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

by Frederick Denison Maurice

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

This morning I went through the narrative of our Lord's Passion, which is contained in the 18th and 19th chapters of this Gospel. I propose to examine, this afternoon, the narrative of the resurrection, and of the events that followed it, which is contained in the 20th and 21st chapters.

Those who have formed a vague notion of the fourth Gospel, as the Gospel according to the Spirit, the other three being represented as Gospels according to the flesh, will expect that St. John should attach far less importance than his predecessors did to the resurrection of our Lord's body out of the grave. They will suppose that he must have sympathised much more in those passages of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, in which he speaks of our being risen with Christ, than with the 15th chapter of the Epistle to the Corinthians, in which he makes that resurrection, which many among them denied, the very centre of his message to mankind.

I hope we have not gone thus far in the study of St. John without discovering that this conception of his character and purpose is an entirely false one. In whatever sense St. John's Gospel is a spiritual one, he has spoken of Christ's presence at feasts, family and national, of His hunger and fatigue, of His friendship for special persons, of actual bodily suffering in the hour of death, at least as much as any of the four. He takes more, not less, pains than the others, in recording incidents. No plain person ever felt that his story, if it is ever so divine, is not human. I may have made this observation very often, but I will repeat it even to weariness, rather than that it should be forgotten, since upon the recollection of it depends all hope of our understanding the beloved disciple, or of our gaining anything from him. It is true that he has carried us back to the beginning of all things, instead of introducing us to the manger in Bethlehem, or telling us first of the preaching of John in the wilderness. It is true that he has told us of the Word who was with God, before he has used the name of Jesus Christ. It is true that throughout his Gospel he has been presenting to us Jesus Christ as the Word of God, the Giver of light and life to men. It is true that this has been his explanation of the signs which Jesus did when He fed the multitude, or healed the sick, or raised the dead. It is true that this has been his explanation of those parables in the natural world, by which the Creator of that world revealed to men the mysteries of the kingdom of God. It is true that, by following this method, St. John interprets to us those names, Son of God and Son of Man, kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, which occur so continually in the previous Gospels. It is true that he brings out in its fulness their declaration, that the office of the Christ was to baptize with the Holy Spirit, and to deliver men from the spirit of evil. It is true that the Name in which St. Matthew declares that the disciples were to baptize all nations, is unfolded to us by St. John with a distinctness and fulness with which it had never been unfolded before.

And therefore I think St. John must be even more careful than the other Evangelists to speak of the resurrection as a distinct, definite event: to set it before us in language which shall give us no excuse for supposing that he is merely talking of our spiritual nature, or of Christ's spiritual nature; in language which shall fix it upon our minds as a fact that was accomplished upon this earth. Of evidence, as I have remarked to you before, the other Evangelists give us very little. They assume that it was not possible that the Son of God should be holden by death, that the marvel which angels desired to look into was that He should have submitted to death. Only so far as that conviction took hold of men's minds could they believe in a resurrection, though a body of the most incredulous and learned witnesses should conspire to affirm it. St. John cannot have attached more weight to this kind of evidence than they did. His whole Gospel has been showing that it is an evidence which the living Word presents to the hearts and consciences of men, that alone produces any practical conviction. He must have felt, even more than his brother-disciples did, that the Word of life could not be overcome by death; that the great contradiction of all, which could only be explained by the truth that the highest life is the life of love, was in His undergoing death. He, therefore, more than any one else, must have felt the resurrection to be necessary, to be implied in the relation of Christ to his Father. He has again and again told us that the return of Christ to the Father was that to which He looked forward as the return to His natural state and proper home; at the same time as the consummation of the work He had done upon earth. He is so impressed with this conviction, it was so much his work to impress us with this conviction, that he will not relate, as St. Luke does, the fact of the ascension in the sight of the disciples. That is taken for granted. All that he has written would be unmeaning, if his Master were not gone to the Father to prepare mansions for His disciples. But the victory of the Spirit over the flesh, the proof that He who was united to the Father and united to a mortal body, overcame, in virtue of His divine fellowship, his fellowship with dust, and made that body free from its bondage—this must be spoken of as the proper termination of His earthly conflict. For by this He justified fully the feeling of mankind, which all the teaching of Scripture had confirmed, but which no prophet or saint had been able to justify to himself, that death is an intruder into this world of ours; that it is not less an intruder because all have yielded to it, and must yield to it; that there is a law of life which is higher than the law of death; that we cannot be satisfied till that law is promulgated and vindicated, not for one here and there, but for the whole race in the person of its Head.

With these thoughts in our minds, let us consider the following verses: 'The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid Him. Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was about His head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.'

The points wherein this narrative differs from those in the earlier Gospels, are those which refer to the Apostle himself and to St. Peter. There is more, you will perceive, not less, of detail than elsewhere. The Apostles look into the sepulchre; they see the linen clothes and the napkin. We are told where the napkin is lying. These are not points of evidence, in the sense in which we commonly use that word. If we repeated them ever so often, or multiplied them ever so much, they would not establish the fact. They have served a much higher and more practical purpose. They have brought the fact home to the minds of multitudes as a fact. They have taken it out of the region of mist and shadow. They have connected it with a Person. Their very minuteness leads us to think of Him, not of them. They say to us, as they said to the Apostles, not 'There is a resurrection,' but 'He is risen.'

By speaking of himself, St. John is able to make us acquainted with the process of conviction in one mind. He does not indeed, dwell upon any mental struggles. He just hints at the dull unbelief with which he began; at the eagerness, more of curiosity than of hope, with which he ran to the sepulchre; at the timidity or awe which hindered him from going in; at the dawn of faith when he saw the clothes. It is all very simple and childlike. What surprises some of us most is, that he should blame himself for not having known the Scriptures, 'that He must rise again from the dead.' What Scriptures could have told him this so clearly? Are there any which positively and formally announce it to us who read them in this day,—any, at all events, which we could blame a plain wayfarer for not connecting with it? Have not learned men of our own, able and vehement opposers of infidelity, affirmed that there are no traces of a belief in a future state among the writers of the Old Testament, nay, urged the absence of such traces as a proof of their divine legation? And has not St. John himself produced evidence enough that those who pored over the Scriptures most could not identify Jesus as the Person in whom their prophecies were to meet? We must go back, I believe, to the language of which I have spoken so often, if we would see our way through this difficulty. If the old Scriptures said nothing of a Word of God, of a divine Lord of men's spirits and bodies, it was impossible to conclude from them that He, or any one, would rise again from the dead. As long as St. John was blind to the fact that they did speak of such a One, that they were speaking of Him from beginning to end, that He only gave any unity to their histories or their prophecies; so long the most incessant diligence could not enable him to discover in these Scriptures more than dark hints of a triumph over death,—hints which never could support a practical belief, could never overcome the objections of sense and experience. The moment they found this Word speaking in all the words of the Bible, the moment they believed that Jesus was the Word made flesh, the Scriptures became full even to overflowing with these tidings. Not to see them there was to see there only dead letters.

'But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, and seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing Him to be the gardener, saith unto Him, Sir, if thou have borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto Him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken these things unto her.'

There had been differences in the reports of the Evangelists respecting the appearance of the angels to the women. St. Matthew had said:—'And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead; and, behold, He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see Him: lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring His disciples word.' St. Mark had said:—'And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great. And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted. And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: He is risen; He is not here: behold the place where they laid Him. But go your way, tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you. And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid.' St. Luke had said:—'And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: and as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how He spake unto you when He was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered His words, and returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.'