It was the witness, too, of that other profound truth which the 17th verse announces, that there was a Man in whom the Father was perfectly satisfied, and that the ground of His satisfaction was that this Man entirely loved men--entirely gave Himself up for men. He could be satisfied with nothing less than this; for nothing less than this was the expression of His own mind and will. In no act of less love than this could His love declare itself. The thought is so wonderful, the mystery is so deep, that men have shrunk from it as incredible, and have invented any reason to account for Christ's death but that which He gives Himself. That an entirely voluntary act should be yet the fulfilment of a commandment,--that the highest power of giving away life and taking it should be realized in the most perfect obedience; this idea clashes so much with our natural pride and self-glorification, that we would rather think Christ died because He was _not_ one with the Father,--that it was not the Father's love that was satisfied, but His wrath and fury,--than accept a statement which shows us that His thoughts are not as our thoughts or His ways as our ways; that He is not made after our image, though He would have us conformed to His. But seeing that all our morality, all our relations to one another, depend upon the question, what He is and what He has made us to be, we must ask for strength to cast away the schemes and theories of man's devising, and to receive simply, as little children, the teaching of Him who is the brightness of the Father's glory, our Brother and our Judge. '_There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye Him? Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?_' I do not know whether the Jews who held these different opinions were the Pharisees to whom He originally spoke, or whether His sayings were reported to those who were gathered at the feast of Dedication. The opinions themselves are exactly what one would expect that such sayings would call forth. 'How can you listen to a madman, a demoniac, who says that He shall lay down His life and take it again,--who denounces our teachers, and calls Himself the good Shepherd?' This is the language of the respectable citizen of Jerusalem, the representative of the feeling of the Jewish religious world. 'But do we not want a Shepherd who shall guide us to something better? Are we satisfied with our present state? May not He who can give sight to the blind be the Light of men, as He says that He is?' These would be the cautious suggestions of those in whom some cravings had been awakened, which the teachers of the day could not stifle.