Seeing Jesus, Seeing God
George H. Morrison
John 12:45
That these words are of profound importance we may gather from two considerations. The one is that our Savior cried them (v. 44). As a rule our Savior did not cry. He would not cry nor lift up His voice in the streets. But now and then in some exalted hour the Gospels tell us that He cried (John 7:37). And in every instance when He cried we have an utterance of transcendent moment that takes us to the very heart of things. Then we must not forget that in these verses we have our Lord's last public sermon. From the beginning of the next chapter onward, our Lord is in seclusion with His own. And we may be certain that every word He uttered in His final and farewell discourse would be fraught with an infinite significance.
We recognize that infinite significance when we face the problem of our faith today. Our problem is not to believe there is a God but to be sure that He answers to our highest thought of Him. We may justly and seriously question if if any man is really an atheist. Some think they are in moments of recoil; others assert it on the Hyde Park1 platform. But it seems to me that the thought of God is intermingled with our deepest being, as the sunshine is intermingled with the daffodils which are making the world beautiful just now. Our difficulty is not to believe there is a God. The atheist has been replaced by the agnostic. Our real difficulty centers in His character-is He equal to our highest thought of Him? For when life is difficult and ways are shadowed, the soul can never have quietness and confidence unless the Rock is "higher than I."
This difficulty is profoundly felt in the modern study of the world of nature. "I find no proof in nature," wrote Huxley2 once to Kingsley,3 "of what you call the fatherhood of God." Nature is quick with whisperings of God as every lover of her knows. That was one reason why our Savior loved her and haunted the places where the lilies were. But no o ...
George H. Morrison
John 12:45
That these words are of profound importance we may gather from two considerations. The one is that our Savior cried them (v. 44). As a rule our Savior did not cry. He would not cry nor lift up His voice in the streets. But now and then in some exalted hour the Gospels tell us that He cried (John 7:37). And in every instance when He cried we have an utterance of transcendent moment that takes us to the very heart of things. Then we must not forget that in these verses we have our Lord's last public sermon. From the beginning of the next chapter onward, our Lord is in seclusion with His own. And we may be certain that every word He uttered in His final and farewell discourse would be fraught with an infinite significance.
We recognize that infinite significance when we face the problem of our faith today. Our problem is not to believe there is a God but to be sure that He answers to our highest thought of Him. We may justly and seriously question if if any man is really an atheist. Some think they are in moments of recoil; others assert it on the Hyde Park1 platform. But it seems to me that the thought of God is intermingled with our deepest being, as the sunshine is intermingled with the daffodils which are making the world beautiful just now. Our difficulty is not to believe there is a God. The atheist has been replaced by the agnostic. Our real difficulty centers in His character-is He equal to our highest thought of Him? For when life is difficult and ways are shadowed, the soul can never have quietness and confidence unless the Rock is "higher than I."
This difficulty is profoundly felt in the modern study of the world of nature. "I find no proof in nature," wrote Huxley2 once to Kingsley,3 "of what you call the fatherhood of God." Nature is quick with whisperings of God as every lover of her knows. That was one reason why our Savior loved her and haunted the places where the lilies were. But no o ...
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