The Gospel of St. John: A Series of Discourses.: New EditionMaurice, Frederick Denison
Religion
The Gospel of St. John: A Series of Discourses.: New Edition
Maurice, Frederick Denison
Bible. John -- Commentaries; Sermons, English
How is He come into the world for judgment when He came not to judge
the world, but to save it? He has answered the question before. He
answers it more fully here. What we want to be saved from is our
darkness. We can only be saved from it by His light. That light brings
us into judgment. It distinguishes--it condemns! It distinguishes
between that in us which seeks light, and that in us which flies from
light. It does not condemn us for being dark; it condemns us for not
owning our darkness. It does not condemn us for not having a power and
virtue in us to escape from the darkness; but for refusing to
entertain the light which would raise us out of it. Our eyes are not
formed to create light, but to receive it; if they will close
themselves to that which is always seeking to open them and illuminate
them, _that_ is the sentence--that is the condemnation. The blind
beggar washes in the Pool of Siloam, and comes seeing. He hears of the
Son of God, and says, '_Lord, who is He that I might believe on Him_?'
The Pharisee grudges eyesight to the beggar,--denies that God may work
good on His own Sabbath-day. He is satisfied with his power of seeing;
and the light that would open God's glorious kingdom to him puts out
the eyes that he had.
Dear brethren, may Christ give us honesty and courage to confess our
blindness, that we may turn to Him who can make us see! May He deliver
us from all conceit of our own illumination, lest we should become
hopelessly dark!
DISCOURSE XIX.
THE SHEPHERD AND THE SHEEP.
[Lincoln's Inn, 3d Sunday after Trinity, June 8, 1856.]
ST. JOHN X. 27-29.
_My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow
me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never
perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My
Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man
is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand._
A recent traveller in the Holy Land, who has looked on all its
localities with honest and reverent eyes, and has enabled his readers
to see them almost as clearly as himself, has suggested that the Mount
of Olivet was the scene of the conversation, in which Jesus declared
Himself as the Son of God to the man whose eyes He had opened. The man
whom He had healed at the Pool of Bethesda He found in the Temple; but
an excommunicated Israelite would not have been allowed to enter those
precincts. If we suppose our Lord to have met him on that other ground
which He visited so often, the interview may have been secret. And the
words, '_For judgment am I come into the world_,' which are so evident
a commentary upon it, may have been addressed to persons, His
disciples and others, whom He joined afterwards. Then it will appear
how the concluding verses of the 9th chapter may have formed part of
the same dialogue with the opening verses of the 10th,--how much
closer a relation there is between them outwardly and inwardly than we
at first perceive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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