John 9:4

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.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John

ONE METAPHOR AND TWO MEANINGS

Joh 9:4. - Rom 13:12.

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.

As I have already said, our Lord gives utterance here to the very common, in fact, universal human consciousness. The contrast between the intense little spot of light and the great ring of darkness round about it; between ‘the warm precincts of the cheerful day’ and the cold solitudes of the inactive night has been the commonplace and stock-in-trade of moralists and thoughtful men from the beginning; has given pathos to poetry, solemnity to our days; and has been the ally of base as well as of noble things. For to say to a man, ‘there are twelve hours in the day of life, and then comes darkness, the blackness that swallows up all activity,’ may either be made into a support of all lofty and noble thoughts, or, by the baser sort, may be, and has been, made into a philosophy of the ‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die’ kind; ‘Gather ye roses while ye may’; ‘A short life and a merry one.’ The thought stimulates to diligence, but it does nothing to direct the diligence. It makes men work furiously, but it never will prevent them from working basely. ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might,’ is a conclusion from the consideration that ‘there is neither wisdom nor knowledge nor device in the grave whither we go,’ but what the hand should find to do must be settled from altogether different considerations.

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.

As I have already pointed out, it is the precise reversal of the other. What to Christ is ‘day’ to Paul is ‘night.’ What to Christ is ‘night’ to Paul is ‘day.’ Now the first point that I would make is this, that the future would never have been ‘day’ to Paul if Jesus had not gone down into the darkness of the ‘night.’ I have said that there was only one point of comparison in our Lord’s mind between night and death. But we may venture to extend the figure a little, and to say that the Light went into the ‘valley of the shadow of Death,’ and lit it up from end to end. The Life went into the palace of Death, and breathed life into all there. There is a great picture by one of the old monkish masters, on the walls of a Florentine convent, which represents the descent of Jesus to that dim region of the dead. Around Him there is a halo of light that shines into the gloomy corridor, up which the thronging patriarchs and saints of the Old Dispensation are coming, with outstretched hands of eager welcome and acceptance, to receive the blessing. Ah! it is true, ‘the people that walked in darkness have seen a great Light; and to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, unto them hath the Light shined.’ Christ the Light has gone down into the darkness, and what to Him was night He has made for us day. Just as Scripture all but confines the name of death to Christ’s experience upon the Cross, and by virtue of that experience softens it down for the rest of us into the blessed image of sleep, so the Master has turned the night of death into the dawning of the day.

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.

It is not enough either for our hearts or our minds that we should say ‘the night cometh when no man can work.’ Life is day, but it is night also. Death is night but it is dawning as well. We cannot understand either the present or the future unless we link them together. That death which is the cessation of activity in one aspect, is, for Christ’s servants, as truly as for Christ, the beginning of an activity in a higher and nobler form. I do not believe in a heaven of rest, meaning by that, inaction; I still less believe in a death which puts an end to the activity of the human spirit. I believe that this world is our school, our apprenticeship, the place where we learn our trade and exercise our faculties, where we paint the picture, as it were, which we offer when we desire to be admitted to the great guild of artists, and according to the result of which, in the eye of the Judge, is our place hereafter. What the Germans call ‘proof pieces’-that is the meaning of life. And though ‘the night cometh when no man can work,’ the day cometh when the characters we have made ourselves here, the habits we have cultivated and indulged in, the capacities we have exercised, and the set and drift of all our activity upon earth, will determine the work that we get to do there.

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.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 Immanuel’s 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.”

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 9:4. Νύξ, the night) Christ is the light: when it departs, the night comes, which does not restrain the light, but obscures the earth.—οὐδείς, 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.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh_9:4. By means of the participative ἡμᾶς (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 φανέρωσις 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.

τοῦ πέμψ. με] Jesus does not again say ἡμας;[44] for His mission involved also that of the disciples, and it was He who commissioned the disciples (Joh_13:20, Joh_20:21).

ἕως] 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 αἰὼν οὗτος and ΜΈΛΛΩΝ (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. ε. 310, Λ. 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. Olshausens view is wrong: ἡμέρα 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 ὅτι οὐδεὶς δύναται ἐργάζεσθαι (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 ἐργάζεσθαιwhich here has no determining object, as in the previous caseand ΟὐΔΕΊς are quite general; and accordingly, ἜΡΧΕΤΑΙ ΝῪΞ

ἘΡΓΆΖΕΣΘΑΙ must be regarded as a commonplace. Godet finds in ΝΎΞ 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 δύναται would then be inappropriate.

[44] Which Ewald prefers in opposition to his own translation. But see the critical note.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

By (day) is meant the light, that is, the lightsome, doctrine of the heavenly truth: and by (night) is meant the darkness which cometh by the obscurity of the same doctrine.

The works of Christ are as it were a light, which lighten the darkness of the world.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

I must work the works of him that sent me, &c.--a most interesting statement from the mouth of Christ; intimating, (1) that He had a precise work to do upon earth, with every particular of it arranged and laid out to Him; (2) that all He did upon earth was just "the works of God"--particularly "going about doing good," though not exclusively by miracles; (3) that each work had its precise time and place in His programme of instructions, so to speak; hence, (4) that as His period for work had definite termination, so by letting any one service 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, as man--"the night cometh when no man (or no one) can work." What lessons are here for others, and what encouragement from such Example!

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

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 (Psalm 104:22, 23.)

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.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(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.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 Lord’s 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.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Whilst it is day. That is, during all the time of this mortal life; the night comes, that is, death. (Witham) --- He speaks of that night of which mention is made is St. Matthew chap. xxii. Cast him into exterior darkness. This is a night in which none can work, but only receive the reward of their labours. If you wish to work, work now whilst you live; for beyond the grave there is neither faith, nor labour, nor repentance. (St. John Chrysostom, as above.)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

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.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Wemust work the works of him that sent me, while it is day. The emendation of the text certainly throws much beauty into the statement. Christ identifies himself with his disciples. They are pledged by accepting his call, and he has been himself charged by his own sublime mission to work while it is called day. The sun was going down over the holy city on that sabbath day, and Jesus will not wait, nor lose the opportunity of doing the merciful will of the Father. He did not say, "Him that sent us" (as Tischendorf reads), for "As the Father had sent him, so he sent them." But he adds, The night cometh, when no man can work. The materialistic interpretation of Paulus, "Christ must have daylight for a delicate operation," is too puerile to deserve refutation. The suggestion of the Greek Fathers (Chrysostom, Theophylact, etc.), who here drew a distinction between the work of this world and the work of the future world, between work done before and after his Passion, representing the work of his earthly ministry as done in the day, and that of the Spirit as work done in the night, is singularly unfortunate. Our Lord is merely adopting the phrase as a customary image for life and death. Death puts an end to all human activity on earth, even to Christ"s own, as a human Friend and Teacher. Numerous attempts have been made to suppose some emphatic contrast between the lifetime of Christ and the period that should follow his Passion. They all fail, because Christ"s own activity resumes another form by his resurrection and the gift of his Spirit. The night of death, accompanied by the cessation of active labor, is the general idea. The day"s work must be done in the day. The probation involved in the bare fact of its limitation, and in this case its rapidly approaching consummation, is the main thought, without pressing the imagery too far. By saying, "We must work," etc., he gave a lesson and an example for all time. The "Pirke Aboth," "The Sayings of the Fathers," record the words of R. Tryphon, "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.

The day is for labor.

Very instructive and very encouraging is the way in which, in this passage, our Divine Lord associates his people with himself. In assuming our nature he accepted the ordinary conditions of our life, its duties and its limitations. Generally speaking, what no man could do he would not do; what all men must submit to he would submit to also. Neither then nor now is he ashamed to call us brethren. As Son of man, he partakes both our nature and our lot. His Spirit and his language assure us of this. Accordingly, his experience is not merely something for us to admire; it is for us so to ponder that we may share it. He partakes our conflict that we may partake his victory. In the words of the text these principles are made manifest, in their application to the "work" which gives meaning to human life.

I THE CHARACTER OF THE EARTHLY SERVICE. The works themselves to which Jesus here referred were special. By "works" he undoubtedly intended miracles, signs, wonders such deeds of power and mercy as that which the condition of the blind man suggested that he should perform for his benefit. But our Lord often spoke of his "work" in a more general sense; and even here there is nothing exclusive of his spiritual ministry, to which this language certainly applies. This saying of Jesus casts light upon the character of the earthly service rendered by himself, and required of all his faithful disciples and followers.

1. Diligence is characteristic both of the Master and of his servants. No reader of the Gospels can fail to be impressed with the laboriousness of Christ"s public life. There were times when he had no leisure even to eat; there never was a time when he neglected an opportunity of benevolence. Whether in teaching or in healing he was ever occupied, and occupied for purposes unselfish and brotherly.

2. His works were the proof of his obedience. Our Lord evidently lived a life of devotion to the Father who "sent" him. He did not his own will, but the Father"s. It was his meat to do the will of him who sent him, and to finish his work. His advent, his ministry, his death, were all proofs of his obedience. Though a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. How much more must subjection to the Father"s will befit us, who are the creatures of his power, the subjects of his dominion! It gives dignity to our life to feel that we too are sent into the world by God that we are his messengers, his servants, his children, bound to do his behests, and to live as accountable to him.

3. Obligation characterizes all true service. Even the Son of God could say, "I must." On his part there was no compulsion. He of his own accord undertook a life of consecration and self-denial. What he did he "must needs" do, for the fulfillment of the Divine purposes, for the satisfaction of the benevolent yearnings of his own heart, and for the salvation of mankind. In our case there is a stringent moral obligation to serve God. As creatures, we are bound to obey a righteous Maker; as redeemed, emancipated freedmen, we are bound to glorify a Divine Deliverer. We are not our own. The duty that binds us to service is indeed a duty sweetened by grateful love, but a duty it cannot cease to be.

II THE LIMITATION OF THE EARTHLY SERVICE. Our Lord condescended to accept the natural limits of human life. The day is for labor. Christ"s day was from the dawn at Bethlehem to the evening on Olivet. There are those of his followers whose day is even shorter than his. There are many whose day is far longer. But in the case of every one of us there are limits which we cannot pass over. There are the "twelve hours" of the day, to which we cannot add. From this language we learn that the day, the period for our work on earth, is:

1. A prescribed, unalterable period. We cannot add a cubit to our stature, a year to our life. There is "an appointed time" for man upon earth.

2. A period during which the light still shines upon our path. If a man walk in the day he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of the world. Christians are favored with the light of revelation with the light of the Spirit given during the gospel dispensation. It is for them to walk and to work while the daylight lasts.

3. A period during which strength is unspent. The laborer toils until the lengthening shadows tell him that the day"s work is approaching the close. He needs repose with evening, but until the evening his vigor enables him to continue his efforts. Whilst the Christian lives, God gives him power to serve. God is not a hard Taskmaster; his demands do not exceed his gifts. The voice from eternity that speaks with authority bids us "work while it is day.

III THE SPECIAL MOTIVE TO THE EARTHLY SERVICE. "The night cometh, when no man can work." There has never been spoken by human lips anything more solemn, and at the same time more precious, than this. We all, when we think upon the matter, feel this declaration to be so indisputably true. Yet we are all prone to overlook, sometimes almost anxious to forget it.

1. Consider this reflection as bearing upon Christ himself. He knew that the end of his earthly life and ministry was near. But he knew also that much remained for him yet to do and to suffer. There was a work for him to accomplish whilst he was still in this world a work which he must accomplish within the swiftly closing day, or not at all. His advanced and final lessons to his disciples, his last assertions of supernatural power, his crowning revelation of majestic meekness and patience, his mysterious sufferings, these all had to be crowded into his last brief days. The cup had yet to be drained, the cross had yet to be borne. All must be finished before the twilight deepened into darkness. For the Father had given him all this to do; and he would leave undone nothing-that he had undertaken.

2. How powerfully does this reflection bear upon our own moral life! Every one of us who is alive to the real meaning of his existence, must feel, and does feel, that this short day of life is given us, not for pleasure, but for progress; not for ease, but for toil. If, through weakness and temptation, this feeling sometimes fails us, there is one effectual method of reviving it. "The night cometh!" Venit nox! There is much to be done that must be done before the sunset of life"s day, if it is not to remain undone forever. Here or nowhere; now or never! That the future life will be a scene of service is not to be doubted. But earthly service must be rendered upon earth. Here the gospel must be embraced; here the new birth to spiritual realities must commence the life that is Divine. Now is the day of salvation. The earthly service must be rendered in this life. The voice comes, "Go, work today in my vineyard." Neglect or refuse to obey that summons, and that piece of work will remain undone. Yet the time is very short, and night is very near. Labor, before the hand be palsied. Give, before the substance be beyond control. Speak, before the tongue be forever silent. Do all as looking forward, onward, to the end.

APPLICATION. Let the laborious remember that not all labor is wise and blessed. Work for self, and such work will be consumed in the fire that shall try all things. But work for God shall stand; no power can destroy it. Let the indolent remember that time unredeemed can only witness against them at the last. Let the young remember that, if a lengthened day be given them, the greater will be their responsibility and the larger their opportunity of commending themselves as faithful laborers to the just and gracious Master. Let the aged remember that, near as is night for them, they have a witness yet to bear, and a memory of inspiration to leave behind. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. T.

HOMILIES BY GEORGE BROWN Ver. 4. The supreme Worker and his opportunity.

"I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work." This, like so man y of the memorable sayings of our Lord, is an incidental one, arising out of the circumstances of the hour. On a sabbath day in autumn the last autumn of his earthly life our Lord paused as he passed through the streets of Jerusalem to look at a blind beggar, known to be blind from his birth. The sight was sad enough, but instead of exciting the pity of Jesus" disciples, it seems only to have awakened their speculative curiosity. Taking it for granted, as was usual in their days, that special suffering must needs be a retribution for special sin, they asked their Master the question, "Who was to blame for this man"s blindness?" Was he sent eyeless into the world for some fault of his own, or was he suffering for transgressions of his parents? Our Lord put the unwise question aside. The disciples were far from the mark. There was a wider and deeper philosophy of suffering than they were dreaming of, and for the calamity before them there was more than sufficient reason in this, that the man"s blindness was now to be the occasion of God"s signal mercy. Christ, therefore, refuses to be drawn into any fruitless and bootless discussions regarding the origin of evil either physical or moral. This was not his mission into the world. He had come amongst us to triumph over evil, not to explain it, and so he says to his disciples, "I must work the works of him," etc. No saying of Christ"s brings his true manhood more distinctly before us than these words do. Before he could utter them he must have "emptied himself of his glory, and taken upon him the form of a servant." There were times, indeed, in his ministry when he used language which could only become the Son of God, as when he spoke of the glory which he had with the Father before the world was. But here he speaks with equal plainness as the Son of man, in all things made like unto his brethren. We can never forget that Christ"s mission into the world was unparalleled, even as he stands alone in his relation to the Father. Still, it was in our nature that he accomplished this whole work of his. He did not seem to be a man, he was "the Man Christ Jesus." These words, therefore, reveal to us the spirit, the motive, the principle, of the only perfect human life that ever was lived, and it is in this respect that they set him forth as our Example.

I OUR LORD HERE DISTINCTLY ACKNOWLEDGES A WILL HIGHER THAN HIS OWN, and tells us that in laying out his earthly life this will was his guiding star. He had all the sensibilities of a sinless human being. He not only knew by experience the urgencies of hunger and thirst, and longed for rest from exhausting toil, but he loved congenial society like that of the family of Bethany. How must he have recoiled from the contradiction of sinners! How sensitively must he have shrunk from contact with vice and squalor! But he allowed not such natural feelings, pure as they were, to reign supreme among his motives, or interfere with his lifework. "Even Christ pleased not himself." "I came down from heaven," he said, "not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me." Here, surely, there are great, though simple, lessons for us all. In our daily lives we feel the force of a hundred different motives. We are swayed by our own tastes, by the example and opinions of others, by the force of outward circumstances; but do we see rising above all these, and piercing through them, and shedding a light over them, the will of our Father in heaven? We are sent into the world with different gifts and capacities. We find ourselves placed in widely different stations and spheres. But have we laid it to heart that God has a purpose in placing us here, and that this mysterious gift of life is not like a freehold an independent possession still less like a plaything which we may do what we like with, but that it is a trust from above, a stewardship under its Giver? Plainly this was Christ"s view of life, and to reveal this to us in light and clearness, by example as well as by precept, was one great end for which he came into the world. For he came not only to atone for our sins and to reconcile us to God, but also to show us, as it had never been seen before, the meaning and purpose of life, connecting the whole of it with a perfectly holy and righteous will. Multitudes without number have realized this in their own experience, and. thus the humblest lives have been ennobled, and the busiest lives consecrated by a motive and an influence not of this world. Oh! if we would work without becoming the slaves of our work, if we would enjoy our freedom without being ensnared by it, we can only do so as the servants of God. Have you learned this great life-lesson from Christ? Let no one say that because our Lord"s work was necessary for the redemption of the world, therefore ours is of no consequence. On the contrary, it is as important for us to do the will of God in our sphere as it was for Christ to do it in his, and assuredly he will impart his Spirit to all who come to him in faith and take his yoke upon them. And how do these words of Christ, "I must work," speak to us of the sacredness of duty! They show that the idea of obligation was distinctly present to his mind. lie felt that it was right to obey his God and Father who had sent him, and instead of this feeling being irksome or burdensome, it was one source of his spiritual strength. "He put on righteousness as a breastplate." On the one hand his love to God did not make his obedience seem superfluous, and on the other hand t he idea of duty never chilled nor lessened his love. lie showed how love and obedience are like two fair blossoms which spring from the same root. And what is that root? It is the life of God in the soul of man. Here, again, "let the same mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." Seek to cherish and cultivate the spirit of loving obedience. If Christ, by his infinite sacrifice, has reconciled you to God, redeemed you from the curse of the Law, it is that you may serve his Father and yours from the heart. If he has stripped obligation of its terrors, he has strengthened instead of weakening its power. "This is the love of God, that ye keep his commandments.

II The text teaches us that CHRIST FELT THE PRECIOUSNESS OF OPPORTUNITY AND THE VALUE OF TIME. He calls his earthly life day, and its termination he calls the coming might, when no man can work. This language of his cannot be mistaken. He foresaw, indeed, with perfect clearness the glory which awaited him, and the unending work which he was to accomplish by his Spirit in the ages to come; but his life-work here below was the necessary and divinely appointed preparation for it all. The seedtime was essential to the harvest, and it was a limited seed-time, not to be repeated. It was only in the present that Christ"s words of life, fresh from his human lips, could be spoken; that his acts of personal kindness and compassion could be performed; that his example, destined to be so infinitely fruitful, could be set forth. And therefore he prized that present, the day allotted to him, and not in feverish haste, but in all the calmness of spiritual strength, he took possession of it, and used it for his Father"s glory. "The night cometh, when no man can work." Taken by themselves, these words only express a simple fact which no one would think of proving or dream of denying. Life comes but once to each of us, and however we may spend it or misspend it, no portion of it will return to be spent over again. We cannot prolong it at will, or persuade it to linger.

Relentlessly it moves like the hand of a clock or the shadow on the sundial. All our earthly activities, our duties, our charities, our services in the cause of God and man, must needs be included in it. When the night cometh they must cease. Every man who has any earnestness of purpose about him has felt the stimulus of such thoughts as these. Whatever his pursuits may be, whether the objects he takes an interest in are of a lower or higher kind, his heart often whispers to itself, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do," etc. Nay, further, many an idler has been rebuked into activity, and many a dreamer wakened up out of his useless reveries, just by the thought fastening itself upon him that he is allowing life, with all its opportunities, to slip away, and that it will never return. Now, if you have entered on the life of Christ"s disciples, does this motive lose its force? Surely not. You have learned from your Master the true worth and importance of life, and you have been taught to spend it under the eye of "the Father who, without respect of persons, judgeth according to every man"s work." Whatever be your station or sphere, this is the case. Here and now, within the narrow limits of the present, you have your opportunities of service allotted to you, your only sphere for "works of faith and labors of love." And these opportunities, if wasted or let slip, can never be recalled. Why should they be lost? These words contain a motive which no Christian can afford to lose. Does any one say, "It does not apply to me or to the multitudes who are already tasked to the uttermost by the necessary cares of life and the stern demands of business"? Ah! God is not like a hard master, reaping where he has not sown, and gathering where he has not strawed. If your necessary toil is performed in a Christian spirit, in the spirit of a faithful servant, it will be accepted as a free-will offering. Even to the slaves at Colosse the Apostle Paul says, "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not to men Ye serve the Lord Christ." Yet surely in the busiest life there is room for deeds of kindness and words of sympathy, for giving the cup of cold water, for proffering the timely advice, for doing many things for Christ"s sake which no man can require at your hands. But especially those whose position in the world is independent, and who have much freedom of choice as to how they shall employ, their time, should lay these words to heart. It is you who are most of all tempted to lead a desultory life. Society, as it is called, seems to expect it of you. People suppose that you must have time for every trifling engagement, and it is so much easier to let each day be passively surrendered in this way than to redeem the time for any definite purpose. But how should this one thought, "the night cometh," help you resolutely to resist or break through such petty distractions! It is but a portion, alter all, of this brief life that you can call your working day. Necessary cares, needful rest, and relaxation must have their share. Sickness may at any time swallow up you know not how much of the remainder. See that you consecrate your yet unbroken daylight to the service of God and man. You have every motive to do so, and you may well be stimulated and encouraged by the example of many around you; but oh, how affecting the thought that your Master, when he dwelt on earth, said to his disciples, "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work"! G.B.

The limits of opportunity.

Here is a universal illustration. We need no investigation of the local and the ancient to comprehend its meaning. We all understand the difference between night and day in respect of opportunity for work. Not but what civilization has made considerable encroachments on the realm of night in this particular. It is now true, not only of the astronomer and of the ardent student, but of many besides, that night is the time for toil." And yet, even with all the increased night-work of the world, it is to be hoped that such work will ever be the exception and not the rule. Night is Nature"s way of announcing her daily sabbath. Day is peculiarly the season for useful work, for honest pursuits; to take too much of the day for rest is, in a measure, to waste it. Night is peculiarly the season for rest, and those who are out in it must be on some special, perchance some dishonest, errand. Day is the largest opportunity the honest man can get; night is the largest opportunity for the thief.

I APPLY THE LIMITS OF OPPORTUNITY IS THE CASE OF JESUS HIMSELF. Of course, it is only true in a particular sense that a night came to Jesus in which he could not work. But in that sense there was great importance in the truth. There were certain things which Jesus could do in flesh and blood, but let him pass into the spiritual body, and those things become impossible. When the records of his life came to be written, those records had to be filled with instances of benevolent industry. Every day found him looking out for every chance of doing a good work. No one can bring against Jesus the charge of being one who talked a great deal and did very little. Every human being comes into this world to do a work of God, though the vast majority never seem to apprehend the mission. All the more reason that Jesus, therefore, should make manifest that he came into the world for action. Others were busy about their own work, and, however long life might be, it would be all too short to complete their aims. And so Jesus felt that life had to be full of useful, strenuous, God-manifesting work.

II THE LESSON TO US FROM THE BRIEF LIMITS OF WORKING TIME. We waste much of life through not making the best of opportunities. Here were the disciples idly speculating on how a certain thing had come about. There was no way of knowing, and no practical result could come from the inquiry. Not that Jesus would deter us from speculations and conjectures; there can be no harm in imagining the causes of what is; no harm in guessing at the possibilities and probabilities of the future. But in this world of need there is so much to do, that we must never let anything come between us and doing. To know what men have thought is all very well; and we do well to meditate on every possible cause and origin of what is evil; but we may meditate so much as to become mere skeptics, hanging in uncertainty between belief and unbelief. When life has all closed up and its last day faded into the west, the question will be, "What hast thou done?" This life of flesh and blood is given to serve our day and generation. Y.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The night is coming - Christ is the light. When the light is withdrawn night comes, when no man can work - No man can do any thing toward working out his salvation after this life is ended. Yet Christ can work always. But he was not to work upon earth, only during the day, or season which was appointed for him.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

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.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. The night cometh, when no man can work. The works of God are to be made manifest in the blind man; Christ must work those works while the short day of life lasteth. His night of death was near. Nor is ours far off.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

4. ἡμᾶς for ἐμέ (a correction to harmonize with με) with א1BL against א3AC.

4. ἡμᾶς δεῖ … με. The readings are doubtful as to whether ἡμᾶς or ἐμέ, με or ἡμᾶς is right in each place. The more difficult reading is the best supported: We must work the works of Him that sent Me. Some copyists changed ἡμᾶς to ἐμέ to agree with με; others changed με to ἡμᾶς to agree with ἡμᾶς. ‘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: the Son is sent by the Father, the disciples by the Son. So also He says ‘My Father’ and ‘your Father,’ ‘My God’ and ‘your God;’ but not ‘our Father,’ or ‘our God’ (Joh 20:17). Τὰ ἔργα refers to Joh 9:3.

ἔως ἡμέρα ἐστίν. 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 moment, 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; not even Christ Himself as man upon earth: comp. Joh 1:7-10; Psa 14:2-3.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4.] Connected by ἐργάζ. τὰ ἔργα to the former verse. There certainly seems to be some reference to its being the sabbath; see the similar expressions in ch. 5:17. From ὅταν …, in ver. 5, it seems evident that ἡμέρα is the appointed course of the working of Jesus on earth, and νύξ the close of it (see the parallel, ch. 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 ver. 5; and the language of Rom 13:12 is in accordance with it, as also Luk 22:53: Joh 14:30.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. ἐμὲ δεῖ ἐργάζεσθαι τὰ ἔργα τοῦ πέμψαντός με. So אaACNΓΔΘ, the Lat. and Syr. vss. (including Syr. sin.). But א*BDLW read ἡμᾶς δεῖ, and for τοῦ πέμψαντός με, אLW read τοῦ πέμψαντος ἡμᾶς. The latter variant may be rejected, both on the MS. evidence and because the phrase “He that sent me” is characteristically Johannine (see on 4:34), while “He that sent us” would be foreign to the phraseology of the Gospels. But ἡμᾶς δεῖ ἐργάζεσθαι, etc., would give a tolerable sense (see on 3:11). It is adopted by Westcott-Hort, and by the R.V., as having the weight of uncial authority, the combination of א*BD (and also apparently the evidence of Origen) being strong. Yet although it is true of all of us that “we must work while it is day” (cf. Ecclus. 51:30), “the works of Him that sent me” in this passage has special reference to the ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ, such as were made manifest in the cure of the blind man, which could not be wrought by the disciples, but were the “signs” of Jesus alone. In the doing of such ἔργα Jesus never associated others with Himself.

Nor, again, is it in the manner of Jn. to report a mere maxim of experience, such as “We must all work while it is day” would be. The force of δεῖ goes deeper, for the words of Jesus here (vv. 3, 4) express that Divine predestination of events which is so prominently brought out in Jn. (see Introd., p. clii, and on 2:4). The man ’s blindness had been foreordained in the Divine purpose ἵνα φανερωθῇ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ (v. 3); and in like manner there was a Divine necessity that Jesus should do the works of “Him that sent Him” (see on 4:34 for this phrase). The only reading that brings out the force of the passage and gives consistency to the sentence is the rec. reading ἐμὲ δεῖ ἐργάζεσθαι τὰ ἔργα τοῦ πέμψαντός με.

Some expositors find in these words an allusion to 5:17 ὁ πατήρ μου ἕως ἄρτι ἐργάζεται, κἀγὼ ἐργάζομαι (see note in loc.); this healing at Siloam, like the healing at Bethesda, having been wrought on a Sabbath (v. 14). But the allusion to 5:17 is doubtful.

ἕως ἡμέρα ἐστίν. The day is the time for labour, while the night is for rest (Psa 104:23); and the day is none too long for its appointed task. Jesus had already spoken of the shortness of His time (see on 7:33). The “night” was coming for Him in this sense only, that when His public ministry on earth was ended, the “works” which it exhibited would no longer be possible.

ἕως with the pres. indic. occurs in Jn. only here and at 21:22, 23 (but cf. 12:35), and is in these passages to be rendered “while” (cf. 13:38, where, followed by οὗ, it is “until”).

ἔρχεται νύξ κτλ.: cf. 11:9, 12:35.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I must work [εμε δει εργαζεσθαι] . 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.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.