THE tenth chapter of St. John's gospel is familiar to all God's children as one of the portions of the sacred word most highly prized. There is one short statement in it, concerning the intimacy of Christ with His own, to which we will presently direct our reader's attention, first glancing at the incidents which led to its utterance by the Lord.
The dealings of the Lord with the woman taken in her sin, His laying bare the consciences of her accusers, and His declaration of Himself as the Light of the world, led to the rebellious utterances of some and the faith of others who heard Him; but at last, when he announced Himself as the I AM (ch. 8:58) the religious wrath of the People was roused and they took up stones to stone Him.
Thus in the very temple, where the divine worship was conducted, was definite rejection of Jesus by the people, accompanied with a tumult of religious fierceness. "But Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by." As He left Jehovah's temple in the hands of the men, who in their blindness sought to slay Him, His heart—at rest in His Father's love—was set upon the sheep for whom He had come to die. And as He passed by, —mark, dear reader, the dignity of His grace—as He passed by the fierce crowd, He saw a man who was born blind; a fitting illustration of the spiritually blind multitude He had left, the men whose pride veiled their souls to the shining of the Light of the world! Even while the stones were in their hands Jesus, pitying the sightless beggar, gave him eyes to see. How excellent is His grace, and how human misery and sin are but the occasions for Him to show us what He is!
Thus did the Lord effect this work. He made clay, and spread the clay over the blank orbs of the man, and having anointed his eyes, bade him go and wash in the pool, which is by interpretation Sent.
We watch the man in the darkness in which he was born, and had lived till of full age, groping his way to the pool, through the washing in the waters of which he was to see. Now he reaches the pool, he washes, and he sees! How grandly simple is the gospel of God! But let us never forget that we must be blind if we would see. Born blind we all were. Such is the fact. But, alas, Pharisees say, “We see, and therefore their sin remaineth." How terrible to be so near the Saviour and yet to perish, to be so near the light and yet to remain in darkness! Woe to such as have heard of Jesus, and who yet repent not. Is it not of such that it is true indeed "to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever?"
Christ came into the world to save sinners. But who is Christ? By nature we are blind to Him, and the mystery of His person is like clay over our eyes. How then shall we see? Go to the pool and wash. Trust not self, obey the gospel, and God the Holy Spirit, the Sent One, will open the eyes. You shall come seeing.
Here, then, is conversion. All, God’s people have had their eyes opened. Their testimony ever is, “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." All is different; the darkness is past. No argument, no logic can drive out of the enlightened soul the conviction that conversion is conversion, that light is light. Ten thousand blind teachers could not convince one illiterate man having eyes to see, that after all he was blind like them. God has wrought in the soul a work by His Holy Spirit, and the convert is himself the witness to conversion.
But to have the eyes opened is not all that the soul needs. This in due season every true Christian feels. We want Christ Himself as well as His benefits. Now a faithful witness to the sight-giving power of Christ in the gospel will in no wise lose its reward, though it will certainly bring troubles and difficulties from the hands of men. The Pharisees cast out the man who had been blind; he was no longer fit for their association. How could a faithful witness to Jesus as the sight-giver be fit for the company of such as were born seeing—for such as needed not Jesus but were satisfied with themselves? (ch. 9:39-41) And the Lord Himself had testified that He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance—the whole need not a physician, but they who are sick; and so it is now, yes, even to this very day. There is a Christianity that has no Christ in it, and which utterly rejects the confession of His name. A man being cast out of orthodox religious associations for Christ's sake, is not peculiar to the times of the temple and of Jewish Pharisees.
Being cast out, the man, though not knowing it, was exactly where those who had taken up the stones had put the Lord. This is a most solemn reality. Christ and the man to whom He had given sight were both outside the temple and its glories, and if we consider what the temple was in those days, we can but feel what terrible isolation it must have been not to be of it—but where Jesus is there is peace as well as light.
Having heard that they had cast him out, the Lord sought and found the once blind man. We pray you observe this, dear reader. This is the second time Jesus found him. He found him at the first in his blind state, now He found him with eyes to see that to confess Christ as the sight-giver was to be despised and rejected even as Christ was There is a deep mystery of grace in this second finding of the man, and it leads us to the subject of this paper—intimacy with Christ. We speak at times of what is like a second conversion, and in some senses not unwisely. We know that no one can have his eyes opened twice— once saved we are saved forever— but none the less is it true that a man may have his eyes opened before he has an object given him to engross his sight. And when the object is presented to the opened eyes it is like a second conversion.
Jesus found the man with eyes opened, and then He revealed Himself to him as the Son of God, and the once blind man gazing upon Him was absorbed with Him. “Lord, I believe," said he. “And he worshipped Him."
The Scriptures do not enlarge on such truths. They state them and leave us to meditate upon them. The fact of a man in Christ being caught up to the third heavens, and hearing there unutterable words, is given. It is for us to meditate upon the truth.
Jesus, the Shepherd, had found a sheep, and this object-giving to the man who had eyes to see, is the introduction to the lovely parables and teaching of the tenth chapter of John. Without the blind man before us the pictures presented by the parables lack the sheep.
The once blind man worshipped Jesus, we say, his whole being was rapt with Him. The Lord had revealed Himself to him as the Son of God. With what a gaze must those once sightless eyes have looked upon Him! As we consider this, what a volume of eternal joy is opened up to us in those few words, "And he worshipped Him." It is heaven on earth, and heaven forever.
No true Christian is satisfied with the bare knowledge of being saved; he longs to know the Saviour. Let us then quote at length the text which has given rise to these remarks; " I am the Good Shepherd, and I know Mine own, and Mine own know Me, even as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father, and I lay down My life for the sheep." (ch. 10:14, 15.) The revised version, from which the quotation is made, gives the Lord's words their true meaning, the depths of which are not seen in our beloved authorized version. Not, dear reader, that we would say their depths could ever be fully seen! What words of wonder are they! Meditate upon them: Even as the Father knows the Son and the Son knows the Father, Jesus knows His own and His own know Him. What intimacy, heavenly, holy intimacy is here! The Christian, who reads them for the first time, may well stand in reverential wonder, overwhelmed with the reality of Christ's love to him.
Say not, Christian, this cannot be for me! Are you not a sheep of His flock? Are you not His own? The least in the family is as much the parent's own as the greatest. Jesus found you. He sought you, He called you, He died for you, He laid down His life for the sheep.
Do not look for your spiritual joys in the synagogue—and we have all of us "our" synagogue—but find them in communion with Christ. He is the Son of God, worship Him. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is the revelation of the Son and the Father.
It is unmistakable, that God in these days is bringing many of His people into a conscious intimacy with His Son to which they once were strangers. Shall we inquire, why is this? Is it not that yet a little while, and He that shall come will come and will not tarry? Is it not that as heaven is so near, God is giving to His people a foretaste of its joy? Heart knowledge of Christ is heaven forever, and is heaven on earth till He come. H.F.W.