If I have told you of earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
--The question in its bare form is easily grappled with, but in its application to the subjects before us we encounter a great obstacle. Earthly things are the deep things of the new birth; heavenly things are the lifting up of the Son of man, the gift of the Only-Begotten, that the world through Him might be saved. Regeneration and santification are by comparison earthly things; redemption, atonement, justification are by contrast and preeminence heavenly. He who believes not the former, how can he believe the latter We notice
I. AN INVERSION OF OUR COMMON ESTIMATE OF THE MYSTERIES OF CHRIST’S KINGDOM.
1. It is usual to speak of the work of Christ as far easier of apprehension than the work of the Spirit. The idea of atonement is treated as self-evident, and theory after theory has been constructed to explain it. But Christ says difficult as it is to understand a Divine influence, it is more difficult to apprehend a Divine sacrifice; that He only who is from heaven can reveal the latter, while a master of Israel is culpably ignorant if he knows not of the former.
2. The same persons exaggerate the mystery of the doctrine of grace, whereas Christ treats it as a plain earthly thing. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews treats it in the same way, bidding us leave the elements, baptism, etc., to go on to perfection--the strong meat, the profounder study of the fulfilment of type and shadow in the atonement and mediation of Jesus Christ.
II. CAN WE EXPLAIN THIS INVERSION?
1. With regard to the new birth.
(1) It is not that it is discoverable by man in its nature, or recognizable in its process, or practicable in its realization, and so an earthly thing. It is as much above reason, as secret, as independent of man’s interference as the deepest mystery of redemption. But
(2) The idea of a spiritual influence has obvious illustrations from earthly experience. Life itself is a putting forth and taking in of the authority of mind over mind. Therefore there can be no antecedent improbability of a Divine influence affecting the soul.
(3) When we think of our indebtedness to God as Creator, Preserver, Benefactor, there can be nothing difficult in the thought that the Author of our spirit can quicken and bless it.
(4) Although the work is secret in its processes, it is cognizable in its effects. When you see a proud man humble, the worldly man religious, you have proof which carries the matter into the region of sight.
(5) The doctrine was earthly to Nicodemus because it was in his Old Testament.
2. How different with the topics that follow! At first sight less mysterious, for was not Christ really man, and was not His sacrifice a human death? Yet when we turn to that which the human enshrined, the mystery of Christ’s Person, we see the appositeness of the term heavenly.
(1) Divine incarnation and Divine suffering are absolutely incomprehensible revelations. The more men argue over them the more danger there is of darkening counsel by words without knowledge.
(2) If the Divine passion is a mystery, how much more the connection between that suffering and man’s release!
(3) The individual appropriation of Christ’s sacrifice is incomprehensible.
(4) The work of grace shows itself by infallible signs, but the absolution is the secret act of God alone.
III. Let us press upon ourselves the thought of THE HEAVENLINESS OF THE ONE ALL-SUFFICIENT SACRIFICE. We have in our Lord’s question the key to much of modern unbelief. Christ tells us of our need of Divine grace to change us into new men, and we believe not that. Men confess that they must be moral, but contend that they can secure that for themselves, and that it is weakness to look cut of themselves for help. Nature refuses grace. Who, then, can wonder if the same unbelief shall spread into the region of the heavenly, and the scoffer at grace scoff at atonement? (Dean Vaughan.)
The moral and the revealed truths
We may distinguish between these. Christ’s teaching in its practical applications is its earthly side; His revelation of God, His nature and will its heavenly side.
I. THE MORAL TEACHING OF CHRIST MUST BE ACCEPTED BY EVERY UPRIGHT CONSCIENCE.
1. Where else do you find the idea of the sovereign and eternal value of right more clearly and firmly expressed?
2. The same applies to holiness. He opposes the systems which make it consist in outward performances, and places stress on the intention.
3. None more than Christ have preached the necessity of sacrificing one’s self for the sake of truth.
4. Whoever taught as Christ the relations of men with one another and the bonds of justice and mercy which should units them? Christ alone has made love the supreme law of mankind.
5. Not only has He taught all this; He has acted all He has taught.
6. This is why He has a right to the authority He claims over our consciences, and why when He tells us of earthly things He has a right to be believed.
II. CHRIST CLAIMS THE SAME FAITH AS THE REVEALER OF RELIGIOUS TRUTH. He is not merely a teacher of morals; He speaks of the things which are far beyond our human vision: of God, His government, providence, saving purposes, judgment. In the presence of these affirmations our situation changes. So long as His moral teaching was in question we could judge of it by our consciences, but here are declarations we cannot control.
1. Are we justified in putting faith in Christ.? If we set aside this faith, no other means of access to religious truth remains. Science can teach us nothing. Are we then to remain in the dark? Men have tried to do so, but always unsuccessfully.
2. Is Christ to be believed?
(1) The very accent of His affirmations leads us to reflection. No man ever spoke with such authority. We believe the assertions of Christ when He tells us of heavenly things, because lie has always spoken truth when He has told us of earthly things.
(2) If we believe the religious truths revealed by Christ it is because they are the necessary complement of the moral truths our conscience compels us to believe; so that accepting the latter, we are led by an invincible logic to believe the former. There is no moral truth in the gospel that does not expand into a religious truth. (E. Bersier, D. D.)
Earthly and heavenly things
Heavenly things, being represented unto us in an earthly form (John 3:8), come clothed to us with our own notions. We can see the sun better when reflected in the water of a vase than in the firmament; and we can interpret heaven’s language best when it speaks to us in the language of earth. (T. Manton.)