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The real meaning of the question is, "Lord! What has come to pass to induce you to abandon the course on which we entered when you rode into Jerusalem with the shouting crowd?" His question is no better in intelligence, though it is a great deal better in spirit, than the taunt of Christ's brethren, "If Thou do these things, show Thyself to the world." Judas, too, thought of the simple flashing of His Messianic glory, in some visible vulgar form, before else blind eyes. How sad and chilling such a question must have been to Jesus! Slow scholars we all are; and with what wonderful patience He reiterates His lesson.

I. WHAT BRINGS CHRIST AND WHAT CHRIST BRINGS. Note two significant changes in the form of expression.

1. He had formerly said, "If ye love Me;" now, as against Judas's complacent assumption, He says, "Anybody may have the vision if He observes the conditions."

2. Christ's "Word" is wider than "commandment." It includes all His sayings as in one vital unity and organic whole. We are not to go picking and choosing among them; they are one. And every word of Christ's, be it revelation or be it a promise, enshrines within itself a commandment.Note —

1. That Christ will show Himself to the loving heart.

(1) Every act of obedience to any moral truth is rewarded by additional insight. Every act of submission to His will cleans the lenses of the telescope, and so the stars are brighter and larger, and nearer. As we climb the hill we get a wider view.

(2) But in our relation to Him we have to do not with truths only, but with a Person. There is only one way to know people, that is, by loving them. They tell us that "love is blind." No! There are not such a clear pair of eyes anywhere as the eyes of love. Sympathy is the parent of insight into persons, as obedience is the parent of insight into duty.

(3) Our loving obedience has not only an operation inwards upon us, but has an effect outwards upon Christ. Too commonly is it the case that even good Christian people have a far more realizing faith in the past work of Christ on earth than in the present work of Christ on themselves. They think the one a plain truth, and the other something like a metaphor, whereas the New Testament teaches us plainly that there is an actual supernatural communication of Christ, which leads day by day to a fuller knowledge, a larger possession, of a fuller Christ. And one piece of honest loving obedience is worth all the study and speculation of an unloving heart when the question is, "How are we to see Christ?"

2. Jesus shows Himself to the obedient heart in indissoluble union with the Father. Look at the majesty and, except upon one hypothesis, the insane presumption of such words as these: "If a man love Me My father will love him." As if identifying love to Christ with love to Himself. And look at that wondrous union, the consciousness of which speaks in "We will come." Think of a man saying that. Just as in heaven there is but one throne for God and the Lamb, so on earth there is but one coming of the Father in the Son. And this is the only belief that will keep this generation from despair and moral suicide. The world has learned half of that great verse, "No man hath seen God at any time, nor can see Him." If the world is not to go mad, if everything higher and nobler than the knowledge of material phenomena and their sequences is not to perish from the earth, the world must learn the next half, "The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." Christ shows Himself in indissoluble union with the Father.

3. Christ shows Himself to the obedient love by a true coming.

(1) That coming is not to be confounded either with mere Divine Omnipresence, nor of increased perception on our part of Christ's fulness. That great central Sun draws nearer and nearer to the planets that move about it, and, having once been in an almost infinitely distant horizon, approaches until planet and Sun unite.

(2) That coming is a permanent residence. Very beautiful is it to notice that our Lord here employs that same sweet and significant word, "In My Father's house are many mansions." Yonder they dwell forever with God; here God in Christ forever dwells with the loving heart. It is a permanent abode so long as the conditions are fulfilled, but only so long. In the last hours of the Holy City a great voice said, "Let us depart hence;" and tomorrow the shrine was empty, and the day after it was in flames. Brethren, if we could keep the Christ in whom is God, remember it is by the act of loving obedience.

II. WHAT KEEPS AWAY CHRIST AND ALL HIS BLESSINGS (ver. 24)?

1. "He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My sayings." No love, no obedience. That is plainly true, because the heart of all the commandments is love, and where that is not, disobedience to their very spirit is. No power will lead men to Christ's yoke except the power of love. It was only the rising sunbeam that could draw music from the stony lips of Memnon, and it is only when Christ's love shines on our faces that we open our lips in praise, and move our hands in service. Those great rocking stones down in Cornwall stand unmoved by any tempest, but a child's finger, put at the right place, will set them vibrating. And so the heavy, hard, stony bulk of our hearts lies torpid and immovable until He lays His loving finger upon them, and then they rock at His will. That makes short work, does it not, of a great deal that calls itself Christianity? Reluctant, self-interested, constrained obedience is no obedience; outward acts of service, if the heart be wanting, are rubbish.

2. Disobedience to Christ is disobedience to God. Paul has to say, "So speak I, not the Lord." And you would not think a man a very sound or safe religious teacher who said to you to begin with, "Now, mind, everything that I say, God says." The personality of Jesus Christ is never, through all His utterances, so separated but that God speaks in Him: and, listening to His voice, we hear the absolute utterance of the uncreated and eternal wisdom.

3. Therefore follows the conclusion, which our Lord does not state, but leaves us to supply. What brings Him is the obedience of love; what repels Him is alienation and rebellion.Conclusion:

1. It is possible for men not to see Christ, though He stands there close before them.

2. Christ's showing of Himself to men is in no sense arbitrary. It is you that determines what you shall see. The door of your hearts is hinged to open from within, and if you do not open it it stops shut, and Christ stops outside.

3. You do not need to do anything to blind yourselves. Simple negation is fatal. "If a man love not;" that is all. The absence of love is your ruin.

4. You ask how can I get this love and obedience. There is only one answer. We know that we love Him when we know that He loves us; and we know He loves us when we see Him dying on His cross. So here is the ladder, that starts down in the miry clay of the horrible pit, and fastens its golden hooks on His throne. The first round is, behold the dying Christ and His love to me. The second is, let that love melt my heart into sweet responsive love. The third is, let my love mould my life into obedience. And then Christ, and God in Him, will give me a fuller knowledge and a deeper love, and make His dwelling with me. And then there is only one step left, and that will land us by the throne of God, and in the many mansions of the Father's house where we shall make our abodes with Him forever more.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

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KJV: Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?

WEB: Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, what has happened that you are about to reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?"