S. The Disciple not above his Master

THE DISCIPLE NOT ABOVE HIS MASTER

“Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.” - John 15:20

“The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?” - Matthew 10:24 “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.” - Luke 6:40

“Verily, verily, I say unto you. The servant is not greater than his lord: neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.” - John 13:16 THIS is one among several instances, of the Lord’s using a terse, pointed, pithy saying, in different senses or applications, on different occasions. The axiom, or apothegm, of our texts, is employed by the Lord for three different practical purposes: -

I. To reconcile his followers to the suffering of persecution for his sake, and in his cause (Matthew 10:24; John 15:20).

II. To stimulate their exertions in aiming at a high ideal, as the examples, guides, and leaders of other men (Luke 6:40).

III. To enforce the duty of mutual condescension and kindness among themselves, in the rendering of lowliest good offices to one another (John 13:16),

I. “The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?” (Matthew 10:24-25) “Remember the word that I said unto you. The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). The saying is used for the purpose of preparing his followers for the world’s enmity. In this application it has a double aspect. You may not, or you may, be persecuted. If you are not, there is room for inquiry. If you are, there is ground of comfort and strength.

Put the case that you are not persecuted; that you meet with nothing in your intercourse with the world that can be fairly characterised as persecution for righteousness’ sake. You may have some playful banter, or harmless jesting to encounter occasionally, when you mix in general society with those who are not quite so strict and serious as you profess to be. But they do not mean any real harm or offence. They tolerate your way of converse about as much as you could reasonably expect them to do; and, on the whole, you have no cause to complain of their reception of you, or their behaviour towards you. I do not say that you are on that account to conclude necessarily, that you incur the woe denounced by the Lord against you if all men speak well of you. Persecution in itself is neither a condition nor a test of faithfulness. It is not your duty, as disciples of Christ, to court and provoke the dislike of those among whom you move. Nor are you entitled to take credit to yourselves as suffering for Christ, when it may be that you are buffeted for your faults. You may be reproached, not really on account of your godly profession and practice, but on account of certain outward modes or fashions; peculiarities of temper, of manner, or of habit, which, so far from being of the essence of your spiritual character and Christian walk, are unhappy inconsistencies.

You are called to adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour in all things, and to commend, in the most attractive way, the gospel of Christ. You are to follow after whatsoever things are lovely and of good report. You are to give no offence to any, but rather to please all men to their edification. You are provided, for that end, with a most beauteous robe in which to dress yourselves; you are to put on, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, even as Christ forgives you. You have also a notable ornament to wear, the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which, in the sight of men, as well as of God, is of great price. By a consistent manifestation of the beauty of holiness you may draw to you the hearts of not a few even of the unholy. And, in recompense of your loving and unselfish spirit, or in that tenderness which tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, it may please your heavenly Father graciously to exempt you, to a large extent, from the world’s enmity.

Let not such kindly dealing with you on the part of God be construed by you as any evidence of unfaithfulness on your part to him. Rather let it be gratefully acknowledged and faithfully turned to account, for the glorifying of his name, and the winning of souls to Christ. Remember, however, that this partial exemption from persecution may be, in more than one respect, more trying, as regards your humility and your integrity, than persecution’s hottest rage. It may not be purchased by any unlawful concession, or compliance, or compromise; but it may minister to an unsafe and unseemly estimate of yourselves. You may think of yourselves as not only more than ordinarily favoured by God, but more than ordinarily successful through his grace in hitting the right line, - steering the middle course between too precise Puritanism, and an indefensible and unwarrantable license. And, looking round on other Christians, less happy in this particular than yourselves, you think you can see in them infirmities and blemishes, instances of imprudence or rashness, or indiscretion, sufficient to account for their being exposed, excellent as they are, to the resentment of evil hearts, and the remarks of evil tongues.

Ah! Is there no danger here? Is there not a temptation to cherish a certain feeling of complacency, even under the guise of meek self-depreciation? Instead of putting yourselves in the place of your brethren, and feeling as if the reproaches of those that reproached them fell on you; you rather begin, because they do not, to think well of your greater wisdom, at least, if not of your greater worth, your shrewder discernment of times and seasons, your better taste or better tact.

Well, it may be so. You may, in some of these respects, be above them; but are you above your Master and Lord? Can you charge upon him any of these indiscretions and imprudences? No doubt, even in his case, his enemies hazarded the charge; for the world is very unwilling to admit that it persecutes truth or holiness, as such. It is eager to lay hold of something about the way in which truth or holiness is presented, fitted to occasion, if not even to justify or excuse, opposition. Such apology it sought and found for rejecting both Jesus and his forerunner John: “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say. He hath a devil. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say. Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners” (Matthew 11:18-19). For men will not readily admit that they hate or hurt the godly man for his godliness. No; it is for some other feature of character or manner of life altogether. Hence they seize on opposite and contradictory pleas. They blame the Baptist for seclusion and the Saviour for sociality. John is too much in the wilderness; he has a devil. Jesus is too much in the world; he is a lover of pleasure, a friend of publicans and sinners. So they seek to shelter themselves from the odious imputation of hostility to what is good. And you may be tempted to give them some credit for this apology when it is your brother that they are criticising. Yes; you must admit that he does somehow, and in some point, lie open to their criticism. You deeply regret that it should be so. But you cannot defend this or that instance of injudiciousness in his manner of testifying for the Lord and dealing with his fellow-men. Alas! that he should give needless occasion of offence.

Ah! were it not good for you, if any such feeling is at any time coming over you, to hear the Lord’s own voice: “The servant is not greater than his lord,” Even as regards your brother, these censors betray the cloven foot. Would the same peculiarities which, as attaching to him, so much offend them, be equally offensive if seen in one less holy and less true? But for you, the appeal is to your Master and Lord. And it is his own appeal. You may compare yourself with others, and think that if they are persecuted and you are not, it is not because they are more faithful than you, but because you are more wise than they. And that may be so. If it be so, it is cause of thankfulness. You may praise the Lord for his tender dealing with you; but you will take no credit to yourselves, nor impute any blame to your brother; and, far from giving him up to the tender mercies of an evil world, or some censorious circle in or out of the world, you will embrace him in your sympathy, and commend him in prayer to God; and, turning from him to the Lord himself, against whom assuredly no allegation can be made, you will seriously raise the question, how far your immunity from persecution may be a safe sign for you? For has the offence of the cross ceased? Or can you believe that you are able to present the truth and love of God in an aspect less repulsive, or more winning than he did who was meek and lowly in heart; who did not cry nor lift up his voice; who did not break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax; who took little children into his arms; who spoke a word in season to the weary; and wept with them that wept. And if they who would have called him Beelzebub utter smooth and flattering things of you; if they who would have besought him to depart out of their coasts caress and welcome you; if they who would have turned away from his sayings as hard, hang with admiration on your lips; if, in short, they who, as you cannot but believe, would have regarded him as their enemy, when he told them the truth about the exceeding sinfulness of their sin, and the exceeding holiness of their God; about their helpless condemnation as guilty rebels, and their deep corruption, and their need of an infinite atonement, a sovereign pardon, a divine new birth; yes, and about the obligation to deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow him; - if they make you their favourite companions and bosom friends, feeling no such restraint in your society as they would have done in his; and not resenting or disliking your conversation as they would have winced under his; - I do not say, far be it from me to say, that you must be acting the traitor’s part; but most earnestly and affectionately I would entreat you to examine thoroughly your ways, and see if it may not be by dissembling and shading some truth, or compromising some principle, or consenting to some doubtful walk, that you win so much of the favour, or the forbearance of a world that is at enmity with God. I beseech you to ponder well the Lord’s own emphatic saying: “The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.” But if you are persecuted, like your Master, by the world, all the rather you may be reconciled to be so, since he who warns you that you must lay your account with sharing his experience, and being partakers of his sufferings in the world, has made such ample provision for your case, and for your testimony incurring the world’s hatred. He associates himself with you. He will not leave you comfortless; he will come to you. He will make his abode with you. He will manifest himself to you. In me, he says, you shall have peace. “In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” It cannot now really harm you. It cannot overcome you, for he has overcome it; overcome it by those very sufferings of his in which he summons you to share. And consider always the special and peculiar character of these sufferings, in respect of which none may share with him otherwise than through a gracious imputation on the one hand, and a believing appropriation on the other. Through these sufferings you have peace in him, his own peace. Well, therefore, may you go forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach, the reproach of him who bore your sin; and having peace in him whose reproach you bear, you need not make peace, or seek peace with the world and the world’s prince. You may consent to have it as your foe, for it cannot separate you from “the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

II. “The disciple is not above his master; but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40). Here the maxim or proverb is applied in a different sense from that which I have been considering; not to the condition of the Lord’s followers in the world, as likely to be one of trial and persecution, but to their mission or function as witnesses and prophets to the world. You are now addressed, not as the Lord’s disciples and servants, but as yourselves invested with the character, and called to discharge the office, of masters and teachers. The Lord is here speaking of the duty which, as being yourselves enlightened, you owe to your fellow men; and of the necessity of your being duly qualified and fully prepared for the performance of that duty. And the particular qualification, the special preparation, on which he insists is this, that you make sure of your own possession of the attainment or endowment, whatever it be, which you wish to be instrumental in conveying or imparting to your brother,

“I was eyes,” says Job, “to the blind;” and it may be your honest desire, as it is your bounden duty, to be so too. But you must first anoint your own eyes with eye-salve that you may see. For the blind cannot lead the blind. “Come, ye children, hearken unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” That must be practically your invitation to all whom your voice can reach. But if you would do to them what you promise to do, you must yourselves know that fear of the Lord which you propose to teach. For “the disciple is not above his master; but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.” You, as the master, cannot reasonably expect to raise your scholar or disciple above the measure of your own intelligence and your own acquirements. Even at the best, supposing him to be the most apt scholar, altogether perfect as a disciple, the utmost that can be looked for is, being as his honoured master.

Thus viewed, the text enforces a very solemn practical lesson. The Lord assumes that you feel yourselves both obliged and inclined to guide the blind, to teach the ignorant, to warn the perverse, to purge the eyes of those who see dimly, to lead anxious inquiring souls in the right way. You are to be masters and teachers to others, as he is master and teacher to you. That is your privilege as well as your office in the world. As the Father has sent him, so he sends you into the world, to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth, the leaven that is to leaven the lump. That is the calling of the church and of every Christian. Now, the Lord’s maxim, in its bearing upon that view of your calling, amounts simply to this, - that ordinarily a man cannot, in the way of instruction and influence, give forth or communicate more light or heat than he has himself; as a teacher cannot warrantably hope to make his pupil or scholar much wiser or better than he is himself. That at least must be accepted as the general rule or law. No doubt it may sometimes happen that a very dull smoking brand, falling among highly combustible materials, may kindle a flame which shall strangely contrast with the feeble spark to which it owes its origin. So also, an enthusiastic votary of science, or inspired child of genius, taking hints from a dreary, drowsy tutor, may work or wing his way to depths of learning, or heights of imagination, at the very notion of which his master would stand confounded and aghast. And in like manner, it may and does happen, in the dispensation of God’s free and sovereign grace, that one himself but little enlightened in the knowledge of divine truth, and but little imbued with the spirit of divine love, may be made the instrument in commencing in other souls a work of revival or awakening such as soon goes to an extent that fills his own soul with wonder or dismay; as though, with a careless or lazy touch, one were to put in motion some vast machine, whose tremendous energy, so far beyond all that he had dreamed of or intended, altogether appals and threatens to overpower him. That, however, must be regarded as a rare, exceptional result, on which you have no right to reckon; and which, indeed, is wrought rather in spite of, than by means of your working and witness bearing. As a general rule it holds true, that what you can communicate will be proportioned to what you possess.

What an argument have you here for deepest self-abasement, as well as the truest and holiest Christian ambition? You would make the world, your world, Christian! And at the very utmost you can hope to make it, or any part of it, Christian, only up to the standard of your own Christianity. Is that a standard high enough? You would wish, - would you not, - your children, your domestics, your friends, your neighbours, to be Christians, - Christians such as you are? Paul, when he gave emphatic utterance to that burning desire made one exception, one reservation: “I would to God, that not only thou, but also all they that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.” Alas! may not my conscience, my heart, suggest the need, in my case, of far more serious qualifications? I would to God that my child, my brother, were both almost and altogether such as I am except these -. These what? These bonds? Nay, woe is me! it must be, - these sins; these shortcomings; these infirmities; this or that failing of temper; this or that habit of life; this or that unsteadfastness of walking with Christ.

Ah! when you put the matter thus, may you not detect the beam in your own eye needing to be taken away, that you may take away the mote out of your brother’s eye? Must you not bewail the low and languid state of your spiritual life; the feebleness of the heavenly flame which all around should catch in full glow from you? Will you not be stirred up to fervent prayer and earnest endeavour that you may press on to the fullest assurance of hope, the largest and highest knowledge of Christ, the deepest experience of his love, the most complete union of faith and fellowship with him, that your own souls may prosper, and that other souls may prosper through you? “Wilt thou not revive us again, Lord, that thy people may rejoice in thee?”

III. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him” (John 13:16). This third use or application of the maxim should be very precious to us. It binds us more closely than the other two in living and loving union of the tenderest sort with Christ. For the meaning of Christ’s act towards his disciples, as laying the foundation for this personal appeal, is very gracious. It is not merely an instance generally of his condescension, as the Son of man, coming not to be ministered unto but to minister; it brings out that ministry, as not wholesale merely, so to speak, but, in commercial language, retail also. It expresses and proves his solicitude for your refreshment after supper, as well as for your entertainment at supper. It indicates his desire, not only to feed you at the table, but to fit you for the way. It is a sequel to his feeding you at table, and a preface to his leading you out. In both views, it is a most precious instance of the Lord’s care for you in minutest detail, as well as in widest reach and range. It is an example of his coming not to be ministered unto but to minister. But it is an example of that, not in the way of giving his life a ransom for many, and for you among the many, but in the way of washing your feet. That was his ministry then. It is his ministry now. And in that ministry of his to you, you are to find the model and the motive of a like ministry to one another. It is a ministry implying, not merely a willingness to perform some great service, or make some great sacrifice, on some special occasion, in some critical emergency; but a willingness to condescend without appearing to condescend, or assuming the air of condescending, to the humblest and homeliest office of love - the washing of the feet. That is Christ’s ministry to you; his ministry after his supping with you; his ministry in view of your bearing his cross with him. In both views it should be very precious to you, that, in the very act of giving himself a ransom for you, he should concern himself about the refreshment of your feet; that in the very act of calling you to be partakers with him in his cross and in all its issues, he should deem such refreshment of your very feet to be so necessary, that he himself must personally effect it; can there be any stronger evidence of your need of Christ, not generally, but in minute detail; and of Christ’s willingness to meet your need? And that is the spirit and essence of what he holds out to you as an example here. That is its special significancy. It is a very strict and stringent precedent, demanding a very thorough subordination of self, and a very thorough sympathy with Jesus. For it is as one with Jesus that I must wash the feet of my brother. It must be because I am of one mind with Jesus in caring, not merely generally, for my brother’s deliverance from eternal death, and his ultimate attainment of eternal life, but for the least and lowest of the incidents that may affect his comfortable ability to realise, on the one hand, his present standing, or to press on to his future hope. It is as one with Jesus that I must wash your feet, brother, and you must wash mine. We must apprehend and feel the washing of the feet to be inseparably connected with the atoning death symbolised, and the self-sacrificing life foreshadowed; and as implying, in that connection, the tenderest concern about a brother’s most susceptible point, his weakest part: “If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.” The three uses which the Lord makes of this proverbial saying, may be taken in connection with one another as bringing out a threefold view of your position in the world, as followers of Christ.

1. You are not of the world, as he was not of the world. Therefore you may expect that the world will hate you as it hated him. True; it is no part of your duty to give needless offence, or wantonly provoke and challenge opposition; nor may you always interpret the world’s ridicule or resentment as an infallible sign of your being persecuted for righteousness’ sake. But, remembering how unqualified is the assertion, that they who would live godly in Christ Jesus must needs suffer persecution, and deeply feeling the worldly tendencies of your weak hearts, you cannot but acknowledge the necessity of your being ever watchful and jealous over yourselves, lest it be by some shrinking from faithful protest and testimony, or some half unconscious compromise or accommodation, that you procure so large a measure of toleration and peace, and get on so smoothly in companies and societies in which there is little or no fear of God.

For, 2. You are sent by Christ into the world as he was sent by the Father into the world. You are to make thus your disciples out of the world, as he makes you his disciples out of the world. Therefore you must ever keep ahead and in advance of your disciples. You must see to it that you can be to them as your disciples, what Christ is to you as his disciples; competent masters, fit to teach and train them up to Christ’s own saved standard of perfection. “What an argument against concession and conformity! What a motive to the highest aspiration after a pure, holy, spiritual, heavenly walk! Ah! what unfaithfulness to him who so loves the world as to give his only begotten Son, “that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life;” what ingratitude to the Son, who has redeemed you out of the world; what cruelty to the world itself; to your brother, neighbour, friend, does your feeble, faltering, timid, doubtful witness-bearing involve! How does it concern you, if you love the Master, and those whom the Master loves, to “let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven!”

3. Thus situated, and thus occupied, with reference to the world; exposed to its cold influences, its chilling freezing atmosphere, its ungenial yet sedative fellowships, its rude reproaches and assaults, its misconstruction, obloquy, and open violence; and yet called in these circumstances, most trying to flesh and blood, to keep high and pure in yourselves the holy, warm, and loving character which, as the world’s missionary teachers, you would commend to all your scholars; how much need have you of the closest, tenderest, most minutely careful and considerate brotherly kindness among yourselves? At every turn in the battle of life, the fight against evil, the call to do good, you meet with much fitted to cause depression, dejection, lassitude; feelings of weariness and disappointment inclining you to give up and to give way; or causing Limitation, fretfulness, disgust. Truly you need to cheer and help one another; to feast with one another, the Lord feasting with you, giving you his very self for food; to wash one another’s feet after the feast; or let the Lord, through you, wash your brother’s feet. Let such brotherly love abide and abound. It will abound; the need of its abounding will be felt; the fruit of its abounding Will be realised more and more in proportion as Christ’s little flock more and more, by their faithfulness, rouse the world’s enmity; and more and more apprehend their high calling as sent into the world to teach the lesson, and exhibit the pattern, of perfect truth and perfect love.