01.14. CHRIST'S "VERILY, VERILY".
Chapter 14 CHRIST’S "VERILY, VERILY."
"Verily, verily, I say unto you."
We owe the preservation of this remarkable form of asseveration to this evangelist. In the other Gospels the single " Verily " habitually appears, but the double never ; while in John’s Gospel the double occurs some twenty-five times, and the single not at all. Most of us are, no doubt, aware that the word rendered "Verily" is the simple " Amen," which properly means " firm " or "steadfast." It is used sometimes to confirm an assertion which follows it, and sometimes to sum up a prayer which precedes it. In the former case its force is, "Thus it certainly is ; " in the latter it may be paraphrased, "So may it be." Its reduplication gives emphasis, and may be regarded as a superlative, "Most certainly." This doubled form of the phrase is used by Christ only. It becomes no other lips. It may be useful to ponder its significance, and to bring together the various declarations which our Lord heralds by this solemn attestation. We may learn from the study lessons of three kinds - as to the authority of the Teacher, the certainty and importance of His teaching, and as to the duty of the scholars.
I First, then, we note what that doubled "Verily" claims for the Teacher.
Nothing is more remarkable and distinctive in our Lord’s words than their air of authority, combined with the most perfect gentleness, meekness, and humility. He lays down His bare word before us, as if saying, " Accept this because I say it," and for no other reason. Such a tone is unique, at least among sane teachers. There have been fanatics and self-deceived enthusiasts in abundance, who have clashed down their unsupported assertions before men, and insisted on their reception; but they have been over whelmed by universal scorn, or by still more galling laughter. One Teacher alone has succeeded in persuading men that He had a right to speak thus, and been taken at His own valuation. The phenomenon is absolutely unique. Contrast the authoritative ring of this doubled "Verily, verily," with the prophets’ standing formula, " Thus saith the Lord." The loftiest of the inspired men who dwelt nearest the throne of the Ineffable, and were in fullest possession of the secret of the Lord, never ventured to obtrude or even to show their own personality, but hid themselves behind the word of which they were but the vehicles. Christ never uses their manner of speech, and seeks not, as they did, to secure acceptance for His utterances by tracing them to the Lord ; but while He declares that He speaks that which He heard of the Father, He separates His manner of hearing from that of ordinary inspiration as much as He does His manner of communicating the thing heard from that of other organs of the Divine Word. " Thus saith the Lord" was the seal impressed on the prophetic word; "I say unto you " is the characteristic of Christ’s. Thus He stands above the prophets, by whom at sundry times and in divers manners God spake unto men, being not only, as they were, messengers, but Himself the Message.
Contrast His authoritative teaching with that sort which was in vogue in Palestine at the time. We are told that to understand Jesus we must study the rabbinical teaching of His day, in which we shall find the germs of His. That teaching is well worthy of study by competent persons, and affords much interesting material for the elucidation of the Gospels; but the verdict of the generation which heard both it and Jesus is nearer the truth than the modern idea that He was only a Rabbi of a better sort. The difference between Him and the doctors of the Law, not the likeness, was what struck the people who were familiar with both. " They were astonished at His doctrine : for He taught them as having authority, and not as the scribes." However little they apprehended the substance of His teaching, they felt the difference in its manner from that to which they were accustomed ; and the difference lay precisely here, in the tone of authority with which He spoke. The rabbis and scribes founded their decisions on tradition, as any one who reads a page of the Talmud will see. Rabbi This says so and so ; Rabbi That says thus. Rabbi A, in the name of Rabbi B, said this ; and so on to weariness. They passed from one to another some stale drops of water drawn long ago by other hands. Jesus Christ stood forth among these retailers of other men’s wisdom, from which any freshness that it ever had possessed had evaporated, as a fresh Fountain of certitude and truth, and " cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and drink." In His own Being are hidden the springs of wisdom and knowledge. His word is sovereign, and He has learned from no man. The contrast of His manner of teaching with that of the doctors His contemporaries is more important, and leads to truer conceptions of His nature and work than any fortuitous and isolated resemblances in specific sayings, which may be discovered, though these were more numerous and striking than they have yet been shown to be.
Contrast Christ’s "Verily, verily," with the tone suitable to all thinkers who have learned the truths which they preach, and have come to apprehend them through meditation or study. It becomes them to argue. Christ asserts. The thinker shows the path by which he has cut his way through the tangled under woods of error into the open where he sees the sky. Christ never speaks as if any previous ignorance or doubt had been His experience. He never traces His illumination to others. He never takes the place of a learner, either in the moment of speaking or in any previous time. He seldom or never supports His utterances by reasons, even although many of them are by no means self evident or axiomatic. The virtues of all other servants and missionaries of truth, humility, self oblivion, calm allegation of grounds for statements, acknowledgment of having grown by degrees to the apprehension of truth, are entirely absent in Jesus Christ. He clashes down His bare word before us, if we may so say, and bids us take it, simply and solely because it is His. As one of our old divines has it, " Man is problematical ; Christ is dogmatical." And yet the world has recognized in this Teacher, who does the very things that would ruin any other teacher’s reputation and influence, as the true " Master of those who know," and exalts Him as the Pattern and realized Ideal of what the guide of men should be. Strange that such an anomalous Master should have won such disciples ! Stranger still that so many of them should so little understand the Master whom they profess to accept, as to be blind to the meaning of that anomaly in His method ! For if we once recognize this peculiarity in Christ’s teachings, we should not stop till we have dealt fairly with the question, What right had Jesus to speak thus ? Why should I take from His lips, on the authority of His bare word, what He chooses to say to me ? By what title does He assume the place of a Teacher who has done all that is required of Him when He asserts? Surely there is but one answer possible to such questions. It cannot be too strongly stated or too often reiterated that the authority which He claims is unwarrantable usurpation unless He is "the Word of God." Unless we are prepared to accept Jesus as standing in an altogether different relation to the truth which He utters from that in which other men stand to those truths which they have attained to perceive, we cannot vindicate His method of teaching from the charge of arrogance, nor His character from a serious and well nigh filial flaw. But if it be the fact that He not merely apprehended, but was, the Truth, then we can understand His self assertion, inasmuch as the self manifestation of His personality is the fullest declaration and vindication of the Truth, which He is. Then, bowing before Him in whom the fulness of the wisdom of God did bodily dwell, and receiving Him as the Word who is the self revelation of God and the Light of men, we learn the deep significance of His method. Only on the ground of His Divine authority is He vindicated from the charge of arrogant presumption, when instead of argument He gives Himself, and does not deign to commend His deepest and most mysterious utterances by any other reason for our acceptance of them than this, " Verily, verily, I say unto you."
II Let me point out what this formula implies as to the certitude and impertinence of Christ’s lessons.
" Verily, verily," is substantially equivalent to " Most certainly," and by its attachment to certain sayings of our Lord’s, these are placed as in His estimation beyond cavil or hesitation. Other teachers have to say, " Peradventure," or " This I deem to be true ;" but Jesus asserts, with unfaltering confidence, the irrefutable certitude and immovable stability of His utterances, and lays them down for the foundation of all pure thinkings on the subjects which they touch. In such a day as this, when all things seem to be cast into the cauldron again, and the firmest institutions and beliefs are melting away in the heat, the world needs, more perhaps than ever it did, to listen to that Voice, so calm and quiet, which yet rises clear above the hubbub of men, proclaiming their doubts or questionings, and speaks to us the ultimate and eternal truths on which mind, heart, and spirit can build, and, building, be at rest. Much is dark, much in organized institutions and written creeds is doubtful and perishable ; but here at least is a central core of solid rock, which no pressure can cause to crumble nor any force shift : " Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a Stone, a tried Corner Stone, a sure Foundation."
Think of the difference between the freshness and adaptation to the wants of this day, of the words of Jesus Christ, and the film of old fashioned remoteness which has crept over all sayings of all the wise men of the past, except Himself, and tell us what is the secret of the immortal youth and close fittingness of this Man’s words. How happens it that today, amidst a world so different outwardly and inwardly from the simple life amid the Galilean hills, where these words were first spoken, they come as close to us, and in many respects even closer than they did to those who heard them first? How happens it, except because they are so limpidly free from all admixture of the soil that there is nothing in them to decay, and hence all ages may drink and find them sparkling and fresh? Christ’s words have no marks of human limitations, and therefore no fate of transitoriness, but are to every generation the basis of certitude. That sure foundation abides, like the massive blocks still to be seen in their places in the walls of Jerusalem, on which a hundred generations have looked as they passed into oblivion, and which still remain sharp cut and solid as on the long forgotten day when they were first laid. Christ’s " Verily, verily," guarantees the absolute certainty of the truths which it heralds.
Further, this formula declares the importance of His teachings which are introduced by it. It calls special attention to these, and is, as it were, an underscoring of them, or printing them in italics. As I have already remarked, these truths are often by no means self evident. On the contrary, the utterances to which Jesus attaches the double " Verily " are usually those which deal with most recondite and profound teachings. A rough classification of the instances of the occurrence of the phrase, however imperfect it must necessarily be within our limits, may serve in some measure to bring out the importance of the truths commended to us by it. First, then, it points attention to teachings concerning Himself. With it He calls us to believe, on His authority, in His preexistence : " Before Abraham was, I am." With it He asserts His unity of being and identity of action with the Father: "The Son can do nothing of Himself; but what soever things the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." He assumes the office of medium of all communication between earth and heaven: "Ye shall see the heavens open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." He claims to be the means by which men enter the fold of God : " I am the Door of the sheep." He asserts that He is the infallible Teacher, speaking from personal experience of unseen things : " We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen." He presents Himself as the God-given Source and Sustenance of true life : " My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven." He promises the certain acceptance of all prayer truly offered in His name : " What soever ye shall ask of the Father in My name. He will do it." Finally, He proclaims that He must die ’in order to accomplish His life-giving purpose and mission: "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." So His Divine nature, preexistence, absolute union of being and identity of action with the Father, His position and office as the Channel of all God’s approach to us and of ours to Him, His infallible reading off to us of the things which He has seen and heard in the depths of eternity and the glories of the throne, and the solemn necessity for His death of shame, are all commended to us, not by argument, but simply by His " Verily, verily, I say unto you." These are not self evident truths, but, recondite and mysterious as some of them are, Jesus brings nothing to support them but His own word. " Because He could swear by no greater, He sware by Himself." A second set of His sayings thus prefaced refers to us and our relations to Him. Thus He reveals the condition of spiritual life as being union with Him by faith : " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you ; " " He that heareth My word, and believeth in Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life ;" " If a man keep My sayings, he shall never see death." He asserts with the same strong confirmation the necessity of a new nature being communicated ere men can either see or enter the kingdom of God : " Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God ; " and again, " Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom." With the same strong confirmation He presents Himself as the Pattern of lowly love and self abasing service to all His followers : " The servant is not greater than his lord." He lovingly identifies Himself with us, and hints at a transcendent unity of being with Him : " He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth Me." He even holds out the promise, that as He, in His mysterious oneness with the Father, did the same Divine works, so His servants, by virtue of their corresponding union with Him, shall exercise activities like His : " The works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall He do,"
There remain one or two other instances of the use of the double "Verily," which belong to less profound matters. It is sometimes employed in Christ’s predictions, both of a near and of a remote future, which could only be made by supernatural knowledge, and must obviously be accepted on His bare word. " One of you shall betray Me ; " "Ye shall weep and lament, . . . but your sorrow shall be turned into joy ; " " The cock shall not crow till thou hast denied Me thrice ; " " When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, . . . but when thou art old, another shall gird .thee."
Still further, He employs the expression once or twice when, with Divine penetration of insight and certitude of stroke, He lays bare to men their hidden foulness of nature, as when He says, " Ye seek Me, not because ye saw the miracle, but because ye did eat of the loaves ; " or again, " He that doeth sin is the servant of sin."
So, in all the sayings to which this double " Verily " is attached, we can discern more or less clearly the appeal to His Divine authority as Revealer ; and the most of them are truths which would never have dawned on men’s minds except He had uttered them, but, being uttered, become the pillars of our faith and the core of the gospel.
III Lastly, we have to consider what this form of confirmation implies as to the scholars.
It implies that those to whom it was addressed had dull ears, whose languid attention needed to be stimulated, or ’ that the words were too great to be easily believed, or too unwelcome to be swiftly accepted. So it is a solemn warning against prejudice, apathy, and sloth ; an exhortation to earnest attention and sharpened listening ; an appeal to us to permit no indifference to come between us and His Word, nor to stop our ears with the clay of earthliness and sin against His gentle but authoritative voice.
Plainly, the course of our thoughts thus far leads to the conclusion that, since Christ is a Teacher thus authoritative, and His words are thus certain and important, our attitude as His scholars should be that of absolute submission. That which it is degradation to give to a man, it is sin to withhold from Christ. When men speak to us, we have the right and the obligation to say, "How do you know ? Why should I believe you ? " We have the right to question and to disagree. When Christ speaks, the only fit reply is, "Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth." Much is uncertain. On this voice we may absolutely rely. None other is authoritative. Let us, then, silence all other voices, and let Him speak. Come to Christ for yourself, and for yourself hearken to, and take from Him at firsthand what He has to say to you. Thinkers, speculators, books, reviews, currents of opinion, the Zeitgeist, and the like, are poor substitutes for the supreme authority of the one Teacher, the Teacher of all truth, the Teacher for all generations. Do not take your conceptions of Him and His words at secondhand. Do not let your own wishes, or sentiments, or thinkings shape your creed. Listen to Jesus Christ, and what He says do you take into your inmost heart, and on it build all your beliefs. The absolute certitude of His message has for its corresponding altitude our unwavering steadfastness. It seems’ to be thought a mark of " advanced Christianity " that we should not be sure as to any of its doctrines, but hold them all provisionally - as if such an attitude were possible. Provisional belief is practical unbelief. I do not wish any man to say, ’’ I am sure," when he is not. Premature certainty ends in too late doubt. But whilst there will always be for us, in our beliefs, based on Christ’s self revelation, a circumference or horizon of darkness, there would be no circumference unless there were a centre, and no consciousness of the dark rim unless the centre were light. There will always be much about which we shall be wisest to say, " The Lord hath not showed it unto me." But that should not hinder us from firmly grasping the grand certainties, which we can without presumption affirm, and cannot without presumption deny, since Jesus has sealed them with His own attesting word. Let us not falter in adding our voices to the chorus of believers who take up the old triumphant words, "We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true." When Jesus speaks His "Verily, verily, I say unto you," let us add our " Amen" of acceptance to His " Verily " of assurance. Let us respond to His faithfulness with our faith, and build rock on the rock, and, turning to that gentle and infallible Teacher, the incarnate Truth, as our refuge from the jangle of controversies and the strife of tongues, let us humbly and resolvedly say to Him, " Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words , of eternal life."