Universal Fatherhood–a Lie!
(No. 2560)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MARCH 13, 1898.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
FEBRUARY 1, 1883.
"I speak that which I have seen with My Father: and you do that which
you have seen with your father." John 8:38.
THESE were the words of Christ to those who beset Him round about with
angry eyes and cruel tongues. Our Lord declared that He had been with
His Father before He spoke with those wicked Jews. And, indeed, He had
been, for He was with the Father before the worlds were formed. He saw
all that the Father did and He helped in doing it–"Without Him was not
anything made that was made." He was the Father's eternal delight. The
relationship of father and son among man implies that one exists before
the other, but it is not so implied in the relationship of the eternal
Father and Son. We know not how to explain this great mystery, for the
terms Father and Son are only the nearest approximation that can be
given to our poor understandings of the relationship which exists
between them. Yet is the Father eternal and the Son eternal–the Son
coequal and coeternal with the Father. Our Lord had an existence before
He was born of Mary–He had an everlasting existence. His goings forth
were from of old, even from eternity. Though He is unto us the Child
born and the Son given, yet He is equally, "the Everlasting Father,"
who was and is and ever shall be One with the eternal God.
We learn, from what Christ said, that He knows all the Father's mind.
He understands the very essence of the Godhead. He is acquainted with
the purposes that are kept secret from men and angels. As God, He knows
what none of us can know till the day shall declare it and there is
nothing in the Father's heart that is hidden from Him. As the Son of
Man, He knew not all things, for He grew up as a child and increasedin
knowledge. And He said, "Of that day and that hour knows no man, no,
not the angels which are in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."
But as Divine, He is acquainted with all the Father's heart, mind,
will, desire, purpose and plan. The very heart of God is read by His
Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who dwells in it and is One with Him.
We ought to be very grateful that the Son of God has come into the
world and told us all that we need to know concerning the Father. "I
speak," He says, "that which I have seen with My Father." First He saw
it all with such an eye as no one else has–and then He came here and
spoke of it all, or as much of it as it was possible and wise for man
to receive. Let us rejoice in the preaching of Christ, because He
testified what He had seen. What He said was no theory, no
guesswork–He revealed facts and that which He has told us concerning
God is stamped with the solemn seal of Infallible Truth, for Christ
cannot err or make mistakes. He has told us what He has seen and
testified what He has known. Oh, for Divine Grace to receive His
witness! He that does receive it shall live forever–He that rejects it
shall die the death that never dies!
Then, at the back of this follows another very consolatory
thought–that if Christ's teaching is, indeed, the revelation of what
He has seen with the Father, then we are quite certain, since God is
never inconsistent with Himself, that there is nothing in the secret
purpose and design of God which is contrary to the Gospel which Christ
has revealed. When I read, therefore, "Whoever will, let him take the
water of life freely," I need not fear lest any doctrine of election or
predestination will be in conflict with that invitation! If I hear
Christ say, "He that believes on Me has everlasting life," I may be
quite sure that it is so. There is nothing in the sealed Book of the
Divine Decrees that is contrary to the open Book of Divine Revelation.
There is no passage in the mysterious roll of destiny that, rightly
understood, can conflict in any degree with any part of the Volume
which the Spirit of God has given us. This ought to make us very glad.
I may sit down and pore over the tremendous mysteries of fixed fate,
foreknowledge, predestination and the like until I confuse my mind and
make my spirit heavy with a thousand gloomy thoughts about things I
cannot understand–but what a mercy it is to say, "He has said, 'He
that believes and is baptized shall be saved.' "God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should
not perish, but have everlasting life.'" It cannot be that God is
keeping back in His mind something that is contrary to what He has
spoken–"God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man,
that He should repent: has He said, and shall He not do it? Or has He
spoken and shall He not make it good?" I rejoice to know that neither
has Christ seen wrongly, nor is there anything which He has seen which
would conflict with what He has said to us!
I want you, dear Friends, to look at the text and to notice two or
three things that come out, as it were, incidentally. The first is that
the doctrine of the universal fatherhood of God is a lie. That is clear
enough from this passage, "I speak that which I have seen with My
Father: and you do that which you have seen with your father." Then,
there are two fathers, and there are two sets of children–there is a
Father whom Christ calls, "My Father." And there is another father whom
He calls, in speaking to the Jews who hated Him, "your father." The
prayer beginning, "Our Father, which are in Heaven," was never meant to
be used by everybody. In the mouth of the ungodly, it is altogether out
of place, for God is nottheir Father. "You must be born again" before
you can be the children of God. The Scripture statement is clear and
distinct–"As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the
sons of God, even to them that believe on His name." We are constantly
spoken of as being begotten again, regenerated and adopted by God–all
of which is a farce and a nullity if men are by creation and by their
first natural birth, the children of God. It is not so! "We know that
we are of God, and the whole world lies in the Wicked One." "Behold,
what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be
called the sons of God"–and the distinction is set forth between "us"
who have received this "manner of love" and the multitude who are still
the seed of the Wicked One. This truth needs to be proclaimed very
forcibly and the axe must be laid to the root of that deadly upas tree
of universal fatherhood, for all manner of mischief will result if
unconverted men are led to believe that they are already the sons of
God. They are not so until they have been Divinely translated out of
the kingdom of Satan into the Kingdom of God's dear Son.
Another fact that is incidentally taught us here is that there is a
devil A great many of the devil's servants are so disrespectful to
their lord that they even deny his existence and Satan, himself, is so
self-denying in this respect that he denies his own existence and sets
other people to do the same. Men squeezed the Lord's prayer very hard
when they made it read, "Deliver us from evil," for it is pretty clear
that it ought to be, "Deliver us from the Evil One." There is a
distinct enunciation of a great master-power of evil, a dread
personality, "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now
works in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the
desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others," until Grace brought us out from that
terrible state! They who have started on the road to Heaven know that
there is a devil, for they have had many an evil thought that came not
from themselves or from their fellow men–strange, dark, mysterious
thoughts which have rushed upon them from the infernal regions and
nowhere else!
And those who have stood foot to foot with Apollyon, as Christian did,
know full well that he is neither a myth nor a dream, but an awful and
powerful adversary from whom may God deliver us from day to day! Even
His errand boys, his imps, are terrible enough, for Paul was hard put
to it when he was vexed by a messenger of Satan who buffeted him. But
as for Satan, himself, when he comes to fight with a soul, woe to that
man unless he has the almighty power of God to enable him to bear up in
the day of battle! Our Lord Jesus Christ here speaks of Satan as being
just as real as the Father is–"I speak that which I have seen with My
Father: and you do that which you have seen with your father." Then He
says, in the 44th verse, "You are of your father the devil, and the
lusts of your father you will do." I quite expect, one of these days,
to meet a man who will tell me that I have neither eyes, nor ears, nor
head, nor body, nor soul, nor anything else! Sometimes I have said to
myself, "Surely, the course of doubting can go no further! Men have
reached the uttermost absurdity of unbelief." But, Brothers and
Sisters, we know, to our joy, that there is a Father in Heaven–the God
and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and, sometimes, we also
know to our terror that there is another father of another family,
against whom we fight in full assurance of victory, rejoicing that "the
God of peace shall bruise Satan under our feet shortly."
Still, those are not the main Truths of God I want to bring out of the
text. Let them be laid by to be thought upon, but think, now, of this
Truth–that nature is the root of character. That is the doctrine
taught in this text–that conduct is the result of nature, for Christ
says, "I speak that which I have seen with My Father." And to His
enemies He says, "You do that which you have seen with your father." A
child talks according to his nature. Has he good training at home? Does
he live with godly parents? Hear him prattle and you will soon find out
where he came from. Listen to another child who has lived in very
different circumstances–one who has been brought up amid evil of every
kind. As you hear himtalk, you learn from what kind of family he came.
It is the real nature of a person which produces the conversation and
the conduct. It is not good actions that make a good man–it is the
good man who does the good actions. It is not the sweet apples that
make the tree sweet, but it is the sweetness of the sap, the excellence
of the tree, which produces the good apples. So, you see, there is a
great deal more to be done than to alter your talk and your actions!
Our very naturehas to be changed! That is the Truth of God I want to
bring out before I close my discourse.
I. Note, first, that OUR BLESSED LORD PROVED HIS OWN PARENTAGE BY WHAT
HE SAID. "I speak that which I have seen with My Father."
Though I cannot put my thoughts into words as I would like, it seems so
beautiful to me that our Lord Jesus Christ should be called the Holy
Child Jesus and that all His life-teaching should be, as it were, a
child telling what He has seen at home. You have sometimes heard a
pretty little guileless child telling out all that it has seen while
with its father and mother–disclosing even the innermost secrets of
the family with naivete and sweetness. And you have, perhaps, laughed
heartily as you have seen how everything has been laid bare by that
little talker's tongue. Now transfer that idea, on a sublime scale, to
Christ. He comes, as the Holy Child Jesus, not to tell us of the
grandeur of God, but as though He condescends to take upon Himself our
child-nature in its immaturity. He tells us, as a child, what He has
seen with the Father! It is such a blessed way of letting us know the
secrets of God's heart for the Only-Begotten, the Well-Beloved, to come
and tell us, who are made by Grace the younger members of the family,
all that He has seen with the Father.
When we listen to Christ, we say at once that He speaks to us words of
love. "Never man spoke like this Man." He was Tenderness, itself. He
spoke so winsomely and His words were so full of affection that, "the
common people heard Him gladly." Yes, and even the publicans and
sinners drew near to Him to hear Him! The first words of hope they ever
heard fell from His dear lips. The teachers of the Law were chilly and
cold, and they froze up every thought of joy in the poor sinner's soul,
but the words of Christ were warm with brotherly affection, for He
spoke of what He had seen with the Father! What had He seen with the
Father but love–love unutterable, love illimitable, love that endures
forever, for "God is Love"!
Yet did Christ also speak words of justice. God i s not so much Love
that any true attribute which ought to be found in a perfect Character
is absent and, therefore, God is Just. True Christianity is never
dubious about the justice of God. The Lord abhors sin, He cannot endure
it. He "will by no means clear the guilty." The tone of the chapter I
have read to you [see Exposition at end of sermon] seems severe and so
it should be when spoken to hypocrites like those scribes and
Pharisees. Do you expect God to treat them with anything but severity?
When our Lord Jesus Christ declares that the wicked shall be cast into
Hell, "where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched." When
He says, "these shall go away into everlasting punishment," you see the
sternness of Divine Justice! Turn back to the Old Testament and see
whether this is not the Jehovah who was the God of Abraham, of Isaac
and of Jacob–the righteous God who burned up Sodom and Gomorrah and
destroyed Pharaoh and his hosts in the Red Sea. I confess that I have
been as ready to tremble at the words of Jesus as at the tempest, fire
and smoke of Sinai's burning hill, for Love, when it speaks terrible
things, makes them more awful because of love! Nothing causes the
darkness of the tempest to stand out so terribly as that one bright
flash of lightning that makes it afterwards seem darker than before.
And when, in the gentle words of Christ, we see the gleam of God's
wondrous love, we feel confounded before the terror of many of His
warnings because He speaks that which He has seen with His Father–He
keeps back nothing. He proclaims the God of Love, but He proclaims that
God who shall come and shall not keep silent and who shall judge the
nations in righteousness–and smite the wicked with a rod of iron!
Yet notice always about our blessed Master this trait in the character
of His speech, that He always speaks words of Truth. To Christ's
sermons there need never be appended any list of errata. He has neither
left anything out, nor left anything in by mistake. Nearly 19 centuries
have tried and tested the teachings of Jesus and perhaps this century,
with all its unbelief, does the Character of Christ more honor than any
century that has gone before it! And certainly the influence of Christ
is felt, today, in places of which people little dream. I heard one say
that when our soldiers, in the fight in Egypt, stopped to put water to
the lips of the thirsty enemies whom a century ago our troops would
have slain at once, it was because the Christ was shadowing them! They
felt His influence, though possibly most of them were not Christians at
all. Everywhere the Christ is putting down barbarism in some form or
other and helping to amend the character of men– they are girded by
Him though they have not known Him! He has never had to alter or to
revise His teaching, though our explanation of the teaching has had to
be corrected. There have been prophets and teachers, not sent of God,
who, to establish a system of doctrine, or a sect or denomination, have
had to keep back or to exaggerate something or other, but it was not so
with Christ–He spoke the Truth of God, the whole Truth and nothing but
the Truth of God, for He had been with the Father, and as a child He
told out what He had seen in the Father's House.
Thus I might keep on bringing out various points about our Lord's
teaching, but I will only mention one other. And that is, the supreme
holiness of the words of Christ Jesus Christ, with all His gentleness
and love, never tolerates sin. That narrative in this chapter, in which
He said to the adulteress, "Neither do I condemn you," has never made
any other woman commit adultery and it has never helped a single
conscience to find delight in unhallowed lust. No, the brightness of
that glorious tenderness is as the shining of a crystal! It is so pure
in its tenderness that while it is gentle with the sinner–and may we
always be so–yet it is all the more severe with the sin from its very
gentleness! Christ never helps us to be selfish, or to excuse
ourselves, or to be hypocritical, covering up our sin with a cloak of
godliness. No, but His teaching is pure, transparent righteousness from
beginning to end. And we feel as if we could bow down before Him and
worship Him with the same adoration with which the cherubim and
seraphim salute the Father and say to Christ, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord
God and Savior, our very hearts do worship You!" The teaching of Jesus
is thus holy because He speaks the things which He has seen with His
Father.
II. Now I go to my second head which is that, like their Lord, CHRIST'S
PEOPLE SHOULD ALSO DISPLAY THEIR PARENTAGE. They should speak what they
have seen with their father and brothers and sisters. You and I are not
the children of God if it is not so with us. We begin to suspect the
parentage of any who have no resemblance to their reputed parents–no
family trait or feature whatever! And certainly in spiritual things, he
who is in no respect like Christ, may begin to suspect that he is not a
true-born child of God, but merely bears the name, and has not come by
supernatural descent from the Most High.
Notice, first, that children of God have, in a measure, the Nature of
their Father We are not full-grown yet, some of us are very tiny babes,
and it is not always easy to detect the Father's likeness in His
infants. That likeness comes out as the child grows and as the man
appears. We are struck, sometimes, with the similarity between father
and son, though we could scarcely trace it while the boy was but
little. It is so with us in relation to our Heavenly Father. In
regeneration, the Nature of God is imparted to us–not, of course, that
high and incommunicable Essence of the Godhead which belongs to God,
alone–but the Character and disposition of God become ours. Did not
the Apostle Peter write, "Simon Peter, a servant and an Apostle of
Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us
through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ: Grace and
peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus
our Lord, according as His Divine power has given unto us all things
that pertain unto life and Godliness, through the knowledge of Him that
has called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding
great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of
the Divine Nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world
through lust"?
The Spirit of God, in regeneration, creates in man a third principle
which, I believe, was not there before. He is only body and soul until
this miracle is worked, but then he becomes body, soul and spirit–he
rises into a higher sphere and enters into another world into which he
could not have come before. "The natural man receives not the things of
the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he
know them, because they are spiritually discerned." "The first man,
Adam, was made a living soul" and we are made in his likeness. "The
last Adam was made a quickening Spirit"–and when we, by being born
again, receive His likeness, we then participate in that quickening and
rise into the Nature and Image of God! There is a "living and
incorruptible seed which lives and abides forever" and which becomes
our life in that day when, by the power of the Spirit of the eternal
God, we are "begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead." This is a deep mystery and blessed are
they who need not merely talk of it, because every day they know its
power! Now, where there is the Nature of God, there will be a likeness
to God, and you and I must have a measure of likeness to our great
Father, or else it cannot be right for us to say that we are born of
Him.
Next, the children of God, when they are in a right state of heart,
live with their Father. If you send your children away to school and
they never come home to see you, they may grow up with very little of
your characteristics, for they are apt to be impressed by those with
whom they live. Those who are born of God live with God. Moses said,
"Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations." And the
Apostle John wrote, "Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with
His Son Jesus Christ." It is our delight to go to our Father and to
speak with Him. We dwell in God, even as Christ said to His disciples,
"Abide in Me, and I in you." You cannot live with a man without growing
more or less like he is and, certainly, no child of God can live with
God and contemplate the Person and Character of Christ so as to abide
in Him without becoming changed into His image, "from glory to glory,
even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
Children have a natural gift of imitation, so God's children imitate
their Father. Paul's words, in Ephesians 5:1, should read, "Be you
imitators of God, as dear children." It is very curious to see how
children will imitate their parents. Was there ever a preacher whose
boy did not stand on a chair and try to preach? Was there ever a man
who laid bricks, or used a saw, who has not caught his children doing
the same sort of thing? Was there ever a girl who did not seem to know
what she would come to in being a nurse of little children and,
therefore, naturally took to nursing a doll? It is the habit of
children to imitate–they cannot help it. Well now, if we are the
children of God and if we dwell with God, the instinct of imitation
will certainly manifest itself and we shall try to be doing, in our
small way, those deeds of kindness and love, those acts of
righteousness and holiness which God is doing! And it will be said of
us in our measure, "You do that which you have seen with your father."
Then, in addition, God's children tell what they hear. There is, in a
child, the instinct is always to tell what it hears. I am afraid that I
have not lost that instinct, myself, though I am no longer a child. I
never like to be entrusted with anybody's secrets and I generally give
people notice that if they want them published abroad, they have only
to communicate them to me. It stops me from being bothered with a lot
of things that will be sure to get known without my telling them!
Children cannot keep a secret! It is no use to tell them to do so. If
there is any family secret at all, the children must not only be put to
bed at night, but they must be kept in bed all day, for, "little
pitchers have large ears," and they also have a great gift of running
over! Children tell just the very thing that you do not want them to
say–and say it just at the very time when you would rather they not
have it said! So, the children of God must tell what they have seen of
their Father. As soon as ever they have heard of the great Father's
love, something makes them want to run outside and find somebody to
whom they can say, "Did you ever hear this wonderful story?" Perhaps
that "somebody" has no sympathy with them, but he is bound to hear what
they have to say–and then off they go to someone else to ask whether
he ever heard this good news. Though they may be ridiculed and laughed
at, yet these dear children of God will keep telling the blessed tale.
The more a man has learned of Christ, the more, I believe, he will want
to tell the endless and unreliable story of what he has seen with the
Father!
I have known some professedly Christian people who hardly like to be
spoken to about the things of God, but it ought not to be so. Let the
dear children talk about their Lord as much as ever they like–at the
street corners, if they please, or at the dinner table. Anywhere and
everywhere, a good word for God ought never to be out of season.
Surely, there is no place where a word about the precious Savior will
be out of order! What if we do, sometimes, cast pearls before swine? We
have so many of them that we can afford to let the wretched creatures
munch one or two–and if they turn and tear us, we can endure even this
in the hope that, afterwards, they may be sorry for it and God may tear
and renew their hearts! Therefore, do not be bashful, you who know the
Lord, but say with emphasis, "I must speak that which I have seen with
my Father."
III. Now I have to finish on the gloomy side of the subject, namely,
that THE DEVIL'S FAMILY PARTAKE OF THE DEVIL'S NATURE and they are sure
to speak that which they have seen with their father, too.
For instance, there are some who are very spiteful and speak with
enmity, especially of Christian people. They cannot stand them–they
have never a good word for them. They denounce their motives if they
cannot find fault with their actions. I do not wonder that they do,
because their father did a long while ago. One of his names is, "the
accuser of the brethren," and it was said to him of old, "I will put
enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed."
There is always that enmity and we expect to see it, so we are not
surprised. But we are grieved for any of you who, by your speech,
betray your hatred of the people of God and so reveal the fact that you
are children of Satan. One said, "I would like to kill all Christians.
I hate them! I cannot endure them, especially if they are very earnest.
I would have such fellows hung." Did not one say, the other day, of a
certain minister, that he wished he had been killed in the accident?
Yes, he did, and that is the feeling that some have toward those who
are true Christians. What said the Jews concerning Paul? "Away with
such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live."
That is the way the devil's children still talk, for they hear it at
home with their father. Did Satan ever have a good word for our Father?
No. Then he will never have a good word for His children. When,
sometimes, he has spoken a true word, he has tried, with fiendish
malice, to undermine the cause of Christ by praising it. But you
remember how Paul and Silas would not let the devil praise them–they
stopped his mouth directly. The highest compliment the devil can pay to
virtue, is to hate it. It is the unconscious homage that evil must pay
to goodness to loathe it, even as Satan loathes all that is good and
right.
Beside this, the devil's children frequently speak untruths. There are
some who lie in trade and some who lie in jest– they call them, "white
lies." If this is the case with anybody here, do not deceive yourself,
my Friend. You know who was a liar from the beginning and the father of
lies–and they who cannot or will not speak the Truth of God are the
children of that ancient liar–and they will have to go home to their
father one of these days. They are not the children of God, for God's
children abhor a lie! When their word is once given, they will stand to
it even to their own hurt. If you are not true, you have not been with
the great Father of Truth and you must have learned falsehood from the
great father of lies.
There are some, too, who are wickedly proud–proud of their person,
proud of the rags they wear, proud of their abilities, proud of their
station, proud of their ancestors, proud of I know not what–too
haughty, almost, to come near a commonplace person. Yes, they learned
that of their father, for Lucifer is the very prince of pride! "By that
sin fell the angels." And in that sin live those who are like the
fallen angels. I beseech you, fling away all pride! May God help you
soon to be rid of it altogether!
Then there is another trait which is common enough in many persons and
that is, self-will They are not going to be ruled and governed and tied
to their mother's apron strings. They will have their own way. If they
suffer for it, they will do as they like and be their own master. Yes,
and they learned that from their father, for that is the way he talked
of old. "Better," he said, "to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven,"
according to Milton, and Milton has but put into words the spirit of
that fallen one. He is rebellious, he cannot endure authority, he will
not yield to God–the word, "obey," is one which he cannot stand. Oh,
let those who are living in disobedience to God, in utter carelessness,
as lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, self-seekers who never
give a thought to what they owe to their Creator and their Lord–let
them understand that all this betrays whose children they are and where
they were brought up! Does anybody get angry at my speech and say, "I
will hear no more of it"? That is like your father, too! And do you
gnash your teeth and bite your tongues? That is like your father,
too–"You do that which you have seen with your father."
What shall be the conclusion of my discourse? Why, my drear Friends,
that it is of very little use for you to try and change your outward
character, your language and so forth, first. What you need is for your
natureto be changed. When the fountain is made sweet, the streams will
be sweet, but, until the source is sweetened, that which comes out of
it will still be impure. "You must be born again." Do you ask, "How can
that be?" Well, there is a very amazing connection between being born
again and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Read the third chapter of
John's Gospel and note how our Lord not only said to Nicodemus, "You
must be born again," but He also said, "As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that
whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."
Believe in Christ and you are born again! That act of faith is an
indication that the new birth has taken place. The moment that God
gives you the Grace to trust yourself with Christ, He has also renewed
your nature! That act of trusting in Christ is like the first snowdrop
that tells us that spring is near. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and
you are a new person in Christ. Then live with your Father and go out
and tell all what you have seen with your Father, and God bless you,
for Christ's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C.H. SPURGEON: JOHN 8:12-39
Verses 12, 13. Then spoke Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light
of the world: He that follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall
have the light of life. The Pharisees–These wasps were always stinging
Him! When He drove them away once, they quickly returned to attack Him
again, "The Pharisees–
13-15. Therefore said unto Him, You bear record of Yourself- Your
recordis not true. Jesus answered and said unto them; Though I bear
record of Myself, yet My recordis true: for I know from where I came,
and where I go; but you cannot tell from where I come, and where I go.
You judge after the flesh; I judge no man. He did not come for that
purpose the first time. He will come, a second time, to judge all
mankind.
16. And yet if I judge, My judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I
and the Father that sent Me. You see, Brothers and Sisters, how our
Lord Jesus claimed to be God, for He put Himself here in such a
connection with God as would be quite inconsistent for any mere man.
This is what Paul meant when He said that Christ "thought it not
robbery to be equal with God," He thought it not a prize to be grasped,
for it was already His.
17, 18. It is also written in your Law that the testimony of two men is
true. Iam One that bear witness ofMyself and the Father that sent Me
bears witness of Me. He did that by the miracles which Christ worked
and they proved that He was, indeed, sent of God.
19. Then said they unto Him, Where is Your Father? Jesus answered, You
neither know Me, nor My Father: if you had known Me, you should have
known My Father also. They thought they knew His reputed father,
Joseph. They thought they also knew all about Christ, the carpenter's
Son, but there is more in Christ than carnal eyes can ever see. There
is more in Christ than the most enlightened understanding, if it is but
natural understanding, can ever perceive. These blind bats, the
Pharisees, neither knew Christ nor the Father. If they had known Him,
they would have known the Father, for Christ is "the brightness of His
Glory and the express Image of His Person."
20. These words spoke Jesus in the treasury, as He taught in the
Temple: and no man laid hands on Him; for His hour was not yet come.
Like our Lord, every child of God is immortal till his work is done.
This ought to divest us of every kind of fear. The enemy cannot lay
hands upon a Christian until his Lord wills it–and when his hour has
come, then it behooves not the child of God to resist the Father's
will.
21. Then said Jesus again unto them, I go My way and you shall seek Me,
and shall die in your sins: where I go, you cannot come. Oh, what a
terrible sentence is that! I pray that the Lord may never say that to
any of us, "Where I go, you cannot come." That would be the death-knell
of all our hopes and would make our life one long banishment. Blessed
be His name! We who have sought Him and have found Him, by His Grace,
know that. We shal1 not die in our sins and where He has gone, we shall
also go!
22. 23. Then said the Jews, Will He kill Himself? because He says,
Where I go, you cannot come. And He said unto them, You are from
beneath; I am from above. You are of a groveling nature. Your thoughts
rise out of the abyss where every evil dwells.
23. 24. You are of this world; Iam not of this world. I said therefore,
of you, that you shall die in your sins: for if you believe not that
Iam He, you shall die in your sins. If you have no faith in Christ as
the Son of God, "you shall die in your sins." What an awful thing it
will be to die in your sins! What cerements for your eternal burial!
What a robe of fire in which to lie down for your long sleep and then
to find no sleep because of it! "You shall die in your sins." I would
like this short, stern sentence to ring in the ears of every
unbeliever. These are not my words, but Christ's own Words–the Words
of the most loving and tender Savior–"If you believe not that I am He,
you shall die in your sins."
25-29. Then said they unto Him, Who are You? And Jesus said unto them,
Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning. I have many
things to say and to judge of you: but He that sent Me is true; and I
speak to the world those things which I have heard of Him. They
understood not that He spoke to them of the Father. Then said Jesus
unto them, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall you know
that I am He, and that I do nothing ofMyself; but as My Father has
taught Me, I speak these things. And He that sent Me is with Me. This
made Christ's life so calm, so deeply joyous amid all its sorrow–"He
that sent Me is with Me." Servant of God, can you say the same? If so,
it is your joy, your confidence, your strength! God grant that we may,
each one of us, realize that blessed Presence of our Lord!
29. Thee Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things
that please Him. Christ could truly say that. Oh, that it might be true
of us, too!
30, 31. As He spoke these words, many believed on Him, Then said Jesus
to those Jews which believed on Him, If you continue in My Word, then
are you My disciples indeed. "If you became My disciples because of
what I said, will you believe what I shall yet say? Are you prepared to
take in still further revelations and to receive whatever I shall teach
you? If so, 'then are you My disciples indeed'"
32. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Some who heard this message of our Lord caught at it–they were always
on the watch for anything to quibble at and contradict and, therefore–
33, 34. They answered Him, We are Abraham's seed, and were never in
bondage to any man: how say You, You shall be made free? Jesus answered
them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whoever commits sin is the
servant of sin. Or, "the slave of sin." There is the test of your
position–if you do the devil's dirty work, you are his servant. If you
delight in sin then you can hear your fetters clank if the ears of your
conscience are but open–"Whoever commits sin is the servant of sin."
35-37. And the servant abides not in the house forever: but the Son
abides always. If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, you shall be
free, indeed. Iknow that you are Abraham's seed. "I know what a boast
you make of that."
37-39. But you seek to kill Me because My Word has no place in you. I
speak that which I have seen with My Father: and you do that which you
have seen with your father. They answered and said unto Him, Abraham is
our father. Jesus had admitted that, as a matter of temporal descent,
but He denied it as a matter of real fact.