AS it was for the Church that Christ lived and died, so it was for her that He rose again. He left His Father’s throne of glory and came into a far country, that He might earn and purchase her redemption and deliverance. His love for her was such that the waters of many temptations and the floods of affliction and of His Father’s wrath could not quench it. For the joy that was set before Him in her complete deliverance He endured the Cross; for her He became obedient even unto death; and in all His humiliation the prospect in the distance of this beauteous and ransomed bride rejoiced His spirit, and carried Him exultingly through. As He died for her offences, so He rose again for her justification. If He is now at the right hand of the Father, it is that He may make intercession for her. If He has all power in heaven and on earth, it is that He may give eternal life to her for whom He laid down His life. And as the severest pang of His sufferings could not prevail to make Him think the purchase too dear, so He rejoiced in their completion mainly because His Church’s deliverance was effected.
If we would see into the heart of Christ, let us contemplate Him on the day of His resurrection. He had burst the prison gates and come forth a conqueror; He stood the Head of a redeemed world; He had spoiled principalities and powers; a name above every name awaited him; the hosts of heaven longed for His ascension that they might fall down and worship Him;—and how was He employed? Behold Him first ministering consolation to a poor mourning disciple, Mary Magdalene. See Him next enlightening the ignorance and confirming the weak faith of the two travellers to Emmaus—conversing with them till their hearts burned within them. Then we find Him appearing to Cephas; he who had denied Him was singled out for this gracious visit, as specially needing it to assure him that he was graven on Christ’s heart still. Afterwards He appeared to His assembled disciples, and despite of their ignorance and slowness of heart to believe—despite of their desertion of Him in His hour of agony and distress—saluted them with “Peace be unto you.” We have here the heart of Christ disclosed to us, His love and pity for His people, His zeal for their interests, His fixed purpose of saving them, and His determination that none of them should perish, and that none should pluck them out of His hand. And Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
But let us attend to the passage immediately before us. And if we could enter into its meaning we should see something of Christ’s heart and something of our own. We see here the great Shepherd of the sheep dealing with a strayed sheep—but one of Christ’s sheep, and therefore reclaimed—one who would doubtless long ere now have been devoured by the wolves, had not He watched over and protected him. Peter was a chosen vessel, and therefore in confirming him Jesus would so stamp his backsliding and his recovery on his heart, and so deal with him as that the Church at large should be profited.
The case of Peter is sometimes coarsely handled. Many deal with the sad scene of his denial of Christ as though he were placed on the pillory to be branded as a traitor and coward by every passer-by. But when they scan and censure Peter’s fall, it would be well if they inquired whether their own lives be not one continued denial of Christ; whether their hearts ever dictated Peter’s question and confession, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life”; whether they have ever shared Peter’s blessing—“Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven”; and whether, if they can see the greatness of his sin, they can also enter into the pungency of his sorrow over it. Not that we would dare to speak lightly of Peter’s sin; but it is dangerous to contemplate the falls and infirmities of the saints of God without respect to their life of faith and obedience, and especially to the deep repentance consequent on their reclaiming and their experience of mercy—to probe into their sins and faults while our own hearts’ corruptions remain unexplored by us. We are then in danger of extracting poison from such a precious passage of God’s Word as this, if we are content to bring to its consideration a hard, unhumbled heart.
“Though all shall be offended, yet will not I.” So spake Peter, not in hypocrisy—knowing that he loved Christ—but not thinking of his weakness, and not laying to heart the deceitfulness of sin and the wiles and power of Satan. He spoke as confidently as though he had been his own keeper; and not only so, but he affirmed that in the silence or flight of all other confessors of Christ’s name, he would be found faithful. It was no wonder that his foot slipped. And so will it ever be with us. When we lose sight of the deceitfulness of our hearts, we lose sight of a necessary beacon, and we are left to steer our way in darkness, amid shoals and quicksands; and the result may be a departure from the faith, a lukewarmness of spirit, or a loose or careless walk before the world, by which enemies are led to blaspheme, the people of God are wounded, and we pierce ourselves through with many sorrows. This is a mystery to those who have but a form of godliness, but it is not so to those who know the deceitfulness of their hearts, and that they have daily to contend with the many-headed monster, sin, and need restraining and upholding grace to enable them to stand before it. And how did Peter act when he ceased to say, “Lord, preserve me”? In the face of Christ’s solemn and pointed warning, in the face of his boast and of his expressed resolution, he denied his Master: “I know not the man.” He thrice denied him. He added cursing to his denial, as if his conscience had not been already sufficiently loaded with guilt. How affecting in one of that little band whom Christ had chosen out of the world, and to whom He had unlocked and disclosed His very heart! How affecting in one who was not a traitor at heart, that such wickedness should lodge in the breast of a disciple! How humiliating to all of us that such is the requital which Christ receives from the best of us! And how strikingly does it illustrate the truth that the love of Christ is free, rich, and altogether unmerited!
“The Lord turned, and looked upon Peter.” Oh! surely He had prepared Himself for such a requital, and though it met Him in the very thickest of His sufferings He was not overcome by it; it was insufficient to change His love. He would even then show how His heart rose above it all; and as on the Cross He gathered in one unlikely sinner to His fold, so in the hall of judgment He recovered His wandering disciple. “He looked upon Peter.” Who can tell the significance and power of that look? It went like an arrow to Peter’s heart, and “he went out and wept bitterly.”
Without attempting to analyse his feelings in the freshness of his sorrow, let us view him some little time after, under the searching scrutiny of Him whom he had denied. “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?” It is as if the Lord had said, “Thou knowest the great professions of love made by thee, and how these were followed up by denying me; sayest thou still, not only that thou lovest me but that thy love exceeds in measure that of thy brethren?”
“Peter saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.” It is no longer self-confident, boasting Peter, but humbled, broken-hearted Peter who speaks. He had learned a lesson of humility. He had learned the deceitfulness of his heart. The exceeding sinfulness of his sin was present to his mind, so that he blushed in remembering his woeful pride and presumption, and instead of thinking he stood foremost in faith and love, he now deemed himself unworthy to be called a disciple, feeling that if again permitted to call Christ “Lord and Master,” it would be a miracle of mercy. Yet still he felt that he loved Him, that Christ was dearer to him than all besides, that without Him this world would be to him a blank and void. He knew that he harboured no known rebel to his Lord in his heart, and if such an “Achan” lurked unsuspected there, it was his desire that Christ should drag it forth and slay it before him. He knew also that he had sorrowed for his sin as he had never sorrowed for any earthly losses or trials, and in the view of this he was able to look Christ in the face and to say, “Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.” He appealed to the Searcher of Hearts, and left it with Him to say if it were not so.
In this reply we may see also the workings of the Spirit of adoption. He felt how grievously he had sinned; that, having renounced Christ, most justly might he be renounced by Him; yet this did not drive him away, nor make him seek to evade Christ’s question. It led him to throw himself into the arms of the Lord Jesus in the self-same spirit with that which led David to say, “Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great.” “Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.” Happy Peter, that could thus appeal to the omniscient Redeemer that He was his Beloved!
“Jesus saith unto him, Feed my lambs.” The great Shepherd in these words seals Peter’s forgiveness. Only let us remember that it was to reconciled and penitent Peter these words were spoken. There is no such thing as the enjoyment of pardon separated from repentance. But though Peter’s fall had not blotted his name out of the book of life, had he not annulled his apostleship? No; Jesus saith unto him, “Feed my lambs.”
“My lambs.” How endearing is this expression! And from the mouth, too, of the holy Lamb of God! Here are embodied all the tenderness and affection of which the poverty of language will admit. But who are Christ’s lambs? Not the unconverted young—not even though they may be within the outward fold of the Church, and have Christ’s name put upon them, if they are still unconverted; though it is out of the families of His people that the Lord specially gathers souls to Himself, and though churches, ministers, and parents are charged with very solemn responsibility to watch over the young, and to commend the service of the loving Saviour to them. And not those who have made the profession for the first time that they are the Lord’s, if the profession be not a true one, if they have never been awakened to feel that one thing is needful, never fled to Christ for refuge, and never turned away from the world to rest in Christ as their portion. But they are young or recent converts. Especially they include dear young Christians, pious youth, or children who have just entered in at the strait gate and begun to make acquaintance with the realities and glories of the spiritual world. They include those who, after learning in a more or less painful measure how sinful and lost they are, have begun to hope in believing that Jesus is able and willing to save them to the uttermost; who have seen so much of Christ in the Word as to make Him the Alpha and Omega of their desires and hopes and aims—to be His, to follow Him, to love Him, to serve Him, but whose wounds—the wounds produced by a sense of sin—have not been thoroughly healed, or are ready, if rudely touched, to bleed afresh. They include those who—though they may have little to tell of their experience, and though they may be very ignorant of many important truths—have yet got the heart right with God, the heart that loves His name and law, and day and Word, and Church and people. They include those who, having tasted of the graciousness of the Lord, and having no heart to engage in any duty without a sense of His supporting presence, are ready to conclude that all is gone if their Beloved withdraw for a moment, who have yet to learn to stretch the wings of faith, and to pierce through every intervening cloud to an unseen, abiding Christ. They are those who are equally inexperienced in the workings of their own hearts and the difficulties of the Christian life, and are therefore liable to be at once prostrated by temptation, or to fall a prey to the wily insinuations of the hireling. They are those in whom the lineaments of the blessed Saviour’s image are like those of an infant, where there is much to excite love and pity, and much also that calls for wise, judicious, and tender management. Such are Christ’s lambs. They are dear to Him; and He has provided that they be fed with food convenient for them. The good of the Church requires it; for if the lambs perish, the Church’s hope is lost. He has provided green pastures for them, and He has commanded His servants to see to it that they feed them diligently and tenderly. Only those who love Him, and have been called by His grace, are employed and sanctioned by Him in this work. None but converted souls can understand the case of converts. And this is the chief proof of love which He desires from His servants, that they lay themselves out to win souls, and when they are won, tenderly to care for and feed them. Woe then to the hireling shepherd who scatters the lambs! And ill shall it fare even with the ignorant, though honest, shepherd who drives when he should lead them, who gives them strong meat instead of milk, or who quiets their fears by teaching them self-confidence.
Does it seem strange, then, that to fiery, impetuous Peter such a charge should be given? Our wonder will cease if we consider the effects on Peter of his knowledge of himself and his experience of the Lord’s grace. He had grown in humility and in self-distrust. His conscience, purged from sin, was tender. His spiritual senses were sharpened to see sin where others might fail to see it. He had learned the devices of Satan, and the deceitfulness of his own heart. He was filled with shame in thinking of his sin, so that he felt, ere he could administer reproof to others, that he needed to administer it afresh and unsparingly to himself. His experience of mercy had softened and subdued him, and filled his heart with patience and gentleness. None more ready to bear a brother’s burden, more slow to condemn, more at home in dealing with the broken heart, than those who feel how much Christ has forgiven them.
Peter therefore had a heart for the work of feeding Christ’s lambs, and peculiar aptitude for it. Did he meet one of them mourning under the complaint that the Lord had clean forgotten him? Peter would tell him to “trust in the name of the Lord, and stay himself on his God:—Can a woman forget her child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? She may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” Did he see another leaning wistfully over the hedge of the green pastures towards the forbidden paths of worldly pleasures? Peter would run to snatch him from the danger. Did he see another sporting himself in the vain imagination that he had become wiser than his teachers? Peter would bid him stand in the good old paths, and attend to wholesome instruction. Did he see another take his determined stand in one corner of the field of truth to the exclusion of the rest? Peter would warn him that he was engendering spiritual disease, and already gave signs of a distempered appetite. And did another meet him with the piteous complaint that iniquities prevailed against him, that his prayers were so worthless, his heart so untamed and unkept, his affections so fickle, his love so cold, that it seemed to him as if he did but beat the air? Peter would direct his eyes to Him who “will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax,” and pointing to the Cross and righteousness and intercession of Christ, bid him plant his foot there, and feel a security which all pollution and all guilt could not overcome, and be “strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” And did yet another meet him with the still more mournful complaint that he had sinned beyond the reach of mercy? Peter would say, “I obtained mercy; and in me behold a pattern of God’s long-suffering, and learn not to limit that worth and that grace which are infinite.”
“He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” It is as if He had said, “Is it not a solemn question that I ask thee? How few are there who even profess to love me! And of those few how many do but feign it, or deceive themselves with the thought that they love me, while, if they could but snatch forgiveness from me, they care not for my name or honour. Consider also, is love—fervent, steadfast love, the love befitting an apostle and shepherd—consistent with denying me? Ponder this well, Peter.” Not that Jesus would have Peter doubt the truth of his love; but assuredly He desired that, for Peter’s good and usefulness, there should be yet more searching of heart. And let us take the question home to ourselves. Are there any of us, professing to love Christ, who shrink from truly confessing Him before men? Can we recall a season when we acted as though we were ashamed of His Gospel, His ways, His people; or if we did confess Him, made the confession of Him easy to flesh and blood by making it in the spirit of wrath and vain boasting! Then let us inquire whether this be consistent with unfeigned love to Him. If we find that it is consistent with some poor measure of love, we shall certainly find also that we do not love as we ought.
“He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.” Jesus renews the charge, only He makes it more extensive: “Feed my flock—the lambs and the sheep. Thus would I have you evince your love for me. Warn and caution them, lest they fall after thy example. Thou art now converted; strengthen thy brethren.”
“He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” Christ would have Peter to remember—ever to remember—the wondrous mercy he had experienced in being restored and forgiven, that there might be, as it were, a pillar set up here to which he might look back at every succeeding step of his journey; and we cannot doubt that where he now is—before the throne of God—he often looks back to this period, and from its review gathers fresh impulse to join in the song, “To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.”
“Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me?” He felt that he deserved to be distrusted. How vividly was the night of his denial present to his mind! If we go astray from Christ we may expect our love to be mistrusted. Our own consciences will mistrust us; the Word of God in every page will lead us to mistrust ourselves. But can we say with Peter, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee?” Thou knowest all our sins and our follies; Thou knowest there is that in us which would humble us to hell; Thou knowest that every duty is defiled with our sins, yea, that we are altogether vile;—but Thou knowest also that they are our grief and our shame; we groan and are burdened under our corruptions; for we would love Thee with pure hearts fervently. Oh, increase this spark of love! Send down from heaven that fire which would kindle our hearts into a whole burnt-offering! Oh, hasten the time when, through Thine unbounded mercy, there shall not be found in us one cold thought of Thee any more.
“Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.” Is it so? Then feed my sheep:—thus may you find full expression for your devoted attachment to me; and “inasmuch as ye do it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye do it unto me.” “Feed my sheep”—guide them to the pastures of my Word, defend them from the ravening wolves; take the oversight of them; and when I, the chief Shepherd, shall appear, thou, Peter, shalt receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
This subject speaks particularly to ministers; but it speaks also to every individual.
We have here disclosed to us the heart of Christ—of the meek and lowly yet jealous Lamb of God. He who searches the heart now says to each one of us, “Lovest thou me?” Do we love Him? It is a bad sign if we seek to evade the question. Does our closet, with its omitted duties—does our heart, with its indulged lusts—answer in the negative? Or do we rather, under a deep impression of the deceitfulness of our hearts, do we say in the first instance, Lord, search and try us? So far it is well. Let us, then, take the question home with us, and there lay bare our souls to the scrutiny of the Word, which is Christ’s instrument in searching the heart. If you love the Redeemer you may expect that He will shine upon His own work, make it known to you, and give you a blessed interview in realizing it. If you love Him not, better, surely, to awaken to this consciousness now than to have the mask pulled off at a judgment-seat.
There are many whom I need not ask whether they love Christ. Their disregard of His law, their indifference to prayer and to communion with Him, show that there is no love to Christ in their hearts. Remember that there is another word written: “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.” That is, Let him be accursed till the day of judgment; let the curse of God abide on him for ever. If he love not Christ, let the whole creation say, “Anathema Maranatha.” Can any of us be indifferent to such a sentence as this? O, may God take away the heart of stone!
From a mercy-seat Christ now addresses each one of you, “Lovest thou me—me, who am fairer than the sons of men, who am the brightness of my Father’s glory and the express image of His person, who laid down my life that sinners such as you might have eternal life, who for years have been standing knocking at the door of your hearts.” You cannot, indeed, reason yourself into loving Christ, infinitely amiable and worthy of love though He be. Neither are you to keep back from Him whom you have rejected and pierced, till you find your heart going out in love to Him; for then you would never come to Him. But as a lost sheep you are to come to Him as the Shepherd of souls that He may restore and renew you. Under His own Spirit’s teaching you are to believe His wondrous love to sinners such as you and me; and that love, when realized and brought home, will conquer, melt, and draw you.
College Fund Collection.
The Collection hitherto known as the Students’ Aid Fund is in future to be known as the College Fund. The collection for this Fund will (God willing) be taken up on the third Sabbath of August. It may be here explained that the Synod agreed to give a small grant per annum to each of the theological tutors as a recognition of their services to the Church. These sums are to be provided from this Fund as well as the financial aid given to the students. These facts need only be stated in order to call forth a liberal response from our people.