Love to the Uttermost | Page 8

us gird up the loins of our minds, and resolve to seek a baptism of
love from the Holy Ghost, that we may be perfected in love; that we
may love God first, and all else in Him, ascending from our failures to
a more complete conformity to the love wherewith He has loved us;
embracing the sinful and erring in the compass of our compassion, as
we embrace the Divine and Eternal in the compass of our adoration and
devotion.

III
Heaven Delayed, but Guaranteed
"Simon Peter said unto Him, Lord, whither goest Thou? Jesus answered
him. Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now; but thou shalt follow
Me afterward."--JOHN xiii. 36.
These chapters are holy ground. The last words of our dearest, spoken
in the seclusion of the death-chamber to the tear-stained group gathered
around, are not for all the world, and are recorded only to those whose
love makes them able to appreciate. And what are these words that now
begin to flow from the Master's lips, but His last to His own? They
were held back so long as Judas was there. There was a repression
caused by his presence which hindered the interchange of confidences;
but, when he was gone, love hastened to her secret stores, and drew
forth her choicest, rarest viands to share them, that they might be in
after days a strength and solace.
This marvellous discourse, which begins in chapter xiii. 31, continues
through chapters xiv., xv., xvi., and closes in the sublime prayer of
chapter xvii. Better that all the literature of the world should have
shared the fate of the Alexandrian library, than that these precious
words should have been lost amid the fret of the ages.

The Lord commences His discourse by speaking of His speedy
departure. "Little children," He said, using a term which indicated that
He felt toward them a parental tenderness, and spoke as a dying father
might have done to the helpless babes that gathered around his bed, "I
am to be with you for a very little time longer; the sand has nearly run
out in the hour-glass. I know you will seek Me; your love will make
you yearn to be with Me where I am, to continue the blessed intimacy,
the ties which within the last few weeks have been drawn so much
closer; but it will not be possible. As I said to the Jews, so must I say to
you, Whither I go, ye cannot come." He then proceeds to give them a
new commandment of love, as though He said: "The cannot which
prevents you following Me now is due to a lack of perfect love on your
part, as well as for other reasons; it is necessary, therefore, that you
wait to acquire it, ere you can be with Me where I am."
Simon Peter hardly hears Him uttering these last words; he is
pondering too deeply what he has just heard, and calls the Master back
to that announcement, as though He had passed it with too light a tread:
"Going away! Lord, whither goest Thou?" To that question our Lord
might have given a direct answer: "Heaven! The Father's bosom! The
New Jerusalem! The City of God!" Any of these would have been
sufficient; but instead He says in effect: "It is a matter of comparative
indifference whither I go; I have no wish to feed curiosity with
descriptions of things in the heavens, which you could not understand."
The main point for you, in this brief life, is so to become assimilated to
Me in humility, devotion, likeness, and character, that you may be able
to be My companion and friend in those new paths on which I am
entering, as you have been in those which I am now leaving. "Whither I
go, thou canst not follow Me now; but thou shalt follow Me afterward."
The words staggered Peter; he could not understand what Christ meant;
he could not see how much had to be done before he could share in
Christ's coming glory. He made the same mistake as James and John
had done before, and wanted the throne, without perceiving that it was
conditioned on fellowship in the cup and the baptism into death. With
deep emotion he persisted in his inquiries: "Why cannot I follow Thee
now? There is no place on earth to which I would not go with Thee.

Have I not already left all to follow Thee? Have I not been with Thee
on the Transfiguration Mount, as well as in Thy journeyings? There is
but one experience through which I have not passed with Thee, and that
is death; but if that stands next in Thy life-plan, I will lay down my life
for Thy