John 8:31-59 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed;… I. THOSE WHO ARE NOT ITS SUBJECTS THOUGH THEY SAY THEY ARE. 1. Accepting a mere dead orthodoxy does not constitute one a genuine subject of the Kingdom of Truth (vers. 31-33). This declaration is levelled against the traditional faiths and old maxims which those Jews were holding as their birthright blessing. 2. Nor being born of respectable and even believing lineage. Our Lord was confronted with the dry statement that they descended from Abraham, and that they were never slaves even in morality. "Professing themselves wise, they became fools." Christ answered with directness that the plain reason why they did not believe in Him, was that they were not born of God. All there was of good in their boasted ancestor was due to his having by faith seen Christ's day. And when this maddened them, He raised His word to an imperial utterance, such as only the King of the Kingdom of Truth could make (ver. 58). There are two things in this:(1) He that is not in Christ's kingdom is in Satan's. (2) He who is not a Christian cannot be a true man in life, thought, temper, etc. 3. Nor following mere blind formulas of performance. Education has value; but the truest men in an age like ours must sometimes turn back upon their training with a free judgment. Antiquity is no proof of soundness in the right. The devil has all the force of the argument in that direction, and Jesus told these Jews that Satan was their first father. 4. Nor insisting on mere sincere convictions. One may have honest preferences for an absolutely false standard. It is possible that the affections have grown perverted. The later history of Turner can be explained only on the supposition of a disease in his eyes; this threw all his work out of drawing. He was as honest and industrious as ever; his sense of colour was as fine as in his early days, but his eyes had become mechanically untrustworthy. The men, arguing here with our Lord, did not believe in Him, not because what He told them was not true, but because they, in their innermost hearts, were not true; there was a distorted image upon their souls. II. THOSE WHO ARE ITS SUBJECTS. 1. A true man will accept true doctrines. "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." The two grand divisions of our race have always been ranged around Christ and Anti-Christ (1 John 4:2-6). 2. A true man will cherish true principles. Joseph said he must refuse sin because he could not offend against God. Hazael had no more to offer in objection than that he was afraid he might be thought only a dog. Expediency is not enough, genuineness of principle is needed. 3. A true man will cultivate true tastes. He may not always get in love with some forms and phases of religion. He may find that he has to get himself into a more amiable and trustful frame of mind before he is anything but the artificial being that training for a bad lifetime has made him. If he does not love gentleness, or humility, or charity, or temperance, or godliness, when he sees it, it is a task for him to set about to grow to love it as soon as he can. For a critic who does not like a true painting is not himself true. If one prefers Turkish jargon to a harmonious tune, he is not true. And when one turns away from a true child of God, it is because he is not true. 4. A true man will manifest true consistency. Christ gave us the Word of God as the standard of reference. The New Testament is the book of manners in the social circle of the Kingdom of Truth. 5. A true man will live a true life. There will be a fine, high unconsciousness that anything else could be expected of him. He never will seek to pose; he means to be. Pure and noble, he wishes only for a career "without fear and without reproach." Can anyone tell why the old college song still thrills us when we are quite on in life? There is a wonderful power in the famous "Integer Vitae" of our early days. We would like to be reckoned as integers — whole numbers — when the world adds up the columns of its remembered worthies (Psalm 15:1-4). (C. S. Robinson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; |
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