John 9:25

John 9:25

I. The text points to the extreme importance of having, in religious matters, the witness to the truth of God within ourselves. There are three easily conceivable attitudes of mind which we can assume with respect to the faith of Christ. We may either accept Christianity by a sort of educational and traditional habit, because we were taught to believe it in our childhood, and because we have never, since then, seen any particular reason for maintaining a contrary opinion; or we may accept it, because we have subjected it, together with its antagonistic systems, to the process of a careful examination and scrutiny, and have found that it satisfies our intellectual requirements in a way which every other system has failed to do. Or yet again, we may accept it, partly perhaps for both of the above reasons, but more than all because, having brought our hearts and lives into contact with the truth which it proclaims, we have felt the power and realized the comfort which they are able to bestow. This last may be called the "experimental," the first two being respectively the "notional" and the "intellectual" modes of belief. Now it is perfectly clear that of the three modes of Christian belief, the last is the only one which will bear any amount of strain and stress that may happen to be put upon it.

II. If I am a Christian from custom and habit, my Christianity is liable to be endangered by many of the adverse influences which are sure to encounter it, as I pass on through life. It will provide me with no security in the hour of temptation. It will fortify me with no principle, and raise me to no height of moral elevation. And if I am a Christian simply from force of reasoning even then I shall be at the mercy of every antagonist who comes with greater power of intellect than I possess, and with greater display of reasoning, to assail my position. I hold my faith by a merely temporary tenure. We are not safely placed unless our religion is of a personal, experimental character. We may be beaten in argument by a cleverer man, or by one who is better trained in disputation than we are; but no power whatever can argue you out of facts.

G. Calthrop, Penny Pulpit,No. 1016.

References: John 9:25. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. ii., p. 145; W. M. Punshon, Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament,p. 85; H. P. Hughes, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxiv., p. 193.