Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXIMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. John -- Commentaries
This is our Lord's last expansion, in these discourses, of the great
promise of the Comforter which has appeared so often in them. First, He
was spoken of simply as dwelling in Christ's servants, without any more
special designation of His work than was involved in the name. Then,
His aid was promised, to remind the Apostles of the facts of Christ's
life, especially of His words; and so the inspiration and authority of
the four Gospels were certified for us. Then He was further promised as
the witness in the disciples to Jesus Christ. And, finally, in the
immediately preceding context, we have His office of 'convincing,' or
convicting, 'the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.'
And now we come to that gracious and gentle work which that divine
Spirit is declared by Christ to do, not only for that little group
gathered round Him then, but for all those who trust themselves to His
guidance. He is to be the 'Spirit of truth' to all the ages, who in
simple verity will help true hearts to know and love the truth. There
are three things in the words before us--first, the avowed
incompleteness of Christ's own teaching; second, the completeness of
the truth into which the Spirit of truth guides; and, last, the unity
of these two.
I. First, then, we have here the avowed incompleteness of Christ's own
teaching.
'I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.'
Now in an earlier portion of these great discourses, we have our Lord
asserting that '_all_ things whatsoever He had heard of the Father He
had made known' unto His servants. How do these two representations
harmonise? Is it possible to make them agree? Surely, yes. There is a
difference between the germ and the unfolded flower. There is a
difference between principles and the complete development of these. I
suppose you may say that all Euclid is in the axioms and definitions. I
suppose you may also say that when you have learned the axioms and
definitions, there are many things yet to be said, of which you have
not grown to the apprehension. And so our Lord, as far as His frankness
was concerned, and as far as the fundamental and seminal principles of
all religious truth were concerned, had even then declared all that He
had heard of the Father. But yet, in so far as the unfolding of these
was concerned, the tracing of their consequences, the exhibition of
their harmonies, the weaving of them into an ordered whole in which a
man's understanding could lodge, there were many things yet to be said,
which that handful of men were not able to bear. And so our Lord
Himself here declares that His words spoken on earth are not His
completed revelation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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