John 14:22-24 Judas said to him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?… I. THE QUESTION OF JUDAS. This question shows how much the disciples had yet to learn; for without doubt all shared the perplexity of the one. How one fundamental error stops a true understanding of all the words of Jesus! In a sense, Jesus had been seen of all men who had eyes to see, but what they had seen had just been the human form. That Jesus should have kingly honor and kingly power they had not discerned. But the disciples seem to have thought that one day he would assume outward royal pomps, and then everybody would be forced to recognize him for what he truly was. A glory that could be manifested to some and not to all was beyond the comprehension of the disciples. The question of Judas was only the world's own habitual and self-conceited question, amounting to this - that if there was anything in Christianity, the world would have seen it long ago. The world's delusive notion is that it can know everything that is to be known, if only the manifestation is made intense enough. II. THE EXPLANATION OF JESUS. An explanation, indeed, and yet not an explanation to be understood in the moment of utterance. For these very disciples had yet to have stirred up in their hearts a true spiritual affection. They did love Jesus as human friend loves human friend; but doing this, what did they more than others? The mutual bond of friendship requires no high stretch of human virtue. But the disciples had yet to attain the ἀγαπῆ, that ἀγαπῆ which is specially affirmed as the crowning gift of the Holy Spirit. God so loved the world as to give his Son for the world's redemption, and there is a continual effort through many and ever multiplying agencies to manifest himself in saving power to the world. But this is done by all arts of persuasion and warning - by persistent shaking of those who are asleep till they open their eyes, which many of them never do. There is, of course, an increase of manifestation in the glory of God in Christ Jesus, so that those able to see the manifestation at all see more and more, and have an increase of joy the longer they look. But just as the same eye beholds the sun in its noonday glory and in its earliest dawn, so the same eye beholds all the manifestations of God in Jesus. If We cannot see the beginning, we cannot see the continuing. To those spiritually blind, all comforting manifestations of the Trinity are alike impossible. There must be a breaking down of selfishness, an opening up of the streams of love, and a gradual increase of them into copious flow. How many indulge selfishness, well knowing the claims that press on them from every side! Shut your eyes and keep them closed; it is true then that you cannot see; but you are not therefore reckoned blind. Only when you are penitent, and profoundly troubled because of deep-rooted selfishness, can the manifestation of Jesus begin to you. Selfishness is what makes the world the world; and as soon as a counter-current is set up in any human heart, that is a sign of salvation begun, and if only there be no Demas-lapse into the love of the temporal and the visible, then manifestations from above will more and more increase. The more we fit ourselves to see, the more we shall see. - Y. Parallel Verses KJV: Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? |
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