Revelation Waiting upon Capacity

“I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” — john xvi. 12.

The Master is speaking to His disciples in the upper room. The words are a fragment of the wonderful intercourse recorded for our advantage in the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth chapters of John. If one may make comparison among things, all of which are superlative, one would say that when we enter these chapters we are in precincts peculiarly venerable and awe-inspiring. If one may liken the whole of the New Testament to a temple, then these chapters would be the Holy of Holies, a place where the sanctities are gathered together in overwhelming solemnity and power. In this place things are being said of unutterable tenderness and unutterable grandeur. Their range takes away one’s breath. On the one hand they touch human life, with all its frailties, as gently as the wings of a bee touch the stamens of a flower; and on the other hand they lay hold of divine and eternal prerogatives with the majestic air of a King entering the capital city of his dominions. Christ lays one hand on human necessity, and its touch is as exquisite as the touch of a nurse, and with the other hand He quietly grasps the sceptre of the universe, and He claims the glory of God. Such is the range of movement in this Holy Place, and my text reflects a little of that movement as the great Lover touches the needs of His disciples: “I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.”

Now I would not like to say that these disciples were quite ordinary men such as you might find anywhere in any town or village in the land. They were not the first pickings from the street or the shore. They were very carefully chosen. They came from ordinary callings, but I imagine they were extraordinary men. They were not children of advantage. They were not laden with the fruits of culture. They did not carry the influence of lofty rank or station. They had no money behind them which could lend distinction to their weakness. But then their

Master had none of these things, and though His disciples had none of them, I still think they were extraordinary men. They must have been men of dormant capacity, and the Lord must have seen the folded secrets of their power. He must have seen the sleeping possibilities which in later years were to develop into a variety of gifts, and into a strength which could carry a message anywhere and boldly face the gathered resistance of a world.

But at present they were very crude and clumsy. They were still in the elementary standards, somewhat dull at taking things in, and their progress in the school of Christ had been painfully slow. If big possibilities were in the bud, the bud had not yet begun to unsheath its glory. And the great Teacher waited for His dull-witted pupils, waited with infinite patience. There was so much to be given, and so little had yet been received. There was so much to be told, and so little had yet been understood. “I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” Our English word “bear” is somewhat ambiguous. At any rate, its primary meaning is that of endurance. When we speak of not being able to bear a thing we suggest some gathering experience which overwhelms us. The experience may be either grave or gay. It may be like a blaze of sunshine, or it may be like a black encompassing gloom. But, whether it be one or the other, we use the word in the sense of “to endure.” “I cannot bear it.”

But that is not the primary content in the word of my text — “Ye cannot bear them now.” In the Master’s sentence “to bear” has the simple significance of “to carry.” Indeed, that is how the word is elsewhere translated in the New Testament, as, for instance, in the phrase: “A man bearing a pitcher of water.” So that when the Master suggests that there are some things which they are not yet able to carry, He means that they have not yet the requisite capacity to lay hold of them and apprehend them. They lack the needful grasp. They may be able to carry a pound weight, but they are not yet able to carry a stone. They may be able to grip this portion of truth, or that portion of truth, but there are other portions which are quite beyond them. It is the grasp that is wanting, and the revelation must wait until the needful grasp is matured. The word therefore suggests the contrast between the hands of a child and the hands of a full-grown man. “I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.”

Now the principle is operative in every field of learning, and in every realm of discernment. Revelation has to wait upon capacity, and it has to wait patiently until capacity is grown. A master-musician may say to his pupil, “Music has many things to say unto you, but you cannot carry them now!” Marvellous harmonies are waiting, exquisite refinements of tone, wonders of melodious fellowship, witcheries of cunning combination, but you lack the needful discernment. And the genius of music has to wait until an ear has been acquired which can catch and hold these finer sounds and harmonies. “Ye cannot carry them now.”

An art master may say to his pupil — “Art has many things to say unto you, but you cannot carry them now!” There are delicacies of light and shade, there are dainty marriages of colour, there are fairy secrets, there are subtle glories of which you have never dreamed! You can see a little way, but just beyond your range there is a world of gorgeous mystery. And so the spirit of art has to wait until an eye has been acquired which can apprehend and carry the hidden glory. “Your eye hath not seen!” “You cannot carry them now.”

And so it is with what our Lord calls “the treasures of heaven,” the higher harmonies of the spiritual spheres. So it is with the finer aspects of truth. They are like the stellar spaces of the universe, crowded with hidden glories, but dependent for their unveiling upon the creation of a more and more perfect lens. With every added power to the lens the invisible world loses a veil, and it displays a new range of its treasures. And thus it is with the truth in Christ Jesus. So it is with the greatest secrets — the hidden knowledge of God and His grace, the mysteries of His will, His cloud-shrouded judgment, the tangle of His Providence — they are waiting for an eye, an ear, a requisite strength of holiness, the needful purity of life. The treasures are even now assembled like the glories of the starry world: they are “the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him,” but they are veiled before our immaturity. “I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.”

Now let us mark one or two consequences of all this. The first consequence is this; there are many words of Christ which await the approach and touch of adequate capacity. What does our Lord and Master say about His words? This is what He says: “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.” Mark the depth of the background which He gives to His words — “they are spirit, and they are life” — and we feel them stretch back, and back, and back, like regions of untraversed and undiscovered country, back and back, losing themselves in misty and mysterious depth. “My words are spirit, and they are life!” They are like unplumbed seas, “the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

But let us carefully note that if our Saviour’s words are spirit and life, then as we add to the clarity of our own spirit, and the purity of our own life, we are acquiring the necessary means of interpretation, and we can plumb an ever deeper depth in these unsounded seas. It is little or no good coming to the words of life with a dictionary and a lexicon. You can find out something about them, but it is not the knowledge of vital acquaintance. The lexicon may give you certain information about His words, but it no more takes you into the vital secret of His word than the information which “Who’s Who” gives me about Lord “X,” escorts me into the inner room of his friendship. In the spiritual realm the difference between information and knowledge is the difference between timber and a living tree; it is the difference between the mechanical and the affectional; it is the difference between two callers at your door, a rate collector and a lover.... I may know Christ through a scrap of paper: He waits to be known through the wedded and companionable alliance of a pure life.... And therefore His words wait for fuller interpretation, they are always waiting for the larger interpretation which is found through a larger life. ...” I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.”

And now we take a step further. If these are words of Jesus waiting for an interpreting capacity, may we not say the same about events? There are happenings in the life of Christ which may seem silent and mysterious as the Sphinx, but the silence is only the witness that the interpreting ear is absent. If only we had a finer ear these mystical happenings would reveal a voice, and the voice would unfold the secret things of God. Events are always insignificant until they are met by the needful power of discernment, and as that power becomes more and more matured the hidden secrets troop out of their hiding like the fabled princess who had been imprisoned in the gloomy wood. What about the happenings in Gethsemane? What is there in them — how little or how much? What about the awful happenings on the Cross f What is there in them — how little, or how much? What about the mysteries of the empty grave? What have they to say to us — how little, or how much? What about the mysteries of the Pentecostal morning? What do they say to us? We cannot stand round these central sanctities of our world, aye, and of all worlds — we cannot stand round them like casual observers, with our hands in our pockets, and with the jaunty indifference of the witnesses of a bull-fight, and yet expect these events to tell us their secrets. Mere observation will take us nowhere. For each and all of us the events are waiting for an interpreting capacity, and until that capacity is presented to them they will look at us, with all the mysterious silence of the Sphinx. These wonderful events have many things to say to us — aye, infinitely more than we dream, but we cannot carry them now.

Well, then, how is this carrying capacity to be acquired? How is this discernment to be gained f Let us reverently consult the counsel of the Lord. The word of my text which expresses our incapacity is accompanied by a word of promise proclaiming how the incapacity may be removed. “I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He shall guide you into all truth.” In the Christian life our incapacity is to be leagued with a Guide, who is to be the minister of our spiritual expansion. Mark you, we are not left to an impersonal director — that would be a guide-post. We are not left with an impersonal code of laws — that would be a guide book. The promise is neither a guide-post nor a guide-book, but a Guide. He, the Spirit of Truth, shall guide you into all truth. And let no one limit the ministry of this Guide to the presentation of knowledge, and to the opening out of secrets as we walk with Him along the way. His guidance is not only to inform, but to inspire; it is to prepare and refine the faculty as well as to present the truth. He not only presents the field of vision, He also intensifies the lens. He creates the eye which is to perceive the scene. He enlarges our capacity, and we apprehend the waiting truth. He guides us into all truth.

And where does He train us F Where is His school? And what is the medium of His training? The common events of daily life. Our faculties are burnished by the smaller loyalties, and we come to see the greater. That is the line of spiritual progress. Our powers are prepared in smaller spheres for explorations in larger ones. We have not two consciences, one for business and one for religion; we have only one, and the conscience is quickened by the hourly fidelities of common intercourse. We have not two reasons, one for secular affairs, and one for devotions; we have but one reason, and it is strengthened by the singleness of its quest through all the jungle of thickly competing interests which throng our daily life. We have not two wills, one for the flesh and one for the spirit; we have only one will, and this will is invigorated by a thousand unwitnessed wrestlings on a thousand obscure fields. Our reason, and our conscience, and our will are prepared in these minor happenings, and they march up to the major happenings and to enlarged discernments.

The heart, which has been tried and proved in heart-break, wanders into the garden of Gethsemane, and wonderingly finds that it has eyes for the darkness, and in the midnight gloom it begins to see. The love which has been trained by the Holy Spirit amid the desolations of wasting experiences, goes and stands before the Cross, and the mystery begins to break in solemn and amazing glory. It is through the guided and inspired ministry of daily events that we thus find the keys to larger interpretations of the word and life of our Lord. The event may be a sunny one, bright as the brightest morning; it may be a little child knocking at the door, God’s love-gift to our expectant hearts, and the little one brings the key to the very heart of God. Or the event may be a sombre one, cold and black as a starless winter’s night; it may be death knocking at our door, and the dark-robed presence is made to put into our hand the key of the grave. In all these ways faculty is strengthened, and perception is refined, and with the increased capacity we are able to hear voices that once were silent, we are able to decipher the meaning of words that once had no significance; we begin to handle more of the keys of life and death. “I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot carry them now!” Yea, so it is; but when the great Guide has strengthened and purified our powers, then — “Master speak, Thy servant heareth!” And His will and His grace will unfold their treasures to the eternal enrichment of our souls.

For, mark you, this is to be the supreme work of the Guide. He is to prepare our powers for a progressive perception and understanding of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. “He shall glorify Me,” says Jesus, “for He shall take of Mine and declare it unto you.” Christ is to be more and more gloriously revealed to us through our refined discernments and the ministry of novel and unfamiliar events. Along the great road of time every age should succeed to a larger and richer interpretation of Christ. This age in which we live should see Christ as He has never been seen before — in clearer vision of His truth, in new and broader applications of His will, and in the carrying of His fertilizing spirit to every desert waste in human life. How to know Christ, and how to convert the divine knowledge into human grace and loveliness, that is our perpetual problem; and this is the perpetual solution of the problem — “He shall guide you into all truth, for He shall take of Mine and shall declare it unto you.”

We must not be afraid of new things. We must not be afraid of larger ways of looking at old things. We must not fear the new application of Christian truth to the new and complex necessities of our day. There are two things we must pray for — vision and venture, and for these let us pray without ceasing... “Lord, that I may receive my sight.” That is the secret of vision.... “Thy will be done on earth!” That is the spirit of venture. And vision and venture will translate themselves into venture and vision, and we shall go on from faith to faith, from strength to strength, and from glory to glory.