Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chapters I to XIVMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chapters I to XIV
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. John -- Commentaries
Thus He stands before us, the pattern for the only obedience that is
worth calling so, the obedience which would be pained and ill at ease
unless it were doing the work of God. Religion is meant to make it a
second nature, or, as I have ventured to call it, an instinct—a
spontaneous, uncalculating, irrepressible desire—to be in fellowship
with God, and to be doing His will. That is the meaning of our
Christianity. There is no obedience in reluctant obedience; forced
service is slavery, not service. Christianity is given for the specific
purpose that it may bring us so into touch with Jesus Christ as that
the mind which was in Him may be in us; and that we too may be able to
say, with a kind of wonder that people should have expected to find us
in any other place, or doing anything else, 'Wist ye not that because I
am a Son, _I_ must be about my Father's business?' As certainly as the
sunflower follows the sun, so certainly will a man animated by the mind
that was in Jesus Christ, like Him find his very life's breath in doing
the Father's will.
So then, brethren, what about our grudging service? What about our
reluctant obedience? What about the widespread mistake that religion
prohibits wished-for things and enforces unwelcome duties? If my
Christianity does not make me recoil from what it forbids, and spring
eagerly to what it commends, my Christianity is of very little use. If
when in the Temple we are like idle boys in school, always casting
glances at the clock and the door, and wishing ourselves outside, we
may just as well be out as in. Glad obedience is true obedience. Only
he who can say, 'Thy law is within my heart, and I do Thy will because
I love Thee, and cannot but do as Thou desirest,' has found the joy
possible to a Christian life. It is not 'harsh and crabbed,' as those
that look upon it from the outside may 'suppose,' but musical and full
of sweetness. There is nothing more blessed than when 'I choose' covers
exactly the same ground as 'I ought.' And when duty is delight, delight
will never become disgust, nor joy pass away.
III. We see, in yet another use of this great 'must,' Christ
anticipating His future triumph.
'Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring,
and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd.' Striking as these words
are in themselves, they are still more striking when we notice their
connection; for they follow immediately upon His utterance about laying
down His life for the sheep. So, then, this was a work beyond the
Cross, and whatever it was, it was to be done after He had died.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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