John 5:40

John 5:40

The Lamentations of Jesus

I. Men, before regeneration, and apart from the salvation of God, are in a state which Jesus counts and calls death. In this plaint of the Saviour the true condition of sinners is seen with awful distinctness. No room is left here for dispute or mistake. In the bosom of the Father, Jesus knows the mind of God. He sees the end from the beginning. On the foreground of time He declares that death is men's character; with His eye on eternity He pronounces that death will be their doom. If we remain to the last where we are found at first we shall be lost for ever.

II. In order to pass from death unto life, it is necessary to come to Jesus. The lost must wrench themselves away from a whole legion of possessing spirits, come to Jesus as simply and as really as the cured demoniac came, to sit at His feet. To put off the old man and put on Christ is as real as to put off garments that are filthy and put on garments that are clean, and as great in its results as to put off this mortal and put on immortality.

III. In order to life, nothing more is needed than to come to Jesus. No preliminary qualification is demanded. No selection of persons according to their merits is made. None are excluded for the presence of one quality or the absence of another. To the dead one thing only is essential, that they should come to Christ.

IV. Those who are spiritually dead are not willing to come to Christ for life. This seems strange, even the Lord Himself wondered at their unbelief. It is the very mystery of iniquity, that man's resistance to the Divine proposal is great in proportion to the easiness of its terms.

V. Jesus complains that men will not come to Him for life. It follows from this, as clear and sure as the reflection of your face in a mirror, that He delights to give, to be eternal life to the lost. Here the Saviour opens His heart, that we may look in and see the love that fills it. I know not any passage of Scripture whence the compassion of Emmanuel more freely flows. This plaint, when interpreted aright, is more consoling than any promise more solemnising than any terror. When Jesus tells us what grieves Him, we learn with certainty what would make Him glad. The inference is infallible. No truth can be more plain or more sure than this, that the flight of sinners to Himself for life is the chief delight of God our Saviour.

W. Arnot, Roots and Fruits of the Christian Life,p. 38.

References: John 5:39. W. Dorling, Christian World Pulpit,vol. viii., p. 232; vol. xxxii., p. 250; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,pp. 161, 162; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes,1st series, p. 8; W. Cunningham, Sermons,pp. 42-58; Homilist,vol. vi., p. 186. John 5:40. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., pp. 210, 326; E. Cooper, Practical Sermons,vol. iii., p. 47; Homilist,new series, vol. iii., p. 642: L. Campbell, Some Aspects of Christian Ideal,p. 71; G. Macdonald, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxii., p. 165; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. i., No. 52; vol. xxii., No. 1324.John 5:43. F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of St. John,p. 156. John 5:44. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxi., No. 1245.John 6:1. Phillips Brooks, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxi., p. 364.John 6:1. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 59; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iii., p. 291. Joh 6:1-15. R. Lorimer, Bible Studies in Life and Truth,p. 357. John 6:3. Sermons for Boys and Girls,p. 136.