And it is striking to discover that there’s a practical connection between the joints of the knees and the joint of the will.  The bending of knees to a sharp right angle affects the will.  It is easier to bend it.  It bends better and more.  And this grows.  The habitual bending of the knees helps make habitual and stronger and more intelligent the bending of the will.

This is the master-key to the Book of God.  It opens every lock and page.  It opens us to the Book, and opens the Book to us.  It frees out to us the wondrous Spirit who is in these pages.  And so through the opened Book there come to be the direct touch with the God of the Book.  We don’t come to the Book merely; we come through it to Him who comes through it to us.  This is the second key in this bunch.

Three Keys.

Now, I want to give you the three keys to John’s Gospel. There’s a back-door key, a side-door key, and a front-door key.  These keys hang outside the doors, low down, that so any one who wants to can easily reach up, and get them.  And if used faithfully and simply they will be found to unlock every page and line and difficult question.

The back-door key hangs right at the back door.  It is the very last verse of chapter twenty.  That really was the last chapter at first.  The thought of the book comes to a close there.  The story is complete.  Then the Holy Spirit led John to add a little, a second last-chapter, an added touch for good measure.  Love is never content.  It is always adding more.

Here is the key:  “these are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life through His name.”  This was John’s whole thought in telling the Jesus-story.  The practical gripped him wholly and hard.  This is the thing that guides his selection of incidents.  This purpose shapes the shape of the book.  It explains everything told, and just why it is told in just the way it is told.

John lets Jesus walk before our eyes fresh from His Father’s presence.  The mere fact of His presence, the winsomeness of His personality, the clearness of His teaching, the power of His actions, the uncompromising purity of His character amidst sin-stained crowds and sin-dirtied surroundings, the unflinching rigidity of His ideals, the persuasiveness of His very manner and tone of speech, the patience and gentleness, the rugged granite strength, the mother tenderness, above all the willingness to suffer so terribly,—­all this is a plea, a tremendous overpowering plea, all the stronger because presented so simply and briefly.  Jesus is a Lover and this is His wooing.

And John’s one thought in writing is the same as the one thought in the Lover’s heart.  John has become simply an echo of Jesus.  It is this, that you, whoever you are, wherever, whatever, that you may believe.  You look and listen, question, puzzle a bit maybe, but keep on listening and looking, thinking, weighing, till you are clear these things are just so as John tells them.  Yon accept them as trustworthy.  Then you accept Him, Jesus, as He comes to you, your wooing Lover, your Lover-God, your Saviour and Lord.