the part of Christ, His atoning blood (i. 7; ii. 2; iii. 5; iv. 10, 14; v. 6) and advocacy (ii. 1); on the part of man, holiness (i. 6), obedience (ii. 3), purity (iii. 3), faith (iii. 23; iv. 3; v. 5), and, above all, love (ii. 7; iii. 14; iv. 7; v. 1):”+■ — a God of infinite compassion coming forth to meet His guilty, prodigal children, and they falling into the arms of His mercy to receive the words of forgiveness, and be enfolded for ever in the embrace of His fatherliness. God is love, and you need not fear to love Him. Such is the message, and in the announcement there is a theme for life-long meditation. A happy valley, a holy land, is the Gospel revelation. We want to soar, we even like to * Charles Wolfe.
f Meyrick, in Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible.”
N 2
dive; and, in the world of thought, there are abysses and there are mountain heights. For the divers there is the origin of evil;. for the climbers and aeronauts there are the ct ‘priori argument, the plurality of worlds, the mode of future existence. The divers have gone very deep. With a dredge of 1,260 fathoms they have brought up something- — not exactly a the dragon of the sea,” the mighty mystery for which Leibnitz and other bold fishers angled, but only as yet some poor little worms and star-fishes. * And the aerial voyagers have risen very high; but, except that they grew comatose, and felt it fearfully cold, they have not much to report: though far above
* The deepest sounding at which life has been found is«J)r. Wallich’s. From a depth of 1,260 fathoms he brought up living star-fishes, and with the tubes of annelids apparently recent in their digestive cavity. Mr. Glaisher’s great ascent was to an elevation of nearly seven perpendicular miles. It seems hardly needful to say how much we admire the heroic feats of the latter, and appreciate the remarkable results obtained by the former. It is in the realm of metaphysical theology, or “wisdom above that which is written,” that both the dredge and the balloon have as yet made small addition to our knowledge. the earth, they were still inside its atmosphere; and, do what they could, none of these transcendentalists and ethereal aspirants have been able to bring back any absolute result, or get for an instant above “the conditioned.” “Within sight of those snowy peaks and tempting aiguilles, — within sight of that melancholy main and its unfathomed mystery, — God has planted His garden — has fenced in His own revelation. And although some of us can hardly help dealing in matters too high for us, or too deep, how can we be thankful enough for knowledge of God’s own giving! Let us mock no intellectual effort. Let us disparage no man who adds a fact, however small, or even a final negation, to the realm of science. But let us be thankful that, for spiritual requirements, there is small need of mere intellectual effort. It was not on a peak, splendid with virgin snow, and till then untouched by human foot, that J esus was transfigured, but on a hill green to the summit, and which could be scaled with no great effort; nor was it from the top of even Olivet, but a little distance up the side, that He ascended to heaven. And that epistle of J olin lias no high-sounding words; but it has truths which, if they were abiding in us, would make us immortal — truths which, coming forth from God, can lead us back to Him again. In its balmy clime the Alpine traveller may be glad to rest his weary limbs, and heal his broken bones; and on its bread from heaven the deep-sea dredger may be thankful to feast who has been long dropping his sounding-line into deep problems and dark mysteries, and who has “grown old in drawing nothing up.”
God is Love. This single announcement of the beloved disciple, contradicted by so many appearances, yet carrying its own evidence; in the world around us met by many % no and many a murmur, and from the caverns of despair fetching up a fiendish laughter, and yet countersigned by every fragment of Jehovah’s handwriting on the ruined tablets of the heart, and in trumpet-tones reverberated from the hills of immortality — this shortest of sentences and most summary of gospels, which a breath can utter, and which a signet-ring can contain, is the truth which, shining bright in the Advent, will overspread the world in the millennium’s mild lustre — the truth on which no man has mused too much, even although he has pondered it all his days, and to which no anthem can do justice except that in which golden harps mingle, and in which the redeemed from among men are helped by the seraphim.
What is this, however, which comes after! In some respects the sublimest book of the Bible, but, withal, the darkest and most difficult. With its plagues and its earthquakes, with its woes and its vials, in startling contrast to the bland glories of the Gospel and Epistles, the Apocalypse shows that it was not without reason that its author was named beforehand a “son of thunder.”
“And yet as every cloud that spreads above,
And veileth love, itself is love,”
so also the storm which breaks up atmospheric stagnation — the lightning by which lurid vapours are scattered and the firmament once more is cleared, is aught but a malignant visitant; and, distressing as it may be to read of battles where the blood comes up to the horses’ bridles, and plagues in which a third portion of the species perish, we must not forget that all this is the adjustment of a wise and holy benevolence, banishing evil to its own place, and securing for righteousness an uninterrupted and universal reign. Nor, perhaps, has any book done more to keep the Church heroic and high-hearted. Expanding the Saviour’s warning, — “In the world ye shall have tribulation, in Me ye shall have peace,” it has been a continual comforter in persecution; and, whilst its martyrs, crying, “Lord, how long fl” have helped to uphold the patience of the saints, the indestructibility of truth and the eventual efficacy of every good confession have been taught by the resurrection of the witnesses. To every phase of waning zeal, of decaying faith, of incipient error, of careless conduct, the messages to the seven Churches have administered antidotes, correctives, stimulants; and, whilst to the banished Hebrew this book has given a better home in the New Jerusalem, and to the Christian’s heaven has imparted an aspect at once life-like and lovely, let us not forget the majesty with which it has invested a glorified Redeemer, presenting Him to olden affection with stars in His right hand and burning feet and a voice like many waters and a face too bright to look upon. Nor rate ifc lightly that, through the congenial mind of John — a mind which must have been artistic — there have got into the mind of Christendom a strain of lofty music and a style of matchless imagery: for where is the picture-gallery that can do justice to the Pale Horse and his Rider? — to the Angel in the Sun 1 — to the Sea of Glass and Fire commingled, with the harping victors standing on it 1 — to the Great White Throne, and from the face of the descending Judge fleeing away both earth and heaven? What pencil can do justice to the Tree of Life, viewing its twelve manner of fruits reflected in the crystal river; — or who can paint the pearly gates and the jasper walls, and that glory of God which is at once the sun and the sanctuary, the light and the temple of the sinless city? Or where is the choir which can give us a notion of the ten thousand times ten thousand singing with loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that wits slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing” 1
Till the Church required, or was ready to receive such books, J ohn tarried; and then, heaving his prayer, “Even so, come Lord Jesus,” the Master came. The task was done, and the faithful servant was released.
J ohn tarried long. If he had foreseen that there should elapse near seventy years be fore he rejoined his Saviour, it would have seemed a fearful interval. And, no doubt, at times he must have wearied, and cried very wistfully, “Come, Lord Jesus.” But it is over now, and,
“When the shore is won at last,
Who will count the billows past?” *
On the whole, however, it must have been a happy life: for whether it be in this world or any other, “he that dwelleth in love,” cannot live too long; where the devout and benevolent affections are in active exercise, existence can bring no tedium. As Mrs. Schimmelpenninck exclaimed, when told of a Christian who led a dejected life, “A Christian, and not happy! I am now sixty-eight; I am far happier than I was at twenty, and that principally because the Lord has shown * Keble. me more of Himself.” Then, after a pause, she added, “Hot that I should speak of happiness when I think of my melancholic temperament, and the deserts I often have to pass through; but even the sound of the living water, to the traveller in the wastes of Africa, is less sweet than the love of God to my soul.”* In the same spirit, at the age of seventy-four, we find another wise and cheerful believer writing, “Goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life. My trials have been few compared with my comforts. My pleasures have been cheap and simple, and therefore very numerous. I have enjoyed without satiety the seasons and the sceneries of nature. I have relished the bounties of Providence, using them with moderation and thankfulness. I have delighted in the means of grace; unutterable have been my delights in studying and perusing the Scripture. How have I verified the words of Young, * Retire, and read thy Bible to be gay.?”f All are not equally favoured. With some it has been
* “Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck,” third edition, p. 468.
f “Autobiography of the Rev. W. Jay,” p. 158. a bleak spring and a rainy summer. Yet wherever there is true religion there will be the cordial acknowledgment that the purest, sweetest joys are those which flow from God’s friendship, and which are found at a throne of grace. And whether it be in words express, or in the language of tranquil looks, and a calm and kindly walk, it is a blessed thing to be able to publish God’s praise, and tell the generation following, ‘ This God can supply all your need: He can keep you safe, and make you happy.’