Christ's Care for His Disciples
I. Observe, first, what a comforting thing it is to know that Christ would sooner work a miracle to restrain the enemies of His servants, than leave those servants to an encounter too great for their strength. The disciples, we may believe, would have been sure to fall away, had the band which seized Christ laid hands also on them; they had not yet received grace sufficient for the trial, therefore were they miraculously delivered. Apostasy would have been inevitable, and thus God never suffers it to be. But we dare not say that afterwards, when they had received grace sufficient for the trial, apostasy became impossible. It was no longer true that they must fall, through not having strength enough; it was still true that they might fall, through not using strength aright.
II. In place of procuring His followers an opportunity for escape, might not Christ have imparted an ability to endure? Though God could have given to the disciples grace adequate to martyrdom, he could not have given it consistently with the laws which prescribe His dealings with accountable creatures. It would have taken more grace than could be bestowed without destroying all freedom of will. Remember that grace is that in which you are bidden to grow; and in spiritual stature no more than in bodily is the infant made the giant with no stage between. The spiritual temple rises stone by stone, as beneath the hands of a builder; it does not soar at once, wall dome pinnacle complete, as beneath the wand of an enchanter.
III. Christ's promises and purposes in regard of His people are large and comprehensive. In covenanting to give us eternal life, Christ hath also covenanted to put His shield round us, that we may be kept from all the power of the enemy. The saving of the disciples from bodily danger might be taken as an assurance that Christ would not fail to conduct them safely to His heavenly kingdom; and therefore was it a sort of primary accomplishment of the gracious purpose that none of them should be lost. What a brightness would it shed over present deliverances, what a sweetness would it give to present mercies, were all in the habit of regarding them as so many earnests of a rich inheritance above!
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 1875 (see also Voices of the Year,vol. ii., p. 195).
References: John 17:12. S. Cox, Expositions,1st series, pp. 331, 348. John 17:12-19. T. Birkett Dover, The Ministry of Mercy,p. 141.