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Title: An illustrated commentary on the Gospel according to St. John
Author: Lyman Abbott
Release date: March 6, 2025 [eBook #75543]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: A. S. Barnes & Company, 1879
Credits: Carol Brown, Richard Hulse and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ILLUSTRATED COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN ***
AN
ILLUSTRATED COMMENTARY
ON
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO
ST. JOHN.
FOR FAMILY USE AND REFERENCE, AND FOR THE GREAT BODY
OF CHRISTIAN WORKERS OF ALL DENOMINATIONS.
BY LYMAN ABBOTT, D.D.,
AUTHOR OF A SERIES OF COMMENTARIES ON THE NEW TESTAMENT.
A. S. BARNES & COMPANY,
NEW YORK, CHICAGO, AND NEW ORLEANS.
1879.
_BY THE EDITOR OF THIS WORK._
A POPULAR COMMENTARY
ON THE
NEW TESTAMENT;
WITH MAPS, ILLUSTRATIONS, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE NEW
TESTAMENT, A CONDENSED LIFE OF CHRIST AND A TABULAR HARMONY OF
THE GOSPELS, CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE AND GAZETTEER.
_IN TWO SIZES._
_FIRST SERIES. FOUR VOLUMES. LARGE 8vo._
Very sumptuously printed and bound, on toned paper with wide margin.
Volume I. MATTHEW AND MARK.
“ II. LUKE AND JOHN.
(THE REMAINING VOLUMES OF THIS SERIES IN PREPARATION.)
_SECOND SERIES. EIGHT VOLUMES. 8vo._
A handy edition for Christian workers.
Volume I. MATTHEW.
“ II. MARK AND LUKE.
“ III. JOHN.
“ IV. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
(THE REMAINING VOLUMES OF THIS SERIES IN PREPARATION.)
_For Sale by Subscription. Persons owning any volume of either Series
may obtain the other volumes by addressing the Publishers._
_Copyright, 1879, by A. S. Barnes & Co._
TO
JACOB ABBOTT,
WHOSE WRITINGS HAVE INTERPRETED THE GOSPEL TO
INNUMERABLE READERS;
WHOSE LIFE HAS EVEN MORE ILLUSTRIOUSLY MANIFESTED ITS SPIRIT
TO ALL WHO HAVE KNOWN HIM;
AND WHO, BOTH BY EXAMPLE AND PRECEPT, HAS TAUGHT
HIS CHILDREN TO VALUE THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST ABOVE ALL FORMS,
AND CHRIST HIMSELF ABOVE ALL CREEDS,
THIS EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL
IS AFFECTIONATELY AND REVERENTLY DEDICATED BY
HIS SON.
PREFACE
TO ALL THE VOLUMES OF THIS SERIES OF COMMENTARIES.
The object of this Commentary is to aid in their Christian work those
who are endeavoring to promote the knowledge of the principles which
Jesus Christ came to propound and establish--clergymen, Christian
parents, Sunday-School teachers, Bible-women, lay-preachers. Intended
for Christian workers, it aims to give the results rather than the
processes of scholarship, the conclusions rather than the controversies
of scholars; intended for laymen as well as for clergymen, it
accompanies the English version of the New Testament, in all references
to the original Greek gives the English equivalent, and translates all
quotations from the French, German, Latin and Greek authors.
The introduction to Volume I contains a statement of those principles
of interpretation which appear to me to be essential to the correct
understanding of the Word of God. This Commentary is the result of a
conscientious endeavor to apply those principles to the elucidation of
the New Testament.
It is founded on a careful examination of the latest and best
text; such variations as are of practical or doctrinal importance
are indicated in the notes. It is founded on the original Greek;
wherever that is inadequately rendered in our English version, a new
translation is afforded by the notes. The general purpose of the
writer or speaker, and the general scope of the incident or teaching,
is indicated in a Preliminary Note to the passage, or in an analysis,
a paraphrase, or a general summary at the close. Special topics are
treated in preliminary or supplementary notes. The results of recent
researches in Biblical archæology have been embodied, so as to make
the Commentary serve in part the purpose of a Bible Dictionary. A free
use is made of illustrations, from antiques, photographs, original
drawings, and other trustworthy sources. They are never employed for
mere ornament, but always to aid in depicting the life of Palestine,
which remains in many respects substantially unchanged by the lapse of
time. Since the Commentary is prepared, not for devotional reading,
but for practical workers, little space has been devoted to hortatory
remarks or practical or spiritual reflections. But I have uniformly
sought to interpret the letter by the spirit, and to suggest rather
than to supply moral and spiritual reflections, a paragraph of
hints is affixed to each section or topic, embodying what appears
to me to be the essential religious lessons of the incident or the
teaching; sometimes a note is appended elucidating them more fully. The
best thoughts of the best thinkers, both exegetical and homiletical,
are freely quoted, especially such as are not likely to be accessible
to most American readers; in all such cases the thought is credited to
the author. Parallel and contrasted passages of Scripture are brought
together in the notes; in addition, full Scripture references are
appended to the text. These are taken substantially from Bagster’s
large edition of the English version of the Polyglot Bible, but they
have been carefully examined and verified in preparing for the press,
and some modifications have been made. For the convenience of that
large class of Christian workers who are limited in their means, I have
endeavored to make this Commentary, as far as practicable, a complete
apparatus for the study of the New Testament. When finished it will be
fully furnished with maps;--there are four in this volume; a Gazetteer
gives a condensed account of all the principal places in Palestine,
mentioned in our Lord’s life; and an introduction traces the history
of the New Testament from the days of Christ to the present, giving
some account of the evidence and nature of inspiration, the growth of
the canon, the character and history of the manuscripts, the English
version, the nature of the Gospels and their relation to each other,
a brief life of Christ, and a complete tabular harmony of the four
Gospels.
The want of all who use the Bible in Christian work is the same. The
_wish_ is often for a demonstration that the Scripture sustains the
reader’s peculiar theological tenets, but the _want_ is always for
a clearer and better knowledge of Scripture teaching, whether it
sanctions or overturns previous opinions. I am not conscious that this
work is written in the interest of any theological or ecclesiastical
system. In those cases in which the best scholars are disagreed in
their interpretation, the different views and the reasons which lead
me to my own conclusions have been given, I trust, in no controversial
spirit. For the sole object of this work is to ascertain and make
clear the meaning of the Word of God, irrespective of systems, whether
ecclesiastical or doctrinal.
No work is more delightful than that which throws us into fellowship
with great minds; of all work the most delightful is that which brings
us into association with the mind of God. This is the fellowship to
which the student of the Bible aspires. I can have for those who use
this work no higher hope than that they may find in its employment some
of the happiness which I have found in its preparation, and that it
may serve them as it has served me, as a guide to the Word of God, and
through that Word to a better acquaintance with God himself.
CORNWALL-ON-HUDSON, _May_, 1875. LYMAN ABBOTT.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
THE GOSPEL OF JOHN.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 3
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES--
ON THE INTRODUCTION TO JOHN’S GOSPEL 13
THE INCARNATION 21
THE LAMB OF GOD 24
CHRIST’S EXAMPLE IN THE USE OF WINE 32
CHRIST AS A CONVERSATIONALIST 58
CHRIST’S DISCOURSE ON THE BREAD OF LIFE 83
THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY 105
THE PARABLE OF THE SHEEPFOLD 125
THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS 135, 145
THE ANOINTING OF JESUS 150
THE LORD’S SUPPER 162
CHRIST’S LAST DISCOURSE WITH HIS DISCIPLES 171
THE PARABLE OF THE VINE 185
CHRIST’S INTERCESSORY PRAYER 201
THE CHARACTER OF PONTIUS PILATE 221
THE CHARACTER OF JOHN’S GOSPEL 240
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Most of the engravings in this volume have been drawn and engraved
expressly for this work; some from original sketches by Mr. A. L.
Rawson, others from careful study from the best accessible authorities,
by Mr. R. F. Zogbaum.
PAGE
CANA OF GALILEE 29
AN ORIENTAL WEDDING 29
WATER-POTS AND EWERS 31
SUBSTRUCTURES OF THE TEMPLE 34
PLAN AND SECTION OF THE TEMPLE 36
THE EXPULSION OF THE TRADERS 36
EASTERN MONEY-CHANGER 37
A MODERN JEWISH RABBI 41
TRADITIONAL SITE OF ENON 48
JACOB’S WELL 52
JESUS AT THE WELL 54
SAMARITAN REMAINS IN GERIZIM 60
CHURCH OVER THE POOL OF BETHESDA 63
BETHSAIDA 77
TIBERIAS 85
BOOTH ON THE HOUSETOP 96
OFFICERS OF THE CHIEF PRIEST 104
THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 107
THE WOMAN AND HER ACCUSERS 108
AN EASTERN SHEEPFOLD 126
FELL AT HIS FEET 142
RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS 146
BETHANY 151
ANOINTING OF THE FEET 152
ANCIENT MONEY-BAG 153
WASHING OF FEET 163
DIPPING THE SOP 168
TORCHES 212
ANCIENT FIRE UTENSILS 214
DENIALS OF PETER 215
JESUS BEFORE PILATE 217
ROMAN JUDGMENT-SEAT 221
HE GIRT HIS FISHER’S COAT UNTO HIM 235
ANCIENT BREAD 236
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN.
INTRODUCTION.
From the beginning of the third century to near the close of the
seventeenth, the Fourth Gospel was by a common and substantially a
unanimous consent attributed to the Apostle John. This authorship was
then questioned, at first by an English critic by the name of Evanson.
The discussion was soon transferred to Germany, where it waxed warm,
and whence it was again transferred to England and this country.[1] It
may now be regarded as the most hotly contested question in biblical
criticism. The controversy has been intensified by prejudices and
feeling on both sides. It is indeed impossible to discuss it with cool
indifference, as a mere matter of curious literary interest. If this
Gospel was written by the Apostle John, we have the testimony of an
undoubted eye-witness--not his conclusions but his account of facts
in respect to which he could not well be deceived--certainly not,
unless we are prepared to believe that Jesus was himself a deliberate
deceiver; testimony of an eye-witness whose honesty not even the
most resolute skepticism would or could well call in question. This
testimony would establish beyond question such facts as the miraculous
feeding of the five thousand, the healing of the man born blind, the
resurrection of Lazarus, and the death and resurrection of Jesus
himself. In other words, it would establish beyond the possibility of
reasonable question, the truth of historical Christianity. Accordingly,
Renan, who to a certain extent accepts the authenticity of the Fourth
Gospel, is compelled to maintain that the pretended resurrection of
Lazarus was a pious fraud to which Jesus lent himself because it was
necessary to the success of his mission, and because his growing
religious enthusiasm justified to his conscience this means, for the
sake of the end to be accomplished by it. Moreover, we have in this
Gospel a report of words of Jesus, which leave to us no alternative
but to accept him as in a peculiar sense the Son of God, or to regard
him either as a religious impostor or a religious enthusiast. The
synoptics leave some opportunity for discussion as to the place which
Jesus assumed to fill. The Fourth Gospel does not. Thus the question
of the authorship of this Gospel is not merely a question in literary
criticism, but even more one respecting the nature of Christianity.
Accordingly we find, on the one hand, the advocates of its apostolic
authorship more or less resting their belief upon the inherent beauty
of the book, and the opponents more or less declaring the true ground
of their opposition to it, viz., that it presents what they call a
mythological view of Jesus, and a dogmatic view of his teachings; in
other words, that it presents Jesus distinctively as the incarnate
Son of God, and represents the central truth in his teaching to have
been the necessity of faith in him. Both these aspects of truth
are indeed presented in the other Gospels, but not with the same
clearness, nor with the same prominence, as in the Fourth Gospel.
Hence the latter is assailed with peculiar vigor by the opponents of
evangelical Christianity, and is, for the same reason, maintained with
equal vigor by evangelical believers. It does not come within the
province of this work to enter into the details of this controversy.
To give the arguments, pro and con, would require a treatise, and for
a consideration of them the reader is of necessity referred to the
various works which have been written on this subject. The student
will find the most vigorous assault on the authenticity of the Fourth
Gospel in the second volume of “Supernatural Religion,” which, however,
must be read with considerable allowance for a scholarship evidently
warped by determined prejudices, and which is certainly one-sided, if
not absolutely false in many particulars. Among the many defences of
the authenticity of the Gospel, I have found nothing more comprehensive
or satisfactory than that contained in the first volume of Godet’s
Commentary on John. With this, however, may be advantageously compared
Luthardt’s “St. John, the Author of the Fourth Gospel,” Prof. Fisher’s
“Supernatural Origin of Christianity,” and the introductions to the
commentaries, especially those of Luthardt, Lange, Alford, Meyer and
Tholuck. Here I propose merely to set before the reader briefly a
compact statement of the more important facts in the case, confining
myself mainly to those that are undisputed--facts which led the world
for fifteen centuries to attribute the Fourth Gospel to John without
a doubt, and which on a more careful examination have led the great
majority of scholars to adhere to that conclusion.
=The Apostle John.= The Apostle John was probably a native, certainly a
resident, of Galilee. His mother, Salome,[2] early became a follower of
Jesus. She was probably one of the women of Galilee who accompanied him
on his missionary tours, and ministered to him of their substance.[3]
She was with him on his last journey to Jerusalem, and during the
passion week, and was one of those women who were last at the cross
and first at the sepulchre.[4] Like the other followers of Jesus, she
anticipated the establishment of a temporal kingdom, was ambitious for
her sons James and John, and made an application for special favors
for them when the kingdom should be established. From a comparison of
Matt. 27:56 with John 19:25, it would appear that she was own sister
to the Virgin Mary, in which case John was own cousin to Jesus. This
opinion is not accepted by all critics, but I believe it to be the
correct one. See note on John 19:25. John’s father, Zebedee, was a
well-to-do fisherman on the shores of the sea of Galilee. Of him we
know very little. He was sufficiently prosperous to own several boats
and to hire men to work for him. Tradition makes him of noble birth;
and this tradition is perhaps confirmed by the fact that John had some
acquaintance with the high-priest.
John has been characterized by those critics who wish to make out that
his character is inconsistent with the idea of his authorship of the
Fourth Gospel, as ignorant and unlettered, on the authority of Acts
4:13, and as a vehement and bigoted Jew on the authority of Galatians,
chap. II, and of the peculiar Hebraic tone of the Book of Revelation.
Both characterizations are quite gratuitous assumptions. In connection
with every Jewish synagogue was a parochial school, in which the
pupils were taught reading, writing, and the rudiments of such natural
sciences as were then in existence. The Jewish children of the common
people were far better educated than those of Greece or Rome. There is
every reason to believe that John received this common education of the
age and community in which he lived, and there is absolutely no reason
whatever to suppose the contrary. It was only by the Pharisees that
John was considered as ignorant and unlettered, and they affixed the
same stigma upon Jesus himself.[5] To the Pharisees the only learning
worth the name was learning in the traditional lore of the church. Of
this the Galilean fisherman was ignorant. In the eyes of a Pharisee
of Jerusalem, Plato himself would have been ignorant and unlearned.
As little reason is there to believe that John was a vehement and
bigoted Jew. There is not the slightest evidence that John was among
the Judaizing Christians to whom Paul so frequently refers, and whom
throughout his life he combated. With one exception, Judas Iscariot,
all the twelve were taken from Galilee. This province of Palestine
was innocent of that formalism and narrowness which characterized the
southern province of Judea. The people had lived in amicable relations
with their heathen neighbors, and had intermarried with them ever
since the days of the treaty of amity between Solomon and the King of
Tyre.[6] The line of commerce between Damascus and the Mediterranean
lay directly across this province. Mineral springs of real or fancied
value near the southern coast of the Sea of Gennesaret made it the
summer resort of the wealthy Romans of the entire land. Thus history
and location, commerce and social relations, combined to make the
inhabitants of Galilee indifferent to the rigid formalism of the
Judeans, and comparatively free from their narrow race and religious
prejudices. Indeed, the two assertions that John was ignorant and
unlearned, and at the same time a narrow and bigoted Jew, contradict
each other. Jewish bigotry and reverence for the traditional lore of
the Jewish church always went together.
The important facts in the history of John, so far as known, are few
and soon told. John the Baptist was second cousin of Jesus, and John
the Apostle was probably, as we have seen, his own cousin. The two
Johns were, therefore, probably acquainted. At all events, when the
Baptist began preaching the gospel of repentance for the remission of
sins, the Apostle was among his disciples; and when the Baptist pointed
out Jesus as the one whom God had indicated to him as the promised
Messiah, John was among the first to leave the old teacher to follow
the new one. This was, however, a temporary following only. We next
meet him fishing with his father at the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus
finds him and his brother, and calls them to become permanent followers
of him. This summons, without hesitation or delay, they obey. From this
time onward John is the constant companion of Jesus. With Peter and
James he belongs to an inner circle of friends: the three are selected
to be the sole witnesses of the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter;
they alone go up into the Mount of Transfiguration, and witness his
glory there; they alone accompany him to the Garden of Gethsemane, and
are invited to be the sharers of his sorrow there; when the arrest
takes place, and all the disciples forsake their Master and flee, John
and Peter turn back and follow him to the scene of his trial, and the
former, with a courage for which few critics give him credit, goes
without concealment, as a disciple, openly, into the house of Caiaphas,
follows the Master to the trial before Pilate, and when the sentence
of crucifixion is pronounced, accompanies the procession to the place
of execution, to remain by the cross till all is over. When the news
of the resurrection is brought to the disciples, he and Peter are the
first to reach the sepulchre. In the subsequent history of the Church,
as recorded in the book of Acts, he does not take a prominent part. To
him was committed the care of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and probably
this sacred charge prevented him from quitting Palestine while she
lived.[7]
For the subsequent history of John we are dependent on tradition. This
is, however, in his case, less uncertain than in many other cases. As
Christianity spread over the heathen world, Jerusalem ceased to be the
centre of Christian operations; but, while the Roman Empire continued
pagan and persecuting, Rome could not take the place of Jerusalem,
as subsequently it did. Hence, for the first century, Asia Minor was
the great field of missionary work, and Ephesus, which was the scene
of Paul’s greatest triumphs and most successful labors,[8] became
the centre of the Christian church. Here John became settled in his
later life. From this point he seems to have exercised an apostolic
supervision over the churches of all Asia Minor. The few traditional
stories of his old age accord with what the Gospels indicate of his
character. When he could no longer preach, it is said that he was
accustomed to be carried into the church, and to repeat from the pulpit
as the sum and substance of Christian doctrine, “Little children, love
one another!” He was banished to the island of Patmos, where, according
to the book of Revelation, he witnessed the vision therein recorded. He
subsequently returned to Ephesus, where it is probable he died at an
extremely advanced age--not much, if any, less than a hundred years old.
=The character of John= has been strangely misconceived. He is with
reason identified with the unnamed “disciple whom Jesus loved,” and
who at the Last Supper rested his head on Jesus’ bosom; the Epistles
attributed to him breathe a spirit of love; the Gospel attributed to
him is of all the Gospels the most spiritual in its tone. From these
premises, the character of John has been constructed; it has been
supposed that he was by nature peculiarly tender, gentle, loving,
and spiritually-minded; that his was a woman’s character. He is so
portrayed in art, and to some extent in literature; and the special
friendship which Christ has been supposed to have entertained for him
is attributed to a character by nature peculiarly loveable.
There are, however, other considerations which any such view totally
ignores. James and John were by Jesus called Boanerges, “the sons of
thunder;” it was John who prohibited a strange disciple from casting
out devils in Jesus’ name, because he followed not the Twelve; it was
John who desired to call down fire from Heaven upon the Samaritan
village which refused to entertain his Master; it was James and John
who, with their mother, applied secretly to Jesus for the highest
offices for themselves in his anticipated kingdom; it was John who
followed Jesus into the courtyard of the high-priest, when all the
other disciples forsook him and fled; John who stood with the Galilean
women near the cross at the time of the crucifixion; John who with
Peter defied the edict of the Sanhedrim after the death of Jesus,
prohibiting them from teaching or speaking in his name.[9] These
are not the acts of one whose nature was characteristically timid,
gentle, or spiritually-minded. By nature John was ardent, courageous,
impetuous, and not more broad-minded or spiritually-minded than his
co-disciples. Indications of these traits are not wanting, as we shall
presently see, in the Gospel and the Epistles which bear his name.
But he was of all the Twelve the most receptive. When Christ foretold
his passion, Peter remonstrated with him. When Jesus spoke of the
heavenly mansions and of his departure to prepare a place therein for
his disciples, Thomas expressed his doubt and his perplexity by the
question, “We know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the
way?” When Jesus pointed to himself as the manifestation of the Father,
Philip, dissatisfied, asked for a direct revelation of the Father. When
Jesus promised to his disciples a spiritual manifestation of himself,
Judas (not Iscariot), after the manner of modern theology, desired to
have that manifestation explained to him before he could accept the
truth. When Jesus rebuked Judas Iscariot for complaining of Mary’s
act in anointing her Lord, Judas was angered.[10] But we look in vain
in the Gospels for any instance in which John expressed any rebuke of
Christ, or any opposition to him, or any doubt of his teaching, or
demanded any other evidence of its truth than the simple word of his
Lord. Of all the disciples the most receptive, he was the one whose
character underwent the greatest and most radical change. The John that
we know is the John transformed by the renewing influence of the spirit
of Christ; he is the John that is a new creature in Christ Jesus.
He was, I believe, the beloved disciple, because he was the one in
whom the love of Christ had the freest course and wrought the fullest
and the largest results. This simple fact must be borne in mind in
considering the question of the internal evidences for and against the
Johannine authorship of the Gospel.
=The external evidence.= Those who expect to find a demonstration
of the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel in the external
evidences, will be disappointed. The literature of the first three
centuries does not afford a demonstration of authorship of any ancient
book. But the authorship of John’s Gospel I believe to be as well
established, on a fair consideration of all the evidence, external and
internal, as that of any work of the same era.
It is not questioned by any one that at the beginning of the third
century the Fourth Gospel was in general use in the churches, and
universally recognized as written by the Apostle John. Eusebius,
Origen, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, are among those who bear
testimony to this fact. The Fourth Gospel is recognized as John’s
composition in the canon of Muratori, A. D. 175; and by Irenæus, who
died about 202, and who was a pupil of Polycarp, himself a pupil of
John. References to sayings of Jesus reported only by John are also
found in the writings of Tatian, A. D. 170, Justin Martyr, A. D.
120-160, and the various Gnostic writers of the second century. These
references do not conclusively prove the Johannine authorship of the
Fourth Gospel, for these earliest writers are not accustomed to give
the names of authors from whom they quote; but they do conclusively
prove that as early as the first part of the second century, sayings of
Christ, found only in the Fourth Gospel, were attributed by the Church
to Jesus. The best report of these quotations which I have seen is to
be found in the second volume of “Supernatural Religion,” and they
are there the more effective because the author in vain endeavors to
break their force, by what most readers will consider an ingenious but
ineffective special pleading. Let the reader compare these quotations
with the parallel passages in the Fourth Gospel; he will not doubt that
the later writers borrowed from the earlier one. The only alternative
is the irrational hypothesis that both borrowed from the same source
and one generally recognized in the primitive Church; in other words,
that there was a Gospel containing the same matter that is now found
in the Fourth Gospel, but that it has so entirely disappeared that no
tradition even of its existence has survived, and that in its place a
forgery has been palmed off upon the Church so successfully, that in
the beginning of the third century it was universally accepted as the
original work of the Apostle whose name it has ever since borne.
Space does not allow me to give in detail these quotations, which are
numerous; it would be still more out of the province of this
introduction to enter into the arguments by which the rationalistic
writers endeavor to reconcile these quotations with their hypotheses.
I can but briefly indicate a few of them, referring the student to the
larger works for the examination in detail of the parallelism between
these early ecclesiastical writers and the Fourth Gospel. Justin
Martyr thus refers to the testimony of John the Baptist: “I am not the
Christ ... for he cometh who is stronger than I, whose shoes I am not
meet to bear” (comp. John 1:19-27). He cites Christ as saying, “Unless
ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven,” and
adds the comment, “Now that it is impossible for those who have been
born to go into the matrices of the mother is evident to all” (comp.
John 3:3-5). Tatian refers to the sayings, “The darkness comprehends
not the light” (comp. John 1:5), and “All things were by him, and
without him was not anything made” (comp. John 1:5, 3). Hegessippus
(A. D. 125) refers to “that which is spoken in the Gospels, ‘That was
the true light which lighteth every man who cometh into the world’”
(comp. John 1:9). In the writings of the Naaseni and Peratæ, Gnostic
sects of the beginning of the second century, we have several
unmistakable references to sayings that are peculiar to the Fourth
Gospel. “I am the door,” (comp. John 10:7); “As Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son be lifted up,” (comp.
John 3:14); “If thou hadst known who it is that asketh thee, thou
wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water,
springing up,” (comp. John 4:10); “The Saviour hath said, ‘That which
is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit,’” (comp. John 3:6); “Except ye eat my flesh and drink my
blood, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven,” (comp. John 6:53).
These are by no means all the citations from the writers of the first
two centuries which appear to have been taken from the Fourth Gospel,
but they will suffice to give the reader an idea of the nature of the
evidence which is regarded by most Christian writers, and by some
rationalistic critics--Matthew Arnold, for example--as establishing
the fact that the Fourth Gospel was in existence and recognized as an
authority in the Church in the beginning of the second century. If
this is the fact, it is reasonably certain that it was the work of the
Apostle John, since if it had been written by any one else as early as
that date, that is, during the lifetime of some of the contemporaries
of John, the forgery would certainly have been detected.
=The internal evidence.= The facts indicated above are not questioned
by any critic. But though from the beginning of the third century
to the close of the eighteenth, the Fourth Gospel was unanimously
attributed to the Apostle John, it is maintained by those critics who
deny the Johannine authorship that a fair consideration of the external
evidence now extant, leaves it uncertain whether the unanimous opinion
of the Church in the first century was correct, and that the internal
evidence, _i. e._, the character of the Gospel itself, when contrasted
(1) with the other Gospels, (2) with the known character of John, (3)
with the other writings attributed to him, makes it certain that he was
not the author.
Unquestionably the Fourth Gospel presents very different matter and a
very different aspect of Christ’s life and character from that
presented by the other three Gospels. The three Gospels give an
impression almost exclusively Galilean; the Fourth Gospel narrates
almost exclusively a ministry in Judea; the three Gospels indicate one
which might have been completed in a single year; the fourth indicates
three years as the duration of Christ’s ministry; the three Gospels
report chiefly Christ’s ethical discourses; the fourth reports chiefly
his doctrinal discourses; love to men’s neighbor is the predominate
theme in the three Gospels; faith in a divine Saviour is the
predominate theme in the fourth; the three Gospels portray the work of
Jesus Christ; the fourth portrays his person and character; the three
Gospels repeat the same incidents and instructions in slightly
different language; the fourth repeats scarcely anything found in the
other three; and when, as in its account of the feeding of the five
thousand, it does repeat, the manifest object of the repetition is to
introduce a report of a discourse of Jesus omitted in the other
narratives.
It is also true that there is a marked difference between the style of
John’s Gospel and the Book of Revelations. This difference is so
considerable that it is vigorously maintained that the same author
could not have written both books. “The difference,” says Lucke,
“between the language, way of expression and mode of thought and
doctrine of the Apocalypse and the rest of the Johannine writings is
so comprehensive and intense, so individual and even so radical; the
affinity and agreement on the contrary either so general, or in detail
so fragmentary and uncertain, that the Apostle John, if he really is
the author of the Gospel and of the Epistles--which we here
advance--cannot have composed the Apocalypse either before or after
the Gospel and the Epistles.” This difference is of two kinds, a
difference both of style and of spirit. The language of the Apocalypse
is comparatively harsh and Hebraic, that of the Gospel a comparatively
fine and flowing Greek. The author of the Apocalypse, it is claimed,
is an intense Jew, whose imagery is borrowed from the Hebrew
Scriptures, and whose object is the exaltation of the Jewish people;
who narrates the outpoured punishment of God on the enemies of God’s
chosen people, and whose celestial capital of the kingdom without end
is the new Jerusalem. The author of the Fourth Gospel, it is claimed,
could not have been a Jew or of Jewish extraction; he makes no attempt
to conceal his enmity of the Jews; he stigmatizes them as the enemies
of Christ, and as the children of the devil;[11] and he writes of them
and of their customs as no Jew would or could have written of the
customs of his own people.[12]
It is not my purpose here to enter upon a discussion of these
objections. It must suffice to say that they are founded on a false
conception of the character of John and a false assumption that what
John was when he first met Jesus by the banks of the Jordan, that he
was after a life-time spent as a disciple, learning of him and
undergoing that transformation of character which has been the
peculiar and glorious fruitage of Christ’s husbandry. Instead of
entering into such a discussion, I shall ask the reader to consider
briefly what are some of the more notable characteristics of the
Fourth Gospel, and what would be the conclusion as to its authorship
from an independent and original examination of its pages.
Imagine then that we have just discovered this ancient manuscript,
a manuscript which unquestionably dates from the beginning of the
third century, probably from a still earlier period, and which we
have abundant evidence was then unanimously attributed to the Apostle
John. We enter upon its examination that we may form for ourselves a
judgment who its real author probably was. In this examination there
are three characteristics which force themselves upon our attention
as predominant: (1) the claims which it presents; (2) its literary
character; (3) the indications which it affords as to the personality
of its author.
=1. Its claims.= It assumes to be written by an eye-witness. In his
introduction the writer says distinctly of the subject of his
biography: “We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of
the Father.” In the Epistle attributed to him, he reiterates this
statement even more explicitly. “That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have
looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life ... that
which we have seen and heard declare we unto you.” In his account of
the crucifixion he emphasizes the fact that he is an eye-witness of
the events described. “He that saw it bare record and the record is
true; and he knoweth that he saith true that ye might believe.” And
yet again in the closing chapter, generally regarded as written
subsequent to the rest of the volume, and as supplementary to it, the
writer is identified with the unnamed beloved disciple. “This is the
disciple who testified of these things and wrote these things, and we
know that his testimony is true.”[13]
In reading the book we constantly come upon indications that the work
is by an eye-witness or by one who writes in order to give that
impression. No one of the Evangelist’s narratives more abounds with
graphic touches, slight but significant, such as indicate the vivid
remembrance of one who was not only an eye and ear witness, but also
one who treasures up in a remarkably retentive memory incidents which
mere tradition would not have preserved. John the Baptist “looks upon
Jesus,” and points him out to his disciples, by his peculiar gaze;
Jesus “turns” and sees them follow; wearied with the journey he sits
“thus on the well;” there is “much grass” where he feeds the five
thousand; when Mary anointed Jesus the “house was filled with the odor
of the ointment;” when Judas went out to complete the betrayal “it was
night;” the night “was cold,” and Peter stands with the servant of the
high-priest warming himself at a fire of coals in the court-yard.[14]
These may serve as illustrations. Examples the reader will find in
great abundance, and references to them in the notes. Of all the
Gospels, the Fourth Gospel is the one which reports most fully the
private conferences between Jesus and the Twelve, and the only one
which reports his “asides” and his personal feelings in explanation of
his public acts.[15] These features in the narrative do not prove that
it was written by an eye-witness, but they indicate that it was
written either by an eye-witness, or by one who desired to produce
that impression; either by one of the Twelve or by a deliberate and
skilful forger.
=2. Its literary character.= The differences between this Gospel and
the other three which I have already very briefly described, are
very considerable. They have led different minds to very different
conclusions respecting the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. It is,
however, safe to say that they are just such as might be expected if
the Fourth Gospel was written after the other three, and by some one
familiar with them, or at least with the traditions embodied in them.
This Gospel presents precisely the aspect which would be presented by
a book written for the purpose of supplementing the accounts already
possessed by the primitive churches, and of portraying an aspect of
character not adequately portrayed by the earlier writers. It presents,
too, exactly that aspect which would be presented by a narrative
written after the rapid growth of the Church, and its prophetic
incursions into heathenism had given the writer a better conception
than his co-disciples possessed of the spiritual character of the new
religion. Matthew, Mark, and Luke might perhaps have believed that
the privileges of Christianity were to be confined to Jews and Jewish
proselytes. Though many of Christ’s words which they report indicate
a broader scope, it is by no means clear that they comprehended them.
But no one can doubt that the author of John’s Gospel, when he wrote,
believed that the atonement of Jesus Christ was for all humanity, his
religion for all classes, races, and conditions of mankind. It is the
Fourth Gospel which tells us that He was the true Light which lighteth
_every man_ which cometh into the world, that God so loved the _world_
that he gave his only beloved Son that whosoever believeth in him
should have everlasting life, and that _whosoever_ comes to him he will
in no wise cast out; it is the Fourth Gospel which reports Christ’s
interview with the woman of Samaria and his subsequent preaching to the
Samaritans, which brings out more clearly than either of the others
the grounds of Christ’s practical abrogation of the Pharisaic law of
the Sabbath, which dwells more than any other Gospel on the spiritual
aspects of his kingdom and the divine nature of the king.[16] All this
we might expect from one writing after more than half a century of
Catholic Christianity had interpreted the nature, mission, and words of
Christ to his church.
Let us add that a forger would not have suffered his narrative to stand
in such a marked contrast with the previous and recognized narratives
already in the possession of the churches. He would have commingled the
ethical with the doctrinal, the human with the divine. He would have
repeated in a modified form some of the incidents and teachings already
reported by the other Evangelists, that he might thus give a color of
authenticity to his narrative. The very contrast between the Fourth
Gospel and the other three, on which skeptic writers rely to prove
its untrustworthiness, is an indication that it cannot be the work of
fraud. If that aspect of Christ’s character and teachings reported by
John’s Gospel was not recognized by the primitive church as true, or if
the author was not himself known in the age in which the narrative was
produced, and so known that his simple name was a sufficient guarantee
of the accuracy of his narrative, an account so dissimilar from those
already in the possession of the churches would have received little
credit and no general, certainly no universal, acceptance.
=3. Indications of authorship.= A further examination of this Gospel
gives a definite impression respecting the character of the author.
He is evidently thoroughly familiar with Jewish manners and customs.
He knows whereof he writes. He has lived in the country and mingled
with the people. His knowledge is not that of a student of books, nor
that of a mere casual traveler. But he writes for those who are not
familiar with Palestine or its social life. He inserts parenthetical
explications of Jewish customs. He explains to his Gentile readers the
use of the firkins of water at the wedding-feast “for purifying after
the manner of the Jews;” the wrapping of the body of Jesus, as the
manner of the “Jews is to bury;” the refusal of the Pharisees to enter
Pilate’s hall “lest they should be defiled.” The feast of Tabernacles
is the Jews’ feast of Tabernacles, the Passover is the Jews’ Passover,
and the Preparation for it is the Preparation of the Jews.[17] These
references are so incidental as to indicate a writer thoroughly
familiar with Jewish life; yet they are so marked as to indicate
equally clearly a writer whose readers were not Jews but Gentiles.
The indications are not less clear that the writer, whoever he may
have been, was not himself a sharer in Jewish prejudices. Jew he may
have been; an intolerant Jew he certainly was not. He is familiar with
the Pharisees and with the Pharisaic law, but he has no sympathy with
the one and no admiration for the other. We can hardly be mistaken in
thinking that his native prejudices are adverse rather than favorable
to the inhabitants of Judea. More than any of the other Evangelists
his language respecting them indicates his aversion to them. He is the
Evangelist who reports the mobs in Jerusalem against Jesus, and the
secret counsels for his assassination, and the deliberate judgment of
Caiaphas that it is better for the rulers to kill the Galilean Rabbi
than to hazard their own offices, and the persistent persecution of
Jesus; he it is who with delicate sarcasm stigmatizes Caiaphas as
high-priest for “that same year;” the very language which he employs in
describing the religious festivals of Judea as “feasts of the Jews,”
indicates an author not in sympathy with the religious formalism
of Judea; the very phraseology with which he characterizes the
reluctance of the Jews to enter into Pilate’s judgment-hall, indicates
a writer having little sympathy for the formalism which was never a
characteristic of the Galilean Jews, and always was a characteristic of
the more intense and bigoted Jews of the Syrian province of Judea.[18]
Nor can we be mistaken in surmising that the author was, by nature and
temperament, ardent, impulsive, vehement. The intensity of his nature
has been tamed by age, experience or grace, or the three combined;
but the indications of his native character crop out in occasional
utterances. The records of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are absolutely
colorless. They are without epithets. Their simple and artless
narrative is left to produce its own impression. This is less true of
the Fourth Gospel than of the other three. The intense indignation
which the writer feels against Judas Iscariot, he is at no pains to
conceal. He it is who reports Jesus as declaring early in his ministry,
One of you is a devil; he it is who characterizes Judas Iscariot
as a thief; he who twice declares that Satan entered into Judas
Iscariot.[19] These are the most notable exhibitions of his feelings;
but one can hardly read through the entire narrative without realizing
in its tone and spirit the evidence that the author was a man of
intense and passionate earnestness, kept under marvelous self-restraint.
Finally, it is clear that the author is a man of some native capacity
for culture and of large education. He is familiar with the Greek
language and with the Greco-Oriental philosophy. He writes with a pure
and flowing style. His introduction could have been penned only by
one who had become habituated to those forms of philosophic thought
which some cities of Greece, and notably Ephesus, had imported from
Alexandria and the further East. It could only have been written for
readers who were familiar with that philosophy and could best be
approached by employing its phraseology.
We find then in the direct claims and the incidental allusions of the
Fourth Gospel indications that it was written by an eye and ear
witness, who was with Jesus from the commencement to the close of his
ministry; in the broad differences between the Fourth Gospel and the
other three gospels, indications that it was written after the others
and by one who was familiar with them or with the traditions embodied
in them, and who wrote to supplement their accounts; in the general
catholic and spiritual atmosphere of the book, indications that it was
written after history had begun to interpret the words and work of
Christ, and to make clearer his transcendent and incomparable
character; and in the style and phraseology of the book, indications
that it was written by one who was familiar with Jewish customs but
not sharing Jewish prejudices, who possessed an ardent nature which
had been brought under the power of a strong self-control, and who to
a native capacity for culture added that familiarity with Greek
literature and philosophy which only long residence in a thoroughly
Greek society could impart.
Now, so far as our limited knowledge enables us to judge, John’s life
and character remarkably correspond with these indications of the
Gospel which was so long unanimously attributed to his pen. His
parents were well-to-do Galileans, and he probably received a fair
education in his childhood; his early education as a Galilean would
have given him familiarity with Jewish customs, and yet would
prejudice him against rather than in favor of the inhabitants of
Judea; his later and prolonged residence in Ephesus, of all Greek
cities the most Oriental, would have made him familiar with the best
Greek culture, and with the mystic philosophy of the Greco-Oriental
school; that he possessed a vehement nature is evident from his
original title of Son of Thunder; his receptive disposition and his
intense love for Jesus might have been expected to tame that nature,
without eradicating from his writings all indications of its
existence; of all the disciples the most courageous and the most
sympathetically intimate with the subject of his biography, he was of
them all the one to adhere to Jesus in his dangerous ministry in
Jerusalem, and the one therefore to record what all the others have
omitted; he was also the one to interpret Christ’s actions by his own
suggestion of Christ’s unuttered thoughts; writing after the other
Gospels had been written and were already being widely circulated, his
omission of events and teachings which they had recorded is not only
explicable, but natural and to be anticipated; finally, writing after
the destruction of Jerusalem, after the dispersion of the Jews had
begun, after the descent of the Holy Spirit had interpreted the
mystical promises of another Comforter, after churches had been
organized as far west as Rome in which Gentile and Jew met on equal
terms, after, in a word, the history of the church had interpreted the
prophecies and instructions of its Lord, it would have been strange
indeed if he had not given a deeper, truer, and more catholic
exposition of Christ’s Gospel than could have been written during the
first half-century in Palestine, by those whose comprehension of
Christ’s, teaching had not been broadened by residence in a foreign
land and an observation of Christ’s redeeming work in a pagan
community.
=Other hypotheses.= The conclusion to which a consideration of the
external and internal evidence brings the candid student is confirmed
by a consideration of the alternative hypotheses presented to him.
These are many in form; for it is a significant fact that while those
who believe in the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel are entirely
agreed in respect to its authorship, and the time and place of its
composition, those who disbelieve in its authenticity are not agreed
among themselves respecting either. But in general their various
opinions may be reduced to two classes.
The first is that the Fourth Gospel is the work of a Gentile Christian
writing in the third century. Confessedly this Gospel purports to be
written by an eye and ear witness. Confessedly it was unanimously
attributed to the Apostle John in the third century. Confessedly it is
without a peer in literature, ancient or modern, sacred or secular,
Christian or pagan, in the purity of its doctrine, the moral elevation
of its style, and the spirituality of its atmosphere. This hypothesis
asks us to believe that it is the work of a deliberate ecclesiastical
forger, with so little conscience that he neither hesitated to assume
the pen of an Apostle nor to attribute to Jesus fictitious discourses
and imaginary miracles, yet with so much conscience that he would not
put an Apostle’s name to his composition, but left its authorship to
be inferred by a self-deluded public; written too by a forger who was
so skillful that he deceived the whole contemporaneous church, all
sects and sections, Jewish and Gentile, Greek, Roman, and African,
orthodox and heretic, and yet who was such a bungler that the gross
discrepancies of his account, contrasted with that of the other three
evangelists, make his fraud palpable to the ecclesiastical and literary
critics of the nineteenth century. This hypothesis demands so great
an exercise of credulity that sober critics of even the rationalistic
school are generally abandoning it, or have already done so. This
opinion may be already characterized as a thing of the past.
The other hypothesis is more plausible and captivating. This is that
the Fourth Gospel was written by an amanuensis or a disciple of the
Apostle John, that its essential facts were derived from him, that it
was written in his old age, that his recollection was already growing
dim and his reports of the words of Jesus are unconsciously modified
by his philosophy and experience, and that these reports are still
further modified by the free pen of the amanuensis or the disciple who
perfected the written record; and it is urged that this hypothesis
explains both verbal peculiarities and the title given to it from
early ages, viz., not the Gospel of John, but the Gospel according to
John.[20]
In support of this opinion there is quoted an ancient legend found in
the canon of Muratori (A. D. 175), which runs as follows: “The fourth
of the Gospels is by the disciple John. He was being pressed by his
disciples and (fellow) bishops, and he said, ‘Fast with me this day,
and for three days; and whatsoever shall have been revealed to each one
of us, let us relate it to the rest.’ In the same night it was revealed
to the Apostle Andrew that John should write the whole in his name,
and that all the rest should revise it.” It must suffice to say of
this opinion that in its most pronounced form it is wholly unsustained
by evidence. It is ingenious, but not substantial. Doubtless the
reports of Christ’s disciples are not verbatim. Doubtless we have
in many instances the sentiments of Christ embodied in the words of
John. Possibly some glosses and explanations added originally by an
amanuensis or scribe may have become incorporated in the narrative.[21]
But that the book is in no sense a composite production, that it is the
work of one not of many minds, that we have essentially the portrayal
of the life and character of Jesus by a single author, is evident on
even a casual perusal, and still more on a careful analysis of the work.
=Discourses of Jesus.= The Gospel of John abounds with reports of the
discourses of Jesus; it is more a report of his discourses (λόγια) than
of his works (ἔργα); the miracles reported are generally only a text
for a discourse which follows. The student, passing from the Sermon on
the Mount in Matthew, or the parables in Perea, in Luke, to the sermon
on the Bread of life at Capernaum (John, ch. 6), or on the Good
Shepherd, at Jerusalem (John, ch. 10), feels the difference between
them, a difference chiefly in the phraseology employed, sometimes in
the phases of truth taught, but never amounting to a contradiction in
the essential teaching. The same doctrine respecting the authority of
Christ is conveyed by Matt. 11:27, and John 5:19-30; the same truth as
to the nature and necessity of a new and divine life in the soul is
expressed in Mark 4:26-29, and in John 6:50-58; similar parallels in
essential truth may be found in the synoptics to all that is taught in
the Fourth Gospel; but the form of expression is strikingly different.
Thus, in the study of the Fourth Gospel, the question is constantly
pressed upon the student, how far the reports of Christ’s addresses by
John are to be regarded as reported in the words of Christ.
In answer to this we have, on the one hand, Christ’s promise reported
by John: “The Comforter ... shall bring all things to your remembrance
whatsoever I have said unto you” (ch. 14:26); on the other, we have
reason to believe that the reports are not verbatim. (_a_) This would
require a supernatural exercise of memory nowhere claimed by the
Evangelists, and therefore not to be claimed by the church for them.
(_b_) In some instances, _e. g._, the case of the conversation with
Nicodemus and the woman at the well, it is certain that John could not
have been present, and must have derived his information either from
Jesus or from the other party to the conference. (_c_) The language in
which the discourse is reported is analogous not only in words, but
also in the forms of expression to that of the narrator; the likeness
is so marked that in several instances the critics are not fully
agreed how much is to be regarded as the discourse of Jesus, and how
much as the accompanying comment of John. (_d_) The thought is
sometimes, and the language is often, obscure. And though this
obscurity is increased by mistranslations, and by the division into
verses, which hides from the reader the true unity of the discourse,
nevertheless it exists in the Greek original. Such obscurity does not
exist in the reports of Christ’s discourses in the other Gospels.
(_e_) The largest public discourse as reported would not have required
over eight minutes in delivery. I believe then that in the Fourth
Gospel we have the substantial thoughts of Christ, reproduced
generally in the words and with the phraseology of John, whose mind,
under the divine inspiration, preserves the essential truth
unimpaired, but represents it, not as a mechanical repeater of words,
but as a disciple who freely reproduces the ideas of his Master, but
largely in language of his own.
=Object and character.= We are not left to surmise the object of the
author of the Fourth Gospel. He himself tells us what it was: “These
are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God, and that, believing, ye might have life through his name.”[22]
According to John’s Gospel, true religion consists not in obedience
to an external law, but in a new life in the soul, by which it is
transformed, and the soul, its habits and character, are brought
into conformity with the law of God, that is, the law of love. This
new and divine life is implanted supernaturally from above; it is fed
perpetually by the influence of the divine Spirit; it emancipates the
soul from all bondage to sin and the law; for it preparation is made by
the life and death of the Lord; in it God is manifested in a peculiar
manner to the soul and abides with it, an indwelling Comforter. This
life comes through a vital faith in Jesus as in a peculiar sense the
Son of God, in whose life the believer finds his ideal of true life,
by whose death he is redeemed from death, by whose spiritual power he
is raised a new creature in Christ Jesus, by whose abiding presence he
is guided, guarded, strengthened, fed. Those incidents and discourses
in the life of Christ which illustrate and enforce this aspect of
Christian truth and experience are those which John gives us in his
Gospel. The other Gospels represent the duties of the disciples, John
their privileges; the other Gospels bid them what they ought to do,
John points them to what they can become; the other Gospels represent
Christ chiefly as a Saviour coming to seek and to save that which is
lost, John as a Friend abiding with his own; in the other Gospels he is
a Shepherd in the wilderness, in John the Shepherd in the fold; in the
other Gospels the Son is either still in the far country or but just
returning to his Father’s home, in John he has returned and is abiding
in his Father’s love. In the other Gospels, therefore, Jesus is chiefly
represented as a divine teacher, in John as a recognized Saviour; in
the other Gospels as the Son of man, in John as the Son of God; in the
other Gospels we have seen him as he appears to the wanderer, in John
as he is interpreted by the heart of the saved; in the other Gospels
the bridegroom is coming for his bride and is still the Unknown;
in John he has taken her to himself, and her love at least dimly
recognizes in him the One among ten thousand and altogether lovely.
These aspects of truth may be easily discerned in even a brief survey
of the Fourth Gospel.
John opens his narrative by an introduction, in which he borrows the
mystical language of Oriental philosophy to characterize Jesus, whom
he describes as the Life, the Light, the Word; he reports John the
Baptist, not as the preacher of the baptism of repentance, but as a
prophet of the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world
(ch. 1); in his account of the conversation with Nicodemus (ch. 3),
he points out the origin of the spiritual life which Christ imparts to
the believer, “Ye must be born from above;” in his report of the
conversation with the Samaritan woman, and of the discourse at
Capernaum (chaps. 4, 6), he indicates the means by which that life is
sustained, by appropriating faith in Christ; and in his record of the
intermediate discourse at Jerusalem (ch. 5), the basis for that faith
in Christ’s own portrayal of himself as the Son and manifestation of
God the Father; in his report of the discourses in the Temple, he sets
forth in a different form the same truths. (ch. 7), declares the
emancipation from bondage which faith in the Son achieves for the
soul, contrasts it with the life of bondage unto sin (ch. 8), and
describes the safety and security of the disciples, a security
purchased by the death of their Lord (ch. 10); he narrates the
resurrection of Lazarus, therein portraying Jesus as the resurrection
and the life (ch. 11); he reports those words of Jesus at the Last
Supper, the full meaning of which no Christian experience has ever yet
fully sounded, in which is promised to the believing disciple a
spiritual manifestation of God to the soul, an abiding life of God in
the soul, and a joyful realization of all spiritual fullness in God by
the soul (chaps. 14, 15, 16); he records the only reported
intercessory prayer of the Lord for his disciples (ch. 17), the burden
of which is, “As thou Father art in me and I in you, that they also
may be one in us;” in the account of the Passion he alone gives the
short dialogue between Jesus and Pilate, in which the Lord declares
himself a king and his kingdom one of everlasting truth; and in his
account of the resurrection (ch. 20), he tells the story of Thomas’s
unbelief and of Christ’s warm commendation of “those who have not seen
and yet have believed.” Life through faith--this is the burden of
John’s Evangel; Jesus Christ the Life-giver, the disciple of Jesus
Christ the recipient of a new life--this is the good news which
constitutes the Fourth Gospel.
=When and where and for whom written.= A very ancient testimony, that
of Irenæus, repeated by Jerome and later writers, fixes the place of
publication at Ephesus. This accords with the character of the Gospel
itself. The Oriental phraseology employed in the first chapter
especially, but also in less degree in other portions of the Gospel,
indicates that it was written in a city where Oriental philosophy had
a strong hold; and of all Greek cities Ephesus was the most Oriental.
Moreover, an ancient and apparently trustworthy tradition makes this
city the home of John in his later years. The time of its composition
is uncertain. Irenæus states that it was the latest written of the
four Gospels. The character of the Gospel, as we have seen, confirms
this tradition. The book bears marks of being written in old age; it
is apparently the production of a ripened Christian experience. Alford
fixes the date as between A. D. 70 and A. D. 85; Macdonald, A. D. 85
or 86; Godet, between A. D. 80 and 90; Tholuck, not far from A. D.
100.
[1] For same account in detail of these discussions, see
Godet’s Commentary on St. John’s Gospel, Intro., Chap.
II.
[2] Comp. Matt. 27:56 with Mark 15:40.
[3] Luke 8:3.
[4] Matt. 20:20, 21; Mark 15:40; 16:1.
[5] John 7:15, 48.
[6] 1 Kings 9:10, 11. See Abbott’s Dict. of Rel. Knowledge,
art. _Galilee._
[7] See John 1:35-37, notes; Matt. 4:21; 10:2; 17:1; 20:20;
26:37; Mark 5:37; John 13:23; 14:26, 27; 20:1-8; Acts
3:1, etc.; 8:14-25; Gal. 2:9.
[8] Acts, ch. 19; ch. 20:17-38.
[9] Mark 3:17; Luke 9:49-56; Matt. 20:20; John 18:15; 19:26;
Acts 4:19, 20.
[10] Matt. 16:22; John 14:5, 8, 22; John 12:4, with Matt. 26:14.
[11] John 5:16, 18; 7:13, 19; 8:40, 44, 59; 9:22, 28; 18:31, etc.
[12] See John 2:6, 13; 5:1; 6:4; 7:2; 8:17; 10:34; 15:25;
19:40, 42.
[13] John 1:14; 19:35; 21:24; 1 John 1:1-3.
[14] John 1:36, 38; 4:6; 6:10; 12:3; 13:30; 18:18.
[15] John 12:27, 28; 13:3; chaps. 14-16.
[16] John 1:19; 3:16; 6:37; chaps. 4, 5, 10, 14, 15.
[17] John 2:6; 5:1; 6:4; 7:2; 18:28; 19:40.
[18] See John 7:1, 19, 25, 32; 8:6, 59; 9:22; 10:31; 11:49.
[19] John 6:70, 71; 11:6; 13:2, 27.
[20] The student will find this hypothesis urged with great
literary ingenuity by Matthew Arnold, in “God and the
Bible.”
[21] See John 5:4, and note there.
[22] John 20:31. This declaration makes it unnecessary to
discuss the various theories which have been proposed,
such as that it was written to supplement the other
Gospels and supply their defects, or to refute certain
Gnostic heresies, or to commend Christianity to the
disciples of Oriental philosophy and the like. These may,
or may not, have been subordinate aims of the writer:
the main design he clearly indicates, and it is the
design here indicated which affords the key to the true
interpretation of the Gospel as a whole.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN.
1:1-18. THE CHRISTOLOGY OF JOHN.--THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST.--THE
CREATIVE POWER OF CHRIST.--THE REGENERATING WORK OF CHRIST.--THE
ILLUMINATION GIVEN BY CHRIST.--THE DIVINE MANIFESTATION IN CHRIST.--THE
WORD; THE LIGHT; THE LIFE; THE TABERNACLE; THE ONLY-BEGOTTEN
SON.--CONTRASTED WITH JOHN THE BAPTIST; WITH MOSES.--THE GIFTS HE
CONFERS; THE WELCOME HE RECEIVES.
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--The ordinary English reader will find no difficulty
in comprehending the truths which John expresses in this introduction
to his Gospel, viz., the pre-existence, divine attributes, and divine
nature of that Jesus, the Messiah, of whom his book is written. John
identifies him with the Word, which was with God from eternity, and
with the Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
But it is not so clear why he should use the peculiar and somewhat
mysterious language here employed; for the full understanding of this,
some historical explanation is necessary. My object in this note is to
afford very briefly this historical explanation, as a basis for more
detailed consideration of particular words and phrases in the notes.
From the earliest ages the ablest minds have been perplexed by the
problem how to reconcile faith in an all-wise, all-powerful, and
all-benevolent Creator, with the fact of a creation full of sin and
suffering. One of the ablest thinkers of modern times (John Stuart
Mill) has declared the problem insoluble, and from the facts of
creation has deduced the conclusion that the Creator is neither
all-wise, all-powerful, nor all-good; to use his own words respecting
the Creator, “his wisdom is possibly, his power certainly limited,
and his goodness, though real, is not likely to have been the only
motive which actuated him in the work of creation.”--(_Three Essays in
Religion._) Oriental philosophy, pondering this problem, proposed for
its solution an hypothesis which to a Western mind seems singularly
puerile and fantastic, and yet which, in slightly different forms,
gained, at one period in the world’s history, an acceptance quite as
widespread as any form of philosophy or theology of to-day. This
hypothesis, however modified in form, was in essence this, that the
evil in the world came not from the Creator, but from some other and
inferior Being. In the Persian religion there were two deities, a good
and an evil god, Ormuzd and Ahriman, struggling with each other for
the supremacy. In the Chaldean philosophy Light was the soul of the
universe and the Original First Cause; in the lower realms, far below
the space filled with pure and unapproachable light, were darkness,
night, and all forth-springing evils, which either the Supreme Light
regarded it beneath his dignity to contend with, or which were
indestructible and could only be confined within narrow limits, not
destroyed. In the Hindoo philosophy, the Great First Cause, the
beatific Brahm, lived in perpetual repose, in a supreme and serene
indifference to all things. From him, by emanations, proceeded lesser
deities, and from these, by a process more or less remote, a corrupt
creation. At the beginning of the Christian era, Alexandria, founded
by and named in honor of Alexander the Great, was one of the
intellectual centres of the world. Here was gathered a library of over
700,000 volumes; here congregated Oriental dreamers, Greek philosophers,
and Jewish religionists. Here, in the third century before Christ, was
translated into the Greek language the Old Testament Scriptures. Here
about 20 B. C., was born Philo, a Jew, of a priestly family, a
philosopher and _litterateur_, and a voluminous writer. He was not an
original thinker; his works are therefore all the more valuable as a
reflection of the current mystical philosophy of his age and school.
This dreamy philosophy it is difficult to translate into modern forms
of thought. So far as this can be done, it may be said to have
involved the following statements: God is simply the absolute,
unchangeable Existence, incomprehensible, inconceivable, yet ever to
be the object of our thoughts and meditations. He could not come
directly into contact with matter without losing something of his
ineffable excellence. Hence he gave forth certain divine powers or
influences, “incorporeal potencies,” which surround God as the members
of a court surround an earthly monarch. The highest of these is the
divine Logos or Word of God. Through this Word the world was created,
and to the influence of the inferior potencies the evils of the world
must be attributed. Again, borrowing the imagery of the Chaldeans,
Philo conceives of God as the pure and absolute Light, the original
source of effulgence, the Logos or Word as the nearest circle of light
proceeding from it, and each separate power as a separate ray, fading
more and more away into darkness, as it becomes removed from the
original source and centre. From this philosophy was later developed
that peculiar and incomprehensible form of thought known as
Gnosticism. This Gnostic philosophy, which reached its climax in the
second century after Christ, undertook to describe in detail all the
emanations from the original inconceivable deity; Reason, the Word,
practical Wisdom, theoretical Wisdom, Power, Light, Life, were all
lesser deities. The God of the Jews was one of these lower deities;
Jesus Christ was a higher deity--the Reason according to some, the
Word according to others, who came to deliver the world from its
subjection to the inferior deity, and who entered the body of Jesus at
his baptism, and departed from it just before his crucifixion. Whether
John was acquainted with the writings of Philo we do not know; but he
was certainly familiar with this Gnostic philosophy. It had already
begun to enter into and corrupt the Christian church during the
lifetime of Paul, whose writings contain frequent references to
different phases of it (e. g., Col. 2:18; 1 Tim. 4:1-4; 2 Tim.
2:16-18); Ephesus, a city of luxury, effeminacy and superstition
(Acts, ch. 19, notes), was a centre of this philosophy; in Paul’s
address to the elders of the church at Ephesus (Acts 20:29, 30), and
in his letter to Timothy, first bishop of that church (subs. to 2
Tim.), he especially warns against it (2 Tim. 2:16-18; 3:8, 9); and
Ephesus was John’s residence, and probably the city in which he wrote
his Gospel. (See Introduction.)
John, then, employs the language of this mystical philosophy, in order
more effectually to refute its errors. He finds a certain substratum
of truth, viz., that there is one God and one Mediator between God and
man, underlying this superstructure of error; he begins his Gospel
by occupying this ground, and by his phraseology brings himself into
sympathy with his Gnostic readers; then, from this common ground he
leads them on to the truth respecting the incarnation. It is true,
he says to them, that there is a Word of God, but this Word was from
the beginning with God, and is indeed God himself, who is not
incommunicable, but a self-manifesting God. It is true that there is a
Life and a Light; but the Life is God himself, not an inferior and
subordinate deity; and the Light is not remote and unapproachable, but
lighteth every man that cometh into the world. For this Mediator is
not an emanation from God, but God himself, the true Light shining in
the darkness (verse 5), the true Life by whom we can not only commune
with Christ, but become the very children of God (verses 12, 13). And
he has come and tabernacled among men in the flesh, in the earthly
life of Jesus of Nazareth.
It only remains to add that there is to be found in the Old Testament
(see notes below) a Scriptural basis for John’s use of the language
here, particularly his phrase “the Word of God,” and that there is not
the least ground for the claims of some rationalistic scholars that
John derived his doctrine here from Philo, or from the Alexandrian or
Gnostic schools. On the contrary, his doctrine and theirs are radically
inconsistent. Philo holds that matter is inherently defiling, that God
cannot come into contact with matter, even to fashion it in creation,
without defilement; John, that God “was made flesh and dwelt among us,”
and yet so far from being defiled thereby, manifested his glory, “the
glory of the only-begotten of the Father.”
CHAPTER I.
1 In[23] the beginning was the Word,[24] and the Word was
with[25] God, and the Word was[26] God.
[23] Prov. 8:22, 31; Col. 1:16, 17; 1 John 1:1.
[24] Rev. 19:13.
[25] ch. 17:5.
[26] Phil. 2:6; Heb. 1:8-13; 1 John 5:7.
=1. In the beginning.= John begins the Gospel where Moses began the
Law. The employment of and the reference to the language of the
first verse of the first chapter of Genesis is unmistakable. In that
beginning in which God created the heavens and the earth was the Word,
and the Word was with God and was God and was the One through whom
the act of creation was consummated. So in Prov., chap. 8, Wisdom
personified is represented as with God in the creation and from the
beginning (see especially verses 23-29). For parallel passages
teaching the pre-existence of Christ, see John 8:58; 17:5; Phil. 2:5,
6; 1 John 1:1. In Rev. 3:14 he is described as “the beginning of the
creation of God,” but this does not necessarily imply that he was a
created Being. See notes there.--=Was the Word.= There are several
Greek words meaning _word_; (1 and 2) ῥῆμα and ἔπος, word in the
grammatical sense, _i. e._, that which is spoken; (3) μῦθος, word in
the rhetorical sense, that which is delivered by words, the subject
expressed; (4) ὄνομα, word in a technical sense, strictly a _name_,
and only because words are names or appellations; (5) λόγος, word in
the philosophical sense, the outward form by which the inward thought
is expressed. The latter term is employed here. As the thoughts or
experiences of the soul are completely hidden from us till they are
uttered, so God is the Unknown and the Unknowable, save as he utters
himself, discloses his nature to us, which he does chiefly if not
solely through him who is for that reason called the Word, _i. e._,
the utterance of God. The metaphor which underlies this phraseology
is in part interpreted by the saying of Wordsworth that language is
the incarnation of ideas. (2) In the Old Testament we have a partial
employment of the same symbolism. In Moses’ account of the creation,
God is represented as calling the various powers of nature into
being by a _word_. “God said Light be! Light was!” (Gen. 1:3, see
also 6, 9, 11, etc.) In the later Hebrew poetry this symbol is
made more prominent in the distinct declaration that “by the word of
the Lord were the heavens made.” (Ps. 33:6; comp. 107:20; Isaiah
55:10, 11; see also Heb. 11:3.) The same symbol, in a slightly
different form, reappears in Prov., chap. 8, which is connected
with that employed here by the language of certain of the apocryphal
books, _e. g._, “I (Wisdom) came out of the mouth of the Most High
and covered the earth as a cloud” (Ecclesiasticus 24:3). “She
(Wisdom) is the breath of the power of God” (Wisdom of Solomon
1:25). (3) The same symbolism was employed as we have seen (Prel. Note
above) in the mystical philosophy of Alexandria and of later
Gnosticism, with which John was familiar, and of which, Ephesus,
his city, was a centre, to represent an eon or emanation for the
deity. That the Word here does not mean the Bible or the Gospel is
evident both from the connection, since it cannot be said that the
Bible became flesh (ver. 14), and also from John’s usage, who never
employs the phrase Word of God to designate the Bible, but usually
the term Scriptures or writings (John 2:22; 5:39; 7:38, 42; 19:24,
28, 36, 37, etc.). Moreover he does employ this phraseology elsewhere
to designate Jesus Christ (1 John 1:1; Rev. 19:13). It cannot mean
_the Speaking One_ nor _the Promised One_. Though both these meanings
have been attributed to it, it is not grammatically capable of either
interpretation. There is classical authority for rendering it _Reason_
or _Order_, and this meaning it still retains in words ending with
_ology_, such as _ge-ology_ (ge-logos), the order, _i. e._, science of
the earth; _path-ology_ (pathos-logos), the order, _i. e._, science of
disease. But it is never used with this signification by John, and is
never but once so used in the N. T. (1 Peter 3:15), if even there the
translation is strictly accurate, which is doubtful. Seeking, then, to
understand John as he would have been understood by his contemporaries,
I think it clear that he declares, not that Reason or Wisdom was in
the beginning with God, nor Speech, nor the Promised Messiah, but _the
Word_, _i. e._, _the One by and through whom he was chiefly to be
manifested to the world_, as one soul is to another by utterance.--=And
the Word was with God and the Word was God.= Grammatically the last
clause of the sentence may be read, _and God was the Word_. But the
obvious connection calls for the rendering of our English version, and
it is the rendering adopted by the best scholars. There is a difference
in the language of the first and last clause of this sentence in the
original which is significant, but difficult, if not impossible, to
render in the English. In the first clause, “_the Word was with God_,”
the article accompanies the word God; in the second clause, “_the
Word was God_,” it is wanting. We should measurably reflect the
meaning by reading the passage, “the Word was with God and the Word was
divine;” or “the Word was with the Father and the Word was God.”
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
=2. The same was in the beginning with God.= John recurs to his first
statement and reiterates it, not merely for the sake of emphasis,
but also to mark a real distinction between the Word and the unknown
Father. For he labors to express two conflicting and even apparently
contradictory ideas, the identity of the Word with God and the
individuality of the Word, as distinct from the infinite and invisible
deity. This contradiction subsequent theology has endeavored in vain
to eliminate by drawing distinctions between essence and substance,
person and being, etc., in such phraseologies as three in substance and
one in essence, or three persons in one God. This _philosophy_ of the
Trinity is extra-Scriptural, framed to harmonize teachings respecting
the divine nature, which are best harmonized by the frank confession
that the knowledge of the divine nature is too wonderful for us, we
cannot attain unto it (Ps. 139:6; Job 11:7). So Chalmers, “The
Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. God is one. If
you ask me to reconcile the four (propositions), I answer, I cannot.
We require no one to reconcile the personality of each with the unity
of God.” So Calvin, “I could wish them (the extra-Scriptural phrases,
person, hypostasis, etc.) to be buried in oblivion, provided this truth
were universally received, that the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit
are the one God; and that nevertheless the Son is not the Father, nor
the Spirit the Son, but that they are distinguished from each other by
some peculiar properties.”
3 All[27] things were made by him; and without him was not
anything made that was made.
[27] Ps. 33:6; Eph. 3:9.
=3. All things were made by him.= To interpret this language “All
things” as meaning simply the moral creation, is to distort plain
language in order to conform it to preconceived ideas, a fault in
exegesis of which no school of theology is entirely innocent. The
reference to Genesis, ch. 1, is unmistakable. The declaration is
parallel to and interpreted by such passages as Col. 1:16; 1 Cor. 8:6;
Heb. 1:2. The Greek student will observe, however, and the English
student should know, that the language here implies that the Word
was the _instrument_ by which God created the “all things,” not the
_original source of creative power_. There are two Greek prepositions
translated in English “_by_,” one (ἐκ) signifying the source or origin
from which anything proceeds, or the power by which it is produced;
the other (διά) signifying the means or instrument through which it is
produced. One indicates the original, the other the proximate cause.
The preposition here used is the latter, and the exact meaning of the
sentence will be imparted by the rendering All things were made _by
means of him_ or _through him_. With this interpretation corresponds
the general teaching of the New Testament, which represents Christ,
both in his earthly life and in his heavenly administration, as always
the executor of his Father’s will. This is in some sense especially
prominent in John’s Gospel (see for example John 5:22, 23, 27; 6:37,
44, 57; 8:28, 42; 10:29; 14:10; 17:18, 24); but it is equally clearly
taught elsewhere (Luke 2:49; 1 Cor. 15:27, 28; Phil. 2:9; Col. 1:19;
comp. Mark 10:40, note and references there).--=And without him was
not anything made that was made.= Simply an emphatic and exhaustive
reiteration, such as is not infrequent in fervid writing. For analogous
rhetorical repetition in John see verse 20; 1 John 2:4, 27. Some
manuscripts and some few scholars put a period at the close of the
first clause of the sentence, and connect the last clause with the
following verse, so that the passage reads: _And without him was not
anything made. And what originated in him was life._ But while this
reading is grammatically possible, it is generally repudiated by the
best scholars, who accept the punctuation and rendering of our English
version as correct.
4 In him[28] was life; and the life was the light[29] of
men.
[28] ch. 5:26; 1 John 5:11.
[29] ch. 8:12.
=4. In him was life.= There is probably a reference here again to the
language of Gnostic philosophy (See Prel. Note), which supposed
other eons or emanations from God, besides the Word, prominent among
which was Light and Life. Here, as throughout this introduction, John
employs the language of the Gnostics to correct their errors. The
general and practical teaching for us of the declaration is that Christ
is the source of both physical or external life (Col. 1:17), and
of intellectual and spiritual life (ch. 10:10). It is admirably
interpreted by Kaulbach’s famous cartoon of the Reformation, in which
Luther with the open Bible in his hand is represented as the centre
of the intellectual and moral awakening which characterized that
century. Observe, since Christ is Life and Light, that any religion
which dwarfs man, represses their life, belittles them, and any which
shuts them up in darkness and denies them intellectual freedom
and progress in any direction, is so far anti-Christ. The cause of
Christ has nothing to fear from any intellectual life or any light of
scientific discovery.--=And the life was the light of men.= Not merely
_shall be_, not merely _is_, but _was_. The intimation is that all the
light of Old Testament prophecy and instruction, if not all that dim
religious light which has illuminated even heathen nations, through
special instructors such as Buddha, Confucius and Socrates, came
through the Word, _i. e._, through the Mediator by whom the invisible
God reveals himself to man, of which revelation the incarnation
(ver. 14) is only a part, though a most important part. Compare
with the language here 1 John 1:5.
5 And the light shineth in[30] darkness; and the darkness
comprehended[31] it not.
[30] ch. 3:19.
[31] 1 Cor. 2:14.
=5. And the light shineth in the darkness.= _Shines_, not merely
appears; a real illumination is indicated; _shines_, not shone; a
present and continuous illumination is indicated; _the_ darkness, not
merely darkness; as, before God said “Let there be light,” the earth
is reported as enveloped in darkness (Gen. 1:2), so, before and
apart from this spiritual illumination, through the Light of the world,
the nations of the earth were in gross darkness. Comp. Isaiah 42:6,
7; Matt. 4:16, note; Ephes. 5:7, 8; John 12:46.--=And the darkness
comprehended it not.= This has been universally true in the world’s
history; the dim light of conscience has never been apprehended, taken
hold of by heathen nations. The light afforded by special and signal
moral geniuses has never been comprehended aright by the people, as
witness the deterioration of Buddhism and Confucianism; the teachings
of the Jewish prophets were not comprehended; they shone in darkness
which was not dispelled by their instructors; and the clearer light
of Christ has never, even in the best ages, been more than very
imperfectly apprehended, even in the church. Here the primary reference
is certainly to the constant closing of their eyes by the Jews to the
light of the Old Testament teachings, concerning the spirit of true
religion, the nature of the kingdom of God, and the character and
appearance of the promised Messiah. For the reason why the darkness
does not comprehend the light, see chap. 3:19; comp. Matt. 13:15, note.
6 There was a man[32] sent from God, whose name _was_ John.
7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the
Light, that all _men_ through him might believe.
[32] Luke 3:2, 3.
=6, 7. There was a man sent from God.= From a characterization of the
light, John passes to a description of the incarnation and its object,
and to a discrimination between the incarnate Light and the prophet
who foretold its coming. From the Greek word here rendered _sent_
(ἀποστέλλω, _apostello_) comes our word _apostle_. The apostle is a
man sent from God; Christ is the word or utterance, or manifestation
of God. Comp. Heb. 1:1-3.--=John.= The Baptist.--=The same came for a
witness.= As one who enters the witness-stand to testify what he
knows, so John the Baptist came to declare what had been revealed to
him concerning the coming Messiah. Comp. John 5:32-35.--=To bear
witness of the Light.= Simply a repetition and amplification of the
previous clause of the sentence. He was not a mere preacher of the
law, nor of the duty of repentance, though this is the phase of his
ministry most prominent in the reports of Matt. (3:1-12), and Luke
(3:1-18). He was a forerunner of the great King, sent to bear witness
of his approach. And this phase of his ministry, though indicated in
the other Gospels (Matt. 3:11; 11:9, Mark 1:7, 8; Luke 3:16, 17), is
most clearly brought out in John (verses 23, 29-36).--=That all
through him might believe.= That is, through John might believe in the
Light. The other construction, through the Light might believe, _i.
e._, in God, is forced and unnatural, even if grammatically
admissible. The true office of the Christian ministry is so to bear
witness to the Light which the preacher _knows_ by his own experience
(Rom. 7:14; 8:28; 2 Tim. 1:12), that men may believe in and accept
that Light (2 Cor. 4:5; Col. 1:28.)
8 He[33] was not that Light, but _was sent_ to bear witness
of that Light.
9 _That_ was the true Light,[34] which lighteth every man
that cometh into the world.
[33] Acts 19:4.
[34] Isa. 49:6.
=8, 9.= An early Gnostic sect (second century) believed that John was
the Messiah. The primary reference here appears to be to this error,
which, in common with other Gnostic errors (see Prel. Note),
John aims to correct in this introduction to his Gospel. Compare, with
the declaration here, Christ’s characterization of John, “He was a
burning and a shining light” (ch. 5:35). The Greek scholar will
observe that the English word “_light_” represents different Greek
words in the two passages. Here the word is one signifying original
light (φῶς), there rather a borrowed or reflected light (λύχνοσ),
though the latter word is once applied to Christ (Rev. 21:23).
We are to be in a true sense the former kind of light (φῶς, Matt.
5:14), because Christ _in us_ is our light, and by his indwelling
we are made partakers of his nature (2 Pet. 1:4), and men seeing
this light glorify, not us, but Him who shines in and through
us.--=The true Light was that which lighteth every man that cometh into
the world.= There is some difficulty about the construction of this
sentence; this appears to me to be the best. For other constructions,
see Alford and Meyer. On the meaning of the declaration observe,
(1) That John’s use of the word _true_ here is interpreted by his
use of the same word in other and analogous passages, _e. g._, “true
worshippers” (John 4:23); “true bread” (ch. 6:32); “true vine” (ch.
15:1). The light, the bread, the vine of earth are regarded only as
symbols of the spiritual truths which they parabolically represent.
Christ is the original pattern, or source of light; all prophets and
teachers are only reflections from him; all material light is a symbol
or parable of his illuminating grace. (2) The phrase, “_lighteth every
man that cometh into the world_,” is not to be taken as an hyperbole.
The latter clause is added, not merely, as Meyer, “as a solemn
redundance,” “an epic fullness of words,” but to emphasize and make
clear the declaration, and to show that “every man” means not merely
(_a_) the Jews, nor (_b_) those who accept Christ as their light, nor
(_c_) the Christian nations, but literally _all men_. The _every_
(πᾶς) here is thus distinguished from the _all_ (πᾶς) of verse 7
above. Christ is the universal light; all intellectual and political
as well as moral illumination has come through him; and this, not only
in Christendom, but also in heathendom. Such light as struggles
through the thick darkness, in a partial disclosure of divine truth
afforded by a Buddha or a Confucius, or dimly recognized by a
Cornelius, comes from Him who, in larger or smaller measure, lighteth
_every_ man that cometh into the world. By this declaration we are to
interpret such passages as Matt. 8:11; Acts 10:35; Rev. 5:9; whoever
accepts even this imperfect and dim light, mistakenly called the light
of Nature, in so far accepts Christ.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him,
and[35] the world knew him not.
[35] verse 5.
11 He[36] came unto his own, and his own received him
not.
[36] Acts 3:26; 13:46.
=10, 11.= Notice the rhetorical climax in these verses; he _was in_
the world; he _came_ unto his own; the world _knew_ him not; his
own _received_ him not. The _world_ is here humanity in general,
Jew and Gentile, both of whom united in Christ’s crucifixion; the
Jew, represented in the high-priest who deliberately rejected him
(John 11:47-50), the Gentile, represented in Pilate and the
soldiers, who simply did not know him. _His own_ are the Jewish
people, Jehovah’s peculiar possession (Exod. 19:5; Deut. 7:6;
Psalm 135:4; Isaiah 31:9), to whom he first came and by whom he
was rejected before he was preached to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46;
Rom. 1:16). It was only the world of _men_ that knew him not;
nature knew and obeyed him whenever he commanded her obedience, as
in the turning of water into wine, the stilling of the tempest, etc.
The verbs in this sentence are in the imperfect tense, and the
reference is to the incarnation of Christ and his earthly life. Observe
that the Jewish nation which rejected the Messiah is rejected by God
(Matt. 8:12), and that the disciples of Christ are not to know
the world which knew not their Lord and Master (1 John 2:15-17).
12 But as many[37] as received him, to them gave he power
to become the sons of God, _even_ to them[38] that believe
on his name:
[37] Isa. 56:4, 5; Rom. 8:14, 15; 1 John 3:1.
[38] Gal. 3:26.
=12. But as many as received him.= Not merely, as Alford, “recognized
him as that which he was--the Word of God and Light of men,” but
_received him_ as the Word to be implicitly obeyed (ch. 14:21;
15:10, 15), and the Light in which to walk (1 John 1:6).--=To
them gave he power= (ἐξουσίαν). Not _capability_, nor _privilege_,
nor _claim_, but _power and right_; the original word combines the two
ideas. He confers the _power_ to become the sons of God, and confers
the _right_ to claim that privilege. Ryle is certainly correct in
saying that this verse “does not mean that Christ confers on those who
receive him a spiritual and moral strength, by which they convert
themselves, change their own hearts, and make themselves God’s
children.” He is as certainly wrong in saying, with Calvin and the
marginal reading, that the original Greek word means “right or
privilege.” The reader will best get its meaning by comparing John’s
use of it in other passages, in no one of which could it be rendered
either “right” or “privilege.” See ch. 5:27; 10:18; 17:2; 19:10, 11.
Comp. Matt. 28:18, note. The plain implication here is that the
_power_ to become a son of God is not natural and inherent, but
acquired, and is the especial gift of God. See Phil. 2:12, 13; Titus
3:4, 5.--=To become the sons of God.= Sons and therefore (1) partakers
of the divine nature (Ephes. 4:13; Heb. 12:10; 2 Pet. 1:4); (2)
entitled to and walking in freedom as children, not in bondage as
servants (ch. 15:15; Gal. 4:1-7); (3) heirs of God and joint-heirs
with Christ, his only-begotten Son (Rom. 8:16, 17). But the full
conception of the meaning of this sonship we cannot know, till in the
other world we see the Father as he is (1 John 3:1, 2).--=Even to them
that have faith in his name.= His name is _Jesus_, _i. e._, Saviour,
given to him because he saves his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21).
To have faith in that name is to have faith in him as a personal
Saviour from sin. Observe, then, that this verse comprises the whole
Gospel in a sentence. It declares (1) the object of the Gospel: that
we who are by nature the children of disobedience and of wrath (Ephes.
2:2, 3) may become the sons of God; (2) the source to which we are to
look for this prerogative of sonship: _power_ conferred by God; (3)
the means by which we are to attain it: personal faith in a personal
Saviour from sin. Observe too that John follows his description of the
rejection of Christ, not by threatening punishment to them, but by
depicting the infinite gain of those that accept Christ.
13 Which were born,[39] not of blood, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
[39] James 1:18.
=13. Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but of God.= That is, not by inheritance (Luke 3:8); nor by
resolution (Rom. 8:5-8); nor by human teaching (1 Cor. 3:6, 7); but by
the direct personal influence and contact of the Spirit of God on the
heart (Titus 3:5, 6). Thus, John emphasizes the declaration of the
preceding verse, that _God gives the power to become the sons of God_,
by declaring that Christian character is not the product of either
good parentage, a strong will, or a good education, but directly of a
divine recreative act. (Gal. 6:15.) The Greek student will observe
that the preposition used is _of_ (ἐκ), not _through_ (διά); the
writer is speaking of the _origin_ or _source_ of Christian character,
not of the _instruments_ by which it is developed. Good parentage,
will power, and education, are all _means_ for the development of
divine sonship; the original cause, without which a true son of God is
never produced, is the creative act of God himself.
14 And the Word[40] was made flesh, and dwelt among us,
(and[41] we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only
begotten of the Father,) full[42] of grace and truth.
[40] Luke 1:35; 1 Tim. 3:16.
[41] 2 Pet. 1:17; 1 John 1:1, 2.
[42] Ps. 45:2; Col. 2:3, 9.
=14. And the Word.= The self-manifesting God, as described in the first
verse.--=Became flesh.= Not _a man_ (ἄνθρωπος) nor _a body_ (σῶμα),
but _flesh_ (σάρξ). The word is one whose signification would probably
be best rendered to the English reader by the phrase _human nature_.
Though occasionally used in the N. T. of the literal and material flesh
(Acts 2:31), it almost always indicates man in his corporeal or
earthly nature, sometimes signifying the predominance of that over the
higher or spiritual nature, sometimes simply signifying this aspect of
his nature, without any indication of its corrupt tendencies. Here,
then, the declaration is that the Word became human nature; _how_ is
not indicated. The language gives no sanction to either of the two
principal theories of the incarnation; the first, that Christ _took
on_ human nature as something superadded to the divine, so carrying
through life a double nature, both divine and human; the second, that
he simply entered a human body and became subject to the limitations
which it imposed on him. _How the divine became human_ we must learn
elsewhere in the N. T., if the N. T. reveals it at all; but the
declaration here is explicit that the divine Word became human.--=And
tabernacled among us.= _Pitched his tent with us._ As God in the
wilderness dwelt for a time in the transitory tabernacle, so the Word
dwelt in the flesh, which is elsewhere in the N. T. compared to a
tabernacle (2 Cor. 5:1, 4; 2 Pet. 1:13, 14). As God dwelt subsequently
in the permanent Temple at Jerusalem, so the Word makes its permanent
abode in the soul of the believer, which is the _Temple_, not the
Tabernacle of God (ch. 15:6, 7; 2 Cor. 6:16; Rev. 21:3). That the
reference here is to the incarnation, not to the spiritual presence of
Christ with the believer, is evident from the fact that the verb
(ἐσκίνωσεν) is in the historical tense. John says he _tabernacled_,
not he _tabernacles_, among us.--=And we beheld his glory, the glory
as of the only begotten from the Father.= We are made sons of God; but
Christ alone is the _only begotten Son_. For the meaning of this
phrase, see Luke 7:12; 8:42; 9:38. John uses it only of Jesus Christ.
The Greek student should observe the use of the preposition _from_
(παρά). It designates the source from which anything is derived, and
here indicates that in a peculiar sense Christ is from the Father,
directly and immediately; we are from him only through Christ. Comp.
ch. 7:29. In a peculiar sense the Apostles beheld Christ’s glory (ch.
2:11; Matt. 17:1-4; 2 Pet. 1:16; 1 John 1:1). But in Christ’s life and
character, and in their influence on the world, we are all beholders
of the true divine glory, manifested in him (Heb. 1:3); and his
earthly life is the brightness and glory of heaven (Rev. 21:23; 5:9,
10). The language, _as of the only begotten_, distinguishes the glory
of Christ from that of all previous revealers of the divine will and
nature. Since many of the prophets too were glorified, as Moses,
Elijah, and Elisha, the one encircled by the fiery chariot, the other
taken up by it; and after them Daniel and the three children, and the
many others who showed forth wonders; and angels who have appeared
among men, and partly disclosed to beholders the flashing light of
their proper nature; and since not angels only, but even the cherubim
were seen by the prophet in great glory and the seraphim also; the
Evangelist, leading us away from all these, and removing our thoughts
from created things, and from the brightness of our fellow-servants,
sets us at the very summit of good. For, “not of prophets,” says he,
“nor angel, nor archangel, nor of the higher powers, nor of any other
created nature, if other there be, but of the Master himself, the King
himself, the true only begotten Son himself, of the very Lord of all,
did we _behold the glory_.”--(_Chrysostom._)--=Full of grace and
truth.= There is some doubt whether this is said of the _glory_
beheld, or of the _only begotten Son_ whose glory was beheld. The
question is not very important; the latter construction is
grammatically preferable. Thus rendered, the clause “And we beheld,
etc.,” is parenthetical, John’s statement being: “The Word tabernacled
among us, full of grace and truth.” Observe (1) that the _grace_ here
answers to the _Life_ in verse 4, and the _truth_ to the _Light_ in
verse 9. Because of his grace Christ is Life to all who accept him;
because of his truth he is Light to all who follow him; (2) that the
declaration here is explained by, and is possibly partially derived
from Exodus 33:18, 19, where Moses asks to see God’s glory, and is
promised a disclosure of the divine _goodness_; in the goodness of God
in Christ Jesus we behold the divine glory; (3) that the Christian is
to be, like his Master, full of grace _and_ truth, and that to be at
once perfectly truthful and also gracious is one of the most difficult
practical problems of the Christian life (Rom. 12:9). It seems to me
clear that John has in mind throughout this verse the manifestation of
the glory of God, through the Shechinah, in the Tabernacle, and
subsequently in the Temple (Exod. 40:34, 35; 1 Kings 8:10; see Matt.
17:5, note). As the Shechinah made luminous and glorious these earthly
dwelling-places, so the Word, by his indwelling, made glorious the
flesh.
15 John[43] bare witness of him, and cried, saying,
This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is
preferred before me: for he was before me.
[43] Matt. 3:11, etc.
=15. John is testifying concerning him.= John the Baptist was long
since dead when these words were written; but his testimony was
not dead; it was an ever-living testimony. The verb is therefore
put in the present tense, not, as in our English version, in the
past.--=And he cried, saying,= It is the echo of this cry which still
resounds and witnesses to Jesus Christ. The language used implies a
public testimony, and one borne with confidence and joy. On seeing
the Christ of whom he had prophesied, John the Baptist _cries out_,
“This is he of whom I spoke.” For illustration of John’s prophetic
utterances concerning the Messiah, previous to the baptism of Jesus,
see Matt. 3:11, 12; Mark 1:7, 8.--=He that cometh after me.= Christ
did not begin his public ministry till the imprisonment of John the
Baptist (Mark 1:14). Thus as a public teacher he came after John the
Baptist.--=Came forth before me.= Not, _was before me_ (γίγνομαι has
not the force of εἰμί), for then the sentence would be tautological--
that Jesus _was_ before John is in the next clause given as the
_reason_ for the statement in this, that he came forth before him; nor
can the meaning be _was preferred before me_, in the sense of esteemed
above me, for the mere fact of Christ’s pre-existence would be no
reason for esteeming him more highly than John--the devil _existed_
before John the Baptist; nor, _was preferred before me_, in the sense
of, was exalted in rank above me, though some excellent scholars, _e.
g._, Alford, Olshausen, De Wette, so interpret it; but, as I have
rendered it above, _came forth_, or, _was set before me_. The
reference is to the previous manifestations of the Word, in the
partial revelations of God in the O. T. All the disclosures of the
divine nature in the O. T. were made through the Word or utterance of
God, through whom alone he speaks to the human race. See ver. 4, note,
and ch. 8:56-58. John then says “He who is coming after me is the One
who has already come forth before me; for he existed before me.”
Christ’s pre-existence would not explain the preference, either in the
divine love or in rank, but it does in part explain precedence in
appearance or manifestation. So Hengstenberg, “My successor is my
predecessor.”
16 And of his fulness[44] have all we received, and grace
for grace.
[44] ch. 3:34.
=16. And of his fullness have we all received.= The _fullness_ is
that of the divine nature, of which we are made partakers through
faith in Christ (Col. 1:19; 2:9, 10; Ephes. 3:19). The _all_
are those who receive him and thus become the sons of God (verse
12). This and the two following verses are the addition of the
Evangelist, not the continuance of John the Baptist’s discourse;
this is evident both from their style, which better accords with
that of the Evangelist, and because the _fullness_ of Christ’s
nature was not received by John the Baptist and his disciples, for
it was not disclosed till after the Baptist’s death. Observe, (1)
How inexhaustible the fountain. From Christ’s fullness all spiritual
life is supplied. Chrysostom compares Christ to a fire from which ten
thousand lamps are kindled, but which burns as brightly thereafter
as before. “The sea is diminished if you take a drop from it, though
the diminution be imperceptible; but how much soever a man draw from
the divine Fountain, it continues undiminished.” (2) How free the
supply; we have _all_ received. “None went empty away.”--(_Meyer._)
(3) The nature of Christian experience. It is not a mere trust in
a crucified Saviour for pardon for the past; it is also a personal
and continuous receiving of divine life from the fullness of a
living Saviour.--=And grace for grace.= Of this expression there are
two interpretations. The ancient expositors understood it to
mean, For the lesser grace of the O. T. we have received the greater
grace of the N. T. So Chrysostom: “There was a righteousness and
there is a righteousness (Rom. 1:17); there was a glory and there is a
glory (2 Cor. 3:11); there was a law and there is a law (Rom. 8:2);
there was a service and there is a service (Rom. 9:4; 12:11); there
was a covenant and there is a covenant (Jer. 31:31, 32); there was a
sanctification and there is a sanctification; there was a baptism and
there is a baptism; there was a sacrifice and there is a sacrifice;
there was a temple and there is a temple; there was a circumcision and
there is a circumcision; and so too there was a grace and there is a
grace.” The modern commentators, Alford, Meyer, Lange, etc.,
understand it to mean, “For each new accessory of grace we receive a
still larger gift. Each grace, though, when given large enough, is, as
it were, overwhelmed by the accumulation and fullness of that which
follows.”--(_Bengel._) “Grace for grace, grace _in the place_ of
that which preceded--therefore grace uninterrupted, unceasingly
renewed.”--(_Winer._) The spiritual signification of the passage is
substantially the same on either interpretation. We have nothing to
give in exchange for the divine grace; our only virtue is to receive.
It is given to us in exchange for the grace already imparted. “Unto
every one that hath shall be given;” but what he already hath is God’s
gift, which bestows both the good and the purchase money, each new
gift superseding the old, as the N. T. gift of grace and truth through
Jesus Christ superseded the lesser gift of law through Moses. With
this accords the teaching of both O. T. and N. T. See, for example,
Deut. 7:7; Ps. 6:4; 23:3; 25:7; 31:16; 79:9; 115:1; Isaiah 55:1;
Ephes. 2:4; 1 John 4:8, 10.
17 For the law was given by Moses, _but_ grace[45] and
truth came by Jesus Christ.
[45] Ps. 85:10; Rom. 5:21.
=17. For the law was given by Moses.= _Through_ (διὰ) Moses as the
instrument or mediator of the old covenant.--=Grace and truth came by
Jesus Christ.= _Through_ (διὰ) Jesus Christ as the mediator of the new
covenant. The _grace_ is the favor of God (see below), the _truth_ is
the clear revelation of the divine character and will, seen only dimly
under the old covenant. (2 Cor. 3:13, 14.) Observe the contrast
between Christ and Moses (comp. Heb. 3:5, 6); and between the
gifts brought by the two. The law _was given_, a completed thing, once
for all; _grace and truth_ came and continually come, grace for grace,
out of the inexhaustible fullness of the giver.
ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD “GRACE.” The word here translated _grace_
(χάρις) is also variously translated in the N. T. _acceptable_,
_benefit_, _favor_, _gift_, _joy_, _liberality_, _pleasure_, _thanks_,
and _thankworthy_. This fact will of itself sufficiently indicate that
the word possesses various shades of meaning. They are all, however,
etymologically derived from the same root idea. The noun is derived
from a verb meaning to rejoice, and primarily signifies that which
gives joy to another. With the Greeks, beauty was one of the chief
joys; hence the first meaning of the word--grace of external form,
manner, or language, a meaning which it but rarely bears in the N. T.
(see Luke 4:22; Col. 4:6). Thence it derived a deeper meaning, viz.,
beauty in character, and this, according to the N. T. teaching, is
good-will, the disposition to do a kindness to another, to make
another rejoice; hence the word is used to signify that quality in God
which leads him to confer freely happiness on men, either on special
individuals (Luke 2:40; 1 Cor. 3:10), or on the whole human race (Rom.
3:24; Ephes. 1:6; Tit. 2:11). Thence it was employed to designate the
kindness actually flowing from and conferred by this disposition,
hence an alms, and in the N. T. the spiritual gifts conferred by the
divine love on the soul (1 Cor. 16:3; 2 Cor. 8:4; 1 Cor. 15:10; 2 Cor.
6:1; 2 Pet. 3:18); in which sense it is employed in the apostolic
benediction (1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:3, etc.). Finally it was
used to designate the feeling awakened by favors shown, the reflection
in the human heart of the divine grace imparted, and hence gratitude
and even its expression in thanks (Luke 6:32-34; 17:9; 1 Tim. 1:12; 2
Tim. 1:3). Underlying its meaning in all these uses is the radical
idea that the gift is conferred freely and finds its only motive in
the bounty and love of the giver, an idea which finds expression in
the Latin word _gratis_ (for nothing), now thoroughly Anglicized, a
word which comes from the same root as grace (_gratia_). By the
doctrine of grace, then, as it is variously expounded in the N. T., is
meant that our own spiritual life is the free gift of God, bestowed on
us without merit or desert on our part, purely from the love and
good-will of God. Our _graces_ are God’s _free gifts_. John here marks
the contrast between the law which _requires_ obedience of man, and
grace and truth which _confers_ spiritual power on man. The one says,
Do this and live; the other says, Live, so that you can do this (Rom.
8:3). Nowhere in the N. T. is the doctrine of grace more clearly set
forth than in these 16th and 17th verses, which may be paraphrased
thus: From the divine fullness in Jesus Christ we have all received;
the only condition which God attaches to the free impartation of his
spiritual gifts is that we should have received willingly those
already proffered to us; by Moses it was revealed to us what God would
have us do and be; by Christ it is clearly disclosed to us what God
is, and there is freely imparted to us power to become, like him, sons
of God.
18 No man hath seen God[46] at any time; the[47] only
begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath
declared _him_.
[46] Ex. 33:20; 1 Tim. 6:16.
[47] 1 John 4:9.
=18. No one hath seen God at any time.= Not merely _no man_; no
_one_--man, angel, archangel. The phrase here, _seen God_, is
equivalent to the phrase _knowing God perfectly_, in Matt. 11:27
(see note there). We know him but in part, shall see him only when we
awake in his likeness (Ps. 17:15); Christ sees him because he is one
with him.--=The only begotten Son.= Some manuscripts have here, _The
only begotten God_, and this reading is adopted by Tregelles, but
rejected by Alford, Meyer, and Tischendorf. For examination of the
authorities on both sides, see Alford (sixth edition) and Lange,
critical note by Dr. Schaff. The external authorities are not
conclusive; internal authority strongly favors the ordinary reading.
The only begotten God is a phrase occurring nowhere else in the N. T.,
and is unnatural if not unmeaning. The change of a single letter in
the early copies would account for the corruption of the text (Ψ to
Θ).--=Which is in the bosom of the Father.= A metaphorical expression,
indicating the closeness of intimacy, and drawn more probably from the
relation of a child with its parents, than from the not infrequent
reclining of one on the bosom of his friend, at meal-time (John
13:25).--=He hath declared him.= Comp. ch. 6:46; 14:6, 9, 10; 1 Tim.
3:16; Heb. 1:3. These and other kindred passages indicate clearly
_how_ Christ declares the Father, viz., not merely by what he teaches
concerning the divine nature, but yet more by his personal
manifestation of the divine nature in his own life and character. This
verse thus interprets the word _truth_ in the preceding verse, as the
word grace has already been interpreted by verses 11 and 12. Christ is
the _truth_ of God, because he reveals the divine nature; he is the
_grace_ of God because he imparts the divine nature to such as trust
in him.
NOTE ON THE INCARNATION. A correct apprehension of the character and
place in history of Jesus Christ is essential to a correct
apprehension of Christianity. Our conception of the system will depend
upon our conception of the Founder. The other Evangelists give simply
the story of his life, leaving the readers to draw their own
deductions respecting him. John, writing at a later date, and in
a more philosophical atmosphere, begins his Gospel with a
characterization of the One the story of whose earthly life he is
about to narrate. It is evident on even a cursory examination of this
preface that John believed and intended to teach, (1) That Christ
existed prior to his earthly birth. He was the Light that lighteth
every man that cometh into the world; was before John the Baptist,
whom in his earthly history and mission he succeeded; and he was in
the beginning with God (vers. 1, 4, 15). (2) That he possessed a
superhuman character. He is carefully distinguished from and placed
above John the Baptist, the last of the prophets and more than a
prophet (Matt. 11:9), and from Moses the lawgiver and politically the
founder of the Jewish nation; and he is emphatically declared not only
to have been with God in the beginning, but to have partaken of the
divine nature (vers. 1, 6-8, 17). (3) This superhuman character is
further illustrated by what is declared of his office or work. He is
the Creator, the Light and Life of men, the regenerating power through
whom men are brought into divine sonship, the daily support of the
spiritual life of the children of God, the disclosure of the divine
nature to men (vers. 3, 4, 12, 13, 16, 18). (4) This truth is
incidentally, but all the more effectively, enforced by John’s
peculiar language in describing Christ’s earthly state: he
“tabernacled among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the
only begotten from the Father” (ver. 14). (5) Finally, it is
illustrated in the various titles conferred upon him throughout this
chapter, which are ten in number: the Word; the Light; the Life; the
only begotten of the Father; Jesus Christ, _i. e._, the Saviour, the
Messiah; the only begotten Son; the Lamb of God; the Son of God;
Master; the Son of Man. It is not the province of the commentator to
construct a systematic theology. But it is certain that these elements
must enter into any conception of Jesus Christ which is founded on and
accords with the N. T. There is probably no other single passage of
equal length in the N. T. which contains so much respecting the
character and office of Jesus Christ as this preface to John’s Gospel;
with it, however, should be examined Paul’s Christology (e. g., Phil.
2:5-11), and that of the unknown author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
(Heb., chaps. 1, 2).
* * * * *
Ch. 1:19-51. INTRODUCTION OF CHRIST TO THE WORLD. BY JOHN THE BAPTIST
(vers. 19-37); BY HIMSELF (vers. 38-51). CHRIST THE SIN-BEARER OF THE
WORLD.--THE POWER OF CHRIST; THE ABIDING OF GOD’S SPIRIT ON HIM.--
CHRIST OUR PATTERN IN FISHING FOR MEN.--THE VALUE OF PERSONAL AND
PRIVATE WORK.--THE POWER OF PREJUDICE IN GOOD MEN.--THE BEST ANSWER TO
SKEPTICISM, “COME AND SEE.”--CHRIST REVEALS HIMSELF WHEN HE REVEALS US
TO OURSELVES.--CHRIST’S FIRST COMING A PROPHECY AND FORETASTE OF HIS
SECOND COMING.
The historical portion of the Fourth Gospel begins here. The interview
between the deputation from the Sanhedrim and John the Baptist here
described probably took place after the baptism of Jesus, and during
the temptation, of which latter event this Gospel makes no mention.
With the account of the Baptist’s ministry given here the reader
should compare Matt., chap. 3, and Luke, chap. 3.
19 And this[48] is the record of John, when the Jews sent
priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art
thou?
[48] Luke 3:15, etc.
20 And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am
not the Christ.
=19, 20. And this is the witness of John.= The writer goes back and
gives a detailed history of John’s first explicit testimony to the
Messiah, connecting it with his previous reference to that testimony in
verse 15.--=When the Jews sent priests and Levites.= In John’s Gospel,
the term Jews generally signifies, not the residents of Palestine,
but those of Judea, and sometimes the official heads of the people.
This appears to be the meaning here. It is clear from verse 22 that
this was an official deputation, probably sent by the Sanhedrim. The
Baptist’s preaching had produced a profound sensation throughout
that part of Palestine; great crowds flocked to his ministry; he
was universally regarded as a prophet, and by some as perhaps the
Messiah; some of the Pharisees themselves came to his baptism, though
his severe denunciation of their formalism, and their own opposition
to such a personal reform as his preaching demanded, made them, as
a class, bitterly opposed to him (Matt. 3:5, 7; 21:25, 26; Luke
3:15). It was therefore natural and fit that the Sanhedrim should
send to inquire officially respecting his ministry. There is nothing
to indicate whether this inquiry was conducted in a hostile spirit or
otherwise.--=Who art thou?= Observe, throughout this interview, the
difference in the spirit of the inquirers and of John. They persist in
demanding to know _who_ he is; he replies only by pointing out _what_
he does. “They ever ask about his _person_; he ever refers them to his
_office_. He is no one--a _voice_ merely; it is the work of God, the
testimony to Christ, which is everything. So the formalist ever in the
church asks, _Who_ is he? while the witness for Christ only exalts,
only cares for Christ’s work.”--(_Alford._)--=And he publicly
acknowledged, and denied not.= We know from Luke 3:15 that some
thought he _might_ be the Messiah; and later, a Gnostic sect
maintained that he was the Messiah. This testimony, amplifying the
brief reference to it in verses 7, 8, is probably inserted in part to
refute this error.
21 And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he
saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No.
=21. Art thou Elijah? And he saith, I am not.= Mal. 4:5 declares that
Elijah should precede the Messiah. John the Baptist’s character, and
even his appearance (comp. Matt. 3:4 with 2 Kings 1:8), resembled that
of Elijah. Christ distinctly declares that John the Baptist is the
Elijah foretold by the prophet and expected by the people (Matt.
17:12, 13; comp. Luke 1:17). Here John says he is not. The true
explanation is, not that the people were expecting a literal
resurrection of Elijah from the dead, and John denied that he
fulfilled that expectation, but that, like many another great but
humble messenger of God, he did not comprehend his own character and
mission and relation to ancient prophecy. He was more than he
knew.--=Art thou that prophet?= From Deut., 8:15 the Jews expected a
prophet to precede the Messiah (John 6:14; 7:40). Not till later was
this prophecy correctly interpreted by the Apostles as referring to
Christ himself (Acts 3:22; 7:37).
22 Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give
an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?
23 He[49] said, I _am_ the voice of one crying in the
wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the
prophet[50] Esaias.
[49] ch. 3:28; Matt. 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4.
[50] Isa. 40:3.
=22, 23.= See Matt. 3:3 and Mark 1:3, and notes. It is evident that the
characterization of John the Baptist there and the application to him
of the prophecy of Isaiah 40:3 was derived from John himself.
24 And they which were sent were of the Pharisees.
25 And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizeth
thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither
that prophet?
26 John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but
there standeth one[51] among you, whom ye know not;
[51] Mal. 3:1.
27 He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me,
whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose.
=24-27. And they which were sent were of the Pharisees.= The Pharisees
were scrupulous ceremonialists, and ablutions were an important part of
their ceremonial. See Matt. 15:1-7; Mark 7:2-5, notes. To them John’s
employment of baptism appeared irregular and unauthorized if he were
not invested with some special divine authority.--=John answered
them.= This answer is only indirectly responsive to their
interrogatory. He passes at once from his own authority, which he
disdains to defend, to testify to the Messiah, whose forerunner he is.
The synoptical Evangelists (Matt. 3:11, 12, note; Mark 1:7, 8; Luke
3:16, 17) report more fully John’s characterization of his own baptism
and its contrast with that which the Messiah would inaugurate; one in
water, the other in fire and the Holy Ghost; one a symbol, the other
the thing symbolized; one a prophecy, the other its fulfillment.--=There
standeth one among you whom ye know not.= That is, do not recognize as
what he really is, the Messiah. It is not necessarily implied that
Jesus Christ was present at this interview, and verse 29 implies that
he was not. The language simply points to one apparently of the common
people and unknown.--=Who cometh after me, whose shoe-latchet I am
unworthy to unloose.= This is the true reading; the words _is
preferred before me_ have been added by some copyist from verse 15. On
the significance of the expression, see notes on Matt. 3:11 and Luke
3:16. The latchet of the shoe is the leather thong with which the
sandal was bound on to the foot or the shoe was laced. For
illustration, see Mark 6:7-13, Vol. 1, p. 362.
28 These things were done in Bethabara[52] beyond Jordan,
where John was baptizing.
[52] Judges 7:24.
=28. Bethabara.= The best reading here is Bethany; the common reading,
Bethabara, is derived from Origen, who found such a place about
opposite Jericho. The Bethany intended is certainly not the well-known
town of that name on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, for this
one was beyond Jordan. The site is unknown; it has been fixed by Origen
as far south as Jericho; by Stanley, 30 miles north of Jericho, near
Succoth; by Lightfoot, north of the Sea of Galilee. We can only say
that it was probably at one of the fords of the Jordan, in the great
eastern line of travel, and certainly at some point between the sea
of Galilee and the neighborhood of Jericho. There are two traditional
sites, one Greek, the other Latin, and both historically worthless.
29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and
saith, Behold the Lamb[53] of God, which taketh[54] away
the sin of the world.
[53] Ex. 12:3; Isa. 53:7, 11; Rev. 5:6.
[54] Acts 13:39; 1 Pet. 2:24; Rev. 1:5.
=29. The next day.= Not merely, _some following day_, for the original
Greek word (ἐπαύριον) never has this meaning in the N. T. It has been
so rendered by some commentators here, in order to introduce the
Temptation between the testimony of the Baptist to the delegation from
Jerusalem and his testimony here uttered to his own disciples.--=He
seeth Jesus.= The word _John_ has been inserted by some copyists to
make the meaning clearer.--=Coming toward him.= Not, as in our English
version, _unto him_. The preposition employed (πρός) signifies simply
direction. Why he was coming toward him is not a matter for profitable
conjecture. Not, as some suppose, for baptism, for the temptation
followed the baptism, and the order of events in John’s narrative
follow each other so closely up to and after the marriage at Cana
(vers. 35, 43; ch. 2:1), that no time is afforded for the temptation,
which was forty days in duration, and which must have occurred prior
to the interview between the Baptist and the Jewish delegation.--=And
said.= Publicly, probably to his own disciples, perhaps to the
multitude. This first preaching of Christ produced no observable
effect. It was not till John repeated it on the following day (ver.
37) that any of his auditors followed Jesus.--=Behold the Lamb of
God.= Not _a_ lamb of God. The meaning cannot therefore be, Behold a
pure and innocent man; an interpretation which would probably never
have been conceived, but for the purpose of escaping the doctrine of
atonement for sin, which can be escaped only by rejecting both the Old
and the New Testaments in their entirety.--=Which taketh away.= This
exactly represents the significance of the original verb (αἴρω), which
means, not bears, or suffers, or releases from the penalty of, but
_takes away_. For its non-metaphorical use, see Matt. 13:12, _shall be
taken away_; 21:21, _be removed_; Luke 6:30, _that taketh away_ thy
goods; John 11:39, _take away_ the stone; 11:48, the Romans shall
_take away_ both our place, etc. It thus corresponds almost exactly
with the word (ἁφίηγι) ordinarily translated forgive. See Matt. 6:12,
note. Observe that the verb is in the present tense, _is taking away_.
The sacrifice has been offered once for all; but its effect is a
continuous one. Christ is ever engaged in lifting up and taking away
the sin of the world.--=The sin of the world.= Not _sins from the
world_, which would be a very different matter. The sin is represented
as _one burden_, which Christ _as a whole_ lifts up and carries away.
His redemption is not a limited redemption; it provides a finished
salvation for the entire human race. See ch. 16:22, note.
Very unnecessary difficulty has been made respecting the interpretation
of the Baptist’s simple metaphor here. The lamb was throughout the O.
T. times commonly used for sacrifice as a sin-offering (Lev. 4:32); in
cleansing the leper (Lev. 14:10); at the morning and evening sacrifice
(Exod. 29:38); at all the great feasts (Numb. 28:11; 29:2, 13, 37;
Lev. 23:19); and in large numbers on special occasions (1 Chron.
29:21; 2 Chron. 29:32; 35:7). The sacrifice of the paschal lamb at the
Passover connected the lamb as a sacrifice with the greatest feast day
of the nation, and with the national redemption from bondage and
deliverance from death (Exod. 12:21-27). The ceremony with the
scape-goat on the day of atonement, the only fast-day in the Jewish
calendar, interpreted clearly, and by an annual symbol, the meaning of
these sacrifices. On that day two kids of goats were chosen, closely
resembling each other; one was slain as a sin-offering; over the other
the high-priest confessed the sins of the people, “putting them on the
head of the goat,” who was then led away into the wilderness, “to bear
upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited” (Lev.
16:5-10, 20-22). Isaiah, with unmistakable reference to these typical
sacrifices, declared that the Messiah should bear the sins and sorrows
of the world as a lamb slaughtered (Isaiah 53:1-7); and the Baptist,
speaking to a people whose national education had led them to regard
the lamb as the type of sacrifice, through the shedding of whose blood
there was a redemption, a carrying away of sins, points to Jesus with
the declaration, Behold _the_ Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of
the world, that is, the true Sin-bearer, of whom all that went before
were but types and prophecies. _How_ he was to take away this load of
sin the Baptist does not say, and probably did not know. That he did
not realize that Christ was to be a true sacrifice for sin is
indicated by his subsequent perplexity and message to Jesus (Matt.
11:2-6, note). Observe the analogy and the contrast between the O. T.
and the N. T. Under the O. T. there were provided by the sinner lambs,
whose sacrifice took sin away from the individual or the nation, but
for the time only, and therefore the sacrifice needed to be
continually repeated; under the N. T. _one_ Lamb is provided, the Lamb
of God, _i. e._, proceeding from and _provided by God_, as intimated
by Abraham to Isaac (Gen. 22:8), whose sacrifice _once for all_ (Heb.
10:10-12) takes away the sin of the _whole world_ (1 John 2:2), and
therefore never needs to be repeated. It is worthy of note that the
word _lamb_ is never used in the N. T. except in reference to Jesus
Christ (John 1:29, 36; Acts 8:32; 1 Peter 1:19; Rev. 5:6, 8, 12,
etc.). The word _lambs_ in the plural form occurs twice, but both
times refer to the disciples of Christ (Luke 10:3; John 21:15).
30 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which
is preferred before me: for he was before me.
31 And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest
to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.
=30, 31. After me cometh=, etc. See on verse 15.--=But that he should
be made manifest to Israel therefore am I come=, etc. The object of
the Baptist’s ministry was not then merely to preach repentance, but
to preach repentance _as a preparation for the coming of the kingdom
of God in the incarnation of the King_. And with this agrees his own
definition of his mission (verse 23) and the other Evangelists’
epitome of his ministry (Matt. 3:2). The true office of the
minister is always that Christ may be made manifest.
32 And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit
descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.
33 And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with
water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the
Spirit descending, and remaining[55] on him, the same is he
which baptizeth[56] with the Holy Ghost.
[55] chap. 3:34.
[56] Acts 1:5; 2:4.
34 And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.
=32-34. And John witnessed.= Evidently the Evangelist here speaks of
his witness at some period subsequent to the baptism, and therefore
subsequent to the temptation which immediately succeeded the
baptism.--=I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove.= That
is, in the form of a dove. The vision was seen only by Jesus and John.
On it see Matt. 3:16, note.--=And it abode upon him.= The Spirit of
God, not the dove, abode. That John in some way recognized the abiding
as a part of the sign of Christ’s Messiahship, is evident from the
next verse; how he recognized it is not indicated.--=I also knew him
not.= He connects himself with the people who knew him not (verse 26).
=I=, as well as you, knew him not, till this sign was vouchsafed me.
Why then did he at first object to baptizing Jesus, if he did not
recognize in him the Christ (Matt. 3:14). He was second cousin of
Jesus; knew him, probably, as a pure and holy man; perhaps knew the
facts respecting Jesus’ birth, which were certainly known to John’s
mother; may even have _suspected_ that he was the promised Messiah;
and at all events may have believed that he needed no baptism of
repentance. He did not, however, know him to be the Messiah, and did
not recognize him _as such_, till after the promised sign, and this
followed the baptism of Jesus.--=Saw and bare witness.= That is, at
that time. He refers the people to his witness-bearing at the time of
the baptism, a testimony which was still fresh in their memory.
35 Again the next day after John stood, and two of his
disciples:
36 And looking upon Jesus as he walketh, he saith, Behold
the Lamb of God!
37 And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed
Jesus.
=35-37. Again the next day.= That is, the day following the apparent
public discourse, so briefly reported in the preceding verses
(29-34).--=And two of his disciples.= See on their names verse 40 and
note. As they were disciples of the Baptist it is to be presumed that
they had been baptized, but by John’s baptism which was unto
repentance and not in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. See
Acts 19:3-5.--=As he walked.= Or, as we should say, _As he was taking
a walk_. One of the numerous indications in the Gospels that Christ
was a lover of nature, and accustomed to meditate and study in
communion with nature.--=Saith, Behold the Lamb of God.= See on verse
29. Observe the practical value of line upon line. John’s private
message recalls and repeats his public testimony. See Phil. 3:1.--=And
the two disciples heard him speak.= He spoke possibly in soliloquy,
more probably to them. It is clear that it was not a public discourse
which is here reported. There is no ground for the hypothesis that the
two disciples had not heard the discourse of the previous day. Rather
the implication is that they had heard it, and these words uttered to
them in private by their teacher, enforced the public lesson, and led
them to seek further knowledge concerning the one who was pointed out
to them as the Messiah. Observe how this passage teaches the value of
personal work and personal influence. The first disciples are led to
seek Christ, not by the public discourse, but by the private words of
the Baptist; by private influence they bring Peter (41); by private
invitation Philip is added to the disciples (43); and by his personal
solicitation Nathanael is brought to Christ (45).--=And they followed
Jesus.= Not, in the religious sense of the words, became followers of
Jesus; not till later did they leave all to follow him (Luke, ch. 5).
The simplest is also the truest interpretation of these words. They
literally followed him; drawn partly by curiosity, partly, perhaps, by
a real spiritual desire for closer acquaintance with the one whom
their teacher designated as the Lamb of God.
38 Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith
unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which
is to say being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou?
39 He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw
where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was
about the tenth hour.
=38, 39. Jesus * * * saith unto them, What seek ye?= Not because he
was ignorant of their purpose, for he knew what was in man (ch. 2:25;
comp. Mark 2:8, etc.); but because he would draw them out. In a
similar manner he opens conversation with the woman at the well (ch.
4:10, 16), with the disciples fishing at the sea of Galilee (ch.
21:5), and with the disciples on their way to Emmaus (Luke 24:17).
Christ _as a conversationalist_ is a study for the Christian. Observe
how he opens the way and leads on to familiar acquaintance,
first by his question, then by his invitation, finally by his
hospitality.--=Rabbi * * * Master.= Rather, _teacher_, or _doctor_.
Rabbi is a Hebrew word; _teacher_ (διδάσκαλος) is its Greek
equivalent. John, writing for the Gentile world, habitually translates
the Hebrew phrases into their Greek equivalents.--=Where dwellest
thou?= They are timid and dare not, or at least do not, express their
whole desire. Often in the spiritual reticence, so common to the first
experiences of the awakened soul, its real aspirations after truth are
concealed beneath an assumed curiosity respecting some indifferent
matter. Christ meets this non-pertinent if not impertinent curiosity
with an invitation which attaches the two inquirers to him for
life.--=Come and see.= Rather, _Come and ye shall see_. This is the
best reading, and is given by Alford, Meyer, Tischendorf, Tregelles,
etc. (ὄψεσθε not ἴδετε).--=And abode with him that day.= For the rest
of the day.--=For it was about the tenth hour.= Reckoning from 6 A.
M., according to Jewish fashion, this would make it 4 P. M. Observe,
as indicative of the Evangelist John’s character, and of the force of
the impression made on him from the outset by Christ, that he
remembered not only the day, _but the very hour_, of his first
interview with his subsequent Lord. This, too, is one of those minute
touches which would not be found in either a mythical tradition or an
ecclesiastical forgery.
40 One of the two which heard John _speak_, and followed
him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.
41 He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith
unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being
interpreted, the Christ.
42 And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him,
he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou[57] shalt be
called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.
[57] Matt. 16:18.
=40-42. One of the two * * * was Andrew.= It is the almost universal
belief of scholars that the other was John the Evangelist, an opinion
which rests on the following considerations: (1) John never mentions
himself in his Gospel; if he refers to himself at all it is never by
name (ch. 13:23; 18:15; 19:26; 20:3; 21:20). (2) The name of the other
disciple would have been mentioned if there had not been some special
reason for not mentioning it, and John’s habit of suppressing his own
name constitutes a sufficient reason; no other plausible reason has
been suggested. (3) The minute accuracy of detail in this narrative,
extending to the specification of the day and of the hour, justifies
the belief that it is the narrative of an eye and ear witness. On the
life and character of Andrew see note at close of Matt. ch. 10, Vol.
1.--=He first findeth his own brother.= Our English version is
ambiguous if not misleading. The meaning is not, Before going to
Jesus’ residence he found his own brother, but of the two he was the
first to find Simon. The implication is that both went in search of
him; all three, John, Andrew, and Simon were probably at the baptism
of John the Baptist, and were his disciples. There is no evidence to
sustain the hypothesis that John brought his brother James to Jesus at
this time, or even that James was with John at the Jordan.--=The
Messiah * * * the Christ.= One is a Hebrew, the other a Greek word.
The meaning is the Anointed One. On the spiritual meaning of the names
of Jesus, see note at close of Matt. ch. 1, Vol. I. Andrew’s
exclamation of delight on finding the Messiah, _eureka_ (εὐρήκαμεν,
_we have found_), is the same attributed to Archimedes on his
discovery of the adulteration of Hiero’s crown. He detected the
mixture of silver in a crown which Hiero had ordered to be made of
gold, and determined the proportions of the two metals by a method
suggested to him by the overflow of the water when he stepped into a
bath. When the thought struck him, he is said to have been so pleased
that, forgetting to put on his clothes, he ran home shouting _Eureka,
Eureka, I have found it, I have found it_. What is the grandest
discovery compared with that which the soul makes when it finds its
Messiah?--=Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation
Peter.= Cephas is Hebrew; Peter is Greek; both words mean a stone. On
the significance of this change of name, see Matt. 16:18, note. At the
interview there reported Christ refers to the name here given, and
confirms and interprets it; at least this is the view of the best
Evangelical scholars, Meyer, Alford, Lange, Schaff; and it is more
reasonable, on the whole, than the supposition that the Evangelist
John anticipates and reports the change of name out of its place. The
careful student will observe that here Christ’s language is that of
prophecy: Thou _shalt be_ called Peter; there it is the language of
fulfillment. Thou _art_ Peter. The apostle did not become Peter till
he made the inspired confession of Christ as the divine Messiah, which
is recorded in Matthew.
43 The day following. Jesus would go forth into Galilee,
and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me.
44 Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and
Peter.
45 Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have
found him, of whom Moses[58] in the law, and the prophets,
did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
[58] Luke 24:27, 44.
=43-45. The day following.= That is, the day following the bringing of
Peter to Jesus, which Meyer thinks occurred on the same day in which
Andrew and John accompanied Jesus to his home, but which it appears to
me, from verse 39, must have occurred on the following day; and this
is the view of the ancient and of many of the modern expositors. In
that case the order would be as follows: first day, John’s conference
with the delegation from Jerusalem (19-28); second day, John’s public
testimony to Jesus (29-34); third day, John’s private testimony to
Jesus (35-39); fourth day, Peter brought to Jesus (40-42); fifth day,
Nathanael brought to Jesus (43-51); seventh day, one day intervening,
the marriage at Cana in Galilee (ch. 2:1, etc.).--=Findeth Philip and
saith unto him, Follow me.= This is Christ’s first personal call of a
disciple to follow him. There is no evidence that Philip ever withdrew
from this personal following of Christ as did John and Peter and
Andrew; they did not permanently attach themselves to Jesus till his
subsequent call to them by the sea of Galilee (Luke 5:1-11). On
Philip’s life, see note at close of Matt. 10, Vol. I. He is not to be
confounded with Philip the deacon, mentioned in Acts 6:5; 8:5-12,
etc.--=Bethsaida.= There is no good ground for the hypothesis that
there were two towns of this name on or near the sea of Galilee. The
city was on the northern shore, near the entrance of the Jordan into
the sea. See Mark 6:45, note; and for illustration of site, John ch.
6.--=Philip findeth Nathanael.= Observe that the young disciple does
not wait, but as soon as he has found Christ begins to declare his
discovery to others. So with Andrew above (41), with the woman of
Samaria (ch. 4:28, 29), with Paul after his conversion (Acts 9:20).
Nathanael’s name occurs in the N. T. only here and in John 21:2. It is
not among the list of apostles furnished by Matt. 10:2-5; Mark
3:16-19; Luke 6:14-16; and Acts 1:13. But they all mention, in close
connection with Philip, a Bartholomew, which is not properly a name
but only a patronymic, its meaning being Son of Tholmai. These facts
have led most scholars to adopt, as a reasonable hypothesis, the
opinion that Nathanael and Bartholomew are different names for the
same person. The name Nathanael, like our Theodore, means _gift of
God_.--=We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets,
did write.= The reference is unmistakably to the Messiah. For
references in the books of Moses to the promised Messiah, see Gen.
3:15 and 17:7, with Gal. 3:16, and Deut. 18:15-19.--=Jesus of
Nazareth, the son of Joseph.= This is the language, not of the
Evangelist, but of Philip. Unquestionably at that time Philip knew
nothing of the supposed birth of Jesus; to him Jesus was, as to the
Nazarenes subsequently (Matt. 13:54-56), simply the son of Joseph. The
supposed inconsistency of this language and the account of Christ’s
supernatural birth as given by Matthew, is therefore purely imaginary.
46 And Nathanael said unto him,[59] Can there any good
thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and
see.
[59] chap. 7:41.
=46. Out of Nazareth is it possible that anything good can come!=
There is a scornful emphasis on the word Nazareth not preserved in our
English version. That Nazareth was an unimportant and insignificant
town is indicated by the fact that it is neither mentioned in the O.
T. nor in Josephus; that the moral condition of its inhabitants was
below that of the rest of Galilee is indicated by the declaration of
Mark 6:5, 6, and by the mob which threatened the life of Christ at a
time when he was just growing into popularity elsewhere in Galilee
(Luke 4:28-30). No other definite reason is known for the evident
odium which attached to Nazareth even in the minds of Galileans. Comp.
Matt. 2:23, note. The question of Nathanael furnishes a striking
illustration of the spirit of prejudice in even good men. To Nathanael
it seems impossible that the promised Prophet can appear elsewhere
than in or near the city of the Great King.--=Come and see.= This is
the best answer to make to unbelief. Christ is his own best witness
(ch. 5:34). It is not merely true that “personal experience is the
best test of the truth of Christianity, which, like the sun in heaven,
can only be seen in its own light” (_Schaff_), but it is also true
that Christ is a greater miracle than any he ever wrought; and that
the supreme character of Christ carries in itself a moral conviction
to hearts which resist all arguments drawn from nature. Of this truth
John Stuart Mill, in his Three Essays on Religion, affords a striking
illustration. After considering all the arguments for the existence
and perfection of the Divine Being derived from nature, and declaring
that Natural Religion points to a Being “of great but limited power,”
“who desires and pays some regard to the happiness of his creatures,
but who seems to have other motives of action which he cares more
for,” he comes to the character of Christ, and not only pays a tribute
to it, eloquent and reverent, but adds his conviction that it would
not “even now be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better
translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete,
than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our life.”
Chrysostom notices the gentleness and candor of Philip’s reply; he
furnishes a model to all disputants in dealing with religious
prejudice. See 2 Tim. 2:24.
47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him,
Behold[60] an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!
[60] Ps. 32:2; Rom. 2:28, 29.
48 Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus
answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee,
when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw[61] thee.
[61] Ps. 139:1, 2.
49 Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou[62]
art the Son of God; thou art the King[63] of Israel.
[62] chap. 20:28, 29; Matt. 14:33.
[63] Matt. 21:5; 27:11.
=47-49. An Israelite indeed.= Because in faith and love a true child
of God. Comp. Luke 19:9; Romans 2:28, 29; Gal. 3:29; 6:15, 16. For O.
T. description of such an Israelite, see Psalm 15.--=In whom is no
guile.= Therefore, characteristically unlike the Pharisees, whose
pride it was that they were children of Abraham (Luke 3:8; John 8:33),
and who were full of hypocrisy (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16; 23:14-33).--=Whence
knowest thou me?= As Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:5, 6, notes), so Nathanael
is surprised by the Lord’s reading of his character and inward
experience.--=When thou wast under the fig-tree.= The whole course of
the narrative indicates in this response a supernatural sight, as in
the previous characterization of Nathanael a supernatural insight. If
Christ had merely chanced to see Nathanael without being seen by him,
this fact would afford, surely, no basis for Nathanael’s faith, or
Christ’s commendation of it. It seems also clear that something more
is implied than the mere fact that Christ saw Nathanael under a
fig-tree, since that would neither explain Christ’s commendation of
him as an Israelite without guile, nor Nathanael’s astonishment. Hence
the surmise of the commentators that he had retired there for purposes
of prayer, and that Christ had seen him there, like the Israel from
whom he descended (Gen. 32:24-23) wrestling with God, for the bestowal
of the long-promised blessing to his realm, in the gift of the
Messiah. It was probably this revelation of the secret of his soul
which caused Christ to characterize him as a true Israelite, and
Nathanael to recognize in the One who read his inmost life so
perfectly, the King of Israel.--=The Son of God * * * the King of
Israel.= The Messiah. See Ps. 2:7; Matt. 16:16; Luke 22:70;
John 1:34; 11:27. Observe that Christ recognizes and accepts this
characterization of himself at the outset of his ministry, a quite
sufficient refutation of the theory of Renan, that it was the
outgrowth of his followers’ later admiration, and tacitly accepted by
Christ at or near the close of his earthly life. That Nathanael fully
comprehended the meaning of his own confession is not, however,
probable.
50 Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto
thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou
shalt see greater things than these.
51 And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Hereafter ye shall see heaven[64] open, and the angels[65]
of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.
[64] Ezek. 1:1.
[65] Gen. 28:12; Dan. 7:9, 10; Acts 1:10, 11.
=50, 51.= There is some difficulty respecting the proper
interpretation of Christ’s promise here. The word _hereafter_ is
rather _henceforth_; but it is omitted by the best critics, _e. g._,
Alford, Tischendorf, Lachmann. The figure is undoubtedly drawn from
the vision of Jacob (Israel) of the ladder between heaven and earth,
and the angels ascending and descending on it (Gen. 28:12). Some
suppose the reference to the angelic appearances to Christ, and the
divine signs given in attestation of his mission (ver. 32; Matt. 4:11;
Luke 2:13; 9:29-31; 22:43), but the earlier of these had already taken
place, and Nathanael was neither present at the temptation, at the
transfiguration, nor at the garden of Gethsemane. Chrysostom refers in
addition to the angelic appearances at the resurrection, but they by
no means furnish a literal fulfillment of the promise. Some interpret
it spiritually, of the manifest opening of the heavens and the
intercommunication between earth and heaven, through Jesus Christ. So
Maurice: “Faithful and true Israelite! the vision to thy progenitor
who first bore that name, shall be substantiated for thee, and for
those who trust in me in lonely hours, through clouds and darkness, as
thou hast done. The ladder set upon earth and reaching to heaven--the
ladder upon which the angels of God ascended and descended--is a
ladder for thee and for all. For the Son of man, who joins earth to
heaven, the seen to the unseen, God and man in one, He is with you;
through Him your spirits may arise to God; through Him God’s Spirit
shall come down upon you.” Similarly Luther, Calvin, Tholuck, Alford,
and others. But this interpretation is not wholly satisfactory, since
it converts Christ’s words into an allegory, and deprives them of all
literal meaning. According to this view the angels are but spiritual
blessings, the open heavens are not seen, and the angelic appearances
are not upon the Messiah, but through him to mankind. A third
interpretation connects Christ’s words here with his analogous
declarations in Matt. 25:31; 26:64, etc., and refers it to his Second
Coming. So Ryle: “When He comes the second time to take his great
power and reign, the words of this text shall be literally fulfilled.
His believing people shall see heaven open, and a constant
communication kept up between heaven and earth--the tabernacle of God
with men, and the angels visibly ministering to the King of Israel,
and King of all the earth.” I believe that these three views are
congruous and consistent, and are all embraced in the promise. Christ
opened the communication between earth and heaven; manifested that
fact by the angelic appearances which accompanied his coming, his
presence, and his departure; still manifests it, by the spiritual
blessings which he constantly confers in answer to the prayers of his
people; and will finally manifest it yet more gloriously when he comes
to take possession of his established kingdom, with his holy angels
with him. The past and present fulfillments of this prophecy are but
fragmentary and imperfect. The final and perfect fulfillment awaits us
in the future.
[Illustration: AN ORIENTAL WEDDING.
“_And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee_”]
CHAPTER II.
Ch. 2:1-11. THE MARRIAGE AT CANA IN GALILEE. CHRISTIANITY NOT
ASCETICISM.
This miracle is recounted only by the Evangelist John. That fact does
not discredit the account: it incidentally confirms the view that he
wrote to supply what was lacking in the other Gospels.
[Illustration: CANA OF GALILEE.]
1 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana[66] of
Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there.
[66] ch. 4:46; Joshua 19:28.
2 And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the
marriage.[67]
[67] Heb. 13:4.
=1, 2. The third day.= That is, probably, after the interview with
Nathanael described at the close of the preceding chapter. Lightfoot
says that, according to Jewish custom, the weddings of virgins took
place on the fourth day of the week, our Wednesday, and of widows on
the fifth day, our Thursday.--=There was a marriage.= For description
of wedding ceremonies among the Jews, with illustration of wedding
procession, see Matt. 25:1-13, Prel. Note.--=In Cana of Galilee.= The
traditional site is Kefr Kenna, four and one-half miles northwest of
Nazareth. The more probable site is about nine miles north of Nazareth
and six or eight hours from Capernaum. See Map, Vol. I, p. 50.
Robinson describes it as a fine situation, and once a considerable
village of well-built houses. They are now uninhabited and the whole
region is wild and desolate.--=And the mother of Jesus was there.= Her
name is never mentioned by John. The fact that Joseph is not mentioned
in either of the Gospels, after Christ’s manhood, has led to the
universal opinion that he was dead. The presence of Mary, and her
apparent authority (ver. 5), indicates that the bride or bridegroom
were connections or relatives. Different traditions represent
respectively Alphæus, one of his sons, John the Apostle, and Simon the
Canaanite as the bridegroom, but they are all equally untrustworthy.
The Mormons maintain that this was the marriage of Jesus himself.The
student will observe that it is said of Mary that she _was there_, of
Jesus that he _was called_, an indication that he came at a later
period, and probably after the marriage feast, which usually lasted
for several days, had begun.--=And his disciples.= Probably those who
had already begun to follow him, though not yet ordained as apostles,
nor summoned by him to leave their regular avocations to become his
constant companions. These were Andrew, John, Simon Peter, Philip, and
Nathanael, and they were probably invited because they were with
Christ, and out of consideration for him.
3 And when[68] they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith
unto him, They have no wine.
[68] Eccles. 10:19; Isa. 24:11.
=3. And the wine failing.= Not merely, as in our English version, when
they wanted wine. The implication is that wine had been provided,
but the supply proved insufficient. Possibly the unexpected addition
of the five disciples of Christ exhausted it.--=The mother of Jesus
saith unto him, They have no wine.= _Why_ did she appeal to him?
There is certainly no ground for such an explanation as that of
Bengel, that she meant to give a hint to Jesus and his disciples
to go away! Nor is there any evidence that she asked him to work a
miracle, or even definitely anticipated or desired it. If she were
in any way responsible for the success of the feast, and the supply
was falling short, the appeal for help to her son was natural; and it
was specially so, if, as modern customs in the Orient indicate (see
Ellicott’s _Life of Christ_, p. 118), the guests often contribute to
the supplies at such entertainments. Along with this desire to do
the bride and bridegroom a favor, there may have been, as Chrysostom
suggests, a desire through her son to render herself conspicuous,
and a vague and inexpressible feeling that he could, if he would,
supply the want by a miracle, as Elijah supplied the widow’s cruse
(1 Kings 17:14-16). And his _quasi_ rebuke, if rebuke it be, may have
been addressed to this mother’s vanity.
4 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee?
mine hour is not yet come.
=4. Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.=
Some question has been made respecting the meaning of this language.
It is clear (1) that _woman_ is not a harsh term, and involves no tone
of rebuke or reproof; for when Christ on the cross commends his mother
to John’s care, he uses the same term, “_Woman_, behold thy son” (ch.
19:26); (2) the Greek phrase (τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοὶ) is properly rendered in
our English version, _What have I to do with thee?_ Though literally
capable of the translation proposed by Dr. Adam Clarke, _What is this
to thee and me?_ that is, _What is this to us?_ the uniform usage of
the N. T. forbids this translation. The Greek is the same in the
following passages, where the translation cannot be other than that
given both there and here. Matt. 8:29, note; Mark 1:24; 5:7; Luke
8:28. I can only understand it as a disclaimer on Christ’s part of any
responsibility in the matter, and an intimation that in his future
mission he was not, as he had heretofore been, subject unto his
mother. There may also be in it implied a gentle rebuke of her
endeavor to elicit from him some display of his miraculous power,
before the time for the commencement of his public ministry.
Chrysostom interprets her spirit here by that of Christ’s brethren
(ch. 7:4), and his reply by his refusal, later, to turn aside from his
work at her solicitation (Matt. 12:47, 48). Evidently she did not
regard his language as that of refusal, for she expects his aid, and
bids the servants do his bidding. “She read a _yes_ latent in his
apparent _no_.”--(_Trench._)--=Mine hour is not yet come.= Not mine
hour to die, though that is usually the signification of this
oft-repeated phrase in John’s Gospel (ch. 7:30; 8:20; 12:23, 27;
13:1); but that would be here meaningless; nor, The hour to work this
miracle, because the wine is not yet wholly exhausted, or the guests
are not conscious of the lack, and have not asked for supply; but, The
hour for me to begin my public ministry, accompanied as it is to be
with the working of miracles, the hour for my manifestation. The
Protestant commentaries see in the language here a rebuke of the
spirit of Mariolatry, in this following the fathers; _e. g._,
Chrysostom: “The answer was not that of one rejecting his mother, but
of One who would show her that having borne him would have availed
nothing, had she not been very good and faithful;” and Augustine: “As
God he has no mother. And now that he was about to perform a divine
work, he ignores, as it were, the human womb, and asks, ‘Woman, what
have I to do with thee?’ as much as to say, Thou art not the mother of
that in me which works miracles; thou art not the mother of my
Godhead.”
5 His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever[69] he
saith unto you, do _it_.
[69] Luke 5:5, 6.
=5. His mother saith onto the servants.= The fact that there were
servants, and more than one, indicates that the family was in at least
comfortable if not opulent circumstances. Christ associated with the
rich as readily as with the poor; but the rich did not, as readily as
the poor, associate with him. Her direction to the servants and their
unquestioning obedience indicates that in this marriage festival she
had some degree of authority.
6 And there were set there six water-pots of stone, after
the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or
three firkins apiece.
7 Jesus saith unto them, Fill the water-pots with water.
And they filled them up to the brim.
8 And he saith unto them, Draw[70] out now, and bear unto
the governor[71] of the feast. And they bare _it_.
[70] Eccles. 9:7.
[71] Rom. 13:7.
=6-8.= The forms of the water-pot and of the ewer, with which the water
was drawn or dipped out, are shown in the accompanying illustration.
The water-pots may have set in the room; more probably in an ante-room
or in the courtyard of the house. The fact that the water was provided
for purifying is stated to account for the presence of so much water;
and the reference to the manner of the Jews is added for the Gentile
readers, for whom John especially wrote. On these ceremonial washings,
see Mark 7:2-5, notes. The _firkin_ (μετρητης) is equivalent to 8⅞
gallons; the whole amount of water, therefore, was between 100 and 150
gallons. Since the jars were filled to the brim, the water was apparent
_after_ they were filled; there was, therefore, no room for fraud or
mistake. The statement of the exact number and proximate size indicates
that we have here the description of an eye-witness. It also indicates
that there were a large number of guests.
[Illustration: WATER-POTS AND EWERS.]
The quantity of wine made by Christ on this occasion has been the
subject of some hostile criticism, as though it were an invitation to
excessive drinking. But (1) there is no evidence that any more wine
was created than was used. Whether it was changed in the stone jars,
or as it was carried to the guests, does not appear; (2) in Palestine,
a wine-growing and wine-consuming country, where it is not merely _a_
beverage, but _the_ beverage of the common people, four or five
barrels of wine would not seem so extraordinary a supply as it would
to us, nor would it produce any such effect in the consumption as an
equal amount of the ordinary wines of to-day; (3) it is God’s way to
pour out his bounty, not only in abundance, but in superabundance. As
Christ created, not merely barely enough bread for the 5,000, but the
disciples, after all were fed, gathered up twelve baskets full, so we
may well believe that here he created not barely sufficient for the
hour, but a superabundance which remained to bless the home after the
departure of the guests. On the probable character of this wine, see
below, Note on Christ’s example in the use of wine.
9 When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that
was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the
servants[72] which drew the water knew;) the governor
of the feast called the bridegroom,
[72] ch. 7:17; Ps. 119:100.
10 And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth
set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk,
then that which is worse: _but_ thou hast kept the
good wine[73] until now.
[73] Ps. 104:15; Prov. 9:2, 5.
=9, 10. The ruler of the feast.= The same word as _governor of the
feast_, in the preceding verse. Among the Greeks and Romans, a ruler
of the feast (_symposiarch_) was commonly chosen, usually by lot, who
regulated the whole order of the festivities, proposed the amusements,
etc. A reference in the Apocrypha (Eccles. 32:1, 2) indicates that the
same practice prevailed among the Jews. There is no ground for
supposing the ruler of the feast in this case to have been other than
a guest, who occupied this honorary office.--=But the servants knew,
they having drawn the water.= Not merely, _the servants which drew,
knew_; the reason of their knowledge is indicated; they knew because
they had themselves filled the jars with the water, and drawn it
out.--=Called the bridegroom.= Called out to him, probably across the
table. The language which follows is sportive, and characteristic of
such an occasion of festivity.--=Every man at the beginning doth set
forth good wine; and when men are drunken, then that which is worse.=
The verb rendered in our English version “have well drunk” is
literally _are drunken_. It is in the passive voice. This does not
necessarily imply that in the East men counted on the inebriacy of
their guests, and for that reason provided the best wine first, still
less that the guests here were intoxicated. “The man says only in
joke, as if it were a general experience, what he certainly may have
often observed.”--(_Meyer._) The ancient commentators have observed
the difference between the feasts of the world and the feasts of
Christ; the world gives its best wine at first, and when men have
become intoxicated with it, then the poor, as the prodigal son
experienced (Luke 15:13-16); Christ ever reserves the good wine to the
last. See this thought beautifully drawn out by Jeremy Taylor in his
_Life of Christ_. Comp. John 4:13, 14.
11 This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee,
and manifested[74] forth his glory: and his disciples
believed[75] on him.
[74] ch 1:14.
[75] 1 John 5:13.
=11. This beginning of miracles.= An incidental and indirect testimony
that the miracles of Christ’s infancy, narrated in the apocryphal
Gospels, are spurious.--_And manifested forth his glory._ Observe _his_
glory; the miracles of the disciples did not manifest forth _their_
glory, but that of their Lord (Acts 3:8; 14:11-15).--=And his
disciples believed in him.= That is, the five that had already begun to
follow him. But _what_ or _how much_ they believed is not indicated.
They began to have that confidence in him which was not consummated
till after his resurrection.
In respect to this miracle, observe, (1) _The simplicity of the
narrative_. John does not directly assert that the water was made wine,
nor that a miracle was performed, nor does he deduce any conclusion
from the event; he simply narrates what he saw and heard--the jars
filled with water, the contents drawn out, the testimony of the
governor of the feast to the excellence of the wine carried to
him; the reader is left to draw his own conclusion. (2) _The utter
failure of all naturalistic explanations_, such as that Christ simply
accelerated the process of nature, or changed the attributes of the
water after the analogy of mineral waters, so as to give it the taste
and appearance of wine, or that the taste and semblance of wine was
due to a state of spiritual exaltation on the part of the company, all
of which views have had defenders even among orthodox critics. See
Lange’s and Meyer’s Commentaries for a statement of these and kindred
interpretations. Meyer well says, respecting them all, “Instead of a
transmutation of water we have a frivolous transmutation of history.”
(3) _The impossibility of deception or fraud._ The jars are those
belonging to the household; they are filled to the brim with water;
it is drawn out by the servants; the judgment respecting the wine is
pronounced by the governor of the feast, who does not know of the
miracle. (4) _The analogy of nature._ “He who made the wine at this
wedding does the same thing every year in the vines. As the water
which the servants put into the water-pots was turned into wine by
the Lord, so that which the clouds pour down is turned into wine by
the same Lord. It excites no wonder in us, because it occurs every
year.”--(_Augustine._) (5) _The moral and spiritual significance of
the miracle._ Contrast Christ’s ready consent to convert water into
wine to add to the festivities of others, with his refusal to convert
stones into bread to supply his own imperative needs (Matt. 4:3, 4);
his conversion of water into wine, the symbol of inspiration and life,
with the first miracle of Moses, who converted water into blood, an
instrument and a symbol of death (Exod. 7:20, 21)--Christ brings life
and power, Moses brings law and condemnation (Rom. 7:8, 9); his
entrance on his ministry by attendance on a marriage festivity, and
his miracle to prolong its festivities, with the asceticism of John
the Baptist (Luke 1:15; Matt. 3:4). Compare his inauguration of the
new covenant by a miracle at a marriage with God’s inauguration of the
old covenant by ordaining and creating the marriage relation (Gen.
1:21-24). Notice in this miracle a type of Christ’s redeeming love,
who converts the water of the law into the wine of the Gospel, and
every soul which hears and obeys his creative command into an
inspiring life-giving spirit (John 5:21; 6:33; 1 Cor. 15:45). Observe
the fundamental lesson, that Christ’s example bids us not to withdraw
from the world, nor abstain from its use, but to use without abusing
it (1 Cor. 7:31), and that the assertion that Christianity bids men
“make this earth as unpleasant to themselves as possible so as to
secure hereafter the joys of heaven,” is a monstrous perversion of the
teaching and example of Jesus Christ. Comp. Matt. 9:9, 10; 11:19; Luke
7:36; 11:37; 14:1; John 12:1, 2.
* * * * *
CHRIST’S EXAMPLE IN THE USE OF WINE. 1. _The facts._ These are that
Christ inaugurated his public ministry by attending a wedding feast,
and there by a miracle creating a large quantity of wine--certainly
all that the guests could use--for the simple purpose of prolonging
the festivities of the occasion; that he was accustomed throughout his
life to attend social gatherings where wine was freely used; that he
used it freely himself, notwithstanding the fact that it subjected him
to the reproaches and the misrepresentations of his enemies (Matt.
11:19; Luke 7:34); that he never directly or indirectly condemns the
use of wine, though he does condemn drunkenness (Matt. 24:49; Luke
12:45); and that he directs its use by his church as a perpetual
memorial of his atoning love, and employs it as a symbol of joy and
fellowship in the world to come (Matt. 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke
22:18; 1 Cor. 10:16). The force of this example is strengthened by the
reflection that drunkenness was common in the East before Christ’s day
(Esther 1:10; Isa. 5:22; 28:7; Dan. 5:2-4; Hosea 4:11), and in
Palestine and the neighboring countries during Christ’s lifetime, so
that even the church of Christ had need of constant admonition against
it (Matt. 24:49; Luke 15:13; Rom. 13:13; 1 Cor. 11:21; Gal. 5:21; 1
Pet. 4:3); that a Jewish Sect existed, the Essenes (Matt. 3:7, note),
who were total abstainers, with whom Christ never identified himself;
and that he directly contrasts his life and example with that of John
the Baptist (Matt. 11:19), who, as a Nazarite, was pledged against the
use of wine and strong drink (Luke 1:15; Numb. 6:3). Attempts have
been made to show that the wine which Christ made on this occasion and
used on other occasions was not fermented. It is certain that there
were in use in the Greek and Roman world, and presumptively in
Palestine, three kinds of wine--fermented wines, which, however, were
unlike our own fiery wines and contained only a small percentage of
alcohol, and which were usually mixed in the use with water, in the
proportion of two or three parts of water to one of wine; new wine,
made of the juice of the grape, and, like our new cider, not fermented
and not intoxicating; and wines in which, by boiling the unfermented
juice of the grape, or by the addition of certain drugs, the process
of fermentation had been stopped, and the formation of alcohol
prevented. It is claimed that fermented wine was not used at the
Passover, though I can find no other reason for this opinion than the
fact that leavened, _i. e._, fermented bread was prohibited--a
prohibition the sole object of which was to remind the Jews of the
haste of the original passover. Paul’s language in 1 Cor. 11:21 (see
note there) makes it evident that fermented wine was used by the
primitive church in the administration of the Lord’s Supper; and the
Rabbinical rule, requiring water to be mixed with the wine at the
paschal feast (see Lightfoot on Matt. 26:27), lest drunkenness should
disgrace it, makes it equally evident that wine was used in the
original O. T. festival. There is nothing in the language of the N. T.
to indicate any discrimination between fermented and unfermented
wines; Christ himself never directly or indirectly discriminates
between them; neither do any of his apostles; and it is apparently
indicated if not necessarily implied in the account here, and in other
passages, that it was the ordinary fermented wine which Christ
employed; see especially Matt. 11:19, “Behold a glutton and a
wine-bibber,” and Matt. 9:17, “No man having drunk old (_fermented_)
wine, straightway desireth new (_that of the last vintage and
unfermented_), for he saith the old is better.” The language of Mark
14:25, “I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine,” etc., plainly
implies that he had been accustomed to drink it freely and as a
beverage with his followers. I judge then that Christ here made, and
throughout his life ordinarily used, fermented wine; and this is the
nearly unanimous judgment of the best unprejudiced Biblical scholars.
The opposite opinion is of later origin, an after-thought, the product
not of impartial Biblical research, but of the temperance reformation.
(2) _Significance of these facts._ It appears to me clear, in the
light of these facts, that neither Christ’s precept nor his example
can be cited in favor of the doctrine of total abstinence, as a
universal and permanent obligation from all use of wine, even as a
beverage; that it rather indicates that he recognizes the right and
propriety of so using it; and that the doctrine and practice of total
abstinence must be maintained, if at all, not by any specific precept,
nor by the general course of Christ’s life, but from local and perhaps
temporary considerations, and solely on the ground that the Christian
must always be willing to surrender a lawful gratification for the
sake of a higher good, either to himself or to others (Matt. 5:29, 30;
Rom. 14:21; 1 Cor. 6:12). It is equally clear that neither Christ’s
precepts nor his example justifies the ordinary drinking usages of
American society of to-day, with its bars, its wine-shops, its
beer-gardens, its fiery wines and strong liquors, and all its
attendant evils. The ordinary wine of to-day is a very different
article from that in Christ’s day. The _word_ is the same, the _thing_
is different. And the usages are equally different. It is not my
province here to enter into a general discussion of the temperance
question, or even of the Bible teaching on the subject; but for the
convenience of the student I add, from my _Dictionary of Religious
Knowledge_, a tabular view of the principal Bible passages which bear
on the subject, either for or against the use of wines.
THE BIBLE
COMMENDS WINE: CONDEMNS WINE:
_As an offering to God _As a cause of violence and woe_:
with oil and wheat_: Prov. 4:17; 23:29-32.
Numb. 18:12.
Neh. 10:37-39. _Of self-security and irreligion:_
Isa. 28:7; 56:12.
_As a blessing to man_: Hab. 2:5.
Gen. 27:28-37.
Deut. 7:13. _As a poison_:
Judges 9:13. Deut. 32:33.
Prov. 3:10. Prov. 23:31.
Isa. 65:8. Hosea 7:5.
Joel 3:18.
Ps. 104:15. _As an accompaniment of
Zech. 9:17. wickedness_:
Isa. 5:22.
_As an emblem of spiritual
blessing_: _As an emblem of divine
Isa. 55:1. wrath_:
Sol. Song 7:9. Ps. 60:3; 75:8.
Isa. 51:17.
_As a perpetual memorial Jer. 25:15.
of Christ’s atoning Rev. 14:10; 16:19.
sacrifice_:
Matt. 26:26-29. _By the example of priests
Mark 14:22-25. on entering the tabernacle_:
1 Cor. 10:16. Lev. 10:8-11.
_As a medicine_: _Of Rechabites_:
Prov. 31:6, 7. Jer. 35:6.
1 Tim. 5:23.
_Of Nazarites_:
_By the example of Jesus Numb. 6:2, 3.
Christ_:
John 2:1-11. _Of Daniel_:
Luke 7:34. Dan. 1:8, 12.
* * * * *
Ch. 2: 12-22. CHRIST CASTS THE TRADERS OUT OF THE TEMPLE. AN
ILLUSTRATION OF THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST.--A SYMBOL OF THE WORK OF
CHRIST.--AN EXAMPLE TO THE FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST.
This incident is narrated only by John. It is not to be confounded
with the second casting out narrated by the synoptists. See note on
Matt. 21:12, 13. This occurred at the first Passover in Christ’s
public ministry; that at the last. There is a significance in the
repetition. It indicates both the tendency of a corrupt church to
corruption in spite of cleanings, a truth unhappily abundantly
illustrated in history; and the persistence of Christ’s zeal, a
quality imperfectly reflected in the zeal of his disciples. The
probable date of this event was March, A. D. 28.
12 After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his
mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they
continued there not many days.
=12. Went down to Capernaum.= From Cana, which was the hill country,
to Capernaum, which was on the shore of the sea of Galilee. For
description of Capernaum, see Matt. 4:13. It would be on the natural
though not necessary route from Cana to Jerusalem. This visit is not
to be confounded with Christ’s permanent change of residence from
Nazareth to Capernaum, which resulted from the mob in the former city
(Luke 4:28-31); this did not take place till after the imprisonment of
John the Baptist (Matt. 4:12, 13). The statement that _they continued
not there many days_, distinguished this visit from that permanent
change of residence.--=His mother and his brethren and his disciples.=
His public ministry had not yet fully begun; he had not, therefore,
yet left his mother and brethren to devote himself to his work. That
these were real brethren, not cousins or other relations, I think is
clear, though by many doubted. See note on “Brethren of our Lord,”
Vol. I, p. 187.
13 And the Jews’ passover[76] was at hand, and Jesus[77]
went up to Jerusalem,
[76] Ex. 12:14.
[77] Verse 23; chap. 5:1; 6:4; 11:55.
=13. And the Jews’ Passover was at hand.= For origin of Passover see
Exodus, ch. 12; for some account of its ceremonies see Matt. 26:26-30,
Prel. Note.--=And Jesus went up to Jerusalem.= Observe, that he was
accustomed to attend the Jewish feasts as well as the synagogue
services. The corruption of the church did not cause his withdrawal
from its public services (ch. 10:25).
[Illustration: SUBSTRUCTURES OF THE TEMPLE.]
[Illustration: BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF JERUSALEM.]
[Illustration: _From “Life of Jesus; the Christ,” by Rev. Henry Ward
Beecher._
PLAN AND SECTION OF THE TEMPLE.]
14 And found[78] in the temple those that sold oxen and
sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
[78] Matt. 21:12; Mark 11:15; Luke 19:45.
=14. In the temple.= Historically there were three temples: Solomon’s
(1 Kings, ch. 6, 7; 2 Chron., ch. 3, 4), the temple of Zerubbabel,
constructed at the time of the restoration under Nehemiah (Ezra
3:8-11; 6:3-5), and Herod’s. The latter, named for its builder, Herod
the Great (Matt. 2:1, note), is the one mentioned here and elsewhere
in the N. T. Its site, established with as much certainty as any in
the N. T., was a rock platform in the southeast corner of Jerusalem,
now occupied by the Mohammedan Mosque of Omar. In its erection ten
thousand skilled workmen were employed; among them one thousand
priests especially instructed in the arts of the stonecutter and the
carpenter. The result was a temple whose architectural magnificence is
thought never to have been surpassed in ancient or modern times. It
was less a building than a collection of buildings, and covered an
area of over nineteen acres. The stone was white marble, the roof
cedar, the architecture probably a combination of the Greek and the
Roman. On the east it overlooked the valley of the Cedron, forming an
effective fortification. It also served as a defence on the north,
where adjoined the tower of Antonia, the barracks of the Roman
soldiery. On the south a single gateway, on the west four gateways,
gave exit and entrance. On the east it was connected by a bridge over
the Tyrophœan valley with Mount Zion, the site of Solomon’s and later
of Herod’s palace. The remains of this bridge have been lately
discovered. The annexed ground plan, from Henry Ward Beecher’s “Life
of Christ,” will enable the reader to understand the internal
structure of the temple. The illustration in Vol. I, p. 257, will give
an idea of its external appearance. The reader is there supposed to be
on the Mount of Olives looking down upon the temple from the east;
Mount Zion with its palaces and towers is in the background; the
long-roofed structure on the left, that is, the south, is the royal
cloister or _Stoa basilica_. This is minutely described by Josephus
(Ant. 15:11, 5). It consisted of a nave and two aisles, the side
toward the country being closed by a wall, that toward the temple
proper being open. It was 105 feet in breadth, 600 feet in length; the
centre aisle was 100 feet high, the side aisles 50. The roof of cedar
was supported by 102 Corinthian columns of white marble, the floor was
a magnificent mosaic. Between this cloister and the temple structure
was the open court of the Gentiles. It was open to all, heathen and
Jew alike, and was used for the purpose of social and intellectual
exchange, as well as for religious processional services. Here Christ
(Matt. 21:23), and subsequently his disciples (Luke 24:53; Acts 5:21,
42), taught the people. Inscriptions in Greek and Latin forbade the
heathen from passing beyond this court, under penalty of death. For a
supposed infringement of this law Paul was mobbed (Acts 21:26-30).
Within were the successive courts of the women, of Israel, of the
priests. In this latter was the sacred furniture and utensils, the
table of shewbread, the altar, the laver, etc. In the heart of this
enclosure, investing all with a mysterious sacredness, was the Holy of
Holies, veiled from even priestly gaze by the curtain, which was
subsequently rent in twain at the time of Christ’s death (Matt.
27:57). This Holy of Holies, 90 × 30 feet, is seen in the illustration
of the temple as restored, in the centre of the building; it
constituted the most prominent feature. It was in the outer court of
the Gentiles that the sheep and cattle and money-changers had
gathered. The scattered Israelites were unable to bring in person the
sacrifices for the altar. The Mosaic law permitted them to sell their
first-fruits, and with the money purchase their gifts at Jerusalem
(Deut. 14:24-26). They were also required to pay for the support of
the temple service a half-shekel (Exod. 3:11-16; Matt. 17:24-27,
notes). This must be paid in Jewish money, for Gentile coin would
pollute the sacred coffers. Thus, gradually, the feast-days became
great market-days, as they still are among the nomadic tribes of the
Mohammedan religion. The priesthood, sharing in the profits, suffered
the traffickers gradually to intrude into and occupy the outer court
of the temple. Thus, not only were the religious services of the Jews
disturbed by the bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle, the cooing
of doves, the clangor of the money-changers, and the hum of a busy
market, but the Gentiles were absolutely driven from all participation
in the religious benefits of the temple. To their exclusion Christ
referred in the second expulsion (Mark 11:15-19, note). The priests
winked not only at the sacrilege, but also at the double defrauding of
God and man which accompanied it (Mal. 1:7, 8). The court of the
Gentiles was worse than a market-place; it was a den of thieves. Thus
Christ’s act was not only a vehement protest against the sacrilege
which suffers business to encroach on the house and worship of God,
but also a rebuke of the bigotry which is indifferent to the
religious wants and worship of men not of our race, faith, or
companionship.--=Those that sold cattle, sheep, and doves.= For
sacrifices under the Levitical law; sheep, rams, lambs, goats, kids,
bulls, cows, calves, doves, and sparrows were offered for this
purpose. All sacrifices were required to be offered by the priesthood
and in the temple. On the great feast-days, when the population of
Jerusalem was increased to a million or more, the traffic must have
been both large and profitable.--=And the changers of money.=
Money-changers had in Greece and Rome their stalls or tables in the
streets and market-places for the purpose of exchanging the coin of
one nation for another. They are still to be found in Jerusalem,
seated by their little glass cases, in which are saucers of brass
filled with coins of silver and gold, of every size and value.
[Illustration: THE EXPULSION OF THE TRADERS.
“_He drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep and the oxen; and
poured out the changer’s money, and overthrew the tables._”]
15 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove
them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the
oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and
overthrew the tables;
16 And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things
hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.
=15, 16. And when he had made a scourge of rushes.= The original
indicates that the scourge was made of the rushes which were used to
bed the cattle. Christ picked these up from the floor and wove them
together into a whip. Of course this fragile lash would not do much
real execution. It was used as one might use a switch to alarm and so
drive out the animals. The original shows very clearly that it was
used for this purpose alone, and not to threaten the men with physical
chastisement.--=He drove all out of the temple, both the sheep and the
cattle.= This is the correct rendering; our English version is
ambiguous and so misleading.--=And poured out the changers’ money.=
Poured it out upon the floor. This prevented their resisting, for it
occupied their energies to pick up and save the coin.--=And said unto
them that sold doves.= It is noteworthy that he drove out the sheep
and cattle, which the owners could reclaim in the streets, but did not
set the doves free, which would thus have been lost to their owners. A
true Christian indignation never blinds to the true rights even of the
most flagrant wrong-doers.--=Make not my Father’s house a house of
merchandise.= Compare Christ’s language at the second expulsion, Mark
11:17, note.
[Illustration: EASTERN MONEY-CHANGER.]
17 And his disciples remembered that it was written,[79]
The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.
[79] Psalm 69:9.
=17. And his disciples remembered=, etc. At the time, not afterward;
if this had been meant it would have been expressed, as in ver. 22. It
is not here stated that the utterance in Ps. 69:9 was a prophecy which
Christ fulfilled; simply that his course recalled the language there.
The fact indicates the vigor and intensity of Christ’s zeal in the
manner and spirit of his action, as well as in the act itself.
This and the subsequent purification of the temple during the Passion
week, indicate in Christ a vigor and intensity of character, and a
power of indignation, which modern thought rarely attributes to him.
They interpret the suggestive description of Christ’s personal
appearance given by John in Rev. 1:13-16, the only hint of his
personal appearance afforded by the New Testament. We can imagine that
in this expulsion his eyes were as flames of fire, his feet firm in
their tread like feet of brass, his voice as the sound of the ocean,
his words as a two-edged sword. This indignation was aroused by (_a_)
the sacrilegious covetousness which made God’s house a house of
merchandise; (_b_) the fraud which converted it into a den of thieves;
(_c_) the selfishness of the bigotry which excluded the heathen from
the only court reserved for them. It should inspire in his disciples a
like spirit of indignation (_a_) against the sacrilegious covetousness
which converts the house of God into a mart of merchandise, whether by
the sale of indulgences, masses, and prayers to others, or by
employing it not for the praise of God but for the social and
pecuniary profit of the pretended worshipper; (_b_) against the
bigotry which permits us to look with indifference upon the exclusion
of the poor, the outcast, the despised from the privileges of God’s
house. It is a type of (_a_) the cleansing which Christ comes to do
for every soul, which is a temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16), and out of
which all unclean things must be driven by the power of God, before it
is fit for God’s indwelling; (_b_) the final cleansing when he will
come to cast out all things that defile and work abomination (Rev.
21:27). Observe that in Revelation the world is represented as
dreading “the wrath of _the Lamb_.” Christ’s example here does not
justify the use of physical force by the church to cleanse it from
corruption; for Christ did not employ physical force. His whip was not
a weapon; the power before which the traders fled was the moral power
of Christ, strengthened by the concurring judgment of their own
consciences and the moral sense of the mass of the people (Mark 11:15,
note).
18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign[80]
showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?
[80] ch. 6:30; Matt. 12:38, etc.
19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy[81] this
temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
[81] Matt. 26:61; 27:40.
=18, 19. What sign showest thou unto us?= What evidence of authority
to expel from the temple practices allowed by the priesthood. They
questioned not the right of an inspired prophet to act thus, but the
authority of Jesus as a prophet. The moral power before which all
quailed was the greatest of signs; but to that they were indifferent.
“They required signs to be proved by signs.”--(_Bengel._) No other
authority for any reformation is ever required than the power
and grace to achieve it. The same question was repeated at the
second cleansing, but it elicited a very different answer (Matt.
21:23).--=Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.=
In interpreting this passage observe that (1) John himself explicitly
declares Christ’s meaning, “He spake of the temple of his body” (ver.
21); (2) that not only the Jews, who might have willfully perverted
Christ, misunderstood his meaning, but his own followers did not, till
after his death, understand him (ver. 22); hence (3) the hypothesis
that he pointed to himself when he said, “Destroy this temple,” is not
only unnecessary but improbable. The words are a prophecy, but are
purposely left enigmatical, to be interpreted by the event. The temple
is itself a type of man, who is intended to be the temple of God, in
which he will dwell; and therefore a type perfectly fulfilled only in
Christ, in whom alone the Spirit of God dwelt without measure, and
with no periods of partial or complete exclusion. The Jews in
crucifying Christ destroyed the divine reality of which the building
was only a symbol or prophecy; moreover they inaugurated that terrible
drama of passion which ended in the literal destruction of the temple
itself. For description of this destruction see Matt. ch. 24, Prel.
Note. Some objections to this passage have been suggested. (1) _The
crucifixion of Christ and his resurrection taking place three years
later cannot be a sign of his authority here._ Ans. In fact Christ
does not comply with the Pharisees’ demand for a sign but refuses it,
as in the analogous passage in Matt. 12:34-40, where he also by a
metaphor refers to his resurrection. (2) _The prophecy would not be
and in fact was not understood._ Ans. It was not intended to be
understood then, but to afford a basis for the faith of the disciples
when subsequent history had interpreted it. It was an enigma more
likely to be remembered because enigmatical. “Many such sayings he
uttered which were not intelligible to his immediate hearers, but
which were to be so to those who should come after. And wherefore doth
he do this? In order that when the accomplishment of his predictions
should have come to pass, he might be seen to have foreknown from the
beginning what was to follow.”--(_Chrysostom._) (3) _The language is
imperative and thus involves a command by Christ to crucify him._ Ans.
The imperative, _Destroy this temple_, is not equivalent to the
future, You will destroy this temple; nor is it permissive merely, You
may destroy this temple; nor yet is it a command, You must destroy
this temple. It is a challenge. Destroy this temple, and I will raise
it up. “It springs from painfully excited feelings, as he looks with
heart-searching gaze upon that implacable opposition which was already
beginning to show itself, and which would not be satisfied till it had
put him to death.”--(_Meyer._) (4) _The language, I will raise it up,
imputes to Christ the power of the resurrection which is uniformly
attributed to the Father._ Ans. This objection is founded on a
misapprehension. The N. T. recognizes no such distinction between the
Father and the Son as this objection implies, and Christ uses language
elsewhere, as distinctly implying his own act in the resurrection as
that used here (ch. 10:18; 11:25; comp. 5:39, 40, 44). The
interpretation proposed by some writers, that Christ here speaks of
the decay of the Jewish religion in its temple, and the building up of
a new spiritual theocracy, will not be accepted by those who believe
that John’s explicit declaration of Christ’s meaning is inspired and
authoritative. Observe how the Jews intentionally misrepresented
Christ’s saying; they accused him of threatening to destroy the temple
(Matt. 26:61, note), when he had really prophesied that they would
destroy it.
20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple
in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
21 But he spake of the temple[82] of his body.
[82] Ephes. 2:21, 22; Col. 2:9; Heb. 8:2.
=20. Forty and six years was this temple in building.= The argument is
a natural one, and seemed conclusive. The temple was commenced by Herod
twenty years previous to the birth of Christ, and had been forty-six
years in construction up to this time. It was not finally completed,
however, till A. D. 64, under Herod Agrippa II; so that it was really
over eighty years in building. The workmen were at this time still
engaged upon it, and the language of the people refers to the work up
to this time.
22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples
remembered that he[83] had said this unto them: and they
believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.
[83] Luke 24:8.
=22. When therefore he was risen from the dead.= Not merely after but
at the time of his resurrection and in the light of that fact, the
disciples interpreted both what he had said and what the O. T.
contained on this subject.--=They believed the Scripture.= Not the N.
T., no part of which was written at the time of the resurrection; and
the “Scripture” is here distinguished from the words which Jesus had
spoken. The O. T. contained prophecies of the resurrection which are
enigmatical, and probably were but imperfectly comprehended by even
the most devout Jews, but which were interpreted by the event (Ps.
16:4 with Acts 3:15; Ps. 17:15; 73:23, 24; Isaiah 26:19; Hosea 6:2).
For evidence that Christ, and subsequently the apostles, recognized in
the O. T. prophecies of the resurrection, see Luke 24:26, 27; John
20:9; 1 Cor. 15:4.
23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the
feast _day_, many believed in his name when they saw the
miracles which he did.
24 But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because
he[84] knew all _men_,
[84] ch. 16:30; 1 Sam. 16:7; 1 Chron. 28:9; 29:17;
Jer. 17:9, 10; Matt. 9:4; Acts 1:24; Rev. 2:23.
25 And needed not that any should testify of man: for
he knew what was in man.
=23-25. Many trusted in his name, seeing the signs which he wrought,
but Christ did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all men
and needed not=, etc. Compare with the English version the translation
here given which approximates more nearly to the original; and observe
respecting this that (1) the term miracle has acquired in modern
theology a technical meaning it does not possess in the N. T. Christ
may have wrought miracles at this time not recorded by the Evangelist
(ch. 21, 25), but the belief of the Jewish disciples may have rested
on such signs of his moral power as the expulsion of the traders from
the temple; (2) their trust in his name was not necessarily a true
spiritual acceptance of him as a personal Saviour from sin; the
reverse is implied by the statement that they trusted him _because
they saw his miracles_; and still more by the declaration respecting
himself that he did not entrust himself to them; (3) this declaration
would scarcely need interpretation were it not for a common
misinterpretation. It does not imply that he held back from them his
doctrine, or refused to work miracles for their benefit, but simply
that he did not and could not enter into that close and unreserved
personal intercourse with them which characterized his Galilean life
and companionships. He knew them too well to do this; knew that when
the spiritual and universal nature of his kingdom of love was revealed
unto them, they would reject and crucify him. The statement that he
knew what was _in man_, indicates a divine and supernatural reading of
the secrets of the human heart, of which the N. T. affords many and
striking illustrations (Matt. 9:4; Mark 2:8; Luke 7:39, 40). The
declaration that he knew _all men_, indicates that this interior
knowledge of the heart was not occasional and exceptional, but
universal. Melancthon sees in the example of our Lord here an
admonition of caution in opening our hearts unreservedly to strangers,
even though they may seem to receive our word with kindness. Be
friendly to all, be intimate with few.
CHAPTER III.
Ch. 3:1-21. CHRIST’S CONVERSATION WITH NICODEMUS.--THE ARGUMENT FROM
MIRACLES: ITS STRENGTH AND ITS WEAKNESS ILLUSTRATED (verse 2).--CHRIST
MORE THAN A TEACHER, A LIFE-GIVER; CHRISTIANITY MORE THAN A SYSTEM
OF TRUTH, A NEW LIFE.--THE CONDITION OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE, A NEW
SPIRITUAL LIFE.--THE SPIRIT OF SKEPTICISM ILLUSTRATED (verse 4).--THE
TRUE METHOD OF ANSWERING SKEPTICISM, NOT BY ARGUMENT, BUT BY PERSONAL
ASSURED CONVICTION (verse 5).--THE TWO CONDITIONS OF ENTERING CHRIST’S
KINGDOM: A NEW SPIRITUAL LIFE, AND A PUBLIC CONFESSION OF CHRIST (verse
5).--LIKE BEGETS LIKE.--THE KNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN IN THEOLOGY (verses
8, 11): THE KNOWN, WHAT TAKES PLACE ON EARTH; THE UNKNOWN, WHAT TAKES
PLACE IN HEAVEN.--THE IGNORANCE OF THE WISE; HE IS NO MASTER WHO HAS
NO PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE NEW BIRTH.--THE POWER OF SALVATION:
A CRUCIFIED CHRIST; THE CONDITION OF SALVATION: FAITH IN HIM; THE
CONDEMNATION OF SINNERS: THEIR LOVE OF DARKNESS AND REJECTION OF THE
LIGHT.
Christ’s interview with Nicodemus is described only by John. It
occurred immediately after the events described in the preceding
chapter, and before Christ had inaugurated his missionary labors,
which he did not begin till the imprisonment of John the Baptist (Mark
1:14). In studying this passage, the following considerations will
prevent the student from falling into the perplexities and errors into
which some learned and orthodox commentators have fallen. (1) The
conversation was had at the commencement of Christ’s ministry, before
he had explained, even to his own disciples, the principles of his
kingdom; we cannot therefore safely assume that Nicodemus was familiar
with those principles, nor can we interpret Christ’s teachings here by
the later apostolic teaching, except in so far as that was developed
from this as from a germ. (2) Nicodemus was a Pharisee, therefore a
formalist, and pre-eminently a Jew. We may safely assume that Christ’s
object was in part to correct Jewish and Pharisaic errors, and
our first object must be to understand, if we can, Nicodemus’
understanding of our Lord. (3) There is no evidence that John was
present at this interview; and it is not probable that we have a full
verbatim report of it. The structure of the narrative indicates that
only so much of the conversation is reported as was necessary to make
clear Christ’s discourse founded thereon.
1 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus,[85] a
ruler of the Jews:
[85] ch. 7:50, 51; 19:39.
=1. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus.= Of Nicodemus
nothing is known except what John tells us. He is not mentioned by the
other Evangelists; and subsequent traditions are untrustworthy. There
is a Nicodemus referred to in the Talmud; but there is nothing to
identify him with this one, for the name was common among the Jews.
The only incidents related of him are this conference, his protest
against condemning Jesus unheard (ch. 7:50-52), and his participation
with Joseph of Arimathea in the burial of Jesus (ch. 19:39). There is
a spurious Gospel of Nicodemus, the author of which is, however,
unknown. The designation of him here as a _ruler of the Jews_
indicates that he was one of the Sanhedrim, and this indication is
confirmed by ch. 7:50. On the character of the Pharisees, see Matt.
3:7, note. Among them there were some pure and honest souls, sincere
but not courageous seekers after the truth (Mark 12:28-34; 15:43; Acts
5:34-39; 15:5; Phil. 3:5); to this class of the Pharisees Nicodemus
seems to have belonged.
[Illustration: A MODERN JEWISH RABBI.]
2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him,
Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God,
for[86] no man can do these miracles that thou doest,
except God[87] be with him.
[86] ch. 9:16, 33; Acts 2:22.
[87] Acts 10:38.
=2. The same came to Jesus by night.= Why _by night_? The reason
generally assumed is fear of the Jews; but this is not asserted by the
Evangelist, and at this time there had not been developed any
pronounced hostility on the part of the Judeans to Jesus. Nicodemus
may have had a natural reluctance to commit himself to an unknown
Rabbi, till he had learned more of his doctrine; he may have simply
sought a quiet and personal conversation, such as he could not obtain
in the busy day-time.--=Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher.= The
plural is not used here for the singular number; Nicodemus expresses
not merely his own personal conviction, but that of the Pharisees as a
class. That they did, even much later, recognize Christ’s superhuman
character and mission is clear from such passages as Matt. 12:23, 24;
John 9:29-34; 11:47, and this even when they resisted him most
bitterly.--=For no man can do these miracles=, etc. This is the
argument from miracles put in the tersest possible form. Comp. Acts
4:16, 17. And this is all that miracles prove, namely, the commission
and authority of Christ; they do not of themselves show his
_character_. Nicodemus then regards Christ as a _prophet sent from
God_; and John, who in ch. 1:6, etc., has drawn clearly the
distinction between the prophet and the Light and Life, reports in
this conversation with Nicodemus a discourse of Christ in which he
emphasizes the same distinction. Nicodemus impliedly asks to know what
_new doctrine_ Christ has to teach; Christ replies in substance that
the world needs not new doctrine, but _new life_. The key to the
understanding of this conversation is the contrast between the two
conceptions of religion, as a system of doctrine, and as a new and
spiritual life.
3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say
unto thee, Except[88] a man be born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God.
[88] ch. 1:13; Gal. 6:15; Eph. 2:1; Tit. 3:5; James
1:18; 1 Peter 1:23; 1 John 2:29; 3:9.
=3. Verily, verily.= With Christ these words are a common precursor of
any especially weighty and solemn declaration (Matt. 5:18,
note).--=Except a man be begotten anew, he cannot see the kingdom of
God.= On the meaning of this sentence, it is to be observed that, (1)
The word (γεννάω) here rendered in our English version _born_, more
properly signifies the act of begetting. Here therefore Christ’s
language carries Nicodemus back to the very beginning of life. (2) The
word (ἄνωθεν) rendered here in our English version _again_, is
certainly mistranslated. It means either _anew, i. e., from the
beginning_ or _from above_. Both meanings are attached to it here by
the best scholars. According to the first definition, Christ simply
implies that the life must begin anew, that the character must be
rebuilt from the foundation, without however implying how; according
to the other idea, he indicates in the use of this word not only a new
but a spiritual and divine birth. The word is used in the first sense
in Luke 1:3, where it is rendered _from the very first_; in the second
sense in James 1:17; 3:15, 17, where it is rendered _from above_. It
is clear that Nicodemus understood it in the former sense merely, and
therefore I have so rendered it here. (3) The word rendered _see_
(ἰδεῖν) is not equivalent to _enter into_ (εἰσελθεῖν), as Meyer
interprets it. The declaration is explicit that a new spiritual life
is necessary, not only to enter into but even to form any correct
conception of the kingdom of God. And with this agrees the teaching of
Christ elsewhere (Matt. 13:14, 15), and of Paul (1 Cor. 2:9, 14, 15).
Christ thus declares to Nicodemus that he cannot even understand the
spiritual teachings of the new religion without first beginning a new
life. In other words, _a new spiritual life is the condition precedent
to a correct spiritual apprehension of Christ’s teaching_. It is
further to be observed that light is thrown on the meaning of this
declaration by a consideration of previous Rabbinical and of later
Apostolic teaching. The new birth was a familiar metaphor with the
Rabbis. They held that a Gentile in becoming a Jewish proselyte, and
submitting to circumcision and baptism, was born again. Old things
passed away; all things became new; it was even maintained that the
proselyte might marry his nearest kin without offence, because the old
relationships were annulled by his new birth. Christ employs this
metaphor, familiar to the Jewish Rabbi, without interpreting it, and
declares that no man, _Jew or Gentile_, could see the kingdom of God
without undergoing a change as radical. This truth, that a man may
bury his old life and begin a new one, with something of the freshness
and hope of youth, is also foreshadowed in the O. T. (Isa. 1:18, 19;
Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 11:19, 20; 36:26), and underlies the teaching of the
N. T. (Rom. 6:8; 8:3; 12:2; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15; Ephes. 2:1-8; Col.
3:9, 10; Titus 3:5); and the metaphor itself frequently occurs in the
teaching of the apostles (Rom. 8:15; James 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:3; 1 John
3:9).
4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he
is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s
womb, and be born?
=4. How can a man be born when he is old?= It seems to me clear that
this question is asked in a spirit of irony. So Godet, Alford, Luther,
and others. Considering that the metaphor was a common one, as
Lightfoot has shown, and that the doctrine of a new life inspired from
God could not have been unknown to any devout student of the
O. T. (see references above), it is hardly possible to suppose
that Nicodemus took Christ literally. This is however Meyer’s
interpretation of the question; but it represents Nicodemus as not
only “a somewhat narrow-minded man,” but also as a grossly ignorant
and stupid one; and so, in truth, Meyer represents him throughout.
In the following verses (5-8), Christ answers Nicodemus’ threefold
question: _first_, by simply reasserting his declaration that no man
can see the kingdom of God unless he is born anew; _second_, by
declaring the nature of this new birth, as the commencement of a new
spiritual life, not of a new physical or fleshly life; and _third_, by
borrowing an illustration from nature to indicate the degree of
knowledge attainable by man on this subject; he can perceive the
results of the operations of the spirit of God, but he cannot trace
them to their source nor comprehend their laws.
5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a
man be born of water[89] and _of_ the Spirit,[90] he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God.
[89] Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38.
[90] Rom. 8:2; 1 Cor. 2:12.
=5. Born of water and of Spirit.= Governing ourselves by the cardinal
canon, that we are to understand Christ as Christ expected his auditor
to understand him, it cannot be difficult to understand this
declaration. The Jewish proselyte, as a sign that he put off his old
faiths, was baptized on entering the Jewish church. John the Baptist,
employing the same symbolic rite, baptized Jew as well as Gentile, as
a sign of purification by repentance from past sins. The Sanhedrim
were familiar with his baptism, and had sent a delegation to inquire
into it (ch. 1:19, 25), and he had told them prophetically of the
baptism of the Spirit which Christ would inaugurate. Nicodemus then
would certainly have understood by Christ’s expression, “born of
water,” a reference to this rite of baptism, and by the expression,
“born of the Spirit,” a reference to a new spiritual life, which
however he could have only imperfectly apprehended. The declaration
then is that no man can enter the kingdom of God except by (1) a
_public_ acknowledgment and confession of sin, a _public_ putting off
of the old man and entering into the new; and (2) a real and vital
change of life and character wrought by the Spirit of God in the heart
of the believer. By the one act he enters into the visible and
external kingdom; by the other, into the spiritual and invisible
kingdom. That a _public_ confession and consecration is essential is
clearly indicated elsewhere in Christ’s teaching (Matt. 10:32, 33).
Observe the difference in phraseology here and in verse 3. He cannot
_see_ the kingdom of God, except his eyes are opened by the Spirit of
God; he cannot _enter_ it, except by a public and complete abandonment
of the old and a spiritual consecration to the new life (2 Cor.
5:14-16).
6 That[91] which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that
which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
[91] 1 Cor. 15:47, 49; 2 Cor. 5:17.
=6. That which is born of flesh is flesh.= The connection is this:
even if a man when he is old could enter again his mother’s womb and
be born, it would avail nothing; that which is born of flesh is always
flesh; only that which is born of the Spirit partakes of the Spirit of
God. (Comp. Rom. 8:5-9.) The declaration here, coupled with John’s
explicit declaration in ch. 1:14, that the Word was made flesh,
implies that the birth of Jesus was supernatural, though he narrates
none of the circumstances of that birth.
7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
=7. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.= The
original, by its construction, puts an emphasis on the word _ye_. And
it was this which surprised Nicodemus; not that men must be born
again, but that this necessity was laid on him, a child of Abraham,
and an honored ruler and teacher among the Jews. Observe too that he
says _ye_, not _we_. “The Lord did not, could not say this of Himself.
Why? Because, in the full sense in which the flesh is incapacitated
from entering the kingdom of God, He was not born of the flesh. He
inherited the weakness of the flesh, but his spirit was not like that
of sinful man, alien from holiness and God, and therefore on Him no
sentence hath passed; when the Holy Spirit descended on Him at His
baptism, the words spoken by the Father were indicative of past
approval, not of renewal. His obedience was accepted as perfect, and
the good pleasure of the Father rested on Him. Therefore He includes
not himself in this necessity for the new birth.”--(_Alford._)
8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the
sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and
whither it goeth: so[92] is every one that is born of the
Spirit.
[92] 1 Cor. 2:11.
=8.= It is very difficult to convey the exact meaning of the original
of this verse; for in the original the same word signifies _wind_ and
_spirit_; there is thus a verbal felicity in the metaphor, a certain
play upon the word itself, which cannot be transferred from the Greek
into another language. As in nature we see the operation of the summer
breeze, that comes we know not whence, and goes we know not whither,
so in the kingdom of grace we see the effects of the Spirit of God, in
changes wrought in the individual character and in the community (Gal.
5:22), but are unable to comprehend the nature of the influence or the
laws according to which it operates. Christ by this metaphor certainly
indicates something more than the mere incomprehensibleness of the
Spirit’s work (comp. Eccles. 11:5); he indicates also the realm in
which we are to conduct our investigations, and that from which, by
the nature of the case, we are excluded. We can study to advantage the
_results_ of the Spirit’s operations; but all endeavors to know _how
He_ operates, what are the occult laws of _His_ being and work, are in
vain. A humble acceptance of this teaching would eliminate many
useless discussions from theology. Alford notices that the Greek word
used for wind (πνεῦμα) indicates the gentle breath of summer, not the
violent gale. “It is one of those sudden breezes springing up on a
calm day, which has no apparent direction, but we hear it rustling in
the leaves around.” Observe also in the language, _where it listeth_,
an indication of the fact that the divine operations are free,
unconstrained, and not answerable to man, nor subject to his control.
Comp. Rom. 9:15, 16.
9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these
things be?
10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of
Israel, and knowest not these things?
=9, 10. Nicodemus answered, ... how can these things be?= He is
sobered by the moral power and earnestness of the Lord, lays aside
cavilling, and asks seriously for clearer light. For similar effect of
Christ’s personal power on a skeptical nature, compare his conference
with the Samaritan woman (ch. 4:11 with 25), and with Pilate (ch.
18:33-38 with 19:9-12); compare also account of Paul before Festus and
Agrippa (Acts 26:31, 32). Observe that Christ does not overcome
Nicodemus’ skepticism by arguing against his objections, but by the
mere power of his own personal assurance of the truth.--=Thou art the
teacher of Israel; and dost thou not know these things?= There is
certainly in this declaration and question a touch of irony and of
rebuke. The necessity of a radical change of heart and life, for
Israelite as well as Gentile, is abundantly taught by the O. T. (see
ver. 3, note, for references); Nicodemus, as a professional teacher of
the religion of the O. T., ought not to have been surprised at
Christ’s reiteration of the truth; and the less because the doctrine
of a new birth and a public baptism as a symbol of it were taught by
the Rabbis to the Gentiles. The language here, _The_ teacher of Israel
(ὁ διδάσκαλος) indicates that Nicodemus was a well-known teacher;
perhaps that he prided himself on his pre-eminence.
11 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We[93] speak that we do
know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our
witness.
[93] 1 John 1:1-3.
12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not,
how shall ye believe if I tell you _of_ heavenly things?
=11, 12. We speak that we do know=, etc. Christ has spoken hitherto
only of that which is matter of common observation, viz., man’s need
of a new and divine life, and the apparent results of it in character
and conduct. He now speaks of that which is matter of personal
experience with Him, the new life in the soul. He now becomes not
merely an interpreter to facts that are patent, but also a _witness_
to facts that are not. Christian teaching, to be effectual, must
always be founded on personal experience of the truth taught (1 Cor.
2:12, 13).--=Earthly things ... heavenly things.= The connection of
these verses with the preceding interprets the contrast which Christ
here indicates. Nicodemus has impliedly asked for an exposition of
Christ’s system of truth. Christ has replied by saying that no man can
understand the truths that pertain to the kingdom of God unless he is
born again. This necessity of a radical change in heart and life in
order to appreciate divine things is an earthly fact, easily tested by
an observation of men; a striking evidence of it is afforded by the
question of Nicodemus in verse 4. He then immediately goes on to ask
how such a change can be effected. But this, the method of God’s work
in anew creating the heart, is a heavenly thing, not a matter of
observation; and Christ says, If you do not believe me when I tell you
a truth which you can easily verify by studying the earthly life of
men, what use is there in my telling you the secrets of God’s working,
the truth of which disclosure you have no means of verifying. Observe
the implication that the things which are earthly, literally, _upon
the earth_ (ἐπίγεία), belong to us to study and know, and the things
which are heavenly, literally, which take place _in the_ heavens
(ἐπουρανια), belong to the secret counsels and work of God, and do not
belong to us to investigate (Deut. 29:29). And yet by far the largest
proportion of theological conflicts have taken place respecting these
hidden things, concerning God’s eternal counsels not man’s present
duty.
13 And[94] no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that
came down from heaven, _even_ the Son of man which is in
heaven.
[94] Eph. 4:9, 10.
=13.= The key to the interpretation of this verse is to be found in
its context and connection. Christ says: How shall ye believe if I
tell you of things which take place in heaven; yet no one else can
tell you, for no one has ascended into heaven, and no one therefore
can report its secrets, except he who has descended from heaven and is
in continual communion with heaven. So interpreting it, observe, (1)
The declaration, _No one_ (not merely no man) _hath ascended up to
heaven_, means no living person; it does not militate against the
doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, nor imply an unconscious or
even an intermediate state. It is by the connection limited to those
living on the earth, for they alone could reveal the secrets of heaven
if acquainted with them. (2) _He that came down from heaven_ plainly
implies the pre-existence and supernatural character and origin of
Jesus Christ (comp. ch. 8:58). He contrasts himself with other men,
patriarchs, prophets, apostles, as the _only one_ who has descended to
earth from heaven. (3) _Which is in heaven_ indicates not merely, as
Meyer apparently interprets it, that Christ’s proper abode and home
were in heaven, but also that he maintained a vital and continuous
communion therewith, dwelling in the Spirit in heaven, even while in
the flesh upon earth. The Christian’s experience interprets, though it
does not fully measure, this mystery of the heavenly life in the flesh
(Phil. 3:20; Ephes. 2:6; Heb. 12:22).
14 And as[95] Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
[95] Numb. 21:9.
15 That whosoever[96] believeth in him should not perish,
but have eternal life.
[96] ver. 36; Heb. 7:25.
=14, 15. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.= The
reference here is to the event recorded in Num. 21:4-9. The account
there should be carefully studied and compared with the spiritual
interpretation which Christ affords here. What species are there
indicated by the description “fiery serpent” is not very clear;
probably the title was given from the burning sensations produced by
their bite. Travelers describe a large serpent, said to abound in the
Arabian peninsula, full of fiery red spots and undulating stripes,
and regarded as one of the most poisonous of the serpent kind.
Excruciating heat and a burning thirst are among the symptoms produced
by the bite of this serpent. The brazen serpent described in Numbers
is thought to have been put upon a pole and carried throughout the
camp, so as to bring it within the sight of all the people. It was
carefully preserved and carried into the Holy Land, where it became an
object of idolatry and was destroyed in the reformation instituted
under Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:4). A Roman Catholic church at Milan,
Italy, however, still claims to possess the original brazen
serpent.--=Must the Son of Man be lifted up.= Why _must_? What is the
necessity? That question Christ does not answer here, nor, so far as I
can see, does the N. T. anywhere. It simply represents the atoning
sacrifice of Christ as a necessity, without explaining the grounds of
that necessity (comp. Luke 24:26). That it is in the divine economy of
grace an inexorable necessity is indicated even by the types of the O.
T. (Lev. 17:11; Heb. 9:22). The phrase “Son of Man” was a common
Jewish designation for the Messiah. It would have been so understood
by Nicodemus (Matt. 10:23, note).--=Be lifted up.= Not only _on the
cross_, but _by the cross unto glory_. It is the cross which lifts up
Christ to be the object of adoration for the whole creation (Phil.
2:9; Rev. 5:9).--=Should not perish.= These words are wanting in the
best manuscripts. But the doctrine implied, that those who do not
believe will perish, is clearly taught in verse 16, from which it was
probably borrowed and inserted here by some early copyist.--=Eternal
life.= The same Greek words are rendered everlasting life in the next
verse (ζωὴν αἰώνιον). Comp. ch. 10:10. Eternal life is the life of the
soul which disaster cannot impair nor death destroy--a present
possession, not a future inheritance, except that it is a possession
which grows in value and importance in the future.
In studying Christ’s language in these two verses observe (1) That we
have Christ’s authority for the doctrine that the O. T. history is
intended to indicate, by types or object-teaching, the great truths of
the Gospel. This he assumes elsewhere in his ministry (Luke 22:15, 19,
20; John 6:49-51), and it is directly asserted by Paul (1 Cor. 10:11),
and underlies the Epistle to the Hebrews. The history of the brazen
serpent is then a parable of the Gospel; parabolically it points out
the way of salvation. (2) The serpent is throughout the Bible an
emblem of Satan, and its poison an emblem of the deadly and pervasive
effects of sin (Gen. 3:1, 14, 15; Deut. 32:33; Psalm 58:4, 5; 140:3;
Rom. 3:13; 2 Cor. 11:3; Rev. 12:9). It is a fitting emblem--slight in
its first wound, affecting the blood, the current and fountain of
life, pervading the whole frame with its subtle poison, a poison for
which there is no human remedy, and resulting in certain death. (3)
For the human soul, poisoned by sin, the end whereof is death (James
1:15), there is lifted up One who, though he knew no sin, was made in
the likeness of sinful flesh (2 Cor. 6:21), so that in him the enemy
himself was, as it were, nailed to the cross (Col. 2:15). Thus, as the
brazen serpent represented the fiery serpent, yet had in him not
poison but healing, so Christ represented sinful flesh, but had in him
no sin but redemption from the poison of sin in others. (4) The one
only condition of healing to the poisoned Israelite was that he _look
on_ the brazen serpent; and this simply as an act of obedient faith.
To this fact Isaiah had reference in his interpretation of the divine
condition of salvation, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends
of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:22). So
here to “believe in him” is not to believe some doctrine about the
Messiah, but simply to trust in him, to look unto him (Acts 16:31;
Heb. 12:2). (5) The work of heralding the Gospel is the work of Moses
in the wilderness. It is a simple pointing to the Saviour, lifted up
that the sinner, by looking unto him, may be saved. The work of
instruction in the precepts of Christ and the principles of his
kingdom comes after, not before, salvation (Matt. 28:19, 20, note).
16 For God[97] so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish, but have everlasting life.
[97] 1 John 4:9.
=16.= Some scholars, including Olshausen and Tholuck, suppose that
Christ’s discourse ends with the preceding verse, and that the
remainder, to verse 21, are added by John; but the grounds for such an
hypothesis seem to me quite insufficient, and the objections to it
quite conclusive. The grounds are (_a_) _That all allusion to
Nicodemus is henceforth dropped_. But Nicodemus is only introduced as
an interrogator, because his questions elicit the instruction of
Jesus; and only so much of his share in the conversation is recorded
as is necessary to make Christ’s language intelligible. (_b_)
_Thenceforth past tenses are used._ This might, however, well be the
case, even if the events were future, the discourse being prophetic.
But the events were not future, but past. The love of God, the sending
his Son into the world, the opening of the door of salvation through
Him--all this was already accomplished; and the passion is not
described in detail as an event past. (_c_) _The phrase “only
begotten” is said to be peculiar to John._ But Stier well replies that
John probably obtained the phrase from Christ. The objections to the
view which supposes that Christ ends the discourse at verse 15, and
that the rest is John’s are, (_a_) That the discourse breaks off
abruptly, if ended at verse 15, leaving Nicodemus in entire ignorance
of the way of salvation. The same necessity which, on this hypothesis,
led John to complete it, would much more have led Christ to complete
it. (_b_) There is nothing to indicate a break at verse 15; and to
suppose John guilty of adding to the discourse of our Lord his own
words, without indicating that it is an addition, is to accuse him of
imposture, if not forgery, and casts discredit over his whole
narrative. Lange, Stier, Meyer, Alford, all hold the discourse to be
our Lord’s to the end, at verse 21. The verse itself has been well
called by Luther “The little gospel,” for it embodies the whole gospel
in a single sentence. It declares the divine nature--love (1 John 3:9,
16); the nature of that love, a love unto self-sacrifice, the
sacrifice of his Only Son; the object of that love--the whole world;
the result of that love--the gift of the Messiah; the divine nature
of the Messiah--God’s only begotten Son; the object of that
gift--salvation; the sole condition of securing the benefits of that
gift--trust in the Saviour; the proffer of that salvation--to all that
believe in him; the effect of rejecting it--perishing; the effect of
accepting it--everlasting life. Observe, (1) that all attempts to
limit the meaning of the word _world_ (ὁ κόσμος) to the elect, or the
church, are inconsistent with the original and with other parallel
passages of Scripture. See particularly 1 John 2:2, and Matt. 13:38,
note; (2) the cause of the atonement is traced here not to the wrath
but to the _love_ of God, a fundamental fact often lost sight of in
presenting that doctrine; (3) in the original an emphasis is put upon
the word _so_, which is not preserved in the English version. The
wonder of the Gospel is not that God loved the world, but that he
loved it with such a love, a love which only the sacrifice of an only
begotten Son can interpret.
17 For God[98] sent not his Son into the world to condemn
the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
[98] Luke 9:56.
=17. Not ... to condemn the world.= The Jews believed (see _Lightfoot_)
that the Messiah would save Israel and judge the Gentile nations. It
was a Rabbinical interpretation of Isaiah 21:12, “The morning cometh
and also the night.” “It will be the morning to Israel (when the
Messiah shall come), but night to the (Gentile) nations of the world.”
This error Christ refutes, in this his first private preaching of
the Gospel, as subsequently in his first public preaching (Luke
4:25-27); he declares that he brings salvation to the whole world.
Alford notices the peculiar construction of the close of the verse,
not, That he might save the world, but, That the world through him
might be saved. “The free will of the world is by this strikingly
set forth in connection with verses 19, 20. Not that the Lord is not
the Saviour of the world, but that the peculiar cast of this passage
requires the other side of the truth to be brought out.”
18 He[99] that believeth on him is not condemned: but he
that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath
not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
[99] ch. 6:40, 47.
=18.= The connection is this: Though God did not send his Son into the
world to condemn the world, yet he is even now judging it and
condemning its unbelief, though not in the way Nicodemus had
anticipated; his mere presence is a judgment. His fan _is_ in his hand
(Matt. 3:12); for he that trusts in Christ is thereby taken out from
judgment, while he that rejects Christ condemns himself. The next
verse states the ground and the nature of this condemnation. The Light
has come into the world, and men by refusing the Light attest their
love of darkness; and it is for this, not for the darkness but for
their _love_ of it, that they are condemned.--=Is not condemned.= But
“is passed from death unto life” (ch. 5:24).--=Is condemned already.=
The sinner is condemned, not by Christ but by his own act; he is
_self-condemned_ (Tit. 3:11). Observe, that throughout the N. T. both
condemnation and salvation are represented as _present_ realities, not
as future possibilities. The last judgment _decides_ nothing; it
simply announces publicly the results of the judgment now forming.
_Life is the true judgment-day._--=Because he hath not believed.= Men
are not condemned for their deeds but for their desires. The way of
escape from the evil is provided and declined; and for this the soul
is condemned. Thus it is true that the Lamb of God taketh away the sin
of the world (ch. 1:29) and yet condemns the sinner (ch. 15:22),
because the condemnation is not for the past sin, but for the present
rejection of the Saviour from sin.--=In the name of the only begotten
Son of God.= The name is Jesus, _i. e._, Saviour, and was given to him
because “he shall save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). To
disbelieve in that name is to reject that salvation. “The ‘only
begotten’ also here sets before us the hopelessness of such a man’s
state; he has no other Saviour.”--(_Alford._)
19 And this is the condemnation, that light[100] is come
into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil.
[100] ch. 1:4; 9:11.
=19. And this is the condemnation.= Not merely, This is the cause of
the condemnation; Christ has already stated that in the preceding
verse; he here states the nature of the condemnation. He that loves
darkness rather than light is given over to his own choice; this is
the sentence pronounced against him (Hosea 4:1-17; Rom. 1:28; Rev.
22:11).--=Men loved darkness rather than light.= Not merely _more_
than light; they chose darkness. For illustration of this deliberate
choice of darkness see Matt. 13:14, 15; 28:12-14; John 6:66; 12:10,
11; Acts 4:16, 17; 2 Tim. 4:10. This is not always, however, a
conscious and deliberate choice. See John 12:43; 2 Tim. 3:4.--=Because
their deeds are evil.= _Corrupting to others._ This is the force of
the Greek word (πονηρὰ), which is different from that rendered _evil_
in the next verse. The corrupting power of sin lies in its secreting
its evil character and purpose; hence it avoids the light; hence too
it is called in Scripture the power of darkness (Luke 22:53; Col.
1:13; Rev. 16:10). Observe the secret cause of unbelief here
indicated; men are willfully ignorant of the truth. It is not the
intellect, but the will which is perverse. “The source of unbelief is
immorality.”--(_Meyer._)
20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light,
neither[101] cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be
reproved.
[101] Job 24:13, 17; Pr. 4:18, 19.
=20. Every one that practiseth evil.= _Worthless things_ (φαῦλα) not
as in the preceding verse, _things corrupting_. But corrupting include
worthless things, for they are not only worthless but worse than
worthless. The evil here characterized is parallel to the idle words of
Matt. 12:36, and it is opposed to the truth which is always fruitful in
goodness and love.--=Hateth the light.= It has been supposed by some
that there is in these words a covert rebuke of Nicodemus for coming to
Christ secretly by night. This seems to me improbable. Christ was not
accustomed to conceal his rebukes so deftly.--=Lest his deeds should be
reproved.= Not necessarily by words of condemnation, but by the mere
exposure of their worthlessness when brought to the light. See Luke
3:19, 20; John 8:8, 9; Compare Ephes. 5:11-13.
21 But he that doeth[102] truth cometh to the light, that
his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought[103]
in God.
[102] 1 John 1:6.
[103] John 3:21.
=21. But he that doeth the truth.= Man _practises_ the evil (πράσσω),
he _does_ the truth (ποιέω). Compare ch. 5:29, where the same
distinction is observed: “they that have _done_ good (shall come
forth) unto the resurrection of life, they that have _practised_ evil,
unto the resurrection of damnation.” “He that _practises_ (πράσσω) has
nothing but his _practice_, which is an event, a thing of the past, a
source to him only of condemnation, for he has nothing to show for it,
for it is also worthless (φαῦλον); whereas he that _does_ (ποιέω)
has his _deed_--he has abiding fruit; his works do follow
him.”--(_Alford._)--=Cometh to the light.= Not merely is willing and
desirous to come to the light, but is also enabled to come to it, and
to appreciate and receive it (Prov. 4:18; John 7:17). Observe that
throughout the N. T. truth is represented not merely as an abstract
philosophy to be intellectually received, but as a _life_ in harmony
with the eternal verities of God’s law and character. Thus the
incarnation is the fundamental doctrine of Christianity; as Christ is
himself emphatically the Truth, so every Christian must be in a
smaller measure an embodiment and incarnation of divine truth,
manifesting it less by his words than by his life. So, on the other
hand, Paul catalogues the vices of life, as the things which are
contrary to “sound doctrine” (1 Tim. 1:10). For an exemplification of
what it is to do the truth, see Psalm 15.--=That they are wrought in
God.= The Christian comes to the light, not for self-glorification,
but to glorify God; his desire is not to manifest the goodness in
himself, but the goodness in God which has triumphed over the evil in
himself (Matt. 5:16; 1 Cor. 15:10).
* * * * *
Ch. 3:22-36. FURTHER TESTIMONY FROM JOHN THE BAPTIST TO JESUS.--THE
OFFICE AND THE JOY OF THE MINISTRY--CHRIST CONTRASTED WITH HIS
HERALD--THE HUMAN CONFIRMATION OF DIVINE TRUTH--THE CONDITIONS OF
SALVATION--THE GROUND OF CONDEMNATION--THE DANGER OF AND THE DEFENCE
FROM ENVY.
22 After these things came Jesus and his disciples into
the land of Judæa; and there he tarried with them, and
baptized.[104]
[104] ch. 4:2.
=22. After these things.= Not necessarily immediately after. There is
nothing to indicate how much time elapsed between the conversation
with Nicodemus and the events recorded in the latter part of this
chapter, except the note of time in verse 24.--=And baptized.= Christ
did not baptize (ch. 4:2), and the baptism could not have been in the
name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, for the Holy Ghost
was not yet given (John 7:39), that is, in such measure as to be the
common heritage of all disciples. The probable explanation of the
statement here and in ch. 4:1, 2, is that of Chrysostom: “Both parties
(John and the disciples of Jesus) alike had one reason for baptizing,
and that was to lead the baptized to Christ.”
23 And John also was baptizing in Ænon, near to Salim,[105]
because there was much water there: and they[106] came, and
were baptized.
[105] 1 Sam. 9:4.
[106] Matt. 3:5, 6.
24 For John[107] was not yet cast into prison.
[107] Matt. 14:3.
=23, 24. In Enon near to Salim.= The site of both places is uncertain.
For different hypotheses see _Smith’s Bible Dictionary_, article
_Ænon_. Jerome and Eusebius both affirm that Salim existed in their
day eight Roman miles south of Scythopolis near the Jordan. Van der
Velde found a Mussulman oratory called Sheyk Salim about six miles
south of Scythopolis, and two miles west of the Jordan. Dr. Hackett
seems to think this the more probable site. This places it near the
northern border of Samaria.--=Because there was much water there.=
Rather _many_ waters, _i. e._, many springs. Whether this spot was
chosen because the water afforded conveniences for baptizing, or
because the springs afforded conveniences for the pilgrims that
flocked in such numbers (Matt. 3:5) to the baptism of John, is
uncertain. Nothing respecting the form of baptism can be deduced from
this expression.--=For John was not yet cast into prison.= For
chronology of this period, see Matt. 4:12, note. The events recorded
in John, chaps. 2, 3, and 4, seem to have occurred between the
temptation and the first preaching of Jesus recorded in Matt. 14:3-12;
Mark 6:14-29. See notes there.
25 Then there arose a question between _some_ of John’s
disciples and the Jews about purifying.
26 And they came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi,
he that was was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou
barest[108] witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all
_men_[109] come to him.
[108] ch. 1:7, 15, etc.
[109] Ps. 65:2; Isa. 45:23.
=25, 26. Then there arose a question between some of John’s disciples
and a Jew about purifying.= Not _the Jews_, but _a Jew_, an indication
that the difficulty, whatever it was, started with him. Various
conjectures have been proposed respecting the nature of this question.
The discussion of them is unprofitable. The fact of the question is
merely stated to explain how the instructions of John the Baptist came
to be given.--=And they came.= Some of the disciples of John
came.--=Said unto him.= What they said was evidently in the nature of
a complaint. “He who also was with thee,” said they, “as one of thy
disciples, has started off on a mission of his own, and is eclipsing
thee.” There was possibly a little personal jealousy in this
complaint. To their minds Jesus was but a disciple of the Baptist like
themselves.
27 John answered and said, A man[110] can receive nothing,
except it be given him from heaven.
[110] 1 Cor. 2:12, 14; 4:7.
28 Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said,[111] I am
not the Christ, but that I[112] am sent before him.
[111] ch. 1:20, 27.
[112] Luke 1:17.
=27, 28. A man can receive nothing except it be given him from
heaven.= Some, as Alford and Maurice, suppose that John refers to
himself, saying in effect: I cannot take more than God has given me,
viz., the mission of a herald; others, as Chrysostom, that he refers
to Jesus. This latter seems to me clearly the true view, which has
been abandoned, perhaps, from a reluctance to apply the principle
involved in it to Christ, that whatever power he possessed was not
independent but derived from the Father. The connection seems to me to
be this: “If he whom I baptized is drawing all men unto him and is
conferring on them spiritual gifts greater than I conferred, it is
because his spiritual power, heaven bestowed, is greater. For, in the
spiritual realm no man can usurp; no man can receive what heaven
does not give.” In other words, spiritual results are always an
all-sufficient justification for any spiritual work. No question of
its regularity, or of the authority or the right of the worker is to
be entertained.--=Ye yourselves bear me out.= He turns their words,
“to whom thou barest witness,” against themselves. See for his witness
Matt. 3:11, 12; John 1:20, 25-27.--=I am sent before him.= As a herald
before a king (Luke 3:3-6).
[Illustration: TRADITIONAL SITE OF ENON.]
29 He that hath the bride[113] is the bridegroom: but the
friend[114] of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth
him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice:
this my joy therefore is fulfilled.
[113] Cant. 4:8-12; Jer. 2:2; Ezek. 16:8; Hos. 2:19, 20;
Matt. 22:2; 2 Cor. 11:2; Ephes. 5:25, 27; Rev. 21:9.
[114] Cant. 5:1.
30 He must increase, but I _must_ decrease.
=29, 30. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom=, etc. In the East,
etiquette forbids any meetings between the bride and groom prior to
marriage. Often they do not even see each other. All communications
between them are carried on by one answering to our groomsman, and who
is designated as the friend of the bridegroom. See Matt. 25:1-13,
Prel. Note. To this custom John refers. The Church is the bride (Matt.
9:15; 25:1-13; Rev. 21:9); in a sense every individual Christian is
the bride (Jer. 3:14; Isa. 54:5); Christ is the bridegroom; every one
who brings Christ to his Church, or to the individual soul, is a
“friend of the bridegroom.” The practical lesson for us is that we are
to rejoice to be lost in the Master; to rejoice when our mission is
ended for the Church or the individual, and those whom we have been
teaching are able to say to us, as the Samaritans to the woman (John
4:42), “Now we believe, not because of thy saying; for we have heard
him ourselves, and know that it is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of
the world.” “I know scarcely any words in all the Scriptures which
have a deeper and diviner music in them than these, or which more
express all that a Christian minister and a Christian man should wish
to understand and feel; and should hope that some day he may
understand and feel as he who first spoke them did.”--(_Maurice._)--=Who
standeth and heareth him.= Stands ready to do the bridegroom’s
bidding.--=He must increase, but I must decrease.= This is with John
the Baptist a subject not for resignation, but for rejoicing. His
decrease in the increasing of Christ is the evidence that his work and
his faith have not been in vain. For him to live is Christ; hence the
more Christ and the less John, the greater his joy.
31 He that cometh from above[115] is above all: he[116] that
is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he
that cometh from heaven is above all.
[115] ch. 6:33; 8:23.
[116] 1 Cor. 15:47.
32 And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth; and
no man[117] receiveth his testimony.
[117] ch. 1:11.
=31-32.= It has been supposed by some critics that the discourse of
John the Baptist ends with the preceding verse, and that what follows
is a comment by the Evangelist, (so Bengel, Olshausen, Tholuck); and
by others that although it is in form the Evangelist’s report of the
Baptist’s words, it has been so transformed in the reporting that it
is in effect the Evangelist’s, (so Lucke and De Wette.) It must be
confessed that the style is far more like that of John the Evangelist
than like that of John the Baptist, so far as we have reports from
other quarters, of the latter’s discourses; but there is no indication
of any transition here from a report to a comment on it; and the
closeness of the connection in thought forbids the idea that any such
transition exists. I therefore (with Alford and Meyer) regard the
whole discourse as in substance that of John the Baptist, though
probably in phraseology largely that of the Evangelist.--=He that
cometh from above is above all.= The Baptist emphasizes the contrast
between Christ and himself. Christ, from above and above all, speaks
what he knows and has seen (comp. John 3:11); John the Baptist from
the earth, and possessing the earthly nature, can, like all other
human teachers, only declare the truth as it has come to him in his
earthly condition and as seen through the earthly atmosphere. The
teachings of Christ are the highest even in the Bible, for they are
free from that admixture of earthiness which belongs essentially to
all mere earth-born teachers.--=No man receiveth his testimony.= A
sorrowful comment (comp. ch. 1:11); but not literally true, nor is it
intended to be literally taken. This is evident from the next verse.
33 He that hath received his testimony hath set[118] to his
seal that God is true.
[118] 1 John 5:10.
34 For he[119] whom God hath sent speaketh the words of
God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure[120] _unto
him_.
[119] ch. 7:16.
[120] ch. 1:16; Ps. 45:7; Isa. 11:2; 59:21; Col. 1:19.
35 The Father loveth the Son,[121] and hath given all
things into his hand.
[121] Matt. 28:18.
=33-35. He that hath received his testimony hath sealed that God is
true.=--The seal was in ancient times, as in modern, attached to any
document in confirmation and attestation of it. John the Baptist
declares that whoever accepts heartily the testimony of Jesus Christ
becomes himself a confirmation of its truth to others, by his own
life. The meaning is interpreted by Matt. 5:14; and 2 Cor. 3:2. A
pregnant and suggestive metaphor; that we put the seal to God’s
testimony.--=He whom God hath sent.= The question of Christ’s relation
to the Father is not in issue here. John’s disciples complain that
Jesus teaches at all; John replies that the divine effects of his
teaching are the attestation of his divine ministry; and that having
been divinely sent, he can speak no other than divine words. Compare
ch. 7:16.--=For the Father giveth not the Spirit by measure.= Alford
sustains the addition of the English translators, _unto him_; to me it
seems, as to Meyer, quite arbitrary. The meaning is not, God has
distinguished Christ from all other teachers by his unmeasured gifts
of grace to him; but, when God gives he does not stint, nor measure,
nor parley, but gives abundantly more than we can ask or think (Ephes.
3:20); therefore, when he sends one into the world to reveal divine
truth, we are not to be afraid of his teaching, and to put limitations
upon and hindrances about him, lest he go astray. The truth that God
has given immeasurably more into the hands of his only begotten Son
than to any created being appears in the next verse, not in this. Our
English version destroys the climax, and makes ver. 35 little more
than a repetition of ver. 34.--=And hath given all things into his
hands.= Observe that throughout the N. T. the power and authority of
Christ is represented as derived from the Father, not as original or
independent of him. See for example, John 5:26; Phil. 2:9; Heb. 1:9.
36 He[122] that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life:
and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but
the wrath[123] of God abideth on him.
[122] ver. 15, 16; Hab. 2:4.
[123] Rom. 1:18.
=36. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.= An
assertion, not a promise. The declaration is not that everlasting life
shall be given to him in the future as a reward for his act of faith,
but that faith at once inducts him into spiritual life, which is alone
everlasting. Compare ver. 18 above; Rom. 6:23; 1 John 3:2. Observe
what faith confers is _life_, _i. e._, the highest development and
activity of the whole being (John 10:10), the reverse being
death.--=He that believeth not the Son.= Two different Greek words are
translated in the two clauses of this verse by the English word
_believe_. The force of the original is impaired, if not destroyed, by
this mistranslation; but it is not easy to find in English the exact
equivalent for the distinction which is noted in the original. The
passage may perhaps be rendered, _He that hath faith in_ (πιστεύων
εἰς) _the Son hath everlasting life; but he that will not be persuaded
by_ (ἀπειθων) _the Son shall not see life_. Beware of considering
_Believe on the Son_ as equivalent to either _Believe correctly about
the Son_, or even _Believe the Son_. See Matt. 18:6, note.--=Shall not
see life.= Not only shall not have it, but cannot even comprehend it.
Spiritual life is only spiritually discerned, and faith is the first
condition of spiritual discernment. See ver. 3 and note.--=The wrath
of God abideth on him.= Remains, as something previously resting upon
him and not removed. See Ephes. 2:3.
[Illustration: SYCHAR.]
CHAPTER IV.
Ch. 4:1-26. CHRIST AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA.--CHRIST A PREACHER
IN SEASON AND OUT OF SEASON.--HIS EXAMPLE AS A CHRISTIAN
CONVERSATIONALIST.--THE DIVINE SPRING; THE HUMAN CISTERN.--THE
ESSENTIAL AND THE INSIGNIFICANT QUESTIONS IN WORSHIP CONTRASTED.
This interview between Christ and the Samaritan woman is reported
alone by John. The time is uncertain; the only definite indication is
that of verse 35, and the interpretation of that is uncertain. With
Ellicott and Andrews, I think December of A. D. 27 the most probable
date. Matthew (4:12) explains Christ’s departure into Galilee by
saying that it took place when he heard that John the Baptist was cast
into prison; John here attributes it to another cause, a fear of
rivalry and contention between his own and John’s disciples. The
probable explanation is that Christ left Judea for the latter reason,
but did not commence his public ministry till the imprisonment of the
Baptist. See ch. 5, Prel. note.
1 When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard
that Jesus made and baptized[124] more disciples than John,
[124] ch. 3:22, 26.
2 (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,)
3 He left Judæa, and departed again into Galilee.
4 And he must needs[125] go through Samaria.
[125] Luke 2:49.
=1-4. Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John.= The
conversation between Christ and Nicodemus took place at the Passover,
and therefore in the spring; if that between Christ and the woman at
the well occurred in December, Jesus and John the Baptist baptized
together during the summer. The doctrine which Christ preached at this
time was substantially the same as that of the Baptist. “Repent, for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2; 4:17); for he had not
yet begun to explain publicly the spiritual and universal nature of
his kingdom. But differences between the ministries of the two were
from the first apparent; differences chiefly respecting the
ceremonials of religion--purifying, baptizing, fasting (ch. 3:25, 26;
Matt. 9:14). The increasing popularity of Christ threatened to awake
the envy of the Baptist’s disciples, his disregard of ceremonial to
awaken their suspicion; the Pharisees were alert to stimulate both. So
Christ withdrew, forestalling the first danger of rupture and
conflict, a lesson to all Christian workers against all unchristian
rivalries and contentions about details in doctrine or ceremony. Envy
is the most common instigator of denominational controversy.--=Jesus
himself baptized not.= No instance is recorded of any baptism
administered by Christ, or of any baptism commanded or authorized by
Christ, till after his resurrection and about the time of his
ascension. Baptism appears to have been adopted by his disciples from
John the Baptist, and employed by them without express direction from
Christ, as a symbol of repentance and a profession of a new life, and
to have been subsequently adopted in a modified form by their Lord.
That it was always regarded by the apostles as subordinate to the
preaching of the Word is indicated by Acts 10:4, 8, with 1 Cor. 1:16,
17, from which it appears to have been a ministerial act not
ordinarily performed by the apostles. On the history of baptism, see
note on the baptism of Jesus by John, Vol. I, p. 72, and on Christian
baptism, note on Matt. 28:19.--=And he must needs go through Samaria.=
Simply because that province lay directly between Judea and Galilee,
and therefore on the direct route. See map. Josephus tells us that it
was the custom of the Galileans, when they came to the holy city to
the festivals, to take their journey through the country of the
Samaritans. The more bigoted Judeans may have sometimes avoided it by
going through Perea. The history of Samaria explains, and in some
measure justifies, the odium attaching to it and its inhabitants among
the Jews. At the time of the secession of the ten tribes under
Rehoboam (1 Kings, ch. 12), Shechem was adopted by him as the capital
of the new monarchy, and made the seat of an idolatrous worship.
Subsequently the city of Samaria was built by Omri, king of Israel, as
capital (1 Kings 16:24), and so remained till the time of the
captivity of the ten tribes under Shalmaneser (2 Kings 17:6). A
heathen colony was then sent in to take the places of the exiled
Israelites; these colonists suffered from the devastations of wild
beasts, and acting on the common assumption of that time that their
own gods were not competent to take care of them in a strange land,
sent for and received priests of Israel to teach them the manner of
the God of Palestine. The result of this instruction was a mixed
religion, partly Jewish, partly heathen (2 Kings 17:24-41). In the O.
T., the phrase “the cities of Samaria,” is equivalent to the “kingdom
of Israel;” it thus included all of Palestine north of Judea. That
portion of Israel east of the Jordan which originally belonged to it
was subsequently taken away the kings of Assyria (1 Chron. 5:26),
Galilee shared the same fate (2 Kings 15:29), and Samaria was reduced
to the dimensions which it possessed in the time of Christ. The
character and conduct of the Samaritans increased the antagonism
between them and the Jews. They were refused permission to participate
in the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem, at the time of the
return of Judah from captivity, and became open, and, for a time,
successful opponents of the rebuilding (Ezra, chaps. 4 and 5; Neh.,
chaps. 4 and 6). Finally, an exiled priest from Jerusalem obtained
permission from the Persian king of his day to build a rival temple at
Gerizim, and Samaria became the rival of Jerusalem, and the
rallying-point of its foes and its outlaws (Josephus’ Antiq. 11:8, 6).
To a rival temple and religion, they added a Samaritan Pentateuch, for
which they claimed a greater antiquity and authority than for any copy
of the O. T. possessed by the Jews. The bitter national and religious
antipathy between Jew and Samaritan, consequent upon this history, is
illustrated in several passages in the N. T. (ver. 9, note; 8:48; Luke
9:52-56; 10:30-37; 17:16). If anything could justify such an antipathy
this would be justified, since the Samaritans were renegades both to
their religion and to their nation; and Christ’s course here and
elsewhere implies a condemnation of all rancor and bitterness, founded
on race, national, or religious differences. Of the Samaritans, one
hundred and fifty still worshipping in a little synagogue at the foot
of Gerizim are all that are left, “the oldest and the smallest sect in
the world.”
5 Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called
Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave[126]
to his son Joseph.
[126] Gen. 33:19; 48:22; Josh. 24:32.
=5. A city of Samaria called Sychar.= The prevalent opinion is that
Sychar is a corruption of the name Shechem, that it means _drunken_,
and that this slight change was given by the Jews to the rival capital
in derision, and in possible allusion to Isaiah 28:1. If this be so,
it must have become current at this time; for we can hardly believe
that John would otherwise embody a mere term of derision in the
Evangelical narrative. Dr. Thomson (_Land and Book_, ii:206, following
Hug, Luthardt, and Ewald) identifies the ancient Sychar with a village
about half a mile north of the supposed site of Jacob’s well, called
Aschar; and as the corruption of Shechem into Sychar is a mere
hypothesis, framed to account for the use of the word here, Dr.
Thomson’s opinion appears to me the more probable. Shechem was two
miles distant from Jacob’s well, and apparently was abundantly
supplied with water.
[Illustration: JACOB’S WELL.]
6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being
wearied with _his_ journey, sat thus on the well: _and_ it
was about the sixth hour.
=6. Now Jacob’s spring was there.= There are two Greek words
translated _well_ in this narrative: the first means a spring or
fountain, _i. e._, water-source; the second a well or cistern, _i.
e._, a water-chamber. The first (πηγή) is used here, indicating that
the well was fed internally by springs, not externally by rain. A
well, now dry and deserted, answering to all the conditions of the
narrative here, is designated by an ancient tradition as the one here
described; and the case is one of the very few in Palestine in which
tradition appears to be trustworthy. It is accepted even by Dr.
Robinson. The purchase of the ground by Jacob is described in Gen.
33:18-20, but for the digging of the well there is no other authority
than tradition, unless Gen. 49:22 is an allusion to it. Whether Jacob
himself dug it, or whether his name was subsequently given to it by
tradition is not known, nor does the reference here determine that
question; it only designates the well by its customary name. Why he
should have dug a well at all has been made matter of question, since
the whole valley abounds with water. To this question Dr. Thomson
replies: “The well is a very _positive_ fact, and it must have been
dug by somebody, notwithstanding this abundance of fountains, and why
not by Jacob?” And he suggests that these fountains may have been
already appropriated by the native population. The site of the well is
in the valley between Mts. Gerizim and Ebal. For a striking
description of this valley, see Van der Velde. The historical
associations connected with the site were many and sacred. There the
Lord first appeared to Abraham (Gen. 12:6, 7); Jacob built his first
altar (Gen. 33:18-20); Joseph sought his brethren in vain (Gen.
37:12); Joshua rehearsed the law, with its blessings and cursings, and
amidst the loud amens of the assembled people (Josh. 8:30-35;
24:1-25); and there Joseph was buried in the land that belonged to his
father Jacob (Josh. 24:32). “At no other spot in Palestine, probably,
could Jesus have more fitly uttered his remarkable doctrine, of the
absolute liberty of conscience from all thrall of place or tradition,
than here in Shechem, where the whole Jewish nation, in a
peculiar sense, had its beginning.”--(_H. W. Beecher’s Life of
Christ._)--=Being wearied with his journey.= The commentators call
attention to this weariness as an evidence of the reality of his
humanity. It seems to me, when coupled with the prophecy of Isaiah
53:2, his apparent sinking under the weight of the cross, and his
early death, while the two thieves survived (Matt. 27:32; Mark 15:44;
John 19:32, 33), to be an indication that his physical frame was not
robust, was not equal to the demands of the soul which it contained,
and that, as a part of his human experience, he knew the peculiar
sorrows which an intense and active mind feels when hindered by a weak
bodily organization.--=Sat thus at the spring.= “What meaneth ‘thus’?
Not upon a throne; not upon a cushion; but simply and as he was upon
the ground.”--(_Chrysostom._)--=And it was about the sixth hour.= That
is, about twelve o’clock. There appears to be no adequate reason for
the opinion that has been advanced, that John employs a different kind
of reckoning from that common among the Jews, and means here 6 P. M.
It is true that the evening was the common hour of resort to the wells
by the women, but evidently this conference was with Christ _alone_,
an indication that the hour was not the evening hour, for then others
would probably have been present also. Ryle suggests that there is a
significance in the fact that while Christ talked with Nicodemus
alone, and at night, his ministry to this sinful woman was at a public
resort, and at noon. “If a man will try to do good to a person like
the Samaritan woman, alone and without witnesses, let him take heed
that he walk in his Master’s footsteps, as to the time of his
proceedings, as well as to the message he delivers.” Compare the
circumstances of Christ’s Gospel message to the woman that was a
sinner (Luke 7:37, etc.).
7 There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus
saith unto her, Give me to drink.
8 (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy
meat.)
=7, 8. A woman of Samaria.= That is, a Samaritan woman.--=To draw
water.= In the East the towns are not supplied, as with us, by means
of aqueducts and water-pipes, nor are individual houses furnished each
with its well. The well itself is usually excavated from the solid
limestone rock, and provided with a low curb to guard against accident
(Exod. 21:33). On such a curb Christ probably sat to rest. The well is
ordinarily not furnished with any apparatus for drawing water. Each
woman brings her own bucket, most commonly made of the skin of some
animal; sometimes the well is shallow, and she descends by steps made
for the purpose (Gen. 24:16), and dips the water up from the surface;
if it is deep, she lets down her bucket with a rope. To assist in the
work, a wheel or pulley is sometimes fixed over the well. A trough of
wood or stone usually provides a means for watering cattle and sheep
(Gen. 24:20; Exod. 2:16). In this case, Christ had no bucket with him,
and the well being deep, so that he could not descend into it, he had
no means of obtaining water (ver. 11).--=Jesus saith unto her, Give me
to drink.= Observe how insignificant a request he makes the occasion
for a deeply spiritual religious conversation; and how natural the
transition from the material to the spiritual. Observe, too, that by
asking a favor he opens the way to the granting of one. He thus
verifies the truth that the way to gain another’s good will is not at
first by _doing_, but by _receiving_ a kindness.--=His disciples were
gone ... to buy meat.= They apparently carried little or nothing to
eat on their journeys (Matt. 16:6, 7; 12:1), but money to make the
necessary purchases (John 12:6). The direction to depend on
hospitality (Matt. 10:9, 10) was not for their general guidance and
government.
9 Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that
thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman
of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings[127] with the
Samaritans.
[127] Acts 10:28.
=9. For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.= This is
taken by some to be said by the woman; more probably it was added
parenthetically by the Evangelist, to explain to his Gentile readers
the woman’s surprise. For the reason of the fact, see on verse 4. It
seems clear that the statement is not to be taken literally, for the
disciples, who were Jews, had just gone into the Samaritan city to
purchase food; but that there was abundant ground for it is evident
from Rabbinical writings; _e. g._, “Let no Israelite eat one mouthful
of anything that is a Samaritan’s; for if he eat but a little mouthful,
he is as if he ate swine’s flesh.”
10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the
gift[128] of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give
me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would
have given thee living[129] water.
[128] Eph. 2:8.
[129] Isa. 12:3; 41:17, 18; Jer. 2:13; Zech. 13:1;
14:8; Rev. 22:17.
=10. If thou knewest the gift of God.= Not, If thou knew that water is
the gift of God; this knowledge might indeed have prevented her
seemingly surly refusal, but it would not have led her to ask living
water of him. Nor, If thou knewest the peace and joy which are the
spiritual gifts of God; these constitute the living water, and if she
already knew them, in her experience, she would not need to ask to
_receive_ them. Christ is the unspeakable gift of God; if she knew the
full importance of this gift, the office and work of the Messiah, and
that he who was asking her for a drink of water was he, she would have
asked and received from him living water. The objection that the woman
would not have so comprehended the reference, and therefore that it
cannot be the primary meaning (_Alford_, _Meyer_), is not tenable,
because by the very language itself it is implied that the woman will
not comprehend it. Christ speaks of a mystery to provoke her to
further inquiry.--=Living water.= This phrase signifies primarily
spring water, as opposed to water in a cistern. In Gen. 26:19; Lev.
14:5; Jer. 2:13, the word rendered “springing,” “running,” and
“living,” is in the Septuagint the one here rendered “living.” It is
taken by Christ as a symbol of the spiritual life which he imparts,
and so as a symbol of himself, for he gives himself to the soul, and
is, by his indwelling, the bread and water of life. The spiritual
meaning then is not _life-giving_; for that a different Greek word
would be employed (ζωοποιών not ζῶν). It is true that living water is
life-giving, but that is not the meaning conveyed by the phrase. The
meaning is water that has life in itself, as in John 6:51; “living
bread” means the living Christ, in contrast with the inert manna. The
significance of the metaphor here is explained by its connection.
Christ compares himself with water, not because of its cleansing
power, nor because of its revivifying power on the soil, but because
he satisfies the soul’s thirst. A similar metaphorical use of water is
to be found in the O. T. See Psalm 23:2; Isaiah 55:1; Jer. 2:13; but
especially Numb. 20:8-11, an incident which it appears to me probable
Christ had in mind, and one with which the woman was probably
familiar, as the Samaritans accepted and employed the Pentateuch.
Observe that salvation is the gift of God (Rom. 6:23), and that the
only condition of receiving it is asking (Matt. 5:6; 7:7; Rev. 22:17).
The water’ is always ready; it is the thirst only that is wanting
(Luke 14:17-19).
11 The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw
with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that
living water?
12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us
the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and
his cattle?
=11, 12. Sire, Thou hast no bucket, and the well is deep.= Not spring;
the water chamber, not the water source (φρέαρ not πηγή) See on ver.
6. The language is that of badinage. It is analogous to that of
Nicodemus in ch. 3:4; though here, commingled with irony, there may
well have been a real perplexity. The original indicates a change in
the woman’s tone; she at first says, How is it that thou being a
_Jew_? she now addresses him as “_Sire_” (kύριε).--=Our father Jacob=,
etc. The Samaritans traced their origin back to the patriarchs, and
her language here implies a claim to an ancestry superior to that of
the Jews, among whom she classed Jesus. Observe an illustration of the
spirit which says, What sufficed for our fathers is good enough for
us, no one can be greater than they; a spirit which is fatal to all
progress, in either material or spiritual things.
[Illustration: AT THE WELL.
“_Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never
thirst._”]
13 Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of
this water shall thirst again:
14 But whosoever[130] drinketh of the water that I shall
give[131] him shall never thirst; but the water that
I shall give him shall be in him[132] a well of water
springing up into everlasting life.
[130] ch. 6:35, 58.
[131] ch. 17:2, 3; Rom. 6:23.
[132] ch. 7:38.
=13, 14. Every one drinking of this water=; accustomed to drink
of it, and relying upon it. “The ‘drinking’ sets forth the
recurrence, the interrupted seasons of the drinking of earthly
water.”--(_Alford._)--=Shall thirst again.= He appeals in this to the
woman’s experience, who comes daily to re-supply the ever-recurring
want.--=But whosoever has drunk=; once for all; the tense (aorist,
πίῃ) indicates an historical act once performed.--=That I shall give
to him.= Observe the representation throughout that the water is a
gift, and a gift not _received_ by Christ in common with humanity, but
_given_ by Christ to humanity. The Bible may be searched in vain for
similar language from any prophet or apostle.--=Shall not thirst unto
eternity.= That is, shall never, even unto eternity, thirst. “The
whole verse is a strong argument in favor of the doctrine of the
perpetuity of grace, and the consequent perseverance and the faith of
believers.”--(_Ryle._) Comp. ch. 10:28; Rom. 8:35-39; 2 Tim.
1:12.--=But the water which I shall give him.= This Christ does by
giving his own life for the life of the world in his sacrifice for sin
(ch. 6:51) and in his spiritual indwelling in the soul of the believer
(ch. 14:19, 23).--=Shall become in him a fountain of water.= Not a
_well_ (not φρέαρ but πηγή). The reason he shall never thirst is that
the water which Christ gives becomes itself a water source, a spring,
a perpetual fountain of supply.--=Springing up unto eternal life.= Not
_into_; the preposition indicates not something into which the
fountain will be transformed, but the duration of its existence; it
will forever spring up in the soul. The contrast throughout these
verses is between earthly and spiritual supplies. The _well_ (φρέαρ)
is a symbol of earthly supply. This appeases but never satisfies; for
it furnishes that which is external, and which is consumed in the
using, so that the soul which relies on earthly cisterns for its
satisfaction thirsts again. The living water, the spring (πηγή) which
Christ gives, becomes a fountain in the soul, it enters into and
becomes part of the character; using does not consume but increases
the supply. In Christ’s promise here thirst is not equivalent to
“desire,” nor is the declaration “shall never thirst,” equivalent to
“shall never feel any spiritual want.” Thirst is of all bodily
cravings the most painful and intolerable. Hence it is used in the
Bible as a metaphor, not merely of spiritual _desires_, but of an
urgent and intense desire, that cannot be denied (Psalm 42:2; 63:1;
143:6; Isaiah 55:1; Matt. 5:6, note). Here then the declaration is
that Christ satisfies this painful longing, so that the soul shall
experience it no more. Of soul-thirst we have striking illustrations
in Psalms 41 and 42, and in Rom. 7:17-24; of soul-satisfaction in
Christ, illustrations in Psalm 46 and in Rom. 8:31-39. Compare
Christ’s promises in John 11:36; 16:32, 33. The continuance of earnest
spiritual desires is not inconsistent with a rich spiritual
experience. See Phil. 3:12-14.
15 The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that
I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.
=15.= There is certainly a difference in tone between this request
and the answer of verses 11, 13. The woman now dimly recognizes and
vaguely appreciates Christ’s interpretation of her own soul-want, and
replies half in jest, half in earnest. But her language “neither come
hither to draw,” shows that she still gives to Christ’s words, as I
think purposely misinterpreting them, a prosaic and literal meaning.
Observe the implied misapprehension of the office of Christ, as one
who relieves the soul of all further care and labor in the matter of
religion. “There are many like her who would be glad of such a divine
gift of religion as should take away all the labor and trouble of
Christian life. ‘That I come not hither to draw’ is the desire of
thousands who want the results of right living without the trouble of
living aright.”--(_H. W. Beecher._)
16 Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come
hither.
=16. Go, call thy husband=, etc. This is in appearance a break in the
conversation; it is in reality the first step toward granting the
woman’s request: “Give me this water;” for the first step is to
convince of sin. It is only if we confess our sins that “He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Hence when Christ came to bring this
water of life to the world he began by preaching the duty of
repentance (Matt. 4:17; Mark 1:15). Other explanations, as that a
longer conversation with the woman alone would be indecorous
(_Grotius_), or that she was unable to understand Christ’s meaning and
so he summoned her husband (_Cyril_, quoted in _Alford_), or that he
wished her husband to share with her in the benefits of the
conversation (_Chrysostom_), singularly ignore the moral meaning and
continuity of the discourse. Observe Christ’s uniform way of dealing
with skepticism. Its root is in sin; and he addresses not the reason,
but proceeds directly to convict the conscience. It is only the
sinner, conscious of sin, who ever truly finds a divine Saviour.
17 The woman answered and said, I have no husband.Jesus
said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband:
18 For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now
hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.
=17, 18.= The word (ἀνήρ) in Christ’s reply, rendered _husband_, is one
of more general import and is often translated _man_. But it is the
ordinary word used in the N. T. for husband, and I see no reason to
doubt that she had lived with five successive husbands.--From these
she had been separated, from some perhaps by death, from others by
divorce; at all events the last of these separations was unconcealedly
illegal, and her present life was one which her own conscience
condemned as licentious. Observe the severity in fact and the
gentleness in form of Christ’s rebuke. It shows a full knowledge of
her sin; yet it is couched in the language not of condemnation but of
commendation.
19 The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive[133] that thou
art a prophet.
[133] ch. 1:48, 49.
20 Our fathers worshipped in this mountain;[134] and ye
say, that in Jerusalem[135] is the place where men ought to
worship.
[134] Judges 9:7.
[135] Deut. 12:5-11; 1 Kings 9:3.
=19, 20. The woman saith unto him.= Her sentence is incomplete, either
in the utterance or in the report. It is the basis of a question,
implied, or perhaps expressed, but not given by John, in which place
should worship be offered; which were right, Jew or Samaritan. The
question was one fiercely debated between them (See on verse 5).--=I
perceive that thou art a prophet.= It was a hasty conclusion; Christ
might have known her character and life by other than supernatural
means. Bigotry and vice are apt to be credulous and superstitious.
Observe, however, the difference in tone between this declaration and
the language of verse 9: “How is it that thou being a Jew.”--=Our
fathers worshipped.= “The argument of ‘our fathers’ has always proved
strong. Opinions, like electricity, are supposed to descend more
safely along an unbroken chain. That which ‘our fathers’ or our
ancestors believed, is apt to seem necessarily true; and the larger
the roots of any belief, the more flourishing, it is supposed, will be
its top.”--(_Beecher._) Calvin’s comments are admirable though too
long to quote. He suggests four errors into which men are apt to fall,
from blindly following the “_fathers_,” all illustrated by the
Samaritans: (1) When pride has created a false custom or religion, the
history of the fathers is ransacked to find justification for it; (2)
when men imitate the example of the evil-doers, because they are
ancient, forgetful that they only are worthy to be reckoned as fathers
who are true sons of God; (3) when we imitate the conduct but not the
spirit of the fathers, as if one should defend human sacrifice
from the example of Abraham in Gen. 22:1-10; (4) when we imitate
the conduct of the fathers without considering the change of
circumstances, as when the Christian church attempts to copy the
ceremonials of the Jewish. “None of these are true imitators of the
fathers; most of them are apes.”--=In this mount=, Gerizim. According
to the Samaritan tradition it was here that Abraham went to sacrifice
Isaac; and here, not on Ebal, as according to our Scripture (Josh.
8:30; Deut. 27:4), that the altar was erected by Joshua on which the
words of the law were inscribed. The first view is sanctioned by some
Christian scholars, prominent among whom is Dean Stanley. A temple was
built on Gerizim by the Samaritans, according to Josephus, during the
reign of Alexander, though the date is doubtful. The two temples
intensified the bitterness of the feud between the Jews and the
Samaritans, and the Samaritan temple was deserted and destroyed, B. C.
129, by John Hyrcanus (Josephus’ Antiquities 13:9, 11); but the
Samaritans at Sechem (Nablus) still call Gerizim the holy mountain,
and turn their faces toward it in prayer.--=Ye say.= She still treats
Christ as a Jew.
Some have regarded the question presented by the woman here as a
serious one; recognizing Christ as a prophet, she asks his solution of
what was to her mind the great religious problem of the day; others
see in it an endeavor on her part to evade the personal reference to
her own sins. Both seem to me true. She endeavors to turn the
conversation; recognizing the truth of Christ’s allegation, “He whom
thou now hast is not thy husband,” not by confessing her sin but by
acknowledging him as a prophet; but eludes the topic by opening a
problem in controversial theology. In all this she is honest and in
earnest. She is not the first inquirer who has deemed theoretical
theology more important than practical duty. The moment her thoughts
are turned to religious truth, they tend to its external aspects, and
she naturally and honestly seeks a refuge from her conscience in the
question, Where ought men to worship? The question, What ought _I_ to
do? is postponed. Observe that Christ suffers her to change the
subject; leaves her conscience to press the sin to which he has
awakened it, and teaches his followers how to deal with those who
evade practical duty by doctrinal or ceremonial questions by his own
response, No matter _where_ or _how_ the soul seeks God, if it only
seeks him in spirit and in truth.
21 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour
cometh, when ye[136] shall neither in this mountain, nor
yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
[136] Mal. 1:11; Matt. 18:20.
22 Ye worship[137] ye know not what: we know what we
worship: for salvation[138] is of the Jews.
[137] 2 Kings 17:29.
[138] Isa. 2:3; Rom. 9:5.
23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit[139] and in
truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
[139] Phil. 3:3.
24 God[140] _is_ a Spirit: and they that worship him must
worship _him_ in spirit and in truth.
[140] 2 Cor. 3:17.
=21-24. Believe me.= This expression is nowhere else used by our Lord.
It answers to his “Verily, verily, I say unto you” (Matt. 5:18, note),
and to Paul’s “This is a faithful (_i. e._, trustworthy) saying” (1
Tim. 1:15, 4:9; Tit. 3:8). He employs it here because his declaration
is partly in the nature of a prophecy, which must be accepted, if at
all, upon simple trust in him.--=The hour cometh.= The word _hour_ is
here equivalent to time or season; this use of “hour” is not
infrequent in John’s Gospel (ch. 2:4; 5:25, 28, 35, “season;” 8:20,
etc.).--=When ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem
worship the Father.= A prophecy which was speedily, perhaps in the
lifetime of this woman, fulfilled. The ravaging of Palestine by the
Roman armies, and the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of
the Jews, has scattered the worshippers throughout the world. The
Samaritan sect is indeed extinct, except the few survivors at Nablus,
but the Jews continue their worship in exile in every land (Mal.
1:11).--=Ye worship ye know not what.= Their ignorance concerning the
nature of the true God is indicated in their early history (2 Kings
17:24-34). The woman was solicitous concerning the _place_ of worship;
Christ directs her thought toward the _person_ to be worshipped.--=We
know what we worship.= This is the only instance in which Christ
classes himself with the Jews by the pronoun _we_. He accepts, for the
time, her estimate of him as a Jewish prophet, and declares that it is
in the Jewish Scripture she is to look for a knowledge of the true
God. In fact, all correct knowledge of the character, attributes, and
dealings of God, possessed by the world to-day, has come through the
Jewish people, by means of the Old and New Testaments (see Romans 3:1,
2; 9:4, 5). At the time of this conversation idolatry had entirely
disappeared from the Jewish nation; and however inadequate, imperfect,
and corrupt their worship, they at least recognized the one only true
God. Notwithstanding some efforts to prove the contrary, I think it
is historically demonstrable that Judaism is the source of all
monotheistic religion. It is reasonably certain that the monotheism of
Mohammedanism is due to Mohammed’s early instruction in the principles
of Judaism.--=For the salvation is of the Jews.= The definite article
in the original, unfortunately omitted in our English version, gives
not only emphasis but significance to the language. The Jews know what
they worship, because it is from them, as a nation, that there comes
forth the divine salvation, typified by the sacrifices at Jerusalem,
prophesied by Jewish Scripture, and fulfilled by the Messiah born at
Bethlehem in Judea. It is therefore here equivalent not merely to the
Saviour, but also includes all the preparations which preceded his
personal advent.--=But the hour cometh and now is.= The last clause is
added parenthetically as a suggestion that the woman is not to look to
the remote future for the fulfillment of this word. Already the day
has dawned, though it has not fully arrived. Her language in verse 25
indicates that a suspicion of Christ’s true nature was, perhaps by
this declaration, awakened in her.--=When the true worshippers.= Not
merely the sincere in opposition to consciously hypocritical
worshippers (Isaiah 29:13), but also the true, inward worshippers, in
opposition to those whose worship was one of external form and
therefore not genuine. The word _true_ is elsewhere used thus by John
to indicate the inward and spiritual as contrasted with the external
and earthly, _e. g._, the true light (1:9), the true bread (6:32), the
true vine (15:1). Compare Luke 16:11.--=Shall worship the Father=, and
therefore know what they worship; =in spirit and in truth=. Not in the
Holy Spirit, though it is true that all spiritual worship is inspired
and directed by his influence (Rom. 8:26; Zach. 12:10); nor with the
breathing and aspirations of the heart, in contrast to worship with
outward forms and symbols, for symbol is necessary in all public
worship, language is but an external symbol of inward feeling; nor in
holiness and righteousness of life, for that is not the meaning of
_spirit_; nor in soundness of faith, in contrast to heretical worship,
for the worship of the Jews was not heretical, Christ has just said,
“We know what we worship.” _In_ (ἐν) expresses not the instrument with
which the worship shall be conducted, but the atmosphere in which it
will live, an atmosphere of spiritual life and truth; worship _in
spirit_, is in contrast with a worship in the flesh, the essence of
which consists in the rite, the form, the language, the posture (Comp.
Rom. 12:1; Phil. 3:3, 4; Heb. 9:9, 24); worship _in truth_ is one
which in its character harmonizes with the nature of him who is
worshipped. The Lycaonians would have worshipped Paul and Barnabas
(Acts 14:11-13) in sincerity, but not in truth. Christ’s language
condemns the spirit of ritualism, but not the employment of
rites.--=For the Father is seeking such to worship him.= God is
represented as in quest of such worshippers, among the many who are
worshippers merely in form. Observe _work is not_ worship; God is
seeking not merely workers (Matt. 20:1) but also worshippers (Comp.
Luke 10:38-42, notes).--=God is a Spirit.= This declaration is
fundamental, and radically inconsistent with (1) all scientific
theories which represent him as an abstract impersonal force; (2) with
all metaphysical refinements which, ignoring his personality, treat
him as a “power that makes for righteousness,” or as “the highest
dream of which the human soul is capable;” (3) with much of the
received theology, which often assumes that God is like nature, and
deduces his attributes from such an imaginary likeness; (4) with all
idolatry, whether the idol be in the imagination or in wood, stone, or
canvas. But it justifies us in looking to man’s spiritual nature to
interpret the divine nature to us. The spirituality of God is
abundantly taught in the O. T., but by implication only. The abstract
statement occurs only here and in 2 Cor. 3:17.--=Must worship him in
spirit and in truth.= Nothing else is worship.
Observe (1) Christ answers the woman’s question not by pointing out
the right place of worship, but by inculcating such a conception of
the true nature of worship, that the controversy respecting Gerizim
and Jerusalem shrinks into insignificance. The solution of many
theological problems is to be found, not in any answer, but in a new,
a higher, a more spiritual conception of religion as a spiritual life.
(2) The place, and impliedly the forms and methods of worship, are
matters of no importance. (3) It is important that we know what we
worship, _i. e._, that our worship be intelligent, else it is
superstitious. “Unless there be knowledge, it is not God that we
worship, but a phantom or idol.”--(_Calvin._) (4) That knowledge
includes three elements, viz., that God is a _spiritual being_, with
the sympathies, the flexibility, the _life_ which belongs to spirit;
that he is a Father, and is therefore to be approached with a filial,
reverential, trusting affection (Matt. 5:9, note); that he is revealed
to us through the Jewish Scripture and the Jewish Messiah. (5) He must
be worshipped in spirit, _i. e._, with the heart, and in truth, _i.
e._, in accordance with the realities of his nature as thus revealed
to us; nothing else is worship. (6) Worship is essential to a
religious life. God looks for it, as well as for work, as an evidence
of love. The whole lesson is eloquently embodied by Henry Ward Beecher
in his _Life of Christ_: “It expresses the renunciation of the senses
in worship. It throws back upon the heart and soul of every one,
whoever he may be, wherever he may be, the whole office of worship. It
is the first gleam of the new morning. No longer in this nest alone,
or in that, shall religion be looked for, but escaping from its shell,
heard in all the earth, in notes the same in every language, flying
unrestrained and free, the whole heavens shall be its sphere and the
whole earth its home.”
25 The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh,
which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us
all things.
26 Jesus saith unto her, I[141] that speak unto thee am
_he_.
[141] ch. 9:37.
=25, 26. The woman saith unto him.= Chrysostom well expresses her
spirit: “The woman was made dizzy by his discourse, and fainted at the
sublimity of what he said.” So she turns away from the present
revelation, procrastinating its application with the expectation of a
better opportunity when the Messiah comes.--=He will tell us all
things= is not to be interpreted literally; it is the expression of a
vague hope of a clearer light by and by.--=I that speak unto thee am
he.= Christ did not until a much later period declare his Messiahship
to his own disciples; he never declared it more clearly than to this
sinful Samaritan woman. There is a reason for it, in that this
declaration took from her all excuse of procrastination, and in fact
made her a missionary of the Messiah. Perhaps, too, the very fact that
she was an uninfluential woman and a Samaritan may have made him more
ready to reveal himself; for it was certainly his general purpose not
to disclose his character and mission to the public until his death
(Matt. 17:9). We certainly have no right to say, with some
rationalizing critics, that because we cannot fully understand his
reasons it is incredible. Such a method of criticism would make havoc
of all history. Most scholars suppose that the words “which is called
Christ” were spoken by the woman. It seems to me more probable that
they were added by John, as an explanation to his Greek readers of the
Hebrew term Messiah. The word Christ is its Greek equivalent.
* * * * *
NOTE ON CHRIST AS A CONVERSATIONALIST.--Christ as a preacher has
been studied; Christ as a conversationalist is quite as worthy the
Christian’s study. Many of his so-called discourses were simply
conversations; this is notably the case with the discourse to Nicodemus
(ch. 3:1-21) and the discourse here to the woman of Samaria.
Observe, I. _The contrast._ In the first the conversation is with a
religious teacher, of honorable position, of unexceptionable life;
in the second, with an abandoned woman, of licentious life; in the
first, conversation with Christ is sought, in the second, repelled; in
the first, Christ impresses the truth that the moralist must be born
again, and without personal trust in a personal Saviour is condemned;
in the second, he impresses upon the outcast the truth that for the
lost there is new life in him; the first he discourages, the second
encourages; to the first he proclaims duty, to the second he preaches
deliverance. II. _The harmony._ Both are skeptical; both receive
his declaration with scoffs; both invite argument; with both Christ
refuses to argue; to both he simply proclaims the truth, but without
strife or debate; with both he conquers cavilling by patience, not
by argument. III. _Christ’s method._ (_a._) Though wearied, he does
not neglect the occasion and opportunity afforded to him. (_b._) He
commences the conversation by a natural request. (_c._) He opens the
woman’s heart by requesting from her a favor. (_d._) He passes, by a
natural transition, from the physical to the spiritual world, from
nature to the truth which nature typifies. (_e._) He presents to her
not ethical, but spiritual truth; not the simple moralities, but the
deep things of the Gospel. (_f._) Her badinage does not affront him,
nor does he reprove her for it, or indicate surprise, astonishment,
or even objection. (_g._) He answers it by a direct and unanswerable
appeal to her conscience, by convicting her of sin. (_h._) In this,
while his rebuke is sharp, his language is courteous, the language
of commendation clothing condemnation. (_i._) Having once awakened
her conscience, he does not pursue the rebuke; leaving conscience to
do its work, he suffers her to change the subject. (_j._) He answers
her theological question not by direct response, but by asserting a
principle of worship which lifts the soul above all controversies
respecting forms and methods of worship. (_k._) Finally, he makes his
first and fullest disclosure of his Messiahship to this Samaritan
woman, showing himself most a Saviour to her who most needs his
salvation. IV. _His example._ It illustrates the enthusiasm (Rom.
10:1; Col. 4:13; 2 Tim. 4:2), the skill (Prov. 11:30), the patience (2
Tim. 2:24; 1 Thess. 2:7), and the spirituality (1 Cor. 2:13, 14)
needed for the most efficient, direct, personal work of soul-saving.
* * * * *
Ch. 4:27-42. CHRIST IN SAMARIA.--THE SUSTENANCE OF CHRISTIAN
LABORERS.--THE CALL FOR CHRISTIAN LABORERS.--THEIR REWARD.--THEIR
SUCCESS.
27 And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that
he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest
thou? or, Why talkest thou with her?
28 The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into
the city, and saith to the men,
29 Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I
did: is not this the Christ?
30 Then they went out of the city, and came unto him.
=27-30. And marvelled that he talked with a woman.= There is no
definite article in the original. The disciples knew nothing of the
woman’s character except that she was a Samaritan. What amazed them
was that Christ should descend to instruct a woman at all, and
especially a woman of Samaria. See above on ver. 4.--=No man said,
What seekest thou?= One of the many indications in the Gospel of the
awe in which these life-companions of Christ stood toward him (Mark
9:32; 10:32; 16:8; Luke 8:25; John 21:12).--=Left her waterpot.=
Lightfoot supposes in kindness, for the Lord to use; Calvin, with
greater probability, in her haste forgetting it. In her eagerness to
carry to others the news of the Messiah, she forgets her original
errand, which was to draw water for her home.--=Come see a man.=
Compare ch. 1:39, 46.--=Which told me all things that ever I did.= The
natural exaggeration of enthusiasm. Observe the method of the spread
of Christianity in its earliest years. The new convert became a
missionary, propagating its faith. Compare Acts 8:4; 9:20. If ever a
new convert might be excused from evangelical labors, this one
might--a woman, living in an age when female preaching was more
obnoxious even than now, and a woman of such ill-repute that she might
well expect to be received with scorn, not with respect. But her
strong convictions overbear all obstacles, secure for her a hearing,
and obtain for her mission success (ver. 39). Chrysostom dwells upon
her wisdom as well as her eagerness: “She said not, Come, see the
Christ, but, with the same condescension with which Christ had netted
her, she draws the men to Him; Come, she saith, see a man who told me
all that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? Observe again here the
great wisdom of the woman; she neither declared the fact plainly, nor
was she silent; for she desired not to bring them in by her own
assertion, but to make them to share in this opinion by hearing him. *
* * Nor did she say, Come, believe, but Come, _see_, a gentler
expression than the other, and one which more attracted them.”--=Then
they came out of the city.= Wisdom and tact inspired by enthusiasm
produced by a personal and profound conviction of Christ’s person and
power, rarely fail in evangelical labor.
31 In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying,
Master, eat.
32 But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know
not of.
33 Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any
man brought him _aught_ to eat?
=31-33. Master, eat.= The disciples had brought food from the city, to
obtain which they had originally left him (ver. 8).--=I have meat to
eat that ye know not of.= The commentators generally assume that the
doing of his Father’s will was this meat. This seems to me a false
interpretation not required by and not really accordant with a correct
reading of ver. 34 below (see note there); inconsistent with other
teachings of Scripture, and practically misleading to the disciple.
It is inconsistent with the metaphor; for in nature work is never
a substitute for food, but physiologically exhausts it. It is
inconsistent with other teachings of Scripture, which never represent
_work_, but always divine sustaining grace, as the Christian food. It
is practically misleading, for it leads the disciple to suppose that
he can grow by simply doing the will of his Father, whereas he is to
acquire the power to do that will by constantly receiving grace from
the Father. Christ’s language here is interpreted by such passages as
Matt. 4:4, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God;” Matt. 25:4, “The wise took oil in
their vessels with their lamps.” Compare John, ch. 6. That Jesus lived
by this divine food is evident from his habit of prayer, and from such
declarations as John 5:19, 26, 30; 14:10, 11. This meat then is the
indwelling Spirit of God, conditioned upon entire consecration to God.
It was this meat which fed Peter in prison (Acts 12:6), Paul and Silas
at Philippi (Acts 16:25), and Paul in the shipwreck (Acts 27:23,
etc.); this too which sustained Christ in the hour of Gethsemane and
throughout his Passion. A faint type of it is afforded in earthly
experiences by the strength which seems often to be imparted to even a
feeble mother in the hour of her child’s sickness, and which carries
her through vigils which, but for her love, it would be impossible for
her to sustain. Her work is not her food: her love and faith are her
food, and sustain her for her work. No Christian can live by or on his
work; nor did Christ.--=Hath any one brought him aught to eat.=
They thought, perhaps, that the woman had done so. “It is very
characteristic of the first part of this Gospel to bring forward
instances of unreceptivity to spiritual meaning. Compare ver. 11; ch.
2:20; 3:4; 6:42, 52.”--(_Alford._)
34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat[142] is to do the will of
him that sent me, and to finish[143] his work.
[142] ch. 6:38; Job 23:12.
[143] ch. 17:4.
=34. For me meat is in order that I may do the will of him that sent
me.= The meaning is not, as our English version seems to imply, that
meat and doing God’s work are synonymous. The above is a literal
translation of the original; and the meaning is, The object of meat is
that I may do the will of him that sent me and may finish his work.
The expression is parallel to and interpreted by Paul’s in Acts 20:24,
“Neither count I my life dear unto myself so that I might finish my
course;” or in Phil. 1:21, “For to me to live is Christ.” The object
of Christ was the accomplishment of his mission; for this purpose
alone had meat any value to him; for this purpose he both needed and
possessed meat that his disciples, in their then state of spiritual
culture, did not and could not understand; and in the work which he
had accomplished, by his conversation with the woman, he had received
greater satisfaction than in any food which they could have brought to
him from the city.
35 Say not ye, There are yet four months, and _then_
cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes,
and look on the fields; for they are white already to
harvest.[144]
[144] Matt. 9:37.
=35.= There is some uncertainty regarding the proper interpretation
of this verse. Alford, Tholuck, De Wette, and some others, suppose
that Christ is quoting a proverbial expression; perhaps referring
to the time which elapsed between seed-time and harvest, perhaps
to some time intervening between a local feast or a religious
anniversary and the harvest. Meyer, Andrews, Ellicott, and others
take it as a chronological indication that it was then four months
to harvest, _i. e._, the month of December, a fact to which perhaps
some reference had been made by the disciples in the course of
their walk. Chrysostom, Meyer, and others, suppose moreover that
the approaching Samaritans were seen through the corn-fields, and
to them Christ pointed when he said, “Lift up your eyes and look on
the fields.” “The approaching townspeople now showed how greatly
the doing of the Father’s will was in process of accomplishment.
They were coming through the corn-field, now tinged with green;
thus they make the fields, which for four months would not yield
the harvest, in a higher sense already white harvest fields. Jesus
directs the attention of his disciples to this; and with the beautiful
picture thus presented in nature he connects further appropriate
instructions.”--(_Meyer._) The phrase “Say not ye” seems to me clearly
to indicate that Christ refers to some proverbial saying (comp. Matt.
16:2); the direction, “Lift up your eyes and look on the fields,”
indicates some present appearance which gave point to his declaration
that they were white already, a declaration which would have no
significance if the fields were literally ready for the harvest. I
therefore, with Tholuck, combine the two views and suppose that Christ
did refer to a proverbial expression, probably indicating the time
between seed-time and harvest, and appropriate then because it
was then the seed-time. The spiritual meaning is very clear.
Procrastination is a fault of the church as well as of the world, of
the disciple as well as of the impenitent sinner. The Christian is
constantly waiting for an opportunity; he should wait _on_, he never
need wait _for_ the Lord. Since Christ has ascended, and the Holy
Ghost has been given, the field is always white for the harvest; we
never need wait for God to ripen the grain. The message, “All things
are now ready,” was given by the Lord to his servants; it is only as
the servant understands and believes this that he can make the guests
believe it (Luke 14:17).
[Illustration: SAMARITAN REMAINS IN GERIZIM.]
36 And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth
fruit[145] unto life eternal: that both[146] he that soweth
and he that reapeth may rejoice together.
[145] Rom. 6:22.
[146] 1 Cor. 3:5-9.
37 And herein is that saying true, One[147] soweth, and
another reapeth.
[147] Micah 6:15.
38 I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour:
other[148] men laboured, and ye are entered into their
labours.
[148] 1 Pet. 1:12.
=36-38. And he that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto
life eternal.= The Lord’s husbandman has both wages and heaven. The
earthly wages of the successful evangelist is not in his salary, nor
in his fame or position, but in the affections which reward him, and
the personal present consciousness of work achieved, the highest and
grandest which it is ever permitted man to do. To this is added the
joy inherent in bringing souls to Christ, and through Christ into
eternal life, a joy which will not be consummated until the reaper
enters into glory, with an “abundant entrance,” and brings his sheaves
to his Lord.--=That both * * * may rejoice together.= The sowing is in
tears; the reaping is with rejoicing (Ps. 126:5); but in the future
life both will rejoice in the ingathering; hearts that knew not whence
they received the seed will learn to thank the unknown or the
unrecognized benefactor; and the Lord of the harvest will say to both,
“Well done, good and faithful servants.”--=Herein is that saying
true.= Undoubtedly a reference to a proverbial saying, to which Christ
gives a new and spiritual significance. Primarily, Christ is the
sower, who sowed in tears and reaped but little; the apostles are the
reapers, who gathered in a single day more souls into the church of
Christ than Jesus himself in his whole lifetime.--But secondarily the
prophets were sowers and the apostles reapers, a fact illustrated by
their constantly quoting of the prophets in attestation of the divine
character and mission of Christ. And finally, the twofold work of
sowing and reaping goes on throughout all time, the same man sometimes
being both sower and reaper, sometimes sowing all his life in tears
that another may reap in joy. The truth of Christ’s saying in verses
37, 38, is illustrated, but as a prophecy it is not fulfilled, by the
successful mission of the apostles to Samaria, where Christ sowed at
this time and they reaped subsequently (Acts 8:5-8, 14-17).
39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on
him for the saying[149] of the woman, which testified,
He told me all that ever I did.
[149] ver. 29.
40 So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they
besought him that he would tarry with them: and he
abode there two days.
41 And many more believed because of his own word;
42 And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not
because of thy saying: for[150] we have heard _him_
ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ,
the Saviour of the world.
[150] ch. 17:8; 1 John 4:14.
=39-42.= This mission of Christ to the Samaritans is not inconsistent
with his directions to his apostles, when they were commissioned, not
to go into any Samaritan city, for the reason of that prohibition was
not his unwillingness to open the Gospel to the heathen, but the fact
that his apostles did not yet comprehend its catholicity, and could
not therefore successfully preach it to the heathen. That the opening
of the doors to others than Jews was neither an afterthought with
Christ, nor a supplemental act originating with Paul, is evident from
the incident recorded here. Notice that the faith of the Samaritans
rested on Christ’s words--he apparently wrought no miracles; and
that they recognized in him the Saviour not of the nation but of the
_world_. “Universalism was more akin to the Messianic faith of the
Samaritans than to that of the Jews, with their definite and energetic
feeling of nationality.”--(_Meyer._) Notice too, the forms of Christian
experience illustrated in this passage; one (ver. 39) rests on the
testimony of others, the other (ver. 42) rests on a personal communion
with and experience of Christ as a Messiah and Saviour.
* * * * *
Ch. 4:43-54. THE CURE OF THE CENTURION’S SON.--TWO KINDS OF FAITH; A
POOR FAITH REQUIRES MIRACLES; A TRUE FAITH ACCEPTS CHRIST’S WORD SIMPLY.
43 Now after two days he departed thence, and went
into Galilee.
44 For Jesus himself testified, that[151] a prophet
hath no honour in his own country.
[151] Matt. 13:57; Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24.
45 Then when he was come into Galilee, the Galilæans
received him, having seen[152] all the things that he
did at Jerusalem at the feast: for[153] they also went
unto the feast.
[152] ch. 2:23.
[153] Deut. 16:16.
=43-45. After two days.= Spent in preaching the gospel to the
Samaritans. The nature of this ministry is left to conjecture. We must
presume, however, that it was of the same type as Christ’s preaching
in Galilee at this time, where his theme was, “Repent, for the kingdom
of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17); the nature of that kingdom, and
the character of the Messianic king, he probably made no attempt to
explain. It was preparative; he sowed only, leaving the reaping to be
done by others at a later day.--=For Jesus himself testified that a
prophet hath no honor in his own country.= The rationalistic critics
cite this as one of the evidences that the Fourth Gospel is not the
product of one of the Twelve. Thus, “In the Synoptics Jesus is
reported as quoting against the people of his own city, Nazareth, who
rejected him, the proverb, ‘A prophet has no honor in his own country’
(Matt. 13:57; Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24). The appropriateness of the remark
here is obvious. The author of the Fourth Gospel, however, shows
clearly that he was neither an eye-witness nor acquainted with the
subject or country when he introduces this proverb in a different
place. * * * * * He (Christ) is made to go into Galilee, which is his
own country, because a prophet has no honor in his country, and the
Galileans are represented as receiving him, which is a contradiction
of the proverb.”--(_Supernatural Religion_, Vol. II, 447.) I have
cited this objection at length because it is a not unfair illustration
of the straits to which rationalism is reduced in its efforts
to discredit this Gospel. Constructive dogmatism is bad enough;
destructive dogmatism is much worse. The difficulties created by
evangelical critics in the interpretation of the passage are equally
curious as an illustration of forced and fanciful exaggerations. The
curious will find them stated in Alford and Meyer. The English reader,
who simply takes the context, will assuredly find no difficulty in the
passage. Christ was received in Samaria, notwithstanding he was a Jew,
with whom usually the Samaritans had no dealings (ver. 9), and this
though he wrought no miracles, and merely because of his words, _i.
e._, the purity and beauty and self-evident truth of his teaching
(ver. 41).--In Galilee he was received only because he was a Jew, and
had wrought miracles at Jerusalem (chap. 3:2), and brought with him a
metropolitan reputation. He had no honor in his own country as a
prophet, until he brought it back with him from the holy city; it was
honor, not indigenous but imported.
46 So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he
made[154] the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman,
whose son was sick at Capernaum.
[154] ch. 2:1, 11.
47 When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judæa into
Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would
come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of
death.
=46, 47. Into Cana.= For site see chap. 2:1, note. The fact that he
went at once to Cana, gives color to the supposition that the marriage
there may have been that of John, according to an ancient tradition;
at all events it probably was one of some intimate friend of
Christ.--=A certain nobleman.= Probably an officer of Herod Antipas
who had a palace at Tiberias. It has been conjectured that he may have
been the Chuza, whose wife became attached to Jesus with other women
of Galilee (Luke 8:3). That he was a Jew is probable, since the
manifestation of faith in a heathen is generally especially noted by
the historian or by Christ.--=Was sick at Capernaum.= About twenty
miles distant.--=Was at the point of death.= Literally _Was about to
die_.
48 Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs[155] and
wonders, ye will not believe.
[155] 1 Cor. 1:22.
49 The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child
die.
=48, 49. Except ye see signs and wonders.= Rather a soliloquy applied
to the entire people, than a personal rebuke of the nobleman. For
there is certainly no evidence that his faith was notably small;
rather the reverse. He had traveled twenty miles to apply to Christ
for assistance; his request that Christ should come personally was
certainly not unnatural, for he could not be expected to assume that
Christ would or could heal by a word; when the word was spoken he went
away undoubtingly; and he evidently made no great haste (see note
on verse 51), an indication of his restful assurance on Christ’s
mere word. Analogous to Christ’s utterance here is that of Mark 9:19;
see note there. It is certainly a rebuke to the skepticism which to-day
demands signs and wonders as a basis for faith, and to the church
which continually endeavors to satisfy this desire by demonstrating
the miracles as though they were the evidences of Christianity. Christ
himself never, in public discourse with skeptics, based his claims on
his miracles; never performed a miracle for the purpose of proving his
claims to an unbeliever (Matt. 11:4, 5 is not an exception; see note
there); and rebuked the demand made on him for miracles as a basis of
faith in his mission.--=Come down.= One of those geographical and
incidental evidences of accuracy in the historian which demonstrate
his familiarity with the country. Capernaum was on the shore of the
sea of Galilee; Cana was in the hill country.
50 Jesus saith unto him, Go[156] thy way; thy son liveth.
And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto
him, and he went his way.
[156] Matt. 8:13; Mark 7:29, 30; Luke 17:14.
51 And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and
told _him_, saying, Thy son liveth.
52 Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to
amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh
hour the fever left him.
53 So the father knew that _it was_ at the same[157] hour,
in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and
himself believed,[158] and his whole house.
[157] Ps. 107:20.
[158] Acts 16:34; 18:8.
54 This _is_ again the second miracle _that_ Jesus did,
when he was come out of Judæa into Galilee.
=50-54. He went his way.= The course of the nobleman was not that of
one deficient in faith. On the contrary, he did not wait to see signs
or wonders; he believed the simple word. That he did not hasten is
evident from the next verse. Christ spoke the word of healing at the
seventh hour, _i. e._, one in the afternoon. The father could have
reached home that same night; but it was not until the next day that
his servants, coming to relieve his fears, met him on the road. Faith
neither worries nor hurries.--=Thy son is living.= He was so sick
before the father left home, that the mere announcement that he was
living demonstrated that he was recovering. The case was one in which
life could not last long if a change for the better did not take
place.--=Himself believed.= Believed what? He had believed before,
when he came to Jesus, or he would not have come; and again when he
went away, or he would not have been satisfied at the mere word of
Jesus. But he before simply believed _about_ Jesus, _e. g._, that he
was a prophet, possessing certain healing powers, the extent of which
he had not measured. Now he believed _on_ Jesus; without as yet
comprehending the Saviour’s mission or character, he yet had faith in
him; that kind of faith which was ready to accept him as all that he
claimed, whatever that might be. To _believe_, used absolutely, as
here, always indicates not believing a doctrine about Christ, but
personal belief in and allegiance to him.
This miracle is certainly not the same with the healing of the
centurion’s servant, recorded in Matt. 8:5-13, with which it has been
sometimes confounded, but with which it really has little in common.
One is wrought at Capernaum, the other at Cana; one at the petition of
a nobleman, an officer of the court, the other at the request of a
centurion; one probably for a Jew, the other certainly for a Roman;
one in behalf of a son, the other in behalf of a servant; one for a
petitioner who entreats Christ to come to his house, the other for one
who deprecates his doing so; one affording an illustration of the
largest faith in a heathen, the other of the development of faith from
a small beginning in an Israelite. The resemblances are superficial;
the differences are radical. Accepting the narrative as true, it is
one of the many which utterly refute the rationalistic explanation of
miracles offered by such writers as Schenkel. This cure could not have
been due to any natural means, as the inspiration of hope, or the
infusion of nervous power by personal contact, or the like, for the
sick man did not see Jesus nor even know when the father saw him.
CHAPTER V.
Ch. 5:1-47. HEALING OF IMPOTENT MAN AND DISCOURSE THEREON.--A PARABLE
OF REDEMPTION; THE NATURE AND THE CONDITION OF SPIRITUAL CURE
ILLUSTRATED.--THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF THE SABBATH ILLUSTRATED.--THE
AUTHORITY OF THE SON OF GOD: HE IS WITH THE FATHER; COMES FROM THE
FATHER; IS TO BE HONORED AND TRUSTED AS THE FATHER; HE RAISES THE DEAD
AND JUDGES THE LIVING.--THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY; THE TESTIMONY
OF JOHN; OF CHRIST’S LIFE AND WORKS; OF THE SCRIPTURE.--THE CAUSE OF
UNBELIEF.
[Illustration: CHURCH OVER THE POOL OF BETHESDA.]
1 After this there was a feast[159] of the Jews; and Jesus
went up to Jerusalem.
[159] ch. 2:13; Lev. 23:2, etc.; Deut. 16:16.
2 Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep _market_, a pool,
which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five
porches.
3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of
blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.
4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool,
and troubled the water: whosoever then first[160] after the
troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole[161] of
whatsoever disease he had.
[160] Prov. 8:17; Eccles. 9:10; Matt. 11:12.
[161] Ezek. 47:8, 9; Zech. 13:1.
=1-4. After this was a feast of the Jews.= There were three great
feasts of the Jewish nation, the Passover in the spring, usually
March; the Pentecost, fifty days after, coming therefore usually early
in June; and the Tabernacles, a feast in the Fall, usually October,
analogous to our Thanksgiving. To these must be added the feast of
Purim, which was kept in celebration of the deliverance of Israel, in
the time of Esther, from massacre (Esther 9:17-19), and the feast of
Dedication, instituted subsequent to the close of the O. T. canon, to
commemorate the purging of the temple and the rebuilding of the altar,
after Judas Maccabeus had driven out the Syrians, B. C. 164. There is
nothing in the language of John to indicate which of these various
feasts is the one here intended. Some manuscripts have indeed the
words, _the_ feast of the Jews, and if this reading were correct it
would unquestionably designate the Passover; but the weight of
authority is against it. The question is one which has provoked a vast
deal of discussion, but no general agreement. It is important only in
determining the chronology of the life of Christ, and is itself so far
undetermined that it cannot be of great value even for that purpose. I
think it clear (_a_) that it could not be the feast of Dedication,
which took place in the winter, when it is not probable that the sick
would be lying in the porches of Bethesda; (_b_) nor the feast of
Purim, though this has been maintained by some eminent modern
scholars, as Wieseler, Godet, Olshausen, Ellicott, and Meyer; for
there is no evidence that the Jews generally went up to Jerusalem to
celebrate the feast of Purim, and no reason to believe that our Lord
would have gone there in honor of a festival which was purely
national, not directed by the O. T., observed not in connection with
the temple service, but privately at home, and often, if not
generally, with rioting and excess, rather than with religious
services. I agree therefore with Alford and Tholuck that we cannot
gather with any probability what feast it was.--=And Jesus went up to
Jerusalem.= Presumptively to attend the feast.--=By the sheep-market.=
Rather _sheep-gate_. See Neh. 3:1, 32; 12:39. The site is unknown. The
traditional site, identical with the gate now known as St. Stephen’s,
is pretty effectually disproved by Robinson, who shows that no wall
was existing there at the time of Christ.--=A pool.= Properly _a
swimming-place_. Pools for purposes of bathing were in use in the
great cities of the old world; and recent excavations have brought to
light the fact that ancient Jerusalem was in a remarkable degree
supplied with water. See below.--=Called Bethesda.= The word means
_House of mercy_. The location is entirely uncertain. Tradition places
it near the modern St. Stephen’s gate; but this tradition dates back
only to the 12th century.--=Having five porches.= Opening upon the
bath or tank. In these the sick could lie and be partially protected
from the weather.--=In these lay a great multitude of impotent, blind,
halt, withered.= Four classes intended to embrace all forms of purely
bodily disorder of a chronic character, but not including those
possessed of evil spirits. The _impotent_ are those simply suffering
from special weakness and infirmity or from general debility; the
_halt_ are those deprived from any reason of the full and free use of
their limbs; the _withered_ are those affected by paralysis or kindred
disorders.--=Waiting for the moving of the water * * * * was made
whole of whatever disease he had.= Whether this explanation, _i. e._,
the last clause of ver. 3 and the whole of ver. 4, is genuine or a
later interpolation, is a question of dispute among the critics; the
weight of authority is, on the whole, in favor of its omission; the
weight of reason is wholly so. (_a_) The external evidence is, on the
whole, against its retention. It is wanting in the Vatican, Cambridge,
and Sinaitic manuscripts; in those manuscripts in which it occurs, the
verbal variations are considerable. Tischendorf, Meyer, Alford, and
Tregelles all declare against it. (_b_) The internal evidence is
conclusive. If it had been in the original, the early copyists would
not have omitted it; for in the first centuries there was no such
reluctance to accept the supernatural, and no such discrimination
between wonders that are and wonders that are not miracles, as would
have induced its omission. On the other hand, if no explanation of the
reason why the sick were gathered in the porches of Bethesda were
given in the original account, it would have been very natural for
copyists to have supplied the omission by inserting one. (_c_) The
explanation offered by the doubtful passage is itself incredible. It
is a marvel, but it is in no sense a miracle. The irregular and fitful
appearance of help by such an angelic visitor, would have witnessed to
no truth, would have had no tendency to confer faith in God or his
grace. “That God would thus miraculously interpose to throw down from
time to time a boon among a company of cripples, to be seized by
the most forward, selfish, and eager, leaving the most helpless
and miserable to be overwhelmed again and again with bitter
disappointment, is a supposition not admissible.”--(_Jacob Abbott’s
Notes on the N. T._) (_d_) These considerations have led the latest
and best scholars, with substantial unanimity, to omit the explanatory
words of ver. 4, and latter clause of ver. 3. So Alford, Tholuck,
Ebrard, Trench, Olshausen, Meyer, Tischendorf, and Tregelles. But
though it is no part of the sacred record, it probably correctly
states what was the popular belief among the Jews, or at least among
such as resorted to this spring for cure. The real basis of this
belief is indicated by recent researches. These have made it evident
that the pools in and about Jerusalem were connected with each other
by underground aqueducts. Dr. Robinson gives an account of his
exploration of such an aqueduct connecting two pools, the Fountain of
the Virgin and the Pool of Siloam. He satisfied himself that water
flowed from the one to the other reservoir, and he witnessed the
“troubling of the water” in the Fountain of the Virgin. “We perceived
the water rapidly bubbling up from under the lower step. In less than
five minutes it had risen in the basin nearly or quite a foot; and we
could hear it gurgling off through the interior passage. In ten
minutes more it had ceased to flow; and the water in the basin was
again reduced to its former level.” His observation has been since
confirmed by others. It is now difficult to see how the Fountain of
the Virgin could ever have been surrounded by porches or made a
resting-place for the sick; and it is quite certain that the Fountain
of the Virgin cannot be asserted with any positiveness to have been
the Pool of Bethesda. But these discoveries indicate the probably true
explanation of the troubling of the water mentioned, not by John it
will be remembered, but by some subsequent copyist, in the text. The
Pool of Bethesda, probably, was connected by an underground passage
with some intermittent spring, possibly possessing healing virtues,
and the bubbling of the water from time to time gave rise to the
legend of an angelic visitant, which certain of the Jews accepted, but
which the Evangelist does not confirm, and to which there is no
reference in other literature.
5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity[162]
thirty and eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lie, and[163] knew that he had been
now a long time _in that case_, he saith unto him, Wilt
thou be made whole?
7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have[164] no man,
when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but
while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.
8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise,[165] take up thy bed, and
walk.
9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his
bed, and walked: and on[166] the same day was the sabbath.
[162] Luke 8:43; 13:16.
[163] Ps. 142:3.
[164] Deut. 32:36; Ps. 72:12; 142:4; Rom. 5:6; 2 Cor.
1:9, 10.
[165] Matt. 9:6; Mark 2:11; Luke 5:24.
[166] ch. 9:14.
=5-9. Which had an infirmity.= The original implies rather a loss of
power than a positive disease; probably it was a nervous disease of
the paralytic type.--=Thirty and eight years.= The words “in that
case,” are added by the translator, but they correctly convey the
meaning, which is not that he had been at the Pool of Bethesda, but
that he had been diseased that length of time.--=Wilt thou be made
whole?= Why this question? Not necessarily because there was any
reasonable doubt whether the man desired healing; nor because Christ
required, as a conditional preliminary, the man’s assent to healing on
the Sabbath; nor because he would imply blame, as though the man’s
long infirmity were the result of his own weakness of will; nor,
surely, because he would indicate that he was an impostor and desired
to use his apparent but exaggerated infirmity to appeal to the
compassion of others. All these hypotheses have been suggested. But
Christ almost, if not quite, always requires on the part of the healed
some act of the will precedent to and concurrent with his act of
grace; the cured are never merely receptive and quiescent. I believe
there is a deep religious meaning in this, for every miracle is a
parable of redemption, and that our Lord would teach us that it is
only as we will to be made whole that any wholeness is possible for
us, even through omnipotent divine grace. In this particular case it
is certainly true that the man might have traded on his infirmity and
not really desired to be cured; and though Christ’s knowledge of
character would have rendered the question unnecessary for his own
information, it was not unnecessary to make it clear to others that he
was acting in sympathy with the man, nor was it unimportant as a
disclosure to the man himself that he must rouse himself from the
lethargy of despair, and lay hold, by hope, on the salvation brought
to him.--=I have no man.= It is the friendless who appeals peculiarly
to the Friend of the sinful and the suffering.--=Rise, take up thy bed
and walk.= The original (κράββατόν) implies a small, low bedstead. See
for illustration Mark 2:4, note. Here, however, the term may be used
in a more general way, and may imply simply a mattress which served as
a couch by day and a bed by night. Observe the command to _take up the
bed_. This apparently was not necessary; I can conceive but two
reasons for it; one to emphasize the perfection of the cure, the other
to provoke the controversy with the Pharisees respecting the
Sabbath, and thus make it the occasion for the discourse which
follows.--=Immediately.= The instantaneousness of the cure indicates
its miraculous character; so does its permanence. He was cured
instantly; he was cured so thoroughly that he could not only walk, but
could carry his bed; and he remained cured.
I have already said that the miracles are parables of redemption. Of
no one of the miracles is this more strikingly true than of the
present one. The diseased man has been a long time sick. He is
helpless, friendless, in despair. He waits for an imagined moving of
the water, an expected divine cure that is to come without act or
interposition on his part; and it never comes. Christ calls first his
will into exercise: Wilt thou be made whole? then bids him do: “Rise,
take up thy bed;” and in the choice and the _obedience_, by faith
indeed, but by the faith which chooses and obeys, he is made instantly
and permanently well.
10 The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It
is the sabbath day:[167] it is not lawful for thee to carry
_thy_ bed.
[167] Jer. 17:21, etc.; Matt. 12:2, etc.
11 He answered them. He that made me whole, the same said
unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk.
12 Then asked they him, What man is that which said unto
thee, Take up thy bed, and walk?
13 And he that was healed wist[168] not who it was: for
Jesus had conveyed[169] himself away, a multitude being in
_that_ place.
[168] ch. 14:9.
[169] Luke 4:30.
=10-13. It is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.= The general
Sabbath command was, Thou shalt do no work. Nehemiah, enforcing this
command, forbade the carriage of commercial burdens (Neh. 13:19). From
this the Pharisees, with their accustomed literalism, had deduced the
doctrine that nothing must be carried on the Sabbath. To forbid this
man from carrying his bed was like forbidding a modern, man to move a
chair or a campstool. Either he must have left his bed at the pool, to
be stolen, or he must have stayed there to watch it, or he must have
been allowed to take it home with him. For the Pharisaic regulations
respecting the Sabbath, see Matt. 12:2, note.--=He that made me whole
said unto me.= The man knew nothing about Christ or his authority. His
idea appears to have been that Christ proved his right to give the
command, Take up thy bed and walk, by his miracle of healing.--=What
man is it that said unto thee, Take up thy bed.= Observe the spirit of
the Pharisees. Their question is not, Who healed thee? but, Who said
unto thee, Take up thy bed and walk? They are blind to the miracle;
they can see only the Sabbath violation, as they regard it.--=A
multitude being in that place.= Christ had stopped a moment, spoken
the word of healing, and passed on into the crowd. All was over
in an instant, and because of the crowd Christ escaped the man’s
identification. This was early in his ministry; he was not yet widely
known and thronged, as later in life. Observe the indications of the
nature of belief, an obedient trust, not a correct intellectual
apprehension. This man had faith enough to be healed because faith to
obey Christ’s directions despite Pharisaic criticism; yet he knew
nothing of Christ’s person, character, or work; did not even know who
he was. It is possible to have faith in even an unknown Christ.
14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto
him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin[170] no more, lest a
worse thing come unto thee.
[170] ch. 8:11.
15 The man departed, and told the Jews that it was Jesus,
which had made him whole.
16 And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought
to slay him, because he had done these things on the
sabbath day.
=14-16. In the temple.= Possibly an indication that the divine grace
of healing had already acted as a means of spiritual quickening.--=Sin
no more, lest=, etc. A plain indication that the man’s disease,
probably some form of paralysis, was an effect of sin. See note on ch.
9:1. Here, as almost everywhere, Christ makes the physical healing
minister to a spiritual cure.--=And reported to the Judeans that it
was Jesus which had made him whole.= They asked who bade him carry his
bed; he replied that it was Jesus who healed him. They asked to
condemn, he answered so as to honor Christ.--=And therefore did the
Judeans come in pursuit of Jesus.= Here, as very generally throughout
his gospel, John uses the word Jews (Ἰουδαῖος) to signify not
generally the members of the Hebrew race, but distinctly the
inhabitants of the province of Judea. I therefore render it here and
elsewhere by the more distinctive word Judeans. His language indicates
not a legal persecution, but a malicious pursuit. Norton translates as
I have, Came in pursuit of Jesus. This is the literal rendering of the
original verb (διώκω), which however generally, though not always,
indicates a pursuit with an evil intent. Here the meaning is not that
the general cause of the persecution which Christ suffered in Judea
was his supposed Sabbath violation, but that in this particular
instance they pursued him to call him to account for this particular
act of Sabbath breaking. It is always the nature of the ceremonialist
to care more for the ceremony than for man.--=And sought to slay him.=
These words do not belong here. They have been added to explain and
correspond with the expression in verse 18, Sought the more to kill
him. They are omitted by Alford, Meyer, Norton, and all the best
critical authorities.
* * * * *
=17-47.= In the study of the discourse which follows, beware of
considering it simply verse by verse. It is not a collection of
incidental aphorisms, but a connected address, the theme being the
character, mission, authority, and credentials of the Son of God. The
Pharisees call Christ to account for healing on the Sabbath; he cites
in his defence the example of his heavenly Father. They seize upon his
language, deduce from it the conclusion that he makes himself equal
with God, and charge him with blasphemy. This serves as the text of
the discourse which follows. He declares that he comes not to draw
allegiance from, but to, the Father; that he acts under the Father’s
will; that to him the Father has committed the whole work of grace on
the earth; that he is even now raising the spiritually dead to life;
that he is to raise the physically dead to a new life; and that he
will finally complete this work entrusted to him, by declaring and
executing the divine judgment. The evidence of his mission and
authority is not in his own words; he is testified to by John the
Baptist; by his own life and work; and by the Scriptures of the O. T.
He closes by pointing out the secret cause of the Jews’ rejection of
him, viz., their personal ambition. Beware, too, of imputing to the
words a dogmatic meaning borrowed from later ecclesiastical
controversies, which they did not bear in the minds of his hearers at
the time. There is little or nothing here respecting the relations of
the Son to the Father, except as the language throughout implies that
the Son is subordinate to and dependent upon the Father; but the
relation of the Son to the human race is clearly revealed, the
relation of life-giver and judge, and is certainly not that of any
man, however endowed, to his fellow-men. Nevertheless this address
contains the christology of Jesus Christ, his own teaching concerning
his own character and work; and it clearly implies, on the one hand,
that he not only represents the Father, as an ambassador might
represent a king, that he is not only clothed with divine authority,
as Moses was clothed, in the administration of the theocracy, with the
authority of God, but that he is a partaker of the divine nature; nor
less clearly, on the other hand, does it imply that his authority is
derived from the Father, that his power is conferred on him by the
Father, that he executes in all things the will of the Father, that he
is to be conceived of not as distinct from, but as one with the
Father, and that his object is in all things to be a way unto the
Father. Against every form of tri-theism, against all substitution of
the Son in the place of the Father, this discourse is a solemn and
earnest admonition, no less than against all belittling of either his
character to that of man or angel, or his mission to that of mere
messenger or teacher.
17 But Jesus answered them, My[171] Father worketh
hitherto, and I work.
[171] chaps. 9:4, 14:10.
=17. My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.= The argument is very
brief; it is based on the premises that we are to be followers of God
as dear children (Ephes. 5:1), that the Father’s work is a pattern for
our own working. It gives color to the opinion that the days of
creation are long eons or periods; that the seventh day, which God
blessed and on which he rested, is the present period in which the
mere physical work of creation has given place to the higher work of
redemption; thus the Sabbath of God becomes both interpreted and an
interpreter to us of what our Sabbath should be. The divine work does
not cease; the grass grows, the buds swell, the flowers bloom, the
fruits ripen, the rains fall, the winds blow,--but all this is the
work of love; over all this work God’s tender mercies brood (Psalm
145:9). The lesson of nature interpreted here by Christ is that the
work of love is never a violation of the true Sabbath law. This verse,
with Matt. 12:8 and Mark 2:27, give the three canons for the Christian
observance of the Sabbath. (1) The Son of man is Lord also of the
Sabbath. It is then a Christian day, belongs to the Christian
dispensation, is under the Lordship of Christ and in his kingdom, and
is to be kept in that spirit of joyous freedom with which Christ makes
free. (2) The Sabbath is made for man. It is therefore man’s day;
belongs to all men, Gentile and Jew, poor and rich; a day to be used
_for_ man; so that whatever work is necessary to the real abiding
welfare of the human race, is not foreign to this day. (3) My Father
worketh hitherto. The Father’s work is the example and the law for his
children; the work of love, the work for others, the work that has
tender mercy for its inspiration and its overseer, is Sabbath work. It
is to be our rest-day as it is our heavenly Father’s rest-day, and
only so; a prophecy of that eternal rest which will be one of glorious
activity: a rest from care, from worldliness, from the common
temptations of life, but not a day of mere dull cessation of labor.
18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill[172] him,
because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also
that God was his Father, making[173] himself equal with God.
[172] ch. 7:19.
[173] ch. 10:30, 33; Zech. 13:7; Phil. 2:6.
=18. Because he had not only broken the Sabbath.= Literally _relaxed_
(λύω) the Sabbath. See note on Matt. 5:19 for meaning of the word. The
Pharisees then, as the literalists now, believe that the sanctity of
the Sabbath could only be preserved by putting the soul under bonds to
a literal compliance with specific regulations. Christ broke these
bonds asunder, gave the soul liberty, and preserved the Sabbath by
inspiring the souls of his disciples with allegiance to himself, love
for humanity, and sympathy with the redeeming work of the Father. He
did relax what they supposed to be essential to the preservation of
the day, but what was really destroying it. To keep this poor man on
his bed, or watching it to prevent it from being stolen, would have
destroyed for him the rest of the day, in order that he might comply
with the letter of the Pharisaic regulations. So he who rides in a
horse-car rather than remain away from church, or travels late
Saturday night or early Sunday morning rather than destroy his Sabbath
by spending it with strangers, seems to the Sabbatarian of to-day to
be relaxing the Sabbath, while he may be in truth preserving it.--=But
said also that God was his own Father.= (πατέρα ἴδιον.) Norton renders
the sense accurately though freely, _Had spoken of God as particularly
his Father_. The meaning of the original will be indicated to the
English reader by Rom. 8:32, “Spared not _his own_ Son;” 1 Cor. 6:18,
“Sinneth against _his own_ body;” 1 Cor. 7:2, “Have _her own_
husband.” It is clear that the Jews either did understand Christ by
his language to claim peculiar relations with God, or pretended so to
do. In his mere reference to God as Father there was no such claim,
for he bids us all call him our Father (Matt. 6:6, 7). True, in the
language “_my_ Father,” most commentators see a ground for the
interpretation put upon his language by the Judeans:--thus Meyer:
“They rightly interpreted ‘my Father’ as signifying peculiar and
personal fatherhood;” Bengel: “The Only-begotten alone can say, ‘my
Father’;” similarly Alford, Tholuck, and others. There is perhaps some
ground for this view. Yet I can hardly think that Christ’s mere
designation of God as “_my_ Father” implies more than Paul’s “Abba
Father” (Rom. 8:15), which Luther renders “dear Father,” or the
frequent designation of God as _my_ God by the patriarchs, and
especially by David. See for example, Exod. 15:2; 1 Chron. 28:20; 2
Chron. 18:13; Ps. 22:1, 10; 38:21; 71:12; 2 Cor. 12:21; Phil. 4:19.
And in Psalm 89:26; Jer. 3:4, man is directed by God to apply this
very phrase “my Father” in his address to God. I believe then that the
statement that Jesus said that God was _in a peculiar sense_ his
Father, and the deduction that he thus made himself equal to God, are
the malicious wresting of his words by the Judeans, for the very
purpose of finding an occasion of offence. They manifested the same
spirit in John 10:31, etc., though there they have better ground for
the interpretation which they put upon his words. In the discourse
which follows, Christ does not hold them to their original charge
respecting the Sabbath. He follows them into the new ground which they
have entered on, and expounds his true nature and mission.--=Making
himself equal with God.= “On the same level with God” (_Meyer_); “On
an equality with God” (_Norton_); “Of the same nature and condition”
(_Robinson_). The language of Jesus, his claim of the right to work
because the Father works, and his language _My Father_, the Judeans
regard as embodying an assumption that he is of the divine nature and
possesses the divine prerogatives. That they so interpreted his
language does not prove that it is to be so interpreted. The Pharisees
are not authorized interpreters of the words of Christ. His claim we
must interpret for ourselves from the discourse which follows. How far
does he correct and how far confirm their interpretation? It seems to
me clear that at the very outset he materially modifies it, in his
declaration of his obedience to and dependence upon and work under the
Father (ver. 19), while he confirms the substantial idea that he
possesses the same nature as the Father, is, so to speak, of kin to
Him, by his declaration that he does what the Father does (ver. 19),
shares in all the counsels of the Father (ver. 20), gives life to the
dead as the Father (ver. 21), judges all men for the Father (ver. 22),
is to be honored as the representative of the Father (ver. 23), is the
door through which all must enter into eternal life in the Father
(ver. 24), and is the final Resurrection and Judge for the Father
(ver. 25-29); yet at the close he again emphasizes the truth that in
all this he is not a second or even subordinate God, but the One
through whom the Father does all (ver. 30), the one mediator between
God and man (1 Tim. 2:5).
19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily,
I say unto you,[174] The Son can do nothing of himself,
but what he seeth the Father do: for what things
soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
[174] verse 30.
20 For[175] the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all
things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater
works than these, that ye may marvel.
[175] chaps. 3:35; 17:26; Matt. 3:17.
=19, 20. Verily, verily.= A formula used by Christ in cases of
important and emphatic affirmation.--=The Son can do nothing of
himself=, _i. e._, of his own will or authority. “Of myself (ἀφ’
ἑαυτοῦ), _i. e._, of one’s own will or accord, without authority or
command from another.”--(_Rob._ 24, art. ἀπό.) This declaration cannot
be limited, as by Calvin, to the power of Christ in his human nature,
without, adding to the verse what is not in it, nor in its necessary
connection; nor can we read it, as Chrysostom does, that Christ can do
nothing contrary to his Father’s will, because of the perfect union
between them, for this is clearly not the meaning of the original.
Christ says not, I can do nothing contrary to my Father, but, I can do
nothing _of myself_ by my own independent and original power. The
meaning of the original is transparent, though the truth is
transcendent. This is that _the power of Christ is not an original but
a derived power_; that it comes from the Father and is a power only to
do those things which carry out the Father’s will. As the Christian
can do nothing without Christ (ch. 15:5), yet can do all things
through Christ strengthening him (Phil. 4:13), so Christ can do
nothing without the Father, but does all things by virtue of a divine
power imparted to him by the Father, and as a manifestation of the
Father. This is a partial answer to the charge that Christ makes
himself equal to the Father. He show’s that so far from doing anything
calculated to draw away allegiance from the Father, he draws
allegiance to the Father, since in all that he does he acts out only
the Father’s will. He is divine because of the divinity with which he
has, so to speak, been clothed by the Father’s love.--=But what he
seeth the Father do.= “A familiar description, borrowed from the
attention which children give to their father--of the inner and
immediate intention which the Son perpetually has of the Father’s
will, in the perfect consciousness of fellowship of life with
Him.”--(_Meyer._)--=Whatsoever things he doeth, these also doeth the
Son likewise.= _In like manner_ (ὁμοίως), that is, with like power and
authority. This surely could be said of no man, no angel. It indicates
not only a superhuman but also a super-angelic character. Thus this
verse puts in a very compact form the paradox of Christ’s character--a
paradox not to be explained away by either modifications of the first
clause or denials of the second. The first clause asserts that
Christ’s power comes from the Father, and thus, in a sense, is not
equal to that of the Father, which is uncreated and underived. And
with this declaration agree many other passages of Scripture. See for
example, ch. 7:17, 18; 8:42; 14:10; Phil. 2:9; Heb. 1:9; 3:2. The
second clause asserts that this power, conferred upon the Son, is that
of the Father, who has put all things into the hands of the Son that
he may be Lord of all. Acts 10:36; James 5:9; Col. 1:16, 17; 3:11. It
is noticeable that John, who of all Evangelists makes most clear the
divine nature of Christ, as well as his divine mission, is the one who
more clearly than any other of the evangelists asserts his dependence
on the Father.--=For the Father loveth the Son=, etc. This is stated
as the reason why the Son is able to do all things that the Father
doeth. His power is derived from the Father through the Father’s love
for him. Comp. Heb. 1:9.--=And showeth him all things.= “He who loves
hides nothing.”--(_Bengel._)--=He will show him greater works than
these.= Greater miracles than the healing of the impotent man. Far
greater works were done later in Christ’s ministry in Jerusalem and
vicinity, the consummation being the raising of Lazarus from the
dead.--=That ye may marvel.= Here the verb _marvel_ (θαυμάζω) is used
with the idea of praise as well as wonder. The object of the wonderful
works of God is not merely to awaken the wonder of mankind, but,
through the wonder, the reverence and so the allegiance of mankind to
the Father through Christ his Son.
21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth
_them_; even[176] so the Son quickeneth whom he will.
[176] ch. 11:25; 17:2; Luke 8:54.
22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed[177]
all judgment unto the Son;
[177] Matt. 11:27; Acts 17:31; 2 Cor. 5:10.
23 That all _men_ should honour the Son, even as they
honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth
not the Father which hath sent him.
=21-23. For as the Father raiseth up the dead and maketh them to live,
even so the Son, whom he will, makes to live.= Observe, (1) that the
verbs in this sentence are in the present tense; Christ is therefore
speaking of a _present_ resurrection, one now taking place. (2) That
this resurrection is one recognized among men, not one taking place in
the invisible world (ver. 23). (3) That as the result of this
resurrection, the raised pass from death unto life (ver. 24). (4) That
a universal resurrection is not indicated, but only of those whom _he
wills_ to raise (ver. 21). It is then not of a future resurrection of
all men at the last day, nor of a present resurrection of the
literally dead taking place as they die, that Christ here speaks, but
of a spiritual resurrection, taking place on the earth, confined to
those whom the Saviour calls and who hear and answer his call, and so
manifest to men that it is recognized as a sign of the Saviour’s
power. As Christ has power on earth to forgive sins (Mark 2:10), so
also he has power to raise the dead in trespasses and sins. Thus he is
now, as he will be in another sense in the last day, the resurrection
and the life (John 11:25). This theme of a spiritual resurrection and
life-giving occupies verses 21-27; then by a natural transition Christ
passes to the future resurrection of the physical dead. Be not
surprised, he says in substance, at my declarations respecting the
spiritual resurrection; for the final resurrection shall also be at my
voice. Be not surprised at my claim to be now a judge, for the great
day of judgment the Father has also committed into my hands.--=Whom he
will.= This phrase does not indicate “that he specially confers this
grace on none but certain men, that is, on the elect” (_Calvin_); nor
can we say that “He will not quicken others because they believe not”
(_Meyer_), for though this is true, it is neither asserted, nor even
hinted at here; nor is the meaning merely that “in every instance
where his will is to vivify, the result invariably follows”
(_Alford_). Clearly the indication of the passage is that spiritual
life has its source, not in the will of the sinner but in that of the
Saviour (comp. ch. 1:13; Rom. 9:16); but the reason why the divine
will apparently chooses some and not others, whether for reasons in
human character and choice, or for inscrutable reasons, not explained
nor indeed explicable, is not here hinted at.--=For the Father judgeth
no man.= The whole work of judgment, the whole moral government of the
world, the whole course of divine Providence, as regards the nation,
the church, and the individual, is entrusted to the Son. See Psalm 2;
Rev. 1:5.--=That all men should honor the Son even as they honor the
Father.= There is some reasonable ground for a difference of opinion
as to the proper interpretation of the preceding verses, which treat
of the relations of the Father to the Son; and Christian critics are
not wholly agreed respecting their meaning. But there can be no room
for difference of opinion as to the meaning of this verse, which gives
the practical outcome of those which precede. Whatever opinion the
theologian may entertain concerning the mystery of Christ’s nature,
the Christian can hardly doubt the plain teaching of Scripture that
the highest allegiance that the soul can pay to its God, the highest
love it can offer, the highest reverence it can experience, are all
due to the Son. _Even as_ signifies the manner and the degree. So in
heaven the highest praises are paid to the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world (Rev. 5:12; 7:10).--=He that honoreth not the
Son, honoreth not the Father which hath sent him.= Not because the
failure to honor an ambassador is a failure to honor the king whom he
represents, but because the honor paid to God belongs to his
character, and of that character the Son is the manifestation; so that
the soul that does not honor the Son, who is the brightness of the
Father’s image, and who doeth all things which the Father does, and as
the Father does them, does not really honor the Father. In truth, he
who does not recognize in Christ the Son of the Father, the true image
of the divine glory, has either no true conception of the Son or none
of the Father; for the only way to the Father is the Son. And in fact,
those forms of theological doctrine which have tended to belittle
Christ have also tended, in the history of the church, to dwarf
worship.
24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He[178] that heareth my
word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting
life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is
passed[179] from death unto life.
[178] ch. 6:40, 47.
[179] 1 John 3:14.
=24. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth me and hath faith
on him that sent me, hath eternal life, and comes not into judgment,
but has passed out of the death into the life.= The meaning of this
declaration is not obscure, though it has been sometimes obscured by
unbelief. To _hear the word of Christ_ is to hear it with the
spiritual ear, not merely with the physical ear. Thus those may be
included who have never heard of the historic Christ; for as he is the
Light of the world, who lighteth _every man_ who cometh into the world
(ch. 1:9, note), so those who, without the literal hearing of his
words, do hear and attend to the message which he speaks to the soul,
in the inner experience, are to be included among those who hear his
words. To _have faith on him that sent me_, is not merely to believe
his written word, nor to believe that he has sent Christ into the
world, nor to believe any specific dogma respecting Christ, however
important, but to have faith in an unseen divinity, in contrast to
faith in either one’s self or in any human helper. It is to direct
faith toward this unseen God that Christ came into the world; and to
have faith in Christ is to have faith in the Father who sent him, in
order that he might bring all unto the Father, and present all to him
(ch. 17:8, 21, 24). _Cometh not into judgment_ is mistranslated in our
English version, _Shall not come into condemnation_. The verb is not
future, and the noun is judgment, not condemnation. “There can be no
good reason why the word (κρίσις, _krisis_) should be rendered
_judgment_ in the 22d verse, and _condemnation_ in the 24th. But from
a fear, I suppose, lest the one should seem to contradict the
other--lest the Son should be thought not to execute the judgment that
had been committed to him--they (the translators) were unfaithful to
the letter, perhaps even more unfaithful to the spirit, of the
passage.”--(_Maurice._) The promise is one fulfilled in this life, a
promise of present not merely future deliverance, and of a deliverance
not merely from condemnation, but from judgment. If the Christian
comes into judgment, he would also inevitably come into condemnation
(1 John 1:8, 10). The meaning of this verse then is, that when the
soul has accepted Christ as its Master, hearing his words, and
following him, for spiritual hearing involves following (ch. 10:3, 4)
so as to live by faith in God (Gal. 2:20), he is no longer subject to
divine judgment; there is no more condemnation to them who are thus in
Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1). With this is involved the further truth that
there will be no true judgment for them in the last day. “The
reckoning which ends with ‘Well done, good and faithful servant,’ is
not judgment; the reward is of free grace. In this sense the believers
in Christ will not be judged according to their works; they are
justified before God by faith, and by God.”--(_Alford._) Finally, the
last clause of the verse, _but hath passed out of death into life_,
indicates the true condition of both the impenitent and the believer;
the one is already in death, from which he can only be delivered by
the Life-giver; the other has already entered into eternal life. This
is not a future reward reserved for him; it begins here and now,
though it is to be consummated hereafter. _The_ life is spiritual
life, _the_ death spiritual death. Of these great realities physical
life and death are but tropes and symbols.
25 Verily, verily, I say unto you. The hour is coming, and
now is, when the dead[180] shall hear the voice of the Son
of God; and they that hear shall live.
[180] verse 28; Ephes. 2:1.
26 For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given
to the Son to have life[181] in himself;
[181] 1 Cor. 15:45.
27 And hath given him authority[182] to execute judgment
also, because he is the Son of man.
[182] verse 22.
=25-27. The hour is coming, and now is, when=, etc. The resurrection
here spoken of is then one already taking place. In order to meet this
evident requirement of the verse, those commentators who regard Christ
as throughout this passage speaking of the final resurrection suppose
here a reference to the cases of resurrection which took place in
connection with his ministry. But none such had as yet taken place;
moreover, this construction requires us to suppose that Christ used
the word _life_ in one sense in the preceding verse and in another
sense here, without giving any indication of the change of meaning.
His reference then I believe to be here, as throughout this passage up
to verse 28, to spiritual death and spiritual resurrection.--=For as
the Father hath life in himself, so he hath given to the Son to have
life in himself.= Norton renders this somewhat enigmatical verse
liberally, thus: “For as the Father is the fountain of life, so hath
he given to the Son to be the fountain of life.” This must be regarded
rather as a paraphrase than as a translation; but it embodies well the
meaning of the verse, as indicated by the context. No man is a
fountain of life to any other man. He may be a conduit, but not a
source. It is given to Christ to be a source of life himself to
others. We live only as we draw continuously our life from God; to the
Son the Father has given life in such a sense that he becomes himself
the life of the world, and thus the life-giver to the dead.--=Because
he is a Son of man.= Not, as in the English version, _the_ Son of man.
The omission of the article is significant, for without the article
the phrase son of man means simply one of the human race; with the
article it always means the Messiah. Here then the meaning is that
Christ is to be the judge of all the earth, because he has taken on
himself human nature. Why is this any reason that he should be the
judge of the world? The answer is, I think, indicated by Heb. 5:15:
“We have not an high-priest which cannot be touched with the feeling
of our infirmities, but was tempted in all points like as we are, yet
without sin.” Our judge is chosen, because he knows our frame, he
understands sympathetically our temptations, is able to make
allowances for all infirmities and weaknesses of humanity, and for all
trials of life, and able, also, to measure at their true worth the
false excuses with which we endeavor to excuse ourselves to ourselves
and to our fellows. Other explanations, for which in detail see Meyer,
as that judgment is a necessary part of redemption, or that it belongs
to Christ as the Messiah, or that it is given to him as a reward for
accepting the humility of human nature, seem to me to be inadmissible.
Judgment is not a part of redemption; it is in no true sense
redemptive; the phrase _a_ son of man never means the Messiah; and it
would be no reward to a tender and loving nature to exercise judgment,
except as it afforded an opportunity for the exercise of mercy in
judgment.
28 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the
which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,
29 And shall come forth; they[183] that have done
good, unto the resurrection of life; and they
that have done evil, unto the resurrection of
damnation.[184]
[183] Dan. 12:2.
[184] Matt. 25:46.
=28, 29. Marvel not at this.= Not only because the greater wonder
absorbs the less (_Meyer_), but also because there is nothing strange
in the declaration that he who is to be the final judge of all flesh
should exercise judgment now on men, and he who is to be the final
resurrection and the life should be the resurrection and the life in
the spiritual realm now.--=For the hour is coming.= He does not add
_and now is_, for now he is speaking not of a present resurrection, but
of one to take place only in the future.--=All that are in their
graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth.= A voice like the
sound of a trumpet (Rev. 1:10), and like the sound of many waters
(Rev. 1:15), that is, like the roar of the ocean for fullness and
power. Comp. 1 Thess. 4:16. The entire language is highly figurative.
If literally interpreted it would seem to imply a bodily resurrection,
and it is apparently so understood by some of the commentators, _e.
g._, Alford and Olshausen; but it is evident that it cannot be
literally interpreted. Thus the dead do not in a literal sense hear
his voice; their arousing is not that of literal sleepers who have
been awakened by a voice. The doctrine that death is a sleep, that the
soul remains in an unconscious state till the resurrection, and that
the life is then anew given to the soul simultaneously with the
re-creation of the body from the dust, is so inconsistent with the
plain teaching of Scripture in many passages (see 1 Cor. 15:36-38, 50,
51), that it cannot be sustained by doubtful interpretations of
pictorial passages like the present one. How little ground there is
for the opinion that the Bible supports a doctrine of a literal and
universal bodily resurrection, will be evident to the student who
considers the force of the following passages, which are said by
Olshausen, and quoted with apparent approval by Alford, both of whom
seem to believe in a literal resurrection of the body, to be the only
passages in Scripture which imply a resurrection of the bodies of the
impenitent: Acts 24:15; Matt. 10:28; Matt. 25:34, etc.; Rev. 20:5, 12;
Dan. 12:2. No one of these directly asserts the resurrection of the
body, and some of them can hardly be said even remotely to imply it.
The doctrine is directly inconsistent with the teaching of Paul in 1
Cor., ch. 15. See notes there.--=They that have done good unto the
resurrection of life.= That is, unto a resurrection the necessary
result of which is life, life in the Messiah’s kingdom.--(_Meyer._)
--=And they that have practised evil.= The righteous have _done_
good--their fruit remains; the wicked have only _practised_
evil--their works do not follow them. The wheat is garnered into the
storehouses; the chaff is destroyed. See ch. 3:20, 21.--=Unto the
resurrection of judgment.= Observe again that only they that have done
evil come into judgment (verse 24, note). Observe too that it is they
that have done good to whom is given the gift of eternal life, and
they that have practised evil that enter into judgment. The test, and
the only test of character which the New Testament recognizes, is that
of fruit in the actual life (Matt.7:20; 12:33; 25:31-46; Ephes. 5:6; 1
John 3:7, 8). The works of righteousness are the fruits of the Spirit;
his gracious influences are received into the soul by faith, but the
evidence of the abiding of that Spirit consists in the manifestation
of these fruits in a righteous life (John 15:1, 2, 6; Gal. 5:22-24;
James 2:14-26). Living a Christ-like life is the only evidence of
possessing a Christ-like spirit.
30 I[185] can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I
judge: and my judgment is just: because I seek not mine own
will, but the will[186] of the Father which hath sent me.
[185] verse 19.
[186] ch. 4:34; 6:38; Ps. 40:7, 8; Matt. 26:39.
=30.= In this verse Christ returns to the statement made in the
beginning of the discourse, ver. 19 (see note there); he does all
things as the representative of the Father and the expression of the
Father’s will.--=As I hear I judge.= As Christ is the image of the
Father, so his voice is the echo of the Father’s voice.--=My judgment
is just, because I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father.=
To the Father there is no law superior to his own will; to the Son the
will of the Father is the law. In this declaration our Lord gives us
an example of the way in which we may secure just judgments in
ourselves. It is self-seeking which obscures the judgment. Unselfish
seeking of the Father’s will is the great clarifier of the moral
judgments of the disciple.
31 If I bear witness[187] of myself, my witness is not true.
[187] ch. 8:14; Prov. 27:2; Rev. 3:14.
=31.= This verse makes a transition from the subject-matter of the
discourse thus far to a new subject. Christ has been speaking of his
own character and authority; he now passes to speak of the evidences
which attest it. The verse is to be read not affirmatively, but
interrogatively. Do you say, if I bear witness of myself, my witness
is not true? I will then point you to other testimony. That this is
the true reading of the verse is evident from ch. 8:14, where Christ
declares that though he bears witness of himself, his witness is true.
He here anticipates the objection there made by the Pharisees (ch.
8:13), and replies to it. In his reply, which extends to verse 39, he
cites in attestation of his mission three witnesses: (1) the testimony
of John the Baptist (vers. 32-35); (2) his own works, including, but
only incidentally, his miracles (ver. 36); (3) the personal testimony
of the Father, speaking chiefly through the O. T. Scripture (vers.
37-39).
32 There is another[188] that beareth witness of me; and I
know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true.
[188] ch. 8:18; Acts 10:43; 1 John 5:7-9.
33 Ye sent unto John, and[189] he bare witness unto the
truth.
[189] ch. 1:7, 32.
=32, 33. There is another that beareth witness of me.= Most of the
modern commentators consider this _another_ to be the Father. So
Alford, Meyer, Bengel, Tholuck, and others. They understand the
connection to be this: The Father testifies to me; John’s testimony I
do not receive, because it is human and fallible, but in passing I
refer to it, for your salvation. Thus verses 33-35 are parenthetical.
The other interpretation seems to me the more natural and preferable.
Christ gives, in an ascending climax, a threefold testimony to
himself: first the testimony of John, a prophet, rather the prophet
and forerunner of the Messiah; then his own works; finally the
testimony of the Father, in the heart and through the written
word.--=And I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is
true.= Such language confirming the testimony of John the Baptist is
natural; such language in confirmation of the testimony of the Father
seems to me strained and unnatural. What significance can be given to
the statement, The Everlasting Father testifies of me, and I know that
his testimony of me is true? It is apt if applied to John the Baptist,
a human and fallible witness, whose language might be attributed by
the Jews to extraordinary and mistaken admiration.--=Ye sent unto
John.= The reference is probably to the delegation which came out from
Jerusalem to inquire into John’s character and work (ch. 1:19).--=He
bare witness unto the truth.= That is, To the truth concerning Jesus
Christ. By this declaration Christ makes the christology of John the
Baptist his own, and declares of himself that he is the Son of God and
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. See ch. 1:29,
34.
34 But I receive not testimony from man: but[190] these
things I say, that ye might be saved.
[190] ch. 20:31; Rom. 3:3.
35 He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were
willing[191] for a season to rejoice in his light.
[191] Matt. 21:26; Mark 6:20.
=34, 35. But I receive not testimony from man.= This is not equivalent
to, I will not avail myself of human witness in this matter (_Meyer_);
he does in fact avail himself of human witness, cites it, and declares
the reason why he does so, that his auditors may by it be saved from
fatal error; nor does it merely mean, as Calvin, that he cites this
testimony out of regard to them rather than to himself, though this is
true, and equally true of all his ministry, and of all the testimony
which he cites in support of his divine claims. Here, as in so many
other places in the N. T., especially in the reports of Christ’s
words, the careful study of the original clears up obscurity which is
felt in the translation, and sometimes which any mere translation
fails to clear away. _From_ (παρά), when joined to verbs of inquiring,
asking, and learning, indicates that the matter to be learned is
viewed as in the mental possession of the person cited (see _Winer_, §
47, p. 365), that is, as derived from him and dependent on his
testimony. So in common language with us, “I know such a fact to be
true, for I learned it _from_ Mr. A.,” indicates Mr. A. as the
_authority_ for the statement. Christ’s declaration here then is, not
that he will not use human testimony, but that his claims do not
depend upon it. Compare Matt. 11:27, “No man knoweth the Son but the
Father,” and Matt. 16:17, “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it (the
truth respecting Jesus) unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”
The testimony of John the Baptist, like that of all the prophets, is
not in truth testimony of or from man, but testimony _from_ God,
_through_ man, the man speaking as he is moved by the Holy Ghost. And
the moral for us is that all mere human argument for and witness to
the character of Christ breaks down; it is only as the divine
character has been divinely revealed to us, by the Spirit of God, that
we can hope to persuade others of the truth, a lesson abundantly
confirmed in the history of the church by its dealings with
infidelity. Unbelief is to be vanquished by spiritual, not by mere
intellectual power. Alford represents the idea well by a free
translation, “I take not my testimony from man.”--=These things I say
that ye might be saved.= Blind to the testimony of the O. T. (2 Cor.
3:14), unspiritual, and therefore deaf to the inner voice of God (1
Cor. 2:14), there is hope that they may heed the recent testimony of
John, whom all men counted for a prophet (Matt. 21:26), and whose
baptism even the Pharisees and the Sadducees had attended (Matt. 3:7).
Therefore he cites it to them, that he may by any means save some. He
seeks to outflank their prejudice.--=He was the lamp, kindled and
shining.= Observe the difference between this translation and that of
our English version. He was not _a light_, but _the lamp_; not
_burning_, but _kindled_. A common title given to famous Rabbis was
The candle of the law; Christ borrows it, applies it to John, and
declares him to have been _the_ lamp, lighting not the law, but the
way to Christ. _The_ lamp, because the one foretold in the prophets to
light the way of the Lord and prepare for his coming. The _lamp_, not
_light_. Two different Greek words (λύχνος and φῶς) are erroneously
rendered by the same English word, _light_. Man is but a _lamp_;
Christ is _the light_ which lighteth every man that cometh into the
world (ch. 1:9); and man (the lamp) can give light to others only as
he is himself filled with Christ (the true and only light). This lamp
is _kindled_ (καιόμενος, passive), _i. e._, by the touch of God, as a
lamp unable to give light until it is filled and lighted by the
owner’s hand; and _shining_, as one of the lights of the world (Matt.
5:14), shining with divine light because kindled by a divine hand and
partaking of the divine nature (_lumen illuminatum_, not _lumen
illuminans_).--=And ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his
light.= The two marks of a spurious religious enthusiasm. They were
willing to _rejoice_, but not to _repent_; they were ready to “enjoy
religion,” but not to “bring forth fruit meet for repentance;” they
flocked in great crowds to John’s Baptism (Matt. 3:5), much as men now
flock to camp and tabernacle meetings; but they were not ready to “do
justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before God.” And their enthusiasm
was but “for a season,” as all merely emotional enthusiasm is. It made
no practical and lifelong change in their character or conduct.
36 But I have greater witness than _that_ of John; for the
works[192] which the Father hath given me to finish,[193]
the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the
Father hath sent me.
[192] ch. 10:25; 15:24; Acts 2:22.
[193] ch. 17:4.
=36. But I have greater witness than that of John; for the works which
the Father hath given me to finish.= From the testimony of John the
Baptist, Jesus passes to the second authentication of his mission, the
works which he is doing. These _works_ are not merely nor primarily
his miracles. Against this narrow and unspiritual interpretation the
church should have been saved by even a careful study of the words.
For (_a_) the word here rendered _works_ (ἔργον) is never used by John
as equivalent to a miracle, but always, when in connection with
Christ, as significant of his whole course of beneficent and redeeming
activity; (_b_) in this very discourse Christ uses it in connection
with and in reference to his work of spiritual life-giving to the dead
in trespasses and sins (vers. 20, 21); (_c_) the phrase “hath given me
to finish” points forward to the time when he should be able to say in
prayer to his Father, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me
to do” (ch. 17:5; comp. 4:34), and in his last triumphant cry upon the
cross, “It is finished” (ch. 19:30). The matter is important because
the church needs to recognize that the evidences of Christianity on
which Christ relied are not the miracles, which are purely historical
acts, the historic veracity of which must be proved like that of any
other past events, but the whole work of redeeming love, the visible
and indubitable fruits of which are to be unceasingly seen in
the victories of Christianity over the individual and over
communities.--=The same works that I am doing.= Not _have done_, which
might have been said of miracles already wrought, but _am now engaged
in doing_, which alone could be said of the unceasing work of him who
ever went about doing good. Observe that the works which he is doing
are those which the Father _hath given him to do_ (vers. 19, 20,
notes), and that whatever the Father hath given him, that he does (ch.
18:11).--=Bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me.= Because
they are manifestations of the Father’s love. The message which the
Son has come to bring is the message of the Father’s grace (ch. 1:14).
37 And the Father[194] himself, which hath sent me, hath
borne witness of me. Ye[195] have neither heard his voice
at any time, nor seen his shape.
[194] Matt. 3:17; 17:5.
[195] Deut. 4:12; 1 Tim. 6:16.
38 And ye have not his word[196] abiding in you: for whom
he hath sent, him ye believe not.
[196] 1 John 2:14.
=37, 38. And he which hath sent me, the Father himself, hath borne
witness of me.= The past tense of the verb indicates a completed
testimony, borne in past time, but accessible to present hearers. The
meaning therefore cannot be the witness of the Spirit to Christ’s
character and mission, a continuously fresh testimony, which is
however borne only to those that are already the sons of God, through
a measurable faith in Jesus as Saviour and Messiah. The reference is
possibly in part to the testimony which the Father had borne at the
baptism to Christ as his well-beloved Son (Matt. 3:17), a testimony
repeated on other occasions (Matt. 17:5; John 12:28); but the primary
reference is to the testimony borne to God in the O. T. Scriptures,
which were to the Jewish nation witnesses to the Messiah, whose coming
they heralded, and whose work they described (Luke 24:27-44; Acts
13:27).--=No voice of his have ye ever heard, no appearance of his
have ye ever seen, and his word ye have not abiding in you.= This
gives as nearly literally as is possible the meaning of the original.
Two interpretations are possible. One is that indicated by our English
version. According to this interpretation Christ declares the general
philosophic truth, that the Father is a Spirit, and therefore
invisible and inaudible, to be spiritually discerned; and since the
Jews have not spiritual discernment, since they have not God’s word
abiding in them, they are without any knowledge of God or
understanding of his witness. The other interpretation is that
indicated by the more literal translation given above. According to
this translation it is the language of “reproach for want of
susceptibility to this (divine) testimony” (_Meyer_). This was the
view of Calvin, who here, as in the interpretation of so many other
passages, anticipated the results of later criticism. “When he says
that they had never heard the voice of God or seen his shape, these
are metaphorical expressions, by which he intends to state generally
that they are utterly estranged from the knowledge of God.” This last
I believe to be the correct interpretation, both because it more
nearly accords with the literal rendering of the original, and
because, according to the other interpretation, Christ inserts in the
midst of his discourse an abstract statement of philosophic truth, in
a manner which, if not absolutely artificial, is at least quite unlike
his usual method. _His word abiding in you_ is the word of the O. T.
This they had; but it was external to them. They did not believe it
“with the heart unto righteousness” (Rom. 10:10). It was not an
abiding force in the shaping of their conduct or the formation of
their character. He only can truly comprehend what the Scriptures
teach concerning God, who yields obedience to whatever they teach
concerning duty; for it is only as the divine attributes are
reproduced in us that we can approximate an understanding of them in
God.--=For whom he hath sent, in him ye have not faith.= This may be
regarded either as the reason why they have not seen God nor heard his
voice, because they have not faith in his Son; or as the evidence that
they have not seen God, etc., since if they had they would have faith
in his Son. The latter is the preferable interpretation, He that is
truly and spiritually familiar with the Father will discern the
Father’s lineaments in the Son; he that does not recognize the
divinity in the Son bears thereby witness that he does not truly know
in what divinity consists.
39 Search[197] the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have
eternal life: and they are[198] they which testify of me.
[197] Isa. 8:20; 34:16.
[198] Luke 24:27; 1 Pet. 1:10, 11.
40 And ye will not come[199] to me, that ye might have life.
[199] ch. 3:19.
=39, 40. Ye search the Scriptures because in them ye think ye have
eternal life; and they are they which testify concerning me; and still
ye will not come unto me that ye might have life.= The verb _search_
(ερευνᾶτε) may be rendered either as imperative or as indicative.
Alford and Tholuck make it, as does the English version, imperative,
thus interpreting it as a direction to search the Scriptures; Meyer,
Bengel, Olshausen, and Godet make it indicative, thus interpreting it
as a statement of a fact and a basis for the condemnation which
follows. Which interpretation is correct is to be determined wholly by
the context and the circumstances; either is grammatically correct. It
appears to me clear, both from the context and the audience, that
Christ does not give here a command or an exhortation, but simply
states a fact. For (1) he is addressing men who did not need a
direction to Scriptural study; the great, almost the exclusive, study
of the Jewish Rabbis was either the Scriptures or the commentaries
thereon. It is true that their search was not spiritual; they stopped
with the letter which killeth, and disregarded the spirit which giveth
life; but this was a reason, not for an exhortation to more searching,
but to a different spirit in the searching. (2) The theme of Christ’s
discourse here would not naturally lead to an exhortation to Bible
study. He is pointing them to himself; and their failure to find him
was not because they were not familiar with the Scriptures, but
because a veil was over their hearts when they read it (2 Cor. 3:15).
I understand then that Christ in this verse notes a contrast between
the Scriptures and himself; the Jews search the Scriptures because _in
them_ they think to find eternal life. But eternal life is not in the
_Book_; it is in the _person_ to whom the Book bears witness. And they
search in vain who do not find in it the Christ to whom the Book bears
testimony. In contrast with their searching, note the spirit and
method of the Bereans, who searched to see _if these things were so_
(Acts 17:10, 11), that is, with a docile and inquiring, not a
predetermined mind.--=Ye will not come unto me.= Though the Scriptures
which they searched so diligently contained testimony to a suffering
and saving Messiah, they would not come to him. They were as one who
reads a guide-board, but goes not whither it points.--=That ye might
have life.= The object of Christ’s coming was to give life; the object
of coming to Christ is to receive life (ch. 10:10). The kind of life
imparted by him and to be received by us is indicated in Ephes. 2:10;
Gal. 5:22, 23.
41 I receive not honour from[200] men.
[200] verse 34; 1 Thess. 2:6.
42 But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.
=41, 42. I receive not honor from men.= It is true that at his name
every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess him to be Lord,
but _to the glory of God the Father_ (Phil. 2:10, 11). As the
Christian lets his light shine that men may glorify Christ, so Christ’s
light glorifies the Father. Moreover, this honor is not derived from
men. What was said on the meaning of the original on ver. 34 (see
note there) is equally applicable here. From men (παρά) indicates
the original source. Christ’s glory comes _from_ the Father (Phil.
2:9); human voices do but echo the divine voice.--=I know you.= As no
man ever knows his fellow-men. For illustration of Christ’s divine
insight into the hearts of men, see Matt. 9:4; John 2:24; Heb.
4:13.--=That ye have not the love of God in you.= They who were
condemning Christ for a violation of the ceremonial law of the Sabbath
were themselves guilty of violating the first and great commandment Of
the law (Deut. 6:5).
43 I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if
another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.
44 How can ye believe, which[201] receive honour one of
another, and seek[202] not the honour that _cometh_ from
God only?
[201] ch. 12:43.
[202] Rom. 2:10.
=43, 44. In my Father’s name.= “The name of God, of Christ, is a
paraphrase for God himself, Christ himself, in all their being,
attributes, relations, manifestations.”--(_Rob. Lex._, art. ὄνομα.) See
Matt. 28:19, note. Here, therefore, Christ’s declaration is primarily,
I have come in the power of the Father, not in my own power, or with my
own authority; and secondarily, I have come to manifest and glorify not
myself, but Him.--=If another shall come in his own name, him ye will
receive.= The reference is primarily to the false Christs, of whom many
have been at different times received by Jews. See Matt. 24:5, note.
But the declaration has a wider application to all times and nations.
Wherever the minister is received, not as a guide to God, but as an
independent object of hero-worship, he is received _in his own
name_.--=How can ye have faith which receive honor derived from=
(παρά) =one another?= Earthly ambition is inconsistent with spiritual
growth. He that seeks the perishable cannot at the same time seek the
imperishable crown.--=And seek not the honor which cometh from the
only God.= Not, as in our English version, from God only. The
structure of the sentence forbids that interpretation. The reference
is to such passages as Exod. 8:10; 9:14; 20:3; Deut. 4:35, 39; 2 Sam.
7:22; Isa. 45:5, 6, etc. To those who seek from the one and only true
God glory and honor and immortality, by patient continuance in
well-doing, and to them alone, is the gift of eternal life promised
(Rom. 2:6, 7).
45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there
is[203] _one_ that accuseth you, _even_ Moses, in whom ye
trust.
[203] Rom. 2:12.
46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me:
for he[204] wrote of me.
[204] Gen. 3:15; 22:18; Deut. 18:15, 18; Acts 26:22.
47 But if ye[205] believe not his writings, how shall ye
believe my words?
[205] Luke 16:31.
=45-47. Do not think that I will be your accuser before the Father.=
The imagery is borrowed from the course of judicial proceedings. In
the last judgment Christ will be judge (ver. 37), not public
prosecutor.--=There is one that accuseth you.= Observe the present
tense, _who is accusing you_. The law is a perpetual accusation against
the sinner (Rom. 2:15; 3:19, 20), from whose indictments there
is no escape except in the pardon offered by the grace of God through
Jesus Christ. For prophetic and specific accusations of the Jewish
nation in the Mosaic writings, see Deut. 31:21, 26.--=Even Moses.=
The law-giver is put for the law.--=In whom ye have put your hopes.=
(εἰς ὃν) For the meaning of _in whom_ (εἰς ὅν), see 2 Cor. 1:10. _In_
(εἰς) signifies the end toward which any action tends; with verbs
indicating a mental action, the object of that action. The hopes of
the Jews looked toward Moses, _i. e._, toward an exact obedience of
the letter of the law given by Moses, not toward a spiritual communion
with the Father whose children they were called to be. For a portrayal,
autobiographically, of this legal and self-righteous hope, see Phil.
3:4-6.--=Had ye believed Moses.= Not believed _in_ or _on_ him; the
child of God believes the prophets, he believes _in_ or _on_ Christ
only. If the Jews had really believed Moses, even as a teacher, they
would have believed _on_ Christ; for Moses testified of Christ.--=For
he wrote of me.= An incidental testimony to the Mosaic authorship of
the books usually attributed by the Jews to Moses, viz., the first
five books of the O. T.; also an indication of the prophetic and
typical character of the ceremonial law. Moses was a prophet because
the entire O. T. ceremonial and service--temple sacrifices, ablutions,
etc.--were prophecies, fulfilled in and by Christ. Thus Christ himself
incidentally confirms that view of the O. T. ceremonial which
underlies and is most fully expounded by the Epistle to the
Hebrews.--=But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my
words?= “The meaning is, Men give greater weight to what is written
and published, the letter of a book, than to mere word of mouth; and
ye in particular give greater honor to Moses than to Me: if then ye
believe not what _he_ has written, which comes down to you hallowed by
the reverence of ages, how can you believe the words which are uttered
by _Me_, to whom ye are hostile? This however is not all; Moses leads
to Christ; is one of the witnesses by which the Father hath testified
of Him; ‘if then ye have rejected the _means_, how shall ye reach the
_end_?’ If your unbelief has stopped the path, how shall ye arrive at
Him to whom it leads?”--(_Alford._)
CHAPTER VI.
Ch. 6:1-15. FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND.--THE GRACE, THE BOUNTY, THE
POWER, AND THE METHOD OF CHRIST ILLUSTRATED.
Of this miracle accounts are given by the four Evangelists (Matt.
14:13-33; Mark 6:32-52; Luke 9:10-17); and it is the only miracle
recorded by them all. There are some differences in their records; for
details see notes below. In the main the three Synoptics agree, while
the differences between them and the Fourth Gospel are more
considerable. According to the Synoptics Jesus and his disciples
crossed the Sea of Galilee to the east side; the people, going round
by land, outran them, and apparently were waiting for them on the
shore (Mark); Christ therefore abandoned his original design of rest,
and devoted the day to instruction (Mark) and healing (Matthew and
Luke). When evening was come the disciples asked him to send the
people away to the villages to get necessary food; Jesus replied, Give
ye them to eat; the disciples answered that they had nothing but five
loaves and two small fishes to give; and from these Jesus fed them.
According to John, Jesus crossed over the sea with his disciples, went
up into the hills, and there sat with them; while sitting there he saw
the people coming round by land, proposed to feed them, asked Philip
where they should get the bread, and apparently going down to the
plain to feed the people, took the five loaves and two small fishes
and distributed them among the people. All agree, however, as to the
main facts: the feeding of five thousand on five loaves and two small
fishes, and the gathering of twelve baskets of fragments, are narrated
by all four Evangelists; the subsequent departure of Christ into the
mountain for solitude and prayer, the embarkation of the disciples by
boat, and his walking to them upon the sea are recounted by all but
Luke; Matthew alone gives the account of Peter’s attempt to walk upon
the water to meet Jesus. Harmonists have endeavored to combine these
accounts in one consistent narrative; this is the work, however,
rather of imagination than of criticism; any such harmony is
necessarily hypothetical. The attempts have succeeded in so far as to
show that the accounts are capable of combination. It may be added
that the variations are just such as we might expect in narratives
coming from independent eye-witnesses, and not such as we might expect
in different fictitious accounts, or in different versions of a myth,
derived from the same tradition. The miracle took place immediately on
the return of the twelve after executing the commissions given to them
in Matthew, ch. 10; the immediate object of Christ in retiring to the
eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee was to secure quiet for a personal
conference with the twelve respecting their work (Mark 6:30). For
further statement of the chronology of the event, and the most
probable harmony of the four accounts, see Matt. 14:13-27, note. A
topographical difficulty is presented by an apparent but not real
inconsistency between Luke 9:10 and Mark 6:45. According to Luke,
Christ took the twelve with him into a desert place belonging to
Bethsaida, whither the multitude followed him; according to Mark,
after feeding the multitude he told the twelve to sail across to the
other side unto Bethsaida. Thus Luke seems to place Bethsaida on the
eastern, and Mark on the western shore of the lake, and this has led
to the hypothesis that there were two Bethsaidas, an hypothesis
generally adopted by the commentators, without, it seems to me,
sufficient inquiry. It has no historical confirmation, was invented to
harmonize Luke and Mark, and is needless. Let the reader compare the
map of the Sea of Galilee (Vol. I, p. 342) with the accompanying
illustration, in which he looks down on the Sea of Galilee from the
north. The ruins in the foreground are those of Bethsaida; the river
is the Jordan. Probably in ancient times the town of Bethsaida reached
to or near the shore of the lake. The mountains in the distance are
those on the eastern shore of Galilee, and the plain at their foot is
the plain of Butaiha, where the five thousand were fed. Christ was at
or near Capernaum; sailed with his disciples across the Sea of Galilee
to the plain of Butaiha, at the foot of the hills on the northeastern
shore of the lake, not far from Bethsaida. After the attempt of the
multitude to make Jesus king, he bade them embark and row along the
shore toward (πρός) Bethsaida (Mark 6:45), where he proposed to meet
them. A sudden wind rising and blowing down the Jordan valley from the
Lebanon range (see on verses 16-18), drove the disciples’ boat out
into the lake; and it was while they were rowing back, against the
wind, toward Bethsaida, where their Lord had promised to meet them,
that he came out upon the waves for that purpose. Thus it is true that
when they left Capernaum for the plain of Butaiha in the morning, they
were going over to a plain belonging to the city of Bethsaida, as Luke
reports; and also true that when they started back in the evening in
the direction of Capernaum, as John reports (ver. 17, εἰς indicating
the ultimate point they had in view), they were also going toward
Bethsaida, which lay on the northern shore, and not far from midway
between the eastern and the western shores. See further, Mark 6:45,
note.
[Illustration: BETHSAIDA.]
1 After[206] these things Jesus went over the sea of
Galilee, which is _the sea_ of Tiberias.
[206] Matt. 14:15, etc.; Mark 6:34, etc.; Luke 9:12,
etc.
2 And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his
miracles which he did on them that were diseased.
=1, 2. After these things.= Not a definite note of time. It was
subsequent to the healing of the impotent man at the foot of Bethesda.
But many and important events had intervened. See Tabular Harmony of
Gospels, Vol. I, p. 44.--=Which is the Sea of Tiberias.= John, writing
for Gentile readers, gives the name by which this body of water was
best known in the Gentile world. For map and description, see Vol.
I, p. 342. The eastern shore was not populous; it is to this day
comparatively a solitude; Christ went thither with his disciples partly
for rest and a quiet conference (Mark 6:30, 31), and partly in
consequence of the death of John the Baptist, perhaps to avoid the
possibility of danger to himself and to them from Herod. After the
sermon which followed this miracle of feeding, reported in this chapter
by John, he engaged no more in any public ministry in Galilee. See
Matt. 15:29-39, note.--=Because they saw his miracles which he did.=
John has not recorded any miracles done at this time in Galilee, and
only two performed at any time in Galilee. This is one of those
incidental references which makes it clear to my mind that John wrote
not only with a personal knowledge of the writings of the other
Evangelists or some of them, but with a recognition of the fact that
their writings would be familiar to the readers of his own Gospel. The
miracles referred to here are those performed in Christ’s Galilean
ministry subsequent to his return from the second Passover at
Jerusalem. They are recorded in Matthew, chaps. 8-13; Mark, chaps.
2-5; and Luke, chaps. 5-8.
3 And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with
his disciples.
4 And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.
=3, 4. And Jesus went up into the hill country.= Up from the shore of
the sea to the quiet of the hills. These, on the eastern shore, rise
to a height of nearly 2,000 feet above the level of the sea, which is
however itself depressed some 600 feet below the level of the
Mediterranean.--=The Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.= This
affords both a note of time and an explanation of the multitude
present. The month was Nizan (our March). The grass was green; the
trees were in full leaf; the palm trees were laden with blossoms; the
orange and lemon trees with fruit; the barley was ripening in the
fields. At such a season and in such a climate, to spend a night
without shelter is no hardship, and is not unusual. The leisure of the
Oriental is partly a characteristic of the people, partly an incident
of a climate which compels less labor than ours. The fifteen days
preceding the Passover were largely devoted to various preparations
for it; the roads, streets, and bridges were repaired, and the
caravans began to move toward Jerusalem. The gathering at such a time
of a congregation of 5,000 men, besides women and children, attracted
by the fame of such a prophet, is not at all incredible. The reader
must also remember that Galilee was then the home of a large
population. According to Josephus, there were six cities of
considerable size on the thirteen miles of coast-line along the
northern and northeastern shores of the Lake of Tiberias.
5 When Jesus then lifted up _his_ eyes, and saw a great
company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall
we buy bread, that these may eat?
6 And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what
he would do.
=5, 6. When Jesus then lifted up his eyes.= According to Mark the
people going round by the shore outran Jesus, and he found them there
upon his arrival (Mark 6:33). There is no irreconcilable inconsistency
in the two statements. It may be that Jesus found a few of his
disciples, those that knew his probable destination, and took them up
with him and the twelve into the hills; for the term _disciples_ (ver.
3) is not in the Gospels confined to the twelve apostles; that the
larger multitude followed, looking for the Lord; and that their
gradual congregating moved his compassion (Mark 6:34) and led him to
descend from the retirement of the hills to teach and to heal
them.--=He saith unto Philip.= He spent the greater part of the day in
teaching and healing (Matt. 14:14; Mark 6:34; Luke 9:11). The people,
absorbed by their interest, took no note of the passage of time. As
the afternoon drew on, the disciples proposed to Christ to send the
people away to procure food (Matthew, Mark, Luke); it was probably as
a result of this proposition that Christ addressed to Philip the
question here, Whence shall we buy? This question is reported alone by
John. Why did Jesus address this inquiry to Philip? Some commentators
have supposed that he was the purveyor for Christ and the apostles;
others that his faith was especially weak and needed strengthening;
still others that the question was addressed to him because he
belonged to Bethsaida (ch. 1:44), and therefore would be the one to
know where food could be procured; but there is no evidence to support
either hypothesis. Christ frequently questioned his disciples in order
to bring out to their own consciousness the measure of their faith
(Matt. 9:28; 16:13; 19:17; Luke 24:17, etc.).--=For he himself knew
what he would do.= A statement made by the apostle to emphasize the
truth that Jesus himself was not in perplexity, and taking counsel
with his apostles for his own guidance. This he is never recorded to
have done. According to Matthew the question of providing for the
multitude was not raised until “it was evening” (Matt. 14:15). Yet
both Matthew and John say that “when evening was come” Jesus was left
alone in the mountain (ver. 16; Matt. 14:23). The explanation of this
discrepancy lies in the fact that there were two evenings recognized
by the Hebrews, as by the Greeks, one beginning with the declining sun
at or about three in the afternoon, the other with the setting sun. It
was during the first evening, _i. e._, between three and six, that the
people were fed; at the second evening, _i. e._, about sunset, they
had departed and left Jesus alone.
7 Philip answered him, Two[207] hundred pennyworth of bread
is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take
a little.
[207] Numb. 11:21, 22; 2 Kings 4:43.
8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother,
saith unto him,
9 There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and
two small fishes: but what are they among so many?
=7-9. Two hundred pennyworth of bread.= The penny, or denarius, was
equal in value to seventeen cents American coin; but it was the day’s
wages of a common laborer (Matt. 20:2); two hundred pennyworth
therefore would be practically equivalent to $200 worth in our time.--
=One of his disciples said unto him.= Christ bade them ascertain how
much they had on hand for themselves (Mark 6:38). Andrew ascertained
and reported in response to Christ’s direction. The lad here mentioned
was therefore probably some one in attendance upon Christ and the
twelve, and carrying their simple store for them. How much blessing
the Lord can impart to the service of a little child. Comp. 2 Kings
5:2, 3. Here a _little boy_ (παιδάριον) had but five loaves, and they
of barley, and yet when given to the Lord, and blessed by Him, they
feed five thousand.--=Five barley loaves.= The loaves of the Jews were
thin round cakes or crackers; for illustration and description, see
Mark 8:3-5, note. Barley was the food only of the lower classes. “One
in the Talmud, speaking of barley bread, says, ‘There is a fine crop
of barley.’ Another answers, ‘Tell this to the horses and asses.’ A
Roman soldier who had quitted his ranks, had for part of his
punishment that he received barley bread instead of wheaten.”--(_Geike’s
Life of Christ._) Thus we have here (1) an indication of the
simplicity of the living of our Lord; without a place to lay his head,
_i. e._, a permanent home, and with the plainest possible food for his
fare, the bread of the peasant classes; (2) a suggestion of true
benevolence; he did not create wheaten bread for the multitude; he
gave such as he had. To share what we have, not to aspire to give what
we have not, is true benevolence.--=And two small fishes.= The word
here rendered _small fishes_ (ὀψύριον) denotes any relish eaten with
bread; hence, because fish was a common accompaniment, the most common
from the animal kingdom, it came to be used for fish, generally salt
fish, prepared for and used as a relish.
10 And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was
much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number
about five thousand.
11 And Jesus took the loaves: and when he had given thanks,
he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them
that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as
they would.
=10, 11. Make the men sit down.= It requires little imagination to
picture to the mind the wondering surprise with which the disciples
prepared to obey a direction the object of which they could not
conceive, and the perplexity of the people as they prepared to take
their places, wondering what was to occur next. They sat down; Mark
tells us _in ranks_, literally _garden plats_ (πρασιαὶ πρασιαὶ;
the repetition without καί denotes distribution). With their
bright-colored Oriental dresses, these men sitting cross-legged on the
ground in groups of fifty each (Mark 6:40), so that their number was
afterward easily estimated, presented an appearance which recalled a
brilliant garden in the early summer. The picture thus presented by
Mark, but lost in our English translation, is one of the pictorial
characteristics of his Gospel, and is thought to have been derived by
him from Peter, the most effective and therefore probably the most
pictorial of all the apostolic preachers.--=There was much grass in
the place.= This is not inconsistent with its description by the other
Evangelists as a _desert_ place, the word desert implying simply
solitude, not an arid soil. The location (_Thompson’s Land and Book_,
Vol. II, p. 29) was probably the rich level plain of Butaiha, forming
a triangle, of which the Eastern mountains make one side and the lake
shore and the Jordan the other two. It was at the southeastern angle
of this plain, near the point where the hills abut upon the lake, that
the feeding took place. “From the four narratives of this stupendous
miracle we gather: 1st, that the place belonged to Bethsaida; 2d, that
it was a desert place; 3d, that it was near the shore of the lake, for
they came to it by boats; 4th, that there was a mountain close at
hand; 5th, that it was a smooth, grassy spot, capable of seating many
thousand people. Now all these requisites are found in this exact
locality, and nowhere else, so far as I can discover. This Butaiha
belonged to Bethsaida. At this extreme southeast corner of it the
mountain shuts down upon the lake, bleak and barren. It was,
doubtless, desert then as now, for it is not capable of cultivation.
In this little cove the ships (boats) were anchored. On this
beautiful sward, at the base of the rocky hill, the people were
seated.”--(_Andrews._)--=About five thousand.= Besides women and
children (Matt. 14:21), who perhaps sat separately from the men, as
Oriental custom would require them to do.--=When he had given thanks.=
The same act is differently expressed by the other Evangelists as
blessing the bread. Asking a blessing upon food before meals was a
universal custom among the Jews, and was practised both by Christ and
by the apostles (Luke 22:17, 19; 24:30; Acts 27:35).--=He gave [to the
disciples and the disciples] to them that were set down.= The words
which I have put in brackets are not in the original according to the
best manuscripts. They have been added from Matt. 14:19. They
undoubtedly represent the actual fact, viz., that the bread was
distributed by the hands of the twelve.
12 When they were filled,[208] he said unto his disciples,
Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing[209] be
lost.
[208] Neh. 9:25.
[209] Neh. 8:10.
13 Therefore they gathered _them_ together, and filled
twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley
loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had
eaten.
14 Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that
Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that[210] prophet that
should come into the world.
[210] Gen. 49:10; Deut. 18:15-18.
15 When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and
take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again
into a mountain himself alone.
=12-15. Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.=
“It was a custom and a rule (among the Jews) that when they ate
together they should leave something to those that served. ‘Every one
leaves a little portion in the dish, which is called the servitor’s
part.’”--(_Lightfoot._) The fragments thus gathered up by the apostles
were probably preserved for their own use. The practical lesson is
important: “He likewise exhorts his disciples to frugality when he
says, ‘Gather the fragments which are left, that nothing be lost’; for
the increase of the bounty of God ought not to be an excitement to
luxury. Let those therefore who have abundance remember that they will
one day render an account of their immoderate wealth, if they do not
carefully and faithfully apply their superfluity to purposes which are
good, and of which God approves.”--(_Calvin._) This gathering up of
the fragments demonstrates also the reality of the miracle. See
below.--=They filled twelve baskets= (κοφίνος). These baskets were the
common baskets used universally by the Jews in traveling to carry
their food. See for description and illustration, Matt. 16:9, 10,
note. Christ there distinguishes between this miracle and that of the
feeding of the 4,000, which are evidently not to be confounded as one
event.--=That prophet that should come into the world.= Foretold in
Deut. 18:15, 16, and referred to by the delegation sent from Jerusalem
to inquire of John the Baptist as to his character and authority (John
1:21). By some Rabbis this prophet was regarded as a forerunner of the
Messiah; by others as the Messiah himself. Here apparently the people
regarded the two as identical; this at least is indicated by their
desire to take Christ at once and crown him as king.--=Jesus knowing
that they were about to come and seize him that they might make him
king.= Either by reading in their hearts the half-formed design; or
perceiving it in their whispered conference; or informed of it by the
apostles, who doubtless shared the enthusiasm of the multitude, and
who may have been as eager as any for the coronation of their Lord.
This attempt of the people to make Christ a temporal king was a
renewal of Satan’s endeavor to tempt him to secure the kingdoms of the
earth by Satanic methods (Matt. 4:8-10, note). The Jews anticipated a
realm of material marvels and miracles with the advent of the Messiah.
“Drought and famine should then be known no more. The prophecy of
Isaiah (Isa. 65:13), ‘My servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry,’
should be literally fulfilled. Israel should be gathered together. The
young men should feed on bread, the old men on honey, the children on
oil. Every palate should be pleased, every appetite satisfied, and the
prolific profusion of the Garden of Eden should repeat itself in the
land of the Messiah. These prophecies of the scribes, with which
constant repetition in the synagogue had made the common people
familiar, seemed to them about to be fulfilled.”--(_Abbott’s Jesus of
Nazareth._)--=He departed again into the mountain.= For solitude and
prayer (Matt. 14:23; Mark 6:46). He first constrained his disciples to
embark for Bethsaida, a fact which Matthew and Mark state (Matt.
14:22; Mark 6:45) without giving the reason for it; John alone tells
of the purpose of the multitude to make Christ a king. There is
significance for us in Christ’s refusal of their homage. They desired
to _make_ him king, not to accept him as king; to give him a sceptre,
not to own allegiance to the sceptre he possessed; to secure his power
and authority in aid of their designs, not to recognize his royal
authority and be obedient to his will. When they found out what that
will involved, from his discourse on the following Sabbath at
Capernaum, they would have him for their king no longer. It is one
thing to attempt to make Christ serve our wills; it is a very
different thing to make our wills obedient to his.
Various attempts have been made to explain this miracle on
rationalistic principles. The two principal explanations offered are:
(1) that the people were so satisfied with Christ’s instruction that
they did not feel the claims of hunger (_Schenkel_); (2) that they had
their hearts opened by the beneficence of Christ, so that those who
possessed food themselves provided for those that had none, and thus
all were furnished by a miracle of love, operating not by the literal
creation of new supplies, but by the inspiration of a new spirit of
benevolence in the people themselves. This, if I understand him
aright, is Lange’s explanation. See his _Life of Christ_, Vol. II, p.
140. For a more elaborate classification of rationalistic theories,
see _Lange’s Commentary on Matthew_, Am. ed., p. 266. Neither
interpretation deserves serious refutation. The first is inconsistent
with the fact that twelve baskets of the fragments were gathered up
after the meal was ended; the second is contradicted by the language
of the disciples, who plainly imply that the people are without food
(Matt. 14:15; Mark 6:36; Luke 9:12), and by the enthusiasm of the
people after the miracle has been performed. They were not of a kind
to be ready to crown a prophet as king, merely because he had opened
their hearts and inclined them to benevolence. It is, however, to be
noted that here as elsewhere the Evangelists simply state the facts,
leaving the reader to make his own deductions. These facts are that
over 5,000 people were upon a plain, without provisions; that all the
food which Christ had for them was five loaves and two small fishes;
that he distributed this to the twelve, and they to the multitude;
that all had enough; and that when the meal was over there were twelve
baskets full of fragments remaining. Assuming these to be the facts,
the explanation of a miraculous creation of bread is the only
reasonable explanation; any other hypothesis impugns the historical
verity of the four Gospels. The attempt to explain the miracle as an
acceleration of the processes of nature (_Olshausen_), to which, as
Dr. Schaff well says, “must be added an accelerated process of art, or
the combined labors of the reaper, miller, and baker,” gives no help
in understanding the process by which Christ provided for all. We can
accept the fact without comprehending the method, which is indeed as
entirely incomprehensible as are God’s methods in the ordinary
phenomena of nature, _e. g._, the multiplication of a single kernel of
corn into the many kernels upon the stalk. The parallel and contrast
between this miracle and the analogous but different multiplication of
food wrought by the O. T. prophets Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings 17:16; 2
Kings 4:42-44) are instructive. Like all of Christ’s miracles, this
multiplication is a parable. (1) It illustrates Christ’s method: the
way to men’s hearts is often through ministering to their bodies; in
the recent famines in India and China (1877), the missionaries have
found the way opened for the gospel in many districts by their ability
to provide the starving with food or employment. (2) It manifests the
miraculous grace of God: “everything wastes in the hands of men; but
everything multiplies in those of the Son of God.”--(_Quesnel._) (3)
It rebukes distrust: “He who feeds here five thousand men in an
extraordinary manner and by a visible miracle, cannot He find means to
support this numerous family, which raises in the mind of this father
and mother so many unceasing and distrustful thoughts?”--(_Quesnel._)
(4) It is an inspiration and a prophecy of Christian love. It is “the
brilliant inauguration of that fruitful miracle of Christian charity
which has ever since gone on, multiplying bread to the hungry. The
heart of man once touched, like the rock in the desert touched by the
rod of Moses, has gone on pouring over thirsty crowds the
inexhaustible stream of generosity.”--(_Pressense._) (5) It is a
symbol of the inexhaustible love of Christ himself; a symbol of that
miraculous multiplying of sacred influences which, from one brief life
of three active years, and one body pierced and broken on the tree,
feeds innumerable thousands, a love which Christ imparts to his
disciples, and which they in turn convey throughout the ages and to
all lands.
* * * * *
Ch. 6:16-21. JESUS WALKS ON THE SEA.--CHRIST THE LORD OF NATURE: LIGHT
IN OUR DARKNESS; PEACE IN OUR STORMS.--HE COMES TO THOSE WHO ARE
TOILING TO COME TO HIM.--HIS MESSAGE TO ALL HIS DISCIPLES: FEAR
NOT.--THE GROUND OF THAT MESSAGE: HE IS THE I AM. Compare Matt. 14:22,
23; Mark 6:45-52, and see Prel. Note at beginning of this chapter.
16 And[211] when even was _now_ come, his disciples went
down unto the sea,
[211] Matt. 14:23; Mark 6:47, etc.
17 And entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward
Capernaum. And it was now dark, and Jesus was not come to
them.
18 And the sea arose[212] by reason of a great wind that
blew.
[212] Ps. 107:25.
=16-18. And when even was come.= This was the second evening, which
began at sunset. See on ver. 6.--=His disciples went down unto the
sea.= From the plain where the five thousand had been fed. By the
disciples here is meant the apostles. They went reluctantly, yielding
to Christ. This is implied by the language of Matthew and Mark, he
“constrained his disciples.” While they departed by sea Jesus sent the
multitude away.--=And entered into a ship.= A fishing-boat; large
enough to carry Christ and the twelve; not too large to be propelled
by oars. See for description, Mark 6:36, note.--=And went over the sea
unto Capernaum= (εἰς Κ.). Mark says _toward Bethsaida_ (πρός β.). John
indicates the final aim of their journey; Mark the direction in which
the boat was steered. They started _for_ Capernaum _via_ Bethsaida.
See Prel. Note above, and Mark 6:45, note.--=Jesus was not come to
them.= An evidence that they expected to meet him along the shore;
probably (this is implied upon a comparison of the three gospel
narratives) at Bethsaida, _i. e._, at or near the entrance of the
Jordan upon the lake.--=The sea arose by reason of a great wind that
blew.= It is a common occurrence for the winds to arise suddenly upon
this lake, drawing down the Jordan valley from the Lebanon range in
the north. See Mark 4:37, note. “My experience in this region enables
me to sympathize with the disciples in their long night’s contest with
the wind. I spent a night in that wady Shukaiyif, some three miles up
it, to the left of us. The sun had scarcely set when the wind began to
rush down toward the lake, and it continued all night long with
constantly increasing violence, so that when we reached the shore the
next morning the face of the lake was like a huge boiling caldron. The
wind howled down every wady from the northeast and east with such fury
that no efforts of rowers could have brought a boat to shore at any
point along that coast. In a wind like that the disciples _must_ have
been driven quite across to Gennesaret, as we know they were. To
understand the causes of these sudden and violent tempests, we must
remember that the lake lies low--six hundred feet lower than the
ocean; that the vast and naked plateaus of the Jordan rise to a great
height, spreading backward to the wilds of the Hauran, and upward to
snowy Hermon; that the water-courses have cut out profound ravines and
wild gorges, converging to the head of this lake, and that these act
like gigantic _funnels_ to draw down the cold winds from the
mountains.”--(_Thompson’s Land and Book_, 2:32.) Dr. Thompson adds a
testimony to the suddenness with which these winds arise: “I once went
in to swim near the hot baths, and before I was aware a wind came
rushing over the cliffs with such force that it was with great
difficulty I could regain the shore.”
19 So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty
furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing
nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid.
20 But he saith unto them, It is I;[213] be not afraid.
[213] Ps. 35:3; Isa. 43:1, 2; Rev. 1:17, 18.
21 Then they willingly received him into the ship; and
immediately the ship was at the land whither they went.
=19-21. So when they had rowed about five-and-twenty or thirty
furlongs.= _Stadia_; that is, a little over three miles. The lake at
this point is about six miles across; they had therefore rowed about
half way across the lake; but they were unable to make head against
the wind, and could not reach the northern shore to keep their
appointment with Jesus. _It was while they were endeavoring to come to
Jesus that he came out upon the sea to meet them._--=They see Jesus
walking on the sea.= That he was really walking on the sea, not
standing on the land and supposed to be on the sea because only dimly
discerned through the storm and darkness (_Bleek_), is evident from
the facts, (1) that Peter went out to meet him (Matt. 14:28-31); (2)
that on receiving him into the ship they were immediately at the land
“unto which they were going” (εἰς ἣν ὑπῆγον). This was the plain of
Gennesaret, on which Capernaum was situated, and was two or three
miles away from the point where they met Jesus; for they had as yet
rowed only about half the distance across the lake.--=He saith unto
them, It is I.= Literally, _I am_. The same language used by Jesus in
Jerusalem (ch. 8:58), for which the Pharisees would have stoned him,
and in the O. T. to designate Jehovah (Exod. 3:14). Here I should
prefer to give it this meaning. Christ says not merely, “It is I, your
Friend and Master;” he says, at least implies, It is the “I am” who is
coming to you, the Almighty One who rules winds and waves, who made
them, and whom they obey.--=Be not afraid.= This is the message of
Christ to his people in the hour of his advent (Luke 2:10); of their
tempest experiences of temptation and struggle (Matt. 14:27; Mark
6:50; 1 Pet. 3:14); their sorrows (Matt. 28:10; Mark 5:36); and their
hour of dangerous duty (Acts 18:9).--=Then they willingly received
him.= Literally, _Thereupon they willed to receive him_. If this
account stood alone we might perhaps doubt whether he actually did
enter the ship, as some rationalistic commentators have done; but
Matthew and Mark are explicit in their statements that he did
so.--=And immediately the ship was at the land to which they were
going.= That is, the shore at Capernaum. This, coupled with the
statement of ver. 19 that they had only rowed twenty-five or thirty
furlongs, _i. e._, about half way, seems clearly to imply a further
miracle, unless indeed we give to the word _immediately_ (εὐθέως) a
large latitude of expression, understanding it merely to mean that
since the wind at once ceased (Matt. 14:32) they had no further
difficulty in reaching their destination. Matthew adds that they that
were in the ship came and worshipped Jesus, saying, “Of a truth thou
art the Son of God;” and Mark that they were amazed beyond measure,
“for they considered not the miracle of the loaves, for their heart
was hardened,” rather _dull, stupid_. They had been amazed at the
miracle of the loaves, but they had not deduced from it the natural
conclusion that Christ was the Lord of nature, so when a new
manifestation of his power was made they were as much surprised as if
they had never seen any previous manifestation. In this they were very
typical of Christians in all ages of the church.
* * * * *
Ch. 6:22-71. SERMON ON THE BREAD OF LIFE.--THE CONDITION OF ETERNAL
LIFE: FEEDING ON CHRIST.--THE TRUE NATURE OF FAITH SYMBOLIZED.--THE
MEANING OF THE LORD’S SUPPER.
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--Before entering upon this discourse in detail, some
preliminary considerations are necessary. 1. _The report._ There is no
reason to believe that we have a verbatim report of Christ’s
discourse, but good reason to believe the reverse. John makes no claim
to give the sermon in full. The language of ver. 59 implies that he
does not. The whole sermon occupies in deliberate reading less than
five minutes. We can hardly suppose that an actual discourse delivered
in the synagogue would have been compressed in so brief a space. We
have then, here, John’s subsequent report written out from memory,
though from memory quickened by divine inspiration, of a discourse
very much longer than the report. It embodies in John’s language the
substance of Christ’s thoughts. 2. _The circumstances and connection._
After the feeding of the 5,000, the apostles embark in their boat;
Christ goes up into the hills to pray; the people linger a while for
his return, then conclude that he has returned to Capernaum, and go
back to Capernaum themselves; on the following Sabbath morning he
enters the synagogue; their astonishment at his approach is great;
they break out in questioning, How did you get here? His answer
diverts them from mere astonishment to a serious consideration of
spiritual truth: “Ye are seeking me, not because of the evidence I
have given of my divine commission, but because ye did eat of the
loaves and were filled. Labor not for the meat that perisheth, but for
that meat which endureth unto everlasting life.” Their response
indicates some seriousness of desire: “What is the work which God
would have us to do that we might have this bread of life as our
reward?” This is the question of all religious aspiration, and
Christ’s answer is the response of Christianity to the soul-hunger of
the ages: “This is the work of God, that ye have faith in him whom he
hath sent.” This I believe to be the text of the sermon which follows;
it gives the subject; it is the key to its mysticism. The object of
the discourse is to give Christ’s definition and interpretation of
faith. This definition appears and reappears, first in metaphor, then
in interpretation: My Father is giving you the true bread, which is
coming down from heaven. I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me
shall never hunger; he that believeth on me shall never thirst. This
coming is not a literal physical coming; it is a coming of the spirit;
a coming drawn by divine influence; a coming of those who are taught
of God. To thus believe in me, to thus eat my flesh and drink my
blood, is to have everlasting life; for to thus eat my flesh and drink
my blood is to dwell in me and have in me an indwelling life. Finally,
to guard his followers against that literalism which has since
converted this metaphor into a stone of stumbling and a rock of
offence, Christ adds to his discourse the decisive words of ver. 63,
“It is the Spirit that quickeneth, _the flesh_ profiteth nothing; the
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.” 3.
_Meaning of the metaphor._ I believe then that the key to the
metaphors of this sermon is to be found in the question and answer of
verses 28, 29; that it is Christ’s metaphorical interpretation of the
declaration that faith is a condition of spiritual life; that it is
mystical, because experience is always mystical except to those that
know it experimentally; that it is expressed in metaphor, because a
spiritual experience can never be expressed in any other way; and that
Christ has emphasized the importance of the metaphor by subsequently
making it a permanent symbol in the Lord’s Supper. To eat his flesh
and drink his blood is to have faith in him, to come unto him; to
partake of his character and imbibe his spirit (verses 35, 40, 47, 54,
57). Faith, according to Christ, is not then merely believing what is
revealed in the Word (_Westminster Confession_); nor merely receiving
what God says to be true and resting on it (_George Muller_); it is
feeding on Christ. It is interpreted (_a_) by the physical phenomenon
of eating and drinking. The food enters into us, becomes a part of us;
builds us up; makes us what we are; different food going to different
parts of the body--some to brain, others to muscle, etc.; different
natures and different avocations needing different food. It is Christ
_in_ us who is the hope of glory. (_b_) By our own use of the same
metaphor. We recognize in common language a higher than mere physical
feeding; other gateways to the nature than the mouth and the stomach;
other means that modify, develop, and make the character. Men are made
by what they receive through interior faculties. So Christ’s metaphor
constantly reappears in the language of our common life; we drink in a
picture; imbibe ideas; devour books; _e. g._,
“My ears have not yet _drunk_ a hundred words
Of that tongue’s uttering.”--(_Shakespeare._)
“Longing they look, and gaping at the sight,
_Devour_ her o’er and o’er with vast delight.”--(_Dryden._)
(_c_) By the Rabbinical use of the metaphor, common in Christ’s time,
and well understood by the Jews. “There is nothing more common in the
schools of the Jews than the phrases of eating and drinking in a
metaphorical sense.”--(_Lightfoot._) “To eat of my bread” was a phrase
equivalent to partake of my doctrine. Christ borrows a common metaphor
to emphasize a deeper truth; to have faith in him is not to “eat of my
bread,” but to “eat of my flesh;” that is, it is to receive not merely
the influence of Christ’s teaching, but yet more that of his life and
character itself, an influence which could be imparted to the world
only through his passion and death, through the literal rending of his
flesh and shedding of his blood. (_d_) By the experience of faith in a
lower sphere, our faith in each other. The highest faith of a child in
his mother is not believing something about her, nor merely believing
what she says; it includes an intellectual belief that she is his
mother, and a filial trust in her, but it also includes such a
reverence for her, an uplooking to her, an admiration of her, a
feeding upon her, that all her best characteristics are reproduced in
the worshipping child. So the character of the best teachers ever
reproduces itself in the character of their admiring pupils. (_e_) By
the actual record of the experience of faith contained in the O. T.
and the N. T. (_e. g._, Ps. 42:5, 11; 63:5-8; 73:23-26; 2 Cor. 3:18;
Gal. 2:20; Phil. 3:8-14). (_f_) By other metaphors in the N. T. in
which Christ is compared to a way on which we walk, a garment which we
are to put on, a vine on which we are to be engrafted, a husband to
whom we are to be married, a head from which we as a body are to
derive all our life, the ground in which we are to be rooted, the
foundation on which we are to be built, and the Spirit which is to
dwell in us as in a temple. Faith in Christ then, as defined by Christ
himself, if I have rightly interpreted this discourse, _is not belief
about him, nor trust in him, but appropriation of him_. It is not mere
belief in what the Bible teaches respecting him, though it is
certainly founded on historical Christianity; it is not mere trust in
his word or power or grace, though it involves the highest personal
trust in him as a divine and gracious Saviour. It is making him the
soul’s spiritual aliment, following after him, coming to him, dwelling
in him, so drinking in his words, life, and spirit as to be conformed
to his image. The soul enters into eternal, that is spiritual life,
not by believing any teaching respecting Christ, not by trusting that
Christ will bestow that life, but by so fastening its love and
aspirations and desires upon Christ that he becomes the All and in all
to the soul, and at once the model for and modeler of its future and
final character.
22 The day following, when the people which stood on the
other side of the sea saw that there was none other
boat there, save that one whereinto his disciples
were entered, and that Jesus went not with his
disciples into the boat, but _that_ his disciples
were gone away alone;
23 (Howbeit there came other boats from Tiberias, nigh unto
the [214]place where they did eat bread, after that the
Lord had given thanks;)
[214] verse 11.
24 When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not
there, neither his disciples, they also took shipping,
and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus.
=22-24. The day following=, etc. A part of the people undoubtedly had
dispersed to the villages about; others of them remained, hoping for
the reappearance of Jesus; when he did not reappear they thought it
possible that he had returned to Capernaum, and went thither
themselves. _The other side of the sea_ indicates the eastern shore,
_i. e._, the opposite side from Capernaum. In ver. 25 the same phrase
indicates the western shore, _i. e._, the opposite side from that on
which the multitude had left Christ. The construction of these verses
is complicated and involved, but the original is fairly well rendered
in our English version. The facts here stated, together with the
surprise of the people (ver. 25) at Christ’s appearance at Capernaum,
afford an additional though incidental evidence of Christ’s miraculous
passing from the eastern to the western shore.--=Tiberias.= A town on
the southwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee; mentioned in the N. T.
only by John; built by Herod Antipas, and named in honor of the
emperor Tiberius. The present city, Tubanyeh, contains about two
thousand inhabitants.
[Illustration: TIBERIAS.]
25 And when they had found him on the other side of the
sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, when camest thou hither?
=25. And when they had found him.= The greater part of the discourse
which follows was apparently delivered in the synagogue (ver. 29),
and presumptively on the Sabbath day. Maurice supposes that “the
conversation commences on the borders of the lake of Tiberias, with
the people who had just crossed and found Jesus there,” and is
afterward continued in the synagogue, and he makes the synagogue
discourse commence with ver. 43. This is certainly possible, though I
should think it more probable, from the close connection between the
beginning and close of the colloquy as reported, that all occurred
at one time and in the synagogue. It is not at all incredible that
such interruptions as are here reported should have occurred in the
synagogue service.--=Rabbi, when camest thou thither?= “The question
_when_ includes _how_.”--(_Bengel._) Wordsworth’s comment on the
mysterious manner in which Christ crossed the sea and presented himself
in the synagogue affords a curious illustration of the allegorizing
method which he pursues throughout in dealing with this chapter.
“By walking on the sea, invisibly to the eyes of the multitude, and
suddenly presenting himself to them in the synagogue at Capernaum, in
a manner unintelligible to them, he instructs us that, though he does
indeed come by water in holy baptism, and is verily and indeed present
in the holy eucharist, yet the _manner_ of his presence is not to be
scrutinized by us. * * * * Let us not speculate inquisitively into the
_time_ and _manner_ in which he is present in the holy eucharist, but
let us receive him joyfully in our hearts, as the disciples received
him into the ship; and then we shall soon be at the haven of peace
where we would be.”
26 Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say
unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but
because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for
that[215] meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which
the Son of man shall give unto you: for him[216] hath God
the Father sealed.
[215] verses 54, 58; ch. 4:14; Jer. 15:16.
[216] ch. 8:18; Ps. 2:7; 40:7; Isa. 42:1; Acts 2:22; 2
Pet. 1:17.
=26, 27. Verily, verily, I say unto you.= See Matt. 5:18, note.--=Ye
seek me, not because ye saw the signs, but because ye ate of the
loaves and were satisfied.= Christ leads the people from the lower to
the higher, from the earthly to the spiritual, making, as was his
wont, a simple incident the text of a deeply spiritual discourse. See
Matt. 11:7; 16:6; Luke 13:1; 14:7; John 4:10. The meaning here is
this: You are not seeking _me_ because you have seen and recognized
the evidences of my divine commission, and really desire to put
yourselves under me as your Lord and Master; you are seeking my
_gifts_, and because you have eaten and been satisfied. He thus
characterizes and impliedly rebukes those who seek not Christ but
Christ’s, because they want not _him_, but something external to
himself, which they think he can give them.--=Busy not yourselves
about the meat which perishes.= It is not literally true that we are
not to _labor_ for the meat that perishes (Acts 18:3; Eph. 4:28; 1
Thess. 4:10-12); it is true that the meat which perishes is not to be
the object of our life-work (Matt. 5:24). “If any be idle and
gluttonous, and careth for luxury, that man worketh for the _meat that
perisheth_. So, too, if a man by his labor should feed Christ, and
give him drink, and clothe him, who so senseless and mad as to say
that such an one labors for the meat which perisheth, when there is
for this the promise of the kingdom that is to come, and of those good
things? This meat endureth forever.”--(_Chrysostom._) Comp. with
Christ’s language here Isa. 55:2, to which perhaps he refers, and John
4:13, 14, where an analogous metaphor is used to enforce the same
teaching.--=But about the meat which abides unto everlasting life.=
_Unto_ (εἰς) indicates the purpose for which it remains, namely, that
it may nourish eternal life, _i. e._, the life which continues unto,
not which begins in, eternity; for eternal life is a present
possession (vers. 47, 54). This food abides in us. Chaps. 5:38; 6:56;
8:31; 15:4, 7; 1 John 2:6, 27; 4:12, 15; 2 John 2 indicate both what
is the meat and what the abiding of which Christ speaks.--=Which the
Son of man shall give to you.= The phrase _Son of man_ is here, as
everywhere in Christ’s use of it, equivalent to the Messiah (Matt.
10:23, note), and would be so understood by his hearers. This food of
the spiritual life is the _gift_ of God through the Messiah (Rom.
5:17; 6:23). We might well wonder that Christ’s characterization of it
here as a gift should not have prevented the question of the multitude
in the following verse, but for the fact that, despite the explicit
teaching of the N. T. that eternal life is _given_, even the disciples
of Christ have ever been seeking to earn it as wages by labor. Christ
says _shall give_ (future) because the great sacrifice was not yet
offered, and so the unspeakable gift (2 Cor. 9:15) was not yet
perfected.--=For Him hath God the Father sealed.= In the East the
method of authenticating a document is not, as with us, by a
signature, but by the impression of a seal (1 Kings 21:8; Esther 3:12;
8:8, 10; Jer. 32:10). The meaning here then is that Jesus’ commission
as the Messiah of God is authenticated by the Father, by the works
given him to do (John 5:36).
28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might
work the works of God?
=28. What can we do that we may work the works of God?= Observe _can_,
not _shall_; subjunctive, not future. _The works of God_ are not works
wrought by God, but works pleasing to God (Jer. 48:10; 1 Cor. 15:58).
The meaning is not, What are the works of God which we shall do? but,
What can we do in order that we may please God by our works? This is
the question which humanity has ever been asking, repeated in the
pilgrimages and the self-mutilations of the Oriental religions, in the
penances and appointed prayers of the mediæval religions, and in much
of the so-called Christian activity of modern Protestantism. This was
the question which Loyola asked by his vigils, and to which Luther
found an answer when, climbing Pilate’s staircase on his knees, he
heard the words, “The just shall live by faith,” and fled from the
religion of works to that of faith. That the questioners of Christ
were seeking, not guidance to devout activity, but to divine rewards,
is clear from the sequel (ver. 31).
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This[217] is the work of
God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
[217] 1 John 3:23.
=29. This is the work of God, that ye have faith in him whom he hath
sent.= They ask respecting the _works_ of God (plural), he replies
concerning the _work_ of God (singular); they ask what they shall
_do_, he replies _have faith_; they ask respecting work to be done
_for_ God _by_ them, he replies that it is a work _of_ God _in_ them
that is required. The condition of eternal life is not doing any
work for God, it is having a work of God done in ourselves. See John
3:5; Titus 3:5-7. The condition of this work is faith in Christ. The
nature of this faith it is the object of the discourse which follows
to explain; it is certainly not equivalent to belief, and the use
of the word believe is an unfortunate necessity from the poverty of
the English language, which contains no verb corresponding to the
noun faith. Of this faith I know no better nor more comprehensive
definition than that of Webster’s dictionary, “That confiding and
affectionate belief in the person and work of Christ which affects
the character and life, and makes the man a true Christian.” See Heb.
11:1, and notice that it is there defined not only as the _evidence_
of things unseen, _i. e._, the power of seeing and realizing the
invisible world, which would include the imagination, but also as the
_substance_ of things hoped for, which clearly includes the activity of
the desires and affections. The germ of all Paul’s subsequent teaching
of justification by faith is contained in this one single sentence.
The Epistles are but an amplification of the gospel as proclaimed by
Christ himself. “I know not where we can find any passage, even in the
writings of the apostles, which says more significantly that
all eternal life in men proceeds from nothing else than faith in
Christ.”--(_Schleiermacher._)
30 They said therefore unto him, What sign[218] shewest thou
then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work?
[218] Matt. 12:38; 1 Cor. 1:22.
31 Our fathers[219] did eat manna in the desert; as it is
written,[220] He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
[219] Exod. 16:15; Numb. 11:7; 1 Cor. 10:3.
[220] Neh. 9:15; Ps. 78:24, 25.
=30, 31. What therefore doest thou as a sign that we may see and
believe thee?= This response of theirs brings out the contrast between
faith and belief. Christ has said, Believe in him whom God hath sent;
the people, recognizing his reference to himself, reply, Why should
we believe you? or, as Norton renders it, “give you credit.” He calls
for an affectionate and confiding belief in his person and work, they
decline to give him simple credence.--=What dost thou work?= This is
not, as Maurice seems to interpret it, the language of a spiritual
yearning, but, as Alford, Stier, Meyer, the language of unbelief and
opposition, a sarcastic retort of his own words. “Thou commandest
us,” say they, “to work; what dost thou work thyself?” This demand,
coming so soon after the feeding of the five thousand, has given
rise to some perplexity, and rationalistic commentators cite it as
an evidence that no such miraculous feeding took place. If not, why
should the people refer to the manna? The fact is that, though the
five thousand were fed, no explanation was made to them of the way in
which the food was provided; they were commanded to take their seats;
the barley cakes, the bread of the poorest peasantry, were distributed
among them; they were doubtless astonished; but no conclusions were
drawn for them, and they were not in the habit of drawing conclusions
for themselves. When, therefore, on the Sabbath, Christ met in the
synagogue some of those who had been fed, together with others who
had not been present, nothing was more natural than this demand,
impliedly for both a repetition and an explanation of the miracle.
This is the significance of the reference to the O. T. account of the
miracle of the manna, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat” (Ps.
78:24). It was as if they said, The Psalmist has explicitly pointed
out the way in which the commission of Moses was confirmed; leave
us not in the dark respecting the feeding of the multitude, which
was, indeed, strange, but which has not been interpreted.--There is
also implied a contrast between the work of Moses and the work of
Christ; the manna came down from heaven, the bread was distributed
upon the earth; the manna was given day by day as needed for forty
years, the bread had been given but once; the manna was a sweet and
delicate food, “the taste of it like wafers with honey” (Exod. 16:31),
and it was among the rabbinical prophecies that the Messiah would
cause manna to descend which would please all tastes, “bread for the
young men, honey for the old, oil for the children;” but the bread
which Christ had distributed was barley bread, the commonest fare of
the poorest people.
32 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto
you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my[221]
Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
[221] Gal. 4:4.
33 For the bread of God[222] is he which cometh down from
heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
[222] verses 48, 58.
=32, 33. Verily, verily, I say unto you, not Moses gave to you that
bread from heaven; but my Father is giving you that which is the true
bread from heaven.= The people have referred to the manna as the
authentication of Moses; though they do not in words refer to him, the
spirit of their response is analogous to that of ch. 4:12, Art thou
greater than our father Jacob? Compare ch. 8:53. To this Christ
replies (1) that Moses did not give the manna; it was given by God;
Moses had nothing to do with bestowing it; the Israelites found it in
the morning after the dew had dried off the ground (Exod. 16:4, 14).
(2) This manna was not the true bread, but merely a type or shadow of
the spiritual antitype; so the Red Sea, the rock, the brazen serpent,
were mute prophets of spiritual verities, to be fulfilled through
Christ (ch. 4:14, 15; 1 Cor. 10:1-11). (3) Hence, the bread of God was
not a past, historic gift fulfilled in the days of the wilderness, but
a present and a perpetual gift, which the Father is ever giving. The
practical contrast suggested is that between the faith which reveres
only a past religion, a providence and an inspiration in the days of
the patriarchs and prophets and apostles, and that which holds fast to
a present providence, an ever-living Spirit, and a continuous
inspiration, a living bread ever given throughout all ages.--=For the
bread of God is that which comes down from the heaven and gives life
to the world.= Christ here lays down a general principle in which he
defines the essential characteristics of God’s spiritual gift. That
alone is the true bread (1) which is evermore descending from the
heavens, a perpetual bestowment; (2) which bestows life; (3) which is
for the world. The manna did not last over a single day (Exod. 16:19,
20), and finally ceased to fall when the Israelites entered the Holy
Land (Josh. 5:12); they that ate it all died (ver. 49); and it was
given only to a single nation. The type was brief in its duration,
limited in its effects, confined to a few recipients. The antitype is
for all mankind, confers everlasting life, and is bestowed evermore.
34 Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this
bread.
=34. Lord, evermore give to us this bread.= Comp. ch. 4:15, note.
Not spoken ironically (_Calvin_), nor with a definite idea of some
miraculous kind of sustenance, a magic food or means of life from
heaven (_Alford_, _Meyer_), nor with a serious comprehension of
his spiritual meaning and a sincere desire for his spiritual gift
(_Maurice_, _Lucke_). The people were shallow and superficial;
without comprehending the meaning of Christ’s words, they yet saw
in them the offer of something desirable, they knew not what, and
asked for it. In the minds of some there may have been a dim sense
of the value of the inner life, such as is sometimes borne in upon
sensual and superficial natures by the mere power of the presence of a
great soul. Comp. Luke 14:15. There, as here, Christ by his teaching
rebukes the superficial and ignorant desire for an uncomprehended
blessedness; there, by showing parabolically how the spiritual food
is declined by those to whom it is offered; here, by interpreting
the nature of spiritual food. The rejection of Christ by the people
here, illustrates the parable uttered by Christ there.
35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life:
he[223] that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he[224]
that believeth on me shall never thirst.
[223] Rev. 7:16.
[224] chaps. 4:14; 7:38.
36 But I said unto you, That ye[225] also have seen me, and
believe not.
[225] verse 64.
=35, 36. I am the bread of life.= They say, Give us this bread. His
reply is, The bread is already given; it is for you to accept and feed
upon it. And this is always the answer of the gospel to every soul
that cries out for a Saviour and a salvation. How the soul is to
accept this bread he then goes on to say.--=He that cometh to me shall
not hunger, and he that hath faith in me shall never thirst.= It is
clear that the “coming” and “believing in” here are equivalent to the
eating and drinking of ver. 54. See notes there. The coming is a
continuous coming (present participle with πρός); a coming into
Christ’s likeness, and therefore into spiritual unity with him; a
coming perfected only by the process of feeding upon him, drinking in
his spiritual power so as to be transformed by it. It is the coming
which David describes in Psalm 63:8, “My soul followeth hard after
thee,” and Paul in Phil. 3:13, 14, “Forgetting those things which are
behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press
toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus.” Comp. with the promise here Matt. 5:6; Rev. 7:16. All
spiritual hunger and thirst are not ended when Christian experience
begins, because in this life we are ever coming toward Christ, we have
never come fully into him. This coming is consummated when we are one
with Christ as he is one with the Father (John 17:21, 22); the promise
of the gospel is then fulfilled in the glorious satisfaction of a
perfected redemption (1 John 3:2; Ps. 17:15). We are not _satisfied_
till we awake in his likeness.--=Ye also have seen me and ye have not
had faith.= See ch. 20:29. The reference here may either be to words
actually uttered in this discourse, but not reported by John, or to
what he has said by implication though not by exact words, or to
rebukes uttered on some previous occasion, _e. g._, John 5:38, 40, 43.
37 All[226] that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and
him[227] that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
[226] verse 45, ch. 17:6, 8, etc.
[227] Ps. 102:17; Isa. 1:18; 55:7; Matt. 11:28; Luke
23:42, 43; 1 Tim. 1:15, 16; Rev. 22:17.
38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will,
but[228] the will of him that sent me.
[228] ch. 5:30; Ps. 40:7, 8.
=37, 38. The all which the Father has given to me shall come toward
me, and he that comes toward me I will in no wise cast out.= _Toward_,
not _to_ me. The original (πρὸς) indicates the object toward which
anything is directed, not ordinarily the goal actually reached. The
promise then is that he who sets out in the direction of Christ shall
not be rejected by him. He does not wait till we have come to him; he
receives us when we start toward him. In this and the next verse _all_
(πᾶν) is in the neuter gender, indicating, not that the body is
included with the soul (_Maurice_), but that _the whole_ is given by
the Father in its totality, but is received by the Son separately and
individually. “In Jesus Christ’s discourses, that which the Father
hath given to the Son himself is termed, in the singular number and
neuter gender, _all_; those who come to the Son himself are described
in the masculine gender, or even the plural number, _every one_, or
_they_. The Father has given to the Son the whole mass, as it were,
that all whom he hath given may be one; that whole the Son develops
individually in the execution of the divine plan.”--(_Bengel._)
Christ’s language here indicates his dependence upon the Father’s will
and power, and is analogous to that in many of his discourses,
especially in those reported by John. He has come to do his Father’s
will; the works which he does are those which his Father has given him
to do, and are done by his Father’s power; the words which he speaks
are his Father’s words; his whole life is represented as the incarnate
expression of his Father’s will; and those whom he saves are saved not
by his own independent power, they are those whom his Father has given
him (ch. 10:28, 29). Here then I understand Christ neither to limit
his salvation nor to declare it to be without limit. He simply asserts
on the one hand that his saving power is efficacious only over those
whom the Father has given unto him, and on the other that there is
nothing lacking in his grace or power which shall cause those thus
given to fail of a perfected salvation. As a Saviour he is the
representative of the Father’s gracious love and power. Here there is
no indication who are the _all_ thus given to him. From other
Scripture, however, it appears clear that it includes many among the
heathen nations (Ps. 2:8 with Matt. 8:11), and that it does not
include the entire human race (ch. 17:6, 9, 25). This interpretation
is confirmed by the verse which follows, which further expresses the
subjection of the Son in his mediatorial work to the Father.--=Because
I came down from heaven, not that I might do mine own will, but the
will of him that sent me.= The catholicity of Christ’s love is a
disclosure of the love of the Father toward us. In these words Christ
gives us a suggestion of the reason of his receiving sinners and
making them companions and associates. His own earthy inclinations,
tastes, and sensibilities, had he followed them, would all have been
against such society; but all were subordinate to, and overridden by,
his great controlling purpose that the world through him might be
saved (ch. 3:17; 1 Tim. 1:15). For every Christian disciple there is a
practical lesson in these words of Christ. We are all sent into the
world as Christ also was sent into the world (ch. 17:18); and it is
ours to see to it that no pride, or social taste, or moral
irresolution, induce us to cast out those who would otherwise come to
us for help; but we are also to remember that our power to help does
not extend beyond those whom the Father in his own gracious wisdom has
seen fit to give to us as the seals to our apostleship (1 Cor. 9:2).
39 And this is the Father’s will[229] which hath sent me,
that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing,
but should raise it up again at the last day.
40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that[230]
every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may
have everlasting life: and I will[231] raise him up at the
last day.
[229] chaps. 10:28; 17:12; 18:9; Matt. 18:14; 2 Tim.
2:19.
[230] verses 47, 54; ch. 3:15, 16.
[231] ch. 11:25.
=39, 40. And this is the will of him that sent me, that the all which
he has given me, from it I should lose nothing, but shall raise it up
in the last day.= In omitting the word Father from verse 39 and
inserting it in verse 40 I follow the best MSS. See _Alford_. The
resurrection here spoken of is the resurrection of life, _i. e._, unto
eternal life (ch. 5:29), which is given only through Christ (ch.
11:25; Phil. 3:10, 11).--=For this is the will of my Father, that
every one= (πᾶς, not πᾶν), masculine, not neuter; the _whole_ is given
to the Son; but each one must come by and for himself to the
Son.--=Seeing the Son.= Looking unto him, as those bitten in the
wilderness looked unto the brazen serpent (ch. 3:14, 15; Numb. 21:9;
Isa. 45:22).--=And having faith in him.= Making Christ the substance
of his hope as well as the object of his faith (Heb. 11:1; ver. 29,
note).--=May have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last
day.= These verses clearly imply (1) that there is nothing in any
secret decree or election of God, or in the nature or extent of the
provisions of divine grace, to limit the gift of eternal life or
prevent any one from receiving it through faith in the Son; (2) that
the only condition required is one inherent in the nature of the case,
namely, a sincere belief in, and desire for, that spiritual life which
alone is eternal and of which Christ is the supreme manifestation; (3)
that whoever has once thus looked to Christ with living faith has an
absolute assurance of preservation from the weakness of his own will,
as well as from external temptation, an assurance afforded by Christ’s
declaration, “Of all which he has given me I shall lose nothing.” It
does not imply a literal bodily resurrection. The literalism which so
reads this promise is akin to that which misinterpreted Christ’s
language respecting eating his flesh and drinking his blood. The whole
spirit and tone of this discourse is poetic and metaphorical.
41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the
bread which came down from heaven.
42 And they said, Is[232] not this Jesus, the son of
Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then
that he saith, I came down from heaven?
[232] Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3; Luke 4:22.
=41, 42. The Jews then murmured at him.= The _Jews_ are in the usage of
John the _Judeans_; here, those who had come from Jerusalem, or who,
dwelling in Galilee, partook of the character of the more bigoted and
superstitious dwellers in the southern province.--=Because he said, I
am the bread=, etc. Their reference is to what he has said in verses
33, 35, 38. Envy was the real cause of their murmuring. This claim to
superiority offended their pride.--=Is not this Jesus the son of
Joseph=, etc. Comp. ch. 7:27; Mark 6:3. The Christ they knew was the
Christ according to the flesh, whom Paul declared he would not know (2
Cor. 5:16); the Christ who came down from heaven, that is, the divine
Spirit working in him and manifesting itself through him, they
did not know. He is known and only can be known by spiritual
apprehension.--=How then saith this fellow= (λέγει οὗτος). There is
implied in the original Greek a contempt which may fairly be expressed
by this translation. The same expression is so translated in Matt.
12:24; 26:61; Luke 23:2; John 9:29.
43 Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not
among yourselves.
44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent
me draw[233] him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
[233] Cant. 1:4.
45 It is written[234] in the prophets, And they shall be
all taught of God. Every man[235] therefore that hath
heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.
[234] Isa. 54:13; Jer. 31:34; Micah 4:2.
[235] Matt. 11:27.
=43-45. Jesus therefore answered=, * * * * =No one= (not, _no man_)
=can come unto me except the Father which has sent me draw him=.
Parallel to this declaration is that of Matt. 16:17; the true
knowledge of Christ is revealed to the soul by the Father. There has
been much theological discussion as to the proper interpretation of
this passage. On the one hand, Calvin declares that “it is therefore a
false and profane assertion, that none are _drawn_ but those who are
willing to be _drawn_, as if man made himself obedient to God by his
own efforts; for the willingness with which men follow God is what
they already have from himself, who has framed their hearts to obey
him;” on the other hand, Adam Clark, representing the Arminian school
of theology, thus interprets the divine drawing: “A man is attracted
by that which he delights in. Show green herbage to a sheep, he is
drawn by it; show nuts to a child, and he is drawn by them. They run
wherever the person runs who shows these things; they run after him,
but they are not forced to follow; they run through the desire they
feel to get the things they delight in. So God draws man; he shows him
his wants--he shows the Saviour whom he has provided for him.” The
true interpretation of the declaration involves the long disputed and
yet unsettled problem of the psychology of the will, what is the
nature of and what are the limits to its freedom of action, a problem
which belongs rather to the domain of mental science than to that of
theology or Biblical interpretation. In interpreting this passage,
however, the student should consider: (1) the literal meaning of the
word draw (ἕλκω). This primarily carries with it the idea of force,
and is used by Homer of carrying one away captive; by Luke, of
dragging persons before a court (Acts 16:19; comp. James 2:6); and by
John himself of dragging a net (ch. 21:6, 11). Thus the metaphor
involved in the word implies at least a certain resistance to the
divine love and a certain difficulty to be overcome by the divine
drawing. (2) Parallel teachings in the O. T. and N. T. (comp. Sol.
Song 4:1; Jer. 31:3; Hos. 11:4; Luke 14:23, note; John 12:32; 1 Cor.
1:9), where the word _called_ is parallel to the word _draw_ here
(Phil. 2:12, 13). (3) Christ’s own interpretation of the Father’s
drawing, afforded by ver. 45. They that have learned of the Father are
they that are drawn by him. (4) The nature of that coming to Christ
which is the object of the divine drawing. “We do not come to Christ
by walking, but by believing; not by the movement of the body, but by
the free will of the heart. * * * * Think not that thou art drawn
against thy will, for the mind is drawn by love.”--(_Augustine._)
Interpreting this passage in the light of these considerations, I
understand not that God drags the unwilling by an irresistible grace,
nor merely the willing by placing before the will in its natural
condition such objects--a sense of its needs and a revelation of its
Saviour--as attract the unsatisfied heart to himself; but that he
makes the soul willing in the day of his power, working in us both to
will and to do of his good pleasure (Ps. 110:3; Phil. 2:13).--=It is
written in the prophets= (Isa. 54:13), =They shall be all taught of
God=. The _all_ here appears clearly from the reference in Isaiah to
be all the children of God, not all humanity.--=Every one, therefore,
hearing from the Father and learning, comes unto me.= Emphasis is
placed by the structure of the sentence in the original Greek on the
word _learning_. The Pharisees heard, but they did not learn. He that
does not reverently recognize the divine glory in the life and
character of Christ, who sees no beauty in him that he should desire
him, does not possess true piety, has not heard and learned of God.
46 Not[236] that any man hath seen the Father, save he
which is of God,[237] he hath seen the Father.
[236] ch. 5:37.
[237] Luke 10:22.
=46. Not that any one has seen the Father.= The object of this verse,
which is parenthetical, seems to be to guard the Jews against an
unspiritual interpretation of his words.--=Save he which is from God.=
Evidently Jesus refers to himself. Comp. ver. 35, and observe how
habitually he distinguishes himself from man, never classing himself
with men. “Imagine a human creature saying to the world, ‘I came forth
from the Father--ye are from beneath, I am from above;’ facing all the
intelligence and even the philosophy of the world, and saying, in bold
assurance, ‘Behold, a greater than Solomon is here’--‘I am the light
of the world’--‘the way, the truth, and the life;’ publishing to all
peoples and religions, ‘No man cometh to the Father, but by me;’
promising openly in his death, ‘I will draw all men unto me;’
addressing the Infinite Majesty, and testifying, ‘I have glorified
thee on the earth;’ calling to the human race, ‘Come unto me’--‘follow
me;’ laying his hand upon all the dearest and most intimate affections
of life, and demanding a precedent love: ‘He that loveth father or
mother more than me is not worthy of me.’”--(_Bushnell._)
47 Verily, verily, I say unto you,[238] He that believeth
on me hath everlasting life.
[238] verse 40.
48 I[239] am that bread of life.
[239] verses 33, 35, 51.
=47, 48. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hath faith hath
eternal life.= The words _on me_ are wanting in the best manuscripts,
are omitted by Tischendorf and Alford, and are queried by Schaff;
internal evidence is against them. The declaration is generic; faith
in the largest sense of that word--the power which lays hold upon the
invisible and the hope which reaches after it (Heb. 11:1), a faith
which may be and is exercised by those who have never known Christ
(Rom. 2:7), is the essential condition of spiritual life. This life is
not, as in our English version, merely “everlasting life,” but life
eternal, _i. e._, the spiritual life which is created in the soul when
it is born from above, which is nurtured in the soul that follows
after that it may apprehend Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:12), the fruits of
which are love, joy, peace, etc. (Gal. 5:22, 23). This eternal life is
a present possession; he that hath faith already hath this life.--=I
am the bread of that life.= Faith may exist without Christ, as it did
in the O. T. prophets and patriarchs, and as it does in greater or
less measure in some at least of those in heathen lands; but Christ is
the bread of that life; by him it is fed, strengthened, and made to
grow; by him faith in invisible things is made rich and strong. The
universal effect of a pure Christianity has been to turn the mind away
from material things to unseen realities (2 Cor. 3:18).
49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and[240]
are dead.
[240] Zech. 1:5.
50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a
man may eat thereof, and[241] not die.
[241] verse 58.
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: it
any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the
bread that I will give is my flesh,[242] which I will give
for the life[243] of the world.
[242] Heb. 10:5, 10, 20.
[243] ch. 3:16; 1 John 2:2.
=49-51.= In these verses Christ marks the contrast between the bread
given in the wilderness through Moses, to which the people had referred
(ver. 31), and for a repetition of which they had asked, and the
spiritual bread of which this material manna was but a type. That manna
was temporary in its effects, the fathers were dead, of this spiritual
bread if one eats he shall _not_ die, it is eternal in its effects;
that bread was material, dead, this is a living and immortal bread;
that was given to a few, the Jewish nation, this descends from heaven,
that any one may eat of it, it is for universal humanity; that bread
was bestowed without suffering, this bread is a divine sacrifice given
for the sake of saving others from suffering.--=This= (fellow) =is the
bread=. They had said (ver. 42), “How then saith this fellow?” He
replies, repeating their language of contempt, This (fellow, οὗτός) is
the bread which descends from heaven. Observe that his language here,
as throughout this discourse, implies his pre-existence, if not his
supernatural birth.--=In order that any one may eat of it and may not
die.= Not merely “that one may eat;” his language, “that any one may
eat,” implies the universality of divine grace; the bread is for
whosoever will.--=I am the living bread.= Not equivalent to
life-giving, for which another Greek word (not ζόω, but ζοωποιέω)
would have been used. Here, as in John 4:10, is signified the
spiritual life of the food itself which Christ affords by the bestowal
of himself. It is true that Christ is life-giving, but he is so
because he is ever-living. He _is_ the life, therefore he _gives_
life.--=If any one eat of this bread.= Again the universality of
divine grace is implied. Comp. Acts 2:38, 39, note and refs.
there.--=He shall live unto eternity.= Not merely _forever_. The idea
here, as everywhere throughout the N. T., is not merely an endless
existence, which might be no boon, but an immortal, a divine life, the
very life of God, making the new-born soul a true son of God.--=And
the bread which I will give.= Observe the future tense. He speaks
therefore of a gift yet to be perfected by his passion and death.--=Is
my flesh, which I will give for the sake of= (ὑπὲρ) =the life of the
world=. Comp. ch. 3:16. It seems to me that these enigmatical words
are added to guard the church from falling into the error of supposing
that Christ’s _doctrine_ is the bread of life, and that to hear and
believe his words as a divine teacher is to secure the life eternal of
which he speaks. This bread is not merely the teaching nor the example
of Christ; the sacrifice is an essential principle of that spiritual
food which he has provided for the world’s life.
52 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying,
How[244] can this man give us _his_ flesh to eat?
[244] ch. 3:9.
=52. How can this= (fellow) =give us his flesh to eat=? The Judeans
here interpret Christ’s words with precisely the literalism with which
the church of Rome has interpreted them since. The rest of the
discourse Christ devotes to guarding his hearers against this
misapprehension of literal and prosaic natures, and to emphasizing the
mystical doctrine to the elucidation of which the whole discourse is
devoted. Verses 53-55 reiterate and re-emphasize the truth that the
soul must feed on Christ, receive him, his life, his death, his
character, as the supply of its own spiritual life; verses 57-59 and
verses 61-63 interpret what he means by the metaphor. In the
interpretation of Christ’s symbolic language here we are to guard
ourselves against simplifying it, either by a literal rendering on the
one hand, or, on the other, by that process of rationalism which,
under pretence of interpreting a metaphor, does away with it
altogether. If there were nothing mystical in the doctrine, we may be
sure that Christ would not have clothed it in language seemingly so
full of mysticism.
53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto
you, Except[245] ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and
drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
[245] Matt. 26:26, 28.
54 Whoso[246] eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath
eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
[246] verse 40.
55 For my flesh is meat indeed,[247] and my blood is drink
indeed.
[247] Ps. 4:7.
=53-55. Therefore Jesus said unto them.= Therefore connects what
follows with what has preceded; he emphasizes and explains the eating
and drinking, in response to their interruption in ver. 53.--=Verily,
verily, I say unto you.= These words give a solemn emphasis to the
declaration which follows.--=Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of
man.= That is, of the Messiah (Matt. 10:23, note).--=And drink his
blood.= The use of animal blood in any form was prohibited to the
Israelites as food (Gen. 9:4; Lev. 3:17; 7:26, 27; 17:10-14; 19:26;
Deut. 12:16, 23; 15:23), and was exceedingly odious to the Jewish
thought. Moreover, to touch even the corpse of a man rendered the Jew
unclean. It is not, therefore, strange that Christ’s language here
should have offended many even of his disciples (ver. 60).--=Ye have
no life in you.= The mere physical life is accounted in the N. T. no
life at all. The true life is that of God in the soul, the absence of
which is death.--=Whoso eateth my flesh.= The Greek verb rendered in
both places _eat_ is different from that used above. The word here
(τρώγω) signifies literally to _chew_ or _masticate_, and seems to me
to have been substituted by Christ for the more general one (φαγεῖν),
in order to add still further emphasis to the doctrine which he is
expounding.--=And drinketh my blood, hath eternal life.= A present
possession. See ver. 47, note.--=And I will raise him up at the last
day.= This is one of the passages on which the advocates of the
doctrine of conditional immortality base their belief. The promise of
resurrection here certainly is limited to those who through faith have
received the gift of eternal life.--=For my flesh is true meat and my
blood is true drink.= To Christ the material universe was but a
shadow, and the realities were those things of which the material
universe is a type. “Food and drink are not here mere metaphors;
rather are our common material food and drink mere shadows and
imperfect types of this only real reception of refreshment and
nourishment into the being.”--(_Alford._) In the interpretation of
Christ’s language here, the student must remember the declaration
respecting him, “Without a parable spake he not unto them” (Mark
4:34); unquestionably the language here is parabolic. It is also true
that the phrases eating and drinking were used among the Jews in a
metaphorical sense, and that bread especially was employed among them
as a symbol for doctrine (Isa. 3:1; Jer. 15:16; Lightfoot on John
6:51; Geikie’s Life of Christ, ch. 44, note c). It seems to me,
however, very clear not only that Christ here means something more
than receiving his doctrines, but that he employs his peculiar
language for the express purpose of emphasizing the truth that it is
not merely enough to receive him as a teacher. If this had been his
meaning, it would have been easy to correct the misapprehension of his
Jewish hearers, and remove the offence which they felt at his
discourse. This he does not do. On the contrary, he declares, not that
they must eat the _bread_ of the Son of man, but that they must eat
_his flesh_ and drink _his blood_ (ver. 53); in a slightly different
form, he reiterates this declaration in ver. 54; and finally, to avoid
the possibility of the misinterpretation which substitutes his
teaching for his personal presence and influence, he adds the emphatic
declaration of ver. 55. If something more than accepting and following
the teaching of Christ is not meant by these verses, then it would
seem that Christ has embodied a very simple truth in very
unnecessarily mystical language. That more than this is meant I take
to be declared unmistakably by verses 53-55; what more than this is
meant it is the object of verses 56-58 to show. The commentators have
discussed at great length the question what relation the solemn
assertions of these verses bear to the Lord’s Supper. There are three
general opinions: (1) that no reference to the Lord’s Supper is
intended; (2) that the whole passage exclusively relates to the Lord’s
Supper prophetically; (3) that the idea involved in the Lord’s Supper,
but not the ordinance itself, is referred to. For discussion of these
opinions, see Alford’s note. To me it seems clear that Christ here
teaches by a word-parable the same truth which he subsequently
embodies in a parable in action in the ordinance of the Supper;
whether he prophetically refers to it or not is a question of no great
importance.
56 He that eateth[248] my flesh, and drinketh my blood,
dwelleth[249] in me, and I in him.
[248] Lam. 3:24.
[249] ch. 15:4; 1 John 3:24; 4:15, 16.
57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the
Father: so[250] he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
[250] 1 Cor. 15:22.
58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as
your fathers[251] did eat manna, and are dead: he that
eateth of this bread shall live for ever.
[251] verses 49-51.
=56-58. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abides= (μένω)
=in me and I in him=. This result of the eating and drinking
interprets the kind of eating and drinking signified. The same truth
is elsewhere interpreted by other metaphors, ask by that of being
engrafted on Christ (John 15:4, 5); being rooted in him (Ephes. 3:17);
being joined to him as the body to the head (Ephes. 4:15, 16); being
married to him (Ephes. 5:23); receiving him as a temple receives and
is made sacred by the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 3:16); being clothed with
him (Rom. 13:14; Gal. 3:27).--=And I in him.= As Christ is in the
Father and the Father in Christ, so the disciples are to be one in
them (John 17:21).--=As the living Father hath sent me and I live by
the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.= This one
verse should have prevented the three current errors of interpretation
in this chapter: (1) that spiritual life is dependent on a literal
feeding on Christ’s body and blood; (2) that it is dependent on a
sacramental feeding on the sacred symbols of his body; (3) that it
requires only a belief in him as a religious teacher. How did Christ
live by the Father? Certainly not by any literal eating of the
Father’s flesh or drinking of the Father’s blood; nor by any symbol or
ceremonial whatever; nor yet by any mere hearing and obeying of the
Father’s words. The Father was personally present in Christ; Christ,
by his words and his acts, manifested the indwelling glory of the
Father; so Christ fed on the Father because the Father was the source
and supply of his spiritual life. In like manner we feed on Christ,
not when we merely accept and endeavor to follow his precepts, but
when, under the direct personal influence of his spiritual presence,
we manifest his glory unto the world, having not merely a spirit like
Christ, but having the very spirit of Christ himself in us (Rom. 8:9,
10).--=This is that bread which came down from heaven.= Christ thus
interprets his own previous metaphor.--=Not as your fathers did eat
and are dead.= Again he guards the Jews against their literal
interpretation; the eating of which he has spoken is not the physical
eating for the supply of the body; this can never give true life.
After this chapter had gone to press a remarkable article from the pen
of Dean Stanley appeared on “The Eucharist” in the Nineteenth Century
(May, 1878), in which he arrives at substantially the same conclusions
that I have arrived at in these notes, and enforces them with his
usual eloquence and learning. He urges that in all religious
ordinances we ought to try to get beneath the phrases we use, and not
to rest satisfied with the words, however excellent, till we have
ascertained their meaning; that Christ’s words here and in the
appointment of the last supper as a permanent memorial ordinance are
evidently metaphorical; that the very strangeness of the metaphor
should turn our thoughts from the outward form to the inward essence;
that the body and flesh signify the personality and character of
Christ; that we must incorporate in ourselves, that is in our
moral natures, the substance--the moral substance--of the teaching
and character of Jesus Christ; that this is the only true
transubstantiation; that the blood of Christ is his spirit, the inmost
essence of his character, the self of his self; and that to drink his
blood is to imbibe this inmost spirit; that this spirit is love or
charity, which is throughout the New Testament represented as the
fundamental essence of the highest life of God, and therefore of his
children; and he interprets verses 53-56 here, in accordance with
these principles, as follows: “This is one of those startling
expressions used by Christ to show us that he intends to drive us from
the letter to the spirit, by which he shatters the crust and shell in
order to force us to the kernel. It is as if he said: ‘It is not
enough for you to see the outward face of the Son of man, or hear his
outward words, or touch his outward vesture. That is not himself. It
is not enough that you walk by his side, or hear others talk of him or
use terms of affection and endearment toward him. You must go deeper
than this; you must go to his very inmost heart, to the very core and
marrow of his being. You must not only read and understand, but you
must mark, learn, and inwardly digest, and make part of yourselves,
that which alone can be part of the human spirit and conscience.’ It
expresses, with regard to the life and death of Jesus Christ, the same
general truth as is expressed when St. Paul says, ‘Put ye on the Lord
Jesus Christ’--that is, clothe yourselves with his spirit as with a
garment; or again, ‘Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ
Jesus.’ It is the same general truth as when our Lord himself says, ‘I
am the vine; ye are the branches.’”
59 These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in
Capernaum.
60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard
_this_, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
=59, 60. In the synagogue.= I believe the whole discourse to have
been delivered in the synagogue. See Prel. Note above.--=Many of his
disciples.= Not of the twelve, but of those who had been theretofore
inclined to accept him as a teacher.--=This is a hard saying.= Rather,
_an impious saying_, or at least hard in the sense of harsh and
repulsive, rather than in that of merely difficult. To the Jews then,
as to the world ever since, a system of religion which proposes an
amelioration of condition only by a revolution of moral character, by
a new and divine life, seemed not only not attractive, but
repellent.--=Who can hear it?= That is, Who can stay and listen to
such teaching as this?
61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured
at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?
62 _What_ and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend[252] up
where he was before?
[252] ch. 3:13; Mark 16:19; Ephes. 4:8-10.
63 It[253] is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh
profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, _they_
are spirit, and _they_ are life.
[253] 2 Cor. 3:6.
=61-63. When Jesus knew in himself.= Either miraculously or by a subtle
sense which the delicately organized often possess.--=Doth this offend
you?= _Stumble you._ See Matt. 5:29, note; 11:6, note. The teaching of
the disciple, as the teaching of Christ, will sometimes be to men a
stumbling-stone and a rock of offence.--=What and if ye shall see the
Son of man ascend up where he was before?= Another admonition that
they are not to take his words in a material sense, for in his
glorified body he is to ascend into heaven before their sight. The
language is a strong testimony to the historical verity of the
ascension.--=The spirit is the life-giver, the flesh profiteth nothing
whatsoever=; _i. e._, It is my spirit in your spirit which will give
eternal life, not my flesh in your flesh. This is the natural meaning
of these words, and they are to be taken in their material sense, not
with such qualifications as that of Augustine, “The flesh alone and by
itself profiteth not,” _i. e._, without the blessing of the spirit; or
such as that of Alford, “He does not say _my_ flesh profiteth nothing,
but _the_ flesh.” _The_ flesh is _my_ flesh; for it is only of his own
flesh that he has spoken at all in this discourse. The flesh of
Christ, if it could be miraculously reproduced by the benediction of a
priest, would still be of no profit.--=The words which I have spoken
to you, they are spirit and they are life.= The meaning is not that
Christ’s words are themselves life-giving, though this is true; but
that the words which he has just spoken to them respecting his flesh
and his blood relate to the spiritual realm and the eternal life, and
are to be so interpreted.
64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus
knew[254] from the beginning who they were that believed
not, and who should betray him.
[254] Rom. 8:29; 2 Tim. 2:19.
65 And he said, Therefore said I[255] unto you, that no
man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my
Father.
[255] verses 44, 45.
=64, 65. But there are some among you who have not faith.= Such could
not receive the teaching of Christ, for it is true in spiritual as in
physical gifts, according to one’s faith, so is Christ’s blessing
(Matt. 9:29).--=For Jesus knew from the beginning=, etc. Compare this
distinct statement of Christ’s foreknowledge with Christ’s own
statement of the limitations of his knowledge in Mark 13:32. The
contrast illustrates one of the inexplicable mysteries of Christ’s
nature, whose knowledge transcended that of man, yet in his earthly
condition was less than that of omniscience. To the question, Why, if
he foreknew the betrayal of Judas, did he ordain him as an apostle?
there is no satisfactory answer. The problem of divine foreknowledge
and human free-will, of that divine law the inflexibility of which
science has in these later days so strikingly demonstrated, and that
freedom of moral action to which universal consciousness testifies, is
one which transcends the limits of the human intellect.--=Therefore
said I unto you that no one can come unto me except it were given unto
him of my Father.= Judas and the withdrawing disciples had, in a
sense, come unto him; they had followed him, accepted him as their
Master, and had given him for a time their allegiance. Yet they had
not really come to him, for no one truly comes except he is drawn by a
divine influence. _Therefore_ connects the declaration of ver. 44 with
the fact here stated that some of the disciples were without true
faith. The practical warning to us here is this, that we have need to
examine ourselves that we may know whether our coming to Christ has
been merely that of a natural inclination or that of obedience to the
impulse of the Spirit of God.
66 From that _time_ many of his disciples went back,[256]
and walked no more with him.
[256] Zeph. 1:6; Luke 9:62; Heb. 10:38.
67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
=66, 67. From this many of his disciples went back.= _From this_
indicates both, as the English version represents, the _time_ from
which this withdrawal dated, and also the _cause_ from which it
proceeded. Observe that faithful preaching will drive some apparent
disciples away from Christ. The minister, like his Master, will ever
have the fan in his hand, and the gospel which he preaches will in
some measure separate the chaff from the grain. This was illustrated
in the experience of the apostle Paul. See Acts 13:44-46; 14:4; 17:12,
13, etc. “It will never be possible for us to exercise such caution
that the doctrine of Christ shall not be the occasion of offence to
many; because the reprobate, who are devoted to destruction, suck
venom from the most wholesome food and gall from honey. The Son of God
undoubtedly knew what was useful, and yet we see that he cannot avoid
offending many of his disciples.”--(_Calvin._)--=Then said Jesus also
to the twelve, Ye do not also wish to go away?= The tone is one of
pathetic protest; the language that of one who felt keenly the
desertion, and yearned for an expression of the fidelity of his
immediate friends, not as an assurance, for he knew from the beginning
who believed not, and therefore who believed and would endure, but as
an utterance of loyalty and love. At the same time he leads them to a
confession which draws them more closely and binds them more tenderly
to himself.
68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we
go? thou hast the[257] words of eternal life.
[257] Acts 5:20; 7:38.
69 And [258]we believe and are sure that thou art that
Christ, the Son of the living God.
[258] chaps. 1:29; 11:27; Matt. 16:16.
=68, 69. Then Simon Peter answered.= As in Matt. 16:16, he speaks
quickly, for all.--=Lord, to whom shall we go?= To go away from
Christ is to go out even here into the darkness; unto loneliness,
hopelessness, despair.--=Thou hast the words of eternal life.= As
Martha’s utterance of her faith in John 11:27, so Peter’s declaration
here is not wholly responsive to the discourse that has preceded. He
does not fully comprehend the meaning of that personal feeding on
Christ of which the Lord has been speaking; but he believes that
Christ’s words, though he does not fully understand them, are words
of, that is full of, eternal life, and that he is the Messiah and the
Son of God. And in this faith he is content to await humbly till the
full meaning of Christ’s enigmatical discourse shall be revealed to
him, as it could not be till Christ’s death, resurrection, and
ascension, and the descent of the Holy Spirit.
70 Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and
one of you is a[259] devil?
[259] ch. 13:27.
71 He spake of Judas Iscariot _the son_ of Simon: for he it
was that should betray him, being one of the twelve.
=70, 71. Have not I chosen you twelve?= Chosen them, not to be heirs
of eternal life, but to be apostles; in the inner circle of his
disciples; receiving his most sacred influence and intimate
instruction.--=And one of you is a devil.= Not _the_ devil; not merely
_devilish_; but belonging to the kingdom of the devil; one of his
ministers and agents. To Christ all men belong to either the one or
the other kingdom. He here, as it were, looks forward to the time when
Judas should have gone to his own place, forecasts his future, and
characterizes him in the present by what he is to be when the germinal
sin, now in him, has brought forth its final fruit. On the character
of Judas Iscariot, see Vol. I, p. 307, Note on character and career of
Judas Iscariot.
CHAPTER VII.
Ch. 7:1-52. JESUS AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. THE DEMAND OF THE
UNBELIEVER FOR AN EXHIBITORY CHRIST.--THE WORLD NEVER READY FOR ITS
REFORMERS AND REGENERATORS; ALWAYS READY FOR THOSE WHO HAVE FOR IT
NO MESSAGE.--THE TRUE AUTHORITY AND ORDINATION OF THE CHRISTIAN
TEACHER.--LAY PREACHING SANCTIONED BY THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST.--THE LAW
OF THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH AND THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN JUDGMENT.--WHENCE
CHRIST COMETH; WHITHER HE GOETH.--THE POWER OF FAITH: TO RECEIVE; TO
IMPART.--THE MORAL POWER OF CHRIST ILLUSTRATED.
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--Between the close of ch. 6 and the beginning of ch.
7 occurred a period of retirement, employed by Christ in giving to his
apostles especial instructions concerning the kingdom of God. The
fullest account of these instructions is afforded in Matthew, chaps.
15, 16, 17, 18. During this time occurred the healing of the
Syrophenician woman’s daughter and the transfiguration. The public
ministry of Christ in Galilee was substantially brought to an end by
his sermon in the synagogue at Capernaum and his consequent rejection
by the people. The ministry in Judea begins with this chapter and
continues to ver. 39 of the tenth chapter, verses 40-42 affording a
concise statement of that ministry in Perea, of which Luke alone gives
any extended account. The journey to Jerusalem mentioned below (ver.
10) is, I think erroneously, identified by some harmonists with that
described by Luke, ch. 9:51, 52. That journey was immediately before
his passion, and was notably public, messengers going before his face
to prepare the way for him; this was “as it were in secret,” and six
months of instruction in Judea and Perea intervened between it and his
death. See Luke 9:51-56, Prel. Note, and Tabular Harmony, Vol. I, p.
45.
1 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would
not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.
[Illustration: BOOTH ON THE HOUSETOP.]
2 Now the Jews’ feast[260] of tabernacles was at hand.
[260] Lev. 23:34.
3 His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and
go into Judæa, that thy disciples also may see the works
that thou doest.
4 For _there is_ no man _that_ doeth anything in secret,
and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these
things, shew thyself to the world.
=2-4. Now the Jews’ feast of Tabernacles was at hand.= This was one of
the three greater festivals to be observed by Israel. It was also
called the feast of Ingathering, from the fact that it was held at the
year’s end, when all the labors of the field were consummated. It thus
resembled nearly our own Thanksgiving Day. It commenced on the
fifteenth of the seventh month, answering to our October, and lasted
seven days. It was instituted to commemorate the dwelling in tents
when in the desert; accordingly, while the feast lasted the people
dwelt in booths or tents placed on the flat roofs of the houses, in
the courts of the temple, and in the squares and open places, and the
streets when their width allowed. The particular sacrifices to be
offered are detailed in Num. 29:1-38, and notices of the observance
are to be found in Neh. 8:13-18; Hos. 12:9; Zech. 14:16-19.--=His
brethren.= Their names are given in Matt. 13:55. I believe his half
brothers, children of Joseph and Mary, are intended. See Note on
Brethren of the Lord, Vol. I, p. 187.--=That thy disciples also may
see the works that thou doest.= This was after the commission, the
missionary tour, and the return of the twelve (Matt., ch. 10), through
whose ministry probably many had become in a certain loose sense
disciples of our Lord, regarding him as a Jewish rabbi, and perhaps as
an inspired prophet, who had never seen him personally. The language
of Christ’s brothers is that of contempt. Leave this province, said
they, and go up into Judea, the religious centre of the Holy Land, and
show yourself to those who have heard of you, and exhibit to them what
you can do. Additional significance is given to this language if we
remember that it was used after a period of retirement of more than
six months. See above.--=For no one does anything in secret, and yet
seeks himself to be frank and open= (ἐν παῤῥησίᾳ). The intimation is
that the reason why Jesus does not make more public exhibition of
himself and his work is that he is deceiving the people. His brothers
attempt to compel him to adopt their policy by imputing to him,
because of his course, a lack of frankness and fearlessness.--=If thou
do these things, show thyself to the world.= _If_ implies a doubt. In
a worldly view the policy of these brothers would seem wise; but it
was really, in a more subtle form, the policy suggested by Satan in
the second temptation (Matt. 4:5-7). Christ would be accepted by faith
and love, not by wonder and fear; for the sake of his truth, not
because of his miracles. These he persistently refused to show to the
world as a means of compelling allegiance.
5 For neither did his brethren[261] believe in him.
[261] Mark 3:21.
=5. For neither had his brethren faith in him.= This verse seems to me
quite conclusive that none of the brethren here mentioned were among
the twelve, and therefore that James, Simon, and Judas, the brethren
of the Lord, cannot be the apostles who bore the same name. They
afterward became believers (Acts 1:14; 1 Cor. 9:5). They may at this
time have recognized that Jesus possessed extraordinary powers,
without recognizing in him the Messiah, or even an inspired teacher,
whose instructions they were willing to follow. “They expected him to
make a startling exhibition of his power to the eye. They did not
believe in HIM; for faith rests upon that which is not seen; it
confesses an inward vital power.”--(_Maurice._)
6 Then Jesus said unto them, My[262] time is not yet come:
but your time is alway ready.
[262] verses 8, 30; chaps. 2:4; 8:20.
7 The[263] world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because
I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.
[263] ch. 15:19.
8 Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this
feast; for my time is not yet full come.
9 When he had said these words unto them, he abode _still_
in Galilee.
=6-9. My time is not yet; but your time is always prepared.= The
context indicates the meaning. They had urged him to show himself to
the world; his answer is, My time to show myself to the world is not
yet. This manifestation of himself is gradual and successive; he
partially manifested himself in the discourse delivered in Jerusalem
at this very feast (see vers. 16, 18, 28, 29, 37, 38); more fully by
his subsequent discourses in the temple during the Passion week
(Matthew, chaps. 21, 22, 23); still more fully by his crucifixion, in
which was disclosed that love which is the wisdom and power of God
unto salvation (1 Cor. 1:24), and in which, even at the time and by
the manner of his death, his divine Sonship was revealed to the Roman
centurion (Mark 15:39); yet again by his resurrection from the dead
(Acts 2:32-36; 3:15); increasingly in the ages since, by his personal
presence and power in the church (Matt. 28:18, 20; Rom. 1:3, 4); a
manifestation to be finally consummated when he is revealed from
heaven in his second coming (Matt. 24:27; Col. 3:4; 2 Thess. 1:7). For
this final coming the church is ever preparing the world, casting up a
highway for him; and not till this highway is completed and he comes
again shall all flesh see the salvation of God (Luke 3:4-6). The time
of his brothers was always prepared; for the world is always ready for
him who has no message for it. “If I,” said Luther, “would speak what
the Papists like to hear, I would be very glad, too, to take lodgings
with the Bishop of Magdeburg at Rome.” “The Son of man feels all the
difference between those whose time was always ready, who could go up
to the feasts whenever it pleased them, merely with the expectation of
meeting friends and mixing in a crowd, and him who had the straitening
consciousness of a message which he must bear, of a baptism which he
must be baptized with.”--(_Maurice._)--=The world cannot hate you=,
etc. Comp. chaps. 15:18; 17:14; 1 John 3:13; Luke 6:26. He that would
preach the gospel of salvation to the world must first testify of it
that its deeds are evil. The Holy Spirit convinces the world of
righteousness only after convincing it of sin (John 16:8, 9). For
illustrations of Christ’s preaching against the works of the world,
see Matt. 5:20; 6:1, 2, 5, 16; 7:22; 11:16-24; 12:39-15; Luke 6:46;
10:12-16; 11:45-54; 12:54-57, etc. A study of the preaching of Christ
and the apostles, and of the writings of Paul, will show that the
divine method is always to convince of sin as a preparation for
proclaiming the good news of salvation from it.--=I go not unto this
feast.= The word yet is not in the original, though it probably
correctly interprets the real meaning of Christ’s answer. This was
not, =I shall not go= (future), but, =I am not now going= (present).
Perhaps Christ did not know whether he should go or not; he who acted
constantly under the guidance of the Divine Spirit may not have
received guidance on this point. It would at all events have defeated
his purpose to have gone up with those who were determined that he
should make an exhibition of himself and his work. There is no ground
for either the reproach that he deceived his brethren, or that he
acted in a fickle manner in subsequently going up to the feast.
10 But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up
unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.
11 Then[264] the Jews sought him at the feast, and said,
Where is he?
[264] ch. 11:56.
12 And[265] there was much murmuring among the people
concerning him: for some said, He is a good man: others
said, Nay; but he deceiveth the people.
[265] ch. 9:16.
13 Howbeit, no man spake openly of him, for fear of the
Jews.
=10-13. Not openly, but as it were in secret.= Not _secretly_, but _as
if_ in secret, that is, quietly, unostentatiously, _incognito_, in
contrast to the way in which his brothers wished him to go up. “Not in
the company of a caravan of pilgrims or in any other way of outward
observation, but so that the journey to that feast is represented as
made in secrecy, and consequently quite differently from his last entry
at the feast of the Passover.”--(_Meyer._) The description of this
journey to Jerusalem renders it improbable that it is to be identified
with the journey described in Luke 9:51, 52. See Prel. Note.--=Then
the Jews sought him.= By the _Jews_ John generally if not invariably
means the inhabitants of Judea, in contradistinction to the other
inhabitants of the Holy Land. See ch. 6:41, note.--=Where is that
fellow= (ἐκεῖνος)? The language is derisive. “Thus contemptuously can
they speak of the man, that they cannot name him.”--(_Luther._)--=And
there was much murmuring.= The original (γογγυσμός) implies suppressed
discourse.--=Some indeed said.= The Greek particle which I have
rendered _indeed_ (μέν) implies a concession, at the same time
pointing forward to something antithetic. The implication is that
among the Judeans the believers were a minority.--=No! but he
deceiveth the people.= He that is popular with the multitude is
generally looked upon with aversion by the hierarchy.--=No one spoke
openly.= “Both mistrusted the hierarchy; even those hostile in their
judgment were afraid, so long as they had not given their official
decision, that their verdict might be reversed. A true indication of
an utterly Jesuitical domination of the people.”--(_Meyer._) Hostility
to Christianity fears nothing so much as free discussion; and it quite
accords with human nature that the consideration of Christ’s claims by
the people at all should be dreaded by the priesthood. The
interpretation of Alford, Godet, Tholuck, and others, that only the
friends of Christ feared to speak openly, is in direct conflict with
the explicit language of the narrative. Maurice pictures the scene
well: “It is a hum of voices. There is a fear of something, the people
do not well know of what. It is a fear of the Jews; the apostle says
each fears the other. There is a concentrated Jewish feeling in the
Sanhedrim, among the rulers, which all tremble at. Till that has been
pronounced--above all, while there is a suspicion that it will come
forth in condemnation--it is not wise for any to commit themselves.
Brethren, do we not know that this is a true story? Must it not have
happened in Jerusalem then, for would it not happen in London now?”
14 Now about the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the
temple, and taught.
15 And[266] the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this
man letters, having never learned?
[266] Matt. 13:54.
=14, 15. About the midst of the feast.= Bengel calculates that on this
year the middle of the feast would be the Sabbath; the temple would in
that case be especially crowded, and the day would suggest the remarks
respecting the Sabbath.--=Jesus went up into the temple and taught.=
He came to Judea privately, he went into the temple publicly; he would
not exhibit himself, he would not conceal his doctrine.--=And the
Judeans marvelled, saying.= The form of the question which follows
indicates a hostile spirit; but it may have been raised, not by the
scribes or teachers (_Meyer_, _Alford_), but by the people
(_Tholuck_).--=How knoweth this fellow learning, never having been
taught?= “A rule analogous to that which still prevails in most church
communions forbade any rabbi to teach new truths except he was a
regular graduate of one of the theological schools. He might
catechise, but he could not preach. This rule the Jews cited against
Jesus. ‘How,’ said they contemptuously, ‘does this man know anything
of sacred literature, being no graduate?’”--(_Abbott’s Jesus of
Nazareth._) _Letters_ (γράμμα) is here the sacred writings of the
Jews, _i. e._, the sacred Scriptures and the comments thereon. This
question affords the key to the interpretation of the discourse which
follows, which is upon the authority, primarily of Christ, secondarily
of every Christian teacher, an authority derived, not from theological
schools or clerical ordination, but from the indwelling Spirit of God.
Christ was himself a “lay preacher;” his example and his precept alike
sanction unordained preaching.
16 Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not[267]
mine, but his that sent me.
[267] chaps. 8:28; 12:49.
17 If[268] any man will do his will, he shall know of the
doctrine, whether it be of God, or _whether_ I speak of
myself.
[268] ch. 8:43.
=16, 17. My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me.= For
_doctrine_ read _teaching_; for not merely the subject-matter taught,
but the power with which it was presented, was divine. _My teaching is
not mine_ is not a hyperbole. It is not merely equivalent to “not
acquired by any labor on my part in learning” (_Bengel_), or “not an
invention of my own” (_Geikie_). Neither in origin nor in aim was
Christ’s teaching his own. Ever about his Father’s business, he was
ever teaching his Father’s words and doing his Father’s works (ch.
5:19, 30). In a sense every true Christian teacher should be able to
repeat this saying of Christ (chaps. 14:26; 16:13). It does not follow
that the Christian teacher need not be a Christian student; but it
does follow that he should be a student only of those things which
enable him better to understand and interpret the Father’s will and
nature. Only so far as schools of theological thought help him to do
this are they truly Christian schools.--=If any one wills to do his
will, he shall know concerning the teaching, whether it be of God or
whether I speak of myself.= An often misunderstood declaration. The
promise is not that if any man does God’s will all theology shall be
made clear to him, nor even that he shall be brought to a correct
apprehension of the most important truths of the Christian system. The
last clause qualifies the first; the declaration is that if any man
purposes to do God’s will, _makes that his ultimate and supreme
choice_ (1 Tim. 6:11-16), he shall know respecting Christianity
_whether it is of divine or human origin_. The declaration is both a
promise and the enunciation of a spiritual law. The purpose to do
God’s will itself clarifies the spiritual sight, so that the soul
recognizes the Spirit of God in the life, the character, and the
teachings of his Son. The degree of advancement which one subsequently
makes in comprehending the full significance of those teachings will
depend partly upon the purity of his spiritual purposes, but partly
upon other conditions. Not the mere outward obedience to God’s
commandments, but a true spiritual purpose, is declared to be the
condition of spiritual light; and to that purpose is attached, not a
promise of _all_ light, but only of so much as will enable the soul to
know the source from which it may obtain constantly increasing
illumination. Nevertheless, the first step toward the solution of any
theological difficulty whatever, is repentance of sin and practical
obedience to the voice of God in the soul. Except a man be born again
he cannot _see_ the kingdom of God.
18 He[269] that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory:
but he that[270] seeketh his glory that sent him, the same
is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.
[269] ch. 8:50.
[270] Prov. 25:27.
19 Did not Moses[271] give you the law, and _yet_ none[272]
of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill[273] me?
[271] John 1:17; Gal. 3:19.
[272] Rom. 3:10-19.
[273] ch. 5:16, 18; Matt. 12:14.
=18, 19. He that speaketh from himself seeketh his own glory.= _From_
(ἀπό) represents the remote cause; _out of_ (ἐκ) represents the more
immediate cause. The former refers to what is general, the latter to
what is special. See _Rob. Lex._, ἀπό. Every Christian teacher must
speak _out of_ himself, _i. e._, out of his own experience of truth
internally possessed and become a part of his nature; but no Christian
teacher may speak, _from_ himself, _i. e._, of his own notions and by
his own authority. The inward experience out of which he speaks is
powerful only as it is derived from the Spirit of God. Egotism is the
natural expression of him who speaks from himself, and has not the
rhetorical skill to conceal the inherent weakness.--=But he
that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no
unrighteousness is in him.= This is a general proposition. In so far
as any one seeks the divine glory he is preserved both from error and
from unrighteousness (Rom. 8:1, 2; 1 John 1:5, 7; 3:6). Christ is the
only one who is absolutely true, and in whom is no unrighteousness,
because he is the only one in whom there is no self-seeking.--=Did not
Moses give you the law=, etc. The connection is well given by Alford:
“There is a close connection with the foregoing. The will to do his
will was to be the great key to a true appreciation of his teaching;
but of this there was no example among _them_; and therefore it was
that they were no fair judges of the teaching, but bitter opponents
and persecutors of Jesus, of whom, had they been anxious to fulfil the
law, they would have been earnest and humble disciples” (ch.
5:46).--=Why go ye about to kill me?= The reference is to the purposed
assassination at a previous visit to Jerusalem (ch. 5:18), a purpose
from which the Pharisees had evidently not relented (ch. 7:1).
20 The people answered and said,[274] Thou hast a devil:
who goeth about to kill thee?
[274] ch. 8:48.
21 Jesus answered and said unto them, I have done one work,
and ye all marvel.
22 Moses[275] therefore gave unto you circumcision; (not
because it is of Moses, but[276] of the fathers;) and ye on
the sabbath day circumcise a man.
[275] Lev. 12:3.
[276] Gen. 17:10.
23 If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that
the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me,
because[277] I have made a man every whit whole on the
sabbath day?
[277] ch. 5:8.
24 Judge[278] not according to the appearance, but judge
righteous judgment.
[278] Deut. 1:16, 17.
=20-24. Thou hast a devil; who goeth about to kill thee?= It is evident
from ver. 25 that some of his auditors knew the secret design which had
been formed for Christ’s assassination. Their language here is that
of foulest abuse. I judge then that they were startled by Christ’s
sudden revealing of the secret designs against him; and with that
inconsistency which is common to the self-condemned, they in the same
sentence denied that his death had been compassed, and implied that the
fact that it was compassed had been disclosed to him by an evil spirit
which possessed him.--=Jesus answered * * * * I have done one work,
and ye all marvel.= The work referred to is that described in the
fifth chapter of John, the only miracle in Jerusalem up to this time
which is described in detail; not the only one which he had wrought
(chaps. 2:23; 3:2), but presumptively the last one. They wondered not
at the miracle, but at the fact that he had performed it on
the Sabbath day (ch. 5:16). It is not necessary to give to the
word _wonder_ here any accessory idea, as of doubt (_Bengel_)
or disquietude (_Chrysostom_); Christ begins with the mildest
characterization of their sentiment as that of mere surprise. Here, as
habitually, he does not proceed to severe language till milder
language has proved unavailing.--=Moses therefore gave unto you
circumcision.= There is some doubt whether the word _therefore_
belongs to this or to the preceding verse; _i. e._, whether Christ
says, _I have done one work, and ye all therefore marvel_, or, _Moses
therefore gave unto you circumcision, not because it is of Moses, but
of the fathers_. The latter reading is preferred by the later
scholars, _e. g._, Bengel, Meyer, Alford, against Olshausen, Tholuck.
Either is grammatically possible; and the purely grammatical
considerations appear to me to be about equally balanced. The latter
interpretation is preferable, because it gives a better meaning to the
sentence. Accepting this rendering, the meaning appears to be, Moses
gave unto you circumcision for this reason, viz., because it was
patriarchal, not because it originated with him. And this statement of
the reason of the Mosaic law respecting circumcision affords a basis
for the argument which follows. It was a saying of the rabbis “that
circumcision drives away the Sabbath,” and they held that the rite,
notwithstanding the work which it necessarily entailed, might be
performed on the Sabbath day, because it was of patriarchal origin,
and so antedated the Mosaic institution of the Sabbath. Christ,
referring to this fact, convicts the Jews of inconsistency in being
angry with him for placing the law of mercy above the law of the
Sabbath. For the law of mercy was older than either; it belongs to the
eternal law of God’s nature.--=That the law of Moses should not be
broken.= That law prescribed that circumcision should be performed on
the eighth day (Lev. 12:3); to allow that day to pass by, therefore,
without circumcision would be a breach of the law.--=Because I have
made an entire man= (ὅλον ἄνθρωπον) =well on the Sabbath day=. We can
hardly suppose, with Bengel and Olshausen, that the _entire man_ here
signifies the healing of both soul and body; for there is no evidence
in the original account that the physical was accompanied with a
spiritual healing, and no likelihood that Christ’s auditors would have
understood him here to refer to spiritual healing. The contrast rather
seems to be between circumcision as an act of wounding, which brought
only ceremonial cleanness, and the miracle at the pool of Bethesda,
which gave relief from the consequences of sin (ch. 5:14), and gave
health to the whole body.--=Judge not according to appearance, but
judge righteous judgment.= See Zech. 7:9. One of Christ’s Sabbath
laws; we are ourselves to avoid, but we are not to condemn in others,
the appearance of evil. What is Sabbath observance and what Sabbath
transgression is to be determined, not by the external act, but by the
inward motive and the ultimate end.
25 Then said some of them of Jerusalem, Is not this he,
whom they seek to kill?
26 But, lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto
him. Do[279] the rulers know indeed that this is the very
Christ?
[279] verse 48.
27 Howbeit[280] we know this man whence he is: but when
Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is.
[280] Matt. 13:55.
=25-27. Then said some of them of Jerusalem.= Residents of Jerusalem,
who were therefore more likely than the pilgrim strangers to know the
designs of the hierarchy.--=Whom they seek to kill.= See chaps. 5:18;
7:19, 32.--=Surely= (μήποτε) =the rulers do not know that this is
indeed the Messiah=? The form of the sentence is an inquiry, strongly
implying a negative answer.--=Howbeit as to this fellow, we know
whence he is; but when the Messiah cometh, no man knoweth whence he
is.= It is true that prophecy foretold that the Messiah should be born
in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2; Matt. 2:6); but according to the Rabbinical
teaching he was straightway to be snatched away by spirits and
tempests, lie hidden for a while, and unexpectedly and supernaturally
reappear to enter upon his miraculous mission (Lightfoot on Matt.
2:1). The people here bore an unconscious testimony to the Messiahship
of Jesus; for they neither knew his earthly nor his heavenly origin.
They believed him who was born in Bethlehem to be a native of
Nazareth, and the Son of God to be the son of a carpenter.
28 Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught, saying, Ye
both know me, and ye know whence I am: and[281] I am not
come of myself, but he that sent me[282] is true, whom[283]
ye know not.
[281] ch. 5:43.
[282] Rom. 3:4.
[283] chaps. 1:18; 8:55.
29 But[284] I know him: for I am from him, and he hath sent
me.
[284] ch. 10:15; Matt. 11:27.
=28, 29. Then Jesus cried aloud teaching in the temple, and said, Ye
do indeed know me, and ye know whence I am; and I am not come of
myself, but it is the True One who hath sent me; him ye do not know. I
know him, for I have come from him, and he it is that hath sent me
forth.= As I read it, this is one of those outbursts of indignation
with which we occasionally meet in the teachings of Christ. The
obduracy and resoluteness in evil of the Jews aroused his indignation
and elicited his stern rebuke. Comp. chaps. 8:41, 44; 9:41; Matthew,
ch. 23. I understand then his language to be neither ironical nor
interrogative, but affirmative, and not to refer to his human nature
and origin, but to his divine character and mission. In his miracles
and his instructions they had seen and heard enough to assure them
that he was from God (chaps. 3:2; 11:47, 48). Their contemptuous
declaration, _We know this fellow_, he transformed into an indictment
against them. They had whispered it; he proclaimed it aloud. “Ye do
know me,” he says, “and ye know whence I am, for the authentication of
my divine mission is ample. Ye do know that I am not come of myself,
for my whole life is a conclusive demonstration that I am not a
self-seeker.” The _True One_ is not equivalent to the Truthful One nor
the Really Existent One merely, but the One True God (2 Chron. 15:3;
Jer. 10:10; John 17:3; 1 Thess. 1:9; 1 John 5:20). Him they did not
and could not know, because the knowledge of God is only for the pure
in heart (Matt. 5:8). Jesus knew him, for he had been his companion
from eternity. In a sense we are all from God, but not in the sense in
which Christ here indicates that he is from God. The preposition used
(παρά) has the sense of _from beside, from near_, French _de chez_
(_Rob. Lex._). The declaration is interpreted by ch. 1:1; Phil. 2:6.
The public exposure of their whispered contempt, the equally public
exposure of the secret thought of their own hearts, which they had not
themselves read as clearly as Christ read it for them, and the tone of
fearless assumption in which he at once claimed to be the companion of
the Only True God and declared that they did not even know Him, whose
peculiar people it was their peculiar boast to be, angered the
Judeans, and especially the hierarchy, and led to the unsuccessful
attempt to arrest Jesus recorded in the succeeding verse.
30 Then[285] they sought to take him: but no man laid hands
on him, because his hour was not yet come.
[285] ch. 8:37; Mark 11:18; Luke 20:19.
31 And many[286] of the people believed on him, and said,
When Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than these
which this _man_ hath done?
[286] ch. 4:39.
=30, 31. They sought therefore to arrest him.= An arrest for the
purpose of bringing him before the authorities, not a mere lawless act
of a mob, is indicated by the original (πιάζω). The attempt, however,
was probably made by some of the people, acting without special
authority; this is implied by the account of the official action
subsequently taken (ver. 32).--=Because his hour was not yet come.=
The hour appointed in the divine counsel for his passion and death.
The immediate cause of the failure to arrest may have been a fear of
the Galileans and others with whom Christ was popular; but John passes
this wholly by to speak of the real reason in the divine counsels.
Predestination is quite as strongly marked in John as in Paul.--=But
of the multitude many believed on him.= The degree of faith is not
indicated. Its spirituality may have been very slight; yet the rest of
the sentence certainly indicates that they were inclined to think that
this might be the promised Messiah.--=More miracles than these which
this one hath done.= To those which had been wrought in Jerusalem were
probably added, in their thought, those which had been wrought in
Galilee; some of these had doubtless been witnessed by many of the
Galileans present.
32 The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things
concerning him; and the Pharisees and the chief priests
sent officers to take him.
33 Then said Jesus unto them, Yet[287] a little while am I
with you, and _then_ I go unto him that sent me.
[287] chaps. 13:33; 16:16.
34 Ye[288] shall seek me, and shall not find _me_: and
where I am, _thither_ ye cannot come.
[288] ch. 8:21; Hos. 5:6.
=32-34. The Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take
him.= This was an official act on the part of the Sanhedrim or its
officers, carrying out the design of certain of the people, as
indicated in ver. 30; and it is the first official endeavor to arrest
him, the beginning of a course of action consummated in his final
arrest, trial, and crucifixion.--=Therefore said Jesus unto them.= A
break evidently occurs between verses 31 and 32. The discourse up to
ver. 31 is continuous, and took place about the middle of the feast,
that is, the third or fourth day; the discourse in verses 37-39 was on
the last day of the feast; between the two the orders for Christ’s
arrest were given. Verses 33, 34 are founded on Christ’s knowledge of
those orders, and it is a reasonable surmise that the presence of the
officers suggested it to him and interpreted its meaning to some at
least of his auditors.--=Yet a little while am I with you.= About six
months after this address he was crucified.--=And I go unto him that
sent me.= With this explicit statement of his meaning, interpreted as
it was by the previous declaration that it was the true God who had
sent him, it is difficult to understand how the Jews could have been
perplexed respecting his meaning. De Wette’s explanation that they
knew not the One who had sent him, and therefore that this saying was
a dark one to them, is not wholly satisfactory, for surely they did
know who was meant by the phrase, _he that sent me_, and as surely
they could not fail to understand that going to God was equivalent to
death. Meyer supposes that the words _him that sent me_ in this verse
were not a part of Christ’s discourse, but added, perhaps by John
himself; but they are not wanting in any of the manuscripts; and that
is both a doubtful and a dangerous kind of criticism which removes a
difficulty by the summary process of removing the difficult words,
without any external authority for so doing. I believe therefore that
Christ was explicit, that he was understood, and that the assumed
perplexity of his hearers was a piece of hypocrisy. See on verses 35,
36.--=Ye shall seek and shall not find me; and where I am ye cannot
come.= The key to the true interpretation of this passage, is afforded
by Luke 17:22; John 8:21; 13:33. Christ does not refer to an inimical
seeking; the _search_ here is the same as the _desire_ to see one of
the days of the Son of man in Luke 17:22; _i. e._ the Jewish desire
for a manifestation of the Messiah. He does not refer to a true
spiritual seeking, for in ch. 8:21 he declares, to the same Jewish
auditors, _Ye shall seek me and ye shall die in your sins_. Eusebius
declares that many Jews in consequence of the judgments of God on
Jerusalem became believers; such did indeed seek Christ, but they
found him. The meaning then is that in the coming days of travail and
sorrow, when many should go out after false Christs (Matt. 24:23, 24),
the Jews would earnestly desire a Messiah for their deliverer, whom,
however, they could not have, because with their own hands they had
put him to death. They would seek, but theirs would be a temporal, not
a spiritual seeking; the seeking of fear and self-interest, not of
repentance, faith, and love. This verse affords no authority whatever
for the opinion that any earnest spiritual soul ever seeks Christ in
vain.
35 Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither will he
go, that we shall not find him? will he go unto the
dispersed[289] among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?
[289] Isa. 11:12; James 1:1; 1 Pet. 1:1.
36 What _manner of_ saying is this that he said, Ye shall
seek me, and shall not find _me_; and where I am, _thither_
ye cannot come?
=35, 36. Then said the Jews among themselves.= Their utterance has
been by some regarded as the utterance of a genuine perplexity. So
apparently Maurice: “He had broken down the barriers between different
classes of Israelites--between Galileans, Samaritans, and Jews. Why
might he not carry his designs further? Why might he not go to the
dispersed tribes in heathen lands? Why might he not preach to the
heathen themselves?” By others it is regarded as the language of scorn
and contempt. So Meyer: “An insolent and scornful supposition, which
they themselves, however, do not deem probable (therefore the question
is asked with μή), regarding the meaning of words to them so utterly
enigmatical. The bolder mode of teaching adopted by Jesus, his
universalistic declarations, his partial non-observance of the law of
the Sabbath, would lead them, perhaps, to associate with the
unintelligible statement a mocking thought like this, and all the more
because much interest was felt among the heathen, partly of an earnest
kind, and partly (comp. St. Paul in Athens) arising from curiosity
merely, regarding the Oriental religions, especially Judaism.” The
latter view seems to me the more probable, because (1) it is
inconceivable that the Jews should have misapprehended Christ’s
meaning (ver. 33, note); (2) his analogous language in the next
chapter they clearly did understand to refer to his death (ch. 8:22);
(3) the fact that what was said was “among themselves” indicates that
it was not an honest perplexity, in which case they would have asked
Christ for an explanation, but of the same quality as the murmuring
reported in verses 26, 27.
37 In the last[290] day, that great _day_ of the feast,
Jesus stood and cried, saying, If[291] any man thirst, let
him come unto me, and drink.
[290] Lev. 23:36.
[291] Isa. 55:1; Rev. 22:17.
=37. In the last day, that great day of the feast.= The feast of the
Tabernacles proper lasted for seven days (Lev. 23:34, 41, 42), but on
the eighth day a solemn assembly kept as a feast-Sabbath was directed
to be held (Lev. 23:36; Numb. 29:35; Neh. 8:18); and though the people
dwelt in the booths only the seven days, this eighth day was reckoned
by the Jews as a part of the feast. Whether the seventh or the eighth
is intended here by the “last day of the feast” is a little uncertain,
as it also is whether the drawing of water from the brook Siloah,
which was a characteristic ceremonial of the other days of the feast,
took place also on the eighth day. This ceremonial recalled the
miraculous supply of water in the wilderness from the riven rock; it
was connected by the more superstitious of the people with the notion
that at this time God determined the amount of rain which should fall
during the year; and the more spiritual saw in it a symbol of the time
when the promised gift of the Holy Spirit should be bestowed upon
Israel (Isa. 12:3). Whether the words of Christ were uttered, as Dr.
Geikie supposes, during this ceremonial, or, as Alford supposes, the
day after this service had come to an end, the reference to it is
unmistakable. Dr. Geikie’s supposition certainly makes this reference
more striking, and gives, if not peculiar significance, at least
peculiar force, to Christ’s words. “The last day of the feast, known
as ‘the Hosanna Rabba’ and the ‘Great Day,’ found him, as each day
before, doubtless, had done, in the temple arcades. He had gone
thither early, to meet the crowds assembled for morning prayer. It was
a day of special rejoicing. A great procession of pilgrims marched
seven times round the city, with their lulabs, music, and loud-voiced
choirs preceding, and the air was rent with shouts of Hosanna, in
commemoration of the taking of Jericho, the first city in the Holy
Land that fell into the hands of their fathers. Other multitudes
streamed to the brook of Siloah, after the priests and Levites,
bearing the golden vessels with which to draw some of the water. As
many as could get near the stream drank of it amidst loud shouting of
the words of Isaiah--‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the
waters,’ ‘With joy shall we draw water from the wells of
salvation’--rising in jubilant chants on every side. The water drawn
by the priests was, meanwhile, borne up to the temple, amidst the
boundless excitement of a vast throng. Such a crowd was, apparently,
passing at this moment. Rising as the throng went by, his spirit was
moved at such honest enthusiasm, yet saddened at the moral decay which
mistook a mere ceremony for religion. It was burning autumn weather,
when the sun had for months shone in a cloudless sky, and the early
rains were longed for as the monsoons in India after the summer heat.
Water at all times is a magic word in a sultry climate like Palestine,
but at this moment it had a double power. Standing, therefore, to give
his words more solemnity, his voice now sounded far and near over the
throng, with soft clearness, which arrested all: If any man thirst,
let him come unto me and drink.”--(_Geikie._)--=If any man thirst.=
This is not an unconditional promise; it is conditioned, not merely on
desire, but on a fervent desire. Comp. Isa. 55:1; Matt. 5:6; Rev.
22:17. “None are called to obtain the riches of the Spirit but those
who burn with the desire of them. For we know that the pain of thirst
is most acute and tormenting, so that the very strongest men, and
those who can endure any amount of toil, are overpowered by
thirst.”--(_Calvin._) An illustration of this spiritual thirst is
afforded by David in Psalms 42, 43, and by Paul in Phil. 3:8-14.--=Let
him come unto me.= If one can imagine these words spoken to the throng
while the procession is marching into the temple, or even just after
the solemn service is over and the minds of the people are still full
of it, he will form a faint conception of the divine assumption
implied in them; and if he further considers the effect produced, both
on the multitude (verses 40, 41) and on the officers sent to arrest
Jesus (ver. 46), he will form a faint conception of the divine dignity
with which those words were uttered.
38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said,
out[292] of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
[292] ch. 4:14; Prov. 18:4; Isa. 58:11.
=38. He that hath faith in me.= As in ch. 6 to eat the flesh and drink
the blood of Christ is to have faith in him and live by him, so here,
to come unto him and drink is to come with the affections and receive
him into the soul.--=As the Scripture hath said.= There is no passage
in the O. T. which directly sustains this citation, and no reason to
suppose that Christ refers to any lost book. Alford refers to Ezek.
47:1-12, where the river of the water of life is described as flowing
from under the temple, which Alford regards as a symbol of the
believer; similarly Olshausen; but both this reference and that to
Zech. 14:8 are remote and unnatural. We are either to suppose that the
phrase “as the Scripture hath said” refers only to the preceding
clause, “he that believeth on me,” so that the meaning is, He that
according to the O. T. believeth on me; or else we are to suppose that
John by the following verse (39) not only interprets the meaning of
Christ’s promise, but also the meaning of his reference, and that we
are to look for the Scripture in those passages which refer to
and promise the gift of the Holy Ghost. The former of these
interpretations is that of Chrysostom, the latter that of Meyer, who
refers to Isa. 44:3; 55:1; 58:1; Joel 3:18; Zech. 13:1.--=Shall flow
rivers of living water.= This declaration is not to be limited so that
it shall be simply equivalent to the promise in John 4:14, “Whosoever
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.” The
language _out of his belly_ clearly implies something received that it
may flow _from_ the recipient unto others. The water which he drinks
becomes in him a spring from which living waters flow, as the light
which illuminates him makes him in turn one of the lights which
illuminate the world (Matt. 5:14; Phil. 2:15). That this is the
meaning is clear, not only from the language here, but from John’s
interpretation in the succeeding verse. “The mutual and inspired
intercourse of Christians from Pentecost downwards, the speaking in
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, the mutual edification in
Christian assemblies by means of the charismata even to the speaking
with tongues, the entire work of the apostles, of a Stephen and so on,
furnish an abundant historical commentary upon this text.”--(_Meyer._)
39 (But this spake he of the[293] Spirit, which they that
believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not
yet _given_; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)
[293] ch. 16:7; Isa. 44:3; Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17, 33.
=39. But this spake he of the Spirit.= This declaration of John makes
the second chapter of Acts and the succeeding history of the Church of
Christ the true commentary on Christ’s promise.--=For the Spirit was
not yet.= The meaning cannot of course be that the Holy Spirit had no
existence, for “this would be not only in flat contradiction to chaps.
1:32, 33; 3:5, 8, 34, but to the whole O. T., in which the agency of
the Spirit in the _outward world_ is recognized even more vividly than
in the N. T.” (_Alford._) And it is not only in the outward world that
the O. T. recognizes the Holy Spirit, but also in the hearts of
individual prophets, who thus became the ministers of divine grace to
others (Gen. 41:38; Exod. 4:11, 12; 31:3; 2 Chron. 15:1; Ps. 51:11;
Isa. 63:11, 14). Nor does the addition by the translators of the word
_given_ adequately represent the meaning, for the Holy Ghost was given
before the glorification of Christ, but not to all men; he was not a
universal gift. The meaning is that the dispensation of the Holy Ghost
had not yet begun; he had not yet been so given that whoever had faith
in the Son of God received the gift of the Holy Ghost and became one
of the Lord’s prophets (Acts 2:38). See Acts 2:4, note.--=Because
Jesus was not yet glorified.= The death and resurrection of Christ
were the conditions precedent of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost (ch.
14:16, 17; 16:7; Acts 1:7-9).
40 Many of the people therefore, when they heard this
saying, said, Of a truth this is the Prophet.[294]
[294] ch. 6:14; Deut. 18:15, 18.
41 Others said, This is the[295] Christ. But some said,
Shall[296] Christ come out of Galilee?
[295] chaps. 4:42, 6:69.
[296] verse 52; ch. 1:46.
42 Hath not the scripture said, That Christ[297] cometh of
the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem,[298]
where David[299] was?
[297] Ps. 132:11; Jer. 23:5.
[298] Micah 5:2; Luke 2:4.
[299] 1 Sam. 16:1-4.
43 So there was a division among the people because of him.
44 And some of them would have taken him; but no man laid
hands on him.
=40-44.= These verses give the impressions produced on different
auditors by Christ’s discourses at the feast. The word _many_ is
wanting in the best manuscripts, and is omitted by Lachmann,
Tischendorf, Meyer, Alford, Schaff; for it read _some_. Some regarded
Jesus as the prophet foretold in Deut. 18:15 (comp. ch. 1:21; Matt.
16:14); others thought that he might even be the Messiah. See ver. 31.
The opponents of Christ based their opposition not upon his character
or that of his teaching, but upon their Jewish prejudice to his
supposed Galilean origin. There is no good ground for the conclusion,
arrived at by some rationalistic critics from John’s language here,
that he did not know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Writing his
Gospel many years after the main facts of Christ’s birth, life, and
death were known throughout the church, he here simply narrates as an
historian the objections which the Judeans made to the claim that
Jesus was the Messiah; to have pointed out their mistake would have
been a work of supererogation. Alford’s note on this point is quite
conclusive: “De Wette’s ‘probability that John knew nothing of the
birth at Bethlehem’ reaches much further than may appear at first. If
John knew nothing of it, and yet the mother of the Lord lived with
him, the inference must be that _she_ knew nothing of it--in other
words, that it never happened.”
[Illustration: OFFICERS OF THE CHIEF PRIESTS.]
45 Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees;
and they said unto them, Why have ye not brought him?
46 The officers answered, Never[300] man spake like this
man.
[300] Luke 4:22.
=45, 46. Then came the officers.= Not Roman soldiers, but temple
police, answering to the modern constable or the Roman lictor or the
English beadle. They had been directed by the officers of the
Sanhedrim to arrest Jesus (ver. 32). Presumptively this return of the
officers occurred several days after their commission to make the
arrest. They had been watching him during the feast.--=Never man spake
like this man.= They were not overawed by the multitude, but by the
words of Christ himself. There is no stronger testimony, even in the
Gospels, to the marvellous moral power of Christ’s personality and
words than this declaration of the temple police, who were probably
ignorant but also simple men, without the culture, but also without
the religious prejudices, of the rulers. In the life of Whitefield are
several illustrations of analogous moral power over roughs who had
come to the preaching to break it up, but who remained spell-bound
under its influence. To have elicited such testimony as this from such
men as these, Jesus must have possessed the power of a true oratory.
47 Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived?
48 Have any of the rulers[301] or of the Pharisees believed
on him?
[301] ch. 12:42; Jer. 5:4, 5; 1 Cor. 1:26.
49 But this people, who knoweth not the law, are cursed.
=47-49.= The language of the Pharisaic rulers is that of unbounded
scorn for Jesus and for the multitude. The latter are declared to be
under divine wrath and cursed with moral blindness because they have
an admiration for such a Sabbath-breaker. “All here is wonderfully
living and characteristic. The faint effort of the officers to execute
the command of their masters; the awe which held them back; their
simple confession of the power which they found in the words of Jesus;
the surprise of the Sanhedrim that the infection should have reached
even their servants; their terror lest there might be traitors in the
camp, lest any Pharisee or lawyer (probably some eyes were turned on
Nicodemus) should have been carried away by the impulse to which the
crowd, naturally enough, had yielded; their scorn of the people, as
wretched, ‘accursed’ men, utterly ignorant of the law--who does not
feel as if he were present in that convocation of doctors? as if he
were looking at their perplexed and angry faces? as if he were hearing
their contemptuous words?”--(_Maurice._)
50 Nicodemus saith unto them, (he[302] that came to Jesus
by night, being one of them,)
[302] ch. 3:2.
51 Doth[303] our law judge _any_ man before it hear him,
and know what he doeth?
[303] Deut. 17:8; Prov. 18:13.
52 They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of
Galilee? Search and look: for out of Galilee[304] ariseth
no prophet.
[304] Isa. 9:1, 2.
=50-52.= On the character of Nicodemus, see notes on ch. 3. The
impression which Jesus had made upon him in that interview was an
abiding one. There is a covert sarcasm in his question here, _Doth our
law judge the man except it first hear him and know what he doeth?_
They themselves knew not the law, and were openly disregarding it. The
Rabbinical laws explicitly required that every accused person should
have a hearing, with an opportunity to confront the witnesses against
him and to cross-examine them. See Vol. I, p. 298. That Nicodemus’
rebuke was felt by the Pharisees is shown by the tone of their answer.
They replied, not by argument, but by a sneer, _Art thou also of
Galilee?_ and by a falsehood, _Out of Galilee hath arisen_ (perfect,
not present) _no prophet_. Jonah was of Galilee (2 Kings 14:25),
Elijah very probably so (1 Kings 17:1;--_Alford_), and Nahum either of
Galilee or of Assyria, a heathen land (Nahum 1:1). The prejudices of
the Pharisees led them to forget their history as well as their law.
In lieu of _doth our law judge any man?_ read _the man_, _i. e._, this
man; Nicodemus refers specifically to Jesus. In lieu of _ariseth_ read
_hath arisen_; though there is some uncertainty. Alford gives the
present tense, _ariseth_; Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Meyer, with
greater probability, the past tense, _hath arisen_. With either
reading the meaning is substantially the same; not, as Godet, The
promised prophet is not now arising, but, as Meyer and Alford, No
prophet ever ariseth from Galilee.
53 And every man went unto his own house.
=53.= This verse belongs with the next chapter.
CHAPTER VIII.
Ch. 7:53 to 8:11. THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY.--ILLUSTRATES: THE TACT
OF CHRIST--THE PRECEPT, JUDGE NOT, THAT YE BE NOT JUDGED--THE POWER OF
CONSCIENCE--THE CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF THE FALLEN.
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--Verse 53 of ch. 7 belongs unquestionably with the
first eleven verses of ch. 8. Whether the whole passage is really a
part of John’s Gospel or no is one of the most difficult and doubtful
questions in Biblical criticism. The weight of critical authority is
against it; the weight of internal evidence is in its favor. For a
complete discussion of the considerations _pro_ and _con_, the student
must be referred to the commentaries of Alford, Meyer, Luthardt,
and Godet, the last being, of the three, the most comprehensive in
its treatment. Here I give briefly (1) the facts, (2) the different
opinions, (3) my own conclusion.
I. _The facts._ (1) The passage in question is wanting in many if not
most of the best MSS.; pre-eminently the Alexandrian, the Vatican, the
Ephraem, and the Sinaitic. Of the great manuscripts, the Cambridge
alone contains it. (2) It is transposed in some documents; one places
it in John after 7:36; ten at the end of John; four in the Gospel of
Luke, at the close of ch. 21. (3) In those MSS. which contain it there
are great variations. Griesbach distinguishes three entirely different
texts; the ordinary text, that of the Cambridge MS., and that
resulting from a collection of other MSS. Alford gives these three in
his Greek Testament. Sixty various readings are found in these twelve
verses. “No genuine apostolic text has ever undergone such
alterations.”--(_Godet._) (4) The style and character of the narrative
is strikingly unlike John. These differences are partly verbal, and
are apparent only to the Greek scholar. Ten expressions are given by
Meyer as non-Johannean. They are partly structural, and as easily
recognized by the English reader as by the Greek scholar. Such are the
propounding of a question concerning the law to tempt Christ, and the
departure of Christ at night from the temple, both of which agree
rather with the Synoptics’ account of the last sojourn in Jerusalem
than with John’s account of this period of Christ’s ministry. If the
account is omitted altogether, the discourse in ch. 7 and that in ch.
8 appear to be in close connection; the interruption of this incident
is not very clearly cognate to either discourse; and it is not John’s
habit to narrate incidents that are not connected with and do not lead
to some discourse of the Lord. (5) Among the fathers Origen,
Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Tertullian are altogether silent about
the passage; Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine recognize it as authentic;
among critical scholars Lucke, Tholuck, Olshausen, De Wette, Luthardt,
Hengstenberg, Schenkel, Godet, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, and
Schaff apparently agree in regarding it as an addition by some other
hand to John’s Gospel; Bengel and Hilgenfeld are the only scholars of
widely recognized reputation who defend its Johannean authorship. (6)
But though the narrative is unlike John, the act is very like Jesus.
The whole scene possesses an air of historic reality: the arrest of
the woman, the demand on Jesus, the Pharisaic contempt for public
morality in obtruding the crime and the criminal on public attention
in the temple courts; the attempt to entrap Jesus; the skill of his
reply; the subtle recognition of the woman’s shame and despair, and
the gentle avoidance of adding to it, in turning the public gaze from
her to himself by writing on the ground; the final confusion of the
Pharisees and release of the woman. It is impossible to believe that
any monkish mind conceived of this and added it to the narrative. The
deed is the deed of Christ, whether or no the record is the record of
John.
II. _Opinions._ These are three: (1) That the narrative belongs here;
was written by John, and was expunged from the Gospel at an early date
because it was feared that an immoral use would be made of it. This
was Augustine’s opinion. But this hypothesis does not account for the
variety of readings, nor for peculiarities in character and diction
which make it unlike John’s Gospel. (2) That it is an interpolation of
a later age, for a purpose, by some early copyist. But the copyist who
could have conceived this incident must have possessed the moral
genius of Christ himself. “It is eminently Christlike, and full of
comfort to penitent outcasts. It breathes the Saviour’s spirit of holy
mercy, which condemns the sin and saves the sinner. It is parallel to
the parable of the prodigal, the story of Mary Magdalene, and that of
the Samaritan woman, and agrees with many express declarations of
Christ that he came not to condemn, but to save the lost (John 3:17;
12:47; Luke 9:56; 19:10; comp. John 5:14; Luke 7:37, etc.). His
refusal to act as judge in this case has a parallel in a similar case
related in Luke 12:13-15.”--(_Schaff._) (3) That it is a tradition of
the apostolic age, and was incorporated in the present evangelical
narratives, probably in the second or third century, but in different
forms and in different places. It may have been originally part of one
of the lost Gospels. Eusebius relates that the work of Papias
contained “the history of a woman accused before the Lord of numerous
sins, a history contained also in the Gospel of the Hebrews.” This
opinion, which is substantially that of Godet, Meyer, Luthardt, and
Alford, accounts for the existence of the narrative, the apparent
truthfulness of it, the variations of form, and the non-Johannean
characteristics of style. It seems to me inherently the most probable.
On internal grounds it seems to me clear that the narrative is
historical; on critical grounds that it is not John’s; who was its
author and how it became incorporated in John’s Gospel is a matter
only of conjecture.
1 Jesus went unto the mount of Olives.
2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple,
and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and
taught them.
=Ch. 7:53 to 8:1, 2. Every man went unto his own house; Jesus went unto
the Mount of Olives.= The force of the contrast is impaired by the
unfortunate and unnatural break between the two clauses of what should
be printed as a single sentence. The auditors had homes; Jesus had no
where to lay his head; and if, as is probable, this incident belongs
to the Passion week, it was not safe for him to spend a night within
the city walls. He either spent it on the mount or went beyond it to
Bethany, the home of his friends Martha and Mary.--=He sat down and
taught them.= One of the indications that this passage is not from
John; for “it is not in John’s manner to relate that Jesus taught
them, without relating what he taught” (_Alford_).
[Illustration: THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. (From the wall of Jerusalem.)]
3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman
taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in
adultery, in the very act.
5 Now[305] Moses in the law commanded us that such should
be stoned: but what sayest thou?
[305] Lev. 20:10.
=3-5. Brought unto him a woman.= There was no reason why they should
have brought her to him, except for the purpose of involving him in
difficulty.--=When they had set her in the midst.= This public
exposure to shame was itself a terrible punishment, and aroused the
pity, the shame, and the indignation of Jesus. It was not done in the
interest of public morals. They were flagrantly disregarded in this
obtrusion of a public scandal into the midst of the temple worship, by
accusers who cared not for her, nor for the general public, if they
could but involve in perplexity and bring into disrepute the Rabbi
whom they so bitterly hated.--=In the very act.= The man was equally
amenable under the Mosaic law to the death penalty (Lev. 20:10; Deut.
22:22). But the man they had let go; for then, as now, society
punished the guilty woman, but not the guilty man.--=That such should
be stoned.= Stoning was only commanded by Moses for unfaithfulness in
a betrothed virgin (Deut. 22:23, 24). But infidelity in a wife is made
by the preceding verse punishable with death, and perhaps, by
implication, the same form of death.
[Illustration: THE WOMAN AND HER ACCUSERS.
“_He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone at her._”]
6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to
accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with _his_ finger
wrote on the ground, _as though he heard them not_.
=6. This they said tempting him.= The commentators have been needlessly
puzzled to explain how Christ’s answer to this question could have
furnished matter for accusation. The Pharisees would have accused him
to the people, not to the Roman government. The law of Moses was a dead
letter. There is no authentic instance in post-Mosaic history of an
execution under it. Divorce was easy, and the injured husband generally
avoided public disgrace by simply separating from his unfaithful wife.
Could Christ refuse to adjudge the case? He had claimed to be King of
Israel, in the Sermon on the Mount, had put his own precepts above
those of Moses, and had proclaimed a far more stringent law of purity
than Moses ever enacted (Matt. 5:27-32). Could he acquit her,
and so set aside the Mosaic law? He had declared that not one jot or
tittle of it should pass away till all was fulfilled, and that whoever
relaxed the least of its precepts should be least in his kingdom. Could
he condemn her? He would thus revive an obsolete statute, and enforce
it against a hapless and defenceless woman--he who had come to seek
and to save the lost, who had received the publican and harlot among
his disciples, and had accepted the homage of a notorious woman of the
town (Luke 7:36-39). It often happens that people are unwilling
to have a teacher set aside in theory a law which they are equally
unwilling to see enforced in practice. Only a small minority is willing
in our own day to abolish capital punishment; but only rarely is a
jury willing to inflict it. There are comparatively few persons who
are willing to live according to the Sabbath law which they wish their
minister to preach.--=But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote
on the ground.= The words _as though he heard them not_ are an addition
of the translators, though at least one manuscript contains the
idea. What was the meaning of this action? Various opinions have been
suggested, _e. g._, a usual act signifying preoccupation of mind
(_Alford_); to hide his own confusion, the shock to his own moral
sensibility by the grossness of the Pharisees’ public abuse of the
woman (_Geikie_); as a judge, for a judicial sentence is not only
pronounced, but written (_Godet_); as a refusal to interfere, a sign
that he paid no attention to their question (_Meyer_, _Luthardt_).
His object in this writing seems to me to be interpreted by its
result. It turned all eyes from the wretched woman, in an anguish of
shame and terror, to himself. She stood alone and forgotten; all eyes
were then and have ever since been fixed on the figure of Christ,
wondering what and why he wrote in the dust. It is not fanciful to
note the contrast between this writing and that prescribed in case
of the trial of a suspected adulteress by the Mosaic law (Numb.
5:23). The priest was to write certain curses in a book, then
wash them with bitter water, which the accused was required to drink,
that the curses might enter into her if she were guilty. Christ, on
the contrary, writes his sentence on the sand, where, in a moment,
it will be effaced by the pardon, “Neither do I condemn thee; go,
and sin no more.” What he wrote has been made a matter of ingenious
rather than profitable conjecture. The most probable conjecture is that
he wrote the sentence, “He that is without sin amongst you,” etc.,
thus enabling the Pharisees, if they had not been too passionately
intent on their design, to avoid his public rebuke.
7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself,
and said unto them, He that is without sin among you,[306]
let him first cast a stone at her.
[306] Deut. 17:7; Rom. 2:1, 22.
8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
9 And they which heard _it_, being convicted by _their own_
conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest,
_even_ unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the
woman standing in the midst.
=7-9. So when they continued asking.= They would not take the rebuke
of his quiet contempt. Had they stopped to think, conscience would
have answered their inquiry; but they were too eager; they did not
hear what it had to say to them; Christ must interpret its voice; and
he did so with a poignant rebuke.--=He that is without sin among you,
let him first cast a stone at her.= Christ puts on them the problem
with which they had sought to perplex him. In their vindictive haste
they had forgotten the provision of the law that the witnesses on
whose testimony the accused was condemned should cast the first stone
(Deut. 17:5-7). They had also forgotten the provision of the
Rabbinical law that, in case of accusation, if the husband was not
guiltless, the wife could not be condemned (_Lightfoot_). Christ
recalls these two principles, and leaves them to solve their own
problem. Go on, he says in effect, and try and condemn the accused
according to your own law. Let the sinless cast the first stone. But a
deeper meaning is in his words. Unchastity was a universal sin in the
first century. Its extent in Palestine is illustrated by the
licentious lives of the Herods, father and sons. Nowhere was this vice
more flagrant and unrestrained than among the priests, whose
licentiousness was no secret to the common people (see Matt. 12:39;
James 4:4). It was this revelation of their own guilt, implied in the
words and easily understood by the people, which stung them, and drove
them, self-condemned, one by one, from the presence of both the
accused and the judge.--=And again he stooped down.= To give
conscience in them an opportunity to assert itself, with as little
resistance as possible from pride. He gave them no opportunity to
answer; he did not look to see who was first to withdraw.--=Beginning
with the elders.= The word rendered eldest (πρεσβυτέρων) is almost
universally rendered _elders_, generally as an official designation,
and frequently in connection with the word _ruler_ (_e. g._, Matt.
15:2; 16:21; Mark 8:31; 15:1; Luke 7:3; 22:52). Here it seems to me
more probably to designate rank (_Lucke_, _De Wette_) than age
(_Luthardt_, _Godet_). The leaders in the accusation were the first
to withdraw. The words “even unto the last” are wanting in most
MSS.--=Jesus was left alone.= The circle of accusers had all
withdrawn. The people and the disciples may have still remained; hence
the woman is described as “standing in the midst;” that is, of the
auditors who, before this interruption, had been listening to the
teaching of Jesus (ver. 2). The woman remains waiting, as if to
receive the sentence of Jesus. The people remain waiting to hear the
end of this strange episode.
10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the
woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine
accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither
do I condemn[307] thee: go, and sin[308] no more.
[307] ch. 3:17.
[308] ch. 5:14.
=10, 11. Hath no man condemned thee?= They had then _all_withdrawn?--
=Neither do I condemn thee.= He contrasts himself with the accusers;
they could not, he will not. He does not, however, pronounce her
forgiven. There is no evidence of repentance or of faith, as, for
example, in the case of the woman that was a sinner in Luke 7:37. His
language condemns the sin, and it gives opportunity for repentance
to the sinner. “It is a declaration of sufferance, not of
justification.”--(_Godet._)--=Go, and sin no more.= Comp. ch. 5:14.
The object of divine forgiveness is a divine life in the forgiven.
* * * * *
Ch. 8:12-20. CHRIST’S DISCOURSE CONCERNING HIMSELF.--HE IS LIGHT,
LIBERTY, LIFE.--HE GIVES LIGHT TO THOSE THAT FOLLOW HIS EXAMPLE,
LIBERTY TO THOSE THAT OBEY HIS WORD, LIFE TO THOSE THAT PUT THEIR
FAITH IN HIM.--HE IS ATTESTED BY HIS OWN CHARACTER AND BY HIS FATHER’S
WITNESS.--HE IS MADE KNOWN IN AND BY HIS PASSION AND DEATH.--HIS FATHER
IS THE SOURCE OF HIS TEACHING, HIS WORKS, AND HIS CHARACTER.--HIS
CHARACTERIZATION OF WILFUL OPPUGNERS OF THE TRUTH: CHILDREN OF THE
WORLD; CHILDREN OF THE DEVIL.--CHRIST’S SHORT METHOD WITH DEISTS (ver.
46). See note at end of chapter.
The exact chronology of the events from this point to the close of
the tenth chapter is very uncertain and quite unimportant. One
characteristic feature of the feast of the Tabernacles was the
illumination of the temple; the two great candelabra of the Court of
the Women were lighted, and it is said in the Rabbinical hooks that
the light shone all over Jerusalem. Since Christ was accustomed to
take his text from passing events, it is a not improbable surmise that
this illumination afforded the suggestion for the discourse on the
divine light which follows. The illumination of the temple
commemorated the pillar of fire, as the ceremony of drawing water (see
ch. 7:37, etc., notes) commemorated the striking of the rock in Horeb
and the gift of water from it, and the dwelling in booths recalled the
time when Israel dwelt in tents and booths in the wilderness. We may
therefore see in Christ an antitype of the fiery cloud that guided
Israel in their pilgrimage, and in the Shechinah filling the
Tabernacle (Exod. 40:34, 35), an illustration of the light which
Christ imparts to those that follow him.
12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I[309] am the
light of the world: he that[310] followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
[309] chaps. 1:4; 9:5.
[310] ch. 12:35, 46.
=12. I am the light of the world.= The illumination of the temple
lighted Jerusalem; that of the fiery cloud, Israel. Christ is
the light, not merely of his disciples, or of the Jewish nation,
but of the _world_, a word which here, as always in the N. T.,
stands for the whole human race. Comp. ch. 1:4, 9, notes. He is
the _light_ as well as the life, coming to instruct as well as
to revive; a Saviour from ignorance as well as from wilful sin.
Therefore no ignorance or doubt need keep the soul that desires
light away from Christ. He need not wait for instruction, any more
than for reformation, before he comes to Christ.--=He that follows
me need not walk in darkness.= The best reading is subjunctive,
not indicative. _Following Christ_, not believing something about
him, is the way out of darkness into light. Comp. ch. 7:17, and note
the fact that in no single instance did Christ call on any one of
his disciples to form correct opinions about him before becoming
his follower. They followed first and learned afterward. Even he
who doubts whether Christ is not a myth can still follow the ideal
life.--=But shall have the light of life.= That is, the light which
guides and nourishes the true, the spiritual life. Comp. ch. 6:48,
“bread of life.” See Ps. 119:105, where the Bible is compared to a
lantern carried to light the path on a dark night. He is a light not
for the illumination of doubtful questions in science or metaphysics or
abstract theology, but for the solution of practical problems in the
moral and spiritual life.
13 The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou[311] bearest
record of thyself; thy record is not true.
[311] ch. 5:31.
14 Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record
of myself, _yet_ my record is true: for I know whence I
came, and whither I go; but[312] ye cannot tell whence I
come, and whither I go.
[312] chaps. 7:28; 9:29, 30.
=13, 14. Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true.=
See ch. 5:31, note; perhaps the Pharisees here refer to Christ’s
declaration there.--=Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is
true; for I know whence I have come= (my origin) =and whither I go=
(my destiny). In general no man can bear testimony of himself, however
truthful he may be, for no man understands his own mission. He may
faithfully do from day to day the work which God gives him to do, and
yet not comprehend the relation which that work bears to the great
problems of life and destiny which the Eternal Spirit is working out
in the race. But Christ could bear record of himself, for he knew
himself; he knew the Father; he knew his own origin and his own
destiny; and he knew the relation which his life and death sustained
to the world’s life.--=Ye know not= (not merely cannot tell) =whence I
am coming and whither I am going=. Christ knew whence he _had come_
(ἠλθον, past tense), _i. e._, from the glory he had with the Father
from the beginning of the world (chaps. 1:1; 17:5); the Pharisees did
not know whence he was ever _coming_ (ἔρχομαι, present tense), _i.
e._, they had no spiritual sense to perceive and appreciate that
divine grace of which he was ever the recipient, and that constant
communion with the Father from which he was ever bringing divine light
and life wherewith to bless his followers.
15 Ye judge after the flesh; I[313] judge no man.
[313] chaps. 3:17; 12:47.
16 And yet if I judge, my[314] judgment is true: for[315] I
am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me.
[314] 1 Sam. 16:7; Ps. 45:6, 7; 72:2.
[315] verse 29; ch. 16:32.
=15, 16. Ye judge according to the flesh.= They therefore rejected
Jesus Christ as the Messiah, because he did not come with the earthly
pomp, or bring the earthly deliverance, which they had expected.--=I
judge no one.= Yet his fan is in his hand; and even while he lived he
was sifting the wheat from the tares. He judges not; the world is
self-judged and self-condemned. Every soul that rejects the light doth
thereby write its own condemnation. “Light is come into the world, and
men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil”
(John 3:19).--=Yet if I judge, my judgment is true; for I am not
alone, but I and the Father that sent me.= Comp. ch. 5:30. The Spirit
of the Father, given without measure to Christ, makes his spiritual
judgments absolutely without error. In the measure in which this
spirit is received and followed by the disciple, it similarly makes
the disciple’s judgments true. See Matt. 16:19, note; John 20:22, 23.
17 It is also written[316] in your law, that the testimony
of two men is true.
[316] Deut. 17:6; 19:15.
18 I am one that bear witness of myself, and the
Father[317] that sent me beareth witness of me.
[317] ch. 5:37.
19 Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus
answered, Ye[318] neither know me, nor my Father: if[319]
ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also.
[318] verse 55; chaps. 16:3; 17:25.
[319] ch. 14:7, 9.
20 These words spake Jesus in the treasury,[320] as he
taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him;
for[321], his hour was not yet come.
[320] Mark 12:41.
[321] ch. 7:30.
=17-20. Also in your own law.= Not in _our_ law; Christ never classes
himself with the Jews, nor counts himself as under their law. He obeys
it, not because it is binding, but by a voluntary subjection, for
example’s sake (Matt. 3:15; 17:27). The reference here is to Deut.
17:6; 19:15.--=I am one that bear witness concerning myself.= Not
merely nor mainly by words; for Christ said comparatively little in
public concerning his character; but by his life and works. See John
14:11.--=And the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.= By direct
declarations to his divine character and mission (Matt. 3:17; John
12:28); by the testimony of prophets and apostles, especially of John
the Baptist (Luke 2:28-32, 38; John 1:32-34, 36); by the voice of
angels (Luke 2:9-14); by the miracles wrought (John 11:42); but still
more by that manifestation of the divine presence which made itself
felt in many ways in Christ’s person, as in his attraction of
publicans and sinners to himself, his expulsion of the traders from
the temple, his passing through the mob at Nazareth, etc. Godet tells
a story in illustration of the power of this witness of the Spirit.
About 1660, Hedinger, chaplain to the Duke of Wurtemberg, took the
liberty of censuring his sovereign, at first in private, but afterward
in public, for a serious fault. The latter, much enraged, sent for
him, resolved to punish him. Hedinger, after seeking strength by
prayer, repaired to the prince, the expression of his countenance
betokening the peace and the presence of God. The prince, after
looking at him for a moment, asked, in agitation, “Why did you not
come alone?” and dismissed him unharmed. The vital communion of this
servant of God with his God was a sensible fact, even to one whom
anger had exasperated. Comp. Acts 4:13; 6:15.--=Who is your Father?=
Asked, not in perplexity, for Christ’s reference to God as his
Father had been so frequent at Jerusalem that they could not have
misunderstood his meaning, but in scorn. Christ’s reply is adapted to
the spirit of their inquiry.--=Ye neither know me nor my Father.= They
gloried in being the peculiar people of God; but they as little
apprehended him as they did Christ his Son.--=If ye had known me ye
would have known my Father also.= For the Son is the way to the
Father. The converse of this proposition is also true, He that knows
the Father will know the Son. Both are known by the spiritual
sense; and the same faculty which appreciates the divine qualities
resplendent in the Son will answer to and be ready to receive and be
impressed by the divine qualities in the invisible Spirit, the Father
whom no one hath seen or can see.--=In the treasury.= See Luke 21:1,
note. The thirteen trunks or chests placed for the reception of the
gifts of the worshippers, and properly called the treasury, were in
the Court of the Women. Each bore an inscription, indicating the use
to which the money placed therein was devoted. Probably either that
part of the Women’s Court where these chests stood, or, more probably,
an adjoining apartment used in connection with them, perhaps where the
money was kept, was also designated the treasury, and it is this
apartment that is indicated by the word here.--=For his hour was not
yet come.= See ch. 7:30, note.
21 Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and
ye[322] shall seek me, and[323] shall die in your sins:
whither I go, ye[324] cannot come.
[322] ch. 7:34.
[323] Job 20:11; Ps. 73:18-20; Prov. 14:32; Isa.
65:20; Ephes. 2:1.
[324] Luke 16:28.
=21. I go away.= Not _my way_, a translation for which there is no
authority whatever in the original.--=And ye shall seek me, and shall
die in your sins.= _In your sins_ means not, _by reason of your sins_,
but, _while continuing in a state of sin_. This verse is not to be
taken as an evidence that a sincere and contrite seeking of Christ as
a pardoning and redeeming Saviour will ever be in vain. It is
interpreted by many a so-called death-bed repentance, in which
deliverance from a future penalty is sought, without any real
contrition of heart for past sins. But, coupled with the next clause,
it seems to me strongly opposed to the doctrine of a universal
restitution.--=Whither I go ye cannot come.= Compare ch. 7:34, “Ye
shall seek me and shall not find me; and where I am, thither ye cannot
come,” and contrast ch. 14:3, “I will come again and receive you unto
myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” See also ch. 17:24.
22 Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he
saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come.
23 And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from
above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world.
24 I said[325] therefore unto you, that ye shall die in
your sins: for[326] if ye believe not that I am _he_, ye
shall die in your sins.
[325] verse 21.
[326] Mark 16:16.
=22-24. Will he kill himself?= This they said to each other, partly in
perplexity, partly in scorn. Contrast their different interpretation
but similar spirit in ch. 7:35. Christ, in his reply, repels the idea
that he had referred to his death; they cannot come where he is going,
because he is going to that heaven from which he first came, and they
are of the earth earthy. Comp. 1 Cor. 15:50, “Flesh and blood cannot
inherit the kingdom of God.”--=Ye are from beneath, I am from above.=
This statement is interpreted by the clause which follows.--=Ye are
of= (_from_, ἐκ) =this world, I am not of= (_from_, ἐκ) =this world=.
Man is born of the flesh, and therefore is flesh, needing to be born
anew and from above in order to enter into the kingdom of heaven (ch.
3:5, 6). Christ was born, even in his earthly nature, of the Spirit
(Luke 1:35), was from his birth the Son of God, and therefore did not
need to experience the new birth. Though John does not describe his
supernatural birth, he recognizes it. Christ’s language here would be
incomprehensible but for the interpretation afforded by the narratives
of his advent in Matthew and Luke. The declaration “Ye are from
beneath” here is not equivalent to the declaration of ver. 44, “Ye are
of your father the devil.” Here he speaks only of the earthly nature
inherited; there of the wilful sin superadded.--=If ye believe not
that I am, ye shall die in your sins.= In the phrase “I am” there is a
reference to Exod. 3:14, and the language implies the divinity of
Christ, and would be so understood by his Jewish auditors, and was so
understood by them. See ver. 38 and note. But it is not equivalent to
a general statement that belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ is
essential to salvation. It was addressed to men who had abundant
reason to believe that Christ was the divine Messiah of prophecy, and
who were wilfully ignorant of the truth. We must not give the words
any wider application than our Lord gave to them himself. To reject
Christ is fatal; to be ignorant of him is not.
25 Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith
unto them, Even _the same_ that I said unto you from the
beginning.
=25. Who art thou?= A question asked possibly partly in perplexity and
partly in scorn, but more for the purpose of evoking an answer which
would give them a point for an attack upon Christ.--=Even the same that
I said unto you from the beginning.= The grammatical difficulties in
the correct rendition of this passage are almost insuperable, and no
two scholars give exactly the same shade of meaning to it, while none
of the interpretations afforded are altogether satisfactory, even to
the interpreter. The principal interpretations are: (1) _What I from
the beginning am teaching you? do you ask that?_ An interrogative
expression of surprise. According to this view Christ does not answer
the question at all. (2) _Why indeed do I still speak to you at all?_ A
language of reproach. (3) _Even the same that I said unto you from the
beginning_, the rendering of our English version. (4) _Essentially that
which also I discourse to you_; _i. e._, You are to ascertain my nature
by a study of my discourses. Neither one of these interpretations, it
will be seen, affords a direct answer to the question.
26 I have many things to say and to judge of you: but[327]
he that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those
things which I have heard of him.
[327] ch. 7:28.
27 They understood not that he spake to them of the Father.
=26, 27. Many things I have which I might say, and many sentences
which I might pronounce concerning you.= The meaning and the
connection is obscure, and the translation which I have given is not
so literal as that of the English version. But Christ elsewhere
declares that he has not come to judge the world (ver. 15; chaps.
3:17; 12:47), and to understand him here to assert the contrary makes
his utterances contradictory. Moreover, if we interpret his
declaration as the English version does, it is difficult to see any
connection with the preceding or the subsequent clause. I understand
therefore that he means that he _has_ many things to say, and many
judgments formed in his own mind, which he might pronounce, but that
he will only speak those things which he has been commissioned by the
Father to speak; and his commission at this time is not to judge, but
to save the world.--=They understood not that he spake to them of the
Father.= Strange! Less strange, perhaps, than it now seems to us, for
we read this discourse in the light of eighteen centuries of
Christianity. So far, too, Christ had not designated by any title the
One who had sent him. He had veiled his meaning, as he did in the
parables, that he might not be fully understood at once; for he could
hope to get lodgment for the truth only by gradually unfolding it.
“There is no accounting for the _ignorance of unbelief_ as any
minister of Christ knows by painful experience.”--(_Alford._)
28 Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up[328]
the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am _he_, and
_that_ I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught
me, I speak these things.
[328] chaps. 3:14; 12:32.
29 And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left
me alone; for I do always those things that please him.
30 As he spake these words, many[329] believed on him.
[329] ch. 10:42.
=28-30. When ye have lifted up the Son of man.= The phrase Son of man
was used by the rabbis, who borrowed it from David, for the Messiah
(see Matt. 10:23, note). The Greek verb here rendered _lifted up_
(ὑψόω) is used by John only with reference to the crucifixion (chaps.
3:14; 8:28; 12:32, 34), but everywhere else in the N. T. is used in
the sense of _exalted_, and is so translated except in James 4:10. See
Matt. 11:23; Luke 1:52; Acts 2:33; 5:31, etc. This fact is of itself
an indication that John’s Gospel was written after the cross had been
seen to be the means by which Christ was himself exalted, his glory,
not his shame. It is the cross which has led to his recognition among
men as the Son of God (Mark 15:39; 1 Cor. 1:23, 24); to his exaltation
by the Father (Phil. 2:8-10); to his adoration in heaven (Rev.
5:12).--=Ye shall know that I am.= See on ver. 24. The passion and
death of Christ is the attestation of his divinity (Mark 15:39).--=I
do nothing of myself; but as the Father hath taught me I speak these
things.= In Christ’s time the things _done_, _i. e._, the miracles,
were recognized as signs of divine presence and power; more and more
the _words spoken_ are recognized as still greater signs of the divine
presence and power. The word is more than the external work, the truth
is greater than the miracle.--=He that sent me is with me.= The Son is
a manifestation of the Father, because the Father is ever in and
working and speaking through the Son. He is not merely an ambassador
sent by, he is a tabernacle in which dwells, the Eternal King. So
Christ, who sends forth his disciples (ch. 17:18), is ever with them
(ch. 14:17, 23; Matt. 28:20).--=The Father hath not left me alone; for
I do those things that please him always.= _Always_ is emphatic. In
this uniformity of obedience to the Father’s will is the secret of the
abiding of his presence; it is true for us, as for Christ, that doing
the Father’s pleasure secures the divine fellowship (chaps. 14:21;
15:10).--=Many believed on him.= Comp. ch. 12:42. Faith, like
knowledge, is of different degrees, and the quality of this faith is
not indicated. It may have been like the seed received on stony places
(Matt. 13:20, 21). But beware of understanding here, or anywhere, by
this phrase a mere intellectual belief in Christ as either Rabbi,
Prophet, or Messiah. To _believe on_ always signifies an emotion or
heart action. “Our Lord’s words did not appeal to the understanding;
they were not argumentative; we cannot account for their influence by
any processes of logic. So far as we can judge from a very simple
statement, they went straight to the heart; the faith which they
called forth was a faith of the heart.”--(_Maurice._)
31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If
ye continue[330] in my word, _then_ are ye my disciples
indeed;
[330] Rom. 2:7; Col. 1:23; Heb. 10:38, 39.
32 And ye shall know[331] the truth, and the truth shall
make you free.[332]
[331] Hos. 6:3.
[332] ch. 17:17; Ps. 119:45; Rom. 6:14, 18, 22; James
1:25; 2:12.
33 They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never
in[333] bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be
made free?
[333] Lev. 25:42.
=31-33. If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.=
A promise and a condition. The thing promised is discipleship. “They
should be--what? Saints? divines? doctors? No; but what is much
better than any of the three--what all the three should wish to
be raised into--_disciples_. They will then be learners, learners
sitting continually at the feet of the true Teacher.”--(_Maurice._)
The theology of Christ is a progressive theology; the promise to his
followers is not that they shall be learned, acquiring the truth once
for all, but learners, ever acquiring it more and more. This promise is
conditioned on--what? Receiving his word? defending his word? No; but
abiding in his word, _i. e._, living, moving, and having their being
in it. The word of Christ cannot be accepted once for all; the soul,
to be nourished on it, must abide in it, as the body abides in and is
nourished by the atmosphere (comp. chaps. 5:38; 6:56; 15:4-10; 1
John 2:6, 10, 14, etc.; 3:6). To be Christ’s disciples indeed, we
must _continue_ (Matt. 13:20, 21; John 6:66; Col. 1:23; Heb. 10:38;
Rev. 2:7-11, 17) _in_ (John 15:1-7; Rom. 8:9; Gal. 2:20; Col.
1:27) _the word of Christ_ (Matt. 11:29, 30; 1 Cor. 3:11; Gal.
1:8).--=And ye shall know the truth.= Living according to the word
of Christ is the condition precedent to a true apprehension of
the truth. Christ teaches that life precedes creed; the church
has too often reversed this, making the creed precede life. But
a creed that does not grow out of spiritual experience is dead.
There is no virtue in the doctrine of native depravity except as
an outgrowth of personal humility; nor in belief in a personal
God, except as it is rooted in a living experience of faith in
him.--=And the truth shall make you free.= This, too, the church
has often reversed, bringing men into bondage unto a creed, instead of
using the creed as an instrument to enlarge their intellectual
independence.--=We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any
one.= This is the language of pride, and it is not more true than the
language of pride is ordinarily. Politically the nation had been in
bondage to Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome. Spiritually it had been in
bondage to idolatries in past times, _e. g._, the reign of Manasseh,
and was now in bondage to the rabbis, literalists in interpretation,
and without spirituality or sympathy (Matt. 23:4). Christ, however,
rarely enters into argument; he makes no attempt to refute their
statement, pays no heed to their interruption, but goes on with his
discourse.
34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Whosoever[334] committeth sin is the servant of sin.
[334] Rom. 6:16, 20; 2 Pet. 2:19.
35 And the servant[335] abideth not in the house for ever:
_but_ the Son abideth ever.
[335] Gal. 4:30.
36 If[336] the Son therefore shall make you free, ye[337]
shall be free indeed.
[336] Isa. 61:1.
[337] Rom. 8:2; Gal. 5:1.
=34-36. Whosoever committeth sin= (lives in the commission of sin) =is
the slave= (not servant) =of sin=. He is in bondage to sin. For action
forms habit, and habit becomes second nature. Thus every sinful act
tends to bring the soul into bondage to the law of evil habit.
Striking illustrations of this law of human nature are afforded by
self-indulgence in appetite; but the same principle is involved in all
evil-doing--it tends to fasten evil habits on the soul. See Rom.
6:16-18; 7:9-24. And this law belongs to human nature; it is equally
operative in Jew and Gentile, in church-member and in man of the
world. Every sin helps to weld a chain.--=The slave abideth not in the
house forever, but the Son abideth ever.= The language is parabolic;
the meaning seems to me to be this: The world is in bondage; it
_seems_ to be under Satan; his promise to Christ, “All these things
will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me,” appears not
like a vain promise. But this bondage is short-lived. The kingdoms of
the world are _in truth_ the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ.
He shall reign forever and forever (Rev. 11:15). He, therefore, who
yields to the yoke of bondage by conforming to the world gets only a
brief advantage, for the period of bondage to sin and Satan will soon
be over. He that accepts Christ as his Lord, and acknowledges
allegiance to him, will have an eternal freedom in the house which God
has built, and over which Christ is to have eternal rule (Heb. 3:2-6).
The world is God’s house, not Satan’s.--=If the Son therefore shall
make you free.= From past penalty, by himself bearing it for us; from
the bondage of sin, by giving us power to become the sons of God; from
the law, by imparting to us a new spiritual life. See Paul’s Epistle
to the Galatians, especially chaps. 4 and 5, which may be regarded as
his sermon on this text.--=Ye shall be free indeed.= Made free by the
_truth_ (ver. 32) as it is in Christ Jesus. For freedom is not
independence of all law--that never is and never can be; God himself
is not thus free; it is the comprehension and the right use of law. We
are free when we perfectly comprehend the laws of nature, _i. e._, of
God, perfectly and cheerfully comply with them, and so know how to get
the advantage and profit of them. All progress in material
civilization has been attained by increasing knowledge of the divine
laws, and consequently an increased use of them. We have yet to learn
the gain that there is in a similar comprehension of and obedience to
the intellectual and the spiritual laws of the universe. Thus it is
that the _truth_ makes _free_ (ver. 32).
37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed: but ye seek to kill
me, because my word hath no place in you.
38 I[338] speak that which I have seen with my Father: and
ye do that which ye have seen with your father.
[338] ch. 14:10, 24.
=37, 38. I know that ye are Abraham’s seed.= Not equivalent to _I
know that ye regard yourselves as Abraham’s seed_. The reference is
to the covenant with Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3; 17:4-8), which
involved a promise of divine protection and blessing to the nation. The
Pharisees adhere to the idea of political freedom. Christ assents to
their declaration that they are the seed referred to in that covenant,
but returns to the spiritual idea which underlies his discourse, and
emphasizes the extent to which, in character, they have wandered from
the pattern set by Abraham.--=Nevertheless= (ἀλλὰ, notwithstanding you
are Abraham’s seed) =ye seek to kill me= (chaps. 7:1, 19, 32; 8:59;
10:31, 39). To whom were these words spoken?--to the believing
Judeans mentioned in ver. 30, or to enemies? The true answer is that
believers and unbelievers were intermixed in the crowd, and that it
is as little possible for the reader now as it would have been for
the observer then to distinguish between them.--=Because my word
makes no progress in you.= They heard it--nay, crowded round him to
hear it, were willing and interested listeners. But the truth did not
get entrance into their hearts, nor permeate their character. It was
not like the leaven hid in three measures of meal. They were thus a
type of many modern hearers who listen to the truth, but in whom the
truth does not work. The words rendered _hath no place_ (οὐ χωρεῖ)
signify, literally, does not _work, spread, go forward_.--=I do that
which I have seen with my Father, and ye do that which ye have heard
with your father= (ἠκούσατε, _heard_, not ἑωράκατε, _seen_, is the
better reading). Christ approaches a truth whose depths, in our
ignorance of the spirit world, we cannot sound. This is that every
soul draws its inspiration from an invisible world--either belongs to
the kingdom of light and is taught of God, or belongs to the kingdom
of darkness and is taught of evil spirits. The unseen companions of
the soul are the most influential. Demoniacal possession is only an
exceptional fruitage of a universal demoniacal inspiration. See below,
on ver. 44.
39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham[339] is our
father. Jesus saith unto them, If[340] ye were Abraham’s
children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
[339] Matt. 3:9.
[340] Rom. 2:28, 29; 9:7; Gal. 3:7, 29.
40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the
truth, which I have heard of God: this[341] did not Abraham.
[341] Rom. 4:12.
=39, 40. Abraham is our father.= They recognize, as we all recognize,
that there is a source from which are drawn the ideas and the
influences which mould our character. This fountain is, according to
their conception, Abrahamic. It is true that character is moulded
by national influences; but these are not the profoundest nor the
most potent.--=If ye were Abraham’s children ye would do the works
of Abraham.= Seed they are, children they are not. Descendants? yes!
disciples? no! They do not do that which they have heard from Abraham.
We are the children of a noble ancestry, the Reformers, the Puritans,
and the like, only as we show their spirit in dealing with the men and
the problems of our own time.--=This did not Abraham.= Called of God
to leave his country, and his kindred, and his father’s house, he did
not resist, but left all to go out, not knowing whither he went.
Abraham obeyed the divine message; the seed of Abraham would kill the
divine messenger.
41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him,
We be not born of fornication; we[342] have one Father,
_even_ God.
[342] Isa. 63:16; 64:8.
42 Jesus said unto them, If[343] God were your Father, ye
would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God;
neither came I of myself, but[344] he sent me.
[343] Mal. 1:6; 1 John 5:1.
[344] ch. 17:8, 25.
=41, 42. Ye do the deeds of your father.= A generic truth; the
spiritual paternity of any soul may be known by its deeds; the
source of its life is witnessed by the life itself.--=We be not
born of fornication.= It is a Jewish legend to this day that
Jesus was born of adultery. This is the Jewish explanation of his
premarital birth. I believe that this legend had been invented in
Christ’s own time to account for his supernatural birth, and that
the expression here is a scornful allusion to this dishonoring
report. This, at least, though I do not find it suggested by any
of the commentaries, seems to me the most natural explanation of
the language of the Pharisees, which has given the scholars
no little difficulty. Other explanations suggested--_e. g._, that Sarah
was not an adulteress, and therefore the Jews were certainly children
of Abraham (_Meyer_), or that, unlike the Samaritans, there was no
taint of heathen blood in their veins (_Alford_, _Godet_)--seem to me
unnatural and far-fetched, and are apparently not very satisfactory
even to those who suggest them.--=We have one Father, even God.= They
abandon their claim to have derived their life from Abraham, and
substitute a claim to derive it from the God of Abraham. Or we may
suppose that, the first interlocutors being silenced, others make this
assertion.--=If God were your Father ye would love me.= The practical
and present application is that every soul whose life is truly rooted
in God will be drawn toward Christ by spiritual sympathy.--=For I came
forth and am here from God.= The first verb (ἐξῆλθον) indicates
Christ’s _coming forth_ from the glory which Christ had with the
Father from the beginning of the world (John 17:5); the second verb
(ἥκω, present formed from a perfect) indicates the _perpetual
presence_ of the Father with Christ, and Christ’s continuous
manifestation of the Father to the world.--=Neither came I of myself.=
Therefore that phase of theology which represents the Son as
interceding to make a just God merciful, and thus induce him to
forgive the sinful, is thoroughly false. The mercy of Christ
originated with the Father; the mission of Christ was wrought out by
the Father. Christ came not of his own will, but of the Father’s. See
chaps. 3:16, note; 6:38, note.
43 Why do ye not understand my speech? _even_ because ye
cannot hear my[345] word.
[345] Isa. 6:9.
44 Ye[346] are of _your_ father the devil, and the lusts
of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the
beginning, and abode[347] not in the truth, because there
is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of
his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
[346] Matt. 13:38; 1 John 3:8.
[347] Jude 6.
=43, 44. Why do ye not understand my speech?= He has thus far spoken
parabolically, as though reluctant to characterize them openly as
children of the devil. He now abandons the dark saying, and speaks
plainly.--=Even because ye cannot hear my word.= _Word_ is the doctrine
taught, _speech_ is the form in which it is clothed; to _hear_ is to
receive with the heart, as in Matt. 13:16, 20; John 5:24; 8:47, etc.;
to _understand_ is to comprehend intellectually. The implication then
is that he who is unwilling to receive and act upon the doctrine of
Christ in his heart and life cannot comprehend the forms in which it is
couched. The declaration is thus the converse of ch. 7:17.--=Ye are
from your father the devil.= God is the Father of Christ, and of all
those who through faith in Christ are born again; they become by
adoption his children (Rom. 8:15-17), are sent into the world by their
Father (ch. 17:18), and manifest their Father unto the world (Phil.
2:15). In like manner they that resist the truth are children, by
their own choice, of the devil, commissioned by him, serving him, and
manifesting his spirit, in their selfishness, cupidity, malice, and
all uncharitableness. In each case the soul derives its spirit from
its own chosen father. The whole contrast would be almost meaningless
if by the devil Christ understood only a poetic personification of
evil in human nature. There are two households, one of God, the other
of Satan; two churches, one of truth and love, the other of falsehood
and malignity. “This verse is one of the most decisive testimonies for
the objective personality of the devil. It is quite impossible to
suppose an accommodation to Jewish views, or a metaphorical form of
speech, in so solemn and direct an assertion as this.”--(_Alford._)--
=The will= (lusts is too narrow a word; the original signifies earnest
desire, but generally of a bad sort) =of your father ye are determined
to do=. Literally, _will to do_. Resolute determination to evil is
clearly indicated by the form of the sentence (θέλετε ποιεῖν). The
language of Christ here, therefore, does not apply to sins of
ignorance and inattention. He is speaking to wilful opposers of the
truth.--=He was a murderer from the beginning.= Not because he
inspired Cain’s murder of his brother Abel, but because, from the very
outset, he endeavored to seduce into disobedience, and so to destroy,
the human race. His declaration “Ye shall not surely die” (Gen. 3:4)
was not merely a lie, but a lie having for its object the death of
mankind.--=Stood not in the truth.= It seems to me that there is here
a reference to the fall of the devil. So Augustine and the Roman
Catholic commentators generally; _contra_, Meyer, Alford, and the
moderns. Satan was in a high position, but he did not _stand_, because
truth was not his foundation, and--=Because truth is not in him=. No
definite article is appended to _truth_ here. Satan did not _stand_ on
the truth of God, because in him, in his inner character, truth found
no place. We can only stand _by_ the truth when truth is in _our
inward parts_ (Ps. 51:6), _i. e._, in our desires and our affections.
The truth must be _in_ us to be _under_ us.--=He speaketh of his own.=
Out of (ἐκ) his own treasury of evil things. So the evil man, out of
the evil treasure, bringeth forth evil things (Matt. 12:35).--=For he
is a liar, and the father of it.= Or _of him_; either the father of
_lying_ or the father of the _liar_. Either rendering is grammatically
possible. The latter better fits the context.
45 And because[348] I tell _you_ the truth, ye believe me
not.
[348] Gal. 4:16; 2 Thess. 2:10.
46 Which of you convinceth[349] me of sin? And if I say the
truth, why do ye not believe me?
[349] Heb. 4:15.
47 He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear
_them_ not, because ye are not of God.
=45-47. But because I tell you the truth ye believe me not.= “A
thoroughly tragical _because_; it has its ground in the alien character
of the relation between that which Jesus speaks and their devilish
nature, to which latter a lie alone corresponds.”--(_Meyer._) Truth
has not always its evidence in human nature; for human nature may be
so warped as to be more ready to believe a lie than the truth (Rom.
1:21; Ephes. 4:18; 2 Thess. 2:11). If Christ had told a lie they
would have believed him, just as many of those who now rejected him
did subsequently believe the false Christs of a later date.--=Which of
you convinceth me of sin.= Not of _error_ (_Calvin_), but of _sin_
(_Alford_, _Godet_, _Meyer_). Indeed, _error_ in Christ’s teaching in
this matter would be _sin_; for if his declaration respecting himself,
that he came not from the earth but from above, from the Father, and
was the long-anticipated Messiah, was not true, it would have been
false and fraudulent--not merely a mistake, but a lie. By this
question he asserts, by implication, his sinlessness; he defies his
opponents to point out a single sin in his life, a single flaw in his
character. And they were speechless, as scepticism has been ever
since, before his incomparable character. The argument is this: If I
am not the Son of God, find out some human defect that indicates a
human origin and kinship. And this has never been done. I imagine a
pause, a moment’s expressive silence, no answer from the Pharisees,
and then the crushing words that follow, calmly uttered:--=If I say
the truth, why do ye not believe?=--=He that is of God=--as the
Pharisees had claimed to be (ver. 41)--=heareth= (receiveth) =God’s
words; ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God=. This is
Christ’s method with deists. Point out a single flaw in his stainless
character. You cannot? Then at least listen with reverent attention to
the words of the sinless man. To refuse a hearing to such an one
demonstrates hostility to purity and truth, and so to God.
48 Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not
well that thou art a Samaritan, and[350] hast a devil?
[350] ch. 7:20.
49 Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my
Father, and ye do dishonour me.
50 And I[351] seek not mine own glory: there is one that
seeketh and judgeth.
[351] ch. 5:41.
=48-50. Say we not well thou art a Samaritan and hast an evil
spirit?= The Jews take to the common resort of men silenced
and convinced against their will; they reply to argument
by calling names. _Devil_ is an unfortunate translation, giving the
English reader the impression that they use the same word which Christ
has used in ver. 44. Their word is _demon_ (δαιμόνιον), and signifies
primarily, in classic usage, a tutelary demon or genius; in N. T.
usage, an evil spirit. These spirits are represented as fallen angels
(2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6), subject to Satan (Matt. 9:34; 25:41;
2 Cor. 12:7; Rev. 12:9), possessing the power of working miracles
(Rev. 16:14), dwelling in the idols of the heathen and uttering
the heathen responses and oracles (Acts 16:17; 1 Cor. 10:20; Rev.
9:20), and the authors of evil to mankind (2 Cor. 12:7; 1 Tim.
4:1). See _Rob. Lex._, art. δαιμόνιον. The charge had before
been made by the Pharisees that Christ cast out devils by Beelzebub
the prince of devils (Matt. 12:24). It is not necessary to trace any
connection between the two epithets _a Samaritan_ and _possessing a
demon_. Passion is never coherent. The language is wild, bitter,
passionate, but illogical and inconsequential.--=I have not a devil *
* * * ye do dishonor me.= He passes by the charge of being a Samaritan
in silence, for the author of the parable of the Good Samaritan
refuses to recognize opprobrium in it; he calmly denies the charge of
having a demon, and declares that by the discourses which they
attribute to a demon he honors the Father, while they dishonor him.
Peter’s declaration (1 Pet. 2:23), “Who, when he was reviled, reviled
not again, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously,” is
illustrated by Christ’s response here. Contrast his indignation at the
wrong done to others (Matt. 23:14, 15, 23, etc.) with his mildness
when wrong is done to himself. And the next verse gives the secret
reason of his calmness.--=I am not seeking my own glory.= Therefore he
is comparatively indifferent to public abuse and dishonor.--=There is
one who seeks and judges.= Because God cares for the honor of his
children, they can well be unconcerned respecting it; because God
judges them righteously, they can well disregard the unrighteous
judgments of men.
51 Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying,
he shall never see death.
=51. Verily, verily.= With Calvin and Godet, I regard Christ’s
discourse to his opponents as ended with the preceding verse.
Recognizing the fact that some of his auditors have been inclined
toward him, though with but a feeble faith, he addresses them in the
words that follow, that he may strengthen their faith. The connection
which Alford and Meyer endeavor to trace between this and the
preceding verse I cannot perceive: _e. g._, “Ye are now the children
of the devil; but if ye keep my word ye shall be rescued from that
murderer.”--(_Alford._) The very words with which Christ begins the
sentence, “Verily, verily” (ἀμὴν, ἀμὴν) indicate a new topic.--=If any
one.= Emphasis is put on the pronoun. The promise is universal; it
embraces Jew and Gentile.--=Keep my word.= _Keep_, as a guard his
prisoner, with watchfulness (Matt. 19:17, note), against all
seductions and assaults; _Christ’s word_, that which he had taught,
and therefore pre-eminently that faith in him as a divine Saviour
which had been the pre-eminent theme of his teaching. We are to keep
not merely the _sayings_ in _memory_, or the _teaching_ in the
_heart_, but, with sentiments of reverence and affection, the _truth_
in our _life_, both in the inward experience and in the outward
conduct.--=Shall not see death for ever.= Not, _Shall not see eternal
death_, but, _Shall never see death_. “The death of the body is not
reckoned as death, any more than the life of the body is life, in our
Lord’s discourses. See ch. 11:25, 26.”--(_Alford._) Christ puts
himself in contrast with the devil, whose slaves, by evil-doing, the
Jews have become (ver. 34). The devil is a murderer, a life-taker
(ver. 44); Christ is a life-giver, even to those that are dead in
trespasses and sins (Ephes. 2:1).
52 Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast
a devil. Abraham is dead,[352] and the prophets; and thou
sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of
death.
[352] Zech. 1:5.
53 Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead?
and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?
=52, 53. The Judeans.= Not the believers of ver. 30. The opponents of
Christ reply to words which were not addressed to them.--=Abraham is
dead.= * * * * --=Art thou greater than our father Abraham?= * * *
=Whom makest thou thyself?= Their argument is, as Chrysostom
interprets it: “They who have heard the word of God are dead, and
shall they who have heard thee not die?” Their perplexity was real,
for the unspiritual never comprehend either spiritual natures or
spiritual teaching. They are literalists, and understand Jesus to
speak of natural death. They are dull and will not comprehend his
declaration that he is the Messiah in hope of whom Abraham and the
prophets had lived. Compare with their question here that of the
Samaritan woman (ch. 4:12), “Art thou greater than our father Jacob?”
but contrast their spirit with hers. She is in doubt; they are
scornful. See also Christ’s declaration in Matt. 12:42, “Behold, a
greater than Solomon is here.”
54 Jesus answered, If[353] I honour myself, my honour is
nothing: it is my Father[354] that honoureth me; of whom ye
say, that he is your God:
[353] ch. 5:31, 41.
[354] ch. 17:1.
55 Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I
should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto
you: but I know him, and keep his saying.
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he[355]
saw _it_, and was glad.
[355] Gen. 22:13, 14; Heb. 11:13.
=54-56. If I glorify myself my glory is nothing.= To _honor_ or
_glorify_ (δοξάζω) is to attribute honor, generally by words. Christ’s
reply to the question, _Whom makest thou thyself?_ is that he makes
nothing of himself; he leaves others to interpret his character from
his life and teachings. And this is singularly true; Christ is to each
soul what its spiritual sight is able to discern in him. He does not
declare himself.--=It is my Father that glorifieth me.= He leaves his
reputation in the hands of his Father, an example to his followers
when belied and misrepresented. See on ver. 18.--=Ye have never
learned him, but I know him.= There is a double contrast in the two
verbs (γινώσκω and οἶδα), the one signifying acquired, the other
direct intuitive knowledge; and in the tenses, the one signifying a
past act, _never have known_, the other a perpetually present
possession, _I always know_. The sense may be expressed: _Ye have
never acquired any knowledge of God, but I am always in fellowship
with him._--=I should be a liar like unto you.= To boast of one’s
spiritual experience is to glorify one’s self; such glory is nothing.
To deny it, under pretence of humility, is to become a liar. There may
be hypocrisy in disavowing the sense of God’s presence and love, as
well as in falsely pretending to it. The true method is that of
Christ, who showed it by his life, not by his professions.--=Your
father Abraham exulted that he might see my day= (_i. e._, that it was
promised to him); =and he has seen it and was glad=. There is some
difficulty in the interpretation of this passage, to which I have
given a literal translation. Some scholars regard it as wholly
prophetical, “Abraham rejoiced in anticipation of Christ’s advent;”
others as historical but typical, “He rejoiced, seeing in the birth of
Isaac a type of the advent of the Messiah,” and they even suppose that
Christ refers to Abraham’s laughter (Gen. 17:17); still others
interpret it as partly prophetic and partly historical, “He rejoiced
in anticipation of the promised advent; he has since seen it from his
home in paradise, and was glad.” The latter view seems to me best to
accord with the original and with the context. So Godet, Meyer,
Alford. For a statement of different views, see _Meyer_. The
declaration is responsive to the question, Art thou greater than our
father Abraham? The answer is, Your father Abraham rejoiced because he
was promised that he should see my advent, and the realization of his
hope has given him new joy in the heavenly kingdom. If this
interpretation be correct, the language incidentally confirms the
doctrine that the saints in heaven are cognizant of what passes upon
earth.
57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty
years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?
58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Before Abraham was, I[356] am.
[356] ch. 1:1, 2; Exod. 3:14; Isa. 43:13; Col. 1:17;
Rev. 1:8.
59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid
himself, and went out of the temple, going through the
midst of them, and so passed by.
=57-59. The Judeans therefore said to him, Thou art not yet fifty years
old.= No indication of his actual age. The fifty years was specified
because this was the age of a perfected maturity, according to Jewish
notions (Numb. 4:3, 39; 8:24--Lightfoot).--=And hast thou seen
Abraham?= He did not say that he had, but that Abraham had seen him.
They pervert his words, partly through stupidity, partly through
wilfulness.--=Verily, verily.= The precursor of a specially solemn
declaration.--=Before Abraham was born, I am= (γίγνομαι-εἰμί). Two
Socinian explanations are afforded of this passage: (1) Before Abraham
was born I (Christ) existed in the divine counsels, _i. e._ I was
purposed by God and foretold by him; (2) Before Abram can become
Abraham, a spiritual father of nations, I (Christ) must be sent forth
as the Messiah. They both seem to me to be shifts devised to
accommodate Scripture to a theological preconception. All independent
Greek scholars (Meyer, Luthardt, Alford, Godet, Tholuck, etc.) agree
substantially in their interpretation of the language. Its meaning is
made clear by a consideration of the original Greek, in which the
contrast is strongly marked between Abraham, who began to be, and
Christ, who eternally is; by the context, in which the pre-eminence of
Christ above Abraham is clearly implied; by the unexpressed but hardly
doubtful reference to the appellation given by the O. T. to Jehovah as
the I AM (Exod. 3:14; comp. Matt. 14:27; Mark 6:50; 14:62; John 8:24,
25); and by the interpretation which was put upon Christ’s words by
his auditors, who understood them as a claim of divinity, and took up
stones to stone him as a blasphemer. Christ, then, by these words, as
I understand him, identifies himself, as the N. T. manifestation of
the unseen God, with the I AM of the O. T., the One who had manifested
the Invisible to Israel in all their history.--=Then took they up
stones to cast at him.= The building of the temple was still going on,
and stones were probably lying about in the temple court. Stoning was
the O. T. punishment for blasphemy, but it could not be lawfully
inflicted without trial and judgment.--=Jesus hid himself.= There is
no good ground to suppose any miraculous escape, either here or in
Luke 4:30. And there is good reason to believe that there was not a
miraculous interposition, for Christ never availed himself of any
miracle for his own benefit. See Matt. 4:6, note. The clause “going
through the midst of them, and so passed by,” is wanting in the best
MSS., and is omitted by Alford, Meyer, Godet, Luthardt. The latter
traces a curious analogy between this typical expulsion and the final
crucifixion of Christ. He hides himself from the eyes of those whom
the God of this world has blinded; he leaves the Pharisees apparent
victors and in possession of the field; in taking up stones to stone
him they show themselves to be murderers at heart, as they afterward
became in outward act.
In this discourse, or these discourses, for it is not quite clear
whether it is one or more, the connection is sometimes obscure, and
the meaning accordingly difficult. The student must remember (1) that
Christ addresses a very different audience from that in Galilee. There
he spoke to willing but ignorant disciples; in Jerusalem he speaks to
obstinate and perverse enemies. (2) Hence the difference in spirit. In
Galilee gentleness is predominant, in Jerusalem severity. (3) The
continuity of the discourse is affected by the sudden transitions of
feeling in Christ, which are great, as in all natures of deep and
ready sympathy. He speaks now with great pathos, as in the question, a
semi-soliloquy, Why do ye not understand my speech? (ver. 43), then
with indignation, Ye are of your father the devil (ver. 44); now with
self-abnegation, I judge no man (ver. 15), If I honor myself my honor
is nothing (ver. 54), again with divine self-assertion and the power
of an unconcealed divinity, I am from above (ver. 23), Before Abraham
was I am (ver. 58). (4) The continuity of his speech is constantly
broken in upon by rude interruptions (verses 19, 22, 39, 41, 48, 52,
53, 57), and by changes in the direction of his discourse, which is
sometimes addressed to his disciples (ver. 31), and sometimes to his
opponents (verses 42, 49, etc.). (5) Nevertheless we may say generally
that the discourse embodies Christ’s teaching respecting himself, and
embraces the following points: He is (_a_) the light, _i. e._, the
moral and spiritual illuminator, of the world (ver. 12); (_b_)
superhuman in his origin (ver. 23); (_c_) the manifestation of the
Father, because the tabernacle (ch. 1:14) in which the Father dwells
(ver. 29); (_d_) the emancipator of all those that accept and obey the
truth as manifested by him (verses 31-36); (_e_) sinless (ver. 46);
(_f_) the life-giver (ver. 51); (_g_) the great I AM (ver. 58). To
receive the benefit of the light which he confers, we must follow his
example (ver. 12); to receive the benefit of the freedom he brings, we
must live habitually in the truth which he teaches (verses 31, 32); to
receive the life which he bestows, we must be born from above (ch.
3:3) by faith in him as our Messiah (ver. 24).
CHAPTER IX.
Ch. 9:1-41. THE HEALING OF THE MAN BORN BLIND.--A MIRACLE OF CHRIST
ATTESTED BY A JUDICIAL INVESTIGATION.--A PARABLE OF REDEMPTION.--A
LESSON IN FAITH. See note at ver. 38.
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--This miracle is reported only by John. There is
nothing peculiar in this, since John alone reports Christ’s Judean
ministry, in which it occurred. The place was Jerusalem; the time is
uncertain; it was on a Sabbath (ver. 14), in the fall of A. D. 29
(Vol. I, p. 45), between the feast of Tabernacles in October (ch. 7:2)
and the feast of Dedication in December (ch. 10:22). Some identify it
with the last day of the former feast (ch. 7:37), which was a Sabbath,
supposing ch. 7:53 to 8:11 to be an interpolation. It is not probable
that it occurred at the time which seems to be indicated by its place
in the report furnished by the Evangelists. That Christ stopped on
escaping from a mob who threatened to stone him, in order to work this
miracle, is not probable; that under such circumstances his disciples
should have asked him the abstruse question of ver. 2 is still more
improbable. I put it therefore at some other time in his Judean
ministry, which lasted a little over two months. See ch. 7, Prel.
Note. In studying this chapter the student will do well to observe its
natural division into three parts: (1) the miracle (verses 1-7); (2)
the investigation (verses 8-33); (3) the result (verses 34-38).
1 And as _Jesus_ passed by, he saw a man which was blind
from _his_ birth.
=1. And passing by, he saw a man blind from birth.= To the ordinary
reader the connection of this verse with the last verse of the
preceding chapter indicates that this miracle was wrought as Jesus
passed from the temple driven by the mob. But the latter clause of
that verse is of doubtful authenticity. The phrase “passing by”
appears to be used here simply to indicate that the miracle of mercy
was called forth by the occasion, not by the blind man’s petition nor
by any previously formed purpose. “It was he who saw the blind man,
not the blind man who came to him; and so earnestly did he look upon
him that even his disciples perceived it.”--(_Chrysostom._) Compare
this case with that in Luke 18:35-43. There the blind man appeals to
Christ, here Christ heals without being appealed to. There, in the
stillness of the country, the noise of the multitude awakens the
attention of the blind man. Here, in the crowded city, there is
nothing to announce to the blind man a healer until Christ speaks to
him. There, therefore, he awaits the petition; here he does not.
Congenital blindness is incurable by modern science. How it was known
to the Evangelist that this man was blind from his birth has been
questioned. The man appears, from the following narrative, to have
been a well-known mendicant. Perhaps he proclaimed the nature and
extent of his misfortune as a means of awakening charity.
2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin,
this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
=2. Who did sin?= It was not only a Jewish opinion that such
afflictions were a divine punishment for sin, it is the teaching of
experience that special diseases are frequently the natural
consequence of sin either in the sufferer or in his ancestry, and the
teaching of Scripture that all disease, and even death itself, is the
fruit of sin. This truth Christ had already recognized in at least two
instances (Mark 2:5; John 5:14), and it is enforced both by warnings
and by historical illustrations in the O. T. (Lev. 26:16; Deut. 28:22;
Numb. 12:10; 2 Kings 5:27). The Jewish error consisted in believing
that all special afflictions were divine visitations for special sins
(Job 4:7; 8:6), an opinion which was not confined to the Jews (Acts
28:4). This error Christ here corrects. The form of the disciples’
question has given rise to some needless perplexity. How could they,
even in imagination, attribute a blindness from birth to the blind
man’s own sin? All such explanations as that some among the Jews
believed in the transmigration of souls and others in a pre-existent
state, and therefore in sins committed in a previous life, and still
others in the possibility of sin committed by the unborn babe in the
womb, a doctrine deduced by the rabbis from such passages as Gen.
25:22 and Psalm 51:5, are inadmissible, because these refinements in
theology, even if actually entertained among the Jewish rabbis,
certainly were not accepted among the common people, from whom Christ
drew his disciples. The question appears to be in spirit this: What is
the explanation of this man’s blindness? his own sin? That cannot be,
for he was born blind. Is he then punished for his parents’ sin?
3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his
parents: but that[357] the works of God should be made
manifest in him.
[357] ch. 11:4.
=3. Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents.= That is, his
blindness is not a punishment for his or their sin.--=But that the
works of God should be made manifest in him.= Manifest to us by his
miraculous cure; but this is not all. The work of God is to believe on
him whom he hath sent (ch. 6:29), and to this belief the blind man was
brought by his cure (ver. 38). Thus the work of God was made manifest,
not only through him to us, but _in_ him. Thus Christ gives the key to
the Christian doctrine of suffering. It is inflicted sometimes as a
special punishment for special sins (see references above), but more
frequently it is a means of grace, inflicted either that by our
endurance we may manifest the grace of God to others (2 Cor. 12:9), or
may be taught of God ourselves (Heb. 12:6, 11). Compare with Christ’s
language here his declaration concerning the sickness and death of
Lazarus (ch. 11:4).
4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is
day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
5 As long as I am in the world, I[358] am the light of the
world.
[358] chaps. 1:5,9; 8:12; 12:35, 46.
=4, 5. While it is day; the night cometh.= The day is life; the night
is death. Christ in his human estate was subject to the law under
which all his disciples are placed. Death cut short his human work.
The day for work is short, the night is at hand; therefore the greater
need of earnest and urgent labor. Sleep is a parable of death (Ps.
104:23) that should perpetually remind us that our day is short.=--The
light of the world.= It was prophesied that the Messiah should open
the eyes of the blind (Isa. 29:18; 35:5; 42:7). The direct reference
is to Christ’s fulfilment of these prophecies (Luke 4:18, 21). But it
is true, in a larger sense, that just so far as Christ is in the
world, and accepted by the world, he becomes its light, intellectual,
moral, and spiritual (ch. 1:9, note).
6 When he had thus spoken, he spat[359] on the ground, and
made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the
blind man with the clay,
[359] Mark 8:23.
7 And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam,[360]
(which is by interpretation, Sent.) He[361] went his way
therefore, and washed, and came seeing.
[360] Neh. 3:15.
[361] 2 Kings 5:14.
=6, 7. Spat on the ground * * * * and he anointed the eyes with the
clay.= Clay and spittle were both believed in ancient times to possess
curative properties. Why Christ used them here is a matter only of
conjecture. Certainly not as remedies, for one blind from birth could
not be cured by a remedy so simple, and he who healed the blind men at
Jericho by a touch (Matt. 20:34) had no need here to resort to other
means. Not to conceal the miracle, as may have been the case in
analogous instances (see Mark 7:33; 8:23, notes), for here his object
was to manifest the works of God, and the result was a public and
protracted investigation of his own character. It is noticeable,
however, that Christ never cured without giving the healed something
to do, as a test of his faith and obedience. Even in the three cases
of raising from the dead he called on the mourners, to indicate by
their obedience to his direction their faith in him (Matt. 9:24, 25;
Luke 7:14; John 11:39, 40). When he was asked to heal, the simple
request served as an indication of faith; when, as here, he
volunteered the cure, he seems always to have required some act as an
evidence of faith. Comp. ch. 5:6-8.--=Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.=
One of the pools in the vicinity of Jerusalem, entitled also Siloah or
Shiloah (Neh. 3:15; Isa. 8:6). It is identified with a pool or tank
still found in the vicinity of Jerusalem, which stands to the south of
the Temple mount, and consists of an oblong tank, partly hewn out of
the rock and partly built of masonry, measuring about fifty-three feet
in length, eighteen feet in width, and nineteen feet in depth, with a
flight of steps leading down to the bottom. Several columns stand out
of the side walls, extending from the top downward into the reservoir,
the design of which it is now difficult to conjecture. The water
passes out of this reservoir through an open channel cut in the rock,
which is covered for a short distance, and a few yards off is partly
dammed up by the people of the adjoining village of Siloam, for the
purpose of washing their clothes, and then divided into small streams
to irrigate the gardens below. The water flows into this reservoir
from an artificial cave or basin under the cliff. This cave is entered
by a small archway hewn in the rock. It is irregular in form, and
decreases in size as it proceeds from about fifteen to three feet in
height. It is connected with what is known as the Fountain of the
Virgin by a remarkable conduit cut through the very heart of the rock
in a zigzag form, measuring some seventeen hundred and fifty feet,
while the distance in a straight line is only eleven hundred feet.
This remarkable fact was discovered by Dr. Edward Robinson, who
had the hardihood to crawl through the passage.--=Which is by
interpretation Sent.= The meaning of this addition has been doubted,
but does not seem to me to be doubtful. The pool, by its very name,
was a symbol of Him who was sent into the world to work the works of
God (ver. 4), and who gives light to the world by providing a fountain
in which not only all uncleanness is washed away, but all ignorance
and blindness of heart.--=He went therefore=, etc. Compare with the
cure of Naaman (2 Kings 5:11, 13), who was in like manner bid to wash
in Jordan, and only reluctantly and after angry resistance consented.
Observe how great the trial to this blind man’s faith, directed to
take so considerable a walk, in his blindness, as a condition of cure.
Observe, too, in the miracle a parable of redemption. The whole world
lieth in darkness from the beginning (Ps. 107:10; Matt. 4:16; 1 John
5:19); Christ, the light of the world, comes to call us out of
darkness into marvellous light (Acts 26:18; 2 Cor. 4:6; Col. 1:13; 1
Pet. 2:9); the condition of receiving that light is faith, exemplified
by obedience, without which the soul remains in darkness (chaps. 1:5;
3:19); and he often calls us to prove our faith by walking, in
obedience to his direction, in the darkness for a while, in order that
we may come into the light (Mark 8:22-26, notes).
8 The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen
him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and
begged?
9 Some said, This is he: others _said_, He is like him:
_but_ he said, I am _he_.
=8, 9. The neighbors therefore, and they which before had seen him
that he was a beggar.= The best manuscripts have _beggar_, not, as in
our English version, _blind_. So Alford and Tischendorf.--=Is not this
he that sat and begged?= Apparently he was a well-known beggar, like
the one described in Acts 3:2, 10. Comp. Luke 18:35. He is described
as one that _sat and begged_, in contrast with such as beg from door
to door. Beggars of this description having a regular place, where
they may always be found soliciting alms, are a not uncommon sight in
the East.--=Some said, This is he. Others, No! but he is like him. He
himself said, I am he.= This is the correct rendering of the best
reading; it varies slightly from our English version. His own response
seems to have settled the question of his identity among the common
people. That some should have at first doubted is not strange,
considering the alterations in appearance made by the clear eye in
place of the sightless eyeballs, and the fact that he was no longer to
be found in his accustomed place, begging.
10 Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened?
11 He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made
clay,[362] and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to
the pool of Siloam, and wash; and I went and washed, and I
received sight.
[362] verses 6, 7.
12 Then said they unto him, Where is he? He said, I know
not.
=10-12.= The first investigation is made informally, and without
prejudice, by the common people. It is curiosity alone which inquires,
and it is easily convinced of the facts in the case.--The man’s reply
to his questioners is more laconic in the original than in our English
version. It is literally, “_And going and washing, I saw._” It reminds
one of Cæsar’s famous report, “I came, I saw, I conquered.” The verb
rendered I saw or I received sight (ἀναβλέπω) is literally, _I saw
again_. Sight being the prerogative of humanity, he speaks as though
it were really once his prerogative (though in fact he never possessed
it), had been lost, and was now recovered to him again.--The question,
_Where is he?_ appears to be asked, not in a spirit of enmity, but
simply from a natural curiosity and interest to see him who had
wrought the cure. Christ’s escape from the blind man and the multitude
is analogous to his course on other occasions (comp. ch. 5:13), and is
characteristic of one who ordinarily avoided all occasions of public
triumph and enthusiasm (ch. 6:15; Matt. 8:4; 9:30; Mark 5:43).
13 They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was
blind.
=13.= Verses 13-34 report a semi-official investigation by the
Pharisees, instigated not by a sincere desire to ascertain the truth,
nor by mere curiosity, but by a determination to break the force of
the miracle that had been wrought. For this purpose they first examine
the man (verses 15-17) and his parents (18-21), in hope to prove an
imposture; next they subject the man to a further cross-examination in
an unsuccessful endeavor to break down his testimony (verses 24-33);
failing in that, they do what they can to discredit his testimony by
excommunicating him (ver. 34).--=The Pharisees.= It is generally
supposed that this phrase indicates the Jewish court formally
assembled, either the Sanhedrim, _i. e._, the supreme court of the
nation, or the lesser Sanhedrim, _i. e._, one of the local courts in
Jerusalem. But the passages cited to show that John uses the term
“Pharisees” to designate a court rather indicate the opposite. In both
John 7:32, 45-47 and John 11:46, 47, he distinguishes between the
“chief-priests and Pharisees” who constituted the council, and the
Pharisees who constituted not a body, but a party. I judge then that
the investigation which follows is an informal one. It must be
remembered that in that age, and even to the present time in that
country, no such clear line was drawn as with us between an official
and an unofficial trial.
14 And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and
opened his eyes.
15 Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had
received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon
mine eyes, and I washed, and do see.
16 Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not
of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others
said, How[363] can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?
And[364] there was a division among them.
[363] verse 31; ch. 3:2.
[364] ch. 7:12, 43.
=14-16. The Sabbath day.= For analogous case of Sabbath healing, see
ch. 5, notes.--=Then again the Pharisees also asked him.= Not that
they had asked him before; the “again” refers to the question by the
people in ver. 10.--=Some said * * * * Others said.= It is a mistake
to suppose that all the Pharisees were hypocrites. Among them were
such men as Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, Gamaliel, Saul of Tarsus.
See Matt. 3:7, note. But the honest Pharisees were timid, and were
easily overborne by their opponents. For account of a similar
conflict, see ch. 7:47-52. Observe the inherent vice of Pharisaism,
ancient and modern; it puts the ceremonial above humanity; it is of
the essence of Christianity that it regards all ceremonials and
observances as for humanity (Mark 2:27; note on Matt. 12:8).
17 They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou
of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a
prophet.[365]
[365] ch. 4:19.
18 But the Jews did not believe[366] concerning him, that
he had been blind, and received his sight, until they
called the parents of him that had received his sight.
[366] Isa. 26:11.
19 And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye
say was born blind? how then doth he now see?
20 His parents answered them and said, We know that this is
our son, and that he was born blind:
21 But by what means he now seeth, we know not; or who hath
opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he
shall speak for himself.
=17-21. What sayest thou of him because he hath opened thine eyes?=
They ask for the man’s opinion, each party perhaps hoping to get
support for its own views.--=He is a prophet.= At first to the blind
man Christ was only “a man that is called Jesus” (ver. 11).
The discussion has not only deepened, it has clarified his
convictions.--=But the Jews did not believe * * * * until they had
called the parents.= The Pharisees make a twofold endeavor to break
the force of the miracle, first by questioning the identity of the
man, second by questioning the method of his cure.--So they ask the
parents if this is their son, and how he was cured.--=His parents
answered them=, etc. The answer of the parents was probably literally
true, but it was evasive.--Their knowledge of the cure was probably
derived from their son; hence they justify themselves in referring the
inquirers to him. But duty, both to truth and to their son, required
that they should have sustained his testimony by their own expressed
belief in the miraculous cure.
22 These _words_ spake his parents, because they[367]
feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if
any man did confess that he was Christ, he[368] should be
put out of the synagogue.
[367] chaps. 7:13; 12:42; Prov. 29:25.
[368] verse 34; ch. 16:2.
23 Therefore said his parents, He is of age; ask him.
=22, 23. Because they feared the Jews.= The term “Jews,” as John uses
it, generally means the Judeans, _i. e._, the inhabitants of Judea, as
distinguished from the Galileans or other dispersed Israelites. Living
in the vicinity of Jerusalem, they were most attached to its ritual,
and most intolerant of any departure from Jewish ceremonials or any
fellowship with the Gentiles. Through their influence the Sanhedrim
had resolved that any one who acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah should
be excommunicated. When this resolution was arrived at does not
appear. It clearly indicates that even in Judea there was growing a
feeling, if not a faith, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Promised
One.--=He should be put out of the synagogue.= That is, excommunicated.
According to the Jewish scholars, there were three kinds of discipline
known in the ancient synagogues, all of which are entitled
_excommunication_ or _cutting off_. Excommunication in the slightest
degree involved separation from the synagogue, and the suspension of
intercourse with all Jews whatever, even with one’s wife and
domestics. A person who had exposed himself to excommunication was not
allowed to approach another nearer than a distance of four cubits.
This separation was continued for thirty days; and in case the
excommunicated person did not repent, the time might be doubled
or tripled, even when the transgression, by means of which it
was incurred, was of small consequence. The second degree of
excommunication is denominated _the curse_, and was more severe in its
effects. It was pronounced with imprecations, in the presence of ten
men, and so thoroughly excluded the guilty person from all communion
whatever with his countrymen, that they were not allowed to sell him
anything, even the necessaries of life. The _third degree of
excommunication_ was more severe in its consequences than either of
the preceding. It was a solemn and absolute exclusion from all
intercourse and communion with any other individuals of the nation;
and the criminal was left in the hands, and to the justice of God. It
is probable that in the time of Christ the second degree of
excommunication was not distinguished from the third. It is uncertain
what degree of excommunication was here threatened; but it is quite
unimportant, since the first was sure to be succeeded by the others,
unless the condemned repented, and made confession of his wrong-doing;
in this case retracted his confession of Jesus as the Messiah.
24 Then again called they the man that was blind, and said
unto him, Give God[369] the praise: we know that this man
is a sinner.
[369] Josh. 7:19; Ps. 50:14, 15.
25 He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner _or no_, I
know not; one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now
I see.
=24, 25.= The Pharisees attempt to overawe the blind man. The
conference with his parents has been held in his absence. They then
summon him into their presence with the declaration that they have
discovered the imposture, and call on him to confess it.--=Give God
the praise= is not equivalent to _Give to God the glory of your cure_;
they do not admit that any cure has been wrought. It is a solemn form
of adjuration to confess the fraud which they pretend to have
discovered (Josh. 7:19).--=We know that this man is a sinner=,
indicates that their investigation has discovered the imposture. The
man’s reply is shrewd and wise. He will not undertake to dispute the
conclusion which these doctors of the law pretend to have reached; but
neither will he abate in the slightest his testimony to the miraculous
cure.--=One thing I know, that being blind, now I see.= No testimony
to Christ is more pertinent or potent than this personal experience of
his grace. Comp. Gal. 1:23; 1 Tim. 1:12-18.
26 Then said they to him again, What did he to thee? how
opened he thine eyes?
27 He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did
not hear: wherefore would ye hear _it_ again? will ye also
be his disciples?
=26, 27.= Defeated in an attempt to overawe the blind man, the
Pharisees resort to the common artifice of cross-examination; they
call on him to repeat his story, in the hope of detecting some real or
imaginary discrepancy in his two accounts, by which they may discredit
him. He refuses to be cross-examined; grows impatient at their manifest
injustice; answers defiantly.--=Ye will not hear.= Equivalent to, Ye
will not heed, will not accept. It is useless to repeat testimony
which they have resolved to reject. He thus illustrates Christ’s
precept, Neither cast ye your pearls before swine (Matt. 7:6).--=Will
ye also be his disciples?= Ironical. The man affects to misunderstand
their object, and to think that they are inquiring for the purpose of
becoming Christ’s disciples. The mere suggestion elicits an indignant
disclaimer, and so brings out clearly that they are not honestly
seeking to get at the truth respecting Jesus, but are attempting to
discredit him. The word _also_ scarcely indicates, as some suppose,
that the man is resolved to become Christ’s disciple. We know too
little concerning him, as yet, to come to that conclusion (ver. 36).
28 Then they reviled[370] him, and said. Thou art his
disciple; but we are Moses’ disciples.
[370] 1 Pet. 2:23.
29 We know[371] that God spake unto Moses: _as for_
this _fellow_, we[372] know not from whence he is.
[371] Ps. 103:7; Heb. 3:5.
[372] ch. 8:14.
=28, 29.= A curious illustration of the inconsistency of bigotry is
afforded by a comparison of the language of the Pharisees here and in
ch. 7:27. There, because they suppose they know the parentage of
Jesus, they say he cannot be the Messiah; here, the pretence that he
is an unknown, affords an equally satisfactory reason for rejecting
him.
30 The man answered and said unto them, Why[373] herein is
a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and
_yet_ he hath opened[374] mine eyes.
[373] ch. 3:10.
[374] Ps. 119:18; Isa. 29:18, 19; 35:5; 2 Cor. 4:6.
31 Now we know that God[375] heareth not sinners: but
if[376] any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his
will, him he heareth.
[375] Job 27:9; Ps. 66:18; Prov. 28:9; Isa. 1:15; Jer.
11:11; Ezek. 8:18; Micah 3:4; Zech. 7:13.
[376] Ps. 34:15; Prov. 15:29.
=30, 31.= The argument of these verses is, (1) founded on the
Pharisees’ doctrine that man is made acceptable to God by his good
works. The Pharisees could furnish no reply to it, because they
believed that God only heard the prayers of the pious (see Neh. 13:14,
22, 31; 2 Sam. 22:21). The doctrine that he hears and answers the
prayers of the penitent, though abundantly taught in the O. T. (Ps.
25:11; 32:5; Isaiah 55:6, 7), they wholly ignored; (2) It is founded
on the Scriptural doctrine that God does not hear the prayer of
deliberate, willful and persistent sinners, while continuing in their
sins. If this “man that is called Jesus” was the impostor that the
Pharisees declared him to be, God would not accompany his ministry
with such manifestations of divine blessing (Isaiah 1:11-15; 59:1, 2;
Prov. 15:8, 29; 21:27; 28:9; Jer. 14:11, 12; Amos 5:21-23; Micah 3:4);
(3) It accords in fact with the N. T. doctrine of prayer, which
teaches us to pray in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ, in
and through whom we are heard, though sinners (chaps. 14:13, 14;
15:16; 16:23, 24). Observe the double condition of prayer, as
indicated by this man: (1) a true reverence of God, (2) a sincere
practical obedience to his will. Comp. ch. 15:17; Heb. 11:6; James
5:16. In the failing of one or the other of these conditions we may
find one principal reason why so many prayers are not answered.
32 Since the world began was it not heard that any man
opened the eyes of one that was born blind.
33 If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.
=32, 33.= It was prophesied of the Messiah that he should restore sight
to the blind (ver. 5, note). This peculiar form of miraculous
cure is not narrated to have been performed by any one except Christ,
unless 2 Kings 6:18, 20 be regarded as an instance; it was performed by
Christ on several occasions (Matt. 9:27-30; 11:5; 12:22; 20:30-34;
Mark 8:22-25); but this is the only case of the cure of one blind
from birth.--=If this man was not from God he could do nothing.= The
man now openly confesses his conviction, which in his previous answer
he has concealed. Observe that he enunciated the same principle as
Nicodemus, and in almost the same words. The declaration is
spiritually true of Christ (ch. 5:19-30) and of every one of Christ’s
disciples (ch. 15:5; comp. Phil. 4:13).
34 They answered and said unto him, Thou[377] wast
altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they
cast him[378] out.
[377] verse 2.
[378] Isa. 66:5.
=34.= Failing in their attempt to break the force of the man’s
testimony, the Pharisees endeavored to discredit it by excommunicating
him. Religious persecution is generally the last resort of intellectual
weakness and defeat. Their declaration _Thou wast altogether born in
sins_ is a reference to the fact that he was born blind. Thus they
become themselves unconscious witnesses to the miracle; for their
language here shows their belief that he was born blind, and the man
himself affords ocular demonstration of the cure. The declaration _They
cast him out_ means, not they drove him out of the court-room, as
interpreted by Chrysostom, Tholuck and others, but they excommunicated
him, in conformity to the resolution previously taken (ver. 22).
35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had
found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe[379] on the
Son of God?
[379] 1 John 5:13.
36 He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might
believe on him?
37 And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him,
and[380] it is he that talketh with thee.
[380] ch. 4:26.
38 And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.[381]
[381] Matt. 14:33.
=35-38. When Jesus heard that they had cast him out.= Perhaps he
purposely waited, that the man’s fidelity to the truth might be fully
tested. This trial of the blind man symbolizes the trial to which
Christ subjects his church (1 Pet. 1:7). When men cast the faithful
witness out, Christ comes to him (Ps. 27:10). Thus the man realizes
the promise of Luke 6:22.--=Dost thou believe on the Son of God.=
There is an emphasis on _Thou_ in the original, which cannot well be
repeated in the English. Christ contrasts his belief with the
disbelief of the Pharisees. “Believest thou, whilst so many others are
disbelievers” (_Trench_).--=Who is he, Sire, that I might believe on
him.= The word translated lord (κύριος) is only a general term of
respect. It is sometimes translated _Sir_ (Matt. 21:30; chaps. 4:11,
15, 19, 49; 5:7; 12:20; 20:15). It does not imply here that the man
recognized in Jesus the Son of God. But his language, _That I might
believe on him_, indicates that he was ready to believe when the
Messiah should be made known to him. This spirit of desire always
brings the answer of disclosure (Matt. 5:6; Acts, ch. 10).--=Thou hast
both seen him.= A reminder of the benefit which has been conferred
upon the man.--=And it is he that talketh to thee.= To no one did
Christ disclose his divine nature more clearly than to this blind man,
whose fidelity to truth showed him worthy to receive the disclosure of
further truth, and one which even the disciples but imperfectly
apprehended.--=Sire, I believe. And he reverenced him.= Not
necessarily _worshipped_. The original does not necessarily signify
anything more than a form of salutation paid by an inferior to a
superior, by falling upon the knees and touching the forehead to the
ground. For meaning of both words, “lord” and “worshipped,” see Matt.
8:2, note. It is clear, however, that the man accepted fully Christ’s
declaration respecting himself, though not so clear that he fully
comprehended his meaning.
* * * * *
THE CURE OF THE MAN BORN BLIND. It is safe to assume that John has
narrated no event at such length as this miracle and its subsequent
investigation without a definite purpose. The general lessons taught
by this account, apart from those incidentally conveyed in single
utterances, appear to me to be three. (1) This is the only one of
Christ’s miracles which was subjected to a judicial or _quasi_
judicial investigation. That investigation originated not with the
disciples, but with the people, and was carried on before a hostile
tribunal. The identity of the blind man was established by his own
testimony and corroborated by that of his parents. That he was born
blind was established by the same indisputable evidence. That he was
cured was ocularly demonstrated. The cure necessarily involved a
miracle, since congenital blindness is not curable by natural means.
The value of the evidence is increased by the facts that the parents
were reluctant witnesses; that the man himself had no interest to
further the cause of Christ, since he did not even know who he was;
that the Pharisees themselves were forced to the unconscious admission
that a miracle had been wrought (ver. 34, note); and that,
defeated in their attempt to browbeat the witness, they endeavored
to discredit his testimony by excommunicating him. (2) There is an
instructive contrast in the characters so briefly but graphically
portrayed. (_a_) The people, moved by mere wonder, investigate
curiously but not earnestly, reach no conclusion, and so learn nothing
of Christ; (_b_) The Pharisees, instigated by malice and religious
bigotry, investigate thoroughly, and are compelled to adopt the
conclusion that a miracle has been wrought, but refuse to
accept the Worker as even a man sent from God, and so learn nothing of
Christ. (_c_) The parents, honest but timid, accept the facts, but are
unwilling to risk persecution for truth’s sake, and so learn nothing
of Christ. (_d_) The man himself, who is faithful to his convictions,
and whose convictions grow by reason of his fidelity, is brought to a
knowledge of Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God. Thus is illustrated
the principle that to find the truth as it is in Christ Jesus it is not
enough to investigate curiously, earnestly, honestly; it is necessary
also to confess fearlessly the truth so far as it is apprehended. (3)
The history of the blind man illustrates the growth of faith, as well
as its conditions. At first he knew nothing of Jesus; but without
knowledge or definite hope he obeys Christ’s direction, goes to the
pool of Siloam, washes, sees. He still knows nothing of the Healer but
that he is “a man that is called Jesus.” Despite the timidity of his
parents, and the threatening of the Pharisees, he maintains the truth,
defends the unknown, asserts him to be a prophet, and a man of God.
Finally, he finds in him the Messiah, the Son of God. Fidelity, in that
which is least, is the condition of receiving larger gifts in knowledge
and faith.
39 And Jesus said, For[382] judgment I am come into this
world, that they which see not[383] might see; and that
they which see might be made blind.[384]
[382] ch. 5:22, 27; 12:47.
[383] 1 Pet. 2:9.
[384] ch. 3:19; Matt. 13:13.
=39. For judgment am I come into this world.= Contrast chaps. 8:15;
12:47. Christ does not hesitate to state truths at different times in
forms which make his statements apparently contradictory. He does not
come to announce judgment or condemnation, but to provide mercy;
nevertheless, he has come _for judgment_, since he draws to himself
all that love the divine character and the divine life, and repels all
that are worldly and selfish. He does not condemn, but they that
reject him are self-condemned, testifying that they love darkness
rather than light because their deeds are evil.--=That they which see
not might see, and that they which see might be made blind.= The
meaning is not, _That they which see not their own blindness might be
made to see it_; this interpretation makes the second clause of the
sentence either a mere repetition of the first, _And that they which
think they see might be made aware that they are blind_, or unmeaning.
Nor is it to be rendered, _That they which see not spiritual things
might be made to see them, and they which see the world might be made
blind to that as a preparation for seeing Christ_; for though this
would be in analogy with Paul’s metaphor (Rom. 6:11; 7:9), it would
not interpret Christ’s declaration that he has come for judgment. The
two clauses of the sentence are to be interpreted alike. Christ’s
coming gave moral and spiritual sight to the publicans who were
without moral culture, but opened their hearts to receive Christ’s
instructions; and it darkened such moral sense as the Pharisees
already possessed, since they closed their eyes to the clear
revelation which Christ brought. Thus Christ is both savor of life
unto life and of death unto death (2 Cor. 2:16), both the corner-stone
and the stone of stumbling (1 Pet. 2:6-8; comp. Matt. 3:12, note).
40 And _some_ of the Pharisees which were with him heard
these words, and said unto him, Are we[385] blind also?
[385] Rom. 2:19; Rev. 3:17.
41 Jesus said unto them, If[386] ye were blind, ye should
have no sin: but now ye say, We see: therefore[387] your
sin remaineth?
[386] ch. 15:22, 24.
[387] Is. 5:21; Luke 18:14; 1 John 1:8-10.
=40, 41. Some of the Pharisees which were with him.= That is, who
happened to be present. But their presence as auditors, coupled
with their question, perhaps implies that they were of that class
which were inclined to regard Jesus as a prophet (ver. 17; ch.
10:21).--=Are we blind also?= The form of the original implies a
strong expectation of a negative reply. It might be rendered, _Surely
we are not blind also_.--=If ye were blind ye should have no sin.=
This is not to be interpreted away, as equivalent to, Your sin would
be less. It is literally true, that sin is in the proportion of
knowledge, so that one who is, by no fault of his own, absolutely
ignorant of moral distinctions, is absolutely free from moral
responsibility.--=Ye say, We see; therefore your sin remains.= They
had the law and the prophets which foretold the Messiah (ch. 5:39),
and they had the knowledge of his works and the moral capacity to
judge them, and did adjudge that God was with him (ch. 3:2), and that
he could not be a sinner (ch. 9:16). This was enough to render them
guilty in not following out their convictions by a public confession
of Christ as a prophet, which they really saw him to be. Comp. ch.
15:24; and with the entire passage (vers. 39-41), Rom. 2:17-24.
CHAPTER X.
Ch. 10:1-21. THE PARABLE OF THE SHEEPFOLD AND THE SHEPHERD.--THE
CHURCH OF CHRIST AS ONE FLOCK.--TO THIS FLOCK THERE IS BUT ONE
DOOR, JESUS CHRIST.--THIS DOOR IS OPENED TO THE SOUL BY THE HOLY
SPIRIT OF GOD.--EVERY ONE WHO ENTERS IN BY THIS DOOR IS SAVED.--AND
BECOMES A MINISTER OF GRACE (A SHEPHERD) TO OTHERS.--THE PATTERN IS
JESUS CHRIST, THE GOOD SHEPHERD.--EVERY TRUE SHEPHERD LIVES FOR THE
FLOCK.--HE WHO DOES NOT IS A HIRELING, AND IS RECREANT IN TIME OF
DANGER.--THE LIFE OF THE FLOCK IS ASSURED BY THE DEATH OF THE GOOD
SHEPHERD.--THAT DEATH WAS NOT COMPELLED; IT WAS VOLUNTARY.
This parable was probably uttered in Judea, and in the immediate
vicinity of Jerusalem. The figure is drawn from the spectacle, likely
at any evening to be witnessed on the hillsides of Judea, a flock
of sheep gathered from the different fields in which they had been
wandering, and _following_ their shepherd, who conducts them to the
sheepfold, which they enter, one by one, for protection, the shepherd
going before and leading them in. To understand aright its meaning, two
facts, often forgotten, must be borne in mind: (1) that the metaphor
is used in the O. T., and for a double purpose; sometimes the shepherd
is the religious teacher of Israel, whose unfaithfulness is rebuked
in the prophets (Jer. 23:1-4; Ezek., ch. 34); sometimes the
shepherd is the Lord, who leads, defends, and feeds the soul which
trusts in him (Ps. 23; Isaiah 40:11); (2) the parable is closely
connected with the discourse concerning blindness, growing out of the
cure of the blind man, and is given for the purpose of emphasizing
and carrying out the warnings therein contained against the Pharisees
as blind leaders of the blind (Matt. 15:14). I understand, then, that
it is a parable with a double application. First, Christ compares the
Pharisees to shepherds, himself to the door, and declares that they
alone are true shepherds who enter into Israel through, _i. e._, under
command from, and with the authority of, Christ as the Messiah--all
others are thieves and robbers (vers. 7-10); he then changes the
application, retaining the figure, declares himself to be the shepherd,
whose praises David and Isaiah sang, and indicates the nature of the
service which he will render to his sheep, namely, giving his life for
them. The parable itself embraces verses 1-6; the first application, a
lesson against the false Pharisaical teachers, verses 7-10; the second
application, a lesson concerning himself as the good shepherd, verses
11-18. The first application is interpreted by Ezekiel, ch. 34; the
second, by Psalm 23 and Isaiah 40:11. The ordinary interpretation,
which regards Christ as referring to himself throughout as shepherd,
necessarily supposes that he employs a mixed metaphor, in which,
without any apparent reason, he alternately represents himself as the
door and the shepherd.
1 Verily, verily, I say unto you,[388] He that entereth
not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some
other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
[388] Rom. 10:15; Heb. 5:4.
=1. He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold.= Sheepfolds,
as usually constructed in the East, are low, flat buildings, erected
on the sheltered side of the valleys, and when the nights are cold,
the flocks are shut up in them, but in ordinary weather they are
merely kept within the yard. During the day, of course, they are led
forth to pasture by the shepherds. The folds are defended by a wide
stone wall, crowned by sharp thorns which the wolf will rarely attempt
to scale. The leopard and panther, however, when pressed with hunger,
will overleap the thorny hedge, and make havoc of the flock. In
Greece, folds are sometimes built merely of a parapet of bushes or
branches, placed at the entrance of caves, natural or made for the
purpose, in the side of hills or rocky ledges. A porter guards the
door of the larger sheepfolds. See _Thompson’s Land and Book_, I, 299,
and _Smith’s Bible Dict._, Art. _Sheepfold_. The sheepfold, in this
parable, answers primarily to Israel, the then visible and organic
church of God, but secondarily to the church of Christ in all ages,
the visible and external organization, in which the professed
disciples of Christ, his sheep, are gathered for better protection. He
that enters not by the door, but furtively climbs up some other way,
marks himself thereby as evil disposed.
[Illustration: AN EASTERN SHEEPFOLD.]
2 But he that entereth in by the[389] door is the shepherd
of the sheep.
[389] Verse 7, 9.
=2. He that entereth in by the door the same is a shepherd of the
sheep.= Not, as in our English version, _the_ shepherd. The definite
article is wanting. Christ does not declare that the evidence that he
is the Shepherd consists in the fact that he entered through the door,
for he is himself the door. He declares to the Pharisees, who reject
him as their Messiah, that there is a double test of the religious
teacher: (1) he must enter into the church by the way by which
he directs the sheep to enter. There is not one salvation for the
teacher and another for the taught; the door is the same to all; and
(2) he must enter by the one only door, Jesus Christ. Whoever comes in
the name and with the authority of Jesus Christ is a shepherd of the
sheep; whoever comes to preach any other Gospel, comes to rob the sheep
of their Saviour and salvation (Gal. 1:8, 9; 2 John, ver. 10).
3 To him[390] the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his
voice: and he calleth[391] his own sheep by name and
leadeth[392] them out.
[390] Rev. 3:20.
[391] Ezek. 34:11; Rom. 8: 30.
[392] Isa. 40:11.
=3. To him the porter openeth.= “The Holy Spirit is especially He
who opens the door to the shepherds; see frequent uses of this
symbolism by the apostles (Acts 14:27; 1 Cor. 16:9; 2 Cor. 2:12;
Col. 4:3); and instances of the porter shutting the door (Acts
16:6, 7).”--(_Alford._) There is the implication here of a truth
elsewhere abundantly taught in Scripture, that the teacher has access
to the heart of the church only through the influence of the Spirit of
God, who opens and closes the heart of the hearer (1 Thess. 1:5;
2:1), and the door of opportunity (Acts 4:7, 8; 16:9; 17:10,
11).--=And he calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth them out.=
This figure exactly corresponds with the actual facts of shepherd life
in the East. “As we eat and looked, almost spell-bound, the silent
hillsides around us were in a moment filled with life and sound. The
shepherds led their flocks forth from the gates of the city. They were
in full view, and we watched them and listened to them with no little
interest. Thousands of sheep and goats were there, grouped in dense,
confused masses. The shepherds stood together until all came out. Then
they separated, each shepherd taking a different path, and uttering, as
he advanced, a shrill, peculiar call. The sheep heard them. At first
the masses swayed and moved, as if shaken by some internal convulsion;
then points struck out in the direction taken by the shepherds; these
became longer and longer, until the confused masses were resolved into
long, living streams, flowing after their leaders. Such a sight was not
new to me, still it had lost none of its interest. It was, perhaps, one
of the most vivid illustrations which human eyes could witness of that
beautiful discourse of our Lord recorded by John.”--(_Porter._)
4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before
them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his
voice.[393]
[393] Cant. 2:8; 5:2.
5 And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee[394]
from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.
[394] 2 Tim. 3:5; Rev. 2:2.
=4, 5. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them,
and the sheep follow him.= The true pastor is an example and leader as
well as a teacher of his people (1 Cor. 11:1; Gal. 4:12; Phil. 3:17;
1 Thess. 1:6).--=A stranger will they not follow.= The stranger is not
the shepherd of another flock, but one who is a stranger and a
foreigner, outside the fold and separated from the great flock of the
Israel of God. The true Christian is never a stranger to the disciples
of Jesus Christ (Ephes. 2:19).--=They know not the voice of
strangers.= The shepherd knows his own sheep by name, and they know
his voice; but the stranger’s voice they do not know. The figure is
all true to the life. “The shepherd calls sharply to them from time to
time to remind them (the sheep) of his presence. They know his voice
and follow on; but if a stranger calls, they stop short, lift up their
heads in alarm, and if it is repeated, they turn and flee, because
they know not the voice of a stranger. This is not the fanciful
costume of a parable; it is a simple fact.”--(_Thompson’s Land and
Book_, I, 301.) This personality of relation between the true
religious teacher and the taught, abundantly illustrated by Christ’s
personal love for his disciples, and by Paul’s love for the converts
gathered under his ministry, is in strong contrast to the distance
which was maintained between the Pharisees and the common people. It
is not then a fanciful deduction that, under ordinary circumstances,
the pastor should have a personal acquaintance with his people, should
not have so large a charge that he cannot know his people by name, and
should ordinarily depend for his influence upon his personal
acquaintance with them, and their personal confidence in him.
6 This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood
not what things they were which he spake unto them.
=6. This parable spake Jesus unto them.= Rather _allegory_ or
_obscure saying_. The original word (παροιμία) is different from
that in the other Evangelists translated _parable_, and the
structure of the teaching is somewhat different from that of the
parables narrated by the other Evangelists. See on the nature of the
parable, Matthew, ch. 13, Prel. Note. This, however, more nearly
approximates a true parable than any other of Christ’s instructions
reported by John.--=But they understood not what things they were
which he spake unto them.= That is, the Pharisees to whom he was
speaking did not understand the meaning and application of his
imagery. “They did not feel the application of it; they did not see
what shepherds and sheepfolds had to do with them. They could hardly
have given a greater proof how little they understood the things which
were written in the books they prized most--how their worship of the
divine letter had destroyed all commerce between their minds and the
realities which it set forth.”--(_Maurice._)
7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say
unto you, I[395] am the door of the sheep.
[395] Eph. 2:18.
=7.= Verses 7-10 inclusive, contain the first application of the
parable, primarily to the Pharisees as religious teachers of Israel,
and secondarily to all that claim to be shepherds of God’s people,
then or now.--=I am the door.= “That is, through me all the truths and
blessings of religion are to be communicated to the flock, or people of
God. Whoever addresses them as an authorized teacher must enter through
me.”--(_Norton._) It is the Holy Spirit (the porter, ver. 3)
who opens Christ to the heart and the heart to Christ, and makes it
possible for either the sheep (the learners) or the under-shepherd (the
teacher) to enter into the fold through him (chaps. 6:37, 44; 14:26;
15:26).
8 All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but
the sheep did not hear them.
=8. All whosoever came before me are thieves and robbers.= This verse
is declared by Tholuck to be “one of the most difficult sentences in
the N. T.” If _before_ (πρό) be taken as an adverb of time, as is
generally done, then Christ’s declaration is that all religious
teachers who preceded him were thieves and robbers, and this would on
its face include the long line of prophets from Moses to Malachi; or
if the sentence is modified, as some propose, by the fact that the
verb is in the present tense, _are_ thieves and robbers, so that
Christ embraces only the then living teachers, still this would
include such instructors as Gamaliel and Nicodemus, if not John the
Baptist, who belonged to that generation. The qualification of this,
by the supposition that Christ did not include true teachers but only
the false, not only falsifies his declaration which points out the way
in which the true may be distinguished from the false, but reduces the
sentence to a truism, viz., All false religious teachers who came
before me, are thieves and robbers, _i. e._, teachers of falsehood,
depriving men of the truth. The other proposed qualification, All who
have come claiming to be Messiah, are thieves, etc., not only adds an
important qualification to Christ’s declaration, but is historically
an anachronism, inasmuch as there is no historical evidence that any
false Messiah preceded the time of Christ. I am inclined, therefore,
to take _before_ (πρό) as an adverb signifying precedence in rank or
authority, as it does in Col. 1:17, James 5:12, and 1 Pet. 4:8, and to
understand the passage, _All whosoever come claiming precedence above
me are thieves and robbers_. The verb _come_ (ἦλθον) is in the aorist
tense, and does not necessarily indicate a coming in the past only,
but would be properly used for the enunciation of a general principle.
The prophets of the O. T. claimed no such precedence above Christ; on
the contrary, they were but his heralds; and John the Baptist
distinctly disavowed such precedence (Matt. 3:14; chaps. 1:26, 27;
3:30). The Pharisees, on the other hand, denied Christ’s right to
teach, because he did not belong to their schools (ch. 7:15), and in
their conference with the blind man had put themselves above Christ
(ch. 9:16, 24). Where there is no general agreement among scholars, I
hesitate to offer an interpretation which differs from all, but this
appears to me on the whole more consistent with the context, and with
the teaching of the N. T. elsewhere, than any other, and not
inconsistent with the original. If this be a correct interpretation,
Christ’s claim here is directly antagonistic to those who would make
an eclectic religion, by selecting truth from all the world’s
religious teachers, including Christ among the rest. For he declares
all to be robbing the world of truth, not imparting it, who deny him
the pre-eminent rank as a religious teacher. On the other hand, he
does not stigmatize genuine moral teachers, such as Buddha or
Socrates, as thieves and robbers, for they had no knowledge of Christ,
and claimed no precedence above him.--=But the sheep did not hear
them.= This has been eminently true of all teachers in the church who
have put themselves above Christ; it is the preachers of Christ who
alone have secured the world’s attention. This is illustrated by the
history of Paul (2 Cor. 4:5), Luther, Wesley, and in our own times
Spurgeon, Moody, and others.
9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be
saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
=9. I am the door; by me if any enter in, he shall be safe.= Christ is
not only the door by whom the shepherd (the teacher) can alone enter
in to feed the flock, he is also the door by which alone the sheep
(the disciples) can enter into the church and into security (Acts
4:12). The extent and assurance of this safety is expressed below
(vers. 28, 29). And observe, the promise is not merely _shall be
saved_ in the future, but _shall be safe_, _i. e._, from the time of
entering the door (ch. 3:18, 36; Rom. 8:1, 28, 31, etc.)--=And shall
go in and out and find pasture.= To “go in and out” was a common
Hebraistic phrase to denote the whole life and action of man (Deut.
28:6; Psalm 121:8). Here, therefore, the meaning is that he who thus
enters the door, shall be blessed in all his ways. His pasture is the
bread of life and water of life, promised in chaps. 4:14; 6:48-51. So
that Christ is at once the door, the shepherd, and the pasture; the
entrance, the guardian and guide, and the food of the disciple.
10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and
to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that
they might have _it_ more abundantly.
=10. The thief cometh not but for to steal * * * * I am come that they
might have life=, etc. A contrast between false religion and the true,
heathenism or Pharisaism and Christianity. The false religion comes to
deprive men of their liberty, their property, their earthly happiness,
to kill their natural and free life, and to destroy, finally, the
soul. The true religion comes first to give this present life more
abundant development, and then through that to give eternal life.
Hence, whatever form of religion tends to deprive mankind of its free,
natural, and joyous life is anti-Christian; the constant tendency of
Christ’s teaching and influence is to make the whole life, social,
intellectual, moral, and spiritual, more abundant.
11 I[396] am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth
his life for the sheep.
[396] Heb. 13:20; 1 Pet. 2:25.
12 But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd,
whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and
leaveth[397] the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth
them, and scattereth the sheep.
[397] Ezek. 34:2-6; Zech. 11:17.
=11, 12.= With these verses Christ gives a new direction to the
preceding parable. He has thus far spoken of religious teachers
in general, and of himself as the _door_ by which they alone can
enter in to feed the flock, and by which alone the flock can enter
in to find safety. He now speaks of himself as the Great Shepherd
and Bishop of souls (1 Pet. 2:25), under whom are all the shepherds,
and in contrast with whom are the hirelings.--=I am the Good
Shepherd=, more literally the _beautiful_ Shepherd; but this word
(καλός), though strictly speaking esthetic, was used by the Greeks to
designate moral beauty, and referred to the most symmetrical and
perfect goodness. Throughout the O. T. the church of God is regarded
as a fold, Israel as a flock, and Jehovah himself as the Shepherd (Ps.
23; Isa. 40:11; Ezek., ch. 34; Jer., ch. 23; Micah 5:3; Zech., ch.
11). It is impossible but that Christ’s auditors should have
understood him as claiming to be this Shepherd of Israel. Observe the
difference between the phraseology here and in verse 2; here _the_
good Shepherd; there _a_ Shepherd.--=The good shepherd layeth down his
life for the sheep.= This is not a prophecy, equivalent to, I am about
to die for my sheep; it is the enunciation of a general principle by
which every good shepherd can be distinguished from the hireling; for
every good shepherd is ready to sacrifice his life for his sheep
because they are his; the hireling flees when danger threatens,
because he is an hireling and has no real interest in the sheep.
Neither is the expression _to lay down the life_ a circumlocution for
_die_. Christ rarely uses circumlocution of any kind. The good
shepherd may or may not be called on to die for his sheep; but he
always lays down his life for them. To lay down the life is to
consecrate it, devote it to the flock; as a mother, who is always
ready to die for her children, but who, living or dying, belongs to
her children and surrenders herself to them. So we ought also to lay
down our lives for the brethren (1 John 3:16), though comparatively
few are ever called on to die for them. Wickliffe and Luther as truly
laid down their lives for the flock as Huss and Tyndale. The sacrifice
of Christ consisted not merely in his death--which was indeed in its
mere physical aspects the least part of it--but in his whole
incarnation. His entire life from his advent to the grave was laid
down for his sheep. This laying down of his life includes his death;
but it includes much more. The whole thirty years was a living
sacrifice for sinful humanity (Phil. 2:5-8).--=But he that is an
hireling, not being a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the
wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep and fleeth.= Every clause in this
sentence must be carefully weighed by the student; for every clause is
full of weighty significance. There is nothing in the sentence, if the
whole be considered, adverse to a paid ministry. Not every one who is
hired is an hireling (1 Tim. 5:18); only he who _serves for hire_,
whether emoluments or reputation; who accordingly is not a shepherd,
_i. e._, has none of the shepherd’s instincts and none of the
shepherd’s love for his flock; _whose own the sheep are not_, _i. e._,
who has none of that sense of ownership in his flock which Paul
experienced and expressed (1 Cor. 4:14, 15; 1 Thess. 2:11; 1 Tim. 1:2;
Titus 1:4; Philemon 10); who, therefore, _careth not for the sheep_
(ver. 13), but only for himself. Here, as everywhere in Christ’s
instructions, it is the evil spirit which he condemns and the right
spirit which he exalts. The hirelings of Christ’s day were those among
the chief rulers and the priests, the religious teachers of Israel,
who believed on Jesus, but would not confess their faith for fear of
the hierarchy (ch. 9:22; 12:42, 43; 19:38). The hirelings ever since
have been those in the church, whether paid preachers or no, who have
feared to withstand falsehood and danger, and have suffered popular
sins to pass unrebuked lest they should bring obloquy upon themselves,
or loss of friends, or personal peril, or any martyrdom, large or
small. The hireling, too, does not merely _flee_; the true shepherd
has sometimes to do this (Matt. 10:23); Christ himself did this
repeatedly (Matt. 14:13; Luke 4:30; John 8:59; 10:39). It is
characteristic of the hireling that he _leaveth the sheep_ and fleeth.
Caution may lead the true pastor to avoid a conflict which will bring
greater disaster on the flock than battle; but his caution is always
to be exercised for the sheep, not for himself. It is caring for one’s
self more than for the church that marks the hireling.--=The wolf
catcheth them and scattereth the sheep.= Any and every willful and
determined opponent to truth and righteousness is a wolf; whether he
is a persecuting power like that of pagan and papal Rome, or a false
teacher, a wolf in sheep’s clothing (Matt. 7:15; Acts 20:29). The wolf
at this particular juncture was the Pharisaic party, which was
ravaging the church of God, and binding heavy burdens on the people,
whom Christ denounced, and in battle with whom he suffered death.
13 The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and
careth not for the sheep.
14 I am the good shepherd, and[398] know my _sheep_, and am
known[399] of mine.
[398] 2 Tim. 2:19.
[399] 1 John 5:20.
15 As[400] the Father knoweth me, even so know I the
Father: and[401] I lay down my life for the sheep.
[400] Matt. 11:27.
[401] ch. 15:13; Isa. 53:4,5.
=13-15. The hireling * * * careth not for the sheep * * *=--=I know my
sheep.= Christ reiterates the contrast between the hireling and the
good shepherd; and indicates anew points of distinction between the
two. The hireling careth not for the sheep; he cares only for his
wages; the good shepherd knows his sheep and is known by them. In a
limited way this is true of the good pastor or shepherd; he knows his
flock personally and sympathizingly; he is not merely a preacher to
them; he is their best friend and adviser (ver. 3, note). But this
knowledge is never perfect, and never can be, in the under shepherd.
His insight is imperfect; his sympathy is partial. It is only Christ
who can say I _know_ my sheep. “If you would think rightly of the Son
of Man, think of the Person who knows thoroughly everything that each
one of you is feeling, and cannot utter to others or to himself--every
temptation from riches, from poverty, from solicitude, from society,
from gifts of intellect, from the want of them, from the gladness of
the spirit, from the barrenness and dreariness of it, from the warmth
of affection and from the drying up of affection, from the anguish of
doubt and the dulness of indifference, from the whirlwind of passion
and the calm which succeeds it, from the vile thoughts which spring
out of fleshly appetites and indulgences, from the darker, more
terrible suggestions which are presented to the inner will. Believe
that he knows all these, that he knows _you_. And then believe this
also, that all he knows is through intense, inmost sympathy, not with
the evil that is assaulting you, but with you who are assaulted by it.
Believe that knowledge, in this the Scriptural sense of it--the human
as well as the divine sense of it--is absolutely inseparable from
sympathy.”--(_Maurice._)--=And am known of mine.= Christ’s knowledge
of the Christian is the basis of the Christian’s knowledge of Christ.
Both are sympathetic and personal, the knowledge of love. It is
because the Good Shepherd knows his sheep that he is known of them. It
is because by his knowledge he is able to enter into our innermost
experience, and to give us comfort and strength when all human helpers
fail, that we come to know him as our Helper and our Strength. We know
him as the Good Shepherd only as we follow his guidance, accept the
food and water he gives us, are restored by him when wandering, and
delivered by him from danger and death.--=As the Father knoweth me,
even so know I the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.= The
connection is not very clear between this sentence and the preceding
one, or between the different clauses of this sentence. It seems to
me, however, that Christ refers to this knowledge between himself and
the Father, not merely to illustrate the knowledge between himself and
his disciples, but to turn their thoughts from himself to the Father.
Christ has been accused of blasphemy by the Jews; that is, of
endeavoring to deflect the reverence and allegiance of the people from
God to himself. It must be confessed that there has often been a
tendency in his disciples to substitute the Saviour for the Father, to
believe in the sympathy of Christ, but not in the sympathy of God, to
believe in the love of the Redeemer, but to attribute justice and
wrath to Jehovah. Christ guards against this tendency, and refutes
this accusation, by the declaration that he knows perfectly every wish
and will of the Father, and in the whole course of his self-sacrifice,
in all the laying down of his life for humanity, he is carrying out
that will. Thus the declaration of this verse leads one to that of
verse 17: “Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my
life.”
16 And[402] other sheep I have, which are not of this fold;
them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice;
and[403] there shall be one fold, _and_ one shepherd.
[402] Isa. 49:6; 56:8.
[403] Ezek. 37:22; Ephes. 2:14.
17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because[404] I lay
down my life, that I might take it again.
[404] Isa. 53:7-12; Heb. 2:9.
18 No man taketh it from me, but[405] I lay it down of
myself. I have power to lay it down, and I[406] have power
to take it again. This[407] commandment have I received of
my Father.
[405] Phil. 2:6-8.
[406] ch. 2:19.
[407] ch. 6:38.
=16-18. Other sheep I have which are not from= (ἐκ) =this fold=. Not,
Which are in other worlds; for the Bible does not anywhere recognize
this world as the fold of God: nor, Others from among the dispersed
Jews scattered among the Gentiles; for these were already in “this
fold,” none the less belonging to Israel because they were
geographically separated from their brethren. The reference is to
those whom Christ has among the Gentiles, and, as I believe, still has
among the heathen (Acts 10:35; 18:10). They are not, however, in a
flock or fold, but scattered (ch. 11:52). Observe, Christ does not say
_I am to have_--the present is not used in lieu of the future. He
already has them; they are his sheep; he recognizes as his own those
whose spirit is akin to his, though they do not recognize him as
theirs (Matt. 25:37-40).--=Them also I must lead.= Not _bring_, _i.
e._, to the Jewish nation, but _lead_ as a shepherd. He must be leader
to all who will follow him, whether Jew or Gentile.--=And there shall
be one flock, one Shepherd.= Not one _fold_, as unfortunately
translated in our English version (μία ποίμνη, not μία αὐλή). “Not
_one fold_, but _one flock_; no one exclusive enclosure of an outward
church--but one flock, all knowing the one Shepherd, and known of
Him.”--(_Alford._) And one flock because one Shepherd; one not in
creed, or organization, or method of worship, but one in Christ Jesus
(see ver. 30).--=Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down
my life.= Not because I _have_ laid it down, as though the love of the
Father were caused by the earthly love and sacrifice of Christ, but
because I _lay_ it down. That is, because Christ’s Spirit is one of
self-sacrificing love, manifested by, but not alone embodied in the
incarnation, he is loved by the Father. See Phil. 2:9; Heb. 1:9.--=In
order that I may take it again.= Beware of understanding this, as many
of the commentators seem to do, as equivalent to, _I die in order that
I may rise from the dead_. The meaning is interpreted by Christ’s
declaration to his disciples: “He that loseth his life for my sake
shall find it.” Christ lays down his life by his humiliation, his
incarnation, his passion and his crucifixion, that he may take it
again in the life of the myriads whom he has redeemed from death by
his own death. He takes it again when he sees of the travail of his
soul and is satisfied (Isa. 53:11), which he does when those who have
been washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb stand before him
(Rev. 7:14, 15). So every mother, laying down her life in continued
self-sacrifice for her children, takes it again in their developed
manhood and womanhood.--=No one taketh it from me, but I lay it down
of myself.= _No one_ is not equivalent to _no man_, a translation
which weakens if it does not destroy the sense. The sacrifice of
Christ, the whole experience of humiliation and suffering, commencing
with the laying aside of the glory which he had with the Father and
culminating in the crucifixion, was not imposed upon him by any one,
neither by man, nor by Satan, nor even by the Father; it was
self-assumed. This fact is the answer to all those objections to the
N. T. doctrine of the atonement, which misrepresent it as portraying a
God who inflicts on an innocent victim the punishment which was
deserved by others.--=I have power to lay it down and I have power to
take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.= The
word rendered _power_ (ἐξουσία), includes both _power_ and _right_
(see ch. 1:12, note); the word rendered _commandment_ (ἐντολὴ), is
not equivalent to authority; the original word always means _law_
or _command_. Christ’s disciples have no authority to frame
self-sacrifices for themselves; doing this is always characteristic of
a corrupt and _quasi_ pagan religion. They are to bear with cheerful
heroism whatever self-sacrifice the providence of God may lay upon
them. So also they have never a right to seek death, but are always to
seek to _live_ to the glory of God and for their fellow-men. But
Christ voluntarily chose his life of humiliation and cross-bearing;
voluntarily sought its privations; and finally went, not to an
inevitable death, but to one which he might easily have avoided by
flight, if he had acted according to the directions which he gave his
followers, and on which the apostle subsequently acted. He might have
fled from Jerusalem on the fatal night of his arrest, as he had done
before, and this without leaving his sheep to be seized or scattered
by the wolf; or he might have been protected by supernatural power
(Matt. 26:53). He did not because he had a peculiar authority given to
him, which his followers do not possess, to lay down his own life,
both in the self-assumed humiliation of the incarnation, and in the
final tragedy of his death. And this peculiar authority he possessed
because in all his incarnation and passion and death he was carrying
out the will and obeying the command of his Father. To us the
divine command is interpreted by providence; Christ needed no such
interpreter, for he knew the Father’s will, knowing the Father even as
he was known by the Father.
19 There was a division therefore again among the Jews for
these sayings.
20 And many of them said, He[408] hath a devil, and is mad;
why hear ye him?
[408] ch. 7:20.
21 Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a
devil. Can a devil open[409] the eyes of the blind?
[409] ch. 9:6, etc.
=19-21. There was a division therefore again among theJews.=--Christ’s
fan was in his hand. His teachings were tests of the character of his
auditors.--=He hath a devil.= Rather _an evil spirit_ (see ch. 8:52,
note).--=Why hear ye him?= Why listen to him at all? The words were
addressed by the opponents of Jesus to those who were inclined to
believe on him, and indicate the uneasiness with which the Pharisees
observed the impression which Christ was making on the less prejudiced
and better disposed among the people (comp. ch. 7:46-49).--=These are
not the words of one possessed by an evil spirit.= A pregnant saying.
Infidelity must afford some explanation of the teachings and life of
Christ; and they are not the teachings and life of either a fanatic or
a deceiver.--=Can an evil spirit open the eyes of the blind?= These
words show that the whole discourse of this chapter was not distant in
time from the healing of the blind man narrated in Chapter IX, and was
probably closely connected with it.
* * * * *
Ch. 10:22-42. DISCOURSE AT THE FEAST OF DEDICATION.--THE GIFT
OF CHRIST: ETERNAL LIFE.--THE POWER OF CHRIST: THE POWER OF THE
FATHER.--THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE O. T. PROPHETS AND CHRIST.--THE
EVIDENCE OF CHRIST’S DIVINITY; HIS WORKS.
There is no reason to suppose that Christ left Judea during the time
which elapsed between the feast of Tabernacles (ch. 7:2) and
the feast of Dedication; on the contrary, the intimate connection
between the discourse here reported and the preceding parable of the
Good Shepherd (see vers. 26, 27), indicates that this discourse
followed almost immediately after that one; certainly while the latter
was still fresh in the minds of the people. I believe that the ministry
in Judea, reported in John, chapters 7, 8, 9 and 10, was a continuous
one, unbroken by any departure into Galilee or Perea.
22 And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and
it was winter.
23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch.[410]
[410] Acts 3:11; 5:12.
24 Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him,
How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ,
tell us plainly.
=22-24. The feast of the Dedication.= A Jewish feast instituted by
Judas Maccabeus, in commemoration of the cleansing of the second
temple and altar, after they had been polluted by Antiochus Epiphanes.
The profanation took place B. C. 167, the purification B. C. 164. The
festival commenced on the 25th day of the ninth month, Kislev,
answering to our December, and lasted eight days. It was also called
the feast of Lights, from the fact that the Jews illuminated their
houses as long as the feast lasted. Instituted by the Maccabean
dynasty, and observed chiefly by the more rigid Judeans, it afforded
to Christ an audience only of the more narrow-minded and bigoted of
the Jews, a fact which must be borne in mind in studying his teaching
on this occasion.--=It was winter.=--The fact is stated to explain our
Lord’s walking in Solomon’s portico. For description and illustration
of this portico, see Acts 5:12, note. This minute detail, the
exact locality where he gave this instruction, is one of the many
indications which this Gospel affords of being written by an
eye-witness.--=The Judeans therefore surrounded him.= The verb
(κυκλόω) is generally used in a hostile sense, _e. g._, of armies
encompassing a city (Luke 21:20; Heb. 11:30; Rev. 20:9). This is the
meaning here; an excited and threatening crowd hedged about Jesus as
he was quietly walking in the porch. “Their fixed design was, not to
leave him at liberty till he should have uttered the decisive
word.”--(_Godet._) This was the earliest manifestation of that design
which was finally accomplished when the oath was administered to Jesus
by the High Priest, and he was adjured to say whether he was the Son
of God (Matt. 26:63, note).--=How long dost thou keep our souls in
suspense?= This English idiom almost literally answers to the Greek
idiom (τὴν ψυκὴν αἴρεις), which is still more exactly, _How long dost
thou keep our souls lifted up?_ _i. e._, with expectation and
uncertainty. Commingled and contradictory feelings in the crowd were
probably represented by this question; some hoped that Jesus was the
Messiah and desired to compel him to declare himself; others were
enraged with him, and desired to extort some utterance which would
give them the opportunity to condemn him for blasphemy, or to excite
the mob against him.
25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not;
the[411] works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear
witness of me.
[411] ch. 5:36.
26 But[412] ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep,
as I said unto you.
[412] ch. 8:47.
27 My[413] sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they
follow me:
[413] verse 4.
=25-27. I told you * * * the works * * * bear witness of me.= He had
told them (ch. 5:19; 8:36, 56, 58, etc.), not it is true as plainly as
he had told the Samaritan woman (ch. 4:26), but more plainly than he
had told his own disciples previous to Peter’s confession of faith,
“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16); and he
now answers them as he answered John the Baptist, who, in a very
different spirit, preferred the same request for a definite answer to
the question, “Art thou He that should come?” (Matt. 11:2-6.) He
refers them to his works. The evidence of Christ’s divinity is not in
his declaration about himself, nor in the declarations made concerning
him by others, but in his life, his character, and the work which he
has done and is still doing in the world. Works (ἔργα) includes his
miracles but is not equivalent to miracles. See ch. 14:12, note. The
reason why he did not answer more directly is well given by Godet: “He
could not answer ‘I am,’ for the meaning which they attached to the
word Christ had, so to speak, nothing in common with that in which he
used it. Still less could he reply, ‘I am not;’ for he was indeed the
Christ provided by God, and in that sense he whom they expected.”--=Because
ye are not of my sheep, as I said to you.= The reference is either to
the implied teaching of the parable of the Good Shepherd, or to some
specific statement not reported by the Evangelist. The genuineness of
the words _as I said to you_ is doubted by some, but they are regarded
as authentic by most critics. What does he mean by _ye are not of my
sheep_. If we look back we shall see that the sheep of Christ are
those that hear (_i. e._, accept and obey) his voice, and follow him
(_i. e._, imitate his life and example). See verses 3, 4, 14, 16, 27.
The declaration, then, _Ye believe not because ye are not of my
sheep_, is that those who do not spiritually recognize the beauty of
Christ’s teaching, and do not attempt to follow his incomparable
example, are not to be expected to be convinced of his divinity by
purely intellectual arguments.--The answer to the skeptic is
generally, You cannot believe in Christ as your personal Saviour till
you begin to recognize and to follow his teaching and example as a
prophet and a man. The declaration is the converse of John 7:17. Comp.
2 Peter 1:5-8, where the possession of the Christian virtues is
declared to be the efficient cause of a sound Christian knowledge. The
creed does not precede but follows spiritual life.
28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they[414] shall
never perish, neither shall any _man_ pluck them out of my
hand.
[414] ch. 17:12; 18:9.
29 My[415] Father, which gave[416] _them_ me, is greater
than all; and no _man_ is able to pluck _them_ out of my
Father’s hand.
[415] ch. 14:28.
[416] ch. 17:2.
30 I[417] and _my_ Father are one.
[417] ch. 17:11, 22.
=28-30. And I give unto them eternal life.= Life is the _gift_ of God
through Jesus Christ (ch. 1:12; 4:10, 14; 6:27, 32, 51; Rom. 5:17;
6:23; Eph. 1:17), but the necessary condition of receiving it is
faith in his Son, _i. e._, the ability to appreciate spiritual life
in its highest and most perfect manifestation, and a readiness to
follow after it, by leaving all things else to attain it, as did Paul
(Phil. 3:13, 14).--=And they shall never perish, neither shall
any pluck them out of my hand.= The word rendered _perish_ is literally
_destroy themselves_ (ἀπόλωνται, _middle voice_); and this seems to
me to be the meaning here; otherwise there would be a repetition,
the second clause of the promise only reiterating the first clause.
The word _man_ is not in the original; _any_ includes all powers,
human and superhuman. I, then, understand Christ’s declaration to be
that the souls which trust in him _shall never destroy themselves,
and no one shall pluck them out of his hand_; _i. e._, he promises
to protect his disciples both against their own weaknesses and also
against the strength of assailants; from fears without and foes
within; from treachery in the soul, and from assaults on the soul.
See 1 Cor. 10:13; 15:10; Phil. 4:19; Col. 1:11, etc.--=My Father which
gave them to me, is greater than all.= There is some uncertainty as to
the reading, but the best critics agree in sustaining the received
text.--=No one is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my
Father are one.= Without entering into any doubtful disputations
respecting the relation of the Father and the Son, a problem which I
believe transcends human knowledge, it is evident that the connection
here requires us to understand Christ as declaring himself one with
the Father, not merely in will or desire, as the disciple is to be one
with his Lord, but also in spiritual power. The argument is, “My sheep
shall never perish, since my Father who gave them into my hand is
greater than all, and I who hold them, am one with him.” This argument
would be without force if the meaning was not that Christ’s _power_ is
equal to that of the Father. His will might be perfectly in harmony
with the divine will, he still could not be trusted as a divine
Saviour unless his power was commensurate with his will. So all the
best expositors, _Alford_, _Godet_, _Meyer_, _Luthardt_, _Tholuck_.
31 Then[418] the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
[418] ch. 8:59.
32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed
you from my Father; for which of those works do ye
stone me?
33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone
thee not; but for blasphemy; and because[419] that thou,
being a man, makest thyself God.
[419] verse 30; ch. 5:18; Ps. 82:6; Rom. 13:1.
=31-33.= The moral power of Christ is singularly illustrated by the
manner in which he restrains the mob by his voice and compels them to
answer his question. That question implies that punishment is due only
to wrong actors, and he asks them before they execute sentence, to
designate any wrong that he has done. The question is thus analogous
to that of ch. 8:46, “Which of you convinceth me of sin.”--Blasphemy
was a regularly recognized crime under Jewish law; it consisted in any
endeavor to draw away the allegiance of the people from the one true
God, and answered to treason with us, Jehovah being under the
theocracy, the Supreme head of the nation (see Matt. 12:32, note). The
reply of the Jews to Christ’s question plainly shows how they regarded
his declaration, “I and my Father are one,” not as indicating mere
unity in spirit and purpose, but also in power and essential being.
This is not indeed conclusive, for the Jews constantly misunderstood
Christ; but it is an indication of his meaning. One practical lesson
of the unity of the Godhead, of Christ and the Spirit with the Father,
is eloquently presented by Maurice: “The unity of the Father and the
Son is the only ground of the unity between the Shepherd and the
sheep; undermine one and you undermine both * * * *. Do you think
sects would last even for an hour, if there was not in the heart of
each of them a witness for a fellowship which combinations and
shibboleths did not create, and which, thanks be to God, they cannot
destroy. The Shepherd makes his voice to be heard through all the
noise and clatter of earthly shepherds; the sheep hear his voice and
know that it is calling them to follow him into a common fold where
all may rest and dwell together; and when once they understand the
still deeper message which he is uttering here, and which the old
creeds are repeating to us, ‘I and my Father are one;’ when they
understand that the unity of the church and the unity of mankind
depends on this eternal distinction and unity in God himself, and not
upon authority or decrees of any mortal pastor, the sects will crumble
to pieces, and there will be in very deed, one flock and one
Shepherd.”
34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I
said, Ye are gods?
35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came,
and the scripture cannot be broken;
36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified,[420] and
sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I
am[421] the Son of God?
[420] ch. 6:27; Isa. 11:2, 3; 49:1, 3.
[421] Phil. 2:6.
=34-36. Is it not written in your law.= He does not say in _our_ law,
nor in _the_ law, but in _your_ law. Christ does not identify himself
with the Jews, nor regard himself as subject to the law, though made
under it, and yielding himself to it for a season. Comp. ch. 7:19;
8:17. The reference is to Psalm 82:6. There is no passage in the law,
_i. e._, in the Pentateuch, which corresponds exactly to Christ’s
words here, or to those of the Psalmist; but in Exodus 22:28, the
title of “gods” is given to the judges. The Psalm in question is
believed to have been written on the occasion of Jehosaphat’s reform
of the courts and re-establishment of the law (2 Chron., ch. 19), and
it contrasts the unjust judges of Israel, who had been called gods in
the law, with God the Judge of all the earth.--=Unto whom the word of
God came.= _The word of God_ is not the mere saying, “I have said ye
are gods” (_Meyer_); it is never used in the N. T. in so limited a
sense, to signify merely a particular phrase or utterance. It is
either, The Spirit of God, _i. e._, God revealing himself to and
through the prophet, as in ch. 1:1 (see note there) and Heb. 4:12; or
it is the word given to the prophets by the Holy Spirit and by them
repeated to the nation, _i. e._, nearly equivalent to the O. T.
Scripture, as in Mark 7:13; Luke 5:1, etc.--=And the Scripture cannot
be broken.= Literally _loosened_ (Matt. 5:19, note). This
parenthetical declaration is a very significant testimony to the
inspiration of the O. T.--=Whom the Father hath sanctified.= The
original (ἁγιάζω) may be rendered either made holy, in the sense of
made clean and pure in character, or made holy in the sense of set
apart to a holy use. It is evidently in the latter sense that it is
employed here.--=And sent into the world.= The sanctifying of Christ
preceded the sending into the world. Evidently, therefore, the
reference is not to any act recorded in the life of Christ, as the
descent of the Holy Spirit at the baptism, but to a consecration in
the will of God to the work of redemption, and which preceded the
Advent.--=Thou blasphemest.= That is, art guilty of diverting the
allegiance of the people from God to thyself.--=Because I said I am a
Son of God.= The article is wanting in the Greek, and ought not to be
added in the translation.
These verses (34-36) have been sometimes regarded as a partial
retraction, or at least a material modification of the declaration, “I
and my Father are one;” as indicating that Jesus Christ is a Son of
God only as every obedient soul is a child of God (1 John 3:1). If
this passage stood alone, such an interpretation might possibly be
given to it; but if the audience, the circumstances, the effect, and
the other utterances of the speaker be taken into account, it cannot
be fairly so understood. This sentence is spoken to a mob for the
purpose of checking their rage. They have understood Christ to claim
divinity. He does not in terms explicitly disavow it. On the contrary,
when his explanation is ended, they resume their design (ver. 39), and
he is obliged to flee for his life. We should not look in such an
utterance for a disclosure of the profoundest truths respecting
Christ’s character, not because Christ would conceal or modify the
truth to save his life, but because an angry mob is not the sort of an
audience to whom he would choose to reveal it, or indeed could reveal
it, a certain receptiveness of soul being necessary to the
comprehension of spiritual truth. The argument of these verses seems
to me to be this: He to whom the Spirit of God comes, and who receives
it and becomes in so far an exponent and manifestation of God, is in a
sense divine; he becomes partaker of the divine nature; a sharer of
the divine life (Rom. 8:29; Heb. 12:10; 2 Pet. 1:4). This is the
testimony of the Scriptures which cannot be set aside. He, then, who
is not of this world but from above (ch. 8:23), and whom the Father
consecrated above and sent down into this world, is not guilty of
blasphemy in calling himself a Son of God. In other words, Christ
compares himself with inspired men only to contrast himself with them;
he shows that, even according to the principles of the O. T.
Scriptures, by which the Jews pretended to condemn him, he was not
guilty of blasphemy, even if, being but a man, he had made himself a
son and so a representative of God, while he, at the same time,
clearly claims to be other and higher than the O. T. prophets and
judges. But for the full disclosure of Christ’s character, we must
look to his quiet conferences with his own disciples, who were at
least willing, if not able, to understand him.
37 If[422] I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.
[422] ch. 14:10, 11; 15:24.
38 But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the
works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father _is_
in me, and I in him.
=37, 38. If I do not the works of my Father, put no faith in me.= Works
which show forth his power and glory and are in accordance with his
will and character (ch. 17:4).--=But if I do, though ye put no faith
in me, put faith in the works.= Beware of understanding faith,
rendered in our English version by _believe_, as a mere intellectual
act. The idea is, If prejudice against the person of Christ prevents
an affectionate regard for him, the soul may still have respect and
reverence for the work he has done, and is doing in the world. =That
ye may perceive and know= (γνῶτε καὶ γινώσκητε) is the best
reading.--_Alford_, _Meyer_. To _perceive_, or recognize, denotes the
outward act; to _know_ denotes the permanent state.--=That the Father
is in me and I in the Father.= A spiritual unity, such as cannot be
predicated of any other son of God. The Father is in the Son because
he lives and moves in him; is the spirit which animates and controls
and makes divine the man Jesus. The Son is in the Father because his
thoughts, wishes, purposes, desires, all centre in Him. The argument
of these verses is substantially the same as that addressed by Christ
to the Jews in verse 25 (see note there), and that addressed to his
own disciples in ch. 14:11. The best evidence of the divinity of
Christ is his own character; next is a consideration of the divine
work which he has done and is doing in the world.
39 Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped
out of their hand;
40 And went away again beyond Jordan into the place[423]
where John at first baptized: and there he abode.
[423] ch. 1:28.
41 And many resorted unto him, and said, John did no
miracle: but all things that John spake[424] of this man
were true.
[424] ch. 3:30-36; Matt. 3:11, 12.
42 And many believed on him there.
=39-42. They sought again to take him.= To arrest him. Their passion
had time to cool, and they abandoned the idea of mob violence, which
would have brought, as in Paul’s case (Acts 21:31, 32), the
interference of the Romans. Instead, they endeavored to seize Christ
and bring him before the authorities for trial.--=But he escaped out
of their hand.= There is no reason to suppose a miracle. In the throng
were some at least who believed in him, and under cover afforded by
them he could have escaped.--=Where John at first baptized.= See ch.
1:28, note.--=All things that John spake of this man were true.= Being
dead he yet spake. Gave his testimony to Christ. See ch. 1:15-34. This
was the end of Christ’s Judean ministry proper, which had lasted three
months. It had been one of continuous storm. Twice during this period
he had been mobbed (ch. 8:59; 10:31); once an attempt was made to
arrest him (ch. 7:32, 45); secret plans for his assassination
were laid (ch. 7:19, 25; 8:37). All that we know of this ministry
is contained in John, chapters 7, 8, 9 and 10; though it is not
improbable that the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Pharisee
and the Publican, and the incidents at the house of Mary and Martha
belong to the same era (Luke 10:25-42; 18:9-14).--=And many believed
on him there.= A period of a little over three months, from some time
in December to the first of April, intervened between the retreat of
Christ from Judea and his final entry into Jerusalem at the Passover
week. I believe that this time was devoted to his ministry in Perea,
the district beyond Jordan; a ministry of which John here gives a
hint, to which Matthew and Mark also refer (Matt. 19:1, 2, etc.; Mark
10:1, etc.), but of which Luke alone gives any full account. See Luke,
ch. 10, Prel. Note. Many thronged his ministry there (Luke 11:29;
12:1; 14:15, 25; 15:1). This ministry was broken in upon by the
message from the sisters of Lazarus, as recorded in the next chapter.
See Prel. Note there.
CHAPTER XI.
Ch. 11:1-44. THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS.--THE DIVINE OBJECT IN ALL
SEEMING EVIL: NOT HUMAN DEATH BUT DIVINE GLORY (4).--THE MYSTERY OF THE
DIVINE SILENCE IN OUR SORROW ILLUSTRATED AND PARTIALLY INTERPRETED (6,
12).--THE CONDITIONS OF DIVINE PROTECTION AND THE CHRISTIAN’S SAFETY
(9, 10).--THE CHRISTIAN’S DEATH A SLEEP (11).--THE ANGUISH OF “IF” (21,
32).--THE PHARISAIC CREED AND THE CHRISTIAN’S FAITH CONCERNING DEATH
AND THE RESURRECTION CONTRASTED (23-27).--CHRIST’S INDIGNATION AT HUMAN
FALSEHOOD (33, 38).--CHRIST’S SYMPATHY WITH HUMAN SORROW (35).--THE
RESISTANCE OF FAITHLESSNESS; THE OBEDIENCE OF FAITH (39, 41).--THE
PRAYER OF ASSURANCE OF FAITH (42).--THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE (43,
44).--A PARABLE OF HUMAN SORROW AND DIVINE COMFORT.--A PARABLE OF HUMAN
SIN AND DIVINE REDEMPTION. See Supplementary Note.
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--There is nothing in John to indicate the time at
which this miracle took place; and there is no general agreement
among harmonists respecting it. Robinson places it immediately at
the close of Christ’s Judean ministry and prior to his ministry in
Perea; Andrews and Ellicott place it at the close of the Perean
ministry and immediately preceding the Passion week. The reasons
for so doing are: (1) It seems the immediate occasion both of the
triumphal procession accorded to Jesus by the spontaneous action of
the common people, and of the more deliberate determination on the
part of the ecclesiastics of Jerusalem to put him to death. It does
not seem reasonable, therefore, to suppose that a long period of
active service in another part of the Holy Land intervened between
this the greatest miracle wrought by Christ and the effects which it
produced, both upon the church party and upon the common people. (2)
Immediately after this miracle, and in consequence of the excitement
produced by it, Christ retired into the wilderness, and is said by
John to have continued there with his disciples; and the
implication is that he remained in this retirement until after the
Passover (vers. 54, 55). To suppose that the Perean ministry,
which lasted something like three months, was interjected into this
period of retirement, which is Robinson’s supposition, breaks into the
continuity of John’s narrative, and does violence to its order and
symmetry, without any adequate reason. (3) Jesus was at a considerable
distance from Bethany at the time when Lazarus was taken sick. The
sisters sent unto him at once; after receiving their message, he
remained where he was two days; but when he reached Bethany, Lazarus
had been four days dead (comp. vers. 6 and 39). Presumptively,
therefore, he was at least one day’s journey from Bethany, even if
we assume that Lazarus had died before the messengers had reached
Jesus; more probably he was two days’ journey distant, for verse
11 indicates that the death of Lazarus took place after Jesus had
received word of his sickness. Thus the narrative of this miracle
tallies with the supposition that Christ was carrying on his ministry
in the region beyond the Jordan, rather than with the supposition that
he was anywhere in Judea; the more so that we have no intimation in
the Gospels of any ministry in Judea except in and about Jerusalem,
of which Bethany was practically a suburb. (4) In Luke 13:32, Christ
uses the following language: “Behold I cast out devils and I do cures
to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.” This
occurs in the Perean ministry, and the “two days” here referred to,
have been hypothetically identified with the “two days” during which,
according to John’s narrative here, Jesus tarried where he was after
receiving the message of Lazarus’s sickness. The coincidence between
the two passages is at least curious, though it may be nothing more
than a coincidence. These reasons make the chronology of Andrews and
Ellicott more probable than that of Robinson. I believe, then, that the
resurrection of Lazarus took place in the latter part of February or
the early part of March A. D. 30, and that it was followed, after the
brief retirement at Ephraim, by the triumphal march of Christ and his
disciples up to Jerusalem, and by his Passion and his death there. See
_Tab. Har._, Vol. I, p. 45; for some general considerations respecting
this miracle, see Sup. Note, ver. 44.
1 Now a certain _man_ was sick, _named_ Lazarus, of
Bethany, the town of[425] Mary and her sister Martha.
[425] Luke 10:38, 39.
2 (It was _that_ Mary which[426] anointed the Lord with
ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother
Lazarus was sick.)
[426] ch. 12:3; Mark 14:3.
=1, 2. Now a certain one was sick named Lazarus.= The only historic
person of this name mentioned in the Bible; the indications are
that he was a younger brother. From the incident in Luke 10:38-42,
we judge that Martha was the head of the household. Simon, probably
the father, though possibly the husband of one of the sisters, was a
leper; he had probably died or been banished by the law, because of
his leprosy (Matt. 26:6). The family appear to have been one
of wealth and social distinction; this is indicated by the facts that
they owned their house, had their tomb in their garden, and were able
to give three hundred dollars worth of ointment as a costly token of
honor to Jesus (John 12:5). I say three hundred dollars worth
because the penny, or denarius, was a day’s wages, and therefore
equivalent to our dollar. How and where the household first became
acquainted with Jesus, we do not know. An ingenious writer in _Smith’s
Bible Dictionary_ endeavors to identify Lazarus with the rich young
ruler who had great possessions, and went away from Christ sorrowful
because he was bid to sell all that he had to give to the poor
(Matt. 19:16-22); but this ingenious hypothesis has only its
ingenuity to commend it. Of Lazarus’s life after his resurrection,
nothing whatever is known; there are traditions respecting him, and
his bones were discovered by some of the credulous relic-worshippers
of the ninth century in the island of Cyprus; but the traditions are
as little to be trusted as the relics.--=Of Bethany.= This village
lies on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, less than two miles
(ver. 18, note) southeast of Jerusalem. See for description
and illustration, ch. 12:1, 2, note. Its present name is El-Azarieh,
derived from, and memorializing the resurrection of Lazarus. Of
course, the house of Simon and of Lazarus, and the tomb of the latter
are pointed out to the traveler by the accommodating monks, and of
course, nothing is known about either of these sites, except that
the tomb cannot possibly be the real one. It is a deep vault partly
lined with masonry, entered upon by a long, winding, half-ruined
staircase; the masonry is comparatively modern, and the situation
of the tomb in the centre of the village is inconsistent with the
Gospel narrative; the genuineness of the site is repudiated by Porter,
Robinson, Thompson, and defended by no scholar.--=The town of Mary and
her sister Martha.= It is so characterized because their home served
as a retreat to Jesus during his ministry in Jerusalem, and it is thus
distinguished from the Bethany beyond the Jordan mentioned in ch.
1:28, note. There is no reason whatever for identifying this Mary with
Mary Magdalene or with the “woman which was a sinner,” or the anointing
referred to here and described in ch. 12:1-8 with the anointing
performed by that unnamed woman and described in Luke 7:36-50; see note
there.--The designation of Bethany as the town of Mary and her sister
Martha, whom John has not before mentioned, as well as his incidental
reference in the parenthetical sentence following, to the anointing of
the Lord by Mary, are indications that John wrote not only with a
knowledge of the other Gospels, or at least with the main facts,
incidents, and characters described in the other Gospels, but also
with the assurance that they were familiar to most of his readers. The
fact that Mary’s name is mentioned first, would, taken by itself,
imply that she was the elder sister, and the head of the household;
but the fact that Martha took the responsibility of providing for the
guests in the two instances recorded in Luke 10:38-42 and John 12:1-8,
indicates that Martha was the elder sister and the housekeeper.
3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord,
behold, he[427] whom thou lovest is sick.
[427] Heb. 12:6; Rev. 3:19.
4 When Jesus heard _that_, he said, This sickness is not
unto death, but[428] for the glory of God, that the Son of
God might be glorified thereby.
[428] verse 40; ch. 9:3.
=3, 4. Lord, behold whom thou lovest is sick.= They have complete
confidence in the sympathy of their Lord; they do not urge him to come;
they do not present any petition; they simply report their trouble to
him.--=He said, This sickness is not unto death.= That is, has not
death for its object; (πρὸς with the accusative, marks strictly the
object towards which anything is directed.) Christ does not say that
Lazarus will not die, but that death is not the end for which this
sickness is ordained of God.--=But for the glory of God, that the Son
of God might be glorified thereby.= Comp. ch. 9:3, note. He was
glorified, (1) perhaps by the development of a higher spiritual life
in Lazarus through his sickness, death and resurrection (_Trench_),
though of this the Evangelist gives us no hint; (2) by the
manifestation of the divine power of Jesus Christ, as one whom the
Father always hears (ver. 42); (3) by the Passion and death of Jesus
Christ, to which the resurrection of Lazarus directly led (vers.
47-53). This saying of Christ seems to have been uttered not merely to
his disciples; it was apparently his message to the sisters, and to it
he refers in verse 40 (see note there).
5 Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.
6 When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode
two days still in the same place where he was.
7 Then after that saith he to _his_ disciples, Let us go
into Judæa again.
=5-7. Now Jesus loved Martha=, etc. This statement is made in
explanation of verse 6, that the reader may not fall into the error of
supposing that Christ’s delay was due to any indifference or unconcern
on his part.--=He abode two days in the same place where he was.= Why?
Either because this delay was necessary to complete the work in which
he was engaged, and from which he would not suffer himself to be drawn
away even by considerations of personal sympathy, he himself acting on
the principle “Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach
the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60); or because this delay was necessary
to the consummation of the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus in
such form as to forever prohibit the impression that death had not
really taken place. The former is the better hypothesis, since in no
case does Christ seem to have wrought a miracle for the mere purpose
of producing by it a profound impression, and it is therefore hardly
consistent to believe that he would have delayed merely for the
purpose of making the miracle more startling and marvelous.--=Let us
go into Judea again.= This plainly implies that Jesus and his
disciples were not then in Judea, and thus incidentally confirms the
supposition (see Prel. Note) that the resurrection of Lazarus was
subsequent to the close of the ministry in Perea, and that he was
summoned from Perea.
8 _His_ disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of
late[429] sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither
again?[430]
[429] ch. 10:31.
[430] Acts 20:24.
9 Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day?
If[431] any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because
he seeth the light of this world.
[431] ch. 12:35.
10 But if a man walk in the night,[432] he stumbleth,
because there is no light in him.
[432] Eccles. 2:14.
=8-10. The disciples say to him, Master, the Judeans were just now
seeking to stone thee.= On the chronological hypothesis adopted above,
the mob in Jerusalem had threatened the life of Jesus about three
months previous. But he had not been in Judea since. The disciples
attributed Christ’s remaining in Perea to the fear of the Jews, and
remonstrated against his again braving them.--=Jesus answered, Are
there not twelve hours in the day=, etc. In interpreting Christ’s
enigmatical saying here, the student must remember that it was his
habit to speak in parables, and that he rarely gave any interpretation
of them. This is to be regarded as a condensed and uninterpreted
parable. John has himself given us the key to its interpretation by
his use of the same metaphor in his Epistle (1 John 1:5-7). God is the
light. As he has appointed the hours of activity for the human race,
the twelve hours of the day, so he has appointed the hours of service
for each individual man. What was true of Christ is true of every one;
he cannot die until his time has come (John 7:6, 8, 30; 8:20). He
therefore who walks with God in the path of duty, fulfilling the
divine will, cannot stumble; no harm can come to him; not a hair of
his head can be injured (Psalm 91; Matt. 10:29-31; Luke 10:19; 21:18).
He may and must come to his death; but not until his twelve hours have
passed away.--But if a man work in darkness, _i. e._, not with God,
not in the path of duty, not endeavoring to fulfil the divine will,
for him there is no assurance of protection; he is always liable to
stumble and fall. This is the general principle which Christ
parabolically asserts; its immediate application here is that to
Christ there is no danger in going into Judea, for he will not die
until his appointed time has fully come. Comp. ch. 9:4, note.
11 These things said he: and after that he saith unto them,
Our friend Lazarus sleepeth:[433] but I go, that I may
awake him out of sleep.
[433] Deut. 31:16; Acts 7:60; 1 Cor. 15:18, 51.
12 Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he
shall do well.
13 Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought
that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.
=11-13. Our friend Lazarus sleepeth.= An interval is indicated as
having taken place between the previous discourse and the present
declaration, by the words, _after that he saith unto them_. _Our
friend_, implies that Lazarus was loved by the disciples as well
as by their Lord. This language, coupled with that of verse 3,
indicates that he possessed a peculiarly lovable character. _Sleep_
is used both in the O. T. and N. T. as a metaphor of death (2
Chron. 14:1; Ps. 13:3; Jer. 51:57; Job 14:12; Dan. 12:2; Matt.
27:52; Acts 7:60; 13:36; 1 Cor. 7:39; 11:30; 15:6, 18, 20, 51; 1
Thess. 4:13, 14, 15). Some of the rationalistic critics think
that the disciples were extraordinarily stupid, not to understand
Christ’s metaphor; and yet they are guilty of a similar but greater
stupidity. Thus, the author of _Supernatural Religion_ says (Vol.
II, 460): “The disciples reply with the stupidity with which
the fourth Evangelist endows all those who hold colloquy with
Jesus: (Lord, if he has fallen asleep he will recover;)” and yet,
on the immediately preceding page, he interprets Christ’s similar
declaration respecting the daughter of Jairus (Matt. 9:24):
“The maid is not dead but sleepeth,” as “an express declaration” that
the case is “one of mere suspension of consciousness.” The
misapprehension of the apostles here was not extraordinary; certainly
not more so than that afforded by some analogous instances in the
first three Gospels (see Matt. 16:7; Luke 22:38). They had understood
from verse 4, that Lazarus was to be restored; they had interpreted
Christ’s words as a promise of healing; they had witnessed cases of
miraculous healing in at least two instances, wrought by a word on an
absent patient (Luke 7:10; John 4:50-53); so when Jesus said, “Lazarus
is sleeping,” they thought the crisis of the disease had passed, and
that there was no reason why their Master should brave the dangers of
a Judean mob to go to the bedside of a convalescent friend.
14 Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead;
15 And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to
the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.
16 Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his
fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.
=14-16. Then Jesus said unto them plainly= (παῤῥησίᾳ). That is,
dropping all metaphor.--=And I am glad for your sakes that I was not
there.= He accompanies the declaration of the friend’s death with
words of consolation and inspiration. Plain as those words are to us,
they must have been inexplicable to the disciples. They did not
forecast the resurrection; how could they understand why Christ should
not have been present to prevent so great a sorrow. The sympathy of
Christ with us in our sorrow does not prevent him, who sees the end
from the beginning, from rejoicing even when he sees our tears. He
sees the sheaves brought home with joy even while the seed is sown in
tears, and rejoices at the tears because of the harvest. To him, faith
wrought in the soul is worth immeasurably more than all the sorrow
which soul-culture involves (Rom. 5:1-5; 8:18).--=Then said Thomas
which is called Didymus=, that is, the twin.--=Let us also go that we
may die with him.= With Christ, not with Lazarus. The little that we
know about Thomas shows him to have been a man of strong passions and
of little faith and hope; to such a man life is full of pathos. He
could not believe that Christ could with safety go into Judea again;
in this, indeed, he really forecast the result, which was the
crucifixion of his Lord; but neither could he bear to be separated
from him. Chrysostom notes the power of Christ on this timid nature:
“The very man who dared not to go in company with Christ to Bethany,
afterwards traveled with him through the inhabited world, and dwelt in
the midst of nations that were full of murderers desirous to kill
him.” On the character of Thomas, see further, Vol. I, p. 149; John
20:24, note.
17 Then when Jesus came, he found that he had _lain_ in the
grave four days already.
18 Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen
furlongs off:
=17, 18. He had lain in the grave four days already.= Various
explanations are made respecting these four days; they are given in
detail in _Andrews’ Life of Our Lord_. Since, however, we do not know
definitely where Christ was, except that it was some point apparently
beyond Jordan, and we do not know at all what engagements and duties
detained him there, surmises as to the way in which these four days
were taken up are decidedly unprofitable. The narrative seems to me
clearly to imply that Lazarus was not dead when the messengers first
reached Jesus. Probably of these four days, two were occupied by
Christ in completing his ministry where he was when he received the
message, and two, or part of two days, in a leisurely journey to the
home of Lazarus.--=Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem.= The use of the
past tense _was_, not _is_, indicates that Bethany had ceased to exist
at the time when John wrote his Gospel; it thus incidentally confirms
the opinion that he wrote a considerable time after the destruction of
Jerusalem, and when that city and its environs were lying
waste.--=About fifteen furlongs off.= Literally, _stadia_. The
_stadium_, is about six hundred feet; fifteen stadia or furlongs were,
therefore, about nine thousand feet, or a little less than two miles.
19 And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to[434]
comfort them concerning their brother.
[434] 1 Chron. 7:22; Job 2:11; 42:11; Rom. 12:15; 1
Thess. 4:18.
=19. And many of the Judeans came to Martha and Mary.= The word
_Jews_, as used by John, indicates always the inhabitants of Judea, as
distinguished from those of other provinces in the Holy Land, and
therefore generally those who were prejudiced against, if not
absolutely hostile to Jesus. The fact that most of those who were
present at the scene about to be described were these Judeans, is an
important one, and must be borne in mind by the student, for it gives
a peculiar color and significance to the entire narrative.--=To
comfort them concerning their brother.= The Jewish mourning rites were
most carefully defined by the Rabbinical law; they included rending
the clothes, dressing in sackcloth, sprinkling of ashes or dust on the
person, fasting, loud lamenting. Professional mourners were employed
to increase the noisy demonstrations of grief (see Mark 5:38, note).
The days of mourning were thirty, which were divided into three for
weeping, seven for lamentation, and twenty for less demonstrative
mourning. During the first three days the mourners were forbidden to
wear their phylacteries or to engage in any servile work, or to bathe
or anoint themselves; during the seven days they fasted or ate nothing
but an occasional egg or some lentiles. After the funeral services
were over (for account of which see Luke 7:12, note), friends and
professional mourners came and sat with the afflicted ones upon the
ground, no one speaking until the bereaved ones had done so, but every
sentence of theirs was followed by some word of sympathy and comfort
or by the wail of the mourners. Everything was done according to a
prearranged system; in Phariseeism there was no liberty, even in the
hour of grief.
20 Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming,
went and met him: but Mary sat _still_ in the house.
21 Then said Martha unto Jesus. Lord, if thou hadst been
here, my brother had not died.
22 But I know, that even now, whatsoever[435] thou wilt ask
of God, God will give _it_ thee.
[435] ch. 9:31.
=20-22. Then Martha * * * went and met him.= Jesus did not enter into
the village, but stopped without and sent some one to let the sisters
know that he had come. Geikie supposes that he thus remained without
from fear of the Jews; but Christ never stopped in the performance of
a duty from considerations of fear; his reply to the remonstrances of
his disciples (vers. 8-10) should have prevented this prosaic
interpretation of Christ’s action. To him the conventional mourning
customs of Oriental society were exceedingly distasteful. He who put
all the noisy mourners out of the room in which the daughter of Jairus
lay dead (Mark 5:40), and who so gently rebuked the noisy and
ostentatious lamentations of the women of Jerusalem at the time of his
own crucifixion (Luke 23:27-31), might naturally be expected to
decline to enter into the circle of formal mourners, with the
alternative of either violating the precedents and rules of good
society, or of submitting himself in such an hour to the bondage which
they imposed.--=But Mary sat still in the house.= It would appear from
verse 29, that she did not know that Jesus had come; yet the contrast
between the two sisters, the one of whom with bustling activity waited
upon her Lord, the other of whom, in the quieter offices of love, sat
at his feet to listen to his words, or anoint those feet with precious
ointment (Luke 10:38-42; John 12:1-8), reappears here. Martha, who was
probably the head of the household, was naturally the first to hear of
Christ’s coming, and even in her grief found comfort in activity; to
Mary, in the solitude of her sorrow, no one at first reported Christ’s
approach.--=Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.=
This is the language both of reproach and of lamentation, though the
reproach is implied rather than asserted. Her language expresses the
very essence of soul torture at such times. We are slow to believe
that our sorrow is “for the glory of God that the Son of God may be
glorified thereby,” and in our affliction continually echo Martha’s
“if,” saying to ourselves, if we had not done this, or if we had not
done that, if it had not been for our blunder or that of our friends
or our physician, our beloved would not have died. Chance is the God
of Atheism, and is a comfortless God in the time of our trouble.--=But
I know that even now whatsoever thou shouldst ask of God, God will
give it thee.= This is interpreted by Meyer and Godet as an expression
of Martha’s faith that Jesus is able to raise even the dead to life
again; but in order to sustain this interpretation, they are obliged
to depart from a natural and simple interpretation of Christ’s
declaration in vers. 25, 26, to suppose that Martha desired or was
anticipating her brother’s resurrection, and yet was so obtuse as to
entirely miss the meaning of Christ in that declaration, and, finally,
to suppose that the faith which she possessed when she first beheld
Christ disappeared when she reached the tomb, where she remonstrated
against opening it that the resurrection might be accomplished. I
understand Martha’s utterance here to be that simply of an undefined
hope. She had counted so much on Christ; he had not come in the hour
of her need; all was over now; and yet now that he had come, although
too late, she went out to him with a vague, restless hope of some
succor or consolation, she knew not what. In our own experience in the
unreasonableness of grief, like vague and delusive hopes are not
uncommon. Calvin’s interpretation of Martha’s experience better
accords both with what we elsewhere know of her character and with the
narrative here, than does that of those who eulogize her extraordinary
faith: “When she assures herself that her brother would not have died
if Christ had been present, what ground has she for this confidence?
certainly it did not arise from any promise from Christ. The only
conclusion, therefore, is that she inconsiderately yields to her own
wishes, instead of subjecting herself to Christ. When she ascribes to
Christ power and supreme goodness, this proceeds from faith; but when
she persuades herself of more than she had heard Christ declare, that
has nothing to do with faith. * * * Martha’s faith, mixed up and
interwoven with ill-regulated desires, and even not wholly free from
superstition, could not shine with full brightness; so that we
perceive but a few sparks of it in these words.”
23 Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.
24 Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again
in the[436] resurrection at the last day.
[436] ch. 5:29.
=23-24. Thy brother shall rise again.= Evidently these words were not
understood by Martha to contain a promise of immediate resurrection,
and therefore we are not justified in saying that they were so intended
by Jesus. They are vague, and are intended to be vague and suggestive,
in order to lead on the mind of Martha, and to evoke an expression of
her faith. This method of calling out the experience of his pupil was a
customary one with Jesus in all his instruction.--=I know that he
shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.= This statement
of Martha’s faith is to be interpreted by the belief of the orthodox
Jews. This was that all the dead departed to Hades or the Under-world,
where they dwelt in a shadowy prison-house; the righteous in Paradise;
the wicked in Hell; and awaited the coming of the Messiah, who would
call all the righteous from the Under-world, while the wicked would be
thrust back into it again. Martha believed that her brother had gone
to this abode of the dead, and there was awaiting a day of judgment
and of resurrection; but she found in this faith very little
consolation. Her brother, to her thought, was as if he were not, and
dwelt among the dead. A vague hope of a far-distant revival did not
comfort her. It is in contrast to, and in correction of this creed,
that Christ utters the declaration of verses 25, 26.
25 Jesus said unto her, I am the[437] resurrection, and the
life;[438] he that believeth in me, though[439] he were
dead, yet shall he live;
[437] ch. 6:40, 44.
[438] ch. 14:6; Isa. 38:16; 1 John 1:2.
[439] Job 19:26; Isa. 26:19; Rom. 4:17.
26 And whosoever[440] liveth and believeth in me shall
never die. Believest thou this?
[440] chaps. 3:15; 4:14.
=25, 26. I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me
even if he could die= (κἄν ἀποθάνῃ) =yet he should live, and every one
that liveth and believeth in me never can die.= The various and
conflicting interpretations afforded by the commentators of this
declaration of Christ agree only in being complicated and abstruse. It
is essential to comfort that it should be simple truth simply
expressed; and that Christ should offer as a consolation to Martha a
truth so subtle and involved in so much mystery that skillful
scholarship can scarce unlock its meaning, seems to me utterly
incredible. I understand these words as an embodiment of Christ’s
creed respecting life and immortality. Jesus is the source of the
resurrection, and the fountain of life. Whoever, therefore, by faith
in Christ, has Christ in him the hope of glory, never knows death; to
him there is no Hades, no dark and dismal abode of the dead, no long
and weary waiting for a final great jail delivery--a judgment and an
acquittal. He passes at once from the lower to the higher state; he
has already come to the general assembly and church of the first-born
(Heb. 12:22-24). What we call death summons him simply to depart and
be straightway with Christ (Phil. 1:23; Luke 23:43). The eternal life
which Christ here and now gives to those who are by faith united to
him (John 5:24), is never suspended. So immortal and potent is this
life principle which Christ offers to those who have received him,
that, if it were possible that one having died should receive it, he
would by it be made to live again. Against the conception, common now
as then, of death as a long sleep or a long and dreary waiting for a
final resurrection, is Christ’s teaching here that “There is no death;
what seems so is transition.” In confirmation of this view, observe,
(1) That Christ’s declaration is present, not future: “_I am the
resurrection_,” not, _I shall by-and-by become so_. (2) The
conditional clause _though he were dead_, is literally _even though he
should die_, and is fairly rendered by the phrase adopted above, _even
if he could die_. (3) Thus interpreted, Christ’s declaration is
responsive to Martha’s confession of faith, and leads on to and agrees
with the event which follows, the restoration of Lazarus to his
earthly life. (4) It accords with the general teaching of the N. T.,
in which Christ is represented as the source of eternal life, and the
death of the saints as a doorway into his immediate presence (Acts
7:59; Rom. 14:8; 2 Cor. 5:8; 1 Thess. 5:10; 2 Tim. 4:8; 2 Peter 1:11,
etc.). It is not necessary to give here other interpretations, for
they are complicated, incongruous, and almost impossible to classify.
They are the results of various and unsuccessful endeavors to bring
Christ’s declaration into accord with the Pharisaic faith, which still
lingers in the Christian church, of a resurrection and an eternal life
postponed to the future, and an abode in death, meanwhile, in some
sort of an intermediate state.
27 She saith unto him, Yea, Lord; I believe that thou art
the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the
world.
=27. Yea, Lord; I have believed that thou art the Messiah, the Son of
God, he who was to come unto the world.= _I have believed_
(πεπίστευκα), the perfect tense, indicates the expression of a
well-established faith; perhaps of one which Christ well knew that she
had entertained. Martha still adheres to her Pharisaic creed; we do
not give up our religious beliefs easily. At Christ’s question,
“Believest thou that I am the Resurrection and the Life, and that they
that believe in me shall never die?” she replies in effect: “Yea,
Lord; I believe that thou art the Messiah of the prophets at whose
word all the dead shall come forth from Hades unto judgment.” And in
this faith she does have some comfort, because she supposes this day
of general resurrection cannot, in the nature of the case, be far
distant.
28 And when she had so said, she went her way, and called
Mary her sister secretly,[441] saying, The Master[442] is
come, and calleth[443] for thee.
[441] ch. 21:7.
[442] ch. 13:13.
[443] Mark 10:49.
29 As soon as she heard _that_, she arose quickly, and came
unto him.
30 Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in
that place where Martha met him.
=28-30. She went her way and called Mary her sister secretly.=
Evidently, from her words _The Master calleth for thee_, she did this
in obedience to Christ’s direction. She went secretly because she did
not desire the presence of the Judeans at the quiet conference between
Jesus Christ and herself and sister.--=The Master is come and calleth
for thee.= She represses the name, perhaps because she does not desire
it to be overheard by those who are present. The general designation,
however, _the Master_ or _the Teacher_ is enough. To Mary there is no
one else worthy to be called the Teacher.--=As soon as she heard that,
she rose quickly.= Therefore presumptively, Mary had not before heard
that Jesus had arrived.--=Jesus * * * was in that place where Martha
met him.= Not at the grave where Lazarus was buried (ver. 34), but at
some point a little outside the village.
31 The Jews[444] then which were with her in the house, and
comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily
and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the
grave to weep there.
[444] verse 19.
32 Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him,
she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if[445]
thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.
[445] verses 21, 37; ch. 4:49.
=31, 32. She goeth unto the grave to weep there.= It was the custom of
Jewish women often to visit the graves of their dead, especially during
the first days of mourning. These too obtrusive mourners could not
comprehend that Mary might desire solitude in her sorrow. They would
not allow her to retreat from them. Thus the private interview which
Jesus desired with the two sisters was denied him. Consequently there
was no real conference between Jesus and Mary; as soon as she came he
asked to be shown the grave.--=She fell down at his feet.= With a more
passionate nature than that of Martha, her action and her attitude
were both more strongly indicative of her uncontrollable emotion.
Possibly she threw herself prostrate at his feet in the form of
salutation ordinarily paid by an inferior to a superior in the East;
yet, with her face upon the ground, she could hardly have carried on
any conference whatever. More probably, therefore, she flung herself
at first at his feet, then partially raised herself again to break
forth in her reproachful complaint.--=Lord, if thou hadst been here my
brother would not have died.= Her language is nearly the same as that
of Martha, but she adds no expression of hope; her profounder nature
refuses to entertain a hope for which she can give herself no reason.
[Illustration: FELL AT HIS FEET.]
33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also
weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and
was troubled,
34 And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him,
Lord, come and see.
35 Jesus wept.[446]
[446] Isa. 63:9; Luke 19:41; Heb. 2:16, 17.
=33-35. When Jesus therefore saw her lamenting and the Judeans also
lamenting which came with her.= The word translated in the English
version _weeping_, but which I have rendered _lamenting_, is not the
same as that employed in the declaration of verse 35, “Jesus wept.” It
implies not only the shedding of tears but also every external
expression of grief--the loud outcries, the rending of garments, and
the whole vociferous and ostentatious manifestation of mourning.--=He
groaned in the spirit and was troubled.= There seems to be no doubt
that the Greek word rendered _groaned_, necessarily involves in it the
idea of anger or indignation; it is so rendered in the Vulgate and in
Luther’s translation. “The words _brimaomi_ (βριμάομαι) and
_embrimaomi_ (εμβριμάομαι) are never used otherwise than of hot anger
in the classics; the Septuagint and N. T. (Matt. 9:30; Mark 1:43;
14:5), except where they denote snorting or growling proper.”--(_Meyer._)
With this agree both the lexicons and the critics generally. What was
the cause of this indignation? According to some of the older
commentaries, Christ was indignant with himself for his weakness in
yielding to his emotions; his divinity was irritated at the emotion of
his humanity, and violently repressed it. This opinion needs no
refutation with those who believe that Christianity tends to
intensify, not to suppress the natural affections--that Christian
sympathy weeps with those that weep as well as rejoices with those
that rejoice; and who find in the tears of Christ at the grave of
Lazarus, not a manifestation of human weakness, but an expression of
divine sympathy which draws God very near to every sorrowing heart.
Others suppose that Christ saw in this scene a type of the woe that
sin has wrought in the world; seeing its effects his indignation was
aroused. Thus Trench: “He beheld death in all its dread significance,
as the wages of sin; the needs of the whole world, of which this was
but a little example, rose up before his eyes; all its mourners and
all its graves were present to him.” We may certainly believe that
this profound sense of the significance of this scene of sorrow
affected Christ and intensified his sympathy; that the tears that he
shed were tears of sympathy, not only with Mary and Martha, but also
with all sorrowing households. This, however, interprets rather his
sorrow than his indignation. A simple and natural interpretation of
this indignation is afforded by a consideration of the circumstances
and surroundings. He was indignant at the display of the affected
grief of those who were bitter enemies of the truth, and who would, as
he well knew, make use of this very miracle to promote his death, and
would even join with those who would seek to put Lazarus himself to
death again (ch. 12:10). He was indignant _when he saw the Jews also
lamenting_, and again when he heard the sneer uttered by them (see
ver. 37, note). To this effect is Meyer: “He was angered, then, at the
_Judeans_, when he saw them lamenting with the deep-feeling Mary, and
professing by their cries (of condolence) to share her feelings,
whilst at the same time aware that they were full of bitter hostility
to him who was the beloved friend both of those who mourned and of him
whom they mourned.”--=And was troubled.= Literally, _he troubled
himself_. The words “indicate a physical emotion, a bodily
trembling, which might be perceived by the witnesses of this
scene.”--(_Godet._)--=Lord, come and see.= They did not anticipate his
purpose; they simply invited him to come to the grave, as would be
natural in such circumstances.--=Jesus wept.= The Greek (δακρύω)
signifies simply shedding of tears, weeping silently. This silent
dropping of the tears from his eyes is in contrast with the weeping
over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41, κλαίω). That was a public lamentation of a
prophet; this was the expression of the personal sympathy of a friend.
Beware of that false philosophy which represents Christ as weeping
only as a man. In this, as in every utterance of his nature, he was
God manifest in the flesh. By his tears at the grave of Lazarus he
interprets to us the divine sympathy which shares all our sorrows,
however much the great Sympathizer, with his clear view of final
results, may, like Christ, be glad of the brief experience of grief
that is soon to produce so much joy (ver. 15).
36 Then said the Jews, Behold,
how he loved him!
37 And some of them said, Could not this man, which[447]
opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this
man should not have died?
[447] ch. 9:6.
=36, 37. Then said the Judeans, Behold how he loved him; but some of
them said, Could not this fellow who opened the eyes of the blind have
caused that even this man should not have died?= Some, touched by
Christ’s genuine though silent sorrow, in striking contrast with the
noisier demonstrations of grief of the less sincere mourners,
expressed their sense of the Rabbi’s love for his friend; others
replied with a sneer. This is indicated in the original by the Greek
particle (δέ), which our English version renders _and_, but which
should be rendered _but_; and by the phrase _This fellow_, which
fairly represents the spirit of the original (see ch. 6:42, note).
They referred, not to previous resurrections, for these had taken
place in Galilee, and with them they were not familiar, but to the
healing of the blind man, which had only a little previously taken
place in Jerusalem, and which had led to a formal investigation by the
Sanhedrim, and no little public excitement (ch. 7).
38 Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, cometh to
the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
=38. Jesus therefore, again indignant in himself.= He is indignant at
the sneer, and his manner gives some expression to his indignation,
though it is not uttered in words.--=Cometh to the grave. It was a
cave, and a stone lay upon it.= The grave was sometimes cut
perpendicularly in the rock, but the declaration that it was a cave
implies that the tomb of Lazarus was in a horizontal chamber. The
phrase _A stone lay upon it_, may as well mean that a stone was laid
against the open doorway as upon a perpendicular opening. “The family
vaults of the Jews were sometimes natural (Gen. 23:9), sometimes, as
was this, artificial, and hollowed out from a rock (Isa. 22:16; Matt.
22:60), in a garden (John 19:41), or in some field, the possession of
the family (Gen. 23:9, 17-20; 35:8; 1 Kings 2:34), with a recess in
the sides (Isa. 14:15), wherein the bodies were laid, occasionally
with chambers one beyond another. Sometimes the entrance to these
tombs was on a level; sometimes, as most probably here, there was a
descent to it by steps. The stone which blocked up the entrance and
kept aloof the beasts of prey, above all the numerous jackalls, which
else might have found their way into these receptacles of the dead and
torn the bodies.”--(_Trench._) For further description and
illustration of Jewish tomb, and the manner of closing it with a
circular stone, see Mark 16:2-4, note. Presumptively, in this case,
the stone was rolled away from the door of the cave, and Jesus and the
friends stood in the doorway, while from the inner chamber or recess
where the body of Lazarus had been laid, he issued forth at the word
of the Lord. The accompanying illustration (p. 146) better represents
the nature of the scene than it is possible to do by description only.
39 Jesus said, Take ye away[448] the stone. Martha, the
sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this
time[449] he stinketh: for he hath been _dead_ four days.
[448] Mark 16:3.
[449] Ps. 49:7, 9; Acts 2:27.
40 Jesus saith unto her, Said[450] I not unto thee, that,
if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of
God?
[450] verses 4, 23.
=39, 40. Martha * * * saith unto him, Lord, already he stinketh.= This
is taken by Alford as the statement of the plain fact, and he
apparently believes that it was made sensible by the ill odor which
proceeded from the cave. Trench objects that this supposition gives to
the miracle almost “a monstrous character.” The text seems to me to
determine the question. Martha asserts the decomposition of the body,
not as a _fact known_, but as a _conclusion deduced_ from the length
of time that had passed since the death. With her it clearly was an
opinion--whether correct or not is purely a matter of surmise.
Apparently the body had not been embalmed; no explanation is offered
of this singular fact. In the East it was usual to embalm the corpse
at once.--=For he hath been four days= (dead). We may supply either
the word _dead_, as the translators have done, or the word _buried_;
it will make little difference, for burial in the warm climate of the
East usually took place on the day of the death. It was a Jewish
notion that for three days the spirit wandered about the sepulchre
hoping that it might return unto the body; but on the fourth day it
abandoned this expectation and left the body to itself. Thus Martha’s
expression involves the idea that all hope of resuscitation was past,
and negatives the interpretation of Meyer that her language in verse
22 implies her hope of a present resurrection.--=Said I not unto
thee.= The reference is probably to the message sent to the sisters as
reported in verse 4.--=If thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the
glory of God.= The faith of the sisters was to be displayed, not in
any definite expectation of the work which their Lord was about to
accomplish, but in obedience to his directions; and in fact Martha
tacitly withdraws her remonstrance, and the stone is rolled away from
the grave. The performance of the miracle was itself dependent on the
fulfillment of the condition, If thou wouldst believe. The New
Testament throughout treats faith as the power of moral and spiritual
discernment, and therefore the fundamental condition of receiving the
divine blessing. “To unbelieving Martha, Jesus could no more have
restored the dead brother, than to the unbelieving Jairus his child
(Luke 8:50), or to the widow of Nain her son, if her attitude toward
his compassion and his injunction ‘Weep not’ (Luke 7:13), had been one
of unbelief.”--(_Meyer._) Observe the order in which Christ put seeing
and believing. Men are always desirous to see in order to believe.
Martha is called upon to give an example of the contrary course: to
believe that she may see.
41 Then they took away the stone _from the place_ where
the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up _his_ eyes, and
said,[451] Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
[451] ch. 12:28-30.
42 And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because
of the people which stand by I said _it_, that they may
believe that thou hast sent me.
=41, 42. They took away therefore the stone.= The words _where the
dead man was laid_ are wanting in the best manuscripts.--=And Jesus
lifted up his eyes.= Toward heaven; not because God is in heaven more
truly than upon earth (Ps. 139:7-12), but because the visible heaven
is ever suggestive to the human mind of the invisible God; and Jesus
thus quickened his own faith in the Father, as we may well do. He
prayed toward the heavens as the devout Jew prayed toward the temple
(1 Kings 8:30; Dan. 6:10).--=Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard
me.= It is not necessary to suppose, as Alford does, a reference to
some previously uttered prayer, in Perea, for example, when the
message respecting Lazarus’s sickness was brought to Jesus. The
language is that of the assurance of faith--faith in a God who hears
the desire before it is expressed in prayer, who teaches the believing
soul how and for what to pray, and who thus continually answers our
prayers by anticipation. Christ regards his prayer as answered before
it is presented.--=And I knew that thou hearest me always.= Alike when
the prayer is granted and when it is denied; at the grave of Lazarus
and in the agony in Gethsemane. God hears us when his providence says
No to our petition none the less than when it says Yes. The true
Christian’s faith, like Christ’s faith, rests not on the answer but on
the direct personal consciousness of spiritual communion with
God.--=But because of the people which stand by I said it.= Thus
Christ on occasion violates the letter of his own rule which prohibits
men to pray “that they may be seen of men” (Matt. 6:5, 6), just as in
Gethsemane he seemed to violate the letter of his rule against
repetitions in prayer (comp. Matt. 6:7 with Matt. 26:44). Here his
prayer was public in order that men might know that he did pray, and
that his resurrection power was not his own but was given to him by
his Father, and thus might glorify not him, but the Father in
him.--=That they may have faith that thou hast sent me.= Not merely
that they might believe intellectually that he was a messenger or
representative sent by the Father, but that their thoughts might be
turned from him, who was but the instrument, the voice of God, to the
invisible Father himself, who spoke in him and wrought through him.
This prayer of thanksgiving is in instructive contrast with the prayer
of Elijah when he raised the dead (1 Kings 17:20, 21). There was the
earnestness of an anxious faith; here is the assurance of a restful
faith; there the importunity of request intensified by a fear of
denial; here the calmness of thanksgiving already assured of a
favorable response. The simple grandeur of this prayer has not
prevented it from being criticised as artificial (Supernatural
Religion), “a show prayer” (_Weisse_), “a sham prayer” (_Baur_). If
prayer were only petition there would be ground for this criticism;
but if prayer is the frank and free communion of the soul with its
Father, there is none. It will seem artificial only to those who are
unable to comprehend the filial relation between a Son and his
heavenly Father.
43 And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice,
Lazarus, come forth.
44 And[452] he that was dead came forth, bound hand and
foot with graveclothes; and his face[453] was bound about
with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let
him go.
[452] 1 Kings 17:22; 2 Kings 4:34, 35; Luke 7:14, 15;
Acts 20:9-12.
[453] ch. 20:7.
=43, 44. He cried with a loud voice.= The previous prayer had been
spoken in a subdued voice; apparently, this is implied by the
suggested contrast, was only heard in Christ’s immediate vicinity. The
others knew that he was praying, and thus recognized the miracle as a
result of his appeal to his Father; but they did not hear the words of
the prayer. The “loud voice” was a type, a suggestion of that voice
like the sound of many waters (Rev. 1:15), at which all who are in
their graves shall come forth (John 5:28; 1 Thess. 4:16).--=Lazarus,
come forth.= Literally _Here! out!_ “The simplicity of these two words,
are in glorious contrast with their efficacy.”--(_Godet._)--=And
he that had been dead came forth, bound hand and foot with
grave-clothes.= Literally _swathing-bands_ (χειρία). The supposition
of Chrysostom, Lightfoot and others that this coming forth _bound_
necessitated a new miracle is entirely unnecessary. It was the Jewish
custom to wrap the dead comparatively loosely in a winding sheet or
shroud, which would have impeded though not prevented arising and
walking. The exact nature of the swathing-bands does not appear to be
known. The word occurs nowhere else in the N. T. There is, however, no
reason to suppose that the limbs were so tightly bound that motion
would be impossible. The same word is used in classic literature to
signify a flounce worn about the bottom of the dress of the living.
The accompanying cut, which in its representation of the tomb and
grave-clothes, is produced from a careful study of the best
archæological authorities, illustrates the probable appearance of
Lazarus better than descriptive words could do. --=His face was bound
about with a napkin.= A handkerchief; probably, as sometimes with us,
to prevent the falling of the lower jaw.--=Loose him and let him go.=
Christ gives them something to do. This is partly to recall them from
their speechless and dazed astonishment, partly to prevent the too
great and dangerous revulsion of feeling, partly because he has done
his work and would bid them to do what in them lies to be sharers with
him in the restoration of the loved one to life and liberty. In this
is a moral significance; we cannot raise the spiritually dead; but we
can bring Christ to their grave by our prayers, and we can aid in
their perfect liberation when the divine voice has called them from
their sleep of death.
* * * * *
NOTE ON THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS.--This miracle is recorded only by
John. Why? It was not only the climax of all Christ’s wonderful works,
but it also led directly on the one hand to the triumphal procession
into Jerusalem, which is recorded by all, and on the other to the
final plans for Christ’s arrest and crucifixion. Several explanations
have been suggested for the silence of the synoptists: (1) That the
miracle aroused hostility to Lazarus and his sisters, and involved
them in danger (ch. 12:10), and that therefore all mention of it was
omitted (_Godet_, _Olshausen_). But this hostility could hardly have
continued to threaten any real danger to Lazarus for twenty-five or
thirty years; and if it did, we can hardly think that he or his
sisters would have shrunk from being designated as living witnesses to
the resurrection power of their Lord. They would rather have gloried
in being permitted to suffer for him. (2) That the narration of the
resurrection would have made the household “the focus of an intense
and irreverent curiosity” (_Farrar_). But it would also have made them
the focus of an intense and reverent desire to know something with
greater certainty respecting Jesus and his work. And if the miracle
were wrought for the glory of God, to keep silence respecting it was
to weaken if not to destroy its intended effect. (3) That the
Synoptists confine themselves to a narrative of Christ’s Galilean
ministry and exclude all the events in Judea prior to the Passion week
(_Meyer_). But this does not explain the omission of this miracle; it
simply reiterates the fact, and leaves the perplexing problem
unsolved. Why should the Synoptists avoid all mention of miracles and
teachings in Judea, especially one so notable as this? I agree with
Trench in saying that to this question it is now difficult to find a
satisfactory answer. Possibly Peter, from whom Mark is believed to
have derived all his information, and Matthew were not present, and
each may have limited himself to facts actually witnessed by them.
This still leaves Luke’s omission of the miracle unexplained.
[Illustration: RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS.]
The significance of this miracle as an evidence of Christ’s divine
character, authority and mission has always been felt, even by the
more resolute unbelievers in historic Christianity. Thus Spinoza
declared that “could he have persuaded himself of the truth of the
raising of Lazarus, he would have broken in pieces his whole system,
and would have embraced without repugnance the ordinary faith of
Christians.” Various rationalistic explanations have been attempted,
of which the chief are the following: (1) The mythical (_Strauss_),
_i. e._, that the story is a myth which grew up out of some slight
foundation, assumed its present form in the second or third century,
and then was embodied in this narrative by an ecclesiastical forger,
who used John’s name to give sanction to his story. (2) That the story
was created by the writer for the purpose of illustrating the truth
that Christ is the resurrection and the life, and that it was
developed by him out of some conversation of Jesus, or perhaps out of
the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, or possibly out of some
incident in the life of Lazarus. It is even suggested that Nain is an
abbreviation of Bethany, and that the narratives of the resurrection
of Lazarus and of the widow of Nain’s son have a common origin
(_Schenkel_). To such straits is naturalism reduced in dealing with
the miraculous. (3) That the death of Lazarus was apparent, not real;
that the resurrection was a fraud contrived by the friends of Jesus in
order to give _eclat_ to his anticipated entry into Jerusalem, and
that to this fraud he lent himself, in a moment of intense fanatical
enthusiasm (_Renan_). The various explanations are stated more in
detail by Meyer, but may all be reduced to these three: a denial that
John wrote the account; a suggestion that he invented it, building on
a very slight foundation; and a suspicion that it was a fraud
perpetrated by Lazarus and the sisters and acquiesced in by Jesus. The
only alternative is belief in the miracle. The evidence of John’s
authorship of the Fourth Gospel (see Introduction) refutes the first
hypothesis; the simplicity of the narrative and the character of John,
the second; the character of Christ himself, the third. The narrative
itself is neither ideal nor dogmatic, neither an artistic picture nor
a concealed argument. It is a perfectly colorless narrative of events
concerning which there was no possible room for mistake. The writer
does not draw from the narrative any conclusion; he does not say that
any miracle was wrought or even that the dead was raised. He simply
tells his readers what he saw and heard, and leaves them to draw their
own conclusions. He was with Jesus beyond Jordan; word came to them
that Lazarus was sick; Jesus remained where he was two days; then he
told the disciples that Lazarus was dead; when they reached Bethany
they found a scene of mourning; the friends had come according to
Jewish custom to console the sister’s family; both sisters stated
impliedly and reproachfully that Lazarus was dead; when they arrived
at the grave, one of them said that he had been dead four days, and
that corruption--though this apparently was only her presumption--had
already commenced; Christ directed the stone to be rolled away,
commanded in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth,” and he came forth
bound in his grave-clothes. A scientific commission could not have
reported the facts with more absolute impartiality. The writer
expresses no opinion whatever respecting the occurrence. This is not
the method of an idealist who has invented the occurrence for the
purpose of glorifying his Master, or of a dogmatist who has written it
to prove a doctrine; it is the language of a pre-eminently honest,
fair-minded and impartial witness. And upon this narrative the great
mass of readers and students have come to but one conclusion--that to
which both friend and foe came at the time--that it was a genuine
resurrection of the dead, a great and notable miracle.
An instructive parallel may be traced between the experience of these
sisters in their sorrow and that of many a Christian household since.
(1) _The burden of grief._ When the sisters first sent for Christ to
come, he delayed. Still he often delays to answer our petitions. The
house of mourning is sometimes a Christless house, not only because of
our infirmity (Psalm 77:10), but also because of his will. We, like
our Master, seem sometimes to be forsaken of our God (Matt. 27:46).
(2) _The aggravation of grief._ Both sisters approach Christ with an
“if”:--“If thou hadst been here my brother had not died.” But his
death was not the result of an “if,” but for the glory of God. There
is no “if”; nothing ever _happens_. Even the cup which Judas,
Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate mingle for Christ is the cup which his
Father gives him (ch. 18:14; Acts 2:23; 4:27, 28). (3) _The sympathy
of Christ._ The tears of Jesus are a witness to the breadth and depth
of the divine sympathy. He feels the anguish of our _present_ sorrow
though he stands by a grave so soon to be opened, perceives
prophetically the resurrection so soon to take place, and knows that
weeping is but for the night and joy cometh in the morning. See Heb.
4:15, 16. (4) _The true and false conception of death._ We too often
imagine, as Martha, the believer awaiting in Hades a future
resurrection and a remote restoration to life. Our hearts are dead
because buried in the grave of our loved ones. To us Christ declares
here that the believer never dies, but steps at once from the lower to
the higher life, through the grave into heavenly companionship (Luke
23:43; Phil. 1:23). (5) _The power of Christ._ This scene is a witness
to the truth that all the dead shall hear his voice and come forth in
resurrection. Death is but a sleep; from it he will awaken all that
sleep in him (Dan. 12:2; John 5:21-29; 6:39; 1 Cor. 15:26, 54; 2 Cor.
4:14; Col. 3:4; 1 Thess. 4:14-17; Rev. 1:18; 20:14). (6) _A parable of
redemption._ Sin a spiritual death; Christ the spiritual life-giver.
* * * * *
Ch. 11:45-57. THE EFFECT OF THE MIRACLE.--IT PRODUCES FAITH IN SOME;
IT INTENSIFIES ENMITY IN OTHERS.--AN UNPRINCIPLED MAN AN UNCONSCIOUS
PROPHET.--CHRIST’S SACRIFICE: VICARIOUS; FOR SINNERS; FOR ALL
PEOPLE.--CHRIST FEARS NEITHER TO FLEE FROM NOR TO FACE DANGER.--FALSE
SEEKING FOR CHRIST ILLUSTRATED.
45 Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had
seen[454] the things which Jesus did, believed on him.
[454] chaps. 2:23; 10:41, 42; 12:11, 18.
46 But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and
told them what things Jesus had done.
=45, 46. Many of the Jews * * * believed on him.= Not necessarily were
spiritually converted. They recognized in him a prophet, perhaps even
the Messiah.--=But some of them went to the Pharisees.= _But_
(adversative) marks the contrast between the two classes, and
indicates their hostile purpose. The term Pharisees here, as
frequently with John, indicates the rulers of the Jews, the Jewish
hierarchy.
47 Then[455] gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a
council, and said, What[456] do we? for this man doeth many
miracles.
[455] Ps. 2:2.
[456] Acts 4:16.
48 If we let him thus alone, all[457] _men_ will believe on
him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place
and nation.
[457] ch. 12:19.
=47, 48. A council.= A meeting of the Sanhedrim. On its constitutional
character and methods of procedure, see Vol. I, p. 298. Geikie gives
us no good reason for accepting his dogmatic statement that the
Sanhedrim had before this time been broken up by Herod.--=What do we?
for this man doeth many miracles.= Not, What _shall_ we do? but, What
_are we_ doing? They reproach themselves for their inaction. There is
an ellipsis in the sentence; the meaning is, Something must be done,
for this man, etc. For similar instance of perplexity see Acts 4:16.
It always exists where conscience gives a clear command which ambition
and selfishness refuse to obey.--=If we let him thus alone.= This was
a causeless self-reproach; for they had already condemned him without
trial (ch. 7:30, 50, 51), and determined to excommunicate all his
followers (ch. 9:22). It indicates a purpose which the speaker dared
not put in words, to proceed to more extreme measures.--=The Romans
shall come and take away both our place and our nation.= Our _place_,
it seems to me, designates neither the city, the land, nor the temple;
but the office of these rulers. They were placemen, and feared the
loss of their dignities and authority in the utter overthrow of the
nation, which did, indeed, subsequently take place. But why should
they fear this from any increase of Christ’s popularity? Not, as
Augustine interprets, because he would persuade all men to live
peaceful lives, and so prevent any successful revolt against the Roman
government. In common with all the Jews, they expected in the Messiah
a temporal king; the people had already attempted to crown Christ as
king (ch. 6:15); the council did not believe that he was the Messiah,
did not believe that any attempt by him to emancipate the nation would
succeed; and yet his popularity was such, and the popular movement
which they anticipated was likely to be such, as to provoke from the
Romans the destruction of what little national life was left. Their
selfishness blinded them utterly to the true nature of Christ’s
mission.
49 And one of them, _named_[458] Caiaphas, being the high
priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at
all,
[458] ch. 18:14; Luke 3:2; Acts 4:6.
50 Nor consider that it is[459] expedient for us, that one
man should die for the people, and that the whole nation
perish not.
[459] Luke 24:46.
=49, 50.= Caiaphas puts boldly into words thoughts which others less
unscrupulous dared not phrase. He overrules all scruples, whether
those of conscience against the murder of an innocent man and evident
prophet, or those of the Pharisaic party against appealing to the
Roman government to put a prophet to death, which was necessary to
carry out their purpose (Matt. 27:1, 2, note).--This he does by a
Jesuitical casuistry: It is better that one innocent man should die
than that the nation should be destroyed. Thus a pretended patriotism
is made to cover a proposed judicial murder. The argument is that of
an unprincipled politician: the end justifies the means. The
signification here and in verse 51 of the phrase “high priest _that
year_” is somewhat uncertain. Caiaphas, the son-in-law of Annas,
really held the office from A. D. 27 to A. D. 36 or 37. The high
priesthood was originally a life office. It was now bestowed and taken
away by the Romans at their will. In 107 years there were twenty-seven
appointees. I am inclined to think the language here a sarcastic
reference to the degenerate nature of the office; John refuses to give
to Caiaphas the honor once but no longer due to the high priesthood.
Prof. Fisher (_Beginnings of Christianity_) explains it “on account of
the supreme importance which ‘that year’ of the trial and crucifixion
of Jesus had in his (John’s) mind.” The language of Caiaphas here
agrees with his course in Matt. 26:62, 67. He was an unscrupulous,
vehement, and self-seeking ecclesiastical politician, such a leader as
is often produced by a degenerate and turbulent era.
51 And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest
that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that
nation;
52 And not[460] for that nation only, but that also he
should gather together in one the children of God that were
scattered[461] abroad.
[460] Isa. 49:6; Rom. 3:29; 1 John 2:2.
[461] ch. 10:16; Ephes. 2:14-17.
=51, 52.= The meaning of the Evangelist is plain. It is not merely
that by accommodation a prophetic reference to Christ’s sacrifice can
be put upon the words of Caiaphas, but that, unwittingly, he
prophesied of that death and its signification. So Balaam prophesied
blessing to Israel despite himself (Numb., ch. 23). “He who believed
in no angel or spirit was compelled to be the spokesman of the Divine
Word, even when he was plotting his death. Strange and awful
reflection! And yet so it must be--so experience shows us continually
that it is. Our words are not our own; we are no lords over them
whatever we may think.”--(_Maurice._) Observe the two truths connected
with the atonement here indicated: (1) that Jesus Christ dies for the
nation which by its constitutional rulers is plotting his death; he
dies for sinners, not for the righteous (Rom. 5:6-8); (2) by his death
he gathers into _one_, _i. e._, into one nation or kingdom (see Matt.
21:43, note) the children of God from every nation under the heavens
(Matt. 8:11; John 10:16; 17:20, 21; Ephes. 2:16-18; Col. 3:11; Rev.
5:9). “The cross was emphatically a message to mankind, to all tribes
and races within the circle of the empire that had appointed this
punishment for rebels and slaves. It is a thought which possessed the
minds of all the apostles--of none more than St. John. The cross was
to do what the eagle had tried to do. It was to bind men in one
society.”--(_Maurice._)
53 Then from that day forth they took counsel together[462]
for to put him to death.
[462] Ps. 109:4, 5.
=53.= The speech of Caiaphas was successful; it united Pharisee and
Sadducee in an agreement to do _whatever might be necessary_ to
compass the death of Jesus. The effect of this agreement is seen in
their subsequent course (Matt. 22:15, 16, 23; 27:1, 2).
54 Jesus therefore walked no more openly[463] among
the Jews: but went thence unto a country near to the
wilderness, into a city called Ephraim,[464] and there
continued with his disciples.
[463] chaps. 7:1; 18:20.
[464] 2 Sam. 13:23; 2 Chron. 13:19.
=54.= The site of Ephraim is involved in some uncertainty. The
“wilderness” probably designates the wild uncultivated hill country
northeast of Jerusalem, lying between the central towns and the Jordan
valley. Dr. Robinson identifies Ephraim with the Ophrah referred to in
Josh. 18:23; 1 Sam. 13:17, the Ephraim or Ephram referred to in 2
Chron. 13:19, and the modern et-Taiyibeh, and Ewald supposes it to be
the same Ephraim near which occurred the murder of Amnon (2 Sam.
13:23). Taiyibeh is four or five miles east of Bethel and sixteen from
Jerusalem, is situated on a conspicuous conical hill, and commands an
extended view over the whole eastern slope, the valley of the Jordan
and the Dead Sea. But the identification with Taiyibeh is only
hypothetical. See _Andrews’ Life of our Lord_, p. 385. Christ must
have returned to this place immediately after the resurrection of
Lazarus, and his place of retirement was evidently unknown to the
public (ver. 57). The “disciples” who abode there with him undoubtedly
included the twelve, but may have also included others. The length of
his stay is uncertain. If the chronology which I have adopted (see ch.
11, Prel. Note), be the correct one, it could only have been for two
or three weeks, not five or six weeks as supposed by Andrews and
Ellicott. It is not improbable that the special instructions
concerning prayer, reported by Luke, were given during this period of
retirement (Luke 11:1-8: 18:1-14). There is nothing in Luke to fix the
time or place of these instructions; but as Christ was accustomed to
draw his illustrations from circumstances and events occurring about
him, it is probable that at least the parable of the Pharisee and the
publican was given in or near Judea. From Ephraim Christ went up to
Jerusalem to attend the last Passover, and to his passion there. See
ch. 12, Prel. Note.
55 And[465] the Jews’ passover was nigh at hand: and
many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the
passover, to purify themselves.
[465] chaps. 2:13; 5:1; 6:4.
56 Then[466] sought they for Jesus, and spake among
themselves, as they stood in the temple, What think ye,
that he will not come to the feast?
[466] ver. 8; ch. 5:16, 18.
57 Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a
commandment, that, if any man knew where he were, he should
shew _it_, that they might take him.
=55-57. Out of the country.= From different parts of the country: not
only from Palestine, but from remote provinces where the dispersed
Jews were scattered. (See Acts 2:9-11.)--=To purify themselves.= No
special purifications were required by the O. T. before the Passover,
but the people were commanded to purify themselves before any
important event (Gen. 35:2; Exod. 19:10, 11), and were accustomed to
go through certain special rites of purification prior to the Passover
(2 Chron. 30:13-20).--=Then sought they for Jesus=, etc. “Verse 56
graphically describes the restless curiosity of these country people,
who were collected in groups in the temple and discussing the
approaching arrival of Jesus.”--(_Godet._) His miracles and teachings
in Galilee and Perea, and above all the resurrection of Lazarus, led
his friends and _quasi_ disciples to expect his immediate revelation
of himself as the Messiah (Luke 19:11); while the fact that the
Sanhedrim had pronounced against him and given orders for his arrest
coupled with his sudden disappearance, led others to think that he had
fled from the country, or at least would for the present conceal
himself (comp. John 7:11, 12).--=But the chief priests and the
Pharisees=, etc. (δὲ οἱ ἀρχ.; the first καὶ is spurious). This is
stated as an explanation of the doubt of the people whether Christ
would appear or no. Godet’s suggestions that the order was given to
intimidate Christ and his disciples is reasonable; for it could not
have been difficult to ascertain Christ’s place of retreat, and when
he emerged from it, and came up with peculiar publicity to the feast,
no attempt was made to arrest him. According to a Hebrew tradition, as
reported by Lightfoot, an officer of the Sanhedrim, during the forty
days preceding this Passover, “publicly proclaimed that this man, who
by his imposture had seduced the people, ought to be stoned, and that
any one who could say aught in his defence was to come forward and
speak. But no one doing so, he was hanged on the evening of the
Passover.” To some such public proclamation John here perhaps refers.
CHAPTER XII.
Ch. 12:1-11. ANOINTING OF JESUS BY MARY.--A COSTLY EXPRESSION OF A
FERVENT LOVE IS NOT WASTE.--HYPOCRISY SETS PHILANTHROPY AND PIETY IN
CONTRAST.--NONE ARE SO DEAF AS THEY THAT WILL NOT HEAR.
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--This anointing is not to be confounded with that of
which Luke (7:36-50) gives an account. The reasons for distinguishing
it from that anointing I have stated in the preliminary note there.
This anointing is not mentioned by Luke. It is reported by Matthew
(26:6-13) and Mark (14:3-9). It is true that some harmonists have
supposed two distinct anointings in Bethany, but that opinion is
entertained by very few scholars and by none of the moderns, and is
not a reasonable hypothesis; the differences between John’s account
and those of Matthew and Mark are not greater than might have been
expected in accounts given by independent witnesses. Matthew and Mark
say that Mary anointed Jesus’ head, John that she anointed Jesus’
feet; but certainly she may have anointed both the head and the feet.
The principal difference lies in the fact that Matthew and Mark
impliedly place the anointing two days before the Paschal feast (Matt.
26:2; Mark 14:1), while John impliedly places it six days before the
feast (ver. 1). The chronology is uncertain; some scholars adopt that
of Matthew and Mark (_Robinson_, _Geo. W. Clark_, _Hackett_)--others,
that of John (_Townsend_, _Andrews_, _Alford_). The former of these
opinions appears to me the more probable for reasons stated in the
note on Matthew 26:6-16. In such a case as this, where there appears
to be a conflict in the chronology of the evangelists, neither of whom
puts any emphasis upon chronological data or gives what may properly
be called a date, we may reasonably allow the order of events to be
determined by a consideration of the probable way in which one event
leads on to another. In this case the discourses of Jesus in the
temple and the overthrow of the ambitious hopes of Judas Iscariot
naturally led to his complaint at this anointing, and Christ’s sharp
rebuke of his spirit here naturally led in turn to his final act of
treachery. The note of time afforded by John in verses 1 and 12,
though they certainly indicate that the anointing took place prior to
the triumphal procession, are not conclusive; for verses 2-9 may be
regarded as parenthetical. Thus Dr. Hackett: “John is the only one of
the evangelists who speaks of the Saviour stopping at Bethany on the
way between Bethany and Jerusalem. Hence, this feast being the
principal event which John associates with Bethany during these last
days, he not unnaturally inserts the account of the feast immediately
after the speaking of the arrival at Bethany. But having (so to speak)
discharged his mind of that recollection, he then turns back and
resumes the historical order, namely, that on the next day after
coming to Bethany Jesus made his public entry into Jerusalem as
related by the Synoptists.” We suppose, then, that after the tarry in
Ephraim Christ came up to the Passover; stopped at Jericho, where
occurred the healing of the blind man, the conversion of Zaccheus, and
the parable of the ten pounds (Luke 18:35 to 19:28); from Jericho
proceeded to Jerusalem, stopping on the way at Bethany, where,
perhaps, he spent the Sabbath; entered Jerusalem in triumph on the
following day, and drove from the temple the traders (Luke 19:28-48),
and there gave the instructions recorded more or less by all the
Synoptists, but most fully by Matthew (chaps. 21:12 to 25:46); and
thence retreated to Bethany, where this supper, made for him by Martha
and her sister Mary, led directly to the conspiracy of Judas Iscariot
for his betrayal (Matt. 26:14-16). See _Tabular Harmony_, page 45.
[Illustration: BETHANY.]
1 Then Jesus, six days before the passover, came to
Bethany, where[467] Lazarus was which had been dead, whom
he raised from the dead.
[467] ch. 11:1, 43.
2 There they made him a supper, and Martha[468] served: but
Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.
[468] Luke 10:38-42.
=1, 2. Six days before the passover.= This note of time is quite
inconclusive, because it is uncertain whether the day of Christ’s
arrival and the first day of the passover should be excluded or
included, or one should be excluded and the other included, and also
because it is uncertain on which day of the month the passover is to
be considered as having begun. For various chronological views, see
_Andrews’ Life of our Lord_, page 397. The most probable hypothesis,
and the one commonly accepted, makes Christ arrive at Bethany on
Friday night, spending there the Sabbath and going on to Jerusalem on
the following day, the first day of the week.--=Came to Bethany.= A
well known village about fifteen stadia (ch. 11:18), that is, about a
mile and a half, east of Jerusalem, on the eastern slope of the Mount
of Olives, not far from the point at which the road to Jericho begins
its more sudden descent toward the valley. Fruit and other trees
growing around--olive, almond, and oak--give the spot an air of
seclusion and repose. It is not mentioned in the O. T., but is
intimately associated with the life of our Lord. Here Lazarus was
raised from the dead; here Christ found a secluded retreat and the
refreshment of friendship during the stormy periods of his ministry in
Jerusalem; thence he ascended when the cloud received him from the
side of his disciples. The present village, El-Azariyeh, is a ruinous
and wretched hamlet of some twenty families, the inhabitants of
which display even less than the ordinary Eastern thrift and
industry.--=They made him a supper.= The word _supper_ (δεῖπνος)
represents the chief meal of the Jews and also of the Greeks and
Romans, taken at evening after the labors of the day were over, and
sometimes prolonged into the night. The same word is sometimes used to
signify a banquet or feast (Matt. 23:6; Mark 6:21; Luke 14:12; 20:46;
Rev. 19:9). Who made the supper is not directly stated, by either John
or the other Evangelists. It was in the house of one Simon the leper
(Matt. 26:6; Mark 14:3). Godet supposes that he was a leper who had
been healed by Jesus and who claimed the privilege of entertaining, in
the name of the rest of the inhabitants of Bethany, Jesus, who had
conferred on their town so great a favor by raising Lazarus from the
dead. This seems to me a wild hypothesis on the part of a very sober
and cautious scholar. The fact that Martha served is at least an
indication that the supper was given at the house of Martha and Mary,
who were certainly Christ’s most intimate friends in the village.
There is nothing to indicate that Simon was present or had been cured.
The common hypothesis is more reasonable, that he was the father of
the sisters, or possibly the husband of Martha, and was either dead or
through his leprosy exiled from his home, and that the house is
described by the two Synoptists as his house because he was a
well-known resident, and also because they wished to avoid
concentrating the attention of the Pharisees, who had already
determined upon the death of Lazarus, on him and his two sisters. They
are not mentioned by name in the Synoptical narratives. The difference
in character between Martha and Mary, as indicated both by their
conduct here and the incident narrated in Luke 10:38-42, is one of
those incidental coincidences which attest the historic truth of the
Gospels.
[Illustration: ANOINTING OF FEET.]
3 Then[469] took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard,
very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his
feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour
of the ointment.
[469] ch. 11:2; Matt. 26:6, etc.; Mark 14:3, etc.
4 Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s
_son_, which should betray him,
5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence,
and given to the poor?
6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because
he was a thief,[470] and had[471] the bag, and bare what
was put therein.
[470] 2 Kings 5:20-27; Ps. 50:18.
[471] ch. 13:29.
=3-6. A pound of ointment of spikenard.= Mark and John both add a word
characterizing this ointment, which is not elsewhere found, in either
Biblical or classic Greek (πιστικῆς). Commentators disagree in their
translation of this word, and the English translators seem to have
avoided the difficulty by omitting it altogether. Some scholars derive
it from a Greek verb (πίνω) meaning _to drink_, and suppose it to
indicate that the ointment was liquid, perhaps drinkable. By other
scholars it is derived from the verb (πιστεύω) _to believe_, and is
supposed to signify a trustworthy or a reliable ointment; that is, one
that was pure or unadulterated. This is the more probable meaning.
Spikenard was liable to all kinds of adulteration. Pliny enumerates
nine plants with which it might be mixed in preparing it for the
market. The spikenard appears to have been procured from an Indian
plant of the family of _valeriana_, and to have been imported from
India by way of Arabia. It was highly prized among the ancients.
Horace, writing to Virgil, asks his guests to bring as contribution to
the feast a little spikenard, and by way of equivalent he would match
it with a cask of wine. The use of fragrant oils and ointments were
very common among the ancients, who anointed themselves twice or three
times a day in order that the delicious fragrance might not be
dissipated. The wealthier classes carried their ointments and perfumes
in small boxes of costly material and beautiful workmanship. This
ointment was contained in an alabaster box (Matt. 26:7; Mark 14:3).
This box Mary broke, pouring the ointment first on Christ’s head and
then on his feet. There is doubt as to the meaning of the expression
“she brake the box;” some suppose that she simply broke the seal;
others, that she broke off the neck of the box with a sharp blow, so
pouring out the whole ointment as an offering to Christ, a very little
of which would have sufficed for the purpose of an ordinary anointing.
For an illustration of alabaster boxes see Luke 7:38, note.--=Very
costly.= A pound was an enormous quantity to lavish on a single
anointing.--=Wiped his feet with her hair.= So did the woman who was a
sinner (Luke 7:38). But there is this characteristic difference
between the two cases: the unknown woman in Luke washed his feet with
her tears, and it was the tears which she wiped off with her hair.
Here there are no tears; all is joy and gladness.--=And the house was
filled with the odor of the ointment.= The service rendered to Christ
did not stop with him alone. Such service never does; it becomes
fragrant to all who are within the reach of its influence.--=One of
his disciples.= The objection was started by Judas Iscariot. The
others, however, shared this feeling; they too had indignation (Matt.
26:8; Mark 18:4), and regarded Mary’s action as wasteful. To prosaic
natures the expression of love always seems a waste, but to ardent
natures nothing seems too costly to express the enthusiasm of
love.--=For three hundred denarii.= The denarius, or, as the word is
translated in the New Testament, _penny_, was a coin of about
seventeen cents in value, but at that time was a day’s wages (Matt.
20:10). Thus, this offering of Mary was practically equivalent to an
offering in our time of three hundred dollars.--=And given to the
poor.= A pretended regard for the poor is often made a cloak for an
attack upon the Christian church, and especially upon Christian
worship. In the case of Judas, as in many other cases, it was but a
cover for a more sordid motive, but it served its purpose.--=But
because he had the bag.= Possibly a _box_; more probably a money bag
or purse (Latin, _sacculus_), in which the funds of Jesus and his
disciples were carried. These funds were doubtless small and were made
up of gifts from other disciples (Luke 8:3). This is implied by the
language here, “what was put therein,” signifying literally what had
been cast therein; that is, by friends of Jesus.--=And bare what was
put therein.= The original is capable of being translated “_purloined_
what was put therein.” This is the significance given to it by most of
the scholars (_Meyer_, _Alford_, _De Wette_, _Godet_).
[Illustration: ANCIENT MONEY BAG.]
7 Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my
burying hath she kept this.
8 For[472] the poor always ye have with you; but[473] me ye
have not always.
[472] Deut. 15:11; Matt. 26:11; Mark 14:7.
[473] verse 35; chaps. 8:21; 13:33; 16:5-7.
=7, 8.= If we combine the reports of the three Evangelists, it will
appear that Christ’s words were substantially as follows: “Let her
alone. Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work
upon me; she hath done what she could; against the day of my burying
hath she kept this, and is come beforehand to anoint my body for the
burial. The poor always ye have with you, and whensoever ye will ye
may do them good; but me ye have not always.” _Let her alone_ is the
language of sharp rebuke. Christ was indignant at the hypocrisy which
made a pretended consideration of the poor an excuse for attacking
and condemning an act of love towards himself. _Why trouble ye the
woman?_ indicates that Mary was herself abashed and downcast by
the criticism of the twelve. Perhaps, as Maurice says, “she could
not herself have answered Judas Iscariot’s complaining question.”
_For she hath wrought a good work upon me_, is a strong expression of
approbation of an act which was service only as it was an expression
of love. The word rendered _good_ is literally _beautiful_; but with
the Greeks, who were an æsthetic race, the word expressive of moral
beauty was one of the highest commendation. To express love to Christ
is to render a good work unto Christ. _She hath done what she could_,
commends Mary in the same spirit in which the poor widow was commended
(Mark 12:44). Whether her act was wise or not was not to be
questioned. It was the outpouring of a heart full of love, and there
is no condemnation to those who are thus in Christ Jesus. There is
some question respecting the reading of the phrase _Against the day of
my burying hath she kept this_. Some critics (_Meyer_, _Alford_)
understand its meaning to be, _Against the day of my burying let her
preserve this_. And Meyer supposes that only a part of the ointment
was used in the anointing, and that Christ expresses the idea that the
rest is not to be sold for the poor, but to be preserved to complete
Mary’s unfinished act. But there is no question respecting the reading
of the text in Matthew. That the anointing was treated by Christ as a
prophetic act is more in accordance both with the reports of the other
Evangelists and with the spirit of the entire narrative. Christ’s
declaration then is, not that Mary should reserve the rest of the
ointment for the anointing of his corpse, nor that she had
deliberately and intentionally preserved it for a prophetic anointing,
but that it was in accordance with a divine purpose that she had
poured it upon him while he lived. His body was not anointed at the
time of his death, the completion of the funeral honors being
prevented by his resurrection (Mark 16:1, 2).--_The poor always ye
have with you, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good_, is founded
upon the great principle that philanthropy needs no special emotion,
only opportunity, and that is never wanting; while the expression of
love can only be made when the love itself burns ardently in the
heart, and that must of necessity be occasional and exceptional; in
other words, philanthropy may always exhibit itself in acts of
charity, but emotion can only occasionally exhibit itself in acts of
reverence and love. Matthew and Mark add the declaration by Christ,
that _Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world
over, shall also this that this woman hath done be told for a memorial
for her_. See Matt. 26:13, note.
9 Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there:
and they came not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might
see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.
10 But the chief priests consulted that they might put
Lazarus also[474] to death;
[474] Luke 16:31.
11 Because that[475] by reason of him many of the Jews went
away, and believed on Jesus.
[475] verse 18; ch. 11:45.
=9-11. Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there.= This
is an indication that he tarried there at least over one day, probably
the Sabbath preceding the passion. See Prel. Note.--=But that they
might see Lazarus also.= They were drawn together by curiosity.--=But
the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus to death.=
That is, they were at this time consulting. While the people were
drawn to Lazarus by curiosity, and others were led by the story of his
resurrection, confirmed by himself, to believe that Jesus was the
Messiah, the chief priests in Jerusalem were consulting how they might
get rid both of Jesus and of the witness to his divine power. Thus
they demonstrate the truth of Christ’s saying, “Neither will they
believe though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:31).--=Believed on
Jesus.= That is, they believed that he was the Messiah. Nor was this a
mere intellectual opinion. It involved attachment to Christ and hope
in him; a looking forward to a revelation of himself in some
miraculous and decisive display of divine power against the Romans.
The period was one of a brief but great popularity, which accounts for
the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and the Pharisees’ fear of the
people which kept them from openly arresting Christ during his
teaching in the temple on the eventful days that immediately followed.
12 On[476] the next day much people that were come to the
feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,
[476] Matt. 21:8, etc.; Mark 11:8, etc.; Luke 19:36,
etc.
13 Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet
him, and cried,[477] Hosanna! Blessed _is_ the King of
Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.
[477] Ps. 118:25, 26.
14 And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat
thereon; as it is[478] written,
[478] Zech. 9:9.
15 Fear not, daughter of Sion; behold, thy King
cometh, sitting on an ass’s colt.
16 These things[479] understood not his disciples at
the first: but when Jesus was glorified,[480] then
remembered[481] they that these things were written of
him, and _that_ they had done these things unto him.
[479] Luke 18:34.
[480] ch. 7:39.
[481] ch. 14:26.
17 The people therefore that was with him when he
called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from
the dead, bare record.
18 For[482] this cause the people also met him, for
that they heard that he had done this miracle.
[482] verse 11.
=Ch. 12:12-18.= THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM. Comp. Matt.
21:1-17; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:29-44. The account is on the whole the
fullest in Luke. See notes there. The statement that some from
Jerusalem took palm branches and came out to meet the procession as it
approached the city is peculiar to John. So also is his account of the
effect produced on the Pharisees (ver. 19). The statement in Luke
19:39, that some of the Pharisees called on Jesus to rebuke his
disciples is equally indicative of their feeling, which was one of
intense though suppressed hostility. _The next day_, verse 12, might
mean the day after the anointing, but I believe means the day after
the visit to Bethany, the account of the anointing being
parenthetical. See Prel. Note. Those who came out to meet Jesus are
not described as _Jews_, and may have been, as Meyer surmises,
unprejudiced pilgrims who had come to the feast and had there heard
the fame of the Messiah. For account of how the young ass was found,
see Matthew 21:2-7.
* * * * *
Ch. 12:19-50. GREEKS VISIT JESUS--HIS DISCOURSE THEREON.--DEATH
THE CONDITION OF LIFE (24, 25).--FOLLOWING CHRIST THE CONDITION OF
COMPANIONSHIP WITH HIM (26).--THE SOUL CONFLICTS OF CHRIST ILLUSTRATED
(27-30).--THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST; IT JUDGES THE
WORLD; DEFEATS OF THE WORLD’S FALSE PRINCE; DRAWS ALL MEN TO THE TRUE
KING (31-33).--DISOBEDIENCE OF THE INNER LIGHT OF THE SOUL QUENCHES
IT; FAITH IN AND FOLLOWING OF THAT LIGHT NOURISHES AND PERFECTS IT
(34-40).--THE CRIME OF COWARDICE ILLUSTRATED (42, 43).--CHRIST A GUIDE
TO THE FATHER (44-46).--CHRIST’S WORDS MAN’S JUDGE (47, 48).--THE
SOURCE OF CHRIST’S AUTHORITY AND POWER (49, 50).
19 The Pharisees therefore said among themselves,
Perceive[483] ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world
is gone after him.
[483] ch. 11:47, 48.
20 And there were certain[484] Greeks among them that[485]
came up to worship at the feast:
[484] Acts 17:4; Rom. 1:16.
[485] 1 Kings 8:41, 42.
21 The same came therefore to[486] Philip, which was of
Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we
would see Jesus.
[486] ch. 1:44.
22 Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and
Philip tell Jesus.
=19-22. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves.= Some among the
Pharisees were friendly to Jesus, but dared not come out openly in his
favor. Of this number was Nicodemus. To the same class belonged the
lawyer that answered Christ discreetly and the ruler whom it is said
Jesus loved (Mark 10:21; 12:34). Chrysostom supposes that the
Pharisees here referred to were of this sort, and that their language
is that of remonstrance against the endeavors of the rest to destroy
him. The language seems to me rather that of approval of Caiaphas’
counsel. They point to the fact that the cautious methods have availed
nothing. So Bengel and most modern critics.--=The world is gone out
after him.= Literally _are departing after him_; that is, are leaving
us, the old and acknowledged teachers, to go after him, this new and
unordained rabbi. The _world_ signifies the multitude, not especially
the wicked; but it is a term of reproach.--=But there were certain
Greeks.= _But_, not _and_. The particle (δέ) is adversative, and
indicates a contrast between the persons mentioned in the previous
sentence and those here referred to. So do the terms _Pharisees_, who
were Hebrews of the Hebrews, and _Greeks_ who were, not Jews dispersed
in Greece and coming up thence to the feast, but men who belonged to
the Greek nationality and had adopted the Hebrew religion, _i. e._,
Greek proselytes. On the character of these proselytes from foreign
nations, see Matthew 23:15, note. That these were Greeks, not Grecian
Jews, is evident from the word employed to describe the Greeks
(Ἕλληνες), which is one signifying nationality, not location; that
they were proselytes is evident from the characterization as
_among them which were accustomed_ (present participle signifying
habit--_Meyer_) _to come up to worship at the feast_. They were of the
same character as the centurion whose son Christ healed, the Cornelius
who sent for Peter, and the Eunuch to whom Philip preached (Matt.
8:7-10; Acts 8:27-40; ch. 10). The pilgrims to Jerusalem were
increased considerably in the increasing decay of the polytheistic
worship of Greece and Rome, with such converts to the simple and
sublime monotheism of Judea.--=The same came therefore to Philip.= Why
to Philip is purely a matter of conjecture. In fact, Philip and Andrew
are both Greek names, and the only names of Greek origin among the
twelve.--=Sir= (κύριε). The term is the same one translated _lord_
when used in addressing Christ. Its fair equivalent in the English
language is Sire. They address Philip with marked respect.--=We would
see Jesus.= Rather, _we have desired_ to see him. They assume that a
private interview will be readily granted them. That this is what they
desire is evident, because Christ was publicly teaching in the temple
during the four days preceding his arrest, and therefore it was very
easy for them to both see and hear him in public. The motive of this
request may probably have been a mixed one; partly a curiosity to see
and hear more of this extraordinary Rabbi, partly a real moral and
spiritual appreciation of and drawing to him; possibly a dim and
unconfessed wonder whether he might possibly be the promised Messiah.
Stier compares this visit to that of the Magi at the birth, one a
coming to the cradle, the other to the cross. Godet refers to the
tradition narrated by Eusebius, that an embassy was sent by the king
of Edessa, in Syria, to invite Jesus to take up his abode with him,
and to furnish him such a royal welcome as should compensate him for
the obstinacy with which the Jews rejected him.--=Andrew and Philip
tell Jesus.= The two were of the same city (ch. 1:44). The fact that
Philip takes Andrew with him is one of the not unfrequent indications
of the awe with which, despite the fullness and even familiarity of
his love, Christ inspired his most intimate disciples (Luke 9:45; Mark
9:32, etc.). So Bengel: “Philip feared to introduce the Greeks alone;
with a friend he ventured to do so.” It is to be remembered, however,
that the request would seem a doubtful one to them, since the
Rabbinical theology forbade to teach the truth to a Gentile, who was
regarded as unworthy of it, and Jesus himself had confined his
ministry to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. 10:5; 15:24).
23 And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is[487] come,
that the Son of man should be glorified.
[487] chaps, 13:32; 17:1.
24 Verily, verily, I say unto you,[488] Except a corn of
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but
if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
[488] 1 Cor. 15:36.
25 He[489] that loveth his life shall lose it: and he that
hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life
eternal.
[489] Matt. 10:39; 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; 17:33.
26 If[490] any man serve me, let him follow me; and
where[491] I am, there shall also my servant be: if[492]
any man serve me, him will _my_ Father honour.
[490] ch. 14:15; Luke 16:46; 1 John 5:3.
[491] chaps. 14:3; 17:24; 1 Thess. 4:17.
[492] 1 Sam. 2:30; Prov. 27:18.
=23-26. But Jesus answered them.= _But_ (δέ) not _and_; the
adversative particle indicates that the request was refused. So also
does the word (ἀποκρίνομαι) rendered _answered_, literally to
distinguish, then to reject after inquiry; then to make response; but
primarily a negative response. So also, it appears to me, does the
discourse which follows. Neither, however, is conclusive. Tholuck
apparently thinks the request granted; Meyer supposes that Christ
intended to grant the request, but was interrupted by the voice from
heaven; a quite improbable conjecture. Whether the interview was
granted or refused, is a point on which John lays no emphasis. He
narrates the request only because it leads to a brief utterance by
Jesus, called out by it, and which he could not intelligibly report
without reporting the incident which led to it.--=The hour is come
that the Son of man should be glorified.= _Hour_ is here equivalent to
the more general word _time_ or _era_. The prophets of the O. T.
foretell the ingathering of the Gentiles through the Messiah. This is
both his glory and the glory of the Jewish nation in him (Psalm 2:8;
Isaiah 53:11). In this application of these Greek proselytes, Christ
sees a prophetic indication of the time when, with a profounder
meaning, the Gentile world will everywhere put forth a request to see
Jesus, when, being lifted up, he will draw all men unto him, when they
will come from the north and the south, the east and the west, to sit
down with Jesus in his kingdom (Matt. 8:11), when he will break down
the partition wall between Jew and Gentile (Ephes. 2:14), and gather
into one nation the dispersed children of God (John 11:52; Col. 3:11;
Rev. 7:9). The term _Son of man_ is here, as always when used by
Christ in reference to himself, equivalent to _the Messiah_.--=Verily,
verily, I say unto you.= A customary prelude to an important saying
(Matt. 5:18, note). Here it is used by Christ to emphasize a truth
which the disciples had already proved themselves so loth to receive
that they were practically unable to understand it (Mark 9:32; Luke
18:34), namely, that the Messiah’s death must precede this ingathering
of the Gentiles and prepare the way for it, and itself become the
instrument for its accomplishment. He states this truth, first under a
figure drawn from nature (ver. 24), then as a general law, alike
applicable to the Master and his disciples (ver. 25).--=Except a
kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.= In
the granary it is _safe_, but _useless_. Its death is the precursor of
its usefulness. Paul employs the same figure in a different connection
in 1 Cor. 15:36. Christ embodies it in the Lord’s Supper, which
reminds us of this law of self-sacrifice. It is the wheat ground to
powder that makes the bread, and the body bruised that makes the bread
of life; it is the grape crushed that makes the wine, and the blood
poured out as a libation that makes the wine of life. This truth of
self-sacrifice symbolized by nature is one of the universal laws of
spiritual life.--=He that loveth his life shall lose it.= The _life_
or _soul_ (the same Greek word, ψυχή, is indiscriminately rendered by
both English words in our English version) is the æsthetic and
intellectual part of man in contrast with the spiritual nature (ὅ
πνεῦμα). If one gives himself to the saving of this soul or life he
destroys it; for this is but the adjunct of the spiritual nature, and
perishes if that is left to perish. “Lange points out that this saying
involved a condemnation of Hellenism. For what was Greek civilization
but human life cultivated from the view-point of enjoyment, and
withdrawn from the law of sacrifice.”--(_Godet._) The same judgment
Paul re-affirms in 1 Cor. 1:18-21; and it is equally applicable as a
judgment of modern unreligious culture. Culture without religion
destroys what it would preserve.--=He that hateth his life in this
world shall guard it unto life eternal.= Two different Greek words
(ψυχή and ζωή) are rendered by the same English word _life_ in the two
clauses of this sentence. Yet if we were to render it, _He that hateth
his soul shall guard it unto life eternal_, the rendering would be at
least equally liable to misapprehension. If the reader understands
_soul_ to mean the earthy side of human nature, in contrast with the
spiritual, as explained above (and this is the N. T. use of the term),
this substituted rendering will give him the true meaning of the
original. Beware of understanding _hate_ to mean merely does not love,
or _guard_ as merely equivalent to _keep_, as it is rendered in our
English version. The meaning is that he who finds no satisfaction in
earthly sources of enjoyment, who turns away from them with a sense of
satiety that, at least at times, becomes a generous contempt and
a noble loathing, toward the higher spiritual life which mere
intellectual and æsthetic culture does nothing to satisfy, is by that
very hate protected from the excesses and the demoralization which of
necessity inheres in a life contented with the provisions for the
earthly nature. The hate inspired in a noble nature by every unworthy
thing is the best protection against subtle temptations.--=If any man
would serve me, let him follow me.= This is Christ’s answer to the
request of the Greeks. Service of Christ is to be sought, not by
secret interviews, not by sacred and saintly communings, which he
gives to whom he will, but by practical following of him in a life of
daily self-sacrifice for others.--=And where I am, there shall my
servant be.= This practical following is the way that leads to
intimate fellowship. The sacred conversations of Christ with the
twelve, recorded in John, chaps. 13-16, did not come till for three
years they had followed him, forsaking all things for the sake of his
companionship. This following has the promise both of heavenly
companionship with Christ on earth (ch. 14:21-23), and eternal
companionship with him in heaven (Rom. 8:17; 2 Tim. 2:11, 12).--=If
any man serve me, him will my Father honor.= For it is with the
Father, not with the Son, to determine who shall sit at his right hand
and his left (Mark 10:40), who are to receive the honors, what is to
be the allotment of rank in the kingdom of God. The Christian’s
ambition, therefore, is to be Christ-like in the life of earthly
service, and leave all else to the will of the Father concerning him.
27 Now[493] is my soul troubled: and what shall I say?
Father, save me from this hour: but[494] for this cause
came I unto this hour.
[493] ch. 13:21; Matt. 26:38, 39; Luke 12:50.
[494] ch. 18:37.
28 Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice[495]
from heaven, _saying_, I have both glorified _it_, and will
glorify _it_ again.
[495] Matt. 3:17.
29 The people therefore that stood by, and heard _it_, said
that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him.
=27-29. Now is my soul troubled.= Literally, _stirred up, in
conflict_. In 11:33 it is said that Jesus was indignant in _spirit_,
here that his _soul_ is in conflict. See note on 11:33, and on this
contrast between soul and spirit, see above on verse 25; the one links
man to God, the other to the animal. At the grave of Lazarus the
higher spiritual nature was indignant at the exhibition of formalism
and false pretence; here the lower and earthly nature was in conflict
between the instincts of self-preservation and the impulse of love and
duty. “A horror of death and an ardor of obedience concurred.”--(_Bengel._)
It was a real struggle; the narration of it refutes the rationalistic
hypothesis that John omitted the agony at Gethsemane because he
desired to portray a Son of God superior to all trial and conflict. It
illustrates and is interpreted by Heb. 2:18; 4:15; 5:7; see Notes on
Temptation of Christ, Matt. 4:1-11; and on Lessons of Gethsemane,
Matt. 26:36-46.--=And what shall I say? Father, save me from this
hour?= This is to be taken not affirmatively but interrogatively.
Christ does not first pray to be delivered from his passion and then
change his mind, recall the prayer and put up another and a different
one. Nor is it uttered didactically, to teach his disciples. The
contrast between the two petitions is explained by the precedent
declaration, “Now is my soul in conflict;” the nature of that conflict
is hinted at in the twofold prayer, the first hypothetical, the second
final: Shall I ask my Father to save me from this hour? (That is the
suggestion of the natural instincts.) No! for this cause came I unto
this hour. Rather, Father, glorify thy name. (That is the victory of
the spiritual nature.) “The struggle is like one of those fissures in
its crust, which enables science to fathom the bowels of the earth. It
lets us read the very inmost depths of the Lord’s being.”--(_Godet._)
Beware of understanding this conflict as one between the God and
the man in the God-man. The _spirit_ is in every child of God,
increasingly dominant, though in none absolutely, unquestionably and
always supreme as in Jesus Christ. _This hour_ is the hour of the
passion toward which Christ had steadfastly set his face (Luke 9:51)
in coming up for the last time to Jerusalem.--=For this cause came I
unto this hour.= In order to be a sacrifice he had both come from
heaven to earth, and also, at this very moment, from the safety and
comparative popularity of Perea to Jerusalem.--=Father, glorify thy
name.= Comp. Matthew 26:39. In both cases there is not merely
resignation to a superior will, an invincible fate, but a real and
supreme desire to fulfil that will whatever it may entail.--=Then came
there a voice from heaven.= The critics since, as the people then,
have discussed whether this was really an articulate voice, speaking
words, or only a sound of thunder which Christ interpreted as a divine
response to his prayer. The word _voice_ (φωνὴ) is not conclusive,
because it signifies sometimes an inarticulate sound, as of a trumpet,
chariots, waters, thunder, and the like (Matt. 24:31; 1 Cor. 14:7, 8;
John 3:8; Rev. 9:9; 6:1; 14:2; 18:22, etc.). But the plain implication
of the narrative is that this was an articulate voice, the words of
which were understood by others than Jesus, though not by all. So at
Paul’s conversion his companions heard the _sound_, but understood not
the _words_ of the voice that spake to him (Acts 9:7 with 22:9,
notes). This is the view of nearly all evangelical scholars, _e. g._,
Alford, Meyer, Godet, etc. The latter’s illustration is apt: “The
whole multitude heard a noise; but the meaning of the voice was only
perceived by each in proportion to his spiritual intelligence. Thus
the wild beast perceives only a _sound_ in the human voice; the
trained animal discovers a _meaning_, a command, for example, which it
immediately obeys; man alone discerns therein a _thought_.”--Here the
multitude (ὁ ὄχλος, _the people_) did not comprehend; but some (ἄλλοι,
_others_), a smaller number, did.--=I have both glorified it and will
glorify it again.= The Father had glorified his name by giving Jesus
daily and hourly the power to do and to bear all that had been laid on
him up to that moment; and he would glorify it by continuing to give
him the power to do and to bear all that should be laid on him to the
end. The prayer and the promise are both for us. In our passion-hour
true prayer will be the cry, not of the soul, but of the spirit; a
cry, not to be saved from our Calvary, but to be enabled to glorify
our Father’s name in and through it. And the answer is interpreted by
our experience in the past (Psalm 77:10-12); the grace that has been
sufficient will be sufficient to the end.
30 Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of
me, but[496] for your sakes.
[496] ch. 11:42.
31 Now is the judgment of this world: now shall[497] the
prince of this world be cast out.
[497] ch. 16:11; Luke 10:18; Acts 26:18; Ephes. 2:2.
32 And I, if I be lifted[498] up from the earth, will draw
all[499] _men_ unto me.
[498] ch. 8:28.
[499] Rom. 5:18.
33 This he said, signifying[500] what death he should
die.
[500] ch. 18:32.
=30-33. Not for me but for you.= If there were no articulate words, if
Christ simply imputed to the sound of thunder the meaning, there would
have been in it no value to the bystanders. This declaration,
therefore, seems to me conclusive that a voice spoke comprehensible
words; and even to indicate that the hypothetical explanation “It
thundered,” was not an honest one.--=Now is the judgment of this
world.= The language is anticipative. Christ speaks as though the
passion on which he was entering were already accomplished. That
passion he declares will be characterized by a threefold result: the
world will be judged, the devil conquered and cast out, and the
all-conquering Christ brought in. The judgment of the world has
already begun. It “dates from Good Friday” (_Godet_). While Christ
came not to judge the world but that the world through him might be
saved, his cross is in fact a judgment-seat, and men are discriminated
morally and spiritually by their reception of the suffering,
self-sacrificing Redeemer.--=Now the prince of this world is cast
out.= The Prince of this world was a phrase much used by Jewish
writers to designate the spiritual monarch of the Gentiles in
opposition to the one true God whom they regarded as in a peculiar
sense the God of Israel. Christ employs their language; he sees in the
application of the Greeks for an interview with him a prophecy of the
time when Satan will be cast out and all the kingdoms of this world
will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. This he
regards as accomplished _now_, that is, by the sacrifice of Calvary.
The world’s battle was fought and the victory won there. The second
coming is not to redeem the world, but to realize for the world the
fruits of redemption, in an established and eternal kingdom of
righteousness, after, by the cross, humanity has been judged, the
devil cast out, and the redeemed race lifted up into oneness with
Christ Jesus. The passages of the N. T., which imply the continuing
influence of the devil (Rom. 16:20; 2 Cor. 4:4; Ephes. 2:2; 6:12,
etc.) are not inconsistent with Christ’s language here, because it is
prophetic; he speaks of that as already accomplished which is
absolutely certain to be accomplished by the power of that divine
sacrifice so soon by him to be consummated.--=And I if I be lifted up
will draw all men toward myself.= _If_ is not to be rendered as
equivalent to _when_. The language is sympathetic with that of verse
27; it is the last trace of that soul-storm. His crucifixion was
contingent; it was made, to the last, dependent on his own voluntary
submission. Even in the hour of his arrest the way of deliverance was
open to him (Matt. 26:53). He is still, as it were, arguing with
himself. The whole language is that of _quasi_ soliloquy. The phrase
_lifted up from the earth_ certainly does not refer to his ascension,
as Meyer interprets it. John’s own interpretation in the next verse is
conclusive on that point. Apart from inspiration, he, as a sympathetic
ear-witness, is to be trusted as a correct interpreter. Nor does it
refer to the mere physical elevation from the ground of a foot or two
in the crucifixion. The N. T. use of the original word rendered
_lifted up_ (ὑψόω) as well as the added words _from the earth_, is
conclusive on that point. To give a physical interpretation to the
phrase is to belittle and degrade it. The word here rendered _lifted
up_ is generally rendered _exalted_ (Matt. 11:23; 23:12; Luke 1:52;
14:11), and is used in reference to Christ’s divine exaltation in
consequence of his voluntary sacrifice (Acts 2:33; 5:31). The
crucifixion is exaltation because self-sacrifice is divine glory (1
Cor. 1:23, 24). _From the earth_ is added to mark the contrast between
the kingdom of the Prince of this world which is to be overthrown and
that of the Prince of Light which takes its place. The one is of the
earth earthy; the other is not of this world (ch. 18:36), but _over_
it, a kingdom lifted up from the world but dominating it. In each
individual soul the kingdom of God begins, as it began in the world of
humanity, in crucifixion. When we take up our cross and follow Christ,
we are lifted up from the earth and in us the Prince of this world is
cast out (Mark 9:49, 50; Luke 14:27, notes). The word _drawing_ here
refers not primarily to the influence of the Holy Spirit winning men
to Christ (ch. 7:39; 14:18, 19; 16:7), certainly not to what
theologians call effectual calling, but to the attractive power of the
cross itself. Self-sacrifice always draws us toward the sacrificed
one, the soldier, the martyr, the mother; and has drawn all hearts
toward Christ as the pre-eminent martyr. This is not, however, a
promise that all men shall be actually brought to Christlikeness of
disposition. The original does not imply this. The preposition _to_
(ηρός) should rather be rendered _towards_; for it indicates
_direction_, not _result_, the place or person toward which anything
moves or an affection is directed, not that to which anything comes or
upon which an affection is finally centered. _All men_ must not be
rendered with Calvin as equivalent to “all the children of God;” nor
does it merely mean men of both Gentile and Jewish origin, _i. e._,
all classes of men. Christ’s words need no mending. All men to whom
the simple story of the cross is told are drawn toward him who gave
himself for us; whether they _follow him_ and become like him through
a like voluntary cross-bearing is another question. Of that Christ
says nothing here. The whole sentence, then (vers. 31, 32), may be
paraphrased thus: Already is the judgment of this world beginning to
take place; already is the Prince of this world beginning to be cast
out; and I, if I am faithful to the end in enduring that cross for
which I came into this hour, will draw all hearts toward me, even as
now these stranger hearts are drawn toward me.
34 The people answered him, We have heard[501] out of the
law[502] that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou,
The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man?
[501] Ps. 89:36, 37; 110:4; Isa. 9:7.
[502] Rom. 5:18; Ps. 72:17-19.
35 Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the
light[503] with you.[504] Walk while ye have the light,
lest darkness come upon you: for he[505] that walketh in
darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.
[503] ch. 8:12.
[504] Jer. 13:6.
[505] ch. 11:10.
36 While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may
be[506] the children of light. These things spake Jesus,
and departed, and did hide himself from them.
[506] Ephes. 5:8.
=34-36. We have heard out of the law that the Messiah abideth
forever.= They evidently understand Christ’s language to refer to his
death, at least to his departure from the earth, and are really
perplexed. For the idea of an earthly Messianic kingdom was so firmly
fixed in the public mind that they were absolutely incapable of
receiving any other; and the O. T. in many passages does describe that
kingdom as an everlasting one (Ps. 89:36; 145:13; Isaiah 9:5, 7; Dan.
7:13, 14).--=Who is this Son of man?= The language is that of sneer.
What strange sort of a Messiah is this, that must die in order to draw
all nations unto him, and enter into his kingdom?--=Then Jesus said
unto them.= His reply is not responsive to their question. He rarely
if ever replied to sneers.--=Yet a little while is the light with
you.= The commentators generally regard the phrase _the Light_ as
Christ’s designation of himself. So Alford, Godet, Meyer, among the
moderns, and Chrysostom and Calvin among the older commentators. But
this interpretation entangles the whole sentence. Christ then bids his
auditors to walk, _i. e._, “be not slothful but spiritually active”
(_Meyer_), for the two or three days that intervene before his death;
for his death will bring darkness on them, and make it impossible for
them to walk intelligently thereafter. The direction is thus deprived
of all significance to us, and is contradicted by history; for the
death of Christ brought light, not darkness, and was itself the
necessary precursor of highest spiritual activity in all that believe
on him. The _light_ here, as in Matthew 6:23, is the moral and
spiritual nature of man, that which links him to the divine and makes
it possible for him to become a child of God. God is the Light of the
world (1 John 1:5) because he is the fountain, the central sun which
supplies and keeps alive this moral and spiritual nature in men.
Christ is the Light of the world (ch. 9:5), because in him this
spiritual nature shone out without any dimness from sin or moral
infirmity. Christians are lights in the world (Matt. 5:14), because
this spiritual nature in them is their guide, illuminating them and
through them others. If one follows this inner light it grows brighter
and brighter unto perfect day (Prov. 4:18); if he disobeys it he
quenches it and goes into moral darkness, losing the very power of
moral and spiritual discrimination (1 John 2:8-11). I understand
Christ’s meaning then to be this: You have yet for a little while
longer the light of conscience; it is not utterly quenched. Beware.
Walk according to such light as you possess, lest utter moral darkness
come upon you. And he who walks in such darkness knows not the future
fate that awaits him. _Walk while ye have the light_ should rather be
rendered, _Walk as ye have the light_ (ὡς not ἕως is the best reading,
so _Alford_, _Meyer_, etc.); that is, _According to the light ye
possess_. The phrase _Come upon you_ is hardly forcible enough to
express the meaning of the original (καταλαμβάνω) which is literally
to _seize_ or _take violent possession of_. See Mark 9:18; John 8:3; 1
Thess. 5:4. _Knoweth not whither he goeth_ indicates the awful mystery
which hangs about the final fate of those who refuse to follow the
light of their own better nature, and so to accept the light which
comes from God through Jesus Christ his Son.--=As ye have the light,
have faith in the light, that ye may become the children of light.=
Observe the difference between this rendering, which accurately
follows the original, and that of the English version, from which it
differs in three important particulars. Christ does not say _while ye
have the light_, but _according as ye have the light_, that is, faith
is to be exercised according to the opportunity; he does not say
_believe_, a word which indicates an intellectual act, but _have
faith_, a word which indicates a spiritual habit; he does not say _may
be the children of light_, as though a single act of belief perfected
the soul in sonship, but _may become the children of light_, faith in
such light as the soul possesses being the way unto a final perfection
in the divine life. Faith is the evidence of things unseen (Heb.
11:1), that is, the power of the soul by which it appreciates unseen
moral qualities; hence the divine qualities in Christ: hence, by
direct, immediate communion, the invisible spirit of God. The
direction here is the natural outcome of the preceding warning,
and may be paraphrased thus: “As you have moral and spiritual
illumination, exercise faith toward it, apprehend, appreciate, obey
the sacred inner monitions of your moral nature; so shall you be led
constantly into clearer light, and shall at last become children of
light, wholly possessed and pervaded by it.” This of course includes
the exercise of faith in Christ according to the measure in which he
is revealed to the soul; but it certainly is much more than a mere
exhortation to the Jews to believe in Jesus as the Messiah while he
remained in the flesh among them. Both the warning against quenching
this inner light by disobedience, and the exhortation to nourish it by
appreciating and following it are applicable to all men and for all
time.--=And departed and hid himself from them.= The very fact that
these were among Christ’s last words, and that immediately on uttering
them he departed into a concealment from which apparently he did not
issue till the time for his passion, should have sufficed to prevent
the common but unspiritual interpretation controverted above. “This
was the farewell of Jesus to Israel. He then retired and did not
reappear on the morrow. This time it was no mere cloud which obscured
the sun; the sun itself had set.”--(_Godet._) This statement fixes
the time of this incident; it was concurrent with his farewell to
Jerusalem, that is, on the same day with, and probably just subsequent
to the discourse recorded in Matthew, ch. 23. In the discourses
of which that was the culmination, Christ plainly foretold the
destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews, and indicated
the calling of the Gentiles (Matt. 21:43; 23:37-39). It may be that
those prophecies led to this application of the Greeks for a more
private interview with the prophet who thus foretold the ingathering
of the Gentiles.
37 But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet
they believed not on him:
38 That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled,
which he spake,[507] Lord, who hath believed our report?
and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?
[507] Isa. 53:1.
39 Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said[508]
again,
[508] Isa. 6:9, 10.
40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart: that
they should not see with _their_ eyes, nor understand with
_their_ heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
41 These things said Esaias, when[509] he saw his glory, and
spake of him.
[509] Isa. 6:1.
42 Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed
on him; but[510] because of the Pharisees they did not
confess _him_, lest they should be put out of the synagogue:
[510] ch. 9:22.
43 For[511] they loved the praise of men more than the
praise of God.
[511] ch. 5:44; Rom. 2:29.
=37-43.= These words are John’s comments on the whole incident and
teaching. The passages from Isaiah (6:9, 10; Isaiah 53:1)
illustrate Christ’s warning, and Christ’s warning interprets Isaiah’s
prophecy. The blinding and hardening are here attributed to God
because they take place in accordance with the divine law which Christ
has enunciated, namely, that disobedience to the light quenches and
destroys it. In Matthew 13:13-15, the Jews are represented as blinding
their own eyes, etc., because they have done so by their disobedience.
See notes on Matthew. To those who recognize the authority of John,
his language here is conclusive that Isaiah spoke as a prophet, and
under divine inspiration. Observe that Isaiah, though living seven
centuries before Christ, _saw his glory_, which the blinded eyes
of the Pharisees, though they were his contemporaries, could not
see. _Putting out of the synagogue_, that is, excommunication, was
in those days a very serious matter. See ch. 9:22, note. I make no
attempt to follow other commentators in a discussion here respecting
the relation of divine decrees and human free agency; that belongs
not to the commentator but to the metaphysician and theologian.
Taking the whole passage together with its context, it seems to me
clear (against _Alford_) that the statement of John _Therefore they
could not believe_, refers not backwards to the precedent prophecy of
Isaiah, so that the meaning is that they could not believe “because
it was otherwise ordained in the divine counsels,” but forward to the
subsequent prophecy of Isaiah, so that the meaning is that they could
not believe because their eyes were blinded and their hearts hardened.
Either interpretation is grammatically possible; this one makes
John’s comment germane to Christ’s discourse respecting the light,
and the effect of refusing obedience to it; the other does not. An
interpretation which represents God as blinding the eyes and hardening
the heart, so as to prevent the exercise of faith, and this in order
that a prophecy may be fulfilled, cannot be reconciled with the divine
righteousness, much less with the divine infinite mercy.
44 Jesus cried and said, He[512] that believeth on me,
believeth not on me, but on him that sent me.
[512] Mark 9:37; 1 Pet. 1:21.
45 And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me.
46 I[513] am come a light into the world, that whosoever
believeth on me should not abide in darkness.
[513] chaps. 1:5; 3:19.
=44-46. But Jesus cried and said.= What follows, to the end of
the chapter, is not to be regarded as a report of a further
discourse by Jesus, but as a summary furnished by John, of his
Lord’s previous discourses. This view is required by the context,
what follows being closely connected with John’s previous
comments, by the structure of the discourse, which is substantially
a repetition of previously reported discourses (see notes), and by the
consideration that, not only no time or place is indicated, but that
none is allowed, since it is expressly asserted, immediately before,
that Christ departed and hid himself from the people (ver. 36). This
view is taken by all the moderns (_Alford_, _Meyer_, _Godet_,
_Luthardt_). Bengel is hardly self-consistent. In his Grammar he
characterizes this as “the peroration and recapitulation, in John’s
Gospel, of Christ’s public discourses;” in his _Harmony_ he suggests
that Christ “spake in the very act of departure, when he was now at a
considerable distance from the men; wherefore he is said to have
cried, in order, doubtless, that those very persons with whom he had
spoken might hear;” an hypothesis which Luthardt justly characterizes
as artificial, unwarranted by the Gospel account, and disagreeable.--=He
that hath faith in me, hath faith not in me but in him that sent me.=
_In_ (εἰς) indicates the ultimate end or object of the faith. The
negative is not to be omitted or reduced to a mere rhetorical
expression, or read as though it was equivalent to “hath not faith in
me alone.” True scriptural faith in Christ does not _stop_ with him,
but finds in him the way to the Father, the Spirit who is to be
worshipped in spirit as well as in truth, and whom no man hath seen at
any time. Hence Paul’s declaration, “Yea, though we have seen Christ
after the flesh, yet now henceforth we know him no more.” “Christ
descended to us that he might unite us to God. Until we have reached
that point, we are, as it were, in the middle of the course. We
imagine to ourselves but a half Christ, and a mutilated Christ, if he
do not lead us to God.”--(_Calvin._) For parallel teaching of Christ,
see ch. 5:24, 30, 38, 43; 8:19, 42; 10:38; 14:10, 11.--=And he that
seeth me seeth him that sent me.= _See_ is here used not of external
but of spiritual perception, as in chaps. 4:19; 6:40; 14:19; 17:24. He
that has a spiritual perception and appreciation of the glory of
Christ’s character has a perception and appreciation of the divine
glory; for the Son is the express image of the Father’s person and the
brightness of his glory (Heb. 1:3). “Jesus’ essence does not consist
in his merely external appearance, but in his internal relation to the
Father.”--(_Luthardt._) Comp. ch. 14:9, where the language is almost
precisely the same.--=I am come a light into the world.= A light to
lead to the Father, and to the divine life which is lived only by
communion with the Father through the Spirit.--=In order that
whosoever believeth in me should not abide in darkness.= The object of
Christ’s incarnation and atonement is that through faith in him we may
be delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the
kingdom of God’s dear Son (Col. 1:13), and thus walk no longer in the
darkness but in the light, by walking in fellowship with God (1 John
1:5-7; 2:8-11). This light is the illumination and inspiration of the
moral and spiritual nature afforded by faith in and a life of
following after Jesus Christ. Comp. ch. 8:12; 9:5.
47 And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge
him not: for I came[514] not to judge the world, but to
save the world.
[514] ch. 3:17.
48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words,[515]
hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the
same shall judge him in the last day.
[515] Deut. 18:19; Luke 9:26.
49 For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which
sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and
what I should speak.
50 And I know that his commandment[516] is life
everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the
Father said unto me, so I speak.
[516] 1 John 3:23.
=47-50. I judge him not * * * * The word that I have spoken the same
shall judge him.= This declaration is not inconsistent with other
passages of the N. T. which declare that Jesus Christ shall judge the
world (ch. 5:25-27); but it interprets them. That judgment shall not
be an arbitrary one; nor one pronounced by a judge after trial, like a
human judgment, in which questions of law and fact are involved. The
book of each man’s life shall be opened, and compared with the life of
Christ which is the pattern; and the life and teaching of Christ will
itself be the judgment; the comparison will be conclusive; there will
be no need of investigation or of sentence. Hence every man is judging
and condemning himself, and if unrepentant and unpardoned is condemned
already. Comp. ch. 3:18, 19; 5:45.--=He that rejecteth me= (ἀθετέω).
Literally, _displaces me_. To reject Christ does not necessarily
involve a deliberate decision against him. Simply putting him one side
as of no practical importance is a rejection of him.--=And receiveth
not my words.= We receive them only by obeying them. See Matthew
13:23.--=Because I have not spoken out of myself.= Christ is not the
ultimate source of his own authority. His words are divine because
they are God-given. The Father is the reservoir from whom Christ
draws. Compare ch. 5:30; 7:16-28; 8:26, 28, 38.--=What I should say
and what I should speak.= “The former is to be understood of the
contents and the latter of the external act of speaking.”--(_Luthardt._)
To the same effect Meyer. The double expression indicates that not
only the _substance_ but also the _form_ and _method of expression_ of
Christ’s teaching are God-given.--=And I know that his commandment is
life eternal.= It has for its aim to produce life eternal; it has for
its subject-matter the conditions and nature of life eternal; it is,
in other words, the law of the spiritual life. As science has to do
with the laws of the external, so Christianity with the laws of the
internal or spiritual world. Comp. ch. 6:63, 68. There is a weighty
significance in the words “I know.” By his own acceptance of and
obedience to the Father’s commands Christ made, as it were, trial of
them, and spoke out of his own personal experience of their value and
effect. It is only as the Christian thus knows and speaks that his
testimony is effective (2 Cor. 4:13).
CHAPTER XIII.
Ch. 13:1-30. CHRIST WASHES HIS DISCIPLES’ FEET AND FORETELLS HIS
BETRAYAL.--THE NATURE OF HUMILITY ILLUSTRATED: NOT SELF-ABASEMENT BUT
SELF-ABNEGATION (3, 4).--TRUST AND OBEDIENCE HERE; KNOWLEDGE HEREAFTER
(7).--THE DOUBLE CLEANSING WROUGHT BY CHRIST: THE WASHING OF THE WHOLE
NATURE IN REGENERATION; THE WASHING AWAY OF SPECIFIC SINS IN
SANCTIFICATION (10).--CHRIST’S DESIGNATION OF HIMSELF: MASTER AND LORD
(13).--THE UTILITY AND THE INUTILITY OF CEREMONIAL.--CHRIST OUR
EXAMPLE IN THE SPIRIT AND IN THE LETTER (14, 15).--THE OFFICE OF
PROPHECY (19).--CHRIST SEEN BEARING THE SIN OF THE SINNER
(21).--CHRIST’S ENDEAVOR TO RECLAIM THE IRRECLAIMABLE (26-29).
* * * * *
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--John alone of the Evangelists gives no account of
the institution of the Lord’s Supper. But he alone gives us a report
of the last words of Christ, and his last prayer with his disciples at
the time of the institution of the Supper. This report occupies
chapters 13-17. This most sacred legacy which the Lord has left to his
disciples can never be interpreted except by the heart which enters
into the secret place of the Most High. All that the commentator can
hope to do is to point out the significance of the original, and the
connection between the various parts of this uninterpretable
disclosure of divine love. That the supper referred to in ver. 2 here
is the same described in Matthew 26:26-29, Mark 14:22-25, and Luke
22:19, 20, I think is beyond question, and is indeed questioned by few
if any of the scholars except Lightfoot, who endeavors to identify it
with the supper at which Mary anointed the feet of Jesus (Matt.
26:1-16; John 12:2-8). The time when the Last Supper was celebrated,
whether it was a true Paschal feast or one which ante-dated and
anticipated it, is confessedly one of the most difficult questions in
Biblical chronology. If we had only the Synoptical Gospels no one
would doubt that the Last Supper was the real Jewish Passover; if we
had only John, few would question that it was previous to the
Passover. This question I have stated and discussed in the notes on
Matthew (note on Lord’s Supper, Vol. I, p. 286), and to the discussion
there refer the student. I have no doubt, on a careful comparison of
the four accounts, that the four Evangelists refer to the same supper,
and that it was taken at the time of and was for them the true
Passover Supper. In that case Christ’s act here receives new
significance from a comparison with the events recorded by Luke (ch.
22:24-30 and notes). The disciples sat down to the meal without
washing their feet, after a hot and dusty walk. There was no servant
to perform the menial act for them; and no one would volunteer to do
it for the rest. They quarreled as to which should have the
pre-eminence at the table. Christ said nothing, waited till the
quarrel was over and they had taken their seats, and then rose from
the table, and girding himself as a servant, performed the slave’s
office in washing their feet. This was his answer to their unseemly
strife for the post of honor at the table.
1 Now[517] before the feast of the passover, when Jesus
knew that his hour[518] was come that he should depart out
of this world unto the Father, having[519] loved his own
which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.
[517] Matt. 26:2, etc.
[518] ch. 17:1, 11.
[519] Jer. 31:3; Ephes. 5:2; 1 John 4:19; Rev. 1:5.
=1. Now before the feast of the Passover.= That is, immediately
before; just as he was about to sit down with his disciples to the
Paschal feast.--=Jesus knew that his hour was come.= In the full
consciousness of his approaching agony and passion. At the time when
above all others he needed that friends should sustain him, he carried
them in his heart; their burdens were his own.--=Having loved his own
which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.= The end both in
time and in accomplishment; that is, he loved them till death broke in
on his life of love; he loved them till love had finished its purpose
in them by their redemption--loved them despite their quarrels and
contentions, that by love he might brood and perfect the new life in
them. Properly the word (τέλος, τελέω) signifies not merely _end_ but
also _completion_. So in 1 Thess. 2:16: “Wrath is come upon _them to
the uttermost_” (εἰς τέλος), _i. e._, till it has accomplished its
purpose; and 1 Tim. 1:5, “The end of the commandment is love,” _i.
e._, love is the purpose which the commandment is designed to
accomplish. The phrase _his own which were in the world_, does not
imply a limitation of love, as though his love were for a limited
number; but it is only in his own that his love accomplishes its
designs. The language does imply that he has others who are his own
who are not in this world; either the O. T. saints who had died in
hope of him, or inhabitants of some other world who belong to him by
the purchase of his love, who are his own because redeemed by his
blood (Acts 20:28; Rev. 5:9).
2 And supper being ended, the[520] devil having now put
into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s _son_, to betray
him;
[520] ch. 6:70; Luke 22:3, 53.
3 Jesus knowing[521] that the Father had given all things
into his hands, and that[522] he was come from God, and
went to God;
[521] Matt. 28:18; Heb. 2:8.
[522] ch. 17:11.
4 He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and
took a towel, and girded himself.
5 After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to
wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe _them_ with the towel
wherewith he was girded.
6 Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him,
Lord, dost[523] thou wash my feet?
[523] Matt. 3:14.
=2-6. And supper being in progress.= Not _being ended_; for (ver. 12)
he sat down to supper again; nor does the original require the
translation given to it in our English version (see _Godet_, _Alford_,
_Meyer_). Christ waited till all contention was over, all had taken
their seats and were ready to begin the meal, before he rose to wash
their feet.--=The devil having already dropped into the heart of Judas
Iscariot to betray him.= The devil was the sower, but the soil was
ready to receive the seed. A past suggestion is indicated. The time
when and the way in which this suggestion was made is reported by
Matthew. It was at the time when Christ rebuked Judas for complaining
of the anointing of her Lord by Mary at Bethany (comp. John 12:4-7
with Matt. 26:14).--=Jesus knowing that the Father had given all
things into his hands.= See Col. 1:16. He acted in the full
consciousness of his divine power and majesty. Humility consists not
in a low estimate of one’s powers, but in a willingness to use them in
a lowly service.--=That he was come from God and went to God.= This
divine sense shone out in him, so that it was seen and felt by the
apostles, perhaps most of all by John, who was the most susceptible to
such spiritual impressions. For illustration of other times in which
the divinity of our Lord thus shone out upon men, see Matt. 21:12;
Mark 9:15; 10:32; Luke 4:20, 30; John 7:44-46; 18:6.--=He laid aside
his garments= (ἱμάτια). His outer mantle or cloak (see note on Matt.
24:18). Then the inner tunic was girded about the loins with a towel,
used partly in lieu of a girdle, partly to wipe the feet. Thus Christ
put on the ordinary habit of a servant for a servant’s work. In this
feet-washing the feet were not put into the basin; the water was
poured over the feet and then they were wiped by the servant. The
accompanying cut, from an original sketch by Mr. A. L. Rawson, shows
the manner of feet-washing, dress of servant, etc., as observed to-day
in the East.--=And began to wash the disciples’ feet.= Some of the
commentators suppose that he came first to Simon Peter (_Alford_); but
I see no ground in the narrative for this supposition, which indeed
seems to me to be negatived by the natural reading of the original.
The objection of Peter was an unexpected episode and interruption. So
_Meyer_, _Chrysostom_, and others. Feet-washing did not rise to the
dignity of a ritualistic observance, except in connection with the
service of the sanctuary (Exod. 30:19-21). It held a high place,
however, among the rites of hospitality. “Immediately after a guest
presented himself at the tent door, it was usual to offer the
necessary materials for washing the feet (Gen. 18:4; 19:2; 24:32;
43:24; Judges 19:21). It was a yet more complimentary act betokening
equally humility and affection, if the host actually performed the
office for his guest (1 Sam. 25:41; Luke 7:38-49; John 13:5-14; 1 Tim.
5:10). Such a token of hospitality is occasionally exhibited in the
East either by the host or by his deputy. The feet were again
washed (Sol. Song 5:3) before retiring to bed.”--(_Smith’s Bible
Dictionary._)--=Dost thou wash my feet?= There is an emphasis on the
word _thou_. Dost thou, my Lord and Master, act as my menial? “‘With
those hands,’ he saith, ‘with which thou hast opened eyes, and
cleansed lepers, and raised the dead!’”--(_Chrysostom._)
[Illustration: WASHING OF FEET.]
7 Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest
not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.
8 Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet,
Jesus answered him, If[524] I wash thee not, thou hast no
part with me.
[524] 1 Cor. 6:11; Ephes. 5:26; Titus 3:5.
=7, 8. Thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.= The
meaning is not merely that he would explain to them the significance
of his act, nor that they would understand it and him in the future
kingdom, though both may be indicated. But spiritual truth is only
spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14, 15), and the most significant acts
and teachings of Christ can be comprehended only as the character is
conformed to his character (2 Pet. 1:5-8). The meaning for Peter was
that he must submit to Christ’s authority and wait till time and
spiritual development enabled him to understand it; the meaning for us
is that if Christ is our Master, we must accept in his word, his life
and his providence much that is now incomprehensible, and wait for the
future to make it plain. But if this implies a limit to our present
knowledge, it also promises revelation hereafter. “Thou shalt know”
assures that all will be made plain by-and-by.--=Thou shalt never wash
my feet.= Literally, _Thou shall not wash my feet to eternity_. Pride
in Peter could not comprehend humility in Christ. He thought the act,
which was a manifestation of the true glory of the Lord, dishonored
him. The same spirit in our day accounts the declaration of the
incarnation and of the atonement dishonorable to God; it sees no glory
in the humiliation of love.--=If I wash thee not, thou hast no part
with me.= The phrase _to have part with another_ signifies to share in
his riches and glory (Josh. 22:25; 2 Sam. 20:1). Here it includes the
idea of a partnership in the divine nature of Christ (2 Pet. 1:4) as
well as in the glory of Christ which he has with the Father (John
17:22-26; Rev. 20:6). Washing was, it must be remembered, a symbolical
act, recognized so among the Jews, and signifying purification from
uncleanness. Christ’s act in rising from the table and washing the
feet of the disciples was the severest rebuke to their pride. See
Prel. Note. Peter’s refusal to be washed was a resistance to this
rebuke. That Christ’s language was understood by Peter to signify a
spiritual cleansing is indicated by his reply.
9 Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but
also _my_ hands and _my_ head.
10 Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save
to wash _his_ feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are
clean, but not all.
11 For[525] he knew who should betray him; therefore said
he, Ye are not all clean.
[525] chap. 6:64.
12 So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his
garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know
ye what I have done to you?
=9-12. Not my feet only, but also the hands and the head.= This is
generally regarded as the expression of an impulsive revulsion of
feeling in Peter. “We have here the same Peter who one minute rushes
into the water, and the next calls out ‘I perish’; who now smites with
the sword and now flees; who goes even into the high priest’s palace
and who denies his Lord.”--(_Godet._) I should rather regard it as the
language of argument and remonstrance still continued. “If,” he says
in effect, “this is the reason of your washing, why stop with the
feet? why not go on and wash the rest, the hands and the head?” _i.
e._, the face and neck. To this argument Christ replies--=He that is
bathed needeth not save to wash the feet, but is wholly clean.= In the
original there is a distinction between _bathing_ of the whole person
and _washing_ of the feet which our English translation ignores, but
which is important. The meaning is, As he that has been once bathed,
and so cleansed, needs only to wash what has become soiled in his
walk, so he who by the washing of regeneration has been once cleansed
of his sins (Titus 3:5), needs only to come to Christ hereafter for
partial cleansing, _i. e._, for forgiveness and redemption from those
sins which are in some sense the product of his daily walk and
life. He does not need to come again and again for the washing of
regeneration, but only for the cleansing of special faults. But even
he who has been bathed still needs to be constantly washed by Christ
(1 John 1:8, 9).--=Ye are not all clean.= Not all that seem to have
come to Christ and to have entered his service, are really cleansed by
him (Matt. 7:21-23).--=He knew who should betray him.= Among those
whose feet were washed was Judas. No love can touch or change the
heart resolutely set to do evil.--=Know ye what I have done to you?=
That is, do you comprehend the reason why it is done, and the meaning
of the action. The disciples are silent. In the following verses
Christ goes on to explain its significance.
13 Ye[526] call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for
_so_ I am.
[526] Matt. 23:8-10; Phil. 2:11.
14 If I then, _your_ Lord and Master, have washed your
feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.
15 For[527] I have given you an example, that ye should do
as I have done to you.
[527] 1 Pet. 2:21.
16 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not
greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than
he that sent him.
17 If[528] ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.
[528] James 1:25.
=13-17. Ye call me the Master= (literally _Teacher_) =and the Lord=.
Observe the definite article, not merely a teacher, or your teacher,
but _the_ teacher and _the_ Lord. For instances in which they had done
so, see ver. 6, 9, 25, 36, 37; ch. 14:5, 8, 22. Stress is perhaps not
to be laid on the fact that the phrase _the Lord_ (ὁ κύριος) is used
in the Septuagint (Greek O. T.) for Jehovah; but it certainly is here
more than a mere title of respectful address; and the declaration of
Christ here, coupled with the declaration of Matthew 23:8, One is your
Master (Teacher), and all ye are brethren, distinguishes him clearly
from his disciples, as not merely the chosen leader among them, but
having a divine authority over them.--=Ye say well; for I am.= The
humble office of feet-washing had been done by one who was not only
fully conscious of his supremacy, but who in the very act claimed that
supremacy. This divine authority Christ never abdicated; his divine
consciousness he never lost.--=If I then, the Lord and the Master.=
_The_ Lord, not merely _your_ Lord. He might have been their Lord and
teacher by their selection; he was _the_ Lord and teacher by divine
appointment, and by virtue of his own character.--=Ye also ought to
wash one another’s feet.= If we are to interpret literally the
commands of Christ, the command of feet-washing as a perpetual
observance is even more explicit than that for the observance of
the Lord’s Supper. That is in form a simple request: “Do this in
remembrance of me;” this is a request thrice repeated: “Ye ought also
to wash one another’s feet;” “I have given you an example that ye
should do as I have done to you;” “If ye know these things, happy are
ye if ye do them.” Nevertheless feet-washing has never been generally
practised by the Christian church. There is no indication of its
introduction into the apostolic church. The only reference to it in
the N. T. is 1 Tim. 5:10, and the probability is that the reference
there is to a rite of hospitality, not to a religious or symbolical
service. We first meet with feet-washing in ecclesiastical history in
the fourth century. It was practised in connection with baptism, on
the catechumens in some parts of the early church, especially in Gaul,
possibly in Africa and Spain. It is practised in some of the Greek
convents of to-day; by the R. C. church once a year on Maunday-Thursday,
when the Pope washes the feet of twelve pilgrims in Rome; and by the
Brethren (popularly known as Dunkards), a sect of German Baptists
chiefly found in Pennsylvania; the Mennonites, a sect of Dutch
Anabaptists, chiefly confined also to the eastern district of
Pennsylvania in this country; and possibly by some other minor sects.
With these exceptions, it has never been attempted to maintain
feet-washing as a religious observance in the Christian church. This
apparent disregard of Christ’s seemingly explicit command can be
defended only on the general ground that no ceremonial is of the
essence of Christianity; that the thing symbolized, not the symbol,
here the spirit of self-sacrifice and serving love, not the form by
which it is typified, is the essential thing; that as eating the bread
and drinking the wine, not discerning the Lord’s body (1 Cor. 11:29),
is not a true observance of the Lord’s Supper, so, on the other hand,
the spirit that is willing to serve others to their cleansing, in
humbleness of love, is a true observance of the rite of feet-washing,
though the rite itself is disused. “It is not the act itself, but its
moral essence which, after his example, he enjoins upon them to
exercise. This moral essence, however, consists not in lowly and
ministering love generally, in which Jesus by washing the feet of
his disciples desired to give them an example, but, as ver. 10
proves, in that ministering love which, in all self-denial and
humility, is active for the moral purification and cleansing of
others.”--(_Meyer._)--=I have given you an example.= It is the inward
spirit of Christ, not the mere outward act, that is an example for us
to follow; the cleansing love, not the girded garment and the washing
of feet, that is our pattern. For the spiritual signification of this
declaration, see ch. 17:18; 1 John 3:16.--=The servant is not
greater=, etc. The repetition of this seemingly self-evident truth
indicates that Christ apprehended for his followers that spiritual
pride which has been in the history of the church almost their
greatest danger. See ch. 15:20; Matt. 10:24; Luke 6:40.--=If ye know
these things.= This language itself should have sufficed to guard
against the literalism which would maintain feet-washing as a
perpetual ceremonial. Know what things? That he had washed their feet?
Of course they knew that. The meaning clearly is, If ye understand the
meaning of my act, happy are ye if ye exemplify the same spirit in
your lives. _Per contra_, he that does not know, that does not
comprehend the spirit, is not blessed in going through the mere form,
and this is equally true respecting all ceremonials. He only is
blessed in them who comprehends their spiritual significance.
18 I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but
that the[529] scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth
bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me.
[529] Ps. 41:9.
19 Now I tell[530] you before it come, that, when it is
come to pass, ye may believe that I am _he_.
[530] ch. 14:29; 16:4.
20 Verily, verily, I say unto you,[531] He that receiveth
whomsoever I send receiveth me: and he that receiveth me
receiveth him that sent me.
[531] Matt. 10:40.
=18-20. I speak not of you all.= The highest service of Christ is
serviceable only to those who will receive it. The fact that Christ
washed the feet of Judas, and broke bread with him, added to the
blackness of his treachery and the enormity of his guilt. The church,
the Bible, the Sabbath, the Lord’s Supper will rise up in judgment
against those who have participated in them but have not imbibed the
spirit of Christ from them.--=I know whom I have chosen.= Couple this
with the declaration of ch. 15:16, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have
chosen you.” The meaning is that Christ comprehended the character of
those whom he had selected for his work; he was not deceived; and he
is not now deceived by false professions, however they may deceive the
church, the world, and even the false professor himself. Why Christ
should have chosen Judas is one of the unsolved enigmas of N. T.
history. We can see (1) that there was in every apostle the same
conflict between the spiritual and the earthly nature which there was
in Judas Iscariot, though the final issue was so different. (2) We
cannot say that there was not a possibility that it might have been
different in the case of Judas Iscariot. In other words, we cannot say
what are the limits to the freedom of the will, what the possibility
of good for the evil soul, what the possibility of evil for him who is
preserved from it by accepting the grace of God and so becoming his
child. (3) The case of Judas Iscariot has been full of warning to the
church in all ages; thus the development of his character in the
apostolate has been made a means of service to mankind. His spirit was
that of the Pharisee; his position simply gave that spirit an
opportunity to exhibit itself.--=But that the Scripture might be
fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel
against me, now I tell you before it come.= Observe the difference in
the punctuation, from that of the English version. The meaning is not,
_I have chosen Judas that the Scripture might be fulfilled_, for (1)
this interpretation, though that of Alford and Meyer, requires us to
supply or imagine a most important hiatus in the text. Christ says
nothing about his choice of Judas; he lays emphasis on the fact that
all the twelve were chosen by him, and therefore all were known to
him. Nor is the meaning, _I speak not of you all, in order that the
Scripture may be fulfilled_, which would make Christ withhold a
blessing for the purpose of fulfilling a prophecy, an incredible
interpretation. But _that the Scripture_ (which he parenthetically
quotes) _may be fulfilled_, _i. e._, that the disciples may recognize
its fulfillment in the events soon to take place, _I now tell you
before it is come to pass_. Thus the particle _but_ (ἀλλά) connects
this sentence not with the declaration which precedes, but with that
which follows. The Scripture is Psalm 41:9. The Psalm is clearly not,
in strictness of speech, a prophetic Psalm, uttered as by the Messiah,
for ver. 4 contains a confession of sin and a prayer for redemption.
“I said, Lord be merciful unto me and heal my soul; for I have sinned
against thee.” In that Psalm, ver. 9, “Yea mine own familiar friend in
whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel
against me,” primarily refers to some treachery displayed towards the
Psalmist, perhaps that of Ahithophel to David (2 Sam. 15:31; 16:23).
But events as well as words are prophetic; and the treachery of
Ahithophel towards David was itself a prophecy of the treachery of
Judas towards David’s greater Son. To eat bread with another is, in
the East, the highest possible confirmation of a sacred covenant with
him. To lift up the heel is a figure taken from the kick of a horse,
who turns suddenly upon one who has been feeding him. This seems to me
a better interpretation than that of Canon Cook, who sees in it a
figure taken from the act of a conqueror putting his heel on the neck
of a prostrate foe.--=That when it is come to pass ye may believe that
I am.= The office of prophecy is here intimated. It is not designed to
give us in the present a definite knowledge of future events. The most
spiritually minded among the Jews did not comprehend the O. T.
prophecy of Christ, and did not understand the nature of his advent.
It is rather so to depict the future as (1) to awaken hope or serve as
a warning; and (2) to serve as an evidence of the inspiration of the
writer of the book after the fulfillment of the prophecy has
demonstrated the prescience of the author. On the phrase _I am_, see
ch. 8:58, note.--=He that receiveth you=, etc. See Matt. 10:40, note,
where the same declaration is made in a different connection. Here
Christ, in order to encourage the disciples, reiterates a principle
with which they were already familiar. Although, he says, you are to
serve in humble ways, as I have served you, and although you will meet
with many a discouraging rebuff from without and with treachery from
among your own number, yet you are not to forget that you are sent
into the world as your Master was sent into the world, so that to
receive you will be to receive me.
21 When[532] Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit,
and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
that one of you shall betray me.
[532] Matt. 26:21; Mark 14:18; Luke 22:21.
22 Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of
whom he spake.
=21, 22.= An account of this prophecy of the betrayal is given by all
the Evangelists (Matt. 26:21-25; Mark 14:18-21; Luke 22:21-23). See
notes on Matthew. There is some difficulty in determining the exact
nature and order of the events, though not more than we might expect
in a comparison of four independent accounts of circumstances involved
in so great confusion. The fullest account is that of John. He alone
mentions Judas’ departure from the room. Matthew declares that Christ
replied directly in the affirmative to Judas’ question, Is it I? John,
on the other hand, asserts that no one in the room knew why Judas went
out (comp. Matt. 26:25 with vers. 28, 29 here). The differences are
not irreconcilable. Comparing the four accounts, it would appear that
Christ’s declaration, “One of you shall betray me,” produced the
utmost consternation and excitement; that all the disciples eagerly
asked, “Is it I?” “Is it I?” that Peter asked John to tell him who it
was, assuming that John knew, or could ascertain (see ver. 24); that
at the same time Judas, thunderstruck at the disclosure of his
treachery, which had been already planned (Matt. 26:14-16), asked,
perhaps somewhat tardily, the question, “Is it I?” to hide his
confusion; that Jesus replied in an aside to him, “Thou hast said”
(Matt. 26:25), a reply that in the confusion either was not heard or
was not heeded; that John, turning toward Jesus so as to rest upon his
bosom (ver. 25), asked who the betrayer should be; that Jesus seemed
to give the information, but really refused to do so, in his reply,
“He it is to whom I shall give a sop” (ver. 26), since he gave a sop
in turn to all; so that when a moment or two later Judas went out
angered by what he erroneously believed to be a public disclosure of
his treachery before all the disciples, no one, not even John, knew
why he had gone. The question whether Judas was at the Lord’s Supper
has been greatly discussed. The question seems to me of no practical
importance; and it is one impossible to answer with positiveness, for
John, who alone mentions his going out, gives no account of the
institution of the Lord’s Supper. I believe, however, on a comparison
of the four accounts, that he was not at the Last Supper, but went
out immediately before its institution. According to Matthew, the
prophecy of the betrayal preceded the institution of the Supper;
according to John, Judas went out _immediately_ after receiving the
sop (comp. Matt. 26:25, 26 with ver. 30 here). And the explanation of
Christ’s course, as described by John, appears to me to be his desire
to have, in this last sacred conference, only those who were really
his friends, and measurably in spiritual sympathy with him. This I
believe to be the explanation of the direction to Judas in ver. 27.
For an elaborate discussion of this question, see Andrews’ _Life of
our Lord_; for a fuller harmonic account of the events, Lyman Abbott’s
_Jesus of Nazareth_.--=He was troubled in spirit.= Compare ch. 11:33;
12:27. Our own experience helps to interpret this, which Alford calls
a “mysterious troubling of spirit.” The presence of an uncongenial
soul often suffices to destroy the sympathy of a sacred circle; the
presence of a known traitor might well have prevented Christ from an
outpouring of his soul in confidential converse which renders the
14th, 15th, 16th and 17th chapters of John the most sacred in the
Bible to the disciples of Christ.--=One of you shall betray me.=
Christ had before foretold his betrayal, Matt. 17:22; 20:18;
26:2, etc., but now for the first time he declares that he
should be betrayed by one of the twelve. No wonder that they were
startled.--=The disciples looked one on another doubting of whom he
spake.= And asking one another (Luke 22:23) and eagerly asking Christ
(Matt. 26:22; Mark 14:19). Not one of them ventures to question the
truth of the Lord’s prophecy, and each asks the personal question, “Is
it I?” No one accuses, even by implication, his neighbor. Is not this
a pattern for us in that self-examination which should always precede
our seasons of sacred communion with our Lord (1 Cor. 11:28)? an
examination which should look forward rather than backward; prepare
for the future rather than attempt to measure the past; and always be
a _self_ examination.
23 Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one[533] of his
disciples, whom Jesus loved.
[533] ch. 20:2; 21:7, 20.
24 Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should
ask who it should be of whom he spake.
25 He then lying on Jesus’ breast saith unto him, Lord, who
is it?
=23-25. There was leaning on Jesus’ bosom.= The party were reclining
at the table according to the Greek and Roman fashion. For
illustration, which better than any description shows the manner, see
Matt. 26:20, note. John was lying next to Jesus.--=Whom Jesus loved.=
“Here, out of the recollection of that sacred and by him
never-to-be-forgotten moment, there first breaks from his lips this
nameless, and yet so expressive designation of himself.”--(_Meyer._)
The phrase “whom Jesus loved” occurs seven times in John’s Gospel;
twice as a designation of Martha, Mary and Lazarus (John 11:3, 5);
five times as the designation of one of the disciples (John 13:23;
19:26; 20:2; 21:7; 21:20). It has been almost universally regarded as
a designation of John, the author of the Fourth Gospel, who is
accordingly known in the church as the “beloved disciple,” though this
designation is not found in the Gospels themselves. The main reasons
for this opinion are two. (1) John is not once named in the Fourth
Gospel, while an unnamed disciple is frequently referred to (John
1:35, 40; 18:15; 19:27; 21:3, 4, 8; 21:23; and see refs. above). It is
not easy to conceive of any reason why the author should leave unnamed
any other disciple, but it is not at all strange that he should use a
circumlocution to designate himself. (2) His character, so far as we
know it, corresponds with his designation as the “beloved disciple.”
See Introduction. It has been, indeed, objected that there is a
certain appearance of egotism in his singling himself out as the
disciple whom Jesus loved, a designation never given to him by either
of the other Evangelists. The reply to this is, or at least may be,
that the designation was employed by John, not because he desired in
any sense to claim or imply a supremacy above the other disciples, but
because the wonder of his life was that Jesus should love such an one
as he, and by love should transform him. All facts in his life sink
into insignificance in his thought by the side of this fact, that he
was beloved of Jesus, chosen to be the witness of his transfiguration,
his nearest companion at the Last Supper, the sympathizing sharer in
his agony at Gethsemane, and the guardian of his mother after the
death of her son (Matt. 17:1; 26:37; John 13:23; 19:26, 27).--=Simon
Peter therefore beckoned to him and said, Tell us who it is.= This is
the true reading, adopted by all critics, Alford, Meyer, Lachmann,
Tischendorf, etc. The expression has been altered to that of the
Received Text in order to adapt Peter’s question to John’s account as
described in the next verse. The Sinaitic manuscript has the Received
Text, “That he should ask who it should be,” as an explanatory gloss
or comment alongside the original expression, “Tell who it is.” Peter
seems to have assumed that John would know. Possibly in the general
tumult the latter preserved his composure, and conscious of his own
supreme love for his Lord, did not join in the general exclamation,
“Is it I?”--=He then throwing himself back on Jesus’ breast.= (See
Robinson’s _Lexicon_, ἐπιπίπτω.) The language of the English version
is inadequate and incorrect, since it merely repeats the phrase used
in verse 23, as though to identify the person; whereas the original
implies an action on John’s part, by which he turned and rested more
closely than before on Christ’s bosom. He had before been reclining
next to Jesus in the manner indicated in the illustration on page 282
of Vol. I of this Commentary. He now raises himself, and turns so as
to rest upon Jesus’ breast and whisper in his ear. The graphic details
of this entire narrative are unmistakably those of an eye-witness.
[Illustration: DIPPING THE SOP.]
26 Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop,
when I have dipped _it_. And when he had dipped the sop, he
gave _it_ to Judas Iscariot, _the son_ of Simon.
=26. He it is to whom I shall give a sop.= This reply, and Christ’s
accompanying action, is generally regarded as a designation, at least
to John, of the traitor. I think this is a mistake. It is no uncommon
act in an Eastern meal for the host, as a special act of
consideration, to dip a piece of bread or meat in the sauce or gravy
and pass it to a special guest, or even put it into his mouth. In the
Passover feast, the head of the house habitually took from the
passover cake a piece, dipped it in the sauce of bitter herbs (Exod.
12:8), and passed it in turn to the persons at the table. Christ’s
answer to John, therefore, was simply a more solemn reiteration of the
declaration of ver. 18, “He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up
the heel against me.” He dipped the piece of bread in the sauce, and
passed it to the disciples in turn. In doing so he gave it first to
Judas. John may have understood the significance of the act; but it is
plain from ver. 28 that none of the others at the table did so. I
should rather regard the act as a new endeavor on the part of Christ
by love to turn Judas from his evil purpose. He has answered without
designating him. He now endeavors to draw him to himself by singling
him out for a manifestation of special love. In the same spirit are
the last words he addressed to the apostate--words not of angry
rebuke, but of pathetic remonstrance: “Friend, wherefore art thou
come? Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?” (Matt. 26:50; Luke
22:48.)
27 And after the sop Satan[534] entered into him. Then said
Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.
[534] Luke 22:3.
28 Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake
this unto him.
29 For some _of them_ thought,[535] because Judas had the
bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy _those things_ that
we have need of against the feast: or, that he should give
something to the poor.
[535] chap. 12:6.
30 He then, having received the sop, went immediately out:
and it was night.
=27-30. Satan entered into him.= It is a mistaken literalism which
interprets this phrase as indicating that Judas was from this time
demoniacally possessed. Nor, on the other hand, is it to be regarded
as a merely figurative expression, indicating that Judas gave himself
up wholly and unreservedly to evil. The N. T. teaching assumes the
existence of evil spirits and their influence over human beings (Matt.
13:19, 38; Luke 4:6; 22:31; John 14:30; Acts 5:3; 26:18; 2 Cor. 2:11;
Ephes. 2:2; 4:27; 6:11; 2 Tim. 2:26; Jas. 4:7; 1 John 3:8; 5:18), and
the language here is in accordance with its spiritual philosophy. It
simply indicates that Judas’ determined resistance to the warning
words and the winning love of Christ gave to the Evil One a new
advantage and influence over him. The solemn lesson for us is that, as
every faithful performance of known duty opens our heart to the
incoming of God (ch. 14:23), so every determined resistance of sacred
influences and every persistence in sin, opens our nature to the
incoming of unknown but tremendous Satanic influences. It has before
been said of Judas that Satan entered into him (Luke 22:3). There is
growth in the kingdom of darkness as in that of light. As God enters
by successive manifestations of himself into his saints, so Satan into
those that give themselves up to him.--=That thou doest, do quickly.=
Literally, _more quickly_ (τάχιον); _i. e._, hasten it. This is not to
be regarded as merely permission, as Adam Clarke: “What thou art
determined to do, and I to permit, do directly; delay not; I am
ready;” nor yet as mandatory, and involving the utterance of a divine
decree, as Alford: “The course of sinful action is presupposed, and
the command to go on is but the echo of that mysterious appointment by
which the sinner in the exercise of his own corrupted will becomes the
instrument of the purposes of God;” but as the expression of Christ’s
desire to be rid of the oppressive proximity of the traitor, as
Ambrose and Tholuck. He sees that the purpose of Judas is fully fixed;
he will not have him remain there, contaminating the very atmosphere,
and increasing his own guilt by his dissembling. We are apt to judge
men by the external act; no wonder then that Christ has been accused
of pushing Judas over the precipice. But he who judged by the heart,
and accounted him already a murderer who has murder in his heart
(Matt. 5:22), would not have the resolute apostate increase the guilt
of betrayal by that of hypocrisy. Moreover, Christ wishes the few
minutes that remain for sacred converse with his faithful friends; and
that he cannot have in the presence of the hypocrite and traitor. So
he bids him begone. “Play the hypocrite here no longer,” he says to
him; “but since you are determined on treason, go on and consummate
it.”--=Now no one at the table knew why he thus spake to him.= Perhaps
the writer himself, that is John, is to be excepted from this general
statement. This is the opinion of most of the commentators. Yet it is
not at all impossible that not even John comprehended the significance
of Christ’s act in handing the sop to Judas first of the
disciples.--=Because Judas had the bag.= Being treasurer of the little
band. See ch. 12:6, note.--=Buy those things we have need of against
the feast.= From this phrase it is argued by Alford and Meyer that the
supper at which our Lord was sitting with his disciples could not have
been the Passover Supper. “Had it been the night of the Passover, the
next day being hallowed as a Sabbath, nothing could have been
bought.”--(_Alford._) But Tholuck has shown that according to
Rabbinical rules a purchase could be made on the Sabbath by leaving a
pledge and afterwards settling the account. The feast lasted for the
week; therefore the disciples may well have supposed that a purchase
for a later period of the feast was contemplated. And the fact that
Christ hastened Judas would have been better understood if the
following day was the Sabbath, when the shops would be shut.--=Or that
he should give something to the poor.= Evidently this little band
carried out the precepts of Christian love which their Master
inculcated. Small as was their store, it is clear that out of it they
were accustomed to bestow alms on the more needy.--=Went out
immediately.= There was then, clearly, no opportunity for the
institution of the Lord’s Supper during his presence, unless it was
instituted either before the feet-washing, which the order of the
narrative and its probable connection with the contest about places
described in Luke, makes exceedingly improbable, or between verses 20
and 21, which seems from the connection to be also very improbable. I
believe it is to be regarded as occurring between the departure of
Judas and the beginning of Christ’s discourse in ch. 14. Matthew and
Mark both put it immediately after the prophecy of the betrayal; Luke
before.--=And it was night.= A graphic addition to the picture;
significant of the fact that the narration is that of an eye-witness
in whose memory every detail was indelibly impressed; and suggestive
of the darkness of the deed about to be consummated, and of the
traitor’s heart. It is always night when a deed of determined sin is
entered upon. “The night which this miserable wretch has in his heart
is, without comparison, blacker and darker than that which he chooses
for his work of darkness.”--(_Quesnel._)
31 Therefore when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now[536] is
the Son of man glorified, and God[537] is glorified in him.
[536] ch. 12:23; 17:1-6.
[537] ch. 14:13; 1 Pet. 4:11.
32 If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him
in himself, and shall straightway glorify him.
=31, 32. When he was gone out Jesus said.= The departure of Judas is a
relief. Now for the first time Christ can speak freely, unoppressed by
the presence of a traitor and a hypocrite.--=Now has the Son of man
been glorified, and God has been glorified in him= (ὲδοξάσθη, aorist).
=If God has been glorified in him, God also shall glorify him in
himself, and shall straightway glorify him.= The significance of this
utterance has been, it seems to me, misapprehended by the
commentators, from a failure to consider the mental attitude and
expectation of the disciples. The phrase _Son of man_ was a common
Jewish designation of the Messiah, borrowed from Daniel, and would
have been so understood by the disciples (Matt. 10:23, note). They had
come up to Jerusalem anticipating the coronation of the Messiah as
King of the Jews. They had entered Jerusalem in triumph, hailing him
as such (Matt. 21:1-11). Two of the disciples on the way had come to
him privately for the best offices (Matt. 20:20, 21). The twelve even
had quarreled for pre-eminence as they were sitting down at the table
(Luke 22:24). The immediate object of Christ in the discourse which
follows is to prepare them for the terrible revulsion of feeling, the
shock of disappointment and despair which the morrow had in store for
them. He begins, therefore, with the declaration that the glory of the
Messiah is an already accomplished fact. He has been glorified; by his
incarnation, his life of loving self-sacrifice, his patience, courage,
fidelity, love; and in his life and character, God has been glorified.
The disciples have beheld already the glory of the only begotten of
the Father, full of grace and truth (ch. 1:14). Then he adds a
prophecy of further glory; not that of the death; not that of the
resurrection; not that of the ascension; but that of being again one
with the Father.--The Father shall glorify him, _in himself_. He
foresees and foretells the answer to be given to the prayer “Glorify
thou me, _with thine own self_, with the glory which I had with thee
before the world was” (ch. 17:5). And for this there is to be no
waiting; no delay for an earthly coronation. There must be a long
interval of redeeming work before he can see of the travail of his
soul and be satisfied; before every knee will bow and every tongue
confess him Lord; before he can reign King of kings and Lord of lords;
but for this the Father will not wait. Immediately that his work of
suffering and self-sacrifice is over, he will return to the bosom of
the Father, to share with him the glory which he had from the
foundation of the world.
33 Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye
shall seek me: and[538] as I said unto the Jews, Whither I
go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you.
[538] chaps. 7:34; 8:21.
34 A new[539] commandment I give unto you, That ye love one
another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
[539] ch. 15:12, 17; Lev. 19:18; Ephes. 5:2; 1 Thess.
4:9; Jas. 2:8; 1 Pet. 1:22; 1 John 2:7, 8; 3:11,
23; 4:20, 21.
35 By this shall all _men_ know that ye are my disciples,
if ye have love one to another.
=33-35. Little children.= The only place where this phrase is used by
Christ in addressing his disciples. But we find it more frequently in
the Epistles of Paul (1 Cor. 4:14, 17; 2 Cor. 6:13; 1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim.
2:1). It “affectingly expresses his, not only brotherly, but fatherly
love (Isa. 9:6) for his own, and at the same time their immature and
weak state, now about to be left without him.”--(_Alford._)--=And as I
said to the Jews= (ch. 8:21), =Whither I go ye cannot come, so now I
say to you.= But though they could not go to him, he would come to
them, and abide with them (ch. 14:18, 23). The longing to depart and
be with Christ is to be gratified only by our having Christ with us,
until the time of final departure comes. It is one thing to desire him
here, willing to fill up the measure of his suffering in our own life,
if he is in us and with us (2 Cor. 12:10); it is another and very
different thing to desire to depart and be with him that we may
escape the suffering. The first is a Christian longing; not so the
second.--=A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another;
as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.= The commandment
to love is not new (Lev. 19:18). But Christ’s life gives to it a new
interpretation and makes it new. Love has, ever since the life and
death of Christ, taken on a new signification. To forgive is now to
bless those that curse us, and do good to those that despitefully use
us. The language here is parallel to and interpreted by ch. 17:18, “As
thou (Father) hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent
them into the world.” It is the interpretation of the direction,
“Follow me.” We are to be followers of his spirit, especially of his
love. This general definition includes other special definitions that
have been given, _e. g._, it is new because with it there comes a new
motive power, the love of Christ experienced in the heart, which
becomes in turn the fountain of love to all others (_Meyer_); a
renewed commandment, rejuvenated, cleansed of the overlay of
ceremonialism which Pharisaism had put upon it (_Calvin_); new to the
disciples, unexpected by them, who were looking for a new disclosure
of divine glory in a very different direction (_Semler_ quoted
in _Meyer_); new because love is ever new, never can grow old
(_Olshausen_); new because the law of the new covenant, the
firstfruits of the Spirit in the new dispensation (Gal. 5:22). It is
notable how this one law of love runs through and colors all this last
sacred discourse of Jesus. Comp. ch. 14:15, 24; 15:9, 10, 17. The last
words of Jesus are words full of the comfort and inspiration and
exaltation of love.--=By this shall all men know that ye are my
disciples.= Not by professions, or creeds, or ceremonials, or
religious services, but by love one towards another. Love is the
Christian water-mark, the Christian uniform. The banner over Christ’s
church is love (Sol. Song 2:4).
36 Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou?
Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me
now; but[540] thou shalt follow me afterwards.
[540] ch. 21:18; 2 Pet. 1:14.
37 Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now?
I will[541] lay down my life for thy sake.
[541] Matt. 26:33, etc.; Mark 14:29, etc.; Luke 22:33,
etc.
38 Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my
sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not
crow, till thou hast denied me thrice.
=36-38. Prophecy of Peter’s denial.= This is probably identical with
the prophecy of Luke 22:31-38, see notes there; but distinct from that
of Matt. 26:31-35; Mark 14:27-31. =Thou canst not follow me now.=
Because it was not the divine will that the apostles should share in
their Master’s death.--=But thou shalt follow me afterwards.= Peter,
according to tradition, was crucified; thus he followed Christ in
death, and through death into glory. Comp. John 21:18.--=The cock
shall not crow.= The second crowing at dawn is intended. See Matt.
26:34, note.
CHAPTER XIV.
Ch. 14:1-31. THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY--THE DIVINE IMMANENCE.--THE
PROMISE OF THE COMFORTER: INVISIBLE, INDWELLING, ABIDING.--THE
CONDITION OF THE PROMISE: THE OBEDIENCE OF LOVE.--THE RESULT: A
FRUITFUL, SPIRITUAL LIFE, COMFORT, INSTRUCTION, PEACE, JOY, LOVE.
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--The 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th chapters of John are
the Holy of Holies of the Bible. Christ is about to depart from his
disciples; the cloud of the coming trouble casts its shadow on their
hearts; he sees clearly, they feel vaguely the impending tragedy. They
are to behold their Master spit upon, abused, execrated; they are to
see him suffering the tortures of a lingering death upon the cross;
they are to be utterly unable to interfere for his succor or even for
his relief; they are to see all the hopes which they had built on him
extinguished in his death. It is that he may prepare them for this
experience, that he may prepare his disciples throughout all time (ch.
17:20) for similar experiences of world-sorrow (ch. 16:33), and that
he may point out to them and to the church universal the source of
their hope, their peace, their joy, and their life--moral and
spiritual--that he speaks to the twelve, and through them to his
discipleship in all ages, in these chapters, and finally offers for
them and for us that prayer which we may well accept as the disclosure
of his eternal intercession for his followers. The discourse is
sympathetic, not philosophical or critical; it is addressed to
sympathetic friends, not to a cold or critical audience; and it is to
be interpreted rather by the sympathies and the spiritual experience
than by a philosophical analysis. It sets forth the source of all
comfort, strength, guidance and spiritual well-being in the truth of
the direct personal presence of a seemingly absent but really present,
a seemingly slain but really living, a seemingly defeated but really
victorious Lord and Master. This truth appears and reappears in
various forms in these chapters, like the theme in a sublime symphony.
Now it is plainly stated, “I will come to you” (ch. 14:18); now it
is interpreted by a metaphor, “Ye are the vine, I am the branches”
(ch. 15:5); now it is a promise of the Spirit’s presence, now of
Christ’s, now of the Father’s (ch. 14:16, 18, 21, 23); now the
disciples are bid to turn their thoughts toward this spiritual
presence, this Divine Immanence, for their own sake (ch. 16:7), now
they are appealed to by the love they bear the Master (ch. 14:28). The
conditions of this personal experience of the unseen spiritual
presence of their God and Saviour is declared to be obedience in the
daily life to the law of love (ch. 14:21, 23; 15:10); the result is
declared to be a constant growth in the knowledge of divine truth (ch.
14:26; 16:12, 13); a sacred peace and joy (ch. 14:27; 15:11); a
supernatural strength in sorrow (16:20-22). These truths are not
logically arranged; the structure of the discourse is not that of a
sermon, but that of a confidential conversation, in which in different
forms the same essential truth is repeated and re-repeated, because
the heart is so full that a single utterance does not suffice, and the
truth is so transcendent that no logical statement is adequate. After
the conversation is closed and the disciples rise to depart, Christ
recurs to the theme in a new form, and continues the discourse, while
the disciples wait standing for a new signal to go out (ch. 14:31; ch.
15, Prel. Note); and, finally, when for a second time he draws his
discourse to a close, he re-embodies the same consolatory and
inspiring truth in a prayer, breathing the aspiration that the reward
and secret and source of his own power may be given to his disciples,
sent into the world to complete the mission which he has but
inaugurated (ch. 17:18). Thus these chapters of John contain a
disclosure of the very heart of Christianity, the personal knowledge
of a living God by direct communion with him, as a teacher, a
comforter, an inspirer, the one and only true source of faith, hope,
love. The commentator must point out the connection of the verses and
the meaning of the words; his work must be in a measure critical and
cold; but only the devout heart, which knows by experience that love
of Christ which passes the knowledge of the intellect, can interpret
the spiritual meaning of the truth, since the condition of
understanding it is not a critical knowledge of words or an
intellectual apprehension of theology, but a love for Christ that
keeps Christ’s words, that recognizes Christ’s mission to be also the
mission of the Christian, and that abides in Christ in the spirit
that it may follow Christ in the life. Without this spirit the student
in vain addresses himself to the study of this “wisdom of God in a
mystery,” hidden except to the soul to whom God hath revealed it by
his Spirit (1 Cor. 2:7-10).
1 Let[542] not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God,
believe[543] also in me.
[542] verse 27; Isa. 43:1, 2; 2 Thess. 2:2.
[543] Isa. 12:2, 3; Ephes. 1:12, 13; 1 Pet. 1:21.
2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if _it were_ not
_so_, I would have told you. I go[544] to prepare a place
for you.
[544] Heb. 6:20; 9:8, 24; Rev. 21:2.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will[545] come
again, and receive you unto myself: that[546] where I am,
_there_ ye may be also.
[545] Heb. 9:28.
[546] ch. 12:26; 17:24; 1 Thess. 4:17.
=1-3. Let not your heart be troubled.= In this hour of unparalleled
sorrow, with Gethsemane, the betrayal, the denial, the mock trials and
the crucifixion full in view, Christ thinks not of himself, but of his
disciples. He does not seek comfort, but imparts it. We may well
imagine a momentary silence after the prophecy of the preceding
verses. The disappointment of the Judaic expectation of temporal and
political deliverance, the prophecy of treason, the sudden and
unexpected departure of Judas, the prophecy of Peter’s denial, and of
the abandonment of their Lord by the other disciples, have all tended
to sober and sadden them.--=Ye have faith in God, have faith also in
me.= The forms of the indicative and the imperative are the same
(πιστεύετε). Some critics read both verbs indicative, _Ye have faith
in God, ye have faith also in me_; some both imperative; treating both
as an exhortation, _Have faith in God; have faith also in me_; and
some, as our English version, which makes the statement of the first
clause the ground of the exhortation of the second clause, _Ye have
faith in God, have faith also in me_. Either rendering is
grammatically legitimate; the latter seems to me preferable. As Jews
they had faith in the one only true and living God; a faith which, in
the experience of patriarchs and prophets, trial and trouble had not
been able to shake (Hab. 3:17, 18). Christ urges them to a like faith
in him, a faith strong enough to survive the brief though terrible
separation of death. Theism is the foundation of Christianity; faith
in one only living and true God precedes and prepares the way for
faith in Christ his Son, the living and true way to the Father. To
believe in him is not to believe anything about him, nor merely to
trust in him, but to have such a spiritual apprehension of his
character, that when he is crucified the disciples shall not lose
their confidence in him as the Messiah. He warns them against that
doubt which augmented and intensified their distress when they saw him
whom they had trusted should have redeemed Israel put to an open shame
and a cruel death (Luke 24:21). They were trusting in themselves.
Peter’s declaration, “I will lay down my life for thy sake,”
expressed the common confidence of all (Mark 14:31). Christ first
demolished this false confidence, then seeks to build up a new and
better confidence in himself.--=In my Father’s house are many
dwelling-places.= The phrase “my Father’s house” is generally regarded
as a circumlocution for heaven; Christ’s declaration as tantamount to
the general statement that in heaven there is room enough for them all
(_Alford_, _Meyer_, etc.); and in support of this view such O. T.
passages as Ps. 23:13, 14; Isaiah 63:15, are quoted, which refer to
the heavens as God’s habitation. I would rather regard the universe as
God’s house according to the spirit of Isaiah 66:1, “Heaven is my
throne, and earth is my footstool,” and the declaration that in it are
many dwelling-places, as a new light thrown upon the abode of the dead
who die in Christ Jesus. The ancients regarded Hades, or the abode of
the dead, a deep and dark abode in the under-world, fastened with
gates and bars, a ghostly abode, a prison-house of the disembodied
(Job 10:21, 22; 11:8; Ps. 88:6; 89:48; Eccles. 9:4; Isa. 5:14;
14:9-20, 38:10; Ezek. 31:17; 32:21). The O. T. thought of death and
the abode of the dead was hardly more hopeful than that of the ancient
Greeks and Romans. Homer makes the dead Achilles declare:
“I would be
A laborer on earth and serve for hire
Some man of mean estate, who makes scant cheer,
Rather than reign over all who have gone down
To death.”
Parallel to this, in some respects more gloomy, were the ancient
Hebrews’ thoughts of Hades. Dying was bidding farewell to God. “Wilt
thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee?
* * * Shall thy righteousness be known in the land of forgetfulness?”
(Ps. 88:10-12). “In death there is no remembrance of thee” (Ps. 6:5).
Comp. Isaiah, ch. 38, and Job, ch. 14. The hope of better things is
but an occasional gleam in a night of great darkness and almost
despair. See Job 10:21, 22; Ps. 89:45-49; Eccles. 9:4; Isaiah 5:14,
15; 14:9-20; Ezek. 31:16, 17; and especially Isaiah, ch. 38, and Job,
ch. 14. In contrast with this gloomy view of death is that of the N.
T., the germ of which is afforded by Christ’s declaration here, which
may be paraphrased thus: “The earth is not the only abode of God’s
children; in my Father’s house (the universe) are many dwelling-places
for them; and I, in leaving you, am not going to the dark abode of the
voiceless dead, but to prepare for you a place, and to return again to
take you to myself, that you may witness and share the glory which I
have with the Father.” Out of this declaration grows, as a fruitful
tree out of a seed, the whole of the discourse contained in this and
the two following chapters. Out of it grows, too, the Christian’s
conception of and experience in death. See for example 2 Cor. 5:1-4.
It should be added that the word _house_ (οἰκία) is never used in the
N. T. as a designation of heaven, but with the analogous word (οἷκος)
_household_, is used of the world (John 8:35), the temple (John 2:16),
and the whole kingdom of God (Heb. 3:2-6); so that N. T. usage
confirms the interpretation here given. The word rendered _mansions_
(μονή) occurs nowhere else in the N. T., but is derived from a verb
(μένω) signifying to _abide_, and here unquestionably indicates not a
_mansion_, but simply a permanent dwelling-place. This was indeed the
original meaning of the English word mansion (Fr. _maison_).--=If not,
would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?= The
reference is to some previous statement not preserved in our Gospels.
The argument is this: I could not have assured you, as I have done,
that I am going to prepare a place for you, if the place of the dead
were the dark abode which you have imagined it to be. This, which is
the interpretation of the French translation, seems to me,
notwithstanding the objection of the modern writers (_Meyer_, _Godet_,
_Tholuck_, etc.), better than the construction of our English version,
though either is grammatically admissible. If we take the other
construction, the connection is as Godet gives it: “If our separation
was to be an eternal one, I would have forewarned you; I would not
have waited for this last moment to declare it unto you.”--=And if I
go and prepare a place for you.= The implication of this entire
passage is not merely “heaven large enough for all,” but a heaven with
various provisions for various natures. In the Father’s house is not
merely a large mansion, but _many_ mansions; and there is prepared a
place not merely for all but for _you_, a personal preparation in
glory _for_ each child as by grace _in_ each child; a room, a house
for each nature adapted to its needs. But how does Christ _prepare_ a
place for us? To that question revelation makes no answer. We can only
say that redemption did not end with Christ’s death, that he is still
carrying on his work of redeeming love for us as well as in us. In
every death of a friend he lays up treasure in heaven for us; those
that have gone before and entered into their rest, and await our
coming, are a part of this divine preparation. The sorrow here is a
part of the preparation of unmeasured joy hereafter.--=I will come
again and receive you unto myself.= In order to understand this, we
must bear in mind what Stier well calls the perspective of prophecy.
“The coming again of the Lord is not one single act--as his
resurrection, or the descent of the Spirit, or his second personal
advent, or the final coming in judgment--but the combination of all
these, the result of which shall be his taking his people to himself
to be where he is. This coming is begun (ver. 18) in his resurrection;
carried on (ver. 23) in the spiritual life (see also ch. 16:22, etc.),
the making them ready for the place prepared; further advanced
when each by death is fetched away to be with him (Phil. 1:23);
fully completed at His coming in glory when they shall be
forever with Him (1 Thess. 4:17) in the perfected resurrection
state.”--(_Alford._)--=That.= _In order that_ (ἵνα). The going,
the preparing, the returning are all for the sake of them, his
disciples.--=Where I am there ye may be also.= Death is no longer
“farewell to God;” it is going home to be forever with the Lord (ch.
17:24; Phil. 1:23; 1 Thess. 4:17).
4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou
goest; and how can we know the way?
=4, 5. And whither I go= (ye know and) =the way ye know=. There is
some doubt as to the reading; most critics (_Meyer_, _Alford_,
_Tischendorf_, _Lachmann_) either omit or doubt the words I put in
brackets. But their omission obscures without changing the sense; the
meaning is undoubtedly that conveyed by our Received Version. While in
form a statement, it is in fact an inquiry; its object is to provoke
questioning, as it does from Thomas. Whither he goes is to the Father
(ch. 20:17); the way he goes is the way of death and resurrection,
already foretold them (Matt. 16:21; 17:22, 23; 20:17-19).--=Thomas
saith unto him, We know not=, etc. On the character of Thomas, see ch.
20:26. The few indications of his character afforded by the Gospels
(John 11:16; 20:24-29) show him to have possessed an affectionate but
unimaginative nature, desiring much, hoping little, and easily given
to despair. Such a nature takes nothing for granted; it wants every
statement explained, nothing left to the imagination, nothing to the
interpretation of the future. “The heavenly _whither_, however
distinctly Jesus had already designated it, Thomas did not yet know
clearly how to combine with his circle of Messianic ideas; but he
desired to arrive at clearness.”--(_Meyer._)
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the[547] way, and the
truth,[548] and the life:[549] no[550] man cometh unto the
Father, but by me.
[547] ch. 10:9; Isa. 35:8, 9; Heb. 10:19, 20.
[548] ch. 1:17; 15:1.
[549] ch. 1:4; 11:25.
[550] Acts 4:12.
7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also:
and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
=6, 7. Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.=
This is not directly responsive to the implied question of Thomas.
That is theoretical; this is practical. The disciples desire to
understand the way by which Christ is to depart, and the place to
which he is going; Christ’s answer points out the way in and by which
the disciple can follow his Lord and be with him where he is. There is
here, therefore, not merely a play upon the word “way,” though
Christ uses it in one sense in ver. 4 and in a different sense in ver.
6; but the same word is used to turn the thoughts of the inquirer from
a purely theoretical question about Christ to a practical truth
concerning himself. It was always the habit of Christ to answer
questions in theoretical theology by directions helpful to the
spiritual life (see ver. 22-24; ch. 3:4-6; 4:19-24). The phrase, _I am
the way, the truth, and the life_, may be interpreted, according to
Lightfoot, as a Hebraism equivalent to the true and living way; but it
is better to take the two latter phrases as explanations of the
former. Christ is the way unto the Father, not because he points out
the way, but because he is the truth concerning the Father, and
possesses in himself the divine life, and has power to impart it to
us. He does not merely reveal the truth; he _is_ the truth; the truth
incarnated in a living form; the truth of God, whom he manifests to
the world (Matt. 11:27; John 1:1, 2, 14; 10:30; Phil. 2:6; Col. 2:9;
Heb. 1:13), and the truth of life, which he illustrates more forcibly
by his example than by his words, so that all his precepts are summed
up in the one command, “Follow me.” He is the life, having life in
himself (ch. 5:26), imparting it to others (ch. 10:10), and so giving
them power to become sons of God (ch. 1:12) by the possession of that
divine life without which no man can ever see God (ch. 3:3; Heb.
12:14). To come to the Father by Christ as the way is not, then,
merely to accept him as an inspired teacher respecting the Father, nor
merely as an atoning sacrifice, whose blood cleanses away the sins
which intervene between the soul and the Father (Heb. 10:20); it is to
be conformed to him as to the truth, and to be made partaker of his
life (Phil. 3:8-14).--=No one cometh to the Father but by me.= He now
says “to the Father,” not to the Father’s house, because, as Godet
well says, “It is not in heaven that we are to find God, but in God
that we are to find heaven.” By _me_ is equivalent to, by me as the
way, the truth, and the life. This does not necessarily require a
knowledge of, still less a correct theological opinion concerning
Christ. The conception of God’s character may be really derived from
Christ’s teaching, the life may be conformed to Christ’s example, and
the soul may be partaker of his spirit, and yet the individual may be
unconscious of the source from which he has derived his knowledge of
God, his ideal of life, and his inspiration. This declaration is
inclusive rather than exclusive; it is equivalent to that of ch. 1:9
(see note there), “That was the true Light which lighteth every man
that cometh into the world.” All spiritual life comes through Christ,
but not necessarily through a clear and correct knowledge about
Christ.--=If ye had known me ye should have known my Father also.=
Comp. ch. 8:19. The practical lesson for us clearly is that the way to
come to a true spiritual knowledge of the Father is by a study of the
life and character of Christ, and above all by a sympathetic and
personal spiritual acquaintance with him. His disciples had not known
Christ. They had up to this time believed in him as a temporal
Messiah. Of a Messiah crucified, the power of God and the wisdom of
God unto salvation to Gentile as well as Jew (1 Cor. 1:24), they had
known nothing, and hence of God as their Father and their Friend they
knew nothing.--=From henceforth ye have known him and have seen him.=
From this time. He refers to what he has already disclosed of the
divine nature, in the washing of the disciples’ feet, in the prophecy
of his own betrayal and death, and in what he is about to tell them of
the spiritual presence of himself and the Father, through the Holy
Spirit, in their hearts. From the time of this disclosure it will
indeed be their own fault if they fail to comprehend, at least in some
measure, “the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the
love of Christ (and so the love of the Father revealed in and through
Christ), which passeth knowledge” (Ephes 3:18, 19).
8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father and it
sufficeth us.
9 Jesus saith unto him. Have I been so long time with you,
and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he[551] that hath
seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou _then_,
Shew us the Father?
[551] Col. 1:15.
=8, 9. Philip saith unto him, Shew us the Father and it sufficeth us.=
On Philip’s life and character, see Vol. I, p. 149. Compare the
request of Moses (Exod. 33:18). Philip has in mind the O. T.
appearances of God; he wants such a manifestation of the Deity, _a
seeing_ of God. “One such sight of God would set at rest all these
fears, and give him perfect confidence.”--(_Alford._) He wants to walk
by sight, and not by faith. He expresses the universal longing of
humanity for a vision of the unknown. This request furnishes the text
on which the following discourse is founded. Christ replies that the
unknown Father is manifested to the world in his Son (ver. 9-11), and
in the spiritual life, the inward experience, of those that love him
and keep his commandments (ver. 15-21); he points out the way to
secure this inward experience, namely, by loving the Son and keeping
his commandments (ver. 22-26); he declares that this indwelling of the
Father in the soul of the believer brings abundant peace (ver.
27-31); it is more than a vision, it is an abiding, by which the life
of God flows into the soul of man, making it partaker of the divine
nature and fruitful in works of divine love (ch. 15:1-8); this love,
patterned after and imbibed from Christ, extends to the world that
hates both the Lord and his disciples (ch. 15:9-27); this love, born
and kept alive by the indwelling of the unseen Father, is the
illuminator, the instructor, and the inspirer of him who possesses it,
and gives him assurance of the divine love and intimacy of spiritual
communion with the divine Being (ch. 16). See, further, Prel. Note.
There is a real connection in this discourse, though not that of an
oration; the unity is spiritual rather than intellectual; but it all
circles about a single central truth, the provision which divine love
has made for satisfying the soul-hunger for a vision of the unseen and
invisible God. In a sense Philip is right, though the _sight_, if the
sight of a spirit was possible, would not satisfy; but we see God only
as we become like him, and we shall be satisfied when we awake in his
likeness and so see him as he is (Ps. 17:15; 1 John 1:2).--=Have I
been so much time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?=
Not merely the length of time is indicated; it had been but about
three years, probably a little less; but during that three years he
had been constantly with his disciples; they had eaten, slept,
journeyed, lived together; the companionship was most intimate, the
opportunity for familiar acquaintance perfect.--=He that hath seen me
hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?=
There is a physical and there is a spiritual sight. The disciples had
known Jesus after the flesh; but Christ according to the spirit they
did not know till after the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
To admire the Son of man is one thing; to receive the Spirit of God
manifested in and through him is quite different. He that has a
spiritual discernment of Christ will recognize the spiritual character
of the unknown Father, the truth, mercy, love of God, shining in and
through the Son. There is and can be no physical vision of God; he is
a spirit, and is to be spiritually known, to be worshipped in spirit
as well as in truth (ch. 4:24). The language of Christ here, and
indeed throughout this whole discourse, is utterly inconsistent with
the conception of him as a mere human or superhuman _ambassador_ of
God. He represents not merely the divine government, but the divine
Being. The Father is so in him that whoever looks within the
tabernacle beholds the glory as of the only begotten of the Father
(ch. 1:14). He is the manifestation in the flesh, not of the divine
government, but of God (1 Tim. 3:16). It is impossible to refer this
answer to the mere union in sympathy and purpose of Jesus with God.
“No Christian, even if perfected, could say, ‘He that has seen me has
seen Christ.’ How much less, then, could a Jew, though perfect, have
said, ‘He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.’”--(_Godet._)
10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the
Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not
of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the
works.
11 Believe me that I _am_ in the Father, and the Father in
me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
=10, 11. Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in
me?= God is in everything which he has made; the All and in All (Jer.
23:24; 1 Cor. 15:28). We also are intended to be temples in which he
is to dwell (Ps. 91:1; Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Tim. 1:14). But sin,
which has been admitted to dwell in us (Rom. 7:17), has driven out the
Spirit of God, so that the temple is destroyed by defilement (1 Cor.
3:17, marg.); it ceases to be the temple of God. He dwells no longer
in it. In Christ Jesus there was no sin; in Christ Jesus, therefore,
dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9); and it is by
union with him, and a new life received in and by and from him, that
the fullness of the divine indwelling is to be at length restored to
all that are his (ch. 17:21-23; Ephes. 3:17).--=The words that I speak
to you I speak not of myself.= _From myself_ (ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ). _From_
signifies the fountain or source; the source of Christ’s authority is
not in himself, but in the Father, who dwells in and speaks through
him. See ch. 5:19, note.--=But the Father, he who abides in me, he
doeth the works.= Some read, _doeth his own works_. So Tischendorf and
Meyer. The Received reading is preferable, but the meaning is much the
same. Whether we read, He that dwelleth in me doeth his own works
(ποιεῖ τὰ ἔργα ἀυτοῦ), or, He that dwelleth in me, he it is who doeth
the works (αὐτὸς ποιεῖ τὰ ἔργα), the emphasis is equally put upon the
Father as the One who, abiding in the Son, does all things through
him. The _works_ are here, not merely the miracles, but the whole
range of beneficent action of the Son, including certainly the
miracles, but those only as a part of the whole service of love. This
word _work_ (ἔργον) is rarely, I think never, used in the N. T. as
equivalent to _miracle_ (σημεῖον).--=Have faith in me, that I am in
the Father.= Beware of understanding this as equivalent to, Believe
me, on my mere personal assurance; this is apparently the
interpretation of our English version, and is sustained by even so
eminent an authority as Meyer. It is grammatically possible; but it
neither accords with Jesus’ use of the word _believe_ (πιστεύω), which
he habitually uses to signify a spiritual apprehension, not merely an
intellectual opinion; nor with the spirit of this discourse, which,
beginning with ver. 1, is throughout addressed, not to the formation
of correct opinions, but to the building up of a right spiritual
apprehension of Christ, and through him of the eternal Father. The
meaning is, _Have faith in me that I am in the Father, and the Father
in me_; _i. e._, Look beneath the surface, the flesh; behold in the
inward grace, manifesting itself in the outward speech and action, the
lineaments of the divine character; so have faith in me as one in whom
the Father dwells, and through whom the Father is made manifest. But
if this spiritual sense is lacking, then--=Through= (_by reason of_,
διά) =the works themselves believe=. Μοι is omitted by Godet, Meyer,
Lachmann, and Tischendorf, on the authority of the Sinaitic,
Cambridge, and Vatican manuscripts. Christ places his own character in
the front rank, as the principal evidence of the divine origin and
authority of Christianity. He is his own best witness. But, for those
who cannot discern the divinity of his life and character, he appeals
to the works wrought by him and by the religion of which he is the
founder, and which was more powerful after his death than during his
life. The evidence from the miracles, and from the whole miraculous
history of Christianity, is secondary to the evidence from the
character and person of Christ himself.
12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He[552] that believeth on
me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater
_works_ than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
[552] Matt. 21:21.
=12. Verily, verily, I say unto you, * * * greater works than these
shall he do; because I go to my Father.= If by _works_ was
meant merely miracles, this declaration would be difficult of
interpretation; for none of Christ’s disciples have ever wrought
greater miracles than the Master, nor is it easy to conceive of a
greater miracle than the resurrection of the dead. But if by _works_
was meant Christ’s whole life of beneficent activity, then this
promise has been abundantly fulfilled. For Christ worked in a very
narrow sphere, both of time and place; for three years, in a province
no larger than the State of Vermont. More souls were converted at
Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost than during the whole of
Christ’s personal ministry. At Christ’s death the whole number of
Christian converts does not seem to have exceeded five hundred, and
Christianity was utterly unknown outside of Palestine. At John
Wesley’s death Methodism had spread over Great Britain, the Continent
of Europe, the United States, and the West Indies, and its communion
embraced over eighty thousand members. Whitefield, Wesley, Spurgeon,
Moody preached during their lives to immensely greater numbers than
Christ ever personally taught; and probably many Christian physicians
have healed more sick than Christ ever healed. Thus in _extent_ the
disciples have already done greater works than their Master. And this
for the reason here assigned, namely, because he has gone to the
Father; and because of that going the Comforter has come to bless the
labors of the disciples with a wider and more powerful divine
influence than could, in the nature of the case, proceed from God
incarnate in a single human life (ch. 16:7). But we have no right to
say that this promise does not await even further fulfillment. When
the fullness of time shall have come, and God dwells in all his
children in the fullness foreseen in ch. 17:21, there may be in them a
power over nature of which modern science gives possibly a
foreshadowing, and which will be, in its effects, much greater than
that which Christ exercised over it, because they that exercise it
will have the whole earth as their inheritance. Only thus can I
understand such promises as that here and in Mark 11:23, etc.
13 And[553] whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I
do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
[553] 1 John 5:14.
14 If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do _it_.
=13, 14. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do.= For
analogous promises of answers to prayer, see Exod. 22:27; Deut. 4:29;
Ps. 34:15; 37:4, 5; Jer. 29:12, 13; Joel 2:32; Matt. 7:7, 8; Mark
11:24; John 15:16; 16:23; James 1:5; 1 John 3:22; 5:14, 15. A
comparison of these passages shows clearly that God does not give an
unconditional promise of affirmative answer to every prayer. This
would be to place omnipotence at the command of ignorance and
selfishness; it would be a curse, not a blessing. The condition here
is embodied in the words, _In my name_; the promise is only to those
petitions asked in the name of _Jesus Christ_. To ask in the name of
Christ is not to introduce his name into the petition, as in the
familiar phrase, For Christ’s sake; nor is it merely to approach the
Father through the mediatorship of Jesus; this, but much more than
this, is included. “In the name” of any one, as used in the N. T.,
generally, if not always, signifies representing him, standing in his
stead, fulfilling his purposes, manifesting his will, and imbued with
and showing forth his life and glory. With John it always has this
signification. Thus, “The works that I do in my Father’s name” (ch.
10:25) is equivalent to, The works that I do in my Father’s stead, for
him and by his power and authority; “Blessed is the King of Israel
that cometh in the name of the Lord” (ch. 12:13) is equivalent to,
That cometh as the representative and manifestation of the Lord; “The
Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name” (ch. 14:26) is
equivalent to, The Holy Ghost who comes to represent me, and teach the
truths concerning me, and implant and keep alive my life in the souls
of my disciples; “I kept them in thy name” is equivalent to, I, as one
with thee (ch. 10:29, 30), have kept them within the circle of thine
influence, because within mine own, which is thine. Comp. Acts 3:6;
4:7; Phil. 2:10; Col. 3:17, and notes. Here, then, the declaration is
that whatsoever we ask, speaking for Christ, seeking his will,
representing him and his interests, and his kingdom, not merely our
own special and personal interests (Phil. 2:21), will be granted. So
in Matt. 6:9 (see note there) the Lord makes the petition, “Hallowed
be thy name,” the portico to every prayer--so teaching us that in
every prayer the desire for the glory of God should be supreme. So
again in Rom. 8:26 the apostle represents us taught both how and for
what to pray by the Spirit of Christ within us. But every prayer thus
offered in the name of Christ and with a supreme allegiance to him,
representing his kingdom and imbued by his spirit, will be in
character, like his prayer at Gethsemane. It will carry with it the
petition, “Not my will but thine be done,” and thus, as Meyer says,
“The _denial_ of the petition is the _fulfillment_ of the prayer, only
in another way.” See 2 Cor. 12:8, 9.--=That the Father may be
glorified in the Son.= When the church is a true representative of
Christ, filled with his spirit, manifesting his character and life, so
that it prays in his name, in his name casts out devils (Luke 10:17),
and in his name suffers, filling up what is behind of the Lord’s
affliction (Col. 1:24), and doing all in his stead, as his
representative, and because imbued with his spirit, then the Father is
glorified in the Son, because he is glorified in humanity, whom he
hath redeemed; for then the glorified and redeemed church is the body
of Christ (Ephes. 1:23), the visible manifestation of his invisible
presence, his perpetual incarnation.--=If ye shall ask anything in my
name, I will do it.= The promise is specific; a promise not merely to
provide generally for the wants of the disciples, but to hear and
answer their specific requests. Comp. Matt. 7:9, 10. Observe, too, the
language, _I will do it_, and compare the phraseology here with that
of the analogous promise in ch. 16:23, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the
Father in my name, _he_ will give it you.” What inspired prophet or
angelic messenger could make such a promise? “This _I_ already
indicates the glory” (_Bengel_), the glory of him who is _one_ with
the Father.
15 If[554] ye love me, keep my commandments.
[554] ver. 21, 23; ch. 15:10, 14; 1 John 5:3.
16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you
another Comforter,[555] that he may abide with you for ever;
[555] ch. 15:26.
17 _Even_ the Spirit of truth; whom[556] the world cannot
receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but
ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and[557] shall be in
you.
[556] 1 Cor. 2:14.
[557] Rom. 8:9; 1 John 2:27.
=15-17. If ye love me keep my commandments.= The object of the Gospel
is the inspiration of love, not mere obedience; but obedience is the
test because the manifestation of love. The N. T. recognizes no other
test of love to Christ than compliance in the daily life with his
will. See for striking illustration of this, ch. 21:15-17.--=And I
will pray the Father.= The poverty of the English language has
prevented our translators from producing in the English Bible the
distinction between three Greek verbs, which bear different
significations, but are all indiscriminately translated by the word
_pray_. These are _to request_ (προσεύχομαι), _to ask_ (ἐρωτάω), and
_to entreat_ (αἰτέω). Christ is said in the N. T. _to request_ the
Father (Matt. 14:23; 26:36; Mark 1:35, etc.), and _to ask_ of the
Father (ch. 16:26; 17:9; 15:20), but never _to entreat_ the Father.
Here the second of these words is used. “Our Lord never uses _entreat_
(_aitein_, _aitesthai_, αἰτεῖν or αἰτεῖσθαι) of Himself in respect of
that which he seeks on behalf of his disciples from God; for his is
not the _petition_ of the creature to the Creator, but the request of
the Son to the Father. The consciousness of his equal dignity, of his
potent and prevailing intercession, speaks out in this, that as often
as he asks or declares that he will ask, anything of the Father, it is
always _requesting_ or _inquiring_ (_erotas_, _erotaso_, ἐρωτάω,
ἐρωτήσω), that is, as upon equal terms, never _entreating_ (_aiteo_,
_aiteso_, αἰτέω or αἰτήσω).”--(_Trench._) See further ch. 16:23, 24,
note.--=And he shall give you another Paraclete.= The original word,
inadequately rendered in our English version by the word _Comforter_,
is simply untranslateable. It is composed of two Greek words (παρά
καλέω), _to call to one’s side_, and signifies one who is called to
aid another. And this etymological signification of the word indicates
the office of the Holy Spirit in his relations to us; he is our
present help in every time of need, the one with whom we walk, our
Consoler, our Strength, our Guide, our Peace-giver, our ever present
God. The word _Comforter_ must then be taken in its etymological and
old English sense, as one who gives not mere consolation, but strength
(_con fortis_). He is here called another Comforter; yet a little
below, Christ seemingly identifies him both with the Father and with
himself, in the declaration “I will manifest myself to him (ver. 21),
and we” (_i. e._, the Father and I,) “will make our abode with him”
(ver. 23). In the Comforter Christ himself is ever present with his
church (Matt. 28:20), for the Comforter is one with Christ as both are
one with the Father, so that the presence of one is the presence of
all (Rom. 8:9, 10; Gal. 2:20; 4:6). We know too little of the interior
nature of the Deity to be able to draw any clear distinction between
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We only know that as God in
the Father is manifested to us as providing for us, and in the Son as
making atonement for us, so in the Spirit he is manifested by being
spiritually ever present with us. The mystery of their diversity in
unity defies philosophical analysis. But Christ is speaking to the
experience, not to the intellect; and to the spiritual experience the
father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, the Provider, the Atoning Saviour
and the Indwelling Spirit, God in nature, in the flesh, and in our own
souls, are one.--=That he may abide with you forever.= In contrast
with the Son, who came but for a time, and because he was God
_manifest in the flesh_, could abide only with a few and only for a
limited period. To long for the laws of the O. T., or even for the
visible presence of the limited and earthly manifestation of God
afforded by the N. T., is to desire to go back from the broader,
deeper, fuller manifestation, to one narrower and more limited. To be
governed by precedents or rules of the past is to ignore the
perpetually abiding presence of the Comforter, the promised guide into
all truth. Of his office Christ speaks more fully in ver. 26 and ch.
16:7-15.--=The Spirit of Truth.= So called, (1) because it is by
giving a spiritual knowledge of the truth that he ministers to those
that receive him. The Comforter strengthens, guides, liberates,
Sanctifies by the truth (ch. 8:32; 16:13; 17:17, 19; 1 Cor. 2:4; 1
Thess. 1:5). (2) Because his ministry is perfectly true without any
admixture of error. All teaching that is ministered through human
language, even that of Christ and the apostles, is subject to the
errors and the misapprehensions of the human medium through which it
passes. The instruction of the Spirit, ministered directly to our
spirits, though still liable to be misapprehended and perverted by us,
is not subject to error in the interpretation. It is perfect truth;
all other teaching is truth with alloy, from which we must separate
it, as best we may.--=Whom the world cannot receive.= To be literally
understood. _Cannot_ is not here equivalent to _will not_. He that is
of the world, living unto it, making it his end, cannot receive
spiritual truth or spiritual influences. His mind is blinded by the
god of this world (Isa. 6:9, 10; 2 Cor. 4:4). The declaration here is
analogous to that of Christ in John 3:3, “Except a man be born again
he cannot _see_ the kingdom of God,” and to that of Paul in 1 Cor.
2:14, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God;
for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them; because
they are spiritually discerned.”--=Because it seeth him not, neither
knoweth him.= There is no visible manifestation of the Comforter; he
is not and cannot be discerned by the senses as Christ could be and
during his life was, by the manifestation of his miraculous power; and
the unspiritual has no inward consciousness of his presence, no
spiritual experience of his comfort, strength, or guidance. Hence,
since the Comforter is not discernible by the outward sense, and the
unspiritual have never had developed within them the inward sense of
faith, they cannot receive him. In contrast with the world in this
respect is the disciple of Christ, in whom the spiritual life has been
awakened in the new birth.--=But ye know him because he abides with
you, and shall be in you.= There is no hint here that the disciples
can _see_ the Comforter any more than the world. This should have
prevented Godet’s misapprehension of this passage, that “before
receiving they must have _seen_ and known the Spirit.” To see (θεωρέω)
is to recognize with the senses, or to recognize intellectually by
deductions from what is perceived by the senses. Neither by sight, nor
by deduction from sight can the Comforter be known. He is known only
by those with and in whom, as a conscious Presence, he abides. Some
texts read _is in you_ instead of _shall be in you_. The future is the
preferable reading, and the antithesis between the first and last
clauses of the verse indicates a progressive development in the
spiritual life. The Comforter was even then _with_ the disciples,
though they were not yet ready to receive him; he was _in_ them,
inspiring and moulding their life and character, after the day of
Pentecost. So he is ever with the church and the individual Christian;
but he is _in_ the church and _in_ the Christian only when they wait
and watch for his appearing, as the apostles waited and watched before
the day of Pentecost.
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I[558] will come to
you.
[558] ver. 3:28.
19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more: but
ye see me: because[559] I live, ye shall live also.
[559] Heb. 7:25.
20 At that day ye shall know that I _am_ in my Father, and
ye in me, and I in you.
=18-20. I will not leave you orphans.= This, which is the marginal
reading, exactly renders the original. Our English version, _I will
not leave you comfortless_, though made sacred by many an association,
deprives the promise of the singular significance involved in the
original. An orphan is not a person without parents, but one who is
separated from his parents by death; memory looks back to them, hope
looks forward to them, but they are not personally present. Christ
declares that he will not thus leave his disciples. Their Saviour
shall be more than a memory, more than a hope; he will be their
personal present God.--=I will come to you.= He refers here not to his
reappearance in the resurrection, for that was followed by his
disappearance in the ascension, so that if on this the disciples alone
depended they were left more than ever before in orphanage. Nor did he
then make his abode with the disciples; he vouchsafed them only brief
and transient appearances of himself. He does not refer to his second
coming; for the world, as well as his own disciples, will then see him
(Rev. 1:7; 6:15-17). He refers to that spiritual manifestation which
he makes of himself, and of the Father through him, by the gift and
indwelling of the Holy Spirit, whom the Father sends in his name. This
is clear from vers. 19, 20, 23, 26, etc.--=Yet a little while and the
world seeth me no more; but ye see me, because I am living and ye
shall live also.= According to the punctuation of our English version
there is here a double promise, first that the disciples shall again
see their Lord, secondly that they shall share his life. According to
the punctuation which I have adopted, the second promise is implied
rather than asserted, and is made the basis of the first. Either is
grammatically possible; the second rendering is preferable, because
the whole of Christ’s teaching here refers not to the life of the
disciple, but to the manifestation to him of his Lord, and because
thus the two clauses of the sentence are brought into close
connection. The soul’s perception of the personal presence of Christ
is then dependent upon sharing his spiritual life; and this is
abundantly taught, both here and elsewhere. We are changed into the
image of Christ by beholding him (2 Cor. 3:18), and we behold him by
conforming to his image (2 Pet. 1:5-9). The promise is one of
spiritual sight, dependent upon spiritual life. Since the world does
not and cannot see him (ver. 17), arguments based on visible phenomena
to prove the reality of that which is a spiritual experience are
always in vain. Hence the futility of the ordinary methods of arguing
with skeptics. They are endeavors to prove to the blind; whereas the
blind must first _see_, then learn.--=At that day ye shall know that I
am in the Father, and ye in me and I in you.= _That day_ was in the
history of the church the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit was first
revealed with power to the entire body of believers. But each
believing soul has also its Pentecost, when it first learns the
meaning of Christ’s promises in this chapter. This is to it _that
day_, the one great day of its existence. It is not said that the
disciple will understand _how_ the Father, the Son, and the disciples
are in one another, but he will know it _as a fact_; the unity of the
Father and the Son, and the indwelling of both in the believer, will
become a part of his experience. This experience, promised here, is
expressed as a realized fact by Paul in Gal. 2:20: “I am crucified
with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:
and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the
Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
21 He[560] that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he
it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved
of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself
to him.
[560] ver. 15, 23.
=21.= Having given expression to the mystical truth of the spiritual
manifestation of their Lord to the believers, Christ next states the
conditions under which it is realized. These are not _external_; this
spiritual revelation is not made dependent upon retiring from the
world and living a life of asceticism and artificial self-denial. They
are not _intellectual_; this revelation and indwelling of Christ is
not made dependent upon the creed of the disciple. They are _moral_;
practical obedience to the words of Christ assures spiritual enjoyment
of his presence and companionship.--=He that hath my commandments and
keepeth them.= These clauses are not to be read as repetitions of
the same idea, made for the sake of emphasis. To _have_ is not the
same as to _keep_. He hath Christ’s commandments _not_ who has a
knowledge of them, so that the promise is conditional upon a certain
degree of Christian education, but who has a _spiritual apprehension
of them_, who appreciates their spirit. Since all of Christ’s commands
are comprised in the one direction “Follow me,” the first condition of
receiving this spiritual manifestation of Christ as a real and living
Presence in the daily life, is a spiritual appreciation of his life
and character as they are disclosed in the N. T., and therewith a like
appreciation of the precepts, principles, and spirit of the life which
he has inculcated. He _keeps_ Christ’s commandments who carefully
guards them in his daily life, regarding them as a possession which he
is in danger of losing. See Matt. 19:17, note.--=That one is he that
loveth me.= The evidence of love which Christ recognizes is not
profession, or ceremonial, or emotional experience, or intellectual
opinion, but spiritual appreciation of his precepts and practical
obedience to them. The good Samaritan is a more acceptable lover than
the priest or the Levite.--=He that loveth me shall be loved of my
Father, and I will love him.= Every disciple may thus become a
“beloved disciple.” For the love here spoken of is not that love of
compassion which the Father and the Son have for the whole world (ch.
3:16), even while it was dead in trespasses and sins (Ephes. 2:4, 5),
but the love of spiritual fellowship and personal friendship (ch.
15:14, 15; Gal. 4:7). “There is between these two feelings the same
difference as between a man’s compassion for his guilty and unhappy
neighbors and the affection of a father for his child or of a husband
for his wife.”--(_Godet._) Christ is here speaking not of the
condition on which men may become his disciples; he is instructing his
disciples, is pointing out the condition on which each one of them may
come into a higher spiritual experience of their Master’s love and
spiritual presence. This is indicated not only by the context and
general character of the discourse, but also by the peculiar language
here, _That one it is who loveth me_. _That one_ (ἐκεῖνος) indicates
an exceptional individual, one among many, who, by his course, becomes
the special friend of Jesus.
22 Judas[561] saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it
that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the
world?
[561] Luke 6:16.
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me,
he will keep my words: and my Father will love him,
and[562] we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
[562] 1 John 2:24; Rev. 3:20.
=22, 23. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot.= The same person called
Lebbeus in Matt. 10:3 and Thaddeus in Mark 3:18. In Luke 6:16, etc.,
and Acts 1:13, he is called “Judas (the brother) of James.” See Note
on Twelve Apostles, Vol. I, p. 149.--=Lord, and what has happened that
thou wilt manifest thyself to us, but not at all= (οὐχὶ) =to the
world?= His question is not, as represented by our English version,
the expression of a mere curiosity, In what way wilt thou make this
manifestation of thyself? it is the expression of amazement and
perplexity. All the disciples were anticipating that Christ would
manifest his Messiahship in some unexpected manner, striking terror
into the hearts of all his opponents, and becoming, by some miraculous
forth-putting of power, King of kings and Lord of lords. Judas,
hastily concluding that there is to be no other manifestation than
that of which Christ is now speaking, expresses his amazement and
perplexity. What has happened to lead to the abandonment of a world
manifestation of the Messiah? is the meaning of his question. But
Christ has not said that he will not at all be manifested to the
world; only that the world cannot see that manifestation of him of
which he is now speaking.--=Jesus answered and said unto him.= He does
not reply to the question of Judas; enters into no explanation; simply
reiterates that the condition of receiving the spiritual manifestation
of Christ as a personal Presence is obedience to his directions.
Christ never suffers himself to be turned aside from practical
instruction by inquiries in theoretical theology.--=If any one loves
me, he will keep my word.= _Word_, not _words_; singular, not plural.
His command is but one word: love.--=My Father will love him, and we
will come unto him and make our abode with him.= This promise is more
than the preceding one (ver. 21). There Christ promises simply that
the obedient disciple shall see his Lord; here that he shall become a
temple in which his Lord will constantly dwell; there that Christ
shall manifest himself to the soul; here that the Father and the Son
shall dwell in the soul. “They shall come like wanderers from their
home and lodge with him; will be daily his guests, yea, house and
table companions.”--(_Meyer._) Thus Christ by his commandments knocks
at the door of the heart; he that hath those commandments hears the
voice; he that keeps them opens the door (Rev. 3:20). Thus, too, the
Christian’s experience on earth is a foretaste of his experience in
heaven. “Here below it is God who dwells with the believer; above, it
will be the believer who will dwell with God.”--(_Godet._) By his
language here, _We will come unto him_, Christ identifies himself as
the companion of the Father in the spiritual experience of the
disciple. See ver. 15-17, note.
24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the
word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent
me.
=24.= In contrast with the disciple who _has_ and _keeps_ the word of
Christ, our Lord portrays the opposite character. He loves not Christ;
he makes no attempt to treasure and guard his instruction; and in
rejecting the word and its Bearer he rejects the Father whom the
Bearer represents and by whom the word is given. Beware of reading the
negative, “The word is not mine,” as equivalent to The word is not
merely mine. Christ here, as in many other passages, disavows the
paternity of his own instructions. They are not his; they are the
Father’s who dwells in him, and inspires the words and performs the
works. See ch. 12:49, note.
25 These things have I spoken unto you, being _yet_ present
with you.
26 But[563] the Comforter, _which is_ the Holy Ghost,
whom the Father will send in my name, he[564] shall teach
you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance,
whatsoever I have said unto you.
[563] verse 16.
[564] ch. 16:13; 1 John 2:20, 27.
=25, 26. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with
you.= That is, As far as this I am able to carry my instructions, but
no farther; the Spirit shall complete them. Christ has already
contrasted the work of the Spirit with his own: his own dwelling with
his disciples is temporary, the abiding of the Spirit is forever; he
speaks _to_ his disciples, the Spirit speaks _in_ them (ver. 16, 17).
He now indicates a further point in the contrast. His own teaching was
partial; for he had many things to say which they could not bear (John
16:12), and much which he did say they could not understand till their
experience, developed by the indwelling of the Spirit of God, had
prepared them to comprehend it. But the promised Spirit shall, as the
Christian is able to bear the truth, teach all things.--=But the
Comforter.= See above on ver. 16.--=The Holy Spirit.= That is, the
Spirit of holiness. As he is the Spirit of truth, because all
experience of the higher spiritual truth comes in and through him, so
he is the Spirit of holiness, because all holiness of life and
character is wrought out by the soul only as the Holy Spirit works in
and with us the good pleasure of God (Phil. 2:12, 13; Heb. 13:20,
21).--=Whom the Father will send in my name.= As the disciple is to
pray in Christ’s name (see ver. 13, note), so the Father will answer
him in Christ’s name. That name is Jesus, _i. e._, Saviour, because he
saves his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21), and Christ, _i. e._,
The Anointed One, because he is the High Priest who makes atonement
for the sins of his people, and reconciles them unto God. See Vol. I,
p. 57, Note, etc., on Names of Jesus. The Holy Spirit is, then, sent
in his name, not because he is sent in his stead; he is not; the work
of the Spirit and of the Son are not the one in lieu of the other; nor
because he is sent in answer to the intercessory prayer of the Son;
the love of the Father is the cause of the dispensation of the Spirit,
as of the incarnation and the atonement of the Son; but because he is
sent to complete the work of the Son, to perfect that salvation
which is represented by the name Jesus, and that atonement and
reconciliation which is represented by the word Christ (John 3:5, 6;
7:39; Rom. 8:14-16, 26; 14:17; Gal. 5:16, 17; Ephes. 2:18, etc.).--=He
shall teach you all things.= That is, all things respecting the divine
life.--=And bring to your remembrance all things whatsoever I have
said unto you.= “He will teach new truths by recalling the old, and
will recall the old by teaching the new.”--(_Godet._) In its
application to the apostles, this is a promise of inspiration and a
guarantee of substantial accuracy, both in their reports of events and
of the instructions of Jesus Christ, and in their interpretation of
the laws and principles of the spiritual life. “It is in the
fulfillment of this promise to the apostles that their sufficiency as
witnesses of all that the Lord did and taught, and consequently the
authenticity of the Gospel narrative, is grounded.”--(_Alford._) But
there is no reason to limit this promise to the twelve to whom it was
immediately spoken. It occurs in the middle of a discourse which by
universal consent belongs to the church universal. There is no
consistency in claiming the promise of the manifestation of Christ in
ver. 21, the indwelling of the Father and the Son in ver. 23, and the
peace of God in ver. 27, and rejecting the promise of inspired
instruction in ver. 26. This promise, then, like that of Matt. 28:20,
is made to the church for all time; it is a promise of a continually
progressive instruction in the spiritual life, adapted to varying
needs and exigencies, both of the community and of the individual,
carrying on to its consummation the necessarily incomplete instruction
of the N. T., as well as making clear to the spiritual apprehension
that which preceding generations either imperfectly understood, wholly
failed to understand, or only partially comprehended. The spiritual
guide of the church is not an official hierarchy, nor ecclesiastical
tradition, but the living experience of those that love Christ, have
his words and keep them. This promise points to and assures the church
of a progressive Christian theology, and corresponds with the apostle
Paul’s declaration, “We know in part and we prophesy in part” (1 Cor.
13:9, 10).
27 Peace[565] I leave with you, my peace I give unto you:
not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your
heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
[565] Ephes. 2:14-17; Phil. 4:7.
=27. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.= As the peace
of a child depends on the presence of his mother, so the peace of
these disciples on the presence of their Lord. He speaks to their
unuttered forebodings, and declares that he will leave this peace in
his departure as a legacy to them. But he will do more than this. Thus
far they have had peace in his presence; he will henceforth impart to
them his own source of strength in sending to them the indwelling
Spirit of God, so that they shall have, as he had, peace in
themselves. “_My peace_” implies the peace which belongs to himself,
is a characteristic of his own experience and a part of his own
nature. So in Phil. 4:7 the “peace of God” is that peace which is
characteristic of the Divine Being. It was this peace which enabled
Christ to stand unmoved and unperturbed in the court of Caiaphas and
the hall of Pilate. It was the fulfillment of this promise which
enabled the apostles to meet in like manner, unfearing and untroubled,
the threats and persecutions of the authorities in Jerusalem
immediately after the day of Pentecost (Acts 4:8, 19, 31; 5:29, 41);
which gave Stephen serenity in the storm of stones (Acts 6:15; 7:59,
60); enabled Peter to sleep in chains (Acts 12:6); gave to Paul and
Silas their songs in the night (Acts 16:25); kept Paul unmoved in the
midst of the mob at Jerusalem (Acts 21:31-40), and in the peril of
shipwreck (Acts 27:21-26, 31-35). Compare also, for expressions of
this peace of Christ in the Christian’s experience, Rom. 5:1-5;
8:35-39; 2 Cor. 4:7-9; Phil. 4:11-13; Heb., ch. 4. This peace is a
characteristic of the divine nature (Phil. 4:7), therefore a
characteristic of Christ, who is called Prince of Peace, because one
of the distinguishing characteristics of his kingdom is peace (Isa.
9:6; Rom. 14:17); therefore a fruit of the Spirit in the experience of
the followers of Christ (Rom. 8:6; Gal. 5:22); therefore the privilege
and duty of every disciple, who because of his peace and his power to
bestow it upon others is called a son of God (Matt. 5:9). It is
therefore not the peculiar luxury of a favored few, but the duty and
privilege of all (Rom. 2:10); not dependent on temperament or
circumstances, but on a faith which receives and recognizes an
indwelling God (Rom. 5:1; Ephes. 2:14; Phil. 4:9); not the occasional
siesta of the wearied worker, but the abiding spirit and sacred power
of his work (Phil. 4:7; Col. 1:11; 3:15). It is not without Spiritual
significance that Christ’s last words, as of “one who is about to go
away and says goodnight and leaves his blessing” (_Luther_), are a
promise of peace.--=Not as the world giveth give I unto you.= The wish
of peace was a customary leave-taking among the Jews (1 Sam. 1:17;
Luke 7:50; Acts 16:36; 1 Pet. 5:14; 3 John 14. Compare Gen. 43:23;
Judges 6:23). Christ distinguishes his promise here from the
salutations, which were often, as with us, mere empty formalities, and
which at best were but wishes or possibly prayers. This salutation is
more than a benediction, it is the promise of an actual gift.--=Let
not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.= He thus returns
to the opening words of his discourse, words of strength-giving and
reassurance (see ver. 1).
28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come
_again_ unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because
I said, I[566] go unto the Father: for my[567] Father is
greater than I.
[566] verse 12.
[567] 1 Cor. 15:27, 28.
=28. Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away= (verses 2, 3,
12).--=If ye loved me ye would rejoice.= There is a gentle rebuke in
this language. It does not involve a denial or even a doubt of their
love, but it recalls them from the selfish thoughts fixed wholly on
their own sorrow to their allegiance and love to him. It may well be
repeated to ourselves in the hour of death--parting from any Christian
friend. Their thought of their own future gives them comfort (ver. 2
and 3); their thought of Christ’s love for and presence with them
gives them peace (ver. 26, 27); their thought of his glory and their
love for him gives them joy. Thus in the fruit of the Spirit joy and
peace follow because they grow out of love (Gal. 5:22). We, as well as
they, should rejoice, not sorrow, because Christ no longer dwells
incarnate on the earth, but has gone to the Father.--=Because I said I
go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.= His departure to
be with the greater Father was to be a cause of rejoicing, not merely
to the eleven, but to his church universal. This is not because he is
thus enabled to ensure his disciples a more powerful and perfect
protector, for the protection of the Father is accorded through the
Son, and as a protector the Son is one in power as well as in will
with the Father (John 10:30, note). Moreover, it is our love for
Christ, not the thought of our own interest, not even our spiritual
interest, which is the secret of the joy which the Christian should
experience in the exaltation of his Lord. Nor is the cause of that joy
the fact that Christ was about to enter into glory and blessedness;
for it is of the _greatness_, not of the _blessedness_ of the Father,
nor of his own heavenly condition, Christ speaks; the phrase, “The
Father is greater than I,” cannot, without violation of the meaning,
be rendered, The Father is more blessed than I. It is true that
because the Father is _greater_ than Christ, Christ in going to the
Father went to a condition of greater power for his own redemptive
work, for the up-building of that kingdom to which he and his
followers are consecrated. Christ is more to his followers, more
powerful in his work of redeeming love, in the Spirit than in the
flesh, absent from his disciples and with the Father than absent from
the Father and with the disciples. But more than this, more than in
our ignorance of both the Father and Son we can comprehend, is meant
by the declaration that Christ’s going to the Father was an
exaltation, and in that exaltation we, his followers, ought to rejoice
with and in him, if indeed we love him. The declaration, “_The Father
is greater than I_,” is not inconsistent with the preceding
declaration, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” for that
declaration is interpreted by the one which immediately follows, “I am
in the Father and the Father in me;” he that has a spiritual
apprehension of Christ has a spiritual apprehension of the Father, who
is manifested in and through him. Nor is it inconsistent with Christ’s
declaration, “I and my Father are one,” for Christ as the protector of
his people may be one with the Father, and yet the Father may be
greater than the Son in the eternal relation between the two. Nor is
it inconsistent with John’s declaration that “The Word was God,” for
the _Word_ is not Jesus Christ (see ch. 1:1, note), but God as
manifested to the race, Jesus Christ being the Word _made flesh_ (ch.
1:14). It is inconsistent with any view of Christ’s character which
denies the essential divinity of his nature; for the creature cannot
say of God, without an extraordinarily irreverent egotism, “My Father
is greater than I.” “The creature who should say, ‘God is greater than
I,’ would blaspheme no less than one who should say, ‘I am equal with
God.’ God alone can compare himself with God.”--(_Godet._) It accords
with Christ’s habitual teaching concerning himself, as one who is sent
forth the Father, derives his authority from the Father, does all
things through the power of the Father, in all things obeys the will
of the Father, and will return to the Father again (Matt. 11:26, 27;
20:23; John 5:19, 22, 26, 27; 6:57; 8:18, 29; 10:18, 36; 15:15;
17:18); and with that of the N. T. generally, which constantly
represents Christ as receiving his divine power as Creator, Redeemer,
and Judge from the Father (Ephes. 1:20-22; Phil. 2:9; Heb. 1:8, 9; 1
Cor. 15:28). Jesus Christ is God _manifest in the flesh_, and God in
his absolute essence is greater than any manifestation of him is or
can be. As the artist is greater than his picture, the architect than
his house, the orator than his oration, so God is greater than the
Word through which he utters himself to human apprehension. In thus
interpreting this much debated passage, according to the plain and
natural meaning of the words, and, as it seems to me, the teachings of
Christ and his apostles, I accept substantially the interpretation of
Meyer, who sees in this declaration an illustration of “the absolute
monotheism of Jesus (ch. 17:3), and of the whole N. T., according to
which the Son, although of divine essence, of one nature with the
Father (ch. 1:1; Phil. 2:6; Col. 1:15-18), nevertheless was and is and
remains subordinated to the Father, the immutably higher one, since
the Son as Organ, as Commissioner of the Father, as Intercessor with
Him, etc., has received his whole power in the kingly office from the
Father (ch. 17:5), and, after the accomplishment of the work committed
to him, will restore it to the Father (1 Cor. 15:28).” To the same
effect, but more concisely, Edward H. Sears (_Heart of Christ_): “God
as absolute is more than God as revealed.” Similarly Olshausen and
Ellicott’s Commentary. Observe, however, that Christ’s language here
involves only the relations between the Son as incarnate and the
Father; in saying that the Son _was_ and _remains_ subordinated to the
Father, Meyer attributes to the words here a meaning confessedly
borrowed from other passages.
Two other interpretations have been offered from the orthodox point of
view: (1) That Christ speaks here of himself _as a man_. But this
ancient interpretation, invented in the early controversy with the
Arians, and revived recently by Ryle, has not, I think, despite the
authority of Augustine in its favor, the sanction of a single modern
exegetical scholar of any eminence. It is repudiated by Schaff, Godet,
Luthardt, Meyer, Alford, Tholuck. This easy method of solving the
seeming contradictions of Christ’s mysterious nature is utterly
untenable, for whatever opinion may be entertained respecting his
twofold nature as both God and man, no reader is authorized to say
what acts and words were manifestations of the human and what of the
divine nature. It is utterly inapplicable here, for “this
interpretation implies a mere platitude. Who needs to be told that the
human nature is inferior to the divine?”--(_Schaff._) (2) That Christ
here compares his present earthly condition with that to which he will
attain in going to the Father. This is Calvin’s interpretation.
“Christ does not here make a comparison between the divinity of the
Father and his own, nor between his own human nature and the divine
essence of the Father, but rather between his present state and the
heavenly glory to which he is afterwards to be received.” To the same
effect, substantially, are Alford, Luthardt, and Tholuck. This is
certainly involved in the language; the return from union with
humanity to union with the Father was a change from a lower and lesser
to a higher and greater condition. But much more is involved, for
Christ by his words institutes a comparison, not between his earthly
and his heavenly condition, as does Paul in Phil. 2:6-11, but between
himself and his Father.
29 And now I have told you before it come to pass, that,
when it is come to pass, ye might believe.
30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the
prince[568] of this world cometh, and hath nothing[569] in
me.
[568] ch. 16:11; Ephes. 2:2.
[569] 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 1 John 3:5.
31 But that the world may know that I love the Father;
and as[570] the Father gave me commandment, even so I do.
Arise, let us go hence.
[570] Ps. 40:8; Phil. 2:8.
=29-31. And now I have told you * * * that when it is come to pass ye
might have faith.= That is, before the Passion he foretells it and
directs the thoughts and hopes of his disciples to a point beyond, to
the results which are to be produced by the crucifixion, so that when
the night of darkness comes these words may remain to keep alive their
faith in him as one not _dead_, but only gone to the companionship of
the Father, and coming again _with the Father_ to be the spiritual and
indwelling companion of his own. Indirectly the office of prophecy is
implied in these words; it is not to give in the present a clear view
of the future, but to sustain faith and hope and courage, and make it
clear to the believer, when the events themselves take place, that
nothing is unexpected and unprovided for by his Father and
Saviour.--=The prince of this world is coming.= See note on ch. 12:31.
“Jesus sees the devil himself in the agents and executors of his
designs (ch. 13:2, 27; 6:70; Luke 4:13).”--(_Meyer._) And yet the cup
which they presented to him he accounts the cup which his Father
giveth him (ch. 18:11), for even the prince of this world is not
beyond the supreme control of God. The language here, as in ch. 12:31,
plainly implies Christ’s belief in a personal devil, and the devil’s
influence over and use of men as his instruments.--=Hath nothing in
me.= Satan never succeeds in the accomplishment of his evil designs
except when he finds _in_ the tempted something that recognizes him
and pays allegiance to him. He that is only _in_ the world but not of
the world may be _under_ the power of Satan, but cannot be _in_ his
power. The declaration here is confirmatory of that implied by ch.
8:46.--=But that the world may know that I love the Father=, etc.,
* * * =arise, let us go hence=. Our English version is erroneously
punctuated. There should be no break in the verse. Christ knew that
Judas had gone out to perfect arrangements for the betrayal, knew the
shame and torture that were before him, knew also the power of the
Father to accomplish the world’s redemption by that suffering if it
was endured to the end, and bade his disciples arise that they might
go forth with him, as he went forth to show the world his love for and
obedience to the Father. Thus, as he has just told his disciples that
they are to show their love to him by their obedience (ver. 21, 23),
he prepares to show his love to the Father by his obedience. But
though they arose, they did not go immediately out. See Prel. Note to
next chapter, and ch. 18:1.
CHAPTER XV.
Ch. 15:1-27. CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH.--CHRIST ABIDES IN THE SOUL.--THE
SOUL IS SAFE ONLY AS IT ABIDES IN CHRIST.--THIS ABIDING IS THE
CONDITION OF SUCCESSFUL PRAYER; OF PRACTICAL GODLINESS; OF
SELF-SACRIFICING LOVE; OF SPIRITUAL JOY.--CHRIST A REVEALER, NOT A
LAW-GIVER.--THE WORLD AND THE CHURCH.--THE PERSECUTION OF THE WORLD;
THE WITNESSING POWER OF THE CHURCH.
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--Some scholars suppose that Christ, at the close of
the preceding discourse, arose with his disciples and passed out of
the room where they had been at supper into the valley of the Kedron,
the vicinity of the garden of Gethsemane, and that the discourse was
continued there, in or near one of the vineyards which abound in the
neighborhood of the city. Others suppose that they arose to go; that,
the heart of the Master being surcharged with the truth which he was
endeavoring to express to them, the Divine Immanence, he broke forth
afresh with the same truth in a new form, and that the discourse
recorded in this and the next chapter, and the prayer recorded in ch.
17, were uttered in the same room in which the preceding discourse was
uttered. Both suppositions are purely conjectural; the latter appears
to me the more rational, because: (1) The truths embodied in this and
the succeeding chapter are the same as the one embodied in the
preceding one; the form alone varies. The structure and the fibre of
the discourse is that of one which flows from a heart burdened with
a profound truth which can be expressed only by reiteration, and even
then only inadequately. (2) It is hardly credible that such a
conversation could have been uttered, as some have imagined, while
Jesus and his disciples were on their way out of the city; and no
reason is offered for the hypothesis that it was abruptly broken off
and transferred to another and apparently less convenient place. (3)
Ch. 18:1 plainly implies that Jesus did not _go forth_, _i. e._, from
the room where they were gathered, till the end of this conversation
with them and after the prayer with which it was closed. Various
hypotheses have also been proffered respecting the probable
circumstance that suggested to Christ the metaphor which underlies the
first part of this chapter: Vineyards on the way to Gethsemane
(_Lampe_), the carved vine on the great doors of the temple
(_Rosenmuller_), a vine trained about the window of the great chamber
(_Knapp_), the cup so lately partaken (_Meyer_, _Stier_), O. T.
symbolism of the vineyard and the vine (_Alford_). These are also all
conjectural; it is enough to say that the parable here must be studied
in the light of the teachings both of nature and of the O. T. use of
nature in the passages below referred to. The use of the vine as a
symbol by O. T. prophets was so familiar that it could hardly have
been absent from the minds of both Christ and the apostles. Examine
with care Jer. 2:21; Ezek. 15:2, 6; and especially Psalm 80:8-19, and
Isaiah 5:1-7. The truth taught here by a metaphor is the same as that
taught in the preceding chapter unmetaphorically, and in other
passages by other metaphors. (1) The vine and its branches are a
perpetual parable of Christ and his church. It is not enough to learn
of Christ as from a teacher, to follow him as an example, or to accept
forgiveness through him as both priest and sacrifice; we must be
personally united to him, and from him draw our spiritual life, and so
grow into his image. As the branch draws its sap by a continuous flow
from the vine, and becomes identified with it in character, and bears
its fruit, and dies when separated from it, so we must abide in a
living Christ, draw our spiritual sustenance from him, become more and
more Christlike in our nature, and bear his fruit in our lives. See
John 6:56-58, note, and refs. there cited. (2) In the O. T. imagery
the vine planted by the husbandman was the house of Israel. But
despite the divine cultivator it brought forth wild grapes; it proved
to be no _true_ vine. Wherefore it was broken down, laid waste,
burned, and a new vine was planted in its place. This _true_ vine is
Christ; not the man Christ Jesus, but the living, abiding Christ, the
Christ who is with his people alway, even unto the end of the world
(Matt. 28:20), the Christ whose true body is his church (1 Cor.
12:27), who is the head from which they all draw their life (Ephes.
4:15; Col. 1:18), who reproduces himself in every true disciple, since
only they in whom is the spirit of Christ are truly his (Rom. 8:9),
and who is thus far more widely and potently in the earth to-day than
he ever was or could be in the flesh. This living and perpetually
incarnate Christ is in a sense identical with his living church, as
the vine is identical with its branches; for as there could be no vine
without branches, so neither could this Christ be without the church
which he animates. This Christ incarnate, not in the body of a single
man, but in the church universal which is now his body, is the true
Israel of God, the nation to whom the kingdom of God has been given,
that was taken from the old Israel because it brought not forth the
fruits thereof (Matt. 21:43). This _true_ vine is contrasted with the
old Israel which proved to be no true vine. No longer is there any
possibility that the vine shall be broken down and destroyed with fire
as the old vine was (Isa. 5:5; Ps. 80:16); but each branch that abides
not in this everlasting vine, this living, perpetually incarnate and
ever extending Christ, is broken off from the vine and destroyed. In
brief, in studying this parable, the student must not forget, what the
commentators have often forgotten, that throughout this last discourse
with his disciples Christ speaks of himself not as a man about to die,
but as a living Christ, forever incarnate in the hearts and lives of
his own, living on in the world with mightier and wider influence, and
in more intimate communion and companionship with his disciples after
his crucifixion than before. It is this ever-living Christ, reproduced
in all his members, and spreading over the whole earth, that is the
true vine, in contrast with the old Israel, which proved to be no true
vine; of this vine the Father is the husbandman; in this vine each
individual disciple is a branch or shoot.
1 I am the true vine,[571] and my Father is the
husbandman.[572]
[571] Isa. 4:2.
[572] Cant. 8:12.
2 Every branch[573] in me that beareth not fruit he taketh
away: and every _branch_ that beareth[574] fruit, he
purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
[573] Matt. 15:13.
[574] Heb. 12:15; Rev. 3:19.
=1, 2. I am the true vine.= So he is the _true_ light (ch. 1:9) and
_true_ bread (ch. 6:32, 33), the spiritual being the true, the
external and material being the shadows that are “figures of the true”
(Heb. 9:24). The images of the Bible, especially those employed by
Christ, are not merely poetic figures. The outward world is a real
symbol of the invisible world, physical growths are a parable of
spiritual growths, the kingdom of nature a picture of the kingdom of
grace, because both come from the same creative hand, are made
subject to the same great laws, and are under the same great King. The
physical vine is the shadow; Christ is the true, real vine, whom the
shadow symbolizes; and it will last when the shadow has passed away;
as he is the true priest and sacrifice, outlasting the apparent
priest and sacrifice of the O. T. dispensation.--=My Father is the
husbandman.= Cultivating the vine, and superintending its growth. This
cultivation has been going on through the centuries, in all the growth
of that invisible but perpetually incarnated Christ whose body is the
church, and who dwells in and is therefore represented by all his
members. The language shows clearly that it is not of the man Christ
Jesus about to die upon the cross, but of the ever-living Christ,
immanent in the Holy Catholic Church, that he here speaks.--=Every
branch in me that beareth not fruit.= How can a branch be in Christ
and bear no fruit? Calvin’s explanation that _in me_ is equivalent to
_supposed to be in me_ is inadmissible. It does not explain Christ’s
words, but substitutes others for them. Alford’s explanation is
better, but it labors under the serious disadvantage of substituting
for Christ’s declaration “I am the vine,” the very different
declaration, The visible church is the vine. “The vine is the visible
church here, of which Christ is the _inclusive_ head; the vine
_contains_ the branches, hence the unfruitful as well as the fruitful
are _in me_.” But to be in the visible church and to be in living
communion with Christ are very different things. I should rather say
that Christ here lays down, in a simile, the general law that to him
that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken
away even that which he hath. If the soul, in the measure in which it
has knowledge of Christ, bears Christian fruit, it will grow more and
more into oneness with and likeness of Christ; if, on the other hand,
it does not realize the fruits of its knowledge in a life fruitful in
Christian works, it will gradually lose its knowledge and become
separated from Christ. Thus both the grafting into and the separating
from the vine are in the spiritual experience gradual processes, and
they depend on the fidelity with which the conscious branch avails
itself of its privilege, and shows itself worthy of larger privilege.
Thus Christ gives grace for grace (ch. 1:16).--=He taketh away.= The
same word (αἴρω) is used in 1 Cor. 5:2 of excommunication; that
indicates the meaning here. It is not declared that the fruitless
Christian shall be destroyed, though later, in ver. 6, destruction
is declared to be the final result of cutting off from Christ.
Fruitlessness cuts off (excommunicates) the soul from communion with
and drawing life from Christ; this ends in spiritual withering, death,
and destruction (ver. 6). Thus this declaration is the converse of
that of ch. 14:23, “If a man love me he will keep my words (bear my
fruit), and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and
make our abode with him.” If he keep not Christ’s words (bear not
Christ’s fruit), he will not have the abiding of the Father and the
Son. The fruit of Christ is the same as the fruit of the Spirit (Gal.
5:22, 23); and in the measure in which this fruit is borne in the
life, is the soul enriched in the spiritual knowledge of Christ which
enables it to bear still more fruit. Thus fruitfulness in the
life develops the consciousness of Christ’s indwelling, and the
consciousness of Christ’s indwelling in the soul develops Christian
fruitfulness in the life. The whole truth is well illustrated by 2
Pet. 1:5-9.--=And every branch that beareth fruit, he cleanseth it
that it may bring forth more fruit.= The word rendered in ver. 2
_purgeth_ and that rendered in ver. 3 _clean_ are radically the same.
Christ cleanseth the soul (1) by the operation of the law that right
doing develops right feeling and opens the heart to higher influences
(ch. 7:17); (2) by the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit,
which is given to each soul in the measure in which each proves itself
worthy of and willing to receive him; (3) by the discipline of life,
which is the manifestation of God’s special love to the soul (Heb.
12:6). The object of all this redemptive work is in order that (ἵνα)
the soul may bring forth more fruit. Thus Christian fruitfulness in
the life is both the condition and the final result of the divine
purifying process in the life of the soul.
3 Now ye[575] are clean through the word which I have
spoken unto you.
[575] ch. 17:17; Ephes. 5:26; 1 Pet. 1:22.
4 Abide[576] in me, and I in you. As[577] the branch cannot
bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more
can ye, except ye abide in me.
[576] 1 John 2:6.
[577] Hosea 14:8; Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:11.
=3, 4. Already ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto
you.= Ver. 3 must be read in connection with ver. 4, to which it is
introductory. _Through_ (δὶα) always indicates the instrument, never
the cause. The spoken word is the instrument in God’s hand for the
cleansing of the soul (ch. 17:17); and when received by an obedient
faith, becomes the means of regeneration (James 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:23) and
the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16). This word is not any
particular utterance of Christ, but his whole ministry, both of
promise and teaching, including his gift of pardon and peace, and his
call to Christian activity. The meaning, then, is this: You are
already cleansed from past sin through your acceptance of and
obedience to my word. But you are not to imagine that my work is done
when I depart and cease to be visibly present with you. You are still
to abide in me spiritually; for without this spiritual abiding all
your past cleansing can accomplish nothing; without me as a living and
life-giving Saviour you can bear no Christ-like fruit in your lives.
The lesson for us is that Christ’s work was not finished (though his
sacrifice was) on the cross, that our work is not finished in
accepting forgiveness through him and consecrating ourselves to
obedience to his will, but that the finished work of his death was
only preparatory for the entire work of his life in us (Rom. 5:10),
and that our acceptance of pardon is only a preparation for a life
continually hid with Christ in God (Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:3).--=Abide in
me and I in you.= This is not a direction and a promise, equivalent
to, If you abide in me I will abide in you; it is a twofold direction:
Abide in me; see to it that I abide in you. It thus implies that
Christ’s indwelling in us is dependent upon ourselves. If any man hear
Christ’s voice and opens the door, Christ comes in to him and sups
with him (Rev. 3:20). He that hungers and thirsts after righteousness
is filled (Matt. 5:6). By fidelity and obedience we abide in Christ;
by docility and spiritual obedience we open the door that Christ may
abide with us.--=As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself= (ἀφ
ἑαυτοῦ) =except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide
in me=. So the Son can do nothing of _himself_ (ch. 5:19, note), but
does all things abiding in and through the power of the Father. The
disciple abiding in Christ comes at last to abide with Christ in the
Father; and this is the consummation, when the Father becomes all in
all (ch. 17:21, 24; 1 Cor. 15:28). Thus all spiritual life comes from
the Father by Christ, through the instrumentality of the word, to the
soul that abides in and with Christ as Christ abides in and with the
Father.
5 I am the vine, ye _are_ the branches; He that abideth in
me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for
without me ye can do nothing.
6 If a[578] man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a
branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast
_them_ into the fire, and they are burned.
[578] Matt. 3:10; 7:19.
=5, 6. I am the vine, ye are the branches.= Note the contrast. No mere
teacher or prophet could have spoken thus to his fellow-creatures.--=He
that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.=
This mystical dwelling with a living and present Christ is the
condition of a fruitful Christian character.--=Because apart from me
ye can do nothing.= Rather _severed_, as a branch from the vine; and
the negation is intense, a double negative: _ye can by no means do
anything_. All Christless activity counts for nothing; it harvests
“nothing but leaves.” Thus moral excellence is not the preparation for
and the condition of spiritual life; spiritual life is the preparation
for and the condition of moral excellence. Though each promotes the
other, the first step for the reforming soul should be to seek union
with Christ, without whom we can do nothing. Contrast with Christ’s
declaration here Paul’s in Phil. 4:13, “I can do all things through
Him (Christ) that strengtheneth me.” No conclusion can be drawn from
this utterance respecting the vexed question of the natural ability of
the soul to repent of sin and accept Christ by faith. For Christ is
here speaking to those who have thus accepted him, and he declares
simply the condition of fruitful Christian activity for all those who
are, at least in avowed purpose, already his.--=In case any one shall
not have abided in me he has been cast out like the branch that is
withered, and they gather them together and they are burned.= This
translation is Meyer’s, who thus comments on the significance of the
change in the tenses: “Jesus places himself at the point of time of
the execution of the last judgment, when those who have fallen away
from him are gathered together and cast into the fire, after they have
been previously cast out of his communion and become withered, having
completely lost the true life.” They that gather the withered branches
for the fire are not _men_, but the angels (Matt. 13:49, 50). The
metaphorical language ought not, however, to be too far pressed. The
parable ends in a tragic consummation, but Christ pictures only the
end of the fruitless and severed branches, as a warning to the
disciples; he does not declare that this fate actually impends over
any truly new-born soul. Hence we cannot deduce from his language the
conclusion of Meyer and Alford that the verse involves the possibility
of falling from grace. The whole teaching is full of warning to every
one to make his calling and election sure, not to rest in a “finished
salvation;” and in this it corresponds with the uniform teaching of
the N. T. (Phil. 2:12, 13; Heb. 4:11; 12:15; 2 Pet. 1:10). The
admonition is somewhat analogous to and may be interpreted by that of
Paul in Ephes. 5:6, 7, and Col. 3:5, an admonition pertinent to all
who substitute a supposed faith in Christ’s perfect work for practical
obedience, a faith that works by love. Alford’s interpretation
“_burneth_, not is burned in any sense of being consumed,” is a
striking illustration, such as Alford does not often afford, of
modifying the text to escape an unwelcome conclusion. The verb
(καίεται) is in the passive tense, and the figure is certainly one of
destruction, not of torment. But it is not to be taken literally. The
essential truth which underlies the metaphor is simply this, that the
soul which is separated from Christ is separated from the source of
spiritual life, withers away, and is eventually destroyed. What is
soul destruction is a question not here considered.
7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye[579]
shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
[579] ch. 16:23.
8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit;
so shall ye be my disciples.
=7, 8. If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what
ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Therein is my Father
glorified; so that ye shall bear much fruit and shall become my
disciples.= The _words_ of Christ are his whole teaching, his
commandments, revelations, promises; to be accepted by obedience,
faith, hope. They are said to abide in the soul only as they spring up
and bear fruit in the life (Matt. 13:8, 23). Thus to have Christ’s
words abiding in us is the same as to bear Christian fruit. To him who
thus abides in Christ and bears his fruit this promise is made,
analogous to and interpreted by that of ch. 14:13, 14. The prayers of
those who are thus pervaded by the spirit of Christ are, like their
Master’s, those of not merely a humble submission to, but a supreme
desire for, the will of God (Matt. 6:9, 10; 26:39).--Hence in
answering them the Father is glorified. For the prayer of him in whom
Christ’s words abide will always embrace a supreme desire for the
Father’s glory. Comp. Christ’s prayer in ch. 17. Answer to such
prayers is given that the praying Christian may both bear much fruit
and become a disciple; both fruit-bearing in the life and docility of
spirit, _i. e._, both practical obedience to Christ and the spiritual
capacity to appreciate Christ’s instructions, are the result of this
life of prayer, and are a divine answer to prayer. The translation
given in the English version, _so shall ye be my disciples_, is
possibly legitimate, but it reverses the true order of the spiritual
life, by representing that fruit-bearing is the condition of becoming
a disciple of Christ; and the other construction is both more in
harmony with the general teaching of the N. T. and also with the
original here. _That_ (ἵνα is _telic_) is equivalent to _in order
that_, but the meaning is not that God is glorified for the purpose of
perfecting Christian character, but that prayer in the name and spirit
of Christ is answered for that purpose.
9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you:
continue ye in my love.
10 If ye[580] keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my
love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and
abide in his love.
[580] ch. 14:21, 23.
11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might
remain in you, and _that_ your[581] joy might be full.
[581] ch. 16:24; 17:13.
=9-11. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Abide ye in
my love.= _As_ indicates the quality and character of the love.
Christ’s love for the disciples is, like the Father’s love for Christ,
a love personal, warm, strong; but one that does not shield from all
temptation, suffering, or even injustice. The word rendered _continue_
in ver. 9 is the same rendered _abide_ in ver. 7. _My_ love is
Christ’s love for us, not our love for him. The meaning then is, I
have loved you with the love which the Father has for me; so live as
to retain this love. And the next sentence indicates how this is to be
done.--=If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love, even
as=, etc. On the meaning of the word _keep_, see ch. 14:21, note. The
commandments are all summed up in the one command, “Follow me,” and
this again is interpreted by the command, “That ye love one another as
I have loved you.” Love is the key to Christ’s character; to love is
to follow Christ. A life of asceticism or of retirement and meditation
is not the way to this indwelling with Christ. The condition is love
in activity of service; a love and life like that of Christ, which was
neither one of asceticism nor one of repose.--=These things have I
spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you, and your joy might be
full.= One object of his address (comp. ver. 17; ch. 16:1, 4, 33) is
that he may perfect in them and in us that Christian joy which is one
of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22; Rom. 14:17), joy in the Lord,
_i. e._, in his companionship, in fulfilling his will, in suffering
with and for him, in doing his service (Acts 5:41; Phil. 2:17, 18;
4:4); the joy which Christ sets before himself, and for which he
endured the cross, despising the shame (Luke 24:26; Heb. 12:2). By _my
joy_ is meant, not joy concerning Christ, nor joy derived from Christ,
nor joy of Christ himself in us, his disciples, though this last is a
possible interpretation, but his own joy, _i. e._, joy like his,
having the same source in God and the same quality, enduring and
invincible. And if this joy is in the soul, the soul is _full_; it
leaves nothing to be desired. In words there is, in experience there
is not, a contradiction in the implication that he who was a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief was also one possessing the most
radiant joyfulness. This promise of joy, uttered by Christ just before
Gethsemane and Calvary, is itself a song in the night, and a promise
of one to every Christian soul in its own passion hour.
12 This[582] is my commandment, That ye love one another,
as I have loved you.
[582] ch. 13:34.
13 Greater love[583] hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends.
[583] Rom. 5:7, 8.
14 Ye[584] are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command
you.
[584] verse 10.
=12-14. This is my commandment, that=, etc. Comp. ch. 13:34, note.
Christ reiterates the commandment which he has before given, and
points to his own life as the true interpreter of that commandment, in
order that he may guard them and us against that Pharisaic obedience
of external rules which selfishness and earthliness are continually
substituting for a spiritual obedience to the one interior law of
Christian character, self-sacrificing love.--=Greater love hath no one
than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.= Beware of
reading this as though laying down the life were equivalent to dying.
To die for a friend is not the greatest manifestation of love; to live
for him, by consecrating the whole life to him, is far greater. See
ch. 10:11, 17, notes.--As Christ consecrates not only his earthly
life, but, in his intercession with us and for us, his eternal life,
to his friends, so, if we are his friends, we shall lay down our lives
for him, not necessarily by dying for him, but by doing whatsoever he
commands us, that is, by living for him. Thus Christ points out at
once both the perfection of his love for his disciples and the
perfection of that love which he desires from his disciples. He does
not here say, however, that to lay down one’s life for one’s friends
is the highest manifestation of love; still higher is that
manifestation made by laying down the life for enemies. (Rom. 5:8; 1
John 4:10.)
15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant
knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you
friends:[585] for all things that I have heard of my Father
I have made known unto you.
[585] James 2:23.
=15. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not
what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things
that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.= There is a
verbal but not a spiritual inconsistency between the language here and
that of ver. 20. The service which Christ expects of his disciples is
that of love. His declaration here explains his previous language,
which is that of authority. He has said, “I am your Lord and Master”
(ch. 13:13), and has reiterated again and again that the condition of
their spiritual life is obedience to his commandments (ch. 14:15, 23;
15:10). He now explains the sense in which he is a lawgiver. He does
not issue an imperial ukase and demand of his disciples a blind and
unquestioning obedience; he speaks as a divine friend, interpreting to
his disciples those laws of the spiritual life which he has himself
learned in the indwelling of the Father.
16 Ye[586] have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and
ordained[587] you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit,
and _that_ your fruit should remain: that whatsoever[588]
ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
[586] 1 John 4:10, 19.
[587] Ephes. 2:10.
[588] verse 7; ch. 14:13.
=16. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you.=
Primarily the reference is to the choice of the twelve from among the
disciples of Christ to be witnesses and apostles (Luke 6:13; John
6:70; Acts 9:15); and this choice did not prevent one of them from
becoming an apostate. It is Christ who chooses for each one of us his
place and work in life. That this is the primary meaning is evident,
not only from the parallel language employed in the passages above
cited, but also from the second clause of the verse here. The word
rendered _ordained_ is literally _placed_; and that is the meaning in
this passage: I have chosen you and appointed you your place in life.
So in Acts 13:47; 20:28; 1 Tim. 2:12. But it is also clear from the
language of ver. 19, _I have chosen you out of the world_, that Christ
refers not merely to a choice of the twelve from among the whole
discipleship for a particular work, but also to a choice of them from
the world to be followers of him. And as an historic fact, so far as
we know the history of the twelve, each one was first called by
Christ. See for example Matt. 9:9; Mark 1:16-20; John 1:43. The vine
precedes the branches; the first life flows from the vine into the
branches; the first choice is the choice of the dead soul by the
living Christ, not the choice of the living Christ by the dead soul.
We love him because he first loves us (1 John 4:10, 19; Ephes. 2:4,
5), and choose him because he first chooses us. And, however difficult
it may be for us to reconcile this truth with our _a priori_
conceptions of divine impartiality, rightly held it is an inspiration
to Christian activity and a source of Christian humility. “Even when
this doctrine of election has taken a narrow form--even when it has
been recognized chiefly as exclusive--it has had a mighty power over
the hearts of men. They have given themselves up, as they never could
do when they thought they had selected their own destiny, or were
going on errands of their own. But when it takes the form it has
here * * * there cannot be any principle which is at once so humbling
and so elevating, which so takes away all notion from the disciple
that there is any worth in his own deeds or words, which gives him so
confident an assurance that God’s word, spoken through him or through
any man, will not return to Him void.”--(_Maurice._)--=That you should
go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.= They
were chosen that they should go forth as apostles, everywhere carrying
the gospel of reconciliation, and bringing back to their Master the
fruits, in sinners converted and saints edified. So every Christian is
chosen that he may go forth out of himself, out of a life of mere
personal enjoyment of religion, and bring forth fruit that shall abide
in other lives after his life comes to its close. And he is bound to
take heed that both in his life (2 John, ver. 8), and in other lives
(Rev. 14:13), there is fruit that abides unto life eternal.--=That
whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.=
Both clauses of the verse are dependent on the general declaration, “I
have chosen you.” For analogous construction, see ch. 13:34. Christ
chooses his disciples that they may go out into the world and bring
forth much fruit, and also that they may ask of the Father in his name
what they need; that is, both for a life of Christian activity and of
Christian devotion. And the one is necessary to the other. The
Christian brings forth much fruit only as he has power in prayer, the
power of a faith that God is able to do much in and through him (Phil.
4:13); and he has power in prayer only as he brings forth much fruit
(ch. 9:31; 14:7). Besser notes an evidence of emphasis which Christ
lays upon prayer in the fact that prayer in the name of Jesus is urged
in all three chapters of this farewell discourse.
17 These things[589] I command you, that ye love one
another.
[589] verse 12.
=17. These things I command you that ye love one another.= _These
things_ are all the precepts which have preceded from the beginning of
this interview, ch. 13:12. The whole object of Christ’s precepts is to
produce a loving spirit and a loving life in his followers. See Matt.
22:37-40; Rom. 13:8-10; Gal. 5:14; 1 Tim. 1:5.
18 If the world[590] hate you, ye know that it hated me
before _it hated_ you.
[590] 1 John 3:13.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own:
but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you
out of the world, therefore[591] the world hateth you.
[591] ch. 17:14.
20 Remember[592] the word that I said unto you, The servant
is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me,
they will also persecute you; if they[593] have kept my
saying, they will keep yours also.
[592] ch. 13:16; Matt. 10:24; Luke 6:40.
[593] Ezek. 3:7.
21 But all[594] these things will they do unto you for my
name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.
[594] ch. 16:3; Matt. 10:22; 24:9.
=18-21.= From this point to the end of the chapter Christ passes to
speak of the relation of the disciples to the world, and continuing
the theme in the next chapter, points out (ch. 16:1-4) the
particular manifestation of the world’s enmity which the disciples may
expect.--=If the world hates you, know that it hated me before you.=
_The world_, in John’s use of the term, signifies the unspiritual
portion of mankind, those who have not been taken out of an animal and
sensual condition by being born from above. See for illustration of
his meaning ch. 1:10, 29; 3:16; 4:42; 12:31, etc. Many in the visible
church may be of the world; some without the visible church may not be
of the world. It was the church which most bitterly hated Christ; the
publicans and sinners were drawn to him, and their enthusiasm for him
was his protection against the machinations of the hierarchy (Mark
12:12; Luke 20:19; 22:2). Christ does not assert that the world will
necessarily hate the disciples. The disciple’s life may be so ordered
of God that it is never brought into direct collision with the
self-interest, the pride, and the ambition of the world. But if the
collision does arise, and the disciple suffers the world’s enmity, he
is to be strengthened and comforted by the reflection that that has
befallen him which previously befel his Master. Comp. ch. 7:7, where
Christ declares that the world cannot hate those that act in
accordance with worldly policies and principles, and 1 Pet. 4:12, 13;
1 John 3:13, 14; 4:4, 5, where the apostles employ the same
consideration employed by Christ here, and for the same purpose. It is
better to take _know_ as an imperative than as an indicative, as an
exhortation than as a mere statement of a fact. It is thus analogous
to _remember_ in ver. 20.--=If ye were of the world * * * because ye
are not of the world.= The Christian is _in_ but not _of_ the world,
because he is born from above (John 3:3), and so is made a member of a
kingdom which, like its king, is not of this world (ch. 8:23;
18:36).--=Therefore the world hateth you.= Not merely because the
disciple is chosen by Christ, but because he is chosen out of the
world, and by his life of nonconformity bears a perpetual testimony
against the world. This enmity is illustrated by the case of Daniel
(Dan. 6:1-5), Peter and John (Acts 4:21), and Christ himself (John
11:49, 50). It is aroused whenever Christian principle comes into
collision with worldly interests.--=Be mindful of the word which I
said unto you.= Bear it in mind as a talisman in time of persecution.
See marg. ref. This truth, employed here and in Matt. 10:24 for
encouragement, is assigned in ch. 13:16 as a reason for humility.--=If
they have kept my saying they will keep yours also.= This is not to be
regarded as ironical, as rendered by Grotius, nor is the word _keep_
to be rendered _watch_ with a hostile intent, a forced meaning given
to it by Bengel, nor is the language merely general and hypothetical,
which is apparently Meyer’s interpretation. Some will persecute,
others will accept and carefully keep, the gospel. The disciple must
anticipate both results, persecution and glad reception. So it was in
Paul’s experience (Acts 13:42, 45, 48, 50; 14:4; 17:4, 5, etc.). The
most popular preachers are also the most reviled and persecuted, from
the days of Christ down through those of Luther and Whitefield, to the
present day.--=They will do unto you for my name’s sake.= As the name
of Christ inspires the Christian with peculiar courage and devotion,
so it incites in his enemies peculiar hostility. The fact that this
hostility is directed against Christ, and that in enduring it the
disciples are suffering for Christ and in his stead, gives them
peculiar strength and joy in their sufferings (Acts 5:41; 21:13; Rom.
5:3; 2 Cor. 11:23; 12:10, 11; Phil. 2:17, 18; Gal. 6:14; 1 Pet. 4:12,
13). Thus the declaration here interprets the promise of Matt. 5:11,
12.--=Because they know not him that sent me.= See ver. 23; ch. 8:42.
22 If I[595] had not come and spoken unto them, they had
not had sin: but[596] now they have no cloke for their sin.
[595] ch. 9:41.
[596] James 4:17.
23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
24 If I had not done among them the works[597] which none
other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both
seen and hated both me and my Father.
[597] ch. 7:31.
25 But _this cometh to pass_, that the word might be
fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated[598] me
without a cause.
[598] Ps. 35:19; 69:4.
=22-25. If I had not come * * * they had not known sin.= The meaning
is not, They would not have had _the_ sin of hating me without a
cause; there is no definite article attached to the word _sin_; the
declaration is general, as it is rendered by our English version.
Moreover, to say that men would not have been guilty of the sin of
hating Christ if Christ had never come to their knowledge is to utter
the merest truism. This, though it is the common interpretation, and
is adopted, though not defended, by such scholars as Meyer and Alford,
seems to me utterly untenable. Nor is the meaning, They would not have
had so great sin; Christ often uses metaphor, _but he never
exaggerates_. By his death the Lamb of God has taken away, not some
sins from the world, but _the sin of the world_. See ch. 1:29, note.
Hence the only sin for which men are condemned is that of deliberately
rejecting the offer of free forgiveness and a new life through Jesus
Christ (ch. 3:18, 19, notes). Other sins are not reckoned against them
(Acts 17:30; Rom. 3:25). They are judged by Christ, because they are
judged worthy of life if they accept his free offer of it, and
unworthy of life if they put it away when it is offered to them (Acts
13:46). Hence those to whom Christ has been offered are not condemned
because of their past sins, which are freely forgiven; they are
measured by their acceptance or rejection of Him. “No man shall die in
his sins, except him who through unbelief thrusts from him the
forgiveness of sin, which in the name of Jesus is offered to him. This
is the real sin which contains all others. For if the word of Christ
was received every sin would be forgiven and remitted; but since men
will not receive it, this constitutes a sin which is not to be
forgiven.”--(_Luther._)--=But now they have no cloak for their sin.=
No cover or excuse. Ignorance is an excuse; but when the offer of
pardon and a new life is refused, the sin is shown to be deliberately
chosen. Every man naturally seeks an excuse for his sin (Gen. 3:12,
13). Christ takes away every excuse and leaves the sinner, at the
judgment day, to the sentence of condemnation. “I would * * * but ye
would not” (Matt. 23:37).--=He that hateth me hateth my Father also.=
Because Christ is the manifestation of the Father, therefore
anti-Christ is anti-God. See ch. 8:42.--=If I had not done among them
works which none other did.= Not merely _miracles_; the whole
life-work of beneficent activity is that which attested to the Jews
Christ’s character; and the whole work of beneficent activity wrought
by him in the church universal is the ever-living testimony to the
divine nature and authority of Christianity. The evidence of a divine
redemption through Jesus Christ is cumulative; and the sin of hating
Christ, as embodied in Christian principles, truths, and lives, is
consequently continually enhanced.--=They have both seen and hated
both me and my Father.= This was literally true in respect to the
hierarchy at Jerusalem, who even as these words were spoken were
plotting with Judas for the arrest and execution of Christ. They
determined to slay him, because in no other way could they countervail
his wonderful works (ch. 11:47-50).--=They hated me without a
cause.= See marg. ref. The language was employed by the original
author--whether David or not is not quite certain--not with any
distinct understanding of its prophetic significance. It is here
applied by Christ to himself, not by an accommodation, but because all
godly suffering in the O. T. was itself a type of the great sacrifice
for God and man consummated by the cross of Christ, as all suffering
in the Christian church fills up what is lacking of that sacrifice to
perfect the world’s redemption (Col. 1:24). “These (verses 21-25)
are perhaps the most terrible words in the O. T. or the N. T. No
descriptions of divine punishment which are written anywhere can come
the least into comparison with them for awfulness and horror. This
gratuitous hatred, this hatred of Christ by men because they hate God,
this hatred of God because he has manifested and proved himself to be
love, is something which passes all our conception, and yet which
would not mean anything to us if our conscience did not bear witness
that the possibility of it lies in ourselves. Do not let us put away
that thought, brethren, or the one which is closely akin to it, that
such hatred is only possible in a nation which, like the Jewish, is
full of religious knowledge and of religious profession.”--(_Maurice._)
26 But when the Comforter[599] is come, whom I will send
unto you from the Father, _even_ the Spirit of truth, which
proceedeth from the Father, he[600] shall testify of me:
[599] ch. 14:17.
[600] 1 John 5:6.
27 And ye[601] also shall bear witness, because ye[602]
have been with me from the beginning.
[601] Luke 24:48; Acts 2:32; 4:20, 33; 2 Pet. 1:16.
[602] 1 John 1:2.
=26, 27. But when the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from
the presence of= (παρὰ) =the Father= (ch. 14:16), =even the Spirit of
truth= (ch. 14:17, note), =which proceedeth from the presence= (παρὰ)
=of the Father=. On the meaning of the particle here rendered _from_,
see ch. 5:34, note. These two clauses are not repetitions; the one
defines the other. The Comforter whom Jesus sent at the day of
Pentecost to the church is that Spirit of truth who ever proceeds from
the Father. Christ attributes all blessed redemptive influences in the
last instance to his Father; as he is himself from the Father, so the
Spirit is from the Father (ch. 7:29; 8:26, 38; 10:18; Gal. 4:6), and
is sometimes called his (Christ’s) Spirit (Rom. 8:9; Gal. 4:6; Phil.
1:19; 1 Pet. 1:11). To trace out from this verse the eternal relations
between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is to import into this
spiritual converse the unspiritual metaphysics of the scholastic
period of theology.--=He shall testify of me= (ch. 16:13-15). =And ye
also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the
beginning= (Luke 1:2; Acts 1:22). A double testimony to the truth of
Christianity, the spiritual and the historical. After Christ’s death
and resurrection the Spirit made clear to the apostles the meaning of
the enigma, interpreted the prophets to them, and opened unto them the
true nature of Christ’s spiritual kingdom, that they might testify
unto others (Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 2:9, 10; comp. Matt. 10:20; Mark 13:11).
The apostles also testified to the facts which they had themselves
witnessed in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, as evidences
of his Messiahship (Acts 1:22; 3:15). But, secondarily, every
Christian is a witness of Christ by his own life and conversation,
testifying things which in his own experience he has both seen and
heard; and the Spirit of truth bears witness both in him and through
him to the power of God in a devout life (Rom. 8:16; 9:1; 1 Cor.
12:8-11; 1 Pet. 1:11; 1 John 3:24).
CHAPTER XVI.
Ch. 16:1-33. CLOSE OF CHRIST’S DISCOURSE.--THE PRESENCE, OFFICE, AND
WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT MORE FULLY DESCRIBED.
1 These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not
be offended.
2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time
cometh, that whosoever[603] killeth you will think that he
doeth God service.
[603] Acts 26:9-11.
=1, 2. These things have I spoken unto you that ye should not be
offended.= Scandalized; caused to fall into sin. See Matt. 5:29, note;
15:12; 17:27; John 6:61; 1 Cor. 8:13. The object of Christ’s teaching
in these chapters is not merely to impart consolation to the apostles
in their impending sorrow in his death, but to impart strength to his
disciples throughout all time in their experience of temptation.--=They
shall put you out of the synagogues.= Excommunicate you. This was not
in that age a mere ecclesiastical censure; it involved the most
serious consequences, in exclusion from all business and secular
relations with men. See ch. 9:22, note.--=Yea, the hour cometh that
whosoever killeth you will think that he is offering a sacrifice to
God.= Illustrated by Saul of Tarsus (see Acts 25:9), and by the
proverb found in the Rabbinical books, “Whoever sheds the blood of the
impious does the same as if he had offered a sacrifice;” not less
illustrated by the history of religious persecutions, in which the
persecutor has very generally believed that by slaying the heretic he
was appeasing God’s wrath against the community and the church. Such
an experience, if it came without forewarning, would endanger their
faith. “It would be a strange result; fellowship with their brethren
destroyed because they proclaimed the ground of fellowship; death
inflicted upon them because they preached that death was overcome.
Might not poor Galileans, conscious of folly and sin, often say to
themselves: ‘We must be wrong; the rulers of the land must be wiser
than we are. Ought we to turn the world upside down for an opinion of
ours?’”--(_Maurice._) This is always a temptation in times when
Christian principle seems counter to public sentiment, a temptation
not merely to abandon Christian principle in order to conform to
public sentiment, but to think the principle which commends itself to
so few and arouses the hostility of so many cannot be sound. [The
Greek student will find in Alford’s and Meyer’s interpretation of ἵνα,
_that_, a curious illustration of the straits to which the commentator
is put who insists on giving it always its accurate (_telic_), never
its more popular (_ecbatic_) signification. They are compelled, in
order to be consistent, to read this declaration, _The hour cometh in
order that whosoever_, etc., that is, that which shall happen in the
hour is regarded as the object of its coming; it is ordained for that
purpose.]
3 And these[604] things will they do unto you, because
they[605] have not known the Father, nor me.
[604] ch. 15:21.
[605] 1 Cor. 2:8; 1 Tim. 1:13.
4 But these things have I told you, that when the time
shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And
these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because
I was with you.
=3, 4. And these things will they do unto you because they have not
known the Father nor me.= The root of all religious intolerance is a
narrow, false, pagan conception of God. Intolerance is impossible in a
heart which rightly appreciates God as manifested in Christ Jesus, and
sincerely seeks to please him by imbibing his Spirit and imitating his
example and method. On the other hand, a conscience uninstructed by a
measurably correct conception of God becomes itself an instigator of
the most remorseless cruelty. The cause of the wrong is in not
receiving as a little child the teaching of Christ, and even of nature
(Matt. 5:45), respecting the comprehensiveness of the Divine love. All
intolerance is rooted in self-worship, making a god of our own
self-will.--=But these things have I told you that when the hour has
come ye may call to mind these things, that I have told you them. But
these things I have not told you from the beginning, because I was
with you.= What are _these things_? Most commentators understand
Christ to refer to his prophecies in verses 2 and 3, and they
understand his meaning to be, _I have forewarned you of those
persecutions, that when they come upon you you may remember that I did
forewarn you of them_. But this interpretation is not consistent with
the added words, _These things I have not told you from the
beginning_; for the prophecies of future perils which threatened them
are quite as clear in Matt. 10:17-22, 28; Mark 13:9-13; Luke 21:12-17,
as they are here. Meyer and Godet even suppose that Matthew has
inserted the warnings in his Gospel (ch. 10) out of their place,
taking them from Christ’s discourse here; and the explanations given
by other commentators, if they violate the text less, violate its
meaning more. Luthardt gives them all briefly. _These things_, I
think, are not merely the prophecy of the persecutions which are to
fall upon the disciples; they are the whole comforting and inspiring
instructions of this discourse respecting the person, advent,
presence, and indwelling grace and power of the Spirit of Truth and
Holiness. The phrase is used here as in ch. 14:25; 15:11, 17; 16:1, 6.
Combining these verses, we get Christ’s object in this whole
instruction in the truth of the Divine Immanence, namely, that the
disciples may be prepared for the progressive teaching of the Spirit
of Truth; that their Master’s joy in the Holy Spirit may be theirs,
and so their joy may be full; that their lives may abound in the
fruits of a love that is nourished only by the indwelling of the
Spirit; that in trial and persecution they may not be offended and
induced to abandon faith in him as their Master; and he urges them
when this trial hour comes upon them to recall to mind this teaching
respecting the indwelling and ever-abiding Comforter, teaching not
given before except in hints and suggestions, rudimentary and
fragmentary, because while he was yet with them in the flesh they
could and notably did depend upon him.
5 But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you
asketh me, Whither goest thou?
6 But because I have said these things unto you,
sorrow[606] hath filled your heart.
[606] verse 22.
=5, 6. But now I go away.= Not _my way_; the idea of departure simply
is conveyed by the original.--=And no one of you asketh me, Whither
goest thou? but because I have said these things unto you sorrow hath
filled your heart.= The first clause is not literally true. Peter
directly, Thomas indirectly, had asked, Whither goest thou? (ch.
13:36; 14:5). It is to be interpreted by the latter clause. The
meaning is, Instead of turning your thoughts towards me and my future
glory, and asking after my Father and my home, which you would do with
rejoicing if you loved me supremely (ch. 14:28), your thoughts are on
your own loneliness in the future when I shall have left you, and
because of it sorrow has completely filled your heart, that is, to the
exclusion of every other thought. My words should bring you comfort;
they bring you pain. There is a pathetic reproach in Christ’s
language, easily comprehended by every pastor who has attempted to
point sorrowing souls to the invisible world, only to see their grief
burst out afresh at the awakened recollection of the earthly loss.
Notice, your _heart_, not hearts; the singular is used, as in Rom.
1:21, because they are so thoroughly a unit in their common feeling of
sorrow. Stier notices the contrast between the experience of these
same disciples now and at the subsequent parting at the ascension:
“These are the same disciples who afterwards, when their risen Lord
had ascended to heaven, without any pang at parting with him, returned
with great joy to Jerusalem (Luke 24:52).” A practical lesson to every
mourner here, as in ch. 14:28, is that he should not allow a selfish
sorrow to fill his heart so completely that he cannot follow in his
thoughts the loved one to his heavenly home.
7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for
you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him
unto you.
=7. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is for your benefit that I
am going away.= The original is stronger than our English version; the
implication is plainly, as Alford gives it, “that the dispensation of
the Spirit is a more blessed manifestation of God than was even the
bodily presence of the risen Saviour,” and the reasons why it is so
are intimated in previous parts of this discourse. See especially ch.
14:16, 17, notes.--=For if I go not away the Comforter will not come
unto you.= He does not say will not come, but will not come _unto
you_. Hitherto the Spirit had been given only to men especially fitted
by their spiritual nature to receive its teachings and to become in
turn teachers to others. After the death and resurrection of Christ
the Spirit was given to the church universal, to all believers. See
Acts 2:8. The language therefore does not prove, according to Alford,
that “the gift of the Spirit at and since Pentecost was and is
something totally distinct from anything before that time.” The
difference consisted in its universal bestowal, whereas before it was
limited to a few. Why could not the Spirit be sent until Christ had
first gone away? Because it is impossible for men to live at the same
time by faith and by sight. So long as the disciples had a visible
manifestation of God with them, they would not and could not turn
their thoughts inward to that more sacred but less easily recognized
manifestation which could not be seen, and therefore could be known
only by spiritual apprehension.
8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin,
and of righteousness, and of judgment:
=8. And coming, that one shall convince the world respecting sin and
respecting righteousness and respecting judgment.= In this and the
three succeeding verses Christ describes briefly the office and work
of the Holy Spirit. As the advent of Christ was itself a preparation
for the dispensation of the Spirit, and as in his departure he points
his disciples to the indwelling of that Spirit as the source of their
hope, their joy, their love, their entire spiritual life, these
verses, in which he points out specifically the manner in which the
Spirit will develop this spiritual life, may be regarded as the heart
of this discourse. To attempt to give the various opinions of
conflicting commentators on this passage would almost inevitably
entangle the mind of the student in a mesh of contradictory
interpretations, and would obscure rather than clarify the meaning. I
have therefore, with Alford, “preferred giving pointedly what I
believe to be the sense of this most important passage, to stringing
together a multitude of opinions on it, seeing that of even the best
commentators no two bring out exactly the same shade of meaning, and
thus classification is next to impossible.” Much depends on the right
reading of the five words rendered in our English version _reprove_,
_world_, _sin_, _righteousness_, and _judgment_, and I believe that
very much of the difficulty in interpretation has grown out of
imputing to these words a theological and scholastic meaning instead
of taking them according to their most simple and natural meaning. (1)
The word _reprove_, which I have rendered _convince_, properly
signifies to convince one of truth in such a way as to convict him of
wrong-doing. It is rendered _tell_ him his _fault_ (Matt. 18:15);
_reprove_ (Luke 3:19; John 3:20); _convict_ (John 8:9); _convince_ of
sin (John 8:46; 1 Cor. 14:24); _rebuke_ (Titus 2:15; Rev. 3:19). Here,
then, the meaning is that the Holy Spirit will so bring to the world’s
consciousness the spiritual truths respecting sin, righteousness, and
judgment that the world will stand self-convicted. (2) _The world_ is
here, as always with John, the great mass of humanity, not necessarily
excluding believers, but in contrast with the distinctive body of
believers. This world cannot receive the Spirit of Truth, for it seeth
him not, neither knoweth him (ch. 14:17). Nevertheless it is this
unseen and unknown Spirit who can alone convince and convict the
world. The disciples “are to despair of its ever coming from them;
they are to be sure it will come from the Spirit with which He will
endue them. Not they, but He, will convince the world; because, though
the world may not receive Him neither know Him, it has been formed to
receive all quickening life from Him; it must confess His presence,
even if it would hide itself from His presence.”--(_Maurice._) (3)
_Sin_ is primarily a miss or wandering, but in the N. T. only in a
moral sense, that is, a wandering or turning away from the line of
truth and righteousness. It is the first office of the Holy Spirit to
show the world how this turning away from righteousness is the great
folly, the mistake in comparison with which all other mistakes are as
nothing (Prov. 1:32; 8:36). (4) _Righteousness_ is primarily
rectitude, uprightness, perfectitude of character. John’s use of the
term is indicated by his employment of it in 1 John 2:29; 3:7, 10, “He
that doeth righteousness is righteous.” To understand the language
here to refer to any doctrine of an imputed or transferred
righteousness is to import into the simple language of the Master
theological ideas born of scholasticism and belonging to a later date.
The meaning is that he who convicts the world of having departed from
righteousness will also bring to the world’s consciousness a
realization of the elements of true righteousness of character. (5)
_Judgment_ is primarily moral discrimination, whether exercised by God
or man; its use, to signify a tribunal, whether human (Matt. 5:21, 22)
or divine, as in the frequent use of it to signify the day of judgment
(Matt. 12:42; Luke 10:14; Heb. 9:27), is secondary. John always uses
it in the primary sense of moral and spiritual discernment, except in
1 John 4:17, where he defines his meaning by employing the phrase _day
of judgment_. The third truth of which the Holy Spirit will convince
the world will be the true divine canons of moral judgment. The
general declaration, then, is that the Holy Spirit when he comes will
convict the world, by bringing to its spiritual consciousness the
truth respecting sin, or wandering from God and his law;
righteousness, or the divine ideal of character; and judgment, or the
true principles of spiritual discrimination.
9 Of sin,[607] because they believe not on me;
[607] Rom. 3:20; 7:9.
10 Of righteousness,[608] because I go to my Father, and ye
see me no more;
[608] Isa. 42:21; Rom. 1:17.
11 Of judgment,[609] because[610] the prince of this world
is judged.
[609] Acts 17:31; Rom. 2:2; Rev. 20:12, 13.
[610] ch. 12:31.
=9-11. Concerning sin, because they have not had faith upon me.=
_Because_ indicates, not the reason why the Spirit shall convince of
sin, but the nature and evidence of the sin itself. It may be rendered
_in that_. The meaning is not, The Holy Spirit will convince of sin
because they have not had faith, but, That they have sinned in that
they have not had faith. The fact that the character of Christ does
not call forth the moral and spiritual affections of the soul is the
strongest evidence of that soul’s insensibility; and the fact that the
offer of free pardon and the impartation of a new spiritual life is
not accepted, demonstrates that continuance under condemnation and in
sin is the soul’s free choice. Thus the sin of the world both consists
in and is demonstrated by its rejection of Christ (ch. 3:18-21); not
by any intellectual opinion entertained respecting him, but by the
lack of spiritual appreciation and the failure to give to him and his
teaching the welcome of an affectionate and obedient faith.--=Concerning
righteousness, because I go away to my Father and ye see me no
more.= Christ is himself the ideal of human character, the divine
righteousness interpreted by a human life. But this righteousness was
not, and could not be, comprehended while Christ still lived in the
flesh among men. The eyes of men were fastened upon the apparent
ignominy of his position and circumstances, and the divine love which
is interpreted to us by his humiliation was to his contemporaries
obscured by it. It was necessary that he should go away to his Father
before the world could begin to appreciate the sacred meaning of a
life which was so wholly laid down for others. So, habitually, the
world learns the meaning of a life after it has ended, and honors
after death those whom it has despised while living, and forgets after
death those whom it has honored while living. The Holy Spirit
convinces the world respecting true righteousness of character, by
spiritually interpreting to it, through the ages, the glory of one who
could only be understood after he had gone away to the Father and the
world saw him no more. To appreciate his righteousness they must look
on him by faith and not by sight. The more common explanation (see
_Godet_ and _Meyer_) that he who was put to death as a sinner
was proved to be righteous by his resurrection and ascension is
inadmissible, because Christ here says nothing of his resurrection or
his ascension; he uses the same phraseology which he has previously
employed in this discourse in speaking of his death (ch. 13:33, 36;
14:28; 16:5); and because he adds emphasis to the truth that it is his
_departure from them_, not his visible exaltation or ascension to
which he refers, by adding to the words “because I go to my Father”
the explanatory clause “and ye see me no more.”--=Concerning judgment,
because the prince of this world is judged.= Comp. John 12:31. In the
history of the race, the methods, principles, and policies of the
world and its prince are being perpetually tried and perpetually
proved false by their results. Thus the world and its prince are ever
being judged, and humanity, by the progressive teaching of the Holy
Spirit, interpreting the book of God’s Providence, are being taught
the divine canons of moral and spiritual judgment. This work is
represented here, as in ch. 12:32, as being completed in the death of
Christ (κέκριται, perf.), because the crucifixion of Christ, the
consummate work of the Evil One, was at once his apparent victory and
his real defeat. In the crucifixion he pre-eminently had his own way,
and by the crucifixion he is defeated throughout the ages. Thus it is
in and by the cross that he is pre-eminently judged. On the phrase
_prince of this world_, see John 12:31; 14:30; and comp. Ephes. 2:2.
Interpreting it to mean Christ is contrary to all N. T. usage. In all
this threefold work the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ (ver. 14); it
convicts the world of sin, by showing what a Saviour it has rejected;
it teaches the world of righteousness, by showing the world in Christ
the divine ideal of sanctified humanity; and it educates the world in
judgment, by the perpetual contrast between the policies of the
world and the enduring and peace-bringing principles of Christ,
demonstrating in the cross that the weakness of Christ is stronger
than the strength of Satan, and the defeat of Christ is a victory over
Satan. See 1 Cor. 1:23-25.
12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye[611]
cannot bear them now.
[611] Heb. 5:12.
=12. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them
now.= This was Christ’s last conference with his disciples, and in his
interviews with them after the resurrection he added very little to
the instructions previously given to them. Clearly, therefore, he here
implies a progressive teaching to be afforded by him through the
Spirit to the church in the future ages. It is of this future teaching
he speaks in this and the next three verses. These truths the
disciples could not then bear, that is, _lift up and take away with
them_ (βαστάξω), because they had not yet the mental and spiritual
strength. Among the truths which were thus too much for them, and
which were mercifully concealed from their knowledge, was the long
period which must intervene before the spiritual work of the church
could be completed and the world be ready for the Second Coming of its
Lord. Christ’s language clearly implies that he held back phases of
truth for which his disciples were not ready, and thus affords a
clear example and divine authority for the religious teacher, who may
never suppress the truth because it is unpopular--this Christ never
did--but who may and should adapt his teaching of the truth to the
spiritual capacity of his hearers.
13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he[612]
will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of
himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, _that_ shall he
speak: and he[613] will shew you things to come.
[612] ch. 14:26.
[613] Rev. 1:1, 19.
=13. Howbeit when that one= (ἐκεῖνος, emphatic), =the Spirit, is come,
he will guide you into all the truth=. “The term guide (ὁδηγέω, _to
show the road_) presents the Spirit under the image of a guide
conducting a traveler in an unknown country. This country is
truth.”--(_Godet._) This guidance is given to the church throughout
all ages, leading them by gradual processes into ever higher and
broader conceptions of divine truth.--=For he shall not speak from
himself.= _From_ (ἀπό) marks the remote or ultimate origin or cause.
As Christ traces all the source of his own authority back to the
Father, who dwelleth in him (ch. 5:19, 30; 7:28; 14:20), so he traces
back to the same source the authority of the Holy Spirit. Thus he
guards his disciples against that subtle tritheism which regards the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as practically three deities. See
ch. 15:26. Both the Son and the Spirit take those things which they
receive of the Father and give to the believer, and the object of
their ministry is to bring the believer into fellowship with the
Father.--=And he will show you things to come.= Rather _the coming
things_. As the coming one (ὁ ἐρχόμενος) (Matt. 3:11; Rev. 1:4) is the
Messiah, and as the coming world (Mark 10:30) is the Messiah’s
kingdom, so the coming things (τὰ ἐρχόμενα) are those things which are
connected with the future advent and the final kingdom of the Messiah.
The Holy Spirit shall not merely bring all things which their Lord has
taught them to the disciples’ remembrance (ch. 14:26), but shall also
teach them concerning the things of the future; he shall inspire their
hope as well as clarify their memory. This promise of Christ was
primarily fulfilled in the prophetic hopes and anticipations inspired
in the early church, and in the prophetic character given to many of
the apostolic utterances, _e. g._, Rom. 11:25-32; 1 Cor. 15:50-53; 1
Thess. 4:13-18; Titus 2:11-14. But this office of the Spirit was not
consummated in apostolic times; those who submit themselves to his
guidance and instruction will still press forward toward the mark for
the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, ever looking for
that blessed and glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour
Jesus Christ. “He will not allow us to be satisfied with our advanced
knowledge or great discoveries, but will always be showing us things
that are coming; giving us an apprehension of truths that we have not
yet reached, though they be truths which are ‘the same yesterday,
to-day, and forever.’”--(_Maurice._)
14 He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and
shall shew _it_ unto you.
15 All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said
I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew _it_ unto you.
=14, 15. He shall magnify me.= That is, the office of the Spirit shall
be to magnify Christ, his character, his work. See above on verses
9-11. Any pretended dispensation of the Spirit which draws the thought
of the world away from Christ to some other and independent authority
is spurious, whether it be that of ecclesiastical tradition as of the
Church of Rome, or that of the mysticism which substitutes an inner
light for the word and authority of Christ, or that of spiritism,
introducing in lieu of that word communications with the spirit world.
That only is the message of the Holy Spirit which tends to magnify
Christ.--=He shall receive of mine, and shall it show unto you.= To
receive of Christ (λαμβάνω) is to accept, acknowledge, and follow his
instructions as a teacher. This use of the word is especially marked
in John’s employment of it in respect to Christ, _e. g._, ch. 1:12;
5:43; 13:20. The declaration, then, is that the Holy Spirit comes not
to gainsay or cancel, and not even, in strictness of speech, to add to
the instructions of Christ, but to accept them, and accepting,
interpret them, giving to them in the future apprehension of the
church a profounder significance than they had or could have in the
apprehension of his own contemporaries.--=All things that the Father
hath are mine; therefore said I=, etc. We are not, however, to imagine
that Christ’s teaching is confined to the words uttered by him in the
flesh and reported to us in the Gospels. All things that the Father
hath are his; the book of nature and the book of Providence are his as
truly as the spoken and reported word. And in receiving and
spiritually interpreting the testimony of nature and life, the Holy
Spirit is receiving from him and showing to us. If we understand his
teaching aright, we shall always see in it Christ magnified.
In these verses (7-15) Christ points out more specifically than he has
previously done to his disciples, and through them to us, the office
of the Holy Spirit and the nature of his dispensation. It is for our
benefit that the manifestation of God in the flesh and to the sense
has ceased, in order that the inward manifestation to the
faith--profounder, broader, and more universal--may take its place.
This invisible but indwelling Spirit comes that he may teach the world
the reality and greatness of its sin, the true conception of
righteousness, and the canons of a divine spiritual discernment. This
work of the Spirit is a perpetually progressive work, guiding, by
successive steps, the church into the way of all truth. In it the
Spirit speaks from and by authority of the Father, and concerning the
future, turning the thoughts of the believer ever toward a larger
knowledge and a higher and diviner life; albeit in all he acts not as
a revealer of a new Gospel, but as an interpreter of the teachings of
Christ, in the written word and in all the things of God, in nature
and life, which are themselves the things of Christ; so that the
dispensation of the Spirit is not an addition to but an essential part
of Christianity, the revealing in its fullness to the ever-growing
spiritual apprehension of the church the truth of and from Christ.
16 A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a
little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the
Father.
=16. Yet a little while and ye shall not see me= (θεωρέω), =and again
a little while and ye shall perceive me= (ὁράω), =because I go away to
the Father=. There is some doubt respecting the last clause, _because
I go to the Father_; it is omitted by Alford, Meyer, Luthardt, and
Tischendorf, queried by Lachmann, retained by Godet. But the fact that
the phrase reappears in the disciples’ expression of their perplexity,
in the next verse, seems to me to furnish very nearly conclusive
evidence that it belongs here. Those who omit it here suppose that the
disciples put with what he has just now said, what he had previously
said in ver. 10. Observe the contrast between the first and second
seeing; two different verbs are both rendered _see_; the one signifies
properly an external perception by the senses; the other is also used
to indicate a mental or spiritual perception, and that appears to be
its meaning here. In a little while Christ should be no longer visibly
present with his disciples; a little while more, and, in the
dispensation of the Spirit inaugurated at Pentecost, they should again
perceive him by spiritual apprehension. It is evident that Christ does
not refer to his Second Coming, both because he changes the form of
the verb, so indicating another and unsensuous seeing, and because
not a little but a long while was to elapse between the departure of
the Lord and his Second Coming.
17 Then said _some_ of his disciples among themselves, What
is this that he saith unto us, A little while, and ye shall
not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me:
and, Because I go to the Father?
18 They said therefore, What is this that he saith, A
little while? we cannot tell what he saith.
19 Now Jesus knew[614] that they were desirous to ask him,
and said unto them, Do ye inquire among yourselves of that
I said, A little[615] while, and ye shall not see me: and
again, a little while, and ye shall see me?
[614] ch. 2:24, 25.
[615] verse 16; ch. 7:33; 13:33; 14:19.
=17-19.= The disciples, however, had no other thought of any second
advent of their Master than that in which they should sensuously see
as well as spiritually perceive him. They therefore ask among
themselves what he means by this distinction between _seeing_ and
_perceiving_ him. Their difficulty was the same as that previously
expressed by Judas, with the analogous declaration of Christ that he
would manifest himself to them (ch. 14:22). It was enhanced by
Christ’s statement that this new manifestation to the spirit should be
in a little while; for in his discourse on the Last Day (see Matt.,
ch. 24, notes) he had plainly implied that a long interval of trial
and persecution must intervene before his Second Coming in power and
glory. They therefore inquire in whispers of one another what he means
by this, “_Ye shall not see me, and ye shall perceive me_,” and what
by “_A little while_.” Their fear to ask Christ is one of the many
indications of the peculiar awe which his presence inspired in them;
their love was reverential, not familiar; the love of a child for an
honored teacher, not that of an equal (Mark 9:32; Luke 9:45). See
further, note on verses 29, 30, below.
20 Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye[616] shall weep
and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be
sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
[616] Luke 24:17, 21.
=20. Ye shall weep and lament * * * ye shall be sorrowful.= These
three different words are used to express the same substantial idea;
not to convey different shades of meaning, but to give emphasis, and
to indicate the largeness and breadth of the impending anguish of the
disciples. _To weep_ (κλαίω) is a general word including every
external expression of grief; _to lament_ (θρηνέω) is somewhat more
specifically to wail, and is used respecting the lamentation of hired
mourners (see notes on Mark 5:38; Luke 23:27); _to be sorrowful_
(λυπέω) is more spiritual, and expresses the feeling of the heart
rather than any outward expression. The disciples lamented the death
of Christ at the time of his crucifixion, and their lamentation was in
striking contrast with the malignant joy of the world (comp. Matt.
27:39-44 with John 19:25-27). They experienced in the apparent shame
of their Master’s ignominious death a deep, heartfelt sorrow, but it
was turned into joy when later they saw in the cross the manifestation
of the wisdom and glory of God (1 Cor. 1:23-25).
21 A woman[617] when she is in travail hath sorrow, because
her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the
child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a
man is born into the world.
[617] Isa. 26:17.
22 And ye[618] now therefore have sorrow: but I will see
you again, and your[619] heart shall rejoice, and your
joy[620] no man taketh from you.
[618] verse 6.
[619] ch. 20:20; Luke 24:41, 52.
[620] 1 Pet. 1:8.
=21, 22. A woman when she brings forth hath sorrow.= The figure of a
woman in travail is used in the O. T. to illustrate sudden and great
anguish (Isa. 21:3; 26:17; 66:7; Hos. 13:13; Micah 4:9, 10). Christ
lays hold upon this familiar figure and gives it a new signification,
indicating that the pain is but a preparation for and a presage of a
greater joy. And this is generally the N. T. use of the figure (Matt.
24:8, note; Rom. 8:22). The contrast is an instructive illustration of
the difference between the O. T. and the N. T. We are not mystically
to interpret the figure here by saying that the travail of the Son of
God was necessary in order to bring the Messiah forth as a King and
lawgiver. However true this may be, it is not the truth here enforced.
Christ speaks not of his own suffering for sinners, but of the
suffering of the disciples in and because of him; and this suffering
he declares will be forgotten when it has accomplished its purpose and
brought forth its fruits in and for them. See the same general truth
illustrated by Rom. 5:3-5; Heb. 12:11. Observe that, as above, the
sorrow is not merely displaced by joy, but is _turned into joy_; the
travail is not merely followed by gladness, but brings forth that
which is the cause of the gladness. Comp. Rom. 8:18, where the glory
is represented as revealed in us because of the sufferings, and Heb.
12:11, where the fruits of chastening are promised only to those that
are “exercised thereby.” Comp. Rev. 7:14.--=I will see you again, and
your heart shall rejoice.= But he does not say, Ye shall see me again.
He is speaking not of his second and visible coming, but of his
spiritual and invisible presence. His words are interpreted to us by
history, and the distinction between the two is plain; to the apostles
they were not so interpreted, and upon the traditional report of such
words as these the apostolic church may have built its hope of
Christ’s Second Coming in their own time. _I will see you_ expresses
Christ’s sympathy for his church in all their experiences, whether of
joy or sorrow. See Rev. 1:12, 13; 2:1. He weeps with those that weep,
and rejoices with those that rejoice; not a hair of the head perishes,
not a sparrow in the church falls without his knowledge. _Your heart
shall rejoice_ foretells such experiences as those of Peter and other
apostles (Acts 5:41), Stephen (Acts 6:15), Paul and Silas (Acts
16:25), etc.--=And your joy no one taketh away from you.= Because it
is Christ’s joy (ch. 15:11), a joy in God (Phil. 3:1; 4:1), which is
_in_ the new-born soul, not merely given _to_ it, and therefore cannot
be taken from it by any experience whatever (Rom. 8:28, 37-39).
23 And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily,
I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my
name, he will give _it_ you.
24 Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name; ask,[621] and
ye shall receive, that your[622] joy may be full.
[621] Matt. 7:7, 8; James 4:2, 3.
[622] ch. 15:11.
=23, 24. And in that day ye shall inquire nothing of me. Verily,
verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father he will give
it to you in my name.= In our English version two different Greek
words are rendered by the word _ask_ in this verse, suggesting a
contrast which does not exist in the original. Christ does not
distinguish between two epochs in Christian experience; in the earlier
and more imperfect one prayer being offered to Christ, in the later
and perfected one prayer being offered directly to the Father. He
specifies two distinct blessings which shall attend upon the
dispensation of the Holy Spirit. The disciples, perplexed by Christ’s
enigmatical language, had desired but feared to ask an explanation
(verses 17, 18). Christ tells them that when the Holy Spirit shall
have come with his illuminating and quickening influences, they shall
no longer be perplexed by truths which now they cannot understand. In
that day they shall no longer need to interrogate him for an
interpretation. Then he adds that this dispensation shall be one of
great power in prayer: Whatsoever ye shall request the Father he will
give it you. “There is not in this verse a contrast drawn between
asking _the Son_, which shall cease, and asking _the Father_, which
shall begin; but the first half of the verse closes the declaration of
one blessing, namely, that hereafter they shall be so taught by the
Spirit as to have nothing further _to inquire_; the second half of the
verse begins the declaration of a new blessing, that whatsoever they
shall _seek_ from the Father in the Son’s name, he will give it
them.”--(_Trench._) And in fact one of the first and most notable
influences of the descent of the Spirit was to make clear to the minds
of the apostles those spiritual truths concerning the character of
Christ and his kingdom which had theretofore been hidden from their
eyes. And ever since, growth in spiritual life has made clear sayings
which are dark and incomprehensible to the unspiritual. The reading,
_He will give to you in my name_, is preferable to the reading of the
Received Text, _Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name_, (_Tischendorf_,
_Meyer_, _Alford_.) But the fact that the Father gives in the name of
Christ, by whom He made, sustains, and governs the world (Col.
1:16-20; Heb. 1:1, 2), and through whom all his redeeming love is
manifested to his earthly children, presupposes that they present
their requests through him as their Mediator, that is, in His
name.--=Until now ye have asked nothing in my name; ask and ye shall
receive, that your joy may be full.= Not until the descent of the Holy
Spirit did the disciples recognize Christ as a Divine Mediator and
Intercessor. Prayer out of Christ is offered to a God from whom the
soul is separated by a consciousness of sin (Isa. 59:2). Such prayer
is often one of wrestling and of anguish; and the deeper the
consciousness of sin the greater the mental and spiritual stress.
Christ lays emphasis here upon the fact that his disciples are to pray
in his name, that is, standing in his stead, the prophecies of the O.
T. fulfilled and their sins and iniquities blotted out as a thick
cloud (Isa. 44:22), and they themselves brought into filial relations
with the Father, reconciled unto God, and receiving the Spirit of
Adoption whereby they cry Abba Father (Rom. 8:15). Thus prayer, which
in the O. T. was often characterized by fear and wrestling (Gen.
18:27, 30, 32; Exod. 32:31, 32; Psalms 42, 43), is in the N. T. almost
always characterized by joy and thanksgiving (Ephes. 3:14-21; Col.
1:9, 12; 2 Thess. 1:11, 12). In the reading of this direction of
Christ respecting prayer we are to interpret the direction to ask in
Christ’s name and the declaration that the Father will give in
Christ’s name by the experience of the apostolic church, who did all
things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (John 20:31; Acts 2:38;
3:6; 5:28; 9:27; 10:43; 16:18; Rom. 1:8; 1 Cor. 6:11; Ephes. 1:21;
Phil. 2:9, 10; Rev. 2:3, 13; 22:4).
25 These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but
the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in
proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father.
26 At that day[623] ye shall ask in my name: and I say not
unto you, that I will pray the Father for you:
[623] verse 23.
27 For the Father[624] himself loveth you, because ye have
loved me, and have believed that I[625] came out from God.
[624] ch. 14:21, 23.
[625] verse 30; ch. 17:8.
=25-27. These things have I spoken unto you in figures; * * * but I
shall show you plainly of the Father.= In the imperfection of human
language all teaching respecting spiritual things is of necessity in
figures. Christ’s teaching, not only to the multitude, but to his own
disciples, and in this last interview, was figurative. See for example
ch. 14:2, 16, 18; 15:1; 16:21. But he foretells a time in which these
spiritual truths shall be spiritually revealed (1 Cor. 2:9, 10). “The
entire human language is a parable, as it does not admit of adequate
expression concerning some things. The Lord therefore contrasts with
the use of this feeble medium of communication the employment of one
more internal and more real. By the impartation of his Spirit, the
Lord teaches the knowledge of the nature of God freely and openly
(παῤῥησίᾳ), without any fear of a misunderstanding.”--(_Olshausen._)--=At
that day ye shall ask in my name; and I say not to you that I will
request the Father on your behalf, for the Father himself loveth you,
because ye have loved me and have had faith that I come from the
presence of the Father.= Or _from God_; there is some uncertainty as
to the reading. Christ does not say that he will not request the
Father on behalf of his disciples; but if we take the whole sentence
in its connections he does clearly teach, not only that no
intercession is required to win the love of the Father, but also that
they who have loved Christ, and have spiritually recognized the divine
life manifested in him, are thereby brought into direct personal
communion with the Father, and need no intercessor. “While their
hearts are the temples of the Holy Ghost and they maintain communion
with the Father they will need no other advocate; but ‘If any man sin
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous’ (1
John 2:1).”--(_Watkins._) Beware of supposing that this passage
impliedly teaches that the Father’s love depends on the prior faith
and love of the disciple. The contrary doctrine is abundantly taught
in the Bible, and nowhere more clearly than in the writings of John
(ch. 3:16; 1 John 4:9, 10, 19). But love has many inflections, and the
fullness of the Divine love is possible only to those who by love and
faith enter into the adoption of the children of God. The love of the
father to the prodigal in the far country is not the same as the love
to the same son, clothed and in his right mind, sitting at his
father’s board.
28 I came forth from the Father, and am come into the
world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.
=28.= “This verse,” says Bengel, “contains the most important
recapitulation;” “a simple and grand summary of Christ’s entire life,
his origin, his incarnation, and his destiny,” Meyer calls it. It is
this, but also more than this. The disciples have believed that Christ
came from the Father; Christ seizes on this belief that he may awaken
their hope by leading them to see that in going from the world he
must return to the Father. Thus he leads back their minds to the
declaration, “If ye loved me ye would rejoice because I go unto the
Father” (ch. 14:28).
29 His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest
thou plainly, and speakest no proverb.
30 Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and
needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we
believe that thou camest forth from God.
=29, 30.= These verses clearly show a change in the spirit of the
disciples. They had begun the supper by a contention for the first
place at the table. They had almost scouted at Christ’s prophecy of
their desertion (Matt. 26:33-35). The questionings of Thomas, Philip,
and Judas (ch. 14:5, 8, 22) indicate not only perplexity, but a state
of semi-skepticism, removed from absolute disbelief on the one hand
and from unquestioning faith on the other. This spirit is abated as
the conference proceeds, and it is because the disciples are ashamed
to confess it that they question with bated breath among themselves
the meaning of his words, “A little while and ye shall not see me, and
again a little while and ye shall perceive me” (verses 17-19). Now
they declare their doubts allayed; there is no need to question him
further; they are convinced that he knows all things; they are willing
to take his declarations without questioning; this absolute credence
they declare as the evidence of their faith that he came forth from
God. They do not profess fully to understand their Master, only fully
to believe him. Augustine’s remark, therefore, is more epigrammatic
than just: “They so little understand that they do not even understand
that they do not understand. For they were babes.”
31 Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe?
32 Behold,[626] the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye
shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave
me alone: and yet I[627] am not alone, because the Father
is with me.
[626] Matt. 26:31; Mark 14:27.
[627] ch. 8:29; Isa. 50:7, 9.
=31, 32. Do ye now believe?= Most of the commentators take this
affirmatively, _Ye do now believe_, and the original is capable of
either construction. Our English version seems to me preferable.
Christ does not indeed deny their faith, but he questions it, that he
may lead them to question themselves. He cautions them that their
faith in his divine origin, sweet as it may be to them in this hour of
quiet conference, is not sufficiently strong to stand in the hour of
treachery, peril, and death. So many a disciple has had faith in
divine principles and truths in the hour of his quiet meditation upon
them, which he has deserted when holding fast to them would involve
suffering.--=And ye shall leave me alone; and yet I am not alone,
because the Father is with me.= This sentence is one of those
parenthetical asides which give us a glimpse of the inmost heart of
Christ: his spiritual loneliness, and the temper of his solitude. See
Robertson’s Sermon on the _Loneliness of Christ_.
33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me[628]
ye might have peace. In[629] the world ye shall have
tribulation; but be of good cheer: I have overcome the
world.
[628] ch. 14:27; Rom. 5:1; Ephes. 2:14.
[629] ch. 15:19-21; 2 Tim. 3:12.
=33. These things I have spoken unto you that in me ye might have
peace.= By _these things_ is meant the whole discourse contained in
chaps. 14, 15, and 16. Comp. ch. 14:27; 16:4, notes.--=In the world ye
shall have tribulation; but be of good courage, I have conquered the
world.= Thus Christ ends as he began this discourse, with
encouragement. In Christ we have peace, because in Christ we are more
than conquerors (Rom. 8:37. Comp. 2 Cor. 4:7; 6:4-10). Meyer well
remarks that Paul’s whole life is a commentary on this verse; and
Luther, whose life was a scarcely less eloquent interpretation, thus
paraphrases it: “The game is already won. Do not be afraid that I will
send you thither to venture it at your own risk. The victory is
already there, only be undespairing and hold fast to it.”
CHAPTER XVII.
Ch. 17:1-26. CHRIST’S INTERCESSORY PRAYER.--HIS PRAYER OF PREPARATION
FOR THE PASSION.--HIS PRAYER OF INTERCESSION FOR HIS CHURCH.--HIS
MISSION AND ITS FULFILLMENT.--THE MISSION OF HIS FOLLOWERS.--HIS
FOURFOLD PETITION FOR THEM: PRESERVATION; CONSECRATION; SANCTIFICATION;
GLORIFICATION. See on ver. 24.
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--We rightly hesitate to analyze or criticise any
prayer; the language of devotion is too sacred. How much more when the
prayer is the intimate communing of the only begotten Son with his
Father, a prayer which no soul can ever comprehend, and none can
therefore ever interpret. Nevertheless, it would not have been
recorded if it had not been intended for our profit; and it can only
be for our profit as it is made the theme of our reverent study. In
this exposition of it I avoid as far as possible verbal and textual
criticism, giving results rather than discussions. These the student
can find in other commentaries, especially Tholuck and Meyer. For the
same reason I eschew theological polemics. Socinian, Arian, and
Trinitarian have fought over the words and phrases of this sacred
prayer, each, and perhaps the one not more than the other, evolving
from it arguments for his philosophy of the character of Christ, and
of life here and hereafter. Into such conflicts I have no heart to
enter. The student will find them indicated, and even illustrated, in
Alford. I have sought by meditation to enter into the spirit of
this, the most sacred utterance of our Lord, and I seek with
simplicity to aid others in meditating upon it; if through such
meditation the spirit of the believer is brought into unity with the
Spirit of his Lord, it is enough. The prayer is not didactic;
certainly not dogmatic. The office of public prayer--and by giving to
his church a record of this prayer our Lord has made it public--is not
to teach a system of theology, but to deepen the springs of spiritual
life, by leading the sympathetic soul into the presence of God. This
prayer has a twofold aspect. It is a revelation of the communings of
the only begotten Son with the Father; it thus presents to the church
Christ as the Son and Intercessor, pleading for his church, and shows
us what are his most secret and sacred desires for us. These are four:
election out of the world and preservation from its evil;
sanctification and consecration unto and in the truth; the perfect
unity of love, in God and with one another; and spiritual appreciation
of and participation in the glory of the Father and the Son in the
eternal life. But since we are all brought through Christ into the
adoption of the sons of God, this prayer is also an example and
inspiration for us. It is, in a sense, Christ’s second and fuller
answer to the request of his church universal, “Lord, teach us how to
pray.” The Lord’s prayer is given at the outset of our Lord’s ministry
to those who are just learning the Fatherhood of God. This prayer of
intercession is given at the close of our Lord’s ministry, to those
that had learned from him both what were their own wants and what
their heavenly Father’s grace had provided for them. The former is the
model for the universal church, young and old in Christian experience;
the latter is an inspiration to those who, through the teachings of
their Lord, have come into fellowship with God and his Son Jesus
Christ. It is not without significance that it follows close upon the
teaching that Christ is the vine and we are the branches, that we see
the Father in seeing the Son, that after Christ is gone and is seen no
more, he will yet be really present and spiritually perceived, and
that we are to ask in his name of the Father, who has himself loved
us. It is thus the Holy of Holies to which the preceding instructions
have been as outer courts conducting us. The key to its true
interpretation I believe will be found in two facts: (1) that it
immediately precedes and is a spiritual preparation for the impending
Passion, which in a measure the disciples shared with their Master;
and (2) the only glory which the N. T. recognizes is a glory of
_character_, not of circumstance or condition. Thus Christ’s prayer
here is that he may be sustained by divine grace in the hour of trial,
so that the character of the Father may be manifested by him in his
patient fidelity to the end, and that, through his example and his
Father’s influence, his disciples may be made like the Father and like
the Son in the glory of their love. See further on ver. 1.
There is some question whether we have the exact words of the Lord or
no. Alford goes beyond the declaration or even clear implication of
the sacred narrative, in saying, in opposition to Olshausen and the
German commentators generally, that we have here “the very words of
our Lord himself, faithfully rendered by the beloved apostle, in the
power of the Holy Spirit.” We can only say that the Lord has just
promised his disciples that the Holy Spirit will bring all things to
their remembrance which he has said to them (ch. 14:26); that on no
heart would these sacred words be more deeply impressed than on that
of the apostle who was leaning on Jesus’ bosom at the supper; that we
cannot conceive any utterance in the rendering of which that promised
inspiration would be more likely to be sought by John and vouchsafed
by the Lord; and that if we cannot be sure that we have the very words
of our Lord, we can be sure that no modern commentator has the right
to sift out the prayer and tell us what were Christ’s words and what
were the Evangelist’s. That the Holy Spirit did not consider the very
words essential to our profit is evident from the fact that, while the
prayer was almost certainly in Hebrew, John’s record is in Greek, and
our version of it is in English; but that we have in these words the
very spirit of the prayer, expressed as the Holy Spirit would have it
expressed for the guidance and inspiration of the church universal, is
as certain as the doctrine of inspiration itself.
1 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to
heaven, and said, Father, the hour[630] is come; glorify
thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
[630] ch. 12:23; 13:32.
2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he[631]
should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
[631] verse 24; ch. 5:27.
3 And this[632] is life eternal, that they might know
thee[633] the only[634] true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
thou[635] hast sent.
[632] 1 John 5:11.
[633] Jer. 9:23, 24.
[634] 1 Thess. 1:9.
[635] ch 10:36.
=1-3. And lifted up his eyes to heaven.= See ch. 11:41, note. This is
not an indication that he and his disciples had gone out from the
chamber and were now in the environs of the city, though Godet even
undertakes to fix the exact location: “Jesus had spoken the preceding
words on the road from Jerusalem to Gethsemane; he was therefore on
the point of passing the brook of Kedron.” In fact, these words
indicate nothing as to locality. “The eyes may be lifted to heaven in
as well as out of doors; _heaven_ is not the _sky_, but the upper
region, above our own being and thoughts, where we all agree in
believing God to be especially present, and which we indicate when we
direct our eyes or our hands upward. The Lord, being in all such
things like as we are, lifted up his eyes to heaven when addressing
the Father.”--(_Alford._)--=And said, Father.= Not _our_ Father, for
Christ never identifies himself with his disciples; nor _my_ Father,
for that would too strongly emphasize the separation between him and
them; without identifying himself with his disciples, he yet uses
language on which their spirits too can ascend towards God.--=The hour
is come.= The hour of the Passion, to which all prophecy had pointed,
for which all the O. T. dispensation had prepared, and from which all
redemptive influences proceed. Comp. Matt. 26:45; Mark 14:41; John
7:30; 8:20, etc.--=Manifest thine own Son in his glory, that thy Son
also may manifest thee in thy glory.= The changed position of the
words, in the two clauses, in the original (σοι τὸν υἱὸν in the first
clause, υἱὸς σοι in the second), justifies the rendering _thine own
Son_. _To glorify_ (δοξάζω) in N. T. usage nearly if not quite always
signifies to _manifest_ glory. The authorities which Robinson (_Lex._,
δοξάζω) cites in justification of the definition to _make glorious_
are at best of doubtful interpretation. The glory of Christ is his
self-sacrificing love. The noblest manifestation of this glory is his
patient and peaceful endurance of the Passion. In the cross of Christ
alone would Paul glory (Gal. 6:14); it is the Lamb slain that is the
glory of heaven (Rev. 5:6). Christ here prays that the Father will so
enable him to endure the cross that it may become glorious, and so a
manifestation of the Father’s glory; it is Jesus Christ “lifted up”
who draws all men unto him, and this in order that through him they
may be drawn to the Father. He prays that every knee may bow and every
tongue confess him Lord, but only to the glory of God the Father
(Phil. 2:11). Throughout this prayer the thought is always the same;
glory is of character, not condition; the glory of a divine love
manifested in self-sacrifice; making the Son worthy to receive the
peculiar love of the Father; making all that, through Christ, become
partakers of the same divine nature, participators also in the same
divine love, sons of God, and therefore one with the Father and with
his Son.--=Inasmuch as thou hast given him power over all flesh, in
order that= (for the very purpose that) =unto the all which thou hast
given to him, to them he should give eternal life=. Maurice’s
criticism on our English version is just: “Our translators would have
appeared to themselves and to many of their readers to be using an
uncouth and strange form of speech, if they had rendered the words
literally. But I think they were bound to encounter any apparent
difficulty of construction, rather than to incur the risk of
contracting or perverting the sense.” Christ has authority (the
original implies both _power_ and _authority_; see ch. 1:12, note) not
merely over all mankind, but over all terrestrial life and the earth
itself, the abode of flesh and the realm of his redemptive work (Col.
1:14-18); but this authority and power is conferred upon him by the
Father (ch. 5:19, 30) for a purpose, namely, that out of the world he
may gather a kingdom, receiving the entire body which God has given to
him, and conferring on each individually, in that body, eternal life.
Thus here, as in ch. 6:37 (see note there), Christ speaks of the _all_
(πᾶν, neuter singular) as given to him in a body by the Father, but of
_each one_ as receiving individually (αὐτοῖς) the special, personal
gift of eternal life. Observe on the one hand that Christ declares
himself, by implication, Lord of all, not of Jews, or elect, or
Christendom merely; but on the other hand he also declares, by
implication, that not all will receive from him the gift of life
eternal. There is implied a redemption universal in its offer, but not
in its results. The _whole_ is given to him, but only that he may
impart eternal life to the _chosen_. Who are thus chosen is indicated
in ch. 6:40, namely, every one that seeth (spiritually) the Son and
hath faith in him. Because the Father has thus conferred divine
authority on the Son, for the work of redemption, the Son pleads with
the Father to so carry him through the Passion hour that this
redemptive work may be consummated and eternal life imparted to the
believer. Beware of reading _eternal_ life here as equivalent to
_everlasting_ life or _age-abiding_ life. The duration is merely
incidental; spiritual life _is_ everlasting; but that which is
essential is its spirituality, not its endurance. The nature of this
life is indicated in the next sentence.--=But this is eternal life,
that they may know thee the only true God, and him whom thou hast sent
forth, Jesus the Messiah.= _That_ (ἵνα) cannot here be rendered _in
order that_, and curiously both Alford and Meyer, who insist that it
is always _telic_, _i. e._, always signifies intention, here render it
without that signification. “This knowledge of God here desired _is_
the eternal life” (_Meyer_); “_is_, not is the way to” (_Alford_).
Spiritual knowledge and spiritual life are in so far the same that
neither is possible without the other. We become like God only as we
know him (2 Cor. 3:18; 1 John 3:2); we know him only as, becoming like
him, we become sharers of his life (Matt. 5:8; John 3:3; Heb. 12:14; 2
Pet. 1:5-9). For this knowledge (γιγνώσκω) is not intellectual
understanding of the truth about God, but a personal and spiritual
acquaintance with him; it is not psychological, but sympathetic. See
Jer. 9:24; Ephes. 3:19; Phil. 3:10; comp. 1 Cor. 8:2. The connecting
particles are important. Christ prays that the Father will glorify him
in the approaching Passion, in order that he may be able to give
eternal life to those whom the Father has given to him, for this life
can be given only by giving them a true apprehension of the one God,
and he can be made known to them only through him whom he hath sent
into the world, Jesus the Messiah. The knowledge of the only true God
is in contrast with polytheistic paganism; knowledge of Jesus as the
Messiah is in contrast with Jewish pride and prejudice. The first was
the burden of Paul’s preaching at Athens; the second of Peter’s
preaching at Jerusalem (Acts 2:22-36; 17:22-34). The use of the third
person here, and the phrase Jesus Christ, often found together in the
Epistles, but never in Christ’s previous discourses, have been cited
by rationalistic critics as an evidence that this prayer was the work
of a later writer, who with doubtful dramatic license put it into the
mouth of Christ. The answer is (1) that the time had now come for
Jesus to declare in unmistakable language his Messiahship, and that no
more natural or suitable form could be employed than that of such a
prayer; (2) that the very fact that the names appear so frequently in
conjunction in the Apostolic writings, and in the early church, is
itself a reason for believing that the apostles derived them from
their Master.
4 I[636] have glorified thee on the earth: I[637] have
finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
[636] ch. 14:13.
[637] ch. 19:30; 2 Tim. 4:7.
5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me, with thine own self,
with the glory which I[638] had with thee before the world
was.
[638] ch. 1:1, 2; Phil. 2:6; Heb. 1:3, 10.
=4, 5. I have manifested thy glory on the earth: I have finished the
work which thou gavest me to do.= By anticipation Christ regards that
as consummated, the consummation of which is so near at hand. In fact,
not the least part of his work was the endurance of the Passion of the
next twenty-four hours. Comp. Paul in 2 Tim. 4:7, “I have finished my
course,” etc.--=And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself, with
that glory which I have always had with thee before the world was.=
That is, _Manifest my glory in and with thee, that glory which I have
always possessed_. The word _glorify_ is used throughout this prayer,
I believe, always with the one signification, viz., to show forth
glory, not to confer it (see on ver. 1), and that the glory of
inherent character, not of circumstance or condition. _I have had_
(εἶχον, imperfect) is, as above rendered, equivalent to _always_ or
_habitually had_. The language _before the world was_ clearly implies
Christ’s pre-existence with the Father from the creation of the world.
It is not, and by no candid interpretation can be made, the language
of a merely human experience. God is said to have chosen his saints
(Ephes. 1:4), but not to have loved and glorified them, from before
the beginning of the world; but Christ’s grace was prepared and his
glory was manifested before the foundation of the world (Col. 1:17; 2
Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2). Christ declares that he has manifested the glory
of the Father by the fulfilling of the Father’s work thus far; and he
prays the Father to remember the glory of love which bound the Son and
the Father together in the eternal life of the past, and to so sustain
him in the trying experiences of the present, that this divine glory,
which he has had with the Father from before the beginning of the
world, may be made manifest.
6 I[639] have manifested thy name unto the men which
thou[640] gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and
thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy[641] word.
[639] verse 26; Ps. 22:22.
[640] verses 2, 9, 11; Rom. 8:30.
[641] Heb. 3:6.
=6.= Christ here passes from the prayer for himself to the
intercessory prayer for his disciples, with whom, by the request in
ver. 20, he includes all who have faith in him, through all time.--=I
have manifested thy name unto the men whom thou entrusted to me out of
the world. Thine they were, and thou entrusted them to me; and they
have guarded thy teaching.= To _manifest_ is literally to cause to
shine (φανερόω, from φαίνω). The name that was enveloped in darkness,
of him whom no one by searching can find out, who was, and apart from
Christ ever is, the unknown and unknowable, Christ has made to shine
forth out of the darkness. The _name_ represents all that which lies
back of and gives meaning to the name, here the power and character of
God. See Matt. 28:19, note. Especially his name of Father Christ has
made to shine out upon a before orphaned world, both by manifesting in
himself the character of God the Father, and by his life, and notably
by this prayer, manifesting also the relation which may and should
subsist between the children and the Father to whom Christ gives
access (Rom. 5:2; Ephes. 2:18; 3:12). The verb rendered _gave_, here
and below (δίδωμι), is equally capable of being rendered _entrusted_
or _committed_ (_Rob. Lex._). This is clearly its meaning in Matt.
16:19; 25:15; John 5:22; and I think represents the meaning here and
in John 10:29 better than the word _gave_. The Father entrusts his
children to the guardian keeping of his Son, but will at the end
receive them again unto himself when the Son delivers up the kingdom
to God, even the Father (1 Cor. 15:24). They were the Father’s
(_thine_) before they were entrusted to the Son, not because they were
Israelites; for Christ includes all, Gentiles as well as Jews, in this
prayer, and elsewhere makes it clear that he does not regard any one
as of God because descended from Abraham (ch. 8:37, 39, 40; comp. Luke
3:8); nor because they were chosen by God from the foundation of the
world; for there is no distinct declaration nor any necessary
implication of election, either absolute or conditional, here. The
disciple of Christ is the Father’s, because he is born from above, by
the Spirit of God, before he can see the kingdom of God, certainly
therefore before by faith he can enter it. Thus he is of the Father
before he hears Christ’s voice; he is given by the Father to the Son
before he comes to the Son (John 3:5; 6:37, 44; 8:47). _Teaching_ or
_word_ (λόγος), a different Greek word from that rendered _words_ in
ver. 8, indicates the whole system of divine truth entrusted by the
Father to Christ and by him taught to his disciples, and pre-eminently
that truth of God which was embodied in the Son’s life and death even
more than in his verbal instructions (ch. 7:16; 12:48, 49). It is
called the Father’s _word_ or _teaching_ because the words of Christ
were not his, but the Father’s (ch. 14:24). To _keep_ (τηρέω) is to
guard watchfully, as one guards a prisoner; it therefore includes the
idea both of watchful attention to the word and solicitude to preserve
it by obedience in the life and heart (ch. 8:51, note). Christ then
declares that he has made luminous the name of God, by interpreting
the divine Fatherhood, not to the whole world, but to those selected
out of the world and entrusted to his guardian keeping; and that those
thus entrusted to him by the Father, to whom they owe the first
impulse of divine life that sent them to Christ for light, have been
attentive to hear and careful to preserve the instructions they have
received from him. In the succeeding two verses he indicates what was
the heart of this divine instruction.
7 Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast
given me are of thee.
8 For I have given unto them the words[642] which thou
gavest me; and they have received _them_, and have known
surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed
that thou didst send me.
[642] ch. 6:68; 14:10.
=7, 8. Now.= _Already_; the word is emphatic.--=They know.= _Assuredly
know_; the perfect tense has the present signification, but
indicates completed knowledge; not that the disciples were perfect in
knowledge of Christian truth, but they were fully convinced of the
fundamental truth of Christianity, viz., that it is a divine
revelation, not an earth-born and human philosophy.--=That all things
whatsoever thou hast entrusted to me are bestowed by thee.= _Are of
thee_ (παρὰ σοῦ ἐστεν) signifies _bestowed by thee_; the former is the
more literal, the latter is the truer translation, because it renders
the Greek idiom into its English equivalent (see _Rob. Lex._, παρά,
I:2). Christianity is a _gift_ of the Father through Christ.--=That
the words which thou hast entrusted to me I have entrusted to them.=
This clause, like the preceding one, is dependent on the first clause;
the disciples have assuredly known that whatsoever truths are
possessed by Christ came from the Father, and that whatsoever the
Father has entrusted to him he has in turn entrusted to them, keeping
nothing back for fear or favor. Comp. Acts 20:20, 27. I see no reason
for translating the same Greek particle (ὅτι) _that_ in ver. 7, _for_
or _because_ in ver. 8, first clause, and _that_ again in the last
clause of the same verse. Christ before spoke of _doctrine_ or
_teaching_ (λόγος), _i. e._, the system as a whole; he now speaks of
_words_ (ῥήμα), thus emphasizing the truth that each specific word in
his teaching, whether of promise, commandment, or instruction, is from
the Father. These words were entrusted by the Father to Christ, and
now that Christ is about to leave his disciples he entrusts these
words in turn to them, sending them forth, as he himself was sent
forth, to teach only what they are commanded. See ver. 18; Matt.
28:20. He does not merely give these words to us for our own behoof;
he entrusts them to us to be used for others.--=And they have
received= (not _them_, an addition by the translators which the
context does not warrant), =and known assuredly that from thee I came
forth=. They have just declared their reception of this central truth
of Christianity, that Jesus Christ came forth from the Father (ch.
16:29, 30). They not only have known that Christ has taught only what
the Father imparted to him, _i. e._, is a teacher sent from God (ch.
3:2, note), but they have gone on from this _knowledge_ to the
spiritual reception _by faith_ of the truth that Christ himself has
come forth from the Father. Their faith has laid hold on not only his
divine teaching, but also his divine character. Whosoever begins by
accepting Christ as a divine and authoritative teacher, and holds fast
to that faith, grows into the experience of continuous acceptance of
him in his person and character as a manifestation of the Father from
whom not only the words, but he himself, came forth.--=And have had
faith that thou didst send me.= “_That I came out from thee_ is more a
matter of conviction from inference, hence _they have known_; whereas
the other side of the same truth, _thou hast sent me forth_, the act
of the Father unseen by us, is more a matter of pure faith, hence
_they have had faith_.”--(_Alford._)
9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world,[643] but for
them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
[643] 1 John 5:19.
10 And all mine[644] are thine, and thine are mine; and
I[645] am glorified in them.
[644] ch. 16:15.
[645] Gal. 1:24; 1 Pet. 2:9.
=9, 10. I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world.= It is
monstrous exegesis to conclude from this that Christ never prays for
the world; he simply says, I am not now praying for the world, but for
my own disciples. He enjoined on his followers to pray for the
unbelieving (Matt. 5:44); he prayed upon the cross for them, “Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34); in this
very prayer, in ver. 23, he prays “That the world may know that thou
hast sent me,” etc. The tense here is present, and the above
translation accurately represents the original. In asking for those
who have accepted him as a manifestation of the glory of the Father,
that they may be kept even unto the end, he is praying for his own.
“The most he asked for the world is that it may be converted, not that
it may be sanctified or kept.”--(_Luther._) To the same effect are
Godet, Alford, Meyer, and the modern commentators generally.--=But for
those whom thou hast entrusted to me; for they are thine; and mine all
are thine, and thine mine, and my glory is manifested in them.= _All_
is emphatic; the only begotten Son has nothing in reserve from the
Father. What Luther says is true: “Any man may say, What is mine is
thine, but only the Son can say, What is thine is mine;” nevertheless
there are few that can utter with the whole heart, and without any
reserve, even the first clause, “Mine _all_ are thine.” Christ pleads
for his own on two grounds: (1) They are the Father’s in the ownership
of love; thus the covenant mercy of God for his own is plead as one
ground of intercession. Comp. Ps. 51:1; 69:13, 16. (2) They are
entrusted to the Son’s safe-keeping, and their preservation and
sanctification will manifest the Son’s glory, _i. e._, the glory of
his redeeming love and power; thus the Father’s love for the Son is
plead as a second ground of intercession. Thus also his example
indicates what it is to pray to the Father in the name of the Son,
viz., in order that his glory of redeeming love may be manifested.
While this declaration, “Mine all are thine and thine mine,” is to be
taken in its more comprehensive sense, as indicating the unity of the
Son and the Father in all things, yet the context gives a peculiar and
spiritual significance to it. All that come to Christ by faith, so
becoming his, are born from above and are the children of God; and all
that are truly born from above and are the children of God come to
Christ by faith, and so become his (ch. 6:44, 45; 8:42, 47).
11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the
world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep[646] through
thine own name[647] those whom thou hast given me, that
they may be one, as we _are_.
[646] 1 Pet. 1:5; Jude 1:24.
[647] Prov. 18:10.
12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in
thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and
none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the
scripture[648] might be fulfilled.
[648] Ps. 109:8; Acts 1:20.
=11, 12. And now I am no more in the world, and these are in the
world, and I am coming to thee.= An additional plea for those whom he
is leaving behind. He can no longer be with them, their guide and
guardian; therefore he pleads for the guidance and the guardianship of
the Father.--=O Holy Father, guard them in that name of thine which
thou hast entrusted to me, in order that they may be one in like
manner as we are.= There is some uncertainty as to the reading; (ὅ,
and οὕς and ῶ are all found in MSS.) Some manuscripts give authority
for our English version, _Keep those whom thou hast entrusted to me_;
others give as above, _Keep those in thy name which thou hast
entrusted to me_. The latter is sustained by the best critics
(_Alford_, _Meyer_, _Bengel_, _Groesback_, _Tischendorf_). Every word
in this sentence is weighty. The meaning of _holy_ is pure, clean,
without blemish. The divine holiness is ever going out of itself,
imparting of itself to others, aiming to make all other natures holy;
thus by the appellation _Holy Father_ Christ appeals to the cleansing
nature of the Father. To _keep_ is to guard with watchful care. See
above on ver. 6. _In_ (ἐν) is instrumental; as the life of the flower
is preserved _in_ the sunshine, so the life of the soul _in_ the name
of the Father, in whom we live and move and have our being. The _name_
stands here, as above (ver. 6), for all which that name represents:
the paternal God. This name was not _given_ to Christ, he does not
bear it; but it was _entrusted_ to Christ, that he might manifest it
to his disciples, by teaching them the Fatherhood of God; and it is to
this name that Christ commends his disciples, for it is by faith in
this name, _i. e._, in the essential fatherly character of God, that
the disciple receives the spirit of adoption whereby he becomes a
child of God (Rom. 8:15-17), and it is this faith in his Father’s
holy keeping which is a shield to quench all the fiery darts of the
wicked (Ephes. 6:16). _In order that_ may grammatically express either
the object for which the Father’s name was entrusted to Christ, or the
object of the holy keeping which Christ seeks for his disciples. In
fact, the object of the manifestation and of the fatherly guardianship
is the same, namely, that the disciples who have by faith received
that name, and are protected by it, may become partakers of the divine
nature, and so become one with the Son and the Father, not only in
general purpose, but in all essential elements of character (Heb.
12:10; 2 Pet. 1:4).--=While I was with them I guarded them in that
name of thine which thou didst entrust to me.= The reading here, as
above, is involved in some uncertainty, but this is the better
reading. The words _in the world_ are a gloss, and are needless.--=And
I preserved them.= Our English version obscures the meaning by
rendering two different Greek words (τηρέω and φυλάσσω) by the same
English word (_keep_) in this and the preceding verse. Christ declares
above that he has kept watch, here that this watch has been
successful, and that he has _preserved_ those over whom he has
watched.--=And no one of them has destroyed himself.= This, which is
the sense of the middle voice in Greek, it is important to preserve.
“Christ did not lose Judas, but he lost himself.”--(_Alford._) But the
language implies that every one might have destroyed himself but for
the guardian care of Christ.--=Except the son of destruction, that the
Scripture might be fulfilled.= See John 13:18; Acts 1:20; Ps. 41:9. It
was predetermined, not that one who might have been saved should
destroy himself in order to fulfill prophecy, but that one who would
destroy himself should be among the twelve. Judas was not lured to
destruction in order to fulfill prophecy, but prophecy was fulfilled
in his self-destruction. See ch. 19:28, note. “Judas fell that the
Scripture might be fulfilled. But it would be a most unfounded
argument if any one were to infer from this that the revolt of Judas
ought to be ascribed to God rather than to himself, because the
prediction laid him under a necessity. * * * Nor was it the design of
Christ to transfer to Scripture the cause of the ruin of Judas, but it
was only intended to take away the occasion of stumbling by showing
that the Spirit of God had long ago testified that such an event would
happen.”--(_Calvin._) It is a noticeable fact that the phrase _son of
destruction_, here employed to designate Judas, is employed by Paul in
2 Thess. 2:3 to designate the Anti-Christ.
13 And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the
world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
14 I have given them thy word; and the world[649] hath
hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am
not of the world.
[649] ch. 15:18, 19.
15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the
world, but[650] that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
[650] Gal. 1:4.
16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
=13-16. But now I am coming to thee.= and therefore can no longer be
an earthly guardian. As a mother dying entrusts her children to God,
so Christ his disciples.--=And these things I speak in the world that
they may have my joy filled to overflowing in themselves.= _These
things_ include not only the prayer now offered for the disciples, but
also the whole course of instruction given to them and immediately
preceding the prayer. The object of both instruction and prayer is the
same, that his disciples may be brought into that oneness with the
Father, that life in him, and that consequent consecration to his will
and service, which filled the Son with an abiding peace and joy, and
that so they might be filled to the full with the same joy. See ch.
14:27; 15:11, notes.--=I have entrusted to them thy teaching.= Not
_given_, but _entrusted_. See above on ver. 6. The teaching which the
Father entrusted to the Son, the Son in turn entrusted primarily to
the apostles, secondarily to his disciples throughout all time, that
they may become lights of the world as he was the Light of the world,
teachers of the truth of God as he was the Great Teacher (Matt. 5:14;
Phil. 2:15). That this is the meaning is indicated by what follows. It
is only as the disciples become, by their life and words, teachers of
the truth, that the world hates them.--=And the world has hated them,
because they are not from= (ἐκ) =the world, in like manner as I am not
from the world=. The disciple of Christ is born from above (ch. 3:3;
Gal. 6:15; 1 Pet. 1:3), and thus is spiritually like his Master (ch.
8:23). The origin of the divine life in Christ and his followers is
the same; in both it proceeds from the Father.--=I pray not that thou
shouldest take them from the world, but that thou shouldest guard them
from the Evil One.= Not as Norton renders it, and as our English
version implies, from what is evil, though that is included by
implication; but from the Evil One, _i. e._, Satan. The original is,
indeed, capable of either meaning; but the latter interpretation
agrees best with John’s usage elsewhere. See 1 John 2:13, 14; 3:12;
5:18. The Evil One is treated by Christ as the source, or at least the
representative, of all that is evil, as the prince of the kingdom of
darkness and sin. Compare Matt. 13:25, 38, 39, where the tares, _i.
e._, the children of the wicked, are represented as sown by the enemy,
_i. e._, the devil.--If Christ does not desire for us that we should
be taken out of the world, we are not to desire it for ourselves.
Temporary retreat from the world, the better to prepare us for it, is
legitimate; so Christ sometimes retreated, seeking strength in
solitude and communion with his Father. But Christianity is not
asceticism. The disciple is sent into the world that he may be a light
to the world, and the measure of his Christian life is not his
experience in hours of retirement from it, but the fidelity of his
life in it.
17 Sanctify[651] them through thy truth: thy word[652] is
truth.
[651] Acts 15:9; Ephes. 5:26; 2 Thess. 2:13.
[652] Ps. 119:151.
=17. Consecrate them in thy truth; thy teaching is truth.= The
original (ἀγιάζω) may be rendered either _consecrate_ or _sanctify_.
It means both to set apart from a common to a sacred use, and also to
make holy for that use; in other words, it may mean to make holy in
_mission_ or in _character_. But the former is evidently the meaning
here; for it cannot be said that Christ made himself holy in character
for the sake of his disciples (ver. 19). Christ prays that the Father
will set apart his disciples to a life of divine service, as priests
unto God (Rev. 20:6). This consecration of the disciple involves his
sanctification; for the sinner cannot be set apart to a holy work
while yet in his sins. It does not involve sanctification in the Son,
because he had no sins to be cleansed away. This consecration of the
disciple is effected both by imparting to him through the Holy Spirit
the truth of God (ch. 14:26), and by commissioning him to serve that
truth by bearing witness of it unto others (Matt. 28:20; Acts 1:8).
_In thy truth_ (ἐν, dative) expresses the idea that the truth is both
the instrument by which and the service to which the disciple is
consecrated. We are consecrated unto the truth as we live _in_ the
truth; so Samuel was consecrated to the temple by being brought while
yet a child to live _in_ the temple. Christ designates the teaching or
word which he has imparted, and which the Holy Spirit will further
impart to his disciples, _thy teaching_, because all that comes
through the Son and the Spirit comes from the Father (ch. 14:10;
16:13).
18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also
sent them into the world.
19 And[653] for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they
also might be sanctified through the truth.
[653] 1 Cor. 1:2, 30.
=18, 19. In like manner as thou hast sent me into the world, I also
have sent them into the world.= Full weight is to be given to the
phrase _as_, _i. e._, _in like manner as_ (καθὼς). This is the most
weighty and solemn declaration of the mission of the disciple, I
think, in the N. T., albeit it corresponds with the universal teaching
of both Gospel and Epistle, viz., that Christ is the first-born among
many brethren, and that those who are his disciples are also to be _in
all things_ his followers; like him _teachers of the truth_; like him
_manifesting the life and character of God_ in the world, by the
divine life begotten in them from above; like him _bearing the sins of
others in their own person_, and so filling up what is behind of the
sufferings Of Christ (Phil. 3:10; Col. 1:24; 1 Pet. 4:13). Christ does
not merely _leave_ his disciples in the world, he _sends_ them into
it, as he was sent, each disciple to be in his narrower sphere a
saviour of others, and the whole discipleship to be the body of an
ever living, ever incarnate, ever teaching, and ever atoning Lord.
Thus, too, not only because they are _left alone_, but yet more
because they are _sent forth_ to complete his work, does the Son ask
the Father to be to them what he has been to their Lord in his earthly
mission.--=And for their sakes I consecrate myself, in order that they
also might be consecrated in the truth.= As above, both _in_, _i. e._,
by means of, and _unto_, _i. e._, to serve the cause of the truth. The
definite article is wanting, and Meyer reads the phrase _consecrated
in truth_, as simply equivalent to “truly consecrated”; but the other
interpretation is warranted by Greek usage, and better accords with
the context. While Christ identifies himself with his disciples in his
prayer that they may become one with him, in his declaration that they
are in the spiritual life born of the same divine Father, and in his
commission to them to carry out his work, he distinguishes between
himself and them; for he _consecrates himself_; they must be
consecrated by a higher power. The consecration which the Lord made of
himself was not made, though it was consummated, at Calvary. His death
was a crowning act, not the whole act. “Our Lord possessed a human
nature like our own, endowed with inclinations and dislikes as our own
is, though of such only as are perfectly lawful. Of this nature he was
continually making a holy offering; he constrained it to obedience;
negatively by sacrificing it when it was in contradiction with his
mission; positively by devoting to his divinely appointed task all his
powers, all his natural and spiritual talents. It was thus that ‘He by
the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot unto God’ (Heb.
9:14).”--(_Godet._) So also substantially Calvin, Alford,
Hengstenberg. Comp. John 10:11, note.
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which
shall believe on me through their word;
21 That they all may be one;[654] as thou, Father, _art_ in
me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that
the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
[654] Rom. 12:5.
=20, 21. Not for these only am I praying, but also for those who have
faith upon me through their teaching.= The statement is not general,
_I am accustomed to pray for believers_, but special, _It is for all
believers that I am now praying_. His intercessory prayer is for us no
less than for them.--=That all may be one; in like manner as thou,
Father, in me, and I in thee, that also they in us one may be; that
the world may have faith that thou hast sent me.= The emphasis of the
Greek is partially represented in this nearly literal rendering.
Observe the close connection with what has gone before. The burden of
Christ’s prayer has been that his disciples may be preserved in the
world, and consecrated for their mission as truth-bearers to the
world; he now adds, I ask this in order that they may be one in us.
His prayer is not merely that they may be one, but that they _may be
consecrated in and to the truth, so that they may become one_. The
implication is that whenever Christians are thoroughly consecrated to
the service of Christ all differences so disappear that they work
together in unity of the spirit and of faith; and this truth history
abundantly confirms. This unity is not in creed, ceremonial, or
ecclesiastical organization, but in the _Father and the Son_, _i. e._,
the unity of personal devotion to, and love for, and spiritual
communion and fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ (1
John 1:3). This spiritual union in and with God will finally lead to
but it is not founded on unity in opinion. It is a union that is
apparent as well as real. The world will see it, and seeing will be
led to believe that the Father has sent the Son, _i. e._, that
Christianity is of divine origin, so marvellous will seem to be the
power of love uniting in one kingdom elements, opinions, and
nationalities so diverse. This spiritual unity of the discipleship of
Christ is almost the consummation of Christ’s prayer. He has only one
higher request to prefer for his church, namely, that through this
unity in him and the Father who has sent him, the church may come to a
true spiritual appreciation of the Son’s eternal glory with and in the
Father (ver. 24).
22 And the glory[655] which thou gavest me I have given
them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
[655] 2 Cor. 3:18.
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect
in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me,
and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
=22, 23. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that
they may be one in like manner as we are one.= _I_ is emphatic. The
Father has given glory to the Son; the Son makes all his followers
participators in that glory. In what does this glory consist? Not in
the power of working miracles (_Chrysostom_), for this he has not
given to all those that believe in his name. Not the glory of the
heavenly state (_Meyer_), for this he _will_ give, but had not given
to his disciples when he uttered this prayer. Not the glory of unity
with the Father and the Son (_Hengstenberg_), for the glory is given
in order that this unity may be attained; this unity with the Godhead
is not the glory, but the result of it. The glory which the Father
gave the Son was the glory of being the Son of God (Matt. 3:17; John
1:14; Heb. 1:5; 3:6). This glory Christ imparts to his followers, who
through him are received into the adoption of God by faith, and become
themselves sons of God (ch. 1:12; 1 John 3:1). And it is as we become
thus sons of God that we become one with each other because one in
him, one household of faith only as we are united to one Father (Rom.
8:29; Ephes. 1:10; 2:19). This glory of sonship involves not only
filial relations with the Father, but the possession of a divine life
begotten by the Father, and therefore a nature akin to that of the
Father, who is love, and whose children we are only as we dwell in
love (1 John 3:9, 10; 4:8, 16).--=I in them and thou in me.= And
therefore the Father in them through the Son, by whom they have access
to the Father.--=That they may be perfected unto unity.= This unity of
love with the Father and the Son, and therefore with one another, is
the culmination of the divine life, as well as the disclosure of it.
Comp. Ephes. 4:11-13: “Till we all come in the unity of the faith of
the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man.”--=In order that
the world may know that thou hast sent me forth.= It shall no longer
_have faith_ merely; it shall _know_ assuredly the divine origin and
authority of the Christian religion, and this conviction shall be
compelled by the moral and spiritual power of a spiritually united
church.--=And that thou hast loved them in like manner as thou hast
loved me.= Comp. ch. 16:27. With a love not merely of compassion, but
now, all quarrels with one another ended because all separation
and estrangement from God are at an end, with a love of cordial
approbation. Then the voice shall speak to the universal discipleship,
Behold my beloved sons in whom I am well pleased; and the whole world
shall hear and acknowledge him who has wrought this redemption (Phil.
2:10; Rom. 14:11).
24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me,
be[656] with me where I am; that they may behold my glory,
which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the
foundation of the world.
[656] 1 Thess. 4:17.
=24. Father, whom thou hast entrusted to me, I will that where I am
they also may be.= (The sense is the same whether the reading ὅ or οὕς
be adopted.) Christ changes his expression; he no longer says _I
pray_, but _I will_. “He demands with confidence as a Son, not as a
servant.”--(_Bengel._) There are two Greek verbs which are capable of
being rendered _I will_; the one (βούλομαι) expresses an inclination,
the other (θέλω) a positive purpose. The latter is the word used here.
It might justly be rendered _It is my will_. It is nowhere else used
by Jesus. With the close of his prayer there comes such assurance of
his own unity with the Father that he no longer prefers a request; he
declares his purpose. In this declaration of his purpose he recurs to
the promise which he had made at the opening of this most sacred
interview, “I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where
I am, there ye may be also” (ch. 14:3). In this expression _I will_,
Christ’s prayer can hardly be a model for his followers. We may say to
our Father, I wish; but we can never be so sure of his gracious
purposes and of our union with him in them, that we can safely say to
him, _Father, I will_.--=That they may behold my glory, which thou
gavest me, because thou lovedst me before founding a world.= Observe,
not _before the foundation of the world_, but _before founding any
world_; the definite article is not in the original. On the
significance of this declaration as a testimony to the pre-existent
glory of Christ, see on ver. 5. To _behold_ (θεωρέω) is primarily to
be a spectator of, and in its primary signification includes the idea
of attention, wonder, admiration. It is, however, here used certainly
of spiritual apprehension; we shall be filled with wonder and surprise
when the veil drops from our eyes and we see him as he is. The glory
which Christ had with the Father from the beginning is the glory of
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8), the glory
of a character whose radiance is infinite love, of which the sacrifice
of Christ, purposed from the remote past, is the highest
manifestation; and this is the glory which the saints, redeemed by
his blood, behold in heaven (Rev. 5:8; 7:9; 21:23). Christ’s will,
then, for his disciples is that they may be so spiritually exalted
that they may be able to apprehend the full glory of that
self-sacrificing love which now they look upon with so feeble
appreciation, and which to the unbelieving world is inglorious (1 Cor.
1:23). This is the consummation of his prayer; what a climax in what
an ascending scale! First that his disciples may be guarded in his
absence by the divine care in which he himself has trusted (11-13);
then that, guarded in the world, they may be consecrated to their
Christly mission, to teach, to manifest God, to suffer (15-19); then
that, with all believers, they may be brought into spiritual unity
with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ, being made sons of God, and
so sharers in the glory of him whose greatest glory it was and is to
be the well-beloved Son of the Father (20-23); and finally that, thus
preserved, consecrated, adopted, they may be able to realize the glory
of that love of self-sacrifice, to which we all sometimes find it
difficult even to submit without rebellion, and in which only the most
consecrated are ever able to rejoice.
25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I
have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent
me.
26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare
_it_: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in
them, and I in them.
=25, 26. O righteous Father.= Christ first appealed simply to the
Fatherhood of God (ver. 1), then to his holiness (ver. 11), now at
last even to his righteousness or justice. For since the Son has
finished the work which the Father gave him to do, he may ask of
righteousness itself to complete it. Thus justice and purity compete
with love in pleading for the fulfillment of redemption. So in 1 John
1:9 it is said that “he is faithful and _just_ to forgive us our
sins.”--=Though= (καὶ) =the world has not known thee, I have known
thee, and= (καὶ) =these have known that thou hast sent me forth=. The
world, the Son, and the disciples stand here in a triple contrast; to
the world God is the absolute unknown; to the Son he is known; to the
disciples God is manifested in the Son, who comes forth from God and
goes to God again.--=And I have made known thy name to them, and will
make it known.= And with the name all that the name represents--the
justice, the holiness, and pre-eminently the Fatherhood. See on ver.
6. These words attest the consciousness in Christ that an answer has
been vouchsafed to his prayer. He began by asking the Father to
glorify the Son, that the Son might glorify the Father. He closes by
declaring, not only that he has thus far made known the name of the
Father (ver. 5), but that in the impending hour of passion and death
he will make the Father known, and so will glorify him. It is true
that the whole work of the church ever since, and of Christ in his
church, has been making known the name of the Father; but it has been
by interpreting the meaning of the cross of Christ, by preaching
Christ and him crucified, as the wisdom and power of God (Rom. 1:16; 1
Cor. 1:23, 24; 2:2). Thus this prayer ends, as it began, with an
implied reference to the impending Passion; but it begins with
petition; it ends with assurance of victory.--=In order that the love
wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.= That is,
both that they may possess an experience of the Father’s love for
them, and may possess a love like the Father’s, being made perfect in
love, even as their Father in heaven is perfect (Matt. 5:48); so also
that the Spirit of Christ may dwell in them, and that by this
indwelling their own spirit may be conformed unto his (2 Cor. 3:18).
In this simple and sublime sentence the Son embodies the object of his
mission as the Divine Teacher, the Divine Revealer, and the Divine
Sufferer. The object of his teaching, incarnation, and atonement is
that he may make known the Father to those that will learn of his Son;
and this that he may make them one with the Father and his Son--one in
spiritual fellowship, because one in spiritual character.
It is a shallow criticism which imagines an incongruity between this
prayer recorded by John and the prayer in Gethsemane which immediately
followed, and which John has not recorded. Here Christ asks that he
may be enabled to glorify the Father’s name to the end; there he asks
that the same results may, _if it is possible_, be accomplished
without the terrible ordeal of the betrayal, the desertion, the mock
trials, the mob, the crucifixion, the veiling of the Father’s face.
But in the agony of Gethsemane, as portrayed by the other three
Evangelists, the Son never for a moment wavers from the supreme wish
that the Father’s will may be accomplished and the Father’s name made
manifest. The power, not merely to resign himself to the Father’s
will, but affirmatively to pray, “Not my will but thine be done,” was
a part of that very glory with which he besought the Father to invest
him. The devout student will recognize in the prayer of Gethsemane a
partial answer to the prayer in the upper chamber; for in
Gethsemane, no less than in the court of Caiaphas, the judgment hall
of Pilate, and the death on Calvary, the Father glorified the Son and
the Son glorified the Father.
CHAPTER XVIII.
=Ch. 18:1-11.= THE BETRAYAL AND ARREST OF JESUS.--THE DIVINE MAJESTY
OF OUR LORD EXEMPLIFIED.--Narrated by all the Evangelists: Matt.
26:47-56; Mark 14:43-52; Luke 22:47-53. As usual where the four
Evangelists narrate the same events, John gives particulars omitted by
the others--the falling back to the ground of the guard, and Christ’s
interposition for the disciples (ver. 6-9)--and omits events recorded
by the others--the conference between Jesus and Judas, and the
traitor’s kiss (Matt. 26:49, 50; Mark 14:44, 45). That John wrote with
the other accounts before him, and to supply their omissions, is the
most reasonable explanation of these and like variations in their
accounts. He does not describe the agony in Gethsemane, because he can
add nothing to what is already told; he narrates of the arrest only
what is not already known. Even in describing the attempted resistance
to the arrest, this peculiarity is to be seen; for he alone of the
Evangelists mentions the name of the disciple who drew the sword and
of the servant who was wounded by it. The discrepancies in the four
accounts of the arrest are such as we should expect in four individual
accounts of a scene of such confusion. The probable order of events,
as indicated by a comparison of the accounts, I have given in the
notes on Matthew, which consult throughout. Here I treat only what is
peculiar to John’s account.
1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his
disciples over the brook Cedron,[657] where was a garden,
into the which he entered, and his disciples.
[657] 2 Sam. 15:23.
=1. With his disciples.= That is, with the eleven. Judas was with the
priests, consummating arrangements for the arrest of Jesus.--=Beyond
the brook of the Cedars.= Or the _black torrent_, which is the meaning
of the Hebrew, from which the Greek is derived. The word rendered
_brook_ (χείμαῤῥος) indicates a winter torrent, flowing in the rainy
season, but dry in summer. It flowed through a ravine to the east of
Jerusalem, and between it and the Mount of Olives.--=Where was a
garden.= Rather an orchard. The original signifies any place planted
with herbs and trees. This was called Gethsemane, and was a customary
resort of Christ and his disciples. See next verse; and compare Luke
22:39. On its location, see Matt. 26:36 and illustration there. On the
agony in this garden, see notes on Matt. 26:36-46. It occurred
between Christ’s entering the garden and the arrival of Judas and the
guard.
2 And Judas also, which betrayed him, knew the place:
for Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with his disciples.
3 Judas[658] then, having received a band _of men_ and
officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh
thither with lanterns and torches and weapons.
[658] Matt. 26:47, etc.; Mark 14:43, etc; Luke 22:47,
etc.
=2, 3. Judas then, having received the band, and, from the chief
priests and Pharisees, temple officers= (ὑπηρέτης), =cometh thither=.
The band was composed of Roman soldiers; the officers were temple
police; the former were armed with swords, the latter with staves.
Servants of the priests, and some of the priests themselves,
accompanied the force. See Matt. 26:47, note; Luke 22:52.--=With
lanterns and torches.= “The fact of its being full moon did not make
the lights unnecessary, as in searching for a prisoner they might have
to enter dark places.”--(_Alford._) They appear also to have had a
fear of attempted flight or rescue. See Matt. 26:48, note. I doubt
whether any definite distinction is intended between lanterns and
torches. The annexed cuts give illustrations of two kinds of night
torches used among the Romans. The one (_fax_), (_Rich._, p. 280) was
made out of a piece of resinous wood, cut into a point and dipped in
oil or pitch, or of inflammable materials enclosed in a tube. The
other (_lampas_), (_Rich._, p. 365) was in the nature of a
candlestick, with a handle beneath and a large disk above, to protect
the hand from the drippings of the pitchy or resinous matter of which
the torch consisted. This _lampa_ was carried by the youth of Athens
in a peculiar race, in which the winner had to outstrip his
competitors without extinguishing his light. The ancient Oriental
lantern, like those still employed in Egypt (see Lane’s _Modern
Egypt_), consisted of a wax cloth, strained over a sort of cylinder of
iron rings and a top and bottom of perforated copper. Both the Roman
torch and the Oriental lantern may have been used on this occasion.
[Illustration:
ROMAN TORCHES. ORIENTAL TORCH.]
4 Jesus therefore, knowing[659] all things that should come
upon him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye?
[659] ch. 10:17, 18; Acts 2:28.
5 They answered him, Jesus of[660] Nazareth. Jesus saith
unto them, I am _he_. And Judas also, which betrayed him,
stood with them.
[660] ch. 19:19; Matt. 2:23.
=4, 5. Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that should come upon
him.= Not merely knowing that the guard had come to arrest him (Matt.
26:45), but with the full consciousness of all the agony of the morrow
(Matt. 20:17-19; Luke 18:31-34). Of his own will he submits to the
Passion (Matt. 26:53; John 10:18).--=Went forth.= Possibly from the
shadow of the trees into the moonlight, or from the garden walls, or
perhaps simply advanced to meet the guards. His object in so doing is
indicated by ver. 8. He put himself between the guards and his
disciples to prevent the arrest of the latter. Judas preceded the band
(Luke 22:47), and Christ’s questions addressed to the apostate, and
the traitor’s kiss (Matt. 26:49, 50; Luke 22:48), seem to have taken
place before Christ spoke to the guard.--=Jesus the Nazarene.= Jesus,
or Joshua--the names are the same--was a common one among the Jews,
and the term “Nazarene” was a customary appellation, especially by his
foes, to designate our Lord. Its tone, to the Judeans, was one of
contempt (Matt. 2:23; John 19:19).--=And there stood Judas, he that
betrayed him, with them.= If we suppose that Jesus hurried forth from
the garden, before the three disciples were well awake, to the spot
where the others had been sleeping, then, not improbably, John did not
see the traitor’s kiss, but, arriving after, saw Judas standing with
the guard, who had meanwhile come to the spot; thus he narrates only
what he personally witnessed. His language, by its very simplicity,
suggests to the imagination the contrast between Jesus and Judas, the
betrayed and the betrayer.
6 As soon then as he had said unto them, I am _he_,
they[661] went backward, and fell to the ground.
[661] Ps. 27:2; 40:14.
=6. They= (the guard) =went backward and fell to the ground=. That
this states a literal fact will not be questioned by any who believe
in the historical trustworthiness of the Gospel narratives. That it
describes a miracle, that is, a sign of the superhuman character of
Christ, is equally certain. Whether it is to be regarded as an effect
produced by the _will_ of our Lord, or by the mere _majesty_ and
_dignity_ of his mien, and his reply, is the only question which
believers in the N. T. have to consider. I think the latter. The scene
is interpreted, though not fully explained, by similar instances of
moral power excited by noble over savage natures. History records
several analogous cases, as when before Mark Antony, Marius, and
Coligny, the murderers recoiled panic-stricken. So Avidius Cassius,
“springing to the door of his tent in nightdress, quelled a mutinous
army by his mere presence.”--(_Farrar._) Lange cites Matt. 28:4; Luke
4:30; John 7:44-46; 8:59; 10:39; Acts 5:5, 10, as partially parallel.
The historical cases above referred to illustrate the _human_ power of
a noble soul; this case differs from them in that it shows the
_divine_ power of Him who not only spake as never man spake, but who
carried in his person the evidence that he was in very deed the image
of God and the brightness of his glory. This view is confirmed by the
reflection that he came forth to meet the guard from an hour of sacred
and solemn communion with God, of ecstasy unfathomable by us. “I
regard it,” says Alford, “rather as a miracle _consequent upon_ that
which Christ said and did, and the state of mind in which his enemies
were, than as one in the strict sense _wrought_ by him; bearing,
however, always in mind, that to Him nothing was unexpected or a _mere
result_, but everything foreknown.” Thus interpreted it is a striking
testimony, one of many, to the personal glory of Him who was ever full
of “grace and truth,” and gives a solemn significance to such passages
as Matt. 25:31; Rev. 1:7; 6:15-17. “If he did this when about to be
judged, what shall he do when he shall sit in judgment? If he did this
on the eve of death, what shall he do when reigning?”--(_Augustine._)
7 Then asked he them again, Whom seek ye? And they said,
Jesus of Nazareth.
8 Jesus answered, I have told you that I am _he_: if
therefore ye seek me,[662] let these go their way:
[662] Isa. 53:6; Ephes. 5:25.
=7, 8.= I surmise that the attack on the guard followed their sudden
terror. The disciples were eager to make it (Luke 22:49), though Peter
was the only one who carried the will into action. Only one other
disciple was armed (Luke 22:38). The request of Christ, “_Let these go
their way_,” was interpreted by the disciples as a direction for them
to flee, which they did. That there was anything cowardly or wrong in
this flight is by no means clear. To sanction it, both Christ’s
precept (Matt. 10:23) and his example (Luke 4:30; John 8:59; 10:39)
might be quoted. Nothing would have been gained for Christ or his
cause by the disciples subjecting themselves to arrest.
9 That the saying might be fulfilled which he spake,[663]
Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none.
[663] ch. 17:12.
=9. That the saying might be fulfilled.= The saying is quoted from
Christ’s prayer, John 17:12. The present deliverance of the eleven
from physical danger was not a final fulfillment of the saying, but
was itself a historical prophecy of its further spiritual fulfillment,
as God’s providential care of us in respect to present and temporal
wants is a testimony of the love that provides even more abundantly
for every spiritual want. See Matt. 2:15, note.
10 Then[664] Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it, and
smote the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear.
The servant’s name was Malchus.
[664] Matt. 26:51; Mark 14:47; Luke 22:49, 50.
11 Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the
sheath: the cup[665] which my Father hath given me, shall I
not drink it?
[665] Matt. 20:22; 26:39, 42.
=10, 11.= Christ follows his rebuke of Peter by healing Malchus (Luke
22:51). John alone gives the name of either assailant or assailed. See
for reason, note on Matt. 26:51. Compare Christ’s language here with
Matthew’s report.--Observe that the evils brought upon us by wicked
men are yet recognized here as given by God. The sufferings inflicted
by Judas, Caiaphas, and Pilate, and rendered necessary by the sins of
the world, are yet to Christ’s faith the cup which his Father hath
given him.
* * * * *
=12-27.= THE PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION OF JESUS BEFORE CAIAPHAS, AND THE
DENIALS BY PETER.--This examination, narrated by John, is distinctive
from the trial reported by the Synoptists (Matt. 26:57-68; Mark
14:53-65; Luke 22:63-71). For a general consideration of the harmony
of the Gospel narratives, and of their lessons, see notes on Matthew.
If John is the other disciple referred to in verses 15, 16, he is the
only one of the Evangelists who was an eye and ear witness of these
events, and his order is presumptively the correct one. For reasons
appearing partly in the notes on Matthew, partly in the notes below, I
believe that Jesus was sent at once from Annas to Caiaphas, though the
two may have occupied different apartments in the same palace; that
the preliminary examination was conducted by Caiaphas; that while it
proceeded Peter was in the adjoining courtyard, and there denied his
Lord; that at its conclusion Jesus was conducted to the Sanhedrim,
where the formal trial reported by the Synoptists took place; and that
this trial is not described by John, perhaps because he was not
present, and wrote only of the events which he personally witnessed.
12 Then the band and the captain and officers of the Jews
took Jesus, and bound him,
=12. Then the band * * * bound him.= John alone describes the binding.
This it was, probably, which called forth the remonstrance and rebuke
of Christ recorded in Matt. 26:55, 56; Luke 22:52, 53. “To apprehend
and bind One, all gave their help: the cohort, the chiliarch, and the
Jewish officers. This the Evangelist brings prominently forward, to
show how deep the impression of that previous incident still was: only
_by the help of all_ did they feel themselves secure. And thus
it was ordered that the disciples might escape with the more
safety.”--(_Luthardt._)
13 And led him away to Annas[666] first; for he was father
in law to Caiaphas, which was the high priest that same
year.
[666] Luke 3:2.
14 Now Caiaphas was he, which gave counsel[667] to the
Jews, that it was expedient that one man should die for the
people.
[667] ch. 11:49, 50.
=13, 14. Annas first.= Annas was appointed High Priest of the Jews A.
D. 7, but had been removed by the Roman Procurator several years
previous, and Joseph Caiaphas, his son-in-law, had been appointed in
his stead. In Luke 3:2 both are designated as high-priests, and in
Acts 4:6; 23:2, the title is given to Annas. The probable explanation
is that while Caiaphas held the office, he was really controlled by
his father-in-law, who may have been regarded by the Jews as their
true high-priest, notwithstanding his deposition by the Romans. He
seems to have been one of that class of politicians who are willing
that others should possess the honors and offices, provided they may
wield the powers of the state.--=Caiaphas.= See Matt. 26:57,
note.--=That same year.= The high-priest was originally appointed for
life, but the office was now filled by appointees of the Roman
government. There were no fewer than twenty-eight high-priests from
the reign of Herod to the destruction of the temple by Titus. Of
these, five besides Caiaphas were sons of Annas. It is possible that
there is a delicate sarcasm in John’s incidental allusion to the
transitoriness of the office. This, at least, seems to me better than
to render the original (ενιατός) _era_ instead of _year_, though that
is a possible translation, or to suppose, with Prof. Fisher, that John
thus simply emphasizes the supreme importance which that year, of the
trial and crucifixion of Jesus, had in his mind.--=Which gave
counsel.= See John 11:49-51.
15 And[668] Simon Peter followed Jesus, and _so did_
another disciple: that disciple was known unto the high
priest, and went in with Jesus into the palace of the high
priest.
[668] Matt. 26:58, etc.; Mark 14:54; Luke 22:54.
=15. Another disciple.= Who this other disciple was is not certainly
known, though Alford says “there is no reason to doubt the universal
persuasion that by this name John intends _himself_, and refers to the
mention in ch. 13:23 of a disciple whom Jesus loved.” The notion that
it was Judas Iscariot is refuted by the language of this verse. Judas
did not follow Jesus, but accompanied the band; and that Peter should
have entered the palace under the protection of Judas after the
betrayal is incredible. Some manuscripts have the reading _the_ other
disciple, which would identify him with John (ch. 20:2, 3, 4). But it
seems more probable that the article was added by some copyist to give
definiteness to the expression, than that it was subsequently
omitted.--=Was known unto the high-priest.= How, we have no means of
ascertaining. John 19:27 is, however, thought to indicate that the
apostle John had a house in Jerusalem.--=Into the palace of the
high-priest.= Since John describes Caiaphas as high-priest, this verse
clearly indicates that Jesus was taken at once from Annas to Caiaphas.
See on ver. 24.
16 But Peter stood at the door without. Then went out that
other disciple, which was known unto the high priest, and
spake unto her that kept the door, and brought in Peter.
17 Then saith the damsel that kept the door unto Peter, Art
not thou also _one_ of this man’s disciples? He saith, I am
not.
=16, 17.= See Matt. 26:69, note, and illustration there. The
doorkeeper was not unfrequently a maid (Acts 12:13). The language
here, Art not thou _also_ one of his disciples? indicates that John
was known to her as a disciple, and that Peter’s first denial was
uttered on entering, and for the purpose of gaining an entrance.
Observe that it is not being in bad company, but fellowship in it,
that is dangerous. Peter and John were both in the same company, but
one concealed his discipleship, the other did not.
[Illustration: ANCIENT FIRE UTENSILS.
1, 2. Braziers.
3. Fire-hod.
4. Bellows.
5. Tongs.]
18 And the servants and officers stood there, who had
made a fire of coals; for it was cold: and they warmed
themselves: and Peter stood with them, and warmed himself.
=18. The servants * * * had made a fire of coals.= Probably an open
fire in a portable stove or brazier, in the open courtyard around
which the Jewish house was customarily built. It is doubtful whether
chimneys were known to the ancients; they were certainly very rare.
Fires were built sometimes in a little brazier or chafing-dish,
sometimes in a small portable stove or fireplace. The fire was always
carried from one room to another in a fire-basket made of iron, with
perforated sides, to create a draft of air. Bellows and tongs were
also in use among them. The accompanying illustrations, taken from
ancient bronzes and paintings, will give the reader an idea of these
articles. Peter, by joining the group around the fire and concealing
his true character, identified himself with the persecutors of Christ.
19 The high priest then asked Jesus of his disciples, and
of his doctrine.
20 Jesus answered him, I spake[669] openly to the world. I
ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither
the Jews always resort; and[670] in secret have I said
nothing.
[669] ch. 7:14, 26, 28; 8:2; Luke 4:15.
[670] Acts 26:26.
21 Why askest thou me? ask them which heard me, what I have
said unto them: behold, they know what I said.
=19-21. The high-priest then asked Jesus.= It was customary among the
Jews to subject an accused person to an examination analogous to
that practised at a later day in the Inquisition. Witnesses
concealed behind a screen reduced his replies to writing. To such an
examination, preliminary to his formal trial, Jesus Christ was now
subjected.--=Of his disciples and of his doctrine.= The object of the
first question was to get evidence against his adherents, the object
of the second to get evidence against Jesus himself. To the first
Jesus pays no attention; to the second he interposes a calm and
dignified protest.--=I spoke openly.= Rather freely, boldly. The
original (παῤῥησία) signifies literally _speaking out all_, that is,
free-spokenness. Observe that boldness and frankness of utterance are
essential qualifications of the true preacher.--=In secret have I said
nothing.= Some truths he had reserved because they could not be
understood (John 16:12, 25), and others which he had taught were not
understood (Matt. 13:13; 1 Cor. 2:7, 8); but there were no mysteries
in his religious teaching which he had sought to conceal and for which
he was amenable.--=Ask them which heard me.= Not improbably some of
the very officers so strangely affected by his preaching were present.
If so, this appeal to their own subordinates would have incensed the
priests, by making manifest their own injustice.
22 And when he had thus spoken, one of the officers which
stood by struck[671] Jesus with the palm of his hand,
saying, Answerest thou the high priest so?
[671] Job 16:10; Jer. 20:2; Acts 23:2, 3.
23 Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear witness
of the evil: but[672] if well, why smitest thou me?
[672] 1 Pet. 2:19-23.
=22, 23. With the palm of his hand.= Or _with a staff_; either meaning
is admissible. Contrast with Christ’s calm rejoinder Paul’s response
to similar maltreatment (Acts 23:3).--The commentators note in
Christ’s course here his own interpretation of Matt. 5:39. “An angry
man may turn in sullenness the other cheek visibly to the smiter;
better is he who makes a true answer with mildness, and prepares his
heart in peace to endure great sufferings.”--(_Augustine._) “Christ
forbids self-defence with the hand, not with the tongue.”--(_Luther._)
“Christ’s precept does not exclude the remonstrance against unjust
oppression, provided it be done calmly and patiently.”--(_Alford._)
24 Now Annas had sent him bound unto Caiaphas the high
priest.
=24. Now Annas had sent him bound unto Caiaphas.= Some scholars (so
Alford, Lange, and Meyer) render this verse, _Sent him bound_, and
suppose that Jesus was sent from Annas to Caiaphas at this time; but
Winer (p. 275, § 40, 5_a_) and Buttman (p. 200, § 137) show that the
aorist is sometimes used for the pluperfect, as rendered by our
English version, and that the sentence may be accordingly regarded
grammatically as parenthetical. I believe (see ver. 15, note) that
this is the true construction, and that the parenthesis is introduced
at this place for the purpose of showing that Jesus was still bound
when the indignity here described was inflicted upon him.
[Illustration: DENIALS OF PETER.]
25 And Simon Peter stood and warmed himself. They said
therefore unto him, Art not thou also _one_ of his
disciples? He denied _it_, and said, I am not.
26 One of the servants of the high priest, being _his_
kinsman whose ear Peter cut off, saith, Did not I see thee
in the garden with him?
27 Peter then denied again: and[673] immediately the cock
crew.
[673] ch. 13:38; Matt. 26:74; Mark 14:72; Luke 22:60.
=25-27. Peter stood and warmed himself.= In apparent indifference to
his Lord; concerned only for his comfort, and absorbed in his
curiosity.-- =Did not I see thee?= This question was apparently put to
Peter after he had retreated to the porch. It must be remembered that
Peter’s danger was real and imminent; for his assault on Malchus had
rendered him amenable to legal penalty. On the denial and its lessons,
see notes on Matt. 26:69-75.
* * * * *
[Illustration: JESUS BEFORE PILATE.
“_Art thou the king of the Jews._”]
Ch. 18:28 to ch. 19:16. TRIAL OF JESUS BEFORE PILATE.--THE CONSCIENCE
OF THE CEREMONIALIST (28).--JESUS A KING; HIS KINGDOM TRUTH; ITS
DEFENCES NOT WORLDLY; IT CONQUERS ONLY THE WILLING (33-38).--IN CHRIST
NO FAULT (38; ch. 19:4, 6).--THE WORLD CHOOSES BARABBAS AND REJECTS
CHRIST (39, 40).--CROWNED SUFFERING (ch. 19:1-3).--BEHOLD THE MAN
(5).--BEHOLD YOUR KING (14).--THE TESTIMONY OF THE JEWS TO THE
DIVINITY OF CHRIST (7).--THE SILENCE OF JESUS (9).--THE END OF
REJECTING CHRIST IS REJECTING GOD: WE HAVE NO KING BUT CÆSAR
(15).--THE CRIME OF COWARDICE ILLUSTRATED BY PILATE.
This trial is reported also in Matt. 27:11-31; Mark 15:1-23; Luke
23:1-25. John’s account is the fullest, and has indications of being
by an eye and ear witness; but he does not mention Pilate’s wife’s
dream and Pilate’s washing of his hands in attestation of his
innocence, recorded only by Matthew, nor the accusation preferred by
the priests and the sending of Jesus to Herod, recorded only by Luke.
For chronological order of events, see Matt. 27:11-31, Prel. Note. For
a consideration of the character of Pilate, the reasons for his
vacillating course, and the practical lessons to be drawn from it, see
note below, ver. 16. The place of this trial I believe to have been
the tower of Antonia; the reason for the trial is explained in ver. 31
(see note there).
28 Then[674] led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of
judgment; and it was early; and they themselves went not
into the judgment hall, lest[675] they should be defiled;
but that they might eat the passover.
[674] Matt. 27:2, etc.; Mark 15:1, etc.; Luke 23:1,
etc.
[675] Acts 10:28.
29 Pilate then went out unto them, and said, What
accusation bring ye against this man?
=28, 29. Unto the hall of judgment.= Literally Prætorium--the name
given among the Romans to the headquarters of the Roman military
governor, wherever he happened to be; here it is the residence which
Pilate occupied in Jerusalem. Whether that was the palace of King
Herod, as Farrar and others have supposed, or the tower of Antonia, is
uncertain; more probably the latter, which was at the time and long
afterwards the citadel of Jerusalem, the headquarters of the army, and
the residence of the Roman governors. It was built upon the same broad
platform of solid rock upon which the temple stood, and so adjoined
the walls of the latter that the Gentile camp seemed a part of the
Jewish sanctuary. Four towers at its four corners gave it the
appearance of a castle and the strength of a fortress. One of these
towers looked down into the broad courts of the temple, and thus
subjected all the gatherings there to the oversight of the hated
heathen, while its gates, opening directly into those courts, rendered
it easy, at a moment’s notice, to quell any disturbance which might
occur there.--=And it was early.= The original (πρωΐᾳ) properly
signifies the period between daybreak and sunrise (John 20:1), but it
is also used in a more general sense to signify the early part of the
forenoon (Matt. 21:18), and that must be its meaning here, for this
trial before Pilate occurred certainly after the cock-crowing, and
probably the formal trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrim and the
subsequent deliberations of the Sanhedrim to secure the execution of
the death-sentence intervened between the cock-crowing and their
conducting Jesus to Pilate.--=Lest they should be defiled.= According
to the Pharisaic ideas they could not enter a Gentile house without
defilement, and this precluded their participation in the passover,
which in such case must be postponed by those who were defiled (Numb.
9:6-11). A curious illustration of the fallibility of conscience is
this superstition of the Pharisees, who feared defilement from
entering the house of a heathen, but none from the endeavor to secure
by fraud and violence the condemnation of their Lord.--=That they
might eat the Passover.= Here not the paschal supper, but the festival
which followed it, and which lasted for seven days. See Note on the
Lord’s Supper, Matt. 26:30. The paschal supper itself I believe to
have been observed the night before. An incidental confirmation of
this opinion is afforded by Wieseler, quoted in Lange, who asserts
that chronological calculations show that in the year 30, the 14th of
Nisan, on the evening of which the supper proper took place, actually
fell on a Thursday; and it is certain that the crucifixion of Christ
occurred on Friday. If Wieseler is correct, the Lord’s Supper must
have been the true paschal supper.--=Pilate went out unto them.=
Pontius Pilate was the Roman procurator or resident governor of Judea
at this time. On his authority, see Matt. 27:2, note; on his
character, career, and course here, see note below, ch. 19:16. His
going out to them was itself a concession.--=Against this man.=
Probably he knew something of Jesus (Matt. 27:18, 19); for a guard had
been furnished from his headquarters for the arrest of Jesus (John
18:3, note).
30 They answered and said unto him, If he were not a
malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee.
=30. They answered=, etc. It seems to have been their endeavor to
secure the ratification of the death-sentence without any hearing,
partly because they knew that the Roman governor would be indifferent
to the charge of blasphemy (Acts 18:14-17), and partly because their
pride revolted against submitting the decision of their court to the
hated Gentile.
31 Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him, and judge him
according to your law. The Jews therefore said unto him, It
is not lawful for us[676] to put any man to death:
[676] Gen. 49:10; Ezek. 21:27.
=31. Then said Pilate, Take ye him and judge him. * * * It is not
lawful for us to put any man to death.= It seems to have been the
custom of the Romans to take into their own hands in conquered
provinces the power of life and death, as one of the principal
attributes of sovereignty. There is no good reason to doubt that this
had been done in Palestine, and that the Sanhedrim had no longer power
to execute the death-sentence. The execution of Stephen, though in a
certain sense sanctioned by the Sanhedrim, was the act of a mob (Acts
7:57, 58). Pilate’s answer to the demand of the priests is ironical, a
bitter reminder to them that they had no longer the power of
sovereignty. Other interpretations, such as that they had no power to
crucify, or none to execute on the feast-day, or none to punish crimes
against the state, are both unnecessary and improbable.
32 That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he
spake,[677] signifying what death he should die.
[677] Matt. 20:19; Luke 18:32, 33.
=32. That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, signifying=, etc.
See ch. 12:32, 33; Matt. 20:18, 19, where Christ foretold his
crucifixion. It was also hinted at in O. T. prophecy (Numb. 21:8, 9,
with John 3:14; Ps. 22:16, 18; Isa. 53:8, 9). Death was inflicted
under the Jewish law by stoning (Deut. 13:9, 10; 17:5-7). Calvin
observes the indication in this that Christ’s death in all its
particulars fulfills the eternal purpose of God. Comp. Acts 2:23.
33 Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and
called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the
Jews?
=33. Then Pilate entered into the judgment-hall again.= Meantime the
priests had framed and presented their accusation of sedition (Luke
23:2). This accusation may well have perplexed Pilate. Christ had
claimed to be King; promulgated laws; organized in the heart of
Cæsar’s province the germ of an imperishable kingdom; entered
Jerusalem in triumph, hailed by the throng as King of the Jews; and
his arrest had been forcibly resisted by one of his followers. These
facts a wily priesthood could easily pervert and exaggerate so as to
give color to their accusation. How unscrupulous they were is evident
from a comparison of Luke 23:2 with ch. 20:22-25.--=And called Jesus.=
For a private examination apart from the priests and the gathering
mob.
34 Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself,
or did others tell it thee of me?
35 Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own[678] nation and
the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast
thou done?
[678] ch 19:11; Acts 3:13.
=34, 35. Jesus answered him=, etc.--This question is not asked for
information as to the nature of the charge preferred against him and
the character of his accusers, for evidently Jesus was present when
they preferred it; nor as a means of ascertaining in what sense Pilate
used the title _king_, whether in the Jewish sense, to signify the
promised founder of the kingdom of heaven, or in a Roman sense, to
signify a political kingdom antagonistic to Jewish authority. For he
who knew what was in man, understood Pilate’s character and mind. It
was the most forcible possible reply to the accusation. Who, he asks,
has preferred this charge? The Jews. Pilate’s mind instantly grasps
the conclusion. “If it had been preferred by a Roman centurion, it
would have been worthy of examination. But when was it ever known that
the Jewish priesthood complained of one who sought the political
emancipation of the nation? None knew better than Pilate how uneasy
were the people under the Roman yoke. The voices of the mob before the
judgment-seat crying out for Jesus’ blood were unwitting witnesses of
his innocence.”--(_Lyman Abbott’s Jesus of Nazareth._)--The reply had
the desired effect. Pilate’s response, “Am I a Jew? Thine own nation
and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me,” shows how quickly
he filled out the argument which Christ by a question suggested to his
mind.--=What hast thou done?= An honest question. He rejects the
testimony of the priesthood to the sedition of the prisoner (Luke
23:2), and appeals to Jesus himself to explain their enmity.
36 Jesus[679] answered, My[680] kingdom is not of this
world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my
servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews:
but now is my kingdom not from hence.
[679] 1 Tim. 6:13.
[680] ch. 6:15; Ps. 45:3, 6; Isa. 9:6, 7; Dan. 2:44;
7:14; Zech. 9:9; Luke 12:14; Rom. 14:17; Col. 1:13.
=36. Jesus answered.= Honest perplexity he would not refuse to answer.
Contrast his silence before Caiaphas (Matt. 26:62), Herod (Luke 23:9),
and later before Pilate himself (John 19:9).--=My kingdom is not of
this world.= Its origin is not from the earth. The preposition _of_
(ἐκ) signifies the source or origin from which anything springs.
Christ’s kingdom is _in_ the world and _over_ the world, but not
_from_ the world nor maintained by worldly means.--=If my kingdom were
of this world, then would my servants fight.= Not angels, of which
Pilate knew nothing; nor the twelve, of whom it is doubtful whether he
knew anything. The argument was one which readily addressed itself to
Pilate’s understanding. If Jesus were an earthly king, his followers
would have defended him from arrest by his enemies and theirs. It is
true Peter had done so (ver. 10), but he had been rebuked, and the
wound he inflicted had been miraculously healed, so that the
priesthood could not appeal to this resistance in support of their
charge, except by misrepresenting it.--=That I should not be delivered
to the Jews.= _Jews_ generally in John means the Judeans, the
inhabitants of the southern province of Palestine, who were Christ’s
especial opponents.--=But now is my kingdom not from hence.= _Now_
is not here a particle of time, but of connection. That is, the
meaning is not, My kingdom is not _now_ of this world, as though its
temporal power and glory was to come by and by, but, _Thus_ you see my
kingdom is not, etc. The former meaning has been given to the word by
some Roman Catholic commentators, to break the force of the
declaration as a testimony against the temporal power of the Pope and
the priesthood. For similar connective use of the particle (νῦν)
_now_, see Acts 12:11; 22:16; 1 Cor. 14:6. Observe in this verse: (1)
A distinct declaration of the supernatural origin and character of
Christ’s kingdom. Christianity is not a development of _human
thought_, but a gift to man _from God_. Comp. John 3:3; 8:23; 13:3;
Rev. 21:2. (2) It is to be defended by spiritual, not by earthly or
physical means. With the spirit of this declaration all attempts to
maintain the church or its truth by civil enactment or the power of
the sword are inconsistent. How little the spiritual nature of
Christ’s kingdom was understood in the middle ages is indicated by the
fact that even Calvin, on this passage, argues that kings and princes
may “employ all the power they possess in defending the church and
maintaining godliness.” (3) The strength and permanence of Christ’s
kingdom as compared with kingdoms built up on or defended by might of
arms. “Here he sheweth the weakness of kingship among us, that its
strength lies in servants; but that which is above is sufficient for
itself, needing nothing.”--(_Chrysostom._)
37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then?
Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end
was I born, and for this cause came I into the
world, that I should bear[681] witness unto the truth.
Every one[682] that is of the truth heareth my voice.
[681] Isa. 55:4; Rev. 1:5; 3:14.
[682] ch. 8:47; 1 John 4:6.
=37. Art thou then not a king?= Or perhaps, with a touch of irony,
_Thou art then a king_. Either rendering is admissible (see _Winer_,
p. 512).--=Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest= (truly); =for I am a
king=. This is truer to the original than our English version. The
first clause of the sentence, “_Thou sayest_,” is a common form of
Jewish affirmation, and was not confined to the Jews (Matt. 26:64,
note). The second clause gives emphasis to this affirmation, and the
reason for it, _for I am a king_. Observe how the solemn testimony of
Christ to his divine Messiahship before Caiaphas is here, in a
different form, reiterated before Pilate.--=To this end was I born,
and for this cause came I into the world.= The first clause does not
necessarily imply a pre-existence, because, in a sense, every creature
is born to fulfil a divine purpose; but the second clause would be
tautological, a mere repetition of the first, if it did not indicate a
coming into the world from a pre-existent state and for a particular
purpose. And Pilate seems to have partially, at least, so understood
it (ch. 19:9, note).--=Every one that is of the truth= (ἐκ τῆς
ἀληθειάς). _Proceeding from the truth_; that is, who has so far come
under the influence of truth, is so far born anew by the power of the
truth on his own soul, as to be a sincere seeker after truth, and
hence, in a deeper sense, so far under the influence of the Spirit of
God, who is the Truth, as to be seeking to know Him who is the Truth
incarnate in human life. Parallel to this declaration are John 6:45;
8:47. Observe, (1) Jesus Christ is not only a teacher, an example, and
a Saviour, but a King; and we can accept him as a Saviour only as we
accept him as our King (John 15:10; 1 John 3:22-24); (2) the object of
his incarnation is to testify to the truth, which he does by his
words, and yet more by incarnating the truth in living forms,
perfectly in his own life, imperfectly in the lives of his followers;
(3) they only hear (_receive_) him, in whom the spirit of
truth-seeking already exists. Comp. Matt. 13:13-15.
38 Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had
said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto
them, I find in him no fault _at all_.
=38. What is truth?= This famous inquiry of Pilate is certainly not
the inquiry of an honest seeker for truth (_Chrysostom_), for he does
not even wait for an answer; nor apparently the disconsolate question
of one who despaired of ever arriving at a standard of truth
(_Olshausen_), for there is no evidence that he had ever sought to
know the truth, either in philosophy or in religion; nor the scoffing
question of one who believes that truth can never be found (_Alford_),
and whose modern type is the positivist who believes that all creeds
are false, and God, immortality, and the soul are unknowable, for
there is nothing to indicate that such problems had any interest for
him. It is rather asked, half in pity, half in contempt, the question
of the practical man of the world, to whom this conception of a
kingdom built on truth and maintained without army or exchequer seemed
but the baseless phantom of a harmless religious enthusiast
(_Ellicott_).
39 But ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one
at the passover: will ye therefore that I release unto you
the King of the Jews?
40 Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but
Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.
=39, 40.= It is apparently at this point in the trial that Pilate
sends Jesus to Herod; on his return the demand is made by the people
for the customary release of a prisoner (Mark 15:8), and in reply to
this demand he makes the proposition, reported by all the Evangelists,
to release Jesus.--On the character of Barabbas, see note on Matt.
27:15-18. On the contrast between Barabbas and Jesus, see Acts 3:14.
The origin of the custom here referred to is not known. It is
difficult to conceive why John should omit the sending of Jesus to
Herod (Luke 23:5-7) and Pilate’s wife’s dream and Pilate’s washing of
his hands (Matt. 27:20-25), unless he wrote with the other Gospels
before him, and therefore omitted what they had sufficiently
described.--=At the Passover.= Not necessarily on the day of the
paschal feast, but during the Passover week.
CHAPTER XIX.
1 Then[683] Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged[684]
_him_.
[683] Matt. 27:26, etc.; Mark 15:16, etc.
[684] Isa. 53:5.
2 And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put _it_
on his head, and they put on him a purple robe,
3 And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with
their hands.
4 Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto
them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know
that[685] I find no fault in him.
[685] verse 6; ch. 18:38.
5 Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and
the purple robe. And _Pilate_ saith unto them, Behold the
man!
=1-5.= The scourging of Jesus is recounted by all the Evangelists
except Luke, and the mockery more fully by Matthew than here. See
notes on Matthew. Scourging was a common precursor of the
death-sentence; here, however, it appears to have been proposed by
Pilate as a compromise (Luke 23:16).--=And said, Hail, King of the
Jews.= Some manuscripts insert the words _they came unto him_, and
this reading is approved by Tischendorf and Alford. It indicates a
mock reverential approach as to a crowned king, with obeisances and
pretended homage.--=Behold the man.= Pilate’s own sympathies were
awakened by the sight of this patient sufferer, and he made one more
attempt to release him by appealing to the sympathies of the people.
In this act the commentators see an unconscious symbolical teaching
parallel to that of Caiaphas (John 11:51, 52); Jesus is _the_ man, the
only perfect man, the ideal toward which all aspiration is to strive
(Ephes. 4:13). The scene has been a famous one in art, and the picture
of Christ thorn-crowned receives its customary title, _Ecce Homo_,
from two Latin words meaning Behold the man.
6 When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him,
they cried out, saying, Crucify _him_, crucify _him_.
Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify _him_: for
I find no fault in him.
=6. When the chief priests, therefore, and attendants.= The original
here signifies an officer answering to the modern constable or
policeman.--=They cried out.= The priests mingled in and joined their
voices with those of the crowd. The sight of blood, so far from
appeasing, only whetted their revengeful appetite.--=Take ye him and
crucify him.= This was not a sentence, but rather an endeavor to cast
the responsibility of its execution upon the priesthood. Comp. Matt.
27:24; Luke 23:25. That they felt the reproach is indicated by their
reply.
7 The Jews answered him, We[686] have a law, and by our law
he ought to die, because[687] he made himself the Son of
God.
[686] Lev. 24:16.
[687] ch. 5:18; 10:33.
=7. The Jews answered him, We have a law=, etc. Not because their
previous accusation had failed, and they wished to present a new one
(_Lange_); but because, the death-sentence being already pronounced
and ratified by the act of scourging, they felt safe in disclosing
their real animus. The object of their reply is to justify themselves
to his rebuke.
8 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more
afraid;
9 And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto
Jesus, Whence art thou? But[688] Jesus gave him no answer.
[688] Ps. 38:13; Isa. 53:7; Matt. 27:12, 14; Phil.
1:28.
=8, 9. He was the more afraid, * * * and saith unto Jesus, Whence art
thou?= But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate’s was not a superstitious
fear, but a genuine awe produced by the personal presence of Jesus,
the power of which was conspicuously manifested on other occasions in
his life (Luke 4:30; 5:8; John 7:45, 46; 18:6). It was doubtless
enhanced by the report of his wife’s dream (Matt. 27:19). His
question, _Whence art thou?_ is to be interpreted by this awe; not
_from what province_, for he knew this (Luke 23:6, 7), nor _of what
parents_, for this was a matter of indifference. The question
indicates that even skeptical Pilate vaguely felt that the prisoner
before him--the King of a kingdom of truth--was no ordinary man.
Christ’s silence was a bitter rebuke. Pilate was no longer an honest
seeker after truth. Christ “kept silent, in fine, because he knew as
well when to hold his peace as when to speak, and no word that he ever
uttered was fuller of inspiration than that silence; no, not even does
that lofty declaration to Pilate, ‘Yes, I am a King, and every true
man is my subject,’ show a more regal dignity of mind. From every
feature, from his whole person, it spoke--spoke of a world of power in
him, power to rise above all personal considerations, and, under the
most terrible circumstances, to find entire serenity in the perfect
possession of himself.”--(_Furness._)
10 Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me?
knowest[689] thou not that I have power to crucify thee,
and have power to release thee?
[689] Dan. 3:14, 15.
=10. Then said Pilate unto him.= His pride is piqued by the silence of
the prisoner. He boasts of his power, and so seeks to extort an answer
from the prisoner’s fears. Observe that _power_ he had, but right he
had not. “This very boast was a self-conviction of injustice. No just
judge has any such power as this to punish or to loose (see 2 Cor.
13:8), but only patiently to inquire and give sentence according to
the truth.”--(_Alford._)
11 Jesus answered, Thou[690] couldest have no power _at
all_ against me, except it were given thee from above:[691]
therefore he[692] that delivered me unto thee hath the
greater[693] sin.
[690] ch. 7:30; Luke 22:53.
[691] Ps. 39:9.
[692] ch. 18:3; Mark 14:44.
[693] Heb. 6:4-8; James 4:17.
=11.= The connection of Christ’s answer here is difficult. It appears
to me to be as follows: All civil and political power comes from God
(Rom. 13:1; comp. Ps. 75:6, 7; Dan. 2:21). Even on earth kings are
recognized as the administrators of the divine will (Isa. 44:28;
45:1). Caiaphas and the priesthood, therefore, in delivering Jesus to
Pilate, are endeavoring not only to accomplish a deed of injustice,
but to induce a divinely appointed minister of God to prove false to
the trust reposed in him. Therefore their sin is greater than his;
they are the instigators, he the partially ignorant and unwilling
instrument. Comp. Luke 12:47, 48. Stier observes that Pilate’s
ignorance includes him in the Lord’s prayer, “Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). That most wonderful
declaration of the O. T., “He knoweth our frame, he remembereth that
we are dust” (Ps. 103:14), receives its most wonderful illustration in
Christ’s compassion for the perplexed but guilty Pilate.
12 And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but
the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou
art not Cæsar’s friend: whosoever[694] maketh himself a
king, speaketh against Cæsar.
[694] Luke 23:2; Acts 17:7.
=12. From thenceforth.= Or rather, _on this account_. The original is
capable of either rendering; but Pilate had already sought to release
Jesus; he now made a new effort, moved thereto apparently in part by
his awe for Christ, and in part by Christ’s expression of compassion
for him.--=Thou art not Cæsar’s friend.= Of all the Cæsars, Tiberius
was the most suspicious and exacting; and of all crimes, that of
indifference to his interests was in his eyes the worst. In these
words of the priesthood there is implied a threat of an accusation to
Tiberius against Pilate if he release Jesus.
13 When[695] Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought
Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat, in a place
that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.
[695] Prov. 29:25; Acts 4:19.
=13. Upon the judgment-seat in a place called Pavement.= The
judgment-seat was probably a small elevated platform, such as was used
among the ancients, on which orators stood to address a concourse,
generals to harangue their troops, or magistrates to hear causes. The
accompanying illustration from a bas-relief represents Trajan sitting
on such a judgment-seat to receive the submission of a Parthian king.
The employment of a similar platform both by Pilate and by Florus is
referred to by Josephus (_Wars of Jews_, Rom. II: 9, 3; 14, 8). The
Pavement was probably a tessellated or mosaic square in front of the
tower of Antonia, on which the judgment-seat or bema was placed.
[Illustration: ROMAN JUDGMENT-SEAT.]
14 And[696] it was the preparation of the passover, and about
the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your
King!
[696] Matt. 27:62.
=14. It was the preparation of the passover.= That is, the preparation
for the Passover Sabbath. The strictness of the Mosaic law respecting
the Sabbath necessitated special preparations for it on the previous
day, and in process of time the whole day prior came to be known as
_the preparation_ (Mark 15:42). If we so understand the passage, there
is nothing in it inconsistent with the fact indicated by the other
Evangelists that the paschal supper was taken by Christ and his
disciples, in common with the rest of the nation, on the evening
preceding.--=About the sixth hour.= But according to Mark it was the
_third hour_ (Mark 15:25); and this is sustained by the whole course
of the transactions and the circumstances, as also by the statements
of Matthew (27:45), Luke (23:44), and Mark (15:33), that the darkness
commenced at the sixth hour, after Jesus had for some time hung upon
the cross. Of this discrepancy many explanations have been proposed,
but only two are worthy of any consideration. One that by an early
error in transcription the sixth was substituted for the third hour
here; the other that John here only indicates that the sixth hour was
approaching, or, as Lange renders it, _it was going on towards the
sixth hour_; that is, the third hour, which closed the preceding watch
into which the day was divided, had already passed, and that Mark’s
language simply implies that the third hour had already passed
before the crucifixion. It is certain that the ancients did not fix
the time with as great precision as we do, and that in particular, as
Godet says, “the apostles did not count with the watch in their
hands.”--=Behold your King.= The previous appeal (ver. 5) had been to
the pity of the people; this was to their national pride.
15 But they cried out, Away with _him_, away with _him_,
crucify him! Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your
King? The chief priests answered, We[697] have no king but
Cæsar.
[697] Gen. 49:10.
16 Then[698] delivered he him therefore unto them to be
crucified. And they took Jesus, and led _him_ away.
[698] Matt. 27:26, etc.; Mark 15:15, etc.; Luke
23:24, etc.
=15, 16. We have no king but Cæsar.= This was true. By this very act
they disavowed allegiance to Jehovah as their King (1 Sam. 12:12).
They were thus emphatically guilty themselves of the crime of
blasphemy, for which they had condemned Jesus. Some of these very men
subsequently perished in rebellion against Cæsar, thus by their death
testifying to the hypocrisy of their pretended zeal. He who refuses
Christ as his King subjects himself to the despotism of worldly
authority.--=Then delivered he to them to be crucified.= Giving them a
guard of soldiers to execute the decree. Thus Roman and Jew shared in
both decreeing and executing the sentence.
* * * * *
ON THE CHARACTER OF PONTIUS PILATE.--Concerning Pilate’s life before
he became procurator nothing is known, except that his name indicates
a probability that he was a freedman, or the descendant of a freedman,
connected with the Pontian house. He succeeded Valerius Gratus as
procurator of Judea and Samaria, about the year 26 A. D., and he held
the appointment for a period of ten years. Secular history shows him
to have been unscrupulous in the exercise of his authority; and
instances are recorded by Josephus of his contempt of the Jews. His
behavior was equally tyrannical toward the Samaritans; and on their
complaint to Vitellius, president or prefect of Syria, Pilate was
ordered to go to Rome to answer for his conduct before the emperor.
His deposition must have occurred in A. D. 36, most probably prior to
the Passover. Before he arrived in Rome, however, Tiberius was dead.
According to tradition, Pilate was banished by Caligula to Vienne, in
Gaul; according to Eusebius, he died by his own hand.
Though in the oldest Christian creed his name is indissolubly linked
with the crucifixion, in the phrase “suffered under Pontius Pilate,”
and though he was directly responsible for it, since it could not have
been consummated without his judicial approbation, yet that
approbation was wrested from him by a mob, and he yielded only when
further resistance would have hazarded his office, if not his life.
The story of the trial of Christ before Pilate is the story of a
conflict between a judge who appealed in vain to the moral sense of
the priesthood, and a priesthood who appealed not in vain to the fears
of the judge. First he scornfully bids the Jews try Jesus according to
their own law, knowing that they cannot put their prisoner to death
(ch. 18:31); then catches, in the clamor, the word “Galilee,” and
endeavors to rid himself of responsibility by sending the prisoner to
Herod (Luke 23:4-12); on the return of the prisoner to his custody,
proposes to release him, as a customary act of good-will, to the
populace (Matt. 27:19-23; Mark 15:8-14); orders the scourging, in an
idle hope so to satisfy the clamor of the mob (Matt. 27:26-30; Mark
15:15-19; John 19:1-3); having appealed in vain to their pity,
appeals, also in vain, to their patriotism (John 19:4-15); and finally
pronounces sentence of death only under an implied threat of complaint
to the jealous Tiberius Cæsar (John 19:12, 16). But it would be a
mistake to suppose that in this pitiable conflict with a mob, which it
was Pilate’s first duty to quell, he was influenced by considerations
of either humanity or justice. The contempt which a Roman soldier
would naturally feel for the Jewish priesthood was intensified into a
bitter personal hate by the fact that their cunning had twice
overmatched his strength--once when, immediately after his
inauguration, they had compelled him to remove the hated Roman
standards from the city of Jerusalem to the old-time Roman military
headquarters at Cæsarea Philippi; once when they had secured orders
from Tiberius Cæsar directing him to take down the Roman shields from
the vicinity of the temple. The one sentiment which was strong in a
Roman soldier was that of justice; to be compelled by a Jewish mob,
instigated by the Jewish priesthood, to assume the judicial robes only
to do flagrant injustice in them, and that in executing the Jewish
will, angered him. He was a tool in the hands of an unscrupulous and
despised hierarchy; knew it, and fought against the humiliation
weakly, and therefore in vain. He was also powerfully affected by the
personal bearing of Christ. “If there is any power in the human
countenance, in the eye, in the voice, in the whole air and manner of
a man, that power must have been manifested in Jesus in the very
highest degree. * * * Not that he (Pilate) had the slightest insight
into the lofty nature of that power. His very ignorance of it served,
by creating a feeling of mystery, only to heighten the effect of it
upon his mind.”--(_Furness._) And this effect was still further
increased by the dream of his wife; for skepticism and superstition
are twins, and the skeptical Pilate was not above the universal
superstitions of his times. All these elements made Pilate angry with
himself and with the hierarchy, but they did not serve in lieu of a
noble resolution, which alone could have enabled him to resist the
threatening danger of an emeute. So he dallied, argued, appealed,
yielded. The crime of Pontius Pilate was the crime of moral cowardice.
It was more appalling in its results, but it was not different in its
nature, from the many manifestations of that crime which we all often
witness, and which most of us sometimes have experienced.
* * * * *
Ch. 19:17-42. DEATH AND BURIAL OF JESUS.--A FALSE JUDGE WRITES A TRUE
EPITAPH (19).--A WEAK JUDGE PROVES HIMSELF OBSTINATE (22).--THE
INHUMANITY OF MAN (24).--THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST ILLUSTRATED (27).--THE
FULFILLMENT OF ALL SCRIPTURE (28).--REDEMPTION A FINISHED WORK
(30).--THE HYPOCRISY OF CEREMONIALISM (31).--THE NATURE, MEANING, AND
CERTAINTY OF CHRIST’S DEATH (34, 35).--THE POWER OF THAT DEATH TO MAKE
COWARDS COURAGEOUS (38, 39).--THE SEPULCHRE IN THE GARDEN; THE TOMB
AMID FLOWERS (41, 42).
The accounts of all Evangelists should be compared. For chronological
harmony and for full notes on what is common to them all, see Matt.
27:32-56. Several incidents are peculiar to Luke; some to John. The
latter gives more fully the division of Christ’s garments among the
soldiers (verses 23, 24); alone speaks of Christ’s parting words to
his mother (verses 25-27), and of the piercing of his side (ver. 34).
17 And he bearing his cross went[699] forth into a place
called _the place_ of a skull, which is called in the
Hebrew, Golgotha:
[699] Numb. 15:36; Heb. 13:12.
18 Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on
either side one, and Jesus in the midst.
=17, 18.= The cross was usually borne by the condemned. In this case
it was transferred from Christ to Simon the Cyrene. See Matt. 27:32,
note. The Hebrew word Golgotha is the same as the Latin word Calvary
(_Calvaria_), and means _a skull_. The location is uncertain. For
statement of different hypotheses and picture of most probable site,
see Matt. 27:33, note.--The two others crucified with Christ were
brigands, one of whom joined in the taunts of the multitude; the other
rebuked his companion, and sought and obtained the blessing of the
dying Redeemer. See Luke 23:39-43, notes.
19 And[700] Pilate wrote a title, and put _it_ on the
cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF
THE JEWS.
[700] Matt. 27:37; Mark 15:26; Luke 23:38.
20 This title then read many of the Jews: for the place
where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was
written in Hebrew, _and_ Greek, _and_ Latin.
21 Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write
not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of
the Jews.
22 Pilate answered, What I have written I have written.
=19-22. And Pilate wrote a title.= It was customary to bear before the
condemned an inscription which designated his crime; this was
subsequently attached to the cross, as a warning against similar
offences.--The inscription in this case was written in the three
languages of the time--that of the court (Latin), that of the Gentile
population (Greek), and that of the Jews (Hebrew or Aramaic).--It
really affixed a stigma rather upon the Jews than upon Jesus. Hence
their attempt to have it altered, and Pilate’s refusal. The Jews were
insulting Jesus; Pilate took a petty revenge upon them for their
victory over him by insulting them. The inscription is reported by the
four Evangelists, in all of them substantially, in none of them
verbally, the same. Thus:
This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.--(_Matthew._)
The King of the Jews.--(_Mark._)
This is the King of the Jews.--(_Luke._)
Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.--(_John._)
Apparently there were three inscriptions, in the three different
languages; some commentators suppose that they differed slightly, and
that the variations in the language of the inscription indicate the
variations in the original. See this ingeniously argued in Townsend’s
N. T. But the better opinion is that the inscription was the same in
the three languages, and that the verbal differences are such as we
might expect from individual narrators, who, in minor details, were
left to their own recollection. So Robinson, Alford, Greenleaf, etc.
Analogous verbal differences are to be constantly met with in the
Evangelists: Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:7; Luke 3:16; John 1:27--Matt. 9:11;
Mark 2:16; Luke 5:30--Matt. 15:27; Mark 7:28--Matt. 16:6-9; Mark
8:17-19--Matt. 20:33; Mark 10:51; Luke 18:41--Matt. 21:9; Mark 11:9;
Luke 19:38--Matt. 26:39; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42--Matt. 28:5, 6; Mark
16:6; Luke 24:5, 6. Pilate illustrates the difference between firmness
and obstinacy. In yielding the crucifixion of an innocent man, Pilate
showed a pitiable lack of firmness; in insisting on retaining an
insulting inscription, he showed a petty obstinacy. In this
inscription he was an unconscious prophet of the truth to all
on-lookers--Greek, Roman, Jew. Comp. John 11:51, 52.
23 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took
his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a
part; and also _his_ coat: now the coat was without seam,
woven[701] from the top throughout.
[701] Exod. 39:22.
24 They said therefore among themselves. Let us not rend
it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the
scripture might be fulfilled, which saith,[702] They parted
my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast
lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.
[702] Ps. 22:18.
=23, 24.= The account of John of this incident is fuller and more
exact than those of the other Evangelists. Comp. Matt. 27:35; Mark
15:24; Luke 23:34. There were four soldiers--a quaternion--detailed
to watch the execution of the sentence of the procurator. The clothing
of the convicted was the perquisite of the soldiers. The outer
garments of Christ were divided among them, one to each. The inner
garment, or tunic, was a seamless robe, woven in one piece, probably
of wool. There is no ground for the fanciful comparison of this robe
with those worn by the priests, as though it indicated a priestly
function on Christ’s part. There is more reason in the surmise that it
was a gift to him by some of the women who had followed him from
Galilee (Luke 8:1-3).--But this is a mere surmise, having no other
support than the fact that the soldiers seem to have recognized in it
a peculiar value, a garment which it were a pity to destroy. Dice were
in Rome what cards are in modern life. One of the soldiers took a set
out of his pocket; the helmet would have served as a dice-box; and
thus, under the shadow of the cross, they gambled for this seamless
robe. The incident affords a most striking illustration of the
inhumanity of man, and scarcely less of the indurating influence of
the passion for gambling. “No earthly creatures but gamblers could be
so lost to all feeling as to sit down coolly under a dying man to
wrangle for his garments, and arbitrate their avaricious differences
by casting dice for his tunic, with hands spotted with his spattered
blood, warm and yet undried upon them.”--(_H. W. Beecher._) The
twenty-second Psalm, to the prophecy of which John refers, was
regarded by the Jews, as it has been universally regarded by all
Christian critics, as a Messianic Psalm. A curious illustration of
fanciful interpretation is afforded by Wordsworth’s treatment of this
scene, though he quotes Augustine as his authority: The parted
garments is an emblem of the church in its universality, to be sent
out into the four quarters of the globe; the unparted garment is
emblematic of the church in its unity, to be kept whole and unparted;
the gambling soldiers are an emblem of those who treat the unity of
the church of Christ as a matter of indifference.
25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and
his mother’s sister, Mary the _wife_ of Cleophas,[703] and
Mary Magdalene.
[703] Luke 24:18.
26 When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple
standing by,[704] whom he loved, he saith unto his mother,
Woman,[705] behold thy son!
[704] ch. 13:23.
[705] ch. 2:4.
27 Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother![706]
And from that hour that disciple took her unto his
own[707] _home_.
[706] 1 Tim. 5:2.
[707] ch. 16:32.
=25-27. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother=, etc. There
is some question whether we are to understand by this verse that
there were _four_ women there, or only three. Some scholars read the
phrases “his mother’s sister” and “Mary of Cleophas” as in apposition,
and suppose them to refer to the same person; but the better opinion
regards them as different persons, the mother’s sister being
identified with Salome, the mother of James and John, who, if this
interpretation be correct, were own cousins to Jesus. See Note on the
Twelve Apostles, Matthew, ch. 10, Vol. I, p. 148, where this question
is more fully discussed. It is important only in its bearing on the
question of the relationship of Jesus to James and John.--=Woman,
behold thy son; * * * behold thy mother.= Some doubt has been thrown
on this incident by rationalistic critics, who have thought it
improbable that these women could have been standing near enough to
the cross to hear the words of Jesus; or that they could have been
willing to do so; or that the incident, if it really occurred, could
have escaped the other Evangelists; for it is peculiar to John. The
answer to this criticism is admirably given by Dr. Furness:
“Unquestionably it must have been agonizing to her to witness that
awful sight. And it would have been no less agonizing to her to keep
at a distance from him. May she not have thought within herself, ‘It
kills me to see him suffer so, but I cannot lose a word that may fall
from his lips; perhaps he may speak to me’? The women friends of Jesus
stood looking on at a distance; but if there were one among them who
stood nearer to the cross than the others, it must have been his
mother. Here again the words of Jesus to his mother and the beloved
disciple lose the living truth of nature in our Common Version, which
gives them in the form of complete sentences, ‘_Woman, behold thy
son_,’ and to John, ‘_Behold thy mother_.’ But in the original it is
‘_Woman! look! thy son!_’ and to John, ‘_Look! thy mother!_’ brief as
possible, ejaculatory, broken, and in the fullest accord with the
physical condition in which he then was--a state of extreme torture,
admitting only at the moment of such imperfect utterance. His mother
was not very near the cross, but near enough to allow Jesus, by a
strong effort mastering his agony, to gasp out these few words,
leaving it to the keen sense of his mother and John to make out his
meaning. Indeed, if I could suspect such an incident as this to be an
invention, I should not know what limit to assign to the inventive
power of the authors of the Gospels.”--(_Notes on Schenckel’s
Character of Jesus._)--=And from that hour that disciple took her to
his own.= The words _from that hour_ are not to be taken literally, as
though John and the mother of Jesus did not remain till death had
brought the lingering tortures of the crucifixion to an end. The words
_his own_ are more significant without the addition of the word
_home_, added by the translators. John took the mother into his own
circle, and as his own mother, from that time. The language does not
imply that he had a fixed domicile in Jerusalem. This is not
inherently probable, for he was a Galilean; and certainly nothing
recorded had occurred to make any of the disciples prior to this time
inclined to take up a permanent residence in Jerusalem.
28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now
accomplished, that the scripture[708] might be fulfilled,
saith, I thirst.
[708] Ps. 69:21.
29 Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and
they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put _it_ upon
hyssop, and put _it_ to his mouth.
30 When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he
said, It[709] is finished: and he bowed his head, and
gave[710] up the ghost.
[709] ch. 17:4.
[710] Isa. 53:10, 12; Heb. 2:14, 15.
=28-30.= See Matt. 27:47-49, notes. The incident is common to all the
Evangelists, but their accounts are quite different. John alone
repeats the utterance, “It is finished,” which is to be regarded not
merely as a presage of death, equivalent to, The era of suffering is
ended, the era of joy begins; but as triumphant and prophetic: The
work which thou gavest me to do is finished (ch. 17:4); and this
because Christ died once for all, thus perfecting a sacrificing which
needs never to be repeated (Heb. 9:28), and because by it he offers to
the believer a redemption which is finished, and which needs not to be
supplemented to make it efficacious. The cry of almost despair, “My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” was followed by the cry of
triumph, uttered with a loud voice (Matt. 27:50; Mark 15:37; Luke
23:46); and then, with the prayer, “Father, into thy hands I commit my
spirit” (Luke 23:46), he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. Some
scholars (_Chrysostom_, _Hengstenberg_, _Godet_, etc.) hold that the
reference to prophecy here is to Psalm 69:21, and that the meaning is
that Christ said “I thirst” in order to fulfill prophecy; others
(_Meyer_, _Luthardt_) make the phrase “that the Scripture might be
fulfilled” dependent on the preceding clause, and the meaning to be
that all things were accomplished that the Scripture might be
fulfilled. This seems to me to be the better interpretation. The other
makes Christ utter the expression of thirst for the purpose of calling
forth in others the fulfillment of a prophecy. It may be remarked here
that the constant use of the phrase _that the Scripture might be
fulfilled_ gives to a casual reader the impression that a multitude
of minor incidents were ordered by God, and unimportant acts were
performed by Christ, merely to fulfill O. T. prophecy. The reader
must, however, remember that the Gospels were written primarily for
Jewish readers in large measure, and that the test by which every Jew
determined whether or no Jesus was the Messiah was by asking the
question, Does he fulfill the ancient prophecies? While, therefore, it
is true that Christ’s life does fulfill, even in marvellously minute
details, the prophecies of the O. T., it is also true that these
fulfillments are pointed out by the Evangelists with an emphasis which
in our time seems excessive, but which was not so in their age and for
their immediate purpose. Compare the apostolic speeches to Jewish
audiences, as reported in Acts, which are almost wholly devoted to
proving that Christ’s life and death were in accordance with ancient
Jewish prophecies.
31 The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation,[711]
that the bodies should not remain[712] upon the cross on
the sabbath day, (for[713] that sabbath day was an high
day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and
_that_ they might be taken away.
[711] verse 42.
[712] Deut. 21:23.
[713] Lev. 23:7, 8.
32 Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first,
and of the other which was crucified with him.
33 But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead
already, they brake not his legs:
34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side,
and forthwith came thereout blood[714] and water.[715]
[714] Heb. 9:22, 23; 1 John 5:6, 8.
[715] 1 Pet. 3:21.
35 And[716] he that saw _it_ bare record, and his record
is true; and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might
believe.
[716] 1 John 1:1-3.
36 For these things were done, that the scripture[717]
should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.
[717] Exod. 12:46; Numb. 9:12; Ps. 34:20.
37 And again another scripture[718] saith, They shall look
on him whom they pierced.
[718] Ps. 22:16; Zech. 12:10; Rev. 1:7.
=31-37. Because it was the preparation.= That is, for the Sabbath. At
first the hours, then the entire day, immediately preceding the
Sabbath, was called by the Jews the Preparation. See on ver. 14, and
more fully on Mark 15:42. The Jews, who had no hesitation about
compassing by the most unscrupulous methods the death of an innocent
man, were scrupulous about leaving his corpse to hang on the cross
over the Sabbath--a notable illustration of Sabbatical ceremonialism.
It was the Roman custom to leave the corpse to putrefy; this was
forbidden by the Jewish law, which, partly as a sanitary, partly as a
ceremonial regulation, required immediate burial. See Deut.
21:23.--=That their legs might be broken.= A barbarous but not
uncommon method of accelerating death, adopted in order to enhance
rather than mitigate the horrors of the execution.--=Then came the
soldiers and brake the legs=, etc. The implication is, of course, that
this was done under the orders of Pilate. Nor is there anything
inconsistent in this account with that in Mark (Mark 15:44), that
Pilate was surprised to learn that Jesus was dead, and inquired into
the certainty of the fact before giving permission to Joseph of
Arimathea to remove the body. For when the death of Jesus was reported
to him, the circumstances would also have been reported; and thus
Pilate would have known that the soldiers found him already dead when
they came to break the legs of the three.--=But one of the soldiers
with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came thereout blood and
water.= On the physical significance of this fact, see below, Note on
the Physical Cause of Christ’s Death. From it the spiritualizing
commentators have drawn many mystical lessons, most of them of very
doubtful profit; _e. g._, the comparison of the drawing of Eve from
the side of Adam and the drawing of the church from the side of
Christ; the necessity of both blood and water to regeneration (ch.
3:5); the use of both as emblems of the sacraments, etc. All such uses
of this incident belong at best to the poet, not the commentator, and
its use even by the poet must be cautious, or it becomes unprofitable.
The object of the spear-thrust was not to determine whether death had
actually taken place so much as to ensure death, if there were any
doubt. The record is given partly to set at rest the ancient Gnostic
skeptical whim that the death took place only in seeming; it equally
does set at rest the suggestion of more modern skepticism that Christ
merely fainted from exhaustion and was subsequently restored by the
disciples.--=And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true=,
etc. The use of this phraseology shows the importance which John gave
to this particular fact; partly, perhaps, because it established the
all-important fact of the actual death of the Lord, the culmination of
his life of self-sacrifice, and equally the foundation of that proof
of his divinity which is afforded by his resurrection from the dead.
But I believe that it also gives emphasis to the real cause of the
death of our Lord--a broken heart, broken for the sins of the world,
which he bore on the tree. It is also a water-mark of authorship. “The
testimony thus declared to be veracious is just the record itself
which the narrator was setting down; and, as he says it comes from no
other than the eye-witness, he certainly gives us to understand that
he, the Evangelist, is also the disciple whom Jesus loved.”--(_James
Martineau._)--The prophetic Scriptures referred to are Exod. 12:46 and
Zech. 12:10. The first passage, “A bone of him shall not be broken,”
refers primarily to the paschal lamb; but that lamb was regarded by
the Jews, and is treated both by the Old Testament and the New, as a
type of the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.
* * * * *
NOTE ON THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF CHRIST’S DEATH.--The immediate cause of
Christ’s death is veiled in obscurity; for a brief statement of
various critical opinions on this subject, see Meyer’s notes on this
passage. I believe that there is at least good reason for the opinion
that he died of a literally broken heart. Crucifixion produced a very
lingering death. No vital organ was directly affected. The victim
rarely died in less than twenty-four hours. Instances are recorded of
his lingering a full week. It was customary to dispatch the condemned
after a few hours of torture by speedier means. This was done in the
case of the thieves. Pilate was surprised at the intelligence that
Jesus was already dead. The guard seems to have shared that surprise.
Up to the last moment there was no sign of weakness, no decay of power
or vitality. Jesus conversed with the thief and spoke to his friends.
His last cry was not that of exhausted nature; he cried with a
loud--literally great, _i. e._, strong--voice. His death was instant.
There was something remarkable in it--something that attracted the
attention of the centurion and his band. It followed immediately after
the cry, “My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?” This agony
succeeded that of Gethsemane. In that midnight struggle the heart and
blood-vessels were affected. The palpitation of the heart was so
intense as to cause bloody sweat--a phenomenon rare, but not unknown,
and produced by intense mental excitement. That this was a truly
bloody sweat, see Luke 22:44, note. The heart would probably have been
weakened by such an experience. A repetition of the agony then endured
might truly rupture the membrane of the heart. Such an experience has
been known to produce such a result. If it did, death would instantly
ensue. The blood would flow into the pericardium, an outer sac in
which the heart is enclosed; there it would be liable to separate very
rapidly into clots of extravasated blood and water. When the soldier
thrust the spear into Jesus’ side, it was probably with a double
purpose: to ascertain whether Jesus was dead; to ensure his death if
he were not. For this purpose he would aim at the heart. The spear
would pierce, of course, the left, not the right side, as portrayed in
nearly all art representations of the crucifixion. The water, followed
and accompanied by the clots of blood, would flow from the wound. It
is impossible to account for this phenomenon, not only recorded by
John, but evidently regarded by him of considerable importance, except
upon the hypothesis of a broken heart, or of some organic disease.
Andrews’s hypothesis that it was supernatural has nothing but a devout
surmise to sustain it. The reader who desires to investigate this
subject more thoroughly will find by far the fullest and ablest
discussion of it in Stroud’s _Physical Cause of the Death of Christ_,
London, 1847, especially ch. iv, pp. 73-156, and notes iv and v, pp.
389-420. If this is not within his reach, he will find a brief but
adequate statement of the argument in M’Clintock and Strong’s
_Biblical Cyclopædia_, art. _Crucifixion_.
38 And after this Joseph of Arimathæa, being a disciple of
Jesus, but secretly for[719] fear of the Jews, besought
Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and
Pilate gave _him_ leave. He came therefore, and took the
body of Jesus.
[719] ch. 9:22; 12:42.
39 And there came also[720] Nicodemus, which at the first
came to Jesus by night, and[721] brought a mixture of myrrh
and aloes, about an hundred pound _weight_.
[720] ch. 3:1, 2; 7:50.
[721] 2 Chron. 16:14.
40 Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound[722] it in
linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is
to bury.
[722] Acts 5:6.
41 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a
garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was
never man yet laid.
42 There[723] laid they Jesus therefore because[724] of the
Jews’ preparation _day_; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.
[723] Isa. 53:9; 1 Cor. 15:4.
[724] verse 31.
=38-42. After this came Joseph of Arimathea.= Of him nothing is known
except what may be gathered from the accounts of the Evangelists
concerning him in this connection. Mark implies that he was a member
of the Sanhedrim (Mark 15:43), and Luke that he had nothing to do with
the condemnation of Jesus; probably was not present (see Luke 23:51,
note), either because he knew what was coming before them and that his
resistance would be in vain, or because the others knew his character,
and did not summon him. Luke also describes him as a “good man and
just.” His act in requesting the body of Christ after the crucifixion
was one requiring some courage. In later martyrdoms such a request
cost men their lives; in this case it must at least have cost Joseph
much obloquy. The site of Arimathea is entirely uncertain. The effect
of Christ’s death to make the cowardly strong is noticed by all
commentators.--=Pilate gave him leave.= After making sure that Christ
was really dead (Mark 15:44, 45). --=Took the body of Jesus.= This
taking down from the cross was probably done by the loving hands of
the disciples; this is more probable than that it was done by the
Roman soldiers. Their last duty was performed when they made sure of
the death of the condemned.--=There came also Nicodemus.= It was now
even, that is, the early evening, probably between four o’clock and
sunset. See Matt. 27:57, note. On the character of Nicodemus, see ch.
3:1, note.--=Brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred
pounds weight.= “Myrrh-resin and aloe-wood; these fragrant materials
(Ps. 45:8) were placed, in a pulverized condition, between the
bandages. But the surprising quantity (comp. ch. 12:3) is here
explained from the fact that superabundant reverence in its sorrowful
excitement does not easily satisfy itself; we may also assume that a
portion of the spices was designed for the couch of the body in the
grave” (_Meyer_); or to be burned. See below.--=As the manner of the
Jews is to bury.= There is no evidence that the Hebrews ever practised
systematic embalming, as the Egyptians did. In the O. T. there is but
one mention of any such practice, that of the case of Asa, and he was
not properly embalmed, but laid in the bed which he had prepared for
himself “with perfumes and spices” (2 Chron. 16:14). It appears to
have been the custom in the time of Christ to wash the body and anoint
it, then to wrap it in fine linen, with spices and ointments enveloped
in the folds, and afterwards to pour more ointment upon it, and
sometimes to burn spices. In the case of Christ, the approach of the
Sabbath hurried the preparations of the body, which were not yet
completed at sunset, and were left to be finished the day after the
Sabbath.--Comparing the four accounts of the burial, it appears that
the body was wrapped in fine linen, with some of the spices, and laid
hurriedly away in a rock-hewn sepulchre in a garden near the place of
the crucifixion, one in which no previous burial had ever taken place.
According to Matthew, it belonged to Joseph (Matt. 27:59, 60; Mark
15:46; Luke 23:53, 54). For illustration of the body prepared for
burial, see Acts 5:6, note; for illustration of Jewish tomb, see Mark
16:2-4, notes. For a striking sermon on the Significance of the
Sepulchre in the Garden, sorrow amid flowers, see Harper’s edition of
H. W. Beecher’s sermons.
CHAPTER XX.
Ch. 20:1-31. THE RISEN LORD.--THE TESTIMONY OF EYE-WITNESSES TO THE
RESURRECTION.--THE INTUITIONS OF LOVE (8).--THE CONSOLATION OF LIFE TO
GRIEF AT THE EMPTY TOMB.--THE POWER OF CHRIST’S VOICE.--THE COMMISSION
OF CHRIST’S DISCIPLES: SENT AS CHRIST; THEIR ENDOWMENT: THE GIFT OF
THE HOLY GHOST; THEIR AUTHORITY: TO SAVE, TO JUDGE.--MODERN UNBELIEF
IN AN ANCIENT EXPERIENCE.--CHRIST’S ANSWER TO THE RELUCTANT
SKEPTIC.--THE OBJECT OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
The accounts of the resurrection and the incidents in the life of our
Lord between the resurrection and the ascension given by the four
Evangelists are very different, and in some respects seemingly
inconsistent. The discrepancies have been magnified, and dwelt upon by
rationalizing critics as a reason for regarding the accounts as
unhistorical. For a comparison of the four narratives, a statement of
the differences between them, and a hypothetical harmony, see Note on
the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Matthew, ch. 28, Vol. I, p. 330.
Alford goes too far in saying that all attempts at harmony are
fruitless, though certainly all harmonies are hypothetical, and
perhaps at best only show that there is no radical and essential
inconsistency in the four narratives.
1 The[725] first _day_ of the week cometh Mary Magdalene
early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth
the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
[725] Matt. 28:1, etc.; Mark 16:1, etc.; Luke 24:1,
etc.
2 Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the
other disciple, whom[726] Jesus loved, and saith unto them,
They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we
know not where they have laid him.
[726] ch. 13:23; 19:26; 21:7, 24.
3 Peter[727] therefore went forth, and that other
disciple, and came to the sepulchre.
[727] Luke 24:12.
=1-3.= Matthew says the women came “as it began to dawn,” Mark “at the
rising of the sun.” John is the one most likely to have been well
informed, as he was the first one to whom the women reported the
facts; and his language, therefore, is probably the most minutely
accurate. The time indicated by a comparison of the three accounts is
the early dawn, before the sun was fairly up.--With Mary Magdalene
came Mary the mother of Joses, Salome, and apparently Joanna, the wife
of Chuza, Herod’s steward (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1; Luke 24:1, 10). That
John recognized that there were more than one is indicated by the use
of the plural here in the report made to the other disciples of the
disappearance of the Lord’s body: “We know not where they have laid
him.” Meyer, indeed, argues that the reason borrowed from _we_ know,
in verse 2, for the plurality of the women at the grave, is outweighed
by _I_ know, in verse 13; but this is fallacious, for the fact that
Mary was alone at the grave when Jesus spoke to her would not prove,
nor even indicate, that she was alone when she first came to it. On
the contrary, it is evident that she, with the other women, returned
to the city when they found the grave empty (ver. 2; comp. Matt. 28:8;
Luke 24:9), and it is probable that she returned again to the tomb,
following Peter and John, to sorrow there. For illustration of
sepulchre and rolling stone door, see notes on Mark 16:2-4. For
account of the rolling away of the stone, see Matt. 28:2 and note. The
report of the women, _They have taken away the Lord out of the
sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him_, shows that they
had no expectation of the resurrection of their Lord, such as
rationalism has imputed to them in explaining their belief in the
resurrection appearances as freaks of a sanguine and excited
imagination. They supposed that the grave had been robbed by Christ’s
enemies, and the body hidden; and, in fact, this method of accounting
for the disappearance of the Lord’s body is to be found in some of the
later Jewish writings, though it has never gained credence even among
rationalistic critics.
4 So they ran both together: and the other disciple did
outrun[728] Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.
[728] Luke 13:30.
5 And he, stooping down, _and looking in_, saw the linen
clothes[729] lying; yet went he not in.
[729] ch. 19:40.
6 Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the
sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,
7 And the napkin,[730] that was about his head, not lying
with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by
itself.
[730] ch. 11:44.
8 Then went in also that other disciple, which came first
to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.
9 For as yet they knew not the[731] scripture, that he must
rise again from the dead.
[731] Ps. 16:10; Acts 2:25-31; 13:34, 35.
10 Then the disciples went away again unto their own
home.
=4-10.= This narrative bears the unmistakable impress of coming from
an eye-witness, and all the commentators recognize its striking
accordance with the well-known characteristics of the two disciples.
The information, which from Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts we should
suppose to have been given to all the disciples, appears from John’s
more minute narrative to have been given only to Peter and John, for
there is little doubt that John refers to himself in the phrase “the
other disciple whom Jesus loved.” See ch. 13:22, note. They were both
greatly excited by the news of the supposed desecration of the tomb,
and hastened to the spot to see for themselves. Mary Magdalene, as the
sequel shows, followed them more slowly.--John, who there is reason to
believe was the younger, and therefore not improbably the more agile
of the two, reached the sepulchre first, but was awed at approaching
the grave of his Lord, and waited without, simply looking in
through the open door to assure himself that the tomb was really
empty.--Peter, who was never hindered by his sense of reverence,
entered the sepulchre boldly as soon as he arrived, and John followed
him. They found the tomb empty, but the winding-sheet in which the
body was wrapped (ch. 19:40, note), and the napkin that was about the
head, were folded and laid in so orderly a manner as to negative the
opinion that the grave had been rifled.--The moment John saw the
contents of the tomb the truth flashed upon his mind. His quick
intuitions recalled and interpreted Christ’s misunderstood prophecies
of his own resurrection: _he saw and believed_. To interpret this
phrase as meaning simply “he saw that the body of Jesus was not there,
and believed that it had been removed, as Mary Magdalene had said”
(_Bengel_), is to do violence to the original, for John habitually
uses this word _believed_ (πιστεύω) of spiritual apprehension. Nor is
there any boast in the implication that he alone believed; the fact is
important, for we thus learn when the faith in a risen Saviour first
dawned on humanity; and John could not state it more modestly.
11 But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and
as she wept, she stooped down, _and looked_[732] into the
sepulchre,
[732] Mark 16:5.
12 And seeth two angels in white, sitting, the one at the
head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus
had lain.
13 And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She
saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and
I know not where they have laid him.
=11-13.= Mary, who apparently had followed Peter and John to the
sepulchre, remained after their departure, to weep. She also stooped
and looked into the sepulchre, but she was so preoccupied with the
conclusion which she had already hastily formed, that the orderly
arrangement of the grave-clothes produced no effect upon her
mind.--For her some further disclosure of the truth was necessary; to
her, therefore, the angels appeared. Mary is not startled either at
their appearance or their words (comp. Luke 1:29); perhaps she is too
entirely absorbed in her grief at the disappearance of the Lord’s
body.--In answer to their question she repeats what she had reported
to the disciples: “They (the Lord’s enemies) have taken away my Lord,
and I know not where they have laid him.” It is by a very forced
accommodation that this text is applied to or used to illustrate that
philosophy which denies the divinity and atonement of Christ; for here
it was the outward crucified tabernacle which had been taken away,
that the victorious Spirit might be more effectively imparted. The
objection of rationalistic critics that the angels had not been seen
by Peter and John is well answered by Godet: “Angels are not visible
and immovable, like stone statues.”
14 And when she had thus said, she turned herself back,
and[733] saw Jesus standing, and knew not[734] that it was
Jesus.
[733] Matt. 28:9; Mark 16:9.
[734] ch. 21:4; Luke 24:16, 31.
15 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom
seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith
unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where
thou hast laid him, and[735] I will take him away.
[735] Cant. 3:2.
=14, 15.= Mary turned back from looking into the tomb, not attracted
by any sound of Christ’s approach--at least of this there is no
intimation in the narrative--but more probably in the very
restlessness of grief. Her failure to recognize Jesus is best
explained, not by any natural cause, as the dimness of the morning
light, or her inattention to the person of the supposed stranger, but
by the analogous experience of the disciples in their walk to Emmaus,
when Christ appeared to them “in another form” (Mark 16:12), and
“their eyes were holden, that they should not know him” (Luke
24:16).--Mary’s surmise that the unknown was the gardener was a
natural one. “Who else could it be in the garden so early in the
morning?”--(_Meyer._) The elaborate discussion of the question whether
he had on the clothing of a gardener is a somewhat striking
illustration of the profitless and wholly fruitless debate which is
unhappily only too common in Biblical interpretation. In the wildness
of her grief she surmised that the gardener might know what had become
of the body, might even have taken part in its removal--a wild
surmise, since the tomb and the garden both belonged to a disciple of
Christ (Matt. 27:60). Her assurance, “I will take him away,” is made
in the strength of a love which promises without reflecting whether it
can perform.
16 Jesus saith unto her, Mary.[736] She turned[737]
herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say,
Master.
[736] ch. 10:3; Isa. 43:1.
[737] Cant. 3:4.
17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not
yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren,[738]
and say unto them, I[739] ascend unto my Father,
and[740] your Father; and _to_ my[741] God, and
your[742] God.
[738] Ps. 22:22; Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:11.
[739] ch. 16:28.
[740] Rom. 8:14, 15; 2 Cor. 6:18; Gal. 3:26; 4:6, 7.
[741] Ephes. 1:17.
[742] Gen. 17:7, 8; Ps. 43:4, 5; 48:14; Isa. 41:10;
Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 36:28; Zech. 13:9; Heb. 11:16; Rev.
21:3.
18 Mary Magdalene came[743] and told the disciples
that she had seen the Lord, and _that_ he had spoken
these things unto her.
[743] Matt. 28:10.
=16-18.= Christ’s utterance of her name in well-remembered accents
disclosed him to her. She had before but listlessly regarded him; she
now turned fully toward him, instantly recognized him, responded to
her name with a word full of reverential affection--“_Rabboni,
Master_”--and would have thrown herself at his feet and embraced him
but for his prohibition. In an instant she was translated from the
profoundest grief to the most exalted ecstasy of love, but her
intended expression of that love did not accord with that spiritual
communion which the risen Lord proposed to vouchsafe to his disciples.
The original rendered _touch_ (ἃπτω) signifies literally to hang upon
some one. “She desired to seize, grasp, hold Jesus, in order to enjoy
his society and to satisfy her love (comp. Luke 7:36).”--(_Luthardt._)
Or, perhaps, to convince herself that she was not under an illusion,
and to hold fast to the Christ whom she had already twice lost--once
in the crucifixion, once in the disappearance of the body from the
tomb. There appears to be an inconsistency between Christ’s
prohibition here and the statement in Matt. 28:9 that the women “came
and held him by the feet.” I believe the account there to be an
imperfect report of the event more accurately reported here. See note
on Matt. 28:9, 10. Why the fact that Christ had not yet ascended to
his Father should be assigned as a reason for not embracing him has
given rise to much discussion among the commentators. An account of
the explanations which have been afforded, some of which are fanciful
to the verge of absurdity, may be found both in Luthardt and Meyer.
The true interpretation seems to me to be this: Christ had promised to
his disciples that after he had gone to his Father he would return to
be with them, that they might be in him and he in them, as he was in
the Father and the Father in him. This interpretation of his death as
a departure to be with the Father, and this accompanying promise to
return and be with them, form the burden of his discourse in John,
chaps. 14-16. He restrained Mary from embracing him by declaring that
he had not yet gone to the Father, that the time for the fulfillment
of this promise of his fellowship had not yet come, and that she must
yet look forward to the future for that intimacy of intercourse which
he had foretold. He did not stop to enter into fuller explanations,
but his words point to that spiritual acquaintance with Christ to
which Paul gives expression in the declaration, “Though we have known
Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more” (2
Cor. 6:16). But though refusing to allow Mary to embrace him, he
conferred upon her a far greater honor in commissioning her to be the
first preacher of the resurrection. By characterizing his disciples as
his _brethren_, he indicated that he was still in the flesh. The body
with which he had risen was the same in which he was crucified. See
Luke 24:39, note. The language of his message, “I ascend unto my
Father and your Father, and to my God and your God,” indicates
certainly that the sonship of the disciple is not the same as the
sonship of the only begotten Son of God. He does not say _our Father_.
Cyril’s interpretation, “My Father by nature; your Father by
adoption,” is just, though attributed to rather than found in the
words. The Father is by Paul called “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ”
(Ephes. 1:17).
19 Then[744] the same day at evening, being the first _day_
of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples
were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood
in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace _be_ unto you.
[744] Mark 16:14; Luke 24:36; 1 Cor. 15:5.
20 And when he had so said, he shewed unto them _his_
hands and his side. Then[745] were the disciples glad,
when they saw the Lord.
[745] ch. 16:22.
=19, 20.= Of this interview Mark gives a briefer, Luke a quite
different report (Mark 16:14-16; Luke 24:36-49). As John was the only
one of the Evangelists present who has given any account of the
interview, it may be assumed that his is the more accurate. It is
possible that Luke’s account of Christ’s eating broiled fish and a
honeycomb, to convince them that he was in the flesh, may have been
derived from the subsequent interview in Galilee, reported by John in
ch. 21:12-14. The event here recorded took place after the appearance
of Christ to the two disciples in their walk to Emmaus (Luke
24:13-35). This was the first appearance of Christ, after the
resurrection, to the apostles in a body. The doors were probably not
only shut, but locked, as a protection; the fear of the Jews was
natural, for it was reasonable to expect that the crucifixion of the
Master would be followed by an attempt to pursue and punish the
disciples; and this natural expectation was increased by the
prophecies of persecution which formed a part of Christ’s final
instructions. The fact that Jesus entered through the closed door does
not indicate that the body was other than the natural body which had
been laid in the grave; and Christ’s language at this very time, as
reported by Luke, “A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me
have,” appears to be conclusive that his resurrection body was his
physical body. It is as futile to ask how, with a natural body, he
could enter through the closed door, as to ask how he could walk upon
the water. Miracles defy explanation. It is to be observed, however,
that the Evangelist does not state that Jesus entered _through_ the
closed door. He simply states the two facts which came within his own
observation: the doors were closed, and while so closed, suddenly
Jesus was seen standing in the midst of the disciples, within the
room. The greeting, “_Peace be unto you_,” was a common Jewish
salutation. Like the salutation “It is I, be not afraid,” with which
Christ greeted the frightened disciples in the storm-tossed boat on
the Sea of Galilee (ch. 6:20), it was addressed to calm their natural
perturbation at the sudden apparition. This it must have done the
more effectually in that it recalled to their minds the benediction of
his final discourse, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto
you; not as the world giveth give I unto you” (ch. 14:27). The showing
of his hands and side was further to convince them of his identity;
and it appears probable, from the language of Thomas (ver. 25), from
the report of Luke (Luke 24:39), and from the language of John in his
Epistle (1 John 1:1), that the disciples handled as well as looked
upon the body of their Lord.
21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace[746] _be_ unto you:
as _my_ Father hath sent me, even so[747] send I you.
[746] ch. 14:27.
[747] ch. 17:18; Matt. 28:19; 2 Tim. 2:2; Heb. 3:1.
=21.= This is John’s report of the commission given by Christ to his
disciples after the resurrection, and should be compared with that of
Matthew (28:18-20), which, however, appears to have been given later.
Mark’s report of the apostolic commission (Mark 16:15-18) is of
doubtful authenticity, and Luke’s account (Luke 24:45-49) is to be
regarded rather as a summary of Christ’s post-resurrection
instructions than as the report of any single commission. It is, as
Meyer well remarks, significant that the mission of the disciples
previously implied was formally and solemnly ratified at the first
meeting after the resurrection. On the significance of this
commission, see ch. 17:18, note. It was his response to their
exhibition of gladness upon seeing him again, and implied that their
joy in their Lord was not to be consummated until they had followed
him in his ministry of humiliation and sacrifice.
22 And when he had said this, he breathed on _them_, and
saith unto them, Receive[748] ye the Holy Ghost.
[748] Acts 2:4, 38.
23 Whose soever[749] sins ye remit, they are remitted
unto them; _and_ whose soever _sins_ ye retain, they are
retained.
[749] Matt. 16:19; 18:18.
=22, 23. He breathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.=
Breath is a natural symbol of life; in the Bible it is used as a
symbol of the divine life. God breathes into man the breath of life
(Gen. 2:7); in the vision of Ezekiel the wind breathes on the dry
bones and clothes them with life (Ezek. 37:9, 10); in Christ’s
conversation with Nicodemus the life-giving power of God is compared
to the breath of wind (ch. 3:8); and it is significant of the extent
to which this symbol underlies Scripture that the Greek word used for
spirit is the one also used for wind, which is poetically represented
as the breath of God. Here, by breathing on the apostles, Christ
symbolically imparted to them that divine life which man never
_acquires_, which God alone can _give_. _Receive ye the Holy Ghost_ is
not to be regarded as a promise to be fulfilled at Pentecost--it is
not equivalent to, _Ye shall receive the Holy Ghost_; nor as a full
bestowal of the power of the Spirit, which came not till Pentecost;
but as an _earnest_ of the gift yet to be more fully bestowed in
successive endowments through all the future ages of the church. This
gift of the Holy Ghost is to be connected with the commission which
precedes: “As my Father hath sent me, even so I send you.” It is given
to all who accept this Christian commission, that is, who believe in
Christ through the word of the apostles, and, believing, become true
followers of him. It is also to be connected with the authority
conferred in the verse which follows. See below. There is a possible
significance in the omission of the definite article in the original,
which, if literally translated, would read, Receive ye a holy spirit.
We receive a spirit of true holiness only as the divine life is
breathed upon us by the inspiration of God (Titus 3:4-6).--=Whose
soever sins ye put away, they are put away from them; whose soever
sins ye retain, they are retained.= This passage is confessedly
difficult of interpretation. In considering it I endeavor, first, to
put the English reader in possession of the exact meaning of the
original; next, to suggest to him what seems to me to be the true
interpretation of the passage; and finally to give him briefly other
interpretations. (1) The word rendered _remit_ signifies primarily and
properly to _dismiss_, _put away_, _get rid of_. As applied to sin in
the N. T., it indicates not a mere release from the threatened penalty
of transgression, but redemption from the power of the sin itself. See
Matt. 6:12, note. The divine forgiveness of sins is interpreted by
such promises as those of Micah 7:19: “He will subdue our iniquities,
and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea;” and
Isaiah 44:22: “I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions,
and as a cloud thy sins.” In the first clause of this verse,
therefore, there is no hint of any power in apostle or apostolic
successor to forgive sins, or to declare with authority sins forgiven,
or to declare under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost to what
character and on what terms sins shall be forgiven. There is simply
the declaration that when the disciple of Christ, acting under his
Master’s commission and with the power given by the inbreathed gift of
the Holy Ghost, does in fact put away, dismiss, get rid of sin, in the
individual or the community, the work shall not be in vain in the
Lord--the devil so cast out shall not return to find the house swept
and garnished and take possession of it again (Matt. 12:44, 45). The
work shall abide. Thus the first clause of this verse embodies a
promise like that of Isaiah 55:11, and is interpreted by its
fulfillment in Paul’s experience, as in 1 Thess. 1:4-7. The second
clause, _Whose soever sins ye retain shall be retained_, is more
difficult of interpretation. The word rendered _retain_ primarily
signifies to _possess power_, then to _exercise_ it. It is
employed both in classic and later Greek, with many derivative
significations--to _rule_, _conquer_, _subdue_, _seize_, _keep_, _hold
fast_. It is translated in the N. T. by the terms _hold_ or _hold
fast_, _keep_, _lay hand on_, _obtain_, _take_, and, here only,
_retain_. It is sometimes used in a material sense, that is, of the
exercise of physical power, as in Matt. 9:25, _he took her by the
hand_, or Matt. 26:48, _hold him fast_ (comp. verses 50, 55, 57);
sometimes it is used in an immaterial sense, that is, of the exercise
of a mental power, as in Col. 2:19 of Christians who fall away from
grace _not holding the head_, or Mark 7:3 of the Pharisees who _hold
the traditions of the elders_. But it never loses wholly its primary
and germinant significance of the possession and exercise of power. It
cannot therefore here be rendered, without a violation of the
original, _Whose soever sins ye permit to retain their hold on the
sinner shall be allowed to be retained_; some real exercise of power
on the part of the person receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost is
indicated. There is also an antithesis apparent in the original, as in
our English version, between the two clauses of the verse, _i. e._,
between remitting or letting go and retaining or not letting go. We
have the same antithesis, between the same words, though there used in
a physical sense, in Mark 12:12, They sought _to lay hold_ on him, * *
* but they _left_ him and went their way. It seems to me that by this
latter clause a power is conferred, the more awful that it is not
clearly, and perhaps cannot be by any possibility clearly defined--a
power to fasten sin on the sinner by sentence of condemnation, as
there is power to put away sin by the proclamation of the salvation.
This power is given upon the conditions implied in the commission, _As
the Father hath sent me, even so I send you_, and in the gift,
_Receive ye the gift of the Holy Ghost_; that is, it is conferred, not
on the apostles merely, all of whom were not present (ver. 24); nor on
them and their successors, for of successors the N. T. furnishes no
limit; nor on an ordained priesthood or ministry; but on all who
accept Christ’s commission, and in that commission seek and obtain the
gift of the Holy Ghost; and it is theirs just in the measure in which
they receive and act under his divine influence. (2) I read, then, in
this language of Christ, the bestowal of a twofold spiritual
power--one of salvation, the other of judgment. The disciple is sent
into the world as his Master was sent into the world, like him
to become a teacher of divine truth, an example to others, a
manifestation of the divine character, a bearer in his own person of
the sins of others. See ch. 17:18, note. But also like him he is to be
a judge. The Master’s fan is to be in his hand. He who has power to
proclaim salvation has also authority to pronounce condemnation, and
the one declaration no less than the other, when uttered under the
influence of the Holy Spirit of God, is uttered with divine authority.
Instances of this judgment against wilful and determined sin are
afforded by Christ’s denunciation of the Pharisees; by Peter’s
condemnation of Ananias and Sapphira, and of Simon Magus; by Paul’s
judgment against the offender in the church of Corinth. Illustrations
of perversions of this power are afforded by the anathemas of the
church of the middle ages, and perhaps by some of the severe
denunciations of the Puritans. It has been variously illustrated by
preachers of judgment from the days of Jeremiah to those of John Knox.
Such a sentence, when uttered, as it often has been, under the
influence of malign passion, or of ecclesiastical ambition, is but an
ill-spent breath; but when it is the voice of a spirit of truth and
holiness, aroused to righteous indignation in the presence of
inveterate sin, and is uttered by a soul acting under the conscious
influence of the Divine Spirit, the sentence becomes an awful one,
because it is an echo of the inaudible sentence of God himself. I must
add emphasis to the statement that, as I read this passage, this power
belongs, not to a hierarchy, priesthood, or ministry, but to the
Christian soul, by virtue of its direct life in and with God, and to
such soul only when acting in its highest moods and with the direct
and conscious influence of the Spirit of God upon it. This authority,
here bestowed on all who are inspired by a divinely imparted spirit of
holiness, interprets and measurably explains the power of a holy soul,
before which often, in the history of the race, the most august
personages have trembled, they knew not why. Of course this
interpretation will be at once rejected by those who would abolish
judgment from eternity, much more from this present life, and treat
sin only as an immaturity or a disease; but possibly the church would
be more efficient in its proclamation of the gospel to penitent
sinners, if its spirit of holiness were sometimes aroused to pronounce
the sentence of God against persistent sin; perhaps it would call to
the Lord more of the publicans and sinners, if it had more of his
spirit of judgment against the temple traders and the Pharisees. (3)
The principal other interpretations of this passage are the following:
(_a_) That the Lord gave power to the apostles to absolve men from sin
and fasten sin upon them, but that this was a purely personal power,
belonging to the apostolic age, and ceasing with the gifts of
miracles, of tongues, etc. But this interpretation dissociates the
power here conferred from the accompanying commission and gift, or
confines the latter to the apostles, while the general teaching of the
Scriptures gives both to all believers. See ch. 17:18, 20; Acts 2:38,
39. It would exclude Thomas, who was not present at this interview,
and Paul, who was not one of the eleven. (_b_) That a power of
infallibly absolving and anathematizing is here conferred, but that it
belongs exclusively to the apostles and their successors, the
self-perpetuating hierarchy. This is the ecclesiastical view, held
very generally by the Roman Catholic church, and in a modified form by
many among the hierarchical denominations generally. But there is
neither here nor anywhere else in the N. T. any hint of any power in
the apostles to appoint successors, nor any hint that they ever did
so. And indeed the very nature of their office, which was to bear
personal witness to the facts of Christ’s life and death and
resurrection, was such that in the nature of the case no successors
were possible (ch. 15:27; Acts 1:21, 22; 1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8). On this
point the dictum of an English dean is significant: “This gift belongs
to the church in all ages, and especially to those who by legitimate
appointment are set to minister in the churches of Christ: not by
successive delegation from the apostles, _of which fiction I find in
the N. T. no trace_, but by their mission from Christ, the bestower of
the spirit for their office, when orderly and legitimately conferred
upon them by the various churches. Not, however, to them exclusively,
though for decency and order it is expedient that the outward and
formal declaration should be so; but in proportion as _any disciple_
shall have been filled with the holy spirit of wisdom is the inner
discernment his.”--(_Alford._) (_c_) The power here promised is one
which in a very general way accompanies the preaching of the gospel;
that it is a promise that “they should be taught by the Holy Ghost to
declare on what terms, to what characters, and to what temper of mind
God would extend forgiveness of sins.” This, which is Mr. Barnes’s
interpretation, seems to me entirely inadequate. It reduces a definite
and positive promise of divine ratification of human judgment, under
the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to a mere enunciation of the general
principle that the ministers of Christ shall be ministers of the
truth. (_d_) That the two clauses of the sentence are, the one a
promise, the other a warning; that Christians _remit_ sin when, by
their influence, their example, or their teaching, they induce sinners
to repent of sin and abandon it; that they _retain_ sin when, by their
negligence, their acquiescence, or their approval, they directly or
indirectly help to fasten sins on the individual or the community; and
that Christ promises his disciples great results if they are faithful,
and warns them of equally great but terrible results if they are
remiss or culpable. The original does not seem to me capable of this
rendering, for it ignores the fundamental meaning of the word rendered
_retain_ (κρῦέω), which always indicates some real _exercise of
power_, never a failure or a neglect to exercise it. See above. The
view which I have adopted is not very widely different from that of
Alford, Meyer, Ryle, Calvin, Watkins, and the best of the Protestant
commentators generally, except that, with Godet, I regard the promise
as conferring on the moral judgments of the disciple a real efficacy,
while the commentators generally regard it as simply a promise of
wisdom spiritually to perceive and declare judgments which shall be in
accordance with the divine will. This interpretation is also adopted
by some of the more evangelical of the Roman Catholic divines, _e.
g._, Quesnel in modern and Chrysostom in ancient times, both of whom
regard the priest as an ambassador of God, and as speaking by
authority only in so far as he is filled with the Holy Ghost. “But why
speak I of priests? Neither angel nor archangel can do anything with
regard to what is given him of God; but the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost dispenseth all, while the priest lends his tongue and
affords his hand.”--(_Chrysostom._) “That such a judgment may be
pronounced upon sinners as is fit to be approved of God, and to be
confirmed in heaven, it must be such as is according to the Spirit of
God, who is given for that purpose, and to the rules prescribed by
Christ to sinners, of which the priest is only the minister.”--(_Quesnel._)
24 But Thomas,[750] one of the twelve, called Didymus, was
not with them when Jesus came.
[750] ch. 11:16.
25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have
seen the Lord. But he[751] said unto them, Except I shall
see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger
into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his
side, I will not believe.
[751] Ps. 78:11, 32.
=24, 25.= Didymus is the Greek equivalent of Thomas, which is of
Hebrew origin. Very little of his life is known; but the two other
occurrences recorded in the N. T. (John 11:16; 14:5) indicate an
affectionate spirit but a skeptical intellect, a man who loved much,
but believed and hoped but little. He has been well called “the
rationalist” among the twelve; but he was a rationalist with a warm
heart. The incident here recorded shows that the fact of the
resurrection was so attested that it was accepted by one who could
only be convinced by the clearest and most convincing proof. The
reason of Thomas’s absence is not stated, nor even implied; but the
conjecture that he had abandoned hope, and therefore the companionship
of the disciples, is not unreasonable.--His language, _Except I thrust
my hand into his side, I will not believe_, is that not merely of
dejection, but also of defiance. His position is that of modern
positivism, which refuses to believe anything not verified by actual
sensuous observation; his demand is that of M. Renan, who, to
substantiate the doctrine of the resurrection, calls for the
successful raising of the dead before a commission composed of
physiologists, physicians, chemists, and skilled critics. See _Life of
Jesus_, Intro. But Thomas’s spirit was very different.
26 And after eight days, again his disciples were within,
and Thomas with them: _then_ came Jesus, the doors being
shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace[752] _be_
unto you.
[752] Isa. 26:12.
27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and
behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand,[753] and thrust
_it_ into my side: and be[754] not faithless, but believing.
[753] 1 John 1:1.
[754] 1 Tim. 1:14.
=26, 27.= This meeting after eight days, _i. e._, on the eighth day,
is the first intimation in the N. T. of a commemoration by the
disciples of the resurrection; and there is nothing to show that the
disciples had not kept together in a continuous meeting during the
entire week, which, it will be remembered, was the Passover week. But
it is certainly significant that Christ chose the first day of the
week, on which he rose from the dead, to make his second appearance to
his infant church, and thus gave an impulse to, if not a suggestion
of, that apostolic commemoration of the day, which by insensible
degrees led to the transfer of the Christian’s weekly festival from
the seventh to the first day of the week.--Christ appears as suddenly
and mysteriously as before, and in his address to Thomas echoes his
words, a severe yet a tender and loving rebuke. The evidence which he
would have refused to the Pharisee he grants to the disciple; the
inimical demand of the determined skeptic he always disregards; for
the intellectual difficulties of a reluctant skeptic he shows great
compassion. But he shows this compassion for unbelief that he may
rescue the unbeliever from it, and bids him _become not unbelieving,
but believing_. Through his doubt of the actual occurrence of the
resurrection, Thomas was in danger of becoming a disbeliever
generally, and against this danger of lapsing from a state of faith to
one of unfaith Jesus warned Thomas, and through him warns the feeble
and vacillating believers of all ages.
28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My[755] Lord and
my God.
[755] ch. 5:23; Ps. 118:28; 1 Tim. 3:16.
29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen
me, thou hast believed: blessed[756] _are_ they that have
not seen, and _yet_ have believed.
[756] 1 Pet. 1:8.
=28, 29.= Thomas was overpowered and convinced by the grace of his
Master, not by the physical evidence which he had demanded, and which
was vouchsafed to him; not because he handled, but because he _saw_,
he believed (ver. 29). In this appears the difference of his spirit
from that of the modern rationalists; his faith finally rested, not in
the sensuous evidence, but in the invisible love and mercy of his
Lord. The mere fact that Jesus rose from the dead did not
demonstrate his divinity, nor give ground for Thomas’s appeal; for
Lazarus, too, rose from the dead. “It was an evidence addressing
itself not to his eyes, but to his heart, which forced him to cry, My
Lord and my God.”--(_Maurice._) To interpret this utterance as a mere
expletory outcry is the shallowest of criticism. It reduces a sublime
and exalted confession of faith to an irrelevant and semi-profane
exclamation. It is grammatically, psychologically, and spiritually
untenable; grammatically, because it is expressly said that Thomas
addressed the words to Jesus--_he said “unto him”_; psychologically,
because it is equally irrational to suppose that Thomas, just
convinced of the resurrection of his Lord and Master, should break out
into a mere meaningless exclamation, or that John should have reported
it if it had been uttered; spiritually, because Christ on the strength
of this confession of Thomas recognizes his faith: “Thou hast
believed.” Equally untenable is the suggestion of Norton (_Notes on
the Gospels_), that “the name God was employed by him, not as the
proper name of the Deity, but as an appellation, according to a common
use of it in his day,” for no such common use existed, and its
existence would have been utterly inconsistent with the Hebrew laws
against the use of God’s name in vain. The fact that Thomas recognized
Jesus as both Lord and God might not of itself be conclusive; there
would be possible ground for Norton’s argument: “Considering into how
great an error he had fallen in his previous obstinate incredulity,
there would be little reason for relying upon his opinion as
infallible”; but Christ not only accepts, he distinctly approves and
ratifies Thomas’s confession, and the faith of the church rests not on
the words of the disciple, but on their approbation by his Lord.
Thomas’s words here, then, are to be read in the light of Christ’s
words in chaps. 13-17; the disciple accepts in a single sentence
Christ’s teaching respecting himself as the one sent from and
manifesting to the world the eternal Father. It is the answer of a
suddenly awakened faith to the before ill-comprehended declaration, He
that hath seen me hath seen the Father. In his response, _Blessed are
they that have not seen, and yet have believed_, Jesus recognizes two
kinds of belief, one which rests on seeing or on the witness of those
that have seen, the other and higher that which rests simply on
spiritual apprehension. Parallel to the implied contrast here is
that in John 14:11, “Believe me that I am in the Father, and the
Father in me; or else believe me for the very work’s sake.”
30 And[757] many other signs truly did Jesus in the
presence of his disciples, which are not written in this
book:
[757] ch. 21:25.
31 But[758] these are written, that ye might believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and[759] that,
believing, ye might have life through his name.
[758] Luke 1:4.
[759] ch. 3:15, 16; 5:24; 10:10; 1 Pet. 1:9.
=30, 31.= These verses constitute the formal close of John’s Gospel,
ch. 21 being an appendix. See Prel. Note there. The “_many other
signs_” referred to are not necessarily only or chiefly those wrought
after the resurrection, but include those recorded by the other
Evangelists, as well as such as have not been recorded.--On the object
of John in his Gospel as here indicated, see Intro., p. 11. That
object was threefold: (1) That the readers might have faith that Jesus
of Nazareth is the Messiah of prophecy; (2) that they might
spiritually recognize in this Messiah the well-beloved Son of God; (3)
that, believing in his Messiahship and divinity, they might become
partakers of his life. _Life_ (ζωή) in John’s usage always signifies
_spiritual_ life, and the _name of Christ_, in which this life is to
be attained, stands for Christ himself in all the gracious offices
which his names indicate, as Jesus or Saviour, Christ or Messiah, and
Emmanuel or God with us.
CHAPTER XXI.
Ch. 21:1-25. APPENDIX TO JOHN’S GOSPEL.--WAITING FOR CHRIST WHILE WE
WORK (3).--THE POWER OF THE LORD OVER NATURE (6).--LOVE SEES MOST
QUICKLY; ZEAL ACTS MOST QUICKLY (7).--CHRIST PROVIDES FOR OUR SIMPLEST
WANTS; FIRE FOR THE COLD, FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY (9).--A TRUE PROOF OF
LOVE FOR CHRIST: SHEPHERDING HIS SHEEP (15-17).--SERVICE AND SUFFERING
ARE BOTH FOLLOWING CHRIST (18).--THE IMPERTINENCE OF CURIOSITY REBUKED
(21-23).--THE LAST WORD AND THE FIRST WORD OF CHRIST THE SAME, FOLLOW
ME.
* * * * *
PRELIMINARY NOTE.--All modern critics agree in regarding this chapter
as in the nature of a supplement, the original Gospel having been
brought to a close in the last verses of the preceding chapter. This
opinion is based chiefly upon the formal close afforded by those
verses. That this supplemental chapter was written at a very early
period, and probably before the Gospel itself was given to the public,
is indicated by the fact that it is found in all the manuscripts.
Whether it was written by John himself or by some disciple or friend
is not altogether clear, and certainly not very important; but the
evangelical critics generally agree, from a careful consideration of
its internal characteristics, in attributing it to John himself. Thus
Alford: “The reader will have perceived in the foregoing comment on
the chapter a manifest leaning to the belief that it was written by
John himself. _Of this I am fully convinced._ In every part of it his
hand is plain and unmistakable; in every part of it his character and
spirit is manifested in a way which none but the most biassed can fail
to recognize. I believe it to have been added some years probably
after the completion of the Gospel; partly, perhaps, to record the
important miracle of the second draught of fishes, so full of
spiritual instruction, and the interesting account of the sayings of
the Lord to Peter; but principally to meet the error which was
becoming prevalent concerning himself.” To the same effect Meyer: “In
accordance with all that has been advanced, the view is justified that
John, by way of authentic historical explanation of the legend in ver.
23, some time after finishing his Gospel, which he had closed with
20:31, wrote ch. 21:1-24 as a complement of the book, and that this
appendix, simply because its Johannean character was immediately
certain and recognized, already at a very early period, whilst the
Gospel had not yet issued forth from the narrower circle of its first
readers, had become an inseparable part of the Gospel.” Similarly,
though somewhat more doubtfully, Luthardt and Godet. See also Ezra
Abbot, in _Smith’s Bib. Dict._, Vol. 2, p. 1430, note b.
1 After these things Jesus shewed himself again to the
disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise shewed
he _himself_.
2 There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called
Didymus, and[760] Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the
_sons_[761] of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples.
[760] ch. 1:45.
[761] Matt. 4:21.
3 Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They
say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth,
and entered into a ship immediately; and that night
they caught nothing.
=1-3.= The departure of the disciples into Galilee is not to be
regarded as an abandonment on their part of hope; for Christ’s
direction to his disciples after his resurrection was to go into
Galilee and meet him there (Matt. 28:7; Mark 16:7). We are rather to
regard it, therefore, as an evidence that they were convinced by his
repeated appearances of the resurrection of their Lord, and went into
Galilee in anticipation of meeting him there. For the same reason we
are not to regard Peter’s declaration, _I go a fishing_, as an
indication that he had abandoned his sacred for a secular calling. His
restless temperament did not allow him to wait in inactivity, and he
sought relief in work. The response of the other disciples, _We also
go with thee_, has been rightly used by the homiletical commentators
as an illustration of the influence of example. John was one of the
sons of Zebedee. Assuming that the 21st chapter is from his pen, we
have in it the description of an eye-witness. There is nothing to
indicate who were the two unnamed disciples, but the fact that they
are unnamed has been regarded as an indication that they were not two
of the twelve. The _ship_ was, of course, simply a fisherman’s boat,
probably not very different in shape and size from those to be seen in
the Sea of Galilee at the present day, as represented in the
accompanying illustration.
4 But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on
the shore: but the disciples knew[762] not that it was
Jesus.
[762] ch. 20:14.
5 Then[763] Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye
any meat? They answered him, No.
[763] Luke 24:41.
=4, 5.= The night of labor spent in vain might naturally have recalled
to the disciples that other night of toil after which Christ first
called some of these disciples to be his followers (Luke 5:1-11). In
the gray twilight they saw a stranger on the shore; that they did not
recognize him may have been due in part to the dimness of the early
light, but more probably to the fact, illustrated by other
post-resurrection appearances, that he was recognized only as he chose
to reveal himself (ch. 20:14; Luke 24:16). Certainly it indicates that
the disciples had no such expectation of his appearance as would lead
them, according to the theory of M. Renan, to conjure up a spectre.
There is nothing in the words, and we may presume there was nothing in
the tones of Jesus, to quicken their perception. His language is that
of a fisherman: _Boys_ (παιδία), _have ye no fish?_ The word rendered
_meat_ (προσφάγιον) is literally _what is eaten therewith_, _i. e._,
with bread, and here is equivalent to _fish_, which in Galilee was a
common accompaniment of bread in the peasant’s meal.
[Illustration: ANCIENT BREAD.]
6 And he said unto them, Cast[764] the net on the right
side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore,
and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of
fishes.
[764] Luke 5:4-7.
7 Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto
Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was
the Lord, he girt _his_ fisher’s coat _unto him_, (for he was
naked,) and did cast himself into the sea.
8 And the other disciples came in a little ship; (for they
were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits,)
dragging the net with fishes.
=6-8.= There was nothing to the disciples especially suggestive in the
direction to _cast the net on the right side of the ship_. They might
naturally suppose that he had perceived indications of a school of
fishes there.--In the effect produced on the two disciples, Peter and
John, by the miraculous draught of fishes which followed, the
character of each is strikingly illustrated. John, with his quicker
intuitions, recalling that other fishing scene, recognized the Lord
first; Peter, with his greater boldness to act, leaped into the water,
and partly swam and partly waded ashore. Comp. ch. 20:6, 8, notes. The
distance was about _two hundred cubits_, that is, about three hundred
feet. The _fisher’s coat_, which Peter girt unto him, appears to have
been a sort of loose garment, like the workmen’s blouse of to-day,
which Peter had laid off during his night’s work. This he put on,
counting it unseemly to appear without it in the presence of his Lord,
at the same time drawing it up and tucking it in about the waist, that
it might not impede his swimming to the shore.--The accompanying
illustration shows the probable style of the fisher’s coat, in
contrast with the long robe worn by one not engaged in manual labor.
The net itself was so full of fishes, and they so _great_, that the
disciples abandoned the attempt to bring them into the boat, but
dragged them in the net to the land.
[Illustration: HE GIRT HIS FISHER’S COAT UNTO HIM.]
9 As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire
of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread.
10 Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have
now caught.
11 Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of
great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all
there were so many, yet was not the net broken.
=9-11.= On coming to the shore the disciples found a fire of coals
already kindled, and some fish laid thereon, and some loaves of
bread--in short, preparation for a simple meal. There has been some
unprofitable discussion among the commentators respecting the manner
in which this provision had been made. It is attributed by different
commentators to the ministry of angels, to the activity of Peter, to
the forethought of Jesus. Alford, following Stier and the older
commentators, insists that it was miraculously provided. Trench
rightly and briefly disposes of this question: “By what ministry,
natural or miraculous, has been often inquired, but we must leave this
undetermined, as we find it.” The provision apparently was not
sufficient for the company, for Christ bade Peter add to the stock
from the fish just caught. Peter went, therefore, to aid the others in
bringing the net to shore. The fish were counted, and the exact number
is recorded by the Evangelist. The attempt to draw some spiritual
lessons from this number affords a curious illustration of the
absurdities into which the allegorizing method is liable to carry the
student. The exact enumeration is important only because it is an
indication of accuracy in the historian; in such an enumeration there
is no opportunity for the exaggeration of imagination. To me
Augustine’s allegorical interpretation of the contrast between this
and the analogous yet widely different miracle recorded in Luke 5:1-11
is scarcely more profitable than the spiritualizing interpretation of
the meaning of the one hundred and fifty-three; the curious in such
matters will find it fully reported in Trench on the Parables. It
might be possible to account for each single feature in this narrative
without assuming a miracle; but in a candid consideration of all the
features combined--the fruitless fishing all night, the sudden and
extraordinary success in the morning, the number of fish, their size,
the unbroken net, though dragged full of fish to the shore--it is
impossible to doubt that we have here, what evangelical critics have
always seen in the narrative, the account of a miraculous
manifestation of the Lord’s power.
12 Jesus saith unto them, Come _and_ dine. And none of the
disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? knowing that it was
the Lord.
13 Jesus[765] then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth
them, and fish likewise.
[765] Acts 10:41.
14 This[766] is now the third time that Jesus shewed
himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from
the dead.
[766] ch. 20:19, 26.
=12-14.= There is a verbal, but no real inconsistency in the statement
that _none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? knowing that
it was the Lord_. “But seeing that His form was altered, and full of
much awfulness, they were greatly amazed, and desired to ask somewhat
concerning It; but fear, and their knowledge that He was not some
other, but the same, checked their inquiry.”--(_Chrysostom._) The
careful student will observe that the Evangelist does not characterize
this as the third appearance of Jesus, but as the third appearance _to
his disciples_, _i. e._, the apostles. This excludes the appearance to
Mary (ch. 20:16), and to the two disciples on the walk to Emmaus (Luke
24:13-35); the two preceding appearances referred to were that to the
ten on the evening of the day of the resurrection (ch. 20:19) and that
to the eleven in the week following (ch. 20:26). Without following the
allegorizing commentators into any of their extravagances, we may
reasonably see, with Alford, Trench, and others, a spiritual
significance in the fact that Christ provided a meal for the apostles
at the same time when, by this new miraculous draught, he reminded
them of their first call to become fishers of men, thus suggesting to
them the spiritual truth involved in the Lord’s Supper, and
symbolically represented in the feeding of the five thousand, that
they who minister in the things of Christ are themselves dependent on
Christ for their spiritual support; perhaps also suggesting that when
the labor of life is over there will be for them that have wrought for
Christ a feast with him in the kingdom of heaven. But certainly Trench
goes too far in saying that “the character of the meal was
sacramental, and it had nothing to do with the stilling of their
present hunger.” It is much more reasonable to see in this provision
for the disciples’ commonest needs--food and a fire at the end of a
night of sleepless toil--a new illustration of the tenderness of
Christ’s consideration for his own.
15 So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter,
Simon, _son_ of Jonas, lovest thou me more[767] than these?
He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love
thee. He saith unto him, Feed[768] my lambs.
[767] Matt. 26:33, 35.
[768] Isa. 40:11; Jer. 3:15; Ezek. 34:2-10; Acts
20:28; 1 Pet. 5:2, 4.
16 He saith to him again the second time, Simon, _son_
of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea,
Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto
him, Feed my sheep.[769]
[769] Heb. 13:20; 1 Pet. 2:25.
17 He saith unto him the third time, Simon, _son_ of
Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved[770] because
he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And
he said unto him, Lord, thou[771] knowest all things;
thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him,
Feed my sheep.
[770] Lam. 3:33.
[771] ch. 16:30.
=15-17. So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son
of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea,
Lord, thou knowest that I have affection for thee. He saith unto him,
Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of
Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that
I have affection for thee. He saith unto him, Shepherd my sheep. He
saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, hast thou
affection for me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third
time, Hast thou affection for me? and he said unto him, Lord, thou
knowest all things; thou knowest that I have affection for thee. Jesus
saith unto him, Feed my little sheep.= This translation will suggest
to the English reader, though inadequately, points of difference in
the original which our English translation wholly fails to preserve,
possibly through the inattention of the translators, but more probably
through the inadequacy of the English language to represent delicate
shades of meaning which are represented by the Greek. (1) Two
different Greek words are rendered indiscriminately _love_ (φιλέω and
ἀγαπάω). I have attempted to indicate the difference by rendering the
one to _love_ and the other to _have affection_, though this rather
suggests that there is a difference than indicates in what it
consists. The word which Christ uses in his question, _Lovest thou
me?_ (ἀγαπάω), signifies, if not the higher, at least the more
thoughtful and reverential affection, founded on an intelligent
estimate of character, and accompanied by a deliberate and
well-considered choice. Peter’s _I love thee_ represents rather the
personal instinctive love, the activity of feeling rather than of
will, the affection which, being spontaneous and instinctive, gives no
account of itself, and no reason for its existence. We are bid in the
N. T. to exercise the first form of love (ἀγαπάω) towards God, but
never the second; while the Father is said to exercise both forms
towards his own Son. Two different Greek words are also rendered
indiscriminately _feed_. To indicate the difference I have rendered
one by the rare but indispensable verb _shepherd_. Finally, three
words are used to represent the flock which Christ commends to Peter’s
care--_lambs_ (ἀρνία), _sheep_ (πρόβατά), and _little sheep_
(προβάτιά). There is some uncertainty as to the reading, but the one I
have followed is accepted by the best critics--Alford, Meyer, etc. To
_feed_ the sheep is simply to nourish them; to _shepherd_ them is not
in contrast the ruling activity (so _Meyer_), but the whole shepherd
care of the flock--watching, tending, leading--as illustrated in Psalm
23 and in John 10:1-18. The term _lamb_ is never used in the N. T.
except of Christ himself (John 1:29; 1 Pet. 1:19; Rev. 5:6, 8, 12,
etc.), or of the followers of Christ (Luke 10:3). By the _lambs_ here,
then, I understand Christ to mean his professed followers; Peter was
to show his love for the Master by teaching them. The term _sheep_ is
more general, and includes in the figurative language of the Bible
those who have wandered away from the fold of God (Matt. 9:36; 12:11,
12; 15:24; Luke 15:4-6). Peter is to show his love for the Master, not
only by teaching the Lord’s disciples, but by shepherding the sheep,
whether in the fold or wandering from it, as a good shepherd going
before them, going after them, giving his life, if need be, for them
(John 10:1-13). The _little sheep_ are the young, who have not yet
wandered away, and whom he is to keep in the Master’s fold by feeding
them there with the herbage of life. Christ calls them _my_ lambs,
_my_ sheep, because the Father has given all to him, and he is, as
Redeemer and Saviour, Lord of all. The most superficial student will
not fail to see in this thrice-repeated question an indirect and
implied reference to and recall of the thrice-repeated denial of his
Lord by Peter. In his request for permission to walk on the water, in
his protest against the feet-washing, in his assertion “Though all men
shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended”
(Matt. 14:28; 26:33; John 13:8), there are indications of an
overweening self-confidence in his love for the Lord as greater than
that of the other disciples. It was this self-confidence in the
strength of his love which had proved his danger. Christ addresses
him, not by his new name of Peter, but by the old name which he bore
before he knew the Lord, and asks him, Hast thou for me a greater love
than these? Peter, saying nothing of the love of the others, not even
venturing to claim for himself the intelligent and deliberate love
which rules the life and molds the character, answers in humility:
Thou knowest my affection for thee. Show it then, says Jesus, not by
assuming pre-eminence over my flock, but by becoming their shepherd (=
_servant_, ch. 13:12-17). He then repeats the question, Lovest thou
me? Peter answers as before: Thou knowest my affection for thee. Show
it then, says Christ, by shepherding my sheep; by seeking the lost,
restoring the wanderer. A third time he asks the question, now
changing it and adopting Peter’s own language: Art thou sure of thine
affection for me? Peter is grieved, at the _change_ in the question as
well as at its repetition, “because he said unto him the third time,
_Hast thou affection for me?_” and appeals to him as the Searcher of
hearts to witness for himself the depth and reality of his affection.
And Christ finally bids him show his love by feeding the little
sheep--the young, the feeble, those most needing care. Meyer well
notes the fact that Christ does not question Peter’s _faith_, but the
love which proceeds from faith and shows itself by its work; and Godet
notes the curious resemblance between the present situation and that
of two scenes in the previous life of Peter with which it is related.
He had been called to the ministry by Jesus after a miraculous draught
of fishes; it is after a similar draught that the ministry is restored
to him. He had lost his office by his denial beside a fire of coals;
it is beside a fire of coals that he recovers it.--(_Godet._) The
ecclesiastical commentators see in this scene a reinstatement of Peter
in his apostolic office, to which Alford well replies that “there is
no record of his ever having lost it.” The R. C. divines find in it a
proof-text for their belief in the primacy of Peter; to which Peter
himself furnishes a quite adequate reply in 1 Pet. 5:1-3. The shepherd
is not a lord over God’s heritage, but one who follows the Chief
Shepherd, goes before the flock, is their example and their leader, by
his own life showing them the way to live, and, if need be, by his own
death for their sakes showing them how to die. It must strike one,
too, as curious that Peter should be grieved at words which constitute
him the head of the church and the vicar of God upon earth. The true
lesson of this scene is for all the disciples of Christ. We are all,
through Peter’s experience, admonished to show our love for our
Master, not by asking permission to do great things (as to walk on the
waves), not by refusing to accept his humiliation for us (as by
refusing to allow the feet-washing), nor yet by professing what we
will do in the hour of difficulty and danger (as by the assurance, “I
will not deny thee”), nor even by entering into fierce battle against
his foes (as by drawing the sword on Malchus), but by laying down the
life in quiet, humble, self-denying service for the Master’s
sheep--the followers of Christ, the wanderers from the fold, and the
weakest and feeblest in the fold.
18 Verily, verily, I say unto thee,[772] When thou wast
young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou
wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch
forth thy hands, and another shall gird[773] thee, and
carry _thee_ whither thou wouldest not.
[772] ch. 13:36; Acts 12:3, 4.
[773] Acts 21:11.
19 This spake he, signifying by what death[774] he
should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he
saith unto him, Follow[775] me.
[774] 2 Pet. 1:14.
[775] ch. 12:26; Numb. 14:24; 1 Sam. 12:20; Matt.
19:28.
=18, 19.= In this language, _when thou wast young thou girdedst
thyself_, there is perhaps a reference to Peter’s act in girding
himself and casting himself into the sea (ver. 7). The prophecy
foretells the manner of his death, which, according to an early and
apparently trustworthy tradition, was by crucifixion at about the same
time with Paul, in the persecutions under Nero. According to Origen,
Peter was crucified with his head downwards, either by his own
request, because in his humility he was unwilling to suffer the same
death as his Lord, or by order of Nero, as matter of wanton and
ingenious cruelty. The contrast between Peter’s experience in his
youth and in his old age is one common in Christian experience, a
contrast between _doing_ and _suffering_, between active, energetic
service of the Lord and the patient endurance of his cross. Both are
involved in following Christ. To interpret this command, _Follow me_,
literally, as Godet: “Jesus began to move off, and commanded Peter to
follow him in the literal sense, and John followed them without any
express invitation,” seems to me a shallow interpretation, which is
not helped by supposing it to be a symbolical act, a sort of childish
object-teaching. Peter had gone back to his fishing; in saying _Follow
me_, Christ calls him again to become a fisher of men, by the same
phrase which he had employed three years before on the shore of the
same sea and after a similar miracle.
20 Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom
Jesus loved, following; which also leaned on his breast at
supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?
21 Peter, seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what
_shall_ this man _do_?
=20, 21.= It is not necessary, and it is hardly reasonable, to impute
Peter’s question to a feeling of jealousy; it is rather to be
attributed to the natural and almost universal tendency to inquire
into the duty and destiny of others. The Lord’s reply indicates what
is the answer which he would make to us whenever we, following Peter’s
doubtful example, pry curiously into his purposes respecting others.
22 Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I
come,[776] what _is that_ to thee? Follow[777] thou me.
[776] Matt. 25:31; Rev. 1:7; 22:20.
[777] verse 19.
23 Then went this saying abroad among the brethren,
that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not
unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he
tarry till I come, what _is that_ to thee?
=22, 23.= It is curious to see how Christ’s language here,
notwithstanding John’s interpretation, has been misconstrued, even
down to the latest time, as a promise, or a quasi-promise, that John
should tarry until the second coming of Christ. Ancient legends report
that after his interment there were strange movements in the earth
that covered him, that when the tomb was subsequently opened it was
found empty, that he was reserved to reappear again in conflict with
Anti-Christ; so late as the sixteenth century an enthusiast was burned
at Toulouse who gave himself out as St. John; and even so sober a
commentator as Godet submits, though hesitatingly, the hypothesis
that, as the primitive epoch of humanity had its Enoch, and the
theocratic epoch its Elijah, neither of whom knew death, so also the
Christian epoch may have had its deathless representative. Two other
interpretations are: (1) That Christ refers here to his coming to his
own in their death, and that by the phrase _If I will that he tarry
till I come_ he means, If I will that he meet a natural death instead
of martyrdom. This interpretation Alford justly characterizes as
frigid and inapplicable here, since martyrdom is as truly a coming of
the Lord as natural death. (2) That by his Second Coming, Christ
refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, an interpretation strangely
adopted by Alford. That destruction was an historical prophecy, but in
no wise an historical fulfillment of the promise of the Lord’s Second
Coming. There is no reason for regarding this language of Christ as
anything else than purely hypothetical, equivalent to, _Suppose that I
were to will that he should remain upon the earth unto the end; what
would that be to thee?_
24 This is the disciple which testifieth of these things,
and wrote these things: and[778] we know that his testimony
is true.
[778] ch. 19:35; 3 John 12.
25 And[779] there are also many other things which
Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every
one, I suppose that even the world itself could not
contain the[780] books that should be written. Amen.
[779] ch. 20:30.
[780] Amos 7:10.
=24, 25.= There is uncertainty respecting the authorship and
authenticity of these verses. For discussion of this question, see
_Smith’s Bib. Dict._, p. 1430, note _b_; _Godet’s Commentary_, Vol.
III, pp. 362, 363. The verses are found in all the manuscripts, except
that Tischendorf believes that ver. 25 was originally wanting in the
Sinaitic MS.; he thinks that the color of the ink and a slight
difference in the handwriting show that it did not proceed from the
original scribe, but was added by a contemporary reviser. But though
there is no external evidence for setting either verse aside, the
internal evidence seems to me decisive against verse 25. “This
inharmonious and unspiritual exaggeration” (_Meyer_) is entirely
inconsistent with John’s scrupulously simple and truthful narrative.
The authorship of ver. 24 is more uncertain. Whether written by John,
or added almost immediately after by some companion, it affords a very
strong attestation of the apostolic authorship of the Fourth Gospel.
On a careful examination of the different authorities, it seems to me
that Godet’s conclusion, though hypothetical, is in accordance with
probabilities, and his deduction respecting the authenticity of the
Gospel as a whole is irresistible: “1st. That the narrative (verses
1-23) is from the hand of the Evangelist. 2d. That ver. 24 is a
declaration emanating from the friends of John, who had called forth
the composition of his Gospel, and to whom he had committed it after
its completion. 3d. That ver. 25 is written by one of them, with whom
the work was deposited, and who thought himself bound to close it
thus, to the glory, not of the author, but of the subject of history.
By these last words the entire work becomes a whole. Accordingly we
are shut up to hold either that John is the author of our Gospel, or
that the author is a forger, who, 1st, palmed himself off on the world
with all the characteristics of the apostle; who, 2d, carried his
shamefulness so far that he got made out for him, by an accomplice of
his fraud, a certificate of identity with the person of John; or who,
more simply still, to save himself the trouble of finding a companion
in falsehood, made out this certificate for himself in the name of
another, or of several others. And he who had recourse to such ways
was the author of a writing in which lying is blasted as the work of
the devil (ch. 8:44), and truth glorified as one of the two essential
features of the divine character! If any one will believe such a
story, * * * let him believe it” (1 Cor. 14:38).
* * * * *
Two years have elapsed since the publication of the preceding volume
in this series of Commentaries on the books of the New Testament. A
considerable part of the Commentary on John was then already written;
all that part of it which was common to the Four Gospels was
substantially ready for the printer; little else remained to be
written except that portion which dealt with the larger discourses of
our Lord, and not all of that; and a life-long study of the Four
Gospels, part of the results of which had been given to the public in
a Life of Christ, and others of which were in manuscript notes, had
made me measurably familiar with the ground that lay before me. But
the discourses of Jesus, as recorded by John, can be studied only
meditatively. A certain quiet restfulness of mind is essential to any
spiritual apprehension of their meaning. And I have believed that
those to whom this volume had been earlier promised, and whose
impatience at the delay has reached me in letters that have always
been kindly and courteous and full of encouragement, would easier
pardon delay than despoiling haste in preparation. I can ask no
leniency of any critic on the ground that time was wanting to do
adequately the needful work.
I have stated in the introduction the reasons which have led me, after
a careful, and I believe a measurably impartial, study of the
question, to believe that the Fourth Gospel is the work of the apostle
John, and that he is the one designated in that Gospel as “the
disciple whom Jesus loved.” I wish to add here, emphatically, that the
meditative study of the discourses which John has reported has
strengthened that conviction. Either we have here the truths which
Christ taught, reported by one who lived after the spiritual and
catholic character of Christianity had begun to show itself by its
actual development, and who therefore comprehended his profounder
instructions as they were not comprehended during his lifetime; or
else we must believe that the centuries immediately succeeding the
first of the Christian era produced a spiritual genius whose insight
into the profoundest truths of human experience, when inflamed into
more than merely human life by the inbreathing of God, makes him the
equal if not the superior of the Jesus portrayed in the three synoptic
Gospels, and yet one who has been utterly unknown to fame, and who has
left no other monument to his memory than a document that is a fraud
if not a forgery. The skepticism that asserts this lays too heavy a
tax on human credulity. It asks us to believe not only in a Socrates
who had no Plato to reveal his teachings and his influence, but in one
who did not hesitate to employ a petty and useless fraud as a
setting for the most transcendent spiritual truth.
This truth may be expressed in two words as that of the Divine
Immanence. Around this the whole Gospel of John centres; to illustrate
this the whole Gospel was written. That there is in man the
possibility of a more than merely earthly life; that in him has been
planted the germ of a divine life; that this life, when divinely
developed, brings with it a new light and power; that God is in the
soul and the soul may live in perpetual consciousness of its God; that
Christ is not merely a Memory and a Hope, but a Presence; that the
Supernatural is not a past phenomenon, but a present and a perpetual
experience; that miracles--that is, signs of the divine, All-mighty
love--are forever going on in human experience, on a transcendently
grander scale in the nineteenth century than they did in the first;
that the evidence of Christianity is not to be sought in dingy and
doubtful records of past events, but in the personal observation and
witness of present occurrences; that revelation was not completed with
the Apocalypse, but every devout soul has the promise of an inner
light, and the invisible and Catholic brotherhood and household of
faith, which is the true church of Christ, has in it an everlasting
Shechinah, which reveals with perpetually increasing clearness the
truth of God both to it and through it; and that fidelity to the
sacred and sweet duties of love is at once the condition and the
result of this living experience of an ever-living God, in the
spiritual realm as in nature, every fruit being the seed vessel of new
growths for the future:--this I believe to be the Gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ according to John. And I believe there is no better
protection against that skepticism of the present age, whose vice is
not that it demands a reason for every faith, but that it denies the
witness of the spiritual sight to spiritual things, than the patient,
meditative study of this Gospel, except the patient, persistent
pursuit of the life to which it invites. To those that have no faith
in such a life and such a light, to whom Christ is only a mist-covered
mountain seen across the intervening eighteen centuries, and God only
an hypothesis made probable by the Paleyrian argument from design,
this Commentary will probably give no aid, and this Gospel will even
appear to be uninterpretable in its mysticism. To those that have this
faith in a perpetually present Immanuel, a Christ who is ever a God
with us, however dim the faith may be, these pages are commended in
the prayer and hope that they may help to make the Gospel clearer, the
faith stronger, and the Christ nearer and dearer.
INDEX.
NOTE.--The abbreviations M., Mk., L., and J. refer respectively to
the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the figures refer
to the pages.
A.
Adultery, Laws against, M., 55.
Anise, M., 250.
Almsgiving, M., 98.
Andrew, M., 148.
Angels:
Bible doctrine of, M., 215, 323; L., 7.
Message to the Shepherds of, L., 19, 20, 21.
Anointing at Bethany, Mk., 58.
Annunciation, The, L., 11, 12.
Antonia, tower of, J., 216.
Apostles:
Call of the, Mk., 14.
Commission of the, Mk., 27.
Office of the, Mk., 14.
B.
Baptism:
Ceremony of, M., 72.
Doctrine of, M., 327, 328; J., 47.
Barabbas, M., 310.
Bartholomew, M., 149.
Baskets, M., 198; J., 80.
Beatitudes, The, M., 85-87; L., 41, 42.
Bed, Old Jewish, Mk., 10.
Beelzebub, M., 166.
Bethabara, J., 23.
Bethany, M., 51, 280; L., 122; J., 136, 151.
Bethesda, Pool of, J., 64.
Bethlehem, M., 52, 58.
Bethphage, M., 53; L., 122.
Bethsaida, M., 51, 157; Mk., 30.
Betrayal, Prophecy of the, J., 167.
Blindness, M., 131.
Book, Old Jewish, L., 32.
Book-making, Ancient, M., 25.
Bread, Eastern, Mk., 36; J., 236.
Broker, Eastern, L., 121.
Burial customs, J., 227.
C.
Cæsar, Concerning tribute of, M., 241, 242.
Cæsarea Philippi, M., 51, 199.
Caiaphas, M., 280.
Camel’s-hair, M., 66.
Cana, M., 51; J., 29.
Candle-stick, An Eastern, Mk., 16.
Canon, M., 17-25.
Capernaum, M., 51, 80; L., 62; J., 34.
Care, Christ’s teaching concerning, M., 108.
Centurion, M., 117.
Children, Christ’s blessing of, M., 46, 225; L., 115.
Chorazin, M., 51, 157.
Christ:
Activity of, Mk., 6.
Agony in Gethsemane, M., 290-295; L., 135.
Anointed by Mary, M., 280; J., 150.
Anointed by the penitent woman, L., 48, 49.
Atonement by, J., 24.
Authority questioned, M., 53.
Baptism of, M., 71-74; L., 31.
Betrayal of, M., 59, 295-297; L., 136; J., 211-213.
Birth of, M., 55, 56, 64; L., 7; J., 114.
Bloody sweat of, L., 135.
Burial of, M., 171, 321; Mk., 61; J., 221-226.
Childhood of, L., 21-25.
Church of, J., 185-190.
Consecration of, L., 22, 23.
Conversation of, J., 58.
Crucifixion of, M., 279-281, 312-320; Mk., 60; L., 139-144.
Death, Cause of, J., 225-6.
Denial by Peter, M., 301-304; Mk., 59; L., 136.
Discourses of, J., 11.
Discourse on the end of the world, L., 126-130.
Divine nature of, M., 13, 226, 327; J., 19, 39, 44, 68, 90, 111,
117, 134, 183, 184.
Education of, M., 65.
Enemies of, L., 131.
Fame of, L., 117.
First attack on, M., 234.
Galilean ministry of, Mk., 5; M., 79-83.
Genealogy of, M., 53; L., 31.
Glory of, J., 203-4, 209-10.
Growth of, L., 25.
Herod’s interview with, L., 138.
Home of, L., 59, 130.
Human nature of, M., 118, 317; L., 18, 71.
Incarnation of, J., 22.
Intercessory prayer of, J., 201-2, 210.
Interpreter of God’s law, J., 189-90.
King, J., 218-220.
Life of, M., 40-43.
Light of the world, The, J., 17, 109.
Limitations of his nature, Mk., 56, 57.
Living One, The, L., 145.
Lord of Nature, The, Mk., 20.
Manifestation of the Father, J., 174-5, 205.
Mission of, M., 128, 146, 160, 194, 216; Mk., 35, 49; L., 92; J.,
66, 124.
Mission in Perea, M., 222; Mk., 46.
Names of, The, M., 57.
Personality of, J., 104.
Popularity of, M., 14; L., 74, 91, 131.
Power of, J., 203, 211-13.
Prayer of, defined, J., 178.
Prayer in Gethsemane, M., 292.
Passion of, Mk., 47; L., 56, 115.
Resurrection of, M., 323-336, 330-333; Mk., 43, 47, 62; L., 115,
144-147; J., 227-230.
Rejection at Nazareth of, M., 187; Mk., 26.
Royal nature of, L., 122.
Sacrifice of, The, J., 129.
Satire used by, L., 84.
Second coming of, M., 265, 266; J., 28, 97, 173-4.
Sepulchre of, M., 321, 322.
Servant, A, L., 133.
Simplicity of His life, J., 79, 106.
Son of David, The, L., 117.
Son of God, The, M., 159, 300, 320.
Son of man, The, M., 142, 143, 162, 200.
Spiritual presence of (See Holy Ghost), J., 179-181.
Subject to the Father, J., 183-8.
Supremacy of, J., 128.
Sympathy of, M., 133, 155; J., 124, 143.
Synagogue, Preaches in the, L., 31.
Temple, Found in the, L., 24.
Temptation of, M., 74-79; L., 31.
Trial of, M., 297-301.
Trial by Caiaphas, L., 136; J., 213-216.
Trial before Pilate, M., 309-312; L., 136; J., 216-221.
Tribute demanded of, M., 211, 212.
Triumphal entry into Jerusalem, M., 232, 233; Mk., 50; L., 122; J.,
154.
Christian charity, L., 67.
Christian hate, L., 89.
Christian life:
Conditions for, J., 41, 42.
Nature of, J., 153.
Christ’s sermon on, J., 84-93.
Source of, J., 59.
Suffering of, J., 119.
Christian, Mission of, J., 189, 205, 208.
Christian ministry, M., 138, 329.
Christian religion:
Evidences of, J., 74, 176-7.
Nature of, J., 45.
Not asceticism, J., 208.
Power of, J., 177.
Christian spirit, M., 140.
Christian work, M., 136.
Christology, J., 174.
Church:
Authority of the, M., 246.
Christ’s commission to, M., 326-329.
Dangers of the, M., 259.
Foundation of the, M., 201-203.
Unity of, J., 209.
Circumcision, L., 15.
Cleophas, L., 145.
Clothes, Jewish, M., 261.
Coats, Jewish, L., 28.
Comforter, Nature of the (See Holy Ghost), J., 178.
Commandment, The great, Mk., 53, 54.
Commerce, in the temple,
Commission of the Seventy, L., 60-63.
Commission of the Twelve, M., 133; L., 55.
Corban, Rabbinical law of, Mk., 33.
Courage, Christian, source of, J., 201.
Courtyard, Oriental, M., 303.
Creeds, Necessity of, J., 112.
Crosses, Description of, M., 315.
Cyrenius, governor of Syria, L., 18.
D.
Dalmanutha, M., 51; Mk., 37.
Dead Sea, M., 51.
Death, Jewish conception of, J., 173.
Decapolis, M., 51.
Dedication, Feast of the, J., 131.
Demoniacal possession, M., 123-125; Mk., 6.
Denarius, Value of, M., 221, 242; J., 79.
Devil, The, M., 76.
Dining customs in the East, L., 86.
Disciples, Call of the four, L., 35, 36.
Divine presence:
Condition of enjoying, J., 180, 81, 86, 87, 89.
Power of, J., 187-88.
Divorce, Christ’s law of, M., 222, 225; Mk., 46.
E.
Elders, M., 205.
Election, Doctrine of, J., 89, 190, 203-4.
Emmaus, M., 51; L., 145.
End of the world, M., 258; L., 127-130.
Enemies, Christian treatment of, M., 96-98.
Enon, M., 51; J., 47.
Ephraim. M., 51; J., 149.
Epistles, Nature of, M., 11.
Espousals, Jewish, M., 55.
Essenes, M., 69.
Eternal life, J., 44, 75, 83, 86, 203-4.
Ewers, J., 31.
Excommunication, Jewish, J., 122.
F.
Faith:
Christ’s exhortation to, Mk, 52.
Nature of, J., 84, 145, 161.
Contrasted with right, J., 234.
Falling from grace, J., 188.
Fasting, Laws for, M., 109, 129.
Fasts, L., 114.
Feeding of the five thousand (See under Miracles).
Feet-washing, Ceremony of, J., 165.
Feet-washing, Oriental, J., 163.
Fire:
Biblical mention of, M., 183.
Utensils, J., 219.
Fishing, Oriental, L., 37.
Forgiveness, Nature of, L., 141.
Frankincense, M., 62.
Free-will, Doctrine of, L., 95; J., 94.
Funerals of the East, L., 45.
Future punishment, M., 145, 277; J., 188.
G.
Gabriel, L., 10.
Gadara, M., 51.
Galilee:
Christ’s circuit of, L., 35, 52.
Sea of, M., 57; Mk., 8.
Gambling at the cross, J., 223.
Generation, Book of the, M., 53.
Gennesaret:
Lake of, Mk., 8.
Land of, M., 192.
Gerizim, Mount of, J., 55.
Gethsemane:
Christ’s agony in, Mk., 58.
Garden of, M., 291.
Gnosticism, J., 13, 14.
God:
Kingdom of, M., 103, 225; L., 57, 110-112.
Knowledge of, J., 175, 176.
Nature of, J., 14, 15, 37, 74, 130.
Trinity of (See Christ, Holy Ghost), J., 14-16.
Golgotha, M., 314.
Gospels:
The four, M., 11.
Harmony of the, M., 38-40, 44-66.
Origin of the, M., 36-38.
Relations of the, M., 34-36.
Gospel of the Infancy, L., 6.
Gospel of John:
Authenticity of, J., 3, 6-8, 240.
Object of, J., 12, 234.
Supplemental chapter to, J., 235.
Gospel of Luke, Authorship of, L., 3.
Gospel of Mark:
Authorship of, Mk., 3.
Characteristics of, Mk., 4.
Gospel of Matthew:
Author of, M., 49.
Characteristics of, M., 49.
Language of, M., 49.
Object of, M., 49.
Origin of, M., 36-38.
Grace, Meaning of, J., 21.
Grain, Oriental sale of, L., 43.
Grave, Jewish, J., 143.
H.
Hades, L., 105.
Heathen and the Gospel, L., 33.
Heaven:
Christ’s teaching concerning, J., 173.
Discourse on, Mk., 43, 44.
Kingdom of, M., 66, 85, 90, 137, 154, 110-114.
Place of, M., 102.
Hell, M., 91, 119.
Herod the Great, L., 7.
Herods, The, M., 58, 59.
Herod, Death of, M., 63.
Herod Archelaus, M., 64.
High-priest, M., 280; L., 27.
Holy Ghost:
Bestowal of on disciples, J., 230.
Blasphemy against, M., 169.
Character and office of, J., 179-80, 195-197.
Manifestation of, J., 182.
Relation of to the Father, J., 192.
Holy of Holies (See Temple).
Housetop, Eastern, L., 74.
Humility, Commendation of, M., 214, 241.
Husks, L., 96.
Hypocrisy, Rebuke of, M., 109; L., 73.
I.
Idumea, Mk., 14.
Incarnation (See Christ).
Incense, Service of, L., 5.
Infancy, Gospel of the, L., 6.
Inn, Jewish, L., 19.
Issue of blood, L., 54
J.
Jacob, Well of, J., 52.
Jairus’ daughter, L., 54.
James, M., 148.
James the son of Alphæus, M., 149.
Joanna, wife of Chuza, L., 53.
Jericho, M., 51; L., 116.
Jerusalem:
Conquest of, L., 141.
Desolation of, L., 123.
Road from Jericho to, L., 65.
Siege of, M., 261.
Site of, M., 278.
Jesus (See Christ).
John:
The Apostle, M., 148; J., 4.
Character of, J., 5.
Gospel of (See Gospel of John).
John the Baptist:
Character of, M., 65.
Death of, M., 189; Mk., 29; L., 55.
Embassy to Jesus, M., 152.
Father of, L., 7.
Imprisonment of, M., 150.
Message of, L., 47.
Ministry of, M., 69; L., 30; J., 50.
Jordan, M., 52, 67.
Joseph of Arimathea, J., 226.
Joy, Christian, J., 189.
Judas Iscariot:
Character of, M., 150, 307.
Destruction of, J., 207.
Death of, M., 307.
Repentance of, M., 306.
Treachery of, M., 58.
Judea, M., 52, 65.
Judgment:
Christ’s description of the, M., 275-277.
Nature of the, J., 161.
Judgment seat, Roman, J., 221.
K.
Key, Description of ancient, M., 203.
L.
Lamps, ancient. M., 270.
Lanterns, J., 212.
Law and the Gospel, M., 80.
Lazarus, J., 136.
Lazarus, Resurrection of (See Miracles).
Lebbæus, M., 149.
Lepers, L., 109.
Leprosy, M., 118.
Levi (See Matthew).
Levite, L., 66.
Lilies, M., 107; L., 77.
Locusts, M., 67.
Lord’s Prayer, M., 101-105.
Lord’s Supper, The:
Ceremony of, The, L., 131; J., 92.
Institution of the, M., 283-288; Mk., 58; J., 162.
Time of the, M., 286; J., 169, 217, 221.
Love:
Commanded, M., 244.
Test of, M., 146.
Luke, Gospel of (See Gospel of Luke).
M.
Magdala, M., 52.
Magi, The, M., 59, 60.
Mammon, M., 106.
Manger, Eastern, L., 19.
Manuscripts, M., 27, 28.
Mariolatry, L., 70.
Mark, Gospel of (See Gospel of Mark).
Marriage:
Ancient form of, J., 118.
Christ’s law of, M., 222-225; Mk., 46.
Eastern ceremony of, M., 269, 272; L., 77.
Jewish ceremony of, M., 129.
Martha and Mary, L., 67, 68.
Mary Magdalene, M., 320; L., 53; J., 228.
Mary’s hymn of praise, L., 14.
Matthew:
Character of, M., 149.
Call of, M., 125; L., 38; Mk., 125.
Gospel of (See Gospel of Matthew).
Meals, Jewish, J., 168.
Medicine, Mk., 22.
Meekness, Nature of, M., 85.
Mercy, Nature of, M., 86, 251.
Messiah, The Jewish, J., 100.
Mill, Eastern, M., 266.
Minister, Meaning of the term, L., 5.
Mint, M., 280.
Miracles:
Barren fig-tree cursed, Mk., 50, 51.
Christ stills the tempest, M., 121; L., 53.
Cure of the infirm woman, L., 81, 82.
Cure of the issue of blood, Mk., 21-23.
Feeding of the five thousand, M., 191; Mk., 30; L., 55; J., 76-81.
Feeding of the four thousand, M., 195; Mk., 35.
Blind Bartimeus healed, Mk., 119.
Draft of fishes--first, L., 35, 36.
Draft of fishes--second, J., 237.
Healing of the blind man, Mk., 38; L., 115.
Healing of the centurion’s servant, M., 117; L., 44.
Healing of the centurion’s son, J., 61, 62.
Healing of deaf and dumb, Mk., 34.
Healing of the demoniac, M., 121, 211; Mk., 20; L., 35, 53.
Healing of the leper, L., 37.
Healing of the lunatic boy, M., 40; L., 56.
Healing of the man born blind, J., 118, 124.
Healing of the paralytic, M., 125; Mk., 9-12; L., 37.
Healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, M., 119; L., 35.
Healing of the ten lepers, L., 108.
Healing of the withered hand, M., 163.
Raising of Jairus’ daughter, Mk., 22, 24, 25.
Raising of the widow’s son, L., 45.
Resurrection of Lazarus, J., 135, 145-147.
Water turned into wine, J., 30-33.
Walking on the sea, M., 191; Mk., 30; J., 82.
Miracles:
Christ’s use of, J., 62.
Truth of the, M., 166.
Money-changers, M., 274; J., 37.
Mount of Olives, L., 123.
Mourning:
Christian rites of, M., 85.
Eastern ceremony of, Mk., 24.
Rabbinical rites of, J., 139.
Murder, Laws against, M., 91-93.
Myrrh, M., 62.
N.
Nain, M., 52; L., 45.
Nathanael, J., 27.
Nazareth, M., 52, 64; L., 11, 34; J., 27.
New Testament:
Authority of, M., 13.
Canon of, M., 17-25.
Composition of, M., 11.
English version of, M., 28-31.
Inspiration of, M., 14-17.
Interpretation of, M., 31-34.
Nature of, M., 11, 12.
Origin of, M., 13.
Text of, M., 25-28.
Nicodemus, J., 40.
O.
Obedience, M., 112.
Oven, An Eastern, L., 77.
P.
Palestine, Government of, L., 27.
Palsy, Mk., 10.
Parables, The:
Barren fig-tree, The, L., 80, 81.
Candle, The, L., 53.
Drag-net, The, M., 185.
Good Samaritan, The, L., 64-66.
Great supper, The, L., 87.
Hid treasures, The, M., 184, 185.
Householder, The, L., 44.
Laborers, The, M., 230, 231.
Leaven, The, M., 181; L., 82.
Lost coin, The, L., 94.
Lost sheep, The, L., 92, 93.
Mustard seed, The, M., 180; Mk., 18; L., 82.
Pearl, The, M., 184, 185.
Prodigal son, The, L., 95-99.
Rich fool, The, L., 75, 76.
Rich man and Lazarus, L., 103-106.
Seed growing secretly, The, Mk., 17.
Sheepfold and shepherd, J., 125-131.
Sower, The, M., 175-179; Mk., 16; L., 53.
Tares, The, M., 179.
Ten pounds, The, L., 120.
Ten talents, The, M., 272-275.
Ten virgins, The, M., 268-272.
Two debtors, The, L., 50, 51.
Two sons, The, M., 235.
Unclean spirit, The, M., 172.
Unjust steward, The, L., 99-102.
Unmerciful servant, The, M., 219.
Vine and branches, The, J., 185-6.
Wedding feast, The, M., 238-241.
Wicked Husbandman, The, M., 236-238; M., 53; L., 125.
Paradise, L., 142, 143.
Passover:
Day of, L., 131.
Feast of, J., 63, 78.
Patience, Christian, L., 58, 128.
Peace, Christian, J., 182.
Penitent thief, L., 142, 143.
Penny, Value of Jewish, J., 79.
Pentateuch, Authorship of, J., 76.
Pentecost, Feast of, J., 63.
Perea, M., 52; L., 60.
Persecution:
Foretold, J., 193.
How to be borne, J., 191-194.
Peter:
Character of, M., 135, 148; Mk., 7; L., 133.
Commission of, J., 238-9.
Confession of Christ by, Mk., 39; L., 55.
Denial of Christ by, M., 301-304; L., 133.
Founder of the Church, M., 201-203.
Name changed, J., 26.
Walking on the sea, M., 30; J., 121.
Pharisees, The:
Sect of, M., 68.
Baffled by Christ, M., 245.
Discourse against, L., 71.
Philip, M., 149.
Phylacteries, M., 247.
Pontius Pilate, M., 305; J., 221-2.
Poor of the East, L., 88, 89.
Porter of the East, L., 72.
Pound, L., 121.
Prayer:
Bible doctrine of, L., 112-114; J., 177.
In the name of Christ, J., 177.
Necessity of, M., 111, 99-105; L., 130.
Promises to, J., 177-8, 199-200.
True spirit of (See Christ), L., 68.
Preachers (See Christian Ministry).
Priesthood, The, M., 61; L., 7.
Prophecy:
Office of, J., 184.
Fulfillment of, in N. T., J., 225.
Proselytes, M., 249.
Publicans, M., 97, 126; L., 28, 91.
Purification of the Jewish mother, L., 22.
Purple and fine linen, L., 104.
R.
Rabbi, M., 247.
Rama, M., 63.
Religion:
Fruits of, M., 113.
Joyousness of, M., 239.
Test of, M., 113.
Repentance:
Law of, L., 96.
Nature of, M., 65.
Necessity of, L., 80.
Revelation, Book of, M., 11.
Resurrection:
Nature of, Mk., 47, 64; L., 144; J., 69.
Prophecy of, Mk., 43, 47.
Revenge, Laws against, M., 94-96.
Riches, Christ’s teachings concerning, M., 228; Mk., 47.
Ritualism, Christ’s teachings concerning, Mk., 31, 32.
Roofs, Jewish, Mk., 10.
Ruler, The rich young, M., 226; Mk., 46; L., 115.
S.
Sabbath:
Christian use of the, L., 84.
Laws of the Christian, M., 161-164; Mk., 13; L., 38.
Pharisaic, The, M., 120; J., 66.
Sacrifices, J., 37.
Sadducees, M., 68, 69.
Sadducees silenced, M., 243; Mk., 53.
Salim, M., 52; J., 47.
Salutations of the Jews, L., 61.
Salvation, Conditions of, M., 276; L., 83.
Samaria:
History of, M., 52; J., 51.
Woman of, The, J., 50.
Samaritans:
Character of, L., 66.
Christ’s visit to, L., 57.
Sanctification, means of, J., 187.
Satan:
Fall of, L., 63.
Nature of, J., 158.
Personality of, J., 115.
Scorpions, L., 69.
Scourging, M., 331.
Scribes, M., 61, 90.
Denunciation of the, Mk., 54; L., 126.
Self-righteousness, Christ’s dealings with, L., 64.
Self-sacrifice commanded, M., 206.
Sepulchre, Jewish, J., 143.
Sermon on the Mount, L., 40.
Servants of the East, L., 107.
Sheba, Queen of, M., 171.
Sheep-fold, Eastern, J., 125.
Shekel, Value of, M., 281.
Shepherds of the East, L., 19, 93; J., 126.
Shoes, Jewish, M., 70.
Sidon, M., 52.
Sieve, Ancient, L., 133.
Siloam, Pool of, J., 120.
Simon the Canaanite, M., 150.
Simon Cyrene, M., 314.
Simon the leper, M., 280.
Sin:
Christ’s laws for the prevention of, Mk., 45.
Of rejecting Christ, J., 191-92.
Power to remit and retain, J., 231-32.
Skepticism, L., 106.
Skiff, Ancient, M., 19.
Son of Man (See Christ).
Sorrow, ministry of, J., 199.
Soul:
Distinction of the, J., 188.
Nature of the, J., 157.
Sparrows in Market, L., 75.
Spikenard, J., 152.
Star of the East, M., 61.
Steward, L., 100.
Swaddling-clothes, L., 18.
Swearing, Laws against, M., 93.
Swine, Flesh of, M., 122.
Sycamore tree, L., 107, 118.
Sychar, M., 52; J., 51.
Synagogues, M., 81.
Synagogue, Uppermost seat of the, L., 72.
Syro-Phœnician woman, M., 34.
T.
Tabernacles, Feast of the, J., 63, 95, 102.
Talent, Value of the, M., 220, 273.
Tares, M., 179.
Taxation, Roman, M., 126; L., 17.
Temple:
Description of, J., 34-37.
Site of, L., 127.
Pinnacle of the, M., 77.
Veil of the, M., 319.
Temple of Herod, M., 256.
Thomas, M., 149; J., 133, 174, 233.
Threshing in the East, M., 71.
Tiberias:
City of, J., 84.
Sea of, J., 78.
Tithes, L., 114.
Title on the cross, J., 223.
Tombs, Jewish, M., 122; Mk., 21. 62, 63.
Traders cast from the temple, Mk., 51.
Transfiguration, The, M., 207-210; Mk., 40; L., 55.
Treasury, Jewish, J., 110.
Tribute, M., 211.
Triclinium, L., 85.
Trinity, Doctrine of the, J., 14-16, 133, 183.
Twelve Apostles:
Commission of the, M., 134, 147-50.
Inspiration of, M., 141.
Tyre, M., 52, 157.
U.
Unleavened bread, Day of, M., 282.
Upper chamber, L., 132.
Usury, M., 274.
V.
Vineyards of the East, M., 236.
W.
Wailing place, Jewish, L., 140.
Water-pot, J., 51.
Well, Ancient, J., 52.
Well, Jacob’s, J., 52.
Wine:
Bible commands concerning, J., 32, 33.
Christ’s teachings concerning, J., 32, 33.
Winnowing, Oriental, L., 23.
Woman, a Jewish, L., 52.
Word of God, J., 13, 14.
World, End of the (See End of the World).
Worship, True nature of, M., 116; J., 56.
Writing materials, L., 15, 101.
Z.
Zaccheus, L., 118.
Zacharias, M., 253; L., 7, 16.
Zebedee, M., 81.
Zebedee, Sons of, Mk., 47.
Transcriber’s Note:
Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation
in the text. These have been left unchanged, as were obsolete and
alternative spellings. Misspelled words were corrected.
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_. Those in bold are surrounded by equal signs, =like this=.
Footnotes were renumbered sequentially; those in the Preface were
moved to the end of the chapter; footnotes in lines of scripture
follow immediately thereafter. Obvious printing errors, such as
backwards, upside down, or partially printed letters and punctuation,
were corrected. Final stops missing at the end of sentences and
abbreviations were added.
The text was rearranged so that each line of scripture, its footnotes,
and its commentary are together as a unit. The index includes
references to the author’s books on the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and
Luke, as well as those included in this book. In the index, “Commerce,
in the temple” has no page reference.
The following items were changed:
[103] “John 3:11” to “John 3:21”
“ought” to “_aught_” to eat ...
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