Chapter V: The Last Discourses of Jesus
I: The Discourse after the Last Supper
John xiv.; Matt. xxvi. 30; Mark xiv. 26.
For the most part the early Christians probably had no knowledge of these incidents of the Paschal Meal which we are about to narrate; but toward the close of the first century John Evangelist completed the testimony of his predecessors by relating instructions given them after the Passover was eaten. To report them so that they should offer nothing obscure or difficult to our mind it would be necessary to reproduce every detail in the scene, the speaking glance, the tender accents and telling gestures of the Master, which together often were sufficient to illuminate His obscurest thought. But aside from the impossibility of the pen ever satisfactorily reproducing human speech, Saint John was animated by a far different design. Here, as everywhere in his Gospel, eagerly bent upon setting the Godhead of the Christ in a stronger light, he only remembers such sentences of the Master as go to establish this dogma, overlooking a thousand accessories which we should have rejoiced to know, but which he did not think proper either to his genius or to the end he had always in view. Perhaps, too, the divine lessons only lingered in his memory as pictures half blurred and dimmed by time. Very many details, all the less important lines indeed, had faded away; the painting lacked any effective master-plan by which the whole would be grouped massively and given a body; but despite this apparent confusion some larger outlines are still easily to be distinguished from the rest, and certain words of the Christ stand out in bright relief; these the Beloved Disciple has left to the Church, just as he was accustomed to meditate upon them continually after the death of the Master, and hence they are the more touching, and opened up to our minds such "depth of loneliness as may well thrill us with sympathy."
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| Christ's last discourse to His Disciples. J-J Tissot. |
The first of the conversations which he now records took place in the Supper-Room. The Lord, whose object it was to prepare His Apostles for the events about to follow, now bade them feel no alarm nor trouble, but believe in God,— to believe likewise in Him, for He was going to leave them now only that He might prepare a place among those innumerable mansions which await them in their Father's House.
" If it were not so," He added, " I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you. And when I shall have gone, and shall have prepared a place for you, I will return and I will take you to Myself, that there where I am you may be also. Now whither I go you know, and the way you know."
"Lord," said Thomas, "we do not know where you are going, and how should we know the way?"
"I am the way, the truth, and the life," Jesus answered him. "No one cometh unto the Father but by Me. If you had known Me you would have known My Father also, but even already you do know Him and you have seen Him."
"Lord," replied Philip, ingenuously, " show us Thy Father and it is enough for us."
What did this Apostle expect, his mind absorbed in dreams of Jewish glory? Some celestial Apparition doubtless, some glimpse of Jehovah's footstool, sparkling with the flames of sapphire, some fiery vision which would crowned their brows with the splendour like that which Moses wore returning from the mountain peaks. For all these three years, during which she had followed the footsteps of God's Son, Philip had not yet comprehended that the Christ was one with His Father.
This blindness wrung from the Saviour an exclamation of grief.
"So long a time have I been with you, and as yet thou dost not known Me! Philip, whoso seeth Me seeth My Father;" He went on to show that His words and His deeds are so manifestly divine that they alone would reveal in him the Almighty's Presence.
Then addressing them all He promised that He would not leave them orphans; that He would return to them, and, through the Father, bestow the Holy Spirit upon them to be their aid. This Spirit of Truth would remain for evermore in their midst, communicating unto them such mighty powers that they should do the same works as their Master, and greater works still, and thereafter everything that they should ask in His Name should be granted them. Moreover, He promised them that, after His Resurrection, they should live, like Him, with their life divine.
" I live and you shall live. In that same day you shall know that I am in My Father and you in Me and I in you."
The sole condition on which they were to receive these gifts of grace was that they observe the commandments of the Lord, and thereby testify their love for Him.
" For he who loveth Me," said Jesus, "shall be loved by My Father and I myself will love Him, and I will manifest myself unto him.
Here one of the Twelve again interrupted the Lord: it was Judas (not the man from Kerioth, but Judas Lebbeus, a cousin of Jesus).
"Master," he asked, "what new thing is this now? How comes it that you will disclose yourself to us, and not to the world?"
Evidently a grandeur destitute of the pomp and circumstance which appeal to the senses did not satisfy the notions which Judas had conceived of the Messiah's coming; his fancy had pictured a Saviou r robed in glory, the nations' awful Judge, a King and Conqueror, whose empire should dazzle the wondering eyes of men.
Jesus did not stop to shatter these illusions, but preferred to pursue His thought, simply saying:—
"If any one love Me, he will keep My word and My Father will love him and We will come unto him, and will make Our abode in Him."
Indeed this indwelling of God midmost His holy people was one of the wonders which were to mark the coming of the Messiah. The Jews had awaited the signal and, instead of the Cloud which so long had overshadowed the Holy Place, they had always looked to see Jehovah Himself, appearing in His heavenly splendour to abide in their midst, according to the promise delivered by the mouth of Moses. Jesus, giving this Prophecy at last its true significance, revealed that God thus abideth only in the hearts of those who love Him, who, for their faithfulness, deserve that perhaps he should disclose Himself to them.
The Master, however, could hardly have hoped that His Apostles would as yet understand such lofty truths as these, and, therefore, He added:—
"I have told you these things while I was still with you, but the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, whom My Father will send in My Name, will teach you all things and bring back all things to your minds which I have told you."
Now at last there was nothing more for the Saviour to do before separating Himself from His own, and accordingly this farewell fell from His lips:—
" I leave you My Peace. Nor do I give you peace like that which the world giveth. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You have heard that which I said to you:'I go away,' but it is only that I may return unto you. If you loved Me you would rejoice for that I go on to My Father, because My Father is greater than I," and because I go to find in Him the power divine which shall assure you of your triumph. " And now I tell you this before it come to pass, that you may believe when it shall come to pass. I have but a little longer wherein I may speak with you, for the Prince of this world draweth nigh."
It was Judas whom the Lord denounced in this manner. He beheld him, making his way towards that quiet upper-chamber, now finally possessed and mastered by Satan.
" He cometh," exclaimed the Saviour, "the Prince of this world cometh, and notwithstanding he hath no power over Me! Yet this must be, that so the world may know that I love My Father, and that I do that which He commandeth Me."
Then rising, " Come!" He said to the Apostles, "Arise, let us go hence!"
The final hymns of the Hallel were chanted, all standing; then Jesus, followed by a His disciples, started out toward the city gates.
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