"Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord."
We are aware in how many different ways our fellow-disciples try and tempt us, as, no doubt, we do them. We see, or we fancy we see, some bad quality in them and we find it hard to go on in further company with them. And yet in all this, or in much of it, the fault may be with ourselves, mistaking a want of conformity of taste or judgment with ourselves, for something to be condemned in them.
But the Lord could not be thus mistaken; and yet He was never " overcome of evil," but was ever " overcoming evil with good "-the evil that was in them with the good that was in Himself. Vanity, ill-temper, indifference about others, and carefulness about themselves, ignorance after painstaking to instruct, were of the things in them which He had to suffer continually. His walk with them, in its way and measure, was a day of provocation, as the forty years in the wilderness had been. Israel again tempted the Lord, I may say; but again proved Him. Blessed to tell it; they provoked Him, but by, this they proved Him. He suffered, but took it patiently. He never gave them up. He warned and taught, rebuked and condemned them, but never gave them up. Nay; at the end of their walk together, He is nearer to them than ever.
Perfect and excellent this is, and comforting to us. The Lord's dealing with the conscience never touches His heart. We lose nothing by His rebukes. And He who does not withdraw His heart from us when He is dealing with our conscience, is quick to restore our souls, that the conscience, so to express it, may be enabled soon to leave His school, and the heart find its happy freedom in His presence again. As sings hymn, which some of us know-
" Still sweet 'tis to discover,
If clouds have dimm'd my sight;
When pass'd, Eternal Lover,
Towards me, as e'er thou'rt bright."
And I would further notice, that in the character which, in the course of His ministry, He is called to take up (it may be for only an occasion, or a passing moment), we see the same perfection, the same moral glory, as in the path He treads daily. As, for instance, that of a Judge, as in Matt. 23, and that of an Advocate or Pleader in Matt. 22. But I only suggest this: the theme is too abundant. Every step, word, action, carries with it a ray of this glory; and the eye of God had more to fill it in the life of Jesus, than it would have had in an eternity of Adam's innocence. It was in the midst of our moral ruin Jesus walked; and from such a region as that He has sent up to the throne on high a richer sacrifice of sweet-smelling savor than Eden, and the Adam of Eden, had it continued unsoiled forever, would or could have rendered.
Time made no change in the Lord. Kindred instances of grace and character in Him, before and after His resurrection, give us possession of this truth, which is of such importance to us. We know what He is this moment, and what He will be forever, from what He has already been-in character as in nature-in relationship to us as in Himself-" the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever." The very mention of this is blessed. Sometimes we may be grieved at changes, sometimes we may desire them. In different ways we all prove the fickle, uncertain nature of that which constitutes human life. Not only circumstances, which are changeful to a proverb, but associations, friendships, affections, characters, continually undergo variations which surprise and sadden us. We are hurried from stage to stage of life; but unchilled affections and unsullied principles are rarely borne along with us, either in ourselves or our companions. But Jesus was the same after His resurrection as He had been before, though late events had put Him and His disciples at a greater distance than companions had ever known, or could ever know. They had betrayed their unfaithful hearts, forsaking Him and fleeing in the hour of His weakness and need; while He, for their sakes, had gone through death-such a death as never could have been borne by another, as would have crushed the creature itself. They were still but poor, feeble Galileans-He was glorified with all power in heaven and on earth.
But these things worked no change; " nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature," as the apostle speaks, could do that. Love defies them all, and He returns to them the Jesus whom they had known before. He is their companion in labor after His resurrection, nay, after His ascension, as He had been in the days of His ministry and sojourn with them. This we learn in the last verse of St. Mark. On the sea, in the day of Matt. 14, they thought that they saw a spirit and cried out for fear; but the Lord gave them to know, that it was He Himself that was there, near to them, and in grace, though in divine strength and sovereignty over nature. And so in Luke 24, or after He had risen, He takes the honeycomb and the fish, and eats before them, that with like certainty and ease of heart they might know that it was He Himself.
In John 3, He led a slow-hearted Rabbi into the light and way of truth, bearing with him in all patient grace. And thus did He again in Luke 24, after that He was risen, with the two slow-hearted ones who were finding their way home to Emmaus.
In Mark 4, He allayed the fears of His people ere He rebuked their unbelief. He said to the winds and waves, " Peace, be still," before He said to the disciples, " How is it that ye have no faith? " And thus did He, as the risen One, in John 21; He sits and dines with Peter, in full and free fellowship, as without a breach in the spirit, ere He challenges him and awakens his conscience by the words, " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? " Peter had betrayed special self-confidence. Though all should be offended, yet would not he, he said; and though he should die with his Master, he would not deny Him. But his Master had told him of the vanity of such boasts; but had told him also of His prayer for him, so that his faith should not fail. And when the boast was found to have been indeed a vanity, and Peter denied His Lord, even with an oath, his Lord looked on him, and this look had its blessed operation. The prayer and the look had availed. The prayer had kept his faith from failing, but the look had broken his heart. Peter did not " go away," but Peter wept, and "wept bitterly." At the opening of John 21 we find Peter in this condition-in the condition in which the prayer and the look had put him. That his faith had not failed, he is enabled to give very sweet proof; for as soon as he learns that it was his Lord who was on the shore, he threw himself into the water to reach Him; not, however, as a penitent, as though he had not already wept, but as one who could trust himself to His presence in full assurance of heart; and in that character his most blessed and gracious Lord accepts him, and they dine together on the shore. The prayer and the look had thus already done their work with Peter, and they are not to be repeated. The Lord simply goes on with His work thus begun, to conduct it to its perfection. Accordingly, the prayer and the look are now followed by the word.
Perfect Master! the same to us yesterday, to-day and forever; the same in gracious, perfect skill of love going on with the work He had already begun, resuming, as the risen Lord, the service which. He had left when He was taken away from them, and resuming it at the very point, knitting the past to the present, service in the fullest grace and skill! J. G. B.
"Not as Thy ways, our ways
We bow before Thy face;
Not like Thy thought, our thought,
As by Thy Spirit taught."
" Not as our ways, Thy ways!
Savior, Thy name we praise;
Not as our thoughts, Thy thoughts,
Told by Thy love-work wrought."