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Jesus' vindication of His action roused them still farther, for He put it on a ground which seemed to them nothing short of blasphemy: 'My Father worketh even until now, and I work. They fastened on one point in that great saying, namely, that it claimed Sonship in a special sense, and vindicated His right to disregard the Sabbath law on that ground. God's rest is not inaction.
"But, prithee," asked Manners, heartily sick of the ceaseless explanations, and anxious to see the practical outcome of it all, "how worketh it? Show us, let it move this piece of rock." "You doubt me; I will show it thee; I will test it but this once again, and then the baron, curse him! dies."
No encouragement to holiness like this, like the persuasion, and belief of this; because this carrieth in it the greatest expression of love, that we are capable of hearing or believing, and there is nothing that worketh on us so powerfully as love.
"My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." That which is called the day of rest, is at the Home of Industry one of varied and incessant labour; one day may serve as a specimen. Before the usual hour for morning service, two of the lady-workers start for the Fenchurch Street Station, to hold a Bible-class with the railway porters; others at the same time leave for Bird Fair.
If, on the other hand, we compare our lives with that absolute perfection which the Lord sets before us as our model, we shall incur the danger of none of these vices; and though the greatness of our task may well cause us to "work in fear and trembling," we shall ever be cheered by the consciousness that "the Lord worketh within us both to will and to do."
If we live opening our minds and hearts to the influx of the divine power 'that worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure, then we may be humbly sure that these 'works' are eternal; and though they will never constitute the ground of our acceptance, they will never fail to secure 'a great recompence of reward. To many a humble saint there will be a moment of wondering thankfulness when he sees these his 'children whom God hath given him' clustered round him, and has to say, 'Lord, when saw I Thee naked, or in prison, and visited Thee? There will be many an apocalypse of grateful surprise in the revelations of the heavens.
And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to kill him, because he had done these things on the sabbath-day. Then Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore sought they the more to kill him, because he had not only broken the sabbath, but called God his own Father, setting himself on an equality with God.
Only let us remember that 'the wrath of men worketh not the righteousness of God. If contending theologians, and angry philanthropists, and social reformers, that are ready to fly at each other's throats for the sacred cause of humanity, would only remember that there is no good to be done except in this spirit, there would be more likelihood of the errors and miseries of mankind being redressed than, alas! there is to-day.
"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." The divine acts with and through the human, but does not destroy it. It imparts the greatest encouragement, the truest inspiration.
The man that has received Christ desires to be holy, because the nature of the faith that lays hold on Christ worketh by love, and longeth, yea, greatly longeth, that the soul may be brought not only into a universal conformity to his will, but into his very likeness; and because that state agreeth not with what we are now, but with what we shall be hereafter: "Therefore in this we groan, being burdened" with that which is of a contrary nature, "earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven;" which state is not that of Adam'a innocency, but that which is spiritual and heavenly, even that which is now in the Lord in heaven.
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