I do not think that here in this text our Lord intended to refer to the final and completing act the blood-shedding which was remission. I believe He reviewed His life the subjection, the pain, the obedience learned by the things He suffered, the teaching and the trial, the subjection to indignities, to time and space, to cold and hunger, to devils and to men in the light of all these visionary recollections, He said: "I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." This saying of our Lord it is a very arrow of light gleaming across the burdened valley of our being "I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." In this speciality, which was the Saviour's triumph, lies the ground also of the Christian's consolation speciality, I say, for God sets the work, God hems the work around with difficulties. We succeed, it is because He has aided us; we fail, it is because He would teach us; and thus often failure becomes the footstool of the highest success. It is an illustrious thought, and it is the bright, red light along the horizon of life, that every one has his appointed field. "Thou shalt choose our inheritance for us."
I. Sorrow is work. Was not His sorrow work? Sorrow is the rain which descends down to the very roots of our being. Sorrow has an influence on the heart like that of the atmospheric action on the hard rocks and hills: it loosens, it softens, it disintegrates, it levels, and from the mould it makes the flowers and the fruits of the heart, as the flowers and fruits of earth spread their bloom.
II. Temptation is work. Man does not see the victory or the triumph; but God does.
III. Faith is work. But this is our work in relation to God, and sympathy is work our work in relation to man.
Think how Divine is work in its lowest as well as in its highest form to make something. Not one is forgotten before God. The fisherman going forth to the rivers, the ploughboy to the fields, the dairyman to the farmyard, the artisan to the shop, much-enduring man to toil. How Divine, how godlike is work to draw the silken thread of Spirit through the hard needle of difficulty.
E. Paxton Hood, Sermons,p. 306.
Consider what were the purposes of God which by the death of our Lord were answered, and which without it, as far as we can see, could not have been answered so that God was thereby glorified.
I. And first, I think, we must feel that hereby a mark was set upon the devil's work, sin, which no other conceivable procedure could have set upon it. Its hatefulness to God; its exceeding atrocity; the fearfulness of being tempted to commit it; was hereby made intelligible to all that nothing less than this agonising torture inflicted on the Son of God could expiate it.
II. The next important purpose answered by the sufferings of our blessed Master, and the manifest carrying out of God's will thereby, is their eminent adaptation to establish a spiritual kingdom as wholly distinct from a carnal one. His kingdom was manifestly not of this world. Pilate marvelled that it could be called a kingdom at all, not comprehending the power of holy example, of hearty doctrine, of humble patience. Yet herein was our Father glorified, and hereby were won such glorious triumphs as worldly policy, or force of arms, or outward wealth and influence could never have achieved. For these do but for a while affect the present interests of mankind; whereas the patient endurance, the cheerful alacrity of our blessed Lord unto every good work, His humility, His meekness, His constancy, His love, His gentleness, His unexampled self-denial on all occasions, have left behind them solid and everlasting memorials have in all ages of the world been the stay of sufferers, the comfort of mourners, the strength of them that wrestled with temptation, the hope of downcast, afflicted souls; and not only so, but have sanctified all the instrumentalities wherewith the purposes of this world are carried out.
III. Consider how entirely Christ, by His life and death, has shut out all shams and pretences to religion, has made it impossible for insincerity and worldliness to indulge in the flattering hope of entering in through the door whose posts and lintels are all sprinkled with blood. What is this blood, and what does it signify? It is the blood of the Lamb that was slain, of the only begotten Son of God, Who gave His life for our lives, due to God for sin.
Bishop Thorold, Penny Pulpit,No. 410, new series.
As regards the finished work of Christ, our duty is (1) to understand, value, believe and appropriate it; (2) to cultivate and carry to the highest degree possible an inner life of pious thoughts and feelings in communion with God, and an outer life of holiness, whereby we shall gradually grow meet for the eternal presence, and services and enjoyments of Almighty God; and (3) we have to do such good works here, as God hath before ordained that we should walk in them for the good of our fellow creatures and the extension of the kingdom of Christ. It is the third work which I now desire to consider.
I. The worst of all possible conditions is the state of those who live without the testimony of their own conscience that they have some work that they are doing for God. And yet, it is the position of thousands. They live, in this sense at least, a pointless and an aimless life, and they incur the retributive consequence they pass a restless, because a Christless; and a joyless, because a useless existence. Life has never been traced up to its true bearing, and therefore, the character is weak, the energies are loose and the happiness vapid. And very solemn at last will be the evening, when the Lord of the vineyard meets these workless ones.
II. We lay it down first, that every one's natural position, his providential circumstances, his work or business, or profession, which he has chosen, determines his chief work in life which, taken from God, he is to execute for God. There is many a man and many a woman whose work through life is to glorify God in some quiet home scene, in the daily Christian performance of unnoticed duties, and the unworldly discharge of some worldly service, only let each accept it as from heaven, and be careful to throw heaven into it. Then, it is a training and a discipline for the higher services of another world. But whether you find it in your place in the family, in your business in the world, or whether it lie in something that you have undertaken more expressly for the cause of religion and for God, only look well to this, that it be real work that you distinctly feel you have a mission to it that it is a work given to you, and that it be done piously for God, in God, to God. "I have finished thework which Thou gavest Meto do."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,5th series, p. 149.
References: John 17:4, Homilist,2nd series, vol. iv., p. 933. Joh 17:4, John 17:5. J. Keble, Sermons from Ascension Day to Trinity,p. 82. Joh 17:5. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 267. John 17:8-11. W. Roberts, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xii., p. 357. John 17:11. J. Vaughan, Sermons,14th series, p. 76. John 17:11; John 17:12. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxxii., No. 1883.