I came from the Father and entered the world. In turn, I will leave the world and go to the Father." Sermons
I. WHENCE HE CAME. "I came out from the Father." This implies: 1. Unity or oneness of nature. It is not "I came from the presence of the Father," or "from a near point to him," but "I came out from him" - an expression which would be highly improper to be used by any one but by him who is equal and one with the Father, one in nature and essence. It is clearly the language of an equal, and not of an inferior. 2. Nearness of relationship. The human relationship which best expresses the relationship of the "eternal Word" to the Godhead is that of father and son, and this is used. It must not be carried too far, but we are grateful for it, as it sheds some light on Christ with regard to the Godhead; he stands in the most near and natural relationship to him, and this relationship is not outward, accidental, and transient, but inward, essential, and everlasting - the relationship of nature and essence. 3. The most intimate fellowship and acquaintance. The Divine nature is social. We like the idea of the unity of God, one supreme Being fulfilling the idea of perfect oneness; and we like also the idea of a Trinity which deprives mere unity of its dreariness, loneliness, anti monotony, and fills it with the joys and delights of society - the royal and Divine society of the Divine nature. "I came out from," etc. Their fellowship must be most intimate, inspiring, and pure, and their acquaintance perfect. 4. The warmest friendship. What must be the mutual friendship of the Father of love with the Son of his love? It must be the warmest, intensest, sweetest, and most delightful. The purest and most loving human friendships fade before this. 5. The most dignified and glorious position. "From the Father." The most glorious position in the universe. His position was equal with that of the eternal Father, his glory was as resplendent, his throne as majestic, his scepter as universal, and his throne as dignified. 6. A Divine procession. It is difficult, in human language, to describe the Divine movements, and to add anything in explanation to the simple statement of our Lord, which to him was quite plain. "I came out," etc. But there must be a special movement of the Divine nature on the part of the Son, a coming out from the Father, a partial but temporary separation, and a procession of him whose goings forth have been from of old. II. WHITHER WE CAME. As we see the first movement of the eternal Son, we are inclined to ask whither will he go? Doubtless to one of the largest planets, in one of the most glorious systems in the universe. No; but he came into the world. He was in the world before, but now came to it, and came into it in a usual, natural way, by birth. This implies: 1. A great distance. From the Father into the world. The physical distance must be great, but the moral distance greater still. From the Divine to the human, from the sphere of Divine glory, purity, and life, to the sphere of shame, sin, sorrow, and death. The distance was infinite, and the journey was long. 2. A great change. There is a change of air, from the pure air of the Father's presence to the foul air of this world. A change of sceneries, of society, of associations, of relationships. The old ones were only partially left, but new ones were formed. A new nature was assumed; new conditions, circumstances, and employments under-token. The nature of the creature was assumed by the Creator, the nature of the sinner was assumed by Divine purity, and the nature of weakness was assumed by infinite power. The Son of God became the Son of man, the form of God was exchanged for the form of a servant, and the Lord of heaven became the tenant of this wretched, insignificant, and rebellious world. What a change! What a change from the throne to the manger, from the crown to the cross, from the society of the Father and angels to that of the rebellious children of the Fall, from the sweet music of heaven to the malignant execrations of earth! 3. A great mission. "Am come into the world." This suggests that he came as an Ambassador; and the very fact that he came from the Father into the world proves that he came upon a most important mission - a mission which deeply affected the very heart of the King, the honor of his throne, and the well-being of his subjects. His important mission was to effect reconciliation between earth and heaven; to condemn sin and save the sinner; to conquer forever the prince of this world and the powers of darkness, and create a new heaven and a new earth. His mission affected not merely this world, but the whole universe. 4. A great sacrifice. This was required to meet the demands of justice and law, and the need of the world. And his mission was a sacrifice from beginning to end; from the first movement, the coming out from the Father, the coming into the world, his life in it, and his departure from it through the ignominious death of the cross, - all this was an infinite sacrifice sufficient to answer the purposes of Divine love involved in the mission of the Son in the world. 5. A great fact. What is this? That the Son of God was incarnate in this world, and it includes all the great facts of his earthly history, which are summed up here in one, "Am come into the world." This is the greatest in this world's history - the fact of the greatest glory, interest, and consequences in all its annals. It has made this world a center of interest, meditation, and wonder for all the intelligent universe. 6. A great responsibility. If the Son of God was in this world, and for it lived and died in order to bring it into allegiance with heaven, in the face of such a condescension, expense, and sacrifice, its responsibility is infinite. III. WHITHER HE WENT. 1. He left the world. (1) His stay here was not intended to be long. When he came, he came only for a short time. He was a pilgrim in the land rather than a permanent resident. He came as an Ambassador, to perform a special work, and his hard work bespoke a short stay. (2) He accomplished his work here. He came to the world, not to enjoy, but to work; not to rest, but to toil; not to live, but rather to die. He worked hard, and finished his work early; then he left - there was no more to do here. The world tried to send him away before his work was finished, but failed. Not before he cried, "It is finished!" he gave up the ghost. (3) He had a work to do in another place - within the veil. He could not do that work here. He could not be idle. If there was no work here, he would go where it was. He was bound to time and special employments. 2. He went to the Father - to the same place as he came from. (1) This was in the original plan. It was one of the conditions of his departure that he should soon return to the same place and to the same glory. The inhabitants could not be long happy without him. Heaven was not the same during his absence. (2) His mission was fulfilled to the Father's entire satisfaction. Jesus was fully conscious of this, otherwise he would not speak with such confidence and delight of returning to his Father. This is the last thing a disloyal and inefficient ambassador will do. The sweet voice ever rang in his soul, "I have both glorified, and will glorify thee." (3) His return was most natural and sweet to him, to the -Father, and to all. He was never so far and so long from home before, and his return was most gratifying to the Divine heart, and it fulfilled the Divine love. Never had a conquering hero such welcome on his return. Welcome was the language of all the happy family, and the sweet burden of every strain which streamed from harps of gold. It was specially delightful to him. After the hardships of his earthly campaign, home must be indeed sweet; but all the sufferings he forgot in the ecstasy of Divine welcome and the delight of triumph. LESSONS. 1. All the promises of Christ to faith will be fulfilled. He had promised it plainer revelations of the Father, and the text is the first installment. Christ's light is ever in proportion to the strength of the eye, and his revelations, in substance and language, suitable to the capacities of faith - now in proverbs, now in plainer language and with greater confidence, introducing to it deeper mysteries and brighter visions. 2. All the movements of Christ in connection with the great scheme of redemption were purely voluntary. Those indicated in these words were so. "I came out from the Father," etc. He had perfect control over all his movements, and they were invariably the results of his sovereign and free will. 3. When he went to the Father he took the cause of the world, especially that of his disciples, with him - in his nature, in his heart, and will never leave nor forget it. 4. When he left the world he left the best part of himself behind. He left the precious results of his life and death, his example, his pardoning love, his Spirit, his blessed gospel with all its rich contents. 5. As he went to the -Father, this indicates the direction we should go, and ever look for him. We know where he is. He left not his disciples in ignorance of his destination; he left his full address, and in its light we have a Father, and an Almighty Advocate with him. - B.T.
I came forth from the Father. These majestic and strange words are the proper close of our Lord's discourse, what follows being rather a reply to the disciples' exclamation.I. THE DWELLING WITH THE FATHER. The most probable reading is more forcible. "I came forth out of the Father" implies a far deeper and closer relation than even that of juxtaposition, companionship, or outward presence. In these words there is involved that, during His earthly life, our Lord bore about with Him the remembrance and consciousness of an individual existence prior to His life on earth. "Before Abraham was, I am." But beyond that, they are the assertion of a previous, deep, mysterious, ineffable union with the Father. If this fourth Gospel be a genuine record of the teaching of Jesus Christ (and, if it is not, what genius was he who wrote it?), then nothing is more plain than that. Over and over again He reiterated this tremendous claim to have dwelt in the bosom of the Father long before He lay on the breast of Mary. Note that the meekest, most sane and wise of religious teachers made this claim, which is either true, and lifts Him into the region of the Deity, or else is fatal to His pretensions to be a teacher that it is worth our while to listen to. II. THE VOLUNTARY COMING INTO THE WORLD. We all talk in a loose way about men coming into the world when they are born; but the weight of the words and the solemnity of the occasion, and the purpose, forbid us to see such a mere platitude as that in the words here. "I am come rote the world There has been a Man who chose to be born. Now this voluntary entrance of Jesus Christ into our human life — 1. Underlies the whole value of that life. It underlies, e.g., the personal sinlessness of Jesus, and hence His power to bring a new beginning of pure and perfect life into the midst of humanity. All the rest of mankind, knit together by, that mysterious bond of natural descent which only now for the first time is beginning to receive its due attention on the part of men of science, by heredity have the taint upon them. And unless Christ came in another fashion from all the rest of us, He came with the same sin as all the rest of us, and is no deliverer. The stream is fouled from its source, and flows on, every successive drop participant of the primeval pollution. But down from the white snows of the eternal hills of God there comes into it an affluent which has no stain on its pure waters, and so can purge that into which it enters. Jesus Christ willed to be born, and to plant a new beginning of holy life in the very heart of humanity which henceforth should work as leaven. 2. Unless we preserve this clear in our minds and hearts, the power to sway our affections is struck away from Christ. Unless He voluntarily took upon Himself the nature which He meant to redeem, why should I be thankful to Him for what He did? We talk about kings leaving their palaces and putting on the rags of the beggar, and learning "love in huts where poor man lie," and making experience of the conditions of their lowliest subjects. But here is a fact infinitely beyond all these legends. And we may learn there what it is that gives Him His supreme right to our devotion and our surrender — viz., that, being in the form of God, He thought not equality with God a thing to be covetously retained, "but made Himself of no reputation," &c. III. THE VOLUNTARY LEAVING THE WORLD. 1. The stages of that departure are not distinguished. They are threefold in fact.(1) There was a voluntary death. We have our Lord's own words about His having power to lay down His life. We have in the story of the Passion hints that His relation to death was altogether different from that of ours. "Into Thy hands I commit My Spirit"; and He gave up the Spirit. We have hints of a similar nature in the very swiftness of His death and unexpected brevity of His suffering, to be accounted for by no natural result of the physical process of crucifixion. The fact is, that Jesus Christ is the Lord of death, and was so even when He seemed to be its servant, and that He never showed Himself more completely the Prince of Life and the Conqueror of Death than when He gave up His life and died, not because He must, but because He would.(2) There was a voluntary resurrection, for although Scripture represents His rising sometimes as being the Father's attestation of the Son's finished work, it also represents it as being in accordance with His own claim of "power to lay down My life, and to take it again;" the Son's triumphant egress from the prison into which, for the moment, He willed to pass.(3) And there was a voluntary ascension. There was no need for Elijah's chariot, nor any external agency. The cords of duty which bound Him to earth being cut, He rose to His own native sphere; and the natural forces of His supernatural life bore Him, by inverted gravitation, upward to the place which was His own. 2. And thus, by a voluntary death, He became the Sacrifice for our sins; by the might of His self-effected resurrection proclaimed Himself the Lord of death, and the Resurrection for all that trust Him; and by that ascending up on high draws our heart's desires after Him, so that we, too, as we see Him lost from our sight, behind the bright Shekinah cloud, may return to our lowly work with great joy, and set our affections on things above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. IV. THE DWELLING AGAIN WITH THE FATHER. But that final dwelling with God is not wholly identical with the initial one. The earthly life was no mere parenthesis. He carried with Him the manhood which He had assumed into the glory in which the Word had dwelt from the beginning. And this is the true consolation which Christ offered to these His servants, and which He still offers to us His waiting children. And if that be so, it is no mere abstract dogma of theology, but it touches our daily life at all points, and is essential to the fulness of our satisfaction and our rest in Christ. 1. Our brother is elevated to the throne, and He makes the fortunes of the family, and none of them will be poor as long as He is so rich. He sends us from the far-off land where He is gone precious gifts of its produce, and He will send for us to share His throne one day. 2. This elevation fills heaven for our faith, our imagination, and our hearts. Without an ascended Christ we recoil from the cold splendours of an unknown heaven, as a savage might from the unintelligible magnificence of a palace. But if we believe that He is at the right hand of God, then the far-off becomes near, and the vague becomes definite, and the unsubstantial becomes solid, and what was a fear becomes a joy, and we can trust ourselves and the dear dead in His hands, knowing that where He is they are, and that in Him they and we have all we need. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) I. CHRIST HAS BEEN HERE AND GONE.1. This is one of the best attested facts in the world's history. It is attested by contemporaries and by the accumulating moral and social influences of eighteen centuries. 2. It is the most glorious fact in the world's history. Nothing has so blessed the world. It was the creation of a sun in man's moral heaven, the opening of a fountain in man's moral desert. All that is wholesome in the governments, pure in the morals, benevolent in the institutions, holy in the spirit and manners of the world owes its existence to this fact. Insignificant as this planet is compared with other orbs, the fact that Christ has trod its soil has given it a lustre that pales the brightness of them all. II. CHRIST HAS BEEN HERE AND GONE BY HIS OWN CHOICE. Who else could have said this! All others have been sent, Christ came. He fixed His own time, birthplace, country, parentage, circumstances. In the same way He departed — "I leave" — when I please; now or in the future; how I please; by a natural or violent death — "I have power to lay down My life," &c. We are sent away, often by means most revolting, and at a time most dreaded. III. CHRIST IN VISITING THIS EARTH AND DEPARTING FROM IT WAS THE CONSCIOUS MESSENGER OF THE FATHER. The language suggests — 1. The life of true souls. Coming from the Father with our motives, inspirations, and directions from His service, and returning with the results of our labours. As rivers have their existence by rolling from ocean to ocean, so the true life of souls is unconsciously moving from God to God — the cause and end of all activities. 2. The interference of the world with this life. Christ speaks as if, when in the world, He was away from the Father. At times the Father's face seemed eclipsed, "Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" So with us the power of the senses, physical suffering, secular enjoyments, and social trials often interrupt Divine communion. But when we leave the world we shall be for ever with Him.Conclusion: 1. With what holy gratitude should we celebrate Christ's advent and departure! 2. Alas! how many who come into this world depart not to the Father, but to the devil. (D. Thomas, D. D.) People Jesus, DisciplesPlaces JerusalemTopics Forth, Leave, LeavingOutline 1. Jesus comforts his disciples by the promise of the Holy Spirit, and his ascension;23. assures their prayers made in his name to be acceptable. 33. Peace in Jesus, and in the world affliction. Dictionary of Bible Themes John 16:28 2018 Christ, divinity Library Presence in AbsenceEversley, third Sunday after Easter. 1862. St John xvi. 16. "A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father." Divines differ, and, perhaps, have always differed, about the meaning of these words. Some think that our Lord speaks in them of His death and resurrection. Others that He speaks of His ascension and coming again in glory. I cannot decide which is right. I dare not decide. It is a very solemn thing--too solemn … Charles Kingsley—All Saints' Day and Other Sermons November 6 Evening November 29 Evening May 14 Morning December 21 Morning June 15 Evening August 15. "He Will Guide You into all Truth" (John xvi. 13). October 29. "Whatsoever Ye Shall Ask the Father in My Name, He Will Give it You" (John xvi. 23). March 5. "I have Overcome the World" (John xvi. 33). Self-Help From' and 'to' Peace and victory Why Christ Speaks The Guide into all Truth Christ's 'little Whiles' 'In that Day' The Joys of 'that Day' Glad Confession and Sad Warning The Departing Christ and the Coming Spirit The Convicting Facts Nevertheless I Tell You the Truth; it is Expedient for You that I Go Away; for if I Go not Away June the Second Our Spiritual Guide Loved in the Beloved. The Spirit not Striving Always. Links John 16:28 NIVJohn 16:28 NLT John 16:28 ESV John 16:28 NASB John 16:28 KJV John 16:28 Bible Apps John 16:28 Parallel John 16:28 Biblia Paralela John 16:28 Chinese Bible John 16:28 French Bible John 16:28 German Bible John 16:28 Commentaries Bible Hub |