The Gospel of St. John: A Series of Discourses. / New Edition

by Frederick Denison Maurice

He repeats, then, the former words,—'Ye do the deeds of your father.' And now they ventured what sounds a bold defence:—'Then said they to Him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.' Had they not a right to say so? Were they not almost quoting the words of Malachi? What is more, were they not using the very words of Jesus? Had He not spoken to publicans and sinners,—to the very outcasts of the people,—of a Father who was seeking to bring home the prodigal son, as the shepherd went after the lost sheep? Would He deny to any Israelite the right to claim God as his Father? What had He taken flesh for, but that He might assert that claim, not for Israelites only, but for men? Alas! brethren, we can understand too well what the Jews understood when they used this language, 'We have one Father, even God,' because we are continually using the like ourselves. How commonly do we say, 'Oh, yes; in a general sense, all of us are God's children.' That general sense is no sense. The word 'children' is used to signify creatures. We say men are His, as we say the cattle are His. In fact, we attach nearly as little significance to creation as to fatherhood. How can we, when we think of God as a mere ultimate explanation of our existence and the existence of the universe; when the idea of a Father of spirits—of one who has to do first of all with us, because we are spiritual, voluntary beings—is almost banished from our minds? To say that God is our Father, or any man's Father, when we conceive of Him as a distant power,—who ceases to be imaginary only when He puts forth His wrath,—is to practise a deception upon ourselves. It is a commoner deception with us than with the Jews, because Jesus has taught us to say, 'Our Father, which art in heaven;' and every little Christendom child learns the words, and, thanks be to God, takes in something of their inward living sense. But when we become men, that sense which should have grown brighter and clearer with every day's joy and sorrow, has become utterly clouded by the world's mists, till the vision at last fades almost entirely. Then one here and there seizes the force of the word, discovers that he has really, and not in name, a Father, to whom he can pour out his whole heart. For a while he longs to persuade all that they have the same Father,—that they may cast their burdens upon Him too. He finds a few who understand him. They associate together; they speak of themselves as believers; they begin to think that they are God's children, because they believe that they are. Their ardour to convince men generally that they have a Father, becomes changed into an ardour to bring men into their society. As that passion increases, other lower and baser passions increase with it. 'The believer' contracts more and more of those habits which are of the earth, earthy. He contracts, oftentimes, a bitterness and a malice which are not of the earth, but come from beneath. These he gives himself credit for as springing from his zeal for religion, or he merely pities himself for them as the remains of indwelling sin. He has not courage to say, 'These spring from another father, not from the Father in heaven. So far as I identify myself with them, I become the child of a father in hell.' But he goes on assuming he is God's child. He tells other men that they are only children in the secondary signification; that is to say, he cherishes in them the most dangerous of all falsehoods. He prevents them from turning to their true Father, and seeking of Him a true and divine life.

These Jews qualified the assertion, that they were all God's children, even in the lowest, most unreal, sense of that word. These were so who 'were not born of fornication.' Children not born in lawful wedlock they seem to have thought of as having some dark, infernal parentage. It must have been most startling to them when the words at last came forth which appeared to fix that parentage upon themselves.

'Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but He sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.'

The Jews were proud of not worshipping false gods. The true God, then, what was He? The moment truth confronted them, they shrunk from it. They were proud of not worshipping evil gods. The good God, then, what was He? The moment goodness confronted them, they hated it, and wished to extinguish it. They shrunk from the Man who did not speak His own words, but God's. They hated the Man who did not show forth His own goodness, but God's. Whence came this mind in them, this will, this spirit? Jesus tells them plainly. 'There is a mind, a will, a spirit, which from the beginning has been a man-slayer—has compassed the destruction of the man in each man. There is a mind, a will, a spirit, who has been from the beginning a liar, who would not stand in the truth.'

I know well—we all know—what use has been made, and is made, and will be made, of this expression, 'from the beginning.' 'So, then,' the objector exclaims, 'there is a second god, another creator, coming into existence with the good God. If this is not Manichæism, what is?' The answer is simply an appeal to the words as they appear on the face of the book,—'He stood not in the truth.' There was, then, a truth to stand in; there was a truth to revolt from. The name 'murderer' implies a life to be taken away; the name 'liar' implies a contradiction of that which IS. Yes; it implies that the evil spirit is this, and only this; it implies that the murderer is the author of no life; it implies that the liar has called nothing that is into existence. You ask, 'What is Manichæism but this?' I answer, 'It is exactly the reverse of this. It affirms that the evil power does produce some life; that some part of creation may be ascribed to him.' And those who shrink from speaking of 'him'—those who will not admit a devil at all—do, unawares, let this Manichæism continually into their thoughts, into their acts, into their words. They may talk of universal benevolence, but facts are too strong for them. They meet evil everywhere; they meet it in themselves. They do not like to say,—'It is an evil will to which I am yielding up my will. Because men are obeying this evil will, therefore there is misery and ugliness in this blessed and beautiful world.' They try to escape from that confession. They talk of evil in nature, of evil in themselves. Unawares, they have introduced it among the works of the good God. They have either made Him answerable for it, or they have said that there is some creator besides Him. The last alternative is very dreadful; but the former is, it seems to me, infinitely more dreadful. In accepting what our Lord said to the Jews in this discourse, I escape from both. I am able solemnly and habitually to deny that any insect or blade of grass is the devil's work; I am able to regard the whole universe as very good, even as it was when it came forth at the call of the divine Word; I am able to declare that humanity, standing in that divine Word, is still made in the image of God, as He declared that it was; and that there is no one faculty of the human soul, no one sense of the human body, which is not good, and blessed, and holy in God's sight. I am able, at the same time, to look facts in the face, and confess that sin has entered into the world, and death by sin; that there has been from the beginning of man's existence on this earth, and that there still is, a murderer, who is seeking to sever him from his proper life: that there has been from the beginning of man's existence upon earth, and that there still is, a liar, who is seeking to persuade men that God is not all good; that He is not all true; that He is not the Father of their spirits; that it is not His will that they should know Him, and be like Him. I can admit that this liar has been listened to, and is listened to; and that men may enter into such communion with him—may become so penetrated with his false and mendacious spirit, that they shall become in very deed his children, entirely fashioned into his likeness, understanding no lessons but his. Our Lord speaks of the Jewish people—of the most religious part of them especially—as having passed, or as rapidly passing, into this condition. He declares, in the words which I have taken as my text—and which embody, I think, some of the deepest lessons of the chapter—that they could not 'understand His speech;' that that sounded strange, monstrous, deranged to them, because they 'could not hear His word'—because their hearts and consciences were closed against that which was every moment knocking and craving for admission there. They did 'not hear God's words, because they were not of God'—because their whole minds and wills were given up to another God, because they had become Devil-worshippers.

'Then answered the Jews, and said unto Him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me. And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth.'

It is certainly most unfortunate that our translators—who had just rendered Διάβολος by Devil, in our Lord's discourse—should take the same word for δαιμόνιον, in the discourse of the Jews. I need not say that they did not mean what He meant, or anything like what He meant. They called Him a Samaritan,—evidently alluding to the Samaritan passion for enchanters. He was a possessed man, like one of those who appeared so often among the worshippers on Gerizim, and drew so many disciples after them. The reply of Jesus is, that He had not a dæmon; that He was speaking the words of no subordinate spirit or angel; that He was 'honouring His Father'—Him whom they called their God, the Father of spirits. He did not seek His own glory, as those did who came boasting that they were possessed by a spirit or dæmon, of which no others could partake. He came seeking His Father's glory, promising to make all partakers of His Spirit.

The next words are only a part of this promise. 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.' Why the translators, who have been careful in adhering to the common rendering of λόγος thus far, should suddenly have forsaken it here, and dilute it into 'saying,' I cannot conjecture. Certainly they have done much to make the whole passage unintelligible by that wilfulness. He has taken pains to distinguish the speech or saying which enters the ear from the word which is lodged in the heart, and is to be cherished there. That His word brings life, because in Him the Divine Word is Life, He has asserted again and again. When the man loses his hold on that word, death overtakes him; if he hold it fast, he is united to that which is stronger than death; and he shall not taste of death. When it comes to his soul and body, he shall defy it. He shall rise above it, and they shall be raised with him.

'Then said the Jews unto Him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself? Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that He is your God: yet ye have not known Him; but I know Him: and if I should say, I know Him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know Him, and keep His saying.'

The sense of eternity, of a relation to the eternal God,—to a Father of spirits, had almost forsaken these Jews. The sense of time,—of a series or succession of years,—had displaced every other in their minds; they could contemplate nothing, except under conditions of time. To the mere trader,—to him who lives in calculating when so much money will become due—any conditions, except those of time, seem impossible. He laughs at those who hint at any other. But the reverence for ancestry,—the affection that binds us to a family and a nation, does not belong to time. It brings past and present into closest proximity; it leaps over distinctions of costume and circumstance, to claim affinity with the inmost heart of those who lived generations ago. For all family feeling, and all national feeling, has its root in a living God; therefore it defies death; it treats death as only belonging to the individual.