John 7:17 If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. 1. It was a frivolous question those Jews raised. It was not whether there was anything in the teaching worth heeding, but how had Christ learned it. Our Lord turns their thought to the question they ought to have asked: Is this the teaching of God This is the first question that any new teaching should raise now; but now, as then, the question is, What is His school? The Bible test of all teaching is, Is it of God? Never mind the school. 2. The old question suggested by Christ is not yet laid. Teachers are in multitudes with all sorts of credentials. But earnest souls are asking, Whence is the teaching? Much of it is countersigned by the schools, but we find the schools wrangling. And not only rival books and systems make trouble for us. We are pointed to facts, and told that God teaches by providence as well as His Word, and yet many of the facts are ugly. The seething deeps of society throw to the surface horrible practical problems not classified in the canons of Westminster and Dort. The tendency of a good many minds is to set down the whole matter as a hopeless muddle. 3. And yet thus much is plain. Given the Being we are taught to believe in and worship, and obey as God, an intelligible revelation of His will follows of necessity, else loyalty and duty are the veriest farce. And if Christ is to be believed, all the teaching necessary to blessed and useful living is clearly given by God. "The light is with you," He tells the Jews, "walk while ye have it." Christ claims to be this light, and to meet the demand for God's teaching. "My teaching is that of Him who sent Me." "So far, well," says the world. "That is a fair response to our challenge; but how shall we test it? How shall we know?" Christ answers, "By experiment. Practice the teaching and it will vindicate itself as Divine." 4. Christ thus puts practice before knowledge, and as a means to it, and in this lays down no arbitrary or unfamiliar law. The best of our knowledge, all of it that is useful, is gained through practice. So the teaching of Christ will not vindicate itself as of God by merely studying it. No man ever learned to paint or play by mastering the theories of painting and music. He must handle the brush and finger the keys himself. Doing is a mode of study. Practice vindicates theory. Christ thus invites the fairest, simplest, and most decisive test of His teaching. Try and see if it works. I. THE FIRST STEP TOWARD KNOWING THE TEACHING OF GOD IS A DETERMINATION TO DO IT. Will means, not wish, but resolution. A man says, "I should like to know how to write shorthand." That is all it comes to. Another says, "I will learn shorthand," and goes to work at it. There is the difference. There is a great deal of vague wishing and talking about wanting to know God's will. Not a few take it for granted that the teaching of God is a hazy sort of thing, and rather comfort themselves with this haziness, and take refuge in it from clear dictates of duty. Christ nowhere concedes this haziness. He sets the teaching of God in the light, and says, "Man shall know," and the first step towards that is determination. Some people take the attitude of willingness to know if knowledge shall be forced on their conviction; but God's teaching is not brought in that way; it is something to be won, and a man's professed willingness is a sham if it do not translate itself into the energy of a resolved will. II. This energy displays itself in subjection. If one wills to do another's will, he puts himself under that will absolutely, and obeys it, surrendering his own. Christ here lays down no new or arbitrary law. Everywhere obedience is the first step in learning — doing what is told because another wills it. A child sits down to take his first lesson in music, and knows not what it tends to; but the teacher knows. By and by, through the mechanical drudgery, rudimental conceptions of harmony begin to take shape, and so on until he interprets the works of a Beethoven. Many fail in Divine knowledge because they do not like to obey without knowing the reason why. They want God to treat them as equals, not as inferiors. "Except ye become as little children," etc. There is a system and a plan-book of all the details of obedience, but the way to them is by these details. III. TEACHING YOU BY PRACTICE, GOD WILL GIVE YOU LESSONS OUT OF MUCH BESIDES BOOKS. You are resolved to follow Christ's method: well, the practical test is, are you ready to do the first thing Christ tells you? In that case your first teacher will probably be not a robed priest or grave professor, but some troublesome beggar or disturbing child. Your lesson-book may open at that commonplace occasion which calls for a kind word or deed, a restraint of temper or sacrifice of convenience. Through your bearing your brother's burden, and taking his sorrow on your heart, you have got a look into God's heart, and a conception of God's vast tender meaning towards humanity underlying His teaching about love, etc. And so, more and more, you find yourself, not only gaining new knowledge, but gaining it by a new and unsuspected way. (M. R. Vincent, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. |
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