Life Through Faith in the Christ of God
T the close of his Gospel, John warns us against supposing that he had given a complete narrative of the words and works of the Lord Jesus (chap. xxi. 25); or that even a complete narrative could possibly he given. The grace, the glory, the number of these, were far beyond the pen or lips of man. The speaker and the doer of these was the Infinite One; and His words and works, both in number and excellence, were like Himself.
In the conclusion of his twentieth chapter we have a statement of a similar kind to the above, and one which bears very closely upon the truths we have been endeavouring to bring out in the preceding pages concerning the Christ of God. The apostle seems afraid of allowing the very thought to enter any reader s mind for a moment, that his
Gospel was to be received as a complete record of the life of the Son of God on earth. It was not such. It could not he such. It was not intended to be such. What! A short treatise of twenty-one brief chapters contain the full history of the Christ of God! Impossible! Could the hollow of a babe’s hand contain the ocean %
It is with the remembrance of these things that we are to read this marvellous Gospel. It is but one star, or fragment of a star, taken out of myriads, — myriads now hidden, but all of which we shall one day see.
But let us take up the passage under the following points: (1) the signs; (2) the faith; (3) the life; (4) the name.
I. The Signs. — The word sign does not confine itself to miracles; nor does it refer to something future, as if it contained something prophetical. It is something which signifies that the person speaking is really the person whom he professes to be; something which identifies the individual, which verifies his statements. The turning of Moses’ rod into a serpent was to be a ‘ sign ’ to Pharaoh that God had spoken to Moses. The going back of the shadow upon the dial of Ahaz was to be a sign to Hezekiah that God would heal him. The Jews asked a sign from Jesus, to prove to them that He was the Messiah.
A sign, then, in the case of Christ, was some¬ thing which signified that He was really that which He professed to he. Of these signs His miracles formed the chief part, though not the whole. His resurrection from the dead was the one great sign given specially by God to prove that He was the Christ. The proofs of the reality of that resurrection, and of the identity of Him who was now appearing to the disciples as their risen Master, with Him who went out and in among them so long, and who was at last nailed to the cross, were the wounds in His hands, and feet, and side, which He now exhibited to Thomas and the rest of the disciples.
Of such ‘ signs ’ John had recorded many; but he intimates to us that there were many more behind, many more which he might have recorded, many more which his own memory could recall, — all of them bearing upon the point of the Messiahship of Jesus; all of them public ‘ signs ’ too, not done in a corner, but openly, before men: c Many other signs truly did Jesus, in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book.’ The events in the life of Jesus may well he compared to the stars in the night skies. The eye sees many, and what we see is enough to attest the power and glory of Jehovah; the telescope shows many more; if our telescopes were enlarged and improved, we might see more still; were our powers of vision increased, or were we translated to some other sphere, we should see more and more of them, all proclaiming the might and majesty of their Maker. So with the facts in the life of Jesus. The evangelists have gathered up a few, and presented them for us to gaze upon. But they are, after all, hut few in comparison with those which remain ungatliered; and we must wait the day when we shall hear the whole glorious history of that wondrous life, and have fact upon fact presented to us, and word upon word, — all detailed to us in blessed profusion and endless number, either from the lips of His disciples, or, better still, from His own. The full detail of these will of itself be enough to fill up the days and nights of eternity.
But though by far the greater number of His words and deeds is left unrecorded, enough has been preserved to answer the divine purpose with
The Christ of Cocl.
us here. Nay, we may say that this abstract or abridgment of His life, this culling from the events of that life, is far better for us than a larger his¬ tory would have been. We should hut have been bewildered, distracted, with more; and though we have often said to ourselves, and to one another, ( Would that we knew more of the Lord’s life! ’ we knew not what we said. The gratification of such a wish just now would not be for the better to us, but for the worse. All that we need has been retained for our use here, and we are quite sure that the rest are not thrown away. They are too precious jewels to be lost. They are but treasured up for future use, to be brought forth to us hereafter. For we have not done knowing Christ when we see Him face to face. We shall only have begun.
Had this abridgment or selection been a human one, we might have been somewhat stumbled. We might have asked, Is it a fair one? Does it give a proper view of the case? Does it place the evidence upon its proper basis, and bring out all its strength? But knowing that it is a divine, not a human selection, we have no such questions to ask. The selection of facts and words must be perfect of its kind, misrepresenting nothing, neither understating nor overstating anything; giving ns such a sketch of the earthly life of the Christ as would produce upon us the true impression, the exact feeling or state of mind, which would have been produced had the whole been presented to us, and had we been able to grasp, or wTeigh, or comprehend that whole. It is the Holy Spirit who has abridged for us the life of the Son of God; and that abridgment must not only be thoroughly accurate, but. so. adjusted and balanced in all its parts as to do its work most efficiently, to present the evidence most strongly; to strengthen, not to weaken, the intended impression; to concentrate, not to diffuse or dilute, the light.
Hence it is that the apostle, while reminding us of the many unrevealed signs, adds this regarding the recorded ones: f These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.’ We take the recorded signs as so many divine messages to us, so many heavenly rays converging on the person of Jesus of Nazareth; and we take them, too, as specimens of the unrecorded, — each miracle a representative of multitudes of unrecorded miracles, each word a representative of millions of unrecorded
words. We thus learn, that while much has been left ungathered, yet that which is left is of the same tenor with that which has been preserved: the un¬ known does not contradict the known; the evidence remaining unproduced is all in the same direction, adding to the proof that Jesus of Nazareth is all that He professed to be.
These signs are worth the studying. They are full of meaning. Each one is big with everlasting truth, with divine and infinite love.
II. The Faith. — The faith has its root in the ’ signs, or in the divine statement concerning the signs; for faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. The signs were specially wrought for the production of this faith, and they are selected and recorded for the same purpose to us. They are the foundation of faith, not simply as miracles, but as miracles of a certain kind, and with a definite bearing. Their meaning is unambiguous. They have one voice and one object. They all bear upon the person and mission of Jesus of Nazareth. They speak out the mind of God concerning Him, leaving us in no doubt as to this point, what God thinks of Him.
These signs, though having one voice and one meaning, bear upon our faith in a threefold way.
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(1.) They testify that Jesus of Nazareth is the Sent of Cod. — As Hicodemus declared, ‘ No man can do these miracles except God be with him.’ This was the point to which Jesns brought the Pharisees: Either these miracles are God’s doing or Satan’s, and prove that I am sent either of God or of Satan. But as these miracles are all against Satan and for God, as well as for the good of man, they must be of divine origin, and prove me to be sent of God. ‘I came from God,’ He said, and these works are the proof that this is true.
(2.) They testify that Jesus is the Christ. — The miracles were not merely great, but peculiar; just such miracles as the prophets had predicted that Messiah when He came should perform. Hence, when John’s disciples came with the question, ‘Art thou He that should come?’ Jesus An that same hour,’ and before their eyes, wrought certain miracles, and sent back the messengers to John with this message from Himself: ‘Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them ’ (Matt. xi. 4, 5). These were the signs which were to satisfy John and his disciples that Jesus was the Christ of God, the Messiah of the prophets, the seed of the woman who had come to bruise the serpent’s head, and to destroy the works of the devil.
(3.) They testify that Jesus is the Son of God. — If He were Messiah, then, by inference, was He known to be the Son of God. But some of His f signs ’ went more directly to prove the Sonship, especially the resurrection. By this, says the apostle, He was f declared to be the Son of God with power, It was as the Son that He had so often spoken in the Psalms concerning His own resurrection by the Father’s power, and as the fruit of the Father’s love. ‘ Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption.’ And when proving to Thomas that He was in very deed the crucified Jesus, who was dead and was alive again, He was proving that He was the Son of God, He of whom it had been said, ‘ Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee/
Thus, then, these divinely selected and divinely
recorded signs bear upon the person of Christ in these three points. They declare Him to be the Sent of God, to be the Christ of God, to be the
Son of God. And under these three heads, all that we need to know of Him is comprised. These signs have no meaning, if they do not mean these these three things; and if they do mean these things, then what excuse have we for unbelief? What a perfect foundation have we for faith in Him! How can we but believe? ‘ These are
written, that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.’ And in the day of weariness and doubt, let us ever fall back on these to renew and confirm us. Let us not delude ourselves with the idea that we are only ‘ doubting ourselves,’ or doubting our own faith, and not doubting what God has recorded. Unbelief is a far deeper and deadlier thing than merely doubting ourselves. Ho man ever dishonoured Christ or flung away his soul by doubting himself. The evil is, that at such times we really doubt the very simplest truths of Christianity, and we deceive ourselves, and soothe our consciences with the idea that we are doubting our¬ selves, not God, nor His testimony; not Christ, nor the signs concerning Him. He who has gone into these doubtings, and been, by the mercy of God, recovered from them, will be the first to acknowledge that his doubts were, when analyzed, of a far deadlier nature than he had at first supposed them; that they really struck at the very truth of God, and that in all these doubts he discovered not only the manifestations of self-righteousness, hut the indications of atheism. He thought at first that he was humbly siding with God against his own evil self, hut soon he saw that he was siding with self and with the devil against God and His truth. He was actually rejecting the testimony of the Father concerning the Son. He was refusing either to believe the signs, or to interpret them aright. The secret thought of the doubting heart, under whatever disguises it may cloak itself, is, Jesus of Nazareth is not the Christ, nor the Son of God.
III. The Life. — The faith which roots itself in these signs is connected with life. We believe, and we live. ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’ And when
faith is connected with the Christ, then the unseen
thing which it finds in Him is life. He that hath the Son hath life. ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.’
It is not easy to define * life,’ but we may say
that it consists in such things as these: (1.)
Forgiveness, or deliverance from condemnation; for condemnation is death, and the life which we get from Christ is the reversal of this death: ‘ Through this man is preached unto us the forgiveness of sins; there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.’ (2.) The possession of that new being or nature by which we are made to resemble the living God and His living Son: that Jehovah whose name is I Am; that Christ who is the life; that last Adam, who is not only a ‘living soul,’ but a ‘ quickening Spirit.’ (3.) Replenishment with holiness; for as unholiness is death, and death is unholiness, so holiness is life, and life is holiness. The sinner exists, but does not live; the saint lives as well as exists. (4.) Participation of all happiness. Life is not life without joy. Joy is like the blood of the body. Exhaust the blood, the man’s life is gone. So drain the soul of joy, and all that deserves the name of life has fled. It is not so un¬ important or unessential a thing to he happy as some men tell us. Happiness is the very essence of true life; and hence Jesus comes to us with rest, and peace, and joy, at the very outset. ‘ These things I have spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might he full.’ Christ’s own joy in its fulness is then the very life of life. (5.) Hope of resurrection, or rather we should say, resurrection itself. Tor in Christ we have such a pledge of resurrection, that we may he said to he already risen, already possessed of our resurrection bodies. f When Christ who is our life shall appear, we shall appear with Him in glory; ’ meanwhile, until He appeareth, we may reckon ourselves possessed of the glory and the life, even in the midst of the shame and death of this present evil world.
All these things are comprised in the f life ’ of which our text speaks. Life is not merely salvation, or deliverance from the eternal woe. It includes these, but it rises far beyond them. It is the reversal of all that the first Adam brought on his sons by his transgression; it is the bestowment of the fulness of the last Adam upon us, making us one with Him who is our life, making us partakers of the divine nature, filling us not merely with the life of angels, or the life of heaven, but with the life of the Son of God. His life is ours; because He liveth, we live also; our life is hid with Christ in God.
The link, the one link, between us and this life is faith. Believing, we have life. It is the link between us and the life, because it is the link between us and Christ. Life is the result of connection with Christ Himself.
In the days of His miracles here on earth, contact with Him was everything. In some cases it was the sick man’s touch of Him, in others it was His touch of the sick man that accomplished the healing. Loth ways are recorded, that we may see that the contact is mutual; that the great thing, the one thing, is contact, whether that be our touching Him, or His touching us. Just as sometimes He is spoken of as coming to us, and at other times we are spoken of as coming to Him; so in reference to the touch. He is said to touch us, we to touch Him. In both cases it is personal and direct contact with Himself. Nothing else will do.
There must be connection with the Christ, the Son of God. Not connection with a creed, or a catechism, or a Church, or a minister, or a godly ancestry, but with Christ Himself. It is this that saves, and everything that falls short of this fails to win the life. Pardon, peace, rest, life, — all that a sinner needs, is to be thus obtained. There is no other way. Prayers, tears, almsdeeds, mortification, penance, toil, suffering, religious performances, all are vain. Only in contact with the living Christ is there life for the dead in sin.
It is the Holy Spirit’s work to bring about this vital contact. It is He who takes the dead soul, and connects it with the source of life. Flesh and blood could not accomplish this; would never think of this, nor wish it; nay, would resist to the uttermost. Yes, it requires the almiglitiness of God to effect a result so utterly opposed to, and so strenuously resisted by, every feeling of the natural man.
But while the work and the Agent are super¬ natural, the way is natural. The Holy Spirit * worketh faith in us, and thereby unitetli us to Christ.’ He opens our eyes to see the signs done by Jesus, and to understand the truth connected with these. When thus brought to recognise in Jesus Him whom the Father had sent into the world as the life of men, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the connection between us and the source of life is established: life flows into us, His life, the life which quickens the dead, the life which makes us fit for the kingdom of life.
‘ Believing,’ we have life! Whether we may be sensible of it or not, we have it; for the word of God is sure, and the life is connected not with feeling, hut with faith.
‘ Believing, we have life! However unlike the living we may he, however burdened, and feeble, and dark, we have life, for God hath given His sure word of promise.
Having life, we walk, and work, and act, and speak as living men. We go forward in joy, and liberty, and vigour to do the work of Him who hath quickened us. We start upon the race set for us, not darkly nor uncertainly, but as men who know their calling, and have their eye distinctly upon the goal.
IV. The Name. — In Scripture, the name of a person has a twofold reference. (1.) It distinguishes the individual from all others; (2.) It expresses his character. So the name of God, ‘ Jehovah,’ marks Him out from all other gods, and also indicates His character, ‘ the Lord God, merciful and gracious.’ So the name or names of Christ both single Him out, and intimate His nature, His character, His work, — Jesus, Immanuel, Christ, the Lord, the Lamb.
Through these, as it were, the life flows out from Him to us. They are the fountains to which we apply our thirsty lips, and drink of the water of life. From each of them pours a gushing stream of immortality.
The use of the singular number here, and often elsewhere (‘ name, not * names ’), implies, however, something more than this. f Name ’ is no doubt the gathering together or concentration of the ideas contained in the others into one. But there is more in the word than this. The name of a person is often used as equivalent to the authority or power of that person; so that when I use his name, all his influence passes over to me, and I get all that he would be entitled to obtain. In order to get the full meaning of our text, we must add this last idea to the former. Thus, in Acts iii. 16, ‘ His name, through faith in His name, hath made this man strong.’
It is then the name of Christ as f a power, — something potential, influential, omnipotent, — that our text speaks of. It is not only the name of names; it not only contains in itself that truth and love which, when believed, quicken the soul; but it is all-prevailing, when made use of by the sinner with God in order to obtain life.
This name is mighty. It can command. It speaks with authority. He that uses it may reckon on receiving what lie needs. ‘Concerning the works of my hands command ye me.’ Thus we go to God, employing this omnipotent name.
This name is of great ‘price. It can purchase life; nay, all things that we need. He who makes use of this name in his heavenly commerce is sure to prosper. Going with it into the heavenly market, he can purchase anything. There is nothing in all the stores of God which is too precious to he bought by gold like this.
Specially, however, in obtaining life is this name to be used. Having learned who Jesus really is; having discovered in Him the Christ, the Son of God, we say: Ah, then, His name is all we need. It must he sufficient to obtain life for us. And thus going to God, we get life * through His name.’
Life in Christ! Life from Christ! Life through His name! This is the sum of our message. It is glad tidings of great joy. We proclaim aloud this name. We tell its virtues, its power, its precious¬ ness, its sufficiency. We present it to each of you for use, present use. God bids you use it. It is just the name you need. He bids you come to Him with it, and you are sure to succeed, on what¬ soever errand you come. Nothing can withstand.
Nothing is too excellent to be beyond its power to purchase. Only credit what God tells you of it; take it at once; use it as those who know that God would not deceive you in such a matter, nor put a false value on the name of His Son.
Life through the name of Jesus! Listen, ye dead in sin. Hear, and your souls shall live. There is no other name possessed of virtue or value equal to this. Honour this excellent name by using it; show that the value which you set upon it is the same that God does by going to Him with it, to purchase from Him the life which a sinner needs.
Do not undervalue that name, nor discredit the divine testimony to its potency. Do not mistrust it when you go to God with it; but act with the confidence, — the reverent confidence, — of a man who is assured that that name is all that has been said; nay, that the half has not been told him concerning its power and value. Mix nothing with it; add nothing to it; nothing of self, nothing of man, nothing either of earth or heaven. Take it as it is, — alone, perfect, all-powerful. You cannot trust it too much; nor expect too great things from your employment of it in the trans¬ actions between you and God.