“These things write we unto you that your joy may be full.”
Let us by earnest thought, make this fleeting hour of a fleeting existence sacred to the memory of the Evangelist. For to the striving actors of the “living present,” the past can offer few better gifts than the scripture “record” of this “good man’s life.”
He was one other of that band of obscure fishermen, who, adorned with none of the pride and pomp of official station—destitute of all the attractions of wealth—distinguished by none of the refinements and graces of cultivated life, appeared before the astonished people and rulers of Judea and all the East, suddenly gifted with such miraculous powers as enabled them to proclaim, and enforce, the most important truths on the minds of a nation, which counted itself, in every respect, far beyond all necessity of instruction.
Rightly to study and to estimate the record of St. John, cannot prove to us a profitless task; a deeper feeling than admiration, and an exalted appreciation that will not subside into mere respect for him, is sure to be aroused. The conviction will force itself upon a searcher after truth, of the exceeding beauty and excellence of the character of this Apostle, and disciple—the brother of James—the son of Zebedee and Salome—the fisherman of the Sea of Galilee—the man to whom was revealed the volume of deep mysteries—the meek, attentive, self-forgetful follower, whom Jesus loved.
He lived through all those convulsions, wondrous and terrible, that marked the first century of the Christian era; and when was he found wanting in that indomitable courage that suffered and endured all things for the love of the blessed Jesus? True, it is recorded that when alone in the place of banishment, the Angel of the Lord appeared before the exiled man, uttering the divine proclamation, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending—which is, which was, and which is to come, the Almighty,” he fell as one dead at the angel’s feet. What then? Dwells there a mortal on the earth, whose spirit and whose form would not perforce bow before the messenger of Jehovah, crushed by the thought of utter impotency and nothingness? Indeed one might well be called fool-hardy, and idiotically bold, rather than really brave, who could look unabashed and undismayed upon the “terrors of the Lord,” and on “the glory of His power.”
John had not perhaps the ever-glowing ardor of the great Peter—his career may not have been marked by the constantly self-possessed bravery with which that Apostle every where, and at all times, stormed the citadels of Satan, casting in all directions his weapons of spiritual defiance, and carrying on unceasingly what was most emphatically a warfare; but we are not told that he ever denied his Master; we have no proof, we receive no intimation that he was ever a weakly or blindly zealous preacher, or one unreasonably secure in his powers. Never was he a withholder of the truth when once it was revealed to him—and not an inefficient leader in the valiant army of the saints—no weak defender of the moral rights of man, and the sacred truths of eternal life.
And to whose written or spoken words shall we turn, to find a better exemplification of the milder truths, and the more endearing graces, of that faith, of which our Saviour is the chief corner-stone, than to the record of John the Evangelist.
The language he almost invariably adopted to address lost sinners, was not that of denunciatory wrath or of stern condemnation—but rather was it mild, persuasive, gentle and loving, such as tended to soften and win the rebellious heart, rather than terrify it and repel. The great truths of religion as uttered by his lips, were the love and infinite compassion of God—the constant care with which He watches over and provides for all things created; the readiness and joy with which He ever listens to the cries of those who in a right spirit draw nigh to Him.
Never, or very rarely, did he seek to frighten and compel sinners to repentance, by proclaiming to weak and helpless beings the wrath of a God who would surely destroy if they did not instantly yield their allegiance. He did not, to add force to an argument which in itself he conceived all-powerful, strive to make predominant in the minds of terrified hearers the thought of the avenging arm uplifted—the bright sword suspended over the heads of all offenders, threatening to cut them instantaneously from the land of the living. Nor was it the lake of eternally burning fire, nor the deep, dark, dreadful pit, nor the everlasting torments, nor the never appeased wrath of God—nor the undying worm, that he made the themes of his eloquent appeals. Ah, no! but ever was his voice heard urging the beloved in Christ’s name to be reconciled to God; the mild eyes fixed on the people, who could not listen unmoved to his pleading words, and the gentle voice, was sounding in their ears who had been deaf to sterner commands, like sweet and never to be forgotten melody. And tears were shed, and groans were heard, when he stood like an angel of light and of mercy amid the unrepentant and unforgiven.
Childlike, pure-minded, and kind, and charitable in his dealings with the most grievous sinner, as he delivered the doctrine of redemption it became peculiarly the doctrine of reconciliation. And yet, the gentleness and affectionateness of John’s nature, evinced in his every word and deed, may not be taken as a proof, or as a support, of the idea that either personally or spiritually he was a coward!