Christ Coming by Water and Blood.
I. Let us settle the immediate sense of these words. There was living then at Ephesus a conspicuous and enterprising teacher, whom not a few were likely to regard as more profound and philosophical than St. John, who himself probably looked down with superb indulgence on the aged Galilean as pious enough in his simple way, but quite uncultured, without any speculative ability, with crude and unscriptural views of God and the universe, and wholly unfit to interpret Hebraic ideas to men who had breathed the air of Gnostic wisdom. "One confusion," he would say, "which John makes, must be most carefully avoided: you must draw a sharp distinction between Jesus and Christ. Jesus was simply a man, eminent for his wisdom and goodness, but not supernaturally born, on whom at his baptism a heavenly power called Christ descended, to use him as an instrument for revealing truth and working miracles, but to depart from him before he suffered and died." Now St. John, in the context before us, contradicts this absolutely. "The self-same Person who stooped to the waters of Jordan gave up His blood to be shed for us on Golgotha." This is He, the one, indivisible Christ, in whom to believe is to overcome the world.
II. In the "water and blood" St. John further saw a combination which seemed to present in a kind of symbolical unity the purifying and the atoning aspects of Christ's work.
III. When we hear that He came by water and blood, it is well-nigh impossible not to think of that great ordinance in which water is made the effectual sign that is, the organ or instrument of a new birth, and of that still greater rite which embodies for us in a concrete form the new and better covenant, and in which, as St. Augustine tersely expresses it, we "drink that which was paid for us." And thus the water and the blood, in this large and manifold application of the terms, bear witness, with the Holy Spirit, for Jesus as the Christ, for Jesus as God's own Son.
W. Bright, Morality in Doctrine,p. 28.
Reference: 1 John 5:6. Preacher's Monthly,vol. ix., p. 205.
Has Christ Risen?
I. Let us ask ourselves what is the evidence with which we are supplied on the subject of the Resurrection, what is there to be said on the subject to a person who believes I will not say in the supernatural inspiration, but in the general trustworthiness, of the writings of the first Christians. In order to know that our Lord did really rise from the dead we have to satisfy ourselves that three distinct questions may be answered. Of these the first is this: Did Jesus Christ really die upon the cross? For if He merely fainted or swooned away, then there was no resurrection from death; then He merely recovered consciousness after an interval. The Evangelists, each one of them, say expressly that He did die; and the wonder is not that He died when He did after the three hours' agony on the cross, but that, with all His suffering at the hands of the soldiers and of the populace before His crucifixion with all these sufferings He should have lived so long. But suppose that what looked like death on the cross was merely a fainting fit, would He have survived the wounds in His side inflicted by the soldier's lance, through which the blood yet remaining in His heart escaped? We are expressly told that the soldiers did not break His limbs, and that He was already dead; and before Pilate would allow His body to be taken down from the cross he ascertained from the centurion in command that He was already dead.
II. The second question is this: Did the disciples take our Lord's dead body out of the sepulchre? They would not have wished to do it. Why should they? What could have been their motive? They either believed in His approaching resurrection, or they did not. If they did believe in it, they would have shrunk from disturbing His grave as an act not less unnecessary than profane; if they did not believe in it, and instead of abandoning themselves to unreflecting grief, allowed themselves to think steadily, what must have been their estimate of their dead Master? They must now have thought of Him as of one who had deceived them, or who was Himself deceived. If He were not a clever impostor who had failed, He was a sincere but feeble character, who had Himself been the victim of a religious delusion. On either supposition, why should they arouse the anger of the Jews, and incur the danger of swift and heavy punishment? And once more, had they desired and dared to remove our Lord's body from its grave, such a feat was obviously beyond their power. The tomb was guarded by soldiers; every precaution had been taken by the Jews to make it secure. The great stone at the entrance could not have been rolled away without much disturbance, even if the body could have been removed without attracting attention. The character of the guards themselves was at stake. Had they countenanced or permitted any such crime, their almost inevitable detection would have been followed by severe punishment. In after-years, you will remember, St. Peter was released from prison by an angel; and the sentinels were punished by death.
III. A third question is the following: What is the positive testimony that goes to show that Jesus Christ did rise from the dead? There is, first of all, the witness of all the Apostles. Next, there is the testimony of a large number of persons besides the Apostles. Five hundred persons could not be simultaneously deceived. Their testimony would be considered decisive as to any ordinary occurrence when men wished only to ascertain the simple truth. And the force of this flood of testimony is not really weakened by objections which do not, you will observe, directly challenge it, but which turn on accessory or subordinate points. For instance, it is said that the evangelical accounts of the Resurrection itself and of our Lord's subsequent appearance are difficult to reconcile with each other. At first sight they are, but only at first sight. In order to reconcile them, two things are necessary: first, patience; and secondly, determination to exclude everything from the narrative which does not lie in the text of the Gospels. Two-thirds of the supposed difficulties are created by the riotous imagination of the negative commentators. Scripture takes no precautions against hostile judges; Scripture speaks as might a perfectly truthful child in a court of justice, conscious only of its integrity and leaving the task, whether of criticism or of apology for what it says, entirely to others. It proceeds on the strong conviction that in the end, in this as in other matters, Wisdom is justified of her true children.
H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xv., p. 257.