Bible Commentaries

The Private Ministry of the Gospel

John 1:45

Do you know how difficult it is to preach to one hearer? Some young people, who have a wish to be public speakers, wonder how a man can stand before a thousand of his fellow-creatures and speak to them boldly, with perfect self-possession and confidence. Believe me, there is a higher courage than that; namely, to speak to one man about Jesus, to direct your remarks to one heart, and to press your urgent appeal upon the individual conscience. Philip spoke to Nathanael, and in this fact I find an illustration of what may be called the Private Ministry of the Gospel—a ministry between one man and another—a ministry between friend and friend. To this higher courage we are all called—to this private and direct ministry we are impelled by our own thankfulness for a revelation of the Son of God; let us, therefore, endeavour to discover the basis and the method of this lofty and most blessed vocation.

The Christian minister has a distinct message to deliver to the world. Philip delivered such a message to Nathanael: "We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." The Christian ministry takes its stand upon facts. We are not sent to conceive a theory to account for circumstances that are around us; we have not to strain our minds to work out a speculation or to elaborate an argument; we have nothing to do with dreaming or supposition; fancy is not our business; first of all, midst of all, and last of all, we have to deal with facts. The Christian teacher takes his stand upon a historic rock, and only as he does so is he safe. Clearing the ground of everything, we point the inquirer in the first instance to facts: Jesus Christ was born, Jesus Christ lived, taught, died, rose again,—that is our historic outline, and we risk everything upon it; then we proceed to show that this historic outline has come out of a grand system of preparation, of prophecy, of holy service as ordained of God. Nothing else so completely, so graciously, and so gloriously meets all the points and designs of that initial system; so we do not hesitate to identify all the divine elements of human history with the person and work of Jesus Christ, and to claim for him the title of Saviour and the throne of the One true King.

Not only so. To have the facts is one thing, but something more is required. Philip did not say, Jesus Christ has been found; he said, We have found him. He himself sustained a personal relation to those facts, and this relation was the secret of his power. In a mighty ministry we find not only high intellectual, but also high emotional power; the heart gives fire to the thought. No man can preach with the truest success if he only knows the facts; he must feel them as well as know them, and then his tongue will not fail for words that find the hearts of others. Every preacher, private or public, must, so to speak, individualise the gospel; must himself represent the truths which he seeks to teach, and by so much his ministry will address itself to the deepest life of those who hear him. Know the gospel if you would formally teach it; but love the gospel if you would teach it with triumphant and blessed effect. Truly, no man knows the gospel, except as he loves it. To know about it is one thing; to have it reigning in the heart is another. It may be replied that it is not everything to know the mere facts of the gospel, and so it is undoubtedly, if you use the term "know" in its most insufficient acceptation; but as intended to be applied by me at this moment, the term includes, not only the assent of the mind, but the loving and undivided homage of the heart. We may know that a certain man has arrived in London, and the knowledge may fail to excite a single sensation in our nature; but to those who have been expecting and longing for him with most loving desire, his arrival is a blessing which fills them with thankfulness and joy. So with Christ. We have been seeking him, waiting for him, crying to God for the coming of his blessed presence, and today the fact that we have found him causes us joy inexpressible and full of glory.

If the Church would be strong in her doctrines, she must be strong in her facts. When she gets away from facts, she gets into dangerous waters. I have no fear of speculation or of controversy so long as there is a clear and grateful recognition of facts. We may be trusted to speculate so long as we are sure of the foundations; but if we trifle with the rock, we shall be the sport of the wildest dreaming, intoxicated with our supposed independence, whilst the fetters of a cruel slavery are being bound upon our feet.

In delivering his message the Christian minister will encounter opposition. Nathanael said to John 1:6-13

"There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of John 1:19-20

The John spoken of in the text is John the Baptist. John who writes the text is John the Evangelist. It is a peculiarity of John's Gospel that throughout he deals almost exclusively, though there are special exceptions, with the spiritual ministry of Jesus Christ the Son of God. The other evangelists treat very prominently of the miracles and the more public ministry of the Saviour. But the evangelist John seems to know the heart of Jesus Christ. John was the spiritual evangelist; he had keen, spiritual eyes. True, indeed, he saw all the miracles of an outward and public kind that Jesus Christ did, but he seemed to make a special note of those spiritual miracles which deal more directly with the heart and the conscience, the inner life, and the secret motives of men. You will find somewhat of my meaning from the structure of the preface to his Gospel, which we have in this opening chapter. Matthew and Luke proceed to trace out the history of Jesus Christ from the human side; they show how he came into the world, through what genealogical line he found his way amongst the sons of men. But John takes another course altogether. Instead of writing a genealogical table, showing us the whole human ancestry of the Son of God, he says, with the abruptness of sublimity, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The other evangelists seemed to bring Jesus Christ up from the earth; John opens heaven, and reveals his glory from on high. This is the key of the whole gospel; it is preeminently a spiritual revelation; it deals with the inner life of things. He who is the master of the Gospel by John is a refined and learned scholar in the school of Christ. There is very little outwardness in the statements of John; he does refer again and again to miracles, but more frequently he speaks from the interior life of the Saviour, and shows us the meaning of the truth and the grace that are in Christ Jesus. This we shall see more clearly as we pursue our way from the text which is now under consideration.

John the Baptist was preaching. A deputation was sent from Jerusalem to wait upon him, to put to him this question, "Who art thou?" He had been creating a great sensation; all the people for miles round about had been crowding to his ministry; he had excited very great interest and expectation, and people were looking out for some startling and marvellous event. John received the deputation, heard their inquiry, and when he listened to it he passed through the hour of his temptation. Is it a little thing to have a deputation waiting upon you from the capital in whose heart there is evidently a very special expectation? Is it a little thing to hear the members of the deputation say, "Who art thou?" in a tone which seems to imply, "We shall not be surprised if thou dost reveal thyself as the very light we have been expecting!" A temptation was brought thus to bear upon John. The people would have returned to those who sent them, and would have said, "Yes, this is the man; this is the realisation of all the ancient prophecies; he has come at last; his name is Messias, Son of God, King of the Jews." How did John meet the temptation? "He confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ." The wonder of those who waited upon him was increased. Who was he, then? That he was some great man could not be doubted, so they proceeded to say, "What, then, art thou Elias?" and he said, "I am not." "Art thou that prophet?" and he answered, "No." He did not at once reveal who he was, but allowed these people to pursue their inquiries for a time. He baffled them, and kept them at arm's length. It is in the same way we ourselves are treated in some such manner, now and again, even in our highest inquiries. We receive negatives, and not affirmatives, as answers. Instead of having a revelation made clear, distinct, and final, we are tempted to go further, and to repeat our inquiries in various forms. Thus God puts us under a process of training by not answering at once the inquiries with which we besiege him. Blessed is the man who will pursue his inquiry until he reaches the truth, who finds in all the answers of God licenses to ask again, to put up some other prayer, to shape his heart's wish into some other form. For truly, God is thus training the man to have a wise and understanding heart.

John knew who he was. That is one of the main points every man ought to understand about himself. He ought to be able to say who he is, what he has been called to do, what he is qualified to perform. Because a man who may have great power within a given compass may have only to step beyond the line of his limit to be utterly weak and useless. Do we know ourselves? Do we know the measure of our strength? Do we work within the compass that God has assigned us; or are we wasting our strength in those foolish ambitions which tempt us away from proper limitations and mock us, throwing us back and back again into the dust, so that at the end of the day a man who might have done some solid and substantial work in life has done nothing but follow the vagaries of a useless and mortifying ambition, and will leave the world without having done it any good? The Church ought to know what it is; the Church ought to understand its limitations. Every minister ought to know who he is, and what he is called to do. The moment a man usurps anything that does not belong to him he loses power, and the moment the Church lays claim to anything that does not fairly come within its possession as determined by Christ, that Church goes down in its best influence. "Who art thou?" If he had said, "I am the Christ," he would have won a moment's victory, but he would have opened up to himself a most ignominious and humiliating destiny. Who art thou, O man? what canst thou do? what is the purpose of God as revealed in thy life? Art thou great? art thou little? art thou intended for public life? art thou meant for private ministry? What is thy place? what is thy calling in life? Let a man understand this clearly, and work according to a devout conviction, and his life cannot be spent in vain. But let this temptation once seize a man, "I could be as great as Elias has been; I think I have within me the spirit of that prophet referred to so often in the Old Testament";—let a man extend himself ambitiously beyond his proper function and calling in life, and the result will be self-mortification, ignominy, and shame; and he who might have done something really good and useful, will go out of the world having misspent his little day.

What is true of individual men is true of the whole Church. When a man says, "I am Christ," he lies. When a man says, "I claim infallibility," he touches the highest point of blasphemy. When a man at Rome, or in London, or elsewhere, says, "I am as God upon the earth," he knows not himself; he has committed the most grievous sin, though there be upon his lips the holiest of names. I wish to be emphatic upon this; I wish every man amongst us to know himself, to understand what he is, and then, though he cannot say in reply to the inquiry, "Art thou some great one?" "Yes;" yet, if he can say that he is sent of God to do the humblest work in the world, he is great in his degree, and shall have promotion and rulership in the world that is to come. Look at John; see how the great men crowd around him; hear what temptation they suggest to him. It had never occurred to John himself, in all probability, that he was Elias, that he was "that prophet," that he was some great one. So the suggestion comes to him with all the force of a subtle temptation. What does he answer? He says, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord." That was his answer. What did he say of himself? "I am a voice." What did he say of his ministry? "I am sent to prepare the way of the Lord in the attention and the affections of the world." Thus, he who had offered to him by a very subtle temptation a brilliant crown and a high throne said, "No; I am but a voice; I am not the expected One; clearly understand my ministry and function in life; I am the herald, not the King: I blow the blast of the trumpet, and he himself will be here presently." That is just what every Christian has to do; to go before, to proclaim the Lord, to call men to preparedness, to awaken their attention, to tell them to be ready: for the Bridegroom cometh, and then to stand out of the way, as those who have indeed done a humble, yet a most useful work, in the world. But I repeat, he who knows his strength as John knew it will be strong, as no man can be who imagines himself to have a power with which God never invested him. A stern, solemn, grand man was John. He would receive no compliments; he would take nothing that did not belong to him of right. He was asked why he performed the office of baptism if he was not the Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet. John answered and said, "I baptise with water; but mine is a merely introductory ceremony, I am only giving you types, and showing you hints of things; the real work has yet to be done, the inward spiritual change has yet to be wrought in the hearts of men. This poor water, this shallow river, I use as indicative of the great fact that man needs an inward change. As for this baptism, it does nothing towards the removal of your sins, but it offers an opportunity of saying, "We are sinners; we would be saved; we would repent; we would be born again.""

After this there came in his speech a beautiful sentence: "There standeth one among you, whom ye know not; he it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose." Where was the expected one? Standing amongst the people. They were looking far away for the blessing promised to the world, and behold, that blessing was standing in their very midst. It is in this way that we miss many of the great revelations and wonderful presences that God sends down to cheer us and soothe us by gentle ministries. We are looking beyond; we are looking afar off; we think that our great blessings should come from some great distance. God says, "My child, they are under thy very hand; they are close beside thy footprints; the best blessings I can give thee may be had at once. Seek, and thou shalt find; knock, and it shall be opened unto thee; ask and have." So throughout the whole of the revelations of God we are told that things precious to our best life are much nearer us than we imagine; that God is not a God afar off, but a God nigh at hand; that after all there is not some stupendous thing to be done on our behalf. We have but to open our eyes and we shall see the light; but to breathe our prayer, and all that is good for us will be done in our hearts. We have no long pilgrimages to make; no great penalties to undergo; no long-suffering and self-infliction and self-reproach and self-crucifixion to perform, in any outward sense of those terms. Christ has done the work for us; he is within reach of the prayer of our love; he is amongst us; he is nigh at hand. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."

I believe that in talking thus I am speaking to a difficulty that does keep many persons back from the realisation of the very highest blessings of God. "There standeth one among you." Blessings are nearer than you expect. There standeth one among you; but the angel is veiled. There standeth one among you; stretch not your necks as if looking beyond the hills; open your eyes as if expecting to see God at your very side, and the light of his countenance shall make day in your hearts. Have not some of us been doing some great thing, and looking to some great distance for the incoming of God into the human race and into our own hearts? There is nothing in the creation that is round about us that does not testify to the near presence of God.

Art thou looking for God coming far away from the east yonder, when the morning light shines? Be assured that he is in that bread, if it be but a crust that is on thy morning table. Do you expect God to come in thunder and lightning, and whirlwind, and stormy tempest, making the clouds the dust of his feet, and coming with the trumpet of the thunder and the shouting of angels? Behold, he is in that little spring of water at thy backdoor, he is round about thy bed; he is numbering the hairs of thy head; he is putting his hand upon the head of thy little child; he is doing home work; he is on thy table; round about thy couch; making steadfast thy feet in all thy paths, watching all thy going, observing thy down-sitting and thy uprising, thy going out and thy coming in. He hath beset thee behind and before, and he lays his hand upon thee. And yet thou art looking as though thou didst require some great telescope to see the distance of God, and even then thou dost expect but to see his hinder skirts. There standeth one among you whom ye know not; God is within whisper reach: he can hear every throb of the heart, he sees every tear that drops from the eye of penitence, and there is nothing that is hidden from the fire of his look. Believe this, and a great awe will descend upon thy life; believe this, and every mountain will be an altar, every star a door into heaven, every flower an autograph of God, and the whole scene of thy life shall be chastened and hallowed by a religious sense, and an assurance and consciousness that God is close at hand.

"The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." This expression on the part of John the Baptist proves what I have said about the spirituality of the writings of John the evangelist. John the evangelist alone marks down this exclamation,—he heard the spiritual words of the preacher. John the Baptist called the attention of the world to the great coming One. John the evangelist saw spiritual realities, whilst men of inferior mould were dealing with so-called facts and with the outwardness of things. It was John's fine sense of hearing that caught this expression: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." If you will at your leisure compare the reports which are given of John the Baptist by the other evangelists, you will know what I mean by saying that John the evangelist caught the spiritual aspect of things, saw the inward, moral, spiritual intent of men who wrote and spoke, and who came as the special servants and ministers of God to the world. It will be easy for you to put together the conversations which would very likely take place regarding the preaching of John the Baptist. We have a record in Matthew , Mark , Luke , and John. There will be no difficulty in piecing these reports, so as to get a tolerably correct idea of the conversations that preceded regarding this remarkable personage. To him none could show hospitality. His meat was locusts and wild honey; he had a leathern girdle about his loins; his home was the wilderness. He wanted none of your wine and your luxury; he did not accept invitations to the banqueting boards of men; he realised what is meant by the independence of poverty. As long as there was a locust he had a meal; as long as he could put his finger out to the wild honey he had enough. The blandishments and all the refinements and luxuries of the state that was near to him had no effect upon his ambition or upon his heart. He lived independently; you could take nothing from him, and he would not have anything added to him. Oh, it was a stern, solemn, terrible-looking life that; and his preaching was very like it, was it not? If we had only had the accounts of Matthew and Mark and Luke , we should have thought that the preaching was such as eminently befitted the preacher. Look at him there. Look at his long locks, at his leathern girdle, at his monastic face, at his rugged bearing, at his simple fare. He is standing there silently; when he speaks I wonder what such lips will say? Oh, they are terrible looking lips! When he shuts his mouth he seems to have made a resolution; when he closes those lips of his it seems as if he never would open them again but to curse the world! Listen! Have you heard this preacher named John—this grim, weird man that rejects our approaches, and keeps us so much at arm's length? Have you heard him? "Yes." Can you quote anything he says? "Yes; I never heard so terrible a speaker as he is; he seems to cleave the air when he speaks. I heard him say, "His fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor!"" Have you heard him preach? "Yes; and never heard such a speaker before." Can you quote anything he says? "Yes; he says, "The wheat he will gather into his garner; but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire!"" Have you heard him preach? "Yes." Can you quote anything that this wonderful man has said in his preaching? "Yes, I can." What did he say? "He said, "The axe is laid to the root of the tree!"" And their report ends. Matthew , Mark , and Luke have each spoken to us, and there is an end of it. Was that preaching? Do such terrible sentences as these constitute preaching? "His fan is in his hand!" That is a threatening. "The axe is laid to the root of the tree!" That is a threatening. "The chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire!" That is a threatening. An awful preacher! I expected as much; I thought he never could speak a gentle word; his voice could never subside into a minor tone. I turn over a page, and the page brings to me the report of John the evangelist. I inquire, "John the evangelist, have you heard your namesake the Baptist?" "Yes." Can you quote anything from any one of his sermons? "Yes." What? "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."

Such are the different reports we may hear about a man's preaching! Some people never hear the finer tones; some persons never hear the tenderer expostulations and messages of the speaker. They remember what he said about the fan and the axe, and the unquenchable fire; but the gentle gospel, the sweet, persuasive tone, the indicated Lamb of God, they think nothing of,—they remember not; it seems to escape them altogether. This rugged preacher, with the voice of the whirlwind and a countenance grim to terribleness, was he who preached the most intensely evangelical, the most vital gospel sermon ever delivered by the lips of man or angel. "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Remember, John said that; remember, that is the upgathering of the revelation of God; remember, that to recollect everything else and to forget this, is to remember the shell and to forget the kernel, to remember the body and to forget the heart, to know the outside of things, and nothing of that inner spiritual reality which is the very joy of life. How beautifully it is put: "The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." How it might have read! What a different expression it might have been! This would seem to have been more in harmony with the aspect of the speaker, and with all that was known about his way of livelihood. When he came out of the wilderness, having eaten the locusts and the wild honey, and girt his leathern girdle about him, and come forth amongst the people, I should have expected him to say this: "Behold the lions of the tribe of Judah that devoureth the sinners of the world!" I should have said, "Yes, that is a natural climax; that kind of expression seems to befit your mouth." Instead of that he says, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Not the sinners but the sin; not the offender but the offence. That is redemption. The other course would have been destruction. It is easy to destroy; it requires God to redeem. It is easy to strike: it requires infinite grace to heal. By one stroke of his lightning he could have taken away the sinners, but it required the blood of his heart to take away the sin. We are redeemed not with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God I

Christ came to take away sin; we cannot take it away ourselves. If it required the divine intervention to take away sin, why should we be going to Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, when there is a fountain opened in the house of David for sin and for uncleanness? Why be wasting strength and mocking the heart when Jesus comes before us with the express purpose of taking away our sin? "Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins." Here is the atonement, here is the sacrifice of the Son of God—complete, sufficient, final. The priest himself becomes the victim. Great is the mystery of godliness! To have seen everything in life but the Lamb of God, is to have seen everything in life but the one thing worth seeing. To have beheld all sights of greatness and glory and beauty, and not to have seen the Lamb of God, is to have seen the light from the outside of the window, and not to have gone in and found rest and welcome and home!