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
And so in this story before us; He will welcome and over-answer Andrew
and John when they come seeking; He will turn round to them with a
smile on His face, that converts the question, 'What seek ye?' into an
invitation, 'Come and see.' And when Andrew brings his brother to Him,
He will go more than halfway to meet him. But when these are won, there
still remains another way by which He will have disciples brought into
His Kingdom, and that is by Himself going out and laying His hand on
the man and drawing him to His heart by the revelation of His love. But
further, and in a deeper sense, He really seeks us all, and, unasked,
bestows His love upon us.
Whether we seek Him or no, there is no heart upon earth which Christ
does not desire; and no man or woman within the sound of His gospel
whom He is not in a very real sense seeking that He may draw them to
Himself. His own word is a wonderful one: 'The Father _seeketh_ such to
worship Him'; as if God went all up and down the world looking for
hearts to love Him and to turn to Him with reverent thankfulness. And
as the Father, so the Son—who is for us the revelation of the Father:
'The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.' No
one on earth wanted Him, or dreamed of His coming. When He bowed the
heavens and gathered Himself into the narrow space of the manger in
Bethlehem, and took upon Him the limitations and the burdens and the
weaknesses of manhood, it was not in response to any petition, it was
in reply to no seeking; but He came spontaneously, unmoved, obeying but
the impulse of His own heart, and because He would have mercy. He who
is the Beginning, and will be First in all things, was first in this,
that before they called He answered, and came upon earth unbesought and
unexpected, because His own infinite love brought Him hither. Christ's
mercy to a world does not come like water in a well that has to be
pumped up, by our petitions, by our search, but like water in some
fountain, rising sparkling into the sunlight by its own inward impulse.
He is His own motive; and came to a forgetful and careless world, like
a shepherd who goes after his flock in the wilderness, not because they
bleat for him, while they crop the herbage which tempts them ever
further from the fold and remember him and it no more, but because he
cannot have them lost. Men are not conscious of needing Christ till He
comes. The supply creates the demand. He is like the 'dew which
tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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