"A Asking. JOHN xvi. 23-27. I ND in that day ye shall ask Me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, He will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My Name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.2 These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father. At that day ye shall ask in My Name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God." "This first 'ask' means 'ask questions.' In the other places it means 'ask in prayer.' So what our Lord here says is, that in the day of enlightenment by the Holy Spirit the Apostles would no longer need to seek from Him an explanation of their doubts and difficulties, since the 'Spirit of Truth' would make all things plain to them. He then goes on to speak of the blessedness of prayer in His Name, probably referring chiefly to that very enlightenment of the Spirit which He had long before said God would give to those that ask Him (see Luke xi. 13, and compare James i. 5)." 2 "Observe, the Prayer our Lord Himself had taught them was not in words offered in His Name. It could not be before the Atonement was wrought which wins acceptance for all our prayers. But, being His own words, the Lord's Prayer is now in effect most truly offered through Him. 'Ask, and ye shall receive' is not merely a repetition of the words in the Sermon on the Mount, for here the meaning is, 'Ask in My Name, and ye shall receive.' The Sacrifice is just about to be offered; and now Jesus teaches its all-prevailing power. The certainty that our prayers are answered in love and wisdom for Christ's sake is a new source of joy beyond that of the sense of Christ's presence" (see ver. 22).-Canon How. "These are what I ask, O God and Father, above all things, for myself, and for all that have desired my prayers: that we may be restored to Thy likeness, and never deface it by our sins; that the image of Satan may be destroyed in us that all carnal affections may die in us: and that all things belonging to the Spirit may dwell in our hearts by faith; that Thy Name, and the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, may be glorified in us, and we in Him; that our hearts may be entirely Thine; that we may never grieve Thy Holy Spirit; but that we may continue Thine for ever, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen."-Bishop Wilson. "I "Trouble and Triumph." JOHN xvi. 28-33. CAME forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father. His disciples said unto Him, Lo, now speakest Thou plainly,' and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that Thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask Thee: by this we believe that Thou camest forth from God. Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe?2 Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation :3 but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." I "Now speakest Thou plainly."] . . . "The last words our Saviour had uttered seemed to them plain, and were doubtless plainer than some of His words; yet so little did they understand His sayings that, as St. Augustine says, 'they did not so much as understand that they understood them not.' They mistook a little ray of light for the fires of Pentecost." 2 "That is, 'Have ye so strong and clear a faith?' The question is asked in loving sadness, for He who knew their hearts knew how really weak and dim their faith was." 3 "The joy and peace spoken of are not to be outward joy and peace. Outwardly Christ's people must have tribulation,—often more tribulation than the wicked. But this cannot rob them of their inward joy and peace" (see 1 Pet. i. 6).-Canon How. "Jesus hath overcome death, therefore death and the grave have become the gate of everlasting life. Jesus hath overcome the world, therefore all its troubles and sorrows, which, as the natural fruit of sin, still continue unchanged in their nature, are now, in Christ's use of them, turned into a blessed means of discipline and of needful trial for all His people. . . . Wherefore be of good cheer. All things are working for your good, and for the good of Christ's Church. Never be cast down, or alarmed, or even low-spirited. There will be great and sore troubles, perhaps, to you and to the Church of Christ here before you die. Lift up your hearts, lift them up unto the Lord; it is right and meet so to do. Never ought a Christian to be trifling and vain; never ought he to be down-hearted or sad. He is safe in the hands of Jesus, and the Church is even safer in times of trial than in times of great outward prosperity. No gold is safer than the gold in the crucible.'"-Rev. George Venables. "TH The Saviour's Prayer. JOHN xvii. 1-5. HESE words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come;' glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee: as Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him. And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God,2 and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.3 And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own Self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was." "Few passages in all God's Word are so sublime or so affecting as this. Simple in language yet full of deep meaning,—a prayer spoken to the Father by the Son as our great High-Priest interceding for us, yet spoken aloud that it might be recorded for our instruction and example,-its every word should be thoughtfully and prayerfully pondered." I "Nearer and nearer had been drawing that hour-the heaviest laden with awful agony, yet the heaviest laden also with triumph and glory, in all the world's history. Again and again had Jesus announced its near approach; yet ever through the agony shone out the glory. The way to the Crown was through the Cross; yet the Cross was lit with the brightness of the Crown, till, when it came very close to Him in Gethsemane, its black shadow was suffered for a moment to hide all the glory beyond. But this was not quite yet. Mark how Jesus prays for that which He sees clearly before Him. Promise never shuts out prayer. In the glorifying Jesus doubtless foresees not only His Death, though that was necessary to His glory, but His Resurrection, His Ascension, and the coming of the Holy Ghost." 2 "To know God-by which is meant no mere head knowledge, but a deep personal abiding union with Him through faith and by the Holy Spirit-this is (in present possession, not in mere future expectation) 'life eternal.' The life which shall live on for ever in heaven is actually begun here below in those who thus know God. So Christ says of him that believeth on Him, as well as of him that eateth His Flesh and drinketh His Blood, -that he hath everlasting life"" (see v. 24, vi. 47, 54, and compare John the Baptist's words, iii. 36). 3These words, and indeed much of this great Prayer, like so many of our Lord's later sayings, are spoken by anticipation, that is, before the time when they are fully accomplished. Christ stands, 'as it were at the end of His accomplished course, and looks back on it all as past' (Alford)."—Canon How. "I Prayer for His Disciples. JOHN Xvii. 6-10. HAVE manifested Thy Name unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world: Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me; and they have kept Thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever Thou hast given Me are of Thee. For I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send Me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine. And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine; and I am glorified in them.”2 "He prays for His own, because they were committed to Him, the Good Shepherd, and because they love Him and keep His Word. If thou wouldst have Jesus as thine Advocate, see that thou art truly His, and that He is glorified in thee. Is this my aim?"—" Daily Steps towards Heaven." I "That is, 'not now.' Christ does not mean to say that He never prays for the unbelieving world; but this prayer is not a prayer for unbelievers. He is not now praying for the conversion of sinners, but for the unity and perseverance of saints."-Canon How. 2 'What is glory? In the deepest sense of the word, it is the manifestation of God's image and character, shed abroad in our hearts now, as we are changed by His Spirit, 'from glory to glory;' to be displayed at the Resurrection presently, when we shine forth as the sun, and death is swallowed up in victory. But the more we love now, the more we shall love then; the nearer we live to God now, the nearer we shall be to God then; the more we deny ourselves for His sake now, the more He will recompense us then; the more we open our hearts to Him, and surrender our wills to Him now, the more He will glorify us hereafter. Nothing so expands and deepens our nature as true love, of any kind. But love to God has a special power of its own for making the heart bigger and deeper for Him to come in, and inhabit it, and fill it out of His fulness. The eye of the mind being enlarged to take in His truth, more and more light shines in; the door of the heart being widened to receive His grace, God rains on it showers of blessing. The entire moral being is ever growing larger through the sanctifying influence of Divine love." -Thorold's "Presence of Christ." ... "Reader! let this ever be your highest ambition, to love and to be loved of Jesus."-" Memories of Bethany." "Christ is glorified in His people by the evidence they give of His power and life in them."-Canon How. Prayer for the Unity of His Disciples. JOHN Xvii. II, 12. "AND now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep through Thine own Name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as We are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy Name: those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled." I "What a perfect and loving unity of heart and mind does Christ ask for His disciples, if it can be compared to that bond of unity by which the Father and the Son are united in the One Godhead! And who will dare to despise unity, when it is thus the first great subject of Christ's intercessions!"-Canon How. "I lament the sad and mournful estrangement of Christian from Christian in Thy Church below-that so many, treading the same heavenly journey, with the same glorious portals in view, should be following separate and diverse footpaths-that so many brethren in the Lord, whose interchanges ought to be all love, should be looking coldly and censoriously on one another. How much ungodly jealousy, and heart-burning, and mutual recrimination, among Thy professing people! How little of the spirit which of old provoked the testimony even of heathen gainsayers-'See how these Christians love one another!'"'—" The Morning Watches." "The one Faith, once delivered to the saints of old, Doth to that Love a boundless barrier prove. Pray for the Spirit! pray! our God will answer, Bids us in His most holy written Word. Fills us with love and charity to all men ; Bids us rejoice, through every trial below. Pray for the Spirit! that by His sacred guidance, And all His saints, once more in faith united, May in His Presence stand, one glorious whole."—A. J. S. |