Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. LukeMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. Luke
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Luke -- Commentaries
'When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees,
saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.'
--LUKE v. 8.
'Now, when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he
girt his fisher's coat unto him,... and did cast
himself into the sea.'--JOHN xxi. 7.
These two instances of the miraculous draught of fishes on the Lake
of Gennesareth are obviously intended to be taken in conjunction.
Their similarities and their differences are equally striking and
equally instructive. In the fragment of the incident which I have
selected for our consideration now, we have the same man, in the
same scene and circumstances, in the presence of the same Lord,
acting under the influences of the same motive, and doing two
exactly opposite things.
In the first case, the miracle at once struck him with the
consciousness that he was now, in some way, he knew not how, in the
immediate presence of the supernatural. That was immediately
followed by a quick spasm and sense of sin, and that again by a
recoil of terror, and that again by the cry, 'Go out of the boat;
for I am a sinful man, O Lord.'
In the other instance, as soon as he saw (or rather, by the help of
his friend's clearer sight, learned) that that dim and questionable
figure on the morning beach there, was the Lord, the sight brought
back his sin to his mind. But this time the consciousness of sin
sent him splashing over the side, and through the shallow water, to
struggle anyhow to get close to his Lord, not because he thought
more complacently of himself or less loftily of his Master, but
because he had learned that the best place for a sinful man was as
close to Christ as ever he could get. And so, if we put these two
incidents together, we get two or three thoughts that it is worth
our while to dwell upon.
I. I ask you to notice, first, that instinctive and swift awaking of
conscience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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