1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2, 3 The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. 6, 7 There was a man, sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9, 10 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth. THE whole New Testament becomes vivid, to the eye that looks attentively upon it, with the implied or express representation of the person of Christ: as of one who had taken the nature of man into a union, mysterious but intimate, with his preëxistent and divine constitution; who was therefore God, manifest in the flesh, and in seeing whom men had seen the Father. To this conception of him, indeed, the whole Bible brings tribute; and only when this is clearly unfolded does the unity which pervades its manifold parts, and subordinates their varieties to a single and sovereign line of instruction, become apparent. Then, "what is latent in the Old Testament is made patent in the New;" and Messianic prediction links itself so closely to Christian description that the gap of 400 years between them is passed by us without a jar. Up the steady ascent toward this clear declaration of the nature of Christ—the Law-giver, Redeemer, and King of mankind—we journey from the verse which tells us that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. We reach it, at last, in the words which tell us that in that beginning was the Word, by whom all things that are were made; and that he it is whom apostles have beheld, dwelling among them, full of grace and full of truth. We do not marvel, after that, that he claims a love which surpasses all other, where it does not suspend it; that no force resists, and the grave cannot hold him; that to him the saints, in the hour of death, commit their souls; that in his name their miracles are wrought; that he looked forward to a kingdom world-wide, and enduring forever; that the awful function of final judgment, with the determining of men's destinies for eternity, is in his hands; or that the angels are commanded to worship him; or that the benediction which closes the Bible, from the hand of him who had leaned on the breast of this Lord at the Supper, contains only his name: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen." R. S. S. 1-14. The prologue is a condensed statement of the results of John's contemplation and experience as a faithful witness of the life and work of Christ on earth. The theme is the eternal Logos or personal Word that was with God and of divine essence from the beginning of beginnings, and at last became incarnate for the salvation of the world. The leading ideas are life and light, grace and truth, as emanating from and centring in the Logos. Every sentence, every word, is pregnant with meaning, and furnishes inexhaustible material for meditation and reflection. In the whole range of literature, ancient and modern, there is no passage or chapter that can at all compare with this prologue. It is not poetic in form—yet like the account of the creation in Genesis, to which it forms the New Testament pendant, it rises, by its calm dignity, simplicity, and grandeur, to more than poetic beauty. P. S. 1. He goes back further than Matthew, who begins with Abraham, whose promised seed is Jesus Christ the son of David; and further than Luke, who carries the sacred pedigree of the Son of man back even to Adam. As Moses commences the history of the creation with the words, In the beginning, so John commences his gospel with the same words, though he soars higher even than Moses. In the beginning, before God had yet created the heavens and the earth, the Word already was. He did not come into being, but he was. Before this Word, who is announced in the gospel, appeared in time, he was in the beginning; before he became the light and life of men, he was with God; before he became flesh, he was God. Before he dwelt among us he had been from all eternity with God. R. B.—With God: toward God—expressing the more significant fact of perpetual intercommunion. The face of the Everlasting Word, if we may dare so to express ourselves, was ever directed toward the face of the Everlasting Father. H. P. L.—Both the inner substantial union and the distinct personality of the Logos are here asserted. The former is distinctly repeated in the next words—and the Word was God. A. 4. The life was the light of men.** Earthly light is clear and makes clear; it shines and it enlightens; in the Scriptures it is the constant image of God who is spirit, of him who is holy and makes holy, who is the living one and deals forth life, who is true and leads to truth; "With thee is the fountain of life, in thy light shall we see light." In Christ is the light of life, out of Christ is the night of death. R. B.—Life, love, and light are inseparably connected. God is the living one; he is love and he is light. As God, Jesus Christ has life in himself, is light, is love; as the God-man, he is set apart from all eternity, that in and through him, life, light, and love might be communicated to heirs of death and children of darkness and wrath. A. S.—Christ who centres in himself life, light, and love, when he allied himself with our humanity, brought into its sphere a personal power the highest in measure and kind, and of the widest and farthest reach: for his entering into human flesh was the advent of Life and Light, the two terms which represent the sum of all power, of all capacity, and all blessedness in the universe. He brought to us all that God is, in order that we might become all that man can be. Life as a principle and a power, life in its essence, was already in him, and had been from eternity; and though, when he entered into the world, he assumed an earthly life under the forms and conditions of humanity, yet could he appropriate without reserve that ineffable title by which Jehovah announced to Moses his absolute and essential being—saying: "Before Abraham was, I AM;" and again: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending; which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." All that pertains to the idea of life, all that enters into our most refined and most sublime conceptions of God as the absolute and eternal life, we must transfer to him who was at once the Son of man and the Son of God, in order to realize the meaning of the words, IN HIM WAS LIFE. J. P. T. 11. Came unto his own. The Jews were his own by a fraternal right of consanguinity. He was pleased to derive his humanity from the same stock, to give them the honor of being able to call the God of heaven and the Saviour of the world their brother. They were his own also as selected and inclosed by God from amidst all other nations, to be the seat of his worship, and the great conservatory of all the sacred oracles and means of salvation. R. S.—Received him not. The Jews, as a nation, rejected the Saviour. Throughout the whole ministry of Christ, as recorded in the fourth gospel, the progress of this wilful blindness is traced, till the record closes with the fatal sentence: Though Jesus had done so many miracles before them, yet the Jews believed not on him; as Esaias prophesied when he saw his glory, and spake of him. B. F. W.—As John writes, there was an advent and a rejection: a bodily advent, a bodily crucifixion: the image and outer form of the Word that was from the beginning, the ever-living Emmanuel, the Christ that comes to-day. Received him.** How to receive the Son of God: they that, in any sense, believe on his name will seek earnestly the full answer to that question. They will seek it through the giving up of the dearest preference that hurts the simplicity and humility of their faith. They will seek it in the New Testament, in Christian instruction, in prayer, in doing every hour all of God's will they know, in counting belief, not doubt, the glory and power and joy of man. Strong and ample minds will reverently bring their strength and amplitude, a free and noble offering to their Saviour's cause, yet not thinking it much to give him who, knowing all that is in men, having all the science they are striving after, the wisdom of which their learning is but a broken alphabet, the Master of that world of nature whose margin they are holding up dim lamps to explore, and commanding that spark of life at whose mysterious, silent secret all their knowledge of phenomena stops short, and is dumb. The young will bring the freshness and dew of their youth. Life and lips will not give too much emphasis to that good confession. No energy of health, no affection of the heart, will be willingly excused. F. D. H. 12. Sons of God. The dearly-beloved Son of God became the Son of man, in order that he might make out of the children of men the children of God. Chrys.—The God-man has obtained for us the power to become God's men. Because Jesus Christ is become my brother, I joyfully cry to the Father of my brother, "Abba, Father!" To no other right do I appeal, no other power do I know, than the right and the power of faith, which gives me to say: "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God." R. B.—That believe. Not that there is such a being as Christ, nor that he is the Son of God and Saviour of man, nor even that what Christ says is true, but an actual trust, and personal reliance upon his accomplished mediation—this is that believing which is the single condition of our divine adoption and heavenly heirship. 13. Born, not of blood. In the Greek, plural, "bloods," intended to exclude all fleshly confidence in any descent or relationship. Nor of the will of the flesh. Nor yet did believers become what they are by the efforts and exertions of their own natural hearts. Nor of the will of man. Nor by the acts and deeds of others. To God's free grace, calling, converting, renewing, and sanctifying, they owe their new birth. J. C. R. 14. This verse is the theme of the gospel and the central truth of Christianity, and marks the turning-point of the whole history of the world; for ancient history before the incarnation was a preparation for Christ as the fulfilment of all types, prophecies, and nobler aspirations of men; history after that event is subservient to the spread and triumph of Christianity till Christ be all in all. P. S.—The word "flesh" is used to show us that, when our Lord became incarnate, he took upon him nothing less than our whole nature, consisting of a true body and a reasonable soul. His humanity was not different from our own, and though now glorified is our humanity still. Our high-priest in heaven is not God only, but man. J. C. R.—Was made flesh. Not a mere phantasm, as the Docetæ and others imagined. By this union the Word and the flesh became one person, but the two natures were not confounded, nor was the Word changed into Flesh. As the human soul is united to the body, but is not changed into the body, so the eternal Word took on flesh, and was united to it, and made himself manifest in it, but was not changed into it, or confused with it. W.—The blending of the human and the divine, though it cannot be explained by our philosophy, appears most natural in Christ; is harmonious throughout; and it causes us to realize the nearness and the love of God through the interplay of the two natures in the same person. The mere acting of the Divine Spirit through a human form, without a personal human spirit, could not have brought God so nigh to us. J. P. T. (Read Section 168.) Into the mystery of the Word which was made flesh, and into the mystery of that faith through which all flesh is made participant in life, John is all through looking with fixed and steadfast gaze. The Word became flesh. Not as formerly in the old dispensation, when the Word occasionally clothed himself in some visible form, in order therein to reveal his presence, and then immediately to lay it aside again, but he became flesh: human nature became associated with the Godhead of the Word in the oneness of his person as God-man, so as to effect a union never to be dissolved. Godhead and manhood are in Christ one person. R. B.—No one had dared to form such a sentence as that which, with almost awful simplicity, declares the central fact of redemption, in connection with time and eternity, with action and with being: The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and it may well seem that the light of a divine presence still ever burns in that heavenly message, thus written for us, as clearly as it burned of old on the breastplate of priest, or among the company of the first disciples. If any one utterance can bear the clear stamp of God's signature, surely that does which announces the fulfilment of the hopes of a whole world with the boldness of simple affirmation, and in language which elevates the soul which embraces it. B. F. W. We beheld his glory. A sublime association of thought with the glory hovering over the mercy-seat. This glory, the only visible symbol of the manifest Jehovah, Isaiah saw, and John asserts that it was the glory of Christ. Of this glory or Godhood of Christ, as evinced in his spirit and life while dwelling among us, John declares, we beheld his glory. J. G. B.—We—John and the little band of men who received Jesus. Those who did not receive him saw not his glory; for in the days of his flesh it was an inward glory, only visible to the eye of faith. John is not celebrating merely that glory which he had seen with the Saviour in his miracles, or on the Mount of Transfiguration, or after his resurrection; but the whole of the gracious walk of the Lamb of God, who takes away, or bears, the sin of the world—the holy walk of love of that Jesus who “spake as Shepherd and was silent as a Lamb”—his quiet life of sacrifice, and his innocent and bitter sufferings and death—all this is present before his ravished eye when he says, We saw his glory. Full of grace, he is our life; full of truth, he is our light. R. B. ## Section 14.—The Baptism. The Baptist's Witness. The Jordan. 19. And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No. Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias. 24,25. And they which were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet? John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not; he it is, who coming after me, is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose. These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. 29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me; for he was before me. And I knew him not; but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water. 32 And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. 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 on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God. THE Lamb of God is to remove human transgression, both in its guilt and in its power. This designation to the Jews, at this time on their way to the feast of the Passover, is highly instructive. The paschal lamb was originally appointed as the means of deliverance from otherwise inevitable destruction. It arrested the progress of the destroying angel. All upon whose houses the blood was sprinkled were preserved alive; while all who were without this symbol perished. Christ, as the Lamb of God, is our deliverer from a bondage more fearful than that of Egypt; and from a ruin more awful than temporal destruction. His death stands always as a complete vindication of the law, and an authentic instrument of sanctification and of acceptance for all to whom his blood is applied. His sacrificial office was revealed as early as his kingly; and from the first he was set forth, not only as suffering, and in suffering leaving us an example, but as himself bearing our sins in his own body on the tree. J. A. If life depended on your seeing the sun, whither should you be bending your eyes, but yonder where the reddening dawn, breaking into streaks of gold, harbingers the approaching orb of fire? Set up before your mind the one great aim of faith, Jesus Christ the Righteous. All our exposition, argument, exhortation, and entreaty can only reiterate the cry, Behold him! behold him! See in him your priest. See in him your sacrifice. "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!" J. W. A. JOHN THE BAPTIST is called by some of the Fathers the clasp that unites the two Testaments. In his person and office the law and the gospel met together. In respect of the law he is called a prophet, the last prophet that immediately foretold Christ's coming and manifestation; his father Zacharias terms him "The prophet of the Highest." In respect of the New Testament he was an evangelist (messenger), pointing out and discovering the Messias already come. Brownrig. 19. The Evangelist John has appealed before to the witness given by John the Baptist, his own guide to the Saviour. In grateful remembrance, he now dwells for a while on this testimony, for it had sown the first fruitful seed of truth in his own soul. He had taken to heart the voice of the preacher in the wilderness, and the Lamb of God found in him a sinner, ready to be loved and saved. . . . The Jews. The Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, the heads of the people, who represented the Jews as a nation. R. B. Sent priests and Levites to ask him. Such was the general excitement at the appearance, the teaching, and baptizing of John, so great was the influence which he had obtained throughout the country, that a formal deputation from the national authorities was commissioned to ascertain whether he limited his pretensions to those of a prophet, or laid claim to the higher title of "the Christ." And the deep hold he had taken upon the popular feeling is strongly indicated by the fact, that the rulers did not dare, when the question was at a later period proposed by Jesus, openly to deny the prophetic mission of John, which was zealously asserted by the people. H. M. 21. I am not. He knew that they expected Elias to appear in person, and he declared that he was not Elias in the sense in which the question was asked; though in another sense, he was that Elias, of whose coming, as the precursor, of Christ, the prophet Malachi had spoken. K.—The whole appearance of John reminded them of Elias. Besides, his announcement that the kingdom of God was at hand, naturally led them to the prophecy (Mal. 4 : 5). The Rabbinical books testify that the Jews expected a general purification of baptism before the coming of the Messiah, and that it would be ministered by Elias. A. That prophet. The glorious prophecy of Christ, in Deut. 18 : 15, the comfort of which is set forth in Isaiah, from chap. 40 onward, had been perverted by the scribes, so that what men were then expecting was a mighty prophetic Moses, who, in the face of the Romish Pharaoh, should open the road for the Messiah by the exercise of supernatural powers. R. B.—23. I am the voice. These words introduce the great closing section of the prophecy of Isaiah (40–66), so full of the rich promises and revelations of the Messiah and his kingdom. By implication, the Baptist, quoting this opening prophecy of himself, announces the approaching fulfilment of the whole section. A. 25,26. The Pharisees ask by what authority he baptizes. John answers, by the authority of one who then stood unknown among them, whom he intimates to be the Lord, and of whom he has just declared himself the forerunner. J. G. B.—27. Whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy. This remarkable expression is illustrated by a passage in the Talmud: "Every office a servant will do for his master, a scholar should perform for his teacher, except loosing his sandal-thong." H. M.—28. Bethabara. (Read note on Matt. 3 : 6, Section 12.) 29. Behold the Lamb of God!** The image of the Holy One, suffering for his people, and bearing their sins (Isaiah 53), stood before his soul as he uttered these words. The intuition to which he gave utterance was simultaneous with the appearance before his eyes of Christ's person, so gentle, so calm, and so meek. N.—If salvation for our race is through atoning blood, then these are of all possible words the most fitting to set forth a Saviour slain. If life for the saved comes through the death of their Saviour, then he can have no fitter description than this—"The Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world." H. C.—That taketh up and taketh away. The word signifies both, as does the corresponding Hebrew word. Applied to sin, it means to be chargeable with the guilt of it, and to bear it away. In the Levitical victims both ideas met, as they do in Christ, the people's guilt being viewed as transferred to them, avenged in their death, and so borne away by them. B.—John wished to point out Jesus as the Messiah; he designates him as the Lamb of God. The most obvious reference is to the prophetic announcement in Isaiah 53 : 7. We have there the servant of God (= the Messiah) compared to a lamb brought to the slaughter, and it is said of him, He hath borne our griefs; was wounded for our transgressions; he bare the sin of many. So that here, and here only, we have the connection between the lamb and the bearing or taking away of sin, i. e., by expiation, by the offering of himself. A.—All the lambs whose blood had ever been poured out at the altar of the temple, morning and evening, had been unable to give to the troubled consciences anything like true repose—all the paschal lambs that ever were eaten yet failed to satisfy the hunger of the spirit; but now, with eyes enlightened by the Holy Ghost, John beholds the Lamb which God himself had prepared (Heb. 10 : 5) and given to be a sin-offering. R. B.—There are only two places where sin can be—either it is with thee, to lie upon thy neck, or it lies on Christ, the Lamb of God. If it lies on thy shoulders, thou art lost; but if it rests on Christ, thou art quit of it, and art saved. Luther. 31. John must have been acquainted with the events of his own childhood and that of Jesus; he had now come preaching and baptizing as his forerunner; but he knew not Jesus personally before he came to be baptized; at which time God had promised him a sign, by which he might know certainly that Jesus was the Messiah. R. 34. John's first public official testimony to Christ was particularly remarkable, as containing no reference whatever to that character or office in which the mass of the Jewish people might have been willing enough to recognize him, but confined to those two attributes of his person and work which they so resolutely rejected. There is no mention here of Jesus as Messiah, the Prince, the King of Israel. The record that John bears of him is, that he is the Son of God, the Lamb of God. In the two declarations, "This is the Son of God," "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," you have in a form as distinct, as short and compendious, as it is anywhere else to be found—the gospel of the kingdom. The divine nature of the man Christ Jesus, the completeness and efficacy of the shedding of his blood, of the offering up of himself for the remission of sins, are here very simply and plainly set forth. H. ## Section 17.—The First Five Disciples. Jordan Valley and Galilee. 35,36. AGAIN the next day after, John stood, and two of his disciples; and looking upon 37. Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! And the two disciples heard 38 him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being in- 39 terpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou? 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. 40. One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon 41. Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have 42 found the Messias; which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas; which is, by interpretation, a stone. 43. The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto 44, 45 him, Follow me. Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law, 46 and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see. 47. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in 48 whom is no guile! Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus an- swered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the 49 fig-tree, I saw thee. Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son 50 of God, thou art the King of Israel. 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 51 than these. And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. THE gospels do not present to us a scheme of doctrine as to the nature of Christ, or as to the work which he does. They present the Lord Jesus himself, as he showed himself to men in order to win their confidence and fix their trust. Thus they teach us that the essential and original nature of the Christian faith lies, not in acceptance of truths which are revealed, but in confidence in a person who is manifested. The first disciples believed before a miracle had been shown. So with ourselves; the Lord himself is his own evidence, and secures our confidence, love, and adoration, by what he is more than what he does. Open these pages where we will, the sense of reality revives within us. We feel afresh that we have not followed cunningly-devised fables, have not loved an idea, or trusted in an abstraction. We know whom we have believed, and feel that our Redeemer is our friend. We have escaped from doubt and debate, and no longer criticise or reason. We have recovered the minds of little children. We sit at the feet of Jesus; and the faith which came into his presence languid and dispirited, departs invigorated and refreshed. T. D. B. 36. Looking upon Jesus. Independently of all tradition, we may believe with reverent convic- tion that there could have been nothing repugnant in the form which enshrined an eternal Divinity and an infinite Holiness. All true beauty is but "the sacrament of goodness," and a conscience so stain- less, a spirit so full of harmony, a life so purely noble, could not but express itself in the bearing, could not but be reflected in the face of the Son of man. F.—He saith, Behold the Lamb of God! No words of prophets, nor of the sweet psalmist of Israel, are to be compared with these: “Behold the Lamb of God!” behold him, not far off, not through distant years, not in types and shadows: there; go, speak with him; the Lamb of God is come to take away the sin of the world. In this simple way the old dispensation was connected with the new, and then superseded by it, just by attaching one or two humble, plain men to Jesus Christ. N. A.—Jesus chose lowliness and obscurity for himself, and the smallest beginnings for his kingdom, letting it win its way slowly by the conquest of single souls, as was demanded by its very nature. It was to rest on loyalty and love, which must rise spontaneously in individual breasts. Success and results were only subordinate. His work lay clear before him: to live and to die as the Lamb of God—the incarnation of infinite love, attracting humanity by its holy charms, his life an example, his death an atonement. G. 37. The two disciples heard and followed Jesus. These words of the Baptist were listened to by two Galilean youths, who stood in the circle of his disciples—John and Andrew. N.—Thus it was from the circle of John the Baptist, as was quite natural, that the first nucleus was formed of that company which became the chosen companions of Jesus. G. P. F.—It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, when, obeying the hint of the Baptist, they followed Jesus. The Saviour, anticipating their request, kindly invited them to visit him. The two hours that remained before evening were spent in his society. This was their first impression of Christ; he left it to work in their hearts. N.—Minds never really awakened to anything intellectual or spiritual, have a world of bliss into which yet to enter. Early disciples felt this, especially under the words of the Great Teacher. When once they heard him speak as never man spake, they were smitten with his heavenly voice, and received into their bosoms a secret, on which to ponder without weariness as long as they lived. J. W. A.—On the part of John the Evangelist, we can trace clear indications that the voice: “Behold the Lamb of God!” which called him to Jesus, never ceased to vibrate in his heart during the whole of his life. Christ, as the Lamb of God, fills him through and through, and has taken entire possession of his soul. In his gospel (19 : 36) he discerns in the crucified one the true paschal lamb; and in his revelation, his enraptured eye rests from beginning to end on the Lamb whom he recognized by the marks of his slaughter—the “Lamb as it had been slain.” R. B. 38,39. What seek ye? Come and see! The first words publicly spoken by Christ—words of sympathy and kindly invitation—a fitting introduction to his life of ministering love. J. G. B.—With the fine modesty of his nature, John says nothing of himself in relation to a day so eventful in his history. The kingly soul of Jesus evidently enchained him at once. Henceforth, he was altogether his; though for a time dismissed to his home. But, once more permitted to follow him, he is ever found at his side, forgetting himself in his love for his Master, and lost in the contemplation of his life and words. G. 40,41. Those two hours of Andrew with Jesus had fixed his heart upon this new Master. What should he do next but find his own brother Simon to tell him the great discovery: We have found the Messiah! Come at once and see him for yourself! H. C.—Andrew first found his own brother Simon, and then others. Relationship has a very strong demand upon our first individual efforts. Simon Peter was worth ten Andrews, so far as we can gather from sacred history, and yet Andrew was instrumental in bringing him to Jesus. You may be deficient in talent, and yet be the means of drawing to Christ one who shall become eminent in grace and service. Spurgeon.—The teachers of the day had round them an inner circle of disciples, able, in some measure, to represent them in public, in their own absence, by speaking in the synagogues, answering questions, or undertaking missionary journeys, and these were to be the special duties of the disciples of Jesus. They were to be trained by him in the mysteries of the kingdom, as those of the rabbis were in the mysteries of the law. It was, therefore, only an adoption of the custom of the day which Jesus now followed. G. 42. “Thou art Simon the son of Jona,” the hearkening, timid one, the unstable man; “thou shalt be called,” according to the Hebrew idea, shalt become, “Cephas,” rock, the stable man. In the earlier part of his career he had a marked defect, the want of a settled purpose and grand governing motive. Jesus, the Christ, was to furnish him with that, and thus to change the unstable Simon Jona into the stable Cephas. D. S. G. 43. It is well worthy of note how often this finding recurs in this chapter; Christ finding disciples as here; disciples finding each his friend, and reporting how they have at once been found by, and have themselves found, the Messiah. T.—Observe in what various ways the Saviour goes after the souls of men, even in these first days of his Shepherd's work, and how he draws them to himself out of pure goodness! Observe, also, how each disciple, when found, becomes immediately a seeking preacher! . . . Does not a secret longing come over us for these affectionate feelings shown in this morning-hour of the New Testament—an hour which so strikingly displays such precious gold? The pure gold of brotherly love—how brilliant its lustre! Here is mission-life in all the vigor of youth, and here is angel's joy over the heavenly secret of Christian fellowship! R. B. 45. The arguments for the identity of Nathanael and Bartholomew are very strong. Nathanael's vocation here is coördinated with that of apostles, as of equal significance; on a later occasion we meet him in the midst of apostles, some named before him, some after; the three earlier evangelists never mention Nathanael, the fourth never Bartholomew; Philip and Bartholomew in the catalogue of the apostles are grouped together, as a pair of friends, but with Philip first, even as he is here the first in Christ; the custom of double names seems to have been almost universal at that time in Judea, so that wellnigh all the apostles bore more than one; to all which may be added that Bartholomew is no proper name, signifying only son of Tolmai. All these arguments in favor of the identity, with nothing against it, bring it nearly to a certainty, that he to whom the promise of the vision of an opened heaven was vouchsafed, was no other than Bartholomew the apostle. T.—As his home was at Cana of Galilee, the son of Tolmai might easily have become acquainted with the young fishermen of Gennesareth. And yet so deep was the retirement in which up to this time Jesus had lived his life, that though Nathanael knew Philip, he knew nothing of Christ. F. 46. Good come out of Nazareth.** The pictures which have been drawn of the "meanness" of Nazareth, and of the "poverty" of Christ's family, are as distressing as they are untruthful. Nathanael, in his surprise, said only: "The great good which we expect cannot come from Nazareth, because Scripture has declared that he must come from Bethlehem." According to the New Testament writers, Nazareth was a city and never a village, and hence of size and importance. S. M. Come and see One from whom there seems to breathe forth the irresistible charm of a sinless purity, the unapproachable beauty of a divine life. "Come and see," said Philip, convinced in his simple, faithful heart that to see Jesus was to know him, and to know was to love, and to love was to adore. F.—There are truths in the heavenly world which, like the sun in the natural world, can only be seen by their own light. Philip has a confidence which the result abundantly justified, that in that holy presence, if only he could bring his friend within its influence, all preconceived objections would disappear. Perplexities might still remain, but he would be content to adjourn the solution of them to a later day, which indeed is what faith is summoned to do evermore. T.—The only satisfactory test of Christianity is the test of personal examination and personal experiment. The skeptic class is mainly composed of those who, never having tried the spiritual medicines of the Great Physician, contemptuously denounce them as quackery and imposture. Having never tried to "do his will," they must not complain if they have no spiritual perception of his "doctrine." If the noisiest skeptics of our time would spend even a few weeks in a patient trial of Christ's precepts, by doing just what Jesus commands—if they would honestly endeavor to live according to his divine code—they would find the fog-bank of their infidelity dispersed by exposure to the sun of righteousness. Philip's "come and see" is the surest antidote to skepticism. The Master himself throws out the same challenge. Do those who actually go to him confessing weakness or sorrow or guilt come away without obtaining sensible relief? Do men who practise the Christianity of Calvary grow utterly sick of it, and denounce it as a worthless imposture? These are questions which every rejecter of Christ Jesus should squarely face. Those who have tested him as a Redeemer, a spiritual guide, and a comforter, can fearlessly say to the questioning of the unconvinced, "Come and see." We know whom we have believed; and of this actual experience no scoffer can outwit us, and no gainsayer can rob us. T. L. C. 47,48. Nathanael was already a true servant of God, living in the inner spirit of the Old Testament revelation; and, in welcoming him with the reading of his heart and life, Jesus revealed his own omniscience. J. P. T.—He who is "without guile" is not therefore without sin; this, at least, could only be asserted of One; but he is one who seeks no cloak for his sin—does not excuse, hide, diminish, or deny it. This guilelessness or absence of deceit, which the Lord imputes to Nathanael, reveals itself in his reply, "Whence knowest thou me?" There is no affectation here of declining the praise, but only a question of admiration how the Lord should have known him so exactly. T. 49. This proof of Christ's omniscience called forth a confession which forms a climax to those made by the other disciples. Andrew and his companion had acknowledged him as their Master, and the former had told Peter that they had found the Christ; Philip had recognized in Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph, him who had been foretold by Moses and the prophets; and now Nathanael gives him the full titles of the Messiah: "Rabbi! Thou art the Son of God! Thou art the King of Israel!" S. 51. Verily.** Amen, like Hallelujah, is not an English or even a Latin, but a Hebrew word, which has come down to us from the ancient Jewish people. It means true, trustworthy. It means something on which you can thoroughly rely; something on which you can rest, as a building rests on a massive column. "Steady and steadfast, faithful and true," is the English of amen. It reminds us that truth is the ever-recurring, ever-living principle at once of Christian life and of Christian worship. A. P. S.—This "Verily, verily," this double amen, which here occurs for the first time, is peculiar to John; he only records our Lord's use of it, but he on very many occasions. It comes most fitly from the lips of him who is himself the Amen, the God of truth, in whom all the promises of God are yea and in whom amen. How different, too, the majestic, "I say unto you," of Christ from that, "Thus saith the Lord," of all the prophets preceding—they bearers of the word of another, He the utterer of his own! T.—The double verily is uniformly connected with sayings peculiar to John—in short, with his expression of the great life-and-death truths of Christianity. The passages from John that are prefaced by it sum up all the glorious and solemn verities of the gospel in its relation to life here and hereafter, so that, if John's gospel is the heart of Christ, the double verities are the heart of the heart of Christ. D. S. G. 51. Hereafter ye shall see the heavens opened.** Assuredly the Lord would indicate by these wondrous words that he should henceforward be the middle point of a free, uninterrupted communion between God and men. And this glory of Christ they, his disciples, should behold; and should understand that they too, children of men, were by him, the Son of man, made citizens of a kingdom which, not excluding earth, embraced also heaven. From earth there should go up evermore supplications, aspirations, prayers; and from heaven there should evermore come down graces, blessings, gifts, aid to the faithful, and punishment for them that would hurt them. T.—It is not the outward, visible opening of the material heavens that is meant, nor ascent and descent of angels in the sight of men, which our Lord here announces; but the series of glories which was about to be unfolded in his person and work from that time forward. Luther beautifully says: "When Christ became man, and had entered on his ministerial office and begun to preach, then was the heaven opened, and has from that time, since the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, never been shut, and never will be shut, although we do not see it with our bodily eyes." A.—He was to learn Christ in his true relation to the development of humanity, as him through whom human nature was to be glorified; through whom the locked-up heavens were again to be opened; the communion with heaven and earth restored; to whom and from whom all the powers of heaven were to flow. N. The Son of man. This title, applied to the Messiah, occurs in Daniel 7: 13, and had become familiar in Christ's day, through its use in the apocalyptic literature of the Jews. Jesus applies the title to himself about eighty times, but it is not applied to him by any of the N. T. writers, except in passages which refer to his heavenly exaltation (Acts 7; Rev. 1; Rev. 14). G.—The facts of usage in regard to these two designations—"Son of God" (verse 49) and "Son of man"—are striking and full of precious significance. Throughout the gospel history the disciples use the name "Son of God;" they never call Jesus "the Son of man." But usually and almost invariably Jesus calls himself "the Son of man." He employs this title with equal freedom, whether the scene suggests his humiliation or his glory. This chosen title manifestly looks toward the incarnation—the great fact of his earthly life. On the other hand, this title always implied his preëxistent divinity. For he was no ordinary Son of man, nor any merely human Son of man; for this would nullify all its real significance. H. C.—He called himself the "Son of man" because he had appeared as a man; because he belonged to mankind; because he had done such great things even for human nature; because he was to glorify that nature; because he was himself the realized ideal of humanity. N. 35-51. The first five disciples were gathered in by John speaking to two, Jesus to one, Andrew to one, Philip to one. It is the same species of agency similarly employed which God has always most richly blessed; the direct, earnest, loving appeal of one man to his acquaintance, relative, or friend. How many seldom if ever have endeavored, by direct and personal address, to influence one human soul for its spiritual and eternal good! . . . Those days were not only the birth-time of the Church, they were the beginning of Christ's public ministry, and how does that ministry open? Silently, gently, unostentatiously; no public appearances, no great works done, no new instrumentality employed; by taking two men to live with him for a day, by asking another to follow him, by dealing wisely and tenderly and encouragingly with two others who are brought to him—so enters the Lord upon the earthly task assigned to him. H. # Section 18.—The Marriage at Cana. Galilee. 1. AND the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus 2, 3 was there. And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. And when 4 they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith 5 unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. 6 And there were set there six water-pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying 7 of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the 8 water-pots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, 9 Draw out now, and bare unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was, (but the servants which drew the water knew,) the governor of the feast called the 10 bridegroom, 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 until now. 11 This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him. WE need not wonder to find the Lord of life at that festival; for he came to sanctify all life—its times of joy, as its times of sorrow; and all experience tells us that it is times of gladness which especi- ally need such a sanctifying power, such a presence of the Lord. In times of sorrow, the sense of God's presence comes more naturally out: in these it is in danger to be forgotten. And the gracious Lord has sympathy with all needs—with the finer as well as the commoner needs of our life. For all the grace and beauty and courtesy of life are taken account of in Christianity, as well as life's sterner realities; and the spirit of Christ, in himself and in his disciples, does not slight or despise those any more than these. T. He consecrates marriage, and the sympathies which lead to marriage. He stamps his image on human joys, human connections, human relationships. He pronounces that they are more than human; the means whereby God's presence comes to us; the types and shadows whereby higher and deeper relation- ships become possible to us. For it is through our human affections that the soul first learns to feel that its destiny is divine. Never does a man know the force that is in him till some mighty affection or grief has humanized the soul. It is by an earthly relationship that God has typified to us and helped us to conceive the only true espousal, the marriage of the soul to her Lord. F. W. R. And this miracle may be taken as the sign and symbol of all which Christ is evermore doing in the world, ennobling all that he touches, making saints out of sinners, angels out of men, and in the end heaven out of earth, a new paradise of God out of the old wilderness of the world. T. JESUS had now commenced his career. Disciples had attached themselves to this new Master, and his claim must necessarily be accompanied by the signs and wonders which were to ratify the appearance of the Messiah. Yet even his miraculous powers had nothing of the imposing, appalling, or public char- acter looked for by those who expected an appeal to their senses and passions, their terror and hope, not to the more tranquil emotions of gratitude and love. H. M. He that made the first marriage in Paradise, be- stows his first miracle upon a Galilean marriage. He that was the Author of matrimony and sancti- fied it, doth, by his holy presence, honor the resem- blance of his eternal union with his Church. Bp. H. 1. Cana of Galilee. Two places claim to be the ancient Cana of Galilee: the one nine miles north of Nazareth, the other four miles northeast. The latter, now Kefr Kana, seems to have rightful claim, according to the notices of Josephus, the N. T. references, and the site itself, at the crossing of two great roads—from Nazareth to Capernaum and from Sepphoris to Tiberias. Yet the former site has equally qualified and more numerous supporters. J. G. B. (See map, page 50.) 2. There is every reason to suppose that Joseph was now dead; the last mention of him occurs on the occasion of the Lord's visit as a child to the temple; he had died probably between that time and Christ's open undertaking of his ministry. T. 3. She looked for the hour when he should reveal himself in his glory, as Messiah, before the eyes of all men. But Christ, although he held all purely human feelings sacred, yet demanded that "man should deny father and mother" when the cause of God required it. He had now to apply this principle to his own mother. N. 4. How solemnly yet how tenderly he reminds his mother that earthly relations must now give place to heavenly, and that the times and seasons in which the Eternal Son is to display his true nature are not to be hastened, even by the longings of maternal love! The Lord's manifestation, however, takes place, the miracle is performed, and its immediate effect is to confirm the faith of the five disciples, who now appear before us as the first-fruits of the ingathering of the Church. In his answer our Lord here addresses her as woman, and not mother—a term which, though marking all respect, and subsequently used by our Lord in a last display of tenderness and love, still seems to indicate the now changed relation between the Messiah and Mary of Nazareth. E.—Her Son's hour had nearly come: but it was necessary now, at once, forever, for that Son to show to her that henceforth he was not Jesus the Son of Mary, but the Christ the Son of God; that as regarded his great work and mission, as regarded his eternal being, the significance of the beautiful relationship had passed away. F. He has waited quietly those thirty years, without a single trial of that superhuman strength which lay in him, content to bide till the set-time came. And now he waits, even as to the performance of his first miracle, till the right and foreseen hour for its performance has arrived. As to this and every act of his power, as to this and every incident of his life, he could tell when the hour had not come, and when it had. He who at this marriage feast could say to Mary, "Mine hour is not yet come," could say to the Omniscient in the upper chamber at Jerusalem, "Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son." Mapped out before his foreseeing eye in all its times, places, events, issues, lay the whole of his earthly life and ministry. H.—Not till the wine is wholly exhausted will his time arrive; as yet it was only failing: then will be the time to act, when, by its complete failure, manifest to all, the miracle will be above suspicion. Otherwise, in Augustine's words, he might seem rather to mingle elements than to change them. When all other help fails, then and not till then has Christ's "hour" come. T. 5. A marvellously beautiful speech this is of Mary's. She bowed with entire submission to the Lord's reproof. But, at the same time, she has described something in the Lord's answer on which her faith lays hold; she believes that the hour which was not yet come might perhaps come very shortly; and she believes so confidently that it will come, that she at once hastens to put the servants in readiness for the Lord. "Mary catches at the little unobtrusive word, not yet, and with great penetration infers from it, then it will come!" But when the Lord saw her faith, then his hour was really come! The faith of the humbled Mary is the precious link connecting the denial and the fulfilment of her petitions. R. B. 6. Water, under the law, was symbolical; denoting the means of inward purity, that is, of justification and holiness: its antitype or substance, the sacrifice of Christ and the influence of the Spirit. Other vessels might have been chosen, and the presence of the water was not essential to the performance of the miracle; but the miracle would in that case have been robbed of its significance. The vessels are filled and the water changed, to suggest that for the carnal washings of the law we are to have His blood. J. A. 7-10. We may contrast this his readiness to aid others with the strictness with which he refused to come to the help of his own extremest needs. He who made wine out of water might have made bread out of stones. But he will do nothing at the suggestion of Satan, though all at the suggestion of love. T.—The thing was done, but in no very striking way, nor in a way calculated to reveal his Messianic glory to all eyes. N.—Everything so occurs as to exclude any semblance of collusion. They were water-jars, not wine-vessels; there in accordance with the customs of the Jews in the matter of washing; the quantity they contained was enormous; they were empty, so that the servants who knew what liquid they had poured in, were themselves witnesses of the reality of the miracle. T.—As regards the great quantity, we need only suppose that the guests drank so much as was ordinary and proper, during the days of the marriage festival. What remained would be a seasonable nuptial present, and would perpetuate the impression of the power of Christ. J. G. B. What a veiling of the hand and power of the operator! Ordering it so that what came to the guests appeared to come through the ordinary channel, without word or touch, aught said or done, in obedience to an inward volition of the Lord, the water hidden in the vessels is changed instantaneously into wine. There was the same dignified ease and simplicity, the same absence of ostentation about all Christ's miracles, proper to him who used not a delegated but an intrinsic power. H.—There, on the lake, the raging element hears the voice of its Creator, and becomes completely calm; here the tasteless element of water complies with the will of its Creator, and becomes sweet wine. R. B.—He who here made wine in the six waterpots is no other than he who every year makes it in the vine. As in this instance the water which the servants poured out of the pitchers became, by the power of the Lord, wine, so likewise, through his power every year, the water which the clouds drop down from the skies is in the vine converted into wine. Aug. 9. We are not justified in inferring that the water was changed into manufactured wine; but that, by his direct agency, he imparted to it powers capable of producing the same effects; that he intensified (so to speak) the powers of water into those of wine. N.—Whether among the Jews, and in our Saviour's day, there was a wine that contained no alcohol, is hard to be determined, although in regard to the significance of the Hebrew yayin, and the Greek oinos, there can be but little doubt. These words simply meant the liquid that came from pressing the grape. There is no evidence of any further idea associated with it. It was not fermenting fluid, but grape-juice. This, it was well known, grew stronger with age. It was at first pleasant and nourishing, then exhilarating, and at last intoxicating. In the Bible, the first use is commended, the second mentioned without disapprobation or approval, the third in all cases condemned. T. L.—That Christ thus sanctioned the use of wine in a country where the population were proverbially temperate, leaves the question open of the propriety of Christian men using their liberty in this direction in a country like ours, where drinking is a national curse, and where even the moderate use of what intoxicates only too often causes "a brother to offend," "for whom Christ died." If he died for such a weak one, Christians may well afford to give up wine, etc., for him. G.—Let no table be spread to which he who graced the marriage feast at Cana could not be invited; let no pleasure be indulged in which could not live in the light of his countenance. Let his presence and blessing be with us and upon us wherever we go and however we are engaged; and is the way not open by which the miracle of Cana may, in spirit, be repeated daily still, and the water of every earthly enjoyment turned into the very wine of heaven? H. 11. It was not his power, however, but his glory, that Jesus showed forth in the miracle. What made him glorious was, that, like his Father, he ministered to the wants of men. Had they not needed the wine, not for the sake of whatever show of his power would he have made it. The concurrence of man's need and his love made it possible for that glory to shine forth. McD.—God's glory is at work in the growth and ripening of the grape, and in the process by which its juice passes into wine. It is not more glory, but only glory more manifested, when water at his bidding passes into wine. Miracles have only done their work when they teach us the glory and the awfulness that surrounds our common life. God was as much, nay more, in the daily life and love of Christ, than he was in Christ's miracles. The miracle only made the hidden glory visible. The extraordinary only proved that the ordinary was divine. That was the very object of the miracle. It was done to manifest forth his glory. And if, instead of rousing men to see the real glory of Christ in his other life, the miracle merely fastened men's attention on itself, and made them think that the only glory which is divine is to be found in what is wonderful and uncommon, then the whole intention of the miracle was lost. F. W. R. 1-11. The world does indeed give its best and fairest at the beginning, its "good wine" first, but has only baser substitutes at the last. "When men have well drunk," when their spiritual palate is blunted, then it puts upon them what it would not have dared to offer at the first—coarser pleasures, viler enjoyments, the swine's husks. But it is otherwise with the guests of Christ, the heavenly bridegroom. He ever reserves for them whom he has bidden "the good wine" unto the last. In the words of the most eloquent of our divines, "Every sin smiles in the first address, and carries light in the face and honey in the lip; but wheh we 'have well drunk,' then comes 'that which is worse,' a whip with six strings, fears and terrors of conscience, and shame and displeasure, and a caitiff disposition, and diffidence in the day of death. But when, after the manner of purifying of the Christians, we fill our water-pots with water, watering our couch with our tears, and moistening our cheeks with the perpetual distillations of repentance, then Christ turns our water into wine, first penitents and then communicants—first waters of sorrow and then the wine of the chalice; for Jesus keeps the best wine to the last, not only because of the direct reservation of the highest joys till the nearer approaches of glory, but also because our relishes are higher after a long fruition than at the first essays, such being the nature of grace, that it increases in relish as it does in fruition, every part of grace being new duty and new reward” (J. Taylor). T.—There is a marriage, whereto we are invited; yea, wherein we are already interested, not as the guests only, but as the bride; in which there shall be no want of the wine of gladness. It is marvel if, in these earthly banquets, there be not some lack. “In thy presence, O Saviour, there is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore. Blessed are they that are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” Ep. II. ## Section 19.—At the First Passover, expels Profaners of the Temple. Jerusalem. 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. 13,14. And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen, and sheep, and doves, and the changers of money, sitting: 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; and said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence, make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. 18. Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them: and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said. 23. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in 24 his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself 25 unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man. PEOPLE began to show enthusiasm for him. But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, “for he knew what was in man.” He knew that the flatterers of to-day would be the accusers of to-morrow. Nathanael stood before him. He had scarcely spoken a word; but at once unhesitatingly, to Nathanael’s own astonishment, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile!” There came to him a young man with vast possessions: a single sentence, an exaggerated epithet, an excited manner, revealed his character. Enthusiastic and amiable, Jesus loved him; capable of obedience, on life’s sunshine and prosperity, ay, and capable of aspiration after something more than mere obedience, but not of sacrifice. Jesus tested him to the quick, and the young man failed. He did not try to call him back, for he knew what was in him and what was not. He read through Zaccheus when he climbed into the sycamore-tree, despised by the people as a publican, really a son of Abraham; through Judas, with his benevolent saying about the selling of alabaster-box for the poor, and his false kiss; through the zeal of the man who in a fit of enthusiasm offered to go with him whithersoever he would. He read through the Pharisees, and his whole being shuddered with the recoil of utter and irreconcilable aversion. It was as if his bosom was some mysterious mirror on which all that came near him left a sullied or unsullied surface, detecting themselves by every breath. F. W. R. THE city was then in its noonday glory, and ranked among the most splendid in the world. It was the metropolis, not only of Palestine, but also of the millions of Jews dispersed throughout the world, who were continually bringing and sending the richest gifts to the temple. The treasury was always full to overflowing. Herod employed this wealth in rebuilding the temple and embellishing it with such works of art as the law did not expressly forbid. It was a marvellous structure. With its stupendous outer wall, the lofty "Gate Beautiful," wrought of Corinthian brass, its pillared cloisters, its outer and inner courts, its central edifice, the temple proper, covered with gold and blazing like an earthly sun—the whole was the wonder of the world, and the Israelite's peculiar pride and joy. Thither the tribes went up thrice a year to worship. But at the Passover feast, the city, paved with marble and built in a style of corresponding magnificence, was thronged with a "multitude which no man could number." It is computed that this feast drew together, in addition to the permanent population, not less than a million of human beings. Arabia, Parthia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Gaul, and Spain—every part of the world sent up caravans of pilgrims to the holy and beautiful city, all wearing the costumes and speaking the dialects of the several countries from which they came. Z. E. 13. That Christ should begin his public ministry at Jerusalem was equally in accordance with the fitness of the case, and with the expectations raised by prophecy: "Jehovah, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple." Nor was there any reason so suitable for his appearance there as the feast of Passover, which presented the most striking type of him, and at which the Jews were gathered, not only from all the land, but from the countries of the Dispersion. S.—By way of Capernaum our Lord now pays his first public visit to Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover, and as his first public act, he proceeds to the temple. Here he found the traders changing the Roman denarius and Grecian drachma for the Jewish shekel, and all these for coins of a lower denomination. The first only were received by the Roman collectors, and the last only at the temple treasury. Here also were sold the victims used in the Jewish worship. All this business was transacted within the precincts of the temple, and involved an unseemly union of things secular and sacred. The whole was conducted, moreover, in a spirit of grasping, godless gain, little less guilty than theft. Our Lord, therefore, took occasion to rebuke both evils, and at the same time to indicate one purpose of his coming. He appeared to purify the house of God, and to free it from earthly defilement. This object he symbolized both now at the commencement of his ministry, and afterward at its close, by the act of purifying the court of the outer sanctuary. J. A. 14. There, in the actual court of the Gentiles, were penned whole flocks of sheep and oxen, while the drovers and pilgrims stood bartering and bargaining around them. There were the men with their great wicker cages filled with doves, and under the shadow of the arcades, formed by quadruple rows of Corinthian columns, sat the money-changers with their tables covered with piles of various small coins. And this was the entrance-court to the Temple of the Most High! The court which was a witness that that house should be a house of prayer for all nations had been degraded into a place which, for foulness, was more like shambles, and for bustling commerce more like a densely-crowded bazaar; while the lowing of oxen, the bleating of sheep, the Babel of many languages, the huckstering and wrangling, and the clinking of money and of balances (perhaps not always just), might be heard in the adjoining courts, disturbing the chant of the Levites and the prayers of priests! F. 15. The transition from private to public life was spontaneous on his part. The first thought, the matured purpose, and the decisive act, were all entirely his own. He came forth of his own accord—he assumed a public position, and was not compelled, or even invited, or even encouraged, to accept it. His own purpose regulated all his movements throughout. Neither the popular feeling, nor even the wishes of his disciples, nor the current of events, were suffered to govern him, for he repeatedly acted in the face of them all. His own idea from the first was supreme, and his life was a determined realization of that idea, in spite of every opposing force. A selfish spirit had consumed the heart of all true goodness, not only as between man and his God, but as between man and man. Jesus proclaimed the sacredness, dignity, and beauty of moral excellence, and that, without this, there could be no greatness and no worth. The age in its express lineaments at that time, in its ignorance, formalism, pride, hypocrisy, and impurity, he held up to itself. For the time, he was an incarnate conscience to the nation, performing that office which each man owed to himself, but would not discharge. Y.—The scourge of the Lord, which is raised against the profaners of the temple, smites rather into the heart of the sinful people; and Chrysostom says with truth: "Christ proves himself to be the good Physician, by striking at the roots of Israel's malady; for the temple was in the system of the body politic the vital organ, which nourished it if it was sound, but poisoned it if it was corrupted." R. B. 16. My Father's house. How close the resemblance of these remarkable words to L. 2: 49; the same consciousness of intrinsic relation to the temple—as the seat of his Father's most august worship, and so the symbol of all that is due to him on earth—dictating both speeches. Only, when but a youth with no authority, he was simply "a Son in his own house:" now he was "a Son over his own house" (Heb. 3: 6), the proper Representative, and in flesh "the Heir," of his Father's rights. B. 18. It was wholly in keeping with his office to act as Jesus had done. As his Father's house, the temple was supremely under his care; and he only exercised his rights and duties as the Messiah, in cleansing it as he did. It was a sign and commencement of the spiritual cleansing he came to inaugurate: a note struck which disclosed the character of his future work. Zechariah (14: 21) had said that in the days of the Messiah "the trader would no more be in the house of Jehovah," and thus even the prophets, whom the nation honored, seemed to indorse his act. G.—It was with no expectation of putting an end to the desecration of the holy place that Jesus acted. It was meant to be a public proclamation of his Sonship to God: an open assertion and exercise of his authority as sustaining this relation; a protest in his Father's name against the conduct of the priesthood in permitting this desecration of the holy place. What else could the priesthood who had charge of the temple understand than that here was claimed a jurisdiction superior to their own? What else than that here was one who claimed a relationship to God as his Father, and a right over the temple as his Father's house, which none but One could claim? Entering into no argument with him as to the rightness or wrongness of what he had done, they proceeded upon the assumption that he was bound to give to them some proof of his carrying a divine commission, and they say to him, "What sign showest thou unto us, seeing thou doest these things?" H.—The Jews did not question his right to perform such an act, provided he was a true prophet. They only demanded some sign of his authority. This Jesus gave in his mighty works wrought at the same Passover (verse 23); works which drew from Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrim, the admission that he was "a teacher come from God." R. It is a great mistake to think of Jesus with the head uncovered. As the priests in the temple, and worshippers at prayer, had their heads covered, so no one went with the head bare in common life. Indeed, apart from religious reverence, the fierce sun of Palestine makes exposure of the head impossible. Christ's dress was that of a rabbi, for his seamless robe illustrates Abarbanel's remark that the robe of a rabbi of Palestine had no seam in it. Ursinus says that the dress of a rabbi was a tunic, without sleeves, which reached to the knees, and had no other openings than for the head and arms. 19. He answered them as their rabbis were wont to do, with an enigmatical sentence, which he left them to unriddle as they could. G.—Destroy this temple. It is difficult, if not impossible, for us to enter into the feelings of an ancient Israelite in regard to the temple at Jerusalem. To him, that structure was the best of all terrestrial things. It was at once the citadel of his commonwealth and the sanctuary of his Church. To this spot his face was turned in devotion, wherever he might wander on the earth's surface. Its walls contained all that he held most splendid in ceremonial and most sacred in mystery. In some sense it was the centre, not of Palestine only, but of the world, for his Lord had said, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations." Its pomps and praises, the volume of its harmonies both vocal and instrumental, its bleeding and smoking propitiations, its odorous clouds of incense, its ablutions and sprinklings, its throngs of exalted worshippers, its festive processions, and its inaccessible mysterious shrine, all conspired to give it a hold on his admiration and his affections, such as no other material structure ever gained over human hearts. J. W. A.—Destroy this temple!—the temple on which a king preëminent for his wealth and magnificence had lavished his most splendid resources, and thereby almost reconciled the Jews to an intolerable tyranny; the temple for the construction of which one thousand wagons had been required, and ten thousand workmen enrolled, and a thousand priests in sacerdotal vestments employed to lay the stones which the workmen had already hewn; the temple which was a marvel to the world for its colossal substructions of marble, its costly mosaics, its fragrant woods, its glittering roofs, the golden vine with its hanging clusters sculptured over the entrance door, the embroidered vails, enwoven with flowers of purple, the profuse magnificence of its silver, gold, and precious stones. It had been already forty-six years in building, and was yet far from finished; and this unknown Galilean youth bade them destroy it, and he would raise it in three days! Such was the literal and evidently false construction which they chose to put upon his words, though the recorded practice of their own great prophets might have shown them that a mystery lay hidden in this sign which he gave. How ineffaceable was the impression produced by the words is best proved by the fact that more than three years afterward it was this, more than all his other discourses, which his accusers and false witnesses tried to pervert into a constructive evidence of guilt. F. 20. Forty and six years. These may be reckoned from B. C. 17, when the temple of Herod was begun, till A. D. 28, when these words were spoken. The more sacred interior part of the interior sanctuary was finished in eighteen months, the worship never being interrupted. The vast surroundings took eight years, and, though additions continued to be made for at least eighty years longer, it was sufficiently completed to be dedicated by Herod with the ancient pomp. A. P. S. (Read Section 178.)—Was this temple in building.** In saying so, they have left to us one of the few fixed and certain data upon which we can determine the year when the public ministry of our Lord began. We know that the building, or rather rebuilding, of the temple was commenced by Herod in the eighteenth year of his reign; that is—speaking according to the Roman method of counting their years, from the foundation of Rome—during the year that began in the spring of 734, and ended in that of 735. Forty-six years from this would bring us to the year 780–781. Historical statements and astronomical calculations conspire to prove that it must have been between the 13th March and the 4th April in the year 750 that Herod died. Thirty years forward from that time brings us to the year 780, when our Lord's ministry began. H. 21,22,24,25. John is distinguished from the other evangelists by commenting on the facts which he relates. His gospel is not only an inspired history of Christ, but also an inspired commentary on that history. W. 21. Temple of his body—in which was enshrined the glory of the eternal Word. By its resurrection the true temple of God upon earth was reared up, of which the stone one was but a shadow; so that the allusion is not quite exclusively to himself, but takes in that temple of which he is the foundation and all believers are the “living stones.” B.—Hitherto there had been but one temple of the true God, the temple in which he then stood—the temple which symbolized, and had once at least, as the Jews believed, enshrined that Shechinah, or cloud of glory, which was the living witness to God's presence in the world. But now the Spirit of God abode in a temple not made with hands, even in the sacred body of the Son of God made flesh. F.—The history of his life and of his work is linked to this earliest utterance. The magnificent temple he that day cleansed was soon to be destroyed, mainly through the guilt of those who sought so fanatically to preserve it, with all its abuses. But, even before it rose in flames from the torch of the Roman soldier, or fell stone from stone before his tools, another temple, far more wonderful, had risen silently in the spirits of men, to take its place—a temple pure and eternal, which he had now dimly foreshadowed, at this first moment of his public career. Yet even the Church was in no such high sense the temple of God as the mysterious person of Jesus himself—the holiest tabernacle of God among men ever vouchsafed—the true Shechinah—the visible Incarnation of the Divine. 22. After the crucifixion and the resurrection, the exact fulfilment of his words in these two great events struck the imagination of the disciples more than any other meaning they might have. G.—This sign of the temple destroyed in Christ's death, and raised up again in his resurrection, only conduced to the salvation of those who—like the disciples—believed the Scriptures, those who in faith were built as living stones into the New Testament temple. When exactly three years after the time of this Passover feast the “three days” were fulfilled, and when thus the light of fulfilment illuminated the obscurity of this prediction of Christ's, then the disciples believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said. They then perceived the mysterious connection which even in the Old Testament was established between the temple at Jerusalem and the temple of Jesus' body. The Epistle to the Hebrews, in particular, is an expression of this insight. R. B. 23–25. With such an old-prophet-like first appearance, followed up as it was by acts of miraculous power, equal in character and greatness to the examples elsewhere recorded in the gospels, it is no wonder to learn that many believed on him. Yet he received no one into the circle of his closer personal following from those thus impressed. No scribe or rabbi, no wealthy citizen, not even a common townsman of Jerusalem, was called to follow him. “He did not trust himself to them,” nor honor any of them with the confidence he had shown in some of his Galilean disciples. He knew men's hearts. He could see that they were willing to honor him as a human king, and that only from his wonderful works and miracles; and they unmistakably expected a human kingdom at his hands. Such men would be no counsellors, helpers, or servants in founding and spreading the kingdom of truth. Nor did he relax this caution at any future time, for though he gained many friends in Judea, as we discover incidentally, he surrounded himself with Galileans to the end of his life. G.—What is contained in the expression, he did not commit, or confide himself to them, we shall learn in the next Bible study, when we shall listen to the discourse in which the Lord confided himself to Nicodemus. R. B. 14–22. The temple and the kingdom of God are identical in Judaism and in Christianity: there, in a form particular and typical; here, in a form corresponding to its essence, and intended for all men and all ages. As Christ is conscious that the desecrated and ruined temple will be raised up by him in greater splendor, he acts upon this consciousness, as reformer of the old temple, in the very beginning of those labors which are to lay the foundation of the new and spiritual one. But what a glance into futurity was required in him thus to foretell not only the ruin of the temple by the guilt of the Jews—the dissolution of their worship being necessarily identified therewith—but also the erection of the spiritual edifice that was to take its place; to predict in himself the mightiest achievement in the history of humanity, at a time when but a few apparently insignificant men had joined him! N. ## Section 20.—Discourse with Nicodemus. Jerusalem. 1,2. THERE was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 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? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. 7, 8 10 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He 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. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is to come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth, cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. THE gift of a world were no sacrifice to him who has but to speak, and worlds of rarer beauty and glory fall from his open hand. In creation and providence, there is never conveyed to the mind any impression of expense or sacrifice on the part of the Infinite Creator. But it is different when we turn to the sacrifice of Christ. The great Father had but one Son, one gentle, holy, loving-hearted child, and him for us he surrendered to ruffian and murderous hands. But in Jesus we behold more than a gift of Deity to man—in him we see Deity giving itself for man. In the sacrifice of Christ there is that of which we are permitted to conceive as the sacrifice of one who was himself divine, as the self-devotion of God for the salvation of his creatures. There was here, as we are permitted to think of this most wondrous event in the history of the universe, the abandoning of power by Omnipotence, the renunciation of authority by him who rules the world, the stooping of the Author and Sustainer of life to weakness, pain, and death. Surely, if only by infinite sacrifice can infinite love be expressed, the dying Jesus is to us the sublime manifestation of the invisible God! C. STANDING in time the first, this discourse stands in character alone. You search in vain through all the subsequent discourses of our Lord for any such clear, compendious, comprehensive development of the Christian salvation: of its source in the love of the Father; its channel in the death of his only-begotten Son; and of the great Agent by whom it is appropriated and applied. You search in vain for any other instance in which the three persons of the Trinity were spoken of by our Lord consecutively and conjointly; to each being assigned his proper part in the economy of our redemption. It may even be doubted whether, in the whole range of the apostolic epistles, there be a passage of equal length in which the manner of our salvation through Christ is as fully and distinctly described. Let those who delight to dwell on the simple and pure morality of the Sermon on the Mount, and to contrast it with the doctrinal theology of the apostles, declaring their preference for the teachings of the Master above that of his disciples, but ponder well this first of all our Lord's discourses, and they will see that instead of any conflict there is a perfect harmony. H. At the very outset of his ministry, our Saviour foretells his death, reveals his own character as "the only-begotten Son of God," and as "the Son of man;" unfolds the design of his mission, not to condemn even the guiltiest, but "that the world through him may be saved;" sets forth the means of the accomplishment of this design—his exaltation on the cross, his sacrificial death, and the way in which an interest in the blessings he secured may be obtained—a living faith; traces the origin of this economy to the mercy and love of God, and warns men of the punishment to be inflicted on all who neglect his message. The condition of the world as perishing, the need of an inward, holy change on man's part, the adjustment of the claims of justice, with the exercise of mercy on God's; the mighty agent by whose influence this inward change is wrought, and the cost of this adjustment, with the end of the whole dispensation, that all things may be given into the hands of the Son, are fully disclosed. The first scenes, therefore, of the public ministry of our Lord, shadow forth the truths which were embodied, with terrible reality, in the last. 1. Nicodemus was a member of the sect of the Pharisees, and a ruler of the Jews; a councillor, or member of the Sanhedrim, the highest Jewish judicial court, and an expositor of the Jewish law. He probably, like the rest of his countrymen, looked for a temporal deliverer; but seems to have been a man of a candid and thoughtful mind. J. A.—We may presuppose that he shared in the ordinary Jewish conceptions of the Messianic kingdom, and expected it soon to be founded in visible and earthly glory; although he may have had, at the same time, some more worthy and spiritual ideas in regard to it. He considered himself sure, as a rigidly pious Jew and Pharisee, of a share in that kingdom; and was only anxious to be informed as to the approaching manifestation of Messiah. N. 2. John discloses to us the cause of this night visit, when at length the shy faith of this distinguished night-disciple breaks forth into the open day, in the history of Jesus' burial; "There came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night," as second to Joseph of Arimathea, who also formerly had been "secretly a disciple of Jesus, for fear of the Jews." This fear Nicodemus had now not yet overcome. R. B.—It would have been a manlier, more heroic thing for him to have braved all danger, and risen above all fear of man. But whatever blame we may attach to Nicodemus, let it not obscure our perception of his obvious honesty and earnestness, his intense desire for further enlightenment, his willingness to receive instruction. He came by night, but he was the only one of his order who came at all. He came by night, but it was not to gratify an idle curiosity, but in the disquiet of a half-awakened conscience to seek for peace. He shows at once his respect, his candor, his intelligence, and his faith. H. 3. Instead of showing himself flattered by the recognition of his divine mission by a man of such rank and influence, Jesus in effect states that his visitor was entirely mistaken on the subject about which he came to converse: and that, without a complete change, both of feeling and of thought, he could never see (that is, he could neither understand nor enter) the kingdom of which he deemed himself a member. J. A. Born again. The Greek word anothen has a twofold signification: from above, and over again, or anew. Either sense suits here. It is true that John frequently mentions being born of God, and being born from above; but yet, the connection plainly shows that the Lord had said, born anew. R. B.—He uses the figure of birth and speaks of being born for this kingdom because, in the mind of Nicodemus, his birth from the stock of Abraham gave him his credentials of membership in the kingdom of God. H. C. 4. A Gentile who embraced the Jewish faith was admitted into the Jewish commonwealth by baptism, and was said to be born again. But for themselves, the school of doctors to which Nicodemus belonged had so far lost the spiritual essence and life of their religion as to have taken up the conceit that "it was enough to have been of the seed of Abraham, or the stock of Israel, to make them fit subjects for the kingdom of heaven." Nicodemus, a proud master in that kingdom, could understand how a poor, ignorant, unholy Gentile could require to be made over before he could aspire to the privileges of the Messiah's kingdom; but for himself this seemed as incredible, almost as impossible, as for an old man to be born a second time. J. P. T.—This popular delusion John had already, by his baptism and his teaching, done something to rectify. The full truth it was reserved for Jesus to proclaim, and he does it now to Nicodemus. This master in Israel has come to Jesus to be taught; let him know then that it is not a new doctrine, but a new life, which Jesus has come to proclaim and to impart. The kingdom of God is not an outward or a national one, not the kingdom of a creed, or of an external organized community. It is a kingdom exclusively of the new-born—of those who have been begotten of the Spirit. H. 5. Born of water. In Ezekiel 36: 25-27, we have in one group all the leading ideas found in these words of Christ to Nicodemus: first, "water"—clean, cleansing water, sprinkled and cleansing from all moral filthiness; next, "the new heart and the new spirit" given—which is precisely regeneration; last, the recognition of "the Spirit of God" as the Supreme Agent whose work is set forth by the symbol of cleansing water, but which really gives the new heart and insures the new moral life: "I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes." The word "water" would naturally suggest to Nicodemus this very passage in Ezekiel—not to say also, numerous other Old Testament passages in which water symbolizes the Spirit's agency in the hearts of men. This explains sufficiently why Jesus puts "water" first in order; also why he names it once, and once only—i. e., not as being itself one of the agents in regeneration, but as suggesting the Old Testament passages which speak of the Spirit under the symbol of water. Thus it seems to admit really of no question that Jesus, following Old Testament usage, speaks of water as a symbol of the Holy Spirit's renewing, heart-cleansing agency in regeneration. H. C. 6. Born of the flesh. In this flesh is included every part of that which is born after the ordinary method of generation: even the spirit of man, which, receptive as it is of the Spirit of God, is yet in the natural birth dead, sunk in trespasses and sins, and in a state of wrath. Such "flesh and blood" cannot inherit the kingdom of God. A.—Born of the Spirit. In respect of that spiritual life, that life of obedience, faith, and love, which is the inner experience of the kingdom of God, one must become altogether a new man. J. P. T.—The change is not of new faculties for old, but of new objects of affection. In mind and heart he is the same man; only with all his heart and with all his mind he serves Christ. Every thought remains, and his faculty of thought; but all brought into captivity to the obedience of faith. In motive, in character, in aim, in the objects of his love, but in these, and such as these only, "old things are past away, and behold all things are become new." It is only where this change is undergone that the kingdom of God is begun, and it is from the seat of this inward change that this kingdom spreads—first through the whole man, and then through our race. J. A.—A change of heart is not an unnatural change. It is never miraculous. It is not necessarily convulsive. It is not necessarily even destructive of self-possession. God employs in it an instrument exquisitely adjusted to the mind of man as an intelligent and free being. Truth may act in it with an equipoise of force as tranquil as that of gravitation in the orbits of the stars. Phelps. 8. As this "birth of the Spirit" was still strange to Nicodemus, Christ made use of a sensible image to bring it more vividly before him. "As none can set bounds or limits to the wind, as one hears and feels its blast, but cannot track it to its source or to its aim; so it is with the breath of God's Spirit in those who have experienced the new birth. There is something in the interior life not to be explained or comprehended, which reveals itself only in its operations, and can be known only by experience; it is a life which no one can trace backward to its origin, or forward to its end." N.—The new birth is a stupendous mystery of life, which can be known only by being experienced. It is a mystery in advance of its accomplishment, demanding of us the docility of children in submitting to the process divinely ordained for us. It is a mystery even after its accomplishment. Always will it be a matter of grateful wonder to the Christian, how the Spirit of all grace ever forced, and yet so gently, the fastenings of his bosom, and wrought there so efficiently, and yet so sweetly, his saving work. Verily, the Lord was within us, though we were but half awake to his glory. While all along, at every point, there presses ever the old perplexity, how it is that God can work within us both to will and to do, and we all the while be working out our own salvation. On the one hand, it is plain that no new faculty is called into being. It is equally plain that there has been something more than moral suasion. But precisely what it is that has befallen us we cannot say. We can only say that, whereas once we were blind, now we see; and we praise, not the means of grace, but Jesus of Nazareth, who appointed them. R. D. H.—The whence and whither of the holy wind which lays hold of us by the effectual working of his mighty power, is a mystery, the full revelation of which will be part of the delights of eternity. For there we shall know the mind of the Lord, in which the purpose of our deliverance is rooted, and in that light we shall see, and adoringly celebrate, the wonderful ways in which he has continually from time to time followed us, in order to draw us to himself. R. B. 10. Knowest thou not?** A religious teacher, he professed to know the Old Testament Scriptures. The doctrine of the necessity of a new birth ought not to have appeared strange to him. "A clean heart—circumcision of the heart—a new heart," were expressions he must have read in the prophets, and which pointed toward the new birth. J. C. R. 12. If I have told you thus of what is matter of experience, and runs its course in the human heart during this earthly life, and you think it incomprehensible, how will you believe if I tell you the higher truths of the kingdom—those heavenly mysteries which concern the plan of God for the salvation of man? G.—Among the "heavenly things" of which he would speak, the Lord especially means the atonement, that act determined in the heavenly bosom of eternal love, and accomplished—though in earth, yet not in us, but for us who are earthly—by the abased and exalted Son of man, who is in heaven. If Nicodemus did not believe in the necessity of his regeneration, i. e., if he did not believe that he was a sinner and needed justification to life, how would he be able to believe in that necessity of which the Saviour speaks, that the Son of man must be lifted up, in order that the righteousness may be obtained with which the sinner in regeneration is clothed (13–16)? The Lord's discourse ascends up from the Spirit, who works the new birth, to the Son, who, by his atonement, meritoriously procures it, and from both to the Father, from whom the life, applied by the Spirit and mediated by the Son, comes as the original giver. R. B.—If the renewed heart be such a marvel to us, much more that great sacrifice which has paved its way. If Jesus was, as the Scriptures assure us, God manifest in the flesh, then have we a heavenly mystery answering to the earthly. Not that we can enter into the hidden depths of his august person, running the line of boundary between his natures, daring to say in which of the natures he suffered for our sins; and yet the mighty work accomplished within us compels us to an exalted faith in the mighty work accomplished for us in that tasting death for every man. R. D. H. 13. The sense manifestly is this: "The perfect knowledge of God is not obtained by any man's going up from earth to heaven to receive it—no man hath so ascended—but he whose proper habitation, in his essential and eternal nature, is heaven, hath, by taking human flesh, descended as 'the Son of man' to disclose the Father, whom he knows by immediate gaze alike in the flesh as before he assumed it, being essentially and unchangeably 'in the bosom of the Father.'" B.—The Son of man, the Lord Jesus, the Word made flesh, was in, came down from, heaven, and was in heaven while here, and ascended up into heaven when he left this earth; and by all these proofs, speaking in the prophetic language of accomplished redemption, does the Lord establish, that he alone can speak of heavenly things to men, or convey the blessing of the new birth to them. A. The Son of man. In the texture of the gospels, it is obviously his manhood which is emphatically insisted on as being truly the miracle, and not his superior nature, which is continually assumed indirectly, or referred to by the Divine Teacher with that calm and lofty familiarity which makes it an inherent dignity. In truth, the constant careful ascriptions of manhood—the very phrase, "Son of man," chosen as an exclusive title—are themselves the most unequivocal proof that he who bore them was more than man; for otherwise where were the force or pertinency of a designation equally applicable to every child of Adam? He must have been more than ever man was or could be, by whom "the Son of man" was selected as a special, appropriate, and distinctive title. Mightier than man, he has become man; by voluntary assumption he is one with us in nature; as such he suffered for all, as such he can sympathize with all, and as such he will judge all. W. A. B. 14. Of the heavenly nature of the Son of man, Jesus had just spoken. He now passes from his nature to his work—that work of redemption which forms the basis to that of regeneration, with the necessity of which the conference had begun. C. B.—As Moses lifted up the serpent, so the Son of man. In both cases the remedy is conspicuously displayed: in the one case on a pole, in the other on the cross, to “draw all men unto him.” In both cases, it is by directing the eye to the uplifted Remedy that the cure is effected; in the one case the bodily eye, in the other the gaze of the soul by “believing in him,” as in that glorious ancient proclamation, “Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” Both methods are stumbling to human reason. What, to any thinking Israelite, could seem more unlikely than that a deadly poison should be dried up in his body by simply looking on a reptile of brass? Such a stumbling-block to the Jews and to the Greeks foolishness was faith in the crucified Nazarene, as a way of deliverance from eternal perdition. Yet was the warrant in both cases to expect a cure equally rational and well grounded. As the serpent was God’s ordinance for the cure of every bitten Israelite, so is Christ for the salvation of every perishing sinner—the one, however, a purely arbitrary ordinance, the other divinely adapted to man’s complicated maladies. In both cases the efficacy is the same. As one simple look at the serpent, however distant and however weak, brought an instantaneous cure, even so, real faith in the Lord Jesus, however tremulous, however distant—be it but real faith—brings certain and instant healing to the perishing soul. In a word, the consequences of disobedience are the same in both. B.—Nothing could have been more startling to Jewish modes of thought, or even to the mind of Nicodemus, who was still in bondage to the outward letter, than an intimation that Messiah was not to appear in earthly splendor, but was to found the salvation of mankind upon the basis of his own sufferings. This was indeed, and ever, the stumbling-block of the Jews. N. 16. Moving forward in his discourse logically, his next point naturally is to trace this scheme of salvation for lost men to its source in the deep, eternal, absolutely infinite love of God for this lost world. H. C.—Thus the Three Persons of the Trinity are all revealed in their working for man’s redemption: the Father loving the world so as even to give his Son to die for man; the Son coming down from heaven to be lifted up on the cross, and ascending to heaven again; and the Spirit renewing the hearts of those who should enter the kingdom of heaven. S.—The doctrine of the Trinity is omnipresent in revelation, like the God it declares! Wherever it is not asserted, it is assumed: it is not one thread in the web, but the ground of the whole texture. Everywhere the gospel points our aspirations to God: we rush forward, and it is Christ that meets us! Everywhere it bids us pray to feel and know an inward God; we pray, we gain our prayer, and the Spirit becomes ours! . . . And what but love brought the eternal Trinity to glorify our earth, to tell us of themselves and give themselves to us? Love, the one grace which is mutual between God and man, which made God human and makes man divine! W. A. B. This is one of those best and most glorious gospels which were well worthy to be written in letters of gold, if it could be, in the heart; justly would it be the daily lesson and meditation of every Christian, that so it might visit his thoughts in his prayers, strengthening his faith and quickening his heart to call upon God; for it is a word which has power to make mourners joyful, to make dead men alive, if the heart only steadfastly believes in it. Here thou seest what faith is and means, viz., that it is not a mere bare thought concerning Christ, that he was born of the Virgin, that he suffered, was crucified, that he rose again, ascended into heaven; but it is such a heart as infolds and lays hold on the Son of God, according to the meaning of these words; a heart that holds it for a certainty that God gave his only-begotten Son for us, and has thus loved us that we, for his sake, might not perish, but have eternal life. And because thou thus believest, thou shalt surely be saved, for this word is a power and a might stronger than any terror of sin or damnation, and this gift is so large that it swallows up sin, death, and hell. Luther. That God should love such a world and not hate it—that he should love it so as to provide salvation—that in order to provide salvation he should give, not an angel, nor any created being, but such a priceless gift as his only-begotten Son—that this salvation should be freely offered to every one that believeth—all, all this was indeed a “heavenly thing.” —17. Condemn. The same word elsewhere rendered “judge.” Our Lord would have us know that judgment and the condemnation of the ungodly are not the work of the first advent, but of the second.—18. The only-begotten Son of God. In the 14th verse he called himself “the Son of man.” Both the names were used to impress upon the mind of Nicodemus the two natures of Messiah. He was not only the Son of man but the Son of God. The same words are used in both places about faith in Christ. If we would be saved, we must believe in him both as the Son of man and the Son of God. It is not said, that the believer shall not be condemned at the last day, but that “he is not condemned.” The very moment a sinner believes on Christ, his iniquities are taken away, and he is counted righteous. [On the other hand] the man who refuses to believe on Christ [“is condemned already”] is in a state of condemnation before God, even while he lives. J. C. R.—He that believeth on him—he who believeth that the only-begotten Son of God was for him given up to the judgment of death and condemnation—is not condemned, for what in him is liable to condemnation, viz., sin, has been already condemned and put to death on the cross of the surety. R. B.—All other sins can be forgiven. But the sin of unbelief in God's offered Son puts the soul beyond the pale of mercy; practically nullifies, as to the man who will not believe in Jesus, all that God in his great mercy has provided for human salvation. H. C.—In the last judgment there will be no need of any long inquisition, but the sentence will simply be: Because thou believedst not thou art already condemned. Chemnitz. 19-21. It is the perpetual annoyance of sinners that God has made them with a moral sense which condemns sin—which insists upon witnessing against sin as wrong, base, unworthy of a moral being. This witnessing testimony of his own conscience the sinner must in some way withstand. How shall he do it? In the words before us, the Great Teacher treats the case with beautiful yet rich simplicity. Truth is light—truth being to the mind what light is to the body. This light of moral sort God has brought into the world. In his power of moral choices man has his option to come or not to come to this light. If he loves light, he comes; if he loves darkness rather, he hates the light and will not come. Of course he will love darkness if his deeds are deeds of darkness, such as can not bear the light. As long as a man proposes to continue in sin, he will vindicate his former sinning self so far as he can, and will labor to make his sins appear trivial, i. e., he will shut off the light, will dread its revelations; will hate it and will not come up to it lest it make his life and his soul unendurably odious. On the other hand, if a man live up to his moral convictions—in the words of Jesus, if he "doeth truth," then he will come to the light, and you may at once see that his doings are manifestly "wrought in God"—the deeds of a soul new-born to God with that birth which is by the Spirit. The ultimate doctrine reached by this philosophy of gospel faith and unbelief is that both have their roots rather in the heart than in the head, since gospel faith wells up spontaneously in the heart that loves purity and truth; while gospel unbelief has its roots and impulses in cherished sin and in the darkness which brings the only comfort to a persistent sinner. H. C. There are two wonders: God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son—and the world so loved darkness, that it rejected the only-begotten Son of God who was given for it. This is Israel's history, and that of all the lost, as the Lord contemplates plates it in its completeness. R. B.—In these memorable words about the light and the darkness with which the interview was closed, Jesus gently rebuked the fear of man which led this great rabbi to seek the shelter of midnight for a deed which was not a deed of darkness needing to be concealed, but which was indeed a coming to the true and only Light. F.—He speaks of himself, even now, when obscure and alone, as a king, and shows a serene composure in extending his royalty over even the souls of men. In the presence of a famous rabbi, he claims to be the light to which all men, without exception, must come, who love the truth. His first utterance anticipates the highest claims of his last. An humble Galilean, easy of access, sympathetic, obscure, he calmly announces himself as the Son of man, whose home is heaven: as knowing the counsels of God from eternity: as the only-begotten Son of the Eternal, and the arbiter of eternal life or death to the world. It is idle to speak of any merely human utterances, even of the greatest and best of our race, in the presence of such thoughts and words as these: they are the voice of a higher sphere, though falling from the lips of one who walked as a man among men. G. The seed then sown was long to be dormant. For three years there was no token of its germination. At last the words that three years before had sounded in the ruler's listening ear, and which had since been frequently recalled, are verified and explained. The cross is raised; Jesus is lifted up. The darkened heavens, the reeling earth, the prayer for his crucifers, the promise to the penitent who dies beside him, the voice of triumph at the close, proclaim the death of that only-begotten Son of God whom he had given to be the Saviour of the world. The scales drop off from the eyes they so long had covered. Fear goes out, and faith comes into Nicodemus's breast, a faith that plants him by Joseph's side in the garden, and unites their hands in the rendering of the last services to the body, which they buried in the new sepulchre. What a flood of light fell then on the hitherto mysterious words of the Crucified; what a rich treasure of comfort would the meditation of them unfold to Nicodemus; and what an honor that to him were first addressed those words which have comforted so many millions since, and are destined to comfort so many millions more in the years that are to come: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that who-soever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." H. ## Section 21.—The Baptist's Last Testimony. Imprisoned by Herod. 1. WHEN therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and 2 baptized more disciples than John, (though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,) 3, 4 he left Judea, and departed again into Galilee. And he must needs go through Sama- 5 ria. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel 6 of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 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. 7 There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to 8, 9 drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) 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 with the Samaritans. 10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith unto thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would 11 have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to 12 draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, 13 and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drink- 14 eth of this water, shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst: but the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well 15 of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. 16, 17 Jesus saith unto her, Go call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no hus- 18 band: for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast, is not thy hus- 19 band: in that saidst thou truly. The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou 20 art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem 21 is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship 22 the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation 23 is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth. 25 The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: 26 when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.  This ridge or mountainous tract extends from the plain of Esdraelon to a line drawn between the south end of the Dead Sea and the southeastern corner of the Mediterranean. This tract, which is everywhere not less than 20 to 25 geographical miles in breadth, is in fact high uneven table-land. It everywhere forms the precipitous western wall of the great valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, while toward the west it sinks down by an offset into a range of lower hills, which lie between it and the great plain along the coast of the Mediterranean. The surface of this upper region is everywhere rocky, uneven, and mountainous; and is everywhere cut up by deep valleys which run on either side, east toward the Jordan, or west toward the Mediterranean. R. CHRIST speaks, not as a Jew, but as the Son of man; the representative of the whole race. The bitter controversy between race and race is only touched, in passing, with a divine mildness. Rising high, not only above his own age, but even above the prejudices of all ages since, he gives mankind their charter of spiritual liberty for evermore. Jerusalem and Gerizim are only local and subordinate considerations. The true worship has its temple in the inmost soul, in the spirit and heart. It is the life of the soul; it is communion with God; the espousal of our nature to truth. It is spiritual and moral, not outward and ritual, springing from the great truth which Jesus had first uttered, that God is a Spirit. The revelation of this, in the wide application now given it, was the foundation of the new religion of all humanity. Religion was henceforth no tribal privilege jealously kept within the narrow bounds of mere nationality. The universal presence of a spiritual God made the whole world alike his shrine. The veil of the temple was first rent at Jacob's well, and he who had, as men thought, dwelt only in the narrow limits of the chamber it shrouded, went forth from that hour to consecrate all the earth as one great Holy of Holies. G. THE first eight months of our Lord's ministry were spent in Judea. By the sign from heaven, by the Baptist's proclamation, by Christ's own words and deeds, he was presented to the rulers and to the people as the Son of God, the Messiah. His character was misunderstood; his claims were rejected. At Jerusalem a plot against his life was formed; it was no longer safe for him to reside where the Jewish authorities had power. Jesus retired to Galilee. H.—It was his policy to evade for a time, and so postpone, the outburst of this storm until he had trained his disciples, and laid the foundations for great gospel work by his example and his preaching. Here we have the reason why so large a portion of his miracles and teaching were in Galilee rather than in Judea. H. C. 1,2. It would seem to have been a sudden impulse of zeal in their Master's cause which led those first disciples to engage so eagerly in baptizing. By his own removal to Galilee, an entirely new state of things was ushered in, and by John's imprisonment his baptism ceased; nor do we read anywhere of a Galilean baptism by the disciples of Jesus. H. 4. He must. Not only because Samaria lay between Judea and Galilee, but he must also in that sense in which he said he must abide at Zaccheus's house. This day salvation was to come to Samaria; and while people generally were fain to go all the way round by Perea, merely to avoid Samaria, so much was it hated, that friend of all that is lost hastened with joy to journey to Galilee by the direct way through Samaria. R. B. 5. Shechem, or Sychar, is midway between Hebron and Kadesh-Naphtali—between Jerusalem and Nazareth—and between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. N. C. B.—Geographically and historically we are here in the centre spot of the Holy Land. The long backbone of Palestine—its central mountain-range—is here suddenly cleft in twain, and a deep valley, in places scarcely more than 500 yards wide, is sunk 800 feet below the inclosing mountains of Ebal to the north, and Gerizim to the south. H. B. T.—At Nablus the range of hills which traverses Palestine from north to south is pierced by a remarkable pass running nearly east and west; on the north the pass is flanked by the range of Mount Ebal, rising at its highest point to 3,029 feet above the sea, or 1,200 feet above the level of the valley; on the south by the range of Mount Gerizim, rising to 2,898 feet. Between these two mountains the valley rises gently toward the east, to the water-parting between the waters of the Mediterranean and the Jordan, at which point there is a remarkable topographical feature which is not often met with—a recess on either side of the valley, forming a grand natural amphitheatre, the scene in all probability of the ratification of the law. From this point the ground falls gradually to the rich plain of El-Mukhna, which runs north and south, and is bounded westward by the steep eastern declivities of Ebal and Gerizim. Where the valley merges into the plain there are two sites of great interest—Joseph's tomb, and Jacob's well. Amid this wealth of verdure, clinging as it were to the slopes of Gerizim, the mount of blessings, lies Nablus, the ancient Shechem; its situation, with easy access to the Mediterranean on the one hand, and to the Jordan valley and Trans-Jordanic district on the other, marking it as a place of importance from the earliest period. Wilson. A valley green with grass, gray with olive-gardens sloping down on each side; fresh springs rushing down in all directions; at the end, a white town with dome-shaped roofs, embosomed in all this verdure, lodged between the high mountains which extend on each side of the valley—that on the north, Ebal; that on the south, Gerizim—this is the aspect of Shechem, or Nablus. A. P. S.—Here there is no wilderness, no wild thicket; yet there is always shade of the olive-grove, so soft in color, so picturesque in form that, for its sake, we can willingly dispense with all other wood. Here there are no impetuous mountain-torrents, yet there is water in more copious supplies than anywhere else  Jacob's Well.—On the left is Mount Gerizim, and on the right, Mount Ebal; between the two, the Vale of Shechem. in the land; and it is to its many fountains, rills, and water-courses, that the valley owes its exquisite beauty. Vandebilde. In Shechem, Abraham first pitched his tent before the oaks of Moreh, and it became the favorite pasture-ground of Jacob. When the Israelites had crossed the Jordan, the neighboring mountains of Ebal and Gerizim became a second Sinai, where the law was solemnly republished to the assembled tribes. A. Thomson.—It is hardly too much to  Nablus, Vale of Shechem. say of this natural amphitheatre that there is no other place in Palestine so suitable for the assembly of an immense body of men within the limits to which a human voice could reach, and where at the same time each individual would be able to see what was being done. The recesses in the two mountains, which form the amphitheatre, are exactly opposite to each other; and the limestone strata running up to the very summits in a succession of ledges present the appearance of a series of regular benches. A grander sight can scarcely be imagined than that which the reading of the law must have presented: the ark borne by the Levites, on the gentle elevation which separates the waters of the Mediterranean from those of the Dead Sea, and “all Israel and their elders, and officers, and their judges,” on this side and that, “half of them over against Mount Gerizim, and half of them over against Mount Ebal,” covering the bare hill-sides from head to foot. Wilson. 6. Jacob’s well. Close under the eastern foot of Gerizim, at the opening of the side valley [the vale of Shechem] from the wide plain of Mukhna, on a slight knoll, a mile and a half from the town, surrounded now by stones and broken pillars, is Jacob’s well. G.—The existence of a well sunk to a great depth in a place where water-springs on the surface are abundant, is sufficiently remarkable to give this well a peculiar history. The interior presents the appearance of being lined throughout with rough masonry. When examined in 1866, it was only seventy-five feet deep; but there can be no doubt that the original depth was much greater. The well was undoubtedly sunk to a great depth for the purpose of securing, even in exceptionally dry seasons, a supply of water. Kitchener. There is no doubt that the well still shown to travellers near Nablus is the well of Jacob. Its position near to Sychar, its importance as inferred from its dimensions, go far, of themselves, to determine its identity; and the conclusion is confirmed by an undivided, unbroken tradition—Jewish, Samaritan, Arabian, Turkish, Christian. Besides the absence of all doubt as to its identity, there is another circumstance which surrounds it with a peculiar sacredness. It is the one only locality in Palestine that you can connect with the presence of the Redeemer. You cannot in all Palestine draw another circle of limited diameter within whose circumference you can be absolutely certain that Jesus once stood, except round Jacob’s well. H.—The framework of life, of customs, of manners, even of dress and speech, is still substantially the same as it was ages ago. The vineyards, the cornfields, the houses, the wells of Syria still retain the outward imagery of the teaching of Christ and the apostles. A. P. S.—Let a person take his seat on that fragment of granite pillar which lies near the mouth of the well, and read the fourth chapter of John’s gospel, and he will be struck with the fact that all the great features of the scene are here very much as our Lord left them, and that imagination has little more to do than introduce again into the picture the living characters. A. Thomson. 7. A woman of Samaria. The labors and the life of the Great Master of Israel began, not with a vast congregation, but with a single individual; not upon a set appointment, but in a merely incidental, casual meeting, when the Master was weary and hungry with a six hours’ walk. And this one was an unknown woman, not moving in the higher plane of social life, but apparently in the lowest; not a woman of previously unblemished reputation, but one whose record was at least doubtful. The only point of attractiveness apparent to us in her case was that she was human—a soul to be saved or lost. H. C.—This is perhaps the most human of all the scenes of our Lord’s earthly history. We seem to be beside him, overhearing all that is here recorded; nor could any painting of the scene on canvas, however perfect, do other than lower the conception which this exquisite narrative conveys to the devout and intelligent reader. But with all that is human, how much also of the divine have we here, both blended in one glorious manifestation of the majesty, grace, pity, patience with which “the Lord” imparts light and life to this unlikeliest of strangers, standing midway between Jews and heathens! B.—There are just four instances recorded in the Saviour’s life—that of the woman of Samaria, of the Roman centurion, of the Canaanitish woman, and of the Greeks who came up to Jerusalem—of our Lord’s dealings with those who stood without the pale of Judaism, and as we come upon them in the narrative, we shall be struck with the singular interest which Jesus took in each; the singular care that he bestowed in testing and bringing out to view the simplicity and strength of the desire toward him, and faith in him, that were displayed; the fulness of the revelations of himself that he made, and of that satisfaction and delight with which he contemplated the issue. It was the great and good Shepherd gathering in a lamb or two from the outfields, in token that there were other sheep out of the Jewish fold, whom also he was to bring in, so that there should be one fold and one shepherd. H. 10. She belonged to a people with whom any other Jew would have scorned to hold intercourse; but he opened to her mind some of the divinest ideas which have ever been put into the language of men. Y.—Having asked for water he sets forth this “gift” under the image of water; as at John 6:48–51, where men are waiting on him for the bread that perishes, he sets forth the same under  that of bread. T.—The water is, in this first part of the discourse, the subject, and serves as a point of connection, whereby the woman's thoughts may be elevated and her desire aroused. From recognizing this water as the gift of God, in its imitation, verse 13, and its parabolic import, verse 14, her view is directed to him who was speaking with her, and the gift which he should bestow—the gift of the Holy Spirit. Who it is. These pregnant words form the second step in our Lord's declaration. He who is speaking with thee is no ordinary Jew, nor any ordinary man, but one who can give thee the gift of God: one sent from God, and God himself. All this lies in the words, which, however, only serve to arouse in the woman's mind the question of verse 12. Living water. Designedly used in a double sense by our Lord, that the woman may lay hold of the material meaning, and by it be awakened to the higher one. A. 11. The well is deep.** The digging of it must have been a work of enormous labor. Maundrell, who visited it in 1697, gives this account: "It is dug in a firm rock, and contains about nine feet in diameter, and a hundred and five in depth, with fifteen feet of water." The rock has since crumbled, or in other ways the well has been in part filled in, and recent measurements give a depth of seventy-five feet only, the spring at the bottom being choked. T. 13,14. Thirst again . . . never thirst.** The contrast here is fundamental and all-comprehensive. "This water" plainly means "this natural water and all satisfactions of a like earthly and perishable nature." Coming to us from without, and reaching only the superficial parts of our nature, they are soon spent, and need to be anew supplied as much as if we had never experienced them before, while the deeper wants of our being are not reached by them at all; whereas the "water" that Christ gives—spiritual life—is struck out of the very depths of our being, making the soul not a cistern, for holding water poured into it from without, but a fountain springing, gushing, and flowing forth from within us, ever fresh, ever living. The indwelling of the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of Christ is the secret of this life with all its enduring energies and satisfactions, as is expressly said (7 : 37-39). B. 16. Hitherto, he had attempted to reach the heart directly, and, consequently, spoke of the water of life of which the heart stands in need. She felt no wants of the heart, and therefore did not understand the offer to supply them. Jesus now takes a more circuitous way, partly to quicken her conscience, in order by her conscience to reach her heart, and partly to manifest himself to her as the searcher of the heart. C. B.—Call thy husband. The first step toward granting her request. The first work of the Spirit of God, and of him who spake in the fulness of that Spirit, is to convince of sin. A.—The words can only be taken as spoken with the intention of calling out that very answer which they did call out; of bringing her, in this way, to a wholesome shame, to attain the object for which they were uttered. 18. This she has "said well," inasmuch as she had spoken the truth; for a true confession is always well made, however ill it may be that the making of such a confession should be required. He proceeds, with firm and gentle hand, to draw her from the hiding-places in which she may still have hoped to lie hid; to unroll before her the blurred and blotted scroll of her past existence. T. 19,20. She saw that a prophet was before her, but from the facts of her own history—on which she is naturally anxious to linger as little as possible—her eager mind flies to the one great question which was daily agitated with such passion between her race and that of him to whom she spake, and which lay at the root of the animosity with which they treated each other. F.—There may have been an attempt to parry conviction, and to turn aside the hand of the convincer, by raising questions about places and forms of worship; but I cannot think, had this been the spirit and motive of this woman's inquiries, that Jesus would have dealt with them as he did, treating them evidently as the earnest inquiries of one wishing to be instructed. H. One Manasses, brother of Joiada the high-priest, about the year B. C. 332, was chased from Jerusalem on account of a marriage which he had contracted with the daughter of Sanballat, the Persian governor of Samaria, and which, when required, he refused to dissolve. He was received with open arms by his father-in-law, who undertook to rear for him on Mount Gerizim, the highest mountain in Samaria, a temple more magnificent than that from which he had been driven; where he should himself exercise the office of high-priest. The secession was reinforced by other fugitives and apostates, many of them priests. The temple thus reared was destroyed by John Hyrcanus B. C. 129; but the worship continued on Mount Gerizim, which by this time the Samaritans had learned to regard as the holiest mountain in the world, some sort of edifice no doubt occupying the place of the temple which had disappeared. Everything in fact may have been there—except the presence of God. T. 21. To the question which agitated her soul, "Gerizim or Jerusalem?" and which she sought to have decided by this "prophet," the Lord replies with a "Woman, believe me!" which at once entreats and awakens confidence. This is the only time that we hear this form of expression. R. B. —Neither in this mountain. A strange vividness is given to the words when, looking up, we see the eastern extremity of that Gerizim to which the Saviour must have pointed when he spoke, rising sheer up eight hundred feet, and when we know that yon white tomb, which seems almost to bend over the summit, stands on the site of the old rival temple of Samaritan worship! . . . This memorable sentence was the death-knell of all local religions, and swept away all sacred places from the earth by making every place sacred. A. Thomson. —Worship the Father. You inquire concerning the place of worshipping. But a far more important question is at issue between us, the Being to be worshipped, respecting whom you are ignorant. Mede. 22. Ye know not: we know. The Samaritans are ignorant of the true worship of God, because they reject the prophets, the several stages of revelation that have prepared the way for that which is the aim of all, the manifestation of the Redeemer; the Jews, on the other hand, do worship God intelligently, since they have recognized his successive revelations, and are thus fitted to be the medium through which salvation may come forth for men; to lead to which salvation is the end and aim of all God's revelations. Jerusalem, meanwhile, had to be the seat of worship, because from Jerusalem the redemption, which was to raise worship to a higher sphere, was to spring up. N.—Salvation is of the Jews.** This wonderful people was chosen by sovereign grace to stand amid the surrounding idolatry as the bearer of the knowledge of Jehovah, the only true God, of his holy law, and of his comforting promise, and thus to become the cradle of the Messiah. P. S. 23. The hour cometh when, stripped of all restraints to a single people, a single town; relieved of all supports required in its weak childhood—the spirit of a true piety shall go forth in freedom over the globe, seeking for those—whatever the places they choose, the outward forms they adopt—who will adore and serve him in spirit and in truth, and wherever it finds them, owning them as true worshippers of the Father. H.—The existence of a Supreme Eternal Cause is assumed in the New Testament, as a first principle; and, as in the case of the soul, a direct and fearless appeal is made here, also, to the consciousness of the human mind. He teaches her that the true God is not a local or national divinity, but a universal presence, and that true worship is always and only spiritual for the simple reason that the object of worship is a spirit. Y.—God being pure "spirit" (his essence not his personality being here spoken of) cannot dwell in particular temples; but is to be approached in that part of our being which is spirit; and even there, inasmuch as he is pure and holy, with no by-ends nor hypocritical regards, but in truth and earnestness. A.—Because God is spirit men must worship him, and not any material representation of him; must worship him, and not any place where he is supposed to be. Not hands but hearts must worship God; not wood and stone but living souls must furnish his abode. . . . This Spirit, though infinite in his own nature, is not at an infinite remove from us in space nor in feeling; but is a loving Father, who thinks upon us, cares for us, and seeks us, desiring the communion of our spirits with himself. J. P. T. As worship in spirit is opposed to that which is confined wholly, or chiefly, to isolated outward acts, so worship in the truth is opposed to that which adheres to sensuous types and images that only veil the truth. And this true spiritual worship can only flow from those who are in communion of life with God, as Father. Only in proportion as men partake of the divine life, by appropriating Christ's revealed truth, can they succeed in worshipping God in spirit and in truth. Christ used the words, "the time cometh, and is now," because the true, spiritual worship was realized, in its perfection, in himself; and because he had planted seeds in the hearts of his disciples, from which it was to develop itself in them, and through them in all mankind. N.—True religion is not external worship in any place or any form; it is the approach of the soul to God, spirit to spirit, in the way which God himself has revealed through Jesus Christ. Christ is the Way, the Truth, the Life; and through him the soul of any man, whenever, wherever he lives, may have the knowledge and fellowship of the Eternal Spirit. The true Holy Place is the soul itself. Here, as in all New Testament teachings, the essential thing is the one Person, the Messiah, the Saviour of the world. As he began with a reference to himself as one that would bestow living waters to every thirsty soul, so he ends by disclosing himself as the only true salvation, the restorer of the guilty soul to God. W. A. 25,26. The newness, the breadth, the sublimity, if not also the truth of his teaching, at once suggested to the mind of the listener the thought of that Messiah for whom Samaritan and Jew alike were looking. H.—Her honest wish to know the truth; her interest in the standing of her people to God and the law, and her anxious yearning for the coming of the Messiah, revealed a frame of mind fitted to receive further light. The first great revelation of the Saviour was to humble shepherds. The first direct disclosure of himself as the Messiah was to an humble Samaritan woman! G.—Her Scriptures—the five books of Moses—have told her of a prophet whom God would raise up, even the Messiah; and doubtingly, yet with wistful desire, she suggests that if she but knew that Jesus was indeed he, she would trust him. And, now that she is prepared for the explicit announcement of the Messiahship of Jesus, he makes it, drawing her full faith upon himself and sealing her as his disciple: I that speak unto thee am he! N. C. B.—At last the woman obtained an answer to one of her first questions, "Art thou greater than our father Jacob?" The answer converted her soul. J. C. R.—The Samaritan expectation of a Messiah, if in some respects weaker, was mingled with fewer disturbing elements; not to say that the acceptance of a Jewish Messiah upon their parts could arouse no worldly hopes or expectations in their hearts. To them, to this woman, and afterward to her fellow-countrymen, he could declare himself without fear of the consequences, and he did so. T. JESUS knew and testified to his Messiahship from the beginning, from his first public appearance until his last declaration, made before the high-priests in the very face of death; although he did not always proclaim it with equal openness, especially when there was risk of popular commotions from false and temporal conceptions of the Messiah on the part of the people; but rather gradually led them, from the acknowledgment of his prophetic character (by which, indeed, they were bound to believe in his words), to recognize him as the Messiah, a prophet also, but in the highest sense. N. Perhaps no Christian scholar ever attentively read the fourth chapter of John, without being struck with the numerous internal evidences of truth which crowd upon the mind in its perusal. Within so small a compass it is impossible to find, in other writings, so many sources of reflection, and of interest. A volume might be filled with the illustration it reflects upon the history of the Jews, and upon the geography of their country. All that can be gathered on these subjects from Josephus seems but as a comment to illustrate this chapter. The journey of our Lord from Judea into Galilee; the cause of it; his passage through the territory of Samaria; his approach to the metropolis of that country; its name; his arrival at the Amorite field which terminates the narrow valley of Sichem; the ancient custom of halting at a well; the female employment of drawing water; the disciples sent into the city for food, by which its situation out of the town is so obviously implied; the question of the woman referring to existing prejudices which separated the Jews from the Samaritans; the depth of the well; the Oriental allusion contained in the expression, “living water;” the history of the well, and the customs thereby illustrated; the worship upon Mount Gerizim: all these occur within the space of twenty verses. E. D. Clarke. ## Section 23.—Visits the Samaritans. Sychar, or Shechem. 27. And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: 28 yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her? The woman 29 then left her water-pot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, 30 see a man which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city, and came unto him.31, 32 In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. But he said unto 33 them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him aught to eat?34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish 35 his work. 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 36 harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: 37 that both he that soweth, and he that reapeth, may rejoice together. And herein is 38 that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the 40 woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did. So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there 41, 42 two days. And many more believed, because of his own word; and said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world. THE height from which Jesus stooped, the moral glory of his nature, the exquisite purity and serenity of that atmosphere in which he had been accustomed to breathe, render it all the more astonishing that he should submit to descend so low, and so long for our sakes to dwell in the foul region of this world's ungodliness and evil. He came, love on his lips, and gifts of benignity in his hands. He went forth among men to heal and comfort and bless. Wherever he went, beneficence streamed out from him on every side. No toil, or hardship, or weariness, or want, could damp his ardor, or interrupt his ministry of love—the self-forgetting, self-devoted, universal benefactor. And for all this the only return he asked was—love. For food, healing, life—for pardon, purity, peace—for countless earthly blessings, and for a blessing transcending them far as heaven transcends earth—eternal mercy laid at every guilty, dying sinner's feet—for all this, all he wanted, or asked, or cared for, was only that men would love him, open their hearts, yield up their affections to him, their divinest friend. C. 27. His disciples. Probably the two pairs of brothers whom he had called among the earliest, and with them the friends Philip and Bartholomew, had left him, to buy in the neighboring city what was necessary for their wants. F.—The woman. Rather, with a woman. They are surprised that he should break through the conventional restraints imposed by rabbinical authority, and be seen speaking to one of the other sex in public. L.—No man said, Why talkest thou? The expression shows the deep reverence and respect with which the disciples regarded our Lord and all his actions, even at this early period of his ministry. It also shows that they sometimes thought things about him to which they dared not give expression, and saw deeds of his which they could not understand, but at which they were content silently to wonder. There is a lesson for us in their conduct. J. C. R. 28. In the forgetfulness of a great joy, she left her water-pot, as apostles before had left their nets; so soon has she learned to prefer the water which Christ gives to the fountain which Jacob gave. T.—29. Is this the Christ? The number of questions in the New Testament is an instructive fact. Their value is well illustrated here. Had the woman said, "This is the Christ!" she might have excited prejudice and dislike. By asking, Is this he? she got the men to inquire and judge for themselves. J. C. R.—Out of the fulness of an overflowing heart she cries: "Come and see! See a man which told me all things that ever I did." Thus we see, that of all the words which the Saviour spoke to her, his call to repentance had entered the deepest into her heart; in the one word that he had said respecting her sinful life she had heard everything. R. B. 32. I have meat that ye know not. And of what does he speak thus? Of the condescension, pity, patience, wisdom he had been laying out upon one soul—a very humble woman, and in some respects repulsive too! But he had gained her, and through her was going to gain more, and lay perhaps the foundations of a great work in the country of Samaria; and this filled his whole soul, and raised him above the sense of natural hunger. B.—As his thirst had been not so much after the water of Jacob's well as after her conversion who had come to draw water thence, so now his hunger is not for the food which they have prepared, but for those whom he beholds already hastening from the neighboring city, that they may hear and receive his word. T. 34,35. They wondered that he did not touch the provisions they had brought. His corporeal wants are forgotten in the higher thoughts that occupy him; the work of his life is before him, the planting of the seeds of divine truth in a human soul, and through it in many others, even beyond the limits of the Jewish people. The Samaritan woman is an exponent of this new progress of the kingdom of God. Her countrymen are approaching; the seed is already germinating. He replies, therefore, to his disciples, "I have meat to eat which ye know not of. (The nourishment of the body is forgotten in that of the Spirit.) My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work (to sow the seed for the general diffusion of the kingdom of God among men)." He then illustrates the work of God, which he had just begun among the Samaritans, by a similitude from the face of nature before them. Glancing, on the one side, at the peasants scattered over the fertile valley, busily sowing their seed, and, on the other, at the Samaritans, thronging from the town in answer to the woman's call, he says to the disciples, "Are ye not wont to say, at this season of the year, 'There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest?' So it is, indeed, in the natural, but not in the spiritual world. The seed is just sown, and already the harvest appears. 'Lift up your eyes' (pointing to the approaching Samaritans), 'and see how the fields are already whitening to the harvest.'" N.—But Samaria did certainly not bound nor fill up the longing gaze of the heavenly Sower; the field upon which he called his disciples to look with eyes of joy, stretches itself far away even to the end of the earth. R. B. 36. "How rich the reward for you, my disciples, who will be the reapers! You will gather fruit, not like the harvest of earth, but fruit unto life eternal. You and I, the Sower and the reapers, may well rejoice together in the parts assigned us by God. Think of the final harvest home, when Heaven, the great garner, shall have the last sheaf carried thither!" G.—Receiveth wages and gathereth fruit. Here is a twofold magnifying of the spiritual reaper's office; he has his own reward, in part upon earth, and in full fruition in heaven; and, in addition to this, he ministers salvation to others. T. 38. Other men laboured. The prophets of the Old Testament and John the Baptist had sown the seed. The minds of men were prepared to expect the Messiah, and the apostles had only to go forth and proclaim that Messiah was come. J. C. R.—In the divine economy there is a wise arrangement of succession; everything earlier is the sowing out of a harvest to follow. Every man is a sower with reference to his successor, and a reaper with reference to his predecessors. Beng.—The servants of Jesus Christ in a body reap and gather into life eternal only that which has been sown by him. Yet among themselves, the laborers in the Lord's harvest are joined together into one chain, in which the last link feels the sustaining power of all the preceding ones. R. B.—It seems to be God's law never to suffer any man to do all a work. One soweth, and another reapeth. This man finishes what that man began. A. W. T.—The joy, therefore, of the great harvest festivity will be the common joy of all who have taken any part in the work from the first operation to the last. B. 40. While orthodox Jews besought him that he would depart from among them, poor heretical Samaritans make it their petition that he would tarry with them; so have the first become last, and the last first. Nor did they make this petition in vain. . . . This, as he has intimated already, was a sowing time and a reaping time all in one—the two drawn into marvellous nearness with one another. T. Abode two days. Two precious days, surely, to the Redeemer himself! Unsought, he had come to his own, yet his own received him not; now those who were not his own had come to him, been won by him, and invited him to their town that others might share with them in the benefit of his wonderful ministry. Here, then, would he solace his already wounded spirit, and have in this outfield village triumph of his grace a sublime foretaste of the inbringing of the whole Gentile world into the Church. B.—It is peculiarly instructive that the first extensive success of the gospel message was manifested among those who witnessed no miracle. The message itself seems to have been to this people an evidence of its truth. They heard the words of our Lord, and in simple faith they believed. J. A. 42. This is the only occasion on which the phrase, "Saviour of the world," appears in the gospels, as only once elsewhere in the New Testament. It occurs first on the lips of these Samaritan converts. Such language, with the mighty truth which was bound up with it, was still a long way off from Jewish thought, had not as yet risen above the horizon in the minds of apostles themselves; for these, even after the resurrection itself, demanded, "Wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" And the first half of the book of Acts gives evidence how slowly it broke upon their minds that theirs was a commission as wide as the world, that their risen Lord was not King of Israel only, but "Saviour of the world" as well. T. THEY derived their name from the region of which Samaria had been the metropolis. Originally they were foreigners from beyond the Euphrates, settled here by the King of Assyria, after he had sent the ten tribes into captivity, in order to keep the country from utter desolation. They were of course idolaters; but finding that the beasts of prey increased rapidly in a country now so depopulated, they ascribed this to the wrath of the gods of the country for neglected rites; and they petitioned the imperial court to send them an Israelitish priest, who might teach them how to worship these gods, so as to avert their anger. Having obtained what they sought, they combined the worship of their native idols with the worship of Jehovah. The idolatrous taint eventually disappeared; and the Samaritans became good Jews, professing, in those latter times in which our Lord appeared, a more primitive and better form of Judaism than generally prevailed among the Jews themselves. For they retained the Judaism which they had been taught in a comparatively early age, and adhered with scrupulous exactness to the simple sense of the law of Moses; and the dislike and contempt of the Jews toward them was enhanced by their disregard for the learned rubbish which in the Jewish view constituted the perfection of the law. They had largely intermarried with the Jews. At first with scattered remnants of the ten tribes that remained in the land of Israel; then with the like remnant of the kingdom of Judah; and later with the captives who returned from Babylon. This, in process of time, threw a strong infusion of Jewish blood into the Samaritan body; and in the admixture, there is reason to suppose that the Jewish predominated over the foreign element. Such intermarriages had, however, long since ceased, and nothing could be more abhorrent either to Jew or Samaritan, for the latter, repelled at every point by the Jews, learned to repay their dislike in full measure. K. Such were the Samaritans of our Lord's day: a people distinct from the Jews, though lying in the very midst of the Jews; a people preserving their identity, though seven centuries had rolled away since they had been brought from Assyria by Esarhaddon, and though they had abandoned their polytheism for a sort of ultra Mosaicism; a people who—though their limits had been gradually contracted, and the rallying place of their religion on Mount Gerizim had been destroyed 140 years before by John Hyrcanus, and though Samaria (the city) had been again and again destroyed, and though their territory had been the battle-field of Syria and Egypt—still preserved nationality, still worshipped from Shechem and their other impoverished settlements toward their sacred hill; still retained their separation, and could not coalesce with the Jews. Not indeed that we must suppose that the whole of the country called in our Lord's time Samaria was in the possession of the Cuthean Samaritans, or that it had ever been so. They possessed only a few towns and villages of this large area, and these lay almost together in the centre of the district. Shechem, or Sychar (as it was contemptuously designated), was their chief settlement, even before Alexander the Great destroyed Samaria, probably because it lay almost close to Mount Gerizim. S. After the lapse of 2,500 years from their origin, the Samaritans, who have been scattered over the civilized world through a great part of their history, now exist nowhere on earth, except at the seat of their ancient worship. Turning to Mount Gerizim "as the only sacred spot in the universe, theirs is the strongest example of local worship now existing in the world, in the very face of the declaration there uttered, that all local worship should cease." Although now reduced to a pitiful remnant, numbering only 135 persons, the community is as sternly uncompromising as ever in its Samaritan prejudices and practices. The last fragment is as hard as the original rock. N. C. B.—Though the daily sacrifice and the paschal lamb have ceased to be offered by the Jews since the fall of Jerusalem, the Samaritans, or Cuthites, as the Jews call them, have maintained to the present day their annual Passover and its sacrifice. Every year the little community gathers on Mount Gerizim, and with imperfect and mutilated rites, three or four lambs are slain and eaten: the last remaining vestige of Mosaic sacrifice. H. B. T. In the afternoon we climbed to the top of Gerizim, eager to look on the site of the old Samaritan temple. We wound our way up a rich valley, gorgeous with a splendidly varied foliage, and musical with the voice of bright streams and with the songs of innumerable birds. Patches of corn-fields succeeded as the road grew steeper; and in less than an hour we were on the broad plateau on the summit. The foundations of the old schismatic structure can still be so distinctly traced as to give us the ground-plan of the whole building. Parts of the walls are a good many feet above the surface. We were shown the place where the lambs are slain on the great day of the Passover, and the oven of stone in which their carcasses are roasted whole: the calcined bones and ashes of last year's sacrifice lay in a little heap before us. A conspicuous object the Samaritan temple must have been when it shone from the lofty summit of this mountain. The view from this summit was glorious. We could see across the Jordan to the mountain-walls of Gilead in the far east; we could look down into many a valley, and upon many a village embosomed in its gardens of olive; we could see shepherds tending their flocks as they may have done in Jacob's days; and now and then far-off Hermon would look through his veil of clouds and show us his sparkling diadem of snow. How soon will this Samaritan church, on whose fading glories we were now treading, be a mere thing of history? A. Thomson. ## Section 24.—Heals a Jewish Nobleman's Son. Cana. 1,2. AFTER this there was a feast of the Jews: and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep market, a pool, which is called in the Hebrew 3 tongue, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, 4 of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. 5, 6 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith 7 unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, an- 8 other steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and 9 walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: 10 and on the same day was the sabbath. The Jews therefore said unto him that was 11 cured, It is the sabbath-day; it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed. 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 not who it was: for Jesus had conveyed himself away, a multitude being in that place. 14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made 15 whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. The man departed, and told 16 the Jews that it was Jesus which had made him whole. And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath-day. WEARILY did he watch the pool, but no angel came, or came not for him. Yet, thinking it his only chance, he waited still, and knew not that there was one near him whose word could heal him in a moment. Many are in the same plight; they are waiting for some singular emotion, remarkable impression, or celestial vision. Tens of thousands are now waiting in the use of means and ordinances and vows and resolutions, and have so waited time out of mind, in vain, utterly in vain. Meanwhile these poor souls forget the present Saviour, who bids them look unto him and be saved. He could heal them at once, but they prefer to wait for an angel and a wonder. To trust him is a sure way to every blessing, and he is worthy of the most implicit confidence; but unbelief makes them prefer the cold porches of Bethesda to the warm bosom of his love. Spurgeon. Blessed be God, there is open a fountain for sin and uncleanness, by whose brink none need wait in longing, anxious expectancy; for its waters are ever endued with life-giving power; the Angel of the Covenant abides there always with his healing presence; every sin-discased soul may seek its health-restoring waters at all times. However many receive of its cleansing virtue, none of its power is diminished—its efficacy is ever the same. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. An. 1. Matthew, Mark, and Luke record only our Lord's doings in Galilee; if we put aside a few days before the Passion, we find that they never mention his visiting Jerusalem. John, on the other hand, while he records some acts in Galilee, devotes the chief part of his gospel to the transactions in Judea. But when the supplemental character of John's gospel is borne in mind, there is little difficulty in explaining this. The three Evangelists do not profess to give a chronology of the ministry, but rather a picture of it: notes of time are not frequent in their narrative. And as they chiefly confined themselves to Galilee, where the Redeemer's chief acts were done, they might naturally omit to mention the feasts, which, being passed by our Lord at Jerusalem, added nothing to the materials for his Galilean ministry. John, on the other hand, writing later, and giving an account of the Redeemer's life which is still less complete as a history (for more than one-half of the fourth gospel is occupied with the last three months of the ministry, and seven chapters out of twenty-one are filled with the account of the few days of the Passion), vindicates his historical claim by supplying several precise notes of time. In the occurrences after the baptism of Jesus, days and even hours are specified (John 1: 29, 35, 39, 43; 2: 1); the first miracle is mentioned, and the time at which it was wrought (John 2: 1-11). He mentions not only the Passover (John 2: 13, 23; 6: 4; 13: 1, and perhaps 5: 1), but also the feast of Tabernacles (John 7: 2) and of Dedication (John 10: 22): and thus it is ordered that the Evangelist who goes over the least part of the ground of our Lord's ministry is yet the same who fixes for us its duration, and enables us to arrange the facts for the rest more exactly in their historical places. S. On the phrase "a feast [festival] of the Jews" (John 5: 1) turns mainly the question as to the duration of our Lord's public ministry. John notes distinctly three Passovers: John 2: 13; 6: 4; 12: 1. If now this festival be another Passover, then our Lord's public labors continued during three and a half years. It does most probably thus stand for a Passover, viz., the second in our Lord's public ministry. R.—It is unlikely that Christ, who had already roused the prejudices of the Pharisees against him, should have gone to the Purim feast, where he would have had to contend with them alone in Jerusalem, instead of continuing his labors undisturbed in Galilee until Passover. John's omission to say more of Christ's ministry up to the time of the next Passover (6: 4) may be accounted for on the ground that it was not his purpose to recount his labors in Galilee, which were preserved in the circle of the ordinary traditions. The first two verses of chap. 5 show how summary his account is. N. The second year of the public life of Christ opened, as the first, with his attendance at the Passover. He appeared again amid the assembled populace of the whole race of Israel, in the place where by common consent the real Messiah was to assume his office, and to claim the allegiance of the favored and chosen people of God. The first year the only public demonstration of his superiority had been the expulsion of the buyers and sellers from the temple, and his ambiguous and misinterpreted speech about that sacred edifice. During his second visit, however, at the same solemn period of national assemblage, Jesus gave a new cause of astonishment to his followers, and of offence to his adversaries, by an act which could not but excite the highest wonder and the strongest animadversion. This was no less than an assumption of authority to dispense with the (prescribed) observance of the Sabbath. H. M. 3,4. The words which complete the third verse lie under strong suspicion, as the fourth verse has undoubtedly no right to a place in the text. That fourth verse the most important Greek and Latin copies are alike without, and most of the early versions. In other MSS. which retain this verse, the obelus which hints suspicion, or the asterisk which marks rejection, is attached to it. At first probably a marginal note, expressing the popular notion of the Jewish Christians concerning the origin of the healing power which from time to time these waters possessed, by degrees it assumed the shape in which we now have it: for there are marks of growth about it, betraying themselves in a great variety of readings—some copies omitting one part and some another of the verse—all which is generally the sign of a later addition. T.—It contains in the short compass of a few lines no less than seven words not found elsewhere in the New Testament, or only found with a different sense. It relates a most startling fact, one wholly unlike anything else in Scripture, one not alluded to by a single other writer, Jewish or heathen, and one which, had there been the slightest ground for believing in its truth, would certainly not have been passed over in silence by Josephus. Its insertion (to explain the word troubled in verse 7) is easily accounted for; its omission, had it been in the original text, is quite inconceivable. F. The legend of the angel (which, according to the best criticism, does not belong to John, but is a later gloss) could not have arisen unless the spring and its phenomena really existed. Robinson thinks that he found in the irregular movement of the water in the “Fountain of the Virgin” phenomena similar to those recorded of the pool of Bethesda, and contributing to explain them. N.—The pool of Bethesda has been, in all probability, identified; an intermitting fountain, which explains the popular legend.—Recent Explorations. Whatever may have been the general belief about the cause, the fact that the water was found at certain intervals to be impregnated with gases which gave it a strengthening property, was sufficient to attract many sufferers. F. Natural explanations of ordinary phenomena were unknown in these simple times, for there was no such thing as science. Among the Jews, as among other races, everything was attributed to the direct action of supernatural beings. In the book of Jubilees, which shows the popular ideas of Christ’s day, there are angels of fire, wind, clouds, hail, thunder, lightning, of “all things in the heavens and earth; of darkness, of light, of dawn, and of evening.” The healing powers of the Bethesda waters were, hence, ascribed to periodical visits of an angel, who “troubled the water.” G.—The doubts that have been cast upon the prodigy do not in the least detract from the use made of it by Christ. On the contrary, the supposition of its being a delusion sets the truth of his miracle in a more striking light, as being the reality of that power which was there vainly sought. In any case, the miracle itself displayed the power, which Jesus claimed in the subsequent discourse, of exercising authority both over the laws of nature and the positive institutions of religion. S. 6. To rekindle the dying hope, to fix the man’s attention on himself, Jesus bends over the bed on which he lies, looks down at him, and says, “Wilt thou be made whole?” H.—It was something to persuade him that this stranger pitied him, was interested in his case, would help him if he could. So persuading him to believe in his love, he prepared him to believe also in his might. Our Lord was giving him now the faith, which presently he was about to demand of him. T. 7. I have no man.** We do not read that the Divine Healer here wrought a miracle for any more than this single invalid. No one else at that pool of mercy was so pitifully undefriended. This poor forsaken creature had lain there a long time, and been tantalized by seeing other and nimbler patients reach the healing waters before he could creep in. Others had friends to help them; but this man had no one to assist him into the pool. Suffering often makes people selfish. Perhaps then the loving Lord intended to rebuke the selfishness of the neglectful, as well as to show his sympathy for the neglected by curing this one friendless cripple on the spot. There is a beautiful lesson here for us. Beside every pool of privilege or mercy in human life there are one or more unbefriended sufferers whose trials are aggravated by seeing others relieved, but no relief comes to them. Jesus teaches us to look after those who have nobody to care for them. T. L. C. 8. Take up thy bed, and walk.** What a command to a man who had for nearly forty years lain in that forlorn condition, during which his poor limbs had forgotten what walking meant! K.—Christ commands him to rise and bear his bed, and thus practically evince not only his own completed recovery, but the true lordship of the Son of man over sabbatical restrictions and ceremonial rest. He that a year before had shown that he was Lord of the temple, now shows that he is Lord also of the Sabbath. E. 10. The Jews.** Not the general community, but some of the ecclesiastical heads and rulers of the people. Jesus had only to meet their prejudices by doing nothing. But he did not choose to be thus silent and acquiescent. No less than seven miracles are recorded as wrought by him on the Sabbath-day, some of them among the most conspicuous and memorable in his ministry. He might have chosen another day rather than the Sabbath to walk through the crowded porches of Bethesda. The impotent man had lain too long there to make a day earlier or a day later of much moment to him. It was the same with the blind beggar of Jerusalem; and these were the two instances of cures upon the Sabbath-day which drew most public notice, and were attended with the most important results. But Jesus was not content with simply relieving the sufferers on these occasions. He did himself, or he bade his patients do, what he was well aware would attract the eye and draw down upon it the condemnation of the priesthood. H. 12. One would think that, in astonishment at such a miracle, their question would have been, "What man is he who healed thee?" and that they would have lost in that all thought of the man's bed. But it was the miracle they overlooked and thrust aside, regardful only of the alleged infraction of the Sabbath-day. K. 14. And now our Lord, whose purpose it ever was to build upon the healing of the body the better healing of the soul, suffers not this matter to conclude without a word of solemn warning, a word which showed that all the past life of the sufferer lay open and manifest before him; even things done more than thirty-eight years ago, that is, before his own earthly life had commenced: Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee—a worse thing than those thirty and eight years of pain and infirmity! words which give us an awful glimpse of the severity of God's judgments. This infirmity had found him a youth and left him an old man; it had withered up all his manhood, and yet a worse thing even than this is threatened him, should he sin again. T. 15. Who had made him whole.** His mind dwelling exclusively on that part of the case which they had put out of sight. He thought only of the healing: they only of the bed being carried on the Sabbath-day. K. 16. Here, then, were two deadly charges ready at hand against this prophet of Nazareth: He was a breaker of their Sabbath; he was a blasphemer of their God. The first crime was sufficient cause for opposition and persecution; the second an ample justification of persistent and active endeavors to bring about his death. F.—Having given them this handle, on purpose to raise the first public controversy with them, and thus open a fitting opportunity of laying his claims before them, he rises at once to the whole height of them, in a statement which for grandeur and terseness exceeds almost anything that ever afterward fell from him, at least to his enemies. B. Jerusalem. 17,18. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also, that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. 19. Then answered Jesus, and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he 20 doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth: and he will show him greater works than these, 21 that ye may marvel. For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; 22 even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. For the Father judgeth no man; but hath 23 committed all judgment unto the Son: 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. 24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed 25 from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. 26 For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in him- 27 self; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of 28 man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the 29 graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. 30 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; be- cause I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. Ir takes his greatness with his limitations—his strength and his weakness—his divinity and his humanity, to affect us most. On his one side he is human—a man and brother—coming all the way down to us, entering into our feelings, our experiences—seeing men and things out of our eyes, that heart of his bending to our griefs, and swelling with our joys. We put our heart to his, and his answers it beat for beat. We would not miss that bending down to us, that standing side by side with us, and that thought that now to-day in heaven, he retains, as written upon an iron leaf, all that he was and felt. But then we want more—not in another, but in him; if we can have it, we want the divine also—the human to know, to think with, and feel with; the divine, to be utterly incomprehensible, to encompass us, to overarch us, to flow into our weakness, to seize us and bear us aloft as upon eagles' wings. We want a being that shall come down to our sympathies, and so stand on the same plane with us; with the tides of feeling flowing through us both; and, at the same time, one before whom we shall bow with reverence and awe—the very being that we have in Christ, one whose thoughts and feelings span that mighty void between God and man. The Bible gives us Christ—the God-with-us—the Man-divine—that being who towers above our reason, but grasps and holds our hearts. J. D. 17-30. Nowhere else in the gospels do we find our Lord making such a formal, systematic statement of his own unity with the Father, his divine commission and authority, and the proofs of his Messiahship, as we find in this discourse. J. C. R.—In this first part of his discourse, the Lord reveals to us the glorious secret of his works; their power springs from the mystery of his person. His working is simply the working of God; for the Son and the Father, two persons, are of one divine essence; the original life of the Father is the like original life of the Son, and the life of the Son becomes the life of those who believe on him. The Father not without the Son, the Son not without the Father; this is the ever-resounding key-note of this discourse, in which the secret is plainly revealed of the eternal Word, who was with God, and was God, and who became flesh. R. B. 17. In his justification, Christ struck at the root of the first error, viz., the carnal notion that the sanctity of the Sabbath was founded solely upon God's resting after the work of creation, as if his creative labors were then commenced and enfiled; and points out, on the other hand, the ever-continuing activity of God as the ground of all being—my Father worketh hitherto, and I work. "As He never ceases to work, so do I work unceasingly for the salvation of men." N.—Christ claims as his own the same works which God doeth—works not only of benevolence, but of almighty power: "So I work." He thus avowedly makes himself equal with the Father, partly in regard to the works performed, and partly in regard to the manner of doing them: he works the same works, he works perpetually, as the Father. As this perpetual working is not reprehensible in the Father, so neither, says Jesus, is it reprehensible in me. C. C. T. 18. The Jews cannot be accused of misinterpreting his words. In those words Jesus had put himself on an equality with God in dignity, in the point of being above the Mosaic law of the Sabbath, and of having the right to do all that his Father was doing. H. C.—18-23. Instead of disowning the inference, our Saviour joins issue upon its truth. Pointing to his works as a proof of the perfect unity of power between his Father and himself, he claims the highest attribute of God, the power to confer spiritual life; and he declares, as a practical appeal to his opponents, that now was the season for its exercise. Their indignation at this new blasphemy is met, as on other occasions, by the remonstrance, “Marvel not at this,” as the preface to new wonders; for this power to give spiritual life, arising from the divine life which the Son had in himself, would soon be proved by his power to awake the dead, and to call them before his own judgment-seat. For to him alone was committed the divine attribute of judgment, because with him alone were the eternal principles of justice. S. 19. Because his opponents charged him with claiming, by his words, divine dignity and authority, he strengthened his assertions, taking care only to guard against their being perverted into a depreciation of the Father’s dignity, by declaring that he labored in unity with the Father, and in dependence upon him. “The Son,” said he, “can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” (He would have to deny himself as the Son of God before he could act contrary to the will and example of the Father.) N.—That the Son can do nothing of himself, says Bengel, “is a feature of glory, not of imperfection; such declarations proceeded from his intimate sense of unity, by nature and by love, with the Father.” The Son can do nothing of himself, not because he is wanting in power, or inferior and dependent in his nature, but because his being is inseparable from that of the Father. J. P. T.—The same things, and whatever things the Father doeth, the same doeth the Son, and doeth them in the very same manner, by the exercise of the same power, for the furtherance of the same ends. H. The discourse is a wonderful setting forth of the person and office of the Son of God in his ministrations as the Word of the Father. In this verse he states that he cannot work any but the works of God: cannot by this very relationship to the Father, by the very nature and necessity of the case—the “of himself” being an impossible supposition, and purposely set here to express one—the Son cannot work of himself, because he is the Son. His very person presupposes the Father’s will and counsel as his will and counsel, and his perfect knowledge of that will and counsel. And this, because every creature may abuse its freedom, and may will contrary to God: but THE SON, standing in essential unity with God, cannot, even when become man, commit sin—break the Sabbath—for his whole being and working is in and of God. A. 20. Christ proceeds to declare that the Father will show him greater works than these, i. e., than reviving the dead limbs of the paralytic. And what were these “greater works?” Without doubt, that work which Christ always describes as his greatest—as the aim of his whole life—the awakening of divine life in the spiritually dead humanity; a work which nothing but the creative efficiency of God could accomplish. N. 21, 22. Life and Judgment, Stier beautifully calls God’s Regalia. Yet these, Christ says, the Father and he do in common; he not only doing the divine act, but doing it as the result of his own will, even as the Father does it. B.—Surely he who had in his hand the mighty prerogatives of giving life and judging the world, had a right to speak of himself as equal with God. J. C. R. 23. Whoever does not honor the Son with equal honor to that which he pays to the Father, however he may imagine that he honors or approaches God, does not honor him at all; because he can only be known by us as “the Father who sent his Son.” A.—24. Believeth on him that sent me. The belief spoken of is a believing on God in Christ—a believing on God as the God who sent Christ to save sinners. He that rightly believes on Christ as his Saviour, with the same faith believes in God as his reconciled Father. J. C. R.—A parallelism in verses 24, 25, should be noticed: “He that heareth my word” in the one, answers to “the dead shall hear” in the other. It is a kind of hearing which awakens to life, one accompanied by “believing on him that sent me.” And this last is not barely “him who sent me,” but him, the very essence of belief in whom is in this, THAT HE SENT ME. The “believeth” and the “hath eternal life” are commensurate: where the faith is, the possession of eternal life is. But here the faith is set before us as an enduring faith, and its effects described in their completion. A. Here we are amid the clear shining of the sweet light which so unceasingly streams forth from John’s gospel—Word, Faith, Life; upon these three thoughts hinges everything that John had heard from the lips of the Son of God, and here makes known to us. Faith can boldly reverse the words of the saying, and sing, “Even in the midst of death we are in life.” For he who believes has eternal life, because he is joined as a member to the Lord and possessor of life, and comes not into condemnation, because he has come out of the judgment of death and passed into the life, the life in which the Son of God, the prince of life, triumphs forever over death and hell. “There is therefore now no condemnation,” etc. (Rom. 8: 1). R. B. 25. This verse continues to refer to spiritual awakening from the dead. His voice. His call to awake—by his own preaching, by his apostles, etc. A.—26. Their persons, though distinct, are of one substance, for the Father and Son have alike originally life in themselves. R. B.—In this alone are they distinct from each other, that one is the Father, and the other the Son. Chrys.—Why does the Lord reveal to us these depths of the Godhead? “These things I say, that ye might be saved” (verse 34), is his own answer. It is not as if we could comprehend such mysteries with our understanding, but our faith is to apprehend and lay hold on the consolation which is rooted in the true Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our hope is to cast her anchor upon ground deep and immovable. R. B. 27. Son of man. There was in him no national peculiarity or individual idiosyncrasy. He was not the Son of the Jew, nor the Son of the carpenter; nor the offspring of the modes of living and thinking of that particular century. As if the life-blood of every nation were in his veins, and that which is best and truest in every man, and that which is tenderest, and gentlest, and purest in every woman, in his character. He is emphatically the Son of man. F. W. R. Because he is the Son of man. The fact of the incarnation is made the reason for committing all judgment to Jesus, and especially the final judgment of the race. Having loved this fallen world so deeply, so tenderly, that he could consent to assume our very nature and suffer in it even unto death, who throughout all the universe will ever doubt his compassion, his pity, his heart, to save whosoever will meet his revealed conditions and put himself within the possible reach of mercy? With infinite confidence will all the intelligent universe trust him forever to administer the final judgment in the truest sympathy for our race, and never with undue severity—inflicting never one pang of suffering in excess of what justice must demand. H. C.—The Father gave him authority, “because he is the Son of man.” For the same reason Christians render him homage. As the Son he redeemed us, and therefore we love him. As the Son he offers us salvation, and we believe on him. As the Son he is to receive us to glory, and we hope in him. As the Son he is our strength and life, and we rejoice in him. As the Son he is our king and head, and we obey and adore him. These emotions, moreover, are supreme. They constitute all that we have to offer—love, and fear, and joy; adoration, obedience, and praise. J. A. The man through whom God has determined to judge the world with righteousness (Acts 17:31), is our righteousness. The judgment which Christ endured for us, will not let us come into the judgment which he executes. Our process with him who hath the power of death has been long ago gained; the sentence of life has been already made out for us: at the last day it will be revealed only. This is the consolation which believers derive from this passage. But for unbelievers, of all the horrors of judgment the greatest horror is this, that he who shall execute it is the Son of man. R. B. 28,29. The hour cometh, but not “now is” (as in verse 25), because he is now speaking of the great day of the resurrection, when not merely the dead but all who are in their graves shall hear his voice. “They who hear” are not specified, because all shall hear in the fullest sense. Olshausen observes that this and Acts 24:15 are the only direct declaration in the New Testament of a bodily resurrection of the unjust as well as of the just. It is implied in some places: Matt. 10:28, and less plainly in Matt. 25:34; Rev. 20:5, 12; and directly asserted in Dan. 12:2. In 1 Cor. 15—as the object was to convince believers in Christ of the truth of the resurrection of their bodies—no allusion is made to those who are not believers. A. His hearers, who saw him before their eyes in human form, were startled, doubtless, by these declarations. They looked for Messiah to establish a visible kingdom, with unearthly splendors, expecting it to be attended by an outward judgment; and Christ’s announcement of a spiritual agency, that was to be coeval with the world’s history, was beyond their apprehension. He referred them, therefore, to the final aim of the course which he was laying out for the human race, the final Messianic work of the judgment and the general resurrection; a work in itself, indeed, more familiar to them, but which, as ascribed to him, must have still more raised their wonder. 30. Having thus unfolded his whole Messianic agency, embracing both the present and the future, Christ returns to the general proposition with which he had commenced (in verse 19). As he had applied his unity of action with the Father to his whole course, so now he applies it specifically to his judgment, which must, therefore, be just and true. N.—Here begins the testimony by which these things were substantiated, and which they ought to have received. The discourse here passes into the first person which was understood before, because he had called himself the Son of God. A. His ministry in Judea was now about to close. Aware of the design against his life which had now been formed, and wishing to baffle it for a season, he retires to Galilee. But he will not leave Jerusalem till he has given one full and public testimony as to who and what he is, so that the Jews in continuing to reject him, shall not have it in their power to say that he has not revealed his own character, nor expressed to them the real grounds upon which their opposition to him is based. Such was the special drift and bearing of the address of Jesus to the Jews. H. Jerusalem. 31,32. If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. There is another that beareth witness of me, and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true. Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. But I receive not testimony from man; but these things I say, that ye might be saved. He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. But I have a greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me. And the Father himself which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. 40, 41 And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. I receive not honour from men. 42, 43 But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. 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. How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? JESUS submitted himself, his character, his works, his claims, to the judgment of men. He honored the reason of his hearers by submitting to them the evidences of his mission; he honored their religious sentiment by referring to their own Scriptures for testimony concerning himself. But pride and ambition, leading them to look for the pomp and power of earthly royalty in their Messiah, closed their eyes to the evidences alike of the works and the word of God. J. P. T. The loss of man's soul is always attributed in Scripture to man's own want of will to be saved. It is not any decree of God. It is not God's unwillingness to receive. It is not any limitation of Christ's redeeming work and atonement. It is not any want of wide, free, full invitations to repent and believe. It is simply and entirely man's own fault—his want of will. Forever let us cleave to this doctrine. Man's salvation, if saved, is entirely of God. Man's ruin, if lost, is entirely of himself. He "loves darkness rather than light." He will have his own way. J. C. R. HAVING unfolded the great truth of the unity of will, purpose, and action, between the Father and the Son, Jesus proceeds to speak in the first person, of the testimonies that had been borne to him; that of the Father, that of John, that of his own works, that of the Holy Scriptures, all of which these Jews had wilfully rejected. H.—Thus far the Lord, in answer to the accusations of the Jews, has vindicated his working as being the actual working of God: he works as the Father does, because he is as the Father. The divine life reveals itself in divine deeds, both in love and in wrath, both in quickening and in judging. But in the second part of this discourse the Lord now accuses the Jews. He brings before their eyes the witnesses which had been vouchsafed to them, in order that they might see the glory of the only-begotten Son of the Father, now present before them, while also he rebukes their unbelief: "and ye will not come to me that ye might have life." All particular witnesses concerning the nature of the Son and concerning his working in the power of the Father, are included in one general witness—in the Father's witness of his Son (verse 32). Through Christ's immediate forerunner John (verses 33-35), through the works of Christ, which announced him as the Saviour (verse 36), and through the Scriptures (verses 37-39, 45-47)—through all these the Father witnesses of the Son. R. B. 31. If I witness of myself. "Separate and apart from the Father asserting any claim of power or authority, such claim would be untrue. But I do not and cannot stand thus alone." 35. A shining light. Rather lamp or torch that is kindled and so burns and shines. Christ is the light that kindles but was never kindled. J. G. B.—36. All his works—as well the public "signs and wonders," as the silent manifestation of his "Jesus name" in the inward life of sinners saved through him; as well the teaching full of grace of his holy life, as the life full of grace of his holy words—whatever he did as physician of body and soul, whatever he suffered as Lamb, whatever he said as Shepherd: they all combine to form one bright revelation of his glory. They are the works of Jesus Christ appertaining to his proper vocation, the works of God's Anointed One. R. B.—37. Not seen his shape. The same truth we find elsewhere, that the Father is invisible, and has never been seen by mortal man. He who appeared to Abraham was the Second Person of the Trinity, and not the Father. Paul says distinctly of the Father, "whom no man hath seen, nor can see." J. C. R. 38,39. It was precisely through the works, Christ told them (verses 36, 37), that the Father had testified to him. "But," continued he, in effect, "it is no wonder that you ask another testimony of me, seeing that you are destitute of the spiritual capacity to perceive this one. It cannot be perceived with the senses; you have never heard with your ears the voice of the Father, nor seen with your eyes his form. God does not reveal himself to the fleshly sense; and in you no other sense is developed. And for this reason you cannot understand the testimony of the Scriptures. The word of God, which you ought to have received within you from the Scriptures, dwells not in you; it has remained for you simply outward. Hence your 'searching of the Scriptures' is a lifeless thing. Thinking that, in the letter of the word, you have eternal life, you will not come unto him who alone imparts that life, and to whom the Scriptures were only intended to lead." N.—"In the Scriptures ye find your charter of eternal life; go search them then, and you will find that I am the great burden of their testimony; yet ye will not come to me for that life eternal which you profess to find there and of which they tell you I am the appointed dispenser." B.—They would not! Scripture urged them to come to Jesus, that they might believe and receive life from him; but life through Jesus, the lowly Lamb of God, was what they would not have, because they would not acknowledge their own life to be death. He who does not in Scripture find his death as a sinner under the curse of the law, will never find there his life as a sinner under grace through the gospel. Verses 31-39 say that they can—verses 40-47 say that they will not. R. B. Search the Scriptures. A true faith in the Scriptures must have its strength in the Scriptures themselves. This would seem to be a proposition of the clearest reason. If the Bible be the Word of God with a human voice, then must it speak to the human soul directly as no other word, no other voice, can speak. T. L.—42. They had counted the very letters of them; yet they were rejecting him of whom the Scriptures testified. Was it not clear that they—the righteous, the religious leaders of their nation—yet had not the love of God in them, if they thus rejected his prophet, his word, his works, his Son? F. 43. Ye receive me not. Despite of the Father's indorsement, by miracles and by the testimony of your own Scriptures, sustaining my claims, ye yet reject me. There could only be collision and repellency between the meek, spotless Jesus, and the bigoted, covetous, self-seeking, sanctimonious Pharisees. H. C.—If another shall come. How strikingly has this been verified in the history of the Jews! "From the time of the true Christ to our time, sixty-four false Christs have been reckoned by whom they have been deceived." B. 44. How can ye believe? He spake to them calmly, but with most searching scrutiny and appalling truthfulness, of the reason why they could not believe; of that passion for the honor coming from men which made them utterly blind and dead to the claims of the Son of God. H. C.—Christ looked upon it as morally impossible for persons infinitely proud and ambitious impartially to consider a religion that taught nothing but self-denial and the cross; that counted humility honor; and that the higher men climbed the farther they were from heaven. The true cause of the Pharisees' disbelief of Christ's doctrine was the predominance over their will of the two great vices, covetousness and ambition. R. S.—From God only. Rather, from the only God, in contradistinction to the idolatry of the natural heart, which is ever setting up for itself other sources of honor, worshiping man or self or even Satan instead of God. These words form the point of passage to the next verses, in which the Jews are accused of not believing the writings of Moses, the very pith and kernel of which was the unity of God and the having no other Gods but him. 46. Moses: Here put for the law, the basis of the O. T. Scriptures. This is an important testimony to the subject of the whole Pentateuch: it is of me. It witnesses also to the fact of Moses having written those books, which were then and are still known by his name. Moses leads to Christ: is one of the witnesses by which the Father hath testified of him. A.—Moses's highest calling was to prepare the way for Messiah. Both by the whole stage which he occupied in the development of the divine kingdom, and by individual prophetic intimations (like Deut. 18: 15; Gen. 3: 15, in their spiritual meaning), he had pointed out the Messiah. N.—Want of evidence could not be the cause that the Jews rejected and disbelieved the gospel, since they embraced and believed the law, upon the credit of miracles that were less evident. For those of Christ they knew by sight and sense; those of Moses only by tradition. They believed and assented to things neither evident nor certain, nor yet so much as probable, but actually false and fallacious. Whereas they rejected Christ and his doctrine, though every tittle of it came enforced with miracle, and the best arguments that heaven and earth could back it with. R. S. 47. If Scripture had been inscribed with genuine characters in the memory of their hearts, the words of Christ would have rendered those characters bright and clear. R. B.—They did not believe Moses in his account of the patriarchs and their faith; otherwise they would have walked in Abraham's steps. They did not believe in the holy, heart-searching severity of the law delivered by Moses; otherwise their pharisaical righteousness by works would have been annihilated. They did not believe him, when the whole of his priestly and sacrificial institution brought to their minds the continual remembrance of their sins, and, as a shadow, pointed to a future real fulfilment; for otherwise they would have already become through Moses what John the Baptist had further wished to make them—a people prepared and ready for the Lord, and, like Simeon, joyfully laying hold on his salvation. Stier.—In proportion as the inner power and meaning of a religion are dead, in that proportion very often is an exaggerated import attached to its outer forms. It was so with Judaism in the days of Christ. Its living and burning enthusiasm was quenched; its lofty and noble faith had died away; its prophets had ceased to prophesy; its poets had ceased to sing; its priests were no longer clothed with righteousness; its saints were few. And thus it was that the observance of the Sabbath, which had been intended to secure for weary men a rest full of love and peace and mercy, had become a barren custom fenced in with the most frivolous and senseless restrictions. It was in answer to the charge, “because he did such things on the Sabbath-day,” that he delivered the divine and lofty discourse preserved for us in the fifth chapter of John. The great rabbis and chief priests had brought him before them in order to warn, and the warnings fell on them. They tremble and gnash their teeth, though they dare not act, while, with words like a flame of fire piercing into the very joints and marrow—with words more full of wisdom and majesty than those which came among the thunders of Sinai—he assumes the awful dignity of the Son of God. F. Thus closes this wonderful discourse. In the high standpoint of its defence against the charge of Sabbath desecration; in the calm and solemn majesty of its tone; in the conscious dignity with which Jesus set forth his relation to the Father; in the pertinence and moral force of his presentation of himself—first, as giving spiritual life to spiritually dead souls; and next, as one day to give life from the dead to all who are in their graves—revealing himself thus as the Infinite Arbiter of all human destiny, the Great Judge of quick and dead—this discourse has no parallel in human language. H. C. From this time the ruling Pharisaic party persecuted Christ as a most dangerous enemy, who exposed their sentiments with a power of truth not to be controverted. “Sabbath-breaking and blasphemy” were the pretexts on which they sought his condemnation. N.—And under such circumstances it was useless, and worse than useless, for him to remain in Judea, where every day was a day of peril from these angry and powerful conspirators. F. # Section 33.—Justifies plucking of Corn, and healing, on the Sabbath. Galilee. 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 23 were gone away alone (howbeit there came other boats from Tiberias nigh unto the 24 place where they did eat bread, after that the Lord had given thanks): when the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither his disciples, they also took shipping, and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus. 25 And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto him, 26 Rabbi, when camest thou hither? Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say 27 unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed. 28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? 29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him 30 whom he hath sent. They said therefore unto him, What sign showest thou then, that 31 we may see, and believe thee? What dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in 32 the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from 33 heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God 34 is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. 35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me, shall never 36 hunger; and he that believeth on me, shall never thirst. But I said unto you, That ye 37 also have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me, shall come to me; 38 and him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, 39 not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, 40 but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. CHRISTIANITY, let us remember, is from first to last a divine movement in our behalf. It is an offer, promise, compassion, help, redemption. Love for us was the motive, sacrifice for us the means, and an opportunity to pour out into receptive and willing hearts the same infinite and everlasting affection is the end. Christianity does not expect of us to be perfect people first, in order that we may be entitled to salvation, nor Christians first, in order that we may earn Christ for a Saviour; but quite the opposite thing—that we should believe we have a Saviour in order to be consciously saved; and that we should know the needful way to be already opened, that we may walk in it by the attraction of our Leader's spirit. Every miracle the Saviour wrought on earth, every sentence he spoke, every pain he bore, is a new ground of assured comfort for every soul that has once come heartily to him confessing, "I believe; help thou mine unbelief;" or asking, "What shall I do that I might work the works of God?" Hear his explicit answer: "This is the work of God, that ye should believe on him whom he hath sent." "Whosoever believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." "No man shall pluck them out of my hand." F. D. H. 22-71. Never before had there appeared to be so great an interest in his teaching, or so large a measure of faith in his healing power. But behind this show of things Jesus saw that there was no readiness to receive him in his highest character and office. Some were prepared to acknowledge him as Elias, or one of the prophets; others, like the multitude on the lake-side, to take him by force and make him a king; but the notions of all alike concerning him and his mission were narrow, selfish, unspiritual. It is at this very culminating point of his apparent popularity, that Jesus begins to speak and act as if the hope were gone of other and higher notions of himself and of the kingdom of God being entertained by the nation at large. Hitherto he had spoken much about that kingdom, and but little about himself; leaving his place therein to be inferred from what he said and did. He had spoken much about the dispositions that were to be cultivated, the duties that were to be done, the trials that were to be borne, the blessedness that was to be enjoyed by those admitted into the kingdom, but he had said little or nothing of the one living spring of light and life within that kingdom, giving to it its being, character, and strength. He had never once hinted at his own approaching death as needful to its establishment—as laying, in fact, the foundation upon which it was to rest; nor had he spoken of the singular ties by which all its subjects were to be united personally to him. Now for the first time in public he alludes to his death, in a way that assigned to it its true place in our redemption. Now for the first time he speaks openly of what he is to all who are saved; proclaiming a supreme attachment to himself, an entire and exclusive dependence on himself, a vital union with himself, to be the essential characteristic of all true subjects of that kingdom which he came down from heaven to set up on earth. H. 22. The people, on the other side. Those who had remained on the east coast overnight. In the 25th verse, the "other side" is the west bank. A.—23.** Our Lord does not appear to have entered Tiberias on any occasion. The reasons suggested for this are that it was full of foreigners, while he came "first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel;" and that Tiberias was built partly upon ground occupied by ancient sepulchres, and to enter this place would have made him ceremonially "unclean." J. M. 26. "Rabbi, when didst thou get hither?" is the expression of their natural surprise; but it is met with perfect silence. The miracle of walking on the water was one of necessity and mercy; it in no way concerned them; it was not in any way intended for them; nor was it mainly or essentially as a worker of miracles that Christ wished to claim their allegiance or convince their minds. Therefore, reading their hearts, knowing that they were seeking him in the very spirit which he most disliked, he quietly drew aside the veil of perhaps half-unconscious hypocrisy which hid them from themselves, and reproached them for seeking him only for what they could get from him—"not because ye saw signs, but because ye ate of the loaves and were satisfied." F.—If thus it was with them, how should the Lord have walked upon the sea before their eyes, or have now confided to them the way of his coming thither? Their mind was filled with the loaves in recollection of their meal the day before, and not with the sign. They had been filled—that was enough for them; they felt no hunger in their souls for that food whose sign they had eaten in the loaves, that true meat which endureth unto eternal life. R. B. 27. The miracle could produce no faith in those who were destitute of a spiritual mind; their enthusiasm, carnally excited, was soon to pass over into opposition. A process of sifting was to take place, and the discourse which Christ uttered was intended to bring it on. They questioned him; but, instead of replying, he entered at once upon a rebuke of their carnal temper: "Ye seek me, not because the sign of my divine working, which ye saw, has led you to me as the Son of God, who alone can supply your spiritual wants; but only because I have appeased your bodily appetite. Strive not for perishable, but eternal food, imparting eternal life, which the Son of man will bestow; God has sealed him to this by miracles wrought before your eyes, in attestation of his divine calling." N.—It is, to be sure, a meat which is given thee: "which the Son of man shall give unto you;" but yet thou must strive after it, if thou wouldest possess it. Hungering and eating, coming and believing, that belongs to the laboring by which thou must procure this food for thyself. The Son of man can and will give this food, he alone, "for him hath God the Father sealed." R. B.—This sealing is not to be understood merely of miracles, but of the stamp of divinity which was impressed upon his whole life and teaching. Stier. 28. Teach us what are "the works" of God. This was the spirit of their time and country. To them, as well as the Pharisees, their models, morality was composed of a greater or smaller number of practices and observances; and the difficulty was to know them all, in order not to neglect any, even in their slightest details. Work after work, nothing but works, namely, those external acts which the hand does and the eye sees. Such to them was the spirit of morality; such to the best of them was virtue. A. V. 29. They had asked after works: Jesus calls that through which the food of eternal life is labored for, a work, viz., faith in his name. It is God who works in us the work which we must do, namely, that we believe on him whom he hath sent to be our salvation and our life, and has sealed as his Christ. R. B.—First give glory to God by receiving him whom he hath sent. When you inquire as to honoring him by your works, do not begin to dishonor him by your unbelief. How can you do the works of God when you shut the doors of your hearts against him who speaks in his name? First open your eyes, believe in the Messenger of God, believe in God himself; this is the work which must be done first; the other you will not do before. A. V.—They expected him to prescribe new religious duties; but, instead of this, he led them back to the one work: "Believe on him whom God hath sent." With this faith everything is given. N. 30. What dost thou work? The day previous these men had declared themselves fully satisfied respecting the divine mission of Jesus as the Messiah; and had he consented to become their king, and exerted his miraculous powers in accomplishing the work which they expected the Messiah to perform, they would have demanded no further evidence of his divine mission. J. B. 31. Our fathers did eat manna. The Jews first suggested the manna which their fathers ate in the desert—an illustration which Jesus subsequently resumed twice (49, 58). We may suppose the course of their thought to have been on this wise: He bids us work for bread that endures unto everlasting life, and speaks of giving it to us himself and of coming down from heaven, sealed of God. But our fathers had bread from heaven, and yet it did not endure unto everlasting life. Would he pretend to have anything better than that? So the woman of Samaria could not see how Jesus could have any better water than that of Jacob's well. H. C. 32. The Lord's king-like: "Verily, verily, I say unto you," is the answer to the appeal which the Jews made to Scripture: "As it is written." In the manna which your fathers ate in the wilderness, nothing has been given you, which could feed you unto everlasting life. But now the true bread from heaven is at hand, which my Father gives you—gives you, for he gives it to be the life of the whole world. R. B.—Moses gave you. They have not mentioned Moses, nor was the giving of the manna a miracle performed by Moses; but he knew that the comparison between Moses and himself was in their minds, and answers by exposing the error which represented Moses as the giver of the manna. Neither again was that the true bread from heaven. It was in one sense bread from heaven; but not in this sense. It was a type and shadow of the true bread from heaven. Our Lord does not here deny but asserts the miraculous character of the manna. 33. Is he. It should be is that. Not till verse 35 does Jesus first say "I am the bread of life." The manna is still kept in view. A.—Giveth life. That the life of the incarnate Son of God is our life, and the means whereby it becomes so; that the being who has forever life in himself, gives life to the world, and the means whereby he does so—this is what the Lord proclaims to us in this gracious discourse on the bread of life. R. B. 34. Give us this bread. The Jews understand this bread, as the Samaritan woman understood the water, to be some miraculous kind of sustenance which would bestow life everlasting. A.—35. I am. Every time that these deaf hearers of his words of love and life interrupt him, he reveals with a brighter light his glory as our Jesus, and draws nearer and nearer to their hearts. Where else wouldst thou find this diligence of love, this unwearied patience, this condescending forbearance, except with the Shepherd whose delight it is to seek those who are lost? From this point onward, the Lord uses the first person; he speaks of I, My, Me. More and more urgently does he seek to lay hold on them, if perchance they would acknowledge him and come to him. Coming and believing: on that the Lord's discourse now immediately dwells. R. B. The bread of life. This bread, like the water described to the woman of Samaria, forever satisfies; it meets the great moral want in man's soul, perfectly and forever. "He that cometh to" Jesus does in that act eat this life-giving bread; just as "believing" on him is equivalent to drinking the waters of life. H. C.—36. Ye have seen the true bread from heaven, the sign greater than the manna, even me myself: and yet have not believed. A.—I am myself the sign which ye were desiring to see (verse 30); but ye hunger not after the bread of life, and therefore ye believe not that I am the bread of life. R. B. 37. The language of the two clauses should be carefully noticed. They who "shall come to Christ" are "that whole thing" which the Father gives. But it is "each individual man" that comes, of whom Jesus says, "I will in no wise cast him out." To "cast out of the synagogue," to "cut off from the congregation of Israel," to "shut out of the camp," were ideas with which all Jews were familiar. J. C. R.—I will in no wise cast out. Let no one be deterred by the fear that he is not one of those who are "given to Jesus" by the Father. Let him settle that question in his own favor by coming to Jesus at once, with all his heart, not as worthy, but as one invited and made welcome. This assurance—the coming one never cast out—was put by the Master in the very best place possible. H. C. Whatever changes may take place in us, whatever sins and backslidings and fearful imaginings of unpardonable guilt, there, written in the Rock of Ages forever, stand the words, "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out." Ker.—For this word have innumerable Christians already on bended knees given thanks to their Lord and Saviour; they have pleaded it to him when they have come laden with guilt, and with many unperformed vows—void of heavenly goods—full of earthly burdens—destitute of all fervor of spirit—feeble and lame of wing—bringing with them nothing, nothing but sin—nothing but this corrupt, cowering, backsliding heart! Thou hast said, O Lord, Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. I cannot understand how thou canst love and receive such an one as I am, but I throw myself upon thy word—I come as only I can come; my Jesus receives sinners! Luther. 39. All the Father giveth. Let fearful and faint-hearted believers remember that if they come to Christ by faith, they have been "given" to Christ by the Father; and if given, it is the Father's will that they should never be cast away. J. C. R.—39, 40. The class referred to is described in one verse as given to Jesus by the Father; in the other, as seeing the Son and believing on him. The first puts into the foreground the agency of God; the second, the agency of man. That the class is in each case identically the same cannot be doubted. They may be described in either of these two ways—either as given by the Father to the Son; or as seeing the Son and believing in him. The certainty of ultimate salvation for all who fall within these descriptive terms is the main point specially affirmed here. H. C.—Though he does speak of it as a sublime certainty which men's refusals cannot frustrate, he speaks of that certainty as taking effect only by men's voluntary advances to him and acceptance of him—"Him that cometh to me." B. 40. For our strong consolation against the last enemy, the Lord repeats over and over again (four times in this chapter) with the clear note of triumph, "I will raise him up at the last day." This is his promise, who, as a conqueror, was to bring his own body forth out of death, which he did in his joyful resurrection. R. B. ## Section 69.—Eternal Life by feeding on Christ. Defection. Capernaum. 41. THE Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, Is 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? Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets. And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. 46. Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the 47 Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. 48, 49 I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and 51 not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. 52 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his 53 flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat 54 the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eat- eth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the 55, 56 last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth 57 my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. 58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. 59, 60 These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear 61 it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, 62 Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he 63 was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words 64 that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, 65 and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. 66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. 67, 68 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered 69 him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe, 70 and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered 71 them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? He spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve. 1 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him. THE true sacrament is in the doctrine of Christ. The visible sacraments are forms whose inner substance and life is the truth which they set forth to the eye. When Christ spoke of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he did not refer to the form of partaking of the Lord's Supper. His words were spirit and life. Whoever shall penetrate to the deep meaning of that saying, "He that eateth me shall live by me," shall find in these words a quickening spiritual power which is the earnest of eternal life. It was his death that he was speaking of, which should be followed by his ascending up where he was before. It was his death, as an offering for the life of the world; and when the poor, famishing, condemned soul seizes upon Christ as its Saviour, it wins from his cross that spiritual power which is life from the dead. . . . Yet, now as then, this very doctrine of the cross sifts and tests mankind, and even the followers of Christ. How many will not believe upon Christ crucified! But, if we turn away from Jesus, whither shall we go? Where is the philosophy, the learning, the science, that can speak to us such words of eternal life, or that possess this quickening, renovating power to transform the soul, and lift it up to God? J. P. T. CHRIST now drops all reserve as to his own position, character, services, and claims. And his manner of speaking to the people is here as unprecedented as the way of speaking about himself. Instead of avoiding what he knew would repel, he seems rather to have obtruded it: answering no questions, giving no explanations, modifying no statements; unsparingly exposing the selfishness, ungodliness, unbelief of his auditors. The strong impression is created that by bringing forth the most hidden mysteries of the kingdom, and clothing these in forms liable to give offence, it was his purpose to test and sift, not the rude mass of his Galilean hearers only, but the circle of his own discipleship. Such at least was its effect. H. 41,42. Then the old angry murmurs burst out again—not this time from the multitude, but from his old opponents the leading Jews—“How could he say that he came down from heaven? How could he call himself the bread of life? Was he not Jesus, the son of Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth?” F.—Jesus does not answer these questions, any more than he had answered the question as to how he got to Capernaum. He sees and accepts the offence that had been taken, the prejudice that had been created, and he does nothing to remove it. He enters into no explanation of the saying that he had come down from heaven. H.—But he met the murmurers, as he always did, by a stronger, fuller, clearer declaration of the very truth which they rejected. F. 44. Except the Father draw him.** A drawing this, however, that if sought will never be withheld; if imparted, will prevail, for “it is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore, that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh unto me.” H.—Anew he points their attention to the fact that the main point, faith, is God’s work in them, and repeats his word, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me,” more nearly describing the manner of this giving by terming it a drawing; a beautiful expression this is, to denote the secret work of divine love in men laden with guilt, sunk in earthly things, and estranged from heaven. To the last sinner who shall sigh after a Redeemer, this drawing of the Father to the Son whom he has sent, will continue. Love sends, and love draws. To note with a delicate ear, when the gentle and yet powerful drawing of God’s love in our inmost soul is laying hold of us, and in the very same hour that we perceive it to follow it without delay: this is what we have to do in the work of conversion [and as well, of our increasing sanctification]. R. B. None, indeed, come to Christ except the Father draw them; but how many does the Father draw, by the operation of the Holy Spirit upon the mind, who yet refuse to come! The will is an agent of such fearful, such stubborn power, that it may even resist the Holy Ghost, resist the drawing of the Father, as it does resist the invitations of the Son. Hence while it is true that all who come to Christ are drawn of the Father, it is still true that others perish, not because they are hindered or neglected of God, nor because they are not solicited by the gospel and wrought upon by the Holy Ghost, but because they WILL NOT come. J. P. T.—If a man cannot come without being drawn, and the drawing consists in being taught of God, we come to the root of the difficulty when we raise the question—Why cannot men be “taught of God?” Why do they not receive his instruction, and why do they not obey it? Plainly, not for want of mental capacity; not by reason of any cannot which takes away blameworthiness; not for any incapacity which lies beyond the range of their voluntary control. “Ye will not come to me that ye may have life,” tells the simple and the whole truth in the case. H. C. 45. “All thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children” (Isaiah 54:13). God’s drawing then is a teaching; it is not an uncertain excitement of feeling, but it is the divine voice clearly penetrating into the heart of man, which teaches, and which indeed imparts great peace, since it reveals these two things: sin and grace. All shall be taught of God; but it is only he who hears and learns what the Father teaches, only the sinner thirsting for salvation and grace, that comes to the Son. R. B.—46, 47. It is in seeing me that you see the Father. It is in hearing me that you hear the Father. It is through me that the drawing of the Father cometh. Open eye and ear then, look unto me, hear, and your soul shall live. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.” He hath it now, he hath it in me. “I am that bread of life.” H. 51. I am.** Understand, it is of myself I now speak as the bread from heaven: of me if a man eat he shall live forever; and “the bread which I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world.” Here, for the first time in this high discourse, our Lord explicitly introduces his sacrificial death, not only as that which constitutes him the bread of life to men, but as that very element in him which possesses the life-giving virtue. B.—This bread was to be the self-sacrifice of his bodily life for the salvation of mankind. The life-giving power, as such, was his divine-human existence; the life-giving power, in its special act, was his self-sacrifice. The two are inseparable; the latter being the essential means of realizing the former; only by his self-sacrifice could his divine-human life become the bread of life for men. N. 53. Our Lord’s sayings about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, so far from being hard and mysterious, were as natural as they were forcible. He was dealing with men who were carnal in their feelings and desires; who followed him for the excitement of seeing his miracles and for the present benefit they hoped to receive from these. It was in vain to talk to such men about the superiority of spiritual ideas and aims to carnal desires, or of the spiritual design of his mission; the thing must be put before them boldly at their own level; and the spiritual conveyed to them in the form of bodily figures. And so Jesus said to them, You must eat the true bread; it is not enough that you see what I do and hear what I say; you are to be saved by receiving Me; you must eat Me. J. P. T.—It must be remembered that, if the Lord's Supper has, for us, thrown a clearer light upon the meaning of this discourse, on the other hand the metaphors which Jesus used had not, to an educated Jew, one-hundredth part of the strangeness which they have to us. Jewish literature was exceedingly familiar with the symbolism which represented by "eating" an entire acceptance of and incorporation with the truth, and by "bread" a spiritual doctrine. His saying was hard, as Augustine remarks, only to the hard; and incredible only to the incredulous. For if bread be the type of all earthly sustenance, then the "bread of heaven" may well express all spiritual sustenance, all that involves and supports eternal life. Now the lesson which he wished to teach them was this—that eternal life is in the Son of God. They, therefore, that would have eternal life must partake of the bread of heaven, or—to use the other and deeper image—must eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man. They must feed on him in their hearts by faith. They might accept or reject the truth which he was revealing to their consciences, but there could be no possible excuse for their pretended incapacity to understand its meaning. F.—When he speaks of his flesh being given for the life of the world; when he speaks of the drinking of his blood as well as of the eating of his flesh; pronounces them to be the source at first and the support afterward of a life that cannot die, and that shall draw after it the resurrection of the body, it is impossible to put any rational construction upon phrases like these other than a reference to our Lord's atoning death as the spring and fountain of the new spiritual life to which through him all true believers are begotten. H. 54. And I will raise him up at the last day.** For the fourth time this is repeated, showing most clearly that the "eternal life" which such a man "hath" cannot be the same with the future resurrection-life, from which it is carefully distinguished each time, but a life communicated here below immediately on believing; and giving prominence to the resurrection of the body, as that which consummates the redemption of the entire man. B.—Here is a reiteration of the intimate connection between the present gift of eternal life and the future resurrection to glory. You cannot separate these things. That which is spiritual is in its very nature eternal. Death is but as the episode of a sleep; it has no power to touch the heart of that life which is "hid with Christ in God." That life given here in the body imparts to the body a share in its triumph over death, is the seal and pledge, that even though the body fall into dust, it shall be raised again from the dust, incorruptible. So essential, indeed, is this connection between the life eternal and the resurrection of the body, that it is almost the only view of the resurrection which is presented to us in Scripture. Perowne. 56. In words whose very singularity and reiteration should make them sink deep into our hearts, our Saviour tells us that until by faith we realize, appropriate, confide in him, as having given himself for us, dying that we might live, until in this manner we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we have no life in us. Our true life lies in union with and likeness unto God, in peace with him, fellowship with him, harmony of mind and heart with him, in the doing of his will, the enjoyment of his favor. H.—Although this discourse has nothing to do with the sacrament of the Supper, the sacrament has everything to do with it, as the visible embodiment of these figures, and, to the believing partaker, a real, yea, and the most lively and affecting participation of his flesh and blood, and nourishment thereby of the spiritual and eternal life, here below. B.—These words do not primarily relate to this sacrament, not instituted as yet, but they do relate to that great truth which underlies it and on which it is founded. For we are not to suppose that the Lord's Supper is an arbitrary ordinance, or that one emblem would have answered as well as another for a commemorative sign. On the contrary, the ordinance has its essence, vivifying form, or idea, which is the resemblance between the taking of food and drink for bodily sustenance, and the receiving of Christ by faith. J. W. A. Dwellet in me, and I in him. This involves and expresses the most intimate relationship; a perfect communion and fellowship. These words must rule out the whole realm of matter. They must exclude all reference to flesh and body, in the material sense, as to be eaten literally. H. C.—Closer than the closest of all earthly bonds is the vital union of the believer with Christ. He opens himself to us as the hiding-place, the resting-place, the dwelling-place for our spirit. We flee unto him, and he hides us in the secret of his presence, and keeps us secretly in that pavilion. 57. To a still higher conception of the intimacy of the union between himself and his own does Jesus carry us. It would seem as if all the earthly imagery elsewhere employed—that of the union of the branches with the vine, of the members with the head, of the building with the foundation-stone—however apt, were yet defective; as if for the only fit, full emblem Jesus had to rise up to the heavens to find it in the closest and most mysterious union in the universe, the eternal, inconceivable, ineffable union between the Father and himself. H. Eateth me. The practical benefit of the sacrifice can be had only by accepting it as a sacrifice in our stead, by appropriating it with a full heart as the means of life; and this it is to eat Christ, so that his life becomes ours. "He that eateth Me shall live by Me." Hence the virtue of the sacrament is found only in feeding upon Christ. It is not "he that eateth this material bread," but "he that eateth Me;" not eateth me in the bread, but who in the act of eating the bread brings Me home to his soul as his food, his life, his salvation. If in coming to this sacrament we realize through it the nearness and fulness of Christ, if we thereby receive afresh into our hearts his living truth and grace, then do we feed upon him. J. P. T.—We lay our feeble hand on this almighty promise of our Lord, and we rest therein with assurance: We shall live by him! R. B.—We have three living ones spoken of here: the living Father, the living Son, and the living believer. The three lives are linked together. Rollock. 58. Our Lord sums up the whole discourse. All these expressions have been used frequently, and now all are grouped together, and presented in one view. J. C. R.—One peculiarity of the sayings of Christ is the sense of fulness they carry with them, and of this fulness as proceeding from himself. His words flow as from a fountain; and not only so, but the truth he imparts becomes in those who receive it "a well of living water, springing up into everlasting life." In listening to him, one feels that he knows all truth, and contains it within himself. For truth as spoken by Christ carries with it the conviction that what he utters is part of himself. It is not truth that he has studied and developed; it is not a doctrine that he has derived from another, and teaches with his own methods and illustrations; but the truth he speaks is in and of himself. J. P. T.—Truth perfectly expressed, and perfectly understood, convinces at once; as the light streaming in reveals all objects, so Christ's words require no illumination; it is their entrance which giveth light. It is not merely that our understanding is satisfied, our conscience roused, our affections engaged—it is all this and more; it is our inmost being, that in us which is eternal, that Christ grasps and addresses, so that we feel he has come into contact with the very centre of our being. A. S. 60. Some who had previously been regarded as his disciples stumbled at these teachings and murmured. What he said of "eating his flesh" was one of the hard sayings over which the Jews strove among themselves, as appears in verse 52. And this seems to have been the head and front of the offence. It involved a Messiah suffering and dying—not as they construed it, conquering, reigning; and therefore it ran counter to all their cherished notions of their nation's deliverer. His work as thus set forth made no account of the worldly greatness they aspired to, but utmost account of that spiritual life, in purity and love, for which they had no aspirations. Hence they said in their hearts, We are disappointed in this man; he meets none of our cherished hopes; why should we follow him longer? H. C.—This was too much, even for some who had been brought to the door of belief. The service of the synagogue ended, the elders came down from the platform, the chazzan put away the sacred vessels, the congregation came out into the sun, angry in word and mocking in spirit. They wanted facts; he had given them truth. They hungered for miraculous bread, for a new shower of manna; he had offered them symbolically his flesh and blood. They had set their hearts on finding a captain who would march against the Romans, who would cause Judas of Gamala to be forgotten, who would put the glories of Herod the Great to shame. They had asked him for earth, and he had answered them with heaven. W. H. D. 61. The people came in multitudes around him, and you can trace no sign of extravagant expectation. The tide of popular favor ebbs away from him, and you see no token of his giving up his enterprise in despair. No wavering of purpose, no change of plan, no altering of his course to suit new and obviously unforeseen emergencies. There is progress: a steady advance onward to the final consummation of the cross and the burial, the resurrection and ascension; but all is consistent, all is harmonious. H. 62. The Son of man.** Himself as Messiah. The Jews, as appears from J. 12 : 34, expected that the Messiah was to "abide forever," remain permanently among them. Our Lord intimates here, that instead of remaining on earth, to establish the worldly kingdom they were anticipating, he was, after having given his flesh for the life of the world, to return to heaven, whence he had come down. The preëxistence of our Lord, in heaven, previously to his appearing among men is as plainly stated as words can state it. J. B. 63. The words are spirit and life.** Words, inwardly digested, feed the soul, as bread, properly digested, feeds the body. The spiritual power of the ordinance of the Supper is altogether of the same sort—not the bread eaten feeding the body, but the truth suggested and illustrated feeding the soul. H. C.—The dead letter, the outward material flesh, he told them, profited nothing. The form, the dogma, the institution, however venerable in itself—even his own flesh, as the symbol of mere material life, had no magic virtue. Only the inward essence, the truth embodied, the living principle, the quickening Spirit received into the heart, availed with God, or sustained the heavenly life in the soul. G.—These very words about eating his flesh, etc., are “spirit and life” when one takes them rightly. They teach that the Lord Jesus gave his flesh as the means of life and salvation. But this sacrifice does not take effect for any individual from the mere fact of its having been offered; but it gives life to him who eats and drinks it; that is, to him who appropriates it to his own case as the provision upon which the life of his soul depends—just as the life of the body depends on food and drink. He who so receives the death of Christ—makes this application of that death as the necessary means of his soul’s life—will find that Christ becomes to him as his very flesh and blood. J. P. T. 64,65. The enthusiasm of Christ for his divine work was combined with a discretion which fully comprehended the opposition he must encounter from the prevailing opinions and feelings of the times. He readily distinguished, with that searching glance that pierced the depths of men’s hearts, the few who came to him, drawn of the Father and following an inward consciousness of God, from those who sought him with carnal feelings, to obtain that which he came not to bestow. There was no extravagance in his demands upon men; nothing exaggerated in his hopes of the future. Everywhere we see not only a conscious possession of the divine power to overcome the world, which he was to impart to humanity, but also of the obstacles it should meet with from the old nature in which the principle of sin was yet active. N.— 66. Many disciples walked no more with him.** When “the carpenter’s son” in his mysterious language spoke of his descent, his commission from his Father, his reascension to his former intimate communion with the Deity; still more, when he seemed to confine the hope of everlasting life to those only who were fitted to receive it, no word fell in with their excited, their passionate hopes. His allusions discountenanced the immediate and the remote accomplishment of their visions of the Messiah’s earthly power and glory. The disappointment was universal; his adherents, baffled and sinking at once from their exalted hopes, cast off their unambitious, their inexplicable Leader. H. M.—It was the first vivid instance of “the offence of the cross”—henceforth to become the special stumbling-block of the nation. The Messiah of popular conception would use force to establish his kingdom, but Jesus, while claiming the Messiahship, spoke only of self-sacrifice. Outward glory and material wealth were the national dream. He spoke only of inward purity. If he would not head them with Almighty power, to get Judea for the Jews, they would not have him. G. 67,68. Will ye also go away?** It was Simon Peter whose warm heart spoke out impetuously for all the rest. He at least had rightly apprehended that strange discourse at which so many had stumbled. “Lord,” he exclaims, “to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” F.—Christ is himself the very truth which he teaches, the eternal and subsisting, the living and quickening truth; he is life itself, and life eternal, who teaches both truth and life, inspiring them into our understanding by his light, and into our heart by his love. To whom then shall we go but Jesus, that we may learn to live, and live eternally on the truth? He well deserves to find nothing but delusion and death, who seeks for truth and life from any but Christ alone. Q. 70. He had chosen Judas. This we cannot understand. Incomprehensible to us is the love which created the angel, knowing that it would become a devil to that love. Just as incomprehensible was the love which strove to redeem Judas, while it knew, nevertheless, that he would work upon it the devil’s will, all the while, however, doing nothing but what was ordained in God’s purposes of salvation. “This man should betray him,” because he would not be saved by him. R. B.—The choosing here spoken of means no more than selection for office. Our Lord in another place carefully draws the distinction between the true disciples and the false: “I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen.” Of that “choosing” (unto salvation) Judas was not a partaker. Of the other choosing (unto office) he was. Is a devil. Even now, long before our Lord’s betrayal, Judas is called a “devil.” This helps to show that he never was a faithful disciple, even from the first. J. C. R.—The choice of the disciples was an act that gave them no guaranty of salvation, and no exemption from the usual trial that attends every human being from the beginning to the end of life. Everything turned on the use which Judas would make of the signal opportunities for good that lay in his path, and on the energy with which he would resist temptation. G. P. F. THES the public life of Jesus closed its second year. His influence at one moment was apparently most extensive, at the next was confined to a small circle. Still, however, it held the public mind in unallayed suspense; and the ardent attachment of the few, and the animosity of the many, bore testimony to the commanding character and the surprising works of Jesus of Nazareth. H. M. # Section 70.—Pharisaic Traditions. Need of Inward Purity. Capernaum. 11,12. THEN the Jews sought him at the feast, and said, Where is he? And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him: for some said, He is a good man: others 13 said, Nay; but he deceiveth the people. Howbeit, no man spake openly of him, for fear of the Jews. 14, 15 Now about the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught. And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned? 16, 17 Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I 18 speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. 19 Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye 20 about to kill me? The people answered and said, Thou hast a devil: who goeth about 21 to kill thee? Jesus answered and said unto them, I have done one work, and ye all 22 marvel. Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision, (not because it is of Moses, but 23 of the fathers;) and ye on the sabbath-day circumcise a man. If a man on the sabbath-day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye 24 angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath-day? Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. 25,26. Then said some of them of Jerusalem, Is not this he whom they seek to kill? But lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto him. Do the rulers know indeed that 27 this is the very Christ? Howbeit, we know this man, whence he is: but when Christ 28 cometh, no man knoweth whence he is. Then cried Jesus in the temple, as he taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, 29 but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not. But I know him; for I am from him, and he hath sent me. 30 Then they sought to take him: but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was 31 not yet come. And many of the people believed on him, and said, When Christ com- 32 eth, will he do more miracles than these which this man hath done? 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 a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him 34 that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye 35 cannot come. Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither will he go, that we shall not find him? will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the 36 Gentiles? 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? IN God's spiritual universe there are no favorites of heaven who can attain knowledge and spiritual wisdom apart from obedience. There are none who can surrender self, and in all things submit to God, and yet fail of spiritual convictions. It is not therefore a rare, partial condescension of God, arbitrary and causeless, which gives knowledge of the truth to some, and shuts it out from others; but a vast, universal, glorious law. The light lighteth every man that cometh into the world. "If any man will do his will, he shall know." F. W. R. The knowledge of the great and profound truths of religion is one that men are not so much to study, as to live themselves into; a knowledge that passes into the head through the heart. If God's grace be sought and given, knowledge will not stay behind, since it is the same spirit and principle that purifies the heart and clarifies the understanding. And where a long course of piety and close communion with God has purged the heart and rectified the will, knowledge will break in upon such a soul, like the sun shining in his full might. R. S. THE seventh month, Tisri, part of our September and October—"the month of the full streams" and the autumnal equinox—had now come. Nisan, "the flower month," known of old as Abib, "the earing month," had seen the Passover pass without the presence of Jesus. Ijjar, "the beautiful month," with its blossoming trees; Siwan, "the bright;" Tammuz; Ab, "the fruit month;" and Elul, "the month of wine," had gone by in the journey to Tyre and Sidon, and to Cesarea Philippi. G. 11. The feast of Tabernacles, or the feast of Ingathering, was intended to commemorate the passage of the Israelites through the wilderness, and was celebrated with such universal joy, that both Josephus and Philo call it "the holiest and greatest feast," and it was known among the Jews as "the Feast" preëminently. It was kept for seven consecutive days, from the 15th to the 21st of Tisri, and the eighth day was celebrated by a holy convocation. During the seven days the Jews, to recall their desert wanderings, lived in booths made of the thickly-foliaged boughs of olive, and palm, and pine, and myrtle. During the week of festivities all the courses of priests were employed in turn; seventy bullocks were offered in sacrifice for the seventy nations of the world; the law was daily read, and on each day the temple trumpets sounded twenty-one times an inspiring and triumphant blast. The joy of the occasion was deepened by the fact that the feast followed but four days after the ceremonies of the great day of Atonement, in which a solemn expiation was made for the sins of all the people. F. Sought him, and said, Where is he? Whatever topic had been engrossing the thoughts of the community would be sure to be the subject of general conversation in the capital the next time that the tribes assembled in Jerusalem. Remembering how fickle public feeling is, we may be certain that it was a subject which had taken a very strong hold of the public mind, that for a year and a half, during five successive festivals, came up ever fresh upon the lips of the congregated thousands. Yet it was so as to the appearance among them of Jesus Christ. Eighteen months had passed since he had been seen in Jerusalem, yet at this great annual gathering, after so long an absence, he is instantly the object of search, and the subject of conversation. H.—11-13. The Jews—the people—the Jews. For a clear apprehension of this and the following sections, observe the distinction made by John between the ruling party (of the Sanhedrim), called the Jews, and the people. J. G. B. 14. Suddenly, in the midst of all these murmurs and discussions, in the middle of the feast, Jesus, unaccompanied apparently by his followers, appeared suddenly in the temple, and taught. F. —Taught. The word denotes formal and continuous teaching, as distinguished from mere casual sayings. This was probably the first time that he did so thus openly in Jerusalem. He had kept back till the feast was half through, to let the stir about him subside, and entering the city unexpectedly, had begun his “teaching” at the temple, and created a certain awe, before the wrath of the rulers had time to break it. B.—It is highly probable that this discourse was mainly an exposition of the Old Testament Scriptures, especially of the prophecies concerning the Messiah like that in the synagogue at Nazareth. For the time had then come for such a discourse in the temple, and this supposition well accounts for their expressed surprise at his knowledge of their books. H. C. 15. The originality of Christ is uneducated. That he draws nothing from the stores of learning can be seen at a glance. The impression we have in reading his instructions justifies, to the letter, the language of his contemporaries, when they say, “This man hath never learned.” There is nothing in any of his allusions or forms of speech that indicates learning. Indeed, there is nothing in him that belongs to his age or country—no one opinion, or taste, or prejudice. H. B. 16-19. “My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me; not invented by me as a man, but revealed by God. But for your lack of the right will, you might be convinced of this. Whoever in heart desires to do the will of God, will, by means of that disposition, be able to decide whether my teaching is divine or human. Such a one may see that no human self-will is mixed up with my labors, but that in them all I seek only to glorify Him that sent me. But (verse 19) that ye lack the spirit essential to this, is shown by your deeds; pretending to zeal for the Mosaic law, and using that pretence to persecute one who seeks only to honor God, you care not, in reality, to keep that law.” N. 17. A principle, showing, on the one hand, that singleness of desire to please God is the grand inlet to light on all questions vitally affecting one’s eternal interests; and, on the other, that the want of this, whether perceived or not, is the chief cause of infidelity amidst the light of revealed religion. B.—If any man’s will be, to do His will, he shall know. Not that the bare performance of God’s outward commands will give acquaintance with Christian doctrine. What our Lord asserts is, that if the will be set in his ways, if a man be really anxious to do the will of God, and thus to fulfil the first great commandment of the law, this singleness of purpose and subjection to the will of God will lead him on to faith in the promised and then apparent Messiah, and to a just discrimination of the divine character of his teachings. A.—A well-disposed will is sure to engage the mind in a severe search into the great truths of religion; and it will accompany that search with two dispositions directly tending to the discoveries of truth, diligence, and impartiality. . . . Experience must give knowledge in the Christian profession, as well as in all others. The obedient, and the men of practice, are those sons of light that shall outgrow all their doubts and ignorances, and triumph over their present imperfections, till persuasion pass into knowledge, and knowledge advance into assurance, and all come at length to be completed in the beatific vision. R. S. The doctrine of all the prophets who went before and who followed Christ, has its end in Christ, to whom they point; but Christ, as a prophet, is himself the doctrine, his person the one centre of that doctrine, “I am the truth;” so, as high-priest, he is himself the sacrifice, and as king he is himself the head of his body. That Christ’s teaching is the teaching of God is the experience of every soul which gives itself up to God’s drawing. If the Jews had “willed” to do the will of God which was testified to them in the law, they would have discovered that they could not do it; and as penitent souls hungering after grace would have known that this doctrine, the doctrine of salvation in Christ, is no man’s doctrine, but that it is of God. Knowledge is a daughter of the will. The Lord will certainly lead to the knowledge of the truth all willing hearts which do not love darkness rather than light. All, in fact, depends upon true-heartedness. Be true-hearted with what thou hast received, and what thou hast not got will be given thee. “He that is of God heareth God’s word,” and he that is of the truth heareth the voice of him who himself is truth. R. B.—And still the saying of our Lord holds good, that in the search of truth, in the preserving us from error, in the guiding of us to right judgments about himself and his doctrine, the heart has more to do with the matter than the head—the willingness to do telling upon the capacity to know and to believe. H.—When Jesus Christ, dying in love for sinners, and radiant with gospel grace, is full before the soul, so as to appear somewhat as he is, an almighty and infinitely willing Redeemer, true to his word, then the sinner believes, receives him, has power to be a child of God; though, at the moment, nothing is further from his thoughts than any analysis of this believing. After all, nothing but experience can fully explain what faith is. Believe and know. J. W. A.—It is the virtue of the Christian life to rivet and seal Christian faith in the depth of the soul. Truth becomes clearer and dearer the more sacrifices we make to it. What we do for it unites it more and more closely to our soul. A. V.—Understanding shall grow with growing earnestness of purpose. And he that tries heartily to do Christ's will shall know of the doctrine; know it more and more; know it deeper and deeper; know all that he needs. To selfish, earth-bound hearts no secrets are revealed. No tokens of personal remembrance, no signs of secret favor, come from the Master. True redemption is our deliverance from that restless selfishness, and our return to union with God. No mastery among men, no conquests of self-promotion, no prosperous economy, no career of politic success, contains a joy so exquisite, and so full, as that pledge of friendship from the love and power and wisdom that fill the throne of eternity. F. D. H. 19. From the first they hated him, and from the time, now eighteen months ago, that he had cured the paralytic, breaking, as they thought, the Sabbath, and said that God was his father, making himself equal with God, they had resolved to kill him. This was the way—by cherishing hatred and the secret intent to murder—that they were dealing with the law. Rolling their adverse judgment of him back upon themselves, and dragging out to light the purpose that in the mean time they would have kept concealed, Jesus said, "Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me?" H. 22-24. Jesus, who ever loved to teach the lesson that love and not literalism is the fulfilling of the law, showed them, even on their own purely ritual and Levitical principle, that his word of healing had in no respect violated the Sabbath at all. For instance, Moses had established, or rather re-established, the ordinance of circumcision on the eighth day, and if that eighth day happened to be a Sabbath, they without scruple sacrificed the one ordinance to the other, and, in spite of the labor which it involved, performed the rite of circumcision on the Sabbath-day. If the law of circumcision superseded that of the Sabbath, did not the law of mercy? If that, which was at the best but a sign of deliverance, could not even on account of the Sabbath be postponed for a single day, why was it criminal not to have postponed for the sake of the Sabbath a deliverance actual and entire? And then he summed his self-defence in the one calm word, "Do not be ever judging by the mere appearance, but judge a righteous judgment." F. 25-29. It astonished the people to find that Jesus could testify thus openly against his opponents, and yet no hand be laid upon him; and they asked, "Can it be possible that the members of the Sanhedrim know this man to be the Messiah?" (verse 26). But they continued, still held in the prejudice and bondage of sense, "How can it be so, when we know him to be the son of the Nazarene carpenter? while the Messiah is to reveal himself suddenly in all his glory, so that all must acknowledge him" (verse 27). To expose the vanity of these expressions, Christ said, "It is true, ye both know me, and ye know whence I am; and yet ye know not; for ye know not the heavenly Father who hath sent me, and therefore ye cannot know me." Thus does he ever return to the principle that only those who know God, and belong to him in heart (i. e., who really endeavor to do his will), can be in a condition to recognize the Son of God in his self-manifestation, and to acknowledge that he is from heaven. N.—While he refers everything to God, Jesus Christ seeks not to define or explain him; he affirms him and demonstrates him; God is the first cause, the point from which all things sprung; faith in God is the paramount source of virtue and of power, of hope and resignation. F. G. 30. This restraint on our Lord's enemies can only be accounted for by direct divine interposition. They could do nothing against him until God, in his wisdom, was pleased to let it be done. We are all immortal till our work is done. To realize that nothing happens in this world except by the eternal counsels and according to the plans of our Father, is one grand secret of living a calm, peaceful, and contented life. J. C. R. 32. The Sanhedrim, seated in frequent session in their stone hall of meeting within the immediate precincts of the temple, were, by means of their emissaries, kept informed of all that he did and said, and, without seeming to do so, watched his every movement with malignant and jealous eyes. These whispered arguments in his favor, this deepened awe of him and belief in him, which, despite their authority, was growing up under their very eyes, seemed to them at once humiliating and dangerous. They determined on a bolder course of action. They sent out emissaries to seize him suddenly and stealthily, at the first opportunity which should occur. F. 36. So ended our Lord's first day of teaching in the temple, a day revealing on his part a wisdom, a courage, a serene, sublime trust which took his adversaries by surprise, and held all their deadly purposes against him in suspense, and on the part of the multitude the strangest mixture of conflicting opinions and sentiments, with which our Lord so dealt as to win exemption from like interruptions afterward, and to secure for himself an unbroken audience on the day when his last and greatest words were spoken. II. # Section 85.—The Invitation on the Great Feast-Day. Officers Return. The Temple. 37. In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man 38 thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture 39 hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive, for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified.) 40 Many of the people therefore, when they heard this saying, said, Of a truth this is 41 the Prophet. Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of 42 Galilee? Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and 43 out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was? So there was a division among the 44 people because of him. And some of them would have taken him; but no man laid hands on him. 45 Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, 46 Why have ye not brought him? The officers answered, Never man spake like this 47, 48 man. Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived? Have any of the 49 rulers, or of the Pharisees believed on him? But this people who knoweth not the 50 law are cursed. Nicodemus saith unto them (he that came to Jesus by night, being one 51 of them), Doth our law judge any man before it hear him, and know what he doeth? 52 They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for 53 out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. And every man went unto his own house. He had in Galilee invited all the weary and heavy-laden of the human family to come under his wing and they should find rest. He had in the synagogue of Capernaum announced himself, in every variety of form, as "the Bread of Life," and as both able and authorized to appease the "hunger," and quench the "thirst," of all that apply to him. There is, and there can be, nothing beyond that here. But what was on all those occasions uttered in private, or addressed to a provincial audience, is here sounded forth in the streets of the great religious metropolis, and in language of surpassing majesty, simplicity, and grace. It is Jehovah's ancient proclamation now sounding forth through human flesh, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money!" B. Are there no desires, longings, aspirations in these souls of ours that nothing earthly can meet and satisfy? Not money, not honor, not power, not pleasure, not anything nor everything this world holds out—they do not, cannot fill our hearts—they do not, cannot quench that thirst that burns within. Can any one tell us where we may carry this great thirst and get it fully quenched? From the lips of the man Christ Jesus the answer comes. He speaks to the crowds in the temple at Jerusalem, but his words are not for them alone; they have been given to the broad heavens, to be borne wide over the earth, and down through all its generations: If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink! H. 37. It was the great Jewish harvest-home; for this feast was celebrated in autumn, after all the fruits of the earth had been gathered in. It was within the temple that its joyous or thanksgiving character especially developed itself. Morning and evening, day by day, during sacrifices more crowded than those of any other of the great festivals, the air was rent with the praises of the rejoicing multitudes. At the time of the libation of water, the voice of their glad thanksgiving swelled up into its fullest, most jubilant expression. Each morning a vast procession formed around the little fountain of Siloam down in the valley of the Kedron. Out of its flowing waters the priests filled a large golden pitcher. Bearing it aloft, they climbed the steep ascent of Moriah, passed through the water-gate, up the broad stairs, and into the court of the temple, in whose centre the altar stood. Before this altar two silver basins were planted, with holes beneath to let the liquid poured into them flow down into the subterranean reservoir beneath the temple, to run out thence into the Kedron, and down into the Dead Sea. One priest stood and poured the water he had brought up from Siloam into one of these basins. Another poured the contents of a like pitcher filled with wine into the other. As they did so, the vast assemblage broke out into the most exulting exclamations of joy. The trumpets of the temple sounded. In voice and upon instrument, the trained choristers put forth all their skill and power. Led by them, many thousand voices chanted the great Hallel, the Psalms from the 113th to the 118th. H.—And when, for the last time, the water from the well of Siloam was poured out by the altar, none would easily refrain from joining in the song of praise: “God is my song, He also is become my salvation! Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.” (See Illus., Sec. 188.) In the midst of this magnificent festal rejoicing, Jesus cried aloud: If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. It is the cry which resounds throughout the whole of Scripture, and which had already been laid upon the kindly lips of prophets. Jehovah’s invitation, “Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,” Jesus here distinctly appropriates to himself. In this cry the Lord Jesus delights to reveal his readiness to save all souls needing salvation, from the time of his pronouncing those blessed who thirst, in M. 5 : 6, on to the word in Rev. 20 : 17: “Let him that is athirst, come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely!” R. B. 38. By the “water” which is to be communicated by the Redeemer, and which is to become in man a fountain of life, Christ meant nothing else than the quickening energies of the Spirit of God. A. T.—Rivers of living water. These words are expressly declared by John to refer “to the Spirit, that they who believe in Jesus were to receive.” The rivers of living water which are to flow out of the hearts of believers in Christ must mean spiritual gifts. Hare.—They signify the abundance and freeness of grace. That which is ever active he calls living; for the grace of the Spirit, when it has entered the understanding and taken up its abode there, gushes out more freely than any fountain, incessantly, unfailingly; and to show its inexhaustible plenty and great energy, it is called rivers—not one, but innumerable rivers. Chrys.—A strong metaphor when rivers are said to flow out of the heart of believers: nevertheless, the sense is not doubtful, namely, that no spiritual blessing shall ever be wanting to them that believe. Here is promised to us the perpetuity of the gifts of the Spirit, as well as their abundance. Calvin. 39. Believe . . . receive. If any man has faith he has the Spirit. If any man has not the Spirit, he has no saving faith in Christ. The effectual work of the second and third persons in the Trinity is never divided. J. C. R.—The Holy Ghost was not yet. The peculiar work and office of the Holy Ghost, to manifest and glorify Christ, did not yet exist. The preaching of forgiveness of sins, of comfort and joy in Christ, was at that time unheard. That salvation, righteousness, and life were to be given by the man Christ was not known. Luther.—Jesus was not yet glorified. Not until Jesus had been crucified, raised again, and exalted by the right hand of God, and thus made Lord and Christ, not until he, through his resurrection, had entered into his glory, and began to reveal himself as glorified to his people: not till then was it that the Spirit came to dwell forever on them and in them, in order from them to flow forth into the world. R. B. 44. Some would have taken him. They were strangely dead to the sweetness and glory of these words of life, and repelled by purity and goodness. But they were too few to carry their measures against the greater number who admired and sustained—so that no man laid hands on him. It is plain that in a fair field before the people, Jesus had the hearts of too many to permit the resort to violence. Hence the necessity of treachery and betrayal in order to arrest him in the absence of the multitude. H. C. 46. Spake like this man. How exquisitely and freshly simple is the actual language of Christ compared with all other teaching that has ever gained the ear of the world There is no science in it, no art, no wisdom of the schools. Straight as an arrow to the mark his precepts pierce to the very depths of the soul and spirit. All is short, clear, precise, full of holiness, full of the common images of daily life. There is scarcely a scene or object familiar to the Galilee of that day, which Jesus did not use as a moral illustration of some glorious promise or moral law. And we, who can compare Christ's teaching with all that the world has of best and greatest in philosophy and eloquence and song, must not we too add, with yet deeper emphasis, that teaching as one having authority, he spake as never man spake? F.—One of the most melancholy contrasts is between the words of the wisest of men and the exemplification which he himself gave of wisdom. How different when we come to Christ! Our deepest moral nature sets the seal of approval on his words, and our emotional nature is drawn to himself with the strongest love and reverence. We can take his words and himself and set them side by side, and interweave them, like music, with thought in perfect harmony. Ker.—He opened his lips, we are told, wherever he came, and taught the people. They wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. Way-sides and hills and common dwellings were the simple apparatus and open halls of his lessons. He unveiled the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Men wanted to know their parentage, and he taught them of the Father; their duties to each other, and he told them by parables and precepts; their destiny, and he uncovered the retributions and joys of their immortality. He laid bare the profound and vital meaning of all man's feeling, suffering, longing; of regeneration, and prayer, and charity; of spiritual unity, and worship, and the resurrection; of the relation of the spirit to the letter, of the new to the old; of the Father, and the Son, and the Comforter to each other. Men saw, and knew, and felt that the greatest of prophets was risen up among them. F. D. H. 49. Knoweth not the law are cursed.** Besides the mere learning by heart the five books of Moses, the almost endless comments of the rabbis must be mastered by years of slavish labor, before one was recognized as a really educated man. Hence the nation was divided into two great classes of learned and unlearned, between whom there lay a wide gulf. Puffed up with boundless pride at their attainments, the former frankly denounced their less scholarly countrymen as "cursed countrymen" or boors. G.—51. Nicodemus wisely appealed to law. It is difficult to see what more could have been said in the present temper of the Pharisees. The words show Nicodemus to have become a real, though slow-growing disciple of Christ. It required great courage to do even the little that he did here. J. C. R. 52. "Shall the Christ come out of Galilee?" asked the wondering people. "Search and look!" said the rabbis to Nicodemus, "for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet." It would not have needed very deep searching or looking to find that these words were ignorant or false; for not to speak of Barak the deliverer, and Elon the judge, and Anna the prophetess, three, if not four, of the prophets—and those prophets of the highest eminence, Jonah, Elijah, Hosea, and Nahum—had been born, or had exercised much of their ministry, in the precincts of Galilee. F.—Bigotry strong and fierce as theirs was doubly blind; for God did raise up prophets from Galilee, and Jesus was not born in Galilee, but in Bethlehem-Judah—as they should have known. H. C.—We can readily imagine that, on the part of Jerusalem and its inhabitants, there was a feeling of superiority to Galilee and the Galileans. But that such a feeling ever amounted to contempt, there is not the slightest evidence in Josephus, the New Testament, or the Talmud. In the climate of Galilee, its fertile soil, and its charming scenery; in the abundance of its waters and the beauty of its lakes; in its numerous and often elegant cities and villages; in its hardy, industrious, and intelligent population; in the interest of its people in the law, the temple services, and the great national feasts; in its wealth and material prosperity, and its various thriving industries; and in the unexampled patriotism and bravery of its sons—what ground is there why the people of Jerusalem should regard Galilee or the Galileans with contempt? S. M. 53. The "Galilean" had proved for the time stronger than the Sanhedrim. Once more, as after the miracle of Bethesda, they had been foiled and publicly defeated. J. C. R. RETURNING to contemplate the words in verses 37, 38, as part of the human history of the man of Nazareth, let us think of their bearing upon a question we often ask, Did Jesus place himself before the thousands of his countrymen as truly their promised Messiah? The records of his public life speak of him mostly as being in remote Galilee, traversing cities and villages, healing the sick; casting out devils; teaching his disciples; occasionally, yet rarely, drawing about him and after him large crowds of people—but not often in Jerusalem, and only on few occasions becoming conspicuous at the great annual festivals of the nation. But in this chapter we see him in the temple on the great day of their most joyous festival; the thousands of Israel are gathered there; and his time has fully come to announce himself as their Redeemer and Messiah. "He stood and cried;" taking his stand conspicuously in the presence of the multitude, he lifted up his voice as one who had an important message to proclaim, and a right to be heard; and then and there, in words chosen from their well-known prophetic Scriptures, he declared: "I come to fulfil in myself those munificent promises. I come to give the waters of salvation to every thirsty and believing soul. If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. The waters I give shall be an unfailing fountain in his soul; a well of water springing up unto everlasting life; 'rivers of living water,' flowing out in blessings to others if so they will—never to fail." What better words could he have spoken to place himself before the people as their own Messiah? What one feature in the scene could be changed, or what new feature added, to make the whole more impressive, more majestic, more tender, and yet more sublime? H. C. ## Section 86.—The Woman and her Accusers. The Light of the World. The Temple. 1,2. JESUS went unto the mount of Olives: 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. 3. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery: and 4 when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in 5 adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be 6 stoned: but what sayest thou? 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 7 though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. 8,9. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even 10 unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, 11 where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She saith, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. 12. Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that fol- 13 loweth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. The Pharisees 14 therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true. 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 ye cannot tell whence I come, and 15, 16 whither I go. Ye judge after the flesh, I judge no man. And yet if I judge, my judg- 17 ment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. It is also written 18 in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of 19 myself; and the Father that sent me, beareth witness of me. Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also. 20. These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come. THE Son of God, standing in human form on the earth, standing in the courts of his Father's house among the worshippers at the feast of Tabernacles, uses this sublime, this magnificent figure, to express that which he came to do for, and to be to, the universe of his moral creation: "I am the light of the world." Once God said, when he created all things by Jesus Christ, "Let there be light." It was the first act of that mighty drama, of which the curtain rose on chaos, and fell on paradise. Now God speaks again—thousands of years lying between—and says once more, "Let there be light;" and, this time, the light is a man: One like ourselves in all that makes the infirmities and the sorrows and the sufferings of mortal being; and yet within that despised, that rejected Person, there “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” V. He that followeth me shall have the light of life. Jesus was more than a teacher of truth; for he not only gave light, but was the Light: more than the guide to life; for he was the Light of life. As Augustine has said, “Light which brings other things to view, brings itself to view. Light furnishes its own testimony: it opens healthy eyes, and itself is a witness to itself.” Jesus announced himself as the Light, not of one city or people only, but of the whole world. This light had come, not to search men out for judgment, but to guide them to salvation; but, for that very reason, so much the greater must be the condemnation to those who should reject it. Not to come forth and walk in the light is to abide in darkness; not to come to the Saviour will be to die in sin; and to die in sin, rejecting Jesus who alone can save from sin, will be to die without hope, and to perish without remedy. J. P. T. 1,2. The return of the people to the quiet of their dwellings at the close of the feast (verse 53 of previous section) is designedly contrasted with our Lord’s homeless way of spending the short night, who is early in the morning on the scene again. It might have been the Lord’s ordinary custom to leave the brilliant misery of the city every night, that so he might compose his sorrowful and interceding heart, and collect his energies for new labors of love: preferring for his resting-place the Mount of Olives, the scene thus consecrated by many preparatory prayers for his final humiliation and exaltation. Stier.—It would appear that our Lord, during his visits to Jerusalem, never spent a night in the city. Sometimes he walked to Bethany, but usually made the Mount of Olives his home. It appears, moreover, that there was one particular “place” (J. 18: 2, etc.) on the mount, “a garden,” “a place called Gethsemane,” to which he was accustomed to go, and in which to stay. There is a strong probability too that this was that “certain place” mentioned by Luke (11: 1), where Jesus taught them (again) the Lord’s Prayer. It may have been to this very place that Nicodemus came by night. Here then we have a spot closely connected with the private life of Jesus. That the Son of man should have his house in a garden—that he should be forced to rest, and sleep, and pray on the hill-side, under the open canopy of heaven—must seem to many strange. But those familiar with Eastern life will easily understand it. During a great part of the year nearly all the inhabitants sleep in the open air; on the house-top or in garden or field. There is no rain, and no dew; the ground is dry and the air fresh and balmy. Moreover, in the East one can have no privacy in a house, night or day. The one apartment is open to all comers. The garden on Olivet most probably belonged to some secret friend; and Christ’s followers knew it well. J. L. P. 3-11. This narrative is not found in some of the MSS., but it was circulated in various texts as early, perhaps, as the second, certainly as the third, century. There can be no doubt that it is a genuine fragment of evangelical history, derived from some source which we do not now exactly know, and there needs be no hesitation in adopting it as the narrative of an incident in the life of Jesus. For a full statement of the overwhelming evidence in its favor, I would refer to the remarks of Meyer, and of Lücke and Rosenmüller. G. 3. Defeated in their effort to meet him in argument, or to apprehend him in the absence of any legal charge, they tried next to entrap him into committing himself in some way. J. C. R.—A large number of people had already gathered round Jesus in the women’s court, where he had sat down to teach. A woman of the humbler class had been guilty of immorality, and the scribes, on the moment, saw in her sin a possible snare for the hated Galilean. It was not their business, but that of her husband, to accuse her; nor could she be legally punished, except by divorce, if he himself were not a man of pure life. It was the custom, however, in cases of difficulty, to consult a famous rabbi; and advantage was taken of this to entrap Jesus, if possible, by asking him to adjudicate on the case. G. 5,6. Either he must decide against the law, and appear at once a blasphemer of Moses and a partisan of gross sin, or incur popular odium [because the offence was common] by condemning the culprit to death. S.—They said in themselves, If he shall bid stone her, he will not have the repute of gentleness; if he give sentence to let her go, he will not keep righteousness. Aug.—They came not to learn, but to tempt; and to tempt, that they might accuse. Fain would these adversaries draw Christ to contradict Moses, that they might take advantage of his contradiction. They saw his inclination to mercy and commiseration, so far as to neglect even some circumstances of the law, as to touch the leper, to heal on the Sabbath, to eat with known sinners, to dismiss an infamous but penitent offender, to select and countenance two noted publicans; and hereupon they might perhaps think that his compassion might draw him to cross this Mosaical institution. Bp. H.—To make her, with total disregard to her own sufferings, the mere passive instrument of their hatred against Jesus; and to do all this, not under the pressure of moral indignation, but in order to gratify a calculating malice, showed on their parts a graceless, pitiless, barbarous brutality of heart and conscience, which could not but prove revolting and hateful to one who alone was infinitely tender, because he alone was infinitely pure. F. 7. Jesus declined delivering a legal sentence, treated the case more as a matter of conscience, and pronounced upon it in an exclusively moral point of view, according to which the accusers appeared no less guilty than the accused. To this point of view he intended to lead them even by his silence, in verse 6. But as he did not succeed, he openly says at verse 7, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." C. B.—It was not any abrogation of the Mosaic law; it was, on the contrary, an admission of its justice, and doubtless it must have sunk heavily as a death-warrant upon the woman's heart. But it acted in a manner wholly unexpected. The terrible law stood written; it was not the time, it was not his will, to rescind it. But, on the other hand, they themselves, by referring the whole question to him as though it needed a new solution, had practically confessed that the law had fallen into desuetude, and that even with his authority they had no intention of carrying it into action. Since, therefore, the whole proceeding was on their part illegal and irregular, he transfers it by these words from the forum of law to that of conscience. F.—He answers in effect, "The law is just, but let just men execute the law;" which answer was just and gentle; let this sinner be punished, but not by sinners. Aug. 7-9. Christ well knew how to repel such attacks by an appeal to higher principles, which at once justified his conduct and condemned his assailants. The same law which adjudged the guilty to death required the witnesses to cast the first stones, in token of their abhorrence of the crime. But who dared do this, if conscious that his guilt was the same? And such was the prevalent corruption, that all the accusers were in this case. S.—Went out one by one. Once more, their schemes had only turned to their own shame. He had given no opinion for the obsolete law, or against it: their own consciences had set the offender free. G.—Thus does the Lord leave the law in its honor and in its condemning clearness; ay, and here, as ever, he sharpens its slaying edge, so that it cannot but penetrate even into the conscience of a Pharisee, while he sends accusers as well as accused to the one same sinner's dock. But not as one appointed to carry out the punishment of the law does he speak. R. B. The repeated instances in which, without a moment's hesitation, he foiled the crafty designs of his enemies, and in foiling them taught forever some eternal principle of thought and action, are among the most unique and decisive proofs of his more than human wisdom; and yet not one of those gleams of sacred light which were struck from him by collision with the malice or hate of man was brighter or more beautiful than this. . . . They were "such" as the woman they had condemned, and they dared not stay. He would not add to their shame and confusion of face by watching them: he had no wish further to reveal his knowledge of the impure secrets of their hearts; he would not tempt them to brazen it out before him, and to lie against the testimony of their own memories; he had stooped down once more, and was writing on the ground. F.—Two plain inferences from this transaction deserve notice. The tacit confession of gross sin by the scribes and Pharisees does away with the idea that they were honest though mistaken enthusiasts for what they deemed truth and righteousness; and the fact that Christ does not disclaim the authority to judge the case—nay, assumes it in his last words—gives another proof of his divinity. S. 10,11. Then at last, face to face with that guilty one whom he had delivered from the human vengeance, he brought her into that truer and higher court, for which they, the human accusers, had cared nothing, and in the very act of absolving, added also the highest of all motives for reformation, when he said, "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more." He who thus dealt with guilt was in deed and in truth the sinner's friend. V.—His look, the most terrible of all to meet, because it was the only look that fell on her from a soul robbed in a stainless innocence, was at the same time the most gentle and the most forgiving. Her stay was a sign of her penitence; her penitence, let us trust, a certain pledge of her future forgiveness. "Two things," as Augustine finely says, "were here left alone together—misery and mercy." F.—Go and sin no more. With these words he condemns the sin and saves the sinner. R. B.—In all his intercourse with men, Christ displayed the utmost tenderness to those who had found out that they were sinners—all that ran to him in penitence. His woes and threatenings and judgments were for those that were sinners without confessing it. F. D. H. The judge, being the representative but of one side of the divine character, of the divine justice, does not pardon, but only condemns or acquits. The king, however, is a larger mirror of the divine perfections, of grace no less than of justice; he, therefore, after the condemnation, is free to pardon. It was this, the kingly function, which our Lord exercised when he bade the woman taken in adultery to go free. He did not thereby act against his own law, given by Moses, which had said that such should be stoned: he only completed it. The idea upon which her pardon, upon which every pardon pronounced by the monarch as the fountain of grace in the land, properly rests, is that this will bring about in him who is its object a truer righteousness than the payment of the extreme penalty would have done; for there is something in him which promises that the end which punishment was to reach will more surely be attained by the method of grace. Were it otherwise, the true love would be to suffer the punishment to take its course. So that here, too, justice and grace appear as identical—as love, manifesting itself now at one pole, now at the other. T. Pure and inflexible interpreter of the divine law, he knows and understands man's nature, and judges it with that equitable severity which nothing escapes, the excuse as little as the fault. Faith, sincerity, humanity, sorrow, repentance, touch him, without biasing the charity and the justice of his conclusions; and he expresses blame or announces pardon with the same calm serenity of authority, certain that his eye has read the depths of the heart to which his words will penetrate. F. G. His ground is charity, not liberality; and the two are as wide apart in their practical implications, as adhering to all truth, and being loose in all. Charity holds fast the minutest atoms of truth, as being precious and divine, offended by even so much as a thought of laxity. Liberality loosens the terms of truth; permitting easily and with careless magnanimity variations from it; consenting, as it were, in its own sovereignty, to overlook or allow them; and subsiding thus, ere long, into a licentious indifference to all truth, and a general defect of responsibility in regard to it. Charity extends allowance to men; liberality, to falsities themselves. Charity takes the truth to be sacred and immovable; liberality allows it to be marred and maimed at pleasure. How different the manner of Jesus in this respect from that irreverent, feeble laxity, that lets the errors be as good as the truths, and takes it for a sign of intellectual eminence, that one can be floated comfortably in the abysses of liberalism! "Judge not," he says, in holy charity, "that ye be not judged;" and again, in holy exactness, "whosoever shall break, or teach to break, one of these least commandments, shall be least in the kingdom of God." And again, "these things ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone"—once more, too, in the same way, "he that is without sin, let him cast the first stone;" and again, "go, and sin no more." So magnificent and sublime, so plainly divine, is the balance of Jesus. Nothing throws him off the centre on which truth rests; no prejudice, no opposition, no attempt to right a mistake, or rectify a delusion, or reform a practice. H. B. 12. I am the light of the world.** He was seated at that moment in the treasury, which contained the thirteen chests with trumpet-shaped openings, into which the people, and especially the Pharisees, used to cast their gifts. F.—It stood at the north side of the court of the women, which lay outside the temple properly so called, and in which, on all the great annual festivals, crowds were wont daily to assemble. In the centre of this court, at the feast of Tabernacles, two tall stands were placed, each supporting four large branching candelabra. As at the time of the morning sacrifice, the procession wound its way up from the fountain of Siloam, and the water was poured out from the golden pitcher to remind the people of the supply of water that had been made for their forefathers during the desert wanderings; so after the evening sacrifice all the lights in these candelabra were kindled, the flame broad and brilliant enough to illuminate the whole city, to remind the people of the pillar of light by which their marchings through the wilderness were guided. And still freer and heartier than the morning jubilations which attended on the libation of the water, were the evening ones, which accompanied the kindling of the lights. It was with allusion to the one ceremony that Jesus said, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." It was with allusion to the other, of which both he and those around him were reminded by the stately chandeliers which stood at the time before their eyes, that he said, "I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." In uttering both these sayings, Jesus placed himself in a singular and elevated relationship to the whole human family. In the one he invited the entire multitude of human thirsters to come to him to have their thirst assuaged. In the other, he claimed to be the one central source of light and life to the whole world. H. He proclaims, "I am the light of the world"—plainly in the most absolute sense. For though he gives his disciples the same title, they are only "light in the Lord," and though he calls the Baptist "the burning and shining light" (or "lamp" of his day), yet "he was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light which, coming into the world, lighteth every man." Under this magnificent title Messiah was promised of old (Isaiah 42: 6). B.—They wanted him to announce himself as the Messiah, and so become their temporal deliverer; but he will only tell them the far deeper, more eternal truths, that he is the light, and the life, and the living water, and that he came from the Father—as they, too, should know when they had lifted him up upon the cross. They were looking solely for the Messiah of the Jews: he would have them know him as the Redeemer of the world, the Saviour of their souls. F. Followeth me. As a disciple, servant, traveller, soldier, or sheep. What the teacher is to the scholar, the master to the servant, the guide to the traveller, the captain to the soldier, the shepherd to the sheep, that is Christ to true Christians. Following is the same as believing. Light of life. The light that Christ gives is independent of time or place—is not affected by sickness or death—burns on forever. He that has it shall feel light within his mind, heart, conscience—shall have light shining round him, guiding him in his journey through life, and shall reflect light by his conduct and conversation. J. C. R.—Through all the realms of organic nature light is the nourisher of life, “indispensable to a healthy development and a persistent vitality.” The chemistry of the sun transmutes inorganic matter into the substances of vegetable growth, distils the fertilizing showers, vitalizes the myriad tribes of insects, evokes the songs of birds, develops in man the red blood-cells which give body to his muscle, marrow to his bones, and thought to his brain, colors the infant’s cheek with the glow of healthy organization, cheers the sick man with healing mercy; in short, the continuance of the physical creation, like its beginning, depends upon the word, Let there be light. And here the analogy of the spiritual world at once suggests itself—that Christ, in bringing to the soul light upon whatever concerns its existence, state, recovery, destiny, as the offspring of God, fallen, redeemed, immortal, brings to it a quickening power, the light of life. J. P. T. 15,16. He guards against the notion that judgment is the object of his witness. Not for judgment, but for salvation, does he bear witness of himself as the light, and this witness only falls as a judgment upon him whose love of darkness deserves that incapacity of being saved, to which he is given over. And this judgment is a judgment of God. R. B. 18. Our Saviour must not be understood here to distinguish himself from his Father in respect of his divine being, for so he and his Father are one; but in respect of his office, as he was sent, and his Father was he who sent him. Poole.—His testimony and judgment were true, because not given by himself as a man of himself, but by him with the Father. Thus there were two witnesses: his own testimony, infallible because of his communion with the Father; and the testimony of the Father himself, given in his manifestation and ministry as a whole. N.—19. “But ye neither know me, nor my Father; for to know the one is to know the other—to remain ignorant of the one is to remain ignorant of the other. It is your want of all true knowledge of me that keeps you from knowing God. It is the want of all true knowledge of God that keeps you from knowing me. Had you known me, you would have known him; had you known him, you would have known me.” So fared it with our Lord’s declaration that he was the light of the world, as it was at first spoken in the temple; so ended the first brief colloquy with the Jews to which its utterance gave birth. H. ## Section 87.—Severe Denunciation of the Jews. 21. THEN said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in 22 your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come. Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? 23 because he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come. And he said unto them, Ye are from 24 beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in 25 your sins. Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, Even 26 the same that I said unto you from the beginning. I have many things to say, and to judge of you: but he that sent me, is true; and I speak to the world those things which 27 I have heard of him. They understood not that he spake to them of the Father. 28 Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up 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 29 me, I speak these things. 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, 31 As he spake these words, many believed on him. Then said Jesus to those Jews 32 which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 33 and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest 34 thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto 35 you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth 36 not in the house for ever, but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make 37 you free, ye shall be free indeed. I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to 38 kill me, because my word hath no place in you. I speak that which I have seen with 39 my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's 40 children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that 41 hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we 42 have one Father, even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he 43 sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my 44 word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do: he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode 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 45, 46 the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you 47 convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God, heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. THE test of discipleship is constancy in obedience. Truth itself is rendered intelligible by the spirit of obedience. The appreciative knowledge of truth dispels error, and, by showing the evil and danger of sin, delivers the soul from its bondage and power. Sin is a hard taskmaster; and they who begin by yielding to its pleasures, must end by paying its penalties. Christ alone can free us from such bondage; and to enter into union with him by faith is to receive that spirit of life which is the sense of true freedom. The Jews, who prided themselves upon being the children of God through the calling and covenant of Abraham, had enslaved themselves to formalism, to hypocrisy, to the spirit of darkness, to the powers of this world. Resenting the tyranny of the Romans with a hatred that never died, they yet lived under bondage to a spiritual power more degrading and more unrelenting than this hated foreign yoke. Christ came to announce the year of jubilee, the day of redemption, the salvation of God; and, by striking at the root of sin in the heart, to deliver all who would hear him. His religion is not a yoke of rules, a bondage of forms, but the perfect law of liberty: for its life is truth; and its spirit, love. J. P. T. 21. Shall die in your sins.** In the expressive form of the Greek—“In your sin ye shall die!” In your one, all-comprehensive, and fatal sin of unbelief, ye must die forever! With mournful and solemn emphasis we must suppose these words fell from those blessed lips, suggested by the contrast between his future and theirs—himself going so soon to dwell with the Father in blessedness perfect and eternal; they “going to their own place” to meet the doom of the guilty and the lost! H. C.—The sins of believers go to the grave bebefore them; sin dieth while they live. The sins of unbelievers go to the grave with them. They that die in their sins shall rise in their sins, and stand before Christ in their sins. Burkitt. 23,24. A gulf was already fixed between these children of the world and the Lord from heaven, the gulf between beneath and above, between darkness and light, between death and life—a gulf which was impassable to them unless they would yet believe. Christ, and with Christ Christians, go above, to heaven, because they are from above; they die not with this dying world, because they are not of this world; but the servants of sin and the devil go beneath, because they are from beneath; they die with this death-doomed world, because they are of this world. R. B. 25. He does not say explicitly that he is the Christ. His questioners were well aware what kind of person their Messiah was generally expected to be, how different from all that Jesus was. They would provoke him to make a claim which they knew would be generally disallowed. He will not do it. When they say, "Who art thou?" he contents himself by saying, "I am essentially that which I speak; my sayings reveal myself, and tell who and what I am." In this, as in so many other instances of his dealing with those opposed to him at Jerusalem, his sayings were confined to assertions or revelations, not of his Messiahship, but of his unity of nature, will, and purpose with the Father. H.—Had he not then told them who he was? Yes, indeed, but they believed not that he was what he spoke, that in his words he revealed his being, as he at once both is and speaks the eternal Word of God. R. B.—Even the same. The sentence must be rendered thus: "Essentially that which I also discourse unto you." He is the Word; his discourses are the revelation of himself. When Moses asked the name of God, "I am that which I AM," was the mysterious answer; the hidden essence of the yet unrevealed One could only be expressed by self-comprehension; but when God manifest in the flesh is asked the same question, it is "I am that which I SPEAK;" what he reveals himself to be, that he is. A. 28. When ye have lifted up. The plainest intimation he had yet given in public of the manner and the authors of his death. B.—Ye shall know. At his death new and more impressive proofs of his true Messiahship would appear. His resurrection would bring yet other confirmations of his mission, and the descent of the Spirit would bear home these new testimonies to many hearts. H. C.—Some would know by the power of the Holy Spirit, to their own salvation; others by the judgments which were to follow ere long, and to their own dismay and ruin. A.—Nothing of myself.** "I do nothing of my own independent authority." The reference is to the perfect union between the Son and the Father. J. C. R. 29. He that sent me is with me.** He simply speaks of God and spiritual things as one who has come out from him, to tell us what he knows. And his simple telling brings us the reality; proves it to us in its own sublime self-evidence; awakens even the consciousness of it in our own bosom. Indeed, he makes even the world luminous by his words—fills it with an immediate and new sense of God, which nothing has ever been able to expel. H. B.—Jesus was evidently unique in his spiritual individuality—in his constant and conscious communion with God; in his consciousness of sinlessness, of divinity, and of the grandest of missions; in the universality, completeness, and unapproachable greatness of his manhood, attained and manifested by him without apparent cause and without conscious effort; in the entire unselfishness and boundless self-sacrifice of his life, and in the sublime devotion of it to God and humanity; in his faith in God and truth, and in his calm assurance of the triumph of his kingdom on earth. In all these he was absolutely alone among men. D. S. G. 31,32. By continuing in Christ's word, his disciples will indeed know the truth; so proceeds our Lord's discourse. By virtue of the knowledge of the truth they shall live, they shall share the life of Christ, who is truth and life, for they shall become free from sin and from all that has come upon them in consequence of sin. R. B.—In the simple economy of God, truth always blesses, liberates, and cleanses him that holds it, by the same law that error curses, cramps, and destroys. F. D. H.—If ye continue in my word. Our Lord teaches the great principle that steady continuance is the only real safe proof of discipleship. No perseverance, no grace! No continuance in the word, no real faith and conversion! J. C. R.—To come to Christ is no one transient act, to be done once in a man's life. What he calls "coming to him," he elsewhere expresses by "abiding in him," and here by continuing in his word. Beveridge.—Ye shall know the truth. The truth concerning myself, my nature, my mission, my gospel. Steady continuance in my service shall lead to clear knowledge. It is a parallel saying to J. 7 : 17. J. C. R. 33. The unbelieving party of the Jews protested against his assumption, that they still needed to be made free, and plumed themselves on their descent from Abraham. In his reply he destroys, first, their boast of freedom, and, secondly, their triumph in their patriarchal lineage. C. B.—Never in bondage to any. A monstrous fiction, dear to the national vanity, but which might have been sufficiently disproved by the helmets of the Roman soldiers in the adjoining tower of Antonia. K.—The seed of Abraham were in bondage to the Egyptians and Babylonians for many years, to say nothing of the frequent bondages to other nations. Even now they were in subjection to the Romans. 34-36. Our Lord shows what kind of freedom he had meant, by showing the kind of slavery from which he wished them to be delivered. The man that lived wilfully in habits of sin was acknowledged by all to be the slave of sin. Even heathen philosophers admitted it. J. C. R.—Going far deeper than freedom in the political sense, he insists that every sinner is a slave. In committing sin he yields to a master; he surrenders himself to do the will of the devil; his own lusts overpower his better judgment and reason. He is absolutely in bondage—a bondage at once tyrannous, humiliating, disgraceful. Then, recurring to the figure of servitude, he contrasts the state of the slave in the household with that of the son. The slave has no permanent home there; no rights of home; may be ejected at any time. The son is the heir, and is at home there with no limit of time. If now the Son of man gives you the rights of freemen in God's house ye are indeed free—not otherwise. H. C. 37. My word hath no place in you.** The word in the original which is rendered by hath place, expresses the powerful operation of the living word of God (Heb. 4 : 12) when, fastening upon the heart, it forces itself in, and, pushing forward, establishes for itself a place therein. "Man must abide in the word, the word lay hold in the man" (Bengel). But it cannot lay hold, it cannot push forward in the heart, if man obstinately locks up the way against it. And that the Jews did in their hatred to Jesus. R. B. 37-40. Jesus admits that they are the seed, but denies that they are children of Abraham. They were unquestionably born in his lineage, but, as unquestionably, were aliens in spirit and character; utterly far from being children of Abraham in the sense of bearing his image and inheriting his virtues. In every point they were totally unlike Abraham; children of another father. H. C.—They boasted without reason, he told them, of being Abraham's children. By attempting the life of one who was offering them the truth, and thus acting as enemies to the truth, they showed themselves children of Satan rather than of Abraham; their disposition and actions savored more of the father of lies than the Father of the faithful. The cause of their unbelief, therefore, was precisely this, that their disposition of heart was the reverse of Abraham's. Him, whom Abraham longed for, they sought to destroy. N.—42. If they really were children of God the Father, they would love him as the Father's Son, the Father's messenger, the Father's promised Messiah. Not loving him, they gave the plainest proof that they were not God's children. J. C. R. 43. Why do ye not understand?** They were continually misunderstanding, misinterpreting, and stumbling at, the expressions he used in teaching them. By "bread" they thought he meant literal bread. By "freedom," political freedom. Having no will to listen to and receive his doctrine, they were ready at every step to misconstrue the words and figures under which it was conveyed and placed before them. J. C. R.—If God were their Father, and they God's children and house-mates, must they not have known the speech of their home, their mother-tongue? So strange is the Son of God to his Father's lost children, that they do not even understand his speech! And why not? He himself gives the answer: "Even because ye cannot hear my word." They had no inward ear for the truth which Jesus was speaking to them, therefore also in his speech they recognized not the speech of God. R. B. 44. Ye are of the devil.** This is one of the most decisive testimonies to the objective (outward) personality of the devil. It is quite impossible to suppose an accommodation to Jewish views, or a metaphorical form of speech, in so solemn an assertion as this. A.—Christ teaches that all wickedness, and all evil in its connection with wickedness, must be traced back to a spirit that first rebelled against God, to an original sin, which gave birth to the first germ of wickedness. . . . Christ gives a perfectly defined conception of Satan; he designates him as "the spirit alienated from truth and goodness (for, according to John's usage, truth involves both the true and the good); in whom falsehood and wickedness have become a second nature; who can find no abiding-place in the truth." The revelation of truth which the spirits were to receive from communion with the Father of spirits passes by him unheeded; he cannot receive and hold it fast, because he has no susceptibility for its impressions. Christ tells the Pharisees that they, serving the spirit of lies, and living in communion with him, showed themselves, by the spirit which their actions manifested, to be children of Satan, rather than of Abraham and God. N.—The account Josephus gives of the wickedness of the Jews at this period, abundantly vindicates this assertion of our Lord from any appearance of undue severity. D. Your father the devil. Thus does the Lord Jesus at length name the father to whom, by willing to do his lusts, they had given themselves up to be children. There is a fearful severity in Jesus' words; but they are yet full of goodness; for they paint before the eyes of sinners the image of the original, personal author of sin, if perchance sinners might recognize in this mirror their own sinful likeness thereto, and be terrified at themselves, at the depravation of their own being. He wishes to inspire the inmost heart of his present and all future hearers with fear and trembling, lest they should perish by walking in the way of that great murderer and liar. The murderer from the beginning is also now in activity, endeavoring to destroy life. R. B.—The great battle of the world and of all time is with sin; not with suffering so much, as with that which is the cause of all suffering—with moral evil, the root and source of physical evil. The gospels are distinguished by the frequent and vivid representation of sin as a deep and deadly evil in the heart, as voluntary departure from rectitude, from purity, from truth, from love—in one word, from God, separation from him in thought, affection, and will. In the teaching of Christ, sin is an undoubted and awful reality, the bitter cause of all that afflicts and crushes the world, the death of the human body, the perdition of the human soul. 44. One of the most marked features of Christ's spirit and manner in public was the terrible severity with which, although seldom, he exposed and denounced evil. Friendless and powerless as he seemed to be—as in his earthly relations he certainly was—he did not repress on necessary occasion a burning indignation. But the objects of deepest aversion and abhorrence to Jesus were the Pharisees, lawyers, and scribes, the leaders of the chief sect in that day, the transcribers and interpreters of the Bible. He was strikingly more patient with the Sadducees, the freethinkers of Judea, although he decisively condemned their principles. Even to the convicted and gross violator of the laws of morality, he spoke with wondrous gentleness. But his severity was consuming, when he turned to the high religious professors, the admired but unworthy champions of Judaism. Hypocrisy, pretence, hollow semblance, were of old, and they are still, unutterably abhorrent to Christ; and nothing was, or now is, so dear to him as simplicity and sincerity. 46. Here is a being who was always calmly, perfectly conscious of faultlessness. "I do always those things which please the Father." "Which of you convicteth me of sin?" "If I say the truth why do you then not believe?" Y.—In one who had already passed through unparalleled complications, and had continually to deal with friends and foes of every sort and degree, such a challenge thrown wide among his bitterest enemies, can amount to nothing short of a claim to absolute sinlessness. B.—In proof of the stainless purity of his nature and his life, Jesus appealed to earth, to hell, to heaven; and earth, hell, and heaven each gave its answer back. Jesus appealed to earth when, looking round upon those men who with the keen eye of jealousy and hatred had been watching him from the beginning to see what flaws they could detect in him, he calmly and confidently said, "Which of you convinceth me of sin, of any sin, the slightest transgression?" And earth gave her answer when these men stood speechless before him. He appealed to hell—to that devil of whom he spoke so plainly as the father of all liars and all murderers. "The prince of this world cometh and findeth nothing in me"—nothing of his own, nothing that he can claim, no falsehood, no malice, no selfishness, no unholiness in me. And hell gave its answer when the devil, whom Christ's word of power drove forth from his human habitation, was heard to say, "I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God." H.—The question was put nearly two thousand years ago, and the response is yet awaited. Skeptic after skeptic has glared into the character of Christ, searching for a flaw; and skeptic after skeptic has recoiled with the confession that, whatever Christianity might be, this Jesus of Nazareth was honest and pure. No character known to history has been subjected to scrutiny so piercing as that of Jesus Christ; and there is no character known to history, except his, of which moral perfection could for a moment be maintained. P. S.—Ingenious malignity looks in vain for the faintest trace of self-seeking in his motives; sensuality shrinks abashed from his celestial purity; falsehood can leave no stain on him who is incarnate truth; injustice is forgotten beside his errorless equity; the very possibility of avarice is swallowed up in his benignity and love; the very idea of ambition is lost in his divine wisdom and divine self-abnegation. Bayne. ## Section 88.—The Jews attempt to stone Him. The Temple. 48. THEN answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samari- 49 tan, and hast a devil? Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, 50 and ye do dishonour me. And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh 51 and judgeth. Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never 52 see death. Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never 53 taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the 54 prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself? Jesus answered, if I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my father that honoureth me, of whom ye say, that he is 55 your God: yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know 56 him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying. Your 57 father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the 58 Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. 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. IF Christ made his followers free, then were they free indeed. And into what a glorious liberty should they thus be introduced! freedom from the law, its curse and condemnation; from the yoke of Jewish and all other ceremonialism; from the fear of guilt and the bondage of corruption; freedom to serve God willingly and lovingly—to be all, do all, suffer all which his will requires—this was the liberty wherewith Christ was ready to make free. This freedom was to be tasted in imperfect measure on earth, for to the end the old tyrant would be making his presence and power felt; still onward to the end, while the mind was serving the law of God, a law would be in the members warring against the law of the mind. But the hour of complete emancipation was to come at death. Death! it looked to nature like the stop- page of all life, the breaking of all ties, the quenching of all freedom and all joy. Not such was it to be to him who shared the life that Jesus breathes into the soul. To him it was to be the scattering of every cloud, the breaking of every fetter, the deliverance from every foe, the setting of the spirit forever free to soar with unchecked wing, up to the fountain-head of all life and blessedness, to bask in the sunshine forever. “Verily, verily, if a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” H. CHRIST spoke to futurity, and presupposed a spiritual illumination not yet bestowed. He would evince the necessity of a divine interpreter to unfold and explain his own words; and therefore he speaks —truths indeed, but truths whose deep purport he knew those whom he addressed were wholly unable to penetrate. What are the topics of this solemn discourse? Truth—freedom—life—death—all in- telligible terms, but, in their spiritual import, to the unspiritualized mind dark as the counsels of God, fathomless as eternity! W. A. B. What strikes us most forcibly in the long and painful interviews which Jesus had to sustain with the Jews of Jerusalem, is not the unshaken firmness with which he maintains his title before those who accused him of blasphemy; it is not even the severi- ty with which he treats those enemies of whose power he was aware; it is the calm serenity, the unalterable patience which he preserved in the midst of opponents whose smallest concern was for the truth, and of the base emissaries who sought only to prepare for him one snare after another. R. C. 48. Of not one sin could the Jews convince the Holy One of God; but because they were not of God, but were children of the devil, they now began to revile and blaspheme him. R. B.—Say we not well? This angry question arose from what our Lord had said, that they were ignorant of God, and were the children, not of Abraham, but of the devil. D.—By the Jews the Samaritans had been subjected to every form of excommunication; by the incommunicable name of Jehovah; by the tables of the law, and by the heavenly and earthly syna- gogues. The very name became a reproach. G. —When Christ came to interpret and reduce the moral law to its inward vigor and spirituality, they, whose soul was of so gross a make that it was scarce a spirit, defied him as a Samaritan and an impostor. R. S. 52. If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. Partly vindicating his lofty claims, as Lord of the kingdom of life everlast- ing; and, at the same time, holding out even to his revilers the sceptre of grace. The word “keep” is in harmony with verse 31, “If ye continue in my word,” expressing the permanency, as a living and paramount principle, of that faith to which he re- ferred. B.—He who embraces and keeps Christ’s word in faith, embraces and retains Christ himself, the true substance of his word; and he who becomes partaker of Christ’s life is passed from death unto life—shall never see death. Christ means, that he who keeps his word shall, though in the midst of death, neither feel nor see death, as he says: He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. R. B.—Thus is every believing child of God, no matter in what earthly bondage groaning, in what earthly misery sunk, bound by a chain of adamant to the very throne of the ever-blessed Trinity. There is that in him which hath its birthplace in the bosom of the “high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity.” The life of him who bids the universe live is enshrined in his inmost spirit! He shall never see death, for he is one with him who cannot die! W. A. B.—The death from which our Lord came to deliver us was the second death, eternal death, the death of damnation with the devil and his angels. This is indeed death; for this death of ours is only a migration. Aug. 54. Your God. It is your own God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who has put such honor on me, that life or death turn upon keeping my sayings, and believing on me. J. C. R.—55.** He meets the question, “Whom makest thou thyself?” in perfect humility, as the Son who honored his Father, and obediently kept his Father’s word. R. B.—First he says: I know him, and then: I keep his saying. Thus it is with the Son; but with believers it is different, for first they keep his word, being taught by him, and through that they get to know him. Beng. 56. The honor which the Jews refused to render to the Son of God, was rendered and is rendered to him by Abraham, “their Father,” whose works they renounce; for Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Christ. The very thing that gave him joy, to them was displeasing. Then, Abraham’s salvation also is in Christ alone. To the patriarch’s longing eyes the day seemed already present when his promised seed of blessing should shine as the light of the world, for the illumination of all the nations of the earth. Holding fast the word of promise and comforting himself therewith, he did not see eternal death; though dead, he yet lives. R. B.—He saw my day—surely while he lived. He seems to refer to the familiar intercourse which Abraham had with God, who is once and again in the history called “the angel of the Lord;” and whom Christ here identifies with himself. On those occasions Abraham saw me! O.—57. He had said Abraham saw him, as being his peculiar privilege. They give the opposite turn to it—“Hast thou seen Abraham!”—as an honor too great for him to pretend to. 58. Abraham was, I am.** The words rendered “was” and “am” are quite different. The one clause means, “Abraham was brought into being;” the other, “I exist.” The statement therefore is not that Christ came into existence before Abraham did, but that he never came into being, but existed before Abraham had a being; in other words, existed before creation, or eternally. In that sense the Jews plainly understood him, since “then took they up stones to cast at him,” just as they had before done when they saw that he made himself equal with God. B.—This was the very language of him who dwelt in the bush. They understood Christ, and rightly understood him, to assert that he had a being above time and succession. Eddy.—There could be no more distinct assertion of his divine nature. Those who deny this must either prove that he never spoke those words, or must believe that he—the most lowly and meek-hearted of men—was guilty of a colossal and almost frenetic intoxication of vanity and arrogance. For the Jews, more intensely than any other nation which the world has ever known, recognized the infinite transcendence of God; and therefore for a Jew, being merely man, to claim divinity, would not only be inconsistent with ordinary sense and virtue, but inconsistent with anything but sheer blasphemous insanity. F. Not simply a declaration of a being before Abraham, but a taking to himself the great, the incommunicable name, carrying with it the assertion of self-existence, of supreme divinity. So they understood it, who instantly took up stones to stone him as a blasphemer. And so let us understand it, lifting up hearts and hands together to crown him Lord of all. H.—Before the Word became flesh, ay, before Abraham came into being to long for the incarnation of the Word, the uncreated, eternal Word was—even he at whose feet lie not only eighteen hundred years, but all created time, during all which while he says: “I AM”—that is, from everlasting to everlasting (Is. 43 : 13). Because, then, he is the eternal Word and the personal eternal Life manifest in the flesh, because in him the eternal Godhead has taken to itself our perishable humanity, and indissolubly united it with itself, making one I AM—therefore he can truly give us eternal life, and yea and amen shall abide his promise—“If a man keep my saying he shall never taste of death.” R. B. 59. The thoughtful reader of this chapter must be impressed with the hopeless moral hardihood of these captious Jews. The efforts of Jesus to convict their consciences of sin, to lead them into truth, and to bring them to a docile, honest faith in himself, were utterly powerless as toward these results. Every fresh point in his progressive argument only maddened them the more. When they reached the point where they could say, “Thou hast a devil,” there must have been, it would seem, an end of hope in their case. We have no further occasion to wonder that they rushed madly on to plot and to take his life; or that the nation, following such religious leaders, waxed more and more corrupt, infatuated and desperate in guilt, till the judgments of heaven fell on their city and nation, and “there was no remedy.” H. C. # Section 89.—The Seventy return. The Good Samaritan. Near Jerusalem. 1,2. And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.8 The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, 9 Is not this he that sat and begged? Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: 10 but he said, I am he. Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened? 11 He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus, made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I 12 received sight. Then said they unto him, Where is he? He said, I know not.13, 14 They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind. And it was the sabbath-day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes. 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. Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath-day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them. They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet.18 But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him that had received his sight. And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see? His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind: 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. 22 These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. Therefore said his parents, He is of age; ask him. THIS man has not sinned more than others who can see, and his parents have not sinned more than others who have children who can see. But he was born blind in order that the works of God might be made manifest in him, the works of tender love which God works in Christ. Thus had he ordained it, in order that this blind man might be a witness of the glory of God, and that in him Christ might prove himself the light of the world. There lies in these words of Christ strong consolation for all sufferers. And although thy suffering, thy blindness, and all thy weakness, will never depart from thee but with thy bodily life, yet be certain of this, that thou sufferest thus in order that the works of God may be made manifest in thee—manifest in thy inward life, when thou endurest suffering with a Christian's patience; manifest at the last before all God's elect in heaven, when thou shalt receive the crown of life as one that hath overcome. R. B. THE history of the ninth chapter of John is a sermon in act and deed preached on the subject of the preceding discourse: "I am the light of the world," to which in fact the Lord expressly refers in verse 5. While the Jews are confident that they themselves are guides of the blind, lights to them which are in darkness, we behold standing over against them Jesus the true light, the true guide of the blind, and the good shepherd of his sheep. Thus the intermediate history recounted in the ninth chapter, linking to each other the discourses contained in the eighth and tenth chapters, binds all together as in one unbroken chain. R. B.—This history is remarkable, because against the will of the enemies of Jesus its truthfulness was judicially ascertained, and thereby every door closed to unbelief. C. B. 2. This man or his parents. This man who is born blind would not have been so unless he had been born of sinful parents, and himself sinful. In this the disciples are right. But they are wrong in just the same way as Job's friends of old were wrong, in imagining that this man or his parents were greater sinners or more guilty than others, and that his blindness was an especial punishment of some especial guilt. R. B. 3. Neither. He does not repudiate that strong instinct of the human conscience, which in all ages has taught it to trace suffering to sin. What he does repudiate and condemn is the application of that principle to specific instances, by those who know so little, as we do, of the divine purposes and aims in the separate events of life. He wanted, by a vigorous stroke, to lay the axe at the root of a prevalent superstitious feeling which led to erroneous and presumptuous readings of God's providences, connecting particular sufferings with particular sins, and arguing from the severity of the one to the magnitude of the other. H.—The Lord neither denies their sin nor his: all that he does is to turn away his disciples from that most harmful practice of guessing hidden sins in explanation of unusual sufferings. This blindness, he would say, is the chastening of no peculiar sin on his own part, or on his parents'. Seek, therefore, neither here nor there the cause of his calamity; but see what nobler explanation the evil in the world, and this evil in particular, is capable of receiving. The purpose of the life-long blindness of this man is "that the works of God should be made manifest in him;" and that through it and its removal the grace and glory of God might be magnified. 4. What he would affirm is this, No man who hath not done his work in the day, can do it in the night; for him the time cometh in which he cannot work—and he applies this even to himself. T.—The emphasis rests on the word I. To work the works of God, now to be made manifest in this blind man, such was the end for which the Father, who had been working hitherto, had sent the Son (verse 19). Well for the laborers who work while the sun is in the heaven! Christ hastens on with quick and still quicker steps in the path of blessing, in which he works with his servants, and confirms their words with signs accompanying. R. B. 5. "I am the light of the world"—said with his thought upon the opening of sightless eyes—first in the physical sense; then in the far higher spiritual sense in which he unseals eyes blinded by life-long sin. H. C.—As before the raising of Lazarus he announces himself as the Resurrection and the Life, so now he sets himself forth as the source of the archetypal spiritual light, of which the natural, now about to be conferred, is only a derivation and symbol. A. 6,7. The Saviour first draws out his faith by laying the healing power, dwelling in him, in a visible sign, and then he prescribes to the man, whom his power has touched, a journey of faith, as Elijah once did to Naaman. R. B.—Within the same compass there is no peace of dead or living mechanism so curious, so complex, so full of nice adjustments, as the human eye. It was the great Creator's office to make that eye and plant it in its socket, gifting it with all its varied powers of motion, outward and inward, and guarding it against all the injuries to which so delicate an instrument is exposed. It was the Creator's will that some fatal defect should from the first have existed in the eyeball of this man. And who but the Creator could it be that rectified the defect, bestowing at once upon the renovated organ the full power of vision? H.—Seeing. Who can imagine the glory which burst upon him when, as the restoring clay left his eyes, the light of the world invaded his astonished soul? Blackness of darkness—not an invading stranger, but the home-companion always there—creation not erased and treasured in the memory, but to his eyes uncreated!—Blackness of darkness! The glory of the celestial blue! The towers of the great Jerusalem dwelling in the awful space! Any wonder might follow on such a wonder. And the whole vision was as fresh as if he had that moment been created, the first of men. McD. The great miracle of healing a man blind from his birth furnishes a critical example of a miracle tried by every possible test. In this proceeding we have, united with the divine power by which the miracle was wrought, the indication of his command over natural means, and an act to be performed by the sufferer himself (as in the case of Naaman) which at once tested his faith, and called the attention of those who beheld him going to the pool with besmeared eyes, and returning with all the joy of restored sight. Siloam is one of the few undisputed localities in the topography of Jerusalem; still retaining its old name, while every other pool has lost its Bible designation. S. (Sec. 188.)—The water of this pool had no inherent healing efficacy. The command was a test of faith, and in obeying, the blind man found what he wanted. It is the great principle which runs through Scripture. J. C. R. 13. The Pharisees. The great council or Sanhedrim of the nation, the same body before whom our Lord made his defence in the fifth chapter of John. We can hardly imagine any other body at Jerusalem "excommunicating" a man. J. C. R.—14.** This, as an act of mercy, was in the deepest accordance with the very causes for which the Sabbath had been ordained, and the very lessons of which it was meant to be a perpetual witness. But the spirit of narrow literalism and slavish minuteness and quantitative obedience had long degraded the Sabbath from the true idea of its institution into a pernicious superstition. The Sabbath of rabbinism, with all its petty servility, was in no respect the Sabbath of God's loving and holy law. It had degenerated into that which Paul calls it, a "beggarly element." And these Jews were so imbued with this utter littleness, that a unique miracle of mercy awoke in them less of astonishment and gratitude than the horror kindled by a neglect of their sabbatical superstition. F. 16. Envy judges of the works by the persons who do them; equity judges of persons by their works. The judgments of men will ever be divided with respect to the best of men, so long as the world is divided by different passions and interests. Q.—This division among the members of the council had this good effect, that they found it necessary to go into the case more fully. These very questions brought the reality of the miracle into fuller light than before. J. C. R. 17. He had gone on from seeing to seeing. From faith in the wonder-working Prophet, this apt scholar of grace at last arrives at faith in the Son of God (verse 35). We see in him a beautiful type of that blessed simplicity which belongs to grace where it has been truly received. He is a beautiful type likewise of that faithfulness to which will be given abundance, because it honors the firstling gifts of grace it has received, and from the gift allows itself to be drawn upward to the Giver. R. B. 20-23. The more the Pharisees examine this miracle in order to raise doubts concerning it, the more indubitable do they render it. Q.—By summoning the parents of the healed man, they brought publicly forward the two best possible witnesses as to the fact of the man's identity, as to the fact that he was born blind, and as to the fact that he now had his sight. J. C. R.—Judicial personages, and these the avowed enemies of Christ, investigate a miracle in repeated hearings, and yet it holds its ground! A. T. ## Section 92.—The Man again examined, cast out, and found by Christ. The Temple, and the Street. 24. THEN again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the 25 praise: we know that this man is a sinner. 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. 26, 27 Then said they to him again, What did he to thee? how opened he thine eyes? He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear 28 it again? will ye also be his disciples? Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his 29 disciple; but we are Moses' disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses; as for 30 this fellow, we know not from whence he is. The man answered and said unto them, Why, herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he 31 hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man 32 be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the world began 33 was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man 34 were not of God, he could do nothing. They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out. 35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto 36 him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, 37 that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and 38 it is he that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. WE have here an illustration of Christ's choice of seasons for his deepest personal intercourse with souls. "Jesus heard that they had cast him out:" it was then that "He found him." When all else is lost, then is the great finding. Jesus found him, and he found Jesus. It is more than a parable. It is a simple fact, made true over and over again in that spiritual world which has its laws and its events, its battles and its victories, as truly, as certainly, as any that are going on in the world of flesh and blood; only just with a veil over them, which in reality rests more upon the eye that looks than upon the object looked on. This man had begun in great ignorance. He did not know who Christ was. He speaks of "a man that is called Jesus." Even after his cure, he only supposed that "he was a prophet." Not until he was called to account, and something of opposition and even of persecution threatened him, does anything of deeper feeling manifest itself, and a tone almost of heroic firmness in the maintenance of truth prepares us for the great and final confession, "Lord, I believe!" The lesson is that of all Scripture: "To him that hath shall more be given." He who well uses the light he has, shall find that light shining more and more unto the perfect day. He who tells manfully, and acts consistently, what he knows of Christ, shall know more and feel more and love more, until faith itself is lost in sight. V. 24,25. When Christ had challenged them to convince him of sin, they were all silent; but now they know that he is a sinner and no prophet! To this they intended the healed man to give his assent, and this the hypocrites called giving glory to God, though all the while they sought their own glory, and were trying all they could to rob the Son of God of the glory which in this man he had garnered up for himself. R. B.—Our "Give God the praise," sets the reader quite upon a wrong track. The Pharisees do not mean, "Give the glory of your cure to God, and not to this sinful man." The words are rather an adjuration to him that he should speak the truth. We know, they would say, that it is all a collusion; we have indubitable proofs of it; do thou also give glory to God, and acknowledge that it is so. T.—One thing I know. Thus in affecting simplicity he really does "give God the glory." What the Pharisees profess to "know" does not for one instant disturb him in the "one thing" which he "knows." R. B. 27-29. He treats their questions as those of inquiries ready for discipleship. They retort upon him as the disciple, and here they plainly were not wrong. B.—We know. If they believed Moses as sent of God on the evidence of miracles performed twenty centuries before, much more should they believe in Jesus on the ground of far greater miracles abundantly wrought among them, one of which they could not now disprove. J. G. B.—30. This unheard-of miracle, that he was blind and now saw, caused the man less astonishment than that those who saw were blind to the work of God which had been made manifest in him. The Pharisees knew not that Jesus was of God, and the healed man in his simplicity did. It was this that excited his wonder. He could not make out the wisdom of these learned men to whom what was so clear to him yet remained hidden. R. B. 31. His faith and insight and courage had grown during this examination. He who had said a little while before, "Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not" (verse 25), avoiding the answer, now says boldly, "We know that God heareth not sinners." T. 32. There is still no instance on record of a person absolutely born blind, obtaining the use of sight. K.—33. He answers with a courage that ranks him as the first of the great company of confessors, and with a wisdom that raises him above all those high-born and well-taught Pharisees. H.— If this man were not of God, he could do nothing. The restored man waxes bold, and plies the logic of his strong common-sense vigorously. The man who gave me eyes must have had help from God. H. C. 34. So pungent, so unanswerable the speech, that passion now takes the place of argument, and the old weapon of authority is grasped and used. Meanly casting his calamity in his teeth, they cast him out—excommunicating him on the spot. H.—Dost thou teach us?—thou, a base-born, uneducated youth, teach us, the trained, constituted, recognized guides of the people in the things of God? B.—There appear to have been two, some say three, kinds of excommunication among the Jews, greatly differing in degrees and intensity, and our Lord often alludes to them as among the sharpest trials which his servants would have to endure for his name's sake. The mildest was an exclusion for thirty days from the synagogue, to which period, in case the excommunicated showed no sign of repentance, a similar or a longer period was added: in other ways too it was made keener; it was accompanied with a curse; none might hold communion with him now, not even his family, except in cases of absolute necessity. Did he show himself obstinate still, he was in the end absolutely separated from the fellowship of the people of God, cut off from the congregation. T. 35. Jesus did not neglect his first confessor. F.—The Jews [ministers of the temple] cast him out of the temple, and the Lord of the temple found him. He was dishonored by those who dishonored Christ, and was honored by the Lord of angels. Chrys.—He has not been ashamed of Christ, and now Christ, the good Shepherd, first finding him, reveals himself unto him as he had not done before: no longer as the prophet of God, for to this only his faith had hitherto reached, but as the Son of God himself. T.—36. This "Son of God" surpasses his present comprehension; and therefore, true to his simple and guileless character, he asks for further information about him. A. 37. With the eyes which I have opened for thee thou hast seca him, and it is he that talketh with thee: if thou desirest to believe on him, then believe my word that I am he. Thus, while the work of Jesus showed to him the Son of God, the word of Jesus also testified to him concerning the Son of God. R. B.—Never but once before—to the woman of Samaria—was so clear, direct, personal a revelation of himself made by Jesus Christ. In both—the woman by the well-side, the blind beggar by the way-side—Jesus found simplicity and candor, quickness of intelligence, openness to evidence, readiness to confess. Both followed the light already given. Upon the man he wrought such a miracle of power and love as begat within the deep conviction that he was a true worshipper of God, a faithful doer of the divine will, a man of God, a prophet of God; and to this conviction he had adhered before the frowning rulers, and in face of all that they could do against him. He had risked all, and lost much, rather than deny such faith as he had in Jesus. And to him the fuller revelation was imparted. 38. Worshipped him.** As few of his immediate followers yet had done; worshipped him as Thomas and the others did when they had the great miracle of the resurrection and the sight of the risen Saviour to establish and confirm their faith. H.—His eyes had been doubly opened, and the humble form of Jesus was no longer any hinderance to his worshipping as the Son of God him whom all the angels of God worship. He believed and he worshipped. The living breath of faith is prayer; it is the believer's proper sign of life. R. B. ## Section 93.—The Only Door into the Fold of God. 39. AND Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not 40 might see; and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees 41 which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth. 1. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold 2 but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that enter- 3 eth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. 4. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow 5 him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers. 6 This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were 7 which he spake unto them. Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto 8 you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: 9 but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall 10 be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. 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. HERE is the beauty and glory of Christ as a Redeemer and Saviour of lost man, that he goes before, and never behind his flock. He begins with infancy, that he may show a grace for childhood. He is made under the law, and carefully fulfils all righteousness there, that he may sanctify the law to us, and make it honorable. He goes before us in the bearing of temptations, that we may bear them after him, being tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. He taught us forgiveness, by forgiving him- self his enemies. He went before us in the loss of all things, that we might be able to follow, in the renouncing of the world and its dominion. The works of love that he requires of us, in words, are pre- ceded and illustrated by real deeds of love, to which he gave up all his mighty powers from day to day. He bore the cross himself that he commanded us to take up and bear after him. Requiring us to hate even life for the gospel's sake, he went before us in dying for the gospel; suffering a death most bitter at the hands of his enemies, exasperated only by his goodness, and that when at a word he might have called to his aid whole legions of angels, and driven them out of the world. And then he went before us in the bursting of the grave, and the resurrection from it; becoming, in his own person, the first fruits of them that slept. And finally, he ascended, and passed within the veil before us, as our forerunner, whom we are to follow even there. In all which he is our Shepherd, going before us, and never behind; calling, but never driving; bearing all the losses he calls us to bear; meeting all the dangers, suffering all the cruelties and pains which it is given us to suffer, and drawing us to follow where he leads. H. B. IT must have been with a rejoicing spirit that the lately healed blind man listened to this dis- course of the Saviour. For he himself was such a sheep as had both experienced the killing and de- stroying of the bad shepherds and the faithful and gracious tending of the good Shepherd. Standing before the eyes of the false shepherds, as a living interpretation of the parable, this sheep is hearing his voice, and is fleeing from the voice of stran- gers. R. B. 39-41. A number of the Pharisees approach, attracted by the interview between Christ and the man. As he sees, compares, contrasts the two— the man and them—he says, "For judgment am I come into this world, that they which see not" (as this poor blind beggar) "may see, and that they which see" (as the Pharisees) "might be made blind." H.—Naturally the blind man's case became suggestive of what takes place in hu- man hearts and consciences under the light of revealed truth: one class—long sitting in moral darkness—brought forth into light; another class, favored above others with the light-bearing word of God, yet resisting its demands, and blinding their eyes to its pure teachings, are doomed in judg- ment to the blindness they have cherished, and are given over to their own chosen infatuation. H. C. —According as he believes or disbelieves the gospel preached by Jesus, a man either ceases to be blind, and recovers his sight, or he loses forever the hope and the power of seeing. For unbelief in Jesus entails a judgment of obduracy. Nor must it be regarded merely as a strong figure of speech, when Jesus says that he came into the world to bring about such a discrimination. After Adam's fall had made all men sinners, and induced univer- sal condemnation, it was God's will, by the mission of his Son, to revoke the universal curse, to prepare a free salvation, and to separate or sift (the judg- ment here spoken of) those who would accept it from those who would not. C. B. Christ was the King of Truth, and therefore his open setting up of his banner in the world was at once and of necessity a ranging of men in their true ranks, as lovers of truth or lovers of a lie; and he is here saying of himself the same thing which Simeon had said of him before: "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." He is the stone on which men build, and against which men stumble, and set for either purpose. Out of this miracle unfolds itself that discourse which reaches down to verse 21 of the ensuing chapter. They had shown what manner of shepherds of the sheep they were in their exclusion of this one from the fold. Our Lord sets over against them himself, the good Shepherd and the true. T. That they which see not might see. The blind man had received sight in two senses—bodily and spiritual. And as our Lord always treats of the spiritual as paramount, including the bodily, so here he proceeds to speak of spiritual sight. Are we blind also? Well aware of the meaning, they scornfully rejoin, "Are we, then, these blind, we, the leaders of the people?" A.—Ignorance would have excused them, as in the case of the sin against the Son of man. But their boast of knowledge was a witness against themselves. Able to see, but not willing, their blindness was their guilt. N.—Therefore your sin remaineth. To those who only stumbled in the blindness of wilful error a claim to the possession of sight was a self-condemnation. And when the leaders, the teachers, the guides were blind, how could the people see? The thought naturally led him to the nature of true and false teachers, which he expanded and illustrated in the beautiful apologue—half parable, half allegory—of the true and the false shepherds. F. 1-10. Our Lord's object was to show the entire unfitness of the Pharisees to be pastors and teachers of the Jews, because they had not taken up their office in the right spirit, and with a right understanding of the work they had to do. He is not in this part speaking of himself as "the shepherd," but only as "the door." J. C. R.—It is useless to scrutinize too closely every part of this parable. Let us rest satisfied with this general view, that as Christ states a resemblance between the Church and a fold (a sheepfold, in which God assembles all his people), so he compares himself to a door, because there is no other entrance into the Church but by himself. Then it follows that they are good shepherds, who lead men straight to Christ; and that they are truly gathered into Christ's fold, who devote themselves to Christ alone. Calvin. 1-3. I, seeking to enter into your hearts, preach Christ; if I preach other than that, I shall be striving to climb in some other way. Christ is my door; through Christ I win your hearts. Aug.—A fold in Palestine was a space inclosed by high walls. It had a gate guarded by a porter at night, as the  Syrian Sheepfold. sheep could not be safely left alone. An Eastern shepherd knows each sheep in his flock, and has a name for each one. The sheep are led, and not driven. J. C. R.—The sheep. This simple creature has this special note among all animals, that it quickly hears the voice of the shepherd, follows no one else, depends entirely on him, and seeks help from him alone, cannot help itself, but is shut up to another's aid. Luther.—The porter. Not to be too much pressed as significant; but certainly the Holy Spirit is especially he who opens the door to the shepherds. A. He calleth them by name. It is a remarkable fact in Oriental husbandry, that in a flock of hundreds or thousands each individual sheep has its name, knows it, and is known by it. So Christ's sheep are never so numerous that he will not know each one's individual name—each one's peculiarities, personal character, talents, fitnesses, weak and temptible points, exposures, and demands for his sympathy and care. A positive personal communion of mind, thought, sympathy, and love is constantly active between Jesus the Shepherd and every one of his sheep. They severally know him; he personally knows each one of them. He can call each one by name, and lead him out from the fold into the pasture-grounds that will best meet his wants. H. C.—What without exaggeration may be called a personal friendship is established between the Lord and each of his disciples. He has personal communication with each suitable to himself and unknown to all the rest, calling him by his own name, and expressing a personal love in the calling. Raleigh.—Another human spirit is redeemed to God: its Redeemer gives to it its new name, and forever afterward in that spirit he takes a living, personal, peculiar interest: bending over it continually with infinite tenderness, watching each doubt, each fear, each trial, each temptation, each fall, each rising again, each conflict, each victory, each defeat, every movement, by which its progress is advanced or retarded, watching each and all with a solicitude as special and particular as if it were upon it that the exclusive regards of his loving heart were fixed. No vague, indefinite, indiscriminate superintendence is that which the great good Shepherd still exercises over his flock, but a care that particularizes each separate member of it, and descends to the minutest incidents of their history. H. 4,5. This is true to the letter. They are so tame and so trained that they follow their keeper with the utmost docility. He leads them forth from the fold, or from their houses in the villages, just where he pleases. As there are many flocks in such a place as this, each one takes a different path, and it is his business to find pasture for them. It is necessary, therefore, that they should be taught to follow, and not to stray away into the unfenced fields of corn which lie so temptingly on either side. Any one that thus wanders is sure to get into trouble. The shepherd calls sharply from time to time to remind them of his presence. They know his voice, and follow on; but if a stranger call, 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 simple fact. I have made the experiment repeatedly. The shepherd goes before, not merely to point out the way, but to see that it is practicable and safe. W. M. T. The calling and leading are always united. He calls that he may lead. He utters the name that he, that she who answers to it may, at the thrilling word, arise and follow him whithersoever he goeth. The first in order is the calling, the assurance to the lost that the Seeker and Saviour of mankind has found and will love him to the end and for evermore. But the Shepherd is in movement; he comes to abide with us, but not to keep us abiding in the same states and circumstances. In this sense he always comes to lead, never to linger or stay. Raleigh.—This is a beautiful and clear mirror, wherein Christian shepherds and Christian flocks would do well to view themselves. Just as the good Shepherd Christ knows his sheep, and as he calls them each one by name, so also do the shepherds who come in Christ's name and are appointed by the Holy Spirit know the sheep which are intrusted to them, and so also their watchfulness extends to each individual sheep with a distinguishing care. And as the good Shepherd Christ leads his sheep, going before them in the way which they are to follow, so do Christian shepherds lead the flock of Christ to true pastures, while they—as examples to the flock—themselves walk in the way to that life to which their preaching calls. R. B. 6,7. The word rendered "parable" is rather "allegory," or figurative picture. It clearly settles that the whole passage must be taken as a picture of spiritual things, and must not be interpreted too literally. I am the door. He himself is the door through whom, and by faith in whom, both shepherd and sheep must pass, if they would go inside God's fold. Of the sheep. Not simply "the door;" to teach that the door is for the benefit of the sheep more than the shepherd. J. C. R.—The sheep throughout this parable are the real sheep, the faithful, who are what all in the fold should be. A. 8. All that came before me.** All evidently means "all of similar pretensions to my own." The Saviour has thus in view not ordinary prophets or religious teachers—of such he could not, of course, say that they were thieves and robbers—but such as assumed to be the religious teachers and lights of the world—of such he could not but say that they were thieves and robbers. The statement is a terse, and in form somewhat obscure, assertion of his solitary and unapproached position as man's spiritual guide and head. Kendrick.—The Pharisaical shepherds were blind to the glory of the Son of God, and scorned first to come to him, and then to feed his sheep. Instead of entering in through the door, they had climbed up some other way; therefore they were not true shepherds, but thieves who, instead of feeding the flock, fed themselves, who sought their own honor and not God's, and thought of their own miserable gains, instead of the people's welfare, and thus robbed God in the flock of his inheritance; murderers they were too, who, instead of leading the sheep to life in the pastures of divine grace and truth, destroyed them with the poisonous weeds of their human inventions; ay, and thrust out of the sheepfold all those who were true sheep, such as the man born blind. R. B.—Of this description were all the shepherds in the age preceding Christ, when Pharisaism and Sadduceeism sprung up. For it was not in the great prophetic promises of the Messias that the lawyers and doctors instructed the people, and as little did they seek to prepare the souls of men for the advent of the Messias. Superseding the Scripture, they inculcated upon them traditions and ordinances of their own devising. By this means they selfishly led them away from Christ, and became thieves and robbers to their souls. This was soon felt by the people, starved as they were like sheep not having any shepherd. 9. By me if any man.** External membership with the Christian Church does not admit us within the fold. Christ himself must be our point of entrance, otherwise we are lost: only in connection with him are good pasture and salvation to be found. C. B.—The expression “go in and out” implies a habit of using familiarly a dwelling, and treating it as a home. It expresses beautifully the habitual communion and happy intercourse with Christ which a true believer enjoys. The “finding pasture” implies the satisfaction, comfort, and refreshment of soul which every one who uses Christ as his door into heaven shall experience. J. C. R.—The words describe the security and enjoyment which are the privileges of God’s people. To go in and out is to transact the business of each day’s life: its rest and labor, the beginning and end of every work. Elsewhere the phrase is “go out and come in.” Here, not without meaning, the expressions are transposed. The former is the order of nature, the latter the order of grace. Burgon. 1-9. A striking thing in these verses is the facility with which the speaker passes from figurative to literal terms. Here is a sheepfold with its “door.” The door is Jesus himself. It is a “man” who enters in through this door; and so entering, he is “saved” as the souls of men are saved; yet the figure returns again. He “goes in and out” of this sheepfold as sheep are wont to do, night and morning, and he “finds pasture”—such grass as is good for sheep. But no reader need miss the sentiment—at once beautiful and forcible—the Christian soul lives on Christ; is fed and guarded, kept and made peaceful, safe, and quiet as the trustful lambs under the faithful care of their kind shepherd. H. C.—In this entire passage, though our Lord is not speaking of himself as a shepherd, and is only giving a descriptive picture of a good shepherd, there is a latent application to himself. There is no one to whom the various features of the picture apply so literally and exactly as to the great Shepherd of believers. J. C. R. 10. Our Lord now drops the figure of “the door,” and, as a fitting introduction to the character of Shepherd in which he is about to announce himself, sharply contrasts the objects of these Pharisees with his own. They sought their own advantage to the destruction of the souls they professed to teach. He sought to give life at the sacrifice of his own. J. G. B.—That they might have life, and more abundantly. Not merely to preserve, but impart life, and communicate it in rich and unfailing exuberance. A claim that is only an echo of all his teaching! B. ## Section 94.—The Good Shepherd. The Temple. 11,12. I AM the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth; and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. 13 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father 16 knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall 17 hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. Therefore doth my 18 Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. 19, 20 There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. And many 21 of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him? Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind? “And there shall be one fold,” says our translation, missing the point and beauty of the whole figure; whereas our Lord changes the word of purpose, saying, “there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” "Not one fold, but one flock; no one exclusive inclosure of an outward church—but one flock, all knowing the one Shepherd and known of him." The Gentiles came not to the Jewish fold; but Greek and Jew, barbarian, Scythian, bond and free, became one in each other by being one in Christ. To find this one flock of God we need not traverse the melancholy waste of centuries, nor search the folds where thieves and hirelings have entered to steal and to destroy; we need not go anxiously from fold to fold in quest of some divine mark upon the door; the mark is not upon the fold but upon the sheep. Each Sabbath-day the chiming bells summon the flock together upon a thousand hills, and by the side of still waters. ONE FLOCK, they follow the voice of the Shepherd, and he is the leader of them all, and he knows them all. And how grand the testimony of this one Church of believing souls to the same fundamental and imperishable truths; that there is one living, almighty, holy God; that the Bible is his word revealed to man; that Jesus Christ his Son suffered on the cross for our redemption, and rose from the dead for our salvation! The self-same truths that Paul reasoned out of the Scriptures—that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead, and that Jesus is the Christ, have been maintained from the Scriptures through all ages; and the Church of God stands to-day before the world, with a unanimity of doctrine unknown in schools of science and philosophy, giving the whole weight of this concurrent testimony to prove the reality and the power of the gospel. Oh holy Catholic Church!—One and Universal Church; the Church of apostles and martyrs, of fathers and confessors; in catacombs and in prisons, in deserts and caves of the earth, in palaces and cathedrals; in exile and in missions, in all ages the one flock of God, the Church of the past, the Church of the present, the Church of the future, chanting ever the same faith, holding ever the same Christ, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end! J. P. T. 11. These exquisitely precious words—I am the good Shepherd—lead our thought first to the admirable fitness of the figure, considered as originating in Oriental lands, based on the charming relations as there seen of the shepherd to his flock, in which we have care and sympathy on the one side, met with never faltering trust and never flagging obedience on the other—begetting fellowship and companionship never to be intermitted by day or by night, in summer or in winter, in sunshine or in storm—the relations of want and supply reaching to food and to shelter, to help in weakness, to succor in trouble, to protection against enemies—indeed to every possible aid which interest can prompt or affection demand. The people of Christ have found comfort and quickening in this similitude—Christ the good Shepherd, and themselves the sheep of his fold—ever since David embalmed his Christian experience in his sweet twenty-third psalm: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." H. C. Giveth his life. Beneath the burning skies and the clear starry nights of Palestine there grows up between the shepherd and his flock a union of attachment and tenderness. It is the country where at any moment sheep are liable to be swept away by some mountain-torrent, or carried off by hill-robbers, or torn by wolves. At any moment their protector may have to save them by personal hazard. The shepherd-king tells us how, in defence of his father's flock, he slew a lion and a bear; and Jacob reminds Laban how, when he watched Laban's sheep in the day, the drought consumed. Every hour of the shepherd's life is risk. Pitiless showers, driving snows, long hours of thirst—all this he must endure, if the flock is to be kept at all. And thus there grows up between the man and the dumb creatures he protects, a kind of friendship. F. W. R.—When the thief and the robber come (and come they do), the faithful shepherd has often to put his life in his hand to defend his flock. I have known more than one case in which he had literally to lay it down in the contest. W. M. T. Christ's goodness, his real shepherd's heart, is perfected in the self-sacrificing love which makes him give his life for the sheep. Here the incomparable love of Jesus goes far, far beyond the comparison under which it is represented. The earthly type cannot embrace the riches of the heavenly archetype. R. B.—The death of Christ was not necessary to establish the truth of his doctrine, or the certainty of his promises. Our Lord says that he laid down his life for his sheep, not for his doctrines. C. C. T. 12. In this form of the parable Christ contrasts himself (as the shepherd who alone seeks the welfare of the sheep) not only with the thieves, but also with the hirelings. These two classes corresponded to two different classes of Pharisees, viz., those who sacrificed the welfare of the people to their wholly selfish aims; and those who, with better feelings, had not love enough, and therefore not courage enough, to risk everything for the good of souls. The latter, afraid of the power of the former, gave the poor people up to the power of the evil one (the wolf, verse 12), to scatter and divide. N. 14. The good shepherd.** The Eastern shepherd goes before his sheep, he draws them after him—draws them by those ties of dependence, trust, and affection that long years of living together have established between them. This usage of Eastern shepherd life is beautifully illustrative of the mode by which Jesus guides his people onward to the fold of their eternal rest; not by fear, not by compulsion of any kind, but by love, by the attraction of his loving presence, the force of his winning example. In our blessed Lord and Master we have one who himself trod before us every step that he would have us tread, bore every burden he would have us bear, met every temptation he would have us meet, shared every grief he would have us share, did every duty he would have us do. Know and am known. What possibly can be meant by this but that there is a bond of acquaintanceship, affection, communion, fellowship, between each true believer and his Saviour, such in its origin, its strength, its present blessedness, and its glorious issues in eternity, that no earthly bond whatever—not the closest that binds human heart to human heart—can offer the adequate symbol of it, to get which we must climb to that mysterious bond by which the Father and the Son are united in the intimacies of eternal love? This bond consists in oneness of life, unity of spirit, harmony of desire and affection. H. 14,15. Read the whole thus: “I am the good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine as the Father knoweth me, and as I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.” At once our Redeemer’s thought becomes clear. There is a reciprocal affection between the Shepherd and the sheep. There is a reciprocal affection between the Father and the Son; and the one is the parallel of the other. The affection between the divine Shepherd and his flock can be compared, for the closeness of its intimacy, with nothing but the affection between the eternal Father and the Son of his love. As the Father knows the Son, so does the Shepherd know the sheep; as the Son knows the Father, so do the sheep know their heavenly Shepherd. F. W. R.—Not as one afar off do we know him, but as our life, as him who makes us sharers in his life by his own gracious indwelling in us. The communion between him and his has its holy archetype in the eternal communion between the Father and the Son. Because with the love wherewith his Father knows him he knows those whom his Father has given him, therefore he lays down his life for the sheep. And, on the other hand, it is in this greatest love of all, through which he laid down his life for them, that the sheep know him as the good Shepherd. Until we know by faith that he has laid down his life for us, whom his love calls friends while we were yet enemies, until then his Shepherd’s heart has not really been made known to us; for all his Shepherd’s virtues have at once their root and consummation in this single one: “And I lay down my life for the sheep.” 16. Them also I must bring, the good Shepherd says. Again, this precious, gracious must, of most free love! He must because it is the Father’s will, who has given both the sheep to the Shepherd and the Shepherd to the sheep. He must because it is within his soul a pressing want of redeeming and saving love. R. B.—They shall hear my voice. This is not the language of mere foresight that they would believe, but the expression of a purpose to draw them to himself by an inward and efficacious call, which would infallibly issue in their spontaneous accession to him. B.—The blessed assurance: There shall be one flock and one Shepherd, gives us a glimpse into the fields of the heavenly Zion, where the good Shepherd feeds his sheep brought home from all dispersion, and leads them to living fountains of water. We shall see it, this heavenly Jerusalem, and our heart shall rejoice with unspeakable joy: One flock, one Shepherd! The Lord God it is who says it, and he will also do it. R. B. 18. No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down myself; and I have power to take it again. It is impossible for language more plainly and emphatically to express the absolute voluntariness of Christ’s death. It is beyond all doubt the language of one who was conscious that his life was his own (which no creature’s is), and, therefore, his to surrender or retain at will. Here lay the glory of his sacrifice, that it was purely voluntarily. The claim of “power to take it again” is no less important, as showing that his resurrection, though ascribed to the Father, was nevertheless his own assertion of his own right to life as soon as the purposes of his voluntary death were accomplished. B.—The God-man suffered by virtue of his will to suffer. By virtue of that same will, in which he emptied himself, did he for us lay himself open to the attacks of hostile powers and of death, in order to conquer them; and his suffering is a continuous acting of his highest freedom—at the same time a continuous triumph. Hilary.—His own love to sinners, and not the power of the Jews or Pontius Pilate’s soldiers, was the cause of his death. This commandment.** Meaning a part of the charge or commission with which the Second Person, Christ, was sent into the world, to carry out the purposes of the eternal Trinity. Both here and elsewhere, the word has a wide deep meaning, and points to the entire unity of the Father and the Son in the work of redemption, to which Christ frequently refers: “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” 19–21. The third time that we find our Lord’s words causing a division, or schism, among his hearers. Some even among the Pharisees took our Lord's part. They defend him on the score both of his words and works. The calm, solemn, loving, God-glorifying language just used, was the very opposite to that which might be expected from a demoniac. And no devil, however powerful, could work such a miracle. J. C. R. ## Section 95.—At the Feast of Dedication. Charged with Blasphemy. The Temple. Perea. 22,23. And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus 24 walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. 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 25 plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in 26 my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of 27 my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they 28 follow me; and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall 29 any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me, is greater than 30 all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one.31, 32 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed 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 blas- 34 phemy, and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered 35 them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto 36 whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, 37, 38 I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. 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.39, 40 Therefore they sought again to take him; but he escaped out of their hand, and went away again beyond Jordan, into the place where John at first baptized; and there 41 he abode. And many resorted unto him, and said, John did no miracle; but all things 42 that John spake of this man were true. And many believed on him there. BOTH in the common business of Christian living, and in the discouragements of Christian failure, there is an inestimable power in the assurance explicitly given in the words of the Saviour. And this is the assurance: All who have become his by the communication into their souls of his divine life through faith shall be securely kept in that communion. They are not on the same ground with the rest of the world. They live in no uncertainty. There are privileges, there are safeties, pertaining to them, not to be had in any other way than this new way. The almighty friendship of the Saviour, pledged to them when they consented to be his friends, amounts to something. They are not outside, but inside a commonwealth, or fold, which has defences, foundations, immunities. Over it is a Guardian who is not a covenant-breaker, a Shepherd that is a King. No man is able to pluck them out of his hand. F. D. H. Do we feel the faint beatings of the new life in our hearts? Do we fear that these may be so checked as to be finally and forever stopped? Let us not think of our weakness, but of Christ's strength; not of our faith, but of his faithfulness; not of the firmness of our hold of him, but of the firmness of his hold of us. Not into the hand of the Father, as the great and holy Law-giver, would the spirit in the first exercises of penitence and faith venture to thrust itself, but into the hand of the Son, the Saviour. Yet as soon as it does so, the other hand, that of the Father, closes over it, as if the redoubled might of Omnipotence waited and hastened to guard the treasure. "Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. . . . No man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." The believer's life is hid "with Christ." Far up beyond all reach of danger this of itself would place it. But farther still, it is hid "with Christ in God." H. 22. The festival of Dedication was instituted by Judas Maccabeus to commemorate the purification of the temple and the renewal of the temple-worship, after the three years' profanation by Antiochus Epiphanes. It was held during eight days, commencing on the 25th day of the month Kislev, which began with the new moon of December. It was celebrated by the Jews, not at Jerusalem alone, like the great festivals of the law; but at home, throughout the whole country, by the festive illumination of their dwellings. R. 23. Jesus walked in the temple. His appearance at this festival seems to have been, like the former (Section 84), sudden and unlooked-for. The multitude probably at this time was not so great, both on account of the season (midwinter), and because the festival was kept in other places besides Jerusalem, though, of course, with the greatest splendor and concourse in the temple itself. H. M.—In Solomon's porch.** The eastern porch of the temple still retained the name of Solomon's porch, because it was at least built of the materials which had formed part of the ancient temple. Here, in this bright colonnade, decked for the feast with glittering trophies, Jesus was walking up and down, quietly, and apparently without companions. —24. The Jews said. If thou really art the Messiah, tell us with confidence. Tell us here, in Solomon's porch, now, while the sight of these shields and golden crowns, and the melody of these citherns and cymbals, recall the glory of Judas the Asmonean—wilt thou be a mightier Maccabeus, a more glorious Solomon? F. 25,26. Again our Lord appeals to his miracles as the grand proof that he was the Christ. Again he reminds the Jews that he does not act independently of his Father, but in entire harmony and unity with him. . . . Not being Christ's sheep was not the cause of their unbelief; but their unbelief was the evidence that they were not Christ's sheep. J. C. R.—To souls who were willing to believe, Jesus had often, even lately in his discourse concerning the Shepherd, said clearly and pointedly who he was; but the Jews, who were hankering after a worldly Messiah, did not "understand the speech" in which, as Christ, he discoursed to them; and the works through which the Father testified of the Son they despised. The restored blind man walked among them as a living sermon on the Christ, but they believed not, for they loved darkness rather than the light which in Christ offered to enlighten them. R. B. 27. It was the perfect harmony which subsisted between the words and the character of Jesus, that caused that unbounded confidence, and deep attachment of souls to him, to which he refers so strikingly here: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." Every word was a revelation of his person, and therefore it was that every word had so profound a significance, and sank so deep into the hearts of those that heard him. A. T.—My sheep. His, by the Father's gift—by redemption and purchase—by calling and choosing, by feeding, keeping, and preserving—and by their own consent and will. They are his peculiar property. Hear my voice. This supposes that Christ first speaks, and then they hear. Grace begins the work: they, through grace, obey his calling, and willingly do as he bids them. I know them. With a special knowledge of approbation, complacency, love, and interest. They follow me. Like sheep, they obey, trust, and walk in the steps of their divine Master. They follow him, in holy obedience to his commandments—in striving to copy his example—in trusting implicitly his providential leadings—going where he would have them go, and taking cheerfully all he appoints for them. J. C. R. 28. Three properties of his sheep, to which the Shepherd has three offices to correspond: to those who hear his voice he gives eternal life; those whom he knows he never suffers to perish; those who follow him no man can pluck out of his hand. Neither the corruption and weakness of our flesh, nor the cruel enmity of the devil and of the world, shall ever separate us from eternal life in communion with Jesus Christ, the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. The hand of the Shepherd will hold us with a power which nothing can overcome, if we only give ourselves up to be held by his hand in the sincere clinging of our heart to him. R. B.—To be safe in Christ's hand, and so never to perish, is one thing; but to feel that we are safe, is quite another. Many are safe, who do not feel it. Christ's hand holding them, and not their hand holding him, is the true secret of their safety and perseverance. J. C. R.—The whole strength of our soul's desire is for a guarantee against ourselves. Such a guarantee is here assured to us. Hengs. 29. The Father has given the sheep to the Son in order that the Son might give them eternal life; and no man can bring to naught this council of eternal love, for it is the council of him who is greater than all, against whose almighty power all those enemies of life are powerless who strive to pluck out of the Saviour's hand those that have been given him, and that he has saved through his life. R. B. 30. That the Christ should speak of God as the Father whom he represented in his official character, and should appeal to works done in the Father's name, was legitimate, and in accordance with the Jewish notion of the Messiah. But Jesus went farther than this, and having declared his own absolute power over his sheep, even to the giving them eternal life, he rose to the sublime assertion, "I and my Father are one." The gravamen of the offence was that "being a man," he made himself God by asserting that he and his Father were one. J. P. T. —Our language admits not of the precision of the original in this great saying. "Are" is in the masculine gender—"we (two persons) are;" while "one" is neuter—"one thing." Perhaps "one interest" expresses, as nearly as may be, the purport of the saying. There seemed to be some contradiction between his saying they had been given by his Father into his own hands, out of which they could not be plucked, and then saying that none could pluck them out of his Father's hands, as if they had not been given out of them. "Neither they have," says he: "Though he has given them to me, they are as much in his own almighty hands as ever—they cannot be, and when given to me they are not, given away from himself; for he and I have all in common." B. We understand by the "oneness" here spoken of, the oneness of Christ with the Father in will and works, in virtue of which his work is the work of the Father; but this was founded on the consciousness of his original and essential oneness with the Father, as is clear from his testimonies in other places as to his relations to God. N.—When he said, "I and the Father," he signified a duality of persons, a distinction of subsistences; but when he added, "We are one," he signified a oneness of God-head, an identity of essence, nature, and power. Zigabennus.—The Father did not give away the sheep out of his own hand when he gave them into the hand of the Son as their Shepherd. The hand of the Father and the Son is one and the same God's hand. The absolute power belonging to God the Son possesses equally with the Father, and this equality of power rests upon their oneness of nature. Through faith, then, we are kept unto salvation, not by human power, but by the power of God. R. B. 33. Had the Jews understood our Lord only to mean that he had unity of sentiment with the Father, they would not have attempted to treat him as a blasphemer. In this sense Abraham, Moses, David, and all the prophets were one with God. But what irritated them was that they understood him to speak of unity of nature. Therefore they say, "Thou makest thyself God." A. Clarke. 34-36. Your law. Sometimes our Lord speaks of two great divisions into which the Jews divided the Old Testament, viz., the law and the prophets. Sometimes he distributes the Scriptures into three parts: the law, the psalms, and the prophets. Here he uses one word for all the Old Testament. By saying "your law," he reminds them that he appeals to their own honored sacred writings. J. C. R.—Gods. He appealed specifically to Psalm 82: 1, 6, which passage refers to Exodus 21: 6, and 22: 8, 9, 28. In these passages civil judges are called Elohim—one of the names of God. H. C.—There is a contrast here between himself and all merely human representatives of God. The contrast is between those "to whom the word of God came"—men merely having a divine message to utter (if prophets), or a divine office to discharge (if judges)—and Him whom (not being of the earth at all) the Father sanctified (set apart) and sent into the world, an expression never used of any merely human messenger of God, and used only of himself. B. He sought to prove to them, on their own ground, that Messiah might call himself in that higher sense the Son of God, and appropriate the titles founded thereon, without the slightest prejudice to the honor of God. "If," said he, "in your own law, persons who, in specific relations, represent God (e. g., judges and kings), are called gods, how much more, and in how far higher a sense, is the highest Theocratic King entitled to call himself the Son of God!" N.—In this passage of the Psalms, the judges in Israel were addressed. The judge's office is God's (Deut. 1: 17), and God honors the human bearer of his office with his name, as in the fifth commandment he attaches to those who bear the name of father the "honor" which properly is due to him alone. The Lord here compares himself with, and yet at the same time separates himself from, those who in the Psalm are called gods. In him only it is that every holy office divinely appointed in the old economy, as well as the judicial office, has found its truth and fulfilment. Sinful men, who were called gods by virtue of the divine business to which by the word of God they were called—they, in their unholiness, were only able to show forth the glory of the holy God in a shadowy and partial manner; not until the Word himself became flesh and dwelt full of grace and truth among his people—only in the holy Son of man who is the only begotten of the Father, did the honor reserved for human nature appear in its fulness. R. B. Because I said, I am the Son of God. Our Lord had not said, in so many words, that he was the Son of God. But he had said what beyond doubt amounted to it—namely, that he gave his sheep eternal life, and none could pluck them out of his hand; that he had got them from his Father, in whose hands, though given to him, they still remained, and out of whose hand none could pluck them; and that they were the indefeasible property of both, inasmuch as “he and his Father were one.” B. 38. Believe the works.** His wonders fulfilled their office when they gained men’s ears and hearts for their Redeemer. If the cure of disease, or raising the dead, or stilling the sea, will turn men’s hearts to him, he works the outward wonder for the inward blessing. Indeed, it is probable that the whole system of miracle-working, sublime as it is to us, was rather a condescension of our Lord, and looked to him as but an inferior ministry—since he said, “If ye will not believe me, believe the works.” F. D. H. 40. Judea, therefore, was closed to him, as Galilee was closed to him. There seemed to be one district only which was safe for him in his native land, and that was Perea, the district beyond the Jordan. He retired, therefore, beyond Jordan, where John had once been baptizing, and there he stayed. F. 41,42. All things that John spake of this man are true. John’s preaching was not forgotten after his death, though it seemed to produce little effect during his life. Herod could cut off his ministry, but he could not prevent his words being remembered. J. C. R.—Many believed.** Might not this be a sign to them, that he who came to fulfil the law and put a loftier law in its place—he to whom all the prophets had witnessed—he for whom John had prepared the way—he who spake as never man spake—he who did the works which none other man had ever done since the foundation of the world—he who had ratified all his words, and given significance to all his deeds, by the blameless beauty of an absolutely stainless life—was indeed speaking the truth when he said that he was one with the Father, and that he was the Son of God? F. We take, then, our Lord’s wonderful sayings at the feast of Dedication as asserting the essential unity of nature and attributes between himself and the Father, and as thus assuring us of the perfect and everlasting security and well-being of all who put their souls for keeping into his hand. H. ## Section 96.—Informed of Lazarus’s Sickness. Delays Four Days. Perea. 1. Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.) Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. 5,6. Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was. Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judea again. His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again? Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him. These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless, let us go unto him. Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him. If it is not given to every man to be a Lazarus or a John, nor to every woman to be a Mary, it is given to every Christian to have a friend in Jesus. He called the disciples his friends, and he is the friend that sticketh closer than a brother. On the way to our redemption he took up our humanity and allied us, as men, to himself; and such ties as men recognize among themselves, they find established between them and him. We not only come to him with thanksgiving, loyalty, and obedience, but for fellowship. The friend whom we consult in emergency, with whom we take counsel, on whom we fall back for succor, for sympathy, with whom we share our thoughts, on whose love we count—it is Jesus. No one else can come so near, can give us such confidence in his wisdom and judgment, can so penetrate through our perplexities; no one else will estimate us with the same righteous tolerance; with no one else can there be the same unreserved expression of thought, the same opening of a troubled and hesitating heart. Nothing that affects us is indifferent to him. The friendship of Christ is in every way perfect. Prayer will bring the Friend at any moment to our side. Nay, he seems to be marching with us through our life, so exact is his knowledge of our circumstances, and so often has he helped us before we had sought him. And to have Jesus, means that dream of a perfect friend, that haunts us in the days of our youth, come true; that ideal, that with cooler thought and more wisdom we learn to think impossible, more than fulfilled: it means this, and over and above, all that is deep and divine in the Son of God, all that is peculiar in the sacrifice of the cross to those for whom it was offered. And so when Christians shrink from the heavier blows of life, and think if Jesus had been there it had not come: the presence of sorrow does not argue the absence of Christ, or that his love has cooled, or that he would needs interfere to spare a life, no matter how dear, or how dependent we are on it. It argues that we are in this world, and bound up with its misery, and that unless we pass out of this world we cannot escape its mutability and pain. And this chapter argues that lives may be stricken down, and loves severed, and the happiest homes darkened, while the sufferers are dear to Jesus, and he watches them and knows that they suffer. W. F. S. Both in word and in work, in which he is one with the Father, the glory of Christ comes mightily forth as a true witness, testifying to the word which he had spoken, that no man taketh his life from him, but that he layeth it down of himself. Death flees before him; without his will no man dies: He is the Resurrection and the Life. It is in this light that we should contemplate the narrative which John has related with all that graphic distinctness which the careful observation of love could alone have imparted. R. B. The raising of Lazarus was manifestly intended to supply the Jews with one more incontrovertible proof that Jesus was the Christ of God, the promised Messiah. It was also meant to prepare the minds of the Jews for our Lord's own resurrection. No one could say, when the grave of Jesus was found empty, and his body gone, that his resurrection was an impossibility. The mere fact that in that very year a man dead four days had been restored to life within two miles of Jerusalem would silence such remark. Of all our Lord's miracles this one is most thoroughly credible and supported by most incontrovertible evidence. J. C. R. 1-3. In the circle of this family, with Mary, who "sat at his feet and heard his word," with Martha, who was only divided between this and the desire to pay as much outward honor as she could to her divine guest, with Lazarus his friend, we may think of him as often wont to find rest and refreshment, after a day spent amid the contradiction of sinners, and among the men who daily mistook and wrested his words. But now there has fallen a cloud upon this happy household of love; for not they even whom Christ loves are exempt from their share of earthly trouble and anguish. Very beautiful is it to observe their confidence in him; they take it for granted that this announcement will be sufficient, and say no more; they do not urge him to come; they only tell their need, as being sure that this will be enough; he does not love, and forsake them whom he loves. T. 3. They do not say "our brother," or "thy disciple," or even "one who loves thee," but simply "he whom thou lovest." Christ's love to us, and not our love to Christ, is the blessed truth which we ought continually to keep before our minds. J. C. R. —How beautiful and touching this petition! If the Lord loves him who lieth sick, then there is indeed no distress. Love makes the beloved one's sickness its own sickness, and here is the love of him who is Lord over all sickness. "Lord, behold!"—therein they embody all their entreaty for help and likewise all their assurance that the Lord is both willing and able to "behold" and to help the beloved sick one. R. B. 4. As with so many other of the divine promises, which seem to us for the moment utterly to fail, and this because we so little dream of the resources of the divine love, so was it with this word—a perplexing riddle, till the event had made it plain. T.—Our Lord afterward fully explained what he meant by this ambiguous speech; but it is a remarkable instance of the candor and fidelity of the Evangelists so exactly to record the very words of Jesus, though malice might so easily cavil at them. D. 5. It is an exquisite picture that John leaves on our minds: the calm days of intimate communion in the little hamlet; converse on the law and the prophets till the heart burned within; a revelation of all the graciousness of Jesus, where he was free from restraint; his sympathy with the young Jew, who yields himself up in simple and entire trust and leans upon his divine friend, is the companion of his walks, sits with him under the shade of the fig-tree in the court or on the house-top while the sun goes down and glows upon Jerusalem, hears from his own lips of his wonderful plan, insensibly comforts and cheers him, follows him with wistful sympathy, or enters into his thoughts with a ready spirit, even when they baffle his comprehension. W. F. S.—Christ has objects of special affection; they are such as love him and serve him with no ordinary love, and whose characters are such as he, the perfect judge of character, can approve. Blessed be his name, they are none of them perfect. But he loves to help them in their endeavors to be so. He loves certain families; families of prayer; families whose members love one another; families where he is exalted, and his cause and his friends are cherished, and his name is most precious, and where the whole life of the household is one hymn of praise to Christ, a fragrant sacrifice of devoted service to his honor and glory. N. A. 6. When he abode in the same place and lingered on his way to Bethany, Christ tried the character, not only of the sisters, but of all who knew the case. Superficiality fell away—secret unbelief broke out into scorn—and those alone stood the test whose souls had sought and found in him what the soul needs. Christ's delays are the touchstones of spiritual life. Ker. 8. At present they are in a place of retirement and comparative safety—Perea, beyond the Jordan. A journey to Bethany will take him close to Jerusalem, where bitter enemies are watching for him. Naturally enough, his disciples remonstrate: "Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee, and goest thou thither again?" F. D. H. 9. Twelve hours. The Jews and Romans divided the day, that is, the spaces between the rising and setting of the sun, into four parts, consisting each of three hours. But with them the hour was a twelfth part of the time which the sun continued above the horizon. The first hour began at sunrising, noon was the sixth, and the twelfth ended at sunset. The third hour divided the space between sunrising and noon: the ninth divided that which was between noon and sunset. Burder.—As well in reference to himself as to them the Lord bids the disciples be of good heart concerning his journey to Jerusalem. He goes to Jerusalem in order to fulfil his day's work, the eleventh hour of which had now begun; the twelfth hour of his day he had yet to complete, for while it is day he must work. R. B. Are there not twelve hours in the day? As his manner often is, the Divine Teacher here makes a commonplace fact, lying under our constant observation—the mere duration of the daylight—represent a great doctrine of practical religion. God fixes the length of the day—twelve hours. While you are walking with him, his plans protect you, his ordinances befriend you, his hands hold you up and clear the way, his sunshine flows down upon you, his invisible angels watch over you. It may not always seem so; it certainly will not so long as we look only through the eyes of sense. Clouds and darkness may appear to overhang the path of the just, and night to be shutting in before its time; but it is appearance only. No outward hinderances can shorten God's time, or take back his promise. Your "day," for his service, has just twelve hours. If God's will and word command you to go, your strength will be equal to your day, and your day will be as long as it ought to be. If it seems to be cut short here, it will be filled out in a glorious immortality—not an hour lost. It is not so much the period that is of consequence, as the living of it all out, clearly and faithfully, in the service of the Master—as a Heaven-appointed time. The twelve hours are to be filled up. Not one of them can we afford to throw away or lose. Christian waiting is not idleness, but a kind of busy waiting. There is an end of these hours, and it is near at hand. They are only twelve, and they are all short. They darken over in early youth, very often. They end always at the bar of a most solemn judgment, where those that die young and those that die old stand together before God, and the book of remembrance is opened, and all are judged out of the book. F. D. H. 11. How humanly, how tenderly does the phrase "our friend Lazarus" recall him to their thoughts! It would seem as if the ties that knit our Lord to the members of that family at Bethany had been formed for this as for other reasons, to show how open the heart of Jesus was, not merely to a universal love to all mankind, but to the more peculiar and specific affections of friendship. Among the twelve there was one whom he particularly loved; among the families he visited there was one to which he was particularly attached. Outside the circle of his immediate followers there was one whom he called his friend. H. Sleepeth. He was dead in the eye of man, but asleep in the sight of Christ, who can raise us from the grave with the same ease as from our bed. Beng.—Awake him. Thus simply does he speak of the mighty work which he is about to accomplish; it is but a sleep and an awakening. T.—Never was bolder declaration made. He proclaims his deliberate purpose to raise Lazarus from the dead. J. C. R.—He had already in remote Galilee raised two from the dead—one soon after death, the other before burial. But now, in the immediate neighborhood of Jerusalem, in presence of a mixed company of friends and enemies, he has resolved, in raising Lazarus, to perform the great closing, crowning miracle of his ministry; and he will do it so that not the most captious or the most incredulous can question the reality either of the death or of the resurrection. It was to be the last public miracle he was to work. H. 14,15. Because the disciples do not understand heavenly speech concerning death, the Lord descends to the earthly form of expression, and translates the heavenly word—fall asleep—into the earthly one—die. R. B.—If we suppose that death could not have assailed Lazarus when Jesus was near, the words of the two sisters gain a much more sublime signification, and the Lord's joy on account of his absence appears in a clearer light. Beng.—There is a fitness in Christ being absent from the world while death reigns. Christ could not be present and see death strike down his friends without interposing. We never read that this enemy of man was permitted to exercise his power before the open face of the Son of God. It would be inconsistent with the honor of him who is the Lord of life. And therefore Christ must be absent from the world while death and the grave maintain their sway. Meantime he gathers the fold of the cloud over his countenance that we may not think he looks with cold indifference on our anguish, until he shall withdraw the veil fully and forever. Happy those to whose eye of faith the cloud is already pierced, and who feel in the heart that sunshine of his face which shall give life and light at last to all the dead in Christ. What a miserable earth would it be without this hope, without this possession!—the desolate home of Bethany without the great Friend—men dying, mourners weeping, graves filling up, and death reigning forever! How should our hearts leap up with exulting joy to think that there is a Christ, and how should we thank him, as we alone can, by accepting him as God's unspeakable gift! Ker. 16. Thomas and Didymus, one in the Syriac and the other in the Greek, do both signify a twin. He no doubt was a Jew, and, in all probability, a Galilean, as well as the other apostles. This character is that of a man slow to believe, seeing all the difficulties of a case, subject to despondency, viewing things on the darker side, and yet full of ardent love for his Master. He entertained no hope of his escape—he looked on the journey as leading to total ruin; but he determined to share the peril. "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." S.—These words are doubtless a proof of his love; and in this respect we may well humble ourselves before him, for his love to the Lord is so great that to him the thought of dying is more tolerable than the thought of parting from his Master. But for his faith, these words do not say much. A. T.—The expression of a gloomy and somewhat obstinate despondency, sinking into despair, yet at the same time of heroic and chivalrous attachment. Jesus says nothing to the utterer of this speech. He waits for other and after occasions to take Thomas into his hands, and turn his incredulity into warm and living faith. H.—Very beautifully Chrysostom says of this disciple, that he who now would hardly venture to go with Jesus as far as to the neighboring Bethany, afterward without him travelled to the ends of the world, to the farthest India, daring all the perils of remote and hostile nations. T. 1-15. Nowhere do we gain a profounder sense of the new relation between God and man, of the intimate union that is possible between Christians and Christ—of its tenderness, sympathy, and breadth. Nowhere can we better feel that we ought to throw ourselves on Christ with less reserve. We see just what they saw of trial; like them, we feel how it presses us at the time, and do not look beyond. We have asked for help; we have sent our embassy of prayer, and the trial crushes on—crushes the heart and crushes the health. What we are apt to think is, that misfortune has been added to sorrow, that we are simply plunging down from depth to depth of trial. Looking at life, it is not possible to discover more. But in Christ's words we have glimpses into the divine procedure. What at Bethany bred only woe and wonder was really the necessary step to a great work and favor of God. It was by the delay that that work was rendered possible. Behind that mystery of silence, beyond the woe and wonder of men, Jesus was disposing events to a most gracious end. Even to the disciples that were about him he let fall only a slow hint or two. But those words, as we interpret them by the events that followed, recall enough to us. They light up for us the field of the work of God. The delay may be only of wisdom or of love, or it may be to indicate God's wisdom and glory. Though it should be only for God, let us be content. But it may be for our sakes. While we look at the things that are seen, let us not forget the things that are not seen. W. F. S. It is in this interval of delay that our life is cast. The world is represented by this home of Bethany before Christ reached the grave. But at whatever step of his journey man's faith may discern him, he is surely on his way. The tide of eternal life is setting in toward the world of graves, and its swell and its murmur can be already perceived by all who have a soul to feel the heaving of Christ's heart. Amid the tears and sobs of the bereaved friends whose sorrows still touch him, he is moving to the sepulchre. His presence, though unseen, can be heard and felt in whispered consolations—in the faith and hope which his spirit infuses into the soul. Those who know him for what he is, recognize a Friend who weeps in sympathy with them, and who walks by their side to the tomb which his voice shall yet open. The delay seems long, but he counts the hours as we do; and not for a single one shall he linger beyond what infinite wisdom sees fit. One result of this delay shall be a grander final issue. He permits his friends to descend with broken ranks into the swellings of Jordan, but he shall lead them forth on the other side in one fully marshalled and bannered host. Patient waiting shall have its full compensation on that day, and divine delay justify itself before the universe in glorious and everlasting results. Ker. ## Section 97.—"I am the Resurrection and the Life." 17. THEN when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already. 18, 19 (Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off:) And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. 20. Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but 21 Mary sat still in the house. Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been 22 here, my brother had not died. But I know that even now, whatsoever thou wilt 23 ask of God, God will give it thee. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise 24 again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection 25 at the last day. Jesus saith unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that 26 believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth, and 27 believeth in me, shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world. 28. And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, 29 saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee. As soon as she heard that, she arose 30 quickly, and came unto him. Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in 31 that place where Martha met him. The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary that she arose up hastily, and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there. DEATH has yet to come; and we do not know in what shape it will come; it may be quite near, or it may still be far away. But we will not dwell too much on it; instead of looking down into the open grave we will look up for the glorious appearing; we know of a happy country across the dark river; we have heard of the shining ones who will lead us up the hill. He who has helped others through it will help us through it. Those gone before us, found him near them. He who was faithful to them will be faithful to us, and to those whom we leave behind. And he who goes with them stays with us. For he is in paradise with those that sleep in him. He is on earth with those that wait for him. He can think of the living as well as of the dying; of those who have still to grapple with the last struggle, as well as of those who sing the conqueror's song. So we pass out of the sight of our dead, wondering at our own calmness. Thankfulness for the glorious change passed on them absorbs all selfish thought of the grief come on us. We too feel, that if we have lost much, we have gained much; earth is beneath us; we have stood on the very threshold of heaven, and the love of Christ is more real than ever. On the morrow, when we go out of our chamber to do our work, to meet our friends, to feel our loss, He who was with us in the quiet night meets us in the glare of the morning; we remember the promise, Thy brother shall rise again. A. W. T. 17. Four days. Of these four days the messenger sent may have occupied one, the distance being about twenty miles; two were passed in the delay before setting off; and a fourth in the journey of the Saviour with his disciples. This would show that Lazarus died soon after the messenger started; also that, as usual in the climate of Palestine, interment in the sepulchre followed very soon after death. H. C.—19. Many Jews.** Thus casually were provided witnesses of the glorious miracle that followed, not prejudiced, certainly, in favor of him who wrought it. B. 21-27. It is a subject for study how Christ leads on these sisters from a dead brother to the resurrection and the life, and teaches them through their loss to gain what they never could lose any more. Ker. 21. If thou hadst been here.** When he knows that Lazarus is dead, while he is touched with tenderness toward the weeping kindred, he says plainly to his disciples, "I am glad, for your sakes, I was not there, to the intent ye may believe." It was their deeper faith he sought, and through theirs the faith of all his Church. And then, just as the sublime marvel was to appear at his bidding, and the still chamber to give up its guest, he repeated to the doubting Martha, "Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?" And when he prayed to the Father, and said, "I know that thou hearest me always," he added, "Because of the people which stand by, I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me." How manifestly the whole mercy was granted only to confirm that incomparable and eternal truth, "I am the resurrection and the life; whosoever believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live!" And now, after eighteen centuries, Jesus does not stay to revoke for us the decrees of nature—to be a physician to our sickness, or a warder at the door to keep out death. He stays, but for a higher ministry; not to exempt us from suffering, but to conduct us through it into heavenly strength and peace; not for a physical or temporary cure, but a spiritual and final one! And so our confession ought not to be the halfhalf-faithless one, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, our friends, our children, would not have sickened and died;" but, "Lord, because thou art here, all our sicknesses, and our dying even, shall be for the raising up of our souls, and the glory of God." Willingness to suffer for that end—for spiritual redemption and the glory of God—this is what we have to aspire to, and attain, under the teaching of Christ, and by that cross whereby he symbolized his whole religion and suffered for us, thereby mafic perfect in his mediatorship. F. D. H. 25,26. These words are the central point of the history: the great testimony to himself, of which the subsequent miracle is the proof. The intention of the saying seems to have been to awaken in Martha the faith that he could raise her brother from the dead, in its highest and proper form. A. —The resurrection and the life. "The true life, the true resurrection, the everlasting triumphs over death, they are in me—no distant things, as thou speakest of now, to find place at the end of the world. In me is victory over the grave, in me is life eternal: by faith in me that becomes yours which makes death not to be death, but only the transition to a higher life." The temporal death is taken no account of, but quite overlooked, and the believer in him is contemplated as already lifted above death, and made partaker of everlasting life. T. Though dead . . . shall live. The temporary separation of soul and body is here regarded as not even interrupting, much less impairing, the new and everlasting life imparted by Jesus to his believing people. B.—The general assertion, "I am the resurrection and the life," gets its true significance from the two explanatory statements which follow. "I am the life," said Jesus, not as being the originator and sustainer of the soul's existence, but in this specific sense, that "whosoever liveth and believeth on me"—or rather, liveth by believing on me—"shall never die." And "I am the resurrection" in this sense, that "whosoever believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Such language connects, in some peculiar way, the life and resurrection that Jesus is now speaking of with believing on him. Jesus is here proclaiming to Martha, and through her to the world of sinners he came to save, what the great end of his mission is, and how it is that that end is accomplished. From first to last, running through all these discourses of our Saviour (John, chaps. 3–10), in every one of them this is held out by our Lord himself as the great end and object of his life and death—that we, who were all dead in trespasses and sins, alienated from the life of God, should find for these dead souls of ours a higher and everlasting life in him. II. Christ is the resurrection because he is the life. “The Living,” the angel-youth calls him in his Easter announcement. Not because he has risen is he the Living, but because he is the Living, therefore has he risen. It was impossible that he should be holden of death, for the very reason that he is the Living. And what Christ is, this he imparts to his believers. Believers shall rise because they live. Lazarus had died, but he only slept; his friendship with Jesus—his faith—made him live: “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Through faith in him who is the life, the Christian possesses an indefeasible life—a life which, even in the midst of dying, is not to be killed by death; and by virtue of faith in him who is the resurrection, even the mortal body of a Christian shall become glorified into the incorruptible life which pertains to the body of the resurrection. For all his believers is this precious word of Christ intended. Just as his sleeping friend there, although—in the language of earth—he was dead, had nevertheless not fallen away from eternal life: so, in like manner, all who live the life which they now live in the flesh by the faith of the Son of God, shall never die, although they may be called dead. Through faith in him who is the life, our life in this mortal body is glorified into that life which shall never see death eternally. R. B.—If the scene had ended here, Jesus would even then have ministered sure consolation to the bereaved family of Bethany—such consonation as comes now to Christian houses into which death has entered, and which avails not only to stay the stream of tears, but to fill the darkened chamber with a cloud of glory. Faith grasps the great miracle; the interval is longer between the promise and its ultimate fulfilment, but it is only a question of time. Wherever he has trod, who is the resurrection and the life, death has been vanquished. De P. The resurrection and the life! He has announced it. He is himself the pledge of it. It is to his death we owe it. It is his power that achieves it. Mark how these thoughts are illustrated in different parts of Scripture. “Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming when they that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth.” “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he hath loved us, even when we were dead in sins, quickened us together with Christ.” “Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.” “The first man is of the earth earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven; and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” “This is the will of him that sent me, that every one that seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” “I am the resurrection and the life!” J. A. 27. Christ separates our friends from us for a while that we may learn to find our all in himself. He makes their grave the seed-bed of immortal hopes, which shall give us back everything that is good in the past, and a joy with it like the joy of harvest. The expression of our resignation in bereavement is as much a triumph of his grace as the calmness he gives to our dying friends. When Martha and Mary can still call him “Lord,” and when their “hope can smile on all other hopes gone from them”—when they can clasp Christ as their portion amid desolation around and within—Christ himself is justified in the permission of death. Ker. ## Section 98.—Raises Lazarus from the Grave. Bethany. 32. THEN when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, 33 saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned 34 in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, 35,36. Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!37 And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have 38 caused that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore again groaning in 39 himself, cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by 40 this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God? 41 Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me: 42 and I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by, I 43 said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, 44 he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. 45 Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus 46 did, believed on him. But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done. THE crowning lesson of the great miracle is the mingled exhibition that it makes of the humanity and divinity of our Lord. At no time in all his life did he appear more perfectly human, show himself more fully to be one with us, our true and tender elder brother, than when he burst into tears before the grave of Lazarus. At no time did he appear more divine than when with the loud voice he cried, “Lazarus, come forth,” and at the voice the dead arose and came forth. And it is because there meet in him the tenderness of an altogether human pity and the fulness of a divine power, that he so completely satisfies the deepest inward cravings of the human heart. True, tender, constant, and abiding is his sympathy, the sympathy of one who knows our frame, of one who knows all about, all within us, and who is touched with a fellow-feeling of our infirmities, “having himself been tempted in all things like as we are.” It is not simply the pity of God, with all its fulness and tenderness: that had not come so close to us, taken such a hold of us; it is the sympathy of a brother-man that Jesus extends to us, free from all the restrictions to which such sympathy is ordinarily subjected. But we need more than that sympathy; we need succor. Besides the heart tender enough to pity, we need the hand strong enough to help, to save us. We not only want one to be with us and feel with us in our hours of simple sorrow, we want one to be with us and aid us in our hours of temptation and conflict, weakness and defeat—one not only to be at our side at all times and seasons of this our earthly pilgrimage, but to be near us, to uphold us, when flesh and heart shall faint and fail; to be the strength of our hearts then, and afterward our portion forever. In all the universe there is but one such. Therefore to him, our own loving, compassionate, Almighty Saviour, let us cling, that softly in the bosom of his gentle pity we may repose, and safely, by his everlasting arms, may forever be sustained. H. 32. The words of Mary are very touching and natural. All her grief for her dead brother bursts out afresh, at the sight of one who had been so dear a friend to him, and to her. Veneration and affection for the great Master, never so drawn out as in the hour of sorrow, fill her soul. “Mary fell down at his feet.” The soul is never so attracted to Christ as amid such desolation—constrained to cling to “a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” There is continued confidence in him, seen in her address, Lord—still Lord, notwithstanding all that had happened—seen in the conviction that an earlier arrival would have brought deliverance. Ker. If thou hadst been here. How often during that four’s days interval the sisters had said one to the other, how different the issues might have been if the Divine Friend had been with them! This had been the one thought in the hearts, the one word on the lips of either, and therefore it was so naturally the first spoken by each, altogether independently of the other. T. 33-36. The sobs pierced to the heart of Jesus. Here is the fruit of that sin that marred his world. Thus it wastes and destroys, poisons human life, and drains it of enjoyment. It is not a group, but a world of mourners that he sees. It is not the sobbing of a few women that he hears, but the wail that rises from every land. Sin confronts him armed with death and the grave, rich with the spoil of souls. There is the enemy that he has come to destroy, and he rises up against it with a fixed and holy indignation, groaning in spirit, troubled. He, too, thrills with sympathy. If Mary weeps for a brother, he weeps for a friend. W. F. S. —Surely the expressions of bitter lamentation, the tears and agony of all around, were enough to stir the compassionate heart of him who sympathized so deeply with all human feelings, even though he knew that he should soon remove the cause of grief itself. A physician (though the analogy is utterly inadequate), standing by the bedside of a patient surrounded by weeping friends, may well be affected by their grief, though he may be sure, so far as human skill can give surety, that he will heal the disease. N.—35. Jesus wept. The Evangelist, some sixty years after it occurred, holds up to all ages with touching brevity the sublime spectacle of the Son of God in tears. What a seal of his perfect oneness with us in the most redeeming feature of our stricken humanity! B.—Christianity knows of no dead stoicism; it knows of a regulating, but of no repressing of the natural affections; on the contrary, it bids us to weep with them that weep; and, in the beautiful words of Leighton, that we “seek not altogether to dry the stream of sorrow, but to bound it, and keep it within its banks.” T. 37. He allowed Lazarus to die, he allowed his sisters to suffer all this woe, not that he loved them less, but because he knew that for him, for them, for us all, higher ends were in this way gained than could have been accomplished by his cutting the illness short, and going from Bethabara to cure. Little did the weeping sisters know what a place in the annals of redemption the death and resurrection of their brother was to occupy. H.—Jesus had given many convincing proofs of his love to the household of Bethany while Lazarus lived, but none with that touching tenderness in it which came forth at his grave. The fellowship of suffering brings hearts and lives together more than all the fellowship of joy. And when his grief broke out into that trouble of spirit at the grave, when his heart was overpowered by it and Jesus wept—the mourners knew that he was one with them. Gethsemane shows us the agony of Christ’s soul for man’s sin—the grave of Bethany his agony of heart at man’s suffering. All that sad, sorrowful walk to the sepulchre where he mingled his tears with theirs, was as necessary to make them feel the sympathy of his soul, as was the great deliverance when he said, “Lazarus, come forth.” Ker. 38. They reach the place where the tomb was, though not without another of those mighty shudderings that shook the frame of the Lord of life—so dreadful did death seem to him who, looking through all its natural causes, saw it purely as the seal and token of sin, so unnatural its usurpation over a race made for immortality. T.—39. A great stone closes the mouth of the sepulchre; standing, with the Saviour in front and the corpse behind it, between the living and the dead. It must be removed; and Christ has only to say the word, and, moved by hands invisible, it rolls away to disclose the secrets of the tomb. But he who takes away stony hearts, because none other can, does not take away this stone; nor address it, but those who have put it there, and can take it thence. He requires them to do what they can—each doing their part; theirs to roll away the stone and his to raise the dead. Guthrie.—If we do what we can, he does what we cannot. His kindness does not permit us to be idle spectators of his works, but earnest helpers of them. Even in the work of raising sinners from spiritual death, he makes use of human hands which “take away the stone,” and afterward “loose” the grave-clothes. R. B.—No human voice has power to pierce the closed ear, to reach the dull cold heart. The voice of Jesus can alone do that. But there are stones of obstruction which keep that voice from being heard. These we can remove. The ignorant can be taught, the name of Jesus be made known, the glad tidings of salvation published abroad. And when at the divine call the new life has entered into the soul, by how many bonds and ligaments, prejudices of the understanding, old holds of the affections, old habits of the life, is it hampered and hindered! These, as cramping our own or others’ higher life, we may help to untie and fling away. H. Dead four days. The words of Martha make it almost certain that up to this moment she has not been thinking of her brother’s resurrection as near. Would it not be offensive to open that sepulchre—for decomposition must have commenced? She shows at least that she supposed him to be really dead. H. C.—But Martha here speaks more as the sister of the deceased than as the disciple of the Living. She would fain spare both herself and her Master the sight of the corruption which has already fastened upon the beloved corpse, and so she opposes the removal of the stone. 40. Said I not unto thee? Thus it is that the Lord recalls his precious promises to our recollection whenever we forget them. Martha is called away from that which she perceives with her earthly senses—from death and corruption, to that which the Lord has said to her—to life and resurrection. The word which he had spoken concerning “living” and “rising again” ought to have greater weight with her than the sight of death and the smell of corruption; by faith in the word of life she ought to look through the revolting image of death, and see beyond the glory of God. R. B. 41,42. They should thus understand that he claimed his power from above, and not from beneath; that there was no magic, no necromancy here. The thanks to God were an acknowledgment that the power was from God. T.—His utterance of thanks did not imply that he only then became conscious of power to raise up Lazarus. Prayer and thanksgiving were not isolated fragments of Christ’s life; his whole life was one prayer and one thanksgiving; for he knew that the heavenly Father heard him in all things, and always granted the powers needful to his calling. He made this public, individual thanksgiving, to testify to those around that he did this, like all his other acts, as the messenger of the Father. N.—That, as the Messiah, God’s Son, incarnated in human flesh—he was sent from God to men; was teaching men as one from God; was fulfilling all the functions of his great mission from heaven as one sent of God and indorsed by miracles wrought by the power of God—these were the very points which Jesus sought to make clear and prominent before the Jewish mind. Hence the fitness of this audible prayer. H. C. 43. This cry, “with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth,” is itself the quickening word at which life returns to the dead. For it is ever to the voice of the Son of God that the power of quickening the dead and calling them from their graves is attributed. Thus (J. 5 : 28, 29), “The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth.” So (1 Thes. 4 : 16) it is the Lord’s descending “with a shout,” which is followed by the resurrection of the dead in Christ. Nor, probably, is “the last trump” of 1 Cor. 15 : 52 anything else but this voice of God which shall sound through all the kingdom of death. T. 44. Loose him, and let him go.** Jesus will no more do this himself than roll away the stone. The one was the necessary preparation for resurrection, the other the necessary sequel to it. The life-giving act alone he reserves to himself. So in the quickening of the dead to spiritual life, human instrumentality is employed first to prepare the way, and then to turn it to account. B.—This is a blessed work which the Lord permits us to do, that of loosing the grave-clothes and napkins of his awakened ones. We see coming forth an awakened sinner out of the grave of his death, but still bound hands and feet, and his face veiled; fain would he walk with new and certain steps; fain would he see with a new and certain eye. Loose him—help to set him up right with your own experience; show him out of God’s word the right way to peace; and then let him go. 45. John only describes the impression which the miracle made on the strangers, who, by seeing aright and believing, fulfilled the longing which the Lord had expressed in his prayer (verse 42); while of Mary and Martha and Lazarus themselves he says nothing. The gladness, the rapture of Mary and Martha we may in some degree imagine; but no one can adequately represent it to us. R. B.—Lazarus alone went among the shadows of death, and passed behind the grave, and came back to take his place among men. The greatest miracle on record was wrought upon him. He was the innocent cause of Christ’s arrest. He was Christ’s friend, singled out from the rest, as much as Mary the Lord’s mother or John the beloved. And thus many interests meet in him—the mystery of the unseen world, of which, if he dared, he could speak; the mystery of that friendship by which Jesus laid hold of him, and which was firm and tender enough to bring the Saviour to tears; the mystery of that place allotted to him in the life of Christ, by which he became linked with the close of its terrible drama, and was the proximate cause of the death of him that loved him; and the mystery of a stupendous miracle, in which the kingdom of death was visibly vanquished and broken. And yet there is this singular feature of his story, that there is scarcely a man of whom we could be told less. Lazarus seems introduced simply for the miracle’s sake, and beyond what is necessary to understand that, we learn nothing of the man, nothing of his personal history, meet with him at the supreme moment when sickness passes into death, and part from him at the supreme moment when the tomb yields him back to life. A veil seems purposely flung over him. He abides and keeps his place in history, not by his own personality, but as a trophy of the power of God—one more example, if more were needed, of the height of that solitary life that was then in the world; so high above all others that beside it even the best of men recedes into a subordinate place, and becomes only an illustration of him. W. F. S. 46. If this transaction had the effect of strengthening the faith of some (verse 45), it increased the hostility of others, and quickened their plots to take away his life; so that, as his time was not yet come, Jesus once more withdrew until the approach of the Passover. C. B.—Never was there a more remarkable confirmation of our Lord’s words in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, “If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” J. C. R. 32-44. The resurrection of Lazarus, followed so speedily by his own, was the promise to faith of the resurrection of all that should sleep in him; and the sympathy of Jesus in the present sorrow prepares the heart to receive that faith, and welcome that hope. J. P. T.—Jesus came to his friend's grave and wept. O scene of unspeakable consolation under the shadow of the Mount of Olives! Shed the light, that broke there on a weeping household, into every kneeling and lamenting family among us! Unite our kindred, under the dispensation of grief, in the everlasting sympathy of one Lord and one faith, with that comforted house where Mary chose the good part, and felt safe at her Redeemer's feet! Make us also dwellers at Bethany, because Christ comes again to us; and though our brother dies, yet we know henceforth that our Redeemer liveth, and that whosoever liveth and believeth in him shall never die! Be this the consolation promised to them that mourn with a disciple's trust—the hope for the dead who died in their Lord—the inspiration of the living who have yet to die—that immortality is brought to light, and that, through suffering, souls may still be made perfect. F. D. H. Jerusalem. 47. THEN gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? 48 for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on 49 him: and the Romans shall come, and take away both our place and nation. And one 50 of them, named Caiaphas, being the high-priest that same year, said unto them, Ye 51 know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die 52 for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself: but being high-priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. 53,54. Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death. Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples. UNWITTINGLY, in what he said, Caiaphas had uttered a prophecy, had announced a great and central truth of the Christian faith. He had given to the death determined on too limited a range, as if it had been for the Jews alone that Jesus was to die. But the Evangelist takes up, expounds, and expands his words as carrying with them the broad significance that not for that nation only was he to die, but that by his death he "should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." Strange ordering of Providence, that here at the beginning and there at the close of our Lord's passion—here in the Sanhedrim, there upon the cross—here from the Jewish high-priest, there from the Roman governor—words should come by which the unconscious utterers conspired in proclaiming the priestly and the kingly authority and office of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! H. Such was to be the fruit of the sacrifice of Jesus, that he should gather together the scattered children of God into one people under one Lord, into one flock under one shepherd, into one body under one head in one Spirit. The true temple of God will be built, reared upon Christ, the precious corner-stone, out of the living stones which are his members; a temple which will unite in itself all nations of the earth, constituting the true Israel (Rev. 21 : 12). R. B. 47. The death of Lazarus gathered in believers even from the ranks of opponents; it afterward brought multitudes from Jerusalem to see the risen man, and swelled the triumph of the Lord's entry; and, alas! it also now stirred up enemies to delay no longer. E.—The raising of Lazarus may be considered as the proximate cause of the conspiracy for Christ's death, by throwing the popular feeling more decidedly on his side, thereby deepening the fierce animosity of the rulers, who now saw that they had no alternative but to crush him at once, or to admit his triumph. H. M.—Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, priests, scribes, elders, Annas the astute and tyrannous, Caiaphas the abject and servile, were all now aroused; and, dreading they knew not what outburst of religious anarchy, which would shake the very foundations of their system, they met together, sinking all their own differences in a common inspiration of hatred against that long-promised Messiah in whom they only recognized a common enemy. It was an alliance for his destruction of fanaticism, unbelief, and worldliness. F. "What do we?—this man doeth many miracles!" What a fearful antithesis is here! The many miracles of Jesus pressed upon them as a burden. They remained unblessed and unawakened by this last and most glorious miracle. R. B.—Death gives way before Christ's word of power sooner than unbelief does. Beng.—This man doeth many miracles. A marvellous admission from his worst enemies. They would have denied the truth of his miracles, if they could. J. C. R.—All persons present agree that Lazarus is raised to life, and that a great miracle has been worked, though not all believe the person who worked it to be the Messiah. Some go away and tell the rulers at Jerusalem what Jesus has done. Even these do not doubt the truth of the fact; on the contrary, they confess that our Lord by his works is becoming every day more famous, and that he would probably be soon received as Messiah by the whole nation. Therefore the rulers at once take counsel how they may put to death both Jesus and Lazarus. C. C. T. 48. All will believe on him. What they really hated was our Lord's doctrine, which exposed their own system, and weakened their authority. If they had let Jesus alone, and allowed his gospel to be received and believed, Jerusalem, humanly speaking, might have stood to this day, and the Jews might have been more mighty and prosperous than in the days of Solomon. By killing him, they filled up the measure of their nation's sin, brought destruction on the temple, and scattering on the whole people. J. C. R.—Take away our place and nation. The temple, and all the far-reaching vested interests bound up with it, had long existed only on sufferance, and would at once perish in the storm of a national insurrection; and the nation stripped of its local laws, so vital to a theocracy, would be secularized into a part of Rome, with the hated imperial heathen law instead of the laws of God and the rabbis. G.—When, forty years after, Jerusalem, stained with the murder of Jesus, fell under the avenging sword which God gave into the hand of the Romans, those only escaped destruction who believed in Christ. R. B. 49. High-priest that same year. After Herod's time there was no regard to the family of Aaron, but the Romans made what high-priests they pleased. Josephus tells us that the Jews had forty-six high-priests from Aaron to Antiochus, which was 1,486 years: but they had no less than twenty-eight from the beginning of Herod's reign to the destruction of Jerusalem, which was less than a century. Poole.—Caiaphas was the son-in-law of Annas, connected thus with that family in which the Jewish pontificate remained for fifty years—four of the sons, as well as the son-in-law of Annas, having, with some interruptions, enjoyed this dignity. All through this period, embracing the whole of Christ's life from early childhood, Annas, the head of this favored family, even when himself out of office, retained much of its power, being consulted on all occasions of importance, and acting as the president of the Sanhedrim. Hence it is that in the closing scenes of our Lord's history Annas and Caiaphas appear as acting conjunctly, each spoken of as high-priest. H. 51,52. Caiaphas prophesied that Jesus should die. He meant nothing more than that the way to prevent the apprehended ruin of the nation was to make a sacrifice of the disturber of their peace. But in giving utterance to this suggestion of political expediency, he was so guided as to give forth a divine prediction of deep significance; and God so ordered it that it should come from the lips of the high-priest for that memorable year, the recognized head of God's visible people, whose ancient office, symbolized by the Urim and Thummim, was to decide in the last resort all vital questions as the oracle of the divine will. B.—The gift of prophecy, which the predecessors of Caiaphas had formerly exercised through "the Light and Right"—the Urim and the Thummim (Ex. 28: 30)—had been long extinguished, but it was once more to light up in the high-priest of this year, in order that from Moses's seat the one true offering for sin might be set forth before the eyes of the people. R. B.—Caiaphas and Pilate condemned Jesus, but both were constrained to testify of him in words whose meaning went far beyond what they themselves were aware of: here, Caiaphas of the high-priestly death of Christ; there, Pilate, in the superscription on the cross, of his kingly power. Beng. 53,54. It had now come to a solemn decree on the part of the Sanhedrim, that Jesus should be put to death, and from that day forth there were continual counsels how his death might be brought about: but he, whose hour was not yet come, withdrew himself awhile from their malice to the neighborhood of the desert country; there to abide till the approach of the Passover should bring him back to the city, to supply at length the true Paschal Lamb. T.—This city Ephraim is probably identical with Ephron and Ophrah of the Old Testament, situated nearly twenty Roman miles N. N. E. of Jerusalem, and five or six Roman miles N. E. of Bethel, on the borders of the desert which stretches along on the west of the Dead Sea and the Valley of Jordan. R. 47-54. It appears that the power of this miracle was very great; scarce any one ever wrought by Jesus was more so. It brought matters at once to a great crisis in the Jewish Sanhedrim. It led the chief priests to consult how they might get Lazarus out of their way, because so many Jews were brought by his resurrection to believe on Jesus (12: 10, 11). And it moved the people to honor him with that triumphal march into Jerusalem which is recorded by all the Evangelists, but only by John ascribed to the impression made by this miracle (12: 17-18). H. C. ## Section 100.—An Infirm Woman healed. Perea. 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, Lord, who hath 39 believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore 40 they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and 41 hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with 42 their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. These things said Esaias, when 43 he saw his glory, and spake of him. Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should 44 be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. 45 Jesus cried, and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that 46 sent me: and he that seeth me seeth him that sent me. I am come a light into the 47 world, that whosoever believeth in me should not abide in darkness. And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, 48 but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last 49 day. For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a 50 commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak. THE moment Christ appeared, he became a judgment, or a judge. There was no visible bench, no formal sentence. He was even anxious to remove the impression that condemnation was his earthly errand. He said, "I came not to judge the world, but to save the world." Nevertheless the judgment comes, and by a law inwrought into all our souls. No one of us can ever be as if Christ had not appeared on the earth. To hear the name of Christ alters the relations of every human being to the highest facts, to God, to eternity. It was not so much any special saying; it was his character, his very nature, that was judicial. As soon as he was manifest, the whole world of men about him fell apart, and souls took their places on the right hand and the left. It was as if that divine presence located instantly every human life on earth. And so he added: "Though I came not into the world to judge it, though that is not my special mission here in the body, but to manifest God to you, yet afterward, in the world to come, and in consequence of that manifestation, judgment will come, solemn, awful, inevitable, sudden as a thief in the night. The word that I speak unto you, that shall judge you." The question, then, for the individual is this: Do we see Christ? Do we recognize and own our Lord? Whether he has come, where he is, whether he can be found, is not the matter we have to consider; nor whether we belong to him. He has come: he lives: he is visible to the eyes of faith: his life goes forth into the race forever, flowing into all hearts that will open to receive it, making them sons and kings and priests unto God. F. D. H. 37-41. It is the manner of this evangelist alone to record his own reflections on the scenes he describes: but here, having arrived at what was virtually the close of our Lord's public ministry, he casts an affecting glance over the fruitlessness of his whole ministry on the bulk of the now doomed people. B. 38. The first passage which John quotes from Isaiah is taken from chap. 53:1. No other passage could he have chosen which strikes so straight at the very heart of the people which rejected their King. It is the well-known chapter of the cross. The prophet foresees and mourns over the unbelief of his people, who knew not the Lamb of God, neither at the place of slaughter, where he suffers, nor on the throne, where he reigns. The arm of the Lord, the glorious power of God, which is revealed in the incarnate Word, is hidden from this blind people, that they believe not. The Acts of the Apostles, which sets forth Israel's self-hardening against the apostolic preaching of the crucified and risen Christ, closes with these same prophetic words. Such is the awful course of the righteous judgment of hardening, from Esau and Pharaoh down to the last vessel of the wrath which is fitted to destruction. Man himself hardens his heart against the gracious voice of God which he hears—this is his sin; afterward he becomes hardened, so that he is no longer able to understand with his heart and to be converted—this is his punishment. R. B.—It was not because Isaiah spake that they believed not, but because they were not about to believe, that he spake. Chrys.—The Lord, by the prophet, did predict, not cause, the unbelief of the Jews. Aug. 39. By the great body of the Jews, both rulers and people, his doctrine had been rejected, his authority denied, his Messiahship despised. This result of his mission had been predicted by Isaiah, who, in the strong metaphor of the Hebrew prophets, ascribed to the Lord this hardening, which came of the fact that he brought into the world a stronger, clearer light of conviction, against which men closed their eyes. J. P. T.—They could not. Literally, “they were not able.” They had no will to believe, and so they had no power. They could have believed, if they would, but they would not, and so they could not. 40. He hath blinded. Those whom God is said to “harden and blind” will always be found to be persons whom he had previously warned, exhorted, and constantly summoned to repent. And never is he said to give men up to judicial hardness and blindness till after a long course of warnings. One thing must never be forgotten: God “willeth not the death of any sinner.” He is willing to soften the hardest heart, to open the blind eyes of the greatest sinner. J. C. R.—We have this text, than which there is none more terrible, no less than six times quoted in the New Testament. In all places it is given as a reason for the Jews’ unbelief in Christ. The Jews first shut their own eyes, and hardened their own hearts. Thus behaving themselves, God judicially gave them up to their own lusts. He did not infuse any malice into their hearts, but withdrew his grace from them. Poole. 41. To see the full force of this verse we should read the sixth chapter of Isaiah in its entirety. We should see there a magnificent description of the Lord’s glory, before which the seraphim veiled their faces. J. C. R.—It was Christ’s glory that Isaiah saw, when he saw in the temple the LORD seated on a throne, high and lifted up, surrounded by adoring seraphim; it was Christ of whom he spake when he said: “Mine eye hath seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” That which it was granted to the Prophet to behold in anticipation, it was vouchsafed to the Evangelist, who here speaks of Christ, to behold in actual reality, full of grace and truth; and accordingly he declares his own experience, as indeed the experience of all God’s New Testament children, when he says, “We saw his glory.” R. B. 44-50. This seems to be a supplementary record of some weighty proclamations, for which there had been found no natural place before, and introduced here as a sort of summary and winding up of his whole testimony. B.—He was come as a light into the world, and the words which he spake should judge those who rejected him; for those words—every brief answer, every long discourse—were from the Father; sunbeams from the Father of lights; life-giving rays from the life eternal. F.—These words are full of allusions to former discourses; indeed, they are a holy summary of those discourses, designed both for the joy of the disciples who abode in his words, and also to guard them against conceiving offence. R. B. 44-46. If to believe in Christ is to believe in the Father, and to see Christ is to see the Father, then Jesus Christ is equal with the Father—very and eternal God. The object of our Lord in these verses was partly to proclaim once more the unity of himself and the Father, and partly to encourage all believers in himself. J. C. R.—As if he had said: Be comforted! Let not your heart be troubled, because ye see me despised above all other men! What I have said is true: every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him, hath everlasting life. For whoever in faith beholds me that man beholds the glory of God. 47,48. “Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am free from the blood of all men.” This is the meaning of his words. Since all had heard his words, all might have believed on him. Now the disobedient and unbelieving it is not I who judge, Christ says. Not in me, but in them lies the cause of this judgment. Not to condemn and judge did the Son of God come into the world, but to redeem and save; but he who rejects the Redeemer when he sees him, and receives not his words which he hears, sees and hears himself his judgment, because he discerns not the word of the Lord. R. B.—Truth never dies; it lives in itself, it lives in the memory, it lives in the conscience. And the day will come when the truth, no longer hidden by prejudice, nor baffled by passion, shall put forth its judicial, condemning power against the soul that has rejected it. And so the gospel of the Son of God shall be enthroned above the law of Sinai, to judge and condemn the world because of unbelief. J. P. T.—The word of life, when rejected, irresistibly thrusts itself upon the unbeliever as a word of judgment unto death. How fearful an expression that is!—he hath one that judgeth him. The word—the clear sum of all God's words that he has ever heard—he can never entirely obliterate from his conscience; it clings to his feet wherever he goes, it lies down with him in his bed, it accompanies him to his worldly business and his worldly pleasures, and everywhere it whispers in his ear, "Miserable thou art still!" It whispers now; but at the last day this judging word will sound upon him with the voice of thunder from the lips of that Son of man whose redeeming love he has thrust from him; with unspeakable anguish will he recognize it as the same word to which, in the day of grace, he refused to hearken unto his salvation. R. B. In the very presence of imminent death, there was the same tranquillity and repose as on the free hills of Galilee, or in the safe retreat of Cesarea Philippi: the same stupendous claims as head of the new kingdom of God, and king over the souls of men, for time and eternity. Within a few hours of crucifixion, and conscious of the fact; in the intervals of mortal contest with the whole forces of the past and present, the wandering Galilean Teacher, meek and lowly in spirit, full of divine pity, alone and poor, the very embodiment of weakness as regarded all visible help, still bore himself with a serene dignity more than human. In the name of God he transfers the spiritual glory of Israel to his own followers; throws down the barriers of caste and nationality; extends the new dominion of which he is head to all races, and through all ages; predicts the divine wrath on his enemies in this world, as the enemies of God, and announces the decision of the final judgment as turning on the attitude of men toward himself and his message. The grandeur of soul which could so utterly ignore the outward and apparent, and realize the essential and eternal; the conscious majesty in the midst of humiliation and danger; the absolute trust that the everlasting future was all his own, could spring in such a heart only because it felt that it was not alone, but that a greater than man was ever with him. Only when we realize him as enjoying unclouded and absolute communion with eternal truth and love—man, but also the incarnate divine—can we hope to solve the mystery. G. ## Section 130.—Destruction of Jerusalem foretold. Mount of Olives. L. 1 Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover. And it M. 1 came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said unto his disciples, Ye 2 know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified. 3 Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, 4 unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and consulted and sought 5 how they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him. But they said, Not on the feast-day, lest there be an uproar among the people; for they feared the people. L. 3 Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve. 4 And he went his way unto the chief priests and captains, and communed with them how 5 he might betray him unto them. And when they heard it, they were glad, and promised to give him money. And he said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver 6 him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And he promised, and from that time sought opportunity how he might conveniently betray him unto them in the absence of the multitude. Mk. 12 Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed, the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare 13 for thee, that thou mayest eat the passover? And he sendeth forth two of his disciples, Peter and John, and saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water; follow him 14 into the house where he entereth in. And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the good man of the house: the Master saith unto thee, My time is at hand, I will keep the passover at thy house; where is the guest-chamber where I shall eat the passover with 15 my disciples? And he will shew you a large upper room furnished and prepared: there 16 make ready for us. And his disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found as he had said unto them: and, as Jesus had appointed, they made ready the passover. SCARCELY had Jesus commenced his work, when covetousness lifted itself up against him; it everywhere intruded upon his path; it disputed every step that he took. It misunderstood and forsook him, in the person of the rich young man; it excited his holy anger in the person of the sellers in the temple; it hated him; it railed at him; it persecuted him in the person of the Pharisees; and in the person of Judas it tithed the fruit of his charity for the poor; it begrudged the honor destined to his burial; it betrayed him, it delivered him up, it sold him. Oh, prophetic crime, which casts a sad light upon the future of the Church of Jesus Christ! This same crime of him, who for thirty pieces of silver sold the blood of the Son of God, is the very crime which will show itself most active in depriving men of the ineffable benefit of this shed blood; for covetousness will oppose equally the salvation of the individual, the fidelity of the Church, and the conversion of the world. A. M. M. 1. 2. Jesus sat down upon the Mount of Olives, over against the temple; and as the shadows of evening deepened in the valley of Kedron, he addressed to his wondering disciples the prophecies and parables preserved in the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of Matthew's gospel. It was after he had finished all these sayings that he said to his disciples, "Ye know that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified." He had previously in his discourse been dealing with a broad and distant future, been sketching the world's history, describing its close—giving no dates, leaving much as to the sequence of events shadowy and undefined. Now he turns to a nearer future, to an event that was to happen to himself; and in terms free of all indistinctness he announces that the day after the next he would be betrayed, and afterward crucified. H. L. 3. Then entered Satan. But not yet in the full sense. The awful stages of it were these: 1. Covetousness being his master-passion, the Lord let it reveal itself and gather strength by intrusting him with "the bag," as treasurer to himself and the twelve. 2. In the discharge of that sacred trust he became "a thief," appropriating its contents from time to time to his own use. Satan, seeing this door into his heart standing wide open, determines to enter by it, but cautiously; first merely "putting it into his heart to betray him," suggesting the thought to him that by this means he might enrich himself. 3. This thought was probably converted into a settled purpose by what took place in Simon's house at Bethany. 4. Starting back perhaps, or mercifully held back, for some time, the determination to carry it into immediate effect was not consummated till, sitting at the Paschal supper, "Satan entered into him," and conscience, effectually stifled, only rose again to be his tormentor. B. 5. Thirty pieces of silver.** The price of a slave that had been slain (Ex. 21 : 32). Thus the prophecy was fulfilled in which it had been particularly specified (Zech. 11 : 12, 13). The sum was equivalent to about fifteen dollars. D. 6. For a man to accuse Christ of nothing and not to complain of him while he betrays him, is to justify Him and to condemn himself. He who nourishes any passion in his heart is in great danger of delivering up Christ to his enemies upon every temptation. When a man hopes for anything from the world, he ought to fear everything from himself. Q.—The life of man furnishes many analogies that may help to clear up the enigmatical conduct of Judas. He who does not follow the impulses of good which he receives, but gives himself up to the selfish propensities which those impulses are meant to counteract, becomes finally and irrecoverably enslaved to them; all things that ought to work together for his good serve for his harm; the healing balm becomes for him a poison. This is the severe judgment upon which our free agency is conditioned; and to it may we apply the saying of our Lord: "From him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath." N. In the absence of the multitude. The Jews, having an opportunity of seizing Jesus privately in the night, determined to have him examined by the high-priest and condemned by the Roman governor early in the morning, before the people came together. Therefore Judas sought opportunity to betray him in the absence of the multitude. W. G. Mk. 12. The 15th of Nisan was the first day of the feast. But, as all leaven was scrupulously removed about noon on the 14th, in preparation for the feast, it was not unnatural to call this "the day," or as Matthew and Mark have it, "the first day of unleavened bread." So Josephus, in one place, makes the 14th of Nisan the first day of the feast, which he elsewhere fixes to the 15th; and he assigns eight days as its duration. S. (See variant opinion of Robinson: Section 155, J. 14.) 13. Sendeth forth Peter and John.** In sending them before the others, he could easily have indicated where the room was in which they were to meet in the evening. Instead of this he gives them a sign which was to conduct them to it. This way of ordering it, whatever was its real purpose, served effectually to conceal from the others the locality of the guest-chamber, and may have been meant to keep the traitor in the mean time in ignorance. H. —A man bearing a pitcher of water. To bring home water is part of woman's work, in the East. So singular would be the sight of a man thus engaged, that our Saviour here gives it as a sign to his disciples, that a man should meet them bearing water, as though in all the throng not more than a single instance of the kind would occur. N. C. B. 14. "Where is the guest-chamber where I shall eat the Passover?" the Master saith. It is a personal question, a proposal to the inner life of us all. It is an offer of the one infinite divine blessing, for, in receiving the Master, Christ, the Son of Mary and the Son of God, we receive all the real good there is in earth and heaven. There seems to be in this question just that twofold sound of invitation and authority, offer and command, which is always to be found in the word of the Saviour when he proposes to take up his abode in any of our hearts. He offers to come in if we will suffer him; for the act must be free. He commands us to suffer him, because he has a right there; and though faith holds the key, we cannot keep him out without disobedience to him, and guilt and misery following. This is what our Christian life—part a task and part a delight, part duty and part privilege, part drudging and part festival, part of law and part of grace—must always include, the proportions of the service of obligation and the service of joy constantly varying, according as we have more or less of the Master's own spirit, and live nearer to him. F. D. H. ## Section 137.—The Passover Meal. Washes the Disciples' Feet. The Guest-Chamber. J. 55 AND the Jews' passover was nigh at hand: and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves. Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the temple, What think ye, that he will not come up to the feast? 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. 1. Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. There they made him a supper in the house of Simon the leper, and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. Then, as he sat at meat, came Mary unto him, having an alabaster box with a pound of ointment of spikenard, very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head; and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with 4 her hair; and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then saith one of 5 his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, Why was not this 6 ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what Mk. 4 was put therein. And there were some disciples that had indignation within them- 5 selves, and said, To what purpose is this waste? for this ointment might have been 6 sold for much, and given to the poor; and they murmured against her. When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Let her alone: why trouble ye the woman? for she 7 hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor with you always, and when- 8 soever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always. She hath done what she could: for in that she hath kept this ointment and poured it on my body, she is 9 come aforehand to anoint it for my burial. Verily, I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that this woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her. J. 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 10 dead. But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death; 11 because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus. THE inspiration of a loving heart has the gift of prophecy. Its insight is foresight, because it is taught of God. And what a rebuke to those who would bring down everything that is lovely and of good report to the hard utilitarian measurement, and, in the pretended interest of fruit, would strike off all the spontaneous blossoms of Christian affection! Ker.—The Lord's eye beheld more in this anoint- ing than Mary could understand. She had done what she could; she had deposited her whole love in this sacrifice of anointing, but in holy simplicity she had done more than she knew. This is our Saviour's manner; thus does he interpret the love of his disciples. Let us only do what we can, and then will he do what we cannot do; if we put into our doing all that we can, then will he put therein what far exceeds our power and thoughts. "In the works of the children of God there are often hidden myste- ries which they themselves understand not," says an experienced Christian. How shall we marvel, when in the light of eternity we review our earthly course; when for the first time we shall fully under- stand all that God meant by what he led us to do through his Spirit! R. B. J. 55. Many went, to purify themselves. Thousands of devout Jews came anxiously before the Passover to be made ceremonially clean and fit for the feast. All strict Jews were careful to go through ceremonial washings, purifications, and atonements, before eating the Passover. J. C. R. —57. That was not to be allowed to come to pass which his enemies were planning to effect, that they should bring him by force to Jerusalem; instead of that, he was to enter in triumph, and that too as Zion's King, on Palm-Sunday. "Not on the feast- day," they afterward said; but, nevertheless, the hour for the presenting of the sacrifice, full of grace and truth, was ordained to be on the great feast of deliverance. R. B. 2. Made him a supper.** All our human- ity, with all its possible moods and conditions, is somehow included and mastered and interpreted by him. He goes with us in our recreation as well as in the funeral procession; he sits in the full circle of health at festivals, as well as with the mourner by the new-made grave, or amidst the fragments of ruined plans; he comes to Bethany when the three there are well, not only when Lazarus is dead. All the rooms of our houses are for him, to come in and abide, as well as the chambers of sickness or of the laying out of the dead. F. D. H. Martha served. The natural temperament of this good woman comes out here as elsewhere. She could not sit still and do nothing while her Lord was in her house. She must be actively stirring and trying to do something. Grace does not take away our peculiar characteristics. J. C. R.— This, with what is afterward said of Mary's way of honoring her Lord, is so true to the character in which those two women appear in L. 10: 38-42, as  Bethany. to constitute one of the strongest confirmations of the truth of both narratives. B. 3. Mary was not occupied like her sister in the active ministrations of the feast, but she sat and thought and gazed until the fire burned, and she felt impelled to some outward sign of her love, her gratitude, her adoration. So she arose and fetched an alabaster vase of Indian spikenard, and came softly behind Jesus where he sat, and broke the alabaster in her hands, and poured the precious perfume first over his head, then over his feet, and then—unconscious of every presence save his alone—she wiped those feet with the long tresses of her hair, while the atmosphere of the whole house was filled with the fragrance. It was an act of devoted sacrifice; and the poor Galileans who followed Jesus, so little accustomed to any luxury, so fully alive to the costly nature of the gift, might well have been amazed that it should have all been lavished on the rich luxury of one brief moment. None but the most spiritual-hearted there could feel that the delicate odor which breathed through the perfumed house might be to God a sweet-smelling savor; that even this was infinitely too little to satisfy the love of her who gave, or the dignity of him to whom the gift was given. F. Poured it on his head. This act, however strange to us, was perfectly conformable to the customs of ancient times, not only in Asia, but in the more polished parts of Europe; and, among the Jews particularly, the custom of anointing the head seems to have been almost as common a custom as that of washing the face. P.—Kingly guest at royal banquet could not have had a costlier homage of the kind rendered to him. That Mary had in her possession so rich a treasure may be accepted as one of the many signs that her family was one of the wealthiest in the village. That she now took and spent the whole of it upon Jesus, was but a final expression of the fulness and the intensity of her devotion. 4. Judas Iscariot. Love so ardent, sacrifice so costly as that of Mary, he could not appreciate. He disliked it, condemned it; it threw such a reproach by contrast upon his own feeling and conduct to Christ. H.—6. Cared for the poor. The true friends of the poor, who give most and do most for them, will always be found among those who do most for Christ. It is the successors of Mary of Bethany, and not of Judas Iscariot, who really “care for the poor.” A thief, and had the bag.** Than the love of money, no besetting sin seems more thoroughly to wither up and harden the heart. No wonder it is called “the root of all evil.” J. C. R.—A dreadful thing is this love of money! It disables both eyes and ears, and makes man worse to deal with than a wild beast, allowing him to consider neither conscience, nor friendship, nor fellowship, nor salvation. Chrys.—Christ trusts a thief with his money, because he sets no value upon it; but he keeps souls in his own custody, and redeems them with his blood, because, having received them of his Father, he values them more than all the world besides. He suffers his money to be stolen from him, but never his sheep. Q. Mk. 6. “She hath done a good work,” he said —“one not only far from censure, but worthy of all praise. She hath done it unto me, done it out of pure, deep love—a love that will bring the best, the costliest thing she has, and think it no waste, but rather its fittest, worthiest application, to bestow it upon me.” Upon that ground alone, upon his individual claims as compared with all others, Jesus might well have rested his vindication of Mary’s act. It does not require that we should assign to her any preeminence of faith. It was the intensity of the personal attachment to Jesus that her act expressed which drew down upon it the encomium of the Lord. H.—On Me, the Lord says; because “on Him,” therefore Mary’s work had its goodness and beauty, as all good works. Love to Christ is the rich source and the living soul of every other love which reckons as such before God. R. B. The inherent grace and beauty of the act forbade any direct reproof; and so jealousy meanly suggests that the precious perfume might have been better sold, the price given to the poor, and this woman have rendered her demonstrations of gratitude in some more “practical” or active way. The answer of Jesus not only rebukes the littleness which these censures betrayed, but it instructively vindicates the woman’s cordial, unstudied sacrifice; and not hers only, but the offerings of humble loyalty and silent love to him in all time and over all the earth. It is the acceptance, by the Son of God, of lowly and retiring goodness. It is the legitimation and approval of all hearty gifts to the Master, by the Master’s voice. It is the eternal benediction of the gospel on despised fidelity and neglected love. . . . We ought not to forget that God may have, that he asks, that he requires of us that there shall be, servants of his love as self-denying, as heroic, as resolute, of whom hospital never knew and poetry never sang, right here in these homely houses and these prosaic streets. And to all that sit at his feet and follow in his steps in the spirit of her who poured the fragrant offering on his head, he is ready to speak the same benediction with his infinite love—hiding in it the sure promise of life everlasting. F. D. H. 7. The poor with you always, but not me.** The Bible is such a friend to the poor, such an enemy of luxury, prodigality, and mere bodily gratification, that it seems an unnatural thing to have, even in appearance, Judas taking the side of the poor, and Christ standing in their way. But the position of the parties has a deep truth underlying it. Judas the thief takes the side of poverty that he may plunder it; and Christ, who became poor that he might make many rich, teaches that there are more ways of doing good than almsgiving. All heavenly charity is not bound up in bags of flour. “Not that he cared for the poor,” is the truth about the one; “because he cared for the poor,” is the motive of the other. Try to measure the amount of bread which would have been provided by the three hundred pence with the fragrance that has exhaled from this woman’s deed into millions of weary hearts among the poorest of the poor. Ker. 8. If Judas could yet have been saved, the Lord’s patience and gentleness must have brought him on his knees before him. There he stood, his whole heart before Jesus laid bare. And the Lord does not thrust him out, does not upbraid him with being a hypocrite and a thief, and presently about to become a murderer. He only knocks gently at the door of his heart with the foretelling of his death. It is as if he had said to him: “Mary has made me ready for my burial; and thou, Judas—how canst thou will to make me ready for death?” Judas could bear unmoved the Lord’s look, and he went out to betray him. R. B. She hath done what she could. The whole spiritual meaning of gifts consists in the disposition of the giver. Distinctions of weight and measure, standards of value, calculations of outlay, vanish before that simple and royal touchstone in the breast. Christ’s eye falls, not on the box of ointment, but it falls on Mary’s secret, inmost soul. That being sound, all is sound. She believes, she trusts, she loves; therefore “she hath done what she could.” Out of that deep and rooted affection all manner of obedient fruits must grow, in time, as surely as love is the willing servant of the beloved. To anoint it for my burial. Her gift, he seems to add, is an unconscious embalming before my agony. These most sacred impulses of divine reverence are greater than any common almsgivings. Let each have its due. Whoso loveth me will love my poor, and serve them in the time and place. Let the heart be fastened personally on me as a living Redeemer, and Christian duties will soon fall into their order, and abound. F. D. H.—“For my burying”—clearly, therefore, his condemnation and burial were near at hand. This was another death-blow to all false Messianic hopes. No earthly wealth, no regal elevation could be looked for by the followers of one who was so soon to die. F. 9. Jesus is surrounded by men looking joyously forward to days and years of success and triumph. But he knows what they do not—that on that day week his body will be lying in the new-made sepulchre. And he accepts the anointing at Mary’s hand as preparing his body for the burial. With serene eye he looks down into the future, and abroad over the earth, and speaks of it as a thing of certainty that this gospel—the gospel of glad tidings of salvation in his name—was to be preached throughout the whole world. H.—We cannot but be struck with the majesty of this prophetic announcement; conveying by implication the whole mystery of the gospel which should go forth from his death as its source—looking forward to the end of time when it shall have been preached in the whole world—and specifying the fact that this deed should be recorded wherever it should be preached. A.—While the victories of many kings and generals are lost in silence, and many who have founded states and reduced nations to subjection are not known by reputation or by name, the pouring of ointment by this woman is celebrated throughout the whole world. Time hath passed away, but the memory of the deed she did hath not waned away. Chrys.—Fourteen hundred years have passed and gone since in the great church of St. Sophia at Constantinople Chrysostom uttered these words, but still wider and wider is the tale of Mary's anointing of her Master being told, the fragrance of the ointment spreading, yet losing nothing of its sweetness; such fresh vitality, such self-preserving power, lodging in a simple act of pure and fervid love. H. J. 9, 10. Lazarus is mentioned throughout the incident as forming an element in the unfolding of the hatred of the Jews which issued in the Lord's death. Notice the climax, from mere connecting mention in verse 1, then nearer connection, verse 2, to his being the cause of the Jews flocking to Bethany in verse 9, and the joint object with Jesus of the enmity of the chief priests in verse 10. A. 11. Believed on Jesus.** An intellectual conviction that Jesus must be the Messiah. This was the state of mind in which many hundreds of Jews were before the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the day of Pentecost, convinced but not converted, persuaded that Jesus was the Christ of God, but afraid to confess him. Hence on the day of Pentecost many hundreds of Peter's hearers were prepared to believe. J. C. R.—What served further to nurture in the breasts of the high-priests, the lawyers, and the Pharisees the design to put Jesus to death, appears in the transaction of the following day, viz., the entrance into Jerusalem. Accordingly, in the incidents of these first two days of the great week we perceive the human cause of the sufferings and death of Jesus. C. B. ## Section 118.—Public Entry into Jerusalem. J. 1 Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. L. 14 And in the evening when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles 15 with him. And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with 16 you before I suffer. For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be 17 fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, 18 Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come. 24 And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the 25 greatest. And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over 26 them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is 27 chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth. J. 2 And supper being ended (the devil having now put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, 3 Simon's son, to betray him); Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his 4 hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; he riseth from supper, and 5 laid aside his garments, and took a towel, and girded himself. After that, he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the 6 towel wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith 7 unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I 8 do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part 9 with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands, and 10 my head. Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but 11 is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him: therefore said he, Ye are not all clean. 12 So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down 13 again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master, and 14. Lord; and ye say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your 15 feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that 16 ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not 17 greater than his Lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. HUMAN characters are always reduced in their eminence, and the impressions of awe they have raised, by a closer and more complete acquaintance. But it was not so with Christ. With his disciples, in closest terms of intercourse, for three whole years; their brother, friend, teacher, monitor, guest, fellow-traveller; seen by them under all the conditions of public ministry, and private society, he is yet visibly raising their sense of his degree and quality; becoming a greater wonder and holier mystery, and gathering to his person feelings of reverence and awe, at once more general and more sacred. And it will be discovered in all the disciples, that Christ is more separated from them, and holds them in deeper awe, the closer he comes to them and the more perfectly they know him. He grows sacred, peculiar, wonderful, divine, as acquaintance reveals him. At first he is only a man, as the senses report him to be; knowledge, observation, familiarity, raise him into the God-man. And exactly this appears in the history, without any token of art, or even apparent consciousness that it does appear—appears because it is true. H. B. J. 1. He loved them unto the end. It was when he drew near the end that our Lord's love was most severely tested. But, in the most trying circumstances, to the end he said and did everything to maintain and strengthen the confidence of all who had once trusted in him. He interested himself, too, in their condition to the end. In all that he suffered, our Lord could not have been adjudged selfish if it had occupied his thoughts almost to the exclusion of the dangers that surrounded his followers, since he suffered voluntarily in their behalf; but they had his counsel and sympathy and prayers as freely as if he had not been the first to suffer—as if they alone had anything to dread. When assailants, led by Judas, came upon him again after falling backward to the ground in his presence, he was ready to surrender himself, but not his afflicted brethren: "Let these go their way." When a great company followed him on his way to the crucifixion with their lamentations, he turned to them with more pity for their doom than dread of his own. So also he bore with the inconstancy of his disciples to the end. Often indeed they had stood in need of his forbearance, and in all his treatment of them on such occasions he showed himself a lenient Master; but as the end drew near they wavered most in their allegiance. If ever their devotion could be grateful to his heart, it was not when the multitude crowded about him with wonder and applause, but rather when he prayed alone in agony and then was treacherously kissed and arrested; yet it was in the conclusion of that very scene, when he was finally in the hands of malignant foes, that "all the disciples forsook him and fled." But he did not forsake them. When Peter thrice denied him, the Master, who had before rebuked his rash violence, only turned and looked upon him, and his silent love broke down the fear and pride of that follower, who now wept the more bitterly because Jesus loved him to the end. But the love that endured so long survived the end, and in itself was without end. It could not die on the cross, nor be stifled in the sepulchre. It rose with him; and again he associated with them, inspired them with new confidence, concerned himself with their wants, and bore with their folly, as in the case of Thomas. And the same love was drawn up to heaven as he ascended, thence to "drop as the rain" and "distil as the dew" upon them, till they ascended to enjoy it unutterably in their abode with him in paradise. To this hour he has never ceased to love his own. He loves them "from everlasting to everlasting." O. E. D.—The few hours that intervened between the end of Christ's public ministry and his arrest were devoted to instructing and comforting his disciples in view of his approaching departure, and the severe conflicts they were to undergo. In these conversations he displayed all his heavenly love and calmness of soul; his loftiness and his humility. N.—From first to last, his love was a self-forgetting love, even upon the cross; his love was to the very last a Saviour's love. Instead of thinking of his own sufferings, he thought of the guilt of others. A. T. L. 14. The supper began with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, which, when the Master and the rest of the company had tasted, one of the younger persons present—generally a child—asked the reason of what was peculiar in that feast, which introduced the haggadah, that is, the showing forth or declaration of it (in allusion to which we read of showing forth the Lord's death). Then the Master rose up and took another cup, and washed his hands again before the lamb was tasted; and in this interval it is supposed Christ also washed the feet of his disciples. Then, after eating the Passover, followed another cup, which (after having delivered to each a piece of bread) was the sacramental cup at this supper. Then, after some discourse, the whole family, having drunk at least a fourth cup, sang some psalms of praise; and so the solemnity ended. A. 15. This passover.** Among all the types the Passover holds the foremost place, floating down through the old dispensation to tell of its greatest deliverance, as the Communion has come down to us to tell of the great redemption of the new. It was now about to resign its charge, for it had served its purpose. It had stirred, year by year, the ashes of memory in the Jewish heart, and kindled them into the flame of hope—had taught men to look for a greater prophet than Moses, and to long for a higher salvation than the freedom from Egypt. And now, with this last Passover, it has come. The foreshadowed sufferings of that ancient covenant all meet in his cross, and its promised blessings all flow from it. He is the victim and the offerer, the Passover and the Moses; he endures and does, suffers and saves. He passed through a deeper than Egypt's darkness—was baptized with the baptism of blood—was the slain lamb, and stricken first-born for our sins. He led his chosen to the sea which barred the way, and stretched over it his delivering cross, and it opened, and a way was made through the deep for the ransomed of the Lord to pass over. He is the heavenly manna—the water and the smitten rock—the pillar of defence and light—the ark of the covenant that dries up Jordan's stream—the tree of life that scatters its healing leaves and sheds its fruit through all the goodly land. The divine history of the past now completes its cycle, and this last Passover begins to speak the word of the cross—"It is finished." Before I suffer! They seem strange words from such lips—from him who had already earned his title to be "the man of sorrows"—who had passed through privation and reproach and grief, and who seems to count all these as nothing to that which lay before him. It is because he is standing on the verge of Gethsemane, and beneath the shadow of his cross, and such words, "before I suffer," tell us that there was an agony of endurance in view which was to cast into the shade all that laid behind him. It is this suffering that makes the death of Christ the centre of gospel truth, and that brings us together to remember him who was bruised for our iniquities. Ker.—Clear before the Saviour's eye were all the scenes of the impending midnight hour in the garden, the next forenoon in the judgment-hall, the afternoon upon the cross. A few quiet hours lay between him and his entrance into the cloud. He wished to spend those hours with his apostles, to take his last leave of them, to give his farewell instructions to them. He had never before partaken of the Passover with them. He desired to do it this once. He knew that this was virtually the last Jewish Passover: that with the offering up of himself in the great sacrifice of the following day that long line of Passover celebrations that had run now through fifteen hundred years, down from the night in Egypt when the first-born were slain, was to be brought to its close. He knew that all which this rite prefigured was then to be fulfilled, and that that fulfilment was to issue in the erection of a spiritual kingdom, in which other kind of tables were to be spread, and other kind of wine to be drunk. H. 16. Will not eat. 18. Will not drink. A declaration of the fulfilment of the Passover rite in both its usual divisions—the eating of the lamb, and drinking the cup of thanksgiving. Henceforward he who fulfilled the law for man will no more eat and drink of it. 17. The cup.** This is generally supposed to have been the first cup in the Passover meal, with which the whole was introduced. It has no reference to the subsequent cup in verse 20 (Section 140). That was the institution of a new rite; this, the abrogation of an old one, now about to be fulfilled in the person of the true Lamb of God. A.—"It is to be your last as well as mine, until the kingdom of God come" (verse 18). It was the point of transition between two economies and their two great festivals, the one about to close forever, the other immediately to open and run its majestic career until from earth it be transferred to heaven. B.—Henceforth the Levitical sacrifice was to cease, being transfigured into an evangelical sacrament. W. 24. Spring up how it might, we have the fact that around the first communion-table among the apostles, in the presence of their Master, in the critical and solemn position in which he and they stood, there was actually a quarrel about their individual rights and privileges; a petty ambition, the love of place and power, finding its way into the hearts of those most honored of the Lord, entering to defile the most sacred season and solemnity. H.—This was not the first time that the followers of the meek and lowly one had striven for the highest place. It is a fearful proof of the strong hold which ambition has upon the human heart, that the disciples, after a two years' training in the school of humility, had yet made so little progress, that at such an hour as this they could feel disposed to begin quarrelling about precedence. R. B.—It showed how little, as yet, even these his chosen followers had entered into the meaning of his life. It showed that, even now, they had wholly failed to understand his many and earnest warnings as to the nature of his kingdom, and the certainty of his fate. Not by mere verbal reproof, but by an act more profoundly significant and touching, he determined to teach to them, and to all who love him, a nobler lesson. F.—Our Lord showed the greatest kindness in his manner of correcting their false ideas. Having stated the difference between his kingdom and worldly ones, exaltation among his followers depending on their humility, he proposes to them his own example during his intercourse with them, and enforces his words by a most eminent act of humility in washing their feet, a condescension which he exhorts them to imitate in their general conduct toward each other. Newcome. J. 2. Being ended. Rather having begun. P. S.—The devil put into the heart. Literally “cast.” The heart is the seed-plot which Satan sows. Suggestion is one of his chief weapons. The sin of man consists in opening his heart to the suggestion; giving it a place and letting it sink down. This is obvious in the first temptation in Eden. J. C. R.—3. Jesus came from God, not leaving him, and went to God, not leaving us. Bernard.—4. Riseth from supper. He rose from the supper-table before the repast had fully commenced. The guests had taken their half-recumbent positions around the table in the usual Oriental style, reclining upon the left side, resting on the elbow, leaving the right hand free for service in eating, and with feet extended outward. H. C. (See p. 182.) 5. The master of the house had relinquished for the strangers the best apartment of his dwelling, and furnished it as well as he could. He saw that in the room the necessary apparatus for the washing, the basin and the water and the towel, were all provided, but he left it to the guests themselves to see that it was done. But which of the twelve will do it for the others? H.—He into whose hands the Father had given all things, with those same hands washes, not the hands, but the feet of his disciples. Aug.—Verily, the heart of man never could have imagined such a scene! All that the world can show that is great and high vanishes into nothing before this lowliness. R. B.—In this act Jesus became a servant of servants to his disciples. He showed that to serve was the business of his life, and in his view was not to his shame but to his glory. It was an example to illustrate a principle. All that his example meant then, it means now. The real service which the law of Christ demands of us is not abated by the least jot or tittle in consequence of the change in social customs which renders it improper now to wash one another’s feet. It were more than a misfortune to lose the sweet power of this divine example; it were worse than a blunder to miss its precious influence toward the crucifying of human selfishness and the culture of Christian humility and of loving service toward all the Christian brotherhood. H. C. 7. Not now, but hereafter.** God’s ways may appear inscrutable, and indeed must be so, for life on the earth is but a beginning and a fragment, a beginning to find its end, and a fragment to be made whole, in the all-revealing life beyond the grave. But looking at our life, in the light shed upon it by Christ’s, and meekly receiving what God sends in submission and hope, we will be learning more and more now, and all hereafter. The teaching of the Spirit, it is enough to say, becomes the providence of the Christian. It is of less consequence for him to know what betides him, than to have the assurances begotten of the Spirit, that come what may, God will fit him for it, carry him through it, and make it, in the end, the best possible experience for him. If one have but the meekness to pray, to do, and to wait, the issue cannot be otherwise than happy. God’s word and Spirit are our warrant. The world is God’s, and its heirs are God’s people. W. I. B. 8,9. If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.** This at last carries the disciple away, for whither should he go if he were to have no part with him who was his life? Vehement as he was in refusing, he is now still more vehement in submitting. He answers in the language of devoted love—love which, though inconsiderate, is yet perfect love. R. B.—“If to be washed of Thee have such significance, then not my feet only, but hands, head, and all, be washed!” This artless expression of clinging attachment to Jesus, and felt dependence upon him for his whole spiritual well-being, furnishes such evidence of historic verity as no thoroughly honest mind can resist. 10. He that is washed—in this thorough sense, to express which the word is carefully changed to one meaning to wash as in a bath: needeth not—to be so washed any more: save to wash his feet—needeth to do no more than wash his feet (and here the former word is resumed, meaning to wash the hands or feet): but is clean every whit—or, “as a whole.” This sentence is singularly instructive. Of the two cleansings, the one points to that which takes place at the commencement of the Christian life, embracing complete absolution from sin as a guilty state, and entire deliverance from it as a polluted life, or, in the language of theology, justification and regeneration. This cleansing is effected once for all, and is never repeated. The other cleansing, described as that of “the feet,” is such as one walking from a bath quite cleansed still needs, in consequence of his contact with the earth. It is the daily cleansing which we are taught to seek, when in the spirit of adoption we say, “Our Father which art in heaven—forgive us our debts.” B.—And where we make this confession, then he who washed his disciples’ feet is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Aug.—When burdened with the sense of manifold shortcomings, as what tender spirit of a Christian is not? is it not a relief to be permitted thus to wash our feet after a day’s contact with the earth? This is not to call in question the completeness of our past justification. Our Lord, while graciously insisting on washing Peter’s feet, refuses to extend the cleansing farther, that the symbolical instruction intended to be conveyed might not be marred. And ye are clean—in the first and whole sense: but not all**—important, as showing that Judas, instead of being as true-hearted a disciple as the rest at first, and merely falling away afterward—as many represent it—never experienced that cleansing at all which made the others what they were. B.—Concerning this twofold purification: that which is once performed through justification, and that which takes place daily through sanctification, the Lord speaks also in John 15: 2, 3. He says: “Now ye are clean,” and yet at the same time “he purgeth them.” R. B. 14–17. He their Lord and Master had washed their feet. He had done it to teach them humility, to teach them self-denial, to teach them love: blessed they if they learned the lesson! He should be chief among them who, for the sake of others, gladly laid on himself the lowliest burdens, and sought for himself the humblest services. Again and again he warned them that they were not to look for earthly reward or earthly prosperity; the throne, and the table, and the kingdom, and the many mansions were not of earth. F.—His own act stands before us, not as a model act to be exactly copied, but as an act representative to us of the whole circle of kindly offices that we are called upon to render to one another, and as illustrative of the humble, self-denying spirit in which all these offices should be discharged. H.—Whoever serves his brother in self-denying love is obeying this command of the Lord, in whatever way he may be called upon to do it, whether it be by washing his feet, or whether it be by filling his hand, or whether it be by drying from his eyes the tears, or whether it be by watching and praying for his soul. It is not what we do, so much as the mind with which we do. And this the disciples and the first Christians, who glowed with brotherly love, well knew. They drew from this feet-washing no literal law, but have sought to enter into the spirit of him who, Lord over all, yet dwelt among his own as a servant, to whom no lowliness was so lowly that the height of his love did not stoop down thereunto. Jesus’ serving love was writing in their hearts this fundamental principle in the kingdom of God, namely, that every office, even the highest, the apostolic office, is appointed to serve. How easy this to learn, but how difficult to do! “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” R. B. All our noblest enlargements of power and of peace are sacrificial: there is something hard to do, or hard to bear—human nature being what it is. But the yoke is eased if by it you help other men. Learn to love the brotherhood. Hate nothing so much as hatred—dropping every grudge and every revenge, every bitter or cruel vestige of the old satanic life out of your heart, forgiving even them that will not forgive. Live fairly and generously with men. God makes the path of obedience to himself to be the path of honesty and sweet temper and loving-kindness to his children. Let thine eyes look right on, and thine eyelids straight before thee. Then it will prove that you are blessed children of the Father. You walk at large, like sons of God. The road of duty will still be narrow, but, travelling in it, you will breathe the immortal air, and every deepening breath will be an inspiration of the life eternal. Your daily landscape will be the scenery of both worlds—all things yours, because ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. F. D. H. CHRIST never conforms to an expectation, even of his friends. When they look to find a great prophet in him, he offers nothing in the modes of the prophets. When they ask for places of distinction in his kingdom, he rebukes their folly, and tells them he has nothing to give, but a share in his reproaches and his poverty. When they look to see him take the sword as the great Messiah of their nation, calling the people to his standard, he tells them he is no warrior and no king, but only a messenger of love to lost men; one that has come to minister and die, but not to set up or restore the kingdom. Every expectation that rises up to greet him, is repulsed; and yet, so great is the power of his manner, that multitudes are held fast, and cannot yield their confidence. Enveloped as he is in the darkest mystery, they trust him still; going after him, hanging on his words, as if detained by some charmed influence which they cannot shake off or resist. Never was there a teacher that so uniformly baffled every expectation of his followers, never one that was followed so persistently. H. B. # Section 138.—One of You shall betray Me. # The Guest-Chamber. L. 28 Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations; and I appoint unto 29, 30 you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at J. 18 my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen; but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He 19 that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me. Now I tell you before 20 it come, that when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me 21 receiveth him that sent me. When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit; and as they sat and did eat, he testified and said, Behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you which eateth 22 with me shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake; and they began to inquire among themselves, which of them it was that should M. 22 do this thing. And they were exceeding sorrowful, and, one by one, began every one 23 of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? And he answered and said unto them, It is one of the twelve, that dippeth his hand with me in the dish; the same shall betray me. 24 The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born. 25 Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said. J. 23 Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. 24 Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom 25, 26 he spake. He then, lying on Jesus' breast, saith unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he 27 had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop 28 Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. Now 29 no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him. For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that 30 we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor. He then, having received the sop, went immediately out: and it was night. “AND after the sop Satan entered into him.” There is something appalling in the successive stages by which he reached the climax of his guilt. First, “the devil (simply) put it into his heart to betray” him. But many a struggle may he have endured ere he could nerve himself for the deed. Even with the thirty pieces of silver in his hand, he probably still quailed at the thought of such an act, and for such a sum—the price of the lowest slave! When Jesus stooped to wash his feet, the last struggle may have been only reaching its crisis. But that word, about one that did eat of his bread lifting his heel against him; the still more explicit announcement that a traitor was at the table; the inquiry which was forced out of him, after it had come from all the rest, “Master, is it I?” and above all, the answer (certainly not audible to the rest), “Thou hast said it”—would make the feeling irresistible, “I am detected, it is now too late to draw back.” And the sop given, and Satan now seated in his breast, he went immediately out (thus severing himself forever from that holy society with which he never had any spiritual sympathy); and it was night—but far blacker night in the soul of Judas than in the sky over his head. B.—O night the most criminal, dreadful, and dark, and yet the most holy, hopeful, and bright!—since the Son of God is therein betrayed, sold, and delivered up by the most execrable sacrilege, and since he therein gives, delivers up, and sacrifices himself, leaves the most divine pledge of his love, and teaches therein the sublimest truths of that religion which he institutes! Q. L. 29. I appoint a kingdom. Who is this that dispenses kingdoms, nay, the kingdom of kingdoms, within an hour or two of his own apprehension, and less than a day of his shameful death? B.—He undertakes to organize a kingdom of God, or kingdom of heaven on earth. His purpose includes a new moral creation of the whole human race. H. B.—The first conception is due to the mind of Jesus Christ, and in his teaching the conception is presented, not vaguely and confusedly, but with luminous precision. It is the reign of God in men, when the Father of minds shall be known, loved, and revered by his children. It is the reign of righteousness, purity, truth, love, and peace, the universal reception and dominion among men of all true, just, holy, generous and divine principles. Y.—It is a plan as universal in time, as it is in the scope of its objects. It does not expect to be realized in a lifetime, or even in many centuries to come. His expectation reaches boldly out beyond his own death; that, in fact, is to be the seed of his great empire—“except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth,” he says, “alone.” Is this great idea, which no man ever before conceived, the raising of the whole human race to God, a plan sustained with such evenness of courage, and a confidence of the world’s future so far transcending any human example—is this a human development? Regard the benevolence of it, the universality of it, the religious grandeur of it, as a work readjusting the relations of God and his government with men—the cost, the length of time it will cover, and the far-off date of its completion—is it in this scale that a Nazarene carpenter, a poor uneducated villager, lays out his plans and graduates the confidence of his undertakings? H. B.—His great central conception of the kingdom of God—a kingdom based on truth, administered by moral influences, pervaded by love, and holiness, and joy, and open to all of whatever class or clime—is a conception as magnificent as it is original. And, with this, all the rest of his doctrine is in perfect and beautiful harmony, every line of truth being like a radius starting from and conducting to this central idea, and the whole forming one perfect sphere of knowledge. W. L. A. (Read Section 174.) J. 18. Hath lifted up his heel. Ps. 41: 9. It was fulfilled in the case of Judas in the sense that this case filled out fully the very idea of David in the Psalm. The same thing befell David’s greater son which befell David. 21. Troubled in spirit. The same word we met in the scenes at the grave of Lazarus (John 11: 33)—indicating deep and painful emotion—it seemed so inexpressibly sad that one of his chosen twelve—one who had sat beside him at table; was sitting (perhaps) next him at this moment—who had been lifted so high in privilege and honor, and in the possibilities of a noble life, should turn against him in the foulness of the basest treason! H. C.—To the apostles he had said, “Ye are clean;” but, as this could not be applied to Judas, he added, “yet not all.” Intimations of this kind he threw out more and more frequently, partly, as he himself said (verse 19), to prepare them for the act of treachery, that it might not take them unawares, and lead them to infer that he, too, had been deceived; and partly, perhaps, in order to rouse, if possible, the conscience of Judas himself. But his foresight of the awful deed—that one who had been a special object of his love should disarm him and become a tool of his enemies—and of the conflict with depravity that he must go through, even up to his last hour, moved him most deeply; and he now spoke more plainly, “Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.” N.—That night all, even the best beloved, were to forsake him, but it was not that; that night even the boldest-hearted was to deny him with oaths, but it was not that; nay, but one of them was to betray him. F.—M. 22. Lord, is it I? Their language expresses in the original a much stronger negation than in our version. Surely not I, Lord? L. A. 24. A great crime is made to minister to the greatest act of the divine love, yet the criminal is stripped of no part of his guilt. “The Son of man goeth as it is written;” that writing is but the expression of the divine will; that will is sovereign, just, and good; yet woe to the man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! human freedom, human agency, human guilt taken up into that vast and complicated machinery by which the counsels of the Most High God are carried out. H.—It were good for that man if he had not been born? “Words,” it has been well said, “of immeasurable ruin, words of immeasurable woe”—and the more terrible because uttered by the lips of immeasurable love; words capable, if any were capable, of revealing to the lost soul of the traitor all the black gulf of horror that was yawning before his feet. F.—25. Thou hast said. No man at the table then could have heard that answer of our Lord; we can scarcely imagine how it could be but by supposing that Judas lay upon the seat immediately next to Jesus on the one side, as John lay upon the one nearest to him on the other. Assuming this, Jesus might easily have spoken to one so near in such an undertone that none could overhear. H. J. 23. Leaning on Jesus’ bosom. The rare combination of contemplativeness and passion, of strength and sweetness, in the same soul—the perfect faith which inspired his devotion, and the perfect love which precluded fear—these were the gifts and graces which rendered him worthy of leaning his young head on the bosom of his Lord. F.—In modest self-concealment, and under a sense of the deepest gratitude, John designates himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” P. S.—25. Lying on. Rather, leaning back on. A.—26. Two men of the twelve now knew to whom the Lord referred—Judas, on the one side, to whom Jesus had directly said, “Thou art the man,” and John, now, on the other, to whom the sign was as explicit as any words could be—a sign, however, only to John himself, the others not having heard the words that gave the act its meaning. H.—But for the concluding scenes of the history, no reader of it would gather that one of the twelve differed in character from all his fellows. If there was a radical defect in the moral and religious character of Judas, it certainly remained undeveloped to his constant associates up to the fatal night when they all met for the last time together. B. 27. After the sop, Satan. At first Satan came to make the heart of Judas his own; now he enters, because it is his own. Bp. H.—The kingdom of evil, as well as that of good, has a personal head. That he should have the power of tempting is no more strange than that human spirits should possess it. He can no more compel than they, and he gains in influence only as we yield him place. Ker.—That which thou art doing, do more quickly.** Reproving his lingering, and his pretending to share in the general doubt. A. 29. Huy things needed. Our Lord did not work miracles to procure the necessaries required by himself and his disciples. Give to the poor. The supposition shows our Lord’s custom in the matter of almsgiving. He sanctified and adorned the practice of caring for the poor by his own example. Judas had the bag.** Snares attend the possession and handling of money. The man who has the care of the money in our Lord’s little company is the man that makes shipwreck of his soul, through the love of money. J. C. R. 30. In that bewildering chaos of a soul spotted with mortal guilt, the Satanic had triumphed over the human; in that dark heart earth and hell were thenceforth at one; in that lost soul sin had conceived and brought forth death. And so from the lighted room, from the holy banquet, from the blessed company, from the presence of his Lord, he went immediately out, and—as the beloved disciple adds, with a shudder of dread significance letting the curtain of darkness fall forever on that appalling figure—“and it was night.” F. ## Section 139.—Foretells the Denial of Peter, and the Dispersion of the Twelve. The Guest-Chamber. M. 26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had blessed, or given thanks, he brake it and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body, which is given, broken, for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also after supper he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This cup is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for you and for many, for the remission of sins. This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. Verily I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my 1 Cor. Father's kingdom. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew 26 the Lord's death till he come. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ 1,2. LET not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to 3 prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and 4 receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. 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 6 know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man 7 cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. 8, 9 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me, hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the 10 Father? 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 11 doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else 12 believe me for the very works' sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; 13 because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, 14 that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. No one will read aright these sublimest discourses of the Lord who does not read them under the shadow of the Cross. Whether that which is reported in the fourteenth chapter was spoken in the upper chamber, or after leaving it, while pausing by the way on the solemn and memorable walk to the Mount of Olives, is not a question of importance, though the reference to the many abiding-places in the vast and glorious House of the Father seems to take more vivid significance if we think of it as uttered under the clear and shining heavens, with the Passover moon riding through them at its full. But both this and those which follow were certainly spoken after the traitor had left the company, and had gone into the "night," the momentary sense of whose prophetic chill, through the opening door, has left so natural and indelible a trace on the record of John. They were spoken when the Lord was thus left free to unfold to those essentially sympathetic with himself the last thoughts which he was to speak before advancing to the garden and to Calvary. Days before he has given the final warning to the people, and his mission to them as a divine Teacher is now accomplished. Here he speaks only to disciples: from a soul at once supremely full of the Messianic consciousness, and perfectly prescient of the unsearchable darkness and anguish through which it is to pass for man's redemption. He speaks in foresight of the terrible shock which shall break upon those who have been so long companions of his life when they see the hands from which miracles have sprung transfixed by nails, and the head that was lately radiant on the mount scarred with the acanthine crown. He seeks, therefore, to give them all the truth, and more than all, which their insensitive and dim-seeing minds, represented by Thomas, Philip, and Jude, can receive. He seeks to unveil to them the celestial experience, which already is present to him: that they may have not comfort only, or steadiness of purpose, or an heroic hardihood of will; that they may have supremest peace, of souls thenceforth insphered in God, of souls made "partakers," not of the divine thought alone, but "of the divine nature." If one ever wonders at that great mystical word of Peter (Second Epistle 1:4), he has only to recur to these discourses, and see the root from which it sprang. More than even the Transfiguration must these have shown to that imperfect but responsive apostle what intimacy of union had now become possible between God's mind and his; how shadowy the bounds between the divine life known on earth and that attained in immortal realms. When thus set in their circumstances, how infinitely sad become those late, long-lingering words: "The hour is come that ye shall be scattered, and shall leave me alone!" But what a picture it is of the divine peace which he would give them which lies unfolded in that last word—that martyred saints so often have spoken, that every Christian is permitted to repeat amid the awful solitudes of death: "I am not alone, because the Father is with me!" R. S. S. DISCOURSE AT THE TABLE, AFTER SUPPER.—This portion of the evangelical history we may call its Holy of Holies. It is the record of the last moments spent by the Lord in the midst of his disciples before his passion, when words full of heavenly thought flowed from his sacred lips. All that his heart, glowing with love, had still to say to his friends, was compressed into this short season. At first (from chap. 13:31) the intercourse took the form of conversation; sitting at table, they talked familiarly together. But when (14:31) the repast was finished, the language of Christ assumed a loftier strain; the disciples, assembled around their Master, listened to the words of life, and seldom spoke a word. At length, in the Redeemer's sublime intercessory prayer, his full soul was poured forth in express petitions to his heavenly Father on behalf of those who were his own. It is a peculiarity of these last chapters, that they treat almost exclusively of the most profound relations—as that of the Son to the Father, and of both to the Spirit; that of Christ to the Church, of the Church to the world. Moreover, a considerable portion of these sublime communications surpassed the point of view to which the disciples had at that time attained; hence the Redeemer frequently repeats the same sentiments in order to impress them more deeply upon their minds, and because of what they still did not understand, points them to the Holy Spirit, who would remind them of all his sayings, and lead them into all truth. O. He knows that within an hour or two he shall be lying in the great agony of the garden; that he shall never close his eyes again till he closes them in death; that to-morrow there await him all the mockeries of the judgment-hall, all the shame and suffering of the cross; that the shades of the next day shall darken round his sepulchre. But the prospect of all this, though so near, so vividly seen, so awfully dark, has not power to withdraw his thoughts from his disciples, or keep him from bestowing upon them those last hours given for earthly intercourse. As he speaks to them his whole heart seems absorbed with the one desire, to soothe, to comfort, to warn, to fortify, to encourage. If he speak of his own departure, it is as if the thing about it that grieved him most was, that they should be left exposed to so many difficulties and trials when he was gone. Their very ignorance of what was awaiting them quickens his compassion and gives deeper pathos to his words. H. 1. The Evangelist John has portrayed Jesus before our eyes as the Word, the Life, the Light; and now, that our joy may be full, he shows him to us as Love—as him who reveals his glory in love to his own. Let not your heart be troubled. The true heading to the whole consolatory discourse; for it flows on in one channel of love, and ends at last with the word, “Be of good cheer!” R. B. Believe in me. Christ does not merely say to us, Believe this and the other doctrine about me; accept this and the other promise; hope for this and the other future thing. All these come with but are not the central act. He says, “Believe: believe in me! I am the way, and the truth, and the life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth in me shall never thirst.” The whole feeling and attitude of a man’s mind is different, according as he is trusting a person, or believing something about a person. And this is the first broad truth that lies here. Faith has reference not merely to a doctrine, not to a system; but deeper than all these, to a living Lord—“faith that is in me.” It is a relation which is expressed not more clearly but perhaps more forcibly by substituting another word, and saying, Faith is trust. McLaren.—“Have the same trust in me!” What less and what else can these words mean? This is no transfer of trust from its proper object. It is the concentration of our trust in the unseen Father upon his own incarnate Son, by which that trust acquires a conscious reality, warmth, and power. B. 2. Many mansions. Literally, abiding-places, there are in the Father’s house; mansions for many, for the multitude of many thousand angels, and for the great company of redeemed sinners. As many members from one body, so the heavenly mansions, although many, are yet one house. Augustine beautifully says: “Because God is love, so by means of love it happens that whatever the glorified individually possess, is likewise common to all.” This power of becoming God’s housemates the Saviour here bids his disciples contemplate. The Father’s house spoken of in this passage is heaven, the real archetype of the Old Testament temple, where God dwells, and where, full of grace and truth, he shares his dwelling with his people, as the epistle to the Hebrews so richly teaches us. God’s typical house upon earth became desolate when Christ went away; but God’s real, heavenly house, since the departure of the Son of man, since the return home of the Son of God, shall be filled with many children, whom he leads to glory. R. B. If it were not so, I would have told you. These words are a parenthesis in the midst of one of our Lord’s greatest promises. His disciples already cherished high hopes of a glorious future through him, and now what he says is above all they could ask or think—eternal mansions in heaven, where they shall see and share the glory which the Father bestows on the only-begotten and well-beloved Son. There might be some misgivings in their minds, as if such hopes were beyond hope, and these words are thrown in to quiet them. “I know,” as if he had said, “what you are expecting, and you need cherish no apprehension lest you come short of it.” Ker. 3. I will come again. He has come again as the risen Prince of Life. He has come again in the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, and made us sharers in his peace and life. That which will be openly revealed at the last day, we have already in the hidden life of faith; as Paul says, we are “made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” R. B. And receive you unto myself. Strictly, at his personal appearing; but in a secondary and comforting sense, to each individually. Mark again the claim made—to come again to receive his people “to himself, that where he is there they may be also.” He thinks it enough to be assured that they shall be where he is and in his keeping. B.—We picture death coming to destroy; let us rather picture Jesus Christ coming to save. We think of death ending; let us think rather of life beginning. We think of losing; let us think of gaining. We think of parting; let us think of meeting. We think of going away; let us think of arriving. If Jesus comes for us, we do not go forth into a world of mystery and darkness, knowing not where. We simply go with and to Jesus. N. M.—The one all-comprehensive fact, itself sufficient though it were alone, will be that this everlasting home is to be with him we love, with him who hath loved us; who wears our nature and takes us to himself as his redeemed brethren. H. C. It is the blessed presumption of our Christianity that there is a heaven for the people of God. If it had not been expressly revealed, it could have been plainly inferred from the whole Christian system; not that the eye hath seen it, though it hath seen Sinai on fire and Jesus transfigured in his robes of light; not that the ear hath heard it, though it hath heard the anthem of angels at Bethlehem. But God hath revealed it unto us, not only in the written word, but in the Christian heart also, by the Spirit. They who receive Christ at all do understand that it is for a deliverance which looks beyond the grave; that it is for an inheritance which would be despoiled of its excellence and beauty if it did not lie far beyond the reach of this present evil world. So he announced himself as the Way to some other region, and the Truth in open refutation of the world's errors, and the Life in its highest sense, and beyond all this dying life of ours. And wherever he went it was as if odors from the Isles of the Blest were emptied upon the air—the sick revived, the dying were healed, the dead were raised, and all pointed to a superior department of being. It was as if the whole host of angels had been sent down to open to view that other circle of society and that upper world of light. Jacobus. The glimpses we have in the Apocalypse of heavenly employments always disclose Him to us as the life of the place. Construct whatever other theory of immortality we may, so far as we look to revelation for our guide, and to him who alone brings life and immortality to light, we have no glimpse or ray of light on any other heaven than that which is created for us by the living and risen Redeemer of our souls, opened by his cross, and entered through repentance and faith toward him. A few more bright or clouded sunsets fading along the western walls of our earthly sanctuary, and then the curtains will be lifted up. Then no longer as through a glass darkly, but face to face; then the vision of the countenance which no eye hath seen—and the new song before the throne, that no ear hath heard! We know not what we shall be, but we shall be with Him, and we shall see Him as He is! F. D. H. 5. How can we know? Not the cold, painless doubt of a God-emptied mind, indifferent to the heavenly inheritance (as Pilate's was), but the doubt of a mind which cannot succeed in making its way, amid the gainsaying of earthly reason, into the heavenly blessing—this was Thomas's doubt. Such souls the Saviour treats with all tenderness. He esteems the dull disciple worthy of those sweet words which have ever since blossomed in the hearts of all Christians, both of the unlearned and the wise. R. B. 6. I am. In the I ams which fell from the lips of Jesus himself, as given by John, is summed up the fullest possible exhibition of his person and work, and of that perfect satisfaction for the spiritual wants of all men which is to be found only in him. To the woman of Samaria he said, "I that speak unto thee am" the Messiah; to the disciples in the storm on the sea, "It is I (literally I am); be not afraid." To the Jews he declares, "I am the bread of life;" "I am the bread which came down from heaven." In presenting his relation to the Father he says, "I am from him and he hath sent me." "I am the light of the world." "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." Still more tenderly does he present himself to his own. "I am the door of the sheep." "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." "I am the resurrection and the life." "Ye call me Master and Lord; and ye say well; for I am." "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman." "I am the vine, ye are the branches." So completely does Jesus, according to John's gospel, present himself as the centre of all things—of self-existence, of eternity, of immutability, of omnipotence, of all the resources that are found in God; the source of all things—of light, of life, of comfort, of strength, of blessedness, of immortality, of all the treasures that the Christian soul can desire. D. S. G. The way, the truth, the life. I am the way to the Father—by my atoning death I open a way to heaven. But men are in ignorance and error—they do not know the way. I am the truth, the light of the world: I show the way I have opened up. But men are dead. I am the life: I quicken the dead, and enable them both to see the way, and to walk in it. J. B. Whenever the soul is most deeply stirred by penitence, or strained by agony, or kindled into holy aspiration, the spiritual nature craves a more intimate communion with God than would be possible if that God had not mysteriously manifested himself in flesh; not a sovereign in the skies, but a beating and friendly bosom in Bethany. It cries out for the Christ, who, by bearing to us the pity and pardon of the Father, is Way and Truth and Life. F. D. H. The Way, else untrodden and impassable, between earth and heaven, between the region of selfishness and sin and the pure region of eternal calm and rest, Jesus hath consecrated by the shedding of his precious blood, so that all who will may have boldness to enter in. It is no mere local distance, no outward or material obstacle, that separates the sinful soul from its true home and rest in God. The heaven which God's presence brings is already in local contiguity to saint and sinner alike. What keeps the sinner out of it is not material but moral barriers: break down these, and heaven's sweet rest would stream into the spirit. Guilt and sin separate the soul from God as the widest wastes of untravelled space could never separate. Remove these, and the distance is at once annihilated. A purified soul flies to its rest in the bosom of God. And guilt Jesus only can remove. He offers purity to the defiled, peace, joy, hope, heaven, to the wretched, or that which includes them all—that strange unearthly blessing—rest to the weary and heavy-laden soul! C. Jesus stands before us as Himself the Truth, making upon all that hear him the impression that he knows that of which he speaks, knows it truly, knows it deeply, knows it fully, and utters it from his inmost soul. Hence what he says is always fresh, and constant repetition cannot make it old. If he speaks of purity of heart, we know that he himself is pure; if he commands us to love one another, we feel that he himself is love; if he speaks of God, he produces the conviction that he knows the Father as the Father knows him. His very words carry with them the assurance that he is the Truth. J. P. T. But by me. An unanswerable argument against the modern notion that it does not matter what a man believes—that all religions [or beliefs] will lead men to heaven if they are sincere, and that the Fatherhood of God is enough to save all at last, of all sects, kinds, and characters! Our Lord's words should never be forgotten: "There is no way to the Father but by me." God is a Father to none but those who believe on Christ. J. C. R.—Every one who comes through him, comes truly to the Father; he is passed from death unto life, from sin and damnation into guiltlessness and justification, from sorrow and anguish into everlasting joy and blessedness. R. B. Jesus is the new and living way, wherein faith causes us to walk; the infallible truth of good things to come, for which we must hope; and the eternal life, which must be the sole object of our love. Out of this way, there is nothing but wandering; without this truth, nothing but error and deceit; and without this life, nothing but death. Q. 7. But yet—let not your heart be troubled—"from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him." How differently the Saviour speaks to souls who are truly turned toward the light, and to those who love darkness rather than light! Yonder, the proud, self-righteous Jews lie under the sentence, "Ye neither know me nor my Father;" but here, the poor, unlettered disciples are lifted up from their ignorance; for the Lord's love discovers in them a faith which, though a glimmering spark, would shortly, when blown upon by the Holy Ghost, burst forth into a bright flame. 8. In this request there is a marvellous mixture of nature and grace, of an earthly and a heavenly mind. Philip means to take the Lord at his word: "Yea, Lord, thou art the way, and through thee only do we come to the Father: shew us then the Father, and it sufficeth us." This is his longing desire—face to face to behold the Father. What a Moses and a David once longed for—to see God's face—is here desired by Philip, with an eager heart desired. If he might have one look into the Father's glory, he would then be satisfied. R. B.—9. Philip applied these words to a sensible theophany. This misunderstanding led Christ again to impress upon their minds the same truth, that whoever obobtained a just spiritual intuition of him saw the Father in him; the Father, with whom he lived in inseparable communion, and who manifested himself in his words and works. N. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. By reason of the consummate unity which subsists between us, just as the soul, in itself invisible, is seen by what it does through the body. Beng.—With the life of Jesus before us—as the revealer of the Father to men; the perfect representation of the Father's character, of the Father's compassion for sinners, of his love for the penitent and believing, of his patience, sympathy, and eternal faithfulness in all his promises—we have the very Father himself brought home to our mind's conception and to our heart's sensibility in every possible phase in which we can need to see or feel a present God. H. C. He has shown us the Father: one whom we can love without measure, without end, and without fear; one who can fill our whole heart, and who in filling pacifies, purifies, and ennobles it; a God of happiness and holiness, a God whom we cannot know and contemplate without becoming at once both happier and better. A. V.—If this revelation took place in some degree during Christ's humiliation, how much more when he shall come again the second time, without sin, unto salvation. Even then, the indwelling glory of Jehovah will be in Christ. Even in heaven the fulness of the Godhead shall dwell in him bodily. J. W. A. 10. It is then to faith that the Father is shown. Not only is the Father in him, but he also is in the Father. Never had the Lord spoken out more freely concerning his eternal Godhead than he does here. R. B.—I have seen the Father in thee, Jesus my Lord. For in thee my faith has a Christ, enthroned with the Father, come from the Father, zealous for the Father, bowed under the Father, and—oh love!—once hanging on the cross apart from (forsaken by) the Father. Bernhard. Here is nothing human, nothing carnal. Let reason submit itself to faith, to adore mysteries it cannot comprehend. A God, who is the very same being with his Son, and yet is not the same person; a Son, who dwelleth in his Father, and his Father in him, and who yet are really distinct one from the other. A Son, who receives everything from his Father, without the least indigency, dependence, or posteriority; and a Father, who gives and communicates whatever he is to his Son, without giving him beginning, and without parting with anything which he gives to his coeternal and consubstantial Son, and working together with him by the same almighty power. These are truths, in attempting to fathom which reason loses itself. Q. 12. Miracles the apostles wrought, though wholly in his name and by his power, and the "greater" works—not in degree, but in kind—were the conversion of thousands in a day, by his Spirit accompanying their words. B.—All the works of his quickening power, both spiritual and bodily, which Christ had hitherto done for the purpose of destroying the works of the devil, were but first-fruits and pledges of future works; it was not until after his glorification that the windows of heaven were to be fully opened, when the streams of living water should be poured forth upon the thirsty world, and from thenceforth should perpetually flow forth from the Spirit-filled body of believers. R. B. I go unto my Father. This refers simply to the withdrawal of his bodily presence—the disappearance of that form of Hebrew flesh and blood, through which he had hitherto been manifested to the world, but which, if suffered to remain longer, would prove a veil before his real and spiritual glory, and contract the universality of his religion. F. D. H. 13. The disciples were to enter into new relations with Christ. He therefore specially taught them to pray in his name. As they had before, during his bodily presence, expressed their wants to him personally, so now, trusting in him and conscious of the new relations in which through him they stood to the Father, they were to apply to the Father in his name. N.—Observe here how the discourse returns back to the theme: "No man cometh unto the Father but by me." No prayer really enters into God's ear and heart, except that which is offered in the name of Jesus, because it is the Father's eternal desire to be glorified in the Son; but whoever prays in this name will be satisfied, for to him God's Father-heart stands open, and together with the only-begotten Son, he has a child's place in the Father's bosom. R. B. 14. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. This promise carries with it its own limitations: all there are—all there need be. The blessings sought must be blessings—not curses; must be such as can be asked in Jesus' name—for the glory of God in the scheme of human salvation. Countless things of an earthly nature—health, prolonged life, food, raiment, comforts of varied sort—these may be prayed for in sympathy with Christ, for the ends of his kingdom according to our honest judgment; and if God should judge as we do, he will grant them; otherwise, we ought not to wish him to do so. Those things—a large class—which on the great whole may be or may not be blessings, must find their necessary limitation in God's wisdom. But those things which, in their very nature, must be blessings, and never can be evils, fall entirely within the range of this promise. If we ask them in true sympathy with Jesus, asking really in his name, so that in giving them the Father may be glorified in the Son, they are sure. This promise, therefore, is as free from limitation as we ought to wish; is as broad, as rich, as sure, as it can be reasonable for us to desire. H. C. ## Section 142.—Last Discourse: Another Comforter. The Guest-Chamber. 15,16. If ye love me, keep my commandments: and I will pray the Father, and he shall give 17 you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye 18 know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you com- 19 fortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but 20 ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in 21 my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He 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. 22 Judas saith unto him (not Iscariot), Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself 23 unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and 24 make our abode with him. 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. 25,26. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. 27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto 28 you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me ye would rejoice, 29 because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. And now I have 30 told you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, ye might believe. Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence. WHAT precious, wondrous words are these—peace, comfort, the coming of Christ, the indwelling of the Spirit, the manifestation of the Father! We long for peace; we seek for peace; and, paradoxical as it seems, we strive for peace; but Christ here promises to give peace—even the perfect, the ineffable peace which kept his heart through all his conflicts, trials, and sufferings. J. P. T. Obviously what we want ourselves, is to be somehow with him, and to know that he is with us; to have a knowledge of him, a presence and society with him, that we can carry with us, and have as the secret joy, and strength, and conscious blessing of our inmost life itself; that we may see him, when we are blind; that we may hear him, when we are deaf; that we may walk with him, when we cannot walk at all; rise with him when he rises, reign with him when he reigns; never away from him, even when beyond the sea, or passing through the valley of the shadow of death. Just this relation he undertakes to fill when he goes away. H. B. 15. Jesus prefaces the promise of the Comforter by an injunction to keep his commandments, because he wishes the disciples to understand that the fulfilment of the promise and the keeping of the commandments go together. This truth is reiterated under various modes of expression in this passage. As in his first great sermon (on the mount) Jesus had said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God; so in his farewell discourse to his own, he says in effect: Be pure in heart, and through the indwelling Spirit of Truth ye shall see me, even when I am become invisible to the world. A. B. B. To keep his commandments, to abide in his word, to keep his word, all describe the same thing which in the next chapter is expressed by, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you." The commands of Jesus require that which he imparts—viz., a divine life; so that they are no cause of terror like Moses's commandments, which place us in the position of insolvent debtors. "Give that which thou dost demand, and demand what thou wilt"—in Augustine does Love pray; while in John's words she confesses: "His commandments are not grievous." R. B. 16. As said here, Jesus prays to the Father, and the Father, in answer to his prayer, gives the Comforter. In another passage (14 : 26) Jesus says—"Whom the Father will send in my name;" and in yet another (15 : 26), "Whom I will send unto you from the Father;" and also (16 : 7), "If I depart, I will send him unto you." These various modes of expression are seen to be in harmony when we consider that the Father and the Son act jointly and coordinately in the sending of the Spirit. In certain aspects the sending may be ascribed to the Father; in certain other aspects to the Son. The great discussion of the middle ages—whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son, or only from the Father—has been mostly a war of words. H. C. Comforter. Paraclete, advocate. Among the Romans, it was usual for those who had any great lawsuit to call their relations and friends to their assistance, who in this office were named advocates. These attended the parties in the court, some assisting them with counsel, others pleading for them, and others barely by their presence giving weight to their cause. Hence the word came to signify not only an advocate who pleads the cause of another, but a counsellor, a friend, a patron. In this passage the Holy Ghost is called paraclete or advocate, in the largest sense: because he was to espouse the apostles' cause, to accompany them, to defend them from their enemies, and to plead for them by the discourses which he inspired them to deliver, and by the miracles which he enabled them to work, so that he was in the properest sense their friend, counsellor, advocate, patron, and protector. M. The word Comforter or Paraclete is used only by John: in his Gospel with reference to the Holy Spirit, in his first Epistle (2:1) with reference to Christ himself. Its proper sense is an “advocate,” “patron,” “helper.” In this sense it is plainly meant of Christ, and in this sense it comprehends all the comfort as well as aid of the Spirit’s work. The Spirit is here promised as one who would supply Christ’s own place in his absence. B.—The two divine personages bear in the scheme of mediation the same title; they are both Paracletes—comforters, teachers, exhorters, helpers, and advocates. The work of intercession, which, perhaps, the title mainly implies, is expressly said to be carried on by both. As Christ is the consolation of Israel, so the Spirit is the other Comforter (still the same term); expressions that imply the complete adaptation of both to human nature in all its misery and wants. J. A. A personality is attributed to the Holy Spirit as distinct from the Father and the Son. I will pray “the Father;” and “he” (i. e., the Father) “shall give you another Comforter”—a helper in the stead of Jesus; that he, this Comforter thus distinguished from the Father and the Son, may “abide with you forever.” All the teaching of Christ concerning the Holy Ghost assumes or implies both the divinity of the Spirit and his distinct personality. He spoke of the Spirit not as a thing, an attribute, an influence, a property, but as a person. He ascribed to the Spirit such acts and offices as can be affirmed only of a person. He spoke of the Spirit—thus defining one distinct Spirit; the Holy Spirit, designating the Spirit by a personal and moral characteristic. J. P. T. 17. He shall be in you.** They had already received several gifts, which none can receive except from the Holy Ghost. These, like the gifts which had proceeded from him during the earlier dispensation, were in the main external, such as the power of working miracles. The higher gifts of the Holy Ghost—that transforming power of faith, which nothing can awaken except a lively insight into the sacrifice and mediation of the Saviour, and those spiritual graces whereby the life of Christ is fashioned in our souls—had not yet been vouchsafed to them. The Holy Ghost was to come to them, and to dwell in them, converting their earthly tabernacles into living temples of God. Hare. 18. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.** Where the Greek has the word “orphanous,” equal to orphans, our translators put it “comfortless,” to keep up the harmony with the word “Comforter.” “Orphans” gives the more exact sense. They would be as children left alone in the world. But Jesus would not leave them so. “I will come to you,” he said—manifestly with reference to sending the Spirit to dwell with them as a near and dear and perfect friend. The Spirit would fill the place of his own presence. They would have no occasion to regret the change by which Jesus should go (bodily) and the Spirit come (spiritually). H. C. We are not shut in from the influences of our Lord’s Spirit, here, where we need them so much—fighting temptation, or bearing hardship and pain and sorrow. The heavens over us are not brass, even if the earth under us seems sometimes to be iron. The fainting and weary soul of the disciple has her refreshment. All her fresh springs are near at hand. Working on, as we may often think, to little purpose, suffering with no clew to the mystery of our pain, finding the ordinary path parched as Baca, and our own spirits almost as dry, nevertheless heaven lies around us. Now and then its dew moistens our thirst. We are able to hold on our way by its invigoration. Life is not the horrible mockery it would be if this world were all. The land we are travelling through is not comfortless or forgotten of its Father; it is a part of Emmanuel’s country. “I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you.” And so, with all its sicknesses and graveyards and the crimes that are worse than either, this world where we are, to a Christian resident in it, is an outer room at least, and one of the many mansions, of God’s house. F. D. H. 19. Because I live.** It is his unextinguishable, divine life of which he speaks, in view of which his death and resurrection were but as shadows passing over the sun’s glorious disk. And this grand saying Jesus uttered with death immediately in view. What a brightness does this throw over the next clause, “Ye shall live also!” B.—He is indeed life; he is the Living One (Rev. 1:18); and therefore as a necessary consequence he swallowed up death in victory by rising from the dead. But in respect to believers, he says, “Ye shall live,” because their life grows not out of themselves, but as the fruit out of Christ’s life, as the life of the branch, which receives its life from the vine. R. B. 20. At that day ye shall know.** The soul—visited as he presently declares with the very presence of the Son and of the Father—cannot but know, as said here, both that Jesus is in the Father and also in his people. It is the knowledge of experience, using this word in its broadest sense—a knowing that comes of the witnessing presence of God in Christ to the human soul. H. C.—This first clause, “I in the Father,” was calculated to give them perfect confidence in the cause of Christ, that it came from God; the second, “Ye in me,” revealed to them their fellowship with Christ, and their interest in the whole of his redemption; the third, “I in you,” gave them strength and courage to go forth with their ministry and witness to attack the world, knowing that Christ was working in them. Much there is to learn in these three short sentences: God in Christ—I, in the sight of God, found in his Son—and Christ in me, because he has given me of his Spirit. Rieger. 21. Hath my commandments, and keepeth them.** To “have the commandments” of Jesus implies diligent inquiry and docility. To “keep them” involves the true spirit of obedience—the one deep, changeless purpose to do all his known will. This is the legitimate evidence of true love to Christ. He will joyfully accept this evidence, and give every obedient, loving soul the testimony that he accepts it. This is what he declares here. “He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father.” H. C.—Where there is no obedience to Christ, there is no love. Without this obedience, profession, talk, knowledge, even feeling and weeping, are all worthless. J. C. R. Will manifest myself. It is the essential property of love to share everything with the beloved object, and thus Christ desires to manifest himself to his disciples, that his life may become their life, his glory their glory; everything will he confide to them his friends. 22,23. What had happened, that instead of a glorious kingdom of Christ before which the world should bow, there was only to be a small insignificant band of Christians, despised and persecuted by the world? Nothing had happened, as Judas thought, which had changed the plan of Christ’s kingdom; rather it was his purpose to raise up through his gracious word a kingdom which should come to those who keep his word and who love him, but which should keep aloof from those who reject his word and who love him not. R. B. To love Christ is to have the heart go forth to him when, in his wonderful life, and still more wonderful death, he has become the object of faith to the soul. It is love not to an abstraction, but to a great living personality—“the man Christ Jesus”—“God manifest in the flesh.” To keep his words is not merely to preserve them in the memory, but to put them into the heart, and, deeper still, into the conscience, and then to let them come forth in the life as visible and practical things. We must begin to love Christ before we can keep his words. Christ is the law-giver of God’s world, and before we can obey his laws we must be on terms of amity with himself. This implies that we know him to be at peace with us, for as we are made, we cannot love where we dread. God’s friendship must come before God’s service. That Christ should here lay down love to himself as the foundation of all our fidelity to him, does not, indeed, of itself, prove his atonement; but it is in the firmest bond of union with it, and taken in connection with all his teaching and life and death, it receives a power of meaning which no other view of Christ can give to it. Love to him can face every duty and dare every danger and endure every sacrifice, when it sees him filling the universe from the throne of heaven to the grave of earth, with self-sacrifice for man, and self-sacrifice to save him from the most terrible of all evils, exclusion from the favor and life of the God who made him. Ker. Tenderly does the Lord comfort his desolate disciples; and plainly does he point out to us the sure and simple way to perfect peace! To love him and to keep his word—it is that which will bring into our souls an eternal pentecostal rejoicing, and nothing else ever can. R. B. I will come; I and my father will come. We will come. Was ever such a plural used as that! Who is he who associates himself in this way with the omnipresent and omnipotent Jehovah, who engages for the Father, and what he engages for the Father undertakes equally himself? We will come to him, not to pay a transient visit, to tarry but a night. We will take up our abode with him. To have these words of Jesus realized in our daily, hourly life, to know and believe that he is indeed with us, beside us, has taken up his abode with us, this is our comfort and our strength. Nothing short of this will do. H. 25,26. Teach you all things, and bring all to remembrance.** As the Son came in the Father’s name, so the Father shall send the Spirit “in my name,” says Jesus, i. e., with like divine power and authority to reproduce in their souls what Christ taught them. B.—Their Helper, their Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, would bring to their remembrance not only the consolatory words of this his last evening, but all things that he had ever said to them. This is to be the Holy Spirit’s office, for he is sent by the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. The place which the Saviour had hitherto filled with his disciples, when he fed them with the words of eternal life, was from henceforth after a new way to be supplied by the other Comforter, the Holy Ghost; for he is the true vicar and vicegerent of Christ upon earth. R. B. He would lead them into all truth; whereas now they are constantly misapplying the plain words of Christ. He would bring all things to their remembrance; whereas now they often forget in a day or two the most remarkable teaching, or the most amazing miracles. He would take the things of Christ, the things of the Father, and reveal them unto them; whereas now they constantly misapprehended his relation to the Father, and that of the Father to him, misapprehended his person, his mission, and his kingdom. And he would abide with them forever, not for “a little while.” Whatever, therefore, Christ’s personal presence and teaching had been to them, the presence of the Spirit would be more. Arthur. 27. All that the Lord had said to his disciples, to be afterward brought to their remembrance by the Holy Ghost, he now in parting sums up in this one word—peace. It was the custom in Israel, both in meeting and parting, to greet one another by wishing peace. This form of greeting here becomes new and full of grace and truth in the mouth of the Saviour going now to the Father. R. B. It is no wonder he emphasizes the pronoun, and says, “My peace.” It is a peace obtained by the drops of blood and the cross; Gethsemane and Calvary; by a life in which there was no place to lay the head. It is not a superficial peace; it is not what we call pleasure, nor a happy temperament, nor gratified sensibilities. It is something deeper and stronger. It is an attainment; it is a victory; it is tribulation overcome. It is the mightiest powers of our nature balanced, reconciled, and harmonized at last, through we know not what struggles and sufferings, till, by the perfect sway of one supreme principle of faith, there are the equipoise and serenity that pass all understanding. F. D. H. Peace is not merely quiet upon the surface, but a deep-seated rest of the inner life. It is such an inward reality—quiet within the soul—a restful life beneath all other life—that Christ gives to them that are his. It is something deeper than sense, or intellect, or passion, or all the shows of that life which we can see, or hear, or touch. It is no mere harmony of natural powers—although it is also this—but it is a positive spiritual endowment, a gift from the divine, something which settles and stays the spirit on a foundation that cannot be moved. It is the spirit returning to God from weary and vain voyaging after other good; the soul cleaving unto God with the strong pinions of faith and hope. It is nearness to God; the blessed assurance which God himself alone can give, that He is there, whatever our doubts may say—that the everlasting arms are around us, though we may not feel their quiet strong embrace. Tulloch. Not only is it the gift of God, but it is his very presence. Sickness cannot destroy it; poverty cannot rob it of its incorruptible riches; bereavement only makes it more real, and the approach of death more deep. The world, which cannot give it, cannot take it away; its root is in the immovable assurance of the divine acceptance and favor, through the blood and righteousness of the Saviour. It gradually spreads its roots over the entire spiritual being, through the sanctifying power of the eternal Spirit; and while the only thing that can ruffle it is the silent reproach of a wounded conscience, the only thing in all the world to destroy it is sin. A. W. T. Not as the world giveth. Their peace was to work through patience and suffering. It was not only to be compatible with conflict and danger and toil, but in and through these it was to come. What we think of most naturally in connection with such a subject is our Lord’s own life—so majestic in its repose—with such a pervading depth of calm in it—yet so troubled outwardly. And here no doubt is the key to the meaning. Our Lord’s own life—his spiritual manifestation in life and death—is the best interpreter of all his profoundest sayings. For the Christian lives only in Christ. All Christian thought is hid in him. All Christian experience grows out of him. Tulloch. 28. Ye would rejoice, because I go unto the Father.** Before, the Lord has been explaining that his departure, the announcement of which so greatly troubled the disciples, was expedient for them; now he proceeds to say that his departure would be glorious for him. After telling them that his departure would be no loss to them, he now adds that to him it would be gain. In the foregoing discourse he has been comforting the disciples by bidding them not to be alarmed on their own account; now he comforts them by bidding them not be alarmed on his. Gerhard. Of all his many hard words to his disciples, none were so hard as those in which he strove to assure them that his going away would be for their gain, no explanation at first so disappointing as that by which he maintained it. He was going away, but he was coming back. The world should not see him, but they should see him and their joy should abide. It was not, however, to be a sight of the senses as it was then, but the beholding of him by faith in the power of the Spirit. His coming back to be with them was not so much his return to the world for forty short days, but his coming with his Father to those who loved his words, to take up an abode in their hearts. He would teach them that he was always at hand, always thinking of them and watching over them, absent in the body, he was present in the spirit, and in the fulness of his divine power. A. W. T. For my Father is greater than I. None but a being who, in some sense, “thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” would be so presumptuous as thus to make a comparison of himself with the Most High. His disciples were liable to forget, amid the impressions which his power and love had made on their hearts, that he was acting in a subordinate capacity, and they needed to feel that their Saviour’s personal presence was not the greatest and best thing for them; that the Father was engaged in the work of redemption and acted as its head, and that the Holy Spirit also must come and do his part of the divine work. Acting, even in his complex nature, in a subordinate capacity, the words are natural and appropriate. N. A. In the words of the Athanasian Creed, Christ is “equal to the Father as touching his Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching his manhood.” When the Word was “made flesh” he took on him “the form of a servant.” This was temporary inferiority. J. C. R.—Provided a compensation be made to you for my departure, you ought to rejoice at it, because for myself it will be gain, inasmuch as I shall then be exalted to the Father, who is greater than I in my present state of humiliation on earth, but with whom my departure and exaltation will place me on an equality (compare chap. 17 : 5). The Lord adds (verse 29) that, by this prediction of his exaltation, he intended to strengthen their faith in that event, when it had taken place, and in all resulting from it. C. B. 29. The word is the seed, faith (together with peace and joy) is the fruit. Beng.—It did come to pass that the Lord went away and came again, and the disciples believed. But as it came to pass not for the disciples only, but for us also, so the Holy Ghost would fain teach and increase our faith likewise. R. B. 31. Arise, let us go hence. At his command they rise and are ready to follow him. But he does not immediately go forth. As they cluster round him, he continues his address. At last it closes with these comforting words: “These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.” H. The Guest-Chamber. 1,2. I AM the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, 3 that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have 4 spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of 5 itself, except it abide in the vine: no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth 6 much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a 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, 7 and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what 8 ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear 9 much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved 10 you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. 11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. EVERY need of life is absolutely guaranteed to him that rests under the wing of God. SECURITY? The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. PROVISION? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? GRACE? My grace is sufficient for thee. LOVE? That deepest, most unutterable, most insatiable of all the needs of man! When God can be faint or weary, when he can turn his face from the poor destitute in anger or scorn, when he can grow cold toward those whom he has loved and redeemed and called, then our doubts and fears may have some foundation. Blessed, blessed truth of the sufficiency and faithfulness of God, if we would but let it possess our hearts! Whatever our needs, he can supply them, for he is God. He will supply them, for “God is love.” Incessant as may be our wants, small and trifling as may be our cares, harassing and anxious as, with the manliest and strongest of us, this daily earthly life must sometimes be, the Son of God is still Son of man. In his own human nature, glorified indeed, yet human still, human always, “He ever liveth to make intercession for us.” Let us believe, let us believe, and our joy shall be full. Be as willing to receive as he is willing to bestow. Give him the only thing in the world he cares for; the only thing we have to give him worth giving; the only thing he will not take by force; for unless given freely it is worthless; the gift that he has himself first given us, only it does not seem worth our looking at—even the heart; and then he will possess what he died to win; we shall be the dwelling-place of God. A. W. T. THAT our Lord uttered the discourses in the fifteenth and two following chapters in the paschal apartment, on the point of departure, and with the disciples standing round him, seems most natural. E. The heart of Jesus overflowing with love to his own, he still lingered awhile, in order once more to speak to them the peace-giving words, “Let not your heart be troubled;” to deposit precious pearls of comfort in the secret storehouse of their heart, which the Comforter should by and by bring forth from thence to be the everlasting riches, both of them and of all believers. The eternal communion of love between Christ and Christians, and the fruit which springs therefrom, is the subject of this discourse. Peace in believing is the first gift of the Comforter; the second is, the fruit of the life in love. R. B. 1-8. The spiritual oneness of Christ and his people, and his relation to them as the source of all their spiritual life and fruitfulness, are here beautifully set forth by a figure familiar to Jewish ears. B.—The parabolic discourse or allegory of the vine and the branches illustrates, under the figure of fruit bearing plants, the precious truth of the organic life-union of Christ with believers. He is the only source of their spiritual life and fruitfulness; they live in him and of him, and apart from him they must inevitably wither and die, like the branches cut off from the parent stem, although they may retain for a little while a deceitful greenness and appearance of life. The same truth is set forth by Paul under the similitude of the head and the members. Lange. He called their attention specially to two thoughts: that the relation which had subsisted between them was to remain, only that they would be internally allied to and dependent on him; and that they must now become self-active agents for the spread of the kingdom of God, but that they could only become such by continued communion with him. To illustrate these points, he made use of the similitude of a vine: God, the vine-dresser; Christ, the vine; his followers, the branches. The fructifying sap flows from the vine-stock through all the branches, and without it they can produce no fruit; so the followers of Christ can only obtain, by inward and inseparable communion with him, the divine life which can fit them to be productive lalaborers in the kingdom of God. The branches wither when torn from the vine and deprived of its vital sap; so, also, the disciples of Christ live and prosper only in continuous communion with him. N. 1. I am the true vine. In these words that which is the keynote to the whole of these discourses—viz., “Let not your heart be troubled”—sweetly rings again, and all the more distinctly since the Lords adds, and my Father is the husbandman. R. B.—It was of the very essence of his mediatorial work, of the daysman who should lay his hands upon both, that as on the one side he could say, “I and my Father are one,” so upon the other, “I and my brethren are one;” and he is here asserting the latter relation, not excluding the former. But while the vine and the vine-branches must thus both be partakers of the same nature, he will presently challenge for himself a share in the work of the husbandman. He too has power to purge or cleanse through his word (verse 3). T. 2. Every non-bearing branch he taketh away; every branch that beareth, he taketh away from it; i. e., taketh away the superfluous shoots that rob the young fruit-clusters. The antithesis between taking away the whole branch that promises no fruit, and taking away from the fruit-bearing branch its superfluous growths, is put at once clearly, tersely, and forcibly. H. C. The vine-dresser cuts off all useless branches, which consume the vital power of the vine without bearing fruit; so will all those who do not manifest the divine life in fruitful works, proving by this deficiency that their communion with Christ is but apparent, be cut off from the kingdom of God. But even the productive branches stand in constant need of the vine-dresser’s care; all exuberant growth must be trimmed; all excrescences hindering the course of the vital sap must be pared away; so the disciples, even those who enjoy the divine life in communion with Christ, must be purified constantly from foreign elements, that there may be no obstacles to the development of the divine life within them, or of the outward activity corresponding to it. N. Either take away or purge, either cut off or prune: one of the two the Gardener does to every branch of the vine; and those who will not submit to the purging process of pruning, are taken away by being cut off. R. B.—If thou wilt not endure that what is evil in thee shall be taken away, thou must endure being taken away thyself. Beng. Clean and yet needing to be cleansed. We have a hint here of that double relation in which every believing man stands to God, more fully stated in some of the Pauline epistles, yet distinctly anticipated here, and at John 13 : 10. The faithful in Christ Jesus are “clean,” being by faith justified from all things, and having thus a standing-ground before God; yet needing by the same faith to appropriate ever more and more of those purifying influences, which continually stream forth from him on all them that are his. T. The continued cleansing of those who, by the word of Jesus, have been already pronounced clean, corresponds exactly to the continued washing of the feet of those who in the morning bath have washed wholly clean. The bath of justification comes first, the sanctifying feet-washing comes after. He who is not washed, who has not become, through faith and repentance, and forgiveness of sins in this way attained, wholly clean in his inmost heart—so clean that God looks upon him as righteous—such a one gets no good from any feet-washing; it will avail naught for him though he should outwardly cease from this or that sin; he cannot follow after sanctification—a reconciled heart is indispensable. 3. And what was it that made the disciples clean? The word. The word of life, the sweet gospel which the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, and which they had received in faith into their hearts. None but Jesus can comfort thus. R. B. 4-6. The discourse shades off gradually from the figure—the vine-branches—to the thing illustrated, viz., the human soul as being in Christ. The figure, however, still helps us to apprehend the spiritual fact. The central idea in these verses is the abiding; the sustained life-connection of the soul with Christ. As the branch, severed from the parent vine, is cut off from nutrition, can bear no fruit and dies, so the soul that abides not in Christ can bear no fruit—can not even live—but withers, dies, is cut away, fit only for burning. Human souls, abiding in Christ, bear much fruit; severed from him, as a branch may be severed from its parent stock, they can do nothing. The sense of the original in the phrase “without me ye can do nothing,” is precisely this: apart from me—severed from me like a branch cut off—ye are powerless as to spiritual fruitage. H. C. 4. Take heed that ye abide in me, and that I abide in you. The second clause is not promise, any more than the first; they are precept both. T.—Christ abides in them who abide in him. It is he who commences this gracious union; but if he should ever leave us, it would be because we shall first have left him. Nothing is more pitiable than a Christianity which, instead of present life, brings before God the recollected leavings of past life. It is surely not without meaning that the twelve loaves of shew-bread, in which Israel presented to the Lord the fruits of his good pleasure to them, were required every week to be renewed. Mouldy bread he will not eat. 5. The vine may live without the branches, and is able to replace three fresh ones for one that is cast off; but the branch cannot live without the vine. With impressive earnestness the Lord would engrave it on our memory: “I am the VINE, ye are the BRANCHES.” It is the vine which bears both branch and fruit, and the vine’s sap it is which runs through both. The Christian’s holy thoughts, his words and works which are pleasing to God, are simply fruits of the branches which abide on the vine, and which have running through them the life-sap of the vine. So soon as the commerce is interrupted between our poverty and Christ’s riches, it is all over with our doing; or if we do anything which looks like fruit from the branch, it is nothing but wild grapes, “servant’s toil, not the child’s work.” For without me ye can do nothing. Our power to do reaches exactly so far as our abiding in Christ and his abiding in us; out of him we can do nothing; in him we can do much, ay, all things. Believers must, without ceasing, be spelling at these words. R. B.—We have a warning here to the regenerate man that he never seek to do aught of himself; not a declaration that the unregenerate is unable to do aught. “Being in me, only through putting forth of my power, suffering me effectually to work in and through you, can you accomplish anything”—a truth which needs to be evermore repeated, for it is evermore in danger of being forgotten by us. 6. Not that the branch, because withered, is therefore cast forth, but, because cast forth, therefore it is withered. An unfruitful branch is not withered when broken off from its parent stem; on the contrary, it retains a deceitful greenness for a little while; deceitful, because upon all this the sentence of death has irrevocably passed. T.—The cast-out branch withers; whatever remains of sap it might have had so long as it hung on ever so slightly to the vine, now quickly dries up; it becomes a hard piece of wood, which can no longer be bent, only broken. A man may refuse to be bent by grace, but he cannot hinder himself from being broken by wrath. Judas is a fearful example of this: he withered in one day. R. B.—They are burned; or, in its simplicity more terrible still, and they burn. But all which is here expressed or implied, of “the fire,” “the flame,” “the flaming fire,” “the lake of fire,” “the everlasting fire,” with all the secrets of anguish which words like these, if there be any truth in words, must involve, demands rather to be trembled at than needs to be expounded. T. The one proper use of the vine is to bear fruit; failing this, it is good for one other thing—fuel. How awfully striking the figure, in this view of it! B.—There are trees which may be turned to secondary uses, if they fail to fulfil their primary. Not so the vine. As timber it is utterly valueless. It is with it exactly as with the saltless salt, which, having lost its savor, is fit only to be cast out of doors; both of them being meet emblems of the spiritual man who is not spiritual, who is good neither for the work of this world nor of a higher. T. 7. Ye abide in me.** “Abiding” means to keep up a habit of constant close communion with Christ, to be always resting on him, and pouring out our hearts to him, as our chief companion and best friend. So abiding, we shall “receive” and “find.” J. C. R. And my words in you. When Christ said “I abide in you,” even an honest, truth-seeking heart might ask—What can I do to keep Christ abiding in me? But when Jesus substitutes “my words” for “I,” we see at once how the thing is to be done. We are to hold his words close to our own living, loving heart; study their significance; absorb their living force; breathe their spirit; conform our voluntary activities evermore to their demands. He who loves Christ’s words and keeps them in abiding force upon his own moral nature certainly has Jesus himself abiding in the heart. Fulfilling these conditions “ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” What richer promise could the very soul of want frame for itself? What more should the children of poverty and need desire than the privilege of asking what one will, to be granted him? H. C. 8. In the tenderest and most comforting way the Lord illustrates the meaning of this one necessary thing: abiding in him. No less than ten times does he here mention it; and so deeply was it engraven in the heart of John, that in his epistle all his exhortations to Christians are made to converge to this as their centre. If we abide in him, his words—the cause of our being clean—abide in us; and if his words abide in us, because in the obedience of faith we live upon these words, “doing what they command and loving what they promise,” we then bear much fruit, for we may ask whatever we will—that is, with a disciple’s will having respect to these words—and it shall be granted us. R. B. So shall ye be my disciples. For this and only this is learning truly of me; imbibing my spirit; walking in my footsteps. For this I have called, taught, trained you all; this work, therefore, I expect at your hands. H. C. 9. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.** Here the Lord names the true element of life in the vine and in the branches, viz., love—the love with which the Father has from all eternity loved the Son and the Son the Father; the love with which the incarnate Saviour loved us even to the end, that in return we might love him, and in him one another. Behold, what kind of love Christ has shown to us! He has loved us even as he—in the beginning and also in the flesh—has been loved by the Father. R. B. In my love. The “love of Christ” always in the New Testament means Christ’s love to his people—not their love to him; and the cognate expression “my joy,” in the context, does not signify “a joy experienced by you in reference to me,” but “the joy which I have in you.” The injunction, “continue in my love,” therefore means: “Habitually cherish those tempers, and follow that course of conduct, which, being accordant to my will, may secure the continuance of my regard and favor.” J. B. 10. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love.** The obedient spirit of true discipleship cherishing and attracting the continuance and increase of Christ’s love. B.—The love of Christ constrains us to love Christ. And both these two, the cause and the effect, are contained in abiding in his love; namely, that we believingly abide in his love to us, and that we joyfully abide in our love to him. 11. Christ’s heart is a joyful heart even in the deepest suffering; for he abides in his Father’s love, and that is the source and essence of all joy. This joy of Jesus Christ should become our joy. In him it is full; in us it becomes full, it grows with our growing faith until it reaches its fulness, when he will satisfy us with the joys of his countenance in heaven. R. B.—Feeding on him, dying with him, at liberty with his freedom, walking daily in his light, forgiven through his mediation, enriched and sanctified by his intercession—thus abiding in his love, what can the brave, true Christian need more? His tranquillity will be like that of the sea when the storm had been subdued—not a dead or stagnant “calm,” but the rippling calm that laughs, because it moves and makes music and catches all the light of heaven. F. D. H. # Section 144.—Last Discourse: Mutual Love. The Guest-Chamber. 12,13. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater 14 love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my 15 friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all 16 things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in 17 my name, he may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another. 18, 19 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I 20 have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have per- secuted me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept my saying, they will keep 21 yours also. But all these things they do unto you for my name's sake, because they 22 know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not 23 had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth me, hateth my 24 Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen, and hated both me and my Father. 25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. 26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even 27 the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me. And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning. FRIENDSHIP is such a relation of man to man, that from mutual esteem, admiration, and attachment, rather than from regard to interest, each desires the welfare of the other, and delights in his company; and consequently each is ready to fulfil the wishes of the other and to make sacrifices for his pleasure. It is a flowing of soul to soul. Even in common society, its triumphs are sometimes beautiful and ennobling, but it is nowhere so pure and unearthly as where it subsists between souls which have been touched by the Spirit of God. Then it is a fountain which wells forth from the cross of the heavenly Friend. The twelve, the seventy, the holy women who companied with him, the thousands of less distinguished disciples, all stood to him in the relation of friends. It was not merely John who reclined on his bosom, or James and Cephas who shared his more sacred retirements, or Lazarus whom he loved, or Mary and Martha who ministered to him; but all who hearkened to his words and sought his companionship. When he spoke of dying for his friends, he had a perfect foresight of the scenes which were to mark the next few eventful hours. He saw the mysterious shadow of Gethsemane, the agony and bloody sweat. He saw the midnight assault, the arrest, the hurrying by torchlight from tribunal to tribunal, the cords, the scourging, the robes of scorn, the insults of the populace, the languor, the exposure, the ignominy, the blasphemy, the crown of thorns. He saw the accursed tree, the nails, the spear, the desertion, the blood and anguish, the complicated dying. He saw this to be a substitution, a suffering for others, for friends, for those who should forsake and deny him, for millions who were as yet his enemies. And seeing all this, he said, with an emphasis which we can now better understand, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." J. W. A. THE Sermon on the Mount at the opening of Christ's ministry, and this address in the upper room delivered at its close, are separated from each other not only by difference of circumstance and feeling, but as implying on the part of the hearers wholly different stages in the knowledge of truth. The first discourse is the voice of a minister of the circumcision, clearing and confirming the divine teaching given to the fathers. Blessings, laws, and promises, are alike founded on the Old Testament language, which the speaker at the same time adopts and interprets. He keeps in a line with the past, while he makes a clear step in advance. He gives, not so much a new code, as a new edition of the old one. The word of authority, "I say unto you," is directed not to destroy but to fulfil. It is the original law-giver, clearing up his own intentions, and disallowing the perversions of men. As plainly as the first discourse links itself to the past, so plainly does the last discourse reach on to the future. If the one reverts to what was said in old time, the other casts the mind forward on a day of knowledge which is dawning, and a new teacher who is coming. In passing from the one point to the other, we have entered a new world of thought, and hear a new language which is being created for its exigencies. What makes the thought and language new? It is that the true relation of the Lord Jesus to the spiritual life of his people is now in a measure revealed. All subjects have here assumed their distinctively Christian character: they are in Christ Jesus. The faith fixes itself on him, and on the Father through him. The prayer is in his name. The love is a response to his love. The service is the fruit of union with him. The hope is that of being with him where he is; to abide in him is the secret of life, safety, fruitfulness, and joy; and the guiding power of this new state is not the explanation of a law, but the gift of the Holy Ghost the Comforter. Compare these ideas with those which characterize the first gospel teaching, and you see how much must have intervened in the gradual revelation of Christ, and in the gradual advance of his teaching, before such a stage of doctrine could be reached. T. D. B. 12. Nothing less than his matchless love toward sinners should be the measure and standard of love to one another. He that supposes he is right in the sight of God because his doctrinal views are correct, while he is unloving in his temper and sharp and ill-natured in the use of his tongue, exhibits ignorance of the first principles of Christ's gospel. J. C. R. 14. His preventing love makes us, who otherwise would have remained enemies, friends to his Saviour's heart; it draws us into the blessed bond of friendship with him, wherein we delight to do that which he commands us. R. B. We have but to fill and follow up that gospel, to embody it entire in our own personal history, turning its precepts into a law, and its faith into a living principle. All the elements of moral grace and grandeur are there—the sublime devotion—the expansive charity—the greatness of soul, inspired not by the visions but the clear and certain views of immortality—the habit of unwearied well-doing, even in the midst of surrounding apathy, or it may be of calumny and injustice—those heaven-born virtues which spring not from earth, but are nurtured by prayer, and descend on the breast of every true believer from the upper sanctuary: and, to crown the whole, the single-hearted loyalty to him who poured out his soul unto the death for us, and who, himself the exemplar of all righteousness, tells his disciples that he will hold them to be indeed his friends, if they but love one another and keep his commandments—these are the simple and sublime lessons which all the wisdom of all the schools never could have reached, and most certainly can never realize. T. C. 15. Christ was a teacher, and gathered disciples; he was a master, and his disciples were his servants; he was a king, and they were also his subjects. But he chose a more close and endearing name to express the relation in which he would stand to his followers: "I have called you friends"—a title of affection and of confidence. J. P. T. The Saviour dwells tenderly upon this name—friends, which he has given his disciples. To invite a joyful fulfilment of the duty which as friends they owed him, he reminds them of the friend's rights which he had imparted to them. Hitherto the disciples had stood to their Lord in the relation of a servant, who knows not what his lord does. But henceforth the Comforter, putting them in remembrance, was to make clear to them all things that the only-begotten Son had heard for them from the Father, and in the gospel had made known to them. They are no longer servants, but children, because they have received the Spirit of adoption; they are no longer servants, but heirs, because they abide forever in the house with the Son, as joint heirs with him; they are no longer servants, but friends, being admitted into the secrets of their Lord, through the unction of the Holy Ghost. R. B. Love is the greatest of human affections, and friendship is the noblest and most refined improvement of love. We have here an account of Christ's friendship to his disciples; that is, we have the best of things represented in the greatest of examples. In other men we see the excellency, but in Christ the divinity of friendship. Christ took upon him flesh and blood, that he might have the relenting, the tenderness, and the compassions of human nature, which render it properly capable of friendship; in a word, that he might have our heart, and we have his. He who will give to Christ a faith unfeigned and a sincere obedience to his righteous laws, shall be sure to find love for love, and friendship for friendship. For Christ freely offers his friendship to all, and sets no other rate upon so vast a purchase, but only that we suffer him to be our friend. R. S. 16. The discourse returns again to the figure of the vine and the branches. As the branches do not exist before the vine but the vine before the branches, so it was not the disciples who first chose the Lord but the Lord who first chose the disciples to be his friends: the free, sovereign, gracious gift of his friendship is alone the ground and soil upon which they grow and thrive, and bring forth fruit which remains; because the Father “hears the Son always,” and they are the praying friends of the Son, who therefore are also heard. To go forth, to spread abroad, to increase in joyous growth, as branches fresh and vigorous with life do, and to bring forth fruit that may remain: this it is to which the friends of Jesus Christ are ordained; the apostles, that they bring forth the fruits of apostles; the whole company of Christians, that they may bring forth the fruits of Christians, such as may remain for the eternal harvest and follow them into eternal rest. But then will the saints eagerly throw the crown of their fruit at the feet of that Lord in whose name they went forth, praying and laboring, and to all eternity will thank the Father for so richly granting all the petitions which, as friends of his dear Son, and as taught by the Holy Ghost, they have brought before his throne. In my name. Prayer in the name of Jesus—it is repeated in all the three chapters of this farewell discourse—this is the beginning, the middle, and the end of what we have to do in order to make our calling and election sure; for we as branches are directed to be mere recipients, and every one that asketh receiveth. R. B. 22. They had not had sin.** That is, not the sin which makes all other sin especially sinful and inexorable—the sin of not believing on 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. Luther. 24. The Father’s word which Christ spoke, he confirmed by his Father’s works, which he did—works in which he revealed his glory as the only-begotten Son of the Father, and the love-imbued power of which had so often drawn from the people the acknowledgment of their praise. But the world, which is averse to the love of God, joins together things which to souls susceptible of truth are separated by poles asunder, viz., seeing and hating. R. B. 26. The Spirit of truth shall testify of me.** As the first discourse linked the personal teaching of Christ to the Law and the Prophets which went before it, so the last discourse links that teaching to the dispensation of the Spirit, which is to come after it. The fact on which the first is founded is that the Law of God has been given to men as the guide to righteousness; the fact on which the last is founded is that Jesus himself has now been presented to men as the object of faith. T. D. B. 27. Ye shall bear witness.** Not through suggestions from heaven communicated directly to man in general, nor yet by visibly appearing, will the Holy Ghost testify; but in the hearts and through the mouth of the apostles (“and in fact ye shall bear witness” is the exact reading of the text). And it is no new thing, before unheard of, that he will announce; but he will testify what the apostles have from the beginning seen and heard with Christ, teaching and bringing to their remembrance, and thus opening the word of life to their new and more complete understanding. R. B. When the apostles give their human testimony to Jesus, the Holy Ghost watches over their discourse, guards them from error, purifies, elevates, strengthens their memory, and imparts fitting words; and while each apostle speaks in his own peculiar way, he is yet wholly imbued with the Spirit. Thus, we recognize one and the same word to be at the same time both human and divine; appearing as one, we yet acknowledge it to be two joined together, and the God-man’s twofold nature in one person is mirrored as a twofold, at once divine and human, witness in one and the same word. All that the apostles speak is at the same time divine and human. Löhe. THE hour would come—was not far hence even then—when such words from Jesus would be supremely inspiring. How they must have come up to their minds afresh amid the glories of the great Pentecost! How the witnessing testimonies of that scene must have quenched the fear of the disciples lest their Master’s claims and cause were doomed to go down in dishonor and oblivion! H. C. # Section 145.—Persecution foretold. Office Work of the Spirit. The Guest-Chamber. 1,2. THESE things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will 3 think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they 4 have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have I told you, that when the 5 time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said 6 not unto you at the beginning because I was with you. But now I go my way to him 7 that sent me, and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? But because I have 8 said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the 9 truth: it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will 10 not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, 11 he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, be- 12 cause they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see 13 me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. 14 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, 15 when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not 16 speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew 17 you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew 18 it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall 19 take of mine, and shall shew it unto you. ONE of the chief practical dangers of our life is that we are so apt to contemplate the disorder, mischief, and enormity of sin only from our human point, with only natural and immediate notions of its character and effects, without estimating its deadly antagonism to the holiness of the Almighty, the good of all that live, the integrity and peace of the universe. There never can be a religion of vitality and commanding majesty, where enfeebled conceptions prevail of those two primal and terribly hostile forces—the sovereign holiness of God and the wicked will of man. The depth of that wickedness, the all-pervading taint of ungrateful iniquity, the unreasonableness of disobedience in the child of a Parent so gracious and so good—these are not to be described, nor can any adequate and lively impression of them be made except as the soul is startled and awakened from insensibility by the strong touch of that renewing Spirit, which convinceth of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. The New Testament Scriptures represent him as not only Comforter, but also, and first, Rebuker, Renewer, and Sanctifier. He shall reprove the world. He shall tear up false confidences. He shall plant the stripes and wake the agonies of repentance, that he may be a true healer. He shall rend the guilty shelters of pride and self-complacency to pieces. He shall search secrets, divide joints and marrow—so close and sharp is his work—toss the heart with self-accusing, and then rebuild the whole character on clear, stout, rocky foundations. And this shall be his comforting. This will be the preparation of a peace that cannot be moved—deep, genuine, strong, healthy, lasting—a repentance that needeth never to be repented of. Yes, all our peace is in God, who is not only the strongest, but Almighty. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, the capital and throne of the nation, so the Lord is round about his people. It is at the close of that superb hymn to Omnipotence, in the twenty-ninth Psalm, that we hear the subdued twofold benediction, "The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace." His presence is safety precisely because it is power—the love invincible, the compassion omnipotent. F. D. H. 1-4. These things**—respecting the world's hatred and their defence against it in the spirit of testimony—the Lord told his disciples beforehand, that they might not be offended either at the seeming triumph of the world's power, or at the seeming subjection of Christ's kingdom. R. B.—It is an invincible proof of the truth of the Christian religion, that Christ foretold exactly whatever was to happen both to himself and to his Church; and that his Church, being opposed by all the powers of the world, should yet triumph over them all by the sole strength of the Word and the Spirit of God. Q. 7-15. In these verses, together with chaps. 14 : 16, 17, 28, and 15 : 26, we have from the lips of Jesus a very full and an incomparably precious exposition of the work of the Holy Spirit upon human souls; including his action upon believers and upon the unbelieving world. Comparing the spiritual work respectively of himself here in the flesh with that of the Comforter, he represents the latter as being most effective, most fruitful, and therefore most to be desired by his people. To show how and why this is the case, he adduces—(1) his agency upon unbelievers—men in their sins; and (2) his functions as to believers—guiding them into all truth; imparting such truth as God might send through him; revealing things to come; but especially setting forth in new light all they needed to know of Christ—“receiving of mine and showing it unto you.” (3) By no means least in importance is the fact that the agency of the Spirit has no limitations of place or time. The presence of Jesus in the flesh was of necessity restricted to few—sometimes to the most favored three; usually to the chosen twelve; more rarely to a somewhat enlarged circle of friends, or to a listening group of hearers, yet always under the limitations of one human voice, and of the physical endurance of one living man. But the Spirit is simply omnipresent, and of never waning, never wearied energy, bounded by no limitations of space or time or power. In every land, at every hour, among the countless peoples of the wide earth simultaneously, his work may go forward, only the more effectively as the numbers brought under his influence shall be multiplied. What an accession of power—what an augmentation of forces—is to come from this substitution of the presence of the divine Spirit for the personal presence of Jesus in the flesh! H. C. 7. It is expedient for you that I go away.** The presence of Christ in the flesh had been a help to what they had already learned; it was a hinderance to what they had now to learn. While he sat there before them in the body, it was hard to understand the mystery of a spiritual union. That hinderance is to be removed. T. D. B. In the Being so simple, lowly; in that most gentle companion, that kind, ever accessible friend; who wandered by their sides in the same daily journeys, and retired at night to the same slumbers of exhausted nature; who looked like themselves, was hungry and weary like themselves, wore the same raiment, partook of the same meals; in that intensely real human nature, how almost impossible for them to realize what a transcendent presence was ever near them! Death must dissolve the illusion of familiarity, and gather around the man of Nazareth the mystery and awe of the world unseen, before they could rise to the apprehension of his awful greatness, and see in him at once the Son of man and Son of God. C. The history of the Church, after the ascension of Jesus and the effusion of the Holy Spirit, further explains and confirms these words. Only the once crucified but now risen One; the glorified Son of God, sitting at the right hand of the Father, could have been proclaimed by the apostles as the Lord of a new, eternal, and spiritual kingdom of heaven. Only the conqueror of death—the Son of God returned triumphant to the glory of the Father—could have been announced to the world as the righteous one, the victor over the prince of this world; as he not to believe in whom was sin. G. Comforter. Paraclete. Advocate is more appropriate to the context. It commonly signifies “one who is summoned to the side of another” to aid him in a court of justice, and, more particularly, “an advocate” or “pleader,” not one who “encourages or comforts.” The idea of pleading, arguing, convincing, instructing, convicting, is prominent in every instance in the gospel. The conception is substantially the same as in Rom. 8 : 16, 26. The word “Comforter” does indeed express a true office of the Holy Spirit, as our most heart-felt experiences will tell us; but the function of the Paraclete, as our Advocate, is wider and deeper than this. We see fresh force in the words thus rendered, “He will give you another Advocate,” when we remember that our Lord is styled by John (1 John 2 : 1) our “Advocate,” the advocacy of Christ illustrating and being illustrated by the advocacy of the Spirit. L. We may say that Christ speaks for us; the Holy Ghost speaks to us. It is his business and office to speak the truth home to our hearts. It is God the Father's will that we shall have eternal life; God the Son is given to us, and gives Himself to obtain for us life; God the Holy Ghost takes up his abode with us, as our Advocate, to transfer us into the life thus obtained, and through faith to preserve us in it forever. But if I depart, I will send him unto you. By going thither to the Father—through the suffering of death entering into his glory—the Saviour has obtained the Comforter; and, as the glorified Son of man and the perfected Captain of our salvation, he has received him for redeemed sinners, that he may send him into their hearts. Blessed are the clients of the Holy Ghost, the heavenly Advocate! they are possessed of treasures borne in earthen vessels! R. B. Far more advantageous and desirable is that presence of Christ by which he communicates himself through the grace and power of his Spirit, than if he were present before our eyes. Calvin.—Christ is still among us in himself and by his Spirit; he disappeared from the eye as the condition of descending with new power into the heart. We possess our Lord by a presence more real and more intimate than John enjoyed who “lay in the bosom of Jesus.” “Christ in us, the hope of glory,” abides with power and vitality such as his bodily presence never diffused. W. A. B. Overwhelming as the loss could not but seem, that very loss was soon turned by the power of the Spirit into their inestimable gain. The Master, whom they had lost, they found anew. But they found him, not as a mere man. They found him as God, as the eternal only-begotten Son of God, governing all things with the power of the Father, and at the same time as their Saviour and Redeemer, and as the Redeemer of all mankind. They found him, whom the Jews had crucified, made by God both Lord and Christ. Scarcely less great was the change which took place in their own hearts and souls, in the bent and strength of their characters, and in all their feelings and desires, when the promised Comforter had come to them. The fiery baptism of the day of Pentecost consumed and purged away the dross and weakness of their nature; and they came out as silver refined and purified seven times by the fire. Out of fearfulness, they were made bold; out of blindness, they were enabled to see. Hare. 8. To prove that it is expedient for himself to go and the Spirit to come, Jesus proceeds to state what the Spirit will do: first, as to the ungodly—the “world” in their sins. In general, his work as to sinners is to reprove them; i. e., to enforce conviction as to their sin; to bring the truth that shall convict before their intelligence and make it effective upon the conscience. With remarkable method and consequent clearness, he makes three distinct points as to which he will reprove or convict them; viz.: sin; righteousness; and judgment. Then resuming each point separately, he shows more particularly what the Spirit will do. H. C. Sin, Righteousness, Judgment. To a full, final understanding of these three words, current as they are in all the world, and extant in every conscience, nobody can be brought experientially through any human power or wisdom, nor through any letter of the Word, even though it were a word of Christ or of his apostles. This can only be done by the Spirit, as he acts inwardly on the heart and conscience. Stier.—His power of convincing the world, whether of sin, or of righteousness, or of judgment, is exercised with exclusive reference to the work of the Redeemer. J. A. 8-11. The Holy Ghost will convince the world of sin, and show that unbelief is the ground of sin; and further, will convince the world that Christ as the Holy One ascended to his Father in heaven, perfectly manifesting his righteousness in his death, and in the exaltation to God which followed it. So he will gradually convince the world of judgment; that Satan, so long ruler of the world, has been judged; that evil has lost its sway, and therefore can cause no fear to such as hold communion with Christ. These are the three great elements of the process: the consciousness of sin; of the righteousness of Christ, the Redeemer from sin; of the impotency of evil in opposition to the kingdom of God. And to be conscious of sin; to know Christ as the Holy Redeemer; and the kingdom of God as the conqueror of evil, which shall finally subdue all things to itself: this is the whole essence of Christianity. N. Convince the world of sin. It is true that he hath convinced the world even from the beginning. His striving with the antediluvian world is related in Gen. 6; with the Jews in Is. 1, Heb. 3. Nor has the conversion of a sinner ever taken place without the conviction of the Spirit. But as all his operations in the New Testament were to be more illustrious, so also his convincing of sin. This conviction is much clearer, because the mysteries of salvation are more fully revealed. Lampe.—The Spirit makes sin manifest, not in its outward characters—in this respect the law awakens the knowledge of sin—but in its inward, deep root. Now this is nothing else than unbelief, which we may call the mother of all sinful actions; but unbelief itself is, in its most glaring form, unbelief in the Incarnate Christ. O. To convince a man of sin, by proving to him that it lies at the bottom of all his feelings and blends with all his thoughts; to convince the world of sin, by showing how sin has tainted its heart and flows through all its veins: this is a work which no earthly power can accomplish. No human teacher can do it. Conscience cannot do it. Law, in none of its forms, human or divine, can do it. Nay, the Gospel itself cannot do it. Although the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit, yet, unless the Spirit of God draws forth that sword, it lies powerless in its sheath. Only when the Spirit of God wields it, is it “quick and powerful, a discerner of the thoughts and purposes of the heart.” Hare. Of sin, because they believe not on me. As all sin has its root in unbelief, so the most aggravated form of unbelief is the rejection of Christ. The Spirit, however, in fastening this truth upon the conscience, does not extinguish, but, on the contrary, consummate and intensify, the sense of all other sins. B.—The sin of not believing on Jesus is the capital sin—the one great, comprehensive, all-inclusive sin of ungodly men. All other sins could be forgiven and their power on the heart broken—if the sinner would believe on Jesus. No sin other than this so deeply insults the Lord of glory; no other so cruelly wounds his heart; none other so fatally baffles his efforts for that sinner's salvation, or so surely dooms the unbeliever to remediless woe. Appropriately, therefore, will the Spirit concentrate his efforts to set before every sinner's eye the guilt of not believing on Jesus. H. C. This is a sin which the world till then had never dreamed of as such: and even at this day few take much thought about it, except those who have been convinced of it by the Spirit. The chief part look solely to their sins of commission, mainly to the evil deeds they may have done, then to the evil words they may have spoken, sometimes, it may be, to the evil thoughts and feelings they may have harbored in their hearts. Of sins of omission, very many think little or nothing; though these are far the larger and more numerous half of the two, and no less deadly than the other. They are the more numerous in the very best of us; and as for those, who are not endeavoring earnestly to walk in the law of God and seeking the help of his Spirit, their sins of omission eat up the whole of their lives. The whole of their lives is one black blot, one vast sin of omission, broken here and there by sins of commission flashing through it. [And it is among sins of omission that we find] the great prime sin, of which the Comforter came to convince mankind, the sin of want of faith, the sin of living without God in the world. Seeing that we were so totally estranged from him, that the narrowness of our minds could not recognize him as God, he sent his Son to dwell among us in the form of a man, that we might know him in whom we were to believe. Now, of every form of sin by which men are withheld from believing in Christ, the Comforter came to convince the world. Hare. Thus all our salvation and condemnation depend now upon this, whether we believe in Christ, or not. A judgment has at length gone forth, which closes heaven against all such as have not and will not receive this faith in Christ. For this unbelief retains all sin so that it cannot obtain forgiveness, even as faith removes all sin. Luther. The Comforter, also, did not come to condemn the world but to save the world. In convincing of sin, he has proved that he is indeed the Comforter. If the consciousness of sin arises from any other source, then it is enough to crush us with shame and to harrow us with fears. But when it comes from the Spirit of God, it comes with healing and comfort on its wings. All other conviction of sin would be without hope: here the hope accompanies the conviction, and is one with it. Hare.—The Spirit bears witness so convincingly, in order that he may absolve, convert, and comfort those who will give heed to his reproof. Stier. 10. Of righteousness, because I go to my Father. The Comforter convinces us that Christ, in that he went to his Father, manifested himself to be the Lord our Righteousness; and he leads us to seek to be clothed in the righteousness which Christ has obtained for us. Hare.—Righteousness is God's requirement; but the Holy Ghost reveals the righteousness as actually present in Jesus Christ, the Holy one and the Just, who, through the suffering of death, has gone to his Father, having entered into his glory; and he convinces the world that this righteousness of Christ, which faith has to lay hold of, is alone acceptable and well-pleasing before God. R. B.—In few words Paul teaches how far Christ's going to the Father is our true justification, when he says in Rom. 4, Christ was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification. For going to the Father means, dying and rising again. Brenz. Christ speaks both of his personal, inherent righteousness, and of his communicated, justifying righteousness. That he ascended to the Father is sufficient proof of his own righteousness. That he sheds forth the Spirit, proves the merit of his righteousness: otherwise he could not have given the Spirit in such measure. And that his justifying righteousness is here especially treated of, is apparent from the fact that so many and such great effects are attributed to it in the Scriptures. In the law is revealed the condemning righteousness of God; in the gospel, his justifying righteousness. And this is the great mystery of the gospel, that sinners are justified, not only through divine grace and mercy, but also through divine righteousness, that is, through the righteousness of Christ, who is "Jehovah," and who is "our Righteousness." J. L.—The Holy Ghost convinces the world of righteousness, partly, that it must needs have a righteousness, partly, that it cannot find this righteousness in itself, partly, that it must seek this righteousness in another, namely, in Christ. Stier. Christ's righteousness is also our righteousness, if we will cast away the sin of not believing in him, and receive his righteousness as our own by faith. He is "the Lord our Righteousness." The belief in his righteousness is the means by which we are raised out of our sins and receive justification in the sight of God. Hence these two works of the Comforter, the conviction of our own sins, and the conviction of Christ's righteousness, go one along with the other, and cannot be divorced or parted, neither being accomplishable without the other. Hare. 11. Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.** By supposing that the final judgment is here meant, the point of this clause is quite missed. The statement, "The prince of this world is judged," means, beyond all reasonable doubt, the same as that in chap. 12 : 31, "Now shall the prince of this world be cast out;" and both mean that his dominion over men, or his power to enslave and so to ruin them, is destroyed. The death of Christ "judged" or judicially overthrew him, and he was thereupon "cast out" or expelled from his usurped dominion. B. In that Christ appeared in the world, that he fulfilled the most perfect obedience by his closing sufferings and death, and in that he rose glorified from the dead, he broke down the power of evil; the kingdom of God advanced mightily. By that great act of redemption, the kingdom of evil, and the power of Satan, its ruler, were overthrown. A. T. The destruction of evil is the necessary consequence of the triumph of good, which alone can render it possible. The casting out of Satan (and his angels) from heaven necessarily implied the previous exaltation of Christ, and of his saints with him, from earth to heaven. The judgment is not to be conceived as merely concentrated at the end of the world, but is continually going on through the whole of history, manifesting itself more plainly at times when good comes forward effectively in fuller power. When the disciples drove out evil spirits, our Lord saw therein the fall of Satan from his throne; and when the Gentiles came pressing into the kingdom of God, he declared that Satan was cast out. O. Even the law proclaims to sinners who are found destitute of righteousness before God the judgment of damnation to which they are liable; but the Holy Ghost sets forth this judgment in the case of the prince of this world as already executed; and thereby he convinces the world that the power of their god has been taken from him, and that the only choice which is left to them is, either through faith in Jesus to share in his perfected triumph over the devil, or to share in the fate of their own judged and condemned prince. R. B. Among those who have been convinced by the Holy Spirit both of sin and of righteousness, there are few who are not reminded that another law is still dwelling in their members, warring against the law of God. Most comfortable therefore is the assurance, which the Holy Spirit brings to all such as have a living faith in Christ, and are seeking to put on the righteousness of Christ, that the prince of this world has been judged. . . . They who are truly convinced of judgment, see the prince of this world as he is, in his true shape and features, the heir of eternal wrath, the miserable victim of his own malignity. They see how Christ overcame him—by that sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. They see how all his most fascinating temptations are scattered by the breath of God's holy law. Their eyes are unscaled, so that he can no more deceive them. It will never be sufficient for the establishment of any soul in faith and in righteousness, if the Comforter merely comes to it once to work his conviction in it. Ere long the conviction would grow dim and fade away: nor can this be averted, unless the impression be perpetually renewed by the same divine hand. Our growth in faith is sure to increase our conviction of unbelief and of our need of the ever-present help of the Comforter to overcome that unbelief; and our conviction of Christ's righteousness must needs deepen our conviction of our own unrighteousness, and of our own utter inability to overcome it without the constant aid of the same heavenly ally. Hare. What the Holy Ghost put into the mouth of Peter to declare at Pentecost, was the first-fruits of his arrival; and in that very first discourse he reproves the world, by convincing it, in a manner calculated to excite both deep feeling and shame, of three several things: first, of sin, which reached its culminating point in the rejection of the Saviour; secondly, of righteousness, which God has set forth in the crucified and risen Christ; thirdly, of judgment, which is victoriously executed on that now conquered being who had the power of death (Acts 2). For three thousand souls, this first discourse of the Holy Ghost was a savor unto life; through the righteousness of Christ apprehended by faith they escaped the judgment which they had deserved on account of their sins. R. B. 12. Many things to say, but ye cannot bear them now.** Christ had been instructing his disciples for years, using every opportunity and every incident. The record preserved in the gospels is a very small part of what he spoke, and yet what a store of truth, new to the world, and divine and everlasting in its reach, is contained in it! What a light is cast upon human duty in the Sermon on the Mount, how varied the relations of man's life to his fellow-man and to God as presented in his parables, and what revelations of the love of the Father, and all he intends here and hereafter by the gift of his Son, in this discourse! But after all these revelations, now at the close of his ministry, he has many things to communicate, but his lips are sealed. It is not so much time that is wanting to him, though that too presses, as fitness on the part of his scholars. The teacher is all-wise, but the learners are weak and full of prejudice. The teacher is so wise that he will not give them more than they can well receive. Ker. Well did the Lord know that his poor, sorrowing disciples were not at present able to apprehend and grasp all that is contained in these three things: sin, righteousness, judgment, of which, through them, the Comforter was to convince the world; if he had now interpreted these words to them, and been pleased to lead them deeper into this mystery of atonement and justification, he would have laid upon them a burden too heavy for their understanding to bear. It is in the light of his resurrection and ascension that Jesus will have his crucifixion considered, otherwise it is indeed unendurable. From the throne of the glorified Saviour descends the Comforter, and guides the lovers of truth into the whole truth, by filling them as the Spirit of Truth, and penetrating them more fully from day to day. R. B. 13. "Then will he guide you to the full truth." Thus the meaning is happily expressed by Scholz. Hare.—No promise of universal knowledge, nor of infallibility, is hereby conveyed; but it is a promise to them and to us, that the Holy Spirit shall teach and lead us, making known to us all the truth of God. A.—Speak-hear. Phrases accommodated to man's weakness. "His teachings and guidings shall be those of One who is in the closest union with the Father and the Son." J. C. R. No personality was ever more clearly pronounced, by the appropriate attributes and pronouns, than is that of the Comforter here. F. D. II.—And, we may add, the distinct personality of each one of the Sacred Trinity is inwoven throughout this whole discourse. Apart from this, the words of Jesus are incoherent and without meaning. The Son and the Father are separated, though their identity of spirit and nature is expressly affirmed throughout. So the Holy Ghost is separated from the Father and the Son by distinct personality and functions, while he is declared to proceed from and to possess a vital oneness of nature with both the Father and the Son. J. G. B. (Section 167.) The apostolic life and the apostolic doctrine are the ripe fruits of the Spirit's promised guidance into the whole truth; and in the apostolic writings the Church possesses the divine-human, original record of the whole truth in which the apostles were guided, that by virtue of the clear and perfect light which their witness affords, all believers, to the end of the world, may walk in the same only path of truth. Even in the apostle's discourses in the Acts, and here and there in the apostolic epistles, we see the spirit of prophecy at work; and in the Revelation which John received when in the Spirit, he has fully performed his office, of showing the whole future of the kingdom of Christ. R. B. 14. He shall glorify me. In every part of his three fold work the Comforter glorifies Christ. He convinces us of the sin of not believing in Christ. He convinces us of that righteousness which was made manifest in Christ's going to the Father, and which he bestows on all such as should believe in him. And, in convincing us of judgment, he convinces us that the prince of this world was judged in the life and by the death of Christ. In like manner all the graces which the Spirit bestows are the graces which were manifested in the life of Christ. It is Christ's love that he shows and gives to us, the love through which Christ laid down his life—and Christ's joy in his communion with his Father—and the peace which Christ had when he overcame the world—and the faithfulness of him who is the faithful witness—and the gentleness with which Christ took little children in his arms—and Christ's meekness in never answering again—and the temperance of Christ, who made it his meat and drink to do the will of his Father. All these graces the Spirit of God desires to give to all who believe in Christ Jesus. Hare. Of mine shall show unto you. The saving substance of every thing that the Spirit, as instructor, shows, is Christ. Everything of which he convinces the world, and everything that he makes known to believers in his office of guide into all truth, has for its end and aim the glorification of Christ in the world and within the hearts of believers. The Father glorified the Son in heaven, when he exalted him to the right hand of his majesty; the Holy Ghost glorifies him upon earth, by preparing for him a throne, through the blessed gospel, in the hearts of redeemed and converted sinners. Hereby is any spirit known to be the instrument of the Holy Ghost, by acknowledging the glory of the Lord Jesus and exalting his praise (1 John 4 : 2). R. B. This 14th verse is decisive against all additions and pretended revelations, subsequent to and beside Christ; it being the work of the Spirit to testify to the things of Christ, and not to anything new or beyond Him. A.—The 15th verse shows the entire unity between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the revelation of truth made to man. J. C. R. If in this, the Lord's parting discourse, the mystery of the Holy Trinity, which is the root and crown of all God's mysteries, is more clearly set forth than in any other discourse which John has preserved, let us remember that this very discourse has for its text, "Let not your heart be troubled!" Not for vain and fruitless speculation has this mystery been confided to us, but for our joy and peace in believing, and for the hope of enjoying it in heavenly light. R. B. # Section 146.—Last Discourse: “Ask in My Name.” The Guest-Chamber. 16. A LITTLE while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see 17 me, because I go to the Father. Then said some of his disciples among themselves, What 18 is this that he saith unto us, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little 19 while, and ye shall see me: and, Because I go to the Father? They said therefore, 19 What is this that he saith, A little while? We cannot tell what he saith. Now Jesus 20 knew that they were desirous to ask him, and said unto them, Do ye inquire among 21 yourselves of that I said, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, 20 and ye shall see me? Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but 21 the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into 22 joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as 23 soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that 24 a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you 23 again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. And in that 24 day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask 25 the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my 26 name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. 27 These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh when I shall 28 no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father. At 29 that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father 30 for you: for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed 31 that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: 32 again, I leave the world, and go to the Father. His disciples said unto him, Lo, now 33 speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest 34 all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou 35 camest forth from God. Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour 36 cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall 37 leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things 38 I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have 39 tribulation, but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world. EVEN our saintliest saints only partially apprehend the joy and benefit of their position. We profess to believe Christ has overcome the world, and that we have a right to be of good cheer because he has overcome it, and then straightway we go and act and speak as if the gloomy burden rested on us of overcoming it unaided, ourselves. The very consolation of his assurance is that he has overcome it. It is a fact wrought. It is a triumph accomplished. Yet look on the nominal Christians, catch the half-faithless and complaining tones of unreconciled mourners, read the despair on the cheerless faces of so many avowed disciples, and who would ever dream we were the heirs of a glorious liberty obtained, and the children of a day whose morning beams, as they mounted the sky, were the banners of an everlasting victory? Fellow-Christians, we have not yet to find out the secret of redeeming the world to God. God so loved the world that he gave his Son. He has baffled evil by his prayers, trodden it under the feet of his virtue, and rebuked it by his word, and nailed it to his cross. What is for us is to take with living gratitude the divinely-offered gift, to clothe ourselves in his purity, to lean our sorrows on his breast, to come unto him—the Way, the Truth, the Life. Yes, fourfold as his saving offices for us are—living as example, enlightening as teacher, dying as redeemer, rising as advocate and intercessor—fourfold must our acceptance be—following the guide, obeying the word, moved to penitence and faith by the cross, kindled to holy praise by the hopes of the resurrection. F. D. H. 16. The seeing which Jesus promises to his disciples (and to all Christians) is grounded on this, that his leaving them is not so much a going away, as a going to the Father: “Because,” he says, “I go unto the Father.” If Jesus did not go to the Father and enter into the Father’s glory, the Comforter could not glorify him as the risen Prince of Life—as him who should remain with his disciples in the word and sacrament forever, until he shall come again in outward manifestation, “in like manner as the disciples saw him ascend into heaven.” Whereas now, with eyes enlightened by the Spirit, we behold his glory; like Stephen, we gaze into heaven, opened to our view by virtue of the departure thither of our great High-Priest. R. B. 20-22. Ye have sorrow, ye shall rejoice.** They would have a few most desolate days, bereaved, bewildered, trembling for their own lives, borne down with sadness in the loss of such a friend, shocked with the sudden sinking of such hopes as they had still cherished in the promised King of Israel, coming to set up something they thought of as a kingdom. This rush of the waves of sorrow Jesus foresaw, and therefore gave them these words among the very last—to be recalled in the bitterness of that anguish. H. C. 22. The glorious fruit which should spring from that sorrow, the Lord describes in the threefold word, “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” When the disciples beheld the risen One, they were indeed glad; yet the seeing was rather on the Lord’s side than on the apostles!—I, he says, will see you again. There was something yet wanting to make their joy perfect, for as yet they only gazed at him timidly and with fear. When they saw him ascend into heaven, then, and not till then, did they touch him as he desires to be touched, with earnest adoring hands: then their heart rejoiced with a great, a living joy; and their joy in their ascended Lord was heightened into an inexhaustible power when the Comforter, the Spirit of joy, came and in their hearts put his seal upon the word, “Your joy no man taketh from you.” Ever since the coming of the Comforter, a one continuing day of Pentecost has been going on, nor will it end until the Lord’s visible coming again; therefore it is proper for us to take to ourselves the power of this precious promise, that no man—not the devil, not the world, not the weakness of the flesh—shall ever take our joy from us. Our sorrow is the remnant of our sins and of our sinfulness, which Christ has atoned for, and that remnant lessens daily; but our joy is the foretaste of the blessed eternity which Christ has prepared for us, and that joy progresses onward, waxing daily toward perfection. R. B. Which is the stronger, even while we wander here, sorrow or joy? Is not the joy from above, is not the sorrow from beneath? Is not that which is from above stronger than that which is from beneath? Which of the two may, which will, which should, take place?—the sorrow embitter the joy, or the joy sweeten the sorrow? The joy is the stronger! This we may know if we fashion our life more into conformity with Christ’s life, if we feel that this life is a going away to the Father and the Son. If life is only judged of according to our success in worldly business, according to the possession of perishable joy, or honor, or property; if we are earthly-minded, then, indeed, sorrow and suffering must be the mightier. But if we do not seek in the world for the aim and object of our life; if we have cast our anchor behind the veil which conceals eternity from us; if we only live for eternal joys, and strive after them alone, then our life takes quite another form—it then becomes a sojourning, a wandering, a pilgrimage; the suffering of life becomes a conflict, only exciting a stronger longing after eternal things; and the diligent care to enter in thither into the eternal rest of the saints, and not to fall short of it, maintains in us a spirit of joyous, unflagging endeavor, even to the grave. Everything depends upon our living forward, upon our seeing our happiness in life eternal, upon our recognizing the fact, that to come to the Lord, to behold him, to be glorified like him, to be ruled over by him, and to rule with him—that for this we were born, for this we live, for this we die. Löhe. 24. The Spirit of Christ draws near to us without any fettering condition, and without any restraining measure, even as the gospel does. It is his special work to exhibit the abundant freeness and riches of the gospel of Christ, to unfold and analyze it that we may see it in its manifold beauty. And the promise of the Spirit by Christ is followed by this command, “Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” Ker. Unrestrained freedom of question had been the law of their life under their great Teacher. Their words fell on his earthly ear; his replying words fell on theirs. But after his ascension this form of asking Jesus must cease, and instead of it must come praying to the invisible Father in the name of that Jesus whom henceforward they must think of as having passed into the heavens, and evermore making intercession for his people there. They might ask the Father in heaven as freely as they ever had the Son on earth. H. C.—Henceforth ask everything in my name, and through my mediation ask fully and confidently, and you shall receive abundantly. So asking, you shall find the joy of your own souls filled up. J. C. R. To pray in the name of Jesus is, first, so to pray that the person of the supplicant shall be represented by him; secondly, so to pray that his Spirit shall suggest to the supplicant what he shall pray for; thirdly, so to pray that his cause and honor shall be the supplicant’s principal concern. R. B. What the heart is to the living man, that prayer is to the soul; what rest is to the weary, what joy to the mourner, what gold to the needy, what strength to the weak, what the breath and blood to the life—all that, to the troubled soul, is prayer. Sweet incense, precious in God’s sight, it enlightens the mind, nourishes confidence and hope, kindles love, increases humility, begets in the supplicant’s mind a renunciation of earthly things, and renders strong and lively his desire for things heavenly; prayer produces unspeakable enjoyment, and crowns with supreme power; for even the angels honor the supplicant who, in Jesus’ name, calls upon the holy, almighty God. Gerhard. 25. All things that the risen and ascended One shows plainly, without the veil of parables, to his disciples, from that first word which Mary Magdalene heard from his lips and carried to his brethren, to the very last word which the Spirit saith unto the churches—all are the Son’s showing of the Father; i. e., that the Father of Jesus Christ may be known as the true Father of all who are in Christ, and Christ in them. R. B. 26. At that day. It was not clearly and fully known that Jesus Christ was the Mediator between God and man, and that everything was to be asked and granted in his name, till after he had shed his blood, opened heaven, and sent down the Holy Spirit upon his Church, and till so many gifts of that Spirit, and so many miracles wrought by the apostles, had appeared in the world. Q. 27. That day, the New Testament day of joy, is at once a day of knowledge and a day of prayer. Plainly does the Spirit of Christ show to the children of the new covenant the mystery of God’s paternal love; and plainly in return do they pray to the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. To this filial freedom will the Lord fain allure his disciples when he tells them, that in his name, on account of his finished eternal redemption, they would have open and free access to the Father, and might joyfully, without fear, rest assured of the Father’s love: “for the Father himself loveth you.” R. B. 28. I came from the Father: I go to the Father. The first part only of this statement the disciples believed; the second they did not yet understand; but Jesus puts both together as the two halves of one whole truth, either of which necessarily implies the other. The declaration sums up the history of Christ; it is the substance of the Christian faith; it asserts doctrines utterly incompatible with a merely human view of Christ’s person, and makes his divinity the fundamental article of the creed. A. B. B. Threefold is the way through which Christ passed for the salvation of the children of men: the way of love, when moved by surpassing love he descended from heaven to earth, and became man; the way of obedience, when, for us, he was obedient to his Father, even to the death of the cross; the way of glory, when, after having accomplished his mission, he ascended into heaven and returned to his Father. Gerhard.—When Christ came forth from the Father, he so came into the world as never to leave the Father; and he so left the world and went unto the Father as never to leave the world. Aug. 29. Now speakest thou plainly. Hardly more so than before; the time for perfect plainness was not yet come, but having caught a glimpse of his meaning (it was nothing more), they eagerly express their satisfaction. B.—30. He had so interpreted their inmost thoughts and feelings, that they were fully convinced that their hearts were open to his view. His words from verse 19 had been so pertinent to the difficulties with which their minds had been perplexed, that it was as though their thoughts had been exposed to him. J. J. O. 33. The aim of the whole discourse had been to impart to the minds of the disciples a spring of divine comfort amid their struggles with a hostile world for the advancement of the kingdom of God. He closed it with a few words of farewell, embracing its whole scope. N.—For the benefit of his disciples who now believe, as well as for that of his whole Church which shall believe unto the end—the Lord sums up in these words all that he has been saying to his disciples during these parting hours. Those who have tribulation in the world shall have peace in him, a peace which makes us be of good cheer in the midst of trouble, for it is grounded in him who has overcome the world. In this peace, which the Lord bequeaths to his disciples as his peace, is contained the whole fulness of the Christian’s life: the man who possesses this peace brings forth fruit in love, and he has fulness of joy. Peace in faith, fruit in love, perfect satisfaction in joy: these are the blessings which the Comforter makes over to the Church of Christ; while he makes the life of the already glorified Son of man to be the life of men who are to be glorified. Herein is contained the sum of the whole of the Lord’s consolatory discourse to his disciples. R. B. The grand fact is that Christ’s victory is the victory of his followers, and insures that they too shall conquer. Jesus fought his battle, not as a private person, but as a representative man. And all are welcome to claim the benefits of his victory—the pardon of sin, power to resist the evil one, admission into his everlasting kingdom. Because Christ has overcome, we may say to all, Be of good cheer. A. B. B. When the spiritual life of the disciples, sunken for a moment, emerged again after the resurrection of their Master, how brilliantly must the image of these last discourses have shone forth from the depths of their memories and their hearts! How precious must each word have been to them! With what intense interest must they have turned them over and dwelt upon their import! And how clear, in the light of their experience of the fulfilment of his predictions, must many things have appeared that were before obscure! N. And thus this series of conversations, of unparalleled significance, of inexpressible sweetness—precious above all other words that ever fell from those sacred lips—came to its close. It only remained to Jesus to pour out his full soul in prayer—prayer for the men he loved most tenderly; for men whose pending perils he foresaw clearly; whose moral frailties lay vividly before him, and whose need of help from above he therefore saw to be exceedingly great and demanding. H. C. THE ATTITUDE OF CHRIST TOWARD MEN.—No mere man could take the same attitude of supremacy toward the race, and inherent affinity or oneness with God, without fatally shocking the confidence of the world by his effrontery. Imagine a human nature saying to the world, “I came forth from the Father”—“ye are 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, the life;” publishing to all people 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.” Was there ever a man that dared put himself on the world in such pretensions?—as if all light was in him, as if to follow him and be worthy of him was to be the conclusive or chief excellence of mankind! Nor is there anything disputable in these pretensions, least of all, any trace of myth or fabulous tradition. They enter into the very web of his ministry, so that if they are extracted and nothing left transcending mere humanity, nothing at all is left. Indeed, there is a tacit assumption, continually maintained, that far exceeds the range of these formal pretensions. He says, “I and the Father that sent me!” What figure would a man present in such language—I and the Father? He goes even beyond this, and, apparently without any thought of excess or presumption, classing himself with the Infinite Majesty in a common plural, he says, “We will come unto him and make our abode with him.” Imagine any, the greatest and holiest of mankind, any prophet or apostle, saying We of himself and the Great Jehovah! What a conception did he give us concerning himself when he assumed the necessity of such information as this, “My Father is greater than I;” and above all, when he calls himself, as he often does in a tone of condescension, “the Son of man.” See him also on the top of Olivet, looking down on the guilty city and weeping words of compassion like these, “How often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” See him also in the Supper, instituting a rite of remembrance for himself, a scorned, outcast man, and saying, “This is my body—this do in remembrance of me.” For eighteen hundred years these prodigious assumptions have been published and preached to a world that is quick to lay hold of conceit, and yet, during all this time, whole nations of people have paid their homage to the name of Jesus, detecting never any disagreement between his merits and his pretensions, offended never by any thought of his extravagance. His worth is seen to be so great, his authority so high, his spirit so celestial, that instead of being offended by his pretensions, we take the impression of one in whom it is even a condescension to breathe our air. H. B. # Section 147.—The Prayer for His Own. The Guest-Chamber. 1. THESE words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour 2 is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. 3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ 4 whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work 5 which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. 6 I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: 7 thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they 8 have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee: for I have given unto them the words 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 9 me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given 10 me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified 11 in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, 12 that they may be one, as we are. 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 might be fulfilled. THIS Intercessory Prayer of the Lord carries the mind and the heart of one who reverently ponders it to the ultimate point of spiritual contemplation attainable on earth. It is wholly impossible—inconceiv- able, even—that it should have been imagined and cunningly framed by a human author. It implies the perfect Mediatorial consciousness of which it is the consistent idiomatic utterance. It manifests, in words lucid as sunbeams, the fraternal, prophetic, and kingly spirit of him who is one with his followers on earth, and one equally with the infinite Father, whom he at once addresses and reveals. The tone of it is not of a suppliant pleading, but of a companion expressing his desires. He discerns the needs of which those for whom he intercedes are not yet aware. With divine insight, to which measures of time are noth- ing, he anticipates the whole development and progress, the long struggle and the final achievement, of his kingdom in the world. The glory which he has had is present in his thoughts. The glory which he shall have, and in which his disciples shall be partakers, is as palpable before him. His feet are still upon the earth, and ready to tread with unfaltering steps the Via Dolorosa. But his head is already crowned as he prays with the sun-bright splendor which John saw afterward in the Apocalypse. More plainly than in miracle, law, instruction, he stands before us in this prayer, the Divine Person, who has entered into man's nature to redeem it, and has sought the earth that we may seek, with assured hope, his native and reëntered heaven. How wonderful that operation of the Spirit on the mind of the Evangelist which recalled to him after- ward, with faithful fulness, these self-demonstrating and inimitable words! How overwhelming that mystery of anguish which directly afterward wrung from the same supreme soul that prayer in the garden, when "his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground!" How inspiring the thought that the same intercession goes on above, and never ceases, for the Church which still is so feeble in faith, for the disciples of our own day, whose love is so languid, whose fears are so great, whose needs so many! R. S. S. WITH the words, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world," the Lord closed his farewell discourse to his disciples. To the fulness of consolation, which in this discourse he has bequeathed to his Church, his love would yet add another jewel; and he spoke aloud the emotions which in this hour, while interceding before his Father, moved his high-priestly heart. To heaven ascends the voice of prayer from the only-begotten Son, who, in his brethren's flesh, overcomes the world and goes to the Father, that he may bestow upon them the glory which the Father has given to him. There is a sense in which believers, who have once for all entered into sonship with God, are daily in need of Christ's intercession. This is the intercession which the great High-Priest here offers to the Father, for the keeping and perfecting of his apostles, and of his whole Church, which, to the inexhaustible comfort of his people, he carries on still in heaven, and which is really and powerfully effectual. Melanchthon, whose last lecture, shortly before his death, was on this passage, thus extols its glory: "There is no voice which has ever been heard, either in heaven or in earth, more exalted, more holy, more fruitful, more sublime, than this prayer offered up by the Son of God himself." R. B. First, Christ prays for himself, asking for his glorification, because he is the corner-stone of the Church, and because out of his merits alone descends to us every spiritual and heavenly blessing. Then he prays for the apostles, the ordained teachers of all the world, who in the word of the gospel were to offer to mankind those treasures of salvation which Christ has obtained for us; on which account they are called the foundation of the Church, upon which all other believers are built. Lastly, he prays for the whole Church, whose members believe on him through the apostles' word. Gerhard. Even in his prayer for his own glorification, the Lord acted as our high-priest; since it is for us, as our Jesus, that he has been glorified with the glory which, as the eternal Word, the Creator of every creature, he had with the Father before the world was. But presently in express terms he presents his own people (the apostles, and in them, also, all true disciples) to the Father in his name, and prays for them. R. B. 1. Lifted his eyes to heaven. Not his hands, for he prays not as a suppliant—but as an intercessor and high-priest, standing between earth and heaven. Father.** Not our Father, which he never could say: nor my Father, which would be too great a separation between himself and his people for such a prayer; but simply FATHER: that great name in which all the mystery of Redemption is summed up. A. The hour is come. The hour long anticipated, most eventful, toward which my whole earthly life has looked and all its labors have been shaped—this great hour of crisis, of issues, of consummation—of trial, pain, arrest, torture, conflict with Satan, death, resurrection, ascension, triumph, eternal glory—how do the grand issues of my earthly mission culminate upon this momentous hour! H. C.—The hour is come! How much this expresses! filial obedience, filial intimacy, filial hope and joy. The hour! It is the hour for which he has patiently waited, to which he has looked forward, yet has never sought to hurry on; the hour appointed by his Father, about which Father and Son have always had an understanding, and of which none but they have any knowledge. A. B. B. Glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee! A proof that the Son is equal to the Father as touching his Godhood, for what creature could stand before his Creator and utter them? Stier.—The glorifying of the Father is the whole great result of the Son's glorification by the Father—the manifestation of God to and in men by the Son through the Spirit. 2. All flesh.** The whole creation is given by the Father to Christ: is his to rule and to judge by virtue of his being in the root of that human nature, to which sovereignty over the world was given, the second and righteous Adam. But in this wide gift, there is a more special gift—"as many as thou hast given him"—in the stricter sense, the chosen, they who believe on him. And to them, and them only, he imparts the further ineffable gift consequent on union with him—eternal life! A. 3. That they might know thee.** If God shall be known as a God merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin, he must come forth in person, show us his glory, cause all his goodness to pass before, and proclaim his name, "Jehovah! Jehovah! God merciful and gracious!" This God has done, but ever by the person and the word of his only-begotten Son. He alone hath declared him. The Jehovah of the olden time was therefore the Son of God. The Jesus of the latter time was proclaimed at Jordan the Son of God. The Lord Jehovah, and the Lord Jesus, one and the same, is the radiance of the glory, the character of the person, of God. You who will know God seek him in his Son. Behold him walking as the angel Jehovah in the ancient Church, behold him walking as the Christ in the midst of his disciples. God is not other than you see him here; God is just what you see him here. There is no hidden element of the divine nature slumbering in the Father in heaven while other elements are manifest in Jesus Christ. Mysteriously, yet most really, is the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father. J. T. D. Life eternal. That “life eternal” which he is to give to believers, is not merely to know that Jehovah is the one true God and that Jesus is his Son; but to know them as such. It signifies that what is thus known of God and of his Son is wrought into the very life of the soul; develops the spirit of loving obedience, and the simple trust of faith—so that thus knowing God intelligently, they become in spirit and life his children. H. C.—The knowledge spoken of is that living realization of knowledge, that oneness in will with God, and partaking of his nature, which is itself life eternal: the knowledge, love, enjoyment of him who is infinite, being themselves infinite. A. Jesus Christ. This is the only place where our Lord gives himself this compound name, afterward so current in apostolic preaching and writing. Here the terms are used in their strict signification: “JESUS,” because he “saves his people from their sins;” “CHRIST,” as anointed with the measureless fulness of the Holy Ghost for the exercise of his saving offices. Whom thou hast sent. In the plenitude of divine authority and power, to save. B.—The very juxtaposition here of Jesus Christ with the Father is a proof, by implication, of our Lord’s Godhead. The knowledge of God and a creature could not be eternal life, and such an association of the one with the other would be inconceivable. 4. The work. Not only the ministerial life of our Lord, but the whole life with all its appointed manifestations of humility and purity, and his prophetic and declarative office, terminated by his passion and death. A. 5. Glorify thou me. The “I thee” and “Thou me” are so placed in the original, each beside its fellow, as to show that a perfect reciprocity of services of the Son to the Father first, and then of the Father to the Son in return, is what our Lord means here to express. B.—With the glory which I had with thee.** Jesus seems to stand in thought at the point of consummation, where he looks upon the period of his humiliation as closing, and lifts up his prayer for the glory that lay beyond. Bring me home to that glory in which I dwelt with thee in the eternal ages before this world’s creation, that coequal dignity and glory in which I dwelt from eternity with thee. It would seem that in this prayer the divine—not the human—consciousness is in the foreground—the word “I” in the phrase “which I had with thee” representing the eternal Word, who was from the beginning “with God.” H. C. This prayer expresses the consciousness that Jesus had of himself as an incarnation, and of his eternal preëxistence with the Father. He does not say the glory that I received from thee, by promise, at my coming into the world, but the glory which I had with thine own self, in a unity of participation with the Godhead before the world was. “He always was having it, was in possession of it; he never began to have it” (Bengel). In this utterance, surely, he made himself God. J. P. T.—The same Person who had with the Father glory before the world, also glorified the Father in the world, and prays to be again received into that glory: a decisive proof of the unity of the Person of Christ, in his three estates of eternal preëxistence in glory, humiliation in the flesh, and glorification in the resurrection-body. A. 6. Thy name.** From the cradle to the grave, from Jordan to the brook Kedron, from the Mount of Transfiguration to the fatal hill of Golgotha, the whole of Christ’s life, his sufferings and his death—ay, and afterward his resurrection—are nothing but the most clear and most blessed revelation of the name of God by which he will be called by us. We see and hear nothing but his goodness and glory in which he passes before us, and in his own person, in the highest possible degree his own, with hands uplifted to bless, he proclaims to us his name, that he is merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and of great goodness and truth. Löhe. Which thou gavest. The Father gave them to Christ by leading them to Christ. A.—All true believers may fairly take comfort in the thought, that they were known and cared for and given to Christ by an eternal covenant, long before they knew Christ cared for them. It is an unspeakable comfort to remember that Christ cares for that which the Father has given him. J. C. R.—And every worshipper of God, in spirit and in truth, can urge whatever concern weighs upon his mind as God’s own affair, and on that ground appeal to the honor of his name. Rieger. 8. I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me.** On the truth of this saying stands the whole fabric of creeds and doctrines. It is the ground of authority to the preacher, of assurance to the believer, of existence to the Church. It is the source from which the perpetual stream of Christian teaching flows. All our testimonies, instructions, exhortations, derive their first origin and continuous power from the fact that the Father has given to the Son, the Son has given to the servants, the words of truth and life. . . . There is no part of the later and larger New Testament doctrine which has not its germs and principles in the words which he spake in the days of his flesh. And it is made clear by his own promises beforehand, and by the distinct assertions of the men whom he employs, that, when his own voice has ceased on earth, it is nevertheless he who teaches still. T. D. B. 9. It is one of several minute coincidences (unavoidably obliterated in the English version) which show how uniformly our Lord claimed his divine origin, that whereas he used the word aito, of all other prayers to God—being the word used of petitions to one who is superior—the word he uses to describe his own prayers is eroto, which is (strictly speaking) the request of an equal from an equal. F. 10. Literally, all my things are thine, and thy things are mine. Absolute community of property between the Father and the Son is here expressed as nakedly as words can do it. B. 11. Keep those thou hast given me.** Even when filled with the assurance of resuming his glory, he remembers the ties of earthly friendship and of spiritual communion that bind him to his disciples; and, while his eyes are lifted up to heaven, his heart is twined about those who are to be left alone. Nothing short of his own glory will suffice him as a benediction upon them. J. P. T. 12. But the son of perdition.** "But" is here an "adversative," not an "exceptive" word. "Out of those thou gavest me, not one is lost. But there is one who is lost, even Judas, the son of perdition." J. C. R. ## Section 148.—Prayer for their Sanctification and Oneness. The Guest-Chamber. 13. And now come I to thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they might have 14 my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated 15 them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them 16, 17 from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify 18 them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even 19 so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. 20 Neither pray I for these alone; but for them also which shall believe on me through 21 their word: that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that 22 they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them; that they may be one, even as we 23 are one; 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. 24 Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the 25 foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee; but I 26 have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. 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. THIS heavenly discourse and prayer have been the treasure of his people in every age, sounding to us like the silver bells on the high-priest's garment, which told the people without that he was still living, and interceding for them within the vali. When we would have our hearts warmed to the memorial of the death of Christ, let us think of the thoughts that then glowed around it, and that breathe of the very incense which he offers for us now in the golden censer before the throne. If we come to his cross and table with sincere faith, we have our interest in his never-dying advocacy, and we abide all our days under the shadow of those arms that were outstretched upon the cross to suffer, and that are now lifted up on the throne to plead for us. How strong may we not feel in all our conflicts on the plain, while such a Prophet is praying for us on the mount! The humblest look upward to the pure and true—the feeblest cry for aid in the battle against sin—finds a face to represent it, and a voice to speak for it before the throne of God. Only let your look and cry be true, however weak, and you can claim all the aid that the prayer of Christ insures, and rejoice in the thought that such aid is almighty. Ker. GOD has done more than manifest himself in Jesus Christ. He has done more than place upon the earth and before men his own living image, the type of sanctity and the model of life. Jesus Christ is not only God made man to spread the divine light upon men; he is God made man to conquer and efface in man moral evil, the fruit of the sin of man. He brings not only light and law, but pardon and salvation. And it is at the price of his own suffering that he brings these to them. He is the type of self-devotion at the same time as of sanctity. He has submitted to be a victim in order to be a saviour. The incarnation leads to the cross, and the cross to the redemption. And what other spectacle than that of God made man to constitute himself victim—made victim to become the Saviour—could have excited in the soul of mankind those outbursts of admiration, of respect and love, that ardent, invincible, and contagious faith of which the apostles and primitive Christians have left us the evidences and the example? It was requisite that the victim and the sacrifice should be equal to the work. That work was the Christian religion, that incomparable system of facts, dogmas, precepts, promises, which in the midst of doubts and controversies has for nineteen centuries afforded satisfaction and solution to all natural human aspirations. F. G. 15. To be kept in the world implies three things—to be engaged in its business, to suffer under its trials, to be exposed to its temptations and sins. To be kept from evil in the world means, to be engaged in the world's business and have it rightly directed; to suffer under its trials and to be preserved from impatience; to be exposed to its temptations, and preserved from falling into sin. This should mark a Christian man in the world, that he should have a deeper view of what is to be aimed at in character, of what is meant by being kept from evil. It is not to be preserved from misfortune, or sickness, or reproach, or bereavement, but from sin. Let us fear nothing so much as sin; and feel that our life can aim at a true and noble end only when it breathes the air of this prayer of Christ. Ker. The means we are to use that we may be kept of God from evil, Christ plainly intimates in verses 14 and 17: thy word. So the psalmist: "Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee." J. G. B. 16. Repetitions in real earnest prayer are warranted by Christ's example—here and afterward. It is vain repetitions, repeating the same words without thought or feeling, against which he warns. J. C. R. 17,19. Sanctify them through thy truth. Sanctify myself. The word sanctify carries the meaning which unites the two uses, of consecration to God. In them, this setting apart for him was a gradual process to be accomplished by the deeper drinking in of the truth, by the blows of affliction, and the purifying fire of the Spirit; in them it was strictly sanctification, or the making holy. But in him it was that pure and entire self-consecration by his submission to the Father's will, the entire possession of his sinless humanity with the living, speaking truth of God, which should be the efficient cause of their sanctification and their pattern. A. As the former prayer, "Keep them," was negative, asking protection for them from the poisonous element which surrounded and pressed upon their renewed nature, so this prayer, "Sanctify them," is positive, asking the advancement and completion of their begun sanctification. Through (or in) thy truth—God's revealed truth, as the medium or element of sanctification. B. The true law of every life is consecration to God; therefore Christ says, I consecrate myself; else he had not been a man in God's idea of manhood—for the idea of man which God had been for ages laboring to give through a consecrated tribe and a consecrated nation to the world, was the idea of a being whose life-law is sacrifice, every act and every thought being devoted to God. Accordingly, this is the view which Christ himself gave of his own divine humanity. For their sakes I sanctify, i. e., consecrate or devote myself. F. W. R. The priest of the new covenant thus offers to God, in his person, the whole of that new humanity which he represents in his sacrifice. De P.—For all his Church, and for every member of it, Jesus set himself apart, and consecrated himself at once as a priest to offer an efficacious sacrifice, and as a victim, chosen of God, yet self-doomed and self-consecrated, to be offered on the altar of the divine righteousness. What the apostle calls the "giving of himself for us," seems to be precisely what our Lord here calls "sanctifying himself;" and the sanctifying of his people, which he here represents as the ultimate end of his sanctifying of himself, appears to include all that the apostle describes by "redeeming them from all iniquity, and purifying to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." T. Smith. 20,21. That they all may be one in us. The indwelling Spirit of the Father and the Son is the one perfect bond of union, knitting into a living unity, first, all believers among themselves; next, this unity into one still higher, with the Father and the Son. (Observe, that Christ never mixes himself up with his disciples as he associates himself with the Father, but says, "I in them and they in us.") That the world may believe. The grand impression upon the world at large, that the mission of Christ is divine, is to be made by the unity of his disciples. The Spirit of Christ, illuminating, transforming, and reigning in the hearts of the genuine disciples of Christ, drawing them to each other as members of one family, and prompting them to loving coöperation for the good of the world—this is what, when sufficiently glowing and extended, shall force conviction upon the world that Christianity is divine. Doubtless the more that differences among Christians disappear—the more they can agree even in minor matters—the impression upon the world may be expected to be greater. But it is not dependent upon this; for living and loving oneness in Christ is sometimes more touchingly seen even amid and in spite of minor differences, than where no such differences exist to try the strength of their deeper unity. Yet it is when “the Spirit shall be poured upon us from on high,” as a Spirit of truth and love, and upon all parts of the Christian territory alike, melting down differences and heart-burnings, kindling astonishment and shame at past unfruitfulness, drawing forth longings of catholic affection, and yearnings over a world lying in wickedness, embodying themselves in palpable forms and active measures—it is then that we may expect the effect here announced to be produced, and then it will be irresistible. Should not Christians ponder these things? “should not the same mind be in them which was also in Christ Jesus” about this matter? should not his prayer be theirs? B. 22. What glory is it which Christ has, and which he gives to us? It is this which he has just before said, that they all may be one, as the Father and I are one. This is the real, true mine of all divine blessings, of life, comfort, blessedness—if only we could believe it! But faith is not an idle, lazy thought—it is a living, earnest, comforting, and undoubting confidence of the heart in this excellent glory of ours, whereby we are made one thing with Christ, and through him with the Father also; so that just as little as Christ can be torn or separated from the Father, just so little is it possible that the Christian Church, and each individual member thereof, can be divided from him. Luther. 24. Hear this mighty word: I will, the Saviour says; not, I pray. This was the counsel adopted between the Father and the Son in the depths of eternity; this was the high end of the incarnation and death of the great Surety, that sinners should be saved. Therefore the Saviour says, This is my will, for thou hast loved me before the world was. In the relation of love which exists between me and thee in the inmost being of the Godhead, the salvation of sinners now rests as a right; therefore I will it! Thus the Saviour, in his prayer, looks into the depths of eternity both backward and forward. Thus his intercession reaches on into the time when the Shepherd will feed his sheep in heavenly pastures, and lead them forth beside the waters of eternal life. They shall behold his glory! Hoffacker. They may behold. The open beholding which shall be coincident with our being changed into his perfect image. To behold is to see and partake—the very case supposes it. No mere spectator could see this glory. The most glorious part of this sight will be to behold the whole mystery of redemption unfolded in the glory of Christ’s person. A. With me where I am. Heaven will be to be with him, forever—with him in a deeper and larger and more perfect sense than we ever can be here; having a deeper knowledge of him than is possible here, a clearer sight, a closer and more actual communion, larger receptions of his Spirit. Heaven will be to see more, and more constantly, the wonderful richness of his character; its tenderness and grandeur, its purity and holiness, its glory and beauty. Heaven will be to comprehend more entirely what it was that he did for us when he so loved us as to give himself for us; and what the suffering and the sin were from which his sinless suffering saved us. Heaven will be to be made like him, fashioned into that mysterious and most excellent living image. “We know not what we shall be, but we know that we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Heaven is not, then, a mere appendage or supplement to this life. It is rather the perfecting and widening out of that life of Christ within the disciple, or of the disciple’s life with him—whichever way we express it, for it is really both—only in conditions of greater freedom and power. Once united in living sympathies and affections with him, so that we live for the same holy and blessed things for which he lives, heaven comes of course. F. D. H. 25. For each one there is nothing more establishing to spiritual peace than to be able to repeat after his Saviour, Righteous Father—i. e., to be able to see that the death of his flesh, the life of his Spirit, the abolishing of sin, the service of the living God, the appointment which separates us from the world and its pleasure, but gives us in return the glory of being heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ—to be able cordially to embrace the conviction that it is all of it founded on the righteousness of God. Rieger. 25,26. This incomparable prayer of consecration for his own, and for all mankind, is closed with the words, “O Holy Father, the world hath not known thee (lost in sin, it cannot know the Holy One); but I have known thee (the Holy One knows the Holy One); and these have known that thou hast sent me (they are, therefore, separated from the world of sin, which is estranged from the Holy God); and I have declared unto them thy name (have revealed unto them thee, not only as the Holy God, but as the Holy Father, with whom they stand in childlike communion), and will declare it further (all that had been revealed was but the germ of subsequent developments); that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them (that as they know thee more and more through the revelations of my Spirit, they may, in communion with me, learn more and more how thou lovest me and those that belong to me)." N. How sublimely this prayer was realized in the history of the apostles, the Acts and the epistles abundantly illustrate. It was their common glory to believe that nothing could separate them from the love of God in Christ, that he, by his Spirit, was with them, and that they overcame all that opposed, through his help. The contrast between the dejected, faint-hearted, materializing Galilean fishermen and peasants of the gospels, and the heroic, spiritual confessors of Pentecost and after-times, is itself a miracle, great beyond all others. The illumination of soul, the grandeur of conception, the loftiness of aim, are a transformation as complete as the change from early twilight to noon; and find their only solution in the miraculous spiritual enlightenment from above which Jesus had promised to send them. G. With this lofty thought the Redeemer closes his prayer for his disciples, and in them for his Church through all ages. He has compressed into the last moments given him for conversation with his own the most sublime and glorious sentiments ever uttered by mortal lips. But hardly has the sound of the last word died away, when he passes with the disciples over the brook Cedron to Gethsemane—and the bitter conflict draws on. The seed of the new world must be sown in death, that thence life may spring up. O. L. 1 Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover. And it M. 1 came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said unto his disciples, Ye 2 know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified. 3 Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, 4 unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and consulted and sought 5 how they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him. But they said, Not on the feast-day, lest there be an uproar among the people; for they feared the people. L. 3 Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve. 4 And he went his way unto the chief priests and captains, and communed with them how 5 he might betray him unto them. And when they heard it, they were glad, and promised to give him money. And he said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver 6 him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And he promised, and from that time sought opportunity how he might conveniently betray him unto them in the absence of the multitude. Mk. 12 Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed, the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare 13 for thee, that thou mayest eat the passover? And he sendeth forth two of his disciples, Peter and John, and saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water; follow him 14 into the house where he entereth in. And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the good man of the house: the Master saith unto thee, My time is at hand, I will keep the passover at thy house; where is the guest-chamber where I shall eat the passover with 15 my disciples? And he will shew you a large upper room furnished and prepared: there 16 make ready for us. And his disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found as he had said unto them: and, as Jesus had appointed, they made ready the passover. SCARCELY had Jesus commenced his work, when covetousness lifted itself up against him; it everywhere intruded upon his path; it disputed every step that he took. It misunderstood and forsook him, in the person of the rich young man; it excited his holy anger in the person of the sellers in the temple; it hated him; it railed at him; it persecuted him in the person of the Pharisees; and in the person of Judas it tithed the fruit of his charity for the poor; it begrudged the honor destined to his burial; it betrayed him, it delivered him up, it sold him. Oh, prophetic crime, which casts a sad light upon the future of the Church of Jesus Christ! This same crime of him, who for thirty pieces of silver sold the blood of the Son of God, is the very crime which will show itself most active in depriving men of the ineffable benefit of this shed blood; for covetousness will oppose equally the salvation of the individual, the fidelity of the Church, and the conversion of the world. A. M. M. 1. 2. Jesus sat down upon the Mount of Olives, over against the temple; and as the shadows of evening deepened in the valley of Kedron, he addressed to his wondering disciples the prophecies and parables preserved in the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of Matthew's gospel. It was after he had finished all these sayings that he said to his disciples, "Ye know that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified." He had previously in his discourse been dealing with a broad and distant future, been sketching the world's history, describing its close—giving no dates, leaving much as to the sequence of events shadowy and undefined. Now he turns to a nearer future, to an event that was to happen to himself; and in terms free of all indistinctness he announces that the day after the next he would be betrayed, and afterward crucified. H. L. 3. Then entered Satan. But not yet in the full sense. The awful stages of it were these: 1. Covetousness being his master-passion, the Lord let it reveal itself and gather strength by intrusting him with "the bag," as treasurer to himself and the twelve. 2. In the discharge of that sacred trust he became "a thief," appropriating its contents from time to time to his own use. Satan, seeing this door into his heart standing wide open, determines to enter by it, but cautiously; first merely "putting it into his heart to betray him," suggesting the thought to him that by this means he might enrich himself. 3. This thought was probably converted into a settled purpose by what took place in Simon's house at Bethany. 4. Starting back perhaps, or mercifully held back, for some time, the determination to carry it into immediate effect was not consummated till, sitting at the Paschal supper, "Satan entered into him," and conscience, effectually stifled, only rose again to be his tormentor. B. 5. Thirty pieces of silver.** The price of a slave that had been slain (Ex. 21 : 32). Thus the prophecy was fulfilled in which it had been particularly specified (Zech. 11 : 12, 13). The sum was equivalent to about fifteen dollars. D. 6. For a man to accuse Christ of nothing and not to complain of him while he betrays him, is to justify Him and to condemn himself. He who nourishes any passion in his heart is in great danger of delivering up Christ to his enemies upon every temptation. When a man hopes for anything from the world, he ought to fear everything from himself. Q.—The life of man furnishes many analogies that may help to clear up the enigmatical conduct of Judas. He who does not follow the impulses of good which he receives, but gives himself up to the selfish propensities which those impulses are meant to counteract, becomes finally and irrecoverably enslaved to them; all things that ought to work together for his good serve for his harm; the healing balm becomes for him a poison. This is the severe judgment upon which our free agency is conditioned; and to it may we apply the saying of our Lord: "From him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath." N. In the absence of the multitude. The Jews, having an opportunity of seizing Jesus privately in the night, determined to have him examined by the high-priest and condemned by the Roman governor early in the morning, before the people came together. Therefore Judas sought opportunity to betray him in the absence of the multitude. W. G. Mk. 12. The 15th of Nisan was the first day of the feast. But, as all leaven was scrupulously removed about noon on the 14th, in preparation for the feast, it was not unnatural to call this "the day," or as Matthew and Mark have it, "the first day of unleavened bread." So Josephus, in one place, makes the 14th of Nisan the first day of the feast, which he elsewhere fixes to the 15th; and he assigns eight days as its duration. S. (See variant opinion of Robinson: Section 155, J. 14.) 13. Sendeth forth Peter and John.** In sending them before the others, he could easily have indicated where the room was in which they were to meet in the evening. Instead of this he gives them a sign which was to conduct them to it. This way of ordering it, whatever was its real purpose, served effectually to conceal from the others the locality of the guest-chamber, and may have been meant to keep the traitor in the mean time in ignorance. H. —A man bearing a pitcher of water. To bring home water is part of woman's work, in the East. So singular would be the sight of a man thus engaged, that our Saviour here gives it as a sign to his disciples, that a man should meet them bearing water, as though in all the throng not more than a single instance of the kind would occur. N. C. B. 14. "Where is the guest-chamber where I shall eat the Passover?" the Master saith. It is a personal question, a proposal to the inner life of us all. It is an offer of the one infinite divine blessing, for, in receiving the Master, Christ, the Son of Mary and the Son of God, we receive all the real good there is in earth and heaven. There seems to be in this question just that twofold sound of invitation and authority, offer and command, which is always to be found in the word of the Saviour when he proposes to take up his abode in any of our hearts. He offers to come in if we will suffer him; for the act must be free. He commands us to suffer him, because he has a right there; and though faith holds the key, we cannot keep him out without disobedience to him, and guilt and misery following. This is what our Christian life—part a task and part a delight, part duty and part privilege, part drudging and part festival, part of law and part of grace—must always include, the proportions of the service of obligation and the service of joy constantly varying, according as we have more or less of the Master's own spirit, and live nearer to him. F. D. H. ## Section 137.—The Passover Meal. Washes the Disciples' Feet. The Guest-Chamber. J. 55 AND the Jews' passover was nigh at hand: and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves. Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the temple, What think ye, that he will not come up to the feast? 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. 1. Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. There they made him a supper in the house of Simon the leper, and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. Then, as he sat at meat, came Mary unto him, having an alabaster box with a pound of ointment of spikenard, very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head; and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with 4 her hair; and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then saith one of 5 his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, Why was not this 6 ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what Mk. 4 was put therein. And there were some disciples that had indignation within them- 5 selves, and said, To what purpose is this waste? for this ointment might have been 6 sold for much, and given to the poor; and they murmured against her. When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Let her alone: why trouble ye the woman? for she 7 hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor with you always, and when- 8 soever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always. She hath done what she could: for in that she hath kept this ointment and poured it on my body, she is 9 come aforehand to anoint it for my burial. Verily, I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that this woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her. J. 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 10 dead. But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death; 11 because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus. THE inspiration of a loving heart has the gift of prophecy. Its insight is foresight, because it is taught of God. And what a rebuke to those who would bring down everything that is lovely and of good report to the hard utilitarian measurement, and, in the pretended interest of fruit, would strike off all the spontaneous blossoms of Christian affection! Ker.—The Lord's eye beheld more in this anoint- ing than Mary could understand. She had done what she could; she had deposited her whole love in this sacrifice of anointing, but in holy simplicity she had done more than she knew. This is our Saviour's manner; thus does he interpret the love of his disciples. Let us only do what we can, and then will he do what we cannot do; if we put into our doing all that we can, then will he put therein what far exceeds our power and thoughts. "In the works of the children of God there are often hidden myste- ries which they themselves understand not," says an experienced Christian. How shall we marvel, when in the light of eternity we review our earthly course; when for the first time we shall fully under- stand all that God meant by what he led us to do through his Spirit! R. B. J. 55. Many went, to purify themselves. Thousands of devout Jews came anxiously before the Passover to be made ceremonially clean and fit for the feast. All strict Jews were careful to go through ceremonial washings, purifications, and atonements, before eating the Passover. J. C. R. —57. That was not to be allowed to come to pass which his enemies were planning to effect, that they should bring him by force to Jerusalem; instead of that, he was to enter in triumph, and that too as Zion's King, on Palm-Sunday. "Not on the feast- day," they afterward said; but, nevertheless, the hour for the presenting of the sacrifice, full of grace and truth, was ordained to be on the great feast of deliverance. R. B. 2. Made him a supper.** All our human- ity, with all its possible moods and conditions, is somehow included and mastered and interpreted by him. He goes with us in our recreation as well as in the funeral procession; he sits in the full circle of health at festivals, as well as with the mourner by the new-made grave, or amidst the fragments of ruined plans; he comes to Bethany when the three there are well, not only when Lazarus is dead. All the rooms of our houses are for him, to come in and abide, as well as the chambers of sickness or of the laying out of the dead. F. D. H. Martha served. The natural temperament of this good woman comes out here as elsewhere. She could not sit still and do nothing while her Lord was in her house. She must be actively stirring and trying to do something. Grace does not take away our peculiar characteristics. J. C. R.— This, with what is afterward said of Mary's way of honoring her Lord, is so true to the character in which those two women appear in L. 10: 38-42, as  Bethany. to constitute one of the strongest confirmations of the truth of both narratives. B. 3. Mary was not occupied like her sister in the active ministrations of the feast, but she sat and thought and gazed until the fire burned, and she felt impelled to some outward sign of her love, her gratitude, her adoration. So she arose and fetched an alabaster vase of Indian spikenard, and came softly behind Jesus where he sat, and broke the alabaster in her hands, and poured the precious perfume first over his head, then over his feet, and then—unconscious of every presence save his alone—she wiped those feet with the long tresses of her hair, while the atmosphere of the whole house was filled with the fragrance. It was an act of devoted sacrifice; and the poor Galileans who followed Jesus, so little accustomed to any luxury, so fully alive to the costly nature of the gift, might well have been amazed that it should have all been lavished on the rich luxury of one brief moment. None but the most spiritual-hearted there could feel that the delicate odor which breathed through the perfumed house might be to God a sweet-smelling savor; that even this was infinitely too little to satisfy the love of her who gave, or the dignity of him to whom the gift was given. F. Poured it on his head. This act, however strange to us, was perfectly conformable to the customs of ancient times, not only in Asia, but in the more polished parts of Europe; and, among the Jews particularly, the custom of anointing the head seems to have been almost as common a custom as that of washing the face. P.—Kingly guest at royal banquet could not have had a costlier homage of the kind rendered to him. That Mary had in her possession so rich a treasure may be accepted as one of the many signs that her family was one of the wealthiest in the village. That she now took and spent the whole of it upon Jesus, was but a final expression of the fulness and the intensity of her devotion. 4. Judas Iscariot. Love so ardent, sacrifice so costly as that of Mary, he could not appreciate. He disliked it, condemned it; it threw such a reproach by contrast upon his own feeling and conduct to Christ. H.—6. Cared for the poor. The true friends of the poor, who give most and do most for them, will always be found among those who do most for Christ. It is the successors of Mary of Bethany, and not of Judas Iscariot, who really “care for the poor.” A thief, and had the bag.** Than the love of money, no besetting sin seems more thoroughly to wither up and harden the heart. No wonder it is called “the root of all evil.” J. C. R.—A dreadful thing is this love of money! It disables both eyes and ears, and makes man worse to deal with than a wild beast, allowing him to consider neither conscience, nor friendship, nor fellowship, nor salvation. Chrys.—Christ trusts a thief with his money, because he sets no value upon it; but he keeps souls in his own custody, and redeems them with his blood, because, having received them of his Father, he values them more than all the world besides. He suffers his money to be stolen from him, but never his sheep. Q. Mk. 6. “She hath done a good work,” he said —“one not only far from censure, but worthy of all praise. She hath done it unto me, done it out of pure, deep love—a love that will bring the best, the costliest thing she has, and think it no waste, but rather its fittest, worthiest application, to bestow it upon me.” Upon that ground alone, upon his individual claims as compared with all others, Jesus might well have rested his vindication of Mary’s act. It does not require that we should assign to her any preeminence of faith. It was the intensity of the personal attachment to Jesus that her act expressed which drew down upon it the encomium of the Lord. H.—On Me, the Lord says; because “on Him,” therefore Mary’s work had its goodness and beauty, as all good works. Love to Christ is the rich source and the living soul of every other love which reckons as such before God. R. B. The inherent grace and beauty of the act forbade any direct reproof; and so jealousy meanly suggests that the precious perfume might have been better sold, the price given to the poor, and this woman have rendered her demonstrations of gratitude in some more “practical” or active way. The answer of Jesus not only rebukes the littleness which these censures betrayed, but it instructively vindicates the woman’s cordial, unstudied sacrifice; and not hers only, but the offerings of humble loyalty and silent love to him in all time and over all the earth. It is the acceptance, by the Son of God, of lowly and retiring goodness. It is the legitimation and approval of all hearty gifts to the Master, by the Master’s voice. It is the eternal benediction of the gospel on despised fidelity and neglected love. . . . We ought not to forget that God may have, that he asks, that he requires of us that there shall be, servants of his love as self-denying, as heroic, as resolute, of whom hospital never knew and poetry never sang, right here in these homely houses and these prosaic streets. And to all that sit at his feet and follow in his steps in the spirit of her who poured the fragrant offering on his head, he is ready to speak the same benediction with his infinite love—hiding in it the sure promise of life everlasting. F. D. H. 7. The poor with you always, but not me.** The Bible is such a friend to the poor, such an enemy of luxury, prodigality, and mere bodily gratification, that it seems an unnatural thing to have, even in appearance, Judas taking the side of the poor, and Christ standing in their way. But the position of the parties has a deep truth underlying it. Judas the thief takes the side of poverty that he may plunder it; and Christ, who became poor that he might make many rich, teaches that there are more ways of doing good than almsgiving. All heavenly charity is not bound up in bags of flour. “Not that he cared for the poor,” is the truth about the one; “because he cared for the poor,” is the motive of the other. Try to measure the amount of bread which would have been provided by the three hundred pence with the fragrance that has exhaled from this woman’s deed into millions of weary hearts among the poorest of the poor. Ker. 8. If Judas could yet have been saved, the Lord’s patience and gentleness must have brought him on his knees before him. There he stood, his whole heart before Jesus laid bare. And the Lord does not thrust him out, does not upbraid him with being a hypocrite and a thief, and presently about to become a murderer. He only knocks gently at the door of his heart with the foretelling of his death. It is as if he had said to him: “Mary has made me ready for my burial; and thou, Judas—how canst thou will to make me ready for death?” Judas could bear unmoved the Lord’s look, and he went out to betray him. R. B. She hath done what she could. The whole spiritual meaning of gifts consists in the disposition of the giver. Distinctions of weight and measure, standards of value, calculations of outlay, vanish before that simple and royal touchstone in the breast. Christ’s eye falls, not on the box of ointment, but it falls on Mary’s secret, inmost soul. That being sound, all is sound. She believes, she trusts, she loves; therefore “she hath done what she could.” Out of that deep and rooted affection all manner of obedient fruits must grow, in time, as surely as love is the willing servant of the beloved. To anoint it for my burial. Her gift, he seems to add, is an unconscious embalming before my agony. These most sacred impulses of divine reverence are greater than any common almsgivings. Let each have its due. Whoso loveth me will love my poor, and serve them in the time and place. Let the heart be fastened personally on me as a living Redeemer, and Christian duties will soon fall into their order, and abound. F. D. H.—“For my burying”—clearly, therefore, his condemnation and burial were near at hand. This was another death-blow to all false Messianic hopes. No earthly wealth, no regal elevation could be looked for by the followers of one who was so soon to die. F. 9. Jesus is surrounded by men looking joyously forward to days and years of success and triumph. But he knows what they do not—that on that day week his body will be lying in the new-made sepulchre. And he accepts the anointing at Mary’s hand as preparing his body for the burial. With serene eye he looks down into the future, and abroad over the earth, and speaks of it as a thing of certainty that this gospel—the gospel of glad tidings of salvation in his name—was to be preached throughout the whole world. H.—We cannot but be struck with the majesty of this prophetic announcement; conveying by implication the whole mystery of the gospel which should go forth from his death as its source—looking forward to the end of time when it shall have been preached in the whole world—and specifying the fact that this deed should be recorded wherever it should be preached. A.—While the victories of many kings and generals are lost in silence, and many who have founded states and reduced nations to subjection are not known by reputation or by name, the pouring of ointment by this woman is celebrated throughout the whole world. Time hath passed away, but the memory of the deed she did hath not waned away. Chrys.—Fourteen hundred years have passed and gone since in the great church of St. Sophia at Constantinople Chrysostom uttered these words, but still wider and wider is the tale of Mary's anointing of her Master being told, the fragrance of the ointment spreading, yet losing nothing of its sweetness; such fresh vitality, such self-preserving power, lodging in a simple act of pure and fervid love. H. J. 9, 10. Lazarus is mentioned throughout the incident as forming an element in the unfolding of the hatred of the Jews which issued in the Lord's death. Notice the climax, from mere connecting mention in verse 1, then nearer connection, verse 2, to his being the cause of the Jews flocking to Bethany in verse 9, and the joint object with Jesus of the enmity of the chief priests in verse 10. A. 11. Believed on Jesus.** An intellectual conviction that Jesus must be the Messiah. This was the state of mind in which many hundreds of Jews were before the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the day of Pentecost, convinced but not converted, persuaded that Jesus was the Christ of God, but afraid to confess him. Hence on the day of Pentecost many hundreds of Peter's hearers were prepared to believe. J. C. R.—What served further to nurture in the breasts of the high-priests, the lawyers, and the Pharisees the design to put Jesus to death, appears in the transaction of the following day, viz., the entrance into Jerusalem. Accordingly, in the incidents of these first two days of the great week we perceive the human cause of the sufferings and death of Jesus. C. B. ## Section 118.—Public Entry into Jerusalem. J. 1 Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. L. 14 And in the evening when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles 15 with him. And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with 16 you before I suffer. For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be 17 fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, 18 Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come. 24 And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the 25 greatest. And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over 26 them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is 27 chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth. J. 2 And supper being ended (the devil having now put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, 3 Simon's son, to betray him); Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his 4 hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; he riseth from supper, and 5 laid aside his garments, and took a towel, and girded himself. After that, he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the 6 towel wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith 7 unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I 8 do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part 9 with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands, and 10 my head. Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but 11 is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him: therefore said he, Ye are not all clean. 12 So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down 13 again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master, and 14. Lord; and ye say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your 15 feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that 16 ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not 17 greater than his Lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. HUMAN characters are always reduced in their eminence, and the impressions of awe they have raised, by a closer and more complete acquaintance. But it was not so with Christ. With his disciples, in closest terms of intercourse, for three whole years; their brother, friend, teacher, monitor, guest, fellow-traveller; seen by them under all the conditions of public ministry, and private society, he is yet visibly raising their sense of his degree and quality; becoming a greater wonder and holier mystery, and gathering to his person feelings of reverence and awe, at once more general and more sacred. And it will be discovered in all the disciples, that Christ is more separated from them, and holds them in deeper awe, the closer he comes to them and the more perfectly they know him. He grows sacred, peculiar, wonderful, divine, as acquaintance reveals him. At first he is only a man, as the senses report him to be; knowledge, observation, familiarity, raise him into the God-man. And exactly this appears in the history, without any token of art, or even apparent consciousness that it does appear—appears because it is true. H. B. J. 1. He loved them unto the end. It was when he drew near the end that our Lord's love was most severely tested. But, in the most trying circumstances, to the end he said and did everything to maintain and strengthen the confidence of all who had once trusted in him. He interested himself, too, in their condition to the end. In all that he suffered, our Lord could not have been adjudged selfish if it had occupied his thoughts almost to the exclusion of the dangers that surrounded his followers, since he suffered voluntarily in their behalf; but they had his counsel and sympathy and prayers as freely as if he had not been the first to suffer—as if they alone had anything to dread. When assailants, led by Judas, came upon him again after falling backward to the ground in his presence, he was ready to surrender himself, but not his afflicted brethren: "Let these go their way." When a great company followed him on his way to the crucifixion with their lamentations, he turned to them with more pity for their doom than dread of his own. So also he bore with the inconstancy of his disciples to the end. Often indeed they had stood in need of his forbearance, and in all his treatment of them on such occasions he showed himself a lenient Master; but as the end drew near they wavered most in their allegiance. If ever their devotion could be grateful to his heart, it was not when the multitude crowded about him with wonder and applause, but rather when he prayed alone in agony and then was treacherously kissed and arrested; yet it was in the conclusion of that very scene, when he was finally in the hands of malignant foes, that "all the disciples forsook him and fled." But he did not forsake them. When Peter thrice denied him, the Master, who had before rebuked his rash violence, only turned and looked upon him, and his silent love broke down the fear and pride of that follower, who now wept the more bitterly because Jesus loved him to the end. But the love that endured so long survived the end, and in itself was without end. It could not die on the cross, nor be stifled in the sepulchre. It rose with him; and again he associated with them, inspired them with new confidence, concerned himself with their wants, and bore with their folly, as in the case of Thomas. And the same love was drawn up to heaven as he ascended, thence to "drop as the rain" and "distil as the dew" upon them, till they ascended to enjoy it unutterably in their abode with him in paradise. To this hour he has never ceased to love his own. He loves them "from everlasting to everlasting." O. E. D.—The few hours that intervened between the end of Christ's public ministry and his arrest were devoted to instructing and comforting his disciples in view of his approaching departure, and the severe conflicts they were to undergo. In these conversations he displayed all his heavenly love and calmness of soul; his loftiness and his humility. N.—From first to last, his love was a self-forgetting love, even upon the cross; his love was to the very last a Saviour's love. Instead of thinking of his own sufferings, he thought of the guilt of others. A. T. L. 14. The supper began with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, which, when the Master and the rest of the company had tasted, one of the younger persons present—generally a child—asked the reason of what was peculiar in that feast, which introduced the haggadah, that is, the showing forth or declaration of it (in allusion to which we read of showing forth the Lord's death). Then the Master rose up and took another cup, and washed his hands again before the lamb was tasted; and in this interval it is supposed Christ also washed the feet of his disciples. Then, after eating the Passover, followed another cup, which (after having delivered to each a piece of bread) was the sacramental cup at this supper. Then, after some discourse, the whole family, having drunk at least a fourth cup, sang some psalms of praise; and so the solemnity ended. A. 15. This passover.** Among all the types the Passover holds the foremost place, floating down through the old dispensation to tell of its greatest deliverance, as the Communion has come down to us to tell of the great redemption of the new. It was now about to resign its charge, for it had served its purpose. It had stirred, year by year, the ashes of memory in the Jewish heart, and kindled them into the flame of hope—had taught men to look for a greater prophet than Moses, and to long for a higher salvation than the freedom from Egypt. And now, with this last Passover, it has come. The foreshadowed sufferings of that ancient covenant all meet in his cross, and its promised blessings all flow from it. He is the victim and the offerer, the Passover and the Moses; he endures and does, suffers and saves. He passed through a deeper than Egypt's darkness—was baptized with the baptism of blood—was the slain lamb, and stricken first-born for our sins. He led his chosen to the sea which barred the way, and stretched over it his delivering cross, and it opened, and a way was made through the deep for the ransomed of the Lord to pass over. He is the heavenly manna—the water and the smitten rock—the pillar of defence and light—the ark of the covenant that dries up Jordan's stream—the tree of life that scatters its healing leaves and sheds its fruit through all the goodly land. The divine history of the past now completes its cycle, and this last Passover begins to speak the word of the cross—"It is finished." Before I suffer! They seem strange words from such lips—from him who had already earned his title to be "the man of sorrows"—who had passed through privation and reproach and grief, and who seems to count all these as nothing to that which lay before him. It is because he is standing on the verge of Gethsemane, and beneath the shadow of his cross, and such words, "before I suffer," tell us that there was an agony of endurance in view which was to cast into the shade all that laid behind him. It is this suffering that makes the death of Christ the centre of gospel truth, and that brings us together to remember him who was bruised for our iniquities. Ker.—Clear before the Saviour's eye were all the scenes of the impending midnight hour in the garden, the next forenoon in the judgment-hall, the afternoon upon the cross. A few quiet hours lay between him and his entrance into the cloud. He wished to spend those hours with his apostles, to take his last leave of them, to give his farewell instructions to them. He had never before partaken of the Passover with them. He desired to do it this once. He knew that this was virtually the last Jewish Passover: that with the offering up of himself in the great sacrifice of the following day that long line of Passover celebrations that had run now through fifteen hundred years, down from the night in Egypt when the first-born were slain, was to be brought to its close. He knew that all which this rite prefigured was then to be fulfilled, and that that fulfilment was to issue in the erection of a spiritual kingdom, in which other kind of tables were to be spread, and other kind of wine to be drunk. H. 16. Will not eat. 18. Will not drink. A declaration of the fulfilment of the Passover rite in both its usual divisions—the eating of the lamb, and drinking the cup of thanksgiving. Henceforward he who fulfilled the law for man will no more eat and drink of it. 17. The cup.** This is generally supposed to have been the first cup in the Passover meal, with which the whole was introduced. It has no reference to the subsequent cup in verse 20 (Section 140). That was the institution of a new rite; this, the abrogation of an old one, now about to be fulfilled in the person of the true Lamb of God. A.—"It is to be your last as well as mine, until the kingdom of God come" (verse 18). It was the point of transition between two economies and their two great festivals, the one about to close forever, the other immediately to open and run its majestic career until from earth it be transferred to heaven. B.—Henceforth the Levitical sacrifice was to cease, being transfigured into an evangelical sacrament. W. 24. Spring up how it might, we have the fact that around the first communion-table among the apostles, in the presence of their Master, in the critical and solemn position in which he and they stood, there was actually a quarrel about their individual rights and privileges; a petty ambition, the love of place and power, finding its way into the hearts of those most honored of the Lord, entering to defile the most sacred season and solemnity. H.—This was not the first time that the followers of the meek and lowly one had striven for the highest place. It is a fearful proof of the strong hold which ambition has upon the human heart, that the disciples, after a two years' training in the school of humility, had yet made so little progress, that at such an hour as this they could feel disposed to begin quarrelling about precedence. R. B.—It showed how little, as yet, even these his chosen followers had entered into the meaning of his life. It showed that, even now, they had wholly failed to understand his many and earnest warnings as to the nature of his kingdom, and the certainty of his fate. Not by mere verbal reproof, but by an act more profoundly significant and touching, he determined to teach to them, and to all who love him, a nobler lesson. F.—Our Lord showed the greatest kindness in his manner of correcting their false ideas. Having stated the difference between his kingdom and worldly ones, exaltation among his followers depending on their humility, he proposes to them his own example during his intercourse with them, and enforces his words by a most eminent act of humility in washing their feet, a condescension which he exhorts them to imitate in their general conduct toward each other. Newcome. J. 2. Being ended. Rather having begun. P. S.—The devil put into the heart. Literally “cast.” The heart is the seed-plot which Satan sows. Suggestion is one of his chief weapons. The sin of man consists in opening his heart to the suggestion; giving it a place and letting it sink down. This is obvious in the first temptation in Eden. J. C. R.—3. Jesus came from God, not leaving him, and went to God, not leaving us. Bernard.—4. Riseth from supper. He rose from the supper-table before the repast had fully commenced. The guests had taken their half-recumbent positions around the table in the usual Oriental style, reclining upon the left side, resting on the elbow, leaving the right hand free for service in eating, and with feet extended outward. H. C. (See p. 182.) 5. The master of the house had relinquished for the strangers the best apartment of his dwelling, and furnished it as well as he could. He saw that in the room the necessary apparatus for the washing, the basin and the water and the towel, were all provided, but he left it to the guests themselves to see that it was done. But which of the twelve will do it for the others? H.—He into whose hands the Father had given all things, with those same hands washes, not the hands, but the feet of his disciples. Aug.—Verily, the heart of man never could have imagined such a scene! All that the world can show that is great and high vanishes into nothing before this lowliness. R. B.—In this act Jesus became a servant of servants to his disciples. He showed that to serve was the business of his life, and in his view was not to his shame but to his glory. It was an example to illustrate a principle. All that his example meant then, it means now. The real service which the law of Christ demands of us is not abated by the least jot or tittle in consequence of the change in social customs which renders it improper now to wash one another’s feet. It were more than a misfortune to lose the sweet power of this divine example; it were worse than a blunder to miss its precious influence toward the crucifying of human selfishness and the culture of Christian humility and of loving service toward all the Christian brotherhood. H. C. 7. Not now, but hereafter.** God’s ways may appear inscrutable, and indeed must be so, for life on the earth is but a beginning and a fragment, a beginning to find its end, and a fragment to be made whole, in the all-revealing life beyond the grave. But looking at our life, in the light shed upon it by Christ’s, and meekly receiving what God sends in submission and hope, we will be learning more and more now, and all hereafter. The teaching of the Spirit, it is enough to say, becomes the providence of the Christian. It is of less consequence for him to know what betides him, than to have the assurances begotten of the Spirit, that come what may, God will fit him for it, carry him through it, and make it, in the end, the best possible experience for him. If one have but the meekness to pray, to do, and to wait, the issue cannot be otherwise than happy. God’s word and Spirit are our warrant. The world is God’s, and its heirs are God’s people. W. I. B. 8,9. If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.** This at last carries the disciple away, for whither should he go if he were to have no part with him who was his life? Vehement as he was in refusing, he is now still more vehement in submitting. He answers in the language of devoted love—love which, though inconsiderate, is yet perfect love. R. B.—“If to be washed of Thee have such significance, then not my feet only, but hands, head, and all, be washed!” This artless expression of clinging attachment to Jesus, and felt dependence upon him for his whole spiritual well-being, furnishes such evidence of historic verity as no thoroughly honest mind can resist. 10. He that is washed—in this thorough sense, to express which the word is carefully changed to one meaning to wash as in a bath: needeth not—to be so washed any more: save to wash his feet—needeth to do no more than wash his feet (and here the former word is resumed, meaning to wash the hands or feet): but is clean every whit—or, “as a whole.” This sentence is singularly instructive. Of the two cleansings, the one points to that which takes place at the commencement of the Christian life, embracing complete absolution from sin as a guilty state, and entire deliverance from it as a polluted life, or, in the language of theology, justification and regeneration. This cleansing is effected once for all, and is never repeated. The other cleansing, described as that of “the feet,” is such as one walking from a bath quite cleansed still needs, in consequence of his contact with the earth. It is the daily cleansing which we are taught to seek, when in the spirit of adoption we say, “Our Father which art in heaven—forgive us our debts.” B.—And where we make this confession, then he who washed his disciples’ feet is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Aug.—When burdened with the sense of manifold shortcomings, as what tender spirit of a Christian is not? is it not a relief to be permitted thus to wash our feet after a day’s contact with the earth? This is not to call in question the completeness of our past justification. Our Lord, while graciously insisting on washing Peter’s feet, refuses to extend the cleansing farther, that the symbolical instruction intended to be conveyed might not be marred. And ye are clean—in the first and whole sense: but not all**—important, as showing that Judas, instead of being as true-hearted a disciple as the rest at first, and merely falling away afterward—as many represent it—never experienced that cleansing at all which made the others what they were. B.—Concerning this twofold purification: that which is once performed through justification, and that which takes place daily through sanctification, the Lord speaks also in John 15: 2, 3. He says: “Now ye are clean,” and yet at the same time “he purgeth them.” R. B. 14–17. He their Lord and Master had washed their feet. He had done it to teach them humility, to teach them self-denial, to teach them love: blessed they if they learned the lesson! He should be chief among them who, for the sake of others, gladly laid on himself the lowliest burdens, and sought for himself the humblest services. Again and again he warned them that they were not to look for earthly reward or earthly prosperity; the throne, and the table, and the kingdom, and the many mansions were not of earth. F.—His own act stands before us, not as a model act to be exactly copied, but as an act representative to us of the whole circle of kindly offices that we are called upon to render to one another, and as illustrative of the humble, self-denying spirit in which all these offices should be discharged. H.—Whoever serves his brother in self-denying love is obeying this command of the Lord, in whatever way he may be called upon to do it, whether it be by washing his feet, or whether it be by filling his hand, or whether it be by drying from his eyes the tears, or whether it be by watching and praying for his soul. It is not what we do, so much as the mind with which we do. And this the disciples and the first Christians, who glowed with brotherly love, well knew. They drew from this feet-washing no literal law, but have sought to enter into the spirit of him who, Lord over all, yet dwelt among his own as a servant, to whom no lowliness was so lowly that the height of his love did not stoop down thereunto. Jesus’ serving love was writing in their hearts this fundamental principle in the kingdom of God, namely, that every office, even the highest, the apostolic office, is appointed to serve. How easy this to learn, but how difficult to do! “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” R. B. All our noblest enlargements of power and of peace are sacrificial: there is something hard to do, or hard to bear—human nature being what it is. But the yoke is eased if by it you help other men. Learn to love the brotherhood. Hate nothing so much as hatred—dropping every grudge and every revenge, every bitter or cruel vestige of the old satanic life out of your heart, forgiving even them that will not forgive. Live fairly and generously with men. God makes the path of obedience to himself to be the path of honesty and sweet temper and loving-kindness to his children. Let thine eyes look right on, and thine eyelids straight before thee. Then it will prove that you are blessed children of the Father. You walk at large, like sons of God. The road of duty will still be narrow, but, travelling in it, you will breathe the immortal air, and every deepening breath will be an inspiration of the life eternal. Your daily landscape will be the scenery of both worlds—all things yours, because ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. F. D. H. CHRIST never conforms to an expectation, even of his friends. When they look to find a great prophet in him, he offers nothing in the modes of the prophets. When they ask for places of distinction in his kingdom, he rebukes their folly, and tells them he has nothing to give, but a share in his reproaches and his poverty. When they look to see him take the sword as the great Messiah of their nation, calling the people to his standard, he tells them he is no warrior and no king, but only a messenger of love to lost men; one that has come to minister and die, but not to set up or restore the kingdom. Every expectation that rises up to greet him, is repulsed; and yet, so great is the power of his manner, that multitudes are held fast, and cannot yield their confidence. Enveloped as he is in the darkest mystery, they trust him still; going after him, hanging on his words, as if detained by some charmed influence which they cannot shake off or resist. Never was there a teacher that so uniformly baffled every expectation of his followers, never one that was followed so persistently. H. B. # Section 138.—One of You shall betray Me. # The Guest-Chamber. L. 28 Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations; and I appoint unto 29, 30 you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at J. 18 my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen; but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He 19 that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me. Now I tell you before 20 it come, that when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me 21 receiveth him that sent me. When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit; and as they sat and did eat, he testified and said, Behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you which eateth 22 with me shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake; and they began to inquire among themselves, which of them it was that should M. 22 do this thing. And they were exceeding sorrowful, and, one by one, began every one 23 of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? And he answered and said unto them, It is one of the twelve, that dippeth his hand with me in the dish; the same shall betray me. 24 The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born. 25 Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said. J. 23 Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. 24 Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom 25, 26 he spake. He then, lying on Jesus' breast, saith unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he 27 had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop 28 Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. Now 29 no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him. For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that 30 we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor. He then, having received the sop, went immediately out: and it was night. “AND after the sop Satan entered into him.” There is something appalling in the successive stages by which he reached the climax of his guilt. First, “the devil (simply) put it into his heart to betray” him. But many a struggle may he have endured ere he could nerve himself for the deed. Even with the thirty pieces of silver in his hand, he probably still quailed at the thought of such an act, and for such a sum—the price of the lowest slave! When Jesus stooped to wash his feet, the last struggle may have been only reaching its crisis. But that word, about one that did eat of his bread lifting his heel against him; the still more explicit announcement that a traitor was at the table; the inquiry which was forced out of him, after it had come from all the rest, “Master, is it I?” and above all, the answer (certainly not audible to the rest), “Thou hast said it”—would make the feeling irresistible, “I am detected, it is now too late to draw back.” And the sop given, and Satan now seated in his breast, he went immediately out (thus severing himself forever from that holy society with which he never had any spiritual sympathy); and it was night—but far blacker night in the soul of Judas than in the sky over his head. B.—O night the most criminal, dreadful, and dark, and yet the most holy, hopeful, and bright!—since the Son of God is therein betrayed, sold, and delivered up by the most execrable sacrilege, and since he therein gives, delivers up, and sacrifices himself, leaves the most divine pledge of his love, and teaches therein the sublimest truths of that religion which he institutes! Q. L. 29. I appoint a kingdom. Who is this that dispenses kingdoms, nay, the kingdom of kingdoms, within an hour or two of his own apprehension, and less than a day of his shameful death? B.—He undertakes to organize a kingdom of God, or kingdom of heaven on earth. His purpose includes a new moral creation of the whole human race. H. B.—The first conception is due to the mind of Jesus Christ, and in his teaching the conception is presented, not vaguely and confusedly, but with luminous precision. It is the reign of God in men, when the Father of minds shall be known, loved, and revered by his children. It is the reign of righteousness, purity, truth, love, and peace, the universal reception and dominion among men of all true, just, holy, generous and divine principles. Y.—It is a plan as universal in time, as it is in the scope of its objects. It does not expect to be realized in a lifetime, or even in many centuries to come. His expectation reaches boldly out beyond his own death; that, in fact, is to be the seed of his great empire—“except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth,” he says, “alone.” Is this great idea, which no man ever before conceived, the raising of the whole human race to God, a plan sustained with such evenness of courage, and a confidence of the world’s future so far transcending any human example—is this a human development? Regard the benevolence of it, the universality of it, the religious grandeur of it, as a work readjusting the relations of God and his government with men—the cost, the length of time it will cover, and the far-off date of its completion—is it in this scale that a Nazarene carpenter, a poor uneducated villager, lays out his plans and graduates the confidence of his undertakings? H. B.—His great central conception of the kingdom of God—a kingdom based on truth, administered by moral influences, pervaded by love, and holiness, and joy, and open to all of whatever class or clime—is a conception as magnificent as it is original. And, with this, all the rest of his doctrine is in perfect and beautiful harmony, every line of truth being like a radius starting from and conducting to this central idea, and the whole forming one perfect sphere of knowledge. W. L. A. (Read Section 174.) J. 18. Hath lifted up his heel. Ps. 41: 9. It was fulfilled in the case of Judas in the sense that this case filled out fully the very idea of David in the Psalm. The same thing befell David’s greater son which befell David. 21. Troubled in spirit. The same word we met in the scenes at the grave of Lazarus (John 11: 33)—indicating deep and painful emotion—it seemed so inexpressibly sad that one of his chosen twelve—one who had sat beside him at table; was sitting (perhaps) next him at this moment—who had been lifted so high in privilege and honor, and in the possibilities of a noble life, should turn against him in the foulness of the basest treason! H. C.—To the apostles he had said, “Ye are clean;” but, as this could not be applied to Judas, he added, “yet not all.” Intimations of this kind he threw out more and more frequently, partly, as he himself said (verse 19), to prepare them for the act of treachery, that it might not take them unawares, and lead them to infer that he, too, had been deceived; and partly, perhaps, in order to rouse, if possible, the conscience of Judas himself. But his foresight of the awful deed—that one who had been a special object of his love should disarm him and become a tool of his enemies—and of the conflict with depravity that he must go through, even up to his last hour, moved him most deeply; and he now spoke more plainly, “Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.” N.—That night all, even the best beloved, were to forsake him, but it was not that; that night even the boldest-hearted was to deny him with oaths, but it was not that; nay, but one of them was to betray him. F.—M. 22. Lord, is it I? Their language expresses in the original a much stronger negation than in our version. Surely not I, Lord? L. A. 24. A great crime is made to minister to the greatest act of the divine love, yet the criminal is stripped of no part of his guilt. “The Son of man goeth as it is written;” that writing is but the expression of the divine will; that will is sovereign, just, and good; yet woe to the man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! human freedom, human agency, human guilt taken up into that vast and complicated machinery by which the counsels of the Most High God are carried out. H.—It were good for that man if he had not been born? “Words,” it has been well said, “of immeasurable ruin, words of immeasurable woe”—and the more terrible because uttered by the lips of immeasurable love; words capable, if any were capable, of revealing to the lost soul of the traitor all the black gulf of horror that was yawning before his feet. F.—25. Thou hast said. No man at the table then could have heard that answer of our Lord; we can scarcely imagine how it could be but by supposing that Judas lay upon the seat immediately next to Jesus on the one side, as John lay upon the one nearest to him on the other. Assuming this, Jesus might easily have spoken to one so near in such an undertone that none could overhear. H. J. 23. Leaning on Jesus’ bosom. The rare combination of contemplativeness and passion, of strength and sweetness, in the same soul—the perfect faith which inspired his devotion, and the perfect love which precluded fear—these were the gifts and graces which rendered him worthy of leaning his young head on the bosom of his Lord. F.—In modest self-concealment, and under a sense of the deepest gratitude, John designates himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” P. S.—25. Lying on. Rather, leaning back on. A.—26. Two men of the twelve now knew to whom the Lord referred—Judas, on the one side, to whom Jesus had directly said, “Thou art the man,” and John, now, on the other, to whom the sign was as explicit as any words could be—a sign, however, only to John himself, the others not having heard the words that gave the act its meaning. H.—But for the concluding scenes of the history, no reader of it would gather that one of the twelve differed in character from all his fellows. If there was a radical defect in the moral and religious character of Judas, it certainly remained undeveloped to his constant associates up to the fatal night when they all met for the last time together. B. 27. After the sop, Satan. At first Satan came to make the heart of Judas his own; now he enters, because it is his own. Bp. H.—The kingdom of evil, as well as that of good, has a personal head. That he should have the power of tempting is no more strange than that human spirits should possess it. He can no more compel than they, and he gains in influence only as we yield him place. Ker.—That which thou art doing, do more quickly.** Reproving his lingering, and his pretending to share in the general doubt. A. 29. Huy things needed. Our Lord did not work miracles to procure the necessaries required by himself and his disciples. Give to the poor. The supposition shows our Lord’s custom in the matter of almsgiving. He sanctified and adorned the practice of caring for the poor by his own example. Judas had the bag.** Snares attend the possession and handling of money. The man who has the care of the money in our Lord’s little company is the man that makes shipwreck of his soul, through the love of money. J. C. R. 30. In that bewildering chaos of a soul spotted with mortal guilt, the Satanic had triumphed over the human; in that dark heart earth and hell were thenceforth at one; in that lost soul sin had conceived and brought forth death. And so from the lighted room, from the holy banquet, from the blessed company, from the presence of his Lord, he went immediately out, and—as the beloved disciple adds, with a shudder of dread significance letting the curtain of darkness fall forever on that appalling figure—“and it was night.” F. ## Section 139.—Foretells the Denial of Peter, and the Dispersion of the Twelve. The Guest-Chamber. M. 26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had blessed, or given thanks, he brake it and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body, which is given, broken, for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also after supper he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This cup is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for you and for many, for the remission of sins. This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. Verily I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my 1 Cor. Father's kingdom. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew 26 the Lord's death till he come. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ M. 3 THEN Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, 4 saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What 5 is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. 6 And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them 7 into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought 8 with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, 9 The field of blood, unto this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that 10 was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me. 1 And straightway, when the morning was come, all the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, against Jesus to put him to 2 death. And the whole multitude of them arose, and when they had bound Jesus, they led him away from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment, and delivered him to Pontius J. 28 Pilate the governor. And it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover. 29 Pilate then went out unto them, and said, What accusation bring ye against this man? 30 They answered and said unto him, If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee. 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 to put 32 any man to death: that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spake, signifying what death he should die. And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cesar, saying, that he himself is Christ a King. J. 33 Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus. And Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the 34 Jews? Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee 35 of me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation, and the chief priests, have 36 delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done? Jesus answered, My 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. 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 witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my 38 voice. 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. Mk. 3 And the chief priests and elders accused him of many things: but he answered nothing. And Pilate asked him again, saying, Answerest thou nothing? hearest thou not 5 how many things they witness against thee? But Jesus yet answered him to never a word; insomuch that the governor marvelled greatly. L. 4 Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man. 5 And they were the more fierce, saying, He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place. WHAT human heart can be untouched by the demeanor of Jesus toward Judas when sin had begun to do its work? On the one hand, there is that divine earnestness with which, from time to time, he uttered the voice of prophetic warning in his ear. And on the other hand, that considerate love with which, in these warnings, he ever spared him before the disciples, never mentioning his name, just as if he was addressing a secret word to his heart alone, by which he constantly and unweariedly wooed his heart—ever up to that majestic close, when he washed the traitor's feet! And by all that, Judas was untouched; to all he was insensible. For he that has himself ceased to love, can no longer understand the love of others. In his dead heart all is voiceless and mute. But he awoke at last. Then the pent-up storm burst within the conscience of the traitor. And as he heard a voice cry out against him from every fold of that conscience, the feeling that awoke within him was—“Once I loved; once I was loved by him!” But alas! he had then no longer power to believe or love! A. T. As the death of Jesus was designed to atone for all guilt, nearly all guilt combined to accomplish it. It was covetousness that betrayed him; it was perjury that bore false witness against him; it was envy that delivered him up. Cruelty scourged and crowned him with thorns. Popular fickleness chose Barabbas, and rejected Him; while, in the soldiers, coarse brutality buffeted and mocked him. If we look beneath the outward acts of human conduct to the hidden principles from which they spring, it will be found that the guilt of crucifying the Lord is oft repeated—by avowed disciples, who desert and deny, and would even sell him, and with him every principle of conscience; by those who would aid his cause, but that to identify themselves too closely with Christ might compromise them with the world; by those who believe but do not confess; whose admiration ends when they feel the pressure of the morality of his gospel, and the self-denying character of the Christian life; and by those who in every age have preferred the specious to the real, or who have mocked with empty lip-service that divine King who is satisfied with nothing less than the homage of the heart! J. A. M. 3. Judas stands alone in sacred history as a man devoted by name, by the voice of the Lord himself, to perdition. He is the most marked type of those false disciples who joined Christ in the expectation of an earthly kingdom; and when our Lord’s repeated announcements of his sufferings and death showed this to be a vain hope, he prepared to sell himself and his Master to the rulers. S. Judas had made ready his own nature for the tempter. He, and none but he, could have rendered himself capable of yielding. And now that he has yielded, the power at work becomes apparent in the disenchantment which follows. After sin has made a man so that he cannot look steadily into his own soul, it ends by destroying his enjoyment in that fictitious pleasure for which it has induced him to sell all that is divine and real. It cheats him of the substance for a shadow, and of that shadow it robs him, or changes it into a frightful phantom, from which he would escape if he could—as Judas from the hire of his treachery. The remorse of Judas at this moment can be perfectly explained by the full consequences of his act now looking him in the face. It is the murderer’s horror when the deed is committed and cannot be undone—that awful revulsion which, among all calculations, is never reckoned on. For now, not only Christ’s guiltlessness of the charge, but his spotless and loving character—the good he had received at his hands, and never evil—the gentle considerateness—the unwearied patience—the pitying tenderness he had shown him and his fellow-disciples—rose up before the soul of his betrayer, and smote him with unutterable remorse. No one word, no one act, could he call up that would help his own thoughts to justify his treachery. Ker. Judas repented himself. There are two Greek words used in the N. T., both of which are rendered repent. The one signifies literally to know after, and hence indicates a change of mind or purpose; the other signifies literally to care after, and so to carry a burden of sorrow for the past. The latter is the word used here. The distinction is well stated by Trench: “He who has changed his mind about the past is in the way to change everything; he who has an after-care may have little or nothing more than a selfish dread of the consequences of what he has done.” This appears to have been the state of mind of Judas. It is manifested in remorse for the past, not in any new purpose for the future; and it leads not to a new life in Christ Jesus, but to a despairing death. Repentance inspires to a new life, remorse leads to despair and death; repentance seeks forgiveness, remorse oblivion; repentance conducts Peter to Christ, remorse drives Judas from him. L. A. 4. I have sinned . . . innocent blood.** What a testimony this to Jesus! Judas had been with him in all circumstances for three years; his post as treasurer to him and the twelve gave him peculiar opportunity of watching the spirit, disposition, and habits of his Master; while his covetous nature would incline him to dark and suspicious, rather than frank and generous, interpretations of all that he said and did. If, then, he could have fastened on one questionable feature in all that he had so long witnessed, no such speech as this would ever have escaped his lips, nor would he have been so stung with remorse as not to be able to keep the money and survive his crime. B. What is that to us? This answer of the chief priests was perfectly natural for men of their character. Men who had any feeling, any sentiments of common humanity, or even of common justice, would naturally have paused under these circumstances; would have examined Judas, and investigated the grounds of his repentance. But with the guilt or innocence of Jesus they did not concern themselves. All they wanted was the destruction of a man whom they hated and feared, and whose life and doctrine were a standing reproach to them. This was their sole object; as to the justice of the case, they were utterly indifferent. P. If Christ is innocent it is not their concern. The traitor who knew him so well should have thought of this when he surrendered him. And in this they touch the very point which stung Judas to the quick, the one thing which made his guilt blacker than theirs. He knew Christ better, and sinned more against the purity and love of his nature. See thou to that. Even Judas himself could not complain. They had kept their share of the contract, and he must abide by his. This is the remorseless logic which belongs to these cases, and among such men it is all-powerful. And this is the natural end of all alliances that are made for mutual aid in the pursuit of revenge or unhallowed ambition, of unjust gain or sinful pleasure. Ker. 5. Terribly soon did the Nemesis fall on the main actor in the lower stages of this iniquity. When the morning dawned upon that chilly night, and he knew the decision of the priests and of the Sanhedrim, and saw that Jesus was now given over for crucifixion to the Roman governor, then he began fully to realize all that he had done. In Judas, as in so many thousands since, this opening of the eyes which follows the consummation of an awful sin to which many other sins have led, drove him from remorse to despair, from despair to madness, from madness to suicide. F.—We only see in his fearful end the most dread instance of the regular development and enhancement of sin in the individual that is contained in the history of man, and with awe we behold in him the only one who received his sentence in person before the last day. E. 6. Not lawful to put them into the treasury. These very men, who had no scruple at all in murdering an innocent person, yet had wonderful qualms of conscience about putting into the treasury the money which they themselves had given as “the price of blood.” P. 2. Pontius Pilate the governor. The Roman provinces were of two kinds, senatorial and imperial. The latter were governed by military officers, who held their office and power at the pleasure of the emperor. They looked after the taxes, paid the troops, preserved order, and administered a rude sort of justice; from their decisions there was ordinarily no appeal, except in the case of a Roman citizen. Judea was an imperial province; Pontius Pilate was its governor or procurator, and was directly amenable to the emperor, Tiberius Cesar, for his administration. L. A.—Pilate had arrived from Cesarea, to secure in person the preservation of order in the dangerous days of the feast. His quarters were in the new palace, built by Herod the Great on Zion. It was the pride of Jerusalem. G. It was probably about seven in the morning that, thinking to overawe the procurator by their numbers and dignity, the imposing procession of the Sanhedrists and priests, headed, no doubt, by Caiaphas himself, conducted Jesus from their hall of meeting over the lofty bridge which spanned the valley of the Tyropæon, in presence of all the city, with the bound hands of a sentenced criminal, a spectacle to angels and to men. “SUFFERED under Pontius Pilate”—so, in every creed of Christendom, is the name of the Roman procurator handed down to eternal execration. Yet of all the civil and ecclesiastical rulers before whom Jesus was brought to judgment, Pilate was the least guilty of malice and hatred, the most anxious, if not to spare his agony, at least to save his life. F. J. 28. The Pretorium, translated “hall of judgment,” was the headquarters of the Roman military governor, wherever he happened to be. S.—One of the ground apartments of Herod’s palace on Zion appears to have been the procurators’ Pretorium, mentioned here; as Josephus informs us that the Roman governors took up their quarters in the palace, and set up their tribunal in front (i. e., at the eastern entrance) of it, namely, on the “Pavement” (of John 19 : 13). Strong. Lest they should be defiled. Jewish authorities on defilement inform us that going into the house of a Gentile made a Jew unclean for one day. Notice how sanctimoniousness and crime consort together in the same bosoms—the spirit of murder firing their hearts, yet afraid to defile their hallowed garments or soil their holy feet by going into Pilate’s judgment-hall! H. C. Eat the passover. The word passover is employed in the New Testament in three different and specific acceptations, viz.: 1. The paschal lamb. 2. The paschal meal. 3. The paschal festival. The last may be taken in its literal and widest sense. Then, to eat may be understood to keep or celebrate the passover. Or, the paschal festival may be taken in the sense of paschal sacrifices; that is, the voluntary peace-offerings and thank-offerings, made more especially on the 15th day of Nisan. There is nothing in the language of John, nor in the attendant circumstances, which, upon fair interpretation, requires or permits us to believe that he intended to correct the unquestionable teaching of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The language of these three evangelists is full, explicit, and decisive, to the effect that our Lord’s last meal with his disciples, as recorded by them all, was the regular and ordinary paschal supper of the Jews, introducing the festival of unleavened bread, on the evening of the 14th day of Nisan. R. (Section 155, J. 14.) 31. Take ye him, and judge him. Pilate’s Roman knowledge of law, his Roman instinct of justice, his Roman contempt for their murderous fanaticism, made him not choose to act upon a charge so entirely vague. F.—As he had heard of no disturbance produced by Jesus, the statement made by the Sanhedrim appeared by no means credible; and, suspecting that religious disputes were at the bottom, he wished to get rid of the whole affair, and told them “to take him, and judge him according to their law.” N. It is not lawful for us to put to death. Judea was now under the Roman yoke; one badge of its servitude being this, that while the old Jewish courts were permitted to try and to punish minor offences, the final judgment of all capital offences was reserved for the Roman tribunals. A Roman judge must pass the sentence, or, at least, must sign the warrant that consigns the criminal to execution. At Jerusalem, these reserved cases were brought up for adjudication at the time of the great festivals, when the Roman procurator, who resided ordinarily at Cesarea, visited the capital. For the last six years, Pontius Pilate had held this office in Judea, and he was now in the city on occasion of this Passover. H. 32. Signifying what death he should die. It stood written in the eternal councils that Christ was to die by that Roman form of execution which inspired the Jews with a nameless horror, even by crucifixion; that he was to reign from his cross—to die by that most fearfully significant and typical of deaths—public, slow, conscious, accursed, agonizing—worse even than burning—the worst type of all possible deaths, and the worst result of that curse which he was to remove forever. F. The Lord was not to be stoned, according to the Jewish custom; for his holy body must be preserved from all mutilation. R. B.—This remark John makes for the strengthening of our faith, and to show us how wisely everything was ordered by the counsel of God under such complicated circumstances. His enemies dared not do what they would, but throughout the whole trial of Christ everything was ordered by God’s decree, determined long before. But this very Providence, which watched over our blessed Saviour from his birth to his death, will watch over us in our hours of life and death, if only we yield ourselves wholly up to it, and commit all our ways to God alone. Rambach. L. 2. They here bring three different accusations against him, not one of which—in the sense they desire Pilate to understand them—is true; and one of which, the second, they know is absolutely false. But it suits their object to represent the accused to Pilate as stirring up sedition, refusing to pay custom, claiming to be king of the country in his own right. H. The grounds on which the Sanhedrim condemned Christ were not sufficient to induce Pilate, the Roman procurator, to inflict capital punishment upon him. To serve the purpose, recourse was had to his claim of Messiahship, on which they had professed to found their own decision, with the addition of a political element: “He has claimed to be a king;” and hence “he perverts the nation (contests the Roman authority), and forbids to give tribute to Cesar.” An accusation of this sort could be the more readily admitted, as the Roman authorities were well aware that the Jews felt themselves degraded and disgraced by paying taxes to a heathen power. N. J. 33. Jesus stood before the governor. The future Judge of quick and dead stood before this earthly judge. He stood there, a King in bonds. Pilate beheld him, and his impression that this was no malefactor was legible on his countenance. Then began the Lord’s accusers to bring forward the accusations upon which they had previously agreed. He had confessed that he was Christ; therefore they represent him to the governor as a rebel, who had called himself an anointed king; and thereto add that he seduced the people and refused to pay tribute to the emperor. They make out the Lord to be just the kind of Messiah which they were hoping for; and in this character they deliver him up to the heathen Pilate. R. B.—The hypocrites! They were hunting Jesus to death simply because he would not identify himself with them, and use his supernatural power to drive out the Romans, and set them on the vacant throne. They were demanding his death on the pretext that he had threatened to use force to establish his kingdom, when the truth was—his real offence, in their eyes, was that he would not use force! G. 36,37. My kingdom is not of this world. He does not say “not over,” but “not of this world”—i. e., in its origin and nature; therefore “no such kingdom as need give thee or thy master the least alarm.” Our Lord only says whence his kingdom is not—first simply affirming it, next giving proof of it, then reaffirming it. This was all that Pilate had to do with. The positive nature of his kingdom he would not obtrude upon one who was as little able to comprehend it, as entitled officially to information about it. B. As the Lord owned himself the Son of God before the most exalted theocratic council, so he confessed his regal dignity in presence of the representative of the highest political authority on earth. O.—The words implied that in another sense he certainly claimed to be both a king and the founder of a kingdom. He then defined more exactly the sense in which he was both. N. “Thou art a king, then!” said Pilate to him, in astonishment. Yes! but a king not in this region of falsities and shadows, but one born to bear witness unto the truth, and one whom all who were of the truth should hear. F.—For my kingdom is an empire of truth. “Every one that is of the truth,” whose heart receives and loves the truth, hears my voice and is one of my subjects; a member of my kingdom. In the sense in which he is a king, his claim to be one is no crime. H. C. The only weapon of which he made use was spiritual truth. His life, his words, all the manifestations of his character, are consistent only with the design to achieve, not a material, but a moral conquest, and to effect not a political, but a spiritual revolution in the world. He had the conception of a purely spiritual reign, the conception of a palace and a throne for God in the soul of man, the conception of the regeneration of man’s inward nature. Y. After he had disclaimed any purpose of setting up an earthly kingdom, affirming at the same time that he was King in a certain sense, he added that he came into the world to testify of the truth. These three propositions, taken together, set forth his purpose to found his kingdom, not by worldly means, but by the testimony of the truth. But he testified of the truth by his whole life, by his words and works, comprising the entire self-revelation of him who could say, “I am the Truth.” N. Then Christ is a King of Truth. Should not Pilate have desired to behold a King of Truth, a witness whose possession the truth is, in the midst of the fruitless search which the heathen world was making after the true God? To a Jew he might perhaps have said, salvation; to the heathen Pilate he holds out salvation as an object of attraction under the form of the truth. To reveal in his own person this saving truth, that God’s holy love desires the redemption of sinners—for this purpose it was that Christ was born and became man, a born King of Truth; for this cause did he come into the world, of which he is not; to this end did he live in the world, and preach, and work, and suffer. Jesus, the friend of souls, bears witness to that which our soul is seeking for; and his word would fain sound to us like the sweet accents of home. R. B. Our Lord’s reply was particularly adapted to the position, acquirements, experience, of him before whom he stood—a Roman official of high rank, educated, cultivated; a man of large experience of men—men in different countries and of different creeds; not given much to thought about religious matters, yet sufficiently acquainted with the rival schools of philosophy and religion by which the Roman commonwealth was distracted. Truth, moral and religious truth, was the proclaimed object of research, of which some were saying, Lo, here it is, and others, Lo, there it is; but of which he, Pilate, in pursuit of quite a different object, had learned to think that neither here nor there nor anywhere was it to be found. “Here,” thinks Pilate, “is a new rival of those old Stoics, who were ever teaching that every wise man was a king—the setter-up of a new system. One thing at least is clear enough, that it is a quite empty charge these Jews are urging against him. He may sit as long as he likes upon that ideal throne of his, without the throne of Tiberius being endangered; he may get as many subjects as he can to enter that ideal kingdom, and my master, the emperor, have not a loyal subject the less.” 38. And so with that passing question to Jesus, “What is truth?”—a question he does not stay to get answered, as he has no faith that any answer to it can be given; a question not uttered sneeringly or scoffingly, but rather sadly and bitterly, he himself having come to regard all truth as a phantom; and with a tolerant, half-pitying feeling toward Jesus—with that question put to Jesus by the way, Pilate goes out to the Jews. H. It was the half-pitying question of the practical man of the world, who felt that truth was a phantom, a word that had no political import, and regarded the attempt to connect it with a kingdom and matters of real life as a delusion of harmless though pitiable enthusiasm. E.—He wholly set aside the idea of an unearthly royalty; he saw in the prisoner before his tribunal an innocent and high-souled dreamer, nothing more. F. That the peace of a nation or the life of an individual should be endangered on account of the truth or falsehood of any system of speculative opinions, was so opposite to the opinion and feeling of the Roman world, that Pilate inquired what he meant by truth; what truth had to do with a question of life and death. Apparently despairing, on one hand, of bringing this blameless enthusiast to his senses; on the other, unwilling to attach importance to what appeared to him in so different a light, he wished at once to put an end to the whole affair. He abruptly left Jesus and went out to the Jewish deputation at the gate. H. M.—To them he pronounced his first emphatic and unhesitating acquittal: “I find in him no fault at all.” F. Mk. 3 5. He answered nothing. The silence of Jesus was the most dignified and speaking reply to such charges as they had to bring. B.—One observes an almost exact parallel as to his silences and his speakings in our Lord’s conduct before the Jewish and the Gentile courts of justice. So far as we can understand the principle determining the time to speak and the time to be silent, it was this: that when the matter directly concerned his divine Sonship and Kingship, he will help his judges in every way he can; nay, he will himself supply the evidence they want. Upon that count he will coöperate with his enemies in bringing about his condemnation; but will leave the attempts to fasten on him any other charge to break down of themselves, that it might be solely as the Son of God, the King of Israel, that he should be convicted, condemned, and crucified. H. WITH what meek majesty did Jesus confront the representative of the greatest empire of the world, declaring himself a king in that higher realm of spiritual powers where truth rules over all! Even the temporizing truckling governor was awed by this strange assertion of a kingdom which his power could not touch, and to which every soul must bow. Yet the Roman empire long ago crumbled away, while Christ's kingdom lives and grows. J. P. T. The Kingship of Christ rests on a foundation which forms part of the very throne of God. His dominion is established in human hearts. It is founded in willing submission. It is maintained by spiritual authority. It is established in righteousness. It will ultimately unite heaven and earth. It begins in individual conversion. Its grandest earthly manifestation will be seen in the general extension of truth; the richest and noblest manifestation of all will be seen in heaven. Christ's death founds it; Christ's Spirit forms it; Christ's will, ever in harmony with the will of the Father, rules it; Christ's glory (which is also the glory of the Father, and comprehends the full blessedness of the redeemed) is its end. J. A. ## Section 154.—Before Herod, and Pilate again. Barabbas preferred. L. 6, 7 WHEN Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man were a Galilean. And as soon as he knew that he belonged unto Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem at that time. 8. And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad: for he was desirous to see him of a long season, because he had heard many things of him; and he hoped to have seen 9 some miracle done by him. Then he questioned with him in many words; but he answered him nothing. And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused 11 him. And Herod with his men of war set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed 12 him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate. And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together; for before they were at enmity between themselves. 13 And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests, and the rulers, and the 14 people, said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this 15 man, touching those things whereof ye accuse him: no, nor yet Herod: for I sent you 16 to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will therefore chastise him, and release him. M. 15 Now at that feast, the governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner, whom- 16 soever they desired. And they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas, a robber, who, for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder, was cast into prison with them that had made insurrection with him. And the multitude crying aloud, began to desire him to do as he had ever done unto them. (For of necessity he must release one unto 17 them at the feast.) Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the passover: whom will ye therefore that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus, which is called Christ? will ye 18 that I release unto you the king of the Jews? For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy. 19 When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream, because of him. 20 But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? And they cried out all at once, Away with this L. 20 man, and release unto us Barabbas. Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them, saying, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? him 21 whom ye call the king of the Jews? And they all cried out again, saying, Crucify him, 22 crucify him. Then Pilate said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him; I will therefore chastise him, and let him go. 23 And they cried out the more exceedingly, they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. M. 24 When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the 25 blood of this just person: see ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His 26 blood be on us, and on our children. Then Pilate, willing to content the people, gave sentence that it should be as they required. And he released Barabbas unto them, that for sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired; but he delivered Jesus to their will. DECISIVE, great, and strong, Christ is yet all this, even the more sublimely, that he is invested in the lovely but humanly feeble garb of innocence. And that this is the true conception is clear, in the fact that no one ever thinks of him as weak, and no one fails to be somehow impressed with a sense of inno- cence by his life. When his enemies are called to show what evil or harm he hath done, they can specify nothing, save that he has offended their bigotry. Even Pilate, when he gives him up, confesses that he finds nothing in him to blame, and shuddering with apprehensions he cannot subdue, washes his hands to be clear of the innocent blood! Thus he dies, a being holy, harmless, undefiled. And when he hangs, a bruised flower, drooping on his cross, and the sun above is dark, and the earth beneath shudders with pain, what have we in this funeral grief of the worlds, but a fit honor paid to the sad majesty of his divine innocence? H. B. L. 7. Pilate sent Jesus to Herod, hoping thus to escape the dilemma of an unjust condemnation or of an unpopular release. B. 8,9. Herod hoped to see some miracle. Nothing but the craving of an empty curiosity, the thirst for some showy exhibition of knowledge or of power. Herod asks and asks again that some sign may be shown, some token of his alleged power exhibited. Jesus makes not a single move- ment to comply. Herod is the only one of all his judges before whom Jesus preserves an unbroken silence. H. 10,11. Though the chief priests and scribes stood about his throne, instigating him to a fresh and more heinous act of murder by their intense ac- cusations, he practically showed that he thought their accusations frivolous, by treating them as a jest. F.—Greatly galled, yet in no way softened, when he could make nothing of this mysterious man, he and his men of war found nothing else to do than to set Christ at naught, and mock him, and array him in a white robe, and send him back to Pilate. 12. For some fancied interference with his ju- risdiction, Herod had taken offence at Pilate. The recognition of his jurisdiction, then, by sending to him for trial such a notorious person as Jesus, would be the very kind of compliment most soothing to his kingly vanity. Herod appreciated the compli- ment; and Pilate got the quarrel between himself and Herod healed. 15. Jesus was sent back to him by Herod; sent back in such a way as to indicate that Herod made light of this poor Galilean's pretensions to be a king—thought it, in fact, more a matter for mock- ery and ridicule than for serious judicial entertain- ment. H.—Is done unto him. Rather, hath been done by him. P. S. 16. Will chastise and release him. Pi- late wanted to release the Lord to satisfy his con- science; he wanted to chastise him to satisfy his fear of man. He imagined that a king who had been disgraced by scourging would no longer be an object of envy to the chief priests. He has already gone thus far in deciding against the Lord. He will scourge him. R. B. It was a weak and unworthy concession, the first faltering of Pilate's footstep. He cannot but say that he has found nothing worthy of death in this man; he is himself thoroughly satisfied that there is nothing in him worthy of any punishment; but it will please his accusers, it will conciliate the people, it may open the way to their readier acquiescence in his after-dismissal, to inflict on him some punishment, a proposal springing rather from the wish to protect Jesus from the greater penalty by inflicting on him the less, yet one that weakened his position, that made those sharp-sighted Jews at once perceive that he could be moved, that he was not ready to stand firmly and fixedly upon the ground of Christ's innocence. H. M. 16. Barabbas was plainly a ringleader in one of those fierce and fanatic outbreaks against the Roman domination, which fast succeeded one another in the latter days of the Jewish commonwealth. This at once explains how it was possible for the chief priests, with their religious pretensions, to show the interest on his behalf which they did, and explains no less the enthusiasm with which the Jewish populace demanded his liberation. Whether, indeed, Barabbas had actually played the part of a false Christ, setting himself up as the true, we have no means of knowing. It is far from unlikely. Keeping in mind the significance of names in Scripture, we can hardly fail to recognize a fearful mockery in his name, Barabbas, or "son of the Father;" as though in the very name which he bore, not to speak of the work which he wrought, he should be the devil's counterfeit and caricature of the true Holy One of God. He had wrought, we may well believe, in that false Messias spirit, which was filling with wild and insane hopes the whole nation, and rapidly hurrying it to that final conflict with the Roman power, in which, as a nation, it should be forever broken in pieces. T. 18. For envy. Pilate knew very well that no such sedition as they charged could have existed without his knowledge, or would have disturbed these restless, seditious Jews if it had been never so serious. He knew they were ready enough to throw off the Roman yoke if only some leader powerful enough might appear, to be their head. Hence he saw that they were pushing this prosecution "for envy." H. C.—From all he had learned, Jesus was only a well-meaning enthusiast, and he could easily see how such a man might well be dangerous to the vested interests and mock-holiness of the Jewish magnates, but not at all so to Roman authority. G. 19. His own wife—Claudia Procula—ventured to send him a public message, even as he sat there on his tribunal, that in the morning hours she had had a troubled and painful dream about that just man; and, bolder than her husband, she bade him beware how he molested him. F.—That she should have learned so much of Jesus as to think and speak of him as "that just man"—that she should have been so much concerned when she heard that her husband had been asked to try him, as to take this uncommon step of sending a warning to him on the judgment-seat—may be regarded as a proof how wide-spread and deep the impression Christ had made. H. 20. Cried out. While Pilate was receiving this message from his wife, and waiting the answer to his question, "Whom will ye that I release?" the chief priests and elders were busy in the crowd, persuading them what answer to give. L. A. The people, persuaded by their priests, clamored for the liberation of the man who not only was what they falsely said of Christ, a leader of sedition, but also a robber and a murderer. To him every hand was pointed; for him every voice was raised. For the holy, the harmless, the undefiled—for him whom a thousand hosannas had greeted but five days before—no word of pity or of pleading found an utterance. "He was despised and rejected of men." F.—Thus they committed the great sin which Peter charges upon them not long after: "Ye denied Jesus in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you." J. C. R. The same moral state of the people now led them to reject Jesus and demand the release of Barabbas, which, forty years later, provoked the unrelenting vengeance of Titus. It was the brooding hope of sovereignty, at least of political independence, moulded up with religious enthusiasm, which rendered it impossible that the pure, humane, unworldly, and comprehensive doctrines of Jesus should be received, or his character appreciated. And the nation which could thus incur the guilt of his death was prepared to precipitate themselves to such a fate as at length it suffered. H. M. L. 20. What shall we do with Jesus, if we make him not our Mediator, our Saviour, our life, our refuge in all our evils, and the object of our adoration, love, and confidence; since God has made him our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption? Q. 21,22. Crucify! It is the first time the word has been named in Pilate's hearing, the first time they tell him articulately what it is they desire to have done with Jesus. Crucify him—give up to that most ignominious of all deaths this meek and gentle man, who he is sure has done no wrong; whom he sees well enough that the chief priests seek to get rid of from some religious antipathy that they have taken against him: can the people mean it? Why, what evil hath he done? H. Crucifixion, entirely foreign to the Jewish code, had been introduced into Jerusalem by the proconsuls. Crosses had been planted at the same time as the Roman eagles on the soil of Judea, and were the tokens of a detested rule. But enmity against Jesus overmastered hatred of the foreigner in the hearts of the Pharisees. Thus they did not hesitate to demand for the Galilean a sentence of death, the very thought of which, on other occasions, would have roused all their indignation. De P. 23. The very mention of letting him go stirs the crowd to a tenfold frenzy, and now the voices of the chief priests themselves are heard swelling and intensifying the cry, “Crucify him! crucify him!” Before a storm like this who can stand? He has done—so Pilate thinks—the most he can. If he go further, he will raise another city tumult which it will cost many lives to quell, and the quelling of which by force may expose him to the very same charges of tyranny and cruelty which, upon more than one occasion of the kind before, had actually been transmitted to Rome against him, and drawn down upon him the rebuke and displeasure of the emperor. The yielding is but the sacrifice of a single life, which may be made without involving the governor in any danger. But the resisting—who can tell in what that might land? Still, however, he is not at ease. H. M. 24, 25. The dream of Pilate’s wife, and the symbolic purification of the governor himself, express the influence which the righteousness of the Saviour exercised upon their imagination and judgment. B. F. W.—First a ceremony was enacted between the governor and the Jews, vain on his part, but of awful significance on theirs! Pilate washed his hands before the people, protesting, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it;” and they accepted the tremendous responsibility: “His blood be on us and on our children.” The providence of God took them at their word, when their last efforts for freedom ended in their dispersion over all the world. No less signal was the retribution which befell the other actors in this greatest crime of the world’s history. S. Before the dread sacrifice was consummated, Judas died in the horrors of a loathsome suicide. Caiaphas was deposed the year following. Herod died in infamy and exile. Stripped of his procuratorship very shortly afterward, on the very charges he had tried by a wicked concession to avoid, Pilate, wearied out with misfortunes, died in suicide and banishment, leaving behind him an execrated name. The house of Annas was destroyed a generation later by an infuriated mob, and his son was dragged through the streets, and scourged and beaten to his place of murder. Some of those who shared in and witnessed the scenes of that day—and thousands of their children—also shared in and witnessed the long horrors of that siege of Jerusalem which stands unparalleled in history for its unutterable fearfulness. They had forced the Romans to crucify their Christ, and they and their children were themselves crucified in myriads by the Romans. They had given thirty pieces of silver for their Saviour’s blood, and they were themselves sold in thousands for yet smaller sums. He must be blind indeed who does not see that when the murder of Christ was consummated, the ax was laid at the root of the barren tree of Jewish nationality. Since that day Jerusalem and its environs, with their “ever-extending miles of gravestones and ever-lengthening pavement of tombs and sepulchres,” have become little more than one vast cemetery—an Acel-dama, a field of blood, a potter’s field to bury strangers in. F. They put Jesus to death, when the nation was assembled to celebrate the Passover; and when the nation too was assembled to celebrate the Passover, Titus shut them up within the walls of Jerusalem. The rejection of the true Messiah was their crime: and the following of false Messiahs to their destruction was their punishment. They preferred a robber and murderer to Jesus, whom they crucified between two thieves: and they themselves were afterward infested with bands of thieves and robbers. They put Jesus to death, lest the Romans should come and take away their place and nation: and the Romans did come and take away their place and nation. They crucified Jesus before the walls of Jerusalem: and before the walls of Jerusalem they themselves were crucified, in such numbers, that it is said room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses for the bodies. Bp. Newton. PILATE’S CHARACTER.—The fair statement seems to be that Pilate was a thorough type of the later Roman man of the world. Stern but not relentless, shrewd and world-worn, prompt and practical, haughtily just, and yet self-seeking and cowardly, able to perceive what was right, but without moral strength to follow it out, he stands forth a sad instance of a man whom the fear of endangered self-interest drove to act against the deliberate conviction of his conscience, to commit an act of the utmost cruelty and injustice, even after his convictions had been deepened by warnings, and strengthened by presentiment. E.—Agrippa the elder speaks of the iniquity of his government in the strongest terms: “He feared lest they should examine and expose the misdeeds of his former procuratorship, the taking of bribes, the acts of violence, the extortions, the tortures, the menaces, the repeated murders without any form of trial, the harsh and incessant cruelty.” G. R. The secular history shows that the state of the public mind in Judea, as well as the character of Pilate, harmonize in the most remarkable manner with the narrative of the Evangelists. The general expectation of the Messiah, the impatience of the Roman sovereignty, the extraordinary excitement of the more fanatical part of the people, the rigid prudence of the chief priests, lest the slightest indication of revolt should compromise the safety of the city and the temple—these circumstances of the times sufficiently account for the reception of such a teacher as Jesus at Jerusalem. Appearing with doctrines so alarming to the authority of the priesthood, so full of disappointment to the fanatic populace, so repugnant to the national pride, and, above all, openly assuming the mysterious title, the Son of God—it excites less astonishment than sorrow that the passions of such a people should at once proceed to the most awful violence against a Teacher whose tenets were too pure and spiritual for their comprehension, and whose character was so remote from their preconceived notions of the expected Messiah. H. M. # Section 155.—Jesus scourged, mocked, and delivered up. M. 26 THEN Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. And when he had scourged 27 Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, called Pretorium, and gathered unto him the whole band of sol- 28, 29 diers. And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, worshipped and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of 30 the Jews! And they spit upon him, and smote him with their hands, and took the reed and smote him on the head. J. 4 Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to 5 you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, 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 7 fault in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. 8, 9 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid; and went again into the judgment hall and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no 10 answer. Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou not 11 that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin. 12 And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him. But the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Cesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king, 13 speaketh against Cesar. When 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 14 the Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth 15 hour. And he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with him! Away with him! crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your 16 King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Cesar. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. "BEHOLD the man!" Pilate unwittingly spoke a word in which is contained the secret of our redemption, our deepest disgrace, and our highest glory. In the man Christ Jesus, the only Mediator, we see at once our sin and our righteousness, our curse and our blessing, our shame and our glory; both what we deserved and what he deserved. "Therefore (so Luther exhorts) do thou learn Christ, the crucified Christ, till, having lost all trust in thyself, thou canst extol him, and say: Thou, my Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, while I am thy sin. Thou hast taken upon thee what is mine, and thou hast given me what is thine. Thou hast taken to thyself that which thou wast not, and thou hast given to me that which I was not!" When, in the hour of temptation, the devil shall cast our sins in our teeth, and whisper to us: Behold the man thou art! then may we also answer him: Behold the man! while we point the accuser to our surety, who, in the crown of thorns and the purple robe, expiated our sins, and through his blood so abundantly shed, has obtained for us abundant forgiveness. Under suffering and the cross, if we hear such whispers as these: Behold the man thou art! by God and man forsaken—where is now thy God? and if we are ready to lose patience, and utterly despair, let us make answer to the tempter: Behold the man! and let us flee to our dear Lord, who, for our sakes, has suffered far greater and more heavy woes than we, and has sanctified our every burden. He opened not his mouth, no cry of impatience escaped his holy lips; and should we murmur and fret over the sufferings which are made so precious by his sympathy with us as his members? We should rather rejoice in any conformity to the likeness of his suffering; for then in glory too we shall be like him; "because as he is, so are we in this world." Behold the man! The sight will not weary us. It will continue to refresh us until we shall behold our King in his beauty, and recognize him by the marks of his passion, as the "Lamb that hath been slain." R. B. 26. Scourged him.** The word used for the scourging implies that it was done, not with rods, for Pilate had no lictors, but with what Horace calls the "horribile flagellum," of which the Russian knout is the only modern representative. F.—According to the Roman custom, his hands are bound fast to a low pillar, and his breast and back are bared. The soldiers then approach. They hold in their hands whips plaited with thongs, tipped with iron wire. Therewith they strike, heaping lash upon lash. Consentingly and patiently does the Lord submit his body to these painful lashes, that sacred body, intended and prepared for sacrifice. "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. The punishment lay upon him, that we might have peace, and with his stripes we are healed." R. B. Behold affronts and indignities which the world thinks it right never to pardon, which the Son of God endures with a divine meekness! Let us cast at the feet of Jesus Christ, thus unworthily treated by his creatures, that false honor, that quick sense of affronts, that mischievous refinement which is punctilious about a trifle, which exaggerates everything and pardons nothing, and, above all, that devilish determination in resenting injuries. Q. 27-30. After the scourging, fresh scorn and shame were heaped upon the suffering Jesus. He had said: "I am a King;" therefore the soldiers of the governor now began to mock his royalty, just as the servants of Caiaphas had before derided him as Prophet. And the governor allows it all. He even desires that Jesus should be thus pitifully treated, hoping that thereby he might perhaps even yet escape the guilt of his death. R. B. They went through the whole heartless ceremony of a mock coronation, a mock investiture, a mock homage. Around the brows of Jesus, in wanton mimicry of the emperor's laurel, they twisted a green wreath of thorny leaves; in his tied and trembling hands they placed a reed for sceptre; from his torn and bleeding shoulders they stripped the white robe with which Herod had mocked him—which must now have been all soaked with blood—and flung on him an old scarlet war-cloak. F. 29. They platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head. This they did to deride and torture him. To torture him, for with their harnessed fists they press the sharp thorns into his brow; to deride him, for they placed on his head the crown of thorns, in order to adorn his mock royalty. And, yet, what crown could have been imagined for our King Jesus which should have so exactly suited him as this crown of thorns? He who came to obtain for us the blessing, bears what the curse-laden earth brings forth, being made a curse for us. The thorns might with justice have been turned into instruments of our torture, for they are emblems of our earthly lusts and cares, growing and flourishing in our heart, and choking there so many noble grains of seed; but now they torture him—and to us the crown of glory is given, the crown of life and righteousness. R. B. 30. Then, when they have got him robed, and crowned, and sceptred thus, they bow the knee, and hail him as a king. But they tire even of that mock homage; the demon spirit that is in them inspires the merriment with a savage cruelty; and so they snatch the reed out of his hand, and smite with it the crown of thorns, and drive it down upon his pierced and bleeding brow, and spit upon him, and smite him with their hands. H. Not one member of the Lord's only, but his whole body, had to suffer the most cruel torture; his head was wounded by the crown of thorns, by smiting with the reed; his face suffered spitting and cuffs with the hand; his whole body was mangled with scourging, it was stripped, it was covered with a cloak of scorn; his hands held the reed; and afterward his tongue was forced to taste vinegar and gall. Because in all our members sin dwells and works, therefore has Christ willed for our sins to suffer in all his members. Chrys.—And so, amid the conflict of human passions and the advancing tide of crime, the Scripture was fulfilled which said, in Messiah's name, many hundred years before he came into the world, "I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting." (Is. 50 : 6.) B. J. 4-6. All this is done in an inner court or guard-room, out of sight of the crowd that is still waiting without. Pilate sees it all; makes no attempt to mitigate the suffering or the mockery; is absorbed in wonder as he gazes upon Jesus—such a picture of silent, meek, unmurmuring, uncomplaining patience! standing there, and taking all that treatment as though no strange thing were happening, as if he had expected all, were prepared for all. There is no weakness in that patience; but a strength, a power, a dignity. The sight moves Pilate's heart: may it not move even the hearts of those people without? may it not satisfy their thirst for vengeance to see the suffering Jesus reduced to such a pitiable plight as this? He will try at least what the sight can do in the way of stirring such sympathy. He goes forth, with Jesus following, and says to the multitude, "Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him;" then, turning and pointing to Jesus, as he stood wearing still the purple robe and the crown of thorns, bearing on his face and person the marks of all the sufferings and indignities of the guard-house, Pilate says, "Behold the man!" "behold and pity, behold and be satisfied—behold, and suffer me, now that I have thus chastised him, to let him go!" H. I find no fault in him. It was meet that he who had the chief hand in slaying the Lamb of God, should three times publicly declare that he found no spot or blemish in him. Three times he vainly tried to evade condemning our Lord, or to make the Jews desist from their bloody design: once by asking the Jews to choose between Christ and Barabbas—once by sending him to Herod—and once by scourging him. J. C. R. 6. But his appeal only woke a fierce outbreak of the scream, "Crucify! crucify!" The mere sight of him, even in this his unspeakable shame and sorrow, seemed to add fresh fuel to their hate. In vain the heathen soldier appeals for humanity to the Jewish priest. The Roman who had shed blood like water, on the field of battle, in open massacre, in secret assassination, might well be supposed to have an icy and a stony heart; but yet icier and stonier was the heart of those scrupulous hypocrites and worldly priests. F.—If God ever showed his long-suffering great, it was here, when this outcry for the blood of his Son rose up into his ear, and yet he held his peace. 7-9. They had failed in bringing Christ to the cross as a rebel; they therefore now brought forward the accusation upon which he had previously been found guilty of death by the Sanhedrim. "He made himself the Son of God!" R. B.—The name "Son of God," the lofty sense evidently attached to it by his Jewish accusers, the dialogue he had already held with him, and the dream of his wife, all working together in the breast of the wretched Pilate, he went again into the palace, and saith to Jesus, Whence art thou?—beyond all doubt a question relating not to his mission but to his personal origin. B.—No answer. His silence is a judgment. By his silence he judges and by his silence he condemns a high-priest, a king, and a governor. A. T. 11. From above. Thus did Christ declare that no human will limited his life, but that his death took place in consequence of a higher necessity ordained by God, for a higher end. N.—He that delivered me.** The words appear to refer to Caiaphas as the official representative of those who formally gave over our Lord to the Roman governor, and to imply that his guilt was greater, because, when he had no power granted him from above against our Lord, he gave the Lord up to one who had, and whose power was plenary. E. Therefore—the Lord says—because thou imaginest that it is out of thine own power that thou canst judge me, because thou knowest not what is above, nor him who is from above, therefore is thy sin less heavy than the sin of Caiaphas and the chief priests; for these wilfully refuse to know who I am, that I am Christ, the Son of the true God, and their King. R. B.—Thou art indeed committing a great crime—but Judas, Annas, Caiaphas, these priests and Jews, are more to blame than thou. Thus, with infinite dignity, and yet with infinite tenderness, did Jesus judge his judge. In the very depths of his inmost soul Pilate felt the truth of the words—silently acknowledged the superiority of his bound and lacerated victim. F. There is something surely very impressive here; that, sunk as Jesus was beneath the weight of his own sufferings—sufferings so acute that they well might have engrossed his thoughts and feelings—he yet so calmly weighs in the judicial balance the comparative guilt of the actors in this sad scene, and excuses, as far he is able, the actings of Pilate. It had something of its proper effect upon the procurator. Instead of diminishing, it but increased the desire he already had to deliver him. H. The extreme reluctance of Pilate to sentence Christ, considering his merciless character, is signally remarkable; and, still more, his repeated protestations of the innocence of his prisoner, although he generally made no scruple of confounding the innocent with the guilty. But he was unquestionably influenced by the overruling providence of God, to make the righteousness of his Son appear in the clearest light, by the fullest, the most authentic, and the most public evidence. Hales. The words, and the whole bearing of Jesus, struck into the heart of the Roman. Presence of mind and self-respectful dignity, even in the most helpless victim of injustice, have an irresistible power over the oppressor. How much more such a unique grandeur as diffused itself round this mysterious man! Pilate was more than ever resolved to release him. Returning once again to the tribunal, Jesus at his side, he strove to bring the priests and the crowd to content themselves with what their victim had already suffered. G. 12. Thou art not Cesar's friend.** That Cesar was the dark and jealous Tiberius. Up to this period the Jewish nation, when they had complained of the tyranny of their rulers, had obtained a favorable hearing at Rome. Even against Herod the Great their charges had been received. On their complaint Archelaus had been removed from his throne. Not yet had their turbulence and insubordination effaced the influence of that attachment to the Cesarean family, which had obtained for their nation distinguishing privileges. In what manner such a charge, of not being "Cesar's friend," might be misrepresented or aggravated, it was impossible to conjecture; but the very strangeness of the accusation was likely to work on the gloomy and suspicious mind of Tiberius. H. M. 13. If he could have dared to show his real instincts, he would have driven them from his tribunal. But Pilate was guilty, and guilt is cowardice, and cowardice is weakness. His own past cruelties, recoiling in kind on his own head, forced him now to crush the impulse of pity, and to add to his many cruelties another more heinous still. He knew that serious complaints hung over his head. Panic-stricken, the unjust judge, in obedience to his own terrors, consciously betrayed the innocent victim to the anguish of death. He who had so often prostituted justice, was now unable to achieve the one act of justice which he desired. He who had so often murdered pity, was now forbidden to taste the sweetness of a pity for which he longed. He who had so often abused authority, was now rendered impotent to exercise it, for once, on the side of right. F. 14. Preparation of the passover.** Not "the hour for preparing the Passover meal." It means "this was the day before the great Sabbath of the Passover week, a day well known among the Jews as 'the preparation,' or day of preparing for the Passover Sabbath, which was peculiarly a high day." Mark (15 : 42) expressly says this. J. C. R. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ M. 2 AND, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from 3 heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His coun- 4 tenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keep- ers did shake, and became as dead men. Mk. 1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. L. 1 Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning when it was yet dark, as it began to dawn, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had Mk. 3 prepared, and certain others with them. And they said among themselves, Who shall 4 roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great. J. 1, 2 And Mary Magdalene seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved. L. 3 And they [the other women] entered in [the sepulchre] and found not the body of 4 the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. And they saw a young man sitting on the 5 right side, clothed in a long white garment: and they were affrighted. And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: be not affrighted: for I know that ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, 6 which was crucified. Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here; for he is risen, as he said: come, see the place where the Lord lay. Remember how he 7 spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered M. 7 into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And go quickly, and tell his disciples, and Peter, that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him, as he said unto you: lo, I 8 have told you. And they remembered his words, and they departed quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man: for they were afraid; and with fear and great joy did run to bring his disciples word. J. 2 And [Mary] saith unto them [Peter and John], They have taken away the Lord out of 3 the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went forth, 4 and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and 5 the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he stooping 6 down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes laid 7 by themselves: and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, 8 but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple which 9 came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the 10 scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again unto their own home, wondering at that which was come to pass. JESUS CHRIST proves himself the Redeemer of the human race, in the act of enduring death himself, and then rising victorious over it. This one event proves, by the majesty of facts, and not by uncertain reasoning, that the Being who invites our faith in himself has shown that Death is disarmed; that there is a power superior to his dread and cold touch. We come to the sepulchre now, though it be with reverent step, sorrow bearing her burden there with a most becoming awe; yet it is with thanks to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Come to the vacant sepulchre of Christ, and sing for joy. Death is abolished; let us rejoice and be glad. Angels, those spirits of purity and love, hasten to meet us here with their message of joy. They too are interested in the redemption of Christ; for they sung on the night of his advent; they ministered to the sufferer in the garden of agony; they rejoice over every sinner that repenteth; and they bear the spirits of the righteous to the bosom of God. Heaven and earth, angels and men, meet happily together at the open tomb of Christ. Sorrow may be for a night; joy cometh in the morning. With grateful hearts, with a head lifted up, and with a full-toned voice should we ever repeat the great articles of our faith: "I believe in Jesus Christ, who was crucified, who died, and was buried; who rose again from the dead; and who is now at the right hand of God: I believe in the forgiveness of sins, in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." W. A. # OUR LORD'S INTERCOURSE WITH THE DISCIPLES AFTER HIS RESURRECTION (Sections 160-166). OUT of the forty days there were but six on which he held intercourse with any human being, and in those six days he did not give more than as many hours to fellowship with those to whom he showed himself. How brief, too, and abrupt the meetings! In the twilight of the garden; in the dim-lighted upper chamber; in the gray dawn of the lake-side—he appears, speaks but a few sentences, and vanishes as mysteriously as he had appeared. What impression was all this studied distance and reserve fitted to make upon the minds of his disciples? Remember that not one of them before his death had risen to any thought or belief in his divinity; that from all their earlier earthly notions of him they had to be weaned; that after days and years of the easiest companionship with him, they had to be raised to the belief that it was the very Lord of heaven and earth with whom they had been holding converse; yet that belief was to be so formed within them as not to militate against the idea of his true and proper humanity. See, then, what an important part in the execution of this needful but most difficult task must have been fulfilled by his mode of dealing with them during the forty days. For let us only conceive what should have happened if one or other of two alternatives had been realized: If at once, after a few interviews, sufficient simply to do away with all doubt as to his resurrection, Jesus had passed up into the heavens; let us imagine that the descent of the Spirit had immediately ensued; that the day of Pentecost had followed immediately on the day of the resurrection; that the eyes of the apostles had thus at once and fully been enlightened, and the great truth of their Master's Godhead had been flashed upon their minds—the danger undoubtedly would have been that, seen in the blaze of that new glory, the man Christ Jesus had been lost, the humanity swallowed up in the divinity; nor would it have been so easy to persuade those men that, ascended up on high, seated at the right hand of the Father, he was the same Jesus still—a brother to them as truly as when he lived among them, equally alive to all human sympathies as when he walked with them by the way, or sat down with them in the upper chamber. Take, again, the other alternative: That, after his resurrection, Christ had immediately resumed and continued—even, let us say, for no longer a time than these forty days—the exact kind of life that he had led before—would not such a return on his part to all the old familiarities of his former intercourse have had a tendency to check the rising faith in his divinity; to tie his disciples down again to a knowing of him only after the flesh; to give to the humanity of the Lord such prominence as to make it overshadow the divinity? Can you conceive a treatment more nicely fitted to the spiritual condition, to the spiritual wants of those men at that time, than the very one which the Lord adopted and carried out—so well fitted as it was, gradually, gently, without violence, to lead those disciples on from their first imperfect, unworthy ideas of his person, character, and work, on and up to clearer, purer, loftier conceptions of him? In what better way could a faith in their Master's divinity have been superinduced upon their former faith in him as a man, a friend, a brother, so that the two might blend together without damage done to either by the union; their knowledge of him as human not interfering with their trust in him as divine; their faith in him as God not weakening their attachment to him as man? H. The various manifestations which the Saviour made of himself to his disciples, as recorded by the Evangelists and Paul, may be arranged and enumerated as follows: 1. To the women returning from the sepulchre. Only by Matthew. 2. To Mary Magdalene at the sepulchre. Reported by John and Mark. 3. To Peter, perhaps early in the afternoon. By Luke and Paul. 4. To the two disciples going to Emmaus, toward evening. By Luke and Mark. 5. To the apostles (except Thomas) assembled at evening. By Mark, Luke, John, and Paul. N. B. These five appearances all took place at or near Jerusalem, upon the first day of the week, the same day on which the Lord arose. 6. To the apostles, Thomas being present, eight days afterward at Jerusalem. Only by John. 7. To seven of the apostles on the shore of the Lake of Tiberias. Only by John. 8. To the eleven apostles and to five hundred other brethren, on a mountain in Galilee. By Matthew and Paul. 9. To James, probably at Jerusalem. Only by Paul. 10. To the eleven at Jerusalem, immediately before the ascension. By Luke in Acts, and by Paul. Then follows the ascension. R. [The numbers 1 and 2 in the above outline we have exchanged in our arrangement. J. G. B.] Any one who will attentively read the narratives of these appearances on the first day of the resurrection will see that they have only been preserved for us in general, interblended, and scattered notices, which, in strict exactness, render it impossible to produce from them a certain narrative of the order of events. Our belief in the resurrection as an historic fact, as absolutely well attested by subsequent and contemporary circumstances as any other event in history, rests on grounds far deeper, wider, more spiritual, more eternal, than can be shaken by divergences of which we can only say that they are not contradictions, but of which the true solution is no longer attainable. As Lange finely says, the great fugue of the first Easter tidings has not come to us as a "monotonous chorale," and mere verbal criticism cannot understand the common feeling and harmony which inspire the individual vibrations of those enthusiastic and multitudinous voices. Westcott points out the differences in the narrative of the four Evangelists. Matthew dwells chiefly on the majesty and glory of the resurrection; Mark insists upon it as a fact; Luke, as a spiritual necessity; John, as a touchstone of character. F. It is not possible to determine certainly the order of events in this and in the following section. The fair inference from the four accounts is, that Mary Magdalene came with the other women to the sepulchre, saw that the stone was rolled away and the sepulchre empty, but saw not the angels; then instantly turned and went to report to Peter and John. The interview of the women with the angels having taken place, they had scarce gone when Peter and John, running in advance of Mary, came, saw the empty tomb, and turned homeward again. (Thus far this section.) Then Mary comes again, Jesus appears to her, and gives her a brief message. A little afterward, before the other women had found the now scattered disciples, Jesus meets them, and confirms the specific message already given by the angel in the sepulchre. It may be added that, while there are differences (readily perceived in our arrangement of the text), seeming discrepancies in the four accounts, there are no contradictory statements. J. G. B. Mk. 1. No writer of a fictitious story, had he previously put into Christ's lips such distinct foretellings of his death and resurrection, would have attributed to his followers such an entire forgetfulness of these predictions, such an utter prostration of all faith and hope, as that which the Evangelists describe as coming upon all our Lord's disciples immediately after his death. Yet, after all, is it not true to human nature, that upon the minds and hearts of those simple, uncultivated men and women, filled as they had been with other quite different expectations, the shock of such a shameful death, coming in such a way upon their Master, was so sudden and stunning, that all power of forming a new conception of their Master's character, and taking up a new faith in him, was gone; the power even of remembering what he had said about himself beforehand for the season paralyzed? But love lives on, even where faith dies out, among those disconsolate and utterly hopeless friends and followers of our Lord. H. It was night in the disciples' hearts. Their love was crucified, their glory dishonored, their hope destroyed, their life was waste and desolate. The seven stars of those words from the cross were fading fast away behind the stormy clouds of their soul. They wept and lamented. Scattered without hope, united again without hope, one thing alone occupied their thoughts and sight and words, and that was his grave. R. B. L. 1. First day. The portion, however brief, of this day (according to Jewish reckoning) that Jesus remained in the tomb is reckoned as one day, like the brief interval between his burial and the Friday's sunset, and thus he remained three days in the earth. S. Mark says, "at the rising of the sun." These various popular forms of expression present some of the finer points in proof of the truth of the narratives. Their meaning is substantially the same—somewhere between the night and the sunrising, in the morning twilight. J. G. B.—Mark first specifies the time by very early. He used the phrase "rising of the sun" in a broad and less definite sense. As the sun's earliest rays produce the contrast between darkness and light, between night and dawn, so the term sunrising might easily come in popular language to be put for all that earlier interval, when his rays, still struggling with darkness, do nevertheless usher in the day. R. On Sunday he chose to rise, because on this day began the creation of the world with the calling into being of light: the light which is the life of the created world was to have one birthday with the life which is the light of the restored world. Sunday, the day of Christ's resurrection, is the Lord's day (Rev. 1: 10); this day has been set apart by the Church gathered together through the preaching of the resurrection, as the day for their services of divine worship. R. B. As the resurrection of Christ is the great fact, so the day of its occurrence is the great day of Christianity. From the time of the apostles its weekly return has been called by the name of the LORD'S DAY; and to this epoch of the new creation of all things, marked by the new life of Christ, all the permanent sanctity of the primeval Sabbath was transferred. S.—Henceforth it was not only God the Creator that was to be chiefly remembered, but God the Saviour and Regenerator of mankind. To mark this great event the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week—changed most clearly by our Lord. The early Christian Church, those who received the gospel direct from the apostles, kept this day. Hence the apostles must have kept the first day as the Sabbath. They were Jews, and would not have changed the day themselves. Christ only is Lord of the Sabbath. He only could have given the necessary authority. And now we are to keep the Sabbath-day holy, in remembrance of both Maker and Redeemer. The obligation therefore is twofold. Bartlett. (Read Section 184.) Mk. 4. Altogether secret, the exact time and manner unnoticed and unknown, was that great rising from the dead. The clearest and amplest proof was afterward given of the fact that, some time between sunset of the last and sunrise of the first day of the week, the resurrection had taken place; but it pleased not the Lord who then arose to do so under the immediate eye or inspection of any human witness. H.—In the dark recesses of the sepulchre, through almighty power, his spirit revived, unseen and unknown to every mortal eye. Angels ministered unto him, and opened before him the door of the tomb. R. His cross was surrounded by thousands of beholders of his shame, many saw his sufferings, observed how he bowed his head and gave up the ghost; John, from the wound of the spear, saw blood and water flow: but his resurrection was to have no beholders but the angels—he was already risen when the women came. The rising Christ is King of a kingdom which comes not with outward observation, whose glory is an inward glory, and whose visible form is the cross. And not to all the people did the risen one appear, but only to those in whose hearts he had already found a place as the crucified one. R. B. J. 2. The disciple whom Jesus loved. Through the whole fourth gospel, while the Apostle John is never named, there moves an unnamed, as it were, veiled form, which sometimes comes forward, yet without the veil being entirely lifted. How natural to suppose that he designates himself with that name which expresses the highest contents and the whole joy of his life—as "that disciple whom Jesus loved!" The objection of Weisse, that this would have been an arrogant assumption, shows that he has not entered into that joyous pride, mingled with all humility, which grows out of the consciousness of having been loved, without desert on his part, by him who is the object of his own supreme love. Hase. L. 4. Two men. Mark and Luke describe the persons as "men," according to the appearance; Matthew and John as angels, according to the reality. That there were two angels is clear from John's more minute account, confirmed by Luke. Matthew and Mark mention only one angel, perhaps because they knew only of one, not getting the details fully, perhaps because one was prominent as the speaker. L. A. Stood. The difficulty as to the position of the angels (Mark, sitting) vanishes when we take this word of Luke in its appropriate and acknowledged usage: they suddenly appeared, were suddenly present. R.—A young man. The angel of the Lord described just as he appeared to the eye, in the bloom of a life that knows no decay. 7. Remarkable it is to hear angels quoting a whole sentence of Christ's to the disciples, mentioning where it was uttered, and wondering it was not fresh on their memory, as doubtless it was in theirs. B. M. 7. Tell his disciples. The disciples, after their Lord's crucifixion, appear to have entertained no hopes of his resurrection. Shocked and confounded, dismayed at finding him condemned to the ignominious death of the cross, they forgot everything he had said to them respecting his rising again. Most of them seem to have given themselves up to sorrow and despair. They had not even the courage or the curiosity to go to the sepulchre on the third day to see whether the promised event had taken place or not. Thus it is perfectly clear that nothing but the most irresistible evidence would convince them of a fact which they seemed to think in the highest degree improbable. P. There is in the apostles no impassioned enthusiasm, no exaggeration in their trustfulness and devotedness. Even with them Jesus sees himself confronted by all the vacillations and weaknesses of humanity. He persuades them, he wins them, he preserves them only by great exertion. They only really believe in him after having witnessed the accomplishment of his sacrifice and his last miracle, when they had seen his crucifixion and his resurrection. Only then they believed; but from that moment their faith became absolutely superior to all perils and all trials; full of the Holy Spirit, and associated in a certain measure to their divine Master, they pursue his work with unshaken confidence and firmness, without pretending to any merit, without any impulse of personal pride. F. G. And Peter. Mark's Gospel being drawn up (as all the earliest tradition states) under the eye of Peter, or from materials chiefly furnished by him, there is something deeply affecting in the preservation of this little clause by Mark alone, as well as in the clause itself, which it is impossible not to connect with the cloud under which Peter lay in the eyes of the eleven, not to say in his own also. B. —Was it not most wonderful that there should be such a remembrance of Peter by that Master whom he had so lately denied? Peter had his rising hopes confirmed, his doubts and fears all quenched, when, some time in the course of that forenoon, waiting till John and he had parted—waiting till he could meet him alone, and speak to him with all the greater freedom and fulness—Jesus showed himself to Peter. Before he met the others to speak peace, he hastened to meet Peter to speak pardon. One of the first offices of the risen Saviour was to wipe away the tears of the penitent. J. 6, 7. Linen clothes. . . . napkin by itself. Who had arranged them thus? Was it the hand of the great Sleeper himself, on his awakening within the tomb? or was it some angel's hand that took the death-garments as they dropped from around the risen one, and thus disposed them? Whoever did it, there had been no haste; all had been done calmly, collectedly. Neither earthly friends nor earthly foes had done it: the one would not have stripped the garments from the body; the other would have been at no pains so carefully to arrange and deposit them. H. 8. He saw, and believed.** Evidently, that the Lord had not been taken away out of the sepulchre, but that he had gone forth out of it. R. B. —It is especially to be observed, that although Christ had actually arisen and was there, these two men, Peter and John, did not see him. They went back into the city, not knowing what had taken place. And it is only then, when they have gone, that to other eyes than theirs, to another kind of nature, of finer mould and quicker sight, a woman—a soul in which the mighty wonder of another resurrection had been first achieved, weeping because they seemed to have taken away her Lord, and she knows not where they have laid him—it is to her that the Lord first appears. F. D. H. 10. The disciples went to their own home.** [To the home of John.] The love and tender charity of John's character came out beautifully in his affection for Peter, even after his denial of Christ. He clings to him, and has him under his own roof, wherever that was. All through the Gospels and Acts, Peter and John seem to have been peculiarly drawn together, and to have been close friends and companions. J. C. R. WE have all a nearer, a more special interest in this deserted tomb of Jesus Christ. For us he died, and for us he rose again. Firm and fast as the grave now seems to hold the buried generations of our race, it is doomed, as a fruit of Christ's resurrection, to relax its grasp and yield them up again. Empty as was Joseph's sepulchre when the angel spake to the women, so empty shall be every grave of earth when another angel shall sound his trumpet, and it shall ring through the regions of the dead, and stir all to life again. Blessed was that morning which dawned upon the empty tomb at Calvary, but more blessed to us shall that other morning be which shall dawn upon the empty graves of earth, if only now we live in Christ; if at death we sleep in Jesus; if at that resurrection we be numbered with those who shall share the resurrection of the just. H. Fit is it that we sing unto the Lord a new song! and with thankful hearts, on his own day and on every day, congratulate the triumph of his rising from the dead, and rejoice in this birthday of our hopes! Now is the justice of God amply satisfied, or the prisoner had never been released. Now is the reproach of the cross ceased, and turned into glory. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is now, through the death and resurrection of his dear Son, become our Father and our God. D. # Section 161.—Appears to Mary, then to the other Women. Watch bribed. Disciples disbelieve. Mk. 9 Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. J. 11 But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept she stooped down 12 and looked into the sepulchre; and seeth two angels in white, sitting, the one at the 13 head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away 14 my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. And when she had thus said, she 15 turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. 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 16 thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned 17 herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni, which is to say, Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. Mk. 10 Mary Magdalene came to the disciples, as they mourned and wept, and told them that 11 she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her. And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not. M. 9 And as they [the other women] went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, say- 10 ing, All hail. And they came, and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren, that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me. 11. Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed 12 unto the chief priests all the things that were done. And when they were assembled 13 with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying, 14 Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this 15 come to the governor's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day. L. 9 And [the women] returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, 10 and to all the rest. It was Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women 11 that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles. And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not. BEFORE he descended to the tomb, Messiah had finished transgression and made an end of sin. There was nothing to take him thither, except the Scripture which must be fulfilled, and the last enemy which must be destroyed; and except the great stone and the pontifical seals, there was nothing to keep him there. Vainly did the King of Terrors watch over his strange captive, and vainly did the grave boast of its mysterious and mighty inmate. He opened his eyes, and death was abolished; he stood up, and the grave had lost its victory; and yielding to the touch of heaven's herald, the seals and the great stone gave way, and Jesus was "declared the Son of God, with power in his resurrection from the dead." Delivered for our offences, he was raised again for our justification: and along with him rose all his ransomed—that glorious Church of countless members which left the grave of Jesus acquitted, accepted, legally justified, virtually saved. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." Because he lives, they shall live also. From the great life-fournain, the Mediator's person, their souls have imbibed immortality, and their union with Christ secures them an eventual share in Christ's own resurrection. Hamilton. Two of the most unqualified declarations of Christ's essential deity were made to him, and sanctioned by him, after his resurrection: this one of the actual paying of divine honors to him, which was repeated by the disciples just before the ascension, and Thomas's hearty confession, "My Lord and my God!" We see in this just that steady development of gospel truth which is most natural. Up to the time of his death on the cross, marvellous as the tokens of the Lord's superhuman character were, both in his words and in his acts, it was the human side of his nature that was kept constantly in view. A being having all the visible attributes of a man, subject in the body to mortal limitations—to weakness, pain, fatigue, sleep, hunger, tears—moving and feeling as other men move and feel, must leave on all about him the impression of a human nature; nor would it be very strange if the daily sight of these external qualities should partly obscure, for the time, the marks of a loftier origin, and make a belief in his divinity difficult. But the sepulchre had now put a different aspect on all these mortal signs; the resurrection had transfigured them and, as it were, divinized them. It had never been heard before that a man lifted himself, by his own will, out of the grave and asserted his superiority to all the forces of destruction. Surely here must be nothing less than the Creator's majesty. The divinity broke through the mortal investiture. In the glorified form the "Son of God" stood revealed not less than the "Son of man." They worshipped him, and he received their worship. F. D. H. Is not the fragmentary character of each of these four separate accounts just what we might have expected, considering the time and manner of the events narrated—the obscure light, the women coming, it may have been singly, or in different groups by different routes, the surprise, the terror, the running in and out, to and from the city—all this within the compass of an hour or two? Which one of the spectators or actors in these busy and broken movements, if asked afterward to detail what occurred, but might have given an account of it differing from that of all the others? H. The confusion which confessedly exists in this part of the narrative, and the consequent difficulty of reducing it to one continuous account, is not the fault of the historians, but the natural effect of the events themselves, as impressed upon the senses and the memory of different witnesses. If it had pleased God to inspire a single writer as the historian of the resurrection, he would no doubt have furnished as coherent and perspicuous a narrative as any other in the sacred volume. But since it entered into the divine plan, as a necessary element, to set before us not a single but a fourfold picture of our Saviour's life and death, we must purchase the advantage of this varied exhibition by submitting to its incidental inconveniences. Among them is the difficulty, just referred to, of combining all these views, taken from different points of observation, into one complete view to be seen at the same moment. The historical problem is as hard to solve as the pictorial, not more so; and the seeming inconsistencies, resulting from the effort to amalgamate the narratives, ought no more to destroy our faith in their eventual harmony, than similar points of disagreement in four photographic views of the same edifice or landscape ought to make us question either the identity of the object or the absolute truth of the delineation. J. A. A. Mk. 9. First to Mary Magdalene. She had gone with the other women to the sepulchre; parting from them before their interview with the angel, and finding Peter and John, she had followed them back to the spot; and it was then that Jesus appeared to this Mary. To a woman was this honor given to be the first that saw the risen Redeemer; and that woman was not his mother. B. A great injustice has been done to Mary Magdalene, in identifying her with the woman who was a sinner, who anointed the Lord's feet with ointment, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. The name of that woman is not mentioned in the record of the incident in which she took so prominent a part. The incident occurred not in Magdala but at Nain. It was after Christ had left Nain that the first mention of this Mary meets us in the gospel narrative: "And the twelve were with him, and certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance." Named thus along with one whose husband held an important office in Herod's household, named as one of those who ministered to our Lord of their substance, Mary Magdalene does not appear to have been a woman of a low or poor condition. (Section 46, page 185.) J. 11. Mary stood weeping. The Master had been to her the kindest and best of friends. Her grateful love, living in her sorrow, makes her cling, even when John has left it, to the spot where in death he had reposed. Mary Magdalene, standing alone weeping thus before the empty sepulchre, presents herself to our eye as the saddest and most inconsolable of all the mourners for the Crucified. H. 12,13. Seeth two angels.** The whole character of this representation seems to show clearly, that Mary had not before seen the angels; and also that she had not before been told that Jesus was risen. R. 14. She turns away even from an interview with angels, from converse with those who may have had as their purpose, in putting to her that question, to tell her about her risen Lord. She turns away even from them, to weep out, without further interruption, her most bitter grief. But now, from other lips, the same question, "Woman, why weepest thou?" salutes her ear. She sees, but scarcely notices, the person who thus speaks to her. He is not directly before her, and she cares not to turn, or make any scrutiny of his person. Even had she done so, seeing him through the veil of dropping tears, she might have failed to recognize him. She cares as little, in fact, about who this speaker is, as she had cared about who those angels were. H.—So absorbed in her sorrow, and so utterly without hope or expectancy of such a blessing, that she speaks to the supposed stranger without recognizing him. E. Her heart was covered by so thick a cloud of sorrow, that she could not recognize him whom she yet was so earnestly seeking. And believers are often as near to Jesus as their soul is to their body; their tears and sighs, their love and longing, testify to the faith that is in their heart; and yet at times they cannot perceive him whom their soul loves and seeks. Scriver. 15,16. Woman, why weepest thou?** The first word from the mouth of the risen Lord! This is what Christ's resurrection exclaims to every troubled sinner; for therefore is he risen, that our sorrow might be turned into joy. R. B. Mary. With one word, and that word her name, the Lord awakens all the consciousness of his presence: calling her in that tone doubtless in which her soul had been so often summoned to receive divine knowledge and precious comfort. (That she turned herself seems to imply that she had not been looking full at him before.) A. Since that day when the Lord had healed her and received her among his own, she had with blessed joy often heard her name from his lips. Who but He could it be, whose cry of Mary now struck upon her heart? Who could it be but he, the Good Shepherd, who knows his sheep and is known of his—who calleth his own sheep by name and they know his voice? R. B. They that were spiritually best prepared, by affection, by earnestness, by sympathy with the spirit of his life and cross, and by love for him, had the clearest and earliest disclosures of his glorified presence. It is just so now. They that are least occupied with themselves, least engrossed with a business that is all of this world, or with a social life and its fashions that are all afar off from the simplicity of his beatitudes, they that are trying to do and bear his will in their houses, they that are busy looking after his lost sheep, they that are ready to believe more because they use the faith they have, they that repent most sorrowfully and put not their boast in anything that they do—these are the souls to which he will unveil the glory of his face, whose eyes he will touch and open that they may see more and more of his truth, and in whose hearts he will dwell, as he dwells in no temple that is made with hands. F. D. H. 17. In the very difficult words, "Touch me not," two things seem clearly implied: a solemn declaration of changed relations of intercourse with the risen Lord, and a consolatory assurance that what is prohibited now shall (in another form) be vouchsafed hereafter. E.—It meant that the day for personal, physical presence, for merely human affection, for the grasp of human tenderness, was over now. Henceforth he was to be with his people more nearly, more intimately, because in spirit. F. He allowed a physical touch to the fear of the other women and to the unbelief of Thomas; but he taught the higher spiritual truth to the unfearing, believing Mary, when he gently disallowed a similar touch to her ardent love. J. G. B.—The "Touch me not" was a prophetic protest against all the miserable forms which mistaken devotion has invented in the course of ages. De P. She would have touched him, as if he had been the same as he was before; but he was not the same, and the season for such touching was over. Another kind of touching must begin; and when his disciples shall apprehend him as he is—when they shall fully realize the spiritual glory of him who has as yet been little more than a loved companion and friend—when they shall “see” that he has gone to his Father, they shall behold him, hear him, touch him, as those who are indeed his “brethren.” W. M. “I am not risen from the dead that I may again in body walk the earth, but in order that I may ascend up to the Father. Therefore, believe that I am going to the Father, where I shall rule and reign with him forever, and bring you also out of your death and out of every sorrow. Then will ye have me with you to be truly seen and touched by you; then will ye forever enjoy an everlasting communion with me and with my Father.” Luther. Brethren. Indirectly to assure the disciples that the Lord was still truly man, and in this respect still stood on the same relations with them as before. E. —“My brethren.” Blessed Jesus, who are these? Were they not thy followers? yea, thy forsakers? How dost raise these titles with thyself? At first they were thy servants; then disciples; a little before thy death they were thy friends; now, after thy resurrection, they were thy brethren. Bp. H. A name of yet closer fellowship, a glorious, a precious name, is here given to believers—brethren of Jesus Christ. How must this brother’s greeting have comforted and refreshed the scattered disciples, so wholly unworthy of it, they who had forsaken and denied the Lord! And to all of us poor sinners also belongs this tender name of brethren, and not to the first disciples alone; for the apostle tells us we are predestinated to be conformed to the likeness of the Son of God, “that he might be the first-born among many brethren.” R. B. I ascend. His stay in his then form was to be but transient; only after his ascension could he remain permanently, and that in another form. Therefore he did not commission Mary to announce his sensible coming, but his ascension to the Father, and his subsequent revelation to them; making no mention of the intermediate and brief manifestation that was only to prepare the way for the higher and permanent one. N. The Lord does not here send word to his disciples respecting his already accomplished resurrection, but proclaims to them his speedy ascension. The disciples were to turn their thoughts toward those heavenly blessings which Christ dispenses in his kingdom; they were to see in their risen Lord the only-begotten Son of the Father and his glory. His resurrection was to be followed by no fresh dying; the risen one ascends to heaven, and lives and reigns forever. R. B. My Father and your Father: my God and your God. All the deepest of the Church fathers were wont to call attention to this, as expressly designed to distinguish between what God is to him and to us—his Father essentially, ours not so; our God essentially, his not so; his God only in connection with us; our God only in connection with him. B. Christ desires to “proclaim to his brethren,” that his passion and his rising again have obtained this for us, that his Father has also become our Father, his God also our God. The Lord himself brings into view this fruit of his resurrection, that we may now venture, as Christ’s brethren, to call God our Father with a good conscience, as Peter speaks. The other fruit of the Lord’s resurrection, namely, our resurrection, is bound up in this comforting discourse. Since God calls himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob live before him; for God is not a God of the dead, but of the living. So Christ teaches the resurrection of the dead. Here he calls God our God. Even, then, as it was impossible that Christ should be holden of death because God is his God, just so is it also impossible that we should be holden of death because God is our God—a God, not of the dead, but of the living. R. B. • Paul answers the question, “Who is he that condemneth?” by saying, “Christ hath died—yea, rather hath risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” The death, the resurrection, the ascension, the intercession of Christ, are four great facts that should never be separated. J. C. R. M. 9. Jesus met them. The second appearance of Jesus was to the other party of women, as they returned to the city, and, perhaps, separated to find out the different apostles, to whom when assembled they related the whole of their adventure. H. M. Saying, All hail! Words of exulting congratulation to mourners weeping for the dead. His work was done, a new era had begun; death was conquered in his person; life and immortality were brought to light for the world. But what will be his joy when he returns in glory to utter a last “All hail!” to sea and land, to the graveyard of the world, to the dust of every one which has been marked by his eye, and precious to his heart! N. M. Worshipped him. By a variety of persons, and on a variety of occasions, was he worshipped upon earth, nor do we once read of his rejecting these honors; he received them without a single mark of disapprobation: on the contrary, when worship was offered to Peter, Paul, and Barnabas, they rejected it in the most pointed terms of abhorrence; nor would an angel suffer John the Divine to fall down at his feet to worship him: “See thou do it not,” says he, “for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets: worship God!” Nares. Those institutions and movements in the world, however moral or religious their object, and however brisk their activity, seem to have no deep or strong or permanent life in them which are without this living and conscious connection with the presence and person of Christ, so as to draw their constant supplies of power from him. Those, on the other hand, however few their numbers, or scanty their treasuries, or apparently insignificant their results, which are rooted and grounded in him, animated by the daily breath of prayers to him, in their members and leaders consecrated to him personally, holding him by the feet and worshipping him—these seem to have in them a certain tranquil and immortal power for good, and to be the salt of the earth. So too with the souls of men. With whatever good intentions, honorable aims, charitable feelings, and abundant energy, they that are without this conscious connection with the living and personal Head seem like streams, however full, which run from a cistern and not from the fountain in the hills. They have all that human goodness and zeal can have without that one secret and ineffable element of Christian love, eternal and inexhaustible; and therefore, while they are never to be judged uncharitably, they are not to be trusted as we trust what Christ holds in his almighty hand and stamps with his cross. He does not say to them, “All hail!” and they do not hold him by the feet and worship him. F. D. H. The Messages by Mary and by the Women.—Christ had said to the eleven, “I leave the world and go to the Father.” To inform them that, though now risen, he had not yet ascended—gone to the Father—but that he would soon ascend, was the object of the word to Mary, “Go, say to them, I ascend.” Besides this information, it was essential that they should understand, before he showed himself, that with him this was a brief transitional period, a passage-time from the earthly and natural to the heavenly and spiritual; and that during this brief interval until his ascension, the terms of their intercourse with him, especially the old familiar personal relations, were to be changed, to accord with his own changed relations to nature and humanity. The communication of this fact was made directly to Mary Magdalene in the gentle prohibition “Touch me not,” and in the reason assigned, “For I am not yet ascended;” and it was conveyed through her indirectly to the disciples. This double message to Mary was the first, because the most important. And it was conveyed through Mary, who had neither fear of the angels, nor fear or question of the risen Saviour; through Mary, because her spiritual susceptibility and perception were signally deep and clear, as her faith was exceptionally simple and strong, and her devotion true and pure. And without demur this unfearing, discerning, trusting Mary of Magdala received and conveyed the word, and the enacted instruction, to the disciples. But these dull-minded, disheartened men needed a positive, strong assurance of the Lord’s actual resurrection; to know directly, by unquestionable testimony, fortified by sight and hearing and touch, that he was indeed risen in the same body. Hence the double message to the fearing, half-believing women. First they had a direct assurance from the angel: “Fear not—go, tell his disciples that he is risen, and goeth into Galilee!” Then, a little after, Jesus presented himself to their vision, allowed their touch, and with his own voice repeated the angel’s word, “Fear not; go tell my brethren.” And so, with their feebler faith strengthened, and fear allayed, they could, as they did, convey this double assurance of the fact of his actual resurrection in the body. Thus the significance of those two appearances of our Lord may be interpreted. Through Mary the disciples were instructed, first, that the ascension was yet to come; and second, that during the brief transition interval there would be no recurrence to the former familiarity of intercourse. Through the women they were directly and positively assured that the Master had risen from death and the grave, and lived again in the body. J. G. B. 11. Thus these heathen soldiers became the first preachers of Christ’s resurrection, and witnesses of the truth of it to the most inveterate of his enemies. But neither soldiers nor priests were affected by what the one saw or the other heard. 13. Stole him away.** It was absurd to pretend to say with any certainty what passed while they were asleep; so that this was in effect only hiring them to say that they knew nothing of the matter. D. L. 11. As idle tales, they believed them not. Nothing appears more clearly on the face of every narrative than the total want of expectation, the incredulity, the unwillingness to be convinced, which marked the disciples. Yet how often the Saviour intimated not only his death but his resurrection to his followers! But it is their doubts that make their after-faith so valuable and so satisfying to us. They were not too anxious, they were only too unready to believe. On the other hand, the enemies of Jesus attached more meaning to what he said of his approaching resurrection than his friends. W. M. How could those who were so slow to believe in the resurrection have been its inventors? And yet they did believe, and this faith in the resurrection became their lever to move the world. De P.—Within six weeks of the resurrection, that great event was the unshaken faith of every Christian; within a few years of the event the palpable historic proofs of it and the numerous testimonies of its reality—strengthened by a memorable vision vouchsafed to himself—had won assent from the acute and noble intellect of a young Pharisaic zealot and persecutor whose name was Saul. F. THE ascension itself began in the resurrection. It is in the tomb that we find the great dividing line between humiliation and exaltation; and when, on the third morning, Jesus burst the bands of death, his glorification had begun. He was, indeed, still to appear from time to time on the earth, but that was in itself no humiliation. The labor, the suffering, the sorrow, had ceased forever. W. M. That resurrection light illumines all things. It reveals to us the righteous love of God, the all-sufficiency of Christ's atonement, the certainty and glory of eternal life, and the redemption of the body new and transfigured. The day has dawned that shall never end; and in the heaven of heavens, on the right hand of God, we behold him, the God-man, as our Intercessor, Advocate, sympathizing Friend, and glorious Head. A. S. ## Section 162.—Walk to Emmaus with Two Disciples. M. 16 THEN the eleven disciples went away into Galilee. J. 1 After these things Jesus shewed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias: 2 and on this wise shewed he himself. There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two 3 other of his disciples. 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. 4 But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore; but the disciples 5 knew not that it was Jesus. Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? 6 They answered him, No. And he said unto them, Cast 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 7 the multitude of fishes. 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 8 coat unto him (for he was naked), and did cast himself into the sea. And the other disciples came in a little ship (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hun- dred cubits) dragging the net with fishes. 9 As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid 10 thereon, and bread. 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 12 and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken. Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? 13 knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, 14 and fish likewise. This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead. 15 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 love thee. 16 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 love 17 thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou 18 knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, 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 19 shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me. 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, 22 Peter seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto 23 him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. 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 24 to thee? This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. PRAISED be God, he stands ready with his help close to the sea where his servants are fishing; his voice reaches across to them from the shore, forwarding the work of their hands. But when, at the end of the world, the great draught of fishes, taken in the unbroken net of the one gospel, shall be gathered in the harbor of peace, then, at the sight of the redeemed around the throne of the Lamb, they will clearly perceive that the Lord had indeed no need of their labor; and will adore the graciousness of his free love, which has so ordered it, that lost sinners are to be turned to righteousness by means of pardoned sinners. The personal love which exists between the believing soul and the Saviour is the deep working of the Holy Spirit, of which no one knows anything save the soul which experiences it; and he who is favored with the blessed assurance of loving with true actual love him who is God's and Mary's Son, who though in heaven is yet infinitely near to faith; he who embraces him and lays himself on his breast, crying, "My Lord Jesus!"—such a one rejoices with trembling, and rests his sure comfort on this, that the Lord knows what is the mind of the Spirit, when the Spirit's unutterable "groanings" are the only language we can employ. R. B. Lovest thou me? All down through time, the question, in various ways, is presented to living souls. The human race is, and will be, divided by that one test. It will be uttered again from the throne of judgment, that throne high and white, before which a departed world shall pass to his right hand and his left. That throne will be occupied by the resplendent form of incarnate Love, and the destiny of every man will be—must be—as are his affinities in regard to Him. He that loveth is of God; and they who are like God shall be gathered to his bosom. W. A. THE gospels have been brought to a fit and, it seems, an intended conclusion, at the end of the twentieth chapter of John; but yet another chapter is added, as if dictated by some after-thought, which in its effect links the whole gospel record to the book of Acts which succeeds it. The miracle which had already foreshadowed the work of the fishers of men is repeated, but with altered circumstances, typical of the change which was at hand. For now the Lord is no longer with them in the ship, but stands dimly seen upon the shore; yet from thence issues his directions, and shows the presence of his power working with them in their seemingly lonely toil. Then the charge is left to feed his sheep, and lastly the future destinies of the two chief apostles are suffered to be faintly seen. T. D. B. Third appearance of Jesus to the apostles (seven of them) by the Lake of Galilee—the seventh in all. Their meeting with Jesus in the mountain he had appointed them must have been subsequent to that morning by the Lake of Galilee, of which John has given us so full and touching an account. S.  Sea of Tiberias. Bethsaida beach recalled bright pictures of our Saviour's life. Here was the cradle of Christianity, and years afterward here again was "the third time that Jesus showed himself to his disciples after that he was risen from the dead." Almost the same persons are this time on the shore again: Peter, and Thomas, and Nathanael, and James, and John; but only "that disciple whom Jesus loved" could at first recognize his Lord. Peter, who had before cast himself into the same sea to go to Jesus, now did so again; but the Lord now thrice called him "Simon," as if the unstable one had by his three-fold denial lost his better title. J. M. He would recall to the memory of his disciples all that they had witnessed in the early days of his ministry. Above all he would stir the hearts of Peter and James and John, by saying some of his last things to them, at the place where he had first called them to leave their boats and nets, to follow him, and to become fishers of men. J. C. R. 1. There is a significance to be found in the words, “Jesus showed,” or manifested, “himself,” that his body after the resurrection was only visible by a distinct act of his will. From that time the disciples did not, as before, see Jesus, but Jesus appeared unto or was seen by them. The language is changed, and in language of this kind all his appearances after the resurrection are related. It is the same with angels, and all heavenly manifestations: men do not see them, as though it lay in their will to do so or not; such language would be inappropriate: but they appear to men; are only visible to those for whose sakes they are vouchsafed, and to whom they are willing to show themselves. T. He appears in such a manner as to prove to them most conclusively that he is their risen Lord, yet with an air of strangeness about him which inspires them with awe, and which admonishes them that former familiar fellowship is not to be renewed. N. C. B. 3. That night they caught nothing. Three years before, in the same place, Simon Peter and his companions had also labored a whole night and taken nothing. 5. Children. He calls them by the tender name of children; they were his brethren, his friends, his dear children. He is indeed called “the Everlasting Father.” 6. This time the net did not break, but came whole to land, although they had not at hand the crew of a second ship to help them to draw. R. B. On both occasions the miraculous success was given after a night of disappointment. In the former case, there was no record of the fish; in this they were carefully counted. Then the fish were taken into the boats on the lake; now they are drawn at once to the shore. Then the net was in danger of breaking; here there was no sign of any such weakness manifested. After the first miracle they were called to be fishers of men; after the second, they are invited to eat with Christ. W. T. Multitude of fishes. The correspondence of this account with the former fishing is very remarkable, as is their entire distinctness. The disciples must have been powerfully reminded of that; and after the “fishers of men” of the former, the whole could not but bear to them a spiritual meaning in reference to their apostolic commission: their powerlessness without Christ, their success when they let down the net at his word. A. 7. That disciple whom Jesus loved. This is John’s modest way throughout his gospel: he hides himself whenever he can; and when he must refer to himself at all, he leaves out the name. The noblest spirits are the meekest. Those who have most in them that is worth showing are least anxious to show it. This best-beloved apostle is always thinking of his Saviour, not of himself. That is one reason why he is the best-beloved. And so, although he is to have all Christendom, in all ages, for his vast and admiring audience, he is altogether unconscious and natural in his narrative, as we all are when we are describing something because of the feeling and impression in ourselves, and not trying to produce an effect for ourselves. F. D. H. Girt his fisher’s coat. In this hot climate it is common to fish with nothing but a sort of shawl or napkin tied round the waist. The fisher’s coat which he girt about him was the short ‘abdyeh which they now wear, and which they very often lay aside while fishing. They can doff and don it in a moment. When worn, it is girt tight about the loins with the zunnar, and Peter did this when hastening to meet the Lord. W. M. T. Five fishermen came to my camp in their boat by invitation, and were most courteous and intelligent in their talk. All wore the same kind of dress—a cloak, or scarf (the “fisher’s coat”), and below it a short kilt. When a man had only this latter garment on, he was said to be “naked.” J. M.—In all the languages of the East a person is said to be “naked” when he is simply divested of his outer garments. Van Lennep. Both apostles come out in their proper characters: he of the eagle eye first detects the presence of the Beloved, and Peter, the foremost in act, as John is profoundest in speculation, unable to wait till the ship should be brought to land, throws himself into the sea that he may find himself the sooner at the feet of his Lord. 10. As that large capture of fish was to them the pledge and promise of a labor that should not be in vain, so the meal, when the labor was done, a meal of the Lord’s own preparing, and upon the shore, was the symbol of the great festival in heaven with which, after their earthly toil was over, he would refresh his servants, when he should cause them to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom. And as they were bidden to bring of their fish to that meal, so should the souls which they had taken for life help and contribute to their gladness then. And after the Lord has opened the eyes of his apostles to the greatness of their future work, and given to them in type a prophetic glimpse both of their successful labor and their abundant reward, he declares to them the conditions both of accomplishing this work and inheriting this reward. Love to Christ, and the unreserved yielding up of self to God—these were the sole conditions. T. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ M. 2 AND, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from 3 heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His coun- 4 tenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keep- ers did shake, and became as dead men. Mk. 1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. L. 1 Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning when it was yet dark, as it began to dawn, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had Mk. 3 prepared, and certain others with them. And they said among themselves, Who shall 4 roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great. J. 1, 2 And Mary Magdalene seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved. L. 3 And they [the other women] entered in [the sepulchre] and found not the body of 4 the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. And they saw a young man sitting on the 5 right side, clothed in a long white garment: and they were affrighted. And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: be not affrighted: for I know that ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, 6 which was crucified. Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here; for he is risen, as he said: come, see the place where the Lord lay. Remember how he 7 spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered M. 7 into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And go quickly, and tell his disciples, and Peter, that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him, as he said unto you: lo, I 8 have told you. And they remembered his words, and they departed quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man: for they were afraid; and with fear and great joy did run to bring his disciples word. J. 2 And [Mary] saith unto them [Peter and John], They have taken away the Lord out of 3 the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went forth, 4 and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and 5 the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he stooping 6 down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes laid 7 by themselves: and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, 8 but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple which 9 came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the 10 scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again unto their own home, wondering at that which was come to pass. JESUS CHRIST proves himself the Redeemer of the human race, in the act of enduring death himself, and then rising victorious over it. This one event proves, by the majesty of facts, and not by uncertain reasoning, that the Being who invites our faith in himself has shown that Death is disarmed; that there is a power superior to his dread and cold touch. We come to the sepulchre now, though it be with reverent step, sorrow bearing her burden there with a most becoming awe; yet it is with thanks to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Come to the vacant sepulchre of Christ, and sing for joy. Death is abolished; let us rejoice and be glad. Angels, those spirits of purity and love, hasten to meet us here with their message of joy. They too are interested in the redemption of Christ; for they sung on the night of his advent; they ministered to the sufferer in the garden of agony; they rejoice over every sinner that repenteth; and they bear the spirits of the righteous to the bosom of God. Heaven and earth, angels and men, meet happily together at the open tomb of Christ. Sorrow may be for a night; joy cometh in the morning. With grateful hearts, with a head lifted up, and with a full-toned voice should we ever repeat the great articles of our faith: "I believe in Jesus Christ, who was crucified, who died, and was buried; who rose again from the dead; and who is now at the right hand of God: I believe in the forgiveness of sins, in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." W. A. # OUR LORD'S INTERCOURSE WITH THE DISCIPLES AFTER HIS RESURRECTION (Sections 160-166). OUT of the forty days there were but six on which he held intercourse with any human being, and in those six days he did not give more than as many hours to fellowship with those to whom he showed himself. How brief, too, and abrupt the meetings! In the twilight of the garden; in the dim-lighted upper chamber; in the gray dawn of the lake-side—he appears, speaks but a few sentences, and vanishes as mysteriously as he had appeared. What impression was all this studied distance and reserve fitted to make upon the minds of his disciples? Remember that not one of them before his death had risen to any thought or belief in his divinity; that from all their earlier earthly notions of him they had to be weaned; that after days and years of the easiest companionship with him, they had to be raised to the belief that it was the very Lord of heaven and earth with whom they had been holding converse; yet that belief was to be so formed within them as not to militate against the idea of his true and proper humanity. See, then, what an important part in the execution of this needful but most difficult task must have been fulfilled by his mode of dealing with them during the forty days. For let us only conceive what should have happened if one or other of two alternatives had been realized: If at once, after a few interviews, sufficient simply to do away with all doubt as to his resurrection, Jesus had passed up into the heavens; let us imagine that the descent of the Spirit had immediately ensued; that the day of Pentecost had followed immediately on the day of the resurrection; that the eyes of the apostles had thus at once and fully been enlightened, and the great truth of their Master's Godhead had been flashed upon their minds—the danger undoubtedly would have been that, seen in the blaze of that new glory, the man Christ Jesus had been lost, the humanity swallowed up in the divinity; nor would it have been so easy to persuade those men that, ascended up on high, seated at the right hand of the Father, he was the same Jesus still—a brother to them as truly as when he lived among them, equally alive to all human sympathies as when he walked with them by the way, or sat down with them in the upper chamber. Take, again, the other alternative: That, after his resurrection, Christ had immediately resumed and continued—even, let us say, for no longer a time than these forty days—the exact kind of life that he had led before—would not such a return on his part to all the old familiarities of his former intercourse have had a tendency to check the rising faith in his divinity; to tie his disciples down again to a knowing of him only after the flesh; to give to the humanity of the Lord such prominence as to make it overshadow the divinity? Can you conceive a treatment more nicely fitted to the spiritual condition, to the spiritual wants of those men at that time, than the very one which the Lord adopted and carried out—so well fitted as it was, gradually, gently, without violence, to lead those disciples on from their first imperfect, unworthy ideas of his person, character, and work, on and up to clearer, purer, loftier conceptions of him? In what better way could a faith in their Master's divinity have been superinduced upon their former faith in him as a man, a friend, a brother, so that the two might blend together without damage done to either by the union; their knowledge of him as human not interfering with their trust in him as divine; their faith in him as God not weakening their attachment to him as man? H. The various manifestations which the Saviour made of himself to his disciples, as recorded by the Evangelists and Paul, may be arranged and enumerated as follows: 1. To the women returning from the sepulchre. Only by Matthew. 2. To Mary Magdalene at the sepulchre. Reported by John and Mark. 3. To Peter, perhaps early in the afternoon. By Luke and Paul. 4. To the two disciples going to Emmaus, toward evening. By Luke and Mark. 5. To the apostles (except Thomas) assembled at evening. By Mark, Luke, John, and Paul. N. B. These five appearances all took place at or near Jerusalem, upon the first day of the week, the same day on which the Lord arose. 6. To the apostles, Thomas being present, eight days afterward at Jerusalem. Only by John. 7. To seven of the apostles on the shore of the Lake of Tiberias. Only by John. 8. To the eleven apostles and to five hundred other brethren, on a mountain in Galilee. By Matthew and Paul. 9. To James, probably at Jerusalem. Only by Paul. 10. To the eleven at Jerusalem, immediately before the ascension. By Luke in Acts, and by Paul. Then follows the ascension. R. [The numbers 1 and 2 in the above outline we have exchanged in our arrangement. J. G. B.] Any one who will attentively read the narratives of these appearances on the first day of the resurrection will see that they have only been preserved for us in general, interblended, and scattered notices, which, in strict exactness, render it impossible to produce from them a certain narrative of the order of events. Our belief in the resurrection as an historic fact, as absolutely well attested by subsequent and contemporary circumstances as any other event in history, rests on grounds far deeper, wider, more spiritual, more eternal, than can be shaken by divergences of which we can only say that they are not contradictions, but of which the true solution is no longer attainable. As Lange finely says, the great fugue of the first Easter tidings has not come to us as a "monotonous chorale," and mere verbal criticism cannot understand the common feeling and harmony which inspire the individual vibrations of those enthusiastic and multitudinous voices. Westcott points out the differences in the narrative of the four Evangelists. Matthew dwells chiefly on the majesty and glory of the resurrection; Mark insists upon it as a fact; Luke, as a spiritual necessity; John, as a touchstone of character. F. It is not possible to determine certainly the order of events in this and in the following section. The fair inference from the four accounts is, that Mary Magdalene came with the other women to the sepulchre, saw that the stone was rolled away and the sepulchre empty, but saw not the angels; then instantly turned and went to report to Peter and John. The interview of the women with the angels having taken place, they had scarce gone when Peter and John, running in advance of Mary, came, saw the empty tomb, and turned homeward again. (Thus far this section.) Then Mary comes again, Jesus appears to her, and gives her a brief message. A little afterward, before the other women had found the now scattered disciples, Jesus meets them, and confirms the specific message already given by the angel in the sepulchre. It may be added that, while there are differences (readily perceived in our arrangement of the text), seeming discrepancies in the four accounts, there are no contradictory statements. J. G. B. Mk. 1. No writer of a fictitious story, had he previously put into Christ's lips such distinct foretellings of his death and resurrection, would have attributed to his followers such an entire forgetfulness of these predictions, such an utter prostration of all faith and hope, as that which the Evangelists describe as coming upon all our Lord's disciples immediately after his death. Yet, after all, is it not true to human nature, that upon the minds and hearts of those simple, uncultivated men and women, filled as they had been with other quite different expectations, the shock of such a shameful death, coming in such a way upon their Master, was so sudden and stunning, that all power of forming a new conception of their Master's character, and taking up a new faith in him, was gone; the power even of remembering what he had said about himself beforehand for the season paralyzed? But love lives on, even where faith dies out, among those disconsolate and utterly hopeless friends and followers of our Lord. H. It was night in the disciples' hearts. Their love was crucified, their glory dishonored, their hope destroyed, their life was waste and desolate. The seven stars of those words from the cross were fading fast away behind the stormy clouds of their soul. They wept and lamented. Scattered without hope, united again without hope, one thing alone occupied their thoughts and sight and words, and that was his grave. R. B. L. 1. First day. The portion, however brief, of this day (according to Jewish reckoning) that Jesus remained in the tomb is reckoned as one day, like the brief interval between his burial and the Friday's sunset, and thus he remained three days in the earth. S. Mark says, "at the rising of the sun." These various popular forms of expression present some of the finer points in proof of the truth of the narratives. Their meaning is substantially the same—somewhere between the night and the sunrising, in the morning twilight. J. G. B.—Mark first specifies the time by very early. He used the phrase "rising of the sun" in a broad and less definite sense. As the sun's earliest rays produce the contrast between darkness and light, between night and dawn, so the term sunrising might easily come in popular language to be put for all that earlier interval, when his rays, still struggling with darkness, do nevertheless usher in the day. R. On Sunday he chose to rise, because on this day began the creation of the world with the calling into being of light: the light which is the life of the created world was to have one birthday with the life which is the light of the restored world. Sunday, the day of Christ's resurrection, is the Lord's day (Rev. 1: 10); this day has been set apart by the Church gathered together through the preaching of the resurrection, as the day for their services of divine worship. R. B. As the resurrection of Christ is the great fact, so the day of its occurrence is the great day of Christianity. From the time of the apostles its weekly return has been called by the name of the LORD'S DAY; and to this epoch of the new creation of all things, marked by the new life of Christ, all the permanent sanctity of the primeval Sabbath was transferred. S.—Henceforth it was not only God the Creator that was to be chiefly remembered, but God the Saviour and Regenerator of mankind. To mark this great event the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week—changed most clearly by our Lord. The early Christian Church, those who received the gospel direct from the apostles, kept this day. Hence the apostles must have kept the first day as the Sabbath. They were Jews, and would not have changed the day themselves. Christ only is Lord of the Sabbath. He only could have given the necessary authority. And now we are to keep the Sabbath-day holy, in remembrance of both Maker and Redeemer. The obligation therefore is twofold. Bartlett. (Read Section 184.) Mk. 4. Altogether secret, the exact time and manner unnoticed and unknown, was that great rising from the dead. The clearest and amplest proof was afterward given of the fact that, some time between sunset of the last and sunrise of the first day of the week, the resurrection had taken place; but it pleased not the Lord who then arose to do so under the immediate eye or inspection of any human witness. H.—In the dark recesses of the sepulchre, through almighty power, his spirit revived, unseen and unknown to every mortal eye. Angels ministered unto him, and opened before him the door of the tomb. R. His cross was surrounded by thousands of beholders of his shame, many saw his sufferings, observed how he bowed his head and gave up the ghost; John, from the wound of the spear, saw blood and water flow: but his resurrection was to have no beholders but the angels—he was already risen when the women came. The rising Christ is King of a kingdom which comes not with outward observation, whose glory is an inward glory, and whose visible form is the cross. And not to all the people did the risen one appear, but only to those in whose hearts he had already found a place as the crucified one. R. B. J. 2. The disciple whom Jesus loved. Through the whole fourth gospel, while the Apostle John is never named, there moves an unnamed, as it were, veiled form, which sometimes comes forward, yet without the veil being entirely lifted. How natural to suppose that he designates himself with that name which expresses the highest contents and the whole joy of his life—as "that disciple whom Jesus loved!" The objection of Weisse, that this would have been an arrogant assumption, shows that he has not entered into that joyous pride, mingled with all humility, which grows out of the consciousness of having been loved, without desert on his part, by him who is the object of his own supreme love. Hase. L. 4. Two men. Mark and Luke describe the persons as "men," according to the appearance; Matthew and John as angels, according to the reality. That there were two angels is clear from John's more minute account, confirmed by Luke. Matthew and Mark mention only one angel, perhaps because they knew only of one, not getting the details fully, perhaps because one was prominent as the speaker. L. A. Stood. The difficulty as to the position of the angels (Mark, sitting) vanishes when we take this word of Luke in its appropriate and acknowledged usage: they suddenly appeared, were suddenly present. R.—A young man. The angel of the Lord described just as he appeared to the eye, in the bloom of a life that knows no decay. 7. Remarkable it is to hear angels quoting a whole sentence of Christ's to the disciples, mentioning where it was uttered, and wondering it was not fresh on their memory, as doubtless it was in theirs. B. M. 7. Tell his disciples. The disciples, after their Lord's crucifixion, appear to have entertained no hopes of his resurrection. Shocked and confounded, dismayed at finding him condemned to the ignominious death of the cross, they forgot everything he had said to them respecting his rising again. Most of them seem to have given themselves up to sorrow and despair. They had not even the courage or the curiosity to go to the sepulchre on the third day to see whether the promised event had taken place or not. Thus it is perfectly clear that nothing but the most irresistible evidence would convince them of a fact which they seemed to think in the highest degree improbable. P. There is in the apostles no impassioned enthusiasm, no exaggeration in their trustfulness and devotedness. Even with them Jesus sees himself confronted by all the vacillations and weaknesses of humanity. He persuades them, he wins them, he preserves them only by great exertion. They only really believe in him after having witnessed the accomplishment of his sacrifice and his last miracle, when they had seen his crucifixion and his resurrection. Only then they believed; but from that moment their faith became absolutely superior to all perils and all trials; full of the Holy Spirit, and associated in a certain measure to their divine Master, they pursue his work with unshaken confidence and firmness, without pretending to any merit, without any impulse of personal pride. F. G. And Peter. Mark's Gospel being drawn up (as all the earliest tradition states) under the eye of Peter, or from materials chiefly furnished by him, there is something deeply affecting in the preservation of this little clause by Mark alone, as well as in the clause itself, which it is impossible not to connect with the cloud under which Peter lay in the eyes of the eleven, not to say in his own also. B. —Was it not most wonderful that there should be such a remembrance of Peter by that Master whom he had so lately denied? Peter had his rising hopes confirmed, his doubts and fears all quenched, when, some time in the course of that forenoon, waiting till John and he had parted—waiting till he could meet him alone, and speak to him with all the greater freedom and fulness—Jesus showed himself to Peter. Before he met the others to speak peace, he hastened to meet Peter to speak pardon. One of the first offices of the risen Saviour was to wipe away the tears of the penitent. J. 6, 7. Linen clothes. . . . napkin by itself. Who had arranged them thus? Was it the hand of the great Sleeper himself, on his awakening within the tomb? or was it some angel's hand that took the death-garments as they dropped from around the risen one, and thus disposed them? Whoever did it, there had been no haste; all had been done calmly, collectedly. Neither earthly friends nor earthly foes had done it: the one would not have stripped the garments from the body; the other would have been at no pains so carefully to arrange and deposit them. H. 8. He saw, and believed.** Evidently, that the Lord had not been taken away out of the sepulchre, but that he had gone forth out of it. R. B. —It is especially to be observed, that although Christ had actually arisen and was there, these two men, Peter and John, did not see him. They went back into the city, not knowing what had taken place. And it is only then, when they have gone, that to other eyes than theirs, to another kind of nature, of finer mould and quicker sight, a woman—a soul in which the mighty wonder of another resurrection had been first achieved, weeping because they seemed to have taken away her Lord, and she knows not where they have laid him—it is to her that the Lord first appears. F. D. H. 10. The disciples went to their own home.** [To the home of John.] The love and tender charity of John's character came out beautifully in his affection for Peter, even after his denial of Christ. He clings to him, and has him under his own roof, wherever that was. All through the Gospels and Acts, Peter and John seem to have been peculiarly drawn together, and to have been close friends and companions. J. C. R. WE have all a nearer, a more special interest in this deserted tomb of Jesus Christ. For us he died, and for us he rose again. Firm and fast as the grave now seems to hold the buried generations of our race, it is doomed, as a fruit of Christ's resurrection, to relax its grasp and yield them up again. Empty as was Joseph's sepulchre when the angel spake to the women, so empty shall be every grave of earth when another angel shall sound his trumpet, and it shall ring through the regions of the dead, and stir all to life again. Blessed was that morning which dawned upon the empty tomb at Calvary, but more blessed to us shall that other morning be which shall dawn upon the empty graves of earth, if only now we live in Christ; if at death we sleep in Jesus; if at that resurrection we be numbered with those who shall share the resurrection of the just. H. Fit is it that we sing unto the Lord a new song! and with thankful hearts, on his own day and on every day, congratulate the triumph of his rising from the dead, and rejoice in this birthday of our hopes! Now is the justice of God amply satisfied, or the prisoner had never been released. Now is the reproach of the cross ceased, and turned into glory. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is now, through the death and resurrection of his dear Son, become our Father and our God. D. # Section 161.—Appears to Mary, then to the other Women. Watch bribed. Disciples disbelieve. Mk. 9 Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. J. 11 But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept she stooped down 12 and looked into the sepulchre; and seeth two angels in white, sitting, the one at the 13 head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away 14 my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. And when she had thus said, she 15 turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. 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 16 thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned 17 herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni, which is to say, Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. Mk. 10 Mary Magdalene came to the disciples, as they mourned and wept, and told them that 11 she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her. And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not. M. 9 And as they [the other women] went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, say- 10 ing, All hail. And they came, and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren, that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me. 11. Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed 12 unto the chief priests all the things that were done. And when they were assembled 13 with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying, 14 Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this 15 come to the governor's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day. L. 9 And [the women] returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, 10 and to all the rest. It was Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women 11 that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles. And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not. BEFORE he descended to the tomb, Messiah had finished transgression and made an end of sin. There was nothing to take him thither, except the Scripture which must be fulfilled, and the last enemy which must be destroyed; and except the great stone and the pontifical seals, there was nothing to keep him there. Vainly did the King of Terrors watch over his strange captive, and vainly did the grave boast of its mysterious and mighty inmate. He opened his eyes, and death was abolished; he stood up, and the grave had lost its victory; and yielding to the touch of heaven's herald, the seals and the great stone gave way, and Jesus was "declared the Son of God, with power in his resurrection from the dead." Delivered for our offences, he was raised again for our justification: and along with him rose all his ransomed—that glorious Church of countless members which left the grave of Jesus acquitted, accepted, legally justified, virtually saved. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." Because he lives, they shall live also. From the great life-fournain, the Mediator's person, their souls have imbibed immortality, and their union with Christ secures them an eventual share in Christ's own resurrection. Hamilton. Two of the most unqualified declarations of Christ's essential deity were made to him, and sanctioned by him, after his resurrection: this one of the actual paying of divine honors to him, which was repeated by the disciples just before the ascension, and Thomas's hearty confession, "My Lord and my God!" We see in this just that steady development of gospel truth which is most natural. Up to the time of his death on the cross, marvellous as the tokens of the Lord's superhuman character were, both in his words and in his acts, it was the human side of his nature that was kept constantly in view. A being having all the visible attributes of a man, subject in the body to mortal limitations—to weakness, pain, fatigue, sleep, hunger, tears—moving and feeling as other men move and feel, must leave on all about him the impression of a human nature; nor would it be very strange if the daily sight of these external qualities should partly obscure, for the time, the marks of a loftier origin, and make a belief in his divinity difficult. But the sepulchre had now put a different aspect on all these mortal signs; the resurrection had transfigured them and, as it were, divinized them. It had never been heard before that a man lifted himself, by his own will, out of the grave and asserted his superiority to all the forces of destruction. Surely here must be nothing less than the Creator's majesty. The divinity broke through the mortal investiture. In the glorified form the "Son of God" stood revealed not less than the "Son of man." They worshipped him, and he received their worship. F. D. H. Is not the fragmentary character of each of these four separate accounts just what we might have expected, considering the time and manner of the events narrated—the obscure light, the women coming, it may have been singly, or in different groups by different routes, the surprise, the terror, the running in and out, to and from the city—all this within the compass of an hour or two? Which one of the spectators or actors in these busy and broken movements, if asked afterward to detail what occurred, but might have given an account of it differing from that of all the others? H. The confusion which confessedly exists in this part of the narrative, and the consequent difficulty of reducing it to one continuous account, is not the fault of the historians, but the natural effect of the events themselves, as impressed upon the senses and the memory of different witnesses. If it had pleased God to inspire a single writer as the historian of the resurrection, he would no doubt have furnished as coherent and perspicuous a narrative as any other in the sacred volume. But since it entered into the divine plan, as a necessary element, to set before us not a single but a fourfold picture of our Saviour's life and death, we must purchase the advantage of this varied exhibition by submitting to its incidental inconveniences. Among them is the difficulty, just referred to, of combining all these views, taken from different points of observation, into one complete view to be seen at the same moment. The historical problem is as hard to solve as the pictorial, not more so; and the seeming inconsistencies, resulting from the effort to amalgamate the narratives, ought no more to destroy our faith in their eventual harmony, than similar points of disagreement in four photographic views of the same edifice or landscape ought to make us question either the identity of the object or the absolute truth of the delineation. J. A. A. Mk. 9. First to Mary Magdalene. She had gone with the other women to the sepulchre; parting from them before their interview with the angel, and finding Peter and John, she had followed them back to the spot; and it was then that Jesus appeared to this Mary. To a woman was this honor given to be the first that saw the risen Redeemer; and that woman was not his mother. B. A great injustice has been done to Mary Magdalene, in identifying her with the woman who was a sinner, who anointed the Lord's feet with ointment, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. The name of that woman is not mentioned in the record of the incident in which she took so prominent a part. The incident occurred not in Magdala but at Nain. It was after Christ had left Nain that the first mention of this Mary meets us in the gospel narrative: "And the twelve were with him, and certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance." Named thus along with one whose husband held an important office in Herod's household, named as one of those who ministered to our Lord of their substance, Mary Magdalene does not appear to have been a woman of a low or poor condition. (Section 46, page 185.) J. 11. Mary stood weeping. The Master had been to her the kindest and best of friends. Her grateful love, living in her sorrow, makes her cling, even when John has left it, to the spot where in death he had reposed. Mary Magdalene, standing alone weeping thus before the empty sepulchre, presents herself to our eye as the saddest and most inconsolable of all the mourners for the Crucified. H. 12,13. Seeth two angels.** The whole character of this representation seems to show clearly, that Mary had not before seen the angels; and also that she had not before been told that Jesus was risen. R. 14. She turns away even from an interview with angels, from converse with those who may have had as their purpose, in putting to her that question, to tell her about her risen Lord. She turns away even from them, to weep out, without further interruption, her most bitter grief. But now, from other lips, the same question, "Woman, why weepest thou?" salutes her ear. She sees, but scarcely notices, the person who thus speaks to her. He is not directly before her, and she cares not to turn, or make any scrutiny of his person. Even had she done so, seeing him through the veil of dropping tears, she might have failed to recognize him. She cares as little, in fact, about who this speaker is, as she had cared about who those angels were. H.—So absorbed in her sorrow, and so utterly without hope or expectancy of such a blessing, that she speaks to the supposed stranger without recognizing him. E. Her heart was covered by so thick a cloud of sorrow, that she could not recognize him whom she yet was so earnestly seeking. And believers are often as near to Jesus as their soul is to their body; their tears and sighs, their love and longing, testify to the faith that is in their heart; and yet at times they cannot perceive him whom their soul loves and seeks. Scriver. 15,16. Woman, why weepest thou?** The first word from the mouth of the risen Lord! This is what Christ's resurrection exclaims to every troubled sinner; for therefore is he risen, that our sorrow might be turned into joy. R. B. Mary. With one word, and that word her name, the Lord awakens all the consciousness of his presence: calling her in that tone doubtless in which her soul had been so often summoned to receive divine knowledge and precious comfort. (That she turned herself seems to imply that she had not been looking full at him before.) A. Since that day when the Lord had healed her and received her among his own, she had with blessed joy often heard her name from his lips. Who but He could it be, whose cry of Mary now struck upon her heart? Who could it be but he, the Good Shepherd, who knows his sheep and is known of his—who calleth his own sheep by name and they know his voice? R. B. They that were spiritually best prepared, by affection, by earnestness, by sympathy with the spirit of his life and cross, and by love for him, had the clearest and earliest disclosures of his glorified presence. It is just so now. They that are least occupied with themselves, least engrossed with a business that is all of this world, or with a social life and its fashions that are all afar off from the simplicity of his beatitudes, they that are trying to do and bear his will in their houses, they that are busy looking after his lost sheep, they that are ready to believe more because they use the faith they have, they that repent most sorrowfully and put not their boast in anything that they do—these are the souls to which he will unveil the glory of his face, whose eyes he will touch and open that they may see more and more of his truth, and in whose hearts he will dwell, as he dwells in no temple that is made with hands. F. D. H. 17. In the very difficult words, "Touch me not," two things seem clearly implied: a solemn declaration of changed relations of intercourse with the risen Lord, and a consolatory assurance that what is prohibited now shall (in another form) be vouchsafed hereafter. E.—It meant that the day for personal, physical presence, for merely human affection, for the grasp of human tenderness, was over now. Henceforth he was to be with his people more nearly, more intimately, because in spirit. F. He allowed a physical touch to the fear of the other women and to the unbelief of Thomas; but he taught the higher spiritual truth to the unfearing, believing Mary, when he gently disallowed a similar touch to her ardent love. J. G. B.—The "Touch me not" was a prophetic protest against all the miserable forms which mistaken devotion has invented in the course of ages. De P. She would have touched him, as if he had been the same as he was before; but he was not the same, and the season for such touching was over. Another kind of touching must begin; and when his disciples shall apprehend him as he is—when they shall fully realize the spiritual glory of him who has as yet been little more than a loved companion and friend—when they shall “see” that he has gone to his Father, they shall behold him, hear him, touch him, as those who are indeed his “brethren.” W. M. “I am not risen from the dead that I may again in body walk the earth, but in order that I may ascend up to the Father. Therefore, believe that I am going to the Father, where I shall rule and reign with him forever, and bring you also out of your death and out of every sorrow. Then will ye have me with you to be truly seen and touched by you; then will ye forever enjoy an everlasting communion with me and with my Father.” Luther. Brethren. Indirectly to assure the disciples that the Lord was still truly man, and in this respect still stood on the same relations with them as before. E. —“My brethren.” Blessed Jesus, who are these? Were they not thy followers? yea, thy forsakers? How dost raise these titles with thyself? At first they were thy servants; then disciples; a little before thy death they were thy friends; now, after thy resurrection, they were thy brethren. Bp. H. A name of yet closer fellowship, a glorious, a precious name, is here given to believers—brethren of Jesus Christ. How must this brother’s greeting have comforted and refreshed the scattered disciples, so wholly unworthy of it, they who had forsaken and denied the Lord! And to all of us poor sinners also belongs this tender name of brethren, and not to the first disciples alone; for the apostle tells us we are predestinated to be conformed to the likeness of the Son of God, “that he might be the first-born among many brethren.” R. B. I ascend. His stay in his then form was to be but transient; only after his ascension could he remain permanently, and that in another form. Therefore he did not commission Mary to announce his sensible coming, but his ascension to the Father, and his subsequent revelation to them; making no mention of the intermediate and brief manifestation that was only to prepare the way for the higher and permanent one. N. The Lord does not here send word to his disciples respecting his already accomplished resurrection, but proclaims to them his speedy ascension. The disciples were to turn their thoughts toward those heavenly blessings which Christ dispenses in his kingdom; they were to see in their risen Lord the only-begotten Son of the Father and his glory. His resurrection was to be followed by no fresh dying; the risen one ascends to heaven, and lives and reigns forever. R. B. My Father and your Father: my God and your God. All the deepest of the Church fathers were wont to call attention to this, as expressly designed to distinguish between what God is to him and to us—his Father essentially, ours not so; our God essentially, his not so; his God only in connection with us; our God only in connection with him. B. Christ desires to “proclaim to his brethren,” that his passion and his rising again have obtained this for us, that his Father has also become our Father, his God also our God. The Lord himself brings into view this fruit of his resurrection, that we may now venture, as Christ’s brethren, to call God our Father with a good conscience, as Peter speaks. The other fruit of the Lord’s resurrection, namely, our resurrection, is bound up in this comforting discourse. Since God calls himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob live before him; for God is not a God of the dead, but of the living. So Christ teaches the resurrection of the dead. Here he calls God our God. Even, then, as it was impossible that Christ should be holden of death because God is his God, just so is it also impossible that we should be holden of death because God is our God—a God, not of the dead, but of the living. R. B. • Paul answers the question, “Who is he that condemneth?” by saying, “Christ hath died—yea, rather hath risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” The death, the resurrection, the ascension, the intercession of Christ, are four great facts that should never be separated. J. C. R. M. 9. Jesus met them. The second appearance of Jesus was to the other party of women, as they returned to the city, and, perhaps, separated to find out the different apostles, to whom when assembled they related the whole of their adventure. H. M. Saying, All hail! Words of exulting congratulation to mourners weeping for the dead. His work was done, a new era had begun; death was conquered in his person; life and immortality were brought to light for the world. But what will be his joy when he returns in glory to utter a last “All hail!” to sea and land, to the graveyard of the world, to the dust of every one which has been marked by his eye, and precious to his heart! N. M. Worshipped him. By a variety of persons, and on a variety of occasions, was he worshipped upon earth, nor do we once read of his rejecting these honors; he received them without a single mark of disapprobation: on the contrary, when worship was offered to Peter, Paul, and Barnabas, they rejected it in the most pointed terms of abhorrence; nor would an angel suffer John the Divine to fall down at his feet to worship him: “See thou do it not,” says he, “for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets: worship God!” Nares. Those institutions and movements in the world, however moral or religious their object, and however brisk their activity, seem to have no deep or strong or permanent life in them which are without this living and conscious connection with the presence and person of Christ, so as to draw their constant supplies of power from him. Those, on the other hand, however few their numbers, or scanty their treasuries, or apparently insignificant their results, which are rooted and grounded in him, animated by the daily breath of prayers to him, in their members and leaders consecrated to him personally, holding him by the feet and worshipping him—these seem to have in them a certain tranquil and immortal power for good, and to be the salt of the earth. So too with the souls of men. With whatever good intentions, honorable aims, charitable feelings, and abundant energy, they that are without this conscious connection with the living and personal Head seem like streams, however full, which run from a cistern and not from the fountain in the hills. They have all that human goodness and zeal can have without that one secret and ineffable element of Christian love, eternal and inexhaustible; and therefore, while they are never to be judged uncharitably, they are not to be trusted as we trust what Christ holds in his almighty hand and stamps with his cross. He does not say to them, “All hail!” and they do not hold him by the feet and worship him. F. D. H. The Messages by Mary and by the Women.—Christ had said to the eleven, “I leave the world and go to the Father.” To inform them that, though now risen, he had not yet ascended—gone to the Father—but that he would soon ascend, was the object of the word to Mary, “Go, say to them, I ascend.” Besides this information, it was essential that they should understand, before he showed himself, that with him this was a brief transitional period, a passage-time from the earthly and natural to the heavenly and spiritual; and that during this brief interval until his ascension, the terms of their intercourse with him, especially the old familiar personal relations, were to be changed, to accord with his own changed relations to nature and humanity. The communication of this fact was made directly to Mary Magdalene in the gentle prohibition “Touch me not,” and in the reason assigned, “For I am not yet ascended;” and it was conveyed through her indirectly to the disciples. This double message to Mary was the first, because the most important. And it was conveyed through Mary, who had neither fear of the angels, nor fear or question of the risen Saviour; through Mary, because her spiritual susceptibility and perception were signally deep and clear, as her faith was exceptionally simple and strong, and her devotion true and pure. And without demur this unfearing, discerning, trusting Mary of Magdala received and conveyed the word, and the enacted instruction, to the disciples. But these dull-minded, disheartened men needed a positive, strong assurance of the Lord’s actual resurrection; to know directly, by unquestionable testimony, fortified by sight and hearing and touch, that he was indeed risen in the same body. Hence the double message to the fearing, half-believing women. First they had a direct assurance from the angel: “Fear not—go, tell his disciples that he is risen, and goeth into Galilee!” Then, a little after, Jesus presented himself to their vision, allowed their touch, and with his own voice repeated the angel’s word, “Fear not; go tell my brethren.” And so, with their feebler faith strengthened, and fear allayed, they could, as they did, convey this double assurance of the fact of his actual resurrection in the body. Thus the significance of those two appearances of our Lord may be interpreted. Through Mary the disciples were instructed, first, that the ascension was yet to come; and second, that during the brief transition interval there would be no recurrence to the former familiarity of intercourse. Through the women they were directly and positively assured that the Master had risen from death and the grave, and lived again in the body. J. G. B. 11. Thus these heathen soldiers became the first preachers of Christ’s resurrection, and witnesses of the truth of it to the most inveterate of his enemies. But neither soldiers nor priests were affected by what the one saw or the other heard. 13. Stole him away.** It was absurd to pretend to say with any certainty what passed while they were asleep; so that this was in effect only hiring them to say that they knew nothing of the matter. D. L. 11. As idle tales, they believed them not. Nothing appears more clearly on the face of every narrative than the total want of expectation, the incredulity, the unwillingness to be convinced, which marked the disciples. Yet how often the Saviour intimated not only his death but his resurrection to his followers! But it is their doubts that make their after-faith so valuable and so satisfying to us. They were not too anxious, they were only too unready to believe. On the other hand, the enemies of Jesus attached more meaning to what he said of his approaching resurrection than his friends. W. M. How could those who were so slow to believe in the resurrection have been its inventors? And yet they did believe, and this faith in the resurrection became their lever to move the world. De P.—Within six weeks of the resurrection, that great event was the unshaken faith of every Christian; within a few years of the event the palpable historic proofs of it and the numerous testimonies of its reality—strengthened by a memorable vision vouchsafed to himself—had won assent from the acute and noble intellect of a young Pharisaic zealot and persecutor whose name was Saul. F. THE ascension itself began in the resurrection. It is in the tomb that we find the great dividing line between humiliation and exaltation; and when, on the third morning, Jesus burst the bands of death, his glorification had begun. He was, indeed, still to appear from time to time on the earth, but that was in itself no humiliation. The labor, the suffering, the sorrow, had ceased forever. W. M. That resurrection light illumines all things. It reveals to us the righteous love of God, the all-sufficiency of Christ's atonement, the certainty and glory of eternal life, and the redemption of the body new and transfigured. The day has dawned that shall never end; and in the heaven of heavens, on the right hand of God, we behold him, the God-man, as our Intercessor, Advocate, sympathizing Friend, and glorious Head. A. S. ## Section 162.—Walk to Emmaus with Two Disciples. M. 16 THEN the eleven disciples went away into Galilee. J. 1 After these things Jesus shewed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias: 2 and on this wise shewed he himself. There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two 3 other of his disciples. 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. 4 But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore; but the disciples 5 knew not that it was Jesus. Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? 6 They answered him, No. And he said unto them, Cast 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 7 the multitude of fishes. 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 8 coat unto him (for he was naked), and did cast himself into the sea. And the other disciples came in a little ship (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hun- dred cubits) dragging the net with fishes. 9 As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid 10 thereon, and bread. 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 12 and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken. Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? 13 knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, 14 and fish likewise. This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead. 15 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 love thee. 16 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 love 17 thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou 18 knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, 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 19 shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me. 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, 22 Peter seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto 23 him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. 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 24 to thee? This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. PRAISED be God, he stands ready with his help close to the sea where his servants are fishing; his voice reaches across to them from the shore, forwarding the work of their hands. But when, at the end of the world, the great draught of fishes, taken in the unbroken net of the one gospel, shall be gathered in the harbor of peace, then, at the sight of the redeemed around the throne of the Lamb, they will clearly perceive that the Lord had indeed no need of their labor; and will adore the graciousness of his free love, which has so ordered it, that lost sinners are to be turned to righteousness by means of pardoned sinners. The personal love which exists between the believing soul and the Saviour is the deep working of the Holy Spirit, of which no one knows anything save the soul which experiences it; and he who is favored with the blessed assurance of loving with true actual love him who is God's and Mary's Son, who though in heaven is yet infinitely near to faith; he who embraces him and lays himself on his breast, crying, "My Lord Jesus!"—such a one rejoices with trembling, and rests his sure comfort on this, that the Lord knows what is the mind of the Spirit, when the Spirit's unutterable "groanings" are the only language we can employ. R. B. Lovest thou me? All down through time, the question, in various ways, is presented to living souls. The human race is, and will be, divided by that one test. It will be uttered again from the throne of judgment, that throne high and white, before which a departed world shall pass to his right hand and his left. That throne will be occupied by the resplendent form of incarnate Love, and the destiny of every man will be—must be—as are his affinities in regard to Him. He that loveth is of God; and they who are like God shall be gathered to his bosom. W. A. THE gospels have been brought to a fit and, it seems, an intended conclusion, at the end of the twentieth chapter of John; but yet another chapter is added, as if dictated by some after-thought, which in its effect links the whole gospel record to the book of Acts which succeeds it. The miracle which had already foreshadowed the work of the fishers of men is repeated, but with altered circumstances, typical of the change which was at hand. For now the Lord is no longer with them in the ship, but stands dimly seen upon the shore; yet from thence issues his directions, and shows the presence of his power working with them in their seemingly lonely toil. Then the charge is left to feed his sheep, and lastly the future destinies of the two chief apostles are suffered to be faintly seen. T. D. B. Third appearance of Jesus to the apostles (seven of them) by the Lake of Galilee—the seventh in all. Their meeting with Jesus in the mountain he had appointed them must have been subsequent to that morning by the Lake of Galilee, of which John has given us so full and touching an account. S.  Sea of Tiberias. Bethsaida beach recalled bright pictures of our Saviour's life. Here was the cradle of Christianity, and years afterward here again was "the third time that Jesus showed himself to his disciples after that he was risen from the dead." Almost the same persons are this time on the shore again: Peter, and Thomas, and Nathanael, and James, and John; but only "that disciple whom Jesus loved" could at first recognize his Lord. Peter, who had before cast himself into the same sea to go to Jesus, now did so again; but the Lord now thrice called him "Simon," as if the unstable one had by his three-fold denial lost his better title. J. M. He would recall to the memory of his disciples all that they had witnessed in the early days of his ministry. Above all he would stir the hearts of Peter and James and John, by saying some of his last things to them, at the place where he had first called them to leave their boats and nets, to follow him, and to become fishers of men. J. C. R. 1. There is a significance to be found in the words, “Jesus showed,” or manifested, “himself,” that his body after the resurrection was only visible by a distinct act of his will. From that time the disciples did not, as before, see Jesus, but Jesus appeared unto or was seen by them. The language is changed, and in language of this kind all his appearances after the resurrection are related. It is the same with angels, and all heavenly manifestations: men do not see them, as though it lay in their will to do so or not; such language would be inappropriate: but they appear to men; are only visible to those for whose sakes they are vouchsafed, and to whom they are willing to show themselves. T. He appears in such a manner as to prove to them most conclusively that he is their risen Lord, yet with an air of strangeness about him which inspires them with awe, and which admonishes them that former familiar fellowship is not to be renewed. N. C. B. 3. That night they caught nothing. Three years before, in the same place, Simon Peter and his companions had also labored a whole night and taken nothing. 5. Children. He calls them by the tender name of children; they were his brethren, his friends, his dear children. He is indeed called “the Everlasting Father.” 6. This time the net did not break, but came whole to land, although they had not at hand the crew of a second ship to help them to draw. R. B. On both occasions the miraculous success was given after a night of disappointment. In the former case, there was no record of the fish; in this they were carefully counted. Then the fish were taken into the boats on the lake; now they are drawn at once to the shore. Then the net was in danger of breaking; here there was no sign of any such weakness manifested. After the first miracle they were called to be fishers of men; after the second, they are invited to eat with Christ. W. T. Multitude of fishes. The correspondence of this account with the former fishing is very remarkable, as is their entire distinctness. The disciples must have been powerfully reminded of that; and after the “fishers of men” of the former, the whole could not but bear to them a spiritual meaning in reference to their apostolic commission: their powerlessness without Christ, their success when they let down the net at his word. A. 7. That disciple whom Jesus loved. This is John’s modest way throughout his gospel: he hides himself whenever he can; and when he must refer to himself at all, he leaves out the name. The noblest spirits are the meekest. Those who have most in them that is worth showing are least anxious to show it. This best-beloved apostle is always thinking of his Saviour, not of himself. That is one reason why he is the best-beloved. And so, although he is to have all Christendom, in all ages, for his vast and admiring audience, he is altogether unconscious and natural in his narrative, as we all are when we are describing something because of the feeling and impression in ourselves, and not trying to produce an effect for ourselves. F. D. H. Girt his fisher’s coat. In this hot climate it is common to fish with nothing but a sort of shawl or napkin tied round the waist. The fisher’s coat which he girt about him was the short ‘abdyeh which they now wear, and which they very often lay aside while fishing. They can doff and don it in a moment. When worn, it is girt tight about the loins with the zunnar, and Peter did this when hastening to meet the Lord. W. M. T. Five fishermen came to my camp in their boat by invitation, and were most courteous and intelligent in their talk. All wore the same kind of dress—a cloak, or scarf (the “fisher’s coat”), and below it a short kilt. When a man had only this latter garment on, he was said to be “naked.” J. M.—In all the languages of the East a person is said to be “naked” when he is simply divested of his outer garments. Van Lennep. Both apostles come out in their proper characters: he of the eagle eye first detects the presence of the Beloved, and Peter, the foremost in act, as John is profoundest in speculation, unable to wait till the ship should be brought to land, throws himself into the sea that he may find himself the sooner at the feet of his Lord. 10. As that large capture of fish was to them the pledge and promise of a labor that should not be in vain, so the meal, when the labor was done, a meal of the Lord’s own preparing, and upon the shore, was the symbol of the great festival in heaven with which, after their earthly toil was over, he would refresh his servants, when he should cause them to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom. And as they were bidden to bring of their fish to that meal, so should the souls which they had taken for life help and contribute to their gladness then. And after the Lord has opened the eyes of his apostles to the greatness of their future work, and given to them in type a prophetic glimpse both of their successful labor and their abundant reward, he declares to them the conditions both of accomplishing this work and inheriting this reward. Love to Christ, and the unreserved yielding up of self to God—these were the sole conditions. T. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/