WHAT IS
IS THE
THE "GIFT OF GOD?"

A SERMON.

BY THE

REV. JOHN J. BLACK, LL.D.,

FREE HIGH CHURCH, INVERNESS

"Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water."-JOHN iv. 10.

Two things must be noticed regarding this story, before we come to consider the words we have selected. The first point is-The value our Master puts upon a single soul. "He must needs go through Samaria," the "needs" being, that there, in Sychar, dwelt a sinner on whom He had set His love. So we find Him going far to the north-west, to put Himself in the way of the Syro-Phenician; and, once again, he crossed the Sea of Galilee, that He might still the storm in a maniac's breast, as He had hushed another storm "immediately" before upon the lake. Easily-wearied workers, take shame to yourselves for your excuses when you also mark that it was the wearied Jesus who, in each of these cases, won the poor sinner to His feet. "Being wearied "--" asleep on a pillow :" blessed words are these for the suffering and the seeking, but words having a sting in them for us who merely profess to follow His example.

But the second matter we would bring before your notice is the plan that our Lord adopts in bringing the Samaritan to Himself. She is a stranger, and separated from Him by the wide breach of political hate. This difficulty must be overcome, but not by making light of it, or fighting over it, as we often do. Our Lord stood loyally to His country's colours and His Church's principles. With no uncertain sound He rang out the rally-call

of the South, "Salvation is of the Jews." But He declined to argue that question. That was not His business there. Her soul was dearer to Him than His nationality. Everything must be put aside till the work is done which His Father had here given Him to do. "To seek and to save that which was lost," was the burden laid upon Him. He had sought her, and now He must save. For this, He first attracts her attention,—“ Give me to drink." He then excites her wonder,-"If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water." From wonder, He goes on to conviction," Go, call thy husband, and come hither." Having brought her to the dust, He there can reveal Himself to her, and bid her be a worshipper. Thus her Samaritan belief became strangely true. At Gerizim's foot she worshipped,-now, to her joy however, knowing "what" she worshipped. The worshipper is soon a worker, and the chief, perhaps, of Sychar's sinners is away to tell what a Saviour she had found. Thus it was that the Master

enlisted and educated His first Samaritan missionary.

The verse we have selected is the pivot of the passage. Let us seek its meaning. Not elsewhere in the Word can we find the marrow and mystery of the Gospel more beautifully shown forth. May the Spirit of the living God enable each of us to know experimentally this "gift of God!" Otherwise the mystery is a mystery still.

I. What is "the gift of God?" is the question that naturally rises first in our minds. Three answers have been given, which appear to me not to contradict one another, but rather to fill up and complete the interpretation of the Word. (a) "The truth," say some, "is what the Master means." Old Testament Scriptures give this thought more than once. Isaiah, for example, cries, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters;" and, previously, in the twelfth chapter,he speaks of drawing "water out of the weils of salvation." In this way, it would seem that Christ was not so much giving us a new thought here, as taking an old illustration of the Fathers and applying it to His Gospel, to show that the truth they taught was the message He was commissioned to deliver. "The old, old story" is the story still; but given in clearer light, and free from shadow and restraint. We accept this interpretation, then. Truth-solid, eternal, satisfying truth-is the gift of God. We commonly call this gift "revelation." Man could not discover, or purchase, or shape it.

Pilate but uttered the language of the disappointed investigators of his day when he asked, in disgust, "What is truth?" Man was at his wit's end when the Son of God appeared to tell the secret to the world. Let us test this truth on three points.

(1) First, let us consider its realness. In this, philosophy (socalled) and idolatry fail. They deal with shadows and dreams. In philosophy, we have men aiming at conclusions at which they never arrive, and building on probabilities which fail beneath the weight of stubborn certainties they are called to bear. In idolatry, we find false gods propped up by superstition and "old wives' fables." You cannot read their story, or visit the ruins of their temples, without feeling how unreal they were. How different is the truth of God! It is no dream of the poet -no fancy of the philosopher. It is a fact,—a stern, bold reality. Test it for yourself, O, doubter! It will bear any strain. It will not sink under any burden. If it was a dream, the Church would have awaked from it long ago. If it was a delusion, the cheated crowd would have hooted it from the world. But there it stands, rugged and real as ever,—as real as the God who gave it.

(2) Its finality is another characteristic of gospel truth. The Athenian, with his thousands of gods, confesses that yet there is an "unknown God." The schoolmen have been dreaming "since the world began," and they are dreaming still. The world's cry is yet the same,-"Restful truth! where, and what is it?" Like the waif' of the London streets, I am weary of the cry, 'Move on.' I want to reach some end,-some restingplace. Like Ixion, I feel bound to an ever-revolving wheel; like the Danaids, I pour water into a cask full of holes." Weary one! become a scholar in the school of Christ. We have but one text-book there. It is a tiny book. I can send it through our post-office for one penny. It is God's book,-His truth. It reveals the very rest you seek. It gives you "the conclusion of the whole matter." What is said of the last portion of it is true of the whole. "If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life." In the 14th verse of this chapter, Christ tells the Samaritan that, "whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst." He has got his soul's desire, and is at rest. All he wants is here, and now he has nothing to do

but "keep drinking," as the original suggests. Like some springs from nature's fountain, the more he draws, the sweeter and more refreshing the water becomes. No wonder it was said, "With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation."

(3) Its dogmatic character is the third mark of the truth of God. We know not how it is that dogma has got into disrepute of late. It may be that, in our pride, we wish to reason out and understand "things that are too high for us." Sure we are that God's dogmas are all axioms, if we had only power to comprehend them. They are so to Him,-perhaps they will only be so to us when we get home.

(b) “Christ Himself," say others, "is this gift of God." So Paul, in 1 Cor. x. 4, speaks of Christ as the antitype of the rock in the wilderness: "And they did all drink of the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that Spiritual Rock that followed them ; and that Rock was Christ." Nor is this in opposition to the first interpretation, for Jesus is "the Truth,"-its secret, centre, and reality. Here, then, He teaches the woman what He had taught Nicodemus in the third chapter,-"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." So, again, He says in the sixth chapter, "My Father giveth you the true Bread from heaven,"-"I am the Bread of life." Christ is preeminently the Gift of God. Not that God has given us no other gifts,-He is always giving, and His gifts are always good. But this gift stands out superior to all. Only let us speak of two out of many points. (1) Have we not all felt that other good things from our Father's hand, only met the wants of certain parts of our nature? Good though they be, they only lie on the surface. Our deepest nature is not touched,-the secret chamber is not occupied. But, if this Gift is ours, our innermost soul becomes His dwelling-place, the water of life penetrates to the depths of our most hidden being. Yea, so thoroughly does it possess our every capacity, that there is an overflow; and out of the once-thirsty "flow rivers of living water." (2) The other point of superiority is-the thoroughly satisfying nature of this Gift. Other gifts are pleasant, and, for the time, meet our longings. At best, however, they but postpone the demands of our appetite. Soon, again, the hungerings and thirstings return, and cry with louder voice, "Give, give!" We must remain utter strangers to the "never" thirsting, if we only drink of God's nether springs. After we have taxed all our ingenuity, and worked up all our resources

to meet the wants of our own souls, we have no alternative but to go and beg, as Christ represents the man in the eleventh of Luke,-"Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine, in his journey, is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.' This man wisely went where there was "enough and to spare," and he got "as many" as he needed. "Precious promises' these,-"never thirst," "never hunger," "never die," "as many as he needed," etc.; but they are no exaggerations-they are literally, absolutely true. There is no postponement, no temporary hushing of desire, The demand is met, and satisfied. "O satisfy us early with Thy mercy," is the Psalmist's cry. "I will satisfy her poor with bread," is God's answer.

"Who, with abundance of good things,

Doth satisfy thy mouth;

So that, ev'n as the eagle's age,
Renewed is thy youth."

(c) One other interpretation deserves our notice. Though we do not say it is the true interpretation of the expression, still it a most important truth, and not inconsistent with the other views we have put forward. A few sentences, then, to consider the "Gift of God" as the present opportunity,—the offer of salvation then and there. Every invitation given, and opportunity enjoyed, is a gift from God. Blind Bartimeus seized the opportunity, and got the blessing; the Gadarenes repudiated theirs, and Jesus departed from their coasts." Never were more solemn words written than those of Isaiah, in his fifty-fifth chapter: "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near." There is a crisis in every man's history-a Hougomont in every battle of life. Many of the unbelieving children of Israel lived long after they were turned "back by the way of the Red Sea," but their doom was sealed-their day of grace was gone: "Your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness." So Christ, in the end of His ministry, weeps over Jerusalem, saying, “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes."

The story of Sychar, now before us, is an illustration of this. Jesus "must needs go through Samaria," because this sinner must have this offer of salvation In God's electing love, it was decreed that she should get the opportunity, as well as the grace, to embrace it. When the cup of salvation was put to her lips,