nd
that the actual adoption of this filial attitude, natural, rational, and
inviting as it seems, is just the most difficult of all difficulties, is
indeed the battle of life. Who among us can say that we do nothing of
ourselves, nothing at our own instance, that our life is entirely at
God's disposal?

To this filial disposition on the part of the Son the Father responds:
"The Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself
doeth" (ver. 20). If we ask how Jesus saw the Father's works, or how,
for example, He saw that the Father wished Him to heal the impotent man,
the answer must be that it is by inward sympathy the Son apprehends what
the Father wills. We in our measure can see what God is doing in the
world, and can forward God's work. But not by mere observation of what
God had done and was doing through others did Jesus see what the Father
did, but rather by His own inward perception of the Father's will. By
His own purity, love, and goodness He knew what the Father's goodness
willed. But the Father was not passive in the matter, merely allowing
the Son to discover what He could of His will. Godet illustrates this
active revelation on the Father's part by the simile of the father in
the carpenter's shop at Nazareth showing the son the things he made and
the method of making them. This simile, however, being external, is apt
to misdirect the mind. It was by a wholly inward and spiritual process
the Father made known to the Son His purposes and mind.

2. This quickening of the impotent man was meant to be an object lesson,
a sign of the power of Jesus to communicate life, Divine and eternal, to
whom He would. "Greater works" than this of curing the paralytic "will
the Father show to the Son, that ye may marvel" (ver. 20). As through
His word vigour had been imparted to the impotent man, so all who listen
to His word will receive everlasting life (ver. 24). As the impotent
man, after thirty-eight years of deadness, found life on the moment by
believing Christ's word, so every one who listens to that same voice as
the word of God receives life eternal. Through that word he connects
himself with the source of life. He becomes obedient to the life-giving
will of God.

The question, How can the spiritually dead hear and believe? is the
question. How could the impotent man rise in response to Christ's word?
Psychologically inexplicable it may be, but happily it is practically
possible. And here, as elsewh