He begins with asserting this as His distinction, that He seeks His glory from the only God (παρὰ τοῦ μόνου Θεοῦ), not from man. He concludes with asking how they can believe Him, when they seek honour from each other, not from this only God. And who is this only God of whom He sought glory? He has told us before,—the God who loved the world, and gave His Son, that through Him it might be saved. That love He reflected; of that love, in His words and deeds, He testified. No such love was in them. They did not feel their want of it; they did not seek it where it was to be found. They flattered each other; they lived upon each other's praises. And the consequence was, that they did not believe in One who denied Himself, who abjured all praises, who said that He could do nothing but what He saw His Father do. Such a Being was incomprehensible to them. They could not believe in Him. They must take Him to be a blasphemer and a devil. Let us remember it and tremble. When religious men open 'a benefit club of mutual flattery,' and live upon the allowances that are doled out from it, they must deny the Father and the Son.
There are still some sentences left in this chapter which must not be passed over. 'Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?' However little of the love of God there might be in the men to whom Jesus spoke, there was a conscience which responded to what He said. Their conscience said there must be a Father,—we ought to be His children. If so, and if this man were not a blasphemer, but the Son of God, might He not charge them before His Father for their denial of Him? The thought was a natural one. How eagerly a teacher who came in his own name would have profited by the terror it excited! How continually the ministers of Jesus Christ have said to unbelievers, 'What! dare you question His mission? If He should be what we say He is, how certainly He will accuse you to the Father for your rejection of Him.' Jesus Himself declares that this is not His office—that He is not, and never can be, the accuser. The law in which they gloried, in which they trusted, that was accusing them,—that was telling them how they had resisted the God of love,—that was telling them that they needed a Person to unite them to God; an elder Brother, in whom they might meet and behold their Father. Moses the lawgiver was writing of this Advocate and Brother. But if those letters of his were boasted of and worshipped, not believed, how could they believe the quickening, life-giving words, which are written not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart, by the Son of Man?
DISCOURSE XIII.
THE BREAD FROM HEAVEN.
[Lincoln's Inn, 5th Sunday after Easter, April 27, 1856.]
St. John VI. 35.
And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
In general, the signs or miracles of Christ which St. John records are not the same with those which the other Evangelists have recorded. The exceptions are found in this chapter. Here, as in St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, we have a narrative of the feeding of the five thousand; here, as in St. Matthew and St. Mark, we have the narrative of Jesus walking on the sea. There is no doubt that the events described in all the Gospels are the same. In time, place, numbers, and in most of the circumstances, they exactly correspond. The variations in St. John, however, are very instructive as to his own design. We may learn from them why he repeats his predecessors, as well as why he so commonly introduces topics which they have not touched.
'After these things, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a great multitude followed Him, because they saw His miracles which He did on them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there He sat with His disciples. And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.' The addition to the story is in the last verse. It has puzzled the harmonists. It does occasion serious difficulties in the chronology of this Gospel. Yet I hesitate to call it an interpolation. The Jerusalem feasts are continually present to the mind of St. John. Even when he leads us into Samaria and Galilee, we are never allowed to forget them. I own, however, that this notice of the Passover does not prepare us for a visit to the city; and that it is quite unnecessary as an introduction to the following discourse, which, as we all know, was suggested by an event which took place near Capernaum.