This clause is the true heading to the whole consolatory discourse, for it flows on in one channel of love and ends at last with the words, “Be of good cheer.”
Let not your heart be troubled
We may well feel glad that God’s people of old were men of like passions with ourselves. It is not the will of God that His people should “be troubled” in heart; hence these blessed words.
I. LET US TASTE OF THE BITTER WATERS.
1. Jesus was to die. It had finally dawned on them that they were to be left like sheep without a shepherd, and they were inconsolable.
2. He was to be betrayed by one of their own number. This pierced the hearts of the faithful. Of this bitter water the faithful at this hour are also made to drink. Reputed ministers under the banner of “advanced thought” make war upon those eternal truths for which confessors contended and martyrs bled, and the saints in past ages have been sustained in their dying hours.
3. Peter’s denial was to cause another pang to the faithful.
II. LET US DRINK OF THE SWEET WATERS, TO REFRESH US. Our Master indicates the true means of comfort under every sort of disquietude.
1. “Believe” not only My doctrine but in Me--a personal, living, ever-present, omnipotent Saviour.
2. Though He was going from them, He was only going to His Father’s house.
3. A great many would follow Him to the Father’s house.
4. “I go to prepare a place for you,” not only “many mansions” for our spirits, but an ultimate place of our risen bodies. We are apt to entertain cloudy ideas of the ultimate inheritance of the saints. Christ went away in body--not as a disembodied spirit, but as One who had eaten with His disciples, and whose body had been handled by them. His body needed a place.
5. The promise of His sure return--“If I go,” etc.
6. And then He will “receive” us. It will be
(1) A courtly reception.
(2) A marriage reception.
7. He will place us eternally where He is that we may be with Him. Can we not now, once for all, dismiss every fear in prospect of the endless bliss reserved for us? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Let not your hearts be troubled
The disciples had been like lambs carried in the bosom of a loving shepherd. They were now about to be left by Him, and would be among the wolves and the terrors of the snowstorm. Frequently after conversion God, who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, gives a period of repose; but for all of us there will come a time of trouble. Albeit that bark so lately launched upon a glassy sea has all her streamers flying, and rejoices in a favourable wind, let her captain remember that the sea is treacherous and that the stoutest vessel may find it more than difficult to outride a hurricane. But without due trial where would be our experience, and without the experience where increase of faith and triumph of love? We have each
1. A share of home trials.
2. Trials arising from the Church of God. In the best-ordered Church it must needs be that offences come.
3. Worst of all are soul troubles. Note that the advice of the text is
I. TIMELY AND WISE. There is no need to say, “Let not your heart be troubled,” when you are not in affliction. When all things go well with you, you will need, “Let not your heart be exalted.” Now, it is the easiest thing in times of difficulty to let the heart be troubled, to give up and drift with the stream. Our Lord bids us pluck up heart, and here is the wisdom of His advice, namely
1. That a troubled heart will not help us in our difficulties or out of them. In time of drought lamentations have never brought showers. A man whose business was declining never multiplied his customers by unbelief. It is a dark night, but the darkness of your heart will not light a candle for you.
2. A doubting, fretful spirit takes from us the joys we have. You have not all you could wish, but you have still more than you deserve, and far more than some others; health perhaps, God certainly. There are flowers that bloom in winter if we have but grace to see them.
3. A troubled heart makes that which is bad worse. It magnifies, aggravates, caricatures. Unbelief makes out our difficulties to be most gigantic, and then it leads us to suppose that never soul had such difficulties before. But think of Baxter, Calvin, the martyrs, St. Paul, Christ.
4. A troubled heart is most dishonourable to God. It makes the Christian suspect eternal faithfulness and to doubt unchangeable love. Is this a little thing? The mischief of the Christian Church at large is a want of holy confidence in God. When once an army is demoralized by a want of spirit and the soldier assured that he cannot win the day, then the conclusion is that every man had better take care of himself and fly. But as long as we do not lose heart we have not lost the day.
II. PRACTICABLE. “Let not your heart be troubled.” “Oh,” says somebody, “that’s easy to say but hard to do.” Here’s a man who has fallen into a deep ditch, and you say to him, “Don’t be troubled about it.” “Ah,” says he, “that’s very pretty for you that are standing up there, but how am I to be at ease while up to my neck in mire?” But if Jesus says it our heart need not be troubled.
1. He indicates that our resort must be to faith. If in thy worst times thou wouldst keep thy head above water, the swimming belt must be faith. In the olden times how were men kept from perishing but by faith (Heb_11:1-40)? There is nothing which it cannot do, but what can you do if you do not trust your God? and surely it ought not to be difficult for a child to believe his father.
2. The Saviour goes on to say, “You believe in God”; exercise that same faith with regard to the case in hand. The case in hand was this--could they rest upon One who was about to be crucified? “You have believed God about other things, exercise that same faith about this.” You have believed God concerning pardon, believe God about the child, the wife, the money.
3. It ought to be a great deal easier for us to live above heart trouble than it was to the apostles.
(1) You have experience.
(2) You have received the Holy Spirit.
(3) You have the whole of Scripture, which they had not.
III. PRECIOUS. Remember that the loving advice
1. Came from Jesus. The mother says to the child, “Do not cry, child; be patient.” That sounds very differently from what it would have done if the schoolmaster or a stranger had spoken. His own face was towards the Cross, He was about to be troubled as never man was troubled. It is as if He wanted to monopolize all tears.
2. It points to Jesus. If you want comfort you must hear Jesus say, “Believe also in Me.” No place for a child’s aching head like its mother’s bosom. No shadow of a great rock in this weary land like our Saviour’s love consciously overshadowing us.
3. It speaks of Jesus. “In My Father’s house,” etc. Jesus is here seen in action. Think of all He said and did, and what He is doing for us now.
4. It hints that we are to be with Jesus forever. “An hour with my God,” says the hymn, “will make up for it all.” So it will; but what will an eternity with our God be? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Trouble not
The words are
I. NOT SENTIMENTAL. They are not spoken by one who wishes to silence sorrow by superficial kindliness. Christ does not say we are to disarm ourselves of prudence and energy; but He does say where all these work torture and misery you are faithless. There is a Providence that goes before you. Your Heavenly Father knoweth what things you have need of. There is more than sorrow in this world. Sin is here, but even over it we triumph by a salvation which makes a redeemed life the most glorious life of all. From the lips of Christ this is a reasonable comfort, because He is able to make all grace abound towards us, and because sorrow goes forth as His angel to make us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.
II. NOT EXHAUSTIBLE. This comfort is not exhaustible in time; nor can you exhaust its adaptation to the variety and speciality of personal sorrow. Does not Christ know your sorrow? We could gain no true comfort if Christ were merely a figure in history. If Christ had not risen the words are exhaustible. But Christ Himself has said, “I am He that liveth,” etc. The value even of an earthly friend is in the inexhaustibility of sympathy. But at the best human friendship is shallow, but it is different with Christ’s. His passeth knowledge. He who changes not and abideth always says, “Let not your heart be troubled.”
III. NOT LIMITABLE. These are words of consolation for all the brothers and sisters of Jesus.
1. No little community has any special privilege of excommunicating, nor has any large one.
2. All through the ranges of experience, as well as through all the ages of time, Christ bids us take these words of comfort. First of all they should be applied to the heaviest sorrows. Here at Christ’s Cross the most burdened may find release.
IV. NOT ALONE TEMPORAL. They do not simply relate to this time world or to our human and spiritual experiences here. Christ was comforting men concerning the rest that remaineth. And the spirit of man had never been so comforted before. He knew that hearts like ours would grasp every promise concerning the blessed dead. So these words should be taken up into the highest sphere to comfort us concerning those who sleep in Jesus that we sorrow not as those without hope, remembering that the risen Christ went back whence He came, to prepare a place for us.
V. NOT ALONE RETROSPECTIVE. Christ does not say, “Do not trouble about past sins, they are forgiven you.” No. He looks forward and comforts them in relation to their earthly future here and their home hereafter. And yet what did He see in the near perspective for many of them? On the edge of the horizon stand their crosses in the grey light of tomorrow. “The time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.” Still He says, “Do not trouble.” Let us take Christ at His word as they did. (W. M. Statham.)
Christ’s cure for trouble
I. THE SORE OF THE WORLD IS TROUBLE AND ITS CURE IN FAITH. The seat of trouble is not in anything outside of us. It is the passions. Work, wakefulness, losses, bereavements, life’s burdens and battles are not troubles. They are discipline. While the passions are in right and healthful play all these things may befall a man, and yet he may be wholly untroubled. On the other hand, a man may be surrounded by all that can minister to his comfort and dignity, and yet be troubled. In the latter case the man’s passions are tossed about as the sea is when a tempest is on it; in the other case, they are serene as the lake in the fastnesses of a mountain.
1. The cause of all our trouble is the want of harmony between our wills and God’s will. Let them accord, and then nothing in heaven or earth or hell can trouble us. But when we beat ourselves against the barriers erected by Omnipotence for our safety and good, then there is trouble.
2. Our trouble arises from our want of faith in the rightfulness and paramount authority of God’s law. Men would not fight against God’s law of morals if they could perceive that the law is perfectly good and right. Men have an impression that the law of God is a kind of Procrustes’ bed, cutting long men short and stretching short men long for arbitrary reasons, and not that every regulation is for man’s sake and that of other creatures. And because men do not believe that the law of God is good they do not believe it is paramount. The origin of the trouble of every heart from the beginning is to be found in this failure of faith in God. It was so with Adam and Eve. There was no trouble while they trusted their Heavenly Father. You cannot seduce a man into wrong-doing until you shake his faith in God. It is this fundamental principle of which Jesus seems to have thought. This seems to me to mean two things
(1) That belief in God is necessary to belief in Jesus. Jesus, then, is something more than a mere extraordinary specimen of humanity.
(2) Simple belief in God has never cured trouble. It might have kept all trouble from the human heart if originally persevered in. But after sin had come into the world something else was necessary. And for this we can appeal to every man’s experience. Do you not often feel that you would be freer and happier if God would throw His laws away, or still better, cease to exist? The fact is, that until we came to distinguish between creatures and children, our belief in God can produce no agreeable feelings toward Him.
(a) We must hare some distinct evidence of His loving us. Of such love Jesus is the Demonstration. Belief in Jesus is belief in God incarnating Himself; putting Himself thus into most complete sympathy with us, making us feel that if any disasters should happen to us He would be the Person who most should feel it. This breaks down the opposition of our hearts to God.
(b) Jesus declares Himself the Governor of the world. Providence is in the hands of my Brother. He manages the universe for the purposes of the atonement. Why should my heart be troubled? Is not the King of eternity my Friend?
(3) Christ is my Leader through all places, narrow and dark and frightful, or large and wealthy and seductive. If I believe this and yield my heart to it, how my troubles disappear! Without Jesus, my heart is like the Galilean lake, night-bound and storm-lashed; when He says “Peace,” there is a great calm.
II. THEN FROM HIMSELF AS FROM A CENTRE HE SWEEPS THE UNIVERSE OF SPACE AND DURATION, AND FOLDS IT ALL DOWN UPON EVERY TRUSTING HEART AS A MEASURELESS BENEDICTION.
1. “In My Father’s house are many mansions.” How this takes the vagueness out of our ideas of God! How our recently constructed scientific instruments enlarge and deepen this saying of Jesus! It is to be noticed that our intellects gravitate toward a common centre. There, in that centre, we seem to feel must be the chief place of God. There is an unhealthy fear of God which is not humble reverence. Men dread to think of Him. In our catechisms we put Him just as far away from our children as we can. Jesus does no such thing. God is a Person. He has a house and a household. He makes homes for His children. Why, then, should I be troubled that I am to die? My removal will be like the progress of a prince from castle to castle of his father’s dominions. In each I shall find new work and new delights.
2. One of the phases of man’s unbelief is that he does not seem to have space and time enough to carry forward to completion the grand projects of his intellect. But if you will believe in Jesus, this trouble shall disappear. In the boundless field of the universe, in the perpetual cycles of eternity, you shall find space and time enough to do all that you desire now or may desire hereafter.
3. Another thing Jesus utters to be a heart cure: “If it were not so, I would have told you.” He will not only correct our thoughts of God, He will not let us have a false hope. Those men loved Him, and in some blind way had believed in Him. He knew that they had aspirations higher than the Temple and wider than the spangled tent that spread all night above the Holy Land. He would not go away and leave them cherishing a fond delusion. He would tell them if the things they hoped were an idle dream. In this there ought to be a happy lesson for every earnest heart. There is a gloomy infidelity in us which says of happiest things that they are “too good to be true.” If you have any hope for eternity, and Jesus Christ has not contradicted it, you may reasonably indulge it. See what a field that flings open to us. This is comforting, but grandly vague.
4. He goes further and tells us that He departs in order to “prepare a place for us.” This meets another phase of trouble. Our wills conflict with the will of God because we never feel at home totally suited in our surroundings on earth. Think how much is necessary for perfect comfort. There must be a suitable physique, agreeable in all the particulars of size, beauty, and health. There must be perfectly-fitting clothes; a collar too tight, a boot too small breaks one’s comfort. Then our house must be in everything complete; nay, it must be an elastic house, expanding or shrinking to our wants at different times. When the residence is complete, there is the absence of the beloved or the presence of an unpleasant neighbourhood. It is not an unamiable discontentedness in human nature which makes us dissatisfied or unsatisfied: it is the inability of this present world, with all its resources, to fill the soul; and this argues the soul’s greatness. Jesus says, “I go to prepare a place for you.” He knows what is in us and what we need about us. He is putting all His resources to the work of fitting up for us mansions in the spiritual world. Our place will be complete. How that abates our troubles! There shall be nothing wanting in the place when Jesus pronounces it ready.
5. “Ready?” Then when it is ready we must go to it. There is to be a removal. But still there is something to try one in any change of residence, but Christ says, “I will come for you and take you,” and that “unto Myself.” (C. F. Deems, LL. D.)
Trouble and its cordial
I. GOD’S MOST FAITHFUL SERVANTS ARE SUBJECT TO TROUBLES OF HEART.
1. What troubles?
(1) Inward, arising from
(a) Sin (Psa_51:4-8).
(b) Corruption (Rom_7:24).
(2) Outward, which are
(a) Spiritual: Christ’s absence.
(b) Temporal: outward afflictions (Lam_1:4).
2. The reason.
(1) Weakness of faith.
(2) Imperfection of other graces.
II. FAITH IN GOD AND CHRIST IS THE BEST CORDIAL TO A TROUBLED HEART.
1. It is the surest and most infallible (Mat_11:28).
2. The strongest (Isa_59:1).
3. The pleasantest (1Pe_1:8).
4. The readiest (Psa_46:1).
5. The most suitable (Isa_43:2-3).
6. The most constant (Heb_13:5).
7. The most universal.
III. APPLY THIS to
1. Temporal troubles. Art thou troubled with
(1) Poverty?
(a) Faith is the best riches (Jam_2:5).
(b) It will turn thy very poverty into a blessing (Rom_8:28).
(2) Disgrace?
(a) By faith thou mayest see the emptiness of honour (Psa_42:11).
(b) Faith will procure thee honour (Heb_1:14; 1Sa_2:30).
(3) Sickness and pains.? By faith
(a) Thou mayest see God’s love in them (Heb_12:6).
(b) Thou mayest get good by them (Psa_119:71).
(c) Thou mayest receive more comfort in them than in health.
(4) Losses and crosses?
(a) Faith will show thee from whence they came (Job_1:21).
(b) Why (Heb_12:10).
(c) And so turn them to thy gain (2Co_4:17).
(5) Fears of death? Faith will show thee
(a) That the sting is out (1Co_15:55).
(b) That death is but the entrance of life.
(c) And so turn thy fears into hopes (Php_1:23).
2. In spiritual troubles. Art thou troubled
(1) For thy sins?
(a) God is merciful (Psa_103:8; Isa_43:25).
(b) Christ is all-sufficient (1Jn_2:1).
(2) With thy lusts?
(a) God is almighty.
(b) Christ will send His Spirit (chap. 16:7).
(c) Faith conquers them (1Jn_5:4).
(3) With desertions? If thou believest
(a) God will never forsake thee wholly (Joh_13:1; Heb_13:5).
(b) Christ will pray that thy faith fail not (Luk_22:31-32).
(Bp. Beveridge.)
Christ’s word to the troubled
This is a discourse showing the disciple his refuge from trouble. The refuge
I. OF FAITH. “Believe in God: believe also in Me,” etc. Three grand truths are at the basis of Christianity: God, Christ, Immortality. They are the antidotes to atheism, the helplessness of guilt, and the hopelessness of death.
II. OF LOVE. A personal relation to Christ, He is the way of God to man and of man to God; the truth, about all the soul needs to know and which natural theology fails to answer; and the life, eternal and blissful.
III. OF HOPE. Here was a personal bereavement. He was about to withdraw, and the loss was the more inconsolable because He was the object of faith and love. But He compensates this loss by the promise of the Holy Ghost, through whom they should do greater works, by whom God is manifest in the believer, etc., and who should abide with them forever. And He promises that He will personally intercede for believers above, while the Spirit intercedes in them below. And so He who goes away actually does not leave them orphans, but comes to them, dwells in them, manifests Himself to them, and is seen by them. And so this part of the discourse ends as it began, with peace. Peace
1. For the mind harassed with doubt, by establishing the certainties of faith.
2. For the heart harassed with unsatisfied cravings, by establishing it upon God. (A. T. Pierson, D. D.)
Christ’s remedy for a troubled heart
I. THE TROUBLED HEART. Trouble in estate is bad, but heart trouble is worst. The mariner cares not for the howling tempest, but matters are serious when the sea gains entrance. Causes.
1. Unpardoned sin.
(1) We cannot ignore it.
(2) Dare not excuse it.
(3) Are unable to expiate it.
2. Separation from beloved friends.
(1) By absence;
(2) by death.
3. Persecution.
4. Disappointed hopes. So the disciples have trials. Sometimes from a clear sky the thunder peals; from richest verdure the venomous serpent hisses.
II. THE QUIET HEART.
1. We acknowledge the authority of the decalogue; but our Lord’s command is equally binding.
2. This is the purpose of God. Every apparent discord leads up to the final harmony.
3. The quiet heart is the best learner, worker, warrior.
4. The quiet heart is a mirror of heaven.
III. HOW CAN THE TROUBLED HEART BE MADE INTO THE QUIET HEART.
1. The old belief in God. The Jews had fallen into polytheism, but the captivity cured them. Christ points to the old well of comfort--a firm belief in one ever-living God.
(1) God will smite all wrong.
(2) He will bring forth the righteous as the sun.
2. The new belief in Christ. Inferentially a proof of Christ’s Divinity.
(1) As the great atoning Substitute. There is nothing in the new philosophy to calm the troubled heart.
(2) As our sympathizing Brother and High Priest.
(3) As alive forever more.
(4) As our Representative and Forerunner--“I go to prepare a place,” etc.
We need not shrink from “Worlds unknown.” He has made them well known; “brought life and immortality to light,” and will come again and receive us unto Himself. (W. Andersen, LL. D.)
Christ comforting
There was some good in the disciples’ trouble.
1. There was natural trouble at the departure of such a friend. For we are flesh, not steel; and in that sense, Christ was troubled Himself to show the truth of His manhood. Nay, trouble is the seasoning of all heavenly comforts; there were no comforts if there were no trouble; and therefore this natural trouble was not disallowed by Christ.
2. There was likewise something spiritually good in this trouble. They loved their Master, who they saw was going away. They were right in this principle, that all comfort depends on the presence of Christ. For as all heavenly light, and heat, and influence come from the sun, so all heavenly comforts must come to us from Christ’s presence. Their error was in tying all comfort to a bodily presence; as if it were necessary for the sun to come down and abide upon the earth, to bestow its heat and influence.
I. THE BEST CHRISTIANS ARE SUBJECT TO BE TROUBLED MORE THAN SHOULD BE. Christ was troubled, but His trouble was like the shaking of clear water in a crystal glass. There was no mud in the bottom. But our trouble is of another kind, and apt to be inordinate (1Sa_1:13; Isa_38:14; Psa_77:3; Jon_2:2).
1. God permits us to be troubled
(1) For conformity to our Head.
(2) That we may be known to ourselves; that we may discern where our weakness lieth, and so be better instructed to seek Him in whom our strength lieth.
(3) For the preventing of spiritual sins.
(4) In regard of others, that we maybe pitiful.
2. But how shall we know that our hearts are more troubled than they should be? We may sin in being overmuch troubled at things for which it is a sin not to be troubled. If they had not been at all affected with the absence of Christ, it had been a sin, and no less than stupidity; yet it was their sin to be overmuch troubled. A trouble is sinful when it hinders us in duties; or from duty, when the soul is like an instrument out of tune, or a limb out of joint. Naturally, affections should be helps to duty, they being the winds that carry the soul on, and the spiritual wings of the soul. But then they must be regulated and ordered at the command of a spiritual understanding. Now, besides the hurt that is in such affections themselves, Satan loves to fish in these troubled waters (Eph_4:26). That was Saul’s case (1Sa_16:23).
3. We should not yield to excess of trouble. And the reasons are:
(1) We wrong our ownselves. We make actions difficult unto us. The wheels of the soul are thereby taken off (Neh_8:10).
(2) We do dishonour to God, mistaking His goodness, murmuring at tits providence, wronging His graciousness and nursing a rebellious pride.
(3) We dishonour Christ, and the love of God in Christ; for it is as if we had not in Him a sufficient remedy for that great malady.
(4) Christ hath forbidden it, “Let not,” etc.
II. THE WAYS WHEREBY WE MUST LABOUR TO COMFORT OUR HEARTS.
1. There must be a due search into the heart of the grounds of our trouble; for often Christians are troubled, they cannot tell wherefore; as children that will complain they know not why. See if there be not some Achan in the camp.
2. And when you have found out your sin give it vent by confession of it to God, and in some cases to others.
3. And when we have done so, consider what promises, and comforts, in that Word of God are fitted to that condition. And therefore we ought to be skilful in the Word of God, that we may store up comforts beforehand.
4. When we have these promises, let us labour to understand them thoroughly, and then to digest them in our affections, and so make them our own, and then to walk in the strength and comfort of them.
5. Labour likewise to have them fresh in memory. It is a great defect of Christians that they forget their consolation (Heb_12:5).
6. Labour to keep unspotted consciences.
7. And because there can be no more comfort than there is care of duty, therefore, together with innocency, let us be careful of all duties in all our several relations.
8. But above all let us labour for a spirit of faith. “You believe in God,” etc. How cloth faith in Christ ease the soul in trouble?
(1) It banishes troubles, and brings in comfort, because it is an emptying grace. It empties us of ourselves, and so makes us cleave to another, and thereby becomes a grace of union. It makes us one with the fountain of comfort, and by its repeated acts derives fresh comfort.
(2) It establishes the heart.
(3) It stirs up such graces as comfort the soul, as hope in all good things promised. “In My Father’s house are many mansions.” (R. Sibbes, D. D.)
Christ comforting the disciples
I. THE HEROIC ATTITUDE CHRIST ASSUMES. He had just dismissed Judas, knew what was transpiring outside, and what would follow. And yet He sat amongst His disciples perfectly composed, and was able to counsel deliberate composure in the prospect of affliction. This was not from any insensibility to pain, nor superiority to it (Joh_11:33; Joh_12:27; Joh_13:21). Itwas a wonderful manifestation of spiritual strength, and as an example was more forcible than even His counsel for the production of a like spirit.
II. THE HEROIC SPIRIT CHRIST COMMANDS HIS DISCIPLES TO CULTIVATE. They were in a grievous plight. They had been drawn into fellowship with Christ. He had led them step by step, and they had learned to lean upon Him utterly. And now He was about to be taken from them by a cruel death, and leave them exposed to persecution for His sake. An hour ago there had been a strife among them which of them should be greatest. How vain all these ambitions seemed now! And yet our Lord counsels calmness. Then
1. It is possible to overmaster trouble, however hard the lot in life may be.
2. It is important to overmaster it; a troubled heart is our agitated medium and cannot see things clearly, and our enfeebled agent impotent to do them adequately.
III. THE SECRET OF A HEROIC SPIRIT WHICH CHRIST COMMUNICATED TO THEM.
1. Faith in God. The Old Testament saints found in this a panacea for all their cares. “Thou wilt keep Him in perfect peace,” etc., There were resources in Omnipotence which they felt to be equal to all human exigency (Isa_26:3-4). Something of this the disciples knew.
2. Our Lord argues from the Father to Himself, and particularly recommends them to have such faith in Him as they have in God.
3. The advantage of this two-fold trust. Although the disciples had a certain faith in God, it left them far from satisfied with it. Hence Philip’s request. God was more or less remote from and incomprehensible to them; but Christ brought them near. “He that hath seen Me,” etc. This sufficed. (W. Roberts.)
Grounds of comfort
I. HEAVEN IS SURE (Joh_14:2-3).
II. THERE IS A CERTAIN WAY TO HEAVEN (Joh_14:4-11).
III. CHRIST’S WORK DOES NOT CEASE WITH CHRIST’S DEPARTURE (Joh_14:12-14).
IV. THE HELP OF THE SPIRIT IS VOUCHSAFED in the absence of Christ (Joh_14:15-17).
V. CHRIST’S ABSENCE IS ONLY TEMPORARY (Joh_14:18-24).
VI. THE SPIRIT WILL TEACH THE DISCIPLES, and supply their want of understanding when left alone (Joh_14:25-26).
VII. THE LEGACY OF PEACE to cheer in the Master’s absence (Joh_14:27). (Prof. Hengstenberg.)
Sources of Christian comfort
There is a class of words the meaning of which is known to all, and without consulting a dictionary most people know what the word “trouble” means. The man who should attempt to construct a theory of life and leave trouble out of the account would be no philosopher. How to deal with it, and not how to ignore it, becomes the great problem. From both ancients and moderns proposals of alleviation and help are forthcoming. But He who boldly cries, “Let not your heart be troubled” must possess infallible antidotes. What are they? Faith and Hope directed to their proper objects. We propose, then, to examine
I. THE GROUNDS ON WHICH CHRIST SOLICITS OUR FAITH. Relief comes by belief. To be able in some overpowering grief to throw the weight of one’s care upon another and to trust wholly in that other’s help is an eminently satisfying process; while the trustless soul is without the least gleam of comfort. In these times of daring denial and of timid doubt it is well to be reminded that in the great crises of life--poverty, bereavement, affliction--denial is mockery and doubt is impotence, and that only an honest andhearty belief will secure sufficient solace. Christ solicits our faith on the ground of
1. A prior acknowledgment of the Divine. “Ye believe in God.” Christ desires nothing contrary to already existing and inborn Godward conceptions of the soul, but merely that we enlarge those conceptions so as to include Him.
2. The defectiveness of our belief apart from Him. “Ye believe in God;” yes, but that is inadequate, it needs supplementing. The most anxious moments of humanity have been spent in searchings after such a view of God as would enable man to approach Him without dread. Humanity’s great longing has waited until Christ for its complete satisfaction. He has extracted from the thought of God all that is calculated to give pain and introduced everything calculated to give comfort. “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.”
3. His personality. Trust must repose on a person to be trust at all. Christian apologists often begin with the proofs of superhuman skill and power, and so lead up to the central object of Christian faith. But Christ asked for immediate trust in Himself, for with that would come a hearty belief in all He said and did.
II. THE MOTIVES BY WHICH HE ENCOURAGES OUR HOPE. By “two immutable things,” Christ intends us to have “strong consolation.” Hope is as important a contribution to comfort as faith; the two together, exercised rightly, never fail. Without a future what is the present worth? An English nobleman once asked himself why there should be a future existence, and answered, “Because, on any other hypothesis, the world would be a piece of magnificent nonsense.”
1. Christ, implying human immortality, reveals heaven. He bids the troubled be comforted by directing their hope to the positive existence of an absolutely untroubled state. Heaven is rendered attractive to us as much by its exemptions as by its possessions (Rev_21:4). Christ does present also a positive view. Heaven is a home. “In My Father’s house!” A house is not necessarily a home, but a father’s house always is, or ought to be. A happy earthly home is the nearest approach to an adequate conception of the life of heaven. “My Father’s house” is a happier home than the happiest of earthly ones.
2. Hope is encouraged by the variety of heavenly enjoyments. “Many mansions,” many methods of enjoyment, various fields of occupation, unexhausted resources of interest and pleasure. An endless uniformity of type would be fatal to perfect happiness.
3. Hope is further encouraged by Christ’s guarantee of its realization. “If it were not so I would have told you,” etc. What security this! He could not countenance a delusion. Conclusion: We read of a Roman army, when eagerly engaged in battle with their country’s enemies, being unconscious of an earthquake which made the ground beneath their feet to tremble; and so will a high faith in God and Christ, and a holy hope of immortality and heaven, cause the true Christian to be insensible to the tossings to and fro of the life that now is. (W. Brooks.)
The Christian not afraid of unseen dangers
General Sherman is reported to have said: “One difference between General Grant and myself is this: I am not afraid of dangers that I can see, but he is not afraid of dangers that he cannot see.” Any good soldier of Jesus Christ has a right to absolute confidence as he goes forward, even in the dark. For the Saviour says to him, Whatever comes, “Let not your heart be troubled.”
Men seem unwilling to be without trouble
Men do not avail themselves of the riches of God’s grace. They love to nurse their cares, and seem as uneasy without some fret as an old friar would be without his hair girdle.
They are commanded to cast their cares upon the Lord; but, even when they attempt it, they do not fail to catch them up again, and think it meritorious to walk burdened. They take God’s ticket to heaven, and then put their baggage on their shoulders, and tramp, tramp, the whole way there afoot.
Christ will relieve our troubles
I heard of a man who was walking along the high road, with a pack on his back: he was growing weary, and was, therefore, glad when a gentleman came along in a chaise, and asked him to take a seat with him. The gentleman noticed that he kept his pack strapped to his shoulders, and so he said, “Why do you not put your pack down?” “Why, sir,” said the traveller, “I did not venture, to intrude. It was very kind of you to take me up, and I could not expect you to carry my pack as well.” “Why,” said his friend, “do you not see that whether your pack is on your back, or off your back, I have to carry it?” My hearer, it is so with your trouble: whether you care, or do not care, it is the Lord who must care for you. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The consolation of the gospel unique
In this I say the gospel differs sharply from the most cultivated pagan thought of the age in which it appeared in the world. When Seneca is trying to console a lady who is suffering agonies of mind under a severe bereavement, he can only suggest to her that she had better try as soon as possible to forget her trouble. She has, he says, good examples around her in the birds and in the beasts. They too love their relations, but after a momentary spasm when they lose them they take life easily again; and in doing this they show man an example which he would do well to imitate. As if the mental pain which means to man so much more than to the beast, precisely because he is man and not beast, could be conjured out of him by a philosophy which talks incessantly of his dignity and can only make him comfortable, if at all, at the cost of forgetting it! (Canon Liddon.)
Religion has many comforts
Why should you carry troubles and sorrows unhealed? There is no bodily wound for which some herb doth not grow, and heavenly plants are more medicinal. Bind up your hearts in them, and they shall give you not only healing, but leave with you the perfume of the blessed gardens where they grew. Thus it may be that sorrows shall turn to riches; for heart troubles, in God’s husbandry, are not wounds, but the putting in of the spade before the planting of seeds. (H. W.Beecher.)
Glimpses of our heavenly home
I. THE TROUBLE IN THE HEART OF THE DISCIPLES. The trouble
1. Of agonized ignorance and blank bewilderment. Long before, Jesus had dropped hints of a mysterious journey that He had to take. As the time went on, He spoke of it more frequently, and in terms more and more darkly suggestive of horror. This had not seemed to trouble their heart at first; they regarded His language as metaphorical Probably they had the impression that first some great battle had to be fought, or some unknown trial to be gone through; that would last three days. So just before, Peter asks, “Whither goest thou?”
2. Of bereaved love. “Do I love the Lord, or no?” was not a question in any heart there. Jesus had poured upon them all the very essence of kindness, and had received them into the very sanctuary of His heart. Naturally, it was this mighty love that made bereavement of its object so intolerable. Christ had not yet left them; but love may feel a bereavement before it is bereaved.
3. From the thought of having no share in the last passion of their Lord. “Why cannot I follow Thee now?” Love said then, as love says now, “Give me some work to do; some cross to carry; some block to lay nay head upon.” It is impossible to stand idly by while Christ gives and suffers all.
II. THE ANTIDOTE.
1. A peculiar, most tranquillizing revelation of the heaven to which He is going--“a place.” Along with other elements of comfort, our nature needs this. We have been told that this is a doctrine of Materialism, and that heaven is in character rather than in condition. This is only a half-truth, and we want the whole. “Heaven is principle,” said Confucius; but a house to live in must be built of something besides principle. Heaven is for the complete man, body and soul; and a body asks for a place, understanding that heaven is at least a place, we are ready to ask a thousand questions about it as such; and one of the first will be, “Where is it in the map of the universe?” In times not a few has this been made a question of astronomy, and to suggest the possibility of some central heaven amongst the stars. Well, the inquiry must start from our own solar system. This, with its circle of at least 5,000,000,000 miles in diameter, is but a speck in the creation. Its stars burn and roll round the sun, their centre. The sun, carrying all these his satellites with him, is moving round another centre, with its system; that, about another; that, about another; and where is the fixed ultimate centre round which all the other centres are wheeling and moving? The only One who could have settled this question was silent about it. He says nothing of its whereabouts, of its beauty, of its music, except in signs that are manifestly but hieroglyphic. He knew that the most exact precision of statement and the most dazzling magic of description would leave the greatest as well as the least of mortals as much in the dark as ever. Therefore Christ, aiming at our spiritual profit rather than at our scientific enlightenment, leaves for future solution all problems that have only to do with place.
2. That the heavenly place is His home and theirs. He has just addressed them in the language of family affection as His “little children.” With this word of love still in the air, He proceeds to speak of heaven as “My Father’s house.” A little child looks upon his father’s house as his own, and so would Christ have us look upon heaven. Even on earth, a father’s house is his child’s home; and the dearest place to the best man, woman, child, is home. “Home, sweet home.” Earth is one of My Father’s battlefields, farms, foundries, factories, roads that He travels on; but heaven is our “Father’s house,” and therefore the home of all His family.
3. That in that home are many mansions, i.e., settled abodes; the same word as in Joh_14:23. Emphasis resting on the idea of permanence. Jesus was speaking to the sad thoughts then stirring in the hearts of His mourners on account of the shortness of the time they had spent with Him, and which seemed, in the review, only like a dream. “What does this lack to make it perfect?” asked an old Roman of his companion, as they were together looking on some imperial show; and the answer was, “Permanence.” “Permanence adds bliss to bliss.” In the word “many,” He spoke to the thoughts of the company. When one of the disciples, on the notice of His near departure, asked if he might go with Him, the virtual answer was “No.” This refusal to the “one” was a blow to “the many.” If the happiness of going with the Lord is not to be given even to Peter, what is to become of the many? We had all expected that we should go with Him into His kingdom. If these happy dreams of ours are all to melt into misery, why were we not informed of this before? Before now, on some festive day, when a man has asked his friends to his house, he has been forced to ask only a few, because, though his heart was large enough for many, his house was not. Before now, in the straits of some war, some iron captain has spared the lives of only a few prisoners, simply on the ground of lacking room to accommodate the many. God has room in His purpose, in His heart, in His house, for all His captives. By the miracle of His grace He first changes all His captives into children, then welcomes them all home. No limitation is suggested by the indefinite plural, “many.” “Many” simply stands for all the children, “a great multitude which no man can number,” “and yet there is room!”
4. That He is going “to prepare a place” for them. While man is asleep in the night, the sun goes before him, that he may prepare the day for him to wake in. Thus he prepares light for him to see by, power for him to work with, and the spirit of gladness. So does Christ prepare heaven for the heirs of heaven. There can be no heaven without the revelation of God, and there can be no revelation of God without Christ. He prepares heaven for them, not only by preparing their right to the place, but by preparing their fitness for it. “Why cannot I go with Thee now?” asked Peter; and the saying, “I go to prepare a place for you,” is an answer to this “Why?” Christ was going to prepare a place for them; first, by His Cross; next, by the Spirit, who would change their hearts and train their natures for the rank they would inherit, as well as for the work they had to do.
5. That He would come again, and receive them unto Himself. Dying may be regarded as a mode in which Christ comes for His people, one by one. Death is not coming; death is not a person, only a door, to which Christ, the sovereign Lord who has at His girdle the keys of death and the unseen state, comes. (C. Stanford, D. D.)
Ye believe in God, believe also in Me
Belief in Christ
I. WHAT IS IT TO BELIEVE? Faith includes two things.
1. The submission of the reason to all Christ has revealed.
2. The trust of the heart in all He has promised. Both of these are difficult duties. To receive as true what we cannot understand, on God’s testimony is declared to be irrational. But remember that faith is rational, and that the testimony of God is informing. To trust that we shall be pardoned, saved, preserved, is equally difficult for unbelieving hearts.
II. THE OBJECT OF FAITH IS CHRIST--i.e., the things to which we are to assent are truths concerning Christ, and these things in which we are to trust are His promises. This is the only form in which we can exercise faith in God. If we believe not God, as seen, how can we believe in Him as not seen.
III. WHAT ARE WE TO BELIEVE CONCERNING CHRIST AND WHAT ARE THE PROMISES WHICH WE ARE TO TRUST?
1. We must believe that He is the Way, i.e., that He brings us to God. We are separated from God
(1) By our ignorance. Christ brings us near to God as an object of knowledge. He is the Loges or Revealer. He is God in our nature.
(2) By our guilt. Christ brings us near to God by reconciliation through His blood. He atones for our sins. Through Him we are able to draw near to God with hope of acceptance.
(3) By our enmity. Christ, by revealing the knowledge of God, and reconciling us to Him, removes our enmity.
2. That He is the Truth, i.e
(1) That He is real; the true God; true Prophet, Priest, King.
(2) That in Him is all truth and excellence.
3. That He is the Life--the source of universal, intellectual, spiritual and eternal life. It is not we that live, but Christ that lives in us.
IV. WHAT PROMISES ARE WE TO TRUST TO? The promises of the Spirit.
1. That His presence is permanent and internal.
2. That He will reveal Christ.
3. That He will be our Paraclete. (C. Hodge, D. D.)
Believe also in Me
1. It might have been urged that the disciples are addressed by our Lord as already believing, not in God only, but in Himself. But the Bible, and He who speaks therein, is truer to nature and experience than many who profess to interpret it. Are there not many in Christian Churches needing still the voice which shall say, Believer, believe; Christian, come to Christ; disciple of three or of thirty years, still, as for the first time, behold Him!
2. There are those, even among Christian people who confide to us, in the tone of sincere and humble regret--“I cannot see why a Saviour was needed. If I, being evil, know how to forgive, how much more shall a Father in heaven accept the first sigh and bestow the unpurchased grace? Is it not enough if I believe in God my Father? Why must I be encumbered with a revelation of sacrifice which rather repels me than reassures? I believe in God--why must I believe also in Christ?” Let us endeavour to answer this question.
I. Now, someone might say, Look at the saints of the Old Testament. What grace, of reverence, of affiance, of holy aspiration, was lacking in the patriarch Abraham, or to the poet-king of the Psalms? Christ was not manifested when those thoughts of eternal fulness glowed and throbbed in the big heart of David. We venture to dispute the very fact taken for granted. Abraham, “saw Christ’s day,” and walked in the light of it. David was reared amidst promises which made Christ a household word in Israel, and sacrifices which brought to the very senses the need and hope of propitiation.
II. Or you might speak of men who, in this century, have not only led good lives, but have had pious feelings, and done beneficent works, without realizing what we should call the fulness of the Christian faith--avowed Unitarians, e.g. But it is only truth to remember that men thus dispensing with Christ are yet unspeakably indebted to Him. The very idea of God as our Father comes from His revelation.
III. Still, you might say, having made this great revelation, may not Christ Himself disappear? Having taught that God is our Father, must He remain in sight to confuse or divide our allegiance? Believing in God by Christ’s help, why go on further to believe in Christ? Now, it is an obvious answer, and surely a just one. We cannot take Christ by halves. If Christ said one thing from God, He said all things: we must look to see what He said, and not, after catching one isolated word, presume to declare that one word all.
IV. Observe, too, how the particular truth received, no less than the accompanying doctrines objected to, runs up into matters which we can neither dispute as facts, nor yet, apart from God, settle. Sin--you see it, you feel it; all religions pre-suppose it. Evidently sin has made a great rent and breach in God’s work. Listen to this new Teacher, crying in the hearing of the dislocated and disorganized creation, “When ye pray, say, Our Father.” Yes, we say, something within tells me that I had a Father once--but long, long have I lost Him. Tell me the processes by which it has been recovered--the marvellous mystery of restored sonship and reawakened love. Shall we accept the bare fact, and ask nothing as to the proofs and the instrumentalities? Shall we let Christ say, “God is your Father,” and never question Him once as to anything further? They who believe the mighty intelligence must hearken what the same Lord bus to say concerning it. May it be, perhaps, that there was that in the Divine holiness which made sin a fatal bar to man’s acceptance, except on some condition which God only can perform? Shall we dare, we the guilty and helpless ones, to say that, with nothing but poor human tears and cries and paltry efforts, the stain of sin can be wiped out? Shall we dare to repose upon a feeble bureau analogy, and rest the whole weight of eternity upon the impulses and instincts (not always, even here, prevailing) of family love and parental tenderness? What if there lurked in the background of Deity an obstacle which Calvary alone could take away? It was, no doubt, with special reference to His sacrifice and its consequences that Christ spoke of His disciples, in the text, as having (in some sense) still to believe. They knew Him for the Messiah; what they had still to learn, still to believe in, was the death as itself the life. It is, indeed, the crucial test of faith. He who believes in Christ’s atonement believes Christ; believes that He came from God, and came with a message.
V. But, although we thus stand upon the dignity of the Cross as a mystery, we do find, as a matter of experience, that no man dispenses with it without being a definite loser in some feature of the Christian character.
1. There is often a feeble sense of the sinfulness of sin. A man cannot really see Himself a sinner, and not cry out for a Saviour.
2. There is often a want of true tenderness towards sinners. Benevolence there may be; but the discovery of unworthiness in the object of the philanthropy is often the death blow of charity. Or, again, there may be an easiness of good nature ready enough to see excuses: there will not be that unique combination, which was in the cross itself, and which is in the true family of the Crucified--tenderness towards the sinner, with displeasure against the sin.
VI. God, in arranging that we should receive this greatest of His gifts--reconciliation through His Son--has given a charm and pathos to the gospel which it could not otherwise have possessed. What possession do you not value tenfold if it is yours through love? That book, that trinket, why is it dear to you? It was the keepsake of a loving friend. And do you not think that God was appealing, perhaps, to some such instinct of your nature, when He would not only send word to you that you were pardoned, but bid you to receive the blessing through the willing self-gift of One who, sharing every emotion of God’s love for the self-ruined one, came Himself to plead, and at last to die, because thus He could effectually “roll away the great stone” sin, move the obdurate, and win back the lost? Conclusion: Try the charge, “Believe also in me.” Lean your whole weight of guilt, of sin, of weakness, of sorrow, upon Jesus Christ and Him crucified. See whether, in proportion as you trust Christ more, you become not, in yourself, happier, holier, stronger, gentler. Thus, in time, you shall have a witness within. You life shall be one echo to the sweet persuasive expostulation,” Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God; believe also in Me.” (Dean Vaughan.)
Faith in God one with faith in Christ
We get a more true and appropriate meaning if we keep both clauses in the imperative, “Believe in God, believe also in me.”
I. CHRIST HERE POINTS TO HIMSELF AS THE OBJECT OF PRECISELY THE SAME RELIGIOUS TRUST WHICH IS TO BE GIVEN TO GOD.
1. It is only our familiarity with these words that blinds us to their wonderfulness. Try to hear them for the first time, and to remember the circumstances. Here is a man amongst a handful of friends, within four-and-twenty hours of a shameful death, that to all appearance was the annihilation of all His claims and hopes. And He says, “Trust in God, and trust in Me!”
2. What is it that Christ offers us? A very low and inadequate interpretation is, “Believe that God is, that I am.” But it is scarcely less so to suppose that the mere assent of the understanding to His teaching is all that Christ is asking for. Faith grasps not a doctrine, but a heart. The trust which Christ requires is entire committal to Him in all my relations and for all my needs.
3. Further, note that this believing in Him is precisely the same thing which He bids us render to God. The two clauses in the original bring out that idea even more vividly--“Believe in God, in Me also believe.” And so He here proposes Himself as the worthy and adequate recipient of all that makes up religion in its deepest sense. That tone is the uniform characteristic of our Lord’s teaching. What did He think of Himself Who stood up before the world, and with arms outstretched, like that great white Christ in Thorwaldsen’s lovely statue, said to all the troop of languid and burdened ones crowding at His feet:--“Come unto Me all ye that are weary,” etc. That surely is a Divine prerogative. What did He think of
Himself Who said, “All men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father”? You cannot eliminate the fact that Christ claimed as His own the emotions of the heart, to which only God has a right and which only God can satisfy.
4. We have to take that into account if we would estimate the character of Jesus Christ as a teacher and as a man. What separates Him from all other teachers is not the clearness or the tenderness with which He reiterated the truths about the Father’s love, and morality and goodness; but the peculiarity of His call to the world is, Believe in Me. And if He said that, why, then, one of two things. Either He was wrong, and then He was a crazy enthusiast, only acquitted of blasphemy because convicted of insanity; or else He was “God, manifest in the flesh.”
II. FAITH IN CHRIST AND FAITH IN GOD ARE NOT TWO, BUT ONE. These two clauses on the surface present juxtaposition. Looked at more closely they present interpretation and identity.
1. What is the underlying truth that is here? How comes it that these two objects blend into one, like two figures in a stereoscope?
(1) This, that Jesus Christ Himself Divine, is the Divine Revealer of God. There is no real knowledge of the real God outside of Jesus. He showing us a Father, has brought a God to our hearts that we can love, and of whom we can be sure. Very significant is it that Christianity alone puts the very heart of religion in the act of trust. Other religions put it in dread worship, service, and the like.
(2) On the other hand, the truth that underlies this is that Jesus is Divine. The light shines through a window, but the light and the glass that make it visible have nothing in common with one another. The Godhead shines through Christ, but He is not a mere transparent medium. It is Himself that He is showing us when He is showing us God. “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” And because He is Himself Divine and the Divine Revealer, therefore the faith that grasps Him is inseparably one with the faith that grasps God. Men could look upon a Moses, an Isaiah, or a Paul, and in them recognize the irradiation of the Divinity that imparted itself through them, but the medium was forgotten in proportion as that which it revealed was behind. You cannot forget Christ in order to see God more clearly, but to behold Him is to behold God.
2. And if that be true, these two things follow.
(1) One is that all imperfect revelation of God is prophetic of and leads up towards the perfect revelation in Jesus Christ (Heb_1:1-3). And in like manner all the imperfect faith that, laying hold of other fragmentary means of knowing God, has tremulously tried to trust Him, finds its climax and consummate flower in the full-blossomed faith that lays hold upon Jesus Christ.
(2) That without faith in Christ such faith in God as is possible is feeble, incomplete, and will not long last. Historically a pure theism is all but impotent. There is only one example of it on a large scale in the world, and that is a kind of bastard Christianity--Mohammedanism; and we all know what good that is as a religion. The God that men know outside of Jesus Christ is a poor, nebulous thing; an idea, not a reality. It has little power to restrain. It has less power to inspire and impel. It has still less to comfort; it has least of all to satisfy the heart.
III. THIS TRUST IN CHRIST IS THE SECRET OF A QUIET HEART.
1. It is no use saying to men, “Let not your hearts be troubled,” unless you finish the verse. The state of man is like that of some of those sunny islands in southern seas, around which there often rave the wildest cyclones, and which carry in their bosoms, beneath all their riotous luxuriance of verdant beauty, hidden fires, which ever and anon shake the solid earth and spread destruction. And where is the “rest” to come from? All other defences are weak and poor. We have heard about “pills against earthquakes.” That is what the comforts which the world supplies may fairly be likened to. Unless we trust we are, and shall be, “troubled.”
2. If we trust we may be quiet. To cast a burden off myself on other’s shoulders is always a rest. But trust in Jesus Christ brings infinitude on my side. Submission is repose. When we cease to kick against the pricks they cease to stick and wound us. Trust opens the heart, like the windows of the Ark, tossing upon the black and fatal flood, for the entrance of the peaceful dove with the olive branch in its mouth. But “the wicked is like the troubled sea which cannot rest.” (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Faith in God
1. Why should it have been needful to give such a command as this to any in
