Lecture XXVII

RIGHTEOUSNESS ESSENTIAL TO OUR PLEASING GOD AND TO HIS HEARING US

THIS is one of the strongest assertions that we have in Scripture of the efficacy of good works, as bearing on our relation to God. It has no reference, however, to the question of our acceptance or justification; it raises an ulterior question. It manifestly connects a certain privilege with a certain practice, in the case of true Christians, considered as already in a state of grace. And it connects them, so as to make the privilege dependent upon the practice.

The privilege is, that “whatsoever we ask, we receive of him.” This is partly an explanation of the previous statement (ver. 21), and partly an additional thought. The “confidence which we have toward God” is such as emboldens us to ask what we will. And we ask confidently, because we know that God will not refuse us anything that we ask.

But it is the fact itself here asserted, and not our sense or apprehension of it, that chiefly claims attention. It is certainly a strong assertion, “Whatsoever we ask we receive of him.” And it is altogether unqualified; absolute and unrestricted. We are on such terms with God that he will deny us nothing;—that is the plain unequivocal meaning of what John says. And it is not to be modified or explained away by any supposed exceptions or reservations. It must be taken in all its breadth as literally true, in connection with the practice on which it is dependent.

That practice is obedience, “we keep his commandments;”—or the performance of good works, “we do those things which are pleasing in his sight.” For there are not two separate acts or exercises here spoken of; but only one. “Doing things pleasing in God’s sight” is not something over and above “keeping his commandments,” or something different from it. That cannot be. For it is not merely doing things, any things, that may be pleasing in his sight; but doing “those things;” which must mean doing the things which he has commanded, and none other.

Is, then, this second clause a mere redundancy? Nay, it adds much to the meaning. For one thing, it implies that when “we keep his commandments,” or do the things commanded, we do them as “things pleasing in his sight;”—we take that view of them in the doing of them. And further, it implies that God is really pleased with them. They are done in obedience to his commandments, and so done as to be in very truth “pleasing in his sight.” They do please him; and it is because they do please him, that he is so pleased with us who do them, that he can refuse us nothing that we choose to ask. He derives real gratification from what we do for him. What then will he not do for us?

To make this view of the matter clear, let us take our Lord himself as our example, in respect of both of these sayings of his beloved disciple.

I. “We keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” So John writes; and so also Jesus speaks; “He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29). That was the hold which he had on the Father. It is, in a measure, the same hold that John says we have on the Father. “I do always those things that please him.” “We do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” The language is the very same; the sense and spirit in which it is used must be the very same also. Let us consider it as used by Jesus; let us try to enter into his mind and heart in using it.

There is indeed in it, as used by him, a depth of meaning which we dare not hope, or even try, to fathom. It touches what must ever be an inscrutable mystery; the ineffable mutual complacency of the great Three in One, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and especially the Father’s ineffable complacency in the Son of his love, as fulfilling on earth and in time the counsel of the Godhead which dates from everlasting in heaven. But Jesus uttered the words for our sakes; and as expressing a human feeling which we may understand, and with which he would have us to sympathise. That human feeling in the bosom of Jesus must have been very simple, and intensely filial; realising intensely his filial relation to the Father, and his filial oneness with the Father. There is, if I may venture so to speak, a childlike simplicity, a sort of artless straightforwardness, in his saying so confidingly, so lovingly, so naturally, “I do always those things that please him.” It is almost as if the words came out, half-unconsciously, from his lips; as if he were thinking aloud. And certainly it is not of himself and his merit that he is thinking; but of the Father and the Father’s love. I always please him; what I do always pleases him; is the quiet comfort he takes in a trying moment. For it is indeed a trying moment. He has the cross in view. Men, displeased with him, are to “lift him up,” and leave him to die in his agony alone. Not so the Father. He leaves me not alone; he is with me; “for I do always those things that please him.”

Somewhat similar are the circumstances in which John would have us to say; “we do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” We are not to marvel if the world hate us; the source of its hatred we know (ver. 13). And we know also the source of that better spirit of brotherly love with which it is to be met (ver. 14–16). Only let there be, on our part, open, guileless, unreserved sincerity (ver. 17–21). Let our heart, as in the sight of God, acquit us of all secret dishonesty. Let there be truth in the inner man; the truth in love. Then we have the confidence of little children toward God. And, as little children, we join with John, and with Jesus, in saying,—Whatever the world may do to us, we are not alone; the Father is with us, and heareth us, for “we do those things that are pleasing in his sight.”

There is nothing then here of a legal spirit; nothing of the Pharisee’s self-righteous gratitude: “God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are.” It is not thus that John asks us to join with him in saying “we do those things that are pleasing in God’s sight.” Rather, he makes our saying this the very test of our entire freedom from all guile in our spirits; all that sort of guile which such prayer as the Pharisee’s implies. For the Pharisee’s prayer represents him as keeping God’s commandments, in so far as he does keep them, merely to gain a selfish end and serve a selfish purpose. If he cares about doing what pleases God at all, it is merely with that view. He may be in earnest, ever so much. It is the earnestness of one seeking to make terms with an adversary, and win his favour or forbearance by a measure of forced submission. It is the earnestness of one striving to effect a truce or compromise, on conditions ever so severe, for a boon ever so far off, and apt to be lost after all. Take the man who is serving God most anxiously, and with most painstaking observance of the letter of the commandments, on that footing; on the footing of his having thus to win his way to such kind and measure of God’s countenance as he thinks he needs, or cares to have. Ask that man, as before God, and in the eye of his own conscience, Is all clear and open, free and forth-flowing, between you and him whom you so painfully serve? Is there not, on the contrary, reserve and restraint; a holding back, as it were, of confidence on both sides; something still outstanding between him and you which makes you feel that all is hollow and unsatisfying?

Oh! to be converted, and become as little children! First, to be made willing as little children, that all this misunderstanding should be ended, and this breach thoroughly healed at once, and once for all, as the Father would have it to be, in the Son. And then, as little children, to know something of a little child’s touching and artless simplicity, as we look with loving eye into the loving eye of the Father, and lovingly lisp out the touching words: “We keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.”

Therefore now, O humble and simple child of God, if, in saying this, you feel yourself to be identified with the holy child Jesus; if your saying it is really his saying it in you by his Spirit; if it is as one with him that you say it, or in all honesty would fain say it; do not hesitate, or have any scruple, from any apprehension of its being presumptuous, or any misgiving lest it should savour of self-righteousness. There can be no risk of that, if you say it in and with Christ. There was no self-righteousness in him; there could not be. For he began his work, himself already personally accepted as righteous; and it was as a Son that he learned obedience. He makes you one with himself in his acceptance and in his sonship. He asks you to let him make you thus one with himself; on the ground of his making himself one with you in your sin and death. You are as he is when you join with him in his saying, “I do always those things that please him.” There is no self-righteousness here; scarcely even self-consciousness. It is all direct, outward upward motion of the soul; the outgoing of filial trust and love and loyalty; the fond and guileless unreserve, one would say, of an unreflecting child, who would be amazed if any doubt were cast on his father’s being always with him, and always hearing him; for his heart bears him out in saying, with a child’s simple and artless love,—I keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

Only make sure that with reference to this matter there is no guile in your spirit; that your heart does not condemn you. And there is one plain and practical test or safeguard. Your doing those things that are pleasing in God’s sight, is simply your keeping his commandments. If your heart is not right with God, you will be seeking to recommend yourself to him, by services or sacrifices that you think may give you some extra claim upon him, and almost lay him under obligation to you, as if you could benefit or profit him. You will be going about to establish or make good certain meritorious and tangible grounds of confidence, that may avail you when you have to plead with him in the judgment. But does not all that imply deceitful and double-dealing both with him and with yourselves? If you would really please him, he has told you how to do so. You are not to cast about for ways and means of winning his favour; his favour is freely yours, in his Son. And what now will he have at your hands? How, on the footing on which he would have you to be with him, are you to please him? How, but just as his own Son pleased him? It was his meat to do the will of him that sent him, and to finish his work. He kept the Father’s commandments, and so abode in the Father’s love.

II. “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him.” In this saying also we have the countenance of Jesus; for we find him using it: “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always” (John 11:41, 42). It was beside the grave of Lazarus. What it was that he had been asking, is not said. So far as appears, the prayer for the answer to which he gives thanks consisted not of articulate words but of tears and groans. At all events he was heard; what he asked, whatever it was, he received of the Father. And while openly acknowledging this, for the sake of the bystanders, he is careful to explain that it is no exceptional case. “Thou hearest me always;” “whatsoever I ask, I receive of thee always;” thou never refusest me anything. Why Jesus was so anxious, in this instance, publicly to connect the miracle he was intending to do with the Father’s hearing his secret prayer, it is perhaps useless to conjecture. It was a signal display of his power to overcome the corruption of the grave that he was about to give; that power which he is to put forth on a wider scale when he comes again. It was fitting, one might say, that in giving it he should, with more than ordinary explicitness and solemnity, carry the Father along with him. But his studied generalisation of his thanksgiving is remarkable. “I knew that thou hearest me always.” Never doth the Father leave me alone; for I do always those things that please him; and he heareth me always; I have his ear always; and whatsoever I ask I receive of him.

The Lord’s manner of asking varies much. He weeps. He groans in the Spirit. He offers up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears. He asks, sometimes, as it might seem, almost incoherently (John 12:27). Once, at least, he asks conditionally, “Father, if it be possible.” But, be his manner of asking what it may, always the Father heareth him; always, whatsoever he asks, he receives of him.

“Thou hearest me always!” It is a blessed assurance. And the blessedness of it really lies, not so much in the good he gets from the Father’s hearing him, as in the Father’s hearing him itself; not so much in what he receives, as in his receiving it from the Father. For this is the charm, the joy, the consolation, of that access to the Father and that influence with the Father which you now have in common with the Son. It is not that you may enrich and gratify yourselves with what you win by asking from him. But it is literally that whatever you ask you receive of him, as his gift; the proof that he is ever with you and heareth you always. Do you not lay the stress on the “him”? Whatsoever you ask you receive of “him.” You might have to do with one as to whom your only consideration would be, how much you could get out of him or extract from him. There is a common proverb about quartering upon an enemy. And there is no little satisfaction in the idea that you have a powerful and wealthy patron at your command, on whose resources you may draw at pleasure. But it is not thus that you stand with God. In these other instances, the chief, if not the whole value of any influence you have, is merely the amount of actual benefit obtained. The asker cares little or nothing for the motive which leads the giver to give, or for the disposition towards himself that the gift implies and indicates. It is all the same to him, whether it be extorted by menace; or wrung reluctantly by importunity; or made matter of cold and cautious stipulation. So as only he gets, any how, and on any terms, a certain amount or quantity of what he wants, he is content. That is not the mind of Christ, when he says, “The Father is with me;” “thou hearest me always.” The support which this thought gives to him is not that it warrants him in demanding any personal benefit he may choose to specify, that would be pleasing to flesh and blood. No. It is its imparting to his inmost consciousness the sense of his being such a Son to the Father, so dear in the Father’s sight, that the Father can refuse him nothing. He may ask what he will; and he is sure to receive it of the Father.

Ah! how then shall I ask anything at all? If such is my position, in and with Christ, how shall I have the heart or the hardihood to ask anything at all of the Father, except only that he may deal with me according to his good pleasure? If I am really on such a footing with the Father that “he heareth me always,” and “whatsoever I ask I receive of him;” if I have such influence with him; if, as his dear child, pleasing him, and doing what pleases him, I can so prevail with him that he can refuse me nothing; what can I say? What can I do? I can but cast myself into his arms and cry, Thou knowest better than I, O my Father! Father, thy will be done!

Yes. And under that blessed committal of all to him, what freedom may I not use? When told that I and my doings are so pleasing to him that I may ask what I will and it shall be done; the very abundance of the grace silences me. It is enough for me, Father, that such is my acceptance in thy sight. But can I wield the sceptre? Can I use so tremendous a power as this, that whatever I ask thee to do thou doest? Nay. I am thy servant. Undertake thou for me. Enough for me to be assured that I so find grace and favour in thy sight that I have but to ask thee to do anything and it is done. Enough! Nay, more than enough! I can ask nothing on these terms, I must leave all to thee. But leaving all to thee, I pour out all the more freely my whole soul to thee, I spread out my whole case to thee. I speak to thee of all that is upon my mind and heart. I tell thee all my desire. My groaning is not hid from thee.

Let us look in closing at the two specimen commandments, if one may so call them, or the two parts of the one specimen commandment, which John expressly mentions in this connection.

1. “That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ.” The keeping of this commandment is the doing of what is pleasing in the Father’s sight. It is so in proportion to the love with which he loveth the Son, and loveth us in the Son. We can do nothing that will please the Father more. It is what his heart is set on; that the Son of his love should be the object of our faith.

Is there not here a word in season for you, O sinner, whoever you are, however guilty and however helpless, poor and needy, lost and undone? You, as it might seem, are in no condition to keep God’s commandments so as to please him; and you cannot venture to ask anything, or to hope that you will receive anything, at his hands. Nay; but here is something that you may do, and that will be very pleasing to him. “Believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ.” It is true that he will not be pleased with your keeping any other commandment; but he will be pleased with your keeping that one. You may not be in circumstances to do anything else that will be pleasing in his sight; but you are in the very circumstances to do that which will please him best. He asks you if you will not do him this pleasure, “to believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ.” Be it that you cannot receive anything you ask otherwise than on the footing of your keeping his commandments and doing those things that are pleasing in his sight. Here is the commandment for you, here and now, to keep; here is the thing pleasing in his sight for you, here and now, to do. Without faith it is impossible to please God; but faith pleases him; it pleases him well. Then believe now.

And take a right view of the duty of believing. It is not using a great liberty to believe on the name of Jesus; it is simply “keeping the commandment of God.” The liberty is all the other way. You use a great liberty when you refuse to believe. Be not disobedient; displease not God by unbelief; rather please him by believing. And believing, ask what you will, and it shall be given you.

Keep on believing. Continue to believe more and more, simply because you see and feel it more and more to be “his commandment that you should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ.” Unbelief, in you who have believed, is aggravated disobedience. And, as such, it is and must be especially displeasing to God. It is his pleasure that his Son should be known, trusted, worshipped, loved; honoured as he himself would be honoured. You cannot displease the Father more than by dishonouring the Son; refusing to receive him, and rest upon him, and embrace him, and hold him fast, and place full reliance upon him as redeemer, brother, friend. Do not deceive yourselves by imagining that there may be something rather gracious in your doubts and fears; your unsettled and unassured frame of mind; as if it betokened humility, and a low esteem of yourselves. Beware lest God see in it only a low esteem of his Son Jesus Christ. Beware of guile. May not your staggering, hesitating faith be but half-faith after all? May it not be that you are unwilling to be wholly Christ’s, and to have Christ wholly yours? Can that be pleasing to God? “What shall we do that we might work the works of God?” asked the Jews, and the Lord replied: “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he has sent.” Therefore let us believe; and let us be “strong in faith, giving glory to God.”

2. “And love one another as he gave us commandment.” The keeping of this commandment of love, as well as the keeping of the former commandment of faith, is the doing of that which is very pleasing in God’s sight; and, therefore, in the keeping of it we may with much confidence reckon and rely on the assurance that “whatsoever we ask we shall receive of him;” that “he will hear us always.”

I do not know—who can tell me?—what connection there was between the silent prayer of Jesus at the grave of Lazarus, and the utterance of that voice of power, “Lazarus, come forth!” Evidently the Lord wished it to be seen and known that in some very special manner the Father was with him, and went along with him, in that great work. “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I know that thou hearest me always; but because of the people that stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.” He would have it understood that he did the work as one whom the Father had on this occasion heard; as one whom “the Father heareth always,” and whom “the Father hath sent.” For he was to do it, not as a thing that might please himself, but as a thing that would please the Father. He “loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus,” and he was about to manifest and gratify his love by a very signal proof and token. But he would have all men to observe that it was not merely on the impulse of a spontaneous burst of affection that he acted, but as doing what the Father commanded, and what would be pleasing in the Father’s sight. Loving, in that way, Martha and her sister and Lazarus, he knew that in the practical outgoing of his love towards them; in whatever loving words he was to say, and whatever loving works he was to do; he might be sure of the Father being with him. For “he pleased the Father;” he sought to please the Father, and did please the Father. Therefore he was sure of receiving what he asked; sure of the Father hearing him then and hearing him always.

Go ye and do likewise. Love one another; love your brother; love as a brother every one with whom you have anything to do; love him with the love that would fain have him for a brother. And let your love still always be “the keeping of God’s commandment,” and “the doing of what is pleasing in his sight.” Let it not be, as it were, at your own hand that you love, but in obedience to the commandment of God. This may, in one view, be felt by you to be a sort of damper; a drawback upon the warm spontaneous flow of your affections. It may seem to detract from the generous enthusiasm of your good will and your good offices. It takes away the chivalry and romance of this virtue. It makes Christian philanthropy a very humble and homely duty. You are to go among your fellows,—not loving them of your own accord, and at your own discretion showing your love,—but loving them in obedience to “the commandment of God;” and in all the expressions and acts of your love, simply bent on doing what is “pleasing in his sight.” But after all, if this is a lowlier, it is a far more becoming and safer position for you to occupy. And it is one in which, if you honestly occupy it, you may with all the greater confidence rely on his hearing you now, and always. You do good and communicate; you are fruitful in every good work; you wash the feet of saints; you visit the fatherless and widows; you speak a word in season to the weary; you stretch out a helping hand to all that need; not merely as indulging your own loving impulses, but rather as carrying out God’s loving purposes. You do these things because they are “well pleasing in his sight.” Doing them thus, in singleness of eye, what encouragement have you to expect that he will be with you in the doing of them; that he will hear your prayer for those to whom you do them; and that whatsoever you ask on their behalf you will receive of him!

But in all this, let us see to it that we are “of the truth;” simple, guileless, upright; as regards our whole life and walk of faith and love. Only then can we have confidence before God that whatsoever we ask we shall receive of him. Let us lay to heart the Psalmist’s acknowledgment,—“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me;” and his thanksgiving,—“But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.” Let us lay this to heart, not in any spirit of self-righteousness or vain-glory; but in simple sincerity, as little children, honouring our Father; according to the quaint thought of an old writer:—“I find David making a complete syllogism, perfect in mood and figure. The first premiss being, ‘If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me;’ and the second, ‘But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer;’ I look for his drawing the conclusion: Therefore I regard not iniquity in my heart. But no. When I expected him to put the crown on his own head, he places it on God’s; —‘Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.’ I like David’s logic better than Aristotle’s; that whatever be the premiss God’s glory is the conclusion.”¹