Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 9:4
I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
4. I must work, &c.] The reading here is somewhat doubtful, as to whether ‘I’ or ‘we,’ ‘Me’ or ‘us’ is right in each case. The best authorities give, We must work the works of Him that sent Me, and this, the more difficult reading, is probably correct. Some copyists altered ‘we’ into ‘I’ to make it agree with ‘Me,’ others altered ‘Me’ into ‘us’ to make it agree with ‘we.’
‘ We must work:’ Christ identifies Himself with His disciples in the work of converting the world. ‘Him that sent Me: ’ Christ does not identify His mission with that of the disciples. They were both sent, but not in the same sense. So also He says ‘My Father’ and ‘your Father,’ ‘My God’ and ‘your God;’ but not ‘our Father,’ or ‘our God’ (Joh 20:17).
while it is day ] Or, so long as it is day, i. e. so long as we have life. Day and night here mean, as so often in literature of all kinds, life and death. Other explanations, e.g. opportune and inopportune moments, the presence of Christ in the world and His withdrawal from it, are less simple and less suitable to the context. If all that is recorded from Joh 7:37 takes place on one day, these words would probably be spoken in the evening, when the failing light would add force to the warning, night cometh (no article), when no one can work. ‘No one;’ not even Christ Himself as man upon earth: comp. Joh 11:7-10; Psa 104:23.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The works of him … – The works of beneficence and mercy which God has commissioned me to do, and which are expressive of his goodness and power. This was on the Sabbath day Joh 9:14; and though Jesus had endangered his life (John 5:1-16 by working a similar miracle on the Sabbath, yet he knew that this was the will of God that he should do good, and that he would take care of his life.
While it is day – The day is the proper time for work – night is not. This is the general, the universal sentiment. While the day lasts it is proper to labor. The term day here refers to the life of Jesus, and to the opportunity thus afforded of working miracles. His life was drawing to a close. It was probably but about six months after this when he was put to death. The meaning is, My life is near its close. While it continues I must employ it in doing the works which God has appointed.
The night cometh – Night here represents death. It was drawing near, and he must therefore do what he had to do soon. It is not improbable, also, that this took place near the close of the Sabbath, as the sun was declining, and the shades of evening about to appear. This supposition will give increased beauty to the language which follows.
No man can work – It is literally true that day is the appropriate time for toil, and that the night of death is a time when nothing can be done. Ecc 9:10; there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave. From this we may learn:
1.That it is our duty to employ all our time in doing the will of God.
2.That we should seek for opportunities of doing good, and suffer none to pass without improving it. We go but once through the world, and we cannot return to correct errors, and recall neglected opportunities of doing our duty.
- We should be especially diligent in doing our Lords work from the fact that the night of death is coming. This applies to the aged, for they must soon die; and to the young, for they may soon be called away from this world to eternity.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Joh 9:4
I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day.
–When the Master (Him who sent) who has entrusted a task to the worker gives the signal, the latter must continue to work as long as the hours of labour last. This signal Jesus had just recognized; and even though it was the Sabbath He could not delay obeying it till tomorrow. He might perhaps at this moment have been contemplating the sun descending towards the horizon. When the night comes said He, the workmans labour ceases.
My work is to enlighten the world as the sun does; but in a short time I, like him, shall disappear, and my work will cease. Hence I have not a moment to lose. (F. Godet, D. D.)
1. Nothing could discourage Christ from doing His work (Luk 13:32).
2. All Christs works were the works of God (Joh 4:34; Joh 5:30-36; Joh 6:38; Luk 22:42).
3. Christ was obliged to do what He did–I must.
(1) Not as God (Php 2:6); but
(2) as man.
(3) As Mediator (Joh 5:30).
4. Christ had His time limited wherein to do His work (Act 2:23).
5. Christ in that time did finish His work (Joh 17:4). Which was
(1) To demonstrate Himself to be what He was (Joh 10:25).
(a) The Son of God.
(b) Sent from the Father (Joh 5:36).
(c) The true Messiah (Joh 20:31).
(2) To redeem mankind from sin (Act 3:26), and misery (1Th 1:10). Than be thankful to Christ and love Him 1Co 16:22); believe in Him (Joh 3:16; imitate 1Co 11:1).
I. WE OUGHT TO DO THE WORKS OF HIM THAT SENT US.
1. Works of piety (1Co 6:20).
(1) Loving God (Mat 22:37).
(2) Trusting on Him (Pro 3:5).
(3) Submitting to Him (1Sa 3:18; Luk 22:42).
(4) Fearing Him (Isa 8:13).
(5) Rejoicing in Him (Php 4:4). Thanking the Father for our creation; believing the Son for our redemption; hearkening to the Spirit for our sanctification.
2. Works of equity to our neighbours
(1) so as to wrong none (Lev 19:11-13).
(2) So as to help all (Gal 6:10).
3. Works of charity to the poor (1Ti 6:17-19).
(1) Obediently to Gods command.
(2) Proportionably to our means (1Co 16:1-2; 1Co 16:17).
4. Works of sobriety.
(1) Keeping the flesh under (1Co 9:27).
(2) And so mortifying all our sins (Gal 3:5).
II. WE ARE TO DO THESE WORKS WHILE IT IS DAY.
1. What is meant by day?
(1) The time of life (Job 14:6).
(2) The time of grace (Luk 19:42).
(3) The present time (Psa 95:7; Heb 3:7).
2. Why should we do these works presently. Consider
(1) How much time has been spent in vain.
(2) How uncertain you are
(a) Of life (Isa 2:22).
(b) Of your senses and reason (Dan 4:32; Dan 4:22).
(c) Of the gospel (Rev 2:5).
(d) Of the motions of Gods Spirit (Gen 6:8).
3. The longer you procrastinate the harder it will be.
4. You cannot do it in the world to come (Ecc 9:10).
5. You are in continual danger till the work be done.
6. Objections.
(1) Ill consider it–it is not a thing to be considered but to be done.
(2) When my present business is over Ill begin (Mat 6:33)–all other business must give way to this. (Bp. Beveridge.)
Day and night
To speak of life and death as day and night is so natural that one does not think of it as a metaphor. Every man has his day. One longer, another shorter; one bright, another shaded and even stormy. Then night falls perhaps suddenly, as in the tropics, where there is no twilight; perhaps with a gentle descent as in the north or south.
I. THE BREVITY OF THE DAY. Christ would impress us with the value of time and opportunity and to lay out our short day to good account. How brief His was, yet in calm trust He worked on and found it long enough in which to finish His work; and the Jews with all their craft could not shorten it by one hour.
II. THE WORK OF THE DAY. Christs was to open the blind mans eyes. In this we cannot follow Him, but in the general direction and use of life we must.
1. We must work in order to live. Idlers are few, and are not to be envied. Jesus did not claim exemption from this rule. In his obscurity at Nazareth He earned the plain bread of a carpenters table, and afterwards only accepted the ministrations of others as a recognition of His public work. Thus He would have us industrious in our daily callings.
2. Our first work is to believe on Him (Joh 6:28-29). This excludesworking for justification. Our good works cannot obliterate our misdeeds. Divine grace is our only refuge. Yet this must not be turned into a bed of sloth. The law said–Do and live! The gospel says–Live and do!
3. There is the obligation to do good unto all men, etc. The care of our own spiritual life is apt to become morbid unless accompanied by unselfish exertion for others.
III. FOR ALL THERE IS BUT A DAY. The time is long enough for the work but too short to allow trifling. It is well when men begin early. Alas, some are no more than morning Christians. They promise well in childhood, but as morning passes on to noon they fall away (Hos 6:4). Others postpone their religion till the evening. This is to run a dreadful risk, for the night may come suddenly; and even if they do find time it is a poor homage to God to offer the dregs of life.
IV. DAY IS FOLLOWED BY NIGHT. In western countries, through the exigencies of trade, night is often turned into day. But in the East when the sun goes down work closes (Psa 104:20-28). Here part of the thought is that rest follows toil. How welcome is night to those who have spent a long and busy day, when He gives His beloved sleep. But this night is brief and is only a prelude to the eternal morning. (D. Fraser, D. D.)
The day and its toil
1. The works of God mean
(1) such as are God appointed. Christ wrought as one in possession of a chart, each hour charged with its special commission. Hence the speed and certainty with which each work was done. Amidst all the multiplicity of His activities He never hesitates, recalls a step, or regrets it, Faithful to Him that appointed Him, during these long years of self-repression at Nazareth, and up to the time when He died at the moment the Father had appointed.
(2) Such as are God revealing. There is not an act that is not in some way reflective of God or contributive to our knowledge of God, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father, and every relation and step adds its own special touch to the picture. His miracles of mercy tell something of the Fathers love; His miracles of judgment of the Fathers wrath. The Cross discloses every attribute of the Father at once.
2. Making allowance for the difference of power and vocation, the works of the servant should possess the same two-fold character as those of the master. Here we have the Christian theory of work. Much is said about work now-a-days. But work for works sake is a doubtful evangel to preach. Inactivity has its sins, but so has work. Some work till they are carnalised. Wrong work may be done, and right work wrongly. Let us illustrate the rule as it runs through a three-fold relationship.
(1) Toward the world our work should be
(a) God assigned. Our daily callings, however worldly or menial, can be conscientiously regarded as the appointment of God. But here inclination, parental wishes, advantageous prospects, etc. often hold sway. There are few things more critical than the choice of a profession, and one may miss ones way grievously. But let us feel This is the task appointed me, and then we may regard it as sacred, and among the works of Him who hath sent us.
(b) God revealing. Your faithfulness will be a miniature of Him who is faithful in all things; your punctuality will be God-like because a reflection of Him who is true to His promises; your patience under business provocations will resemble His longsuffering, who is slow to wrath; your conscientiousness will be the reflection of Him who never begins but He finishes. Nor will any vocation be too mean for this from the statesman down to the shop lad the principle is the same.
(2) Towards the Church. Our works
(a) Must be God appointed. But, some say, I have no special sphere in the Church. Beyond the fact that I avail myself of its privileges Church life has no interest for me. What was assigned to me as my work I found unsuitable or too taxing. The excuse will hardly pass muster. Christ is as one taking a far journey, and left His house, and gave every man his work. That house is the Church. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a husbandman who went out to hire labourers for his vineyard. That vineyard is the Church; and it can scarcely be argued that they who enjoy the shelter of the one and the fruits of the other can absolve themselves from the duty of serving in them. More generous and consistent is the spirit which says, Give me some door to keep, some plot to till. Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?
(b) When once we feel our work God appointed we shall try to make it God revealing in its thoroughness, for the God we represent is a God of order; in its perseverance because we testify to a God who faints not, neither is weary; in its humility, not losing interest in a work because others are preferred in it, realizing that I bear witness to a God who humbled Himself.
(3) Towards your personal life and the care and culture it demands. Preeminently is this task the appointment of God, for His will concerning us is our sanctification: and preeminently, too, is the task a revelation of God for herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.
II. THE MOTIVE. If Christ kept before Him a coming night much more should we. For Christ knew the length of His day, and could have told how many hours were left, but we are ignorant here. We know what lies behind, and how we have cheated ourselves with purposes and dreamings, but we cannot cheat time. With some the freshness and dew of the morning have given place to the burden and dust of the mid-day; with some that is succeeded by a grey and monotonous afternoon; while others are passing on amidst the frosts and dreariness of the fast falling twilight. And the thought may never have been faced, yet the night is coming to me. What shall we say to these things? Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, etc. (W. A. Gray.)
Work
A speculative question was put to Christ, and this is His answer, You may think, talk, argue, I must work. The Saviour has a greater respect for work than for speculation.
I. A NECESSITY TO LABOUR. With Christ it was not I may if I will, I can if I like, but I must. The cords which bound Him, however, were the cords of duty–the cords of love bound Him who is love.
1. It was because He loved them so well that He could not sit down still and see them perish.
2. The sorrow without compelled Him. That blind man had touched the secret chord that set His soul on work.
3. He had come into this world with an aim that was not to be achieved without work; and therefore He must work because He desired to achieve His end. The salvation of the many the Father had given Him; the finding of the lost sheep, etc.
He must accomplish all this.
4. Do we feel that we must work?
(1) There are those who feel that they must be fed.
(2) There are others who feel that they must find fault.
(3) Others who will dodge anyhow to get off any task. Do be a
Christian or else give up being called one!
(4) But some must work. Why? To be saved? No; but because they are saved and Christs love constrains them to save others.
II. A SPECIALITY OF WORK. There are plenty who say, I must work to get rich, to support a family, to become famous. Christ did not pick or choose. He worked the works, not some but all, whether of drudgery or honour, suffering or relief from suffering, prayer or preaching. It is easy to work our own works, even in spiritual things, but difficult to be brought to this I must work, etc. Many think it their business to preach who had much better hear a little longer. Others think their work the headship of a class, whereas they would be useful in giving away tracts. Our prayer should be, Show me in particular what Thou wouldst have me to do. All Christians have not yet learned that each is personally to do the will of Him that sent him. We cannot work by proxy.
III. A LIMITATION OF TIME. Christ the immortal says this. If anyone could have postponed work it was He. Work
1. While it is day to you. Some days are very short. Young brother or sister, your sun may go down ere it reaches noon. Mother, if you knew you had only another month, how you would pray with your children! So Sunday school teacher.
2. While it is day with the objects of your care. You will not have the opportunity of speaking to some in London tomorrow, for they will die tonight. With some their day is brief although they may live long; it is only the one occasion when they go to a place of worship, when there is sickness in the house and the missionary enters, when a Christian comes across their path.
IV. A REMEMBRANCER OF OUR MORTALITY. The night cometh. You cannot put it off, however much you may dread it. It comes for the pastor, missionary, father, mother, etc. The warrior who loses a battle may yet live to win the campaign; the bankrupt may yet be rich; but if you lose the battle of life you shall never have it to fight again, and bankruptcy in spiritual service is bankruptcy forever. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The work of life
Note
I. THAT TO EVERY MAN A WORK IS GIVEN. What is it?
1. Negatively: Not
(1) business;
(2) pleasure;
(3) learning–however important these may be relatively.
2. Positively: to work out our own salvation, etc. This as a work
(1) Of repentance;
(2) of faith;
(3) of obedience.
3. Without Christ in this great work we can do nothing; but His grace is sufficient for us.
II. THAT A PERIOD OF TIME IN WHICH THE PERFORMANCE OF THIS WORK MAY BE ACCOMPLISHED IS ASSIGNED TO EVERY MAN. Within the day of life there are days specially favourable.
1. The day of youth.
2. The day of health.
3. The day of religious opportunity.
4. The day of spiritual influence.
III. THAT AT THE EXPIRATION OF THE ALLOTTED SEASON THE PERFORMANCE OF THIS WORK IS IMPOSSIBLE. The night cometh
1. Of affliction.
2. Of religious abandonment.
3. Of death–when no man can work. (J. Bowers.)
Work, and work rightly
It is not enough to work, we must work in the right way. To do this
I. WE MUST BE PREPARED FOR THE WORK, and since it is Divine, by God Himself. It is not by might nor by power, physical or intellectual. There is no tendency in the unconverted to seek the Fathers glory, and therefore we must be regenerated by the Spirit. Excitement may press us into the field, an anxious feeling may give us a momentary energy, but a few cold blasts from the world, and a little of the irksomeness of the task will soon extinguish the flame and drive us from the field.
II. WE MUST WORK WITH ALL OUR HEART. Gods demand is not Give me thy body or thine intellect but thy heart. Half-heartedness in His cause is an abomination in His sight. God will not have a man swing between the world and Himself, halting between two opinions. And surely the character of the Master, the nature of the work and its reward, are enough to engage the energies of the whole soul.
III. WE MUST WORK EXPECTING SUCCESS. We are not to imagine that we embark on an impossibility; if we do we shall lose nerve and fail in application. We must be buoyed up by the conviction that God will bless us in our labour of love. This He pledges Himself to do, and this should stimulate us, especially when we remember that success means the salvation of souls, and that God has granted this to other labourers.
IV. WE MUST WORK AND NOT BE ASHAMED OF IT. There is a good deal of cowardice in religious work which contrasts strangely with the courage we display in business, etc. And yet if manliness be demanded in anything it is in this. We are to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ, witnesses for God, and are to act in capacities where boldness is the one thing needful. And what is there to be ashamed of?–the Master? the work? the fellow workmen? the reward? Remember
1. The object you have in view. Would you be ashamed to awaken the sleeper in the burning house, to cry to the foundering sailor to grasp the rope?
2. That if you are ashamed of Christ here, He will be ashamed of you at the Judgment.
V. WE MUST WORK THOUGH WE SEE NO PROSPECT OF SUCCESS. Duty is ours, results are Gods. But we have room for encouragement, for the unlikeliest field has often become the most prolific. Remember Mary Magdalene, the dying thief, Saul of Tarsus. But, whatever the likelihood or otherwise of success, we must work. We must realize that we are our brothers keeper, and not wait to inquire about his characteristics, but acquaint him with his want and bring the supply. If he rejects it that is his responsibility, not ours.
VI. WE MUST WORK HARD
1. Because the adversary is active.
2. Because our time is drawing to a close. (J. McConnell Hussey, D. D.)
The Divine dignity of work
Like Jesus
I. WE HAVE EACH OUR MISSION. We are Divinely sent. It is by no act of ours that we are here, by no migration from a pre-existent life, still less did we construct this abode of ours. Yet here we are on the theatre of this particular world, and as its lords to replenish and subdue it, but confined to it. Whence have we this range, so large and yet so defined? Because we have a definite mission, which missed or marred, the result is tragic.
II. WE HAVE EACH A PRACTICAL MISSION. We are sent to work. There are some nobles who are sent on mere missions of pageantry or pleasure; one as ambassador, to gratify at some refined court his taste for music and the fine arts. Another, fond of travel, contrives in this way to see classic or romantic lands. But mans mission from the King of kings is sternly practical. Had he kept his first estate it would have been so, for work is Divine and older than the fall. All legitimate work is
1. Productive. Other is not so–the thief, e.g., the marauding conqueror, the publican. But the mechanic, merchant, explorer, etc., are productive, whether of food, comforts, wealth, or knowledge, which is power.
2. Ennobling, directly contributing to the decencies and moralities of life as may be seen when we contrast the condition of the poorest in this city with that of the savage. The Jews had an excellent proverb: He that has not learned to work, is brother to him that is a thief. From this let every man learn to honour productive and useful work wherever found. Let not the operative refuse the name of workman to the thinker, because the fabric of his thoughts cannot be seen; for our manufactures, buildings, machines are but the vesture of previous thought. And let not the non-manual class look down on the brawny arm and horny hand! for they are the solid basis of the social pyramid.
III. WE HAVE A MISSION TO DIVINE AND GOD-LIKE WORKS.
1. Our daily callings, if they are honest and honourable, and done inside our Fathers vineyard, and for Him, and not outside the sacred ground as done for man merely or self. I have not time to serve God was once said to an evangelist. God wants no more of your time than you give to the devil, was the reply.
2. The more special works God has laid upon us in the culture of personal religion and in the works of philanthropy. We need but read the context to find out what works Christ meant, such works as are grouped in the formula, He went about doing good.
3. The bulk of these works is individually not great but little. The entire pyramid of human progress is made up of littles. The vast ocean is made up of drops, and the great globe of atoms; and just so in the intellectual, moral, and spiritual world life is made up of little duties. Great and brilliant services are possible only to a few, and in rare emergencies, and weighed against the ordinary, they are but of small account. What keeps the world moving is not the great deeds of kings, conquerors, etc., but the brave, patient, prayerful work of fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, etc.
4. In order to these little works being good works there is a previous work, viz., believing in Jesus and being reconciled to God.
IV. WE HAVE A MISSION THAT IS URGENT.
1. Beware of the many things that seek to rob us of one day.
2. Time lost can never be retrieved.
3. Time is inestimably precious for all our interests, but infinitely more as involving our eternity.
4. Flee to Jesus without delay, for now is the accepted time, etc. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
The benefit of work
In seeking others good we achieve good ourselves. I know of no way to get rid of a good deal of the prevalent dulness and drowsiness and spiritual ennui with which many Christians are afflicted than by shaking it off like cobwebs and going to work. Work is the pre-requisite of growth, and exercise of health and development. When good people tell me about being in a saddened condition, and confess to spiritual stagnation, it does not seem wonderful at all. The man who does not work has no right to expect anything but distrust, dissatisfaction, and ultimate degradation, and he will get it. For any Christian man to suppose that he is simply a sanctified sponge, to continuously absorb the light and life of others and grow, is sheer nonsense. He will by and by rot! He will not be able to keep even with salt. If you would be healthily developed, work. If there is a single organ in the body that is weak, use it well, and strength will come to it. So with regard to your spiritual life. There is no such beneficent arrangement for spiritual growth, like the effort to prove a blessing to mankind. (Family Churchman.)
The work of life
I. OUR HEAVENLY FATHER SENT US INTO THIS WORLD TO DO HIS WORK AND TO LIVE FOR HIS GLORY. We are bidden to replenish the earth and subdue it; fill it, that is, with all things right and good, and bound to do our best to make ourselves and all men more like the true image of the Holy God, and to leave the world better than we found it.
II. OUR LIFE ON EARTH IS AS A DAY, AND NO MORE THAN A DAY. It has its morning, for preparation; its sunny hours, for labour; its evening, for meditation; and then the night cometh, when all is over. Life is but as a day; no more. Wherefore it is folly and madness to indulge ourselves in the fancy that we have time to loiter, a time to be idle. No. The longest day is short enough for all that a wise man wishes to put into it; and the longest life is not too long to spend in the earnest seeking after God. For the soul of man is like some primeval forest, which contains in itself a glorious fertility, and an almost boundless capacity for bearing fruitful harvests for the careful tiller of the soil; but until it is tilled and tended, it is but the haunt of wild beasts–it is but a rank, dark, silent, wilderness, where the ranker and more noxious the weed, the stronger and ruder is its growth; but if the brave husbandman begins to labour, if the sun of heaven shines through the sullen gloom, and the winds of God blow softly through the branches, and the watchful eye seeks out the poisonous plants, and the careful hand fosters the fruitful soil, then, by and by, but only after a long time of travail, the wilderness and the solitary place will be glad, and the desert will rejoice and blossom as the rose. (A. Jessop, D. D.)
Earnest views of life
Christian earnestness has for its elements
I. A CONSCIENTIOUS ESTIMATE OF THE WORTH OF TIME. Life is not a day too long. Go into the Mint, and you will find the gold room constructed with double floors. The upper one acts like a sieve, and the lower one catches and retains the infinitesimal particles of gold which are sifted through. Every human life needs some such contrivance for the economy of fragments of time. Lord Nelson said: I have always been fifteen minutes before the time, and it has made a man of me. Napoleon said: Remember, that every lost moment is a chance of future misfortune. Sir Walter Scott, when asked what was the secret of the marvellous fertility of his pen, replied: I have always made it a rule never to be doing nothing. An intruder upon the morning study hours of Baxter apologized: Perhaps I interrupt you. Baxter answered rudely, but honestly: To be sure you do. The spirit of such men, refined by Christian culture, is the spirit with which, in the Christian view of life, time is to be valued. Every life is made of moments; a kingdom could not purchase one of them. An earnest man will often reckon time as if he were on a death bed. There are hours in every mans life in which the tick of a watch is more thrilling to an earnest spirit than the roll of thunder. There come moments in which the beat of a pulse is more awful than the roar of Niagara.
II. ABSTINENCE FROM FRIVOLITY OF SPEECH. Do we adequately revere the sacredness of language? All nations have a tradition that it came down from heaven. We all have respect for a man of reticent speech. If a man talks twaddle, there is more hope of a fool than of him. The Scriptures pronounce him a great man who can rule his own spirit; but the chief element in that power is the power to govern his tongue. Many times one word has saved life. Peace and war between rival nations have often trembled in scales which the utterance of one word has decided. A certain man attributed his salvation to one word in a sermon preached by Whitefield. A word spoken in season, how good is it! There are men who specially need to correct the overgrowth of risibility in their habits. They make a pet of frivolous speech. There are men whose reputation for levity was so great that their very rising in a public assembly set going a ripple of laughter before they had opened their lips. There are worse things in the world than a laugh, but no earnest man will make a business of it. Men of frivolous tongue are apt to have a frisky intellect. That is worse than St. Vituss dance. A certain nervous disease relaxes the risible muscles from control, and gives to the countenance the smile of idiocy. So are there certain minds which by habitual levity of tongue become morally idiotic. They cannot think intensely, nor feel profoundly. In Gods estimate of things, what must be the verdict when such a debilitated mind is weighed in the balances! What must be the ending of such an impoverished and wasted life? The wicked is snared by the transgression of his lips.
III. THE CONSECRATION OF LIFE TO GREAT DESIGNS. Aurungzebe, an Indian prince, had lived, as other Oriental monarchs do, in selfish and sensual indulgences. In a farewell letter to his son he says: I came a stranger into the world, and a stranger I go out of it. I know nothing about myself, what I am or what is my destiny. My life has been passed vainly, and now the breath which rose is gone, and has left not even a hope behind. This is in every respect just what the Christian idea of life is not. A Christian life in its true conception is a great and a good one. It is devoted to objects worthy of a man. Dr. Arnold expresses it in brief when he says: I feel more and more the need of intercourse with men who take life in earnest. It is painful to me to be always on the surface of things. Not that I wish for much of what is called religious conversation. That is often apt to be on the surface. But I want a sign which one catches by a sort of masonry, that a man knows what he is about in life. When I find this, it opens my heart with as fresh a sympathy as when I was twenty years younger. One of the merchant princes of Philadelphia made it a rule to build at his own cost one church every year. When he began his career he was a mechanic, engaged in making trinkets. But one day the thought came to him: This is a small business; I am manufacturing little things, and things useless to the world. It was no sin, but it did not seem to him a mans work. It made him restless till he changed his trade, and became as expert in the manufacture of locomotives as he had been before in that of earrings and gewgaws. The Christian spirit in the very germ of it is essentially a great spirit, an ambitious spirit, which is not content till it identifies life with great and commanding objects. It puts into a man the will to do, and so develops in him the power to do grand things, in which the doing shall be as grand as the thing done. Christianity has bestowed on the world a magnificent gift in the single principle of the dignity of labour. It is a sublime thing to work for ones living. To do well the thing a man is created for is a splendid achievement. A rich fool once said to a rising lawyer: I remember the time when you had to black my fathers boots, sir. Did I not do them well? was the reply, and it spoke inborn greatness. Our Lord disclosed the same spirit when in His early boyhood He said: Wist ye not that I must be about my Fathers business? Every Christian young man has his Fathers business to attend to, and he is not a full-grown man till he gets about it.
IV. THE RESOLVE TO GIVE LIFE TO THE SAME OBJECTS FOR WHICH CHRIST LIVED. Trades and professions, and recreations even, can be made Christlike. He was a mistaken and untrained Christian who gave up a large practice at the bar, because, he said, a man could not be a Christian lawyer. A man can be a Christian in anything that is necessary to the welfare of mankind. Everything in this world belongs to Christ, and can be used for Him. One of the humblest of the mechanical trades has been glorified by the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was a carpenter. Making money is a Christian thing, if a man will do it in Christian ways. If it is some mens duty to be poor, it is other mens duty to be rich. Both should identify life with Christs life. This was Pauls ambition: To me to live is Christ. Let a man once get thoroughly wrought into and through his whole being the fact that this world is to be converted to Jesus Christ, and that his own business here is to work into line with Gods enterprize in this thing, and he cannot help realizing in his own person the Christian theory of living. He will meditate on it, he will study it, he will inform himself about it, he will talk of it, he will work for it, he will dream of it, he will give his money to it, if need be he will suffer for it and die for it. Such a life of active thoughtful sympathy with Christ will make a man of anybody. No matter who or what he is, no matter how poor, how ignorant, how small in the worlds esteem, such a life will make him a great man. Angels will respect him. God will own him. (A. Phelps, D. D.)
Two ways of lengthening life
An eminent divine suffering from a chronic disease, consulted three physicians, who declared, on being questioned by the sick man, that his disease would be followed by death in a shorter or longer time, according to the manner in which he lived; but they unanimously advised him to give up his office, because, in his situation, mental agitation would be fatal to him. If I give myself to repose, inquired the divine, how long will you guarantee my life? Six years, answered the doctors. And if I should continue in office? Three years at most. Thank you, gentlemen, he replied; I should prefer living two or three years in doing some good to living six in idleness. (Whitecross.)
The spur
I. THE GREAT MASTER WORKER.
1. He takes His own share in the work, I. How encouraging! It is enough for the general if he directs the battle, but Jesus fought in the ranks. As the great Architect He supervises all, yet He helps to build the Spiritual Temple with His own hands. It made Alexanders soldiers valiant, because, when they were wearied with long marches, he dismounted and walked with them; and if a river had to be crossed in the teeth of opposition, foremost amidst all the risk was the general.
2. He laid great stress on the gracious work which was laid upon Him. There were some things He would not do–dividing inheritances, etc. But when it came to the work of blessing souls, this He must do, and He did it with all His might. The unity of His purpose was never broken.
3. He rightly describes this work as the work of God. If ever there was one who might have taken the honour to himself it was Jesus; yet He ever says, The Father doeth the works. He sets us the example of confessing that whatever we do God does it and should have the glory.
4. He owned His true position. He had not come forth on His own account. He was not here as a principal, but as a subordinate, an ambassador sent by the king. God gave Him a commission and the grace to carry it out.
5. He threw a hearty earnestness into the work He undertook. Though sent, the commission was so genial to His nature that He worked with all the alacrity of a volunteer. He was commissioned, but His own will was the main compulsion.
6. He clearly saw that there was a fitting time to work, and that this time would have an end. He called his lifetime a day: to show us that He was impressed with the shortness of it. Thou hast but a day–youth is the morning, manhood the noon, old age the evening. Be up and doing, for beyond that is night. But as with Christ, so with us. We cannot die till our day is over.
II. OURSELVES AS WORKERS UNDER HIM.
1. On us there rests personal obligation. We are in danger of losing ourselves in societies and associations. The old histories are rich in records of personal daring. There is little of that now because fighting is done so much by masses and machinery. So our Christian work is in danger of getting mechanical, so much en masse that there is barely room for singular deeds of valour. Yet the success of the Church will lie in this last. Each man should feel I have something to do for Christ which an angel could not do for me.
2. Our personal obligation compels us to just such work as Christ did. We are not called meritoriously to save souls, for He is the only Saviour, but we are called to enlighten them. This work must be done, whatever else is left undone. And how paltry is every other gain compared with that of a saved soul! We have our secular callings and ought to have them, but we have a high calling of God in Christ, and while other things may be this must be.
3. It is Gods work we are called upon to do. What greater motive can we have than to have a Divine work and Divine strength to do it? Your mission is not less honourable than that of angels, and how blessed it is! How desperate the case of those we are sent to save, and how short the time in which to save them! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The night cometh when no man can work.–Although our Lords ministry began late, it was marked by incessant activity. His disciples marvelled at it, and Be accounts for it by the fact that He had much to do and but little time to do it in. This declaration is worth attention. It is not wise to dwell in a cold sense of death. Dying need not be gloomy; but life has a certain duration, and there is allotted to every man a certain round of duties; and as in a journey a man divides the distance into stages according to the time he has to accomplish it, so a man ought to look forward to death in order to accomplish in life the things that are to be done. The husbandman says, If my ground does not receive the seed early in the spring, I shall have no harvest in the autumn. I know the measure of the summer and labour accordingly.
I. I address THOSE WHO LIVE AIMLESS LIVES. Many of you will not live long, and yet there are incumbent upon you great duties toward God, man, yourselves. You may not be stained with vice; but there is great wrong done by every man who in life has no plan but that of idly floating out of one day into another. That is to surrender the dignity of life and to make yourselves like the gauzy ephemerides that float in the air. But you are not born to be insects, and however cheerful you may be you ought to answer the great questions: What am I born for? how long have I to stay here?
II. I also address THOSE WHO ARE ALWAYS INTENDING TO DO THE THINGS THEY ADMIRE. How many are saying, When there is a more convenient season it is my purpose to reform. But no man is wise who does not say day by day, What I do I must hasten to do, for life is not very long for me. For whatever you mean to do you have no time to spare. Putting off till prosperity is established is substantially putting off forever. They who late in life attain to any considerable excellence are rare exceptions. Men usually plant in childhood the seeds which blossom and bear the fruits on which they feed in later years.
III. IS THE SPIRIT OF THIS TEACHING MAN SHOULD MEASURE CERTAIN PRACTICAL DUTIES.
1. It is part of a Christian mans duty to make provision for his household. No man has a right to leave out of view the fact that he may be taken away, and when that is the case the breadwinner is gone. It is wicked therefore for a man, because he admires his wife and loves his children, to live beyond his means to gratify their tastes or whims. Where a man does this, when the collapse comes there is nothing but misery.
2. It is a Christian mans duty to secure the provision he has made. There are many men whose business is in such a state that if they were to die their affairs would be like a ship from whose rudder the pilot has been shot down. Set thy house in order, then. Make your will, and have your affairs so straight that it will be easy to wind them up and dispose them according to your wishes.
IV. THE SENTIMENT OF THE TEXT RULES IN THE RELIGIOUS SPHERE.
1. In personal spiritual growth. The time for the development of the graces, the acquisition of knowledge, the contraction of good habits is brief–make the most of it.
2. In Christian work. If you have anything to do for the poor, for the Church, for the worlds purity and happiness, you have no time to lose. And yet how few, however active, are using the whole economy of their natures according to the power that is in them? (H. W. Beecher.)
The night cometh
Therefore
I. DO NOT SET YOUR AFFECTIONS ON EARTHLY THINGS. Wealth, reputation, pleasure, etc., will then perish. You would not tie your earthly happiness to a flower that is to fade at sunset; and is it more reasonable for a being who is to live forever to choose for his portion what must pass from his grasp whenever the sun of this short life goes down?
II. DO NOT REPINE AND LOSE HEART AMID YOUR CARE AND SORROWS. The occasions of these last only for lifes little day, and dark as that day may be, it will drag through at last. And sweet as is the evening hour of rest for the labourer, that is nothing to the rest that remaineth for the people of God. Let this prospect infuse courage and hope to endure our loss and to bear our cross.
III. DO NOT WEARY OF YOUR DUTIES. Some of them are delightful enough, but others are burdensome; but the time is coming when both will be laid aside and the reward bestowed.
IV. WORK OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION, for that can only be accomplished during the day. And who knows how many hours remain and what accident may not cut it short? (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)
The night cometh
There is a difference between the ancient Oriental and the modem Occidental idea of night, owing to the comparative security of life and property in modern times. In the ancient East (and it is so still in the modem East), the man who camped outside of the city walls was liable to attack from prowling Bedouins, from professional thieves, and from wild animals; while he who slept within city walls hardly dared to venture out of doors by night, for fear of the troops of half-savage dogs that scoured through the narrow streets, fighting each other for the offal which they found there. The darkness was also the time when evil spirits had most power: Lilith, the female demon, and Asmodai, and other evil spirits, hid in dark places during the day; but during the night they issued forth to prey upon mankind. A certain trace of this same feeling is seen in the evil epithets applied to night by the classical writers. The night is terrible, destructive. To these writers, as well as to the Orientals, the night was the time of peril and of enforced cessation from work. To us, night is the period of repose and safety. (S. S. Times.)
Diligence in the work of religion
I. THERE IS A WORK ALLOTTED TO EVERY MAN TO BE PERFORMED WHILE HE LIVES IN THE WORLD.
1. As he is a member of the body politic, he is obliged to contribute his proportion of help to the public as sharing the benefits of society.
2. As he is a subject of a spiritual kingdom, he is to pursue the interest of his salvation. He is sent into this world to make sure of a better. These two capacities are very different: by the former a man is to approve himself a good citizen; by the latter a good Christian. The former too is subordinate to the latter, and when it clashes with it must give way. According to these capacities there is a double work.
1. Temporal, by which a man is to fill some place in the commonwealth by the exercise of some useful profession; and God, who has ordained society and order accounts Himself served by each mans diligent pursuit, though of the meanest trade, and requires no man to be praying or reading when he ought to be hammering or sewing. The great Master is still calling upon all His servants to work: a thing so much disdained by the gallant and epicure, is yet the price which God and Nature has set upon every enjoyment (2Th 3:10).
2. Spiritual. This is threefold.
(1) To make our peace with God. God is indeed reconciled by the satisfaction made by Christ, and peace is now offered, but upon conditions, viz., repentance and faith.
(2) To get our sins mortified. For after we are transplanted into a state of grace, we are not to think that our work is wholly done. Every man has sinful habits with which he is to wage war, and this is the most afflicting part of his duty.
(3) To get his heart replenished with the proper virtues of a Christian. Christianity ends not in negatives. No man clears his garden of weeds, but in order to the planting of flowers and herbs. And as every trade requires toil, so this.
II. THE TIME OF THIS LIFE BEING EXPIRED, THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY OF PERFORMING THIS WORK. There is no repenting, believing, doing the works of charity in the grave. A day notes
1. The shortness of it. What is a day but a few minutes sunshine, an indiscernible shred of that life which is itself but a span. God allows us but one day, which shows what value He puts on our opportunities by dispensing them so sparingly. Our life is a days journey, therefore it concerns us to manage it so that we may have comfort at our journeys end.
2. Its sufficiency. A day, short as it is, equals the business of the day; and he that repents not during his short life would not were it prolonged five hundred years.
3. Its determinate limitation. As after a number of hours it will unavoidably be night, and there is no stopping the setting sun, so after we have passed such a measure of our time, our season has its period–we are benighted, and must bid adieu to our opportunities.
III. THE CONSIDERATION OF THIS OUGHT TO BE THE MOST PRESSING ARGUMENT TO EVERY MAN TO USE HIS UTMOST DILIGENCE IN THE DISCHARGE OF THIS WORE.
1. The work is most difficult. It is warfare, wrestling, resisting the devil, and unto blood. Agonizing before the doer is closed to enter in. Hard work, and little time to do it in. He that has far to go and much to do should rise early, and mate the difficulty of the business with the diligence of the prosecution.
2. It is necessary, in so far as it is necessary for a man to be saved; which argument will be heightened by comparing this necessity with the limitation of time. There is no tomorrow in a Christians calendar. (R. South, D. D.)
Time cannot be lengthened out by man
As the light was fading away on the evening before the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon, pointing towards the setting sun, said, What would I not give to be this day possessed of the power of Joshua–enabled to retard thy march for two hours! (J. Abbott.)
The inevitableness of death
The time is short–or as we might perhaps render it, so as to give the full force of the metaphor, the time is pressed together. It is being squeezed into narrower compass, like a sponge in a strong hand. There is an old story of a prisoner in a cell with contractile walls. Day by day his space lessens. He saw the whole of that window yesterday; he sees only half of it today. Nearer and nearer the walls are drawn together, till they meet and crush him between them. So the wails of our home, which we have made our prison, are closing in upon us. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The need of preparation for death
A young prince asked his tutor to give him some instruction about preparing for death. Plenty of time for that when you are older, was the reply. No, said the child; I have been to the churchyard and measured the graves, and there are many shorter than I am. A courtier, who had passed his life in the service of his prince, having fallen dangerously ill, the prince went to visit him, accompanied by his other courtiers. He found him in an agony of suffering, and at the point of death. Touched with the sad spectacle, he said, Is there anything I can do for you? Ask unhesitatingly, and fear not that you will be refused. Prince, replied the sufferer, in the sad situation in which you see me, I have but one thing to ask of you; give me a quarter of an hour of life. Alas! said the prince, what you demand is not in my, power, to give;, ask something else, if you wish me to aid you. Oh, what! said the dying man, I have served you for fifty years, and you cannot give me a quarter of an hour of life! Ah! if I had served the Lord thus faithfully, He would have given me, not a quarter of an hour of life, but an eternity of happiness. Very soon after he died. Happy it he himself profited by the lesson which he gave to others on the nothingness of human life and the necessity of working out ones own salvation. (Ponder and Pray.)
The folly of delay
After the battle of Chancellorsville, General Hooker, instead of quickly following up his victory with another attack, delayed it for a day. The golden moment was thus lost, and it never afterwards appeared to the same extent. Soldiers legs have as much to do with winning great victories as their arms. (H. O. Mackey.)
Definite workers
Generalities in religion are always to be avoided, more especially generalities in service. If a man waits upon you for a situation, and you say to him, What are you? if he replies, I am a painter, or a carpenter, you can find him work perhaps; but if he says, Oh! I can do anything, you understand that he can do nothing. So it is with a sort of spiritual jobbers who profess to be able to do anything in the Church, but who really do nothing. I want my conscript brethren tonight to consider what they are henceforth going to do, and I beg them to consider it with such deliberation, that when once they have come to a conclusion that they will not need to change it, for changes involve losses. What can you do? What is your calling? Ragged schools? Sunday schools? Street preaching? Tract distribution? Here is a choice for you; which do you select? Waste no time, but say, This is my calling, and by Gods grace I will give myself up to it, meaning to do it as well as any man ever did do it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Lost opportunities
Ah! Mr. Hervey, said a dying man, the day in which I ought to have worked is over, and I now see a horrible night approaching, bringing with it the blackness of darkness forever. Woe is me! When God called, I refused. Now I am in sore anguish; and yet this is but the beginning of sorrows. I shall be destroyed with an everlasting destruction.
A motive for diligence
The old naturalists, who tell us a good many things which are not true, as well as some which are, say that the birds of Norway always fly more swiftly than any others, because the summer days are so short, and therefore they have so much to do in such a little time. Surely we should fly more swiftly to do our Lords work if we would only meditate upon the fact that the day is so short, and that the night is so near at hand. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
All must work
Oh! I could not do much, says one. Then do what you can. No one flower makes a garden, but altogether the fair blossoms of spring create a paradise of beauty. Let all the Lords flowers contribute in their proportion to the beauty of the garden of the Lord. But I am so unused to it. Then, my brother, that is a very powerful reason why you should do twice as much, so as to make up for your past idleness. Oh! but I am afraid nothing would come of it. What has that to do with you? God has promised a blessing, and if the blessing should not come in your day, yet, if you have done what the Master bade you, you will not be blamed for want of success. Sir, asks another, will you give me some work to do? No, I will not; for if you are good for anything, you will find it for yourself. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Work while it is day
In the Californian bee pastures, on the sun days of summer, one may readily infer the time of day from the comparative energy of bee movements alone: drowsy and moderate in the cool of the morning, increasing in energy with the ascending sun, and at high noon thrilling and quivering in wild ecstasy, then gradually declining again to the stillness of night. Is it not, or should it not be, a picture of our life? (H. O. Mackey.)
Responsibility to God
Daniel Webster was present one day at a dinner party given at Astor House by some New York friends, and, in order to draw him out, one of the company put to him the following question: Would you please tell us, bit. Webster, what was the most important thought that ever occupied your mind? Mr. Webster merely raised his head, and passing his hand slowly over his forehead, said, Is there anyone here who doesnt know me? No, sir, was the reply; we all know you, and are your friends. Then, said he, looking over the table, the most important thought that ever occupied my mind was that of my individual responsibility to God. Upon which subject he then spoke for twenty minutes. (H. O. Mackey.)
Work while it is day
When someone expostulated with Duncan Matheson, the evangelist, that he was killing himself with his labours, and ought to have rest, he replied: I cannot rest while souls are being lost; there is all eternity in which to rest after life is done. (H. O. Mackey.)
Life a sphere of work
We are not sent into life as a butterfly is sent into summer, gorgeously hovering over the flowers, as if the interior spirits of the rainbow had come down to greet these kisses of the season upon the ground; but to labour for the worlds advancement, and to mould our characters into Gods likeness, and so, through toil and achievement, to gain happiness. I would rather break stones upon the road, if it were not for the disgrace of being in a chain gang, than to be one of those contemptible joy mongers, who are so rich and so empty that they are continually going about to find something to make them happy. (H. W.Beecher.)
We must work with our whole heart
It is one of the first and last qualifications of good workman for God that he should put his heart into his work. I have heard mistresses tell servants when polishing tables that elbow-grease was a fine thing for such work; and so it is. Hard work is a splendid thing. It will make a way under a river, or through an Alp. Hard work will do almost everything; but in Gods service it must not only be hard work, but hot work. The heart must be on fire. The heart must be set upon its design. See how a child cries! Though I am not fond of hearing it, yet I note that some children cry all over; when they want a thing, they cry from the tips of their toes to the last hair of their heads. That is the way to preach, and that is the way to pray, and that is the way to live: the whole man must be heartily engaged in holy work. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christians feel that they must work
When I have been unable to preach through physical pain, I have taken my pen to write, and found much joy in making books for Jesus; and when my hand has been unable to wield the pen, I have wanted to talk about my master to somebody or other, and I have tried to do so. I remember that David Brainerd, when he was very ill, and could not preach to the Indians, was found sitting up in bed, teaching a little Indian boy his letters, that he might read the Bible; and so he said, If I cannot serve God one way, I will another. I will never leave off this blessed service. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Work is healthful
On one occasion a neighbouring minister warned Dr. Morison, of Chelsea, that he was doing too much work. Depend upon it, said Dr. Morison, the lazy minister dies first. Six months afterwards he was sent for by his friendly monitor, and found him dying. Do you remember what you once said to me? inquired the dying man. Stunned by finding his words so vividly remembered at this time, he replied, Oh, dont speak of that. Yes, I must speak of it, said his friend. It was the truth! Work, work while it is called day; for now the night is coming, when I cannot work.
Soul winning is our work
I like that expression of Mr. Wesleys preachers, when they were asked to interfere in this or that political struggle, they replied, Our work is to win souls, and we give ourselves to it. Oh, that churches would listen to this just now! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
We must do Gods work
There are men, there are women–men and women of high capacities, of great mental endowment–who, in every division of human thought and human labour, have furrowed their track deep in the fields of history. There are men, as you all know, of scientific attainments, who have been powerful in illuminating the meaning of the laws of God with regard to the physical creation before the minds of their fellow men; men who have drawn out the secrets from this world, who have exposed to us the meaning of much that once we believed to be almost magical, and now is known to be only natural. There are men of historical power, who have been able to co-ordinate the various human motives and thoughts which have gone to form the springs of history, until they have succeeded, in part at least, in reading some of those general laws of our Great Creator, even in fields belonging not strictly to His divine revelation. There are, again, men of artistic faculties, who have been able–in throwing out thoughts upon canvas, which have startled us,sometimes with the beauty of execution, and always with the wonderful mystery of various colourings, combining into one picture before the eye–have been able, I say, thereby to exhibit to us things that all mankind,more or less, have dreamed of, but that all mankind found themselves incapable to express. There have been men–as you and I, who live in this great city, know–who, by the mere activity of their life, have left a very deep impress upon their generation. But, after all, when we turn to the Christian life, we have to acknowledge, even without the divine revelation, that all that kind of work, all that outcome of what is mere human activity, is not at all work in the sense in which Christ means it, as becoming and glorifying an immortal. Not at all! (Knox Little.)
We must do our work promptly
In the private journal of a lady in New York, recently deceased, were found these words: I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
To every man his work
We have all of us special endowments; each has got some place in the providential ordering of God; not one soul but has his or her place. God has given each a work. His will for you is to be measured by the capabilities that you have. Some have power of brain, some of heart, some of hand. Some can illuminate a quiet home by the tender brightness of a holy life; some can lead vast masses of their fellow creatures by a splendid example of energetic and determined fixity of purpose; some can think of God with peculiar depth and power in quiet times, when alone with Him. They can so meditate that the meditation of their soul is felt, rather than heard, by those who associate with them in life. Some can go forth into the great working world, and speak or do a work for God amongst those around them. But for each one, old or young–O loved of God! O child of Jesus! O turned to the Master with a wholeheart and a loving determination!–for each, therefore for you, there is a special work in the history of this universe. (Knox Little.)
Signs of night
You will find within your breast the waning power of the exercise of influence you had in your home; you find the difficulty, mere than ever, of fighting down some wretched habit for which not only do you want forgiveness, but which, too, you desire to conquer for the love of Jesus; you find, perhaps the witness of a failing memory, or of failing health; you find that in some way or other the finger of God is touching you. The world may not see it; friends may not read it; those who are dear to you may not tell it; but you know it–the witness, whatever it is, is come–is coming. It speaks to you in the silence of the night. It wakens with you when you waken in the morning; it travels with you as a settled consciousness, when you are going about the world; it is the whisper of that unrelenting law of unchanging changefulness–the night is coming. (Knox Little.)
The works of God
The utter restfulness which filled the heart of the Lord Jesus is beautifully manifested in the introductory verses of this chapter.
I. THE CONDITIONS IN WHICH GODS WORKS ARE DONE. The phrase, works of God, is a familiar one throughout this Gospel. To do them fed the Redeemers soul (Joh 4:34); they were in an ever ascending scale Joh 5:20); they were of a certain definite number, given Him to finish Joh 5:36); they were the signs and seals of His mission (Joh 10:38); they were not His own, but wrought through Him by the Father Joh 14:10); they were unique in the history of the world (Joh 16:24); they were definitely finished ere He left it (Joh 17:4). But it becomes us to learn the conditions under which they were wrought, that we may be able to do those greater works of which He spoke.
1. His heart was at rest in God. Nature herself teaches the need of repose for the putting forth of her mightiest efforts. It is in the closet, the study, the cave, the woodland retreat that problems have been solved, resolves formed, and schemes matured. It is not possible for us all to have a life of outward calm. But beneath all the heart may keep its Sabbath.
2. He was specially endued with the Holy Spirit.
3. He was willing that the Father should work through Him.
II. THE NEED FOR THESE WORKS. A man blind from his birth. If there is need for the works of God to be manifested, we must be at hand, and willing at all costs to manifest them. If there is the opportunity for the glorifying of Christ, we must not be slow to seize it. Make haste, the night is coming, in which no man can work. What works await us yonder we cannot tell. But the unique work of healing blindness and enriching beggary is confined to earth, and we must hasten to do all of this allotted to us before the nightfall. He lives intensely whose eye is fixed on the fingers of the dial, as the poor seamstress works swiftly whose last small wick of candle is rapidly burning down in its socket.
III. THE SUBJECT OF THESE WORKS. What a contrast between the opening and the close of the chapter. The soul ignorant of Christ owns Him as Son of God. And all this because of the individual interest our Lord took in him.
1. He detected what was working in his mind. Beneath that unpromising exterior were the elements of a noble character.
2. He developed the latent power of faith. It was there, but it had nothing to evoke it, and yet it must be evoked ere Christ could give him sight. He could feel, though he could not see.
3. He found him when cast out by all besides. Does not Jesus always steal to our side when we are cast out, or deserted by our friends?
4. He answered his hunger for faith. Dost thou believe on the Son of God? If we live up to what we know, at all costs, we shall most certainly be led into further discoveries of truth. We think we are going to plough a field, and we suddenly come on a box of treasure, struck by our plough, which makes us independent of work for the rest of our lives. And so obedience passes into worship, and we see that He who has made our life His care, tending us when we knew Him not, is the Christ of God, in whom are hid all the riches of time, all the treasures of eternity: and we worship Him. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
We must not trifle
Rev. Charles Simeon kept the picture of Henry Martyn in his study. Move where he would through the apartment, it seemed to keep its eyes upon him, and ever to say to him, Be earnest, be earnest! dont trifle, dont trifle! And the good Simeon would gently bow to the speaking picture, and, with a smile, reply, Yes, I will be in earnest; I will, I will be in earnest; I will not trifle; for souls are perishing, and Jesus is to be glorified. O Christian! look away to Martyns Master, to Simeons Saviour, to the Omniscient One. Ever realize the inspection of His eye, and hear His voice. (S. J. Moore.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 4. While it is day] Though I plainly perceive that the cure of this man will draw down upon me the malice of the Jewish rulers, yet I must accomplish the work for which I came into the world whole it is day-while the term of this life of mine shall last. It was about six months after this that our Lord was crucified. It is very likely that the day was now declining, and night coming on; and he took occasion from this circumstance to introduce the elegant metaphor immediately following. By this we are taught that no opportunity for doing good should be omitted – DAY representing the opportunity: NIGHT, the loss of that opportunity.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The Father, who sent Christ into the world, gave him work to do: his general work was, to glorify God upon the earth, Joh 17:4, as by working out the redemption of man, so by revealing his will to the sons of men, and working miracles for the glorifying the name of God. Saith Christ, I have a set time to work in; that is, that which he here calleth day, the time wherein Christ was to live upon the earth.
The night cometh, when no man can work; I am not to be here always, there will come a time when I must be absent from the earth, then none of this work can be done. A good argument to persuade every Christian to work while the time of his life lasts, for the night of death will come, when no man can any longer work out his salvation; but as the tree falleth, so it must lie, Ecc 9:10.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. I must work the works of him thatsent me, c.a most interesting statement from the mouth ofChrist intimating, (1) that He had a precise work to do upon earth,with every particular of it arranged and laid out to Him; (2) thatall He did upon earth was just “the works of God”particularly”going about doing good,” though not exclusively bymiracles; (3) that each work had its precise time and placein His programme of instructions, so to speak; hence, (4) that as Hisperiod for work had definite termination, so by letting any oneservice pass by its allotted time, the whole would be disarranged,marred, and driven beyond its destined period for completion; (5)that He acted ever under the impulse of these considerations, asman”the night cometh when no man (or no one) can work.”What lessons are here for others, and what encouragement from suchExample!
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
I must work the works of him that sent me,…. This shows, that the works of God, that were to be manifest, were to be done by Christ: many were the works which the Father gave him to do, and which he undertook to perform; and therefore there was a necessity of doing them, as principally the work of redemption, by fulfilling the law, and satisfying justice: and besides this, there were the preaching of the Gospel, and doing of miracles, and among these was this of giving sight to the blind, see Isa 35:5, both in a natural and spiritual sense: and with a view to this he speaks of the works he mast do,
while it is day; while the day of life lasts, for in the grave there is no work nor device:
the night cometh when no man can work; meaning the night of death, and of the grave, and suggesting his own death hereby, that he had but a little time to be in this world, and therefore would make the best use of it, to do the will and work of his Father that sent him; and which should be a pattern to us. This life is but short, it is but as the length of a day; a great deal of business is to be done; and death is hastening on, which will put a period to all working.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
We must work the works of him that sent me ( ). This is undoubtedly the correct text (supported by the Neutral and Western classes) and not (I) and (me) of the Syrian class nor (we) and (us) of the Alexandrian class. Jesus associates us with him in the task committed to him by the Father. Bernard argues vigorously, but vainly, for me. We are not able to fathom the depth of the necessity () here involved in each life as in this poor blind man and in each of us.
While it is day ( ). This clause gives the note of urgency upon us all.
The night cometh ( ). “Night is coming on,” and rapidly. Night was coming for Jesus (7:33) and for each of us. Cf. John 11:9; John 12:35. Even electric lights do not turn night into day. H with the present indicative (21:22f.) means “while,” not until as in 13:38.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
I must work [ ] . The best texts read hJmav, us, instead of ejme, me. Literally, it is necessary for us to work. The disciples are thus associated by Jesus with Himself. Compare Joh 3:11.
Sent me, not us. The Son sends the disciples, as the Father sends the Son.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “I must work the works of him that sent me,” (humas dei ergagesthai tou pempsantos me) “It behooves us to work the works of the one who sent me,” the miraculous works that demonstrate I have power to save, Mar 2:10-11; Joh 4:34; Joh 5:19; Joh 5:36; Joh 11:9; Joh 12:35; Joh 17:4.
2) “While it is day: (heos hemera estin) ”While it is day,” while day yet exists, while opportunity of doing good in witnessing is yet at hand, Joh 11:9-10. There is an urgency to do good every day of life, lest some die in darkness, Rom 13:11-12.
3) “The night cometh, when no man can work.” (erchetai nuks hote oudeis dunatai ergazesthai) “Night comes (approaches), of its own nature, when no one is able to work;- The night of death comes when opportunity to do good is gone forever, when the cries of torments of the damned go up, without rest, forever and ever, Luk 16:24; Luk 16:26; Luk 16:31, Rev 14:11. So let us “work for the night is coming when man’s work is done.” And may we be able to say, as our Lord did to His Father, “I have finished the work thou gavest me to do,” Joh 17:4-5; Rom 13:12; Eph 5:11-17.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
4. I must work the works of him who hath sent me. He now testifies that he has been sent for the purpose of manifesting the kindness of God in giving sight to the blind man. He borrows also a comparison from the ordinary custom of life; for, when the sun is risen, man rises to labor, but the night is allotted to repose, as it is said,
The sun riseth; man goeth forth to his work, and to his labor, till the evening (Psa 104:22.)
He therefore employs the word Day to denote the time which the Father had fixed, during which he must finish the work assigned him; in the same manner as every man who has been called to some public office ought to be employed in what may be called his daily task, to perform what the nature of his office demands. Hence too we ought to deduce a universal rule, that to every man the course of his life may be called his day Wherefore, as the short duration of the light ought to excite laborers to industry and toil, that the darkness of the night may not come on them by surprise, ere their exertions are well begun, so, when we see that a short period of life is allotted to us, we ought to be ashamed of languishing in idleness. In short, as soon as God enlightens us by calling us, we ought to make no delay, that the opportunity may not be lost.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(4) I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day.The better reading is probably that which has we, instead of I, and perhaps also that which has us, instead of me; but this latter change is not so well supported by MS. authority. The clause would read then, We must work the works of Him that sent Me (or us) while it is day. He identifies the disciples with Himself in the redemptive work of His mission. There is before them a striking instance of the power of evil. He and they are there to manifest the power of good. They must gird themselves to the task. If we are right in placing the whole section from Joh. 7:37 to Joh. 10:21 on the same great day of the Feast (comp. Note on Joh. 9:14), then this work must have come near the close of the day. The sun sinking to the west may have reminded them that the day was passing away, and that the night was approaching. He was reminded of the day of life, and the night of death. He will not be long in the world (Joh. 9:5). That night will be the close of His human work, and the shadows of evening are already falling upon Him.
The night cometh, when no man can work.He does not except even Himself from the proverbial law. The day of opportunity passes, never to return. His own great work of doing the work of Him that sent Him, could only be done when that day was present. It has, of course, been ever done in the work of His church under the guidance of His Spirit; but the work of His own human activity on earth ceased when the night came. Comp. Joh. 11:9 for this thought of the hours of the day.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. I must work the works The apparent defect in this work of nature, so called, gave room for the manifestation of a work of grace. But the work, whether of nature, as in the case of the man’s being born blind, or of grace, as of his being restored to sight, is in either case the work of him that sent me God.
While it is day In the terms day, night, light, of Joh 9:4-5, we recognize some allusion to the night of the blind man’s eyes on which he was to pour the light of day. The work to which the Lord alludes is his earthly work, to be performed during his dwelling in the flesh. Relative to this, his death, although it should be the opening of a new and still greater scene of work, would be a close, a cessation, a night. The must implies that Jesus felt, as it were, a sort of obligation, from the very nature of his mission, to repair by grace this defect of nature.
No man can work Though men may partially work by the literal night, yet the spiritual night of death is the perfect termination of all living operations.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“It is necessary for us to work the works of him who sent me while it is day. The night will come when no one can work. As long as I am in the world I am the light of the world.”
Jesus recognised in the blind man something which necessitated His use of His ability to heal, ‘to do the will of Him Who sent Him. ‘It is necessary’ (dei) for us —’. There was a sense of urgency in these words, a stress on the divine necessity. Jesus was here stating that ‘we’ (He and His disciples – but we can include ourselves) must be ready to take every opportunity to do God’s work while the opportunity is here, because there will come a time when the opportunity is no longer here.
At that point in time it was ‘day’. It was a period when the light was shining, for the Light of the world was there. But there would also come times of darkness when the works of God could not be wrought because of the circumstances of life. And there have been such times when the works of God have been at a low ebb. They exist in certain countries today where other religions hold sway, and the light can only shine dimly in the darkness.
Jesus was speaking with a realisation of impending death. In view of that, He knew that He must carry out His responsibility to be the light of the world while He could. And He wanted His disciples to have the same sense of urgency when their turn came. None of us knows when our opportunity of service might be taken away by death, incapacity or circumstances. We also should therefore strive to do what we can while we can.
Note that it was Jesus Who connected what was to happen with His claim to be the Light of the world (see on Joh 8:12). He wanted the opening of the man’s eyes to be taken as a lesson that all men are born spiritually blind and need their eyes to be opened by the Light of the world.
But Jesus was not saying that when He went total darkness would descend. That is why He included the disciples in His words. The light would go on shining through them and they too must work while it was day.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Joh 9:4. I must work the works, &c. called in the preceding verse the works of God,while it is day; that is, “while I have an opportunity;” the night cometh, &c.
“death is approaching, which as it puts a period in general to human labours, so will it close the scene of such miracles as these, and remove me, as man, from the converse and society of men.” It was now the sabbath-day, and Jesus was about to perform a miracle, in which a small degree of servile work was to be done. Clay was to be made of earth and spittle, and the blind man’s eyes were to be anointed with it; wherefore, before he began, he told his disciples, that they need not be surprised when they saw him perform miracles of that kind on the sabbath; for though they might imagine that he could easily defer them till the holy rest was expired, he had so little time to remain on earth, that he judged it expedient to embrace every opportunity of working miracles which offered. Besides, Jesus might choose to work this miracle on the sabbath, knowing that the time when it was performed, would occasion it to be more strictly inquired into by the Pharisees; and of consequence would tend to make it more generally known, as we find was really the case.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Joh 9:4 . By means of the participative (see the critical observations), Jesus includes the disciples with Himself as helpers and continuers of the Messianic activity. The further progress of the discourse is indicated by the pronoun which, for the sake of emphasis, is placed at the beginning of the sentence; the subject is thus specified through whose activity the mentioned in Joh 9:3 is to be accomplished. “It is we who are destined by God to work His works as long as we live, and until death put an end to our activity.” There is no hint whatever in the text that Jesus wished to meet the scruples of the disciples on account of the healing which He was about to perform on the Sabbath (Kuinoel); indeed, as far as the disciples were concerned, to whom Sabbath healings by Jesus were nothing new, there was no ground for such a procedure.
. ] Jesus does not again say ; [44] for His mission involved also that of the disciples, and it was He who commissioned the disciples (Joh 13:20 , Joh 20:21 ).
] so long as , denoting contemporaneous duration, very frequently so in the classical writers subsequently to Homer, with the praes. or imperf. See Blomfield, Gloss. ad Aesch. Pers . 434.
Day and Night are images, not of tempus opportunum and importunum , nor even of and (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Ruperti, and others); but (for Jesus was thinking of His speedy departure out of the world, Joh 9:5 ) of life and death (comp. Hom. Il . . 310, . 356; Aesch. Sept . 385; Pers . 841; Plat. Apol . p. 40 D, and Stallbaum thereon; Hor. Od . 1. 28. 15). The latter puts an end to the activity of every one on earth (even to that of Christ in His human manifestation). By the different use made of the same image in Joh 11:9 f., we are not justified in regarding it as including the period of the passion (Hengstenberg). Moreover, Christ was still working whilst He hung on the cross . Olshausen’s view is wrong: denotes the time of grace , which was then specially conditioned by the presence of Christ, the Light of the world; with His removal darkness assumed its sway. Against this view the general and unlimited form of the expression on (which Olshausen arbitrarily restricts by adding “for a time,” and “in spiritual matters”) is in itself a decisive objection; not to mention that Jesus regarded His death, not as the beginning of spiritual darkness, but as the very condition of greater enlightenment by the Spirit (Joh 17:7 , Joh 15:26 , Joh 14:26 , al .). With Olshausen agrees substantially B. Crusius; comp. also Grotius, Bengel, and several others. Luthardt also refers day and night to the world , whose day-time coincided with the presence of Christ in the world, and whose night began when He departed out of the world; as soon as He should leave the world, no other could occupy His place in the accomplishment of redemption; from that time onward, there would be no longer a redemptive history, but merely an appropriation of redemption. But apart from the hair-splitting character of the distinction thus drawn, the grounds adduced against Olshausen hold substantially good against this explanation also, especially that which here has no determining object, as in the previous case and are quite general; and accordingly, must be regarded as a commonplace. Godet finds in the thought of the evening rest , which Christ was to enjoy in His heavenly state. This is incorrect, however, because it is not evening but night that is mentioned, and because would then be inappropriate.
[44] Which Ewald prefers in opposition to his own translation. But see the critical note.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 1658
THE NEED OF WORKING WHILST IT IS DAY
Joh 9:4. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
IN the circumstances of mankind we behold an inequality, which, at first sight, appears strange and unaccountable. One is born possessed of all the faculties that can conduce to his welfare: another is brought into the world deformed in body, defective in intellect, and, on the whole, in a state scarcely superior to the brute creation. This must certainly, in the first instance, be traced to the sovereignty of God; who has a right to give to his creatures, or withhold from them, whatsoever he shall see fit. He has not injured us by making us inferior to the angels; nor does he injure any one, if he make him inferior to the beasts also. But, in these sovereign exercises of his will, he often has a special view to his own glory. Perhaps, at no period of the world did he ever give Satan liberty to exert his power over the bodies of men to so great an extent as during the time of our Lords ministry upon earth. In this dispensation, he gave to the Lord an opportunity of displaying, to a greater degree than he could otherwise have done, his power over Satan and all his hosts. We know, from authority, that this was the reason of our Lords not interposing to heal Lazarus, as soon as the application was made to him. In staying two whole days after he was informed of the dying state of Lazarus, he appeared regardless of the requests which had been sent to him by his much-loved friends, Mary and Martha. But he assigned as the reason of that delay, that, from the state of Lazarus, it was intended to bring glory both to God the Father, and to himself, as his Fathers agent [Note: Joh 11:3-4; Joh 11:14-15.]. In like manner we are informed, that, for a similar end, a man was born into the world blind. A notion having obtained amongst the Jews, that there was a state of existence previous to that which men now have on earth, and that they were either rewarded or punished in this world, according as they had conducted themselves in that from whence they had come; and that God also recompensed in men the good or evil that had been done by their parents; the Disciples asked our Lord, which of these two things had occasioned to the poor man this great calamity. Our Lord told them, that the calamity was not to be traced either to any evil that the man had committed in a preexistent state, or to any that had been committed by his parents; but that it had been sent by God, for the furtherance of his own glory, in giving sight to the blind. It had been ordained of God, that the Messiah should evince the truth of his mission by opening the eyes of the blind: and the opening of this mans eyes was a work especially assigned to the Lord Jesus for that very end. Hence, instead of entering into a distinct consideration of the questions proposed to him, he contents himself with negativing both alternatives, and with intimating, that he must address himself without delay to the work before him; the work of giving sight to this blind man.
But though the words of our text have a particular reference to our blessed Lord, they must not be confined to him; since they are equally applicable to every child of man, and declare to all of us,
I.
Our duty
We all have a great work to do
[As far as our blessed Lord acted as a Mediator between God and man, his work was peculiar to himself: but, as far as he was engaged in fulfilling all righteousness [Note: Mat 3:15.], he was a pattern to us. He acted as his Fathers servant, sent [Note: Text, with Joh 9:7.] to perform a work: and we, in like manner, are servants of the Living God: only, being sinners, we have the duty of sinners; which Jesus, by reason of his innocence, could not have. As having offended Almighty God, our first duty is, to humble ourselves before him, and to seek for mercy at his hands. Our next duty is, to implore help from him, that we may be able to fulfil his will in future, and, by a holy life and conversation to advance to the uttermost the glory of his name: for herein is our Father glorified, when we bring forth much fruit [Note: Joh 15:8.]. This is the duty of every man, without exception. Mens duties, in reference to society, differ according to the rank and station which they hold: the prince and the peasant, the parent and the child, have different offices to perform: but towards God we all stand in the same relation; and all have to render the same services ]
For the performance of this work, we are sent into the world
[We are not sent here to eat, and to drink, and to pass our time in pleasure; but to do the work assigned to us. Every moment of our time is given us for that purpose, and should be employed for that end. When we rise in the morning, we should inquire, What duties have I to perform this day? And, when we lie down again at night, we should inquire, how far we have executed the will of our heavenly Master. The performance of our work should supersede every thing else. Nothing should occupy our mind in comparison of it. To every one who would call us from our duty, we should reply with Nehemiah, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you [Note: Neh 6:3.]? The conduct of Abrahams servant, when ordered to seek out from amongst the family of Abraham a wife for his son Isaac, will admirably illustrate our duty towards God. Having received his instructions relative to the conduct he should pursue, he implored of God his unerring guidance, that so he might be led to a successful issue. And when, by Divine Providence, he seemed to have attained his end, having been led to the very house of Abrahams own nephew, Bethuel, he was desired to refresh himself after his long journey. But what was his reply? It was truly memorable; and shewed how much he had at heart the execution of the trust committed to him: There was set meat before him to eat: but he said, I will not eat, until I have told mine errand [Note: Gen 24:33.]. Here, we see, he preferred his duty before his necessary food [Note: Job 23:12.]. This is exactly what we should do. Our blessed Lord has set us the example: and, like him, we should be able to say, My meat is, to do the will of Him that sent me [Note: Joh 4:34.].]
With our duty, our blessed Lord sets forth also,
II.
The urgency of it
We have but a day to do it in
[A day is given us; and that is little enough for so great a work: yet it is time enough, if duly and diligently improved. It is, however, of very uncertain continuance. The sun of many goes down at noon; and often without the slightest warning. Yea, scarcely is the sun risen with many, ere it sets. This is a truth known to all; but considered by few: else, how earnest should we be in doing the work assigned us. We should not be putting it off till a more convenient season; but should improve the present hour, not knowing what a day or an hour may bring forth. We should walk, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time [Note: Eph 5:15-16.].]
Our day being closed, our work is closed with it
[There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave [Note: Ecc 9:10.]. When the night is once come, we can work no more. Our good purposes, if not carried into effect before, will then fail, and our best resolutions prove abortive. If we have lived impenitent to that hour, or have only felt remorse, without carrying our sins to Jesus, and washing them in the fountain of his blood, we shall continue impenitent and unforgiven to all eternity. As the tree falleth, so it will lie [Note: Ecc 11:3.]: We may then weep for our sins; but our tears will be unavailing: we may even wail and gnash our teeth for anguish: but the door of mercy will be closed. We may cry, Lord, Lord, open unto us! but God will be deaf to our entreaties. We may even call upon the rocks and mountains to fall upon us, and to hide us from the wrath of the Lamb: but they cannot perform for us that friendly office; nor can so much as a drop of water be obtained, to soothe the anguish of our bodies and our souls [Note: Luk 16:24-25.]. We may then wish, O, that I had another day, or even another hour! how would I work then! But our day is for ever closed; and nothing but everlasting night remains; even the blackness of darkness for ever [Note: Jude, ver. 13.].]
Address
1.
Those who are more advanced in years
[Much of your day is obviously gone: and little, according to the course of nature, remains. Your glass is well nigh run down. Is it not then time for you to awake, and to begin the work which God has sent you to perform? Should you not be engaged in penitential sorrow for your past sins; in crying earnestly to Almighty God for mercy; in fleeing to the Lord Jesus Christ as to the hope set before you? Should you not be seeking the renovation of your souls after the Divine image? Should you not be daily preparing to meet your God in judgment? Yes, indeed: but it is a sad and melancholy truth, that few who have advanced beyond the middle term of life impenitent, are brought to repentance afterwards. Their habits are fixed; their conceit of their own safety is become inveterate; and their very consciences, as far as it respects every thing but gross sin, are seared. I thank God, however, that there are instances of persons entering into the service of their God even at the tenth or eleventh hour! Let me entreat you, beloved brethren, to be of that happy number; that, when you come to die, you may be able to adopt the words of our blessed Lord, and say, Father, I have glorified thee on earth; I have finished the work which thou hast given me to do [Note: Joh 17:4.].]
2.
Those who are yet in early life
[It can never be too early for you to begin this necessary work. The lambs which were appointed to be offered unto God in sacrifice, every morning and evening throughout the year, were to be of the first year [Note: Exo 29:38.]: and it is in the earliest period of your lives that you should offer yourselves living sacrifices to the Lord [Note: Rom 12:1.]. You will remember, that the first fruits of every thing were to be offered to God: and of the corn, they were to be of full ears indeed; for God must have every thing of the most perfect kind; but they were to be green ears, green ears dried by fire, and beaten out [Note: Lev 2:14.]. And what can this import, but that, before you have attained that measure of maturity which is required for the service of man, you may, and must, be rendering service to your God? You have examples of this in Samuel, Obadiah, Timothy; and, above all, in our blessed Lord himself, who, at the age of twelve years, willingly devoted himself to his God and Father, in his temple [Note: Luk 2:42; Luk 2:49.]. Let me prevail on you to follow these examples; and now, ere sin has hardened your hearts, and Satan has drawn you fully into his snares, to devote yourselves to God. And know, for your encouragement, that a special promise is given you of the Lord, They that seek me early, shall find me [Note: Pro 8:17.].]
3.
All of you without exception
[Through the mercy of our God the day is yet continued to you; that day, which, within the last year, has closed on thousands, who, humanly speaking, were as likely to live as you. And, to multitudes of them, how dreary a night has commenced! and how thankful would they be, if they were permitted once more to hear the tidings of salvation which yet sound in your ears! Be thankful, I pray you, for this distinguishing grace which has been vouchsafed to you: and increase not your guilt by a further continuance in sin. What a fearful reflection will it be at a future period, that you lived but to add sin to sin, and to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath! If you live to repent of it, what anguish of mind will you suffer, ere you obtain forgiveness! And, if you live not to repent of it, what infinitely sorer anguish will you sustain to all eternity! And why should you defer the work to which God is calling you? Suppose ye that it is a state of melancholy, that shall embitter the whole remainder of your days? No: The work of righteousness is peace: and the effect of righteousness is quietness and assurance for ever [Note: Isa 32:17.]. Indeed you all know, in your hearts, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and that in keeping of Gods commandments there is great reward [Note: Psa 19:11.].]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day: the night cometh when no man can work. (5) As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
I beg the Reader to pause over these verses, and mark some of the great things contained in them. First, observe, how sweetly Jesus speaks in his Mediator-character and office, of doing the works of Him that sent him. Mark the Lord’s duty to his Father, and his love to his people, in this zeal of his heart. Secondly, mark no less, the Father’s love to the Church, in thus giving, and sending, his dear Son, that the whole body might live, in, by, and through Him. And here before you go further, look at that sweet Scripture in further proof, 1Jn 4:10 . Thirdly, connect what the Lord Jesus here saith, with what he elsewhere added, upon the subject of doing his Father’s work. I have (said Jesus) glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. Joh 17:4 . Reader! pause over these very very blessed words. There can be none more blessed upon earth; no, nor in heaven. Redemption-work is finished. The Church of Christ is saved. Jehovah is glorified. And none but Christ could ever assume such language. No angel of light; no, nor all the creation of God, can use such words. For though they all set forth God’s glory, in being the works of his hands; yet no act of theirs, truly and strictly speaking, can add an atom to render God more glorious. Sooner might we increase the sun’s brightness by the light of the candle, or swell the ocean by our tears; than we can bring in a greater revenue of glory to the Lord by anything of ours. But the God-Man Christ Jesus hath added to that glory of Jehovah which alone is capable of being exalted, in the manifestation of all that is communicable, to his intellectual creation, Precious Lord Jesus! truly didst thou say in those blessed words: As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. And far better would it be that the sun of this lower world should be extinguished from the heavens, than that Christ the Sun of righteousness, should cease to be the light and 1ife of his Church!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
Ver. 4. While it is day ] As other men do, Psa 104:22 . None can say he shall have twelve hours to his day. And night (death) is a time of receiving wages, not of doing work. On this moment depends eternity; on the weakest wire hangs the greatest weight.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
4. ] Connected by . to the former verse. There certainly seems to be some reference to its being the sabbath; see the similar expressions in ch. Joh 5:17 . From , in Joh 9:5 , it seems evident that is the appointed course of the working of Jesus on earth, and the close of it (see the parallel, ch. Joh 11:9-10 ). It is true, that, according to John’s universal diction, the death of Jesus is His glorification; but the similitude here regards the effect on the world , see Joh 9:5 ; and the language of Rom 13:12 is in accordance with it, as also Luk 22:53 ; Joh 14:30 .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
John
ONE METAPHOR AND TWO MEANINGS
Joh 9:4
The contrast between these two sayings will strike you at once. Using the same metaphors, they apply them in exactly opposite directions. In the one, life is the day, and the state beyond death the night; in the other, life is the night, and the state beyond death the day. Remarkable as the contrast is, it comes to be still more so if we remember the respective speakers. For each of them says what we should rather have expected the other to say. It would have been natural for Paul to have given utterance to the stimulus to diligence caused by the consciousness that the time of work was brief; and it would have been as natural for Jesus, who, as we believe, came from God, from the place of the eternal supernal glory, to have said that life here was night as compared with the illumination that He had known. But it is the divine Master who gives utterance to the common human consciousness of a brief life ending in inactivity, and it is the servant who takes the higher point of view.
So strange did the words of my first text seem as coming from our Lord’s lips, that the sense of incongruity seems to have been the occasion of the remarkable variation of reading which the Revised Version has adopted when it says ‘We must work the works of Him that sent Me.’ But that thought seems to me to be perfectly irrelevant to our Lord’s purpose in this context, where He is vindicating His own action, and not laying down the duty of His servants. He is giving here one of these glimpses, that we so rarely get, into His own inmost heart. And so we have to take the sharp contrast between the Master’s thought and the servant’s thought, and to combine them, if we would think rightly about the present and the future, and do rightly in the present.
I. Let me ask you to look at the Master’s thought about the present and the future.
Our Lord here takes the common human point of view, and says, ‘Life is the time for activity, and it must be the more diligent because it is ringed by the darkness of the night.’ What precisely does our Lord intend by His use of that metaphor of the night? No figures, we know, run upon all-fours. The point of comparison may be simply in some one feature common to the two things compared, and so all sorts of mischief may be done by trying to extend the analogy to other features. Now, there are a great many points in which day and night may respectively be taken as analogues of Life and Death and the state beyond death. There is a ‘night of weeping’; there is a ‘night of ignorance.’ But our Lord Himself tells us what is the one point of comparison which alone is in His mind, when He says, ‘The night cometh, when no man can work.’ It is simply the night as a season of compulsory inactivity that suggests the comparison in our text. And so we have here the presentation of that dear Lord as influenced by the common human motive, and feeling that there was work to be done which must be crowded into a definite space, because when that space was past, there would be no more opportunity for the work to be done.
Look at how, in the words of my first text, we have, as I said, a glimpse into His inmost heart. He lets us see that all His life was under the solemn compulsion of that great must which was so often upon His lips, that He felt that He was here to do the Father’s will, and that that obligation lay upon Him with a pressure which He neither could, nor would if He could, have got rid of.
There are two kinds of ‘musts’ in our lives. There is the unwelcome necessity which grips us with iron and sharpened fangs; the needs-be which crushes down hopes and dreams and inclinations, and forces the slave to his reluctant task. And there is the ‘must’ which has passed into the will, into the heart, and has moulded the inmost desire to conformity with the obligation which no more stands over against us as a taskmaster with whip and chain, but has passed within us and is there an inspiration and a joy. He that can say, as Jesus Christ in His humanity could, and did say: ‘My meat’-the refreshment of my nature, the necessary sustenance of my being-’is to do the will of my Father’; that man, and that man alone, feels no pressure that is pain from the incumbency of the necessity that blessedly rules His life. When ‘I will’ and ‘I choose’ coincide, like two of Euclid’s triangles atop of one another, line for line and angle for angle, then comes liberty into the life. He that can say, not with a knitted brow and an unwilling ducking of his head to the yoke, ‘I must do it,’ but can say, ‘Thy law is within my heart,’ that is the Christlike, the free, the happy man.
Further, our Lord here, in His thoughts of the present and the future, lets us see what He thought that the work of God in the world was. The disciples looked at the blind man sitting by the wayside, and what he suggested to them was a curious, half theological, half metaphysical question, in which Rabbinical subtlety delighted. ‘Who did sin, this man or his parents?’ They only thought of talking over the theological problem involved in the fact that, before he had done anything in this world to account for the calamity, he was born blind. Jesus Christ looked at the man, and He did not think about theological cobwebs. What was suggested to Him was to fight against the evil and abolish it. It is sometimes necessary to discuss the origin of an evil thing, of a sorrow or a sin, in order to understand how to deal with and get rid of it. But unless that is the case, our first business is not to say, ‘How comes this about?’ but our business is to take steps to make it cease to come about. Cure the man first and then argue to your heart’s content about what made him blind, but cure him first. And so Jesus Christ taught us that the meaning of the day of life was that we should set ourselves to abolish the works of the devil, and that the work of God was that we should fight against sin and sorrow, and in so far as it was in our power, abolish these, in all the variety of their forms, in all the vigour of their abundant growth. Sorrow and sin are God’s call to every one of His sons and daughters to set themselves to cast them out of His fair creation; and ‘the day’ is the opportunity for doing that.
Our Lord here, as I have already suggested, shows us very touchingly and beautifully, how entirely He bore our human nature, and had entered into our conditions, in that He, too, felt that common human emotion, and was spurred to unhasting and yet unresting diligence by the thought of the coming of the night. I suppose that although we have few chronological data in this Gospel of John, the hour of our Lord’s death was really very near at that time. He had just escaped from a formidable attempt upon His life. ‘They took up stones to stone Him, but He, passing through the midst of them, went His way,’ is the statement which immediately precedes the account of His meeting with this blind man. And so under the pressure, perhaps, of that immediate experience which revealed the depths of hatred that was ready for anything against Him, He gives utterance to this expression: ‘If it be the case that the time is at hand, then the more need that, Sabbath day as it is, I should pause here.’ Though the multitude were armed with stones to stone Him, He stopped in His flight because there was a poor blind man there whom He felt that He needed to cure. Beautiful it is, and drawing Him very near to us,-and it should draw us very near to Him-that thus He shared in that essentially human consciousness of the limitation of the power to work, by the ring of blackness that encircled the little spot of illuminated light.
But some will say, ‘How is it possible that such a consciousness as this should really have been in the mind of Jesus Christ?’ ‘Did He not know that His death was not to be the end of His work? Did He not know, and say over and over again, in varying forms, that when He passed from earth, it was not into inactivity? Is it not the very characteristic of His mission that it is different from that of all other helpers and benefactors and teachers of the world, in that His death stands in the very middle of His work, and that on the one side of it there is activity, and on the other side of it there is still, and in some sense loftier and greater, activity?’ Yes; all that is perfectly true, and I do not for a moment believe that our Lord was forgetting that the life on the earth was but the first volume of His biography, and of the records of His deeds, and that He contemplated them, as He contemplated always, the life beyond, as working in and on and over and through His servants, even unto the end of the world.
But you have only to remember the difference between the earthly and the heavenly life of the Lord fully to understand the point of view that He takes here. The one is the basis of the other; the one is the seedtime, the other is the harvest. The one has only the limited years of the earthly life, in which it can be done; the other has the endless years of Eternity, through which it is to be continued. And if any part of that earthly life of the Lord had been void of its duty, and of its discharge of the Father’s will, not even He, amidst the blaze of the heavenly glory, could have thereafter filled up the tiny gap. All the earthly years were needed to be filled with service, up to the great service and sacrifice of the Cross, in order that upon them might be reared the second stage and phase of His heavenly life. With regard to the one, He said on the Cross, ‘It is finished.’ But when He died He passed not into the night of inactivity, but into the day of greater service. And that higher and heavenly form of His work continues, and not until ‘the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ,’ and the whole benefit and effect of His earthly life are imparted to the whole race of man, will it be said, ‘It is done,’ and the angels of heaven proclaim the completion of His work for man. But seeing that that work has its twofold forms, Jesus, like us, had to be conscious of the limitations of life, and of the night that followed the day.
II. And now turn, in the second place, to the servant’s thought.
Further, to the servant the brightness of that future day dimmed all earth’s garish glories into darkness. It was because Paul saw the Beyond flaming with such lustre that the nearer distance to him seemed to have sunk into gloom. Just as a man or other object between you and the western sky when the sun is there will be all dark, so earth with heaven behind it becomes a mere shadowy outline. The day that is beyond outshines all the lustres and radiances of earth, and turns them into darkness. You go into a room out of blazing tropical sunshine, and it is all gloom and obscurity. He whose eyes are fixed on the day that is to come will find that here he walks as one in the night.
And the brightness of that day, as well as the darkness of the present night, directed the servant as to what he should be diligent in. Since it is true that ‘the day is at hand,’ let us put on the armour of light, and dress ourselves in garb fitting for it. Since it is true that ‘the night is far spent’ let us put off the works of darkness.
III. And so that brings me to the last point, and that is the combination of the Master’s and the servant’s thought, and the effect that it should produce upon us.
So then, stereoscoping these two thoughts, we get the solid image that results from them both. And it teaches us not only diligence, and thus supplies stimulus, but it determines the direction of our diligence, and thus supplies guidance. We ought to be misers of our time and opportunities. Jesus Christ said, ‘I must work the work of Him that sent Me while it is day; the night cometh.’ How much more ought you and I to say so? And some of us ought very specially to say it, and to feel it, because the hour when we shall have to lay down our tools is getting very near, and the shadows are lengthening. If you had been in the fields in these summer evenings during the last few days, you would have seen the haymakers at work with more and more diligence as the evening drew on darker and darker. Dear friends, some of us are at the eleventh hour. Let us fill it with diligent work. The night cometh.
But my texts not only stimulate to diligence, but they direct the diligence. If it be that there is a day beyond, and that Christ’s folk are ‘the children of the day,’ then ‘let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober.’ We have to cast ourselves on Him as our Saviour, to love Him as our Lord and Friend, to take Him as our Pattern and our Guide, our Help, our Light, and our Life. And then we shall neither be deceived by life’s garish splendours nor oppressed by its gloom and its sorrow; we shall neither shrink from that last moment, as a night of inaction, nor be too eager to cast off the burden of our present work, but we shall cheerfully toil at what will prepare us for ‘the day,’ and the bell at night that rings us out of mill and factory will not be unwelcome, for it will ring us in to higher work and nobler service. The transition will be like one of those summer nights in the Arctic circle, when the sun does not dip. Through a little thin film of less light we shall pass into the perfect day, where ‘the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the light thereof,’ and ‘there shall be no more night.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
I must work. T Tr WH R read “We”; but not the Syriac. See App-94. note 3, p. 136.
work the works. Figure of speech Polyptoton (App-6), for emphasis.
sent. Greek. pempo. App-174. See note on Joh 1:22. Not the same word as in Joh 9:7.
can work = is able to work (two verbs).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
4.] Connected by . to the former verse. There certainly seems to be some reference to its being the sabbath; see the similar expressions in ch. Joh 5:17. From , in Joh 9:5, it seems evident that is the appointed course of the working of Jesus on earth, and the close of it (see the parallel, ch. Joh 11:9-10). It is true, that, according to Johns universal diction, the death of Jesus is His glorification; but the similitude here regards the effect on the world, see Joh 9:5; and the language of Rom 13:12 is in accordance with it, as also Luk 22:53; Joh 14:30.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 9:4. , the night) Christ is the light: when it departs, the night comes, which does not restrain the light, but obscures the earth.-, no man) He does not say, I cannot; but, no man. He Himself could have worked at all times; but yet He observed the seasonable time: John often describes Christ as speaking thus indefinitely concerning things that present themselves, in the way that would become any ordinary pious person in speaking of such matters: ch. Joh 11:9, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, etc.; Joh 12:24-25, Except a corn of wheat-die, it abideth alone, but, etc. He that loveth his life, shall lose it, etc. In fact, Jesus was tempted in all things, but without sin.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 9:4
Joh 9:4
We must work the works of him that sent me-Jesus declares that he must improve the opportunities of doing the work the Father sent him to do while he lived. God had sent Jesus that in him the works of God should be manifested. Miracles are intended to declare that God is with the man who works the miracle. He works the miracle that declares God is with and speaks through him, then men believe the message is from God. The miracle assures the world the message delivered is a message from God. The miracle is the attestation that the message the man speaks is from God. (Joh 4:34; Joh 5:19; Joh 5:26).
While it is day-while life is granted, for death would come when he would cease to work. (Joh 11:9; Joh 12:35; Joh 17:4). Jesus must be doing the work of God while life lasted.
the night cometh, when no man can work,-He industriously, yet with no haste, did the work God sent him to do, conscious that his death would soon come when he would cease his work on earth, or the night of death would come when no man worketh.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
A Time to Work
We must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.Joh 9:4.
These words were drawn from Jesus Christ by a remarkable question addressed to Him by His disciples. Our Saviours attention had been arrested by the sad but familiar spectacle of a blind beggar. We may reasonably infer from the Evangelists account that this afflicted mans case was notorious. He was blind from his birth. Thus he presented to view in its most pathetic because its least disciplinary shape the very common, but not on that account more tolerable, phenomenon of physical affliction. This, then, was the occasion of the remarkable inquiry on the part of Christs disciples: Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind? From the point of view of Jewish monotheism, suffering appeared to be in all cases the consequence of sin. But the difficulty was how to apply this principle to the present case. The only two alternatives presented to their minds, and indicated by the question of the disciples, viz. that either his own sin or that of his parents was the cause of his misfortune, seemed equally inadmissible.
The context sufficiently explains our Lords reply. He does not deny the existence of sin either in this man or in his parents; but neither does He recognize the necessity of any moral connection between this individual or family sin and the blindness with which the unfortunate man was visited. Individual suffering is not often connected, except in a very general manner, with the collective sin of humanity. Hence it gives us no right to judge those who suffer, but only furnishes a summons to fulfil a Divine mission towards them by assisting them. As truly as evil exists in the world, so truly has God His work on earth; and His work consists in finding matter for good in evil itself. Hence all the acts by which we concur in the accomplishment of this Divine purpose are called the works of God. But this word is here applied more specially to acts which bear the seal of Divine Omnipotence, such as the physical cure of the blind man, and his spiritual illumination. The call to heal this unhappy one had made itself felt in the Lords heart at the very moment when His eyes beheld him, and it was with this feeling that He fixed them upon him. Jesus seeks to make His disciples share with Him the point of view from which He regards suffering, by applying it to His personal task during His sojourn on earth.
I
We Must Work
1. Christ felt this necessity.With Christ it was not, I may if I will; not, I can if I like; not the mere possibility and the mere potentiality of work, but an imperious necessityI must. He could not help Himself. If we may use such words concerning One who was none the less Divine that He was human, He was under restraint; He was bound; He was compelled. The cords which bound Him, however, were the cords of His Deity. They were the cords of love which bound Him who is love. I must work. It was because He loved the sons of men so well that He could not sit still and see them perish. He could not come down from heaven and stand here robed in our mortal flesh, and be an impassive, careless, loitering spectator of so much evil, so much misery. His heart beat high with desire. He thirsted to be doing good, and His greatest and grandest act, His sacrifice of Himself, was a baptism with which He had to be baptized, and He was straitened until it was accomplished.
What a friend Necessity is! It stops our standing on one foot; it ends our looking at our watches, and wondering about three or four things; it moves the previous question; it says, This one thing you do! It is good discipline to conquer indecision, but it is better for us and for the world, knowing what must be, to be about it. It saves time. Goethe spoke of the dear must. Emerson calls a mans task his life-preserver. Let us recognize the purpose of God in the inevitable, and accept it gracefully, whether discipline or duty. Swift adjustment means peace and power. Necessity will then be but the iron band inside the golden crown.1 [Note: M. D. Babcock, Thoughts for Every-Day Living, 40.]
2. As Christs followers, this necessity is ours.We must work. Christ associates His disciples with Himself in His Divine enterprise of mercy. They, too, are commissioned to destroy the works of the devil, and the range of their activity must be coextensive with their Lords. Physical suffering, and all that makes for physical sufferingunjust conditions of living, insanitary dwellings, inadequate and misdirected education, harsh and unequal laws, oppressive social conventionsall the perennial springs of human misery and disgrace are within the sphere of that redemptive mission which was Christs in Palestine nearly two millenniums ago, and is Christs still, wherever His true disciples are found. Has He not identified Himself with them, clothing them with the authority of His own person? He that heareth you heareth me; and he that rejecteth you rejecteth me. We must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day. The exemplary worth of Christs conduct follows from this identity of His mission with ours, and the abiding importance of the Gospel but reflects the conviction of men that in the life therein recorded they can learn their own practical obligations.
The work which Christ appeals to us to do is not left to our single-handed weakness or timidity. We are sustained by the example and the co-operation of a goodly fellowship, the goodliest and mightiest fellowship that ever banded together to cheer a fainting soul; no less a fellowship than God and Christ and all things. For my Father worketh even until now, said Jesusno night for Himand I work, and all things, said His Apostle, work together. Was ever band of workers like this: God, His Son, and all His universe, working for ever, working together, for good? Should the thought of that magnificent, harmonious fellowship, whose work is from everlasting to everlasting, marching triumphantly on through the generations, not brace the weakest will, strengthen the faintest heart, nerve the slackest hands of men whose day at the longest is short and rounded with a sleep? So Christs appeal is charged with all the forces of heaven and of earth, when He says, Wenot I, as the Authorized Version has itwe must work the works of him that sent me. Wefor He is not ashamed to call us brethren; and we, His brethren, must work. The Divine necessity lies upon men whose hearts can be touched by an appeal of Christ, and by the weird power of the night that is coming to bring to an end all the work of the day, be it never so faithful and never so earnest.1 [Note: J. E. McFadyen, The Divine Pursuit, 155.]
3. God has appointed a work for each and all.Vain are the complaints so often made, that we have no distinct work in life appointed for us; that we stand idle because we have not been called into the vineyard to labour. God has made duties for us, and placed us in the midst of them, just as He has made light for the eyes, and air for us to breathe. There is not an action of our life that may not become an act of worship, if it is consecrated by the love of God in the heart of the doer. But the common round of our common daily life is full of occasions of Christian duty. Who is he that stands idle because he is not hired? One it must be who can find neither poverty, nor ignorance, nor wickedness at his hand; who cannot influence one person by the Christian tone of his own life; who cannot sweeten the daily life of his home with kindness; who never comes near a sinner rushing headlong to his ruin; who cannot even find a child to encourage in struggling with an evil temper, or a stricken heart to be consoled by a word of sympathy.
In the summer vacation of 1856 I remained behind for a few days. A message came from Royston that there was a German woman dying there who could not speak English, and was a Catholic. They asked if anybody could go to her from the College. Dr. Vaughan, who spoke German, at once volunteered to go. He asked me to go with him, and I drove him to Royston, which was thirteen miles from the College. In was in the month of July, and I remember it was a very hot drive. He found the poor woman alive, heard her confession, and gave her the Last Sacraments. I believe she died the next day. Some forty years afterwards, on my recalling this to his memory, he said, Ah yes; I remember it well, and I have often quoted it as an instance that we never know how anything we learn may be turned to Gods account. He has His own design in prompting us to acquire, say, a language, and I have often cited this example of my visit to that poor German woman as an illustration of this, for it was the only occasion in my whole life that I ever had any practical need of the German language. I have no doubt that God inspired me to study German for the sake of that poor womans salvation.2 [Note: Mgr. Fenton, in The Life of Cardinal Vaughan, i. 91.]
Lord, send us forth among Thy fields to work!
Shall we for words and names contending be,
Or lift our garments from the dust we see,
And all the noonday heat and burden shirk?
The fields are white for harvest, shall we stay
To find a bed of roses for the night,
And watch the far-off cloud that comes to sight,
Lest it should burst in showers upon our way?
Fling off, my soul, thy grasping self, and view
With generous ardour all thy brothers need;
Fling off thy thoughts of golden ease, and weed
A corner of thy Masters vineyard too.
The harvest of the world is great indeed,
O Jesus! and the labourers are few.1 [Note: Martha Perry Lowe.]
II
How We must Work
1. It must he Gods work.Much has been said in these days as to work. Some of the most piercing and emphatic voices which the century has heard have made work the keynote of their message, proclaiming it as at once the end of mans being and the gospel of his deliverance. So far, there is no fault to be found with them, for anything that will wake men and shame men out of idleness must be good. But, after all, work for the mere works sake is a doubtful evangel to preach. It is true that inactivity has its sins, but it is true that work has its own sins also. There are those who work till their work carnalizes them, and their being becomes sense-bound and earth-bound, dense as the clods that they break in their fields, mechanical as the wheels that they turn in their mills, shrivelled as the parchments that they study in their office-rooms. No, there is nothing that is necessarily elevating, nothing that is necessarily purifying, nothing that is necessarily acceptable, in work. Work may be done that is wrong work; work that is right may be wrongly done; and the only reception for which the workman is toiling may be this: Unfaithful and unprofitable servant, who hath required these things at thy hand? But here is a text for the labourer, both defining the scope of his tasks and ennobling and sanctifying their nature: I must work the works of him that sent me. That is, What I do, I will do because God has assigned it, and I will do it, too, because God will therein be glorified, His character unfolded, His purpose proclaimed, and His gospel adorned among men. And with that as our great guiding principle we have all that we need. It contains the secret of labours redemption, it yields the germ and the pledge of labours reward.
It may be questioned whether any work of fiction ever produced so tangible an effect as the impetus which Uncle Toms Cabin gave to the destruction of American slavery. The authors account of the matter was characteristically simple: I did not write it; God wrote it.1 [Note: G. W. E. Russell, Afterthoughts, 70.]
I too could now say to myself: Be no longer a Chaos, but a World, or even Worldkin. Produce! Produce! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a Product, produce it, in Gods name! Tis the utmost thou hast in thee: out with it, then. Up, up! Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called To-day; for the Night cometh, wherein no man can work.2 [Note: Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, bk. ii. ch. x.]
2. To do Gods work we must have received His Spirit.We cannot do Gods works unless we have received His Spirit and accepted His will as the law of our lives so as to have become fellow-workers with Him. It is only those who surrender their hearts in faith and love to God, only those in whose souls God savingly works by His Holy Spirit, who can truly labour in Gods service. Otherwise than through regeneration there is no possibility of becoming one of His workmen. His works are spiritual works which can be performed only by spiritual men. If we have not repented of our sins and turned from them to God; if we have not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; if we have not come under the influence of the Holy Spirit; then, no matter how diligently and strenuously we may toil, or how useful our exertions may seem to ourselves or others, the works we do are not the works which God would have us to do, for they are not done in dependence on His Spirit.
III
When We must Work
1. Christs interpretation of the day.Christ uses the language of urgency. His Divine mission must be fulfilled in the brief space of His day of opportunity, or not fulfilled at all. We gain a glimpse of our Lords view of His own career. He, like all His brethren, worked under the hard conditions of risk and uncertainty. His day was a short one. The life of Jesus in the world had ended when most human lives may be said to be but beginning. It is, indeed, true that His earthly career is but an episode in His warfare against evil, but it is no less true that it is the supreme episode on which hung the issue of mens redemption. After the Passion the conditions of Christs life changed; there was no longer any opportunity for the performance of those works by which, in terms of human experience, the character of the unseen, unknown Father might be discovered to human view. The life of Christ constitutes the revelation of God, and that revelation is adequate and faithful as that life is perfect.
This image partially finds place in the Sayings of the Jewish Fathers: R. Tarphon said, The day is short, and the task is great, and the workmen are sluggish, and the reward is much, and the Master of the house is urgent.
2. The brevity and uncertainty of life.The day is short. When another year has gone into the dead past beyond our recall for ever, when we look back and think how rapidly, and, it may be, how unprofitably, it has glided away, the impression of this truth may be vivid upon us; but we seldom feel it as we ought. It is not useless admonition that Scripture gives us when it insists so often on lifes brevity, comparing human existence to the most fleeting things in nature; to the mist which disappears before the sun, to the cloud driven by the winds, to the shadows that flit across the landscape, to the smoke that ascends and mingles with the atmosphere, to the leaf of the forest tree, and to the flower of the field. It cannot be compared to any of the more stable objects of nature. How many generations of men has the earth successively borne on her bosom; on how many generations have the sun and the moon looked down! There is many a tree still fresh and vigorous, although the hands that planted it have for centuries been dust. Man is far more fragile even than many of his own works. From the pyramids of Egypt more than forty centuries look down upon us; but where are the builders?
The day of our life is as uncertain as it is short. It is a day in which there is often no gradual fading away of the light to warn us that it is drawing near to a close. It is often with mans life as with countries in other zones than ours, where night, instead of climbing gradually up the heavens and giving evidence of its approach by an ever-deepening twilight, overspreads it at once and envelops all living creatures in sudden darkness. In the course we have to run there is no point, however near the one from which we started, where our race may not terminate. In the whole period of life usually allotted to man there is no year, month, week, day, or even instant, but it may be the last to each individual. There is no truth of which we are more frequently or strikingly reminded.
Have you measured and mapped out this short life and its possibilities? Do you know, if you read this, that you cannot read thatthat what you lose to-day you cannot gain to-morrow?1 [Note: Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies (Works, xviii.62).]
It is not merely of the literal shortness of our time, or the possible nearness of death, that our Lords words should set us thinking, when He warns us that we must work while it is day. If we measure our life by the things we should accomplish in it, by the character it should attain to, by the purposes that should be bearing fruit in it, and not by mere lapse of time, we soon come to feel how very short it is, and the sense of present duty grows imperative. It is thus that the thoughtful man looks at his life; and he feels that there is no such thing as length of days which he can without blame live carelessly, because in these careless days critical opportunities will have slipped away irrecoverably; he will have drifted in his carelessness past some turning-point which he will not see again, and have missed the so-called chances that come no more.2 [Note: Bishop Percival, Sermons at Rugby, 27.]
I have long said: The night cometh, etc., but that does not make it right to act in a hurry. Better not do a thing than do it badly. I must be patient and wait on God. If it is His Will I should do more He will give me time. I am not serving Him by blundering.1 [Note: Newman, in Wilfrid Wards Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman, ii. 126.]
Our life is long. Not so, wise Angels say
Who watch us waste it, trembling while they weigh
Against eternity one squandered day.
Our life is long. Not so, the Saints protest,
Filled full of consolation and of rest;
Short ill, long good, one long unending best.
Our life is long. Christs word sounds different:
Night cometh; no more work when day is spent.
Repent and work to-day, work and repent.
Lord, make us like Thy Host, who clay nor night
Rest not from adoration, their delight,
Crying, Holy, Holy, Holy! in the height.
Lord, make us like Thy Saints, who wait and long
Contented: bound in hope and freed from wrong,
They speed (may be) their vigil with a song.
Lord, make us like Thyself: for thirty-three
Slow years of toil seemed not too long for Thee,
That where Thou art, there Thy Beloved might be.
(1) The need for diligence.We ought to be misers of our time and opportunities. If Jesus Christ said, I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day; the night cometh, some of us ought very specially to say it, and to feel it, because the hour when we shall have to lay down our tools is coming very near, and the shadows are lengthening. If you had been in the fields in these summer evenings during the last few days, you would have seen the haymakers at work with more and more diligence as the evening drew on darker and darker. Some of us are at the eleventh hour. Let us fill it with diligent work.2 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
When he was urged to desist and take rest his favourite expression was, No, I will never be a loafer. If there are no meetings to be addressed, I will return to my work in Australia and the Islands. You tell me I am working too hard, he would say, but my time to work for Jesus cannot be long now. I only wish I could press three times the quantity of work for Him into each day, resting on His promise for the needed help: Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end. 1 [Note: John G. Paton, iii. 44.]
(2) Postponement of duty is loss.Postponement of the obvious duty means irretrievable loss and inevitable incompleteness when the day is done. Our Lords more immediate meaning would seem to be that the work and the moment are so adjusted that what is missed at one time cannot be made up at another. Not only does the day bring its task, but every separate hour has its appointed portion of the work. So that if the work of the third hour be missed, there is no time in which to do it. Each subsequent hour brings its own responsibility, and there is no room for any work that does not belong to that hour. The work of the passing moment must be done in it, or remain for ever undone. This is a law of life that will be acknowledged the moment it is mentioned, and yet we are apt to grow strangely indifferent to it. But consider what it means. The omission of this moment tells upon the work of the next. One stone is left out, and the wall shakes for the want of it. A word is left out of the sentence, and the sense of it is thereby obscured. An exercise is skipped in the lesson, and the examination is rendered unsatisfactory. Christs work was cumulative, and every step in the staircase was fitted in its place. So must it be with us if we would be prime and perfect workmen.
Sins of commission are the usual punishment for sin a of omission. He that leaves a duty, may well fear that he will be left to commit a crime.2 [Note: Gurnall.]
I should have said your letter delighted me, but for the news you gave me of Ds death. My dear, it is awful; not that death is awful or even to be regretted, but I could have borne with more composure the news of the death of my most intimate friend. Learn from me what I never so fully realized before, the self-reproach that follows upon the omission of duty. I am most deeply grieved when I think that Ds appearance, manners, peculiarities, stood in my way of doing what I might have done: time after time I have thought of his real merits, of his honesty, integrity, zeal, conscientiousness, and I have thought, Some day, when I have more time, when I am less worried, I will try and see if I cannot make his solitary life happier, make him less eccentric. I have felt that it was hard for him to be condemned to loneliness, to be cheered by scanty sympathy on his course, which was an honest hard-fought one, because his voice was loud, and other little matters. I feel that I have weakly disregarded a noble human soul because it had an unsightly body; and now he has gone, and I cannot ask his pardon or make amends.1 [Note: Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton, i. 105.]
But who art thou, with curious beauty graced,
O woman, stamped with some bright heavenly seal?
Why go thy feet on wings, and in such haste?
I am that maid whose secret few may steal,
Called Opportunity. I hasten by
Because my feet are treading on a wheel,
Being more swift to run than birds to fly.
And rightly on my feet my wings I wear,
To blind the sight of those who track and spy;
Rightly in front I hold my scattered hair
To veil my face, and down my breast to fall,
Lest men should know my name when I am there;
And leave behind my back no wisp at all
For eager folk to clutch, what time I glide
So near, and turn, and pass beyond recall.
Tell me; who is that Figure at thy side?
Penitence Mark this well that by decree
Who let me go must keep her for his bride.
And thou hast spent much time in talk with me
Busied with thoughts and fancies vainly grand,
Nor hast remarked, O fool, neither dost see
How lightly I have fled beneath thy hand.2 [Note: J. E. Flecker, Forty-two Poems, 28.]
IV
Why We must Cease from Working
1. The coming night.It was Jesus who assured us that God was the God of the living, not of the dead; yet it was Jesus who told us that the night was coming. In the glamour and fretful haste of the day, we too often forget the blackness of the night into which it is rushing, and thereby lose all the directness and concentration of aim, which would chase away the terror of the night when it falls. And yet terror there should be none; for in the beginning God ordained that in every night the moon and the stars should shine, and no night can be very dark into which Christ the Light has passed. Yet, with all its gracious possibilities, it is night that awaits us. The longest day dies into night, and though out of the darkness a new day will be born, yet that darkness is the grave of a day that is gone.
The greatest of English moralists felt this so strongly, that on the dial of his watchready to catch his eye whenever he looked at ithe had these words engraved in their original tongueFor the night cometh. He thought it fit that every time he looked to see how time was going on, he might be reminded of the end of it. He thought there was something he might be the better for remembering, at the commencement of every engagement, in every company, in every place, in every occupation; in the bustle of the street when crowds of men went by; in the quiet chamber over his papers and his books, where the hours passed on so silently; in the view of regal state, and youthful beauty; still something worth remembering in that most suggestive truth expressed in the simple wordsFor the night cometh!1 [Note: A. K. H. Boyd, The Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson, ii. 255.]
Work while you have light, especially while you have the light of morning. There are few things more wonderful to me than that old people never tell young ones how precious their youth is. They sometimes sentimentally regret their own earlier days; sometimes prudently forget them; often foolishly rebuke the young, often more foolishly indulge, often most foolishly thwart and restrain; but scarcely ever warn or watch them. Remember, then, that I, at least, have warned you, that the happiness of your life, and its power, and its part and rank in earth or in heaven, depend on the way you pass your days now.2 [Note: Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies (Works, xviii. 37).]
Bishop Whipple tells a story of an old man among the North American Indians who was confirmed late in life. His rheumatism made kneeling very painful to him. He said to the Bishop: I put it off too long. I ought to have done it when my knees were not rheumatic.3 [Note: D. Williamson, From Boyhood to Manhood, 172.]
Just on the Borders of Enchanted Land
We linger,culling here and there some bloom;
From distant gardens sweet and rare perfume
The soft breeze gently wafteth where we stand.
We might have enterdyou and I, dear Heart!
Lo, the dusk fallethand tis time to part.1 [Note: Una, In Lifes Garden, 3.]
2. Man is immortal till his work is done.Let us grasp this thought that no good man dies with his work half done. We may not see its last touch. It may appear to our dim vision to be sunset at noon. But He in whose hand is our time, and from whom we receive our task, sets His seal and attestation upon the work done in His name. Sometimes you will hear it said that a good man has died prematurely; you have even heard it said that Christ died early. By what false standard do we reach such extraordinary decisions as these? All standards are false that are not in harmony with this great utterance. We must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day.
Edward Thring, of Uppingham, wrote out this prayer when he was a student at Cambridge: O God, give me work till the end of my life, and life till the end of my work; for Christs sake, Amen.2 [Note: Morning Watch, 1903, p. 10.]
Lord, I read of the two witnesses, And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. They could not be killed whilst they were doing, but when they had done their work; during their employment they were invincible. No better armour against the darts of death than to be busied in Thy service. Why art thou so heavy, O my soul? No malice of man can antedate my end a minute, whilst my Maker hath any work for me to do. And when all my daily task is ended, why should I grudge then to go to bed?3 [Note: Thomas Fuller.]
Let me not pass till eve,
Till that days fight is done;
What soldier cares to leave
The field until its won!
And I have loved my work and fain
Would be deemed worthy of the ranks again.
Let twilight come, then night,
And when the first birds sing
Their matin songs, and light
Wakens each slumbering thing,
Let some one waken me, and set
My feet to steps that lead me upward yet.
A Time to Work
Literature
Aitken (W. H. M. H.), Temptation and Toil, 241.
Arnold (T.), Sermons, vi. 164.
Bellew (J. C. M.), Sermons, i. 53, 73.
Boyd (A. K. H.), The Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson, ii. 253.
Bramston (J. F.), Fratribus, 50.
Brooke (S. A.), The Gospel of Joy, 279.
Channing (W. E.), The Perfect Life, 155.
Cox (S.), Expositions, iv. 179.
Cunningham (W.), Sermons, 303.
Flint (R.), Sermons and Addresses, 264.
Gray (W. A.), The Shadow of the Hand, 239.
Henson (H. H.), Light and Leaven, 165.
Houghton (C. A.), Problems of Life, 95.
Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year: Lent to Passiontide, 367.
Lamb (R.), School Sermons, i. 155, 173.
Little (W. J. Knox), Characteristics and Motives of the Chiristian Life, 1.
McFadyen (J. E.), The Divine Pursuit, 153.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions: John ix.xiv., 1.
Mortimer (A. G.), Lenten Preaching, 118.
Paget (F. E.), Sermons for Special Occasions, 233.
Percival (J.), Sermons at Rugby, 21.
Percival (J.), Some Helps for School Life, 226.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xiii. (1867) No. 756; xvi. (1870) No. 943; xxix. (1883) No. 1754.
Stuttard (J.), The Man who was Born Blind, 39.
Thomson (W.), Life in the Light of Gods Word, 106.
Thomson (W.), Sermons in Lincolns Inn Chapel, 298.
Vaughan (D. J.), Questions of the Day, 188.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), xxi. (1882) No. 1208.
Wilkinson (J. B.), Mission Sermons, lii. 1.
Christian World Pulpit, xiv. 318 (Ward); lii. 214 (Perry); lxxi. 56 (Henson); lxxvi. 325 (Hearn).
Church of England Pulpit, xliv. 207 (Perry); lv. 158 (Henson); lix. 197 (Tupholme); lxii. 396 (Henson).
Churchmans Pulpit: First Sunday in Advent: i. 312 (Pope).
Expositor, 1st Ser., vii. 197 (Milligan).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
must: Joh 4:34, Joh 5:19, Joh 5:36, Joh 10:32, Joh 10:37, Joh 17:4, Luk 13:32-34, Act 4:20
while: Joh 11:9, Joh 11:10, Joh 12:35, Ecc 9:10, Isa 38:18, Isa 38:19, Eph 5:16, Col 4:5
Reciprocal: 1Ch 22:5 – David prepared 2Ch 14:7 – while the land Neh 6:3 – I am doing Psa 6:5 – in the Psa 90:12 – So Mal 4:2 – the Sun Mat 12:15 – great Mat 20:6 – the eleventh Mat 20:7 – Go Mar 1:38 – for Mar 3:3 – he saith Luk 2:49 – my Luk 4:43 – I must Luk 6:8 – Rise Luk 12:49 – and Luk 13:33 – I must Joh 5:17 – My Joh 7:30 – but Gal 6:10 – opportunity
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE BREVITY OF LIFE
I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh.
Joh 9:4
It is not merely of the literal shortness of our time, or the possible nearness of death, that our Lords words should set us thinking.
I. If we measure our life by the things we should accomplish in it, by the character it should attain to, by the purposes that should be bearing fruit in it, and not by mere lapse of time, we soon come to feel how very short it is, and the sense of present duty grows imperative. It is thus that the thoughtful man looks at his life; and he feels that there is no such thing as length of days which he can without blame live carelessly, because in these careless days critical opportunities will have slipped away irrecoverably; he will have drifted in his carelessness past some turning-point which he will not see again, and have missed the so-called chances that come no more.
II. But even this is only a part of the considerations that make our present life so precious; for this is only the outer aspect of it. What makes our time so critically short, whether we consider its intellectual or its moral and spiritual uses, is that our nature is so very sensitive, so easily marred by misuse, and spoilt irretrievably. The real brevity of the time at our disposal, whether for the training of our mind, or for our growth in character, consists in this, that deterioration is standing always at the back of any neglect or waste. Deterioration is the inseparable shadow of every form of ignoble life.
Our acts our angels are, for good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk with us still.
Leave your faculties unused and they become blunted and dulled; leave your higher tastes uncultivated and they die; let your affections feed on anything unworthy and they become debased. To those who do this it may happen that whilst, so far as years go, they are still in all the freshness of youth
III. They are already dying that death to all higher capacity which is worse than any decay of our physical organism.The mere possibility of such a fate overhanging any of us should stir us like a trumpet-call to take care that we do not surrender our life to any mean influence.
Bishop Percival.
Illustration
Even while working busily, and working the works of God, we must not forget our own infirmity, we must remember and repeat Christs wordsfor in them He speaks as one of us, and not as our GodThe night cometh, when no man can work. The day which is so happy to us, and we would fain hope not unprofitably wasted, is yet hastening to its close. It is of no less importance that we should remember that the time is soon coming when we cannot work, than that we should avail ourselves of the time present, to work in it to the utmost.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE PURPOSE OF LIFE
You are sent into this world on a mission. A prepared being to do a prepared work. This was the first principle of our Masters life, and it should be ours.
I. What am I do that I may fulfil the purpose of my creation?What are the works of Him that sent me? I answer
(a) Secure your own happiness here and for ever.
(b) Then do all that in you lies to make and secure the present and eternal happiness of your fellow-creatures.
In your own happiness, and in their happinesses, your great Creator is pleased and honoured. These two things are the motive and characteristic feature of daily life, to make a true happiness in us and around us, in our own and others hearts to the glory of God.
II. How is it to be done?What is the course of life that will make that work? I look for the answer to our Masters life. How did He work the works of the Father who sent Him? He was a Man of prayer; in constant communion with God. His was a life all dedicated; a life sacrificed; even to the death. We have our pattern, but how can such a life be copied? Is it not too high, too pure, too heavenlyimpossible? We can never reach it; but we can follow it. We can pray for it. We can have it always before us.
III. As to what work.In the special work you are set to do this year, or day, expect to be guided. You will be guided if you seek guidance and act out at once the impulses of your heart after prayer. For the work and the worker are both predestined. Only do not be satisfied with anything that is vague and general. Nor in some things which you mean to do tomorrow, or by and by. Put no trust in mere intentions; the work must be instant. The constraint which Christ felt to His work was not only very strong but urgent: I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day.
Illustration
The words day and night here have a special reference to our Lords bodily Presence with His Church. As long as He was visibly with them it was day. When He left them it was night. It is well to remark that St. Paul uses the same figures when comparing time present with time to come, at the Second Advent. He says, The night is far spent, and the day is at hand (Rom 13:12). There the night is Christs bodily absence, and the day Christs bodily Presence. Melancthon points out what an example Christ supplies to Christians in this place. The hatred, opposition, and persecution of the world, and the failures and infirmities of professing Christians, must not make us give way to despondency. Like our Master, we must work on. Calvin observes: From these words we may deduce the universal rule, that to every man the course of his life may be called his day. Beza and others think that there is a primary prophecy here of the withdrawal of light and privilege from the Jews, which was in the mind of our Lord, as well as the general principle that to all men day is the time for work and not night.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
4
Day and night are used figuratively as we will see in the next verse.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Joh 9:4. We must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no one can work. The substitution of we for I (a change supported by the best evidence) lends peculiar force and beauty to the verse. Jesus associates His disciples with Himself: like Himself they have a calling which must not be disobeyed, to work the works of God; for them, as for Himself, the period of such action will not always last. He does not say Him that sent us, for it is the Son who sends His disciples, even as the Father sends the Son (chap. Joh 20:21). Day seems to be used here simply to denote the time during which the working assigned to Jesus and His people in this world can be performed: night, the time when the working is impossible. In a proverbial saying of this kind the words must not be pressed too far. It is true that the Lord Jesus continues to work by His Spirit, and through His servants, though the day of which He here speaks soon reached its close. But the work He intends is such work as is appointed for the day, whether to Himself or to His people.As joined with the verses which precede, this saying could not but come to the disciples as a reminder that not idle speculation but work for God was the duty they must fulfil.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Here our Saviour tells his disciples, That he was sent by God into the world, and had a great work assigned him by God, during his abode in it; namely to instruct, reform, and save mankind; and what our Saviour says of himself, is applicable to every one of us in a lower sense; we are sent into the world to work out our own salvation in the first place, and then to promote the salvation of others as much as in us lies.
Note, 1. That every one has a work to do in the world, a great work assigned him by God that sent him into it.
2. That the time allotted for the finishing and dispatching of this great work, is a limited time, it is a short time; our working season is a short season; While it is day.
3. That after the working season is past and expired, there will succeed a night of darkness, in which there must be a cessation from work. The night cometh.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Joh 9:4. I must work the works of him that sent me Called in the preceding verse the works of God; that is, I must not cease doing this, however the malice of the Jews may be irritated thereby; I must not desist from doing the will of my heavenly Father, in order to please them; while it is day While I have an opportunity; while the time lasts, which is appointed to work in, and while the light lasts, which is given to work by. Observe, reader, Christ himself had his day; 1st, All the business of the mediatorial kingdom was to be done within the limits of time, and in this world; for at the end of the world, when time shall be no more, the kingdom shall be delivered up to God: even the Father, and the mystery of God shall be finished. 2d, All the work he had to do in his own person, here on earth, to set us an example of holy living, was to be done before his death. The time of his abode in this world was the day here spoken of. And the time of our life is our day, in which it concerns us to do the work of the day. During the day of life we must be busy, and that in doing the work appointed us: it will be time enough to rest when our day is ended. Our Lord adds, The night cometh, when no man can work As if he had said, I see death approaching, which, as it puts a period in general to human labours, so will close the scene of such labours as these, and remove me from the converse and society of men. The period of his opportunity for doing the will of his Father, and glorifying him on earth, was at hand, and therefore he would lose no time, but be active and laborious. Thus, the consideration of our death approaching, should quicken us to a diligent improvement of all the opportunities of life, both for doing and gaining good. The night cometh It will come certainly, and may come soon and suddenly: and when it comes we cannot work, because the light afforded us to work by will be extinguished, and the time allotted us to work in will then be expired. When the night comes, the labourers must be called. They must then show their work, and receive according to the deeds done in the body: for then the time of probation will be ended, and the time of retribution begun.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
DAY AND NIGHT
Joh 9:4-5. It behooveth us to work the works of Him that sent us while it is day; the night cometh when no one is able to work. While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world. As God is original light, everything else in the spiritual universe is shining in different degrees by light reflected from Him, as in the material world, planets, moons, and all material entities, shine by light reflected by the sun. When Satan captured the world in the fall, God retreating away and veiling His face because of sin, he threw his black wing over all this world, bringing on a dismal night of storms, which has lasted six thousand years, with a solitary exception of Immanuels presence the short period of His earthly life, which was really a sunburst from heaven, bringing down the daylight to the elect few, who so heeded redeeming grace as to walk in it. Paul says, The night is far spent, and the day draweth nigh (Rom 13:12), alluding to the coming of the Lord to arrest Satan, take him out of the world, and reign forever, thus superseding the long, dreary night, intervening between Eden and the millennium, by the glorious reign of incoming celestial day, descending from heaven when our Lord, in His glory, shall return to reign. You see here that He applies the word day to His presence, and night to his absence.
Joh 9:1-41 . Speaking these words, He spat on the ground, and made mortar of the spittle, and besmeared the mortar upon his eyes, and said to him, Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam, which is interpreted Sent. Then he departed, and washed, and came seeing. Evidently the clay and the spittle, and the waters of Siloam, were not used medicinally, but merely as objects of attention, to concentrate his mind upon the stupendous miracle, proving auxiliaries to his perceptive faculties. As the body is material, any physical transaction is calculated to concentrate the mental faculties, and prove an auxiliary to an invisible, spiritual, miraculous operation; as this was not simply a matter of healing, but creation of the eyesight, which the man had never enjoyed. In both of my tours at Jerusalem, I visited this pool. It is in a deep gorge, down the southwestern slope of Mount Zion, in a half mile of its base, in the Valley of Jehoshaphat and that of Hinnom, being in the angle between the two, and about equidistant from each valley, and about one mile from their confluence. When I saw it, in June, 1895, it had a good supply of water in November, 1899, it was very scarce. There is a Mohammedan minaret at the pool, having been erected during the interval of my visits. Then the neighbors, and those formerly seeing him when he was a beggar, continued to say, Is not this the one sitting down and begging? Some said, It is he; others said, No , but he is like him; he said, I am he. Then they said to him, How were your eyes opened? He responded, A man called Jesus made mortar, and besmeared my eyes, and said to me, Go to Siloam, and wash. Therefore, having departed and washed, I looked up. They said to him, Where is He? He says, I know not.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 4
While it is day; while I have opportunity. This seems to be mentioned as a reason why he should not postpone relieving the blind man on account of its being the Sabbath. (John 9:14.)
John 9:6,7. We are left entirely uninformed in respect to the object and design of these measures. We observe, however, that, by thus doing something himself which might be considered as work, and requiring some action on the part of the patient, he came more directly into collision with the superstitious punctiliousness of the Pharisees, in respect to the observance of the Sabbath day.–Siloam, a fountain and basin of water in Jerusalem, very highly esteemed.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
9:4 {2} I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is {b} day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
(2) The works of Christ are is it were a light, which enlighten the darkness of the world.
(b) By “day” is meant the light, that is, the enlightening doctrine of the heavenly truth: and by night is meant the darkness which comes by the obscurity of the same doctrine.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Jesus’ "we" probably refers to Himself alone, though He could have meant Himself and the disciples. Jesus later spoke of His disciples continuing His work (Joh 14:12; cf. Joh 20:21). The day in view is probably a reference to the daylight made such by the Light of the World’s presence on the earth. Darkness would descend when He departed the earth and returned to heaven (cf. Joh 12:35). The nighttime when no man can work may refer to the spiritual darkness that will yet engulf the world. I doubt that this is a reference to the Tribulation.