1.“Come and See.”
IF the report is insufficient, then “Come and see”; for, alas, people prefer sight to faith, and that which is tangible and visible to that which is spiritual. And yet how much of faith there is in our daily life! How much we take on credit and believe without any evidence whatever! We believe all kinds of reports, and act upon them, and repeat them, and never question them, and we may be quite right in doing so; but in divine things much less credibility is admitted. Strange we wish the evidence of sense ere we believe what God has spoken, and think that, having some such evidence, our faith will be justified!
The fact is, however, that the man who will not believe without seeing would not believe by seeing. There is something deeper than evidence in question. There is will.
A miracle never produced a saving faith, though it may have confirmed a faith already operative. A man might rise from the dead, and yet this would not persuade people.
Then is evidence not allowable?
May the senses have no place? They may.
“We have found... Jesus of Nazareth,” said Philip to Nathanael.
“Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” was the answer.
The point was wisely left unnoticed, but the challenge was quietly made that he should “come and see.”
Granted that, and the challenger felt sure of his victory; nor was he wrong. Nathanael came, and saw, and heard, and at once confessed: “Thou art the Son of God; Thou art the King of Israel.”
There was a something in the Nazarene that evoked this true confession. There in lowly guise was the Son of God—there, without the insignia of royalty, stood the King of Israel!
By that sight the prejudices of Nathanael were all dissipated: his allegiance was won forever.
And that which was true for him is true for any. It is absolutely impossible to have conscious dealing (albeit invisible and inaudible) with the living Lord on high, and not be the recipient of blessing.
If my reader has any question as to this, all I can say is: “Come and see!” Just go in simple, direct, childlike faith to Him Whose grace is unchanged, and I can certify that you shall in no wise be cast out. “For every one that asketh receiveth” (Luke 11:1010For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. (Luke 11:10)). “Everyone” is surely ample enough for the greatest doubter, and to “ask” is the very least you can do!
2. “COME, SEE A MAN.”
A Man, a wonderful Man has come! He has “told me all that ever I did,” said the “woman of Samaria,” and a black and guilty “all” it was. But this Man drew back the curtain of her life to her in such a way, so firmly so tenderly, so unerringly, that she was constrained to ask, “Is not this the Christ?”
And, mark, there was not merely the unmasking of her life, there was also the discovery to her of God as a giver, and of living water, and with it, worship of the Father; for “salvation,” He said, was “of the Jews.”
Salvation, and such a full salvation as all this implied, was preached to her, and somehow applied in such a way as that she was, may I say reverently, charmed by the wonderful Preacher; so charmed that she could not conceal her delight. Leaving her water-pot, she went to the city and said to the men, “Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did; is not this the Christ?”
True, He told her very much more than the “all things” that she ever had done. Clearly she had taken in very little about a giving God, or living water, or the worship of the Father; but she had learned herself, in the unerring light of One Whom she owned as the Christ.
Her invitation was accepted. Many came and heard for themselves, and thus got to know that He was “indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.” Nor could it have been otherwise, for “he that seeketh findeth” in a search where none can be disappointed.
“None shall seek that shall not find;
Mercy called whom Grace inclined,
Nor shall any willing heart
Hear the awful word ‘Depart.’”
3. “COME, SEE THE PLACE WHERE THE LORD LAY.”
If Nathanael came and saw the Son of God; and if the men of Samaria were invited to come and see the Christ, the women in Joseph’s garden were asked by angel voices to come and see the place where the Lord had lain. He lay there no longer. He Who had, at first, lain in a manger, lay at last in a tomb. But now He was risen, and the place where He had lain in death was vacant. His resurrection proved the completeness of His work.
The angels announced a risen Christ; and we know that the veritable body which had been in death was now raised therefrom. “A spirit,” He said, “hath not flesh and bones as ye see. Me have.” He gave many infallible proofs of the actuality of His corporeal presence after His resurrection, so that the voice of the skeptic should be silenced on that subject. Moreover, “this same Jesus,” we read, “shall so come again in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.”
He rose; He ascended; He is coming again. We have to do with a living Lord.
But there was a place where the Lord lay—the Lord, the Creator, the Redeemer, Whose precious blood-shedding wrought atonement for all who believe—the Son of God, the risen and glorified Man. This place these devoted women were bid to see, and to understand the victory over Death and Satan which He had gained. What a revelation and a solace! Some, then, have come and seen the Son of God and King of Israel; some came and saw the Christ; some saw the place where the Lord lay, and on their hearts was sealed the glory of His Person and the value of His work. These are the bases on which our blessing and God’s glory rest immutable forever. J. W. S.