John 8:14-17 Jesus answered and said to them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know from where I came, and where I go… Consider what this witness is. If any of us know a holy man, we know a humble man. The holiest are the most conscious of their sinfulness. It is not a fashion of speech. It is not cant or hypocrisy. The writer who is perfectly satisfied with his lines is not a poet. The painters or sculptors who have no noble dissatisfaction with their work may be ingenious and dexterous, but they are not artists. They have none of that straining forward to an unattained ideal of beauty which is the heritage of genius. So, too, the man who is perfectly content with his own spiritual condition may have a mechanical regularity of habit. He may be a respectable Pharisee; but he is utterly without saintliness, which is, as it were, the genius of goodness. Now Jesus had the loftiest idea of duty. He was also the meekest and humblest of men. Yet in His life there is one fundamental difference from the lives of the saints. They are full of burning words of penitence; they are burdened with cries of confession. But we have long discourses of Jesus. We have one soliloquy with His Father in chap. John 17. Yet there is no confession of sin. He can bare His noble breast to His enemies, and say, "Which of you convinceth Me of sin?" He can go further: He can declare, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me." Farther yet — in those solemn moments when death is near; when moral natures, seemingly made of the strongest granite, crack and crumble before the fire of eternity — He can lift His calm and trustful eyes to heaven and say, "I have glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do." And with this we know that His spiritual insight was so keen and piercing, that not one mote could have floated on the tide of his purity without being detected by that eagle eye; that one speck or stain could not have rested on the very skirts of the garment of His humanity without soiling in His sight the raiment that was white as snow. This holy Man, with the highest idea of duty; this humble Man, who prays falling upon His face; this keen-sighted Man, who sees further into sin than any other, declares that His life and the perfect rule of goodness are in unbroken harmony. What witness is comparable to this witness of Jesus to Himself? (Bp. Alexander.) Parallel Verses KJV: Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go. |
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