SECTION IV. THE SIFTING
John vi. 66-71.
The sermon on the bread of life produced decisive
effects. It converted popular enthusiasm for Jesus into disgust; like a fan, it
separated true from false disciples; and like a winnowing breeze, it blew the
chaff away, leaving a small residuum of wheat behind. "From that time many of
His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him."
This result did not take Jesus by surprise. He
expected it; in a sense, He wished it, though He was deeply grieved by it. For
while His large, loving human heart yearned for the salvation of all, and
desired that all should come and get life, He wanted none to come to Him under
misapprehension, or to follow Him from by-ends. He sought disciples
God-given,[9.61] God-drawn,[9.62] God-taught,[9.63] knowing that such alone
would continue in His word.[9.64] He was aware that in the large mass of people
who had recently followed Him were many disciples of quite another description;
and He was not unwilling that the mixed multitude should be sifted. Therefore
He preached that mystic discourse, fitted to be a savor of life or of death
according to the spiritual state of the hearer. Therefore, also, when offence
was taken at the doctrine taught, He plainly declared the true cause,[9.65] and
expressed His assurance that only those whom His Father taught and drew would
or could really come unto Him.[9.66] These things He said not with a view to
irritate, but He deemed it right to say them though they should give rise to
irritation, reckoning that true believers would take all in good part, and that
those who took umbrage would thereby reveal their true character.
The apostatizing disciples doubtless thought
themselves fully justified in withdrawing from the society of Jesus. They
turned their back on Him, we fancy, in most virtuous indignation, saying in
their hearts--nay, probably saying aloud to one another: "Who ever heard the
like of that? how absurd! how revolting! The man who can speak thus is either a
fool, or is trying to make fools of his hearers." And yet the hardness of His
doctrine was not the real reason which led so many to forsake Him; it was
simply the pretext, the most plausible and respectable reason that they could
assign for conduct springing from other motives. The grand offence of Jesus was
this: He was not the man they had taken Him for; He was not going to be at
their service to promote the ends they had in view. Whatever He meant by the
bread of life, or by eating His flesh, it was plain that He was not going to be
a bread-king, making it His business to furnish supplies for their physical
appetites, ushering in a golden age of idleness and plenty. That ascertained,
it was all over with Him so far as they were concerned: He might offer His
heavenly food to whom He pleased; they wanted none of it.
Deeply affected by the melancholy sight of so
many human beings deliberately preferring material good to eternal life, Jesus
turned to the twelve, and said, "Will ye also go away?" or more exactly, "You
do not wish to go away too, do you?"[9.67] The question may be understood as a
virtual expression of confidence in the persons to whom it was addressed, and
as an appeal to them for sympathy at a discouraging crisis. And yet, while a
negative answer was expected to the question, it was not expected as a matter
of course. Jesus was not without solicitude concerning the fidelity even of the
twelve. He interrogated them, as conscious that they were placed in trying
circumstances, and that if they did not actually forsake Him now, as at the
great final crisis, they were at least tempted to be offended in Him.
A little reflection suffices to satisfy us that
the twelve were indeed placed in a position at this time calculated to try
their faith most severely. For one thing, the mere fact of their Master being
deserted wholesale by the crowd of quondam admirers and followers involved for
the chosen band a temptation to apostasy. How mighty is the power of sympathy!
how ready are we all to follow the multitude, regardless of the way they are
going! and how much moral courage it requires to stand alone! How difficult to
witness the spectacle of thousands, or even hundreds, going off in sullen
disaffection, without feeling an impulse to imitate their bad example! how hard
to keep one's self from being carried along with the powerful tide of adverse
popular opinion! Especially hard it must have been for the twelve to resist the
tendency to apostatize if, as is more than probable, they sympathized with the
project entertained by the multitude when their enthusiasm for Jesus was at
full-tide. If it would have gratified them to have seen their beloved Master
made king by popular acclamation, how their spirits must have sunk when the
bubble burst, and the would-be subjects of the Messianic Prince were dispersed
like an idle mob, and the kingdom which had seemed so near vanished like a
cloudland!
Another circumstance trying to the faith of the
twelve was the strange, mysterious character of their Master's discourse in the
synagogue of Capernaum. That discourse contained hard, repulsive,
unintelligible sayings for them quite as much as for the rest of the audience.
Of this we can have no doubt when we consider the repugnance with which some
time afterward they received the announcement that Jesus was destined to be put
to death.[9.68] If they objected even to the fact of His death, how could they
understand its meaning, especially when both fact and meaning were spoken of in
such a veiled and mystic style as that which pervades the sermon on the bread
of life? While, therefore, they believed that their Master had the words of
eternal life, and perceived that His late discourse bore on that high theme, it
may be regarded as certain that the twelve did not understand the words spoken
any more than the multitude, however much they might try to do so. They knew
not what connection existed between Christ's flesh and eternal life, how eating
that flesh could confer any benefit, or even what eating it might mean. They
had quite lost sight of the Speaker in His eagle flight of thought; and they
must have looked on in distress as the people melted away, painfully conscious
that they could not altogether blame them.
Yet, however greatly tempted to forsake their
Master, the twelve did abide faithfully by His side. They did come safely
through the spiritual storm. What was the secret of their steadfastness? what
were the anchors that preserved them from shipwreck? These questions are of
practical interest to all who, like the apostles at this crisis, are tempted to
apostasy by evil example or by religious doubt; by the fashion of the world
they live in, whether scientific or illiterate, refined or rustic; or by the
deep things of God, whether these be the mysteries of providence, the mysteries
of revelation, or the mysteries of religious experience: we may say, indeed, to
all genuine Christians, for what Christian has not been tempted in one or other
of these ways at some period in his history?
Sufficient materials for answering these
questions are supplied in the words of Simon Peter's response to Jesus. As
spokesman for the whole company, that disciple promptly said: "Lord, to whom
shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and know that
Thou art that Christ, the son of the living God,"[9.69] or, according to the
reading preferred by most critics, "that Thou art the Holy One of God."[9.70
Three anchors, we infer from these words, helped
the twelve to ride out the storm: Religious earnestness or sincerity; a clear
perception of the alternatives before them; and implicit confidence in the
character and attachment to the person of their Master.
I. The twelve, as a body, were sincere and
thoroughly in earnest in religion. Their supreme desire was to know "the words
of eternal life," and actually to gain possession of that life. Their concern
was not about the meat that perisheth, but about the higher heavenly food of
the soul which Christ had in vain exhorted the majority of His hearers to labor
for. As yet they knew not clearly wherein that food consisted, but according to
their light they sincerely prayed, "Lord, evermore give us this bread." Hence
it was no disappointment to them that Jesus declined to become a purveyor of
mere material food: they had never expected or wished Him to do so; they had
joined His company with entirely different expectations. A certain element of
error might be mingled with truth in their conceptions of His Mission, but the
gross, carnal hopes of the multitude had no place in their breasts. They became
not disciples to better their worldly circumstances, but to obtain a portion
which the world could neither give them nor take from them.
What we have now stated was true of all the
twelve save one; and the crisis we are at present considering is memorable for
this, among other things, that it was the first occasion on which Jesus gave a
hint that there was a false disciple among the men whom He had chosen. To
justify Himself for asking a question which seemed to cast a doubt upon their
fidelity, He replied to Peter's protestation by the startling remark: "Did not
I choose you the twelve, and one of you is a devil?"[9.71] as if to say: "It is
painful to me to have to use this language of suspicion, but I have good cause:
there is one among you who has had thoughts of desertion, and who is capable
even of treachery." With what sadness of spirit must He have made such an
intimation at this crisis! To be forsaken by the fickle crowd of shallow,
thoughtless followers had been a small matter, could He have reckoned all the
members of the select band good men and true friends. But to have an enemy in
one's own house, a diabolus capable of playing Satan's part in one's small
circle of intimate companions:--it was hard indeed!
But how could a man destined to be a traitor, and
deserving to be stigmatized as a devil, manage to pass creditably through the
present crisis? Does not the fact seem to imply that, after all, it is possible
to be steadfast without being single-minded? Not so; the only legitimate
inference is, that the crisis was not searching enough to bring out the true
character of Judas. Wait till you see the end. A little religion will carry a
man through many trials, but there is an experimentum crucis which nothing but
sincerity can stand. If the mind be double, or the heart divided, a time comes
that compels men to act according to the motives that are deepest and strongest
in them. This remark applies especially to creative, revolutionary, or
transition epochs. In quiet times a hypocrite may pass respectably through this
world, and never be detected till he get to the next, whither his sins follow
him to judgment. But in critical eras the sins of the double-minded find them
out in this life. True, even then some double-minded men can stand more
temptation than others, and are not to be bought so cheaply as the common herd.
But all of them have their price, and those who fall less easily than others
fall in the end most deeply and tragically.
Of the character and fall of Judas we shall have
another opportunity to speak. Our present object is simply to point out that
from such as he Jesus did not expect constancy. By referring to that disciple
as He did, He intimated His conviction that no one in whom the love of God and
truth was not the deepest principle of his being would continue faithful to the
end. In effect He inculcated the necessity, in order to steadfastness in faith,
of moral integrity, or godly sincerity.
2. The second anchor by which the disciples were
kept from shipwreck at this season was a clear perception of the alternatives.
"To whom shall we go?" asked Peter, as one who saw that, for men having in view
the aim pursued by himself and his brethren, there was no course open but to
remain where they were. He had gone over rapidly in his mind all the possible
alternatives, and this was the conclusion at which he had arrived. "To whom
shall we go--we who seek eternal life? John, our former master, is dead; and
even were he alive, he would send us back to Thee. Or shall we go to the
scribes and Pharisees? We have been too long with Thee for that; for Thou hast
taught us the superficiality, the hypocrisy, the ostentatiousness, the
essential ungodliness of their religious system. Or shall we follow the fickle
multitude there, and relapse into stupidity and indifference? It is not to be
thought of. Or, finally, shall we go to the Sadducees, the idolaters of the
material and the temporal, who say there is no resurrection, neither any angels
nor spirits? God forbid! That were to renounce a hope dearer than life, without
which life to an earnest mind were a riddle, a contradiction, and an
intolerable burden."
We may understand what a help this clear
perception of the alternatives was to Peter and his brethren, by reflecting on
the help we ourselves might derive from the same source when tempted by
dogmatic difficulties to renounce Christianity. It would make one pause if he
understood that the alternatives open to him were to abide with Christ, or to
become an atheist, ignoring God and the world to come; that when he leaves
Christ, he must go to school to some of the great masters of thoroughgoing
unbelief. In the works of a well-known German author is a dream, which portrays
with appalling vividness the consequences that would ensue throughout the
universe should the Creator cease to exist. The dream was invented, so the
gifted writer tells us, for the purpose of frightening those who discussed the
being of God as coolly as if the question respected the existence of the Kraken
or the unicorn, and also to check all atheistic thoughts which might arise in
his own bosom. "If ever," he says, "my heart should be so unhappy and deadened
as to have all those feelings which affirm the being of a God destroyed, I
would use this dream to frighten myself, and so heal my heart, and restore its
lost feelings."[9.72] Such benefit as Richter expected from the perusal of his
own dream, would any one, tempted to renounce Christianity, derive from a clear
perception that in ceasing to be a Christian he must make up his mind to accept
a creed which acknowledges no God, no soul, no hereafter.
Unfortunately it is not so easy for us now as it
was for Peter to see clearly what the alternatives before us are. Few are so
clear-sighted, so recklessly logical, or so frank as the late Dr. Strauss, who
in his latest publication. The Old and the New Faith, plainly says that he is
no longer a Christian. Hence many in our day call themselves Christians whose
theory of the universe (or Weltanschauung, as the Germans call it) does not
allow them to believe in the miraculous in any shape or in any sphere; with
whom it is an axiom that the continuity of nature's course cannot be broken,
and who therefore cannot even go the length of Socinians in their view of
Christ and declare Him to be, without qualification, the Holy One of God, the
morally sinless One. Even men like Renan claim to be Christians, and, like
Balaam, bless Him whom their philosophy compels them to blame. Our modern
Balaams all confess that Jesus is at least the holiest of men, if not the
absolutely Holy One. They are constrained to bless the Man of Nazareth. They
are spellbound by the Star of Bethlehem, as was the Eastern soothsayer by the
Star of Jacob, and are forced to say in effect: "How shall I curse, whom God
hath not cursed? or how shall I defy, whom the Lord hath not defied? Behold, I
have received commandment to bless: and He hath blessed; and I cannot reverse
it."[9.73] Others not going so far as Renan, shrinking from thoroughgoing
naturalism, believing in a perfect Christ, a moral miracle, yet affect a
Christianity independent of dogma, and as little as possible encumbered by
miracle, a Christianity purely ethical, consisting mainly in admiration of
Christ's character and moral teaching; and, as the professors of such a
Christianity, regard themselves as exemplary disciples of Christ. Such are the
men of whom the author of Supernatural Religion speaks as characterized by a
"tendency to eliminate from Christianity, with thoughtless dexterity, every
supernatural element which does not quite accord with current opinions," and as
endeavoring "to arrest for a moment the pursuing wolves of doubt and unbelief
by practically throwing to them scrap by scrap the very doctrines which
constitute the claims of Christianity to be regarded as a divine revelation at
all."[9.74] Such men can hardly be said to have a consistent theory of the
universe, for they hold opinions based on incompatible theories, are
naturalistic in tendency, yet will not carry out naturalism to all its
consequences. They are either not able, or are disinclined, to realize the
alternatives and to obey the voice of logic, which like a stern policeman bids
them "Move on;" but would rather hold views which unite the alternatives in one
compound eclectic creed, like Schleiermacher,--himself an excellent example of
the class,--of whom Strauss remarks that he ground down Christianity and
Pantheism to powder, and so mixed them that it is hard to say where Pantheism
ends and Christianity begins. In presence of such a spirit of compromise, so
widespread, and recommended by the example of many men of ability and
influence, it requires some courage to have and hold a definite position, or to
resist the temptation to yield to the current and adopt the watchword:
Christianity without dogma and miracle. But perhaps it will be easier by and by
to realize the alternatives, when time has more clearly shown whither present
tendencies lead. Meantime it is the evening twilight, and for the moment it
seems as if we could do without the sun, for though he is below the horizon,
the air is still full of light. But wait awhile; and the deepening of the
twilight into the darkness of night will show how far Christ the Holy One of
the Church's confession can be dispensed with as the Sun of the spiritual
world.
3. The third anchor whereby the twelve were
enabled to ride out the storm, was confidence in the character of their Master.
They believed, yea, they knew, that He was the Holy One of God. They had been
with Jesus long enough to have come to very decided conclusions respecting Him.
They had seen Him work many miracles; they had heard Him discourse with
marvellous wisdom, in parable and sermon, on the divine kingdom; they had
observed His wondrously tender, gracious concern for the low and the lost; they
had been present at His various encounters with Pharisees, and had noted His
holy abhorrence of their falsehood, pride, vanity, and tyranny. All this
blessed fellowship had begotten a confidence in, and reverence for, their
beloved Master, too strong to be shaken by a single address containing some
statements of an incomprehensible character, couched in questionable or even
offensive language. Their intellect might be perplexed, but their heart
remained true; and hence, while others who knew not Jesus well went off in
disgust, they continued by His side, feeling that such a friend and guide was
not to be parted with for a trifle.
"We believe and know," said Peter. He believed
because he knew. Such implicit confidence as the twelve had in Jesus is
possible only through intimate knowledge; for one cannot thus trust a stranger.
All, therefore, who desire to get the benefit of this trust, must be willing to
spend time and take trouble to get into the heart of the Gospel story, and of
its great subject. The sure anchorage is not attainable by a listless, random
reading of the evangelic narratives, but by a close, careful, prayerful study,
pursued it may be for years. Those who grudge the trouble are in imminent
danger of the fate which befell the ignorant multitude, being liable to be
thrown into panic by every new infidel book, or to be scandalized by every
strange utterance of the Object of faith. Those, on the other hand, who do take
the trouble, will be rewarded for their pains. Storm-tossed for a time, they
shall at length reach the harbor of a creed which is no nondescript compromise
between infidelity and scriptural Christianity, but embraces all the cardinal
facts and truths of the faith, as taught by Jesus in the Capernaum discourse,
and as afterwards taught by the men who passed safely through the Capernaum
crisis.
May God in His mercy guide all souls now out in
the tempestuous sea of doubt into that haven of rest!
This document (last modifiedSeptember 17, 1997) from Believerscafe.com
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