(* Jesus knew all things, and that was Peter’s comfort. Peter was sure that his Lord knew the depths as well as the surfaces of things, and thus that he knew what was in his poor servant’s heart, though his lips had so transgressed.)
This was a moment of sweetest interest. We know that if we suffer with him, we shall reign with him; and if we follow him, where the Lord himself is, there his servant shall be. Now this call on Peter was a call to follow his Lord along the path of testimony and suffering, in the power of resurrection, to the rest in which that path ends, and to which that resurrection leads. Jesus had said to Peter before he left him, “Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterward.” (chap. 13.) And the Lord, as we know, was then going to heaven and the Father through the cross. This present call was, in spirit, making good that promise to Peter. It was a call on him to follow his Lord through death up to the Father’s house. And upon saying these words to him, the Lord rises from the place where they had been eating, and Peter, thus bidden, rises to follow him.
John listens to this call, as though it had been addressed to him also, and on seeing the Lord rise and Peter rise, he at once rises also; for he ever lay nearest the Lord. He leaned on his breast at supper, and was the disciple whom Jesus loved. He ever stood in the place of closest sympathy with him. His eye touched his Lord’s eye, his mouth his mouth, his hand his hand. And thus, by a kind of necessity (blessed necessity!) on the Lord’s rising, he rises, though unbidden.
In such an attitude we now see them. The Son of God has risen and is walking out of our sight, and Peter and John are following him. All this is lovely, and significant beyond expression. We do not see the end of their path, for while thus walking the Gospel closes. The cloud, as it were, receives them out of our sight. We gaze in vain after them, and the path of the disciples is just as far removed from us as that of their Lord. It was, in principle, the path that leads to the Father’s house, which we know is prepared for the Lord and his brethren, the presence of God in heaven.
Surely, we may say, the bridegroom at our feast has kept the best wine until now. If our souls could enter into this, there is nothing like it. Mark, in his Gospel, tells us of the fact of the Lord being received up into heaven (16: 19), and Luke shews us the ascension itself, while the Lord was lifting up his hand and blessing his disciples 24: 51). But all that, sweet as it was, is not equal to what we get here. For all that left the disciples apart from their Lord. He was then going to heaven, but they were to return to Jerusalem; but here they are following him up to heaven. Their path does not stop short of the full end of his.
This is none other than “the gate of heaven” to which our Gospel conducts us, and whereat it leaves us. The Lord is in this place, in fullest grace to his chosen. The receiving of the brethren into the Father’s house is here pledged to us. In this, Peter and John are the representatives of us all, beloved. Some, like Peter, may glorify God by death, and others, as is intimated here to John, will be alive and remain till Jesus comes; but all are to follow, whether Peter or John, Moses or Elias, whether asleep in Jesus or quick at his coming, all shall be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air, and be forever with him. It will be to them like the ascension of Enoch before the flood. And being received unto himself, they will go with him into the prepared mansions of the Father’s house, as he has said unto us.
And I may observe, this is the only view of our Lord’s ascension which our Gospel gives us. But it is that view of it which is strictly in character with the whole Gospel, which gives us, as has been observed, our Lord Jesus in connection with the church as the family of the Father, the heavenly household.
For this ascension is not so properly to the right hand of God, or place of power, where he abides alone, but to the Father’s house, where the children are to dwell also. Their path in that direction reaches as far as his through his boundless grace; as here, as I have already noticed, wherever it was that Jesus went (some spot unknown and untold as to this earth), there did Peter and John follow him. He is here acting as though he had gone and prepared the promised mansions in the Father’s house, and had come again, and was now receiving them unto himself, that where he is, there they might be also. And this will be really so at the resurrection of those who are Christ’s at his coming, when the brethren meet their Lord in the air. The Son of God was now, at the end, as he had done in the beginning, showing his own where he dwelt (see chap. 1:33); only, at the beginning he was a stranger on earth, and they abode with him but one day; now he is returning to his proper heaven, and there they are to abide with him forever.
Our Evangelist, then, just lets us hear the full response of the believing hearts of all God’s elect to those truths and wonders of grace which had now been told out. “We know that his testimony is true.” They set to their seal that God is true. And all this is then closed with a simple note of admiration—for such, in principle, I judge the last verse to be. And, indeed, this is all he could do. Was it not beyond his praise? What heart could conceive the full excellence of his ways whose name he had now been publishing?
Here the fourth section of our Gospel ends; and here the whole ends. And what a journey through it has that of the Son of God been? Made flesh at the beginning, he walked on earth as the Stranger from heaven, save as he was occupied in ministering grace and healing to sinners. The prince of this world at length came to him; but, finding nothing in him, he cast him out of the world. But this he could not do, until, as the Savior, the Son of God had accomplished the peace of all that trust in him. Then he triumphantly broke the power of death, and, as the risen Lord, imparted the life which lie had won for his people: and, finally, by a significant action, pledged to them that where he was going, there they should follow him, that they might be with him where he was.
Our Gospel began with the descent of the Son, and closes with the ascent of the saints. And the time of this ascent, or being taken into the air, I judge is altogether uncertain. It may be tomorrow; and will be, when the fullness of the Gentiles shall have come in, when all the saints have been brought, in the unity of the faith, to a perfect man. It does not depend on a certain lapse of time. No prophecy which involves computation of time, I believe, belongs to it. Such belongs to the Lord’s return to the earth, and not to the taking of the saints into the air to meet him. At that return of the Lord to the earth, the saints will be with him; and this earth will then be prepared to be their common kingdom and inheritance. And that return, I grant, must await its prescribed time, and the full spending out of the days and years announced by the prophets. But no days or years measure out the interval from the ascension of the Lord to that of his saints. The Holy Ghost, it is most true, has given us moral characters of certain times, thus defining “the latter times,” and “the last days” (1 Timothy 4; 2 Timothy 3 &c.); but he tells us also, that even then “the last time” had already come. (1 John 2:1818Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. (1 John 2:18).) So that faith is entitled to look for her joy in meeting the Lord in the air every hour; with patience the while, to do the will of God. And the prophecies that compute time (as far as they are still future), will not (I merely give my own judgment) begin to be applied, or the times they notice begin to run, till this rapture into the air take place. Then indeed the suffering remnant in Israel may begin to number out the days for their comfort, and for food of hope; and in their deepest sorrow lift up their heads, as knowing that their salvation draweth nigh.
After all this, beloved, our God well may claim our confidence, and be our title to full holy liberty, and our sure and constant source of gladness. This is to honor him as the Father. And if we have a thought of him that leaves a sting behind it, it is the thought of foolishness and of unbelief. All is brightness to faith. Such is God our Father. And in the Son, of his love we are accepted. “He’ll not live in glory, and leave us behind”—and the language of our hearts towards him abidingly should be, “Come, Lord Jesus.” And this confidence of present adoption, and this joy of hope, we have through the Holy Ghost who dwelleth in us, our companion by the way, our “other Comforter,” till the Bridegroom meets us.
To our gracious God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, be glory forever and ever Amen.
(Concluded from p. 260.)