James Nisbet Commentary - John 8:46 - 8:46

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James Nisbet Commentary - John 8:46 - 8:46


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THE SINLESSNESS OF CHRIST

‘Jesus said, which of you convinceth Me of sin?’

Joh_8:46

It is well for us that we should once more assure ourselves of the supernatural claim of Christ. And the words of the text bring home to us part of the stupendous peculiarity of this claim. ‘Which of you convinceth Me of sin?’ He claims to be sinless. Humble penitence grows in the life of a saint. How is it, then, that with our Lord the very reverse is the case? How is it that He is absolutely unconscious of any shortcoming or sin? There is practically no answer to these questions but the answer implied in the Catholic creeds. He is Himself the ideal that man is reaching after. He is Himself the image of God which man has defaced by sin. He is Himself one with the Father, Whose will is that which man rebels against when he sins. There is no penitence because there is no sin. ‘Christ,’ as the Article says, ‘in the truth of our nature was made like unto us in all things, sin only except, from which He was clearly void, both in His flesh and in His spirit. He came to be the Lamb without spot, Who, by the sacrifice of Himself once made, should take away the sins of the world, and sin, as John saith, was not in Him’ (Art. xv).

Whether it is the forgiveness of sins that we seek, or the possibility of following our Lord’s example in a new life, to each and every case it is the Divine Saviour that we need.

Let us consecrate our thoughts on the Divinity of the Lord, Who offers up Himself in Sacrifice.

I. There is a tendency to minimise the importance of this doctrine of the Godhead of Christ.—We shall best combat this tendency not so much by argument as by the evidence of the power of Christ in us. If we could show men that what Christ has done for us, and in us, is something that could only have been done by God, we shall have done more than a hundred books of Christian apologetics could ever do. We must not, then, be content to rely on the cogency of intellectual arguments. We must ourselves feel the force of them in ourselves, in our personal experience.

Let us examine our lives in the light of what Christ has done for all human beings, and what He offers to all who believe on Him.

(a) Let us examine ourselves in the matter of sin. It is the sin of the world which the Lamb of God is ready to take away. What about my sin? Have I finally broken with that bad habit that has so long been marring my life, and making it so unlike the sinless life of Christ? Can I dare look around and say, ‘Which of you convinceth me of sin?’ And if my neighbours could not convince me of sin, could God the Holy Ghost do so? How blessed, indeed, to be able humbly to believe that God was even pleased with us, to be able to trust that there really was nothing between us and acceptance by the Heavenly Father. And if there is still the darkness of sin in me, if there is still something that is holding me back, why not cast it away once for all?

(b) Again, even if I can humbly trust that I am forgiven, is there not some weakness that still needs the strength of Christ to overcome it in me. Is there not some temptation that still assails me, even though I know my will is against sin? Do we not all need the power of Jesus to transform and renew and quicken us? Well, then, this, too, is inherent in the sacrifice of Calvary. Christ died for us, but He is also ready to be in us. By His spirit and by His Sacraments He dwells in us; He breaks down the old evil nature in us, and fills us with the invigorating influence of His own perfection.

II. How glorious for us to be able to take our stand by the side of Jesus as He faces His enemies, and trusting in Him to be able to associate ourselves with His calm assertion of innocence, ‘Which of you convinceth Me of sin?’ By His grace we can do this if we will. We, too, can confront the world. They may deny the Lord Who bought them. They may insult His Name. They may scoff at His Church, His Bible, His Sacraments. But if by our simple lives of innocence, trusting in Him and the power of His Cross and Passion, we go on our way, we shall in the end come out victorious. Let us, then, follow the Lamb, whithersoever He goeth.

Rev. the Hon. J. Adderley.

Illustration

‘The sinlessness of our Lord has been supposed to be compromised by the conditions of the development of His life as man—sometimes by particular acts and sayings which are recorded of Him. When, for instance, we are told in the Epistle to the Hebrews that our Lord “learned obedience by the things that He suffered,” this, it is argued, clearly means progress from moral deficiency to moral sufficiency, and as a consequence it implies in Him a time when He was morally imperfect; but, although the growth of our Lord’s moral nature as man implies that as a truly human nature He was finite, it does not by any means follow that such a growth involved sin as its starting-point. A moral development may be perfect and pure, and yet be a development. A progress from a more or less expanded degree of perfection is not to be confounded with a progress from sin to holiness. In the latter case there is an element of antagonism in the will which is wholly wanting in the former. Christ’s life is a revelation of the moral life of God, completing God’s previous revelations.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE MYSTERY OF EVIL

Evil is a mystery that has burdened humanity all through the ages. It is not a modern problem. And the fact of evil ever present does not solve the mystery.

I. What is evil?—The answer is, Evil is essentially lawlessness.

II. What is the source of evil?—Evil finds its source, i.e. its possibility, not in necessity, but freedom. Were we obliged to sin, i.e. were there a law compelling us to sin, we could not be called lawless if we obeyed it, hence we could not sin; but sin, or evil, is found in moral freedom or liberty, in the ability we have to break as well as to keep law.

(a) The origin and source of evil is found in personality, in that living, thinking, free being, who, with a choice before him of two courses, chooses one and rejects the other.

(b) There is a secondary source of evil which we may call the evil of entail or heredity, whereby a lawless sire begets an offspring with lawless tendencies. These may never express themselves in actual lawlessness, but that tendency will be there.

(c) Also, apart from the evil of entail, we find sources of evil resident in consequences of former evil—the accumulation in life of past generations of wrong-doing and lawlessness.

III. Still, in consideration of the mystery of evil we rarely distinguish clearly enough between evil and its consequences.—As a rule when we think of evil we think mostly of its effects. We see, for instance, a home ruined by dissipation, we are impressed with the consequences of starving wife, naked children, we read or hear of brutal treatment of wife and children, and we shudder—at what? Evil? No, but at the consequences of evil.

(a) The pessimists. Some who look at the consequences of sin are led to despair. They take a pessimistic view of life.

(b) The epicureans. Then, again, others are led by consequences of evil into a reckless, self-indulgent epicureanism, who say, ‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,’ who plunge into wrong living, wrong thinking, and wrong doing, who would cast off all responsibility.

Yet pessimism and epicureanism are wrong. They have looked at only the consequences of evil.

IV. We ask, then, what is the cure?—What is to bring consolation to the pathetic pessimism? what is to correct the reckless epicureanism of man? what is to end the consequences of evil? The cure of the evil of this world, which so often perplexes and saddens us, is not to aim simply at repressing consequences, this is only to treat symptoms; but the cure is to reach the wills, the hearts, the affections of man—the springs of action which impel man to do what he does, to think what he thinks, to say what he says.

Illustration

‘Can we do nothing for the evil of this world, the consequences of which are manifest on all sides? Yes. One way, little though it be, is open to each of us. Let each man and each woman, each boy and each girl, save, or attempt to save, some other man or woman, boy or girl—the one next to him—and the world would soon be saved. If we only realised this, if only we were willing to do just this little—save one, inspire just one with the spirit of lawful freedom and choice, and soon the consequences of evil would be materially reduced. This we can all attempt; will we not, brethren? We who have been admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion, who have experienced the goodness of God, who have realised the Divine altruism in our lives.’