Arnold Bennett - "The Old Wives' Tale"

Thomas Carlyle - "History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 11"

Thomas Chandler Haliburton - "The Attache; or, Sam Slick in England (V2)"

Bao Gan - "Sou Shen Ji, volume 4 10, 300 A.D."

Expositions of Holy Scripture

A >> Alexander Maclaren >> Expositions of Holy Scripture




'The moon of Mahomet
Arose and it shall set,
While blazoned as on heaven's eternal noon,
The Cross leads generations on.'

We may sum up the contrast between the undying Light and the lamps
that go out in the old words: 'They truly were many, because they were
not suffered to continue by reason of death, but this Man, because He
continueth ever... is able to save unto the uttermost them that come
unto God through Him.'

So, brethren, when lamps are quenched, let us look to the Light. When
our own lives are darkened because our household light is taken from
its candlestick, let us lift up our hearts and hopes to Him that
abideth for ever. Do not let us fall into the folly, and commit the
sin, of putting our heart's affections, our spirit's trust, upon any
that can pass and that must change. We need a Person whom we can
clasp, and who never will glide from our hold. We need a Light
uncreated, self-fed, eternal. 'Whilst ye have the Light, believe in
the Light, that ye may be the children of light.'




'THREE TABERNACLES'

'The Word ... dwelt among us.'--JOHN i. 14.

'... He that sitteth on the Throne shall dwell among them.'--REV. vii.
15.

'... Behold, the Tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with
them.'--REV. xxi. 3.

The word rendered 'dwelt' in these three passages, is a peculiar one.
It is only found in the New Testament--in this Gospel and in the Book
of Revelation. That fact constitutes one of the many subtle threads of
connection between these two books, which at first sight seem so
extremely unlike each other; and it is a morsel of evidence in favour
of the common authorship of the Gospel and of the Apocalypse, which
has often, and very vehemently in these latter days of criticism, been
denied.

The force of the word, however, is the matter to which I desire
especially to draw attention. It literally means 'to dwell in a tent,'
or, if we may use such a word, 'to tabernacle,' and there is no doubt
a reference to the Tabernacle in which the divine Presence abode in
the wilderness and in the land of Israel before the erection. In all
three passages, then, we may see allusion to that early symbolical
dwelling of God with man. 'The Word tabernacled among us'; so is the
truth for earth and time. 'He that sitteth upon the throne shall
spread His tabernacle upon' the multitude which no man can number, who
have made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb; that is the
truth for the spirits of just men made perfect, the waiting Church,
which expects the redemption of the body. 'God shall tabernacle with
them'; that is the truth for the highest condition of humanity, when
the Tabernacle of God shall be with redeemed men in the new earth.
'Let us build three tabernacles,' one for the Incarnate Christ, one
for the interspace between earth and heaven, and one for the
culmination of all things. And it is to these three aspects of the one
thought, set forth in rude symbol by the movable tent in the
wilderness, that I ask you to turn now.

I. First, then, we have to think of that Tabernacle for earth. 'The
Word was made flesh, and dwelt, as in a tent, amongst us.'

The human nature, the visible, material body of Jesus Christ, in which
there enshrined itself the everlasting Word, which from the beginning
was the Agent of all divine revelation, that is the true Temple of
God. When we begin to speak about the special presence of Omnipresence
in any one place, we soon lose ourselves, and get into deep waters of
glory, where there is no standing. And I do not care to deal here with
theological definitions or thorny questions, but simply to set forth,
as the language of my text sets before us, that one transcendent,
wonderful, all-blessed thought that this poor human nature is capable
of, and has really once in the history of the world received into
itself, the real, actual presence of the whole fulness of the
Divinity. What must be the kindred and likeness between Godhood and
manhood when into the frail vehicle of our humanity that wondrous
treasure can be poured; when the fire of God can burn in the bush of
our human nature, and that nature not be consumed? So it has been. 'In
Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.'

And when we come with our questions, How? In what manner? How can the
lesser contain the greater? we have to be content with the recognition
that the manner is beyond our fathoming, and to accept the fact,
pressed upon our faith, that our hearts may grasp it and be at peace.
God hath dwelt in humanity. The everlasting Word, who is the
forthcoming of all the fulness of Deity into the realm of finite
creatures, was made flesh and dwelt among us.

But the Tabernacle was not only the dwelling-place of God, it was also
and, therefore, the place of Revelation of God. So in our text there
follows, 'we beheld His glory.' As in the tent in the wilderness there
hovered between the outstretched wings of the silent cherubim, above
the Mercy-seat, the brightness of the symbolical cloud which was
expressly named 'the glory of God,' and was the visible manifestation
of His real presence; so John would have us think that in that lowly
humanity, with its curtains and its coverings of flesh, there lay
shrined in the inmost place the brightness of the light of the
manifest glory of God. 'We beheld His glory.' The rapturous adoration
of the remembrance overcomes him, and he breaks his sentence, reckless
of grammatical connection, as the fulness of the blessed memory floods
into his soul. 'That glory was as of the Only Begotten of the Father.'
The manifestation of God in Christ is unique, as becomes Him who
partakes of the nature of that God of whom He is the Representative
and the Revealer.

And how did that glory make itself known to us? By miracle? Yes! As we
read in the story of the first that Christ wrought, 'He manifested
forth His glory and His disciples believed upon Him.' By miracle? Yes!
As we read His own promise at the grave of Lazarus: 'Said I not unto
thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of
God?' But, blessed be His name, miracle is not the highest
manifestation of Christ's glory and of God's. The uniqueness of the
revelation of Christ's glory in God does not depend upon the deeds
which He wrought. For, as the context goes on to tell, the Word which
tabernacled among us was 'full of grace and truth,' and therein is the
glory most gloriously revealed.

The lambent light of stooping love that shone forth warning and
attracting in His gentle life, and the clear white beam of unmingled
truth that streamed from the radiant purity of Christ's life, revealed
God to hearts that pine for love and spirits that hunger for truth, as
no others of God's self-revealing works have done. And that revelation
of the glory of God in the fulness of grace and truth is the highest
possible revelation. For the divinest thing in God is love, and the
true 'glory of God' is neither some symbolical flashing light nor the
pomp of mere power and majesty; nor even those inconceivable and
incommunicable attributes which we christen with names like
Omnipotence and Omnipresence and Infinitude, and the like. These are
all at the fringes of the brightness. The true central heart and
lustrous light of the glory of God lie In His love, and of that glory
Christ is the unique Representative and Revealer, because He is the
only Begotten Son, and 'full of grace and truth.'

Thus the Word tabernacled amongst us. And though the Tabernacle to
outward seeming was covered by curtains and skins that hid all the
glowing splendour within; yet in that lowly life that was lived in the
body of His humiliation, and knew our limitations and our weaknesses,
'the glory of the Lord was revealed; and all flesh hath seen it
together' and acknowledged the divine Presence there.

Still further the Tabernacle was the place of sacrifice. So in the
tabernacle of His flesh Jesus offered up the one sacrifice for sins
for ever. In the offering up of His human life in continuous
obedience, and in the offering up of His body and blood in the bitter
Passion of the Cross, He brought men nigh unto God.

Therefore, because of all these things, because the Tabernacle is the
dwelling-place of God, the place of revelation, and the place of
sacrifice, therefore, finally is it the meeting-place betwixt God and
man. In the Old Testament it is always called by the name which our
Revised Version has accurately substituted for 'tabernacle of the
congregation,' namely 'tent of meeting.' The correctness of that
rendering and the meaning of the name are established by several
passages in the Old Testament, as for instance, 'There I will meet
with you, to speak there unto thee, and there I will meet with the
children of Israel.' So in Christ, who by His Incarnation lays His
hand upon both, God touches man and man touches God. We who are afar
off are made nigh, and in that 'true tabernacle which the Lord pitched
and not man' we meet God and are glad.

'And so the word was flesh, and wrought
With human hands the creed of creeds,
In loveliness of perfect deeds.'

The temple for earth is 'the temple of His body.'

II. We have the Tabernacle for the Heavens.

In the context of our second passage we have a vision of the great
multitude redeemed out of all nations and kindreds, 'standing before
the Throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in
their hands.' The palms in their hands give important help towards
understanding the vision. As has been often remarked, there are no
heathen emblems in the Book of the Apocalypse. All its metaphors move
within the circle of Jewish experiences and facts. So that we are not
to think of the Roman palm of victory, but of the Jewish palm which
was borne at the Feast of Tabernacles. What was the Feast of
Tabernacles? A festival established on purpose to recall to the minds
and to the gratitude of the Jews settled in their own land the days of
their wandering in the wilderness. Part of the ritual of it was that
during its celebration they builded for themselves booths or
tabernacles of leaves and boughs of trees, under which they dwelt,
thus reminding themselves of their nomad condition.

Now what beauty and power it gives to the word of my text, if we take
in this allusion to the Jewish festival! The great multitude bearing
the palms are keeping the feast, memorial of past wilderness
wanderings; and 'He that sitteth on the throne shall spread His
tabernacle above them,' as the word might be here rendered. That is to
say, He Himself shall build and be the tent in which they dwell; He
Himself shall dwell with them in it. He Himself, in closer union than
can be conceived of here, shall keep them company during that feast.

What a thought of that condition--the condition as I believe
represented in this vision--of the spirits of the just made perfect,
'who wait for the adoption, to wit, the resurrection of the body,' is
given us if we take this point of view to interpret the whole lovely
symbolism. It is all a time of glad, grateful remembrance of the
wilderness march. It is all a time in which festal joys shall be
theirs, and the memory of the trials and the weariness and the sorrow
and the solitude that are past shall deepen to a more exquisite
poignancy of delight, the rest and the fellowship and the felicity of
that calm Presence, and God Himself shall spread His tent above them,
lodge with them, and they with Him.

And so, dear brethren, rest in that assurance, that though we know so
little of that state, we know this: 'Absent from the body, present
with the Lord,' and that the happy company who bear the palms shall
dwell in God, and God in them.

III. And now, lastly, look at that final vision which we have in these
texts, which we may call the Tabernacle for the renewed earth.

I do not pretend to interpret the scenery and the setting of these
Apocalyptic visions with dogmatic confidence, but it seems to me as if
the emblems of this final vision coincide with dim hints in many other
portions of Scripture; to the effect that some cosmical change having
passed upon this material world in which we dwell, it, in some
regenerated form, shall be the final abode of a regenerated and
redeemed humanity. That, I think, is the natural interpretation of a
great deal of Scriptural teaching.

For that highest condition there is set forth this as the
all-sufficing light upon it. 'Behold, the Tabernacle of God is with
men, and He will tabernacle with them.' The climax and the goal of all
the divine working, and the long processes of God's love for, and
discipline of, the world, are to be this, that He and men shall abide
together in unity and concord. That is God's wish from the beginning.
We read in one of the profound utterances of the Book of Proverbs how
from of old the 'delights' of the Incarnate Wisdom which foreshadowed
the Incarnate Word 'were with the sons of men.' And, at the close of
all things, when the vision of this final chapter shall be fulfilled,
God will say, settling Himself in the midst of a redeemed humanity,
'Lo! here will I dwell, for I have desired it. This is My rest for
ever.' He will tabernacle with men, and men with Him.

We know not, and never shall know until experience strips the bandages
from our eyes, what new methods of participation of the divine nature,
and new possibilities of intimacy and intercourse with Him may be ours
when the veils of flesh and sense and time have all dropped away. New
windows may be opened in our spirits, from which we shall perceive new
aspects of the divine character. New doors may be opened in our souls,
from out of which we may pass to touch parts of His nature, all
impalpable and inconceivable to us now. And when all the veils of a
discordant moral nature are taken away, and we are pure, then we shall
see, then we shall draw nigh to God. The thing that chiefly separates
man from God is man's sin. When that is removed, the centrifugal force
which kept our tiny orb apart from the great central sun being
withdrawn, we shall, as it were, fall into the brightness and be one,
not losing our sense of individuality, which would be to lose all the
blessedness, but united with Him in a union far more intimate than
earth can parallel. 'The Tabernacle of God shall be with men, and He
will tabernacle with them.'

Do not let us forget that this highest and ultimate hope that is held
forth here, of the union and communion, perfect and perpetual, of
humanity with God, does not sweep aside Jesus Christ. For through all
eternity the Everlasting Word, the Christ who bears our nature in its
glorified form, or, rather, whose nature in its glorified form we
shall bear, is the Medium of Revelation, and the Medium of
communication between man and God.

'I saw no Temple therein,' says this final vision of the Apocalypse,
but 'God Almighty and the Lamb,' and these are the Temples thereof.
Therefore through eternity God shall tabernacle with men, as He does
tabernacle with us now through Him, in whom dwelleth as in its
perennial habitation, 'all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.'

So we have the three tabernacles, for earth, for heaven, for the
renewed earth; and these three, if I may say so, are like the triple
division of that ancient Tabernacle in the wilderness: the Outer
Court; the Holy Place; the Holiest of all. Let us enter into that
outer court, and abide and commune with that God who comes near to us,
revealing, forgiving, in the person of His Son, and then we shall pass
from court to court, 'and go from strength to strength, until every
one of us in Zion appear before God'; and enter into the Holiest of
all, where 'within the veil' we shall receive splendours of revelation
undreamed of here, and enjoy depths of communion to which the
selectest moments of fellowship with God on earth are shallow and
poor.




THE FULNESS OF CHRIST

'And of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.'--JOHN
1.16.

What a remarkable claim that is which the Apostle here makes for his
Master! On the one side he sets His solitary figure as the universal
Giver; on the other side are gathered the whole race of men,
recipients from Him. As in the wilderness the children of Israel
clustered round the rock from which poured out streams, copious enough
for all the thirsty camp, John, echoing his Master's words, 'If any
man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink,' here declares 'Of _His_
fulness have _all we_ received.'

I. Notice, then, the one ever full Source.

The words of my text refer back to those of the fourteenth verse: 'The
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.' 'And
of His fulness have all we received.' The 'fulness' here seems to mean
that of which the Incarnate Word was full, the 'grace and truth' which
dwelt without measure in Him; the unlimited and absolute completeness
and abundance of divine powers and glories which 'tabernacled' in Him.
And so the language of my text, both verbally and really, is
substantially equivalent to that of the Apostle Paul. 'In Him dwelleth
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and ye are complete in Him.'
The whole infinite Majesty, and inexhaustible resources of the divine
nature, were incorporated and insphered in that Incarnate Word from
whom all men may draw.

There are involved in that thought two ideas. One is the unmistakable
assertion of the whole fulness of the divine nature as being in the
Incarnate Word, and the other is that the whole fulness of the divine
nature dwells in the Incarnate Word in order that men may get at it.

The words of my text go back, as I said, to the previous verse; but
notice what an advance upon that previous verse they present to us.
There we read, 'We beheld His glory.' To _behold_ is much, but to
_possess_ is more. It is much to say that Christ comes to manifest
God, but that is a poor, starved account of the purpose of His coming,
if that is all you have to say. He comes to manifest Him. Yes! but He
comes to communicate Him, not merely to dazzle us with a vision, not
merely to show us Him as from afar, not merely to make Him known to
understanding or to heart; but to bestow--in no mere metaphor, but in
simple, literal fact--the absolute possession of the divine nature.
'We beheld His glory' is a reminiscence that thrills the Evangelist,
though half a century has passed since the vision gleamed upon his
eyes; but 'of His fulness have all we received' is infinitely and
unspeakably more. And the manifestation was granted that the
possession might be sure, for this is the very centre and heart of
Christianity, that in Him who is Christianity God is not merely made
known, but given; not merely beheld, but possessed.

In order that that divine fulness might belong to us there was needed
that the Word should be made flesh; and there was further needed that
incarnation should be crowned by sacrifice, and that life should be
perfected in death. The alabaster box had to be broken before the
house could be filled with the odour of the ointment. If I may so say,
the sack, the coarse-spun sack of Christ's humanity, had to be cut
asunder in order that the wealth that was stored in it might be poured
into our hands. God came near us in the life, but God became ours in
the death, of His dear Son. Incarnation was needed for that great
privilege--'we beheld His glory'; but the Crucifixion was needed in
order to make possible the more wondrous prerogative: 'Of His fulness
have all we received.' God gives Himself to men in the Christ whose
life revealed and whose death imparted Him to the world.

And so He is the sole Source. All men, in a very real sense, draw from
His fulness. 'In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.' The
life of the body and the life of the spirit willing, knowing, loving,
all which makes life into light, all comes to us through that
everlasting Word of God. And when that Word has 'become flesh and
dwelt among us,' His gifts are not only the gifts of light and life,
which all men draw from Him, but the gifts of grace and truth which
all those who love Him receive at His hands. His gifts, like the water
from some fountain, may flow underground into many of the pastures of
the wilderness; and many a man is blessed by them who knows not from
whence they come. It is He from whom all the truth, all the grace
which illuminates and blesses humanity, flow into all lands in all
ages.

II. Consider, then, again, the many receivers from the one Source. 'Of
His fulness have all we received.'

Observe, we are not told definitely what it is that we receive. If we
refer back to words in a previous verse, they may put us on the right
track for answering the question, What is it that we get? 'He came
unto His own,' says verse 11, 'and His own received Him not; but as
many as received Him, to them gave He power,' etc. That answers the
question, What do we receive? Christ is more than all His gifts. All
His gifts are treasured up in Him and inseparable from Him. We get
Jesus Christ Himself.

The blessings that we receive may be stated in many different ways.
You may say we get pardon, purity, hope, joy, the prospect of Heaven,
power for service; all these and a hundred more designations by which
we might describe the one gift. All these are but the consequences of
our having got the Christ within our hearts. He does not give pardon
and the rest, as a king might give pardon and honours, a thousand
miles off, bestowing it by a mere word, upon some criminal, but He
gives all that He gives because He gives Himself. The real possession
that we receive is neither more nor less than a loving Saviour, to
enter our spirits and abide there, and be the spirit of our spirits,
and the life of our lives.

Then, notice the universality of this possession. John has said, in
the previous words, '_We_ beheld His glory.' He refers there, of
course, to the comparatively small circle of the eye-witnesses of our
Master's life; who, at the time when he wrote, must have been very,
very few in number. They had had the prerogative of seeing with their
eyes and handling with their hands the Word of life that 'was
manifested unto us'; and with that prerogative the duty of bearing
witness of Him to the rest of men. But in the 'receiving,' John
associates with himself, and with the other eyewitnesses, all those
who had listened to their word, and had received the truth in the love
of it. '_We beheld' refers to the narrower circle; 'we _all_ received'
to the wider sweep of the whole Church. There is no exclusive class,
no special prerogative. Every Christian man, the weakest, the
lowliest, the most uncultured, rude, ignorant, foolish, the most
besotted in the past, who has wandered furthest away from the Master;
whose spirit has been most destitute of all sparks of goodness and of
God--receives from out of His fulness. 'If any man have not the Spirit
of Christ he is none of His.' And every one of us, if we will, may
have dwelling in our hearts, in the greatness of His strength, in the
sweetness of His love, in the clearness of His illuminating wisdom,
the Incarnate Word, the Comforter, the All-in-all whom 'we all
receive.'

And, as I said, that word 'all' might have even a wider extension
without going beyond the limits of the truth. For on the one side
there stands Christ, the universal Giver; and grouped before Him, in
all attitudes of weakness and of want, is gathered the whole race of
mankind. And from Him there pours out a stream copious enough to
supply all the necessities of every human soul that lives to-day, of
every human soul that has lived in the past, of every one that shall
live in the future. There is no limit to the universality except only
the limit of the human will: 'Whosoever will, let him take the water
of life freely.'

Think of that solitary figure of the Christ reared up, as it were,
before the whole race of man, as able to replenish all their emptiness
with His fulness, and to satisfy all their thirst with His
sufficiency. Dear brother! you have a great gaping void in your
heart--an aching emptiness there, which you know better than I can
tell you. Look to Him who can fill it and it shall be filled. He can
supply all your wants as He can supply all the wants of every soul of
man. And after generations have drawn from Him, the water will not
have sunk one hairsbreadth in the great fountain, but there will be
enough for all coming eternities as there has been enough for all past
times. He is like His own miracle--the thousands are gathered on the
grass, they do 'all eat and are filled.' As their necessities required
the bread was multiplied, and at the last there was more left than
there had seemed to be at the beginning. So 'of His fulness have all
we received'; and after a universe has drawn from it, for an Eternity,
the fulness is not turned into scantiness or emptiness.

III. And so, lastly, notice the continuous flow from the inexhaustible
Source. 'Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.'

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