51 - John 13:20

’Verily, verily I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth me; and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me.’ -John 13:20. In Jesus was the fulness of the Godhead bodily. He was the light of the world; the Sun of Righteousness. It was far from his purpose that that Sun should set with his departure, or that it should suffer any obscuration when he ascended to the Father. In a very important sense Christ’s incarnation relates to all time; "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world." The true Vine is where its branches are. "It is expedient for you that I go away," said Christ to his disciples; but how could it be expedient if anything of him should be lost to them, and to the world through them? It was expedient because, by his physical withdrawal and the outpouring of the Spirit, they should be made far better acquainted with him, and be brought into a much closer identification with him, than was the case before. And these wonderful chapters in John show how diligently and earnestly, when about to be separated from them physically, Jesus sought to communicate and make over to them all the wealth of his own nature, his peace, his joy, his treasures of wisdom and knowledge, his place in the Father’s affections, the promises addressed to him in the Scriptures. So that he could turn to the Father and say, "I am no more in the world, but these are in the world."

"He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me." They whom Christ sends are his plenipotentiaries, fully commissioned to make known his will, his grace, Himself to men, and to take possession of the hearts of men in his name, by means of his word delivered in its integrity to all believers. The emphasis is on the word whomsoever. Fulness of dignity and authority goes with my nomination, and does not in any degree depend upon social status, intellectual endowments, or even upon church privileges. Not merely he that receiveth you, my apostles, the companions of my ministry, distinguished by so many favours; but he that receiveth whomsoever I send. Some that are now far from the kingdom of God and the knowledge of the truth, may ere long be preaching the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and their success may surpass that of some members of the apostolic college. But a question of great moment presents itself: Who are the sent of Christ? Who are these ambassadors in receiving whom we receive Christ, we receive God? "By their fruits ye shall know them," says Christ. "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits." And he graciously proceeds to inform us what the fruits are by which we may identify his prophets, his ministers. "He that doeth the will of my Father in heaven." And this will is embodied in Christ’s words: "Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man who built his house upon a rock." We learn from this that the true minister of Christ is in the first place his true disciple, receiving all his words into a good and honest heart, and giving these words their true expression in his life. This he can only do by having the Spirit of Christ: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." The Spirit of Christ is a spirit of self-renunciation; of love to the brethren; of true devotion to Christ and his cause. In the next place, one whom Christ designs to send to men is furnished with the gifts needful for the ministry; and these gifts are an evidence to him and to his brethren that he is called and commissioned of Christ to make known the Gospel. They who seek in the ministry a means of livelihood, an honourable profession, a position, who seek their own, who are more concerned to get than to give, these certainly are not sent by Christ. They have not his Spirit. The Good Shepherd gave his life that the flock might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly; he commits his flock to shepherds whose chief concern is the imparting of life to the flock; but there are a multitude of false prophets whose principal consideration is how they may themselves get a living, and who never for a moment put the advantage of the flock upon a level with their own. The word "apostle" simply means "one sent;" one who had been separated by Christ from the world unto himself, made acquainted with his will, moulded by that will, and then sent forth to declare it. The distinction of those we call apostles is, that they were companions of our Lord in the days of his flesh, and were personally commissioned by him to preach his Gospel to Jews and Gentiles, and lay the foundations of the Church of the New Jerusalem. But Christ, with all his plenitude of power, material and spiritual, goes with every one whom he sends to men with the offer of his grace; he himself with all his power on earth to forgive sin, with his power to redeem from all iniquity, with his power to destroy the works of the devil, goes with every true evangelist, every true minister, of whatever denomination. Is there any place here for clerical domination? On the contrary, the axe is here laid at the root of all this. For what is it that I receive from the servant of Christ? Christ himself; I am brought into intimate and indissoluble relation with Christ himself, by means of the word embraced in faith; I have the same Christ, and the same access to Christ, and the same promises in Christ that the evangelist has. It is not in the power of the minister to take away what he has given, or to lay an embargo upon any portion of the evangelical blessing; Christ is not a treasure of which he has the key, and which he may dole out according to the homage he himself receives. The message committed to him is, "Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely. All things pertaining to life and godliness are given us in Christ. He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life."

What greater need have we in this day than to be spoken to by men who give evidence that they know Christ, and have fellowship with the Father and the Son, and are led by the same loving, lowly, and self-denying spirit that dwelt in him; men, in a word, fitted by richest experience of his grace to be his representatives in the world, so that rightly to know them would be to know Christ? But a need not inferior to this is, that we should be so much under the guidance of the Spirit of God that, given such men, we should know them. There were false apostles in the primitive churches, and Christ commends those churches that were able to detect their true character, and to turn from them; but many heard them gladly, and lost the power to recognise Christ in his true ministers. "The world knoweth us not, because it knew him not." "He came unto his own, and his own received him not."

"Thou canst not bear them that are evil," said Christ to the church at Ephesus, "and hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars." How did they try them? The word of Christ was in their hands and in their minds; they knew the Gospel; the Sermon on the Mount; they knew Christ; the Spirit of God was with them; and in the exercise of that right of private judgment which was bestowed upon them along with the Gospel and the Spirit, they ascertained the falsity of these so-called apostles. Having already received Christ, they could easily see through the false pretensions of those whom he had not sent. These false apostles declaimed loudly no doubt against the right of private judgment.