The Prologue to this Gospel determines in general outlines, with reference not only to His human life, but also to His premundane existence, the Person, whose history forms the principal part of the subsequent narrative. In accordance with the statement in John 20:31, with regard to the object of the whole Gospel, viz., that it was written that its readers might believe that Jesus is the Christ, and believing might have life through His name, the attention is chiefly directed to the majesty of the Person of Jesus, with the design of awakening a deep feeling of reverence for the same in the hearts of the readers, that thus they may approach the narrative following with the consciousness that here they must put their shoes from off their feet, for the place whereon they stand is holy ground: this is the design which pervades the whole. The assertion of Olshausen, that the beginning of John’s Gospel contains, as it were, a history of the Logos, i.e., of the various gradually ascending forms of its revelation, will not at first commend itself, as it accords little with the character of an introduction, and, on closer examination of the particulars, it is seen that the Prologue does not form an uninterrupted historical narrative, but is completed in three periods. John 1:1-5 give the grander features m the history of the Word,—relating how He, before all created things, was with God, and was God; how the world was made by Him; how from the beginning He was the only source of life and light; how this life and light was revealed, but was rejected. In John 1:6-13 are further details in reference to this revelation: the announcement by the Baptist, 6-8; the personal advent of the light, John 1:9; how the darkness comprehended it not, 10, 11; how to those, however, who received it, it proved to be the light shining in darkness, rendering them partakers of the highest happiness which exists for men, even sonship unto God, 12, 13. In John 1:14-18 is the most marked expression of the fact, the Word was made flesh, and of exultation at the fulness of gifts and graces imparted to the human race in immediate connection with this fact. Here is more than John the Baptist; for the Baptist himself testifies, that there is One coming after him, who was before him. Here is more than Moses; for by Moses was only the outward letter of the law, but by Jesus Christ grace and truth have come in place of the shadow. By Him the invisible God, to whom no created being has direct and immediate access, has been brought nigh, and revealed to the human race. The historical name of the Redeemer, Jesus Christ, does not occur till near the end of the Prologue, in John 1:17, in transition to the historical narration. All that has been previously said of the Word that was in the beginning, of the true light, of the life, is here at once connected with this well-known historical personage. This representation of the clauses of the Prologue is opposed to the view which obtains almost universally, according to which John 1:1-5 are referred exclusively to the history of the Word previous to His incarnation. Thus Luther remarks on John 1:6 : “Such has been thus far the commencement of the Gospel of John: the Evangelist has described our dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that He is the Word of the everlasting Father, and real very God with Him from eternity. . . . The same Word is also a light and life of men; therefore all that lives, especially man, receives life from Him, and all men who are at any time enlightened, become still and further enlightened, they are and shall be enlightened, by Him, who is the true light: those who thus have light and life must receive it all from Him. And also that the Word, from the beginning of the world, has at all times spoken by the patriarchs and prophets, even until John the Baptist. Now John descends to the humanity of Christ, and says, that the Word, the Creator of all created things, the life and light of men, has become flesh; Christ has taken upon Him the human nature. And now the Evangelist begins the New Testament, the preaching of the Gospel, of Christ our Saviour, before whom goes John the Baptist, to be a witness to the Light, and to point Him out with his finger.” According to Calvin also, John 1:4 refers to the natural life, and to the light of reason. But because, he remarks on John 1:5, man by his stupidity and wickedness obscures the light which still exists within him, the Son of God must take a new office, viz., that of the Mediator, who renews the corrupt man by the Spirit of regeneration. According to Quesnel, the Holy Ghost here makes known the glory of Christ, beginning with that which the Word is in Himself, John 1:1-2; then remarking what He is to created things in general, John 1:3; and to living, spiritual, and rational creatures, John 1:4; then with respect to man, who has fallen into sin, John 1:5. According to Bengel, in John 1:1-2, is described the condition of things before the creation of the world; in John 1:3, at the creation of the world; in John 1:4, at the time of the Fall; in John 1:5, in the time after the Fall. According to Lόcke, the contents of Joh 1:1-5 are “the original being and essence of the Divine Logos with God, His creating, animating, and enlightening agency, in contest with the irreceptive darkness of the world.” According to Frommann, “the statement that the Logos is the bearer of life, in John 1:4 (ἐναὐτῷζωὴἦν), can have in this connection no other meaning than this: that the Logos is the possessor of life in reference to the universe created by Him; i.e., He bestows on the universe its life, on organic and inorganic nature, and by this means preserves it in being and secures its continuance.” In the following words, “And the life was the light of men,” rational creatures are separated from the universe of things. The same life in the Logos, by virtue of which He is Creator in the universe, bears to humanity the relation of light—or reason. To these views we oppose another: John 1:4 speaks, in the first instance, not of what the Word in fact affords, but designates the Logos as the only source of life and light, of blessedness and salvation; so that he who is not in communion with Him, must be without blessedness and light. And John 1:5 says, that with the appearance of the Word in the flesh, the light shone into the darkness of human existence, but was not comprehended by the darkness. The following reasons are decisive in favour of this view, and against the opposite views:—1. According to the original passages in the prophets and the usage of John, the life mentioned in John 1:4 can mean no other than eternal life or blessedness, and light can only mean salvation.—2. If by life is to be understood natural life, it is difficult to see how the life can be designated the light of men. On the other hand, if we take the life and light as spiritual, the sense is clear. Christ, in bestowing life, bestows at the same time light and salvation; for in life consists the salvation of men: so long as they are in death, they are also in the darkness of misery.—3. With the opposite explanation it is necessary to supply limitations, which are not at all intimated in the text. According to Bengel, we must supply, in John 1:4, in the time before the Fall; in John 1:5, in the time after the Fall. John 1:5 is restricted to the latter by all these expositors. But if such a limitation were to be made, it would be distinctly stated. Since this is not done, we must suppose that the outline here is filled up in what follows. That the Logos was from the beginning of the creation the life and light of men, was proved by the fact, that on His appearance in the flesh. He gave to those who received Him power to become the sons of God, thus also giving them life and light. That the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not, finds its complement in the words, “And the world knew Him not,” in John 1:10, and “His own received Him not,” in John 1:11.—4. If in John 1:5 that which is wholly past were spoken of, then it must at least have been said: The light shone. The present tense shows, that here a shining of the light is spoken of, which continued to that present time; consequently, that which began with the incarnation, and continued in the agency of Him who is exalted to the right hand of the Father, and in the present existence of His Church. It may not be objected that, because in John 1:4 it is said, “in Him was life,” the present, shineth, in John 1:5, is thus proved to be a mere historical present. John 1:4 certainly does not speak of a manifestation of the Word as life and salvation which is already past and concluded; it speaks rather of what the Logos was in Himself, without regard to the question, whether He was the source of creative energy.—5. If John 1:4-5 are to be referred to what the Logos is supposed to have accomplished for the entire human race before the incarnation, they are devoid of any analogy in the whole Gospel of John. In this Gospel, a shining of the light in the darkness of heathenism is never spoken of. An activity of the Logos in Israel before Christ is, of course, assumed by John. This is shown by the very doctrine of the Logos in connection with the Old Testament doctrine of the Angel of the Lord, and it is placed beyond a doubt by John 1:11. How otherwise could it be said that the Logos came unto His own? But, even if we should stop generally at the time of the incarnation, the words need not be restricted to this activity of the Logos in Israel before Christ; and then, also, the Apostle would not have designated this agency as one bestowing life and light. If, before the advent of Christ, life and salvation already existed in the flesh, how is it that the incarnate Word is first designated as the true Light in John 1:9? how is it that there is a direct opposition between Moses and Christ in John 1:17? how is it that the sonship of God, grace and truth, and the knowledge of God, are connected with the historical appearance of Christ? How can life and light exist, or how can it be said that the light has shined in the darkness, where all this was wanting, and where access thereto was denied even to those who desired it? The Logos John sets the majesty of the Person of Christ before us in the strongest light, by leading our view into the depths of the Divine Being, and pointing us to the hidden background, which is thus formed to the earthly appearance of Christ. The important question here arises: Does John found his doctrine of the Logos, who was in the beginning with God, and was God, by whom all things were made, on the Old Testament, or is this doctrine based rather on human speculations? Does John here walk hand in hand with Moses and the prophets, or rather with the Alexandrine Philo? Thus much is certain to every one who is versed in Scripture, that if points of support for this doctrine are to be found in the Old Testament, it is to be traced to these. For all analogies favour this course. The New Testament, as regards doctrine itself, and not its mere form of expression, stands in immediate connection with the canonical books of the Old Testament; and in no case do we find ourselves referred to a middle term, and compelled, or even permitted, to go back to apocryphal or generally uncanonical literature. It is a characteristic of Old Testament prophecy, that it ceases with the prediction of the messenger who should prepare the way of the Lord before Him,—the second Elias, who should turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and of the children to their fathers; and the New Testament begins with the appearance of this same messenger, even John, who comes in the spirit and the power of Elias. Least of all in the Apostle John should we expect an exception to the rule, a departure from the consecrated ground of the Old Testament. There is in his nature a holy ruggedness, a sharp discrimination between that which comes from above and that which is of the world, the mere product of natural development. On closer investigation, it is seen that the Old Testament does completely furnish the necessary points of connection, and that we have no reason whatever to seek such elsewhere. We must, first of all, consider the Old Testament doctrine of the Angel of God, or of Jehovah, who is represented as far exalted above the sphere of the inferior angels, of whom are predicated all the attributes of the true God, who speaks in His name, claims for Himself the honours due to the Eternal, and is addressed and treated as God. In Exodus 23:21, He is designated as the Angel in whom is God’s name, i.e., His nature as historically unfolded and attested; in Isaiah 48:9, He is spoken of as the Angel of His presence (or face), i.e., the Angel in whom God Himself appears, in opposition to the inferior, created angels; in Joshua 5:14, as Captain of the Lords host, because, on account of his Godlike majesty and glory (He attributes Divine honours to Himself immediately afterwards, in John 1:15, commanding Joshua to loose his shoe from his foot, because the place was holy; and in John 6:2 He is called Jehovah), the powers of heaven, material and spiritual, the stars and the angels, are subject to Him. He appears surrounded by the latter, who are attentive to His words, in the first vision of Zechariah, where He is represented as the Protector of the covenant-people (cf. John 1:11), the Mediator between them and God, their Intercessor at the throne of grace. The Angel of the Lord occurs first in Genesis 16. We perceive from this passage, that wherever an appearance of Jehovah is spoken of, we are to consider this as accomplished through the medium of His Angel. In Genesis 16:7, we receive for the later form of expression, “and Jehovah appeared unto him,” the supplementary words, “in His angel; “as also, e.g., in John 18:1. We are also led to the same result by other facts. In Genesis 28:11-22, Jehovah appears to Jacob. In Genesis 31:13, the Angel of God calls Himself the God of Bethel, in reference to the occurrence related in chap. 28. In Hosea 12:3, He who wrestled with Jacob is called Elohim, as in Genesis, but in John 1:4, “the Angel,” ξμΰκ. Since the prophet had surely no intention of introducing a new historical particular, the ground for the mention of the Angel must lie in the presupposition, that all revelations of God occur through the medium of His Angel. The Angel of the Lord occurs in Zechariah and Malachi, in connection with the doctrine concerning Christ. The former, in chap. 11, announces a personal appearance of the Angel of the Lord in the midst of His people, and the taking of the office of shepherd under Him. Malachi, in Malachi 3:1, foretells that the Angel of the covenant will come to His temple. That John's doctrine of the Logos is related to the Old Testament doctrine of the Angel of the Lord, can be the less doubted, since the Apostle himself elsewhere refers frequently and unquestionably to this doctrine. Christ, in his writings, appears with unusual frequency as sent by God. By this expression, is everywhere intimated the personal identity of Christ with the Old Testament Angel or Messenger of the Lord; for the more immediate references, cf. my Christology, vol. iv. p. 285 (Eng. Tr.). John rests on the doctrine of the Angel of the Lord, when here, in John 1:11, he designates the covenant-people as the property of Christ; and when, in John 12:41, he says, without further explanation, that Isaiah saw the glory of Christ, while in the Old Testament it is the glory of Jehovah which is spoken of. But we meet with a not unimportant difference also between the Logos and the Angel of the Lord. The latter appears only as a mediator between God and His people, never as He by whom God has created all things. It is, however, easily perceived, that He could not be represented as such under this name. The name of angel or messenger presupposes the existence of those to whom he can be sent. It is not a designation of nature, but the name of a special office. If, therefore, in the Old Testament, a participation in the work of creation is ascribed to the same person who, from his mediatorial relation to the covenant-people, bears the name of Angel of the Lord (as we should beforehand regard as probable, since they stand in intimate connection with each other). He must in this other relation be represented under a different name. Now, it cannot be doubted that the Logos does occur as a partaker in the creation of the world in the passage, Proverbs 8:22-31, which for this subject is a locus classicus, under the name of the pre-mundane and world-forming Wisdom of God. It has been variously assumed that this is a purely poetical personification of one of the Divine attributes. But opposed to such a view is the fact, that what is pronounced here, according to the realistic rendering, of the second Person of the Godhead as sharing in the creation of the world, coincides with the distinction occurring elsewhere, in the doctrine of the Angel of God, between the hidden God and His Revealer. Add to this, that it could not be declared of wisdom, as an attribute of God, that it had been formed and brought forth from eternity. The realistic rendering has also the later national view in its favour. In the apocryphal Book of Wisdom, e.g., we meet with Wisdom manifestly as a person. It appears as the brightness of the everlasting light (Wis 7:26), the efflux of the glory of the Almighty; the worker, who made all things, Wis 7:22. Cf. Wis 8:6, where it is said of Wisdom, τίςαὐτῆςτῶνὄντωνμᾶλλονἐστιτεχνίτης, the masculine, as in the original passage in Proverbs 8:30; and Proverbs 9:9, “Wisdom, which knoweth Thy works, and I was present when Thou madest the world;”—and as she who lives with God, and whom the Lord of all things loves, John 8:3. Grimm, in his Commentary on the Book of Wisdom, p. 202, says, the author regards “the Divine Wisdom as a substance which has emanated from God, though standing in the most intimate connection with Him, to which also are ascribed Divine attributes and operations.” Besides Jesus Sirach,—whose words, e.g., in Sir 1:4, προτέραπάντωνἔκτισταισοφία, and John 1:9 κύριοςαὐτὸςἔκτισεναὐτήν, do not suit a mere personification of Wisdom as an attribute of God, Philo also may be regarded as a voucher for the national view. Finally, the authority of Christ is in favour of the realistic rendering. If Luke 11:49-50 be compared with Matthew 23:34, it cannot be a subject of doubt, that in the former passage Christ represents Himself (with reference to Proverbs 8) as the Wisdom which has appeared in the flesh: διὰτοῦτοκαὶἡσοφίατοῦΘεοῦεἶπε,—q.d.: Therefore say I, the Wisdom of God. Against the realistic rendering only this one objection can be brought to bear, that the second Person of the Godhead cannot be represented as feminine. But the Divine Mediator of creation appears as personal Wisdom (fem.), because here He is considered according to His wisdom unfolded in the creation; as similarly, in Ecclesiastes, Solomon is represented as incarnate Wisdom (fem.), and as Christ also designates Himself as Wisdom. That the use of the feminine has this ground only, is indicated by the fact, that in John 1:30 the world-forming Wisdom is designated as ΰξεο, work-man, and not in the feminine. But we will enter somewhat more particularly into the details of this important passage. It comprises ten verses, which are divided into equal parts. In the first half is declared the existence of Wisdom before all created things; in the second, her participation in the creation of the world, and that all things were created by her. John 1:22. “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old.” Instead of, He possessed me, many render, He created me. So the LXX. ἐ ?̓κτισε; Jesus Sirach, Sir 1:4; Sir 1:9; Sir 24:8; the Syriac and the Chaldee; while the Vulgate has, possedit me in initio viarum suarum. The rendering created cannot, however, be justified by the usage of the language, χπδ meaning only to possess, and to acquire. In Genesis 14:19, Deuteronomy 32:6 (in the Eng. Version), Psalms 139:13, also, the meaning created is assumed by some without good reason: ψΰωιϊγψλε is explained as His first act, or the earliest of His works, with reference to Job 40:19, where “He is the chief [beginning] of the ways [works] of God” is said as of the most eminent of created beings. But the following sentence, “before His works,” is decisive against this view. Hitzig’s rendering: as the earliest of His works, cannot be allowed, since χγν can only be taken in the sense of before. Either we must translate, as the beginning, and take beginning in the sense of living beginning, in whom is the cause of the beginning, the original source of all existence, in comparison with Revelation 3:14, where Christ is designated as ἡἀρχὴτῆςκτίσεωςτοῦΘεοῦ, or we must supply the preposition α, as, indeed, it must be imderstood with χγνVulg.: in initio viarum suarum; so also the Syriac and the Chaldee. This latter view is favoured by comparison with Genesis 1:1. Here we obtain an exact correspondence with the ἐνἀρχῇἦνὀλόγος: when the creation began, God already possessed Wisdom, the Logos was already with Him; so that He was before all things, and only by Him did all things consist. Colossians 1:17. John 1:23. “I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.” ξχγξιΰψυ, Vulg.: antequam terra fieret; not in the first period of the earth, but before the earth, from the time which preceded the earth. It seems that the words, “I was set up,” refer not to the beginning of existence in general, but to the beginning of existence as creative Wisdom; as the Vulg.: ordinata sunt; or as the older expositors remark, in reginam ac principem, per quem crearentur ac gubernarentur omnia. πρκ occurs in the sense of set also in Psalms 2:6. The same remarks hold good of the being brought forth, in John 1:24. John 1:24. “Where there were no depths, I was brought forth; where there were no fountains abounding with water. 25. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth.” There is an allusion to this passage in Job 15:7-8 : “Art thou the first man that was born, or wast thou made before the hills? Hast thou heard the secret of God (cf. ὁλόγοςἦνπρὸςτὸνΘεόν, in John 1:1; and ὁὢνεἰςτὸνκόλποντοῦπατρὸς, in John 1:18), and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself?” Eliphaz asks Job whether he, in disgraceful self-exaltation, lays claim to the dignity which belongs to the eternal Wisdom—whether, indeed, he be himself incarnate wisdom, that he should make such assumptions. John 1:26. “While as yet He had not made the earth, nor the streets, nor the sum of the clods of the earth.” ηεφεϊ occurs too frequently and exclusively with the meaning of streets for it to be taken in any other here. The streets are considered on account of the multitude of people which animate them. Regarded as to this, their soul, they are made by God. The parallel ϊαμ also signifies the earth, in so far as it is inhabited by men, the οἰκουμένη. John 1:27. “When He prepared the heavens, I was there; when He set a compass to the flood.” This presence was not an idle one—the writerʼ ?s purpose would not have led him to mention such—but an active one. Since ϊδεν always stands for the waters on the earth, especially of the sea, and also from its etymology is referred to the noise and roaring of the waves, the second clause can refer only to the work of the third day. Genesis 1:9, and the first clause to the work of the second day, Genesis 1:6-8. John 1:28. “When He established the clouds above, when He strengthened the fountains of the deep.” Here again is a contrast of the highest and deepest parts of creation. John 1:29. “When He gave to the sea His decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment; when He appointed the foundations of the earth.” Here sea and earth are opposed, as the heavens and earth, in the previous verse. John 1:30. “Then I was with Him as workman; I was daily delighted, rejoicing always before Him.” ΰξεο has the same meaning as ΰξο, workman, artificer, in Son 7:1. The view on which this pointing is based, is shared, as Hitzig remarks, by the LXX., Vulgate, and Syriac Versions, and is confirmed by Wis 7:22, ἡγὰρπάντωντεχνίτιςἐδίδαξέμεσοφία. According to Von Hofmann, ΰξεο is to be taken as adverbial infinitive absolute, with the meaning of continually. In such forced assumptions are those compelled to take refuge who maintain the view of a mere personification. The second clause designates the joy and sacred pleasure of the creating work, which manifests itself in the endless variety of created forms. With the phrase, I was delight, compare Isaiah 5:7; Jeremiah 31:20. The Vulg. has, delectabar; the LXX., incorrectly, ἐγὼἠμηνἦπροσέχαιρε, He had His delight in Me. John 1:31. “Rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, and My delight was with the sons of men.” The pleasure of creation is continued in the joy of intercourse with the children of men, in which is contained an invitation to those whom Wisdom so lovingly condescends to visit, to the equal delight of meeting her. If now it is settled that the Old Testament affords points of connection for the doctrine of a Divine Revealer of God, and especially also of the creation of the world by Him, only one point remains in question: whether for the name Logos, under which the Divine Mediator is here spoken of, there be likewise an Old Testament foundation; or whether for this we must search for an extra-biblical point of connection. The first question is, How is this name to be interpreted? And, in the first place, it is beyond doubt that Logos can mean only the Word. This interpretation is demanded simply by the usage of the language. “Ὁλόγος,” says Lόcke, “is never used, either by John or by any other biblical author, of the reason or understanding of God, or even of man.” If a doubt still remained, it would be removed by the unmistakeable relation in which the Logos stands to the history of creation, where all is created by the Word of God. “All things were made by Him,” coincides unmistakeably with “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made,” in Psalms 33:6, where the LXX. has, τῷλογῷτοῦκυρίουοἱοὐρανοὶἐ ?̓στερεώθησαν. But in what sense is the Divine Revealer called the Word? There are decisive grounds against the supposition that He is so called as “the Messenger of God, who utters what He is commanded to speak, and reveals to men, in part, what they are to believe, in part, what they are to do,” so that the explanation of the name is to be sought in John 1:18; or that He is so named as the subject of evangelical announcements, or as foretold by the prophets of the Old Testament, etc. All such assumptions cannot be justified by the facts. It is not then perceived why just here a designation is chosen, which, outside of the Prologue, descending, as it does, into the heavenly depths of the origin of Christ, nowhere recurs in this Gospel, and must therefore stand in intimate relation to the specific contents of the Prologue. Here such a name only is appropriate, as designates pre-mundane existence, intimate communion with God and Divinity, and from which directly follows a participation in the creation of the world. That by the name Logos, the highest is designated that can be said of Christ, is shown by the antithesis of flesh in John 1:14; particularly when the Old Testament parallels are compared, in which flesh and God are opposed to each other. According to the same verse, the Logos, as such, has a δόξα, a glory, which He reveals. Further, according to 1 John 1:1, the Logos is the incarnate Life. But of special significance is Revelation 19:13, which, in the recurrence of the name peculiar to John, has a signature of its Johannine origin. It is there said of Christ, “And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; and His name is called the Word of God.” The name here must be the explanation of vesture; the destructive character being common to both, both must announce Christ as the hero, whom no created thing can withstand. A polemic name, one threatening destruction and indicating the clothing of Christ with omnipotence, is alone appropriate to this whole section. Wherever the name Logos occurs, it is in connection with the highest and most divine that can be declared of Christ. This is inexplicable if the name were of itself such as could be given to a human mediator; it shows, that the name itself designates Christ’s fulness of Divine attributes. Now, this is in fact the case, if the name be traced back to Genesis 1 and Psalms 33:6, to which latter passage John 1:3 here so plainly refers. In the history of creation, the external appearance of God, His creative agency, is designated as His speaking. For this reason, He, who is the medium of every external act of God, is designated by John the personal Word of God. If Christ be the personal Word of God, if all which is elsewhere called the Word of God be only a single fragment of His being, how could it then be conceived that any created thing could stand before Him? “I fear not what flesh can do unto me,” is the watchword of all those who have the Logos on their side. “Undismayed, and without fear, shall the Christian e’er appear,”—this is the requirement which is laid on all members of the Church, because the Logos is their head. If single words of God have called the world into existence from nothing, how glorious must then be the Word of God,—how lively must be our fear of displeasing Him,—how unconditional our obedience to every one of His words,—how must there be given to us in connection with Him the unconditional warrant of victory over all ungodly powers, the security for the assertion, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world,”—how must all longing and desire of the soul yearn to be firmly grounded and rooted in this Word of God, and thus to become partaker of all His treasures of salvation and blessedness! Christ—the Word of God: in this is contained, on the one hand, that without Him there can be no true connection with God, as certainly as among men the word alone forms a bridge of connection; and, on the other hand, that in connection with Him an entrance is abundantly ministered to all the treasures of salvation which are laid up in Him for needy creatures. Excellently remarks Bengel: “The name Jesus shows especially His grace, and the name, Word of God, His majesty. How deeply must that which is designated by this name lie in the unsearchable Godhead! The word of a man is not only that which he speaks with his mouth, and which is perceived by the sense of hearing; but that also which he has within himself, in his mind, and which he cherishes in his thoughts. If there were not this inner word, it could not be comprised in any speech or language. And if such word is so deep within man, how deep within God, in a manner incomprehensible to us, must be His Word! To Him, whose name is the Word of God, His enemies are all as stubble before the fire. With the spirit or breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked, Isaiah 11:4. Therefore no sinner or liar can stand before Him.” Although John 1:18 is not to be regarded as an explanation of the deeper and more comprehensive name of Logos, yet what is here said of Christ, that He, as the only-begotten Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, has revealed the nature of God, in Himself invisible, is included in the name Logos. If Christ be the eternal Word of God, there must be given in Him the only medium for the knowledge of God; so that every one sees just so much of God as He has seen of Him, perceives just so much as Christ has granted him to perceive. From the detailed account which has been given it is clear that all which John teaches concerning the Logos, both as to the thing signified and the name, rests on an Old Testament foundation, and that we have no reason to look elsewhere points of connection. The Logos of John is connected with the Logos of Philo only in so far as that of Philo, which proceeded from an obscure mingling, rests likewise on an Old Testament basis. This basis is especially evident where Philo designates the Logos as the Archangel, and the ταξιάρχης, or Leader of the host, in reference to the angel of the Lord, who, e.g., in Zechariah 1 appears surrounded by troops of inferior angels and in Joshua 5 is designated as Captain of theLord's host With those particulars of his doctrine of the Logos, which Philo derived from Plato or from the Stoics, the doctrine of St John, the source of which rises only in the sanctuary, has nothing whatever in common. Ver. 1. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Such words must be used of the true Saviour, of whom nothing higher can be said; otherwise there cannot be an entire and undivided consecration of the heart to Him, such as can alone bear the true fruits of righteousness, and sustain itself in trouble and in death the Apostle, in here making the loftiest ascriptions to the Redeemer, speaks the confident language of revelation and inspiration, the language of one who testifies of what he has seen and heard, who is not a debtor to some philosopheme or theologumenon, but derives from God Himself the truth which is to conduct to God. Quesnel has admirably designated the proper treatment of this utterance. “He contents himself with demonstrating to our faith His eternity, His life-communion with His Father, and His deity, without unfolding these mysteries to us. Our faith must also be content with this. In reference to this eternal, unspeakable, and inconceivable mystery, we must believe more than we reason, adore more than we define, think more than we investigate, love more than we know, humble ourselves more than we speak.” The three clauses of the verse form a climax: only the third expresses the highest that can be said, the deity of the Word, to which the two first clauses lead indirectly, and on the presupposition of which they are based. Existence before all creatures is first ascribed to the Word, thus already preparing the way for the third clause. “Something was before the world and the creation of all things,” says Luther: “that must be God.” That the words, “in the beginning,” are equivalent to, “when as yet there was no created thing,” and that “was “here stands in the emphatic sense of, in the beginning, when God created the heavens and earth, the Word already was,—is clear only in comparison with the opening words of Genesis. From the manifest designedness of this reference, with which it is coincident that the other Apostle among the Evangelists also takes the first words of His Gospel from Genesis,̔ ? it would be perplexing if the Apostle John had understood by the beginning something different from the original passage, the beginning of created things, of finite existence. Beginning occurs in the same sense also elsewhere in the New Testament: Matthew 19:4 (ὁποιήσαςἀπʼ ? ἀρχῆς), 8 (ἀπʼ ? ἀρχῆςδὲοὐγέγονε); John 8:44, where Satan is called ἀνθρωποκτόνοςἦνἀπʼ ? ἀρχῆς in reference to an event which took place in the beginning of the world, and of the human race; 1 John 1:1; 1 John 2:13-14; 1 John 3:8. In these passages, the same thing is designated by mere beginning as by beginning of the world in Matthew 24:21, and beginning of the creation in Mark 10:6 (ἀπὸδὲἀρχῆςκτίσεωςἄρσενκαὶθῆλυἐποίησεναὐτούςὁΘεός), John 13:19, 2 Peter 3:4. Κόσμον or κτίσεως is also here to be supplied in thought. We must dismiss entirely the interpretation of Olshausen and others: “not in the beginning of creation, but in the absolute beginning, i.e., from eternity.” It is contrary to the original passage, and contrary to usage. It is true that, according to the interpretation established, it is only declared of the Logos, that He already was at the time of creation (ἤν, in opposition to create of the heavens and earth in Genesis 1:1, and to ἐγένετο, as used of created things in the verses immediately following); but that this is no unimportant declaration, is seen from the fact that the same thing, existence before created beings, is declared even of God in Psalms 90:2, and thus existence from eternity and creative activity are determined as inseparably connected: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, art Thou, God.” If the Logos existed already at the beginning of creation, He cannot be a part of that which is created; and this being so. He must be from everlasting, and therefore God. For there is nothing intermediate between existence before the beginning, or from the beginning, and eternal existence—between creature and God. With this corresponds what Christ declares of Himself: “Before the world was,” John 17:5; “before the foundation of the world,” John 17:24; and also, “I am the first,” Revelation 1:17; Revelation 2:8; Revelation 22:13,—to which is immediately added, “and (for this reason) the last.” The whole creation must necessarily at last lie at the feet of Him who was before it all. Only in the interim may it boast itself sometimes, during the respite which He allows it. To Him who was in the beginning belongs also the end, and he who remains in Him should not be troubled. He can regard with sacred irony the opposition of the creature to Him who was in the beginning. He who has truly taken to heart the words of the text, his whole meditation and endeavour will be directed to this one end, that he may gain and keep Him for a friend who was in the beginning; and he will trouble himself little concerning the favour or disfavor of others, being convinced that they cannot really help or really injure him, that their favour is as the flower of the field, and their anger as the foam of water. “And the Word was with God.” Since πρὸς is used more frequently in the New Testament than in the Classics analogously to πάρα with the accusative, even in the relation, of rest and without the connected idea of aim (Mark 6:3; Mark 9:19; Galatians 4:18; Buttmann’s N. T. Gramm. p. 292), there is no ground for retaining, with Bengel and others, by a laboured interpretation, the idea of “motion.” (Bengel: πρὸς denotat perpetuam quasi tendentiam Filii ad Patrem in unitate essentiae.) With the text correspond the words, “with Thee,” in John 17:5, and “in the bosom of the Father,” in John 1:18. To the determination of His relation to the creature, is here added the determination of His relation to the Creator. This, as immediately follows from the former, since the separation from created things can rest only on the basis of connection with God, is one of most intimate communion: and from this follows the practical result, that he who would enter into a closer relation to the Most High God, must seek above all things the favour of the Logos; and that all attacks, which are directed against the Church of the Logos, can only recoil from the omnipotence of Him who stands in the most intimate communion with God. The original passages of the Old Testament are Proverbs 8:30, and Zechariah 13:7 : “Awake, sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man that is My fellow;” where Jehovah, on the ground of most intimate communion with Him—a communion which cannot be one merely of will, but must originally have been one of essence—designates the Messiah as His fellow. The words of the text are of special importance, because they plainly testify the personal distinction of the Logos from God the Father, with whom He is connected by community of essence. To be with some one, can only stand of a relation between two persons. Cf. the passages already cited, Mark 6:3; Mark 9:19; Galatians 4:18. He who is with some one, must be distinct from him, with whom he is. Coincident with this passage, in its testimony to the independent personality of the Logos, is ver. 18, which speaks of the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father. “And the Word was God.” In this the confidence of victory for the people, whose head is Jesus Christ, He in whom the Logos became flesh, receives its conclusion, its final completion. If Christ be God, all fear is folly. If God be for us, who can be against us? But then equally foolish is all dividing of the heart, all half-heartedness. Ourselves we leave, to Christ we cleave, and thus eternal joy receive: this is the immediate practical result of the truth, the Word was God. There can be no doubt that God is the predicate. For the Logos is the subject in the two preceding sentences, and also in ver. 2. The question throughout is, Who is the Logos? not, Who is God? After what precedes, we here expect a more precise determination of the relation which the Logos, as an independent personal being, sustains to God. Further, if God were the subject, then, in opposition to the second clause, the personality of the Logos, as a special one, would be cancelled: if God is the Logos, the independence of the Logos ceases. But why is the predicate placed first? The answer is: in order to indicate that the emphasis rests upon it. That the Logos is God, this forms the antithesis to the preceding vaguer determination of the glory dwelling in Him; this is a high word, to be rendered emphatically prominent, by which the believer may overcome doubt, anxiety, and pain; this is the magic formula, by which he may banish all temptation which would seduce him from the pure essence in Christ, Θεός must necessarily stand without the article. With the article, it would be declared that the Logos fills up the whole sphere of the Godhead, which would be inconsistent, since the very name of Logos presupposes an original cause which pronounced the Word. On the other hand, without the article, Θεός designates the idea of species, God, in opposition to men or angels; and the words declare that the Logos, who according to the second clause is personally distinct from God the Father, is in His essence one with God; that not only the Father, but also the Son, is God. The decided emphasis laid on the unity of God, from the beginning to the end of Scripture, requires, with the distinction of persons, the mention also of the unity of essence in the Father and the Son. To every derogatory rendering of Θεός,—an inclination to which, inherited by us from the Deists, can only be radically extirpated when the time Godhead of Christ has been recognised by personal heart-experience—true regeneration can proceed only from the true Godhead,—is already opposed the Old Testament doctrine of the Angel of the Lord, to which John variously refers: e.g., here in ver. 11; and in John 12:41, where he says that Isaiah (chap. 6) saw the glory of Christ, while Isaiah himself says that he saw the glory of Jehovah, that is, of His Angel. The Angel of the Lord is in Exodus 23:21 designated as He in whom is the name of the Lord,” His essence, as historically unfolded and attested; in Exodus 33:14, as the presence (face) of the Lord; in Isaiah 53:9, as the Angel of His presence (face);—as much as to say. He in whom Jehovah appears in person, in antithesis to the inferior created angels. Ver. 2. “The same was in the beginning with God.” The words do not contain any new particular. They are only to hold fast, during the consideration of the profound and pregnant truth, that the Saviour who appears in the weakness of the flesh, and the form of a servant, was in the beginning with God; that also behind this foreground of weakness there lies hidden a richer background of omnipotence. In all the calamities of the Church, whenever it is apparently overthrown, it confidently opposes to the assaults of the world and their prince these words: The same was in the beginning with God. He who has on his side Him who was in the beginning with God, can sleep calmly under all circumstances: he says, I fear not tens of thousands that are encamped about me. How wretched appear the Jews, who would not receive Him who was in the beginning with God! They become the object of sacred irony, as in Psalms 2:4. How poor and ridiculous also the attacks of the heathen, which had doubtless commenced when John wrote his Gospel! To Him, who was in the beginning with God, the heathen are but as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance, Isaiah 40:15. He who has really taken to heart the words, “The same was in the beginning with God,” will recognise it as the highest aim of his life to enter into most intimate fellowship with the Logos, that every breath may be consecrated to Him. “O eternal Word,” exclaims Quesnel, “inseparable from Thine everlasting foundation, adorable Son, who never leavest the bosom of Thy Father, may I never be separated from Thee, and unite me in Thyself with Thy Father!” In Revelation 3:14, Christ is called “the beginning of the creation of God.” If He was in the beginning with God, when as yet there was no created thing, He must also be the beginning, He in whom the beginning is grounded, the living beginning;. Ver. 3. “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” The Berleburger Bibel says: “Hitherto the Word has been described as in the bosom of the Father; now He is described as He reveals Himself in creation.” The answer to the question, “Why this express testimony, that all things were made through the mediation of the Logos?” is given by Luther in the words: “If Christ does not remain truly and by nature God, born of the Father in eternity, and Creator of all things, then we are lost. For how could we be helped by the sufferings and death of Christ, if He were only a man like you and I? Then He could not have overcome devil, death, and sin; He would have been too weak for them: He would also have been unable to help us. Therefore we must have a Saviour who is very God, and Lord over sin, death, and devil. If we allow the devil to subvert this foundation, and hold that Christ is not very God, then His passion, death, and resurrection are of no use to us, and we have no hope of obtaining eternal life and happiness; in fine, we cannot at all comfort ourselves by all the consoling promises of Scripture. But if we are to be helped from the devils violence and death-blows, also from sin and death, we must have an everlasting Good, to which nothing is wanting, and in which is no fault. So this article, that Christ is by nature very God and very man, is our rock, on which our salvation and bliss are founded, on which we are baptized, on which we live and die. And St John, as the pattern Evangelist, has powerfully described the deity of the Lord Christ; and that the world, heaven, earth, all creatures, visible and invisible, were created by Him, and that nothing was made but by this Word of the Father.” We have here before us no idle speculation,—much rather an anchorage-ground of hope for the mind that is troubled through fear of the creature, the basis for that word of the Lord: “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” To the all things made by the Logos,—which must therefore serve Him unconditionally, and pay homage to Him, either willingly or by compulsion,—belong also the angels, whose ministering relation to Christ and His kingdom is rendered expressly prominent by ver. 51, and Satan, the prince of this world, which he is continually exciting against the kingdom of Christ. But the practical signification reaches still further. “All creatures,” says Quesnel, “owe allegiance to Him, both on account of their existence, whose ground He is, through the power which He has in common with His Father, and on account of the manner of their existence, for which He is the archetype, and the Divine skill, as the eternal Wisdom, from which all creatures have all that they possess of beauty, order, and proportion, among each other, and in relation to the plans of God. O that I may seek Thee, study Thee, adore Thee, in all Thy creatures! Grant that they may lead me to Thee,—that I may ever give all the glory to Thee,—that I may not be deaf to so many voices, which unceasingly tell me, that it is Thou who hast created them, that it is Thou and not they whom we must follow.” It is clear from the comparison of 1 Corinthians 8:6 and Hebrews 1:2, that the preposition διά is used to indicate that the Logos occupies a mediatorial position in the creation of the world, God the Father being the original cause of the creative work. Διά does indeed occur of God the Father in Galatians 1:1, Hebrews 2:10; but never ἐξ of Christ. Together with the accomplishment of the creation through Christ, it is immediately granted, that to Him belong also the preservation and government of the world. Luther says, “He is not a master, who, like a carpenter or builder, when he has prepared, completed, arranged a house, ship, or any other work that he may please, leaves the house for its owner to dwell in, or commits the ship to the mariners that they may traverse the sea in it, and he himself goes whither he may. It is not so here; but God the Father has begun and finished the creation of all things by His word, and preserves it also continually by the same, and remains with His work, which He creates, until He wills that it shall no longer exist. For this reason, says Christ (John 5:13), ‘My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.’ For, as we were made by Him, without our assistance and power, so also we cannot be preserved of ourselves. Therefore, as heaven, earth, sun, moon, stars, men, and all that lives, were created by the Word in the beginning, so they are wonderfully governed and preserved by the same Word, Thus, when St John says, all that is made was made by the Word, we are to understand that all things so created are preserved in being, otherwise they would not long remain created.” The second clause adds no new matter; the repetition only directs attention to the deep significance of the truth, as for the same reason such repetitions occur in the history of the flood, e.g., Genesis 7:13-16. If without Christ nothing was made that was made, then nothing made by Him can do any injury to His kingdom. Fear loves to make exceptions, it allows all else to be innocuous; only that one thing which is directly in view, appears to threaten danger. This is met by the Holy Spirit with the assurance, that all things without exception were made by the Logos; therefore, every fear is unreasonable in him who has the Word on his side. If to be made, and to be made by Him, are the same thing, there can be no enemy that is to be feared, either in heaven or earth. The same practical tendency, to show that no force in heaven or earth is a match for Christ, that all are under obligation to serve and honour Him, an equally emphatic designation of all and every, and also a certain pleonasm of expression, are found in the parallel passage. Colossians 1:16 : ἐναὐτῷἐκτίσθητὰπάνταἐντοῖςοὐρανοῖςκαὶἐπὶτῆςγῆς, τὰὁρατὰκαὶτὰἀόρατα, εἴτεθρόνοιεἴτεκυριότητεςεἴτεἀρχαὶεἴτεἐξουσίαι· τὰπάνταδιʼ ? αὐτοῦκαὶεἰςαὐτὸνἔκτισται. It is a poor supposition, that John here placed himself in opposition to the Judaistic Gnosis, which excluded the ὕλη, or matter, from the Divine creation. It is not the Divine creation which is here treated of, but the participation of the Logos in the creation; and it is more consonant that the Apostle should wish to afford consolation in a trial common to all Christian hearts, than that he should have regard to some obscure hypercritic. Included in that which is made, are also the enemies of Christ and His Church. And of how great practical significance is it, that even from our birth we are under obligation to our Redeemer and Saviour, as our Creator,—that the Creator of all things has taken upon Him our nature, and has come to seek the lost! The words, “that was made,” ὃγέγονεν, are not absolutely necessary to the sense. Yet this redundancy of expression bears the character of solemnity, and rouses the attention to the great importance of the thought. The logical unnecessariness of ὃγέγονεν has led some to join it to what follows. This punctuation is quite ancient. It is found in Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, and Clement of Alexandria. But since the science of exegesis has passed its infancy, all approved expositors have declared themselves in decided opposition to it. We should then either connect, ὃγέγονεν, ἐναὐτῷζωὴἦν, or, ὃγέγονεν, ἐναὐτῷ, ζωὴἦν. The former is the more ancient reading. As to sense, both amount to the same. For even in the latter reading, the Logos, or the creation by Him, is to be regarded as the ground of the life of creatures,—q.d., that which was created by Him, was on this very account life. Both readings, however, rest on the false assumption, that ver. 4 refers to creation, instead of to redemption. They give way of themselves when it is perceived that ζωὴ is not natural life, but eternal life or salvation. The thought, that all things made have their life, the source of their life, in the Logos, even were it a reasonable one, is impossible here, since ζωὴ, according to the usage of John, cannot be the natural life. The second decisive reason against it is, that then the words, “And the life was the light of men,” are not suitable. These words require that the life be not, as according to this interpretation, the creaturely life, but the life which has its source in the Logos. Himself. The interpretation owes its origin, as it seems, to those who, mistaking the simple practical meaning of the Prologue, misinterpreted it in the sense of their speculative tendencies. It is a poor supposition, that John here placed himself in opposition to the Judaistic Gnosis, which excluded the ὕλη, or matter, from the Divine creation. It is not the Divine creation which is here treated of, but the participation of the Logos in the creation; and it is more consonant that the Apostle should wish to afford consolation in a trial common to all Christian hearts, than that he should have regard to some obscure hypercritic. Included in that which is made, are also the enemies of Christ and His Church. And of how great practical significance is it, that even from our birth we are under obligation to our Redeemer and Saviour, as our Creator,—that the Creator of all things has taken upon Him our nature, and has come to seek the lost! The words, “that was made,” ὃγέγονεν, are not absolutely necessary to the sense. Yet this redundancy of expression bears the character of solemnity, and rouses the attention to the great importance of the thought. The logical unnecessariness of ὃγέγονεν has led some to join it to what follows. This punctuation is quite ancient. It is found in Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, and Clement of Alexandria. But since the science of exegesis has passed its infancy, all approved expositors have declared themselves in decided opposition to it. We should then either connect, ὃγέγονεν, ἐναὐτῷζωὴἦν, or, ὃγέγονεν, ἐναὐτῷ, ζωὴἦν. The former is the more ancient reading. As to sense, both amount to the same. For even in the latter reading, the Logos, or the creation by Him, is to be regarded as the ground of the life of creatures,—q.d., that which was created by Him, was on this very account life. Both readings, however, rest on the false assumption, that ver. 4 refers to creation, instead of to redemption. They give way of themselves when it is perceived that ζωὴ is not natural life, but eternal life or salvation. The thought, that all things made have their life, the source of their life, in the Logos, even were it a reasonable one, is impossible here, since ζωὴ, according to the usage of John, cannot be the natural life. The second decisive reason against it is, that then the words, “And the life was the light of men,” are not suitable. These words require that the life be not, as according to this interpretation, the creaturely life, but the life which has its source in the Logos. Himself. The interpretation owes its origin, as it seems, to those who, mistaking the simple practical meaning of the Prologue, misinterpreted it in the sense of their speculative tendencies. Ver. 4. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Luther says: “When he says, in Him was life, and the life was the light of men, these are thunder-claps against the light of reason, free will, human ability, etc. As if he would say: All men who are out of Christ, lack life before God, are dead and damned.” Kφstlin has admirably developed the idea of life (Joh. Lehrbegr. S. 235): “The expression ζωὴ denotes that life which is really life, the direct opposite of death,—one absolutely efficient, disturbed by no obstruction to its course, by no disgust, but a blessed life, a life which is raised above all creaturely perishability and weakness.” In this emphatic sense, in which the conception of life is closely connected with that of salvation, life occurs in Deuteronomy 30:20, where it is said by God to Israel, “For He is thy life;” as much as to say, only through Him canst thou find an existence which really deserves the name of life, and of which it could not be declared, “Thou hast a name to live, but art dead.” What is there said of Jehovah, is here transferred to Christ. The same remark holds good of Psa 36:9; the more so, since there, as here, life is connected with light: “For with Thee is the fountain of life: in Thy light shall we see light.” He who derives it not from Thee, the only source of life and salvation, loses it, in spite of all the human means which he possesses for preserving and gaining it. But, on the other hand, he who has this fountain at command, the wickedness of the whole world cannot take the life from him; he preserves his life, and drinks with delight in the presence of his enemies. In Proverbs 3:18, it is said of Wisdom, between whom and the Logos there is so intimate a relation, “She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her;” and in Proverbs 8:35-36, Wisdom says, “For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord. But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.” According to Calvin and others, preservation is here ascribed to Christ, as creation in the previous verse. The life is natural life. “If His constant influence did not quicken the world, all things that have power must immediately fall to ruin or be destroyed.” That which Paul ascribes to God in Acts 17:28, that in Him we live and move, takes place, according to the Evangelist, through the beneficence of the Word. Lόcke also is of opinion that “John has not yet any thought of the historical Christ;” and by life, he understands the physical and ethical life, which exists apart from Christ. But, on the other hand, Kφstlin has already remarked, the words are to be explained, not from Philo, but from John himself, who everywhere represents life as coming into the world only with Christ, and does not see fit to say anything of the continued preservation of the world by the Logos. Even in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, ζωὴ, life, is generally used of spiritual eternal life, or salvation,—of natural life, only in Luke 16:25. ζωὴ alone is interchanged with ζωὴαἰώνιος, which alone can be called a true life, as certainly as in Genesis 2:17 it is said, “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” according to which the natural life is only a concealed death. In John, ζωὴ occurs more than thirty times, always of spiritual eternal life, or salvation, which can be obtained only by joining the Word, who has appeared in the flesh, the “historical Christ,” and can never be obtained apart from Him. In an entire series of passages ζωὴ is used interchangeably with ζωὴαἰώνιος. So, e.g., in John 3:15; John 3:36 : ἵναπᾶςὁπιστεύωνἐναὐτῷἔχῃζωὴναἰώνιον. ὁπιστεύωνεἰςτὸνυἱὸνἔχειζωὴναἰώνιον· ὁδὲἀπειθῶντῷυἱῷοὐκὄψεταιζωήν. Here ζωὴ is explained by the preceding ζωὴαἰώνιος. Cf. John 5:24-26, John 5:39-40, John 6:33; John 6:35; John 6:47-48; John 6:53; 1 John 1:1. Everywhere in these passages life is connected with the advent of Christ in the flesh. As it is here said, that in the Logos was the life, so Jesus, in John 14:6, calls Himself the Life. In the strikingly accordant passage, 1 John 5:11— ζωὴναἰώνιονἔδωκενἡμῖνὁθεός, καὶαὕτηἡζωὴἐντῷυἱῷαὐτοῦἐστιν—life = salvation, and the life has its only source in Christ. According to all this, and since, according to proof yet to be adduced, the parallel light also cannot be separated from Christ, the words, “in Him was light,” must refer to the fact, that from the beginning of the rational creation, its life was in the Logos; so that it was excluded from life, so long as Christ had not appeared in the flesh. What a powerful practical impulse is there in the words, “in Him was life!” If the Logos—if Christ, in whom the Logos has become accessible to us—be the single point and source of life in the whole wide universe, the whole energy of the mind must be directed towards entering into, and persevering in, communion with Him. “And the life was the light of men.”—Ἡζωή; is not life in the abstract, but personal life in the Word; q.d., He, the bestower of life, existed at the same time as such. The light is, according to vers. 8, 9, the Logos Himself. The thought cannot have been here of a beaming of the light into the intelligent creation in the times before Christ, “of a continued enlightening activity of the Logos in general history, and not merely among the Jews.” For of such a doctrine we can find no traces elsewhere in John. The assertion that, according to John 11:52, John 10:16, he is aware of a preparatory revelation in the heathen world, rests on an incorrect apprehension. In the first passage, the “scattered children of God” in the heathen world are brought into view, not according to their subjective condition, but according to the Divine choice and predetermination. “Divine life, preformed Christian sonship of God,” outside the boundaries of the kingdom of God, in the heathen world, is a representation current indeed with the modern accommodation-theology, but not with John. We are not to think of Israel alone, since men in general are spoken of; and even if there certainly were an activity of the Logos among the Jews, yet the Light of the Future was reserved even from them. If, according to ver. 17, grace and truth came to the covenant-people first by Christ, life and light are denied to them before Christ. In the New Testament, light is the ordinary designation of salvation. In Psalms 27:1, “The Lord is my light and my salvation,” we have the interpretation of the figure. In Isaiah 49:6 (Acts 13:47) it is said of Christ, “I will also give Thee to be a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth.” When Israel, in Micah 7:8, says, “When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me,” the thought is, when I am in misery, the Lord is my salvation. That light is to be taken in this sense here, is sufficiently proved by ver. 5, especially by the contrast of darkness, by which only wickedness can be understood. In this sense, Christ in various connections calls Himself the Light, and is so called by John, always in such a manner that it is either expressly stated or assumed that the light did not shine until His advent in the flesh. So, e.g., in John 3:19, to τὸφῶςἐλήλυθενεἰςτὸνκόσμον: John 8:12, Ἐγώεἰμιτὸφῶςτοῦκόσμου· ὁἀκολουθῶνἐμοὶοὐμὴπεριπατήσῃἐντῇσκοτίᾳ, ἀλλʼ ? ἕξειτὸφῶςτῆςζωῆς, where, as here, light is connected with life: John 12:35, Ἔτιμικρὸνχρόνοντὸφῶςἐνὑμῖνἐστιν. περιπατεῖτεὡςτὸφῶςἔχετε, ἵναμὴσκοτίαὑμᾶςκαταλάβῃ: but especially John 9:5, ὅτανἐντῷκόσμῳὦ, φῶςεἰμιτοῦκόσμου, where to be light, and to be in the world, are represented as inseparably connected. We are also led to the view that light is here a designation of the salvation which should be brought to the human race by the advent of Christ, by the original passages in the prophets. We must first of all consider the passage in Isaiah 9:2, which Matthew expressly adduces, and which exercises a controlling influence over his representation. “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” Not only is the figure of light common to this passage and our text, but also the mention of darkness, in ver. 5 here, and the connection of life and light in John corresponds with the shadow of death in Isaiah. John would contradict this passage if he declared that the Logos had already made Himself known as light, before He became flesh. In Isaiah also light is the designation of salvation. The darkness which is to be dispelled by the light, is designated as at the same time external and spiritual wretchedness. “The sad companion of outward oppression by the Gentile world, is the spiritual misery of the inward dependence on it.” In Isaiah 42:6, also, the Lord speaks to His Servant, the Messiah, “I will give Thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles.” Only in the future is the Servant of God to become this. Light is here, according to the common usus loquendi of Scripture, a figurative designation of salvation. In the parallel passage, Isaiah 49:6, light is at once explained by salvation. The designation proceeds upon the supposition that the Gentiles, not less than Israel (cf. John 9:1), shall, until the appearance of the Servant of God, sit in darkness and the shadow of death;—that they are in misery, even though in some instances it maybe a brilliant misery.” If before Christ both Israel and the heathen are in darkness, the real enjoyment of the light cannot here be ascribed to men in the period before Christ. According to ver. 7, the Servant of God alone is to bring out those who sit in darkness. In addition to Isaiah 42:6, it is said in Isaiah 49:6, “And I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation to the end of the earth.” We must also take into view Isaiah 9:1-3, “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. 2. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee. 3. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.” In the words, “thy light is come,” light is a personal salvation; therefore, the Lord as Saviour. This is shown by vers. 19, 20, compared with the last clause, “and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” According to this passage also, until the advent of Christ darkness covers not merely the Gentiles, but also the Jews. Christ shines first as a clear light on the darkness of the Jews, and the Gentiles come to this light that they may be irradiated by its beams. In harmony with this does Zacharias (Luke 1:78-79) rejoice that “the dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” And John himself, while in vers. 7-11 he designates Christ as the light, the true light which is come into the world, to His own, proceeds on the conception that previously the world, and even the chosen people, were without the light, and sat in darkness. After all this, there can be no doubt of the correctness of Heumann’s remark, “But at what time He became this light, we are taught by ver. 9, from which we learn that He became the light of men when He came into the world. The Word therefore became, as Christ calls Himself (John 8:12), the light of life.” The thought of the whole verse can only be this: that the Logos, from the beginning, was the virtual life and light of men; so that, before He appeared in the flesh, men were excluded from light and life. The words, “in Him was,” ἦν, are certainly to be distinguished from those in 1 John 1:2, “for the life was manifested,” ἡζωὴἐφανερώθη. In the former, the being manifested forms an antithesis to the being from the beginning. Analogous is Revelation 12:11, where the words, “they overcame him,” refer to the power dwelling in the atoning death of Christ, and in substance are equivalent to: they can now overcome him. So also Revelation 4:5, where the lightnings, thunderings, and voices proceeding from the throne have a prefigurative sense, indicating the fulness of judgment dwelling in God which is to be manifested at its proper time. So here life and light are that which exists in the Logos for the whole human race, and which in its due time, when the day of salvation and grace is come (Isaiah 49:8; 2 Corinthians 6:2), is to be poured out upon it. If the life and light of men have been from the beginning only in the Logos, this, as mans highest motive to Christ, seems to say: “Besides Thee there is nothing but folly and falsehood, darkness and sin, death and misery. Open and illumine my mind, penetrate and warm my heart, because my happiness consists in this, to know and to love Thee” (Quesnel). Ver. 5. “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” We must unconditionally reject the remark of Olshausen: “We are in no case to refer φαίνει to the activity of the incarnate Word; this meets us first in ver. 14 as an historical fact.” That the agency here is not that “which was exercised by the Logos from the beginning,” but that which proceeded from the “historical Christ,” is shown by the Old Testament passages, Isaiah 9:1; Isaiah 42:6; Isaiah 49:6; Isaiah 9:1, by the declaration of Zacharias, Luke 1:79, and of Christ Himself, John 8:12; John 8:36. That the present, φαίνει, here is to be taken as designating an activity which continues to the present time, is clear from the relation of the preceding ἦν, “was,” and still more decisively from 1 John 2:8, ἡσκοτίαπαράγεταικαὶτὸφῶςτὸἀληθινὸνἤδηφαίνει. Darkness is the condition of the man who lives out of connection with God, or reprobacy, sin, and the evils inseparable therefrom. Σκοτία, correctly remarks Kφstlin, “designates not only the deficient religious condition, but always, at the same time, also the dark fate of the subject consequent thereon,—the deficiency not only in the light of truth, but also in that of life.” Thus, as light is the personal Light, so darkness is here a designation of the men who are in darkness;—according to Isaiah 9:2, “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light;” according to the explanation in the subsequent verse (“He came to His own, and His own received Him not”); and because the words, “comprehended it not,” indicate an accomplished fact, in which the heathen had as yet no part;—the Jews, the benighted people of the covenant and possession. Καταλαμβάνειν elsewhere in the New Testament always means to take: John 12:35; Mark 9:18; 1 Corinthians 9:24; Philippians 3:12-13. In the sense of comprehend, perceive, it occurs only in the middle voice, Acts 4:13; Acts 10:34. Most analogous is Romans 9:30, κατέλαβενδικαιοσύνην. Because the Jews had not stretched out the hand of faith to seize the light, therefore darkness had seized upon them, John 12:35. The reason why they had not received it, is disclosed by our Lord in Matthew 23:37, “and ye would not;” and still more clearly by John in John 3:19, “Light is come into the world, and men (represented by the Jews) loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” They would gladly have escaped the dark fate which weighed heavy upon them; but the dark disposition, of which this fate was the reflex, they would not renounce at any price, and thus their darkness was doubled by their own fault. “But although,” says Luther, “the bad, blind world desires not the dear light, nay, cannot endure it, but persecutes and reviles it, yet it shines from the special grace of the true eternal Light, for the sake of the little flock which is to be enlightened by it, and does not set on account of the thanklessness and disdain of the great godless multitude.” The Apostle now carries out further, in vers. 6-13, what he had intimated in ver. 5, and shows how Christ, as the true Light, shone among the Jews, and was by them rejected, but proved Himself the true Light by imparting to those who received Him the highest of all gifts, the sonship of God. This was a necessary addition. It furnishes the warrant, that the apprehension on which the words, “The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not,” and their carrying out, are founded,—the conception according to which light is attributed to Christ, and darkness to the Jews,—rests not on a subjective view, but is founded in the matter itself. He who can raise to the dignity of sons of God, must be the Light and Life: He can be no other than the Creator Himself; for only the Creator can prove Himself the true Redeemer. We are first told, in vers. 6-8, how John the Baptist prepares the way for the appearance of the Light. “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” The periphrasis, ἐγένετοἀπεσταλμένος, may be used instead of the simple form of the tense, because the representation in the Prologue is characterized by a certain solemn grandeur. Perhaps, however, we must seek the reason for it in that ἀπεσταλμένος here, and ἐρχόμενος in ver. 9, are both words referring to Malachi, which are to make themselves known as such by the unusual construction. The reference to Malachi 3:1, “Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me,” and to John 4:5, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet,” cannot, of course, be subject to doubt. The Baptist refers to the same passage in John 3:28, αὐτοὶὑμεῖςμοιμαρτυρεῖτεὅτιεἶπον [ὅτι] ΟὐκεἰμὶἐγὼὁΧριστός, ἀλλʼ ? ὅτιἈπεσταλμένοςεἰμὶἔμπροσθεναὐτοῦ: and our Lord, in Matthew 11:10, οὗτόςἐστινπερὶοὗγέγραπται, Ἰδοὺἐγὼἀποστέλλωτὸνἄγγελόνμουπρὸπροσώπουσου, ὃςκατασκευάσειτὴνὁδόνσουἔμπροσθένσου. It is a characteristic of John as an author, that he seldom gives express quotations from the Old Testament, but introduces references to it by way of gentle hint,—a phenomenon which is also found in the prophets of the old covenant in relation to the books of Closes. The reason lies in this, that frequent quotations would not suit the higher style in which this Gospel is written. Ἄνθρωπος in this connection, where all is directed to the end of exalting Christ in relation to John, is certainly not = τίς. In the original passage, Malachi 3:1, the heavenly Messenger and the earthly, the human and the divine, are opposed as strongly as possible. The name John, which was given him by the Lord Himself, Luke 1:13, signifies, the Lord is gracious; and was therefore well adapted to the messenger who should announce the dawn of that time of which the Psalmist had prophesied, “Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come:” Psalms 102:14. That the name was chosen on account of its significance, may be regarded as certain. But it is doubtful whether the Evangelist has regard to this significance here. Thus much is certain, that he laid great weight on his own name; that in the love of Jesus he perceived a realization of it, proceeding from the intuition that in Jesus Jehovah had been manifested. The passages, John 21:20, John 20:2, where John, in evident allusion to his own name, designates himself as ὃνἠγάπαὁἸησοῦς, ὃνἐφίλειὁἸησοῦς, plainly show this. Ver. 7. “The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.”—“Witness” is a favourite expression with John: it recurs with equal frequency in the Gospel, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse (fourteen times in the Gospel), while in Matthew it does not occur at all. “John has confined himself, as a pattern for us, to the testimony, and for this has given his life and his death. We have inherited all the favours which fell to the lot of the Jews, and we owe him the gratitude which they did not show.” (Quesnel.) It scarcely needs remarking, that áὐ ?ôïῦ refers to John, who should prepare the way before Christ, i.e., should awaken faith in Him,—not to the Light. Ver. 8. “He was not that Light, but to bear witness of that Light.”—“No man can enlighten us, not even a St John; the Word of God, the everlasting Truth, is alone our Light.” Olshausen, with many other commentators, is of opinion that “the words are evidently directed polemically against too high an estimate of John.” Appeal is made to Luke 3:15, according to which, on his appearance, many mused in their hearts whether he were the Messiah or not, and to the sayings of the disciples of John, in John 3:26. But the assumption of such a polemic reference does not accord with the time of the composition of the Gospel. From the decided manner in which John pointed away from himself and to Christ, scarcely any perishing mortals could have thought of taking John himself for the Light or Saviour. And to have respect to such, is least of all suitable to the Prologue, which portrays only in outlines. The true ground of the remark is this, that the Apostle wishes to set the greatness of Christ in a clear light by showing that the greatest of men, the greatest of the prophets of theOld Covenant (Matthew 11:11; Luke 7:28), in relation to Him, takes throughout a subordinate position. In John the whole human race lies at the feet of Christ. To testify of Him is the highest dignity to which man can attain, the highest object towards which man may or should aspire. Therefore the shading of John is to heighten the light of Christ; to bring His glory into view being the ultimate end of the whole Prologue. In vers. 9-11 are related the appearance of the Light; and its rejection by those whose darkness it came first to illuminate. Ver. 9. “That was the true Light, which lighteth every man, coming into the world.” There can be no doubt that ἦνἐρχόμενον stands for the simple “came.” Against the rendering, it teas to come, which rests on a view of the course of thought in the Prologue already refuted, Lόcke has already remarked, “According to classical usage, ἦν—ἐρχόμενον would be impossible as a periphrastic future (erat venturum). In the New Testament also this would be the only instance. On the other hand, such a paraphrase of the imperfect has numerous analogies in its favour in the New Testament.” It is a question, however, why this is here chosen, why John uses a circumlocution to express what he could say more concisely and plainly by a single word; the rather, as elsewhere he uses the simple tense-form for the same matter, τὸφῶςἐλήλυθενεἰςτὸνκόσμον, John 3:19, John 12:46, John 18:37. A sufficient reason for this here would be the breadth peculiar to the Prologue, which retains the reader, as it were, in these lofty truths, and invites him to reflection and meditation. Yet another explanation offers itself with some plausibility,—viz., that the phrase ἦν— ἐρχόμενον renders prominent the reference to the original prophecy of Malachi. The great “Coming One” of Malachi was in the mouth of all. ὁδὲὀπίσωμουἐρχόμενος,—thus speaks the Baptist in Matthew 3:11. Σὺεἶὁἐρχόμενος; he directs his disciples to inquire of Christ, Matthew 11:3. In this first chapter he speaks of the ὀπίσωμουἐρχόμενος, vers. 15, 27, 30. In John 3:31 he says, ὁἄνωθενἐρχόμενοςἐπάνωπάντωνἐστίν, and ὁἐκτοῦοὐρανοῦἐρχόμενος [ἐπάνωπάντωνἐστί. In John 6:14 the people say of Jesus, οὗτόςἐστινἀληθῶςὁπροφήτηςὁἐρχόμενοςεἰςτὸνκόσμον. Martha says to Christ in John 11:27, ἐγὼπεπίστευκαὅτισὺεἶὁΧριστὸςὁυἱὸςτοῦθεοῦὁεἰςτὸνκόσμονἐρχόμενος. The word ἐρχόμενος is here, as it were, provided with marks of quotation. The expression, come into the world, is set apart, as it were, by John for the advent of Christ in the flesh. It is used by the people, John 6:14, John 11:27; by the Baptist, John 3:31; by Christ, John 12:46, John 18:37, John 16:28; by the Evangelist, John 3:19, Even this extended use leads to an Old Testament foundation, as the phrase is not sufficiently significant to explain of itself such an extended use. The reference to Malachi 3:1, “The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in; behold. He shall come, saith the Lord of hosts,” is the more apparent, since the word “come” is emphatically repeated here, and recurs once again in ver. 2, “But who may abide the day of His coming?” and since it is thus explained why precisely John the Baptist so repeatedly and so diligently designates Christ as the Coming One. For him, this passage was, as it were, the basis of his existence, the programme of his appearance, the defining of his position with respect to Christ. With reference to this passage, which again refers back to Genesis 49:10, “until Shiloh come” (so also, as it seems, the words, ὅτιΜεσσίαςἔρχεται, of the Samaritan woman, in John 4:25), the Messiah is designated both merely as the Coming One, and as the One coming into the world. The mere coming is expanded into coming into the world, in intimation that in Malachi the covenant Angel had a heavenly existence prior to His advent into the sublunary world: it is the Lord of heaven who comes to the covenant people as to His own. The true Light: Christ is so called, not so much in opposition to a false as to an imperfect light, such as was John the Baptist. “This is the difference,” says Calvin, “that which is light in the heavens and earth derives its brightness elsewhere. But Christ is the Light, which shines of itself; for the whole world is irradiated by its brightness, so that there is nowhere any other origin or cause of the radiance. He therefore calls that the true Light whose nature it is to shine.” But according to fact, the true Light is at the same time also the opposite “to false lights and ignes fatui, which lead people into harm and danger.” Calvin and others refer the words, “which lighteth every man,” to the “universal light of nature,” But it has been already shown that the Light in John never means the light of reason, or intellectual illumination, but is the designation of salvation and the Saviour: and that John represents this salvation as dawning only with the advent of Christ. How, then, can it be said of Christ as the Light, that He lighteth every man, in face of the fact, that the darkness did not comprehend the Light, ver. 5, and that He came to His own, and His own received Him not? The answer to this question, which would certainly be difficult for a believer in predestination, is this, that φωτίζει has reference to the idea and definition, and that the words declare that no one has light who has not received it from Him; every one receives light, who does not by his own fault exclude himself from it: that the words therefore designate the greatness of the gift of Christ, which does not lose its importance because ingratitude despises it. Luther says: “I preach to you all here at Wittenberg; but how many are there among you who will be better for my preaching, and will receive the blessed Light with faith, that they may be enlightened by it? Truly the lesser part believe my preaching. Still, I am and remain the teacher and preacher of you all. So, though all do not indeed believe the preaching of Christ, this does not take away His office. He is and remains equally the Light which lighteth all men. He is the true Light from the beginning to the end of the world; that is, whatever men have come or shall yet come into the world and be enlightened, they have had, and shall still have, no other Light or Saviour than Christ. In fine, the Evangelist will allow no other means by which people can be enlightened and blest; all the world is to have this light alone, or to remain eternally in darkness.” The words point first to Isaiah 42:6; Isaiah 49:6, “I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles.” Acts 4:12 corresponds in substance, “Neither is there salvation in any other.” Luther translated, in his first edition, “That was the true Light which lighteth all men, by His coming into the world.” But in the later editions he followed the Vulgate, “That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that Cometh into the world.” Against this rendering, it has been repeatedly remarked that the phrase, “come into the world,” occurs indeed in rabbinical usage, but never in the New Testament, of common men who are born into their earthly existence; but, on the other hand, is used frequently, and especially by our Evangelist, of the advent of Christ into the world, and is set apart and consecrated to this use. A second reason is, that ἐρχόμενον must be referred to φῶς, because otherwise ἦν, in ver. 10, does not receive its necessary complement from ver. 9: He was, in consequence of His coming. Ver. 10. “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.” The words, “He was in the world,” resume the contents of the previous verse, which tells us of the coming of the Light, the Saviour, into the world: so then He was in the world. Before the special scene of the Saviour’s advent, the covenant people, the Evangelist places the general scene, the world; because, even on account of the creation by Him, Christ had a right, in whatever part of the world He might appear, to be joyfully welcomed: how should not creatures meet their Creator with rejoicing, when He comes to redeem them! The Jews, in rejecting Christ, not only refused redeeming grace, but showed themselves ungrateful towards creating grace, as every man still does who despises Christ. According to many expositors, the words, “He was in the world,” refer to the time before the incarnation. “The Evangelist adds this,” says Bengel, “that no one may so understand the coming mentioned in the verse preceding, as though the Light had not been previously in the world.” But we have already shown that this—viz., that the Light was not in the world before the advent of Christ—is, in fact, the conception of the Evangelist; after it has been said just before, that the Light has come into the world, it cannot be said without further explanation, that it was already in the world,—then there must in some way be designated the difference of the being in the world before the coming, from the later being in the world: in any case, however, the words, already before, which all expositors insert, would necessarily have been expressed in the text. Finally, the λόγος was, according to ver. 1, with God before his advent in the flesh. Even in the previous verse, the coming into the world forms the antithesis to being with God. That κόσμος here is the sublunary world, the abode of men, is clear from the last clause. On this the Logos could certainly operate, while still being with God: but the Evangelist could not attribute to Him an existence in the world previous to the incarnation, without being false to his fundamental conception. On the words, “and the world was made by Him,” Luther remarks: “Because the Scripture ascribes the same title and divine almighty power to Christ our Lord, the Virgins natural Son, and that the world was made by Him, it follows unquestionably, that He is real very God and Creator of all things, and that therefore two natures, divine and human, are inseparably united in one Person, even in Christ.” Ver. 11. “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” This is the second contrast. It is disgraceful when the world despises its Creator; still more disgraceful when the people of the covenant despise their covenant Lord, who for so long a time has faithfully cared for them, to whom He has vowed and sworn love and fidelity. Luther says: “As Moses calls the Jews Gods possession, so the Evangelist here calls them our Lord Christ’s possession, thereby to show, that Christ is very God, equal with the Father.” Τὰἴδια signifies what is any one’s own. Thus it stands of the home, which is one’s own, in John 19:27; Acts 21:6. The LXX. uses τὰἴδια for αιϊε, in Esther 5:10; Esther 6:12. The Israelites appear, throughout the Old Testament, as the possession or inheritance of Jehovah. Cf. ex. gr. Exodus 19:5, “Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people.” Deuteronomy 7:6, “For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto Himself above all people that are on the face of the earth.” Psalms 135:4, “For the Lord hath chosen Jacob unto Himself, and Israel for His peculiar treasure.” Exodus 4:22-23; 2 Samuel 7:24. The Old Testament connection between these passages and our text, where Israel suddenly appears as the possession of Christ, is formed by the doctrine of the Angel of the Lord, the God-equal Revealer of God. The latter appears as the Lord and possessor of Israel in Exodus 3:2; Exodus 3:7. The temple, according to Malachi 3:1, belongs to the Lord, and to His covenant Angel. We are led to the conclusion, that in Jesus the Jehovah of the Old Testament is represented, by the whole teaching of the Evangelist concerning the Logos, who is no other than the Old Testament Angel of the Lord; and by the passages, John 12:41, John 8:56. Cf. my Christology, i. p. 46 sq. The other apostles also transfer to Christ, without further remark, whatever is said of Jehovah in the Old Testament: Christology, p. 65 sq. That Christ was sent first to the covenant people, He Himself bears witness in Matthew 15:24 : οὐκἀπεστάληνεἰμὴεἰςτὰπρόβατατὰἀπολωλόταοἴκουἸσραήλ. A paraphrase of our text is given by John himself in John 12:37 : “But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him.” The offence, which the fact of the unbelief of the covenant people might afford, the Evangelist counteracts in vers. 12, 13, by the glorious legitimation which Christ possesses in the noble gifts which He has imparted to believers in Him. If He has raised them to the highest of all dignities, that of sons of God, then here certainly the words of Deu 32:5 (margin) hold good: “[They are not] His children, that is their blot, a perverse and crooked generation.” Ver. 12. “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in His name.” The exact meaning is: as many as took Him. The taking, says the Berleb. Bibel, would never have come to pass, unless Christ had given Himself. Faith is designated as the medium of the taking, and this faith is in the name of Christ. The name of one is in Scripture the totality of his deeds. That Christ has a name, indicates that He, like the Jehovah of the Old Testament, in distinction from the nameless gods of the heathen, has not come with empty pretensions, but has made known His nature in deeds of power and love, and has in this way erected a banner, around which His Church may rally. Wherever in the Old Testament the sonship of God is spoken of, the intimateness only of the relation of love is taken into view: the abridged comparison which finds place in all such passages, is extended in Psalms 103:13, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.” If Israel, for example, is called the son of God, this means, that God loves him as heartily as a father does his child. Here, on the other hand, the conception of sonship rests on the spiritual generation, in which God, by an immediate operation, renders men conceived and born in sin partakers of the divine life. Of such a sonship the Old Testament knows nothing. Cf. my Comm. on Psalms 2:7. The profound importance of this gift imparted through Christ, is indicated by the words, “to them gave He power to become the sons of God.” Power over a thing is the capability of obtaining possession of it. So in Revelation 22:14, “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right (power) over the tree of life.” The power over the tree of life is the capability of obtaining possession of it. In Revelation 2:26, power over the heathen signifies that one may freely rule over them. Here power forms the antithesis to the absolute weakness and incapability of the man who lives out of Christ to attain to the sonship of God. If we rightly reflected what there is in this “high honour, this unspeakable dignity and greatness” conferred on us by Christ, we should, as Luther says, “not trouble ourselves much about that which the world alone esteems high and great, much less strive thereafter.” Ver. 13. “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” The proper antithesis is that between man and God: the preceding words, “of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,” refer to how little man has of himself; how wretched he is, who has no other birth than that effected by the help of man; how necessary the birth from God; how glorious the beneficence of Christ, who alone can procure us this birth. Where man is regarded as flesh and blood, which play so preponderant a part in the work of generation since the Fall (Lücke: “Blood, according to the view of the ancients, was the element and seat of the bodily life, and therefore of propagation), it is usually in a derogatory sense. So, e.g., in Matthew 16:17, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father, which is in heaven.” 1 Corinthians 15:50; Ephesians 6:12; Galatians 1:16; from which passages ours should not be separated. It is the same contrast which our Lord institutes between those who are born of flesh, and therefore are flesh, and those which are born of the Spirit. According to a widely extended supposition, the Evangelist is here putting to shame the pride of the Jews in their descent from Abraham, by opposing to their pretended nobility of birth, the real nobility of birth from God. “Hence,” says Luther, “John the Baptist punishes them severely for such pride in boasting that they were Abraham’s seed, and says, Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father.” But nothing indicates such a reference; and the parallelism with ch. 3 is against it. The antithesis is simply that of the natural birth and the spiritual. Only the latter gives to life its true value. Man, created for God, is only then in his right element when he has become partaker of the Divine nature; and such a participation cannot proceed from natural generation, since by the Fall the flesh and blood in man have been brought into the foreground: that which comes of flesh and blood is flesh and blood, incapable of the higher life, or of true communion with God. That in ver. 14 we have before us a new proposition, the proper acme of the Prologue, is clear from the fact, that here the Logos of the beginning returns. To the fullest expression of the mystery of the advent of Christ in the flesh, is added in vers. 15-18 the most sublime statement of the honours of Christ, and of the glorious gifts and graces which have been conferred through Him on the human race. Ver. 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.” “And the Word was made flesh.” The and prefixed indicates that we have here no absolutely new beginning, but only the completion of that already begun, the definitive following the preparatory disclosures. “Flesh,” remarks Luther, “means in the Scriptures the whole man, as below, in John 3:6, it is said, What is born of the flesh is flesh; but body and soul are born of a woman, not a dead lump of flesh, but a living child, which has flesh and blood.” In what immediately precedes our text, flesh and blood are considered not as a single part of man, but the whole man is thus designated, because since the Fall these elements in man have come into the foreground. In John 17:2, “As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh,” all flesh means all that man is. In the Old Testament also, flesh stands very frequently for the whole man. A soul is attributed to the flesh in Leviticus 17:11; Deuteronomy 12:15; a spirit, in Job 12:10 (margin). The New Testament views Jesus only as a complete man. Cf. John 8:40. As such, He frequently designates Himself the Son of man. He is especially set before us as a complete man by the resurrection of Lazarus, in chap. 11. But why does John say, The “Word was made flesh, instead of, The Word was made man? The answer is furnished us by the passages of the Old Testament where, as here, there is an antithesis between flesh and God. In all such passages flesh has connected with it the idea of fallibility and weakness. So, e.g., in Psalms 56:4, “In God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.” The Psalmist—it was remarked on this passage—calls man flesh in contempt, because where there is corporeity, there is no true strength. Jo. Arnd says, “He places in contrast to each other the strong God and feeble flesh, which is as grass and as the flower of the field.” In Psalms 78:39, it is said, “For He remembered that they were flesh, a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.” In Isaiah 31:3, “Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit.” In Isaiah 40:6-8, “All flesh (all mankind) is grass, and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field, etc.,—but the Word of our God shall stand for ever.” This passage is especially connected with our text, since here also occurs the opposition between the flesh and the Word of God, which there indeed is impersonal, but here personal. This hitherto rude and absolute opposition has been reduced by the incarnation. From all this there can be no doubt that man is here designated as flesh to call attention to the depth of condescension in the Logos His inexpressible goodness in so descending to our wretchedness, and in taking upon and into Himself our wretchedness, in order to render us partakers of His glory. “In our pauper flesh and blood clothes Himself the eternal Good.” This is the strongest of all motives to grateful self-consecration. That the expression flesh has this meaning, has been at all times recognised by the best expositors. Luther, e.g., says, “The Evangelist might have said. The Word was made man; but he does say, according to Scripture usage. He became flesh, to indicate weakness and mortality.” Calvin: Cum autem tanta sit distantia inter spiritualem Sermonis Dei gloriam et putidas carnis nostrae sordes, eousque tamen se Filius Dei submisit, ut carnem istam tot miseriis obnoxiam susciperet. The Berleb. Bibel: “The so sublimely described and majestic Word became miserable despised Flesh from pitying love.” There is a fulness of consolation in this fact, a balsam for the poor, terrified conscience. He who has clone and undertaken so much for man, cannot reject the penitent sinner. “And dwelt among us.” This is properly, And tabernacled among us. The word σκηνόω, occurring in the New Testament only in John,—here, and four times in the Apocalypse, John 7:15, σκηνώσειἐπʼ ? αὐτούς, John 12:12, John 13:6, John 21:3, καὶσκηνώσειμετʼ ? αὐτῶν,—means properly to tabernacle, and stands for the Heb. ΰημ, in the LXX. Genesis 13:12, ἐσκήνωσενἐνΣοδόμοις. The strangeness of the expression would lead us to suppose that the Evangelist had some special ground for using it here. This lies in the allusion to the Heb. ωλο; and this allusion has deep practical significance, indicating that certain passages of the Old Testament, in which this word occurs, stand in a deeper practical connection with the present fact. It is said in Exodus 25:8, “And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them;” in Exodus 29:45, “And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God; in Exodus 29:46, “That brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them.” (Cf. Psalms 74:2, “This mount Zion, wherein Thou hast dwelt.”) This dwelling of God among His people, which is necessarily included in the conception of the people of God, attained its full truth only in Christ,—the former dwelling in the temple being only a typical one. It is coincident with the allusion to the passages in Genesis and Exodus, that in John 2:21 Jesus appears as the substance, of which the temple was the foreshadowing type. That σκηνόω is copied from ωλο can be the less doubted, since Aquila, in Exodus 24:16, “And the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai,” for a like reason renders ωλο by ἐσκήνωσε; since Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion have σκήνωσω in Exodus 25:8; and since the temple in Ezra(Ezra 2:68?), on account of the indwelling of God, the Shekinah, and in allusion to this word, is called σκήνωμαΘεοῦ. As the words, “I will dwell among the children of Israel,” point forwards to our text, “and dwelt among us,” so this again contains the germ and warrant of the words, “He shall dwell among them,” Revelation 7:15, and “He will dwell with them,” in Revelation 21:3. That the Word has dwelt with us in this troubled world, is our guaranty that once in the heavenly blessedness, and finally in the kingdom of glory on the transfigured earth. He will dwell among His people. “In the New Jerusalem,” it was remarked on Revelation 21:3, “the presence of God among His people proves itself so glorious, as to put everything previous in the shade. The words, He will dwell with them, have regard to the words. He dwelt among us, John 1:14. The latter declaration is the secure foundation for the former.” The Berleburger Bibel says, “The thing itself points us back to all that occurs in the Old Testament of a dwelling-place, and stretches forward to the last times, when that will be accomplished in the members of Christ, for which He became man. Revelation 21:3.” “And we beheld His glory.” The Apostle speaks in the plural, because he wishes to designate not only his own personal experiences, but those of the entire Church, in so far as it consisted of “eye-witnesses of the Word,” Luke 1:2. A similar use of the plural is found in John 21:24, and 1 John 1:1. Luther remarks, “This His teaching, preaching, miracles, and marvellous deeds have shown us; so that, whoever was not blinded and hardened by the devil, as were the high priests and scribes, could perceive that He was by nature God; as He Himself proves by His words and deeds, in restoring the sick, and calling to life the dead, and, in fine, in performing so great and so many signs and wonders, as would be impossible for any other man.” Here, again, there is a significant resemblance to the Old Testament,—one of those fine “hints” in which the Gospel of John, in harmony with the Apocalypse, is so rich. Isaiah says, in chap. Isaiah 40:5, in the announcement of the Messianic times, “And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together;” and in Isaiah 66:18, “It shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see My glory.” LXX.: καὶἥξουσινκαὶὄψονταιτὴνδόξανμου. “The glory of the Lord which the heathen shall behold, is His glorious revelation and presence, which, hitherto concealed, is now unveiled.” Cf. also John 9:2 : “But the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee.” The allusion to these passages rests on the intuition, that in Christ has appeared the Jehovah of the Old Covenant,—an intuition which the Apostle immediately afterwards expresses openly, in designating Christ as the only-begotten Son of God. “The glory as of the only-begotten of the Father.” The Berleb. Bibel says, “It was such as is conformable to so sublime a Person, and so sublime an office.” Ὡς compares the reality with the idea, the experienced with what was to be expected. Μονογενής is the only-begotten in the sense of only Son. It occurs in the New Testament elsewhere, only of the only child of earthly parents: of Christ, only in John here, in John 3:16; John 3:18, 1 John 4:9. The ground of this usage is probably to be found in Zechariah 12:10, where Christ is not indeed directly called an only-begotten, but is yet compared with one: “And they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for the only [son]; and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for the first-born.” Christ being designated as the only-begotten, after that, shortly before, the dignity of all believers is placed in this, that they are sons of God, He must be the Son of God in a very special, only sense,—not by grace, but by nature; so that His sonship does not lie in a line with that of believers, but is its ground and condition. Luther says: “This is the first time that John calls the Word the only-begotten Son of the Father. In this thou hearest clearly and distinctly that the Word which was from everlasting with the Father, and is the light of men, is called the Son, yea, the only-begotten Son of God. . . . God has many other sons and children, but only One is the only-begotten, of whom it is said, that all was made by Him: the other sons are not the Word, by which all things were made; but they were created by this only-begotten Son, who, like the Father, is the Creator of heaven and earth. The others all become sons by this only-begotten Son, who is our Lord and God, and we are called many-begotten sons: but this is alone the only-begotten Son, whom He has begotten in the Godhead from everlasting. So now the Word by which all things are created and preserved, has become flesh, that is, man. And by this, that He has become man, and yet was the Lord of glory from everlasting, we poor men, who believe in His name, become sons of God, and God becomes our Father; but He is alone the only-begotten Son, as St Paul says, by whom God forms, rules, and makes all things. He is far above all adopted children. He has His own special glory from the Father.” The only-begotten of the Father, is the only-begotten who comes from the Father. “Full of grace and truth.” The expositors for the most part join these words to the beginning of the verse. But the assumption that the words καὶἐθεασάμεθα—πατρός are a parenthesis, is manifestly an unfounded one. They have an independent meaning as much as the other contents of the verse, and acquire especial significance by the reference to Isaiah 40:5. The nominative πλήρης does not require the assumption of a parenthesis. We have an abridged relative sentence; “(which is) full:” Buttmann, S. 68. The Apocalypse furnishes a large number of such constructions (e.g., John 1:5); and the Prologue is, for obvious reasons, that part of the Gospel which is most closely” connected in style with the Apocalypse. We have here again a noteworthy reference to the Old Testament. In Exodus 34:6, it is said, in the fundamental definition of the essence of Jehovah, which Moses receives from Jehovah Himself: Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth—ψαηργεΰξϊ; the LXX. πολυέλεοςκαὶἀληθινὸς. Knobel renders: “great in love and faithfulness.” This, however, is not ΰξϊ, but ΰξεπδ. Truth is more comprehensive than fidelity. The words, “abundant in truth,” declare that in God there is no mere seeming; that He is entirely what He is; as it were, thoroughly God; therefore, is never behind the expectations which His own cherish of Him,—gives no promises which He does not keep, awakes no hopes which He does not satisfy, never forsakes His own in times of difficulty. Here, also, that is transferred to Christ, without further explanation, which in the Old Testament is declared of Jehovah, from the intuition expressed in ver. 18, that every revelation of the Father is through the medium of the Son; therefore, that the self-revealing Jehovah of the Old Covenant must be identical with Christ. It might be supposed that Micah 7:20 also is to be viewed as an original passage, together with Exodus 34:6, “Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.” But the truth is, our text refers only to Exodus 34, and ver. 17 to Micah. Here mercy and truth appear to be the property of the Person; but, on the other hand, in ver. 17, as in Micah, the gift which He bestows. As Christ is here designated as rich in truth, and as He calls Himself the Truth in John 14:6, so He appears in the Apocalypse, John 3:7, John 19:11, as the True. This is a designation which raises Him far above the stage of humanity, and presupposes omnipotence and true divinity. All that is created is lacking in truth, and is affected by the difference between being and seeming, between word and deed, between belief and reality. He who in the world of the seeming has a longing after the true existence, finds satisfaction only when he lifts his heart to the Father and the Son, who have the fulness of truth in common. Ver. 15. “John bare witness of Him, and cried, saying, This was He of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me; for He was before me.” The thought is the pre-mundane existence of Christ, His superhuman nature and dignity. That the testimony of John is subordinate, is shown by the manner in which the Evangelist, in ver. 16, connects his own train of thought with the declaration of the Baptist. The declaration, that Christ is unconditionally exalted above the humanity, whose highest bearer is John, stands very suitably between the words, “full of grace and truth,” and, “and of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.” The same declaration of John the Baptist, which is here applied in the connection of the Prologue, recurs in ver. 30, in the historical connection. From this we perceive, that it was made at the baptism of Christ, at which the Baptist received the divine certainty that Jesus was the Messiah, for whose advent he had prepared the way without knowing Him. Μαρτυρέω occurs some thirty times in the Gospel of John,—in the Gospel and the Epistles, more frequently than in all the other writings of the New Testament together. The verb is not found in this Apocalypse. The noun μαρτυρία, however, is a bond of connection between all the writings of John. The present tense stands here, because the ever valid testimony of John may be given as in the present. The perfect κέκραγεν designates the historical sphere, in which this testimony was first given. John cried: the loud voice is the outward representation of confidence and decision; indecision has a low voice. Cf. John 11:43; Revelation 7:2. John has said previously, before the baptism of Christ, and before he knew Him with divine certainty as the Messiah, “He who cometh after me, was before me.” After he had seen Christ, and had received the Divine revelation that it was He, he says: This is He of whom I said, etc.; for He was before me;” so that πρῶτόςμουἦν should be separated by a colon from the preceding words. “He was before me,” is covered in substance by “He is preferred before me,” and cannot therefore be considered as a part of the earlier speech of John. Christ, who now stands bodily before him, was, according to the testimony received from God, earlier than John, and this forms the ground of his identity with Him who was previously designated by John. The correctness of this view, which obviates the unpleasant necessity of subtilizing on the words ἔμπροσθένμουγέγονεν, is favoured by the fact, that in ver. 27, where the earlier utterance of the Baptist is quoted, to which he here refers (ὃνεἶπον), the words ὅτιπρῶτόςμουἦν are wanting, and are found only in ver. 30, where the declaration of John at the baptism of Christ is quoted. The words, “He that cometh after me is preferred before me,” rest on Malachi 3:1, “Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me.” On the one hand is the messenger, John, the forerunner of the Messiah; but on the other, the Messiah, as the predecessor of the messenger: for He it is who sends him, and causes His way to be prepared by him. The phrase, ἔμπροσθένμουγέγονεν, is referred by many expositors to dignity. But ἔμπροσθέν, so frequent in the New Testament, never occurs of a precedence in dignity; and no ground is afforded for this interpretation, either by Genesis 48:20, or by the parallel passages from classic authors adduced by Lόcke, after the example of Lampe. Moreover, besides the usage of the language, the reference to Malachi 3:1 is decisive against this interpretation. When the Baptist, on the basis of a profounder exposition of this passage, refers the ἔμπροσθέν, which in one place is applied to him, and in the other is assigned by him to Christ, to the Messiah (cf. Matthew 11:10; Luke 7:27, where also the declaration of Malachi is repeated: Ἰδοὺἀποστέλλωτὸνἄγγελόνμουπρὸπροσώπουσου, ὃςκατασκευάσειτὴνὁδόνσουἔμπροσθένσου), the point of this reference would be lost, if ἔμπροσθέν were not used in the same meaning as in the prophecy. But that in this it is not a precedence in dignity which is spoken of, is manifest. Others interpret: “has been before me;” γίνομαι with the meaning of to be, as in Luke 1:5; 2 Peter 2:1. As to sense, this interpretation is correct. Even against this, however, there arise etymological considerations. Ἔμπροσθέν does indeed occur in the Apocrypha frequently as an adverb and preposition with the genitive—of time, e.g., ἔμπροσθένἐτῶνπλειόνων, Esdr. John 6:14. In the New Testament, however, it occurs always of place, as Bengel has already pointed out. And if this reason is not fully decisive, it is strengthened by the fact, that even in the original passage, μτπι, ἔμπροσθένμου, stands in the local sense, designating the Baptist as the fore-runner of Christ. Accordingly, we must also render our text, “has preceded me,”—the relation of time being, as is so frequently the case, presented in the form of the relation of space. It does not appear that πρῶτός stands for πρότερος, as is usually assumed (Buttmann 74). Much rather is designated the absolute priority which Christ has in relation to John. It seems evident that the sense would be a feeble one, if πρότερος stood here instead of πρῶτός. Ver. 16. “And of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.” Instead of καὶ is found ὅτι in important critical authorities. But the ὅτι before and after has doubtless attracted that in the middle. The assumption, that ver. 15 is a parenthesis, is harsh; and the ὅτι could not be suitably referred to ver. 15. But, on the other hand, the and is quite in place. After the Evangelist has quoted what John testified of Christ, he adds what the Saviour has procured, and is, in the experience of all believers; after he has designated Him by the words of the Baptist, as exalted above all men, he relates how this exaltation is proved in this, that His fulness, like that of God (Psalms 65:10), suffices for all who will take of it. In ἐλάβομεν, the Evangelist speaks, as in John 21:24, in the name of all believers. After καὶχάριν we must supply ἐλάβομεν. That grace is received instead of grace, indicates that a new grace always comes in the place of the old one; that Christ is not rich once or occasionally for His people, and then allows them to hunger and suffer want again, but that they shall constantly drink anew of the good things of His house. It is parallel with “grace for grace,” when the praise is given to the Jehovah of the Old Covenant, that He is constantly giving to His people occasion to sing a new song, in consequence of a new work, a new revelation of His glory. It is a mistake to interpret here of the evangelical grace of the New Testament, which has succeeded the grace of the law under the Old Covenant. The expositions of Augustine The grace of life for the grace of faith, and of Bernard The grace of glory for the grace of the Church militant (gratiam gloriae pro gratia militiae), are too restricted, but are quite suitable, as a part or sample of the whole. In the transition from existence here to that beyond, which leads through the valley of the shadow of death, these words, “grace for grace,” prove especially glorious. It is a happy exchange of the one grace of preservation in the journey through the wilderness of life, for the other, when the believer stands before the throne of God, and serves Him day and night in His temple, where no sun shall smite him, nor any heat, but the Lamb shall lead him, and guide him by living waters. Cf. 1 John 3:2, Ἀγαπητοί, νῦντέκναθεοῦἐσμεν, καὶοὔπωἐφανερώθητίἐσόμεθα. οἴδαμενὅτιἐὰνφανερωθῇ, ὅμοιοιαὐτῷἐσόμεθα, ὅτιὀψόμεθααὐτὸνκαθώςἐστι. That also is grace for grace, when in this earthly life we receive, instead of refreshing grace (Psalms 23:3), the grace of the cross, in more efficient preparation for the grace of glory. Ver. 17. “For the law was given by Moses, grace and truth, came by Jesus Christ.” Even the giving of the law was accompanied by operations of grace, partly in order to render possible its fulfilment, partly to reward obedience. Even for the Old Testament it was no empty title, when God is designated in Exodus 34:6 as “abundant in goodness.” The prophet, in Isaiah 63:7, extols the Lord for His great goodness towards Israel during the whole course of history. How could the praise of the law, as sweeter than honey and the honey-comb, etc., in Psalms 19, be explained, if law and grace form an absolute antithesis? But in comparison with the grace which has come by Christ, that prevalent under the Old Covenant disappears so completely, that the Evangelist may ignore it, and represent the antithesis, relative in itself, as absolute, just as in the preceding verses light is represented as coming first into the world with the advent of Christ. In general, the law is given to men as a schoolmaster to Christ, Galatians 3:24—to make them feel their misery and need of redemption; but grace is offered to those, who have thus become weary and heavy laden, first by Christ. Such an opposition of the Old and New Covenants, of the law and Gospel, was already intimated by prophecy in Jeremiah 31:31-40. Cf. Christology, ii, p. 432. It was there remarked, among other things, “Since the New Covenant is not to be like the former, the advantages of the New must be so many deficiencies of the Old. Now, these advantages are all purely spiritual: first, forgiveness of sins; then, the writing of the law in the heart.” Luther says: “Thus John drives us from confidence and comfort in our own works and merit, and leads us to the grace of Christ and the love of God, not alone here in this text, but through his whole Gospel and Epistles. As if he would say: What does God regard I what moves Him to be favourable to you, to remit sins? Does He do it for the sake of your sacrifices, circumcision, or the worship which you perform in His temple? No, it is something other than this which God regards. He is gracious and merciful for the sake of this unspeakable grace of His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, because Christ is in perfect grace before God: this same grace we enjoy, and are therefore acceptable to God for the Lord Christ’s sake; He becomes gracious to us, for the sake of His beloved Son. Ephesians 1:7. It is grace, that God is gracious and merciful to us, and shows Himself gracious, for the sake of the Lord Christ, and forgives all sins—will not reckon them unto eternal death. As if He would say, The law is indeed a law of life, justice, and all good, as given by Moses; but by Christ something more has happened: He comes and fills the empty bag and empty hand, and brings what the law instructs and requires of us. If we could have kept the law, grace would not have been necessary for us to receive grace for grace.” In these remarks of Luther grace is referred too exclusively to the forgiveness of sins—certainly the fundamental benefit—instead of to the fulness of gifts and graces, of which we have become partakers through the beneficence of Christ. With grace is connected truth. Lόcke remarks, “By this is attributed to the law not untruth, ψεῦδος, but imperfection in the revelation of the truth.” But it is not this that is treated of. The truth is wanting to the law, because grace is; this is the true gift. The law is untrue, when complete satisfaction of religious need is sought in it. No blame, however, attaches to the law on this account. It is not according to the purpose of God to afford such absolute satisfaction. It is not the end of the ways of God with His people, but the beginning. It is not to quicken, but to render weary and heavy laden. “The law,” says the Berleburger Bibel, “must precede, and as a schoolmaster to Christ, Galatians 3:24, like John prepare the way.” It is not yet the revelation of truth in the sphere of religion—he who has merely the law, since he possesses not grace, also possesses not that which is truly satisfying, that is adequate to the idea—but it is the necessary condition of the revelation of the truth. It is of purpose that the name Jesus Christ meets us at the end of the Prologue. The Berleb. Bibel: “Now, the principal person of the New Testament must be named as Moses is named. Hitherto this name has been reserved.” With the words, “the law came by Moses,” is to be compared Deuteronomy 33:4, “Moses commanded us a law,” and with “grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” Micah 7:20, and the concluding words of ver. 14. Ver. 18. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” Between vers. 17 and 18, as there is no connecting particle, so there is also no closer dependence. The gift of Christ is presented from another side. Luther: “Therefore all stands entirely on the Son: no man even knows anything of God, but such as is revealed to him by the Son, who fully knows the Fathers heart, that the whole world may be brought under the Lord Christ, and be subject to Him; for without Him no one can be saved.” He who is without Christ is excluded from the knowledge of God, and thus from the source of all salvation and blessedness. This is a proposition which is testified to not less loudly by experience, than by the word of God. Christ, by His personal advent and His revelation in the word, has brought nigh the being of God, and thus rendered a connection with Him possible. He who will go to God, let him turn to Christ; for he who sees Him, sees the Father. It is a question whether the proposition, “No man has seen God at any time,” is to be united with passages like Genesis 16:13, “And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her. The visible God;” Genesis 32:30, “And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel; for I have seen God face to face, and my life [soul] is preserved;” Exodus 24:10, according to which the elders of the people “saw the God of Israel;” Numbers 12:8, where Moses beholds the similitude of God. The assertion, that these passages are to be explained and limited by Exodus 33, where, in harmony with our declaration, God is said to be invisible, is not to the point. For both there and here, it is not the absolute invisibility of God that is maintained, but only, that no man can bear the full splendour of the Divine glory. The prayer of Moses, “Show me Thy glory,” is heard only with a restriction. The correct answer is, that by the opposition to the Son, God is here more exactly distinguished as God the Father, who is expressly named in the parallel passages, John 6:46, οὐχὅτιτὸνπατέραἑώρακέν· εἰμὴὁὢνπαρὰτοῦΘεοῦ, οὗτοςἑώρακετὸνπατέρα, and John 14:6, οὐδεὶςἔρχεταιπρὸςτὸνπατέραεἰμὴδιʼ ? ἐμοῦ: as also in the declaration of Christ, Matthew 11:27, πάνταμοιπαρεδόθηὑπὸτοῦπατρόςμου, καὶοὐδεὶςἐπιγινώσκειτὸνυἱὸνεἰμὴὁπατήρ, οὐδὲτὸνπατέρατιςἐπιγινώσκειεἰμὴὁυἱὸςκαὶᾧἐὰνβούληταιὁυἱὸςἀποκαλύψαι, is contained the doctrine of the unconditionally necessary mediation of every knowledge of God (the passage shows that by seeing is here designated, in an individualizing manner, the entire knowledge of God) by the Son. The Old Testament passages, however, do not refer to God the Father. Through the whole of the Old Testament runs the doctrine of the Angel of the Lord, whose mediation is to be understood, wherever God enters into relations to mortals, even when there is no express mention of it. For the passages which mention it distinctly rest on the conception, that there is a necessity in the nature of God, that He should not make Himself known without such mediation. In the two first of the passages quoted, we can specially prove that God was beheld through the mediation of His angel. In Genesis 16:7, it is previously said, “And the Angel of the Lord found her;” and according to Hosea 12, it was the Angel of the Lord who met Jacob in Peniel. Besides which, the “Invisible God,” 1 Timothy 1:17, has not a double mediator—under the Old Covenant the Angel of the Lord, under the New, the only-begotten Son, so that to the latter is impaired the honour of only partially declaring” the being of God,—but in the Angel of the Lord is represented the Logos Himself, in the prelude to His incarnation. On this conception proceeds the Old Testament itself, when it announces in Zechariah and Malachi, that in the Messiah the Angel of the Lord would appear among His people. And John follows this conception, when in ver. 11 he says that the Messiah came to His own; and in John 12:41, that Isaiah saw Christ. Since in the New Testament there are undeniable cases of the extinction of the difference between εἰς and ἐν (Buttmann 287), we are not to refine with respect to εἰςτὸνκόλπον: it is simply equivalent to ἐντοῖςκόλποις, Luke 16:23; ἐντῷκόλπῳ, John 13:23. In human relations, the intimacy of the relation is indicated by bodily nearness. In Deuteronomy 13:6; Deuteronomy 28:56, Micah 7:5, the wife or husband of one’s bosom is spoken of, to denote the intimacy of the conjugal relation. The nursing father bears the suckling in his bosom, Numbers 11:12; Isaiah 40:11. Here the expression of such human relations is borrowed, to designate the intimateness of the relation of the Son to the Father: correspondent in substance to πρὸςτὸνΘεόν, in ver. 1. Luther: “The Son lies in the bosom and arms of the Father, and is so near to Him, that He certainly knows what the Father has concluded in His heart.” It is not said, which was in the bosom of the Father, but which is in the bosom of the Father. The closeness of the relation which is designated by the being in the bosom of the Father, was not disturbed by the incarnation. Against the assertion, that John had in mind the exalted Christ who has returned to the bosom of the Father, John 3:13 is decisive, where the Son of God in His abasement designates Himself as in heaven; as also the words, “I and My Father are one.” So soon as we are really in earnest with respect to the divinity of Christ, it becomes a matter of course that the intimateness of His relation to God cannot have been essentially altered by the incarnation. The Prologue of the Gospel is followed by the general narrative, the conclusion of which, at the end of chap. 20, has repeatedly been taken for the conclusion of the whole, and then by the conclusion correspondent with the Prologue, in chap. 21. The general narrative has two principal parts, the second beginning with John 13:1. The whole of the general narrative falls into seven groups: the first part into four, the second into three. Of the four groups of the first part, the first, our section, contains the early ministrations of Jesus in Peraea and Galilee, in the order of the same prophecy which Matthew, in Matthew 4:15, takes for his starting-point, by which he, the first Apostle among the Evangelists, following Mark and Luke, was appointed to make the activity of Christ in Galilee and Peraea, rather than the history of the Passion, the subject of his presentation, Isaiah 9:1, where the principal scene of Christ’s ministrations is designated as “the way of the sea,” that is the general—“beyond Jordan, Galilee of the nations,”—that is, the two parts of the whole. In view of this prophecy, John also takes his starting-point from this principal scene of the activity of Jesus. The localities of our section have a manifest regard to this prophecy. Compare John 1:28, ταῦταἐνΒηθαβαρᾳἐγένετοπέραντοῦἸορδάνου. Ver. 43, τῇἐπαύριονἠθέλησενἐξελθεῖνεἰςτὴνΓαλιλαίαν. Chap. John 2:1, καὶτῇἡμέρᾳτῇτρίτῃγάμοςἐγένετοἐνΚανὰτῆςΓαλιλαίας. John 2:11, ταύτηνἐποίησενἀρχὴντῶνσημείωνὁἸησοῦςἐνΚανὰτῆςΓαλιλαίας. Our section describes the events of a sacred seven of days: in John 1:19-28, the testimony of John on the day before the baptism of Christ; in vers. 29-34, the testimony of the Baptist concerning Christ at His baptism; in vers. 35-42, the events of the third day, the third testimony of the Baptist, and the first conversions which followed it; in vers. 43-51, the events of the fourth day; in John 2:1-11, the close of the sacred week, the seventh day, hallowed by the beginning of signs, which Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. Ver. 21.“And they asked him. What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not.” Luther says, “As he would not have this honour, they tried another.” Lampe: “From a like source they continue to try whether, in some other way, from the person of John they may not obtain a hope of gaining their wish, by asking him whether he is Elias.” The question, How is it compatible that the Baptist here denies that he is Elias, and that our Lord declares him to be Elias? is answered briefly and well by Calvin: “With perfect correctness does John answer that he is not Elias, for he speaks according to their apprehension. But Christ, according to the correct exposition of the prophets, assures that he is Elias, Matthew 11:14.” The personal return of Elias, before the advent of the Messiah, was expected on the ground of the misunderstood passage, Malachi 4:5, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” The prophet purposely adds—the prophet, to intimate that the name Elijah is used typically—that it refers not to the personality, but to the spirit and power of Elijah. The scribes, however, in their coarse literalness, their bad “realism,” founded on this passage the doctrine of the approaching personal reappearance of Elijah. To this the passage was referred by the LXX., and by Jesus Sirach, Sir 48:10. Cf. my Christol. vol. iv., p. 219. In Matthew 17:10, the disciples are moved, by the sudden disappearance of the personal Elias at the transfiguration, to ask how this agreed with the opinion of the scribes, founded on Malachi, that the personal Elias should appear before the Messiah, to enter upon a permanent and successful activity. To this false literal exposition the New Testament always opposes, in constant sequence, the spiritual interpretation. In the message of the angel to Zacharias it is said, Luke 1:16-17, καὶπολλοὺςτῶνυἱῶνἸσραὴλἐπιστρέψειἐπὶκύριοντὸνθεὸναὐτῶν· καὶαὐτὸςπροελεύσεταιἐνώπιοναὐτοῦἐνπνεύματικαὶδυνάμειἨλίου, ἐπιστρέψαικαρδίαςπατέρωνἐπὶτέκνα. Here the two principal related passages, Malachi 3:1; Malachi 4:5-6, are connected with each other. The phrase, “in the spirit and power of Elijah,” raises itself above the then current apprehension, and declares, that the flesh is of no use. Where the pars melior of Elias is, his spirit and his power—and these are to reappear in John—there is Elias. Of a merely preliminary fulfilment, to be followed by the real one in the future—according to the hypothesis of several Christian expositors—there is here not a single trace. Christ, like the angel, refers the prophecy of Malachi simply and unconditionally to John the Baptist. He says in Matthew 11:14, καὶεἰθέλετεδέξασθαι, αὐτόςἐστινἨλίαςὁμέλλωνἔρχεσθαι. The preliminary words. And if ye will receive it, far from weakening the force of, This is, rather strengthen it, by indicating that the non-recognition of Elias in John was the result of a faulty spiritual disposition. In Matthew 17:10 sq., the Lord answers the question of the disciples, as to how they must regard the assertion of the scribes, that Elias must first come, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. “Then the disciples understood,” says the Evangelist, “that He spake unto them of John the Baptist.” Now, it has been supposed that John should not have contented himself with the mere negation; if he really held himself to be the Elias of prophecy, he must have said so. But to this, Quesnel has already excellently answered: “St John has the spirit and the power of Elias, but he does not consider himself under the necessity of discovering it, since he may hide it without injury to the truth. He is completely filled by the greatness of his Lord, and thinks only of abasing himself before Him.” If John had sought his own honour, he would hare immediately added to the negation a positive affirmation. But he contents himself with saying who he is not. What is here missed, he adds afterwards, when he is asked who he is. The discreet negation here is met by the discreet affirmation in ver. 23, in completion of the harmony with the declarations of Christ. By declaring himself here to be the “voice crying in the wilderness” of Isaiah, John declares himself at the same time to be the “My messenger” and the Elias of Malachi, according to the correct interpretation. It has been shown in the Christology, that the prophecy of Malachi is only a resumption of that of Isaiah, and that it is constantly regarded as such by the Baptist, by Christ, and the Apostles. The subordinates ask further: Art thou the Prophet? and the Baptist answers: No. Luther has essentially altered the sense by the translation, A prophet. John certainly could not deny that he was a prophet without compromising his whole appearance. “All hold John as a prophet,” declare the high priests and elders in Matthew 21:26. This would not have been possible if John himself had refused this dignity. The Lord declares in Matthew 11:9, that the prophetic dignity was imparted to John in its highest human potency. It is a manifest evasion, when Augustine, in reference to this passage, says: Non erat propheta Johannes, sed major quam propheta. The question. Art thou the Prophet? has reference to Deuteronomy 18:15, “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto Him ye shall hearken.” This is the only passage of the Old Testament in which a future messenger of God is announced as a “Prophet.” That the passage was interpreted repeatedly in the times of Christ as Messianic, is clear from John 1:46, John 6:14, John 4:25; Acts 3:22; Acts 7:37. But that this interpretation had not attained to full security and general diffusion, is shown by John 7:40-41, where, from those who said in regard to Christ, “Of a truth this is the Prophet,” others are distinguished who said, “This is the Christ;” as also, even in the later Jewish exegesis, some explained the passage not of the Messiah, but of another prophet of the future. It had its foundation in the nature of Messianic prophecy itself, in its fragmentary character, that single sides only of the Messianic nature and vocation could be brought forward, so that before the fulfilment one might easily be quite uncertain whether that did not refer to different persons, Which was only a difference of relations. In all prophecy the fulfilment of which is still future, the interpretation is exposed to many fluctuations, and in the best case only a main road of correct exposition, with many by-paths, is attained. Moreover, it is not necessarily implied in the words. Art thou the Prophet? that the inquirers themselves decidedly assumed a difference of the Prophet from the Messiah, but only that there were those who cherished this opinion, and that the inquirers themselves did not in advance and absolutely reject it. The question, Who art thou f is explained by the following. What sayest thou of thyself? They wished first of all to know, who John declared himself to be, in order then to examine what he had in accordance therewith. The Baptist answered. No, because the Prophet is Christ, ver. 46, John 5:45-47; Matthew 17:5. Our text has nothing to do with Luke 9:19; Matthew 16:14, according to which some took Christ to be the risen Jeremiah, or some other of the ancient prophets. By the Prophet absolutely, we may not think of any single subordinate personality. That opinion has its ground in the false interpretation of the prophecy of Malachi concerning Elijah the prophet. If Elias is to return, a similar thing is to be expected also of other distinguished prophetic peculiarities—above all, of Jeremiah, who was a principal prophetic figure in the period subsequent to the captivity. Ver. 22. “Then said they unto him. Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us: what sayest thou of thyself? Ver. 23. He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.”—“True humility,” says Quesnel, “is free from all affectation. It will be compelled, but it yields to authority with a wise simplicity.” The Baptist could not avoid the answer to the positive and general question without wounding the respect towards the spiritual magistracy, and without denying the office committed to him by God. John says who he is, with a reference to a prophetic declaration of the Old Testament, which formed the basis of his appearance. It is said in Isaiah 40:3-5, “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: 5. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Of this passage the beginning is here quoted. The LXX. renders ver. 3 thus: φωνὴβοῶντοςἐντῇἐρήμῳἙτοιμάσατετὴνὁδὸνκυρίου, εὐθείαςποιεῖτετὰςτρίβουςτοῦθεοῦἡμῶν. Matthew has in Matthew 3:3, Φωνὴβοῶντοςἐντῇἐρήμῳ ?· Ἑτοιμάσατετὴνὁδὸνκυρίου, εὐθείαςποιεῖτετὰςτρίβουςαὐτοῦ. Mark in Mark 1:3, and Luke in Luke 3:4, follow Matthew. Here the two clauses of the verse are compressed into one: from the first is taken the way of the Lord, and from the second, the make straight,—the ιωψε of the original text is rendered by a single word. In vers. 1 and 2 it is announced to the people languishing in deep wretchedness, that the Lord has determined to be gracious, and to impart to them the fulness of His salvation. The condition of this salvation is penitence. That the Lord will, before the appearance of the salvation, prepare the means for it by the awakening of powerful exhortations to repentance, is foretold in vers. 3 and 4. Then after ver. 5 follows the appearance of the Lord Himself, the preparation for which is described in vers. 3 and 4. We have to take, the voice of one crying, as an exclamation: What is it that I perceive? αξγαψ stands in the original text in a certain independence between the preceding and the following, so that it in like manner belongs to both (Christol. vol. iv., p. 172): The voice of one crying in the wilderness; Prepare, is equivalent to, cries in the wilderness, Prepare in the wilderness. Here, after the example of the LXX. and of Matthew, it is attached simply to the preceding. That the voice of the crying one must proceed from the covenant-people is shown by the words, our God. As the proclamation proceeds from the covenant-people, so it is also addressed to the covenant-people. John, in saying, I am the voice, speaks not exclusively, but positively. This announcement, like the closely connected prophecy of Malachi concerning the messenger who should precede the advent of the Lord, Malachi 3:1, finds its fulfilment not merely in the appearance of John, but also in the inceptive activity of Christ Himself and of His Apostles, in so far as this was a supplement and continuation of that of John, an indication and preparation of the drawing nigh of the kingdom of God. John, however, is the proper incarnation of the voice of him crying in the wilderness, he in whom this voice became a person, because he was the forerunner of the Lord, and nothing further; so that whatever of the agency of Christ belongs here, may be fairly reckoned as his. The wilderness is the condition of spiritual and bodily wretchedness in which the people are. It is a question, what is to be understood by preparing the way of the Lord. Luther is of opinion, “This is the preparation of the way of Christ, and the peculiar office of Christ, that He should humble all the world, and should say, that they are all together lost sinners, condemned, poor, needy, wretched men.” But it is evident that John not only requires repentance in this sense, but much rather μετάνοια, change of disposition and the direction of the life, a new walk in righteousness. A glance at ver. 4 in Isaiah, where the preparation of the way of the Lord is declared more exactly, and to the particular demands which John, according to Luke 3, makes on the people, plainly shows this. We must, however, be careful, in the determination of the sense of John’s: Prepare the way of the Lord, not to fall into an irreconcilable contradiction to his express reference to Christ as the Lamb of God, which bears the sins of the world. This Luther already indicates: “John, indeed, bears witness, and says, Reform and do penance: but that by this he does not mean, Thou shalt reform thyself, and by thyself remove even one sin, he mightily testifies by the other part, when he says. Behold the Lamb of God taketh away the sins of all the world.” If John had believed himself to possess the power of effecting a real moral reformation, he could not have pointed so expressly to Christ as the Only one who baptizes with the Holy Ghost. What is then the work of John? He requires not mere knowledge of sin, but real renovation of life; but because the true treasures of forgiveness of sins and of the Holy Spirit are laid up only in Christ (if they did not belong to Him exclusively, He must have shared with John the honour of “unveiling the glory of the Lord”), so in the last result Luther has recognised the correct interpretation. John can, indeed, effect in his susceptible hearers an external decency, a justitia civilis; but with respect to the most inward part, he can only succeed in arousing a lively contest in the mind, a struggle with sin, a calling and crying out, O that Thou wouldest rend the heavens and come down! This it is which is properly aimed at; this is the unconditionally necessary prerequisite of the unveiling of the glory of the Lord, which can never be manifest to secure sinners. Luther further remarks with perfect correctness, “The hindrance, however, which allows no room for the Lord, is not only the gross bodily sins of unchastity, anger, vanity, avarice, etc., but much rather the spiritual darkness and the legal pride of the Pharisee, who esteems his good life and works, who is secure in them, and will neither condemn them himself, nor will have them condemned.” Pride, which is the soul of the then prevalent disease of the people, Pharisaism, is rendered expressly prominent in the original passage in Isaiah by the side of their abjectness and despondency: “Every mountain and hill shall be made low.” Moreover, it must not be overlooked, that John, by the manner of his definition of his office, knocks at the door of the consciences of the messengers, and unpleasantly disturbs them in their consciousness of the grandeur of their mission. P. Anton: “My office is a hodosophy. The question now is How are you preparing the way of the Lord?” Berleb. Bibel: “You will indeed feel the voice in your conscience.” Ver. 24. “And they which were sent were of the Pharisees. 25. And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?” Before, the office of the deputies was stated; here is indicated the party to which they belonged. This indication must have reference to the question which they addressed to the Baptist, according to ver. 25. The Pharisees were, according to Acts 26:5, the straitest sect, the αἵρεσιςἀκριβεστάτην. Its members watched everywhere with inquisitorial severity, to see that the theocratic order was preserved intact, not merely as to the ritual, but also with respect to the competence of office and doctrine. Cf. John 9:13, John 7:47-48, John 12:42. All that was different to their preconceived opinions, they were at hand to call into question and to judge. Our Lord’s “Judge not,” in Matthew 7:1, was spoken chiefly in opposition to this pharisaic spirit. The question which the pharisaic delegates addressed to John they would have spared themselves, if they had recognised, on the one hand, the compass of the words, I am the voice of one crying, etc.,—in which it was included, that John, of course, in a certain sense, if not in that of the Pharisees, laid claim to the dignity of Elias,—and on the other hand, the significance of the baptism of John, as a merely preparatory act. The Baptist, in his answer, calls attention to this doubly false basis of the question. As regards the first, he supplements Isaiah 40:3 by pointing to Malachi 3:1, the commentary and continuation, where the forerunner of the Lord comes out more bodily. If he is the voice crying in the wilderness, he is also he of whom it is written in Malachi 3:1, “Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me;” he is also he of whom it is written, Malachi 4:5-6, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet—and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers;” for there can be no doubt that Elijah the prophet is identical with “My messenger.” If therefore he is not their Elias, he is the Elias of divine prophecy in its true sense. As regards the second, he intimates, that his baptism belongs only to a relatively subordinate sphere; that it only prepares for the advent of a higher one, by whom it should receive its completion and fulfilment. The baptism of John rests principally on Isaiah 1:16, “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil.” The forgiveness of sins, and the impartation of the Holy Ghost, of which it is the condition, belong chiefly to the glorification of the baptism of John by Christ. The fulfilment of Eze 36:25-26, “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you: a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you:” and of Zec 13:1, “In that day there shall be a fountain opened in the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness,”—in its main points, far exceeds the sphere of John, although we certainly must not separate the preparatory grace, the beginnings of the impartation of forgiveness and of the Spirit, from the baptism of John. Cf. Christology, vol. iv., p. 235. Ver. 26. “John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there standeth One among you, whom ye know not. Ver. 27. He it is, who, coming after me, is preferred before me; whose shoes latchet I am not worthy to unloose.” P. Anton: “You are not to stop with my baptism, so as to join yourselves to me, and break off from that upon which I would gladly see you wishing to enter. My baptism is only in anticipation. It will soon be over; so you need not give yourselves so much trouble: but you will receive Another among you, who indeed is already, in a manner unperceived, come among you.” To his own inferior position, which is made known by the fact, that he can only baptize with water, and therefore produce no thorough, radical change in the disposition, John here opposes the exalted position of Christ in general, without expressly mentioning that He—as is said in ver. 33; Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:7-8; Luke 3:16—will baptize with the Holy Ghost, and at the same time also, those who do not submit to such baptism, with the fire (Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16) of consuming judgment. We are not justified in supplying here directly the antithesis of the baptism by the Spirit. The general antithesis of the inferior position of John, which is embodied in the mere baptism by water, and the absolute grandeur of Christ, is sufficient. Summa autem huc redit, remarks Calvin, ut se dejiciat quantum fieri potest ne qua in parte honor perperam illi delatus Christi praestantiam obscuret. That Christ stands already among them, the Baptist knows from Malachi 3:1, according to which the advent of the Lord in the covenant-Angel is to follow immediately on the appearance of the forerunner. So certainly, therefore, as he was convinced of his own mission, so certain must he have been beforehand, that the Messiah was already on the ground. But that his conviction rested not on this only, the words, “whom ye know, not,” seem to show. For this deduction seems to presuppose that John had the knowledge, which the rulers of the people had not, because Christ had not yet made Himself publicly known, His epiphany not yet having taken place. In harmony with the intimation contained in these words, is the address with which the Baptist receives Christ, when He comes to his baptism, Matthew 3:14, “I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?—words which show that John already recognised in Christ the true Saviour, far exalted above the human sphere. The origin of this recognition is indicated by the Gospel of Luke, according to which John had already, in the earliest period of his life, been directed to Christ. It could not have been otherwise, than that in, consequence of this he should direct his gaze incessantly to Christ, and should zealously follow up the traces of the Divine nature which shone forth in Him. But that this recognition of John was only a preliminary one, that he did not receive the absolute divine certainty of the revelation of the glory of the Lord in Christ until the baptism, is clear from vers. 31, 32, where he says, that he did not know Christ before the baptism. In harmony with this, is also the manner in which he here ascribes this knowledge to himself, only indirectly and by a gentle hint. The words, “He it is, who, coming after me, is preferred before me,” have been already explained at ver. 15, and have been shown to rest on Malachi 3:1. Αὐτόςἐστιν and ὅςἐμπροσθένμουγέγονεν are wanting in important critical authorities. Vers. 15 and 30, however, where the testimony is repeated, require the genuineness especially of the latter words. The later reference to this speech of John has no point, if it is here quoted in a mutilated form, and robbed οf its essential meaning. The abbreviation seems to have been called forth by the threefold repetition. The unloosing of the shoe-latchet was one of the meanest services performed by slaves. Theophylact: to τὸλύειντὸὑπόδηματῆςἐσχάτηςδιακονίαςἐστί. “Before no mortal,” says Lampe, “would the Baptist have thus humbled himself,—he, who was more than a prophet, so great, that among them that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist.” But He who in Malachi sends the messenger before Him, and Himself comes after, is δΰγεο, the Lord; for Him, therefore, that service is too small which is rendered by a servant to any lord. Before Him John, with his poor preparatory baptism, which cannot truly forgive sins, nor bestow the Holy Ghost, must step quite into the background. “Let us learn,” says the Jansenist Quesnel, “to make a severe distinction between the honour which is shown to Jesus Christ, and that which is shown to the greatest of holy men (saints), and even to the mother of the Holy of holies. This is one of the first instructions which God has given us through St John; and we cannot act contrary to it without subverting everything in religion.” Ver. 28. “These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.” For Bethabara, the Syriac, Vulgate, and several MSS. read Bethania. According to Origen, this reading was found at his time in almost all the MSS.—σχεδὸςἐνπᾶσιτοῖςἀντυγράφοις,—a statement on which no great weight is to be laid, since Origen had certainly not, after the manner of a modem critic, examined a large number of MSS.; and since the assertion of Chrysostom has equal weight with his, and he says, that all the more exact MSS. have Bethabara; and Epiphanius also attributes the reading Bethania to only a few MSS. That which Origen urges against the reading Bethania, that there was no Bethany in this region, but there was a Bethabara, is in fact not without force. There is nowhere any trace of another besides the well-known Bethany; and this is of all the more significance, since the name House of the wretched, quite otherwise than, e.g., House of fish, Bethsaida—is so singular, that there is beforehand no probability of its repeated occurrence. Bethbara, on the other hand, which is without doubt a contraction of Bethabara, appears even in Judges 7:24, as the principal passage across the Jordan: if Bethabara is misplaced, the Jordan also is misplaced. Just such a locality was particularly suitable for the purposes of John. The Berleb. Bibel remarks: “Bethabara was a right public place, where there was a ferry across the Jordan, and therefore a continual concourse of people going and returning.” It is also in favour of Bethabara, that, as Origen testifies, tradition placed the baptism of John at this place. The name Bethabara suits the locality, and has its explanation in the following πέραντοῦἸορδάνου: the name Bethania stands in no relation to the locality. The name, known from the Gospel history, might also easily be put for the more unfamiliar name. Bengel, who simply remarks, nomen notius pro ignoto, saw more sharply than modern critics. We must not overlook the assonance of the name Bethabara to ςαψ, in the prediction of Isaiah concerning the glorification of Perasa and Galileo in the time of the Messiah, to which the whole group gives a historical commentary. Cf. the local designations in ver. 44, John 2:1; John 2:11. In vers. 29-34 follows the Baptists second witness for Christ. Ver. 29. “The next day he (John) seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith. Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh upon Him the sin of the world!”—Τῇἐπαύριον cannot stand here with a more extended meaning. John reports here so accurately of the period which was so decisive for his own life in time and eternity, that in ver. 40 he states even the hour. “From this time forward,” says the Berleb. Bibel, “is kept a regular diary of the Messiah, as from day to day the person of Christ became better known.” The same writer remarks: “This day was very well suited for this. For the day before, John had frankly given his testimony. He is now rewarded for this fidelity, in that his principal comes to him.” We have already shown, that the coming of Jesus to John is no other than that for the purpose of being baptized, of which the first Evangelists give a particular account. Those who place .the baptism earlier or later, must here remark, with Meyer, “for an object concerning which we are not more particularly acquainted;” which is the more doubtful, since, from all the indications, a more intimate personal intercourse between Jesus and John never existed, but was rather purposely avoided. History knows of only one coming of Jesus to John. Quesnel points out, how great it was in John “to have but once the consolation of speaking with Christ, and only to see Him in passing, and yet to be faithful to God. “And saith:” namely, after in the mean time that had taken place, of which the account is given in Matthew 3:13-17 and in Mark 1:9-11. When Jesus comes to John, the baptism has not yet taken place; but what he here says, presupposes what happened at the baptism. The “Behold,” points away from John to Christ, as to Him who alone can satisfy the need for salvation of the human heart. That the Lamb is to be taken as not merely the emblem of calmness and patience, but much rather as a sacrificial lamb, who takes upon Him the sin of the world to atone for it, is clear from the circumstance, that in ver. 36 where John has not less than here the purpose to set forth Christ as the Redeemer of the world, the words, “who taketh upon Him the sin of the world,” are wanting. Accordingly, his can only be the commentary and explanation: the conception of the Redeemer of the world must be contained already in the words, “the Lamb of God.” Add to this, that in John 19:36, John transfers to Christ what is written in the Old Testament of the paschal lamb; that in the Apocalypse, Christ, with respect to the redemption made by Him, is called ἀρνίονἐσφαγμένον, and the blood of the Lamb, αἶματοῦἀρνίου, is spoken of; and that also in 1 Peter 1:19, Christ isrepresented as a Lamb without blemish and without spot, through whose blood we are redeemed. But that, among the different beasts used for the sin-offering, the Iamb should be chosen as a symbol of the atoning Christ, is explained from its being most adapted to shadow for the glorious attributes of Christ, His innocence and righteousness: cf. 1 Peter 1:19; and especially the glorious virtues which He manifested in His passion,—his calm patience and meekness. It is just this which forms the point of comparison m the passage of the Old Testament, in which the suffering Christ is already compared to a lamb. Isaiah 53:7 : “He was oppressed, and He was afflicted; yet He opened not His mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth.” We must not, however, derive from this passage alone the reason why John here designates Christ as the Lamb of God. For, though Isaiah, in this whole section, teaches so decidedly and expressly the substitutionary office of the Servant of God, yet he does not place the emblem of the lamb in immediate relation thereto. Under this, he regards, not the substitutionary character of Christ’s sufferings, but His patience under them. Hence we must go back at the same time to the use of the lamb in the expiatory sacrifice,—but not to the ordinary sin-offering. The principal sacrificial beasts for the sin-offering were, according to Leviticus 4, young bullocks: only such especially were used as a sin-offering for the congregation, and for the high priest. For the sin of the ruler a he-goat was offered; while a she-goat served for the expiation of a soul of the common people: in the latter case also, a lamb might be offered, but only a female. An extensive and important use of the lamb for the expiation of sin existed, however, at the Passover; and of this we must think the rather, as this atonement was the radical one, the foundation for all other expiatory sacrifices, and as in John 19:36 Christ appears as the antitype of the paschal lamb, and so also in 1 Corinthians 5:7 : καὶγὰρτὸπάσχαἡμῶνἐτύθηΧριστός. It has been objected to the reference to the paschal lamb, that this was not a proper sacrifice,—at all events, not an expiatory sacrifice. But this objection rests on a complete misapprehension of the meaning of the Pascha. That the Pascha was a sin-offering, was shown already by the name: redemption, and then redemptive and atoning sacrifice. But every doubt is removed by the account of the first institution. Since every first-born in Egypt was to die, the destroying angel spared all those houses which he found marked with the blood of the paschal lamb, as a sign of the cleansing from sin which had been there effected by this means. He who possessed this token might be certain of his exemption and redemption: Exodus 12:23. His sins were laid on the lamb, the emblem of innocence. The expiatory blood of this lamb formed the boundary between Israel and the world. That the later celebration of the Passover was not a mere commemoration is shown by the fact, that lambs continued to be slain as sacrifices. Where there is a sacrifice appointed by God, there also, in case it is offered in faith, must be a repetition of the first benefit, which is only distinguished from the others by forming the initial point of the great series. The paschal lamb formed the basis of all other sacrifices; the other sin-offerings had value and meaning only in connection with it; without it, they were mere dissevered limbs. It was peculiarly the covenant-offering,—that in which was concentrated the separation from the world of the people of God, the people which has a reconciled God. What distinguishes the paschal sacrifice from all other sin-offerings is, that with it was connected a communion, and that it was at the same time a sacrament. By this are explained the unessential differences from the other expiatory sacrifices, the perception of which has led many astray from the correct apprehension of the paschal offering. The genitive Θεοῦ is one of appurtenance and possession. P. Anton correctly remarks, that it signifies, not only that this Lamb is sent and given by God (nor only, that it is well-pleasing to God as in Psalms 51:19, the sacrifices of God are those well-pleasing to Him), but, at the same time, how near this Lambis to God: cf. vers. 34, 49. In Zechariah 13:7 it is said, “The man that is My fellow.” Explanatory of this genitive is Revelation 5:6 where the Lamb stands “in the midst of the throne and the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders,” as the Mediator between God and men; and Revelation 7:17, “For the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them,”—where the relation of Christ to the Most High God is designated as a still more intimate one. He being partaker of the Divine glory in the words, ὁαἴρωντὴνἁμαρτίαντοῦκόσμου, the question of all others is, in what meaning the verb αἴρω is to be taken. The expositors are divided, for the most part, between the meanings of bear, and take away. But both are opposed by not unimportant considerations. Against the meaning bear, it is sufficient that αἴρω, from ἀὴρ, contracted from ἀείρω,—properly, to raise, lift up,—neither in biblical usage, nor in that of classical authors, ever means to bear. In Lamentations 3:27, LXX.: ἀγαθὸνἀνδρὶὅτανἄρῃζυγὸνἐννεότητιαὐτοῦ, which has been adduced in favour of this meaning, it is not bear, but take upon himself. Then, on the supposition of the meaning bear, every connection is broken off between our passage and that in 1 John 3:5, καὶοἴδατεὅτιἐκεῖνοςἐφανερώθη, ἵνατὰςἁμαρτίαςἄρῃ, καὶἁμαρτίαἐναὐτῷοὐκἔστι, where αἴρειν stands with the meaning of take away. It is also decisive against the application of the meaning, take away, to our passage, that the declaration of John is, on this rendering, too far Removed from the original passage of the Old Testament, on winch, by the concession of all, it is founded, Isaiah 53. That the Servant of God is to take upon Him, and bear, the sin and its punishment, is there the constantly repeated, fundamental thought. Compare ver. 4, “Surely He hath borne (taken upon Him) our griefs (sicknesses), and carried our sorrows:” ver. 11, “By His knowledge will My righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities:” ver. 12, “And He bare (took upon Him) the sin of many.” We avoid the difficulties which meet us in both renderings, if we take αἴρω in the sense of, to take upon one’s self, which may be derived with facility from the meaning, raise, lift up; as indeed the Hebrew πωΰ also, with which the αἴρειν is without doubt to correspond, means first, to raise, and then to take upon one’s self; and in this sense the verb can be proved to occur elsewhere in the New Testament: cf. αἴρειντὸνσταυρὸν. Matthew 16:24; αἴρειντὸνζυγόν, Matthew 11:29. Even the ancients called attention to the circumstance that the particip. present is here used,—that it is not said. He will bear, but. He bears. The participle present designates, besides contemporaneousness, also continued action. Its use here indicates the continued power of Christ’s offering. It is decisive against the hypothesis of Meyer, that the present is used because the Baptist prophetically represents the atoning act as present, that equally in the original passage of Isaiah the taking upon Him and bearing of sin by the Servant of God, appears as a continuing act, in intimation of the continued power of His atoning sacrifice. In Isaiah 53:11 it is said, “By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities.” The bearing of iniquities is here, in substance, identical with the justification. The Servant of God has once for all borne the sin: he who knows Him, his sins, in the power of the substitution effected by His blood, He takes upon Himself. Thus far the taking upon Him and bearing is a continued act. In the same sense, it is said in ver. 12, “And He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” πωΰ here corresponds to ιραμ in ver. 11, and, like this, designates not a temporary, but an enduring action of the Servant of God. In the words, “of the world,” has been found, quite incorrectly, an “extension to entire humanity of the representation of Isaiah, concerning the expiation of the sin of the people.” The Servant of God appears as Saviour of the world throughout the second part of Isaiah, and especially in Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12. What can be plainer than Isaiah 52:15, “So shall He sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at Him: for those which have not been told shall see, and which heard not shall consider?” It is of great significance, that John the Baptist, speaking in the Spirit and by direct commission from God, who first presents Christ to the Church by the Baptist, thus designates the work of Christ, by pointing to the substitutionary expiation and atonement as its kernel and centre. (Calvin: Alia quidem beneficia nobis confert Christus, sed hoc summum, ex quo reliqua dependent, quod iram Dei placando facit, ut justi et puri censeamur.) We learn from this, that our highest endeavour should be directed to this end, to enter into essential relation to this side of the being of Christ; that also, by a Christian in spirit and in truth, he only should be esteemed with whom this is really the case; finally, that the Church has this task, to keep this doctrine as the apple of its eye, and that its so extensive abandonment in the theology of the present day is a sign of deep decline. The condemnation of all theories, springing from Rationalism, concerning the justification of the sinner before God, is declared by the words, Ἴδεὁἀμνὸς, etc.; on which Augustine already remarks: “Jam intendite, contra quos superbos intendebat digitum Joannes. Nondum erant nati haeretici, et jam ostendebantur: contra illos clamabat tunc a fluvio,” etc. John says further, ver. 30, “This is He of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me; for He was before me.” It ought never to have been doubted, what is so apparent, that John here takes up again his declaration, made on the day previous, ver. 27, and declares that it applies to the person standing before him. We gave the explanation already at ver. 15, where the same expression of John, which here occurs in its historical connection, was interwoven with the Prologue. The only peculiarity here is, that the Messiah is designated as man. He is so called in Zechariah 6:12 : “Behold the man, ΰιω, whose name is The Branch; and He shall grow up out of His place, and shall build the temple of the Lord;” and in Zechariah 13:7 : “Against the man, βαψ, that is My fellow.” P. Anton remarks on the words, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: “By this strange enunciation he wishes to induce us to the inquiry, what sort of a man this is, who thus comes, with two natures, gigas geminoe substantiae.” After John has declared who Christ is, and what He is to accomplish for the world, he gives a further account, in vers. 31-34, on what ground this sublime knowledge in Him is founded: not on a human, but on an absolutely Divine, on immediate Divine, revelation,—as this was absolutely necessary, if his declaration was to be of consequence to the Church. As testimony, it can be of importance only as an account of that which John himself has seen and heard. Ver. 31. “And I knew Him not: but that He should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.” Lόcke correctly remarks: “From the manner in which the words. And I knew Him not, are taken up again in ver. 33, it is seen that vers. 32-34 do not begin a testimony different from vers. 29-31, as is asserted by Lampe; but vers. 32-34 give to the speech in ver. 31 its connection and conclusion.” The words, I knew Him not, form only the introduction to the narrative of the manner in which John learned to know Him with divine certainty. A separation of vers. 32-34 is the less to be thought of, since in this connection everything is assigned to a definite time, and here belong only such things as occurred on the day designated in ver. 29. The course of thought, therefore, is this: And I knew Him not; but still my whole ministry had regard to Him. But now I have recognised Him with divine certainty. The declaration, I knew Him not, which the Baptist here makes with respect to the whole time before the baptism of Jesus, appears at first view to be in irreconcilable contradiction to Matthew 3:14, where John forbids Christ, when He comes to be baptized, saying, Ἐγὼχρείανἔχωὑπὸσοῦβαπτισθῆναι, καὶσὺἔρχῃπρόςμε; These words presuppose that John recognised in Jesus the Son of God. “He,” says Calvin, “would have done great wrong to God and his own baptism, if he had thus spoken to any other but the Son of God.” The solution of the difficulty is this, that, I knew Him not, is here to be taken relatively. With respect to the clearness which he had just received, the former seemed to him as darkness. In the emphatic use of language, complete knowledge only is regarded as knowledge, as in Matthew 7:23, the Lord says, “I know you not,” to those who had stood in manifold but only external relations to Him. The words, “I knew Him not,” thus apprehended, are even corroborated by Matthew. For to what other purpose is the voice from heaven, in John 3:17, Οὗτόςἐστινὁυἱόςμουὁἀγαπητός, ἐνᾧεὐδόκησα, than to make Christ known to the Baptist, and through him to the Church? This voice does not address itself to Jesus: Thou art; but it speaks of Jesus,—therefore to the Baptist. (Mark 1:11, and Luke have certainly σὺεἶ; but that Matthew has the more exact account, is shown by comparison with Isaiah 42:1, and the allusion here in ver. 34.) With this rendering ver. 26 is also in harmony. For, when John there, before the baptism of Christ, says to the Pharisees with regard to Him, Whom ye know not, he intimates by this, that he has this knowledge. An absolute ignorance also is not to be supposed, either from the conduct of Jesus on the one hand, or from the conduct of the Baptist on the other. The conclusion therefore is, that when John says, I knew Him not, he means nothing more than what is testified by the fact, that at the baptism Christ was made known to him by an appearance and a heavenly voice. It is an illustrative case, when in John 2:11 it is said, πίστευσανεἰςαὐτὸνοἱμαθηταὶαὐτοῦ: as though they had then for the first time attained to faith, although the particulars had been already related of their attaining to faith in the case of Nathanael (John 1:51), even with the use of the word πιστεύειν. This phrase, “His disciples believed on Him,” occurs in substance on every new revelation of the glory of the Lord. In John 16:30, the disciples again declare that now, now for the first time, they have attained to faith, ἐντούτῳπιστεύομενὅτιἀπὸθεοῦἐξῆλθες; and in ver. 31 Jesus declares even this faith to be not a stedfast one; so that new steps have still to be mounted, from which the former will appear like unbelief. Of John it is not said until after the resurrection, John 20:8, καὶεἶδεκαὶἐπίστευσε. It is, however, to be observed, that the declaration, I knew Him not, here receives its relation to a knowledge leading to an absolute certainty by the account, given in immediate connection in the following verse, of the manner in which John received such knowledge. Of a contradiction to the earlier Evangelists, the last of whom, Luke, relates that the Baptist stood in a relation to Christ even before His birth, no one in this single case will think, who has perceived the general relation of John to the three first Evangelists. How is it to be understood that John baptized, in order that thus Christ might be made manifest to Israel? It has been quite incorrectly answered, “The Baptist baptized in order that he might become acquainted with the Messiah, and in consequence also the people.” The key to the correct understanding is given by Isaiah 40:3-5. According to this passage, the “voice of him crying in the wilderness” was the necessary precondition of the manifestation of the glory of the Lord; and its object, therefore, was to bring this about. The manifestation of the glory of the Lord is, according to the conception of the Baptist, to take place in the appearance of the Messiah, whom he places in the most intimate relation to Jehovah. Cf. remarks on ver. 15. In John 2:11 also, Isaiah 40:5 is referred to Christ. The baptism of John corresponds to the preparing of the way in Isaiah. As the latter is the emblem, so the former is the embodiment, of the μετάνοια, which is the condition of the unveiling of the now concealed glory of the Lord. Ver. 32. “And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him.” John places, in opposition to his ignorance hitherto, the fact by which he attained to knowledge; as though he said: And now I have just seen. The interposed words, καὶἐμαρτύρησεν, etc., interrupt the discourse of John, in order to indicate, that we have here the punctum saliens in the discourse of the Baptist,—that, viz., for which this discourse was communicated by the Evangelist. The subject of the testimony is the fact, that which John has seen. Only that knowledge is quite real, which rests on such a fact. How did the Baptist see the Spirit descend on Jesus at the baptism? Origen gives the preference to a “spiritual view,” θεωρίανοητική. Theodore of Mopsuestia says: “The descent of the Spirit was not seen by all those who were present, but only by means of a spiritual vision by John, as it was the manner of the prophets to see in the midst of many that which was invisible to all. For it would not be proper to say, that John bare record, and said that he had seen the Spirit, if all those present participated in his beholding.” In fact, if the phenomenon had been visible to the bodily eyes, the “record” of John would have lost all significance. The superiority of his position would then be entirely gone. In Matthew, Mark, and John, moreover, the opening of heaven, and the descent of the dove, are narrated not by themselves, but only in connection with their perception by Christ and by John. In Matthew 3:16, the heavens are opened to Christ, and he sees the Spirit of God descend, ἀνεῴχθησαναὐτῷοἱοὐρανοί, καὶεἶδεντὸπνεῦματοῦΘεοῦκαταβαῖνον: Mark says, Mark 1:10, εἶδεσχιζομένουςτοὺςοὐρανοὺς, καὶτὸπνεῦμακαταβαῖνον: in John, the Baptist says, τεθέαμαιτὸπνεῦμακαταβαῖνον. In Luke, finally, the internal character of the event is rendered the more distinct, as the opening of the heaven occurred when Jesus was praying, Luke 3:21. That any other person besides Jesus and John perceived the appearance, there is nowhere any indication. It is also of significance, that the opening of heaven, which is mentioned by the first Evangelists, has regard to Ezekiel 1:1. But here it takes place, as expressly stated, in a vision. The result obtained is so far important, that by it the assertion, often made, is once for all refuted, that all events narrated in Scripture must belong to the sphere of the external, of which the contrary is not expressly remarked. Cf. my treatise on Balaam. We must certainly distinguish severely from each other objectivity and externality. It is not the objectivity which is in question, but in what sense the objective was perceived. If we mistake this,—if we say with Lόcke, “If the appearance of the Spirit as a dove was external, objective, it could, it must have been, perceived by others also;” if with him, in the place of a vision which presupposes something objective, which is spiritually seen, we put a mere imagination of John, the genesis of which is to be psychologically explained,—it is inconceivable how the words of the Baptist here are to be regarded as a “record,” or how in ver. 34 such weight can be laid upon the circumstance, that the Baptist bare record of that which he had seen,—such a beholding, certainly, gives no true material for a μαρτυρία, John 19:35,—and it is inconceivable how the Saviour Himself, in John 5:33, can lay weight on this testimony of John. But it is decisive against such a view, that what according to the first Evangelists is beheld by Jesus, is according to John beheld by the Baptist. A vision, which is only another designation of that which is otherwise called on imagination, can be had only by a single person; while the same object may be spiritually beheld by several persons, who have a cultivated spiritual sense, at the same time. How striking this instance is, is clear from the fact, that Meyer is driven by it to the assumption, that in the “Synoptics” the vision has been “altered by tradition to an objective proceeding.” Finally, the objectivity of the event is testified by Luke 3:21-22. There, the opening of heaven, the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the voice from heaven, are spoken of, without reference to the perception by Jesus or by the Baptist. That a real dove is not to be thought of, is shown by the word “like” which is added by all the Evangelists. Ambrosius: “non columba descendit, sed quasi columba;” and: “Spiritus sanctus in specie columbae, non in veritate columbae descendit de coelo.” On the other hand, that the comparison with a dove refers not merely to the hovering motion, but also to the form, is shown not merely by the words, “in a bodily shape,” σωματικῷεἵδει, of Luke, but is clear also from the τεθέαμαι here. For the beholding presupposes the existence of a bodily form; and what this was, must be expressed in the words, ὡςπεριστεράν, because otherwise it would remain indeterminate, which is not allowable. But why does the Holy Spirit present Himself in the form of a dove? The right answer was perceived already by Clement of Alexandria: “God wished to show, by the image of the dove, the simplicity and meekness of the new appearance of the Spirit.” The commentary to the appearance of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, is afforded in the beatitude of the πραεῖς, the ἐλεήμονες, the καθαροὶτῇκαρδίᾳ, the εἰρηνοποιοί, in the Sermon on the Mount, and, above all, by the word of the Lord, Matthew 10:16, “Be ye wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” The character of the members of the kingdom of Christ is here prefigured, which is founded in the operation of the Holy Spirit. The basis for this symbolism is furnished by the Old Testament. In the superscription to Psalms 56, the dove is the emblem of defenceless and inoffensive innocence. In Song of Sol. 5:22, the bridegroom says to the bride, the type of the daughters of Zion, the representative of the associates of the kingdom, “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled. The latter is the explanation and interpretation of the former. ϊξϊι can mean only, my irreproachable, my righteous one. In Genesis 25:27, ϊν is used of Jacob, the father of the family; and in Job 1:1, together with ιωψ, of Job, the type of Israel. The LXX. has τελείαμου. Cf. Matthew 5:48; Philippians 3:15. In Son 1:15, it is said, “Behold, thou art fair, my love; thine eyes doves.” So also in Son 4:1. “The comparison of the eyes of the daughter of Zion with doves, designates the Lord’s community as the companionship of the meek, as having the character of innocence, meekness, and kindness.” It is also said of the bridegroom, Son 5:12, “His eyes as doves by the rivers of waters.” With reference to these Old Testament passages, the appearance of the Spirit in the form of a dove typified the character of the Church, which it should receive by the Holy Ghost. Quesnel: “Innocence, simplicity, meekness, love, fruitfulness in good works, etc.,—these are the virtues which Jesus and the Holy Ghost would infuse in us; the one taking for a symbol the lamb, and the other the dove.” The words, “and it abode on Him,” have regard to Isaiah 11:2, where it is said of Christ, “And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.” This prophecy of Isaiah received, in the event of the text, a symbolical representation. The reference to it is still more evident here than in Matthew 3:16, where the parallel passage, Isaiah 42:1, is taken more into view. Instead of καὶἔμεινενἐπʼ ? αὐτόν, is in ver. 33 καὶμένονἐπʼ ? αὐτόν. The preterite, and it abode (as I saw) upon Him, is used here, as it seems, to render more apparent the reference to πηδ in the original passage; so that the word ἔμεινε is to be considered as provided with quotation-marks. Cf. besides, Buttmann’s Gramm., S. 327. “Jesus Christ,” says Quesnel, “is alone worthy to receive the Holy Spirit in His entire fulness; and St John is worthy to be the first to learn so great a mystery. The more one is filled with the Holy Spirit, the more does he conceive in what fulness Jesus Christ has received it, in order to communicate it.” This communication of the Holy Spirit to believers has its foundation in this fact, and is prefigured by it. As certainly as the Holy Spirit descended on Christ at His baptism, and abode on Him, so certainly must that also take place which is narrated in Acts 2:3, καὶὤφθησαναὐτοῖςδιαμεριζόμεναιγλῶσσαιὡσεὶπυρὸςκαὶἐκάθισενἐφʼ ? ἕναἕκαστοναὐτῶν, and in 1 Peter 4:14, ὅτιτὸτῆςδόξηςκαὶτὸτοῦθεοῦπνεῦμαἐφʼ ? ὑμᾶςἀναπαύεται. Christ has received the Holy Spirit not merely for Himself, but in order that, as is said immediately afterwards, as the Head of the Church, He may baptize its members with the Holy Spirit. Luther says: “But behold what great glory the baptism has, also what a great thing it is, that, when Christ has been baptized, the heaven opens, the Father allows His voice to be heard, the Holy Ghost comes down, not as a spectre, but in the form and shape of a natural dove. If the baptism had been a human work and doing, such high things would not here have come to pass. God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, still stand daily around us at our baptism.” Ver. 33. “And I knew Him not: but He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me. Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.” That which John saw receives its full significance only in this, that he had learned the meaning of this appearance by a preceding Divine revelation. We perceive from our text, that the Baptist was esteemed worthy of immediate Divine communications, and that it is therefore wrong to measure his declarations by the standard of the then current Jewish theology, to twist and interpret them by this, or to deny their genuineness because they will not agree with it. On the words, “Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending,” Meyer correctly remarks: “Namely, while thou art baptizing Him with water. John, sent to baptize, must, in fulfilment of this calling, await the promised revelation.” The sign, moreover, stands to the thing designated in an inner and essential connection, which is only discovered by the revelation made to the Baptist. The Spirit coming down and resting on Christ, is the source from which He baptizes with the Holy Ghost. As certainly as the one takes place, so certainly, also, must the other ensue. The expression, baptize with the Holy Ghost, for overflow therewith, is called forth by the antithesis to the baptism with water. It has its foundation in the passages of the Old Testament which speak of the pouring out of the Spirit in the times of the Messiah: Joe 2:28, “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh.” Isaiah 44:3. He who pours out, is in these passages God; and, in fact, the baptism with the Holy Ghost is far above the sphere of man—being a Divine prerogative: nowhere in Holy Scripture is there such a declaration with regard to a man. The Berleb. Bibel remarks, with perfect correctness, “He baptizes in the Holy Ghost—therefore must the Holy Ghost proceed from Him also, and He must be the Son of God.” Ver. 34. “And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.” Instead of the perfect μεμαρτύρηκα, we might expect the present, since the Baptist is at this very time uttering his testimony. The present, however, which occurs also in vers. 19, 35, has respect to the moment of beholding. From this the witnessing took its commencement, the Baptist being inwardly summoned and placed on the stand. In the declaration of the Baptist, “This is the Son of God,” is manifestly echoed the voice from heaven in Matthew 3:17, Οὗτόςἐστινὁυἱόςμουὁἀγαπητός, ἐνᾧεὐδόκησα. That John uses the expression, Son of God, in a profounder sense than the ordinary Jewish theology, is clear from the reference to the pre-existence of Christ in vers. 15, 27, 30,—from the fact, that he recognises in Him “the Lord” of Malachi, and himself therefore as unworthy to unloose His shoe-latchet,—as Him also in whom, according to Isaiah 40:5, the glory of the Lord is revealed,—and from the office, which he ascribes to Him, of bearing the sin of the world, and baptizing with the Holy Ghost. Even the original passage of the Old Testament, the second Psalm, points us far above the sphere of man,—representing the Son of God absolutely as Him, a trust in whom brings salvation, whose wrath is destruction. In vers. 35-42 are narrated the events of the third of the seven days,—the third testimony of the Baptist concerning Christ, and the conversions which followed, of John, Andrew, and Peter. Ver. 35. “Again, the next day after, John stood, and two of his disciples.” He stood, according to some, in readiness for the exercise of his calling; according to others, in expectation of Jesus. So P. Anton: “Thus he began to wait: he stood like a sentry; and two of his disciples, who adhered to him, stood with him on the watch, followed him like chickens, pullets, pulli.” The latter supposition is to be preferred. In the case of the prophet, the man of inward influences, whom nothing unexpected can easily meet in the way of his calling, we shall do best to decide on the object from the result,—the rather, since the ðÜëéí, again, seems to lead to the conclusion, that John stood in like circumstances. A similar standing occurs in Habakkuk 2:1, where the prophet stands on his watch-tower, waiting for the Lord to make Himself known to him. Ver. 36. “And looking upon Jesus as He walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!” Jesus walked past, He does not, come to the Baptist, as in ver. 29: this He did but once, in order, fulfilling all righteousness, to receive baptism from him. The Baptist also does not step forward to meet Him: there is no conversation between them. Their circles were to be kept at first, and until after the completion of the testimony, as much as possible separate from each other, in order that the harmony between them might present itself all the more as one divinely effected. The Baptists testimony to Christ, to which the latter Himself appeals in John 5:33, and so also the testimony of Christ in favour of the Baptist, received the greater significance, when each of them went his own way independently of the other. We may not, however, say that they purposely avoided each other in order to guard against the suspicion of a collusion. This would be too unworthy a consideration. We must say rather, that they did not come to each other, because to this they did not feel that Divine impulse” which guided them in all their steps; and that this impulse was wanting, because the Divine decorum required that their circles should remain separate for the present, because in such manner the immediate Divine certainty of their action was to be brought into view. The Baptist looked upon Jesus. What he says, puts the result of this look into words. “Christ, says the Berleb. Bibel, “had, without doubt, something kingly and heroic in the eyes of John.” That He was the Lamb of God, was written on His features; and John had the opened eye, so as to be able to read these lines.—“Behold the Lamb of God!” The Berleb. Bibel: “It is as though he already saw Him bearing His cross and moving towards Golgotha.” That the omission of the words, ὁ áἴ ?ñùí, etc., presupposes that these are only a commentary on the designation of Christ as the Lamb of God which needed to be given but once, we have already remarked above. If it be so, the Lamb must be a representative, atoning, sacrificial Lamb. The renewed testimony of John has special reference to the two disciples, who are to be regarded at the same time as representatives of the whole circle of John’s disciples. From their conduct in consequence of this testimony, we perceive its object. An express requisition on the two disciples to join Christ, was not necessary. If Christ was the Lamb of God, the desire resulted of itself, in the more thoughtful minds, to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Revelation 14:4. Augustine says: “Habebant illum tanquam agnum: et ille: quid ad me adtenditis? Ego non sum agnus.” It may be said more precisely: John points the disciples from himself to Christ, because in Him appeared, what no one could ever find in the Baptist, the satisfaction of the deepest necessities of the human heart, which can never be satisfied by mere preaching, but can find its home and rest only in a sufficient sacrifice. Ver. 38. “Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them. What seek ye?” That Jesus turned “accidentally,” was certainly not in the mind of the Evangelist. In the Spirit He had already seen them follow Him, and had perceived the sincerity of their desire; and this desire He lovingly meets. The question: What seek ye? is not to procure intelligence concerning what is unknown; it is only to commence the conversation, and give them an occasion to make known their wish.—“They said unto Him, Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted. Master), where dwellest Thou?” The first word which he spoke to Christ remained so memorable to John, that he gives the address, Rabbi, even in the original language, with a translation added. The words, in themselves indifferent, have for him a pretium affectionis. From the circumstance, that in John 3:26, John the Baptist is addressed by his disciples as Rabbi, and that in the time of Christ this mode of address was notoriously very generally in use in relation to human teachers, we might conclude, that it belonged only to the very commencement of the relation of the disciples to Christ, and that it must have ceased so soon as they had attained to any perception of His superhuman nature. But experience does not confirm this hypothesis. The address. Rabbi, is found together with the much more frequent κύριε, Lord, in Matthew no less than in John, even to the last times of Christ’s life on earth, and a distinction of the times is not to be perceived in this relation. The Apostles use this address at the Transfiguration, Mark 9:5; after the cursing of the fig-tree, which occurred in the Passion-week, Mark 11:21; so also John 11:8, shortly before the Passion. Mary addresses Christ as Rabboni, according to John 20:16, after the resurrection. Our Lord, far from merely allowing this address, expressly approves it in John 13:13, ὑμεῖςφωνεῖτέμεὉδιδάσκαλοςκαὶὉκύριος, καὶκαλῶςλέγετε, εἰμὶγάρ: He even claims it exclusively for Himself, Matthew 23:8, ὑμεῖςδὲμὴκληθῆτε, Ῥαββί· εἷςγάρἐστινὑμῶνὁδιδάσκαλος, πάντεςδὲὑμεῖςἀδελφοίἐστε. In fact, this address designates also a relation of believers to Christ which has more than a mere transitory character. “The first attribute,” says Quesnel, “that we must perceive in Him, is, that He is our Master, from whom we must learn the way of salvation, that we may walk therein.” From this remark it is at the same time clear, that here this address is most suitable. The Baptist had presented Christ to his disciples as the Lamb of God; but before they could rightly comprehend what this meant, they must choose Him as their Master, and must be instructed by Him. The address, Rabbi, in its Hebrew form, does not occur once in Luke; in the Gospels, it is found most frequently in John, viz., seven times. This is characteristic of the predilection for whatever belonged to his native country, which John retained even in the midst of heathen surroundings, which extended even to the forms of language, and which makes itself known in the Gospel not less than in the Apocalypse, where new formations have proceeded from it, as, e.g., χαλκολίβανον and ἀρμαγεδδών. The disciples ask, where Christ lodges, In order to receive from Him an invitation, and to be able to converse with Him in His dwelling. P. Anton: “Therefore they did not wish to speak with Him passagierement, but considerately and without interruption.” Ver. 39. “He saith unto them. Come and see. They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day: for it was about the tenth hour.” Come and see, first of all, where I dwell. But the recurrence of Ἔρχουκαὶἴδε in the mouth of Philip, ver. 47, who had received the memorable word from the two disciples, and who uses it with reference to the person and character of Jesus; then, also, the use of this expression in Revelation 6:1, “And I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see,”—and the appearance of Christ, which John is there required to consider,—show that some deeper meaning is contained in these words, that Jesus never requires any to come and see in vain. To this result we are led by two passages of the Old Testament, to which there is here an unmistakeable reference. The first is ver. 5 of Psalms 66, composed by David: “Come and see the works of God: He is terrible in His doing toward the children of men;” LXX., δεῦτεκαὶἴδετετὰἔργατοῦθεοῦ, φοβερὸςἐνβουλαῖςὑπὲρτοὺςυἱοὺςτῶνἀνθρώπων,—terrible is God’s doing even for those to whom it gives salvation; for His tremenda majestas makes itself known therein. The words, “Come and see the doings of God,” indicate the great privilege of the Church in relation to heathenism, with respect to God in relation to idols. The God of the Church is the only one who appeals to facts, or who can invite His people to come and see. On this first passage is founded the second, ver. 9 of the forty-sixth Psalm, which has reference to the catastrophe under Hezekiah, the great triumph over the Assyrian host: “Come and see the works of the Lord, what desolations He hath made in the earth;” LXX., δεῦτεκαὶἴδετετὰἔργατοῦκυρίου, ἅἔθετοτέραταἐπὶτῆςγῆς. In the allusion to these passages in the Psalms, Jesus gives at the same time a gentle hint at His deity,—the Elohim and Jehovah being represented bodily in Him. In a mortal, such an allusion would have been impious.—“And abode with Him that day:” at first, the two only. Then they fetch Peter also. For that which is narrated in vers. 41-43 belongs to the same day. An account of what occurred on the following day, is given in ver. 44. We have here a regular diary. The day here is not the civil day, but the day according to the usage of common life, the end of which was either the complete darkness (Genesis 1:5 : “And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night;” and ver. 14. Pliny: Vulgus omne a luce ad tenebras), or rather, the going to rest. They had so much to discourse with Jesus, that they certainly did not regard the limits set to the day by the arbitrariness of man, but simply remained with Jesus until weak nature asserted its claims. But before the end of the day, they were fully convinced that Jesus was the Christ. This is shown by the word which Andrew addresses to his brother, not only in his own name, but in that also of the other disciple. “Quam beatum diem duxerunt,” says Augustine, “quam beatam noctem? Quis est, qui nobis dicat, quae audierint illi a Domino?” Why does not John communicate the contents of that conversation? In substance, it occurred without doubt elsewhere. So John might keep what was said as his secret: he needed not to lay bare the roots of his life.—“For it was about the tenth hour;” viz., when they came to Him, not when they went away. For the day did not end with the tenth hour. John mentions the hour here, because for him personally, it brought about the decision of his life; but at the same time, also, because it was in a certain degree the natal hour of the Church. The hour of a remarkable event is mentioned also in John 4:6. It cannot be doubtful what the tenth hour is. “However much,” says Ideler, in his Handb. der Chronologie i. S. 84, “the Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, diverged from each other in the epoch of the civil day, they were as uniform in their reckoning of the hours. The whole year through, they divided the natural day and the night Into twelve hours, which they reckoned from the rising of the sun to its setting, and from its setting to its rising; so that noon came at the beginning of the seventh hour of the day, and midnight at the beginning of the seventh hour of the night.” The same reckoning of the hours is found everywhere in the New Testament. It was, therefore, four o’clock in the afternoon. It has been held, that a period of two hours was too short for the first interview between Jesus and His first disciples; and that the words, “They abode with Him that day,” indicate a longer duration of the interview. But we should not allow ourselves to be led by such a consideration into unfounded assumptions, with respect to the reckoning of the hours. The correct solution of the difficulty is, that the civil day ended with the twelfth hour, but that here is meant the day according to the usage of common life, which extended to the time of going to rest. Ver. 40. “One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peters brother.” Andrew is repeatedly designated in the Gospel history as the brother of Simon Peter, because the latter was the more distinguished, ranking higher among the brothers, and the Rock among the Apostles. That the other disciple was John, was recognised even in the age of the Church Fathers; e.g., by Chrysostom. It is favourable to this view, that the Evangelist elsewhere loves to conceal himself, cf. John 20:2, not from a general shyness of coming forward personally,—in the Apocalypse he asserts himself most expressly as John, and so also in the Epistles,—but from fear that, by making his personality prominent, he might injure the historic objectivity; and thus for a reason which applied only to the Gospel, by which the first Apostle among the Evangelists was not less guided, and which also in the historical writings of the Old Testament effected the retirement of the personality of the authors. The readers are to be entirely immersed in the facts, and to turn away their eyes from the instrument of the report, who is himself conscious that his person and his name have nothing to do with the matter. It is for the same reason that Moses speaks of himself in the third person. Moreover, the exactness of the report, which extends even to the mention of the hour, leads us to presume a personal participation of the narrator in the fact: only on such an hypothesis is it explained that the name is not mentioned, while all the others, Andrew, Peter, Philip, Nathanael, are called by their names. In Matthew 4, John, together with Andrew and Peter, was of the number of those to whom the call was first made, “Come, and I will make you fishers of men,”—a call which presupposes that he had already sometime before entered into the relation of a disciple to Jesus; and, finally, according to ver. 42, the other disciple stood in a confidential, fraternal relation to Peter, and John is the only one with whom such a relation is historically attested. Lampe justly remarks: “Admirable is the modesty in which John covers with silence the preference, of which he might have boasted, according to the flesh, that he was among the first, and perhaps the first of the Apostles, to obtain access to Jesus.” Ver. 41. “He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him. We have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.” With respect to the word εὑρίσκει, Bengel says, “Cum festivissima illorum dierum novitate pulchre congruit verbum: invenit, his saepius posuit.” In that Andrew immediately fetches his brother, says Calvin, may be perceived the nature of faith, which does not retain the light within the breast, and thereby smother it, but scatters it on all sides. In the words, “he first findeth” (properly, he as the first of the two disciples, πρῶτος, not πρῶτον, as some critical authorities have), it is intimated that the other disciple also was a friend of Peter, and went in another direction to seek him. This refers to John. From the intimate relation in which he stood to Peter, it is a matter of course that he would not allow Andrew to go alone. The words τὸνἴδιον are not added without purpose, since they are never put idly, or as a mere periphrasis of the possessive pronoun. They indicate that the other disciple, in a wider sense, was also the brother of Peter. They designate, as it were, the private brotherhood, the bodily in contrast to the intellectual and spiritual; as David speaks of his brother Jonathan; and as John in the Revelation, Revelation 1:9, designates as brother, him to whom. he writes. John was the brother of Peter in Christ; but not this alone, he was also his brother in hearty friendship. Quite similarly stands ἴδιος in John 5:18, where the Jews are angry with Jesus, because He πατέραἴδιονἔλεγετὸνθεὸν. As there, own Father designates Father in the proper sense, so here, own brother). According to Meyer, John did not with Andrew seek and find Peter, but his own brother James: but for this the hint is too slight; it is necessary to supply too much. Against this view also is ἴδιος, which then stands to no purpose, and εὑρήκαμεν, we have found, which intimates a common relation of the two to Peter. Simon was also at the Jordan. He belonged, as the address of Andrew to him shows, to the circle of those who were waiting for redemption in Israel, Luke 2:38; and his fiery spirit had drawn him into proximity to the Baptist, who formed the centre of this expectation. “We have found.” Andrew did not need to name to Peter the companion of his discovery. It could be no other than he who was most intimately connected with the brothers in seeking the Redeemer, and in hearty longing for Him. Bengel: “εὑρήκαμεν, magnum et laetum εὕρημα, 40 propemodum saeculis a mundo exspectatum. Ex Johanne didicerant in proximo esse.” The Hebrew, Messiah, is found only here and in John 4:25, both times with the Greek translation. In John 1:20; John 1:25, John renders it in the declarations of the Baptist, without further explanation, by ὅΧριστός. Here he is moved to give the Hebrew word, with the Greek interpretation appended, by the deep interest which the event possessed for him personally, and also by the significance which it had for the Church. He wishes to reproduce the occurrence as exactly as possible. Messiah, ξωιη, means The Anointed. The anointing in the Old Testament, occurring as a symbolical transaction or emblem, is always the designation of the impartation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as they are shared by all the servants of God in His kingdom, who are by the possession of these very gifts characteristically separated from the rich of this world. This meaning is very apparent in the narrative of the anointing of Saul, 1 Samuel 10:1, and of David, John 16:13-14. The kings of Israel were called The Anointed by way of eminence, because for their important office, which was the channel of grace for the whole people Lamentations 4:20; Zechariah 4—they received an especially rich measure of Divine grace. From them the expression was transferred to the King absolutely, Him, in whom the idea of kingship was to be perfectly realized. The equipment by the Spirit without measure, which was imparted to His types to a limited degree, is in Isaiah 11 rendered prominent as the essential characteristic of the great King of the future. The historical commentary to the name is formed by the occurrence at the Baptism,—the fact, that then the Spirit descended on Jesus, and abode upon Him, vers. 32, 33. In the Old Testament, the Redeemer appears twice under this name: first in ver. 2 of Psalms 2, composed by David; and in Daniel 9:25, “unto the Messiah the Prince,”—the passage in which is determined the time of the appearance of Christ, and upon which by preference was founded the expectation then entertained with so much confidence, that the coining of Christ was near at hand. How current the name then was among the Jews, is clear from the fact that, according to John 4:25, it had passed over to the Samaritans, although these did not acknowledge the writings of the Old Testament from which its use had originally proceeded. It is also characteristic in favour of the naturalization of the name, that it appears in John 4:25, without the article, ὅτιΜεσσίαςἔρχεται; therefore, directly as the nomen proprium of the Redeemer. In imitation of this is the mere Χριστός here, instead of ὁΧριστός. The formula, ὅἐστιμεθερμηνευόμενον, is found first in Matthew 1:23; then in Mark 5:41; Mark 15:22; Mark 15:34. In John only here. Luke uses it in Acts 4:36. Ver. 42. “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, Peter.” On the words. Thou art Simon the son of Jona, P. Anton remarks, in harmony with many other of the older expositors: “A testimony to the omniscience of Jesus. He had never before known or spoken to either Simon or his father.” But this is improbable. It is likely that he who brought him to Jesus also introduced him to Jesus. What Simon is, is said rather only to connect with it what he shall be. The commonplace names, which he had hitherto borne, Simon the son of Jona, stand in contrast to the significant ones which he now receives. In the Old Testament also, when a new name is given, the old name is generally placed before it, in order to render the contrast the more striking. So in Genesis 32:28, “And He said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed:” then Genesis 17:5, “Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham,”—passages which appertain here the more, since Jesus here evidently, in the giving of names, takes the position which Jehovah had occupied under the Old Covenant, and has in view these Old Testament namings. Cf. besides, Matthew 16:17-18, where Jesus in like manner opposes to each other the new name, Peter, and the old one, Simon Bar-Jona. Instead of Ἰωνᾶ, is found in several critical authorities Ἰωάνου, which Lachmann prefers; in others, Ἰωάννου. If we go on the common hypothesis, that in Matthew 16 the name Jonas is identical with that of the prophet Jonah, ιεπδ, dove, we shall reject these readings without further discussion, and must explain their origin in this way,—that the less bold copyists made Ἰωάνης out of Ἰωνᾶς, in order to approximate it more to the better known Ἰωάννης, which the bolder ones directly wrote. A contradiction between Matthew and John with respect to the name of Peters father is scarcely to be presumed; and the numerous and important testimonies in favour of the reading Jona, receive by this consideration increased importance. But the hypothesis is subject to well-grounded suspicions; and from these it seems highly probable, that the name Jona in Matthew has nothing to do with the name of the prophet, but is rather a mere abbreviation of the name ιδεηπο. 1. It is a striking fact, that the name Jonah never occurs elsewhere in the whole of the Old Testament. This is of the more significance, since there were other names of prophets Habakkuk, Malachi, Haggai—which were withdrawn from more general use,—a circumstance which is to be explained from the fact, that these names were not such as were given to the respective persons at their birth, but were sacred and official names, which they afterwards assumed. The name Jonah, dove, was also excellently adapted for such a sacred use. 2. It would not presumably be otherwise, than that so long a name as Jehochanan should undergo many abbreviations, the rather as this name was particularly frequent,—there are a whole multitude of Jehochanans in the Old Testament. And we really find such abbreviations. In 2 Chronicles 28:12, the name Jehochanan is rendered in the LXX. by Ἰωάνης; in Luke 3:30, the name Ἰωνάν is without doubt to be traced to Jehochanan; even Ἰωνά itself is to be found in 2 Kings 25:23. According to this, we must in Matthew 16 alter the accent, and suppose that the name of Simons father has nothing to do with that of the prophet Jonah. Whether in John the name was written Ἰωνά, as in Matthew, or whether John used Ἰωάνου, as coming nearer to the original form of the name, may be left undecided. Jesus does not say to Simon: Thou art Peter, as He says “to Nathanael, Behold an Israelite, etc.; but. Thou shalt be called Peter; thou shalt in the future make thyself known as such. Calvin: “Ohristus Simoni nomen imponit, non, ut fieri solet inter homines, ex preterito aliquo eventu, vel ex eo, quod jam cernitur: sed quia Petrum facturus ipsum erat.” There was certainly already in the natural gifts of Peter a basis for that, which he was to become through God’s grace. By the rock, λιτΰ, is here to be understood firmness. Cf . Ezekiel 3:9, “As an adamant, harder than flint (rock), have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks;” and the contrast of rock and sand in Matthew 7:24-26. At the time when John wrote, this prophecy had already been fully verified. Peter had already manifested his rock-like nature, even to a martyr’s death. The fall of Peter is no instance to the contrary. He would not have been led into so severe a temptation, if he had not had the power, though yielding at first, to sustain it. Our Lord expressly predicts, that the nature of the rock will be verified again immediately after the fall. Luke 22:32, καὶσύποτεἐπιστρέψαςστήρισοντοὺςἀδελφούςσου. He who is to strengthen and confirm his brethren, must himself be distinguished above them by firmness and character. The temptation of Peter presupposes rather his rock-like nature. He was to be freed from the shadow, purified from the stains which consort with such an idiosyncrasy,—from self-confidence, want of humility, over-hasty advance, and uncharitable judgments. As to the rest, this bestowal of a name stands in a like relation to that which took place under the Old Covenant with regard to Abraham, Isaac, Israel, Josiah, and Korah. Jesus does here that which Jehovah did under the Old Dispensation. We have still to take into view the relation of our passage to Matthew 4:18-22. In the general, Luther has already correctly determined this: “John the Evangelist does not speak of the calling of the Apostles, but that they had joined themselves to Christ merely as companions, and had gone about with Him, while He in a friendly manner associated with the people. . . . They went away again, and returned to their homes, when they had formed a friendship and acquaintance with Him; they had not yet become Christ’s disciples, or been called thereto. But after this, Christ comes to the Sea of Galilee, journeys about there, and calls them to be His Apostles. . . . John does not this time speak of the calling, but only of the intelligence that Christ was an affable man, who made friendships with every one, so that the people gladly followed Him. But Matthew speaks only of the calling of the Apostles, and passes by their acquaintance, of which John speaks.” It is objected, that it is clear from John 2:2; John 2:12, that even here the disciples were called to a constant following of Christ. But we are not justified in generalizing, without further reason, what is there said. The passages do not exclude the supposition, that the disciples at the same time applied themselves to their calling, and went about with Christ. It is not asserted in Matthew 4:18-22, that the disciples from that time forward gave up entirely their lower calling, and acted constantly with Jesus, or under His command. This has been assumed only because the reference of this passage to Ezekiel 47 has been misunderstood,—the prophecy being said to be here, as it were, represented scenically. In order to indicate that they were comprehended in its fulfilment, the disciples must have immediately relinquished their employment, in which we find them occupied again afterwards, even still after the resurrection. According to the prophecy of Ezekiel, one of the most remarkable of the Old Testament, the bad water of the Dead Sea, the world, is to be healed by the water which conies from the sanctuary. “And it shall come to pass,” it is said in vers. 9, 10, “that everything that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers (marg. two rivers, equivalent to, great flood) shall come, shall live; and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed. And it shall come to pass, that fishers shall stand upon it (the Dead Sea, the symbol of the world dead and ruined in sins), from Engedi even unto En-Eglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets: their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many.” On this prophecy are based not only the occurrence of the text, but Peters miraculous draught of fishes, connected with it, according to Luke, in the interpretation of which our Lord says, “Henceforth thou shalt catch men,” Luke 5:10; Peters miraculous draught of fishes after the resurrection, John 21; and the parable of the net which was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind. Moreover, Matthew 4:18-22, far from contradicting what is here related, in various relations presupposes it. In John, it is not yet the apostolic ministry or calling which is the subject of narration, but singly and only the entering into a personal relation, the relation of the disciple to the Master, ver. 39. This latter must necessarily have preceded the calling to the ministry, which alone is spoken of in Matthew. The address to Simon Peter and Andrew, Δεῦτεὀπίσωμου, καὶποιήσωὑμᾶςἁλιεῖςἀνθρώπων, would have been an adventurous one, if a relation had not been previously entered into between them and Christ. On this point John’s Gospel is supplementary. That the connection was not then first formed, is also clear from the readiness with which John and James leave the ship and their father and follow Christ.—ΣίμωνατὸνλεγόμενονΠέτρον: the key to the origin of this surname is not given by Matthew; and yet such a key is requisite. In Matthew 16:18, Simon is already Peter. Finally, in this also is shown a friendly agreement, that these three disciples, who are here first called to follow Christ, are there also those to whom the call is first made to the apostolic ministry,—there being with them only James, the brother of John, whom we may suppose to have been his inseparable companion. It is very natural that those who were first called as disciples, should also be first chosen to be fishers of men, and that the Lord should choose them just at the time when He wishes to announce the impending fulfilment of the prophecy of Ezekiel. In vers. 43-51 follow the events of the fourth of the seven remarkable days, the calling of Philip and Nathanael. Ver. 43. “The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow Me.” Ver. 44. “Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.” By the word ἠθέλησεν it is intimated that Jesus had not yet commenced His journey, but was designing to enter on it. The real departure followed immediately on the calling of Philip. The latter was, doubtless, already prepared by Andrew and Peter. This seems to be already indicated in the purpose of the notice in ver. 44. If a connection had not thus been formed between Philip and Christ, the former could have made nothing of the words of Christ, “Follow Me,” with which he was immediately greeted. Philip also had certainly made a pilgrimage to the Baptist at the Jordan. Andrew and Peter had communicated to him the glad tidings, and had occasioned his being in the place, from which, after the address received, they were to set out with Jesus on their return to Galilee. The formula, ἀκολούθειμοι, refers, in the first place, to an external accession. This is shown with especial clearness by Matthew 9:9, where, after Jesus has said to Matthew, ἀκολούθειμοι, it is said, καὶἀναστὰςἠκολούθησεναὐτῷ: cf. Luke 5:28. The formula stands also of a spiritual following, in Matthew 16:24; John 8:12; John 12:26; John 21:19; John 21:22 (there of the same occurrence); Revelation 14:4. In the Old Testament, the phrase, to walk after, is used repeatedly of the relation to God and to idols; e.g., Deuteronomy 13:4, “Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear Him, and keep His commandments, and obey His voice, and ye shall serve Him, and cleave unto Him:” cf. Deuteronomy 1:36; Numbers 32:11-12. Here, in our text, the ἀκολούθειμοι refers chiefly to the external following; for it stands in unmistakeable reference to the preceding words, “He would go forth into Galilee.” We find the first disciples in the suite of Christ in John 2:11-12. Yet, behind the requisition of a bodily following is hidden that of a spiritual, which is the only object of the external following. On this account, it is not required by the ἀκολούθειμοι, that the external following be an entirely uninterrupted one. It is only commanded in so far as it is requisite for the object aimed at. Philip, as has been remarked, already knew of Christ, but the ἀκολούθειμοι gave the decisive turn to his life. Jesus proved Himself to be the searcher of hearts, who knew what was in man, John 2:25, by speaking the words, ἀκολούθειμοι, on the first meeting with one personally unknown to Him. At the time when John wrote, this judgment on the personality of Philip had already proved itself to be well founded. It must be remarked, that the ἠθέλησενἐξελθεῖνεἰςτὴνΓαλιλαίαν here, refers back to τότεπαραγίνεταιὁἸησοῦςἀπὸτῆςΓαλιλαίαςἐπὶτὸνἸορδάνην in Matthew 3:13. And further, that there were indeed two Bethsaidas, one in Galilee, and one on the east side of the Jordan, Luke 9:10; but that it was unnecessary to designate this one as that in Galilee, because this was generally known as the home of Peter. Ver. 45. “Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto, him, We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” It is not said where Philip found Nathanael. But since the fact belongs to the day of the departure for Galilee (Lampe, with perfect correctness, says, Inventionem hanc eodem die contigisse, quo Philippus vocatus erat, nexus temporum in nostro Evangelista requirit), we must not suppose that Philip met Nathanael first in his home at Cana (John 21:2, ΝαθαναὴλὁἀπὸΚανὰτῆςΓαλιλαίας). The expression also, Philip findeth Nathanael, intimates a meeting at a strange place, not on a visit to his home. And the fig-tree, in ver. 48, can scarcely have been one which shaded Nathanael’s own dwelling; for then the words of Jesus, in ver. 48, might have proceeded from a coincidence, and would not have made so deep an impression on Nathanael. It is probable that Nathanael also, belonging to the circle of those aroused by John, was returning home from the Jordan. He had set out before Jesus and his companions, and had halted somewhere on the way, aside from the road. Philip, who knew his manner of travelling, leaving his own company, seeks him there, in order to communicate to him the glad tidings, which he could not keep to himself, so deeply was his heart moved by them. The identity of Nathanael with the Apostle Bartholomew is now generally assumed. It rests on the following grounds: The calling of Nathanael follows here in the midst of those of real Apostles. He likewise appears surrounded by Apostles in John 21:1-2. The three first Evangelists never mention Nathanael; John never mentions Bartholomew. In John, Nathanael appears in connection with Philip; in the three first Gospels, Bartholomew is named together with Philip, and in such a manner that Philip comes first (cf. Matthew 10:3). Philip and Bartholomew are connected together in a pair, and are preceded by the same Apostles who are here called before Philip and Nathanael, with the addition only of James: Simon, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew. An argument for their identity is furnished also by Acts 1:13, where Bartholomew is connected with Matthew, The reason for this divergence from the lists of the Apostles in the Gospels, even in that of Luke himself, Luke 6:14, of. Mark 3:18, can scarcely be other than this, that the real name of Bartholomew, Nathanael, has the same meaning as the name of Matthew,—both names corresponding to the Greek Theodore, Gift of God. The original connection of Bartholomew with Philip is perceptible even here. Bartholomew is separated from Philip by the single insertion of Thomas. If we add to this, that Bartholomew, son of Tholmai, is not a real proper name, there can be no doubt with respect to the identity. It is certainly not, however, by chance that the thoughtful John uses the more significant name, which is verified even here. The reason why the first Evangelists did not make use of it is afforded by the fact, that already in the Old Testament seven different persons bear the name Nathanael. So frequent a name appeared insufficient to characterize a person to be thus indicated in the lists of the Apostles. In Philips designation of Jesus, as Him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, have written, we have probably an echo of the instruction which Jesus had imparted to His two first disciples, in their long conversation with Him, ver. 39, and which had come from them to Philip. That also may, perhaps, be said of this conversation which is found in Luke 24:27, καὶἀρξάμενοςἀπὸΜωϋσέωςκαὶἀπὸπάντωντῶνπροφητῶνδιερμήνευσεναὐτοῖςἐνπάσαιςταῖςγραφαῖςτὰπερὶαὐτοῦ. As Jesus reproaches the Jews, in John 5:46, εἰἐπιστεύετεΜωϋσεῖ, ἐπιστεύετεἂνἐμοί· περὶγὰρἐμοῦἐκεῖνοςἔγραψεν, it might be expected that with His disciples also He would employ this means of conviction before all others. Philip (and he, whom his declaration regards) had, doubtless, principally in view the passage from Moses, in Deuteronomy 18:15-19. For, except in this passage, a personal Messianic prophecy is contained only in Genesis 49:10; and the tokens of the Shiloh were much less evident in Jesus than those of the Prophet. We are led to this passage also by the prominence of Moses, which is much less in Genesis 49:10, and that of the law. Finally, this very passage was at that time, as a rule, interpreted of the Messiah, and attracted much attention. Cf. remarks on ver. 21. The plural, we have found, shows that Philip, as a believing confessor, knows himself to be a part of a whole. Philips designation of Jesus, as of Nazareth, the son of Joseph, is said, according to the current view, to show that he is not yet acquainted with Jesus as the Son of God, and knows nothing of the birth in Bethlehem. Anton, proceeding on this view, remarks: “Jesus was neither Joseph’s son, nor born in Nazareth. What was lacking to these people in knowledge, soon shows itself; but yet the Lord does not cast them off.” But this view is not necessary: Matthew also regards Jesus as the son of Joseph, in tracing His descent from David through Joseph; and Jesus must indeed be Joseph’s son, because otherwise the prophecy of the Old Testament, which traces His descent so expressly from David, would err in an essential point. Joseph, if not the natural, was yet the foster-father of Christ, through whom the latter was received and adopted into the family of David. That Jesus was the son of Joseph, can only be misapprehended, when paternity is very superficially restricted to the mere natural relation. Jesus was “of Nazareth,” notwithstanding His birth in Bethlehem. Here, where the chief concern was with the external particulars, the characterization of the person, the best manner of excluding any error with respect to the same, neither the conception of Jesus through the Holy Ghost, and His hidden deity, came into consideration, nor the transient residence of His parents in Bethlehem. But if the words do not necessitate the current view, we may fairly have some hesitation in adopting it. Philip can scarcely have considered Jesus as the mere son of Joseph; for he was doubtless one of the circle of the disciples of the Baptist, who proclaimed so expressly the superhuman nature of the Messiah; he had just received the instruction of Andrew and John, whom Christ had already, by His second word, ἔρχεσθεκαὶἴδετε there, pointed to His Divine nature; and to confirm this in them was, according to all analogies, the principal object of His conversation with them; and the ἔρχουκαὶἴδε, which Philip addresses to Nathanael, in ver. 46, in reference to that ἔρχεσθεκαὶἴδετε of the Saviour, shows that he had received into his heart the instruction which had come to him externally. On the second point, the incorrectness of the current view is still more evident. The “prophets,” to whom Philip so expressly appeals, predict so distinctly and plainly the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem, and this point was so clearly set forth in the Jewish theology of the time (cf. Matthew 2:4-5), that Philip could not possibly have expressed the conviction, that in Jesus he had found the Messiah, if he held Nazareth to be His birth-place, and not merely His place of residence, the starting-point of the journey in which he was then engaged. Ver. 46. “And Nathanael said unto him. Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.” The remark is founded on a misapprehension of the words of Nathanael, that he, and with him the public opinion, held the town to be immoral,—as Bengel says: “itaque multi ibi erant improbi.” It is not a good man, but a good thing, which is spoken of,—a grand appearance, which is to bring salvation to God’s people,—such a good thing, as the Son of God, the King of Israel. Cf. Isaiah 52:7 : “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good!” ξαωψθεα; Romans 10:15, τῶνεὐαγγελιζομένωντὰἀγαθά. Nathanael goes on the prejudice of the natural man, that greatness must have a natural foundation. It is only a spirit divinely instructed which expects greatness immediately from God, unconnected with human greatness, and can from the heart adopt the words of Psa 113:5-7, “Who is like unto the Lord our God, who raises Himself so high, and looks so low (has pleasure in the poor, lowly, and despised)? He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill.” On the above disposition of the natural man rests the prophetic announcement, that before the advent of the Saviour, God will extirpate all natural greatness and dignity from Israel, In order that the glory of His mercy may be undiminished. Christology ii. p. 126. Now, in Nazareth, the small despised place in despised Galilee (John 7:52), hallowed by no event in the past, unnamed in the Old Testament, or in Josephus, probably not founded till after the return from, the exile, perhaps still burdened with a special disgrace, there was nothing which could appropriately form a natural basis for the greatness of the Messiah; he who would have such a basis, must necessarily turn his gaze to Jerusalem, which at least afforded splendid ruins of former grandeur. If the Messiah must, according to the prophecy, be born in Bethlehem, yet He might not go from thence to the wretched town of Nazareth; He must, like His ancestor David, proceed to Jerusalem. Moreover, what Nathanael says is not a serious objection, but only the expression of wonder at the strange ways of God, which is put into this form: he does not assert that no good thing can come out of Nazareth; he only makes the query. P. Anton: “He asks, therefore, not that he may insist upon it, but because he has still an offensiunculum. Can indeed anything good come out of Nazareth? That would be something strange. There is a great difference between such prejudices as rest merely on a statu calamitoso, and such as are found in a statu malitieux, when the man is malitieux, has a dolum in them, and on this account seeks a proejudicium, that he may by a pretence free himself from Christ. This is malice; and such malice Nathanael had not.” Luther: “Nathanael is a good silly sheep; he says, What good thing can come out of Nazareth? If it came from Jerusalem, or from any other great city of Judaea, one might believe in it.” Luther goes on to show how Christ’s procedure, in the first calling of His disciples, was in contradiction to this prejudice of Nathanael: “He goes about the Jordan, through the wretched towns and villages, and picks from the whole people of Israel, those whom He regards as the best, and who are well-pleasing to Him, that they may serve Him in His kingdom. He collects together poor fishermen, and good thick blockheads; He does not summon to Him the mighty; as though He could not otherwise establish His kingdom, without having such mean people. And He does all this, that those who are high, wise, and mighty in the world may not think that it was they alone who belonged to Christ’s kingdom, and trample the others under their feet; but He wished to establish and found a kingdom and rule which should stand purely in God’s grace and mercy. Thus is the kingdom built up and preserved hitherto. He does not ask much after great kings, and mighty Lord’s, and great substance, which is so much esteemed elsewhere on earth.” We have already remarked, that the answer of Philip, Come and see, has reference to the words of Christ in ver. 39. Ver. 47. “Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and saith of him. Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” Jesus, in speaking of such as are Israelites indeed, “divides the people of Israel into two bands,” as Luther says. In such a separation, the Old Testament had already preceded. In Psalms 73:1 it is said: “Only good is God to Israel, to those who are of pure heart.” “The limiting clause, such as are of pure heart, shows that by Israel, the Psalmist understands only the election, the true Israelites, to the exclusion of the false seed, Isaiah 57:4,—the souls who, according to the expression of the law, are cut off from their people, even although they are found to be outwardly living in the midst of them.” According to Psalms 24:6, those only are Jacob who seek the face of the Lord, those who lead a life of prayer. In the New Testament, this separation branches out extensively. According to Romans 9:6, they are not all Israel who are of Israel; according to Romans 2:28-29, the character of a “Jew” consists not in outward circumcision, but necessarily involves the circumcision of the heart; in 1 Corinthians 10:18, the Jews of the present are designated as Jews according to the flesh, in contrast to the true spiritual Israel, ὁἸσραὴλτοῦθεοῦ, Galatians 6:16, which continues its existence from the Old Dispensation in the Christian Church. That which is corporeal can have only a subordinate meaning for the people of God: their being is in the region of the spiritual. That Ἰουδαῖος might stand here instead of Ἰσραηλίτης, is shown by Romans 2:28-29, and by Psalms 24:6, where those who do not seek God are excluded from Jacob. The distinction of the true and the false finds place in all the designations of the people of God. But, of course, Ἰσραηλίτης is the most suitable designation here. The name of Israel was given to the father of the race, by God Himself, in consequence of his being proved to possess the peculiar character of the people of God, which is, to wrestle and prevail with God in prayer. It became, in consequence of this origin, the highest, the peculiarly theological name, of the people. It was, therefore, that name which contained in itself a protest against those who made claim to the prerogatives of the people of God, without having any other connection with them than that of natural descent. In what the nature of a true Israelite consists, and on account of which Nathanael is designated as such, is indicated by our Lord in the words, ἐνᾧδόλοςοὐκἔστι. We are not to introduce into these words anything whereby Nathanael is excluded from the Lamb of God which bears the sin of the world. We should, moreover. anticipate that the Saviour has reference to some passage of the Old Testament, in which freedom fromδόλος is represented as pertaining to the peculiar nature of the people of God. Both claims are satisfied by the supposition, that Jesus has here specially in view Psalms 32:2, where he is pronounced blessed, “in whose spirit there is no guile.” LXX. μακάριοςἀνήρ, οὗοὐμὴλογίσηταικύριοςἁμαρτίαν, οὐδὲἔστινἐντῷστόματιαὐτοῦδόλος. “The succeeding context contains an explanation, as to where it is that the guile lies. As the results of it, we find mention made of ‘keeping silence,’ of ‘not making known,’ of ‘hiding iniquity,’ and of ‘not confessing transgression.’ This guile, this want of inward truth, which denies, extenuates, excuses, or seeks to apologize, is inconsistent with the blessedness of forgiveness extolled by David, which is vouchsafed only for sins acknowledged and confessed.” If δόλος is thus taken, the declaration of the text is in striking connection with the pointing of the Baptist to the Lamb of God who bears the sins of the world. Freedom from guile in this sense, does not render the forgiveness of sin superfluous, but is the condition of obtaining it. Δόλος in this sense, was then the fundamental disease of the people. Nathanael, as one in whom was no δόλος, was the contrary of the Pharisees, who, by exercising δόλος, concealed their true character from themselves and others, as ὑποκριταὶ, Matthew 6:16, cf. Matthew 23:27, ὅτιπαρομοιάζετετάφοιςκεκονιαμένοις, οἵτινεςἔξωθενμὲνφαίνονταιὡραῖοι, ἔσωθενδὲγέμουσινὀστέωννεκρῶνκαὶπάσηςἀκαθαρσίας. The guile is known by this, that one justifies himself in opposition to the real state of his heart, Luke 16:15. The publican was free from guile, when he said, God be merciful to me a sinner; the Pharisee was full of guile, when he said, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men. Lampe correctly remarks, that Jesus wished at the same time, “characterem hunc veri Israelismi statim tuni ab initio discipulis suis inculcare in aetate tam perverso.” By recognising with fixed certainty this hidden qnahty of heart in Nathanael, which can be imitated so naturally by hypocrites, Jesus proved Himself to be the searcher of hearts, for the consolation of all upright, and the terror of all impure souls. Quesnel: “The light of Jesus Christ penetrates everything. It is a consolation to the simple, that He knows the uprightness of their heart; and it must be a terror to the double and false heart, that the duplicity and arts of their spirit cannot be hidden from Him.” Ver. 48. “Nathanael saith unto Him, Whence knowest Thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him. Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee.” In the question of Philip is already seen the dawning recognition of the superhuman nature of Jesus. The latter did not answer the question directly, but by the presentation of a fact, from which the answer might be derived. That His declaration did not proceed from human, physiognomical and psychological acuteness, is shown by the circumstance, that He proves Himself to be acquainted with a situation of Nathanael which He could not have known at all in a human manner. When Philip called Nathanael, he chanced to be just then under a fig-tree. The article stands generically, to distinguish the fig-tree from any other kind of tree. Nathanael was on his journey from the Jordan to Cana. The fig-tree stood without doubt by the way, ἐπὶτῆςὁδοῦ, Matthew 21:19, and served him for a resting-place. It has been incorrectly concluded, from ver. 30, that ὄνταὑπὸτὴνσυκῆν does not belong to φωνῆσαι, but to εἶδόνσε. That Jesus saw Nathanael under the fig-tree, remains true, even if the words ὄνταὑπὸτὴνσυκῆν are taken with the preceding. This, however, is necessary, because, otherwise, the time when Nathanael was under the fig-tree would not be exactly determined, and yet the determination of the moment was a necessary part of the case. Nathanael was under the fig-tree when Philip called him. Jesus saw him there before he received information of Him through Philip. His look went in advance of His messenger. This must have struck Philip in the highest degree, and have opened his heart to the impression of the Divine majesty, which was radiated from the whole personality of Jesus. Quesnel: “A beginning of grace, which may appear small in the eyes of men, is capable of drawing us entirely to God, if He spreads abroad His light and His love in the heart.” Nathanael knew from the instruction of Philip, that Jesus declared Himself to be the Son of God; and the present fact must have reminded him of Psa 139:1-3, “O Lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising; Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou remarkest my path, and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.” To many expositors, the fact, as it lies before us, has been inconvenient, and they have subtilized about it, in order to bring it into harmony with their presuppositions. The seeing here, seems to them too gross: they substitute for it an internal perception. Even Bengel remarks: “Admonetur Nathanael de cogitationibus, quas tum habuerit vere Israeliticas et a dolo immunes.” And Lόcke says: “What astonishes him is only this, that Jesus, by a look from a distance, has inwardly known him.” But there is nothing at all said of an internal perception. Lόcke himself says: “εἶδόν, according to the regular usage of the New Testament, also has the meaning of seeing, not of knowing.” No one will venture to assert, with. Meyer, “A common Jew Jesus would not have seen.” Even the prophecies of the Old Testament afford analogies to seeing in the most common sense. Samuel condescends so low as to make discoveries to Saul concerning his lost asses, 1 Samuel 9:20; 1 Samuel 10:2, and concerning other, in themselves, unimportant circumstances, John 10:3-4, which have their significance only as signs, to render him willing to follow the authority of the prophet in important matters. Luther recognised fully the correct point of view, representing Nathanael as saying to Christ: “Since Thou hast seen me sitting under the fig-tree, Thou must be able to do more.” Ver. 49. “Nathanael answered and saith unto Him, Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God; Thou art the King of Israel.” Though the fact was so trifling in appearance, it yet formed a sufficient basis for the confession of Nathanael, and he would have belonged to the number of those whom the Lord designates, in Luke 24:25, as βραδεῖςτῇκαρδίᾳτοῦπιστεύειν, if he had not by this means attained to such a confession. In itself, such a supernatural intelligence might certainly have dwelt even in a prophet. The prophets are not called seers without cause. But here the declarations of Jesus Himself are added to those of the Baptist; and on these declarations the seal of truth is impressed by this sign. We are not to conclude from the words, σὺβασιλεὺςεἶτοῦἸσραήλ, that the expression σὺεἶὁυἱὸςτοῦθεοῦ is to be taken in diminished significance, as a mere name of the Messiah. (Even Luther remarks, “I hold that he calls Him in a simple manner, a son of God, as we call a pious holy man, a man of God; and that, therefore, also Nathanael speaks of Him as of a prophet.”) The Old Testament teaches most distinctly, that the King of Israel, the Messiah, is far exalted above the human stage. This teaching is contained also in that Psalm in which the two designations of Messiah, as King and as Son of God, occur together, and indeed in immediate juxtaposition, Psalms 2:6-7, and in which these two designations have their root. The Son of God appears in ver. 12 as He, a trust in whom brings salvation, whose wrath is destruction, and who is therefore raised above the sphere of man: “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish in the way, for soon will His wrath be kindled. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.” Delitzsch would refer all, from “lest He be angry,” to Jehovah. But in this, the reference to ver. 9 has been left out of account, where God says to the Anointed: “Thou shalt break them with a sceptre of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” It is manifest, that the Psalmist warns the rebels not to expose themselves to the destructive judgments to be executed by the Anointed: q.d., “Lest He break you with the sceptre of iron, and dash you in pieces like pottery.” In Isaiah 9:6, the great future King of Israel bears the name of God-hero, the hero who is God [Eng. Vers. “The mighty God”]; who is, therefore, infinitely raised above all human heroes. Jesus would not have attributed faith to Nathanael, if the latter had not raised himself above the purely human sphere. Faith moves always in the superterrestrial region. But we have beforehand no reason to weaken the significance of Nathanael’s confession to the Son of God. Man was placed so low in the Old Testament, that a mere man could procure but little according to the Israelitish conception. That which was expected from the future King of Israel, was far beyond the sphere of man. We are here in the circle of those who had been excited by the Baptist. But he had insisted in the strongest manner on the superhuman nature of the Messiah: After me comes a man who was before me, whose shoe-latchet I am not worthy to unloose. The Messiah appears as King of Israel, besides in Psalms 2, and Isaiah 9:6, also in Jeremiah 23:5-6 : “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and He shall reign as King, and shall prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is His name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR .” And in Zechariah 9:9 : “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.” When Nathanael designates the Messiah as King of Israel, it surely does not occur to him to assign to Him a limited dominion. The King of Israel is rather, according to Psalms 2 and Psalms 72:8, at the same time, as such, the King over the whole earth. The heathen are joined to Israel in consequence of the advent of their King; cf. Isaiah 2:3; Zechariah 8:23; but especially Isaiah 44:5, where it is predicted, that in the Messianic times there would take place an admission of born heathens into the kingdom of God on the grandest scale: “One shall say, I am the Lord’s; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and shall boast the name of Israel.” Also Isaiah 56:3; Isaiah 56:6-7; Ezekiel 47:22-23. To this grand adoption corresponds the grand exclusion, to which our Lord indirectly refers in ver. 47, by the distinction of true Israel without, and of false with, δόλος. Sinners, according to Psalms 1, cannot stand in the congregation of the righteous; and it is essential to the kingdom of Christ, to undertake the separation between the true and the false seed. Ver. 50. “Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig-tree, thou believest: thou shalt see greater things than these.” We have no reason to take πιστεύεις interrogatively. It is a simple statement. Luther: “Thou believest in Me for this single work and miracle, that I stand here, and thou art far from Me, and hearest that I saw thee, and believest that I am the person whom the prophets have foretold.” With the words, μείζωτούτωνὄψει, cf. Psalms 71:19, where Israel says, “Who hast done great things: O God, who is like unto Thee!” and ver. 21, “Thou increasest my greatness,” the great deeds which are done for me. Ver. 51. “And He saith unto him. Verily, verily, I say unto you. Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” By the repeated Amen, which is found in the Old Testament, Numbers 5:22, where the woman suspected of adultery is to answer to the curse. Amen, amen, and in Nehemiah 8:6, Jesus makes Himself known as the “faithful witness,” Revelation 1:5,—as the unconditionally credible, who speaks that which He knows, and testifies that which He has seen: John 3:11. It is the expression of decided Plerophoria, which can flow only from the most intimate communion with God. The double Amen is found only in the discourses of Christ in John. Matthew, Mark, and Luke have less regarded the significance of the repetition. As Bengel remarks, the difference is particularly apparent in the parallel passages. Cf. Matthew 26:21; Matthew 26:34; John 13:21; John 13:38. On the words, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Lampe remarks: “Jesus by this formula places Himself in contrast to all the prophets, who commonly appeal to the Lord with the formulas λδΰξψιδεδ or πΰνιδεδ, by which they declare that they do not speak on their own authority, but on that of Him who sends them. From such a mode of expression our Lord invariably abstains, and says always. He speaks, in order to intimate that He is that Jehovah who had spoken by the prophets.” In the words, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, etc., Jesus refers quite unmistakeably to the vision of the heavenly ladder which Jacob, according to Genesis 38, had in Bethel. The vision, the interpretation of which is given immediately afterwards by the Lord in the Word—the discourse of the Lord forms the commentary to the vision—is granted to Jacob not as an individual, but as the head and representative of the chosen race. It has therefore its highest truth in Christ. In that it far transcends the lifetime of Jacob, it shows already that “in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Only when this is the case, has the vision fully proved its significance. The opened heaven, which, according to Quesnel, signifies that the intercourse between heaven and earth is to be re-established, is, judging from the expression here and in the other passages of the New Testament Matthew 3:16; Acts 7:55; Acts 10:11—taken primarily from Ezekiel 1:1, the only passage of the Old Testament where the opening of the heaven is mentioned: “Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year—that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.” But the thing itself existed already in that event of the early times, in which was typified the Providence of God ruling over His Church. Jacob says in Genesis 28:17, “This is the gate of heaven.” When it is said, Hereafter ye shall see the heaven opened, Christ refers us to our wretched and lamentable condition before Him and without Him. To have heaven closed, is for man the deepest calamity, so certainly as he is created in the image of God, and therefore can have happiness only in communion with his Original. In immediate connection with the opening of heaven is the ascending and descending of the angels. It is striking that the ascending precedes the descending. This manifestly refers to the original passage, Genesis 28:12, “And behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.” (That the ladder of the original passage is not mentioned here, shows that it has no independent significance, that it comes into consideration only as means to an end, and belongs only to the vision as such.) Every explanation of the matter must therefore be declined which does not at the same time harmonize with the original passage. If this is regarded, the reason for placing the ascension first may be sought in this only, that the angels would naturally first bear the supplications up to God, and then bring down the answer and aid. So Luther: “The dear angels take our prayer up to heaven, and bring us back the message that our prayer is heard.” It corresponds to the “ascending,” when in Revelation 8:3-4, an angel offers the incense of the prayers of the saints on the altar; and it corresponds to the “descending,” when the angel, in ver. 5, is commissioned by God to cast down fire on the earth for persecuting His Church. Lόcke remarks: “He who understands the passage of the angelic appearances at the birth, the death, the resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, does not understand it at all.” And yet any one may see that these facts are comprehended in the declaration before us. For the very reason that these facts are included, the angels cannot possibly, without further explanation, be the “symbol of the uninterrupted revelation of God, of the liveliest, most intimate communion between God and the Messiah.” On the other hand, it is clear that we are not to restrict the declaration of Jesus to those angelic appearances. The circumstance, that in the original passage we have before us a vision, indicates that we are to distinguish between the thought and its form. The correct explanation is as follows: The thought of the special providence of God ruling over the Church gains plastic vividness of conception by the representation, that those who are variously employed in the service of Divine Providence ascend and descend upon the ladder. Now, Jesus has, in the first instance, proper angels in view; but these not in opposition to the other modes of Divine revelation, but as the representatives of Divine revelations and communications in general. The representation, therefore, is not a typical or symbolical, but is rather an individualizing one. The whole is represented by a conspicuous part. The angels descend on the Son of man, as they ascend from Him. Jesus designates Himself as the Son of man, after deducting the parallel passages, fifty-five times. The designation refers throughout to Daniel 7:13-14. In Daniel, the indication of the heavenly majesty is connected with the appearance of the Messiah as the Son of man. This connection our Lord has in view here, as also in a whole series of other passages. The designation has, in such passages, an apologetic significance. It concedes what is evident, but points at the same time to the hidden background of majesty. Cf. Christology iii. p. 84. So here the phrase, upon the Son of man, is equivalent to, upon Me, who, in spite of My appearance in lowliness and likeness to men, am yet the Son of God, and shall be shown to be such by the descent of the angels. The Son of man continues His existence in the Church founded by Him, with which He is always to the end of the world, and from and upon which the angels are continually ascending and descending. In chap. John 2:1-11, follows now the first revelation of the glory of Jesus, at Cana in Galilee. This fact stands in unmistakeable connection with John 1:51, as even Bengel perceived: “Tertio die, post promissum datum John 1:51. Nunc ostenditur specimen.” That which Jesus had there placed in prospect, here first receives its fulfilment; and Nathanael himself, to whom, as a representative of the other disciples, the ὄ ?øåóèå was first directed, was an eyewitness thereof. The connection is apparent also in John 2:3. The declaration of Jesus in John 1:51, forms without doubt the foundation for the saying of Mary. Ver. 1. “And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there.” On the third day, therefore on the seventh from ver. 19; the first in ver. 19-28, the second in ver. 29-34, the third in ver. 35-42, the fourth in ver. 43-51. The third day can only be the third day from the end of the day on which Nathanael came to Jesus. For the days from ver. 19-51 are always complete days. Add to this, that only thus do we gain sufficient time for the journey from Bethabara to Cana. This required at least three days. For the distance in a straight line, and disregarding deviations, amounted to twenty leagues; and if Nazareth was three days journey from Jerusalem (Von Raumer, S. 120), we certainly cannot assume a less time for the journey from Bethabara to Cana. In this journey was occupied first the fourth of the single days designated, on which, according to ver. 43, the departure to Nazareth took place; then two days, which passed by without event, until the third day after this fourth arrived. We have thus a heptade of days, which are divided into four and three. The same division occurs also in the Apocalypse, especially in the case of the seals and trumpets, together with that of three and four with respect to the epistles and the vials. In one or the other of these modes the number seven is there usually divided. In the Gospel, the division of the heptade by the three and four is found in John 21:2. We are not, in the case of such things, to be ready directly with the charge of “trifling.” It is important, first of all, to perceive the matter of fact; and to this, a too rashly-formed judgment is only obstructive. But why is not Nature also brought under the charge of trifling, since in her the number plays a not less important part than in Holy Scripture? The marriage lasted apparently only one day. Otherwise it could not, without further specification, be ascribed to the third day. Weddings of seven days were of themselves out of question in needy circumstances. Since the appearance of Robinsons Journey (iii. 443-49), it is now generally assumed that the New Testament Cana is not the Kefr (village) Kenna, lying a league and a half to the south-east of Nazareth, but Kαna el Jelil, situated three leagues to the N.N.E. So also Ritter (Erdkunde 15, 1, S. 389; 16, 1, S. 753 sq.). But this assumption is open to not unimportant objections. Of more importance still, than that Kefr Kenna is nearer to Nazareth, in the neighbourhood of which we must look for Cana, is the circumstance, that the addition, τῆςΓαλιλαίας, cannot here be a constituent part of the name, but is made only by John. It stands here in connection with the other topographical notices, πέραντοῦἸορδάνου, John 1:28; ἠθέλησενἐξελθεῖνεἰςτὴνΓαλιλαίαν, in ver. 43. The place itself could not need the addition, since there was no Cana out of Galilee. The Cana in the tribe of Asher, mentioned in Joshua 19:28, was also in Galilee, but had probably long since disappeared. This being the case, the name Kana el Jelil cannot have been the original one. It probably proceeded from a mere combination. Kefr Kenna is the only Cana whose existence is really assured, and to which we must therefore provisionally adhere. Jerome knows of only one Cana: “Et est hodie oppidulum in Galilaea gentium.” In the alleged Kana el Jelil there is no native population at all, which could have preserved the ancient name of the place. It is a mere ruin; and ruins are patient, and allow themselves to be named as people wish to name them. On the words, “and the mother of Jesus was there,” Luther remarks: “It appears that these were her poor nearest friends, that she had to be a mother to the bride; for she takes upon herself the management, as if she were specially in fault, when she sees want.” The supplementary character of the Gospel of John is seen in this, that he never mentions the name of the mother of Jesus, but rather presupposes it as known from the first Gospels. From the fact, that neither here nor in what follows mention is ever made of Joseph, it has been rightly concluded that he was already deceased. Ver. 2. “And both Jesus was called and His disciples to the marriage.” The mother of Jesus was already there when this invitation was made. It seems that Jesus and His disciples came to seek her there, and were then invited. The deficiency may have arisen, in part, from the unexpected increase in the number of the guests. The love had surpassed the ability. It is not unimportant for our judgment of the remedy, that the need had been produced in part by Jesus Himself. The bridal pair was doubtless a God-fearing one. Otherwise, the mother of Jesus would not have interested herself so much in them, and Jesus also would have declined the invitation. The invitation to Jesus and His disciples, at least those five whose conversion is described in the previous chapter (Lampe: “qui magnifacit Jesum, illi etiam discipuli ejus grati sunt”), proceeded, as it seems, from a germinant faith, and had the same source as the invitation of Abraham to his three heavenly guests. They would rather expose themselves to be put to shame, than let Jesus and His disciples go. The ready willingness with which Jesus accepts the invitation to the marriage, for Himself and His disciples, forms a contrast to the severe mode of life of John the Baptist: cf. Matthew 11:19. Olshausen: “The first disciples of Christ were all originally disciples of the Baptist. His manner of life—rigid, penitential austerity, and solitary abode in the desert—naturally appeared to them the only one that was right. What a contrast for them, when the Messiah, to whom the Baptist himself had pointed them, takes them first of all to a marriage!” Jesus brings with Him new supernatural powers, in possession of which His disciples need not anxiously avoid contact with worldly affairs, but by which they are to overcome and sanctify them. The renunciation of the world is indicated and commanded only, so long as such powers do not yet exist. But it was of importance to indicate that marriage and married life are capable of such sanctification; it was of value for all times of the Church to make a protest against those who regard the conjugal state as a profane one,—a mode of consideration of which we find germs even in the apostolic age, 1 Timothy 4:3. Moreover. we must regard the time at which Jesus accepts the invitation to the marriage. Bengel has aheady, with perfect correctness, remarked: “magna facilitas Domini: nuptiis interest primo tempore, dum discipulos allicit, per severiores inde vias progressurus ad crucem, in gloriam.” Jesus would hardly have taken His disciples to a marriage shortly before His passion. When, in Matthew 9:15, He says, with respect to His disciples, “But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast,” we may assume, that even when this time was immediately before them, Jesus would not have taken His disciples to such occasions as those at which life is presented from the more cheerful side. In that first time, however, the acceptance of the invitation to the marriage appears the more suitable, since this, together with its independent significance, has also a high value as a symbol and adumbration. Christ was not here the bridegroom; but the marriage, according to a conception naturalized by the Song of Songs, and widely extended in the New Testament, appears to be a representation of the relation of Christ to His Church, a type of the marriage of the Lamb. Cf. John 3:29; Matthew 9:15; Matthew 22:1-14; Matthew 25:10; Ephesians 5:32; Revelation 19:7; Revelation 22:17; Revelation 21:2; Revelation 21:9. This symbolic dignity of marriage and married life presupposes its independent dignity. Only a sacred condition, only a venerable ordinance of God, can be an adumbration of the highest and holiest of all relations. Ver. 3. “And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto Him, They have no wine.” That the meaning is, Jesus should procure wine, and this in a superhuman manner, and that therefore ideas like those of Bengel, according to which Mary requests Jesus to go away (“velim discedas, ut caeteri item discedant, antequam penuria patefiat”), and of Meyer, “She wished Jesus in general to apply some remedy, which might be done in the most natural way (by procuring more wine),” are to be unconditionally rejected, is shown by the answer of Jesus. If Mary had desired only what was usual, she would have made her request more plainly, and she would not have immediately understood the gentle hint of Christ in ver. 5. Only when her mind was already filled with thoughts of miraculous aid, could she have perceived, behind the apparent refusal, the hidden consent. Mary certainly could have had such thoughts only, if she had kept in her faithful heart what had been said to her by the angel, especially, “He shall be called the Son of God,” Luke 1:35; further, the message of the shepherds, of which it is said in Luke 2:19, ἡδὲΜαριὰμπάντασυνετήρειτὰῥήματαταῦτασυμβάλλουσαἐντῇκαρδίᾳαὐτῆς, and the prophecy of Simeon, etc. According to Luke 2:51, she kept all these sayings in her heart. John, by giving an account of the proposal of Mary, confirms the history of the childhood of Jesus, which he passes over. because here his predecessors Matthew and Luke had left no material for supplementation. With reference to the later time, P. Anton says, “She had had Him about her thirty years. How many conversations must they have held, together with diligent investigation of the prophets in comparison with present circumstances!” It is, however, yet to be explained how it is that Mary comes forward just now with such a definite expectation. This is doubtless founded in the fact, that she had just received from the disciples of Jesus, whose very existence was an important symptom, intelligence of the things which had occurred at the Jordan, and especially of the sayings of Jesus to Nathanael, “Thou shalt see greater things than these;” and, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, etc.” She wishes and hopes that these words, which do not to no purpose immediately precede the narrative of the marriage at Cana, may here be verified; she wishes and hopes this the more, since the whole appearance of Jesus doubtless makes on her the impression of a previous great change. The words, “They have no wine,” are very characteristic. The mother of Jesus has herself the feeling of the impropriety of her request. She does not dare to express it directly; she only gently hints it, by calling attention to the need. So great is her reverence for her son. Luther: “Here behold this in His mother: she feels and complains to Him of the want, desires help and counsel from Him, with humble and modest proposals. For she does not say,” Dear Son, get us wine; but. They have no wine. By this she touches His goodness, that she has recourse entirely to Him. As if she would say. He is so good and gracious, that I may not ask Him; I will only show Him what is wanting.” Lampe points out how these words are a monument of Mary’s noblest virtues—her faith, her humility, and discretion. “But, together with these good qualities, there was yet something which displeased the Lord.” The Berleb. Bibel: “Inward, however, is the need of wine, if all sanctity and strength that remained to the soul are quite lost, and all that remained to it of support is taken away.” Ver. 4. “Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.” Jesus will do what Mary desires, but He will not do it for her sake, and in such a manner that she may suppose that thus hereafter He will serve her at her behest. It is not yet done, because His hour is not yet come; and when it is done, it will be done not because she has requested it, but because now the hour is come. The formula, What to me and thee? [What have I to do with thee?] stands always where a relation had in view by the other party, or already come to life, is rejected as improper, whether it be a friendly or an inimical one. In the very nature of the case, the formula always includes a censure. With this expression, “What to me and to you?” David, in 2 Samuel 16:10, refuses the sons of Zeruiah, when they urge him to take vengeance on Shimei. In 1 Kings 17:18, the woman says to Elijah, when her child is dead, “What to me and to thee, O thou man of God? thou hast come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son.” She thus renounces to the prophet the relation which had existed between them, and requests him to depart. In 2 Kings 3:13, Elisha answers to the proposal which the king of Israel makes to him, “What to me and to thee? Get thee to the prophets of thy father.” According to Judges 11:12, Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the children of Ammon, saying, “What to me and to thee, that thou art come against me to fight in my land?” In Matthew 8:29, the demoniacs say to Jesus, “What to us and to Thee, Thou Son of God?” This mode of speech is peculiarly an Israelitish one. Of the analogies adduced from classical literature, only one saying corresponds with this, viz., that of a Stoic in Gellius, who, on being asked by another at a shipwreck, whether shipwreck were an evil, gave him a blow with a stick and said, “What to us and to thee, man? we are perishing, and do you still want to joke?” (τίἡμῖνκαὶσοι, ἄνθρωπε; ἀπολλύμεθα, καὶσυθέλωνπαίζεις;) The address γύναι. Woman, agrees with the words, What to Me and to thee? (Bengel: “Imprimis huie formulae non congruebat matris appellatio.”) Jesus indicates by this, that in the concerns of His calling He is not subject to the fifth commandment, in harmony with Deuteronomy 33:9, where it is made the duty of the servants of the sanctuary to say to their father and mother, “I see them not;” and in harmony with the Decalogue, where the commandment to honour parents, occupies, in relation to those which immediately regard our position towards God, an unconditionally subordinate position. Luther: “Although there is no greater power on earth than the power of father and mother, yet it is entirely at an end, when God’s word and work are concerned.” Jesus addresses His mother by γύναι also in John 19:26; but there also this address is for a definite reason. Calvin, with perfect correctness, remarks: “Hac Christi voce palam constat denuntiari hominibus, ne nominis materni honorem superstitiose in Maria evehendo, quae Dei propria sunt, in ipsam transferant. Sic ergo matrem Christus alloquitur, ut perpetuam et communem seculis omnibus doctrinam tradat, ne immodicus matris honor Divinam suam gloriam obscuret.” Since Jesus straightway proceeds to work, the words, “Mine hour is not yet come,” can mean only, until now Mine hour was not yet come. Mine hour can, from the connection, be only equivalent to, the hour, when it is suitable for Me to remedy the present need. This expression, The hour is come, occurs in the sayings of Jesus in John, and in the usage of the Evangelist himself, copied from them, with especial frequency; and indications of the significance of the hour are common also to the Apocalypse with the Gospel, John 9:15, John 14:7; John 14:15. But that the expression, which always has reference to Ecclesiastes 3:1, “Everything has its hour,” does not take its origin in the independent usage of John, is shown by the saying of our Lord in Matthew 26:45, ἰδοὺἤγγικενἡὥρα. This mode of speech intimates the fact, that like all things else (John 16:21), so also especially Jesus, His actions and the events of His life (John 16:2; John 16:4), are under a Divine necessity, which must be submitted to unconditionally, and ever regarded obediently, resignedly, joyfully. The Berleburger Bibel says, “The whole doctrine of the Divine tarryings and the Divine moment lies herein concealed.” It seems that Jesus spoke these words for the ears of the servants. But Mary is not misled by them. Her love is so great, that she regards her own repulse as nothing. She takes only the one thing in view, that Jesus is willing to do what she has requested Him, even if not because she has requested Him. But why is Jesus so ready to remedy the need? If on another occasion there had occurred a deficiency of wine, He certainly would not have exerted His miraculous power. But here He interposes for the honour of the marriage, to remedy the deep shame which the bridal party must have experienced, if they had not been able for their day of honour to provide that which belonged to the honour of the day. Even if there were no real need, yet it is a very embarrassing perplexity, extending in its consequences over the whole life, if one is to come into disgrace on such a day, not only before the guests, but also before the whole place. It is right comforting to know from this occurrence, that Jesus remedies not merely real needs, but also perplexities, especially in married life. Ver. 5. “His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.” Mary understands the answer of Jesus correctly thus, that He only opposes her interference, but will do what she desires. Now that she is certain of His willingness, she has no doubt of His power. The word which she speaks to the servants, “Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it,” is a word of unconditional faith. It seems that Mary, in this saying, alludes to Genesis 41:55 : “And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph; what he saith unto you, do.” LXX. ὃἐὰνεἴπῃὑμῖν, ποιήσατε. The resemblance is hardly a chance one, as the situation corresponds to the agreement of the words. Ver. 6. “And there were set there six water-pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.”—Κεῖσθαι is also used, where we say stand. Cf. John 19:29; Jeremiah 24:1, LXX.; Odyss. 17, 331. The κατά—after the manner of, or according to—designates the object served by these water-pots. The purifications were very various, and had reference not only to the body, but also to vessels. Ἀνά is commonly used in the New Testament as a distributive particle: cf. Revelation 4:8. The Attic metretes contained about thirty-three Berlin quarts. The aggregate waterpots contained, therefore, twelve to eighteen ankers [ninety to one hundred and thirty-five English gallons]. This is too much, according to many expositors, and has given the enemies of the Gospel occasions for attack. We may not remark, with Lόcke, that it is not said that the whole of the contents was made wine. For why should Jesus have had all the vessels filled with water, if the miracle was not to have such extensive dimensions? How, then, could Jesus have left it to the servants to draw where they would? Nor shall we, with some, lay the chief emphasis on the fact, that the suspicion of deception would have been at hand in the case of a smaller quantity. The principal reason is far rather this, that the revelation of the glory of the Lord, which is designated in ver. 11 as the object of the act, would have been an incomplete one, if the miracle had borne a more diminutive character. As it is said of God in Psalms 65:9, “Thou, visitest the earth, and givest it superfluity; Thou greatly enrichest it; the river of God is full of water,”—so it became Jesus to prove Himself the rich Son of this rich Father. For the same reason, in feeding the multitudes, the miracle goes beyond the need. When objection is raised, that the quantity of wine would give an impulse to the luxuriousness of the guests, it might just as well be desired that on account of the drunkard God should not vouchsafe a good harvest-time. The abuse of it was least of all to be feared in this circle, in the presence of Jesus, and in view of the miracle, which would fill their minds with sacred awe. Ver. 7. “Jesus saith unto them, Fill the water-pots with water.” Why does Jesus cause water to be first brought? why does He not fill the empty jars with wine? Because miracles are connected as much as possible with the natural substratum, as may be seen even In the instance of the miracles and signs in Egypt. The natural is from the same God who works the miracles, and the natural order is disturbed only where it is not sufficient. Ver. 8. “And He saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast.” The miracle is performed between this and the previous verse. The word now indicates that the transmutation is already accomplished. Vers. 9, 10. “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 bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have become drunken, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.” The testimony of the ruler of the feast to the reality of the wine and its goodness is that with which we are here alone concerned; and there is not the slightest occasion to subtilize on the words, “when they have become drunken.” We are not to conclude from the general saying, that the guests were intoxicated in this case. Where Jesus, His mother, and His disciples were, in the house of the God-fearing people who had invited them, such a thing certainly could not occur. How shameful drunkenness then was among respectable people, is sufficiently shown by Sir 31:30 sq. The miracle of Jesus presupposes the holy sobriety of the circle. Ver. 11. “This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth His glory; and His disciples believed on Him.” The verse is at the same time the rounding off of the whole group. It began with the testimony of John to the impending appearance of Christ and His glory: it concludes with the account of the first act by which Jesus gave a full proof of His glory; in which, therefore, the previous announcement of John found its verification. Christ, by manifesting His glory, impressed His seal at the same time on the mission of the Baptist. We have here also the first verification of the words which Jesus spoke to Nathanael, vers. 50, 51. That the gulf between heaven and earth has been filled up, may be clearly perceived in the fact, that the Son of man has performed a work of omnipotence. In Cana of Galilee, which had been designated as the chief scene of the saving activity of the Redeemer already in Isa. 8:23, Isaiah 9:1, cf. Matthew 4:14-16, and where, therefore, quite naturally, the beginning of the signs of Jesus was made. The Berleburger Bibel says: “Galilee had been already frequently mentioned in the prophets; as also distinctly, that in this despised province the light should be great. ΤῆςΓαλιλαίας would certainly not be repeated here, if it did not acquire significance by the reference to the prophetic passage. In how far the present occurrence was a sign, is shown by the words, “He manifested His glory.” From that which Jesus here does, light was thrown upon His nature, upon the fulness of powers which were laid up in Him for the salvation of the poor and needy. The sign is distinguished from the wonder—τέρας (sign and wonder are connected together in John 4:48, Ἐὰνμὴσημεῖακαὶτέραταἴδητε, οὐμὴπιστεύσητε)—in this, that in the former the objective signification and the end are taken into view; in the latter, the subjective feeling called forth by it, indirectly that which is extraordinary, exceeding the usual course of nature. All wonders are signs, but all signs are not wonders, since sometimes even common things are employed as signs. But here, according to the connection, it is a miraculous sign which is spoken of. It was already a sign in this sense, when Jesus saw Nathanael under the fig-tree, where a human eye could not have seen him. But this sign, in comparison with the greater one here, falls so much into the background, that it may be ignored. This first sign found afterwards in Cana itself a continuation. In John 4:46 it is said, “So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where He made the water wine.” Here He speaks the word by which the son of the nobleman in Capernaum was healed. It is then said, in ver. 54, which forms the conclusion of the second group, as this does of the first: Τοῦτο [δὲ ?] πάλινδεύτερονσημεῖονἐποίησενὁἸησοῦςἐλθὼνἐκτῆςἸουδαίαςεἰςτὴνΓαλιλαίαν. Now, although, according to this, the continuation in part occurs in Cana itself, yet this is not to be regarded as the only one. It is not said that this was the beginning of miracles in Cana, but that Jesus in Cana (the τὴν before ἀρχὴν is rightly omitted by Lachmann and Tischendorf) made such a beginning of miracles in general. The next miracles, of which the Evangelist gives an account, were performed in Jerusalem, John 2:23, John 3:2. On the words, “and manifested forth His glory,” Calvin correctly remarks: “From this is clear at the same time the object of the miracle. For it is equivalent to saying, Christ performed this miracle, in order that He might thus make known His glory.” The words stand in unmistakeable connection with Isaiah 40:5, “And the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed,” namely, in the advent of the Messiah, of whom it is said in Micah 5:4, “And He shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the LORD His God,” who is so closely connected with God, that the whole fulness of the Divine power and majesty belongs to Him,—according to Isaiah 9:6, of the Godhead. John, in referring this passage of the Old Testament to Christ, proceeds on the conviction, that in Christ the Jehovah of the Old Covenant has appeared in the flesh. To the same passage of Isaiah refers also John 1:14, “We beheld His glory,”—there, the ψΰε of the original passage; here, the ππμδ. The Baptist had already preceded in the reference of this passage to Christ. If he, the forerunner of Christ, was the voice crying in the wilderness, John 1:23, Christ must be He in whom the glory of the Lord was revealed. The reference to this passage is perfectly evident in the words of the Baptist, John 1:31 : ἵναφανερωθῇτῷἸσραὴλδιὰτοῦτοἦλθον. The words lead to the divinity of Christ, even disregarding the reference to this single passage of the Old Testament. It is unmistakeable, that the δόξα, the glory, which according to our text dwells in Jesus, stands in reference to the glory of the Lord, λαεγιδεδ, LXX. δόχακυρίου, which meets us so often in the Old Testament—the incomparable glory, which resides in the Lord, and makes itself known in His appearances. Only the only-begotten Son of God reveals His glory. Nothing similar is said of any of the previous miraculous deeds. Moses could only point to the manifestation of the glory of the Lord, Exodus 16:7 : “And in the morning, then ye shall see the glory of the Lord.” In the words, “and His disciples believed on Him,” is intimated the object of the manifestation of the glory of the Lord: cf. John 20:31, where the object of the description of the glorious deeds of the Lord, and, therefore, also of these deeds themselves, is thus designated: ἵναπιστεύσητεὅτιἸησοῦςἐστινὁΧριστὸςὁυἱὸςτοῦθεοῦ, καὶἵναπιστεύοντεςζωὴνἔχητεἐντῷὀνόματιαὐτοῦ. John wrote this, “and they believed,” on the ground of his own experience. The miracle in Cana made an epoch in his own life of faith. We have here also the key to the fulness of the narrative. Bengel: “Prima Christi miracula singulari copia proponuntur, quia his nixa fidei initia.” In conclusion, we give a series of remarks of Luther, which are adapted to set the fact in a proper light. “This is the first miraculous sign which our dear Lord Jesus did on earth, because, as John himself informs us, He wished to manifest His glory to His disciples, in order that by such miracles they might become acquainted with Him, and hold Him to be the Son of God, the true Messiah; since He can do that, which no other on earth can do, namely, change the order of creation, and make wine out of water. Such art must be the art of God only, who is Lord over the creation; men have it not. Hence, this work is to serve especially this purpose of making us truly acquainted with our dear Lord Christ, and causing us with sure confidence to take refuge in Him when want and necessity come upon us, and to seek help and grace in Him, which shall certainly be given to us at the proper time. But, because such teaching and consolation are found in all the miraculous works of Christ, we will now treat in particular of the circumstance, that our Lord performed such a miraculous sign at the marriage, in order that the teaching concerning matrimony may remain even among Christians; for it is of much consequence. He bestows good wine on the poor wedding by a great miracle. He confirms by this, that marriage is God’s work and ordinance; however despised and small a thing it may be among the people, still God acknowledges His work, and holds it dear. Here Christ allows us to see that He has no displeasure in the expense of the wedding, nor in all that was proper to it, as ornament, and to be merry, to eat and drink, as usage and the custom of the country requires; which yet seems as if it were a superfluity, lost money, and a worldly matter: so far, however, that everything be in moderation and like a wedding. When man and wife live together in a really Christian manner, our Lord God nourishes them so easily, that they get more than they think. Our dear Lord Christ still, at the present day, in my and thy house, if we are only godly and pious, and let Him take care of us, makes water into wine.” Not without foundation is the remark of the older expositors, especially of Lampe: “While the miracles of Moses began with the change of water into blood, the miracles of Christ begin by changing water into wine. In this the great difference was made evident between Moses and Christ: the former bears the office of death; the latter, of life.” In vers. 12, 13, we have the journey to Jerusalem; in vers. 14-22, the purification of the temple, by which Jesus entered on His Messianic calling at Jerusalem. In vers. 23-25, we have an account of how, in consequence of the miracles which Jesus did in Jerusalem, many believed on Him, and of the position which Jesus took with respect to them. Ver. 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.” From the connection with the following verse, we perceive that Capernaum was visited on the journey to the feast at Jerusalem. To such an occasion we are led also by the dissimilarity of the companions: the brothers of Jesus not yet having believed on Him. John does not furnish a complete narrative. He gives only paraleipomena. He passes over here the return of Jesus to Nazareth; this being known from the first Gospels as His usual residence at that time: cf. John 1:46-47. That He first returned thither from Cana, and did not go directly to Capernaum, is shown by the fact, that we here meet with His brothers in His train, whose presence at the marriage in Cana is not mentioned. That Jesus did not go immediately from Cana to Capernaum, follows also from this, that otherwise He would have spent altogether only a few days in Galilee. If the Passover had been so near, Jesus would hardly have gone back first from the Jordan to Galilee, nor would His companions. This stay of Jesus in Capernaum is not identical with that of which we have an account in Matthew 4:13. For here, Jesus remains in Capernaum only a few days; while, on the other hand, in Matthew, He establishes Himself at Capernaum. In Matthew, Jesus comes to Capernaum when John was already delivered up; but, on the other hand, we find in John 3:23 sq., that the Baptist is still in unrestricted activity. “John was not yet cast into prison,” it is said in John 3:24. The settling of Jesus in Capernaum can only have taken place after the journey to Galilee, of which we have an account in John 4:43. That Jesus had been there transiently, before His settling there, is testified by Luke 4:23, according to which He performed miracles there on this transient visit. Why is this short stay in Capernaum on the journey to the feast mentioned, when John does not speak of any remarkable event there? It seems that the reason was a personal one,—that John was from Capernaum, and that Jesus put up at the house of his father. The residence of John’s father, Zebedee, is nowhere expressly noticed. But it is in favour of Capernaum, that the nearest friends of John, his and his brothers partners, Luke 5:10, Peter and Andrew, were of Bethsaida, which, as it seems, was the fishing suburb of Capernaum, or, at all events, in its immediate vicinity. The connection of Bethsaida and Capernaum is evident from John 1:45, compared with Luke 4:38, Mark 1:29,—passages which can be brought into harmony only on the supposition that Bethsaida formed a part of Capernaum, with which also the name very well agrees. When Jesus left Capernaum and went to Jerusalem, the temptation by Satan had not yet taken place. From the three first Gospels only thus much is established, that it must have taken place after the baptism of Jesus, and before the return of Jesus to Galilee, after the incarceration of the Baptist: Matthew 4:12; Mark 1:14; Luke 4:14. Since the wilderness cannot be sought elsewhere than in Judea, and since, between the baptism of Jesus and the first return to Galilee, in John, there is no room for the temptation, we shall have to place it in the time when, after His first Passover, and after the solemn entrance on His office in the temple connected with it, Jesus went with “His disciples into the land of Judea; and there He tarried with them, and baptized:” John 3:22. It is shown by John 4:2, that the disciples about this time acted with a certain degree of independence. Jesus could therefore well leave them to themselves for some time. If the devil, in the temptation, takes Jesus with him into the holy city, and places Him on the pinnacle of the temple, etc., Matthew 4:5, this gains a special significance, if Jesus had been shortly before in the holy city and in the temple as the Son of God, and had there entered on His calling by the purification of the temple. This formed, as it seems, the point of departure for the demand of the devil. Jesus, who had appeared as the Lord of the temple, is to prove Himself such. The Jews had indeed already said, “What sign showest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou doest these things?” The third temptation also is more explicable, if the purification of the temple had already preceded. This, according to John 2:18, was the occasion of the first conflict with the Jews; and that the circumstances even then assumed a threatening character, shows that Jesus could not trust Himself even to those in whom there was a beginning of faith. If the path of suffering was then already opened before Jesus, the offer of Satan, “All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me,” has a much better point of connection, than if it was made before Jesus had had any experience of His calling. From Josephs not being mentioned, it has been rightly concluded, that he must have died between the twelfth year of Jesus, when he is last mentioned, Luke 2:42 sq., and His thirtieth year. Are the brothers of Jesus His own brothers, younger sons of Mary, or His cousins, sons of Alphaeus or Cleophas and Mary, who, according to John 19:25, was a sister of the mother of Jesus—either a full sister, or, as there is no instance of two full sisters bearing the same name, a sister-in-law? To the supposition of full brothers of Jesus, the Christian sense has from the earliest times been violently opposed. Augustine, for example, says, “Num enim Maria iterum peperit? Absit! illa femina mater esse potuit, mulier esse non potuit.” And even in the eighteenth century, the excellent reformed theologian Eisner says, “Pie recteque existimat Ecclesia, Josephum nunquam Mariam tetigisse, quamvis domum eandem duxerit. That modern theology has no objection whatever to this supposition, shows that between it and that of the elder Church there is still a wide gulf fixed. We should fairly take warning by a Br. Bauer, who, in his “Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics,” i. p. 46, says, “Had Mary really given birth to the begotten of God, horror at the strangeness of it, and terror at that which had been wrought directly by the power of the Highest, would have caused that Joseph would not afterwards have held conjugal intercourse with her;” who also brings forward the “mention of the sisters of Jesus,” admitted by the “believing [credulous] theology,” as a proof of the later origin of the view concerning the supernatural birth of Jesus. The grounds on which the modern hypothesis is supported, do not show themselves capable of proof. The assertion, that history speaks of brothers, not of cousins, of Jesus, is wrecked on the usage of the Old Testament, in which the name of brother is so often extended to near relations. Here, however, a special reason comes in. The cousins of Jesus would not probably have been called His brethren, if there had been real brethren. But thus they were His nearest relations. Perhaps a closer connection existed, which we may imagine in various ways; ex. gr., that Joseph, after the death of his brother Cleophas, had adopted his children. When Matthew, in Matthew 1:25, calls Jesus the first-born son of Mary, there is in this no intimation of other sons, born afterwards. The historical narration had there to do singly and alone with the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah, concerning the birth of the Saviour of a virgin. With respect to this, it was to be considered only, that no other sons were born before Jesus; what took place afterwards, was a matter of indifference for the present purpose of Matthew. That the first-born may at the same time be the only one, is shown by Exodus 4:22. “The brothers of Jesus,” it is further said, “cannot be identical with the sons of Alphaeus, because in John 7:5 they are separated from the Apostles as still unbelievers.” But that the brothers of our Lord did not remain unbelieving, is evident from the statement in Acts 1:14; and with the statement in John 7:5, that they were then still unbelieving, corresponds their position in the list of the Apostles. In Matthew 10:3, James of Alphaeus, Lebbaeus, with the surname of Thaddaeus, and Simon Zelotes, stand immediately before Judas Iscariot and after Matthew, whose calling is related in Matthew 9:9. So in Mark 3:18, and Luke 6:15. In Acts 1:13, these three form the conclusion of the list of the Apostles. “The brothers of Jesus,” it is said, “had in part different names from the sons of Alphaeus and the cousins of Jesus, since two sons of Alphaeus are called James and Joses, Matthew 27:56, Mark 15:40; while the brothers of Jesus, Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3, are called James and Joseph, according to the critically revised text.” But the reading in the latter passage is doubtful, and a matter of controversy. And the name Joses is without doubt a variation from Joseph; so that there is no real difference. The remarks are applicable here which were made with respect to the name of Peter’s father, John 1:43. “In Acts 1:14, the brothers of the Lord are expressly distinguished from the Apostles.” But from this it follows only, that, outside the circle of the Apostles, there were still other brothers or relations of Jesus. Joses is expressly named as such. On the other hand, the following reasons are in favour of understanding by the brothers of Jesus His cousins. When Jesus, in John 19:26-27, says, “Woman, behold thy son!” and thus names the Apostle John to be, as it were. His representative, as the son of Mary, it is implied in this, according to an unbiassed exegesis, that Mary had no other sons. It is said in Matthew 13:55, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not His mother called Mary? and His brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?” In Matthew 27:56 it is said, “Among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses.” The two latter cannot well be others than those mentioned hi the former passage. Consequently, James and Joses had for mother another Mary than the mother of Jesus. Further, in the list of Apostles in Matthew 10:3 (cf. Mark 3:18), James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, with the surname Thaddaeus, and Simon Zelotes, stand together. In Luke (Luke 6:15), before Judas the traitor, comes James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes, Judas (the brother) of James. It is manifest that the Judas here is identical with the Lebbaeus = Thaddaeus of Matthew; that the first name also is not the real proper name, but only takes the place of the proper name, which had been branded with infamy by the traitor. We have, therefore, three of the names mentioned in Matthew 13:55. James, Simon, Judas, in the circle of the Apostles; and they do not occur here in an isolated manner, but they stand together precisely as in Matthew 13:55. James also always stands at the head, as in Matthew 13:55. In Luke 6:15, and in Acts 1:13, they all follow in the same order. The personal identity with those mentioned in Matthew 13:55 cannot after this be doubted. But in the lists of Apostles, real brothers of Jesus are not to be thought of. For James is always designated as the son of Alphaeus; and as his mother appears in Mark 15:40, not Mary the mother of Jesus, but another Mary. This Mary is, in Mark 16:1 and Luke 24:10, called Mary of James. It was, therefore, a mode of characterizing and distinguishing this Mary, that she had a son James. This presupposes that the mother of Jesus had not also a son of this name. When this Mary is, in Mark 15:40, called the mother of James the Less, and of Joses, it is here presupposed that in the Christian circle there were only two well-known men of the name of James,—viz., the Great, the son of Zebedee, who took the first position on account of his greater age in Christ; and the Less, the son of Alphaeus and Mary. If we understand by the brethren of Jesus full brothers, we thus make three prominent men of the name of James. After the death of the elder James, every one knows whom Peter means when, in Acts 12:17, he says, “Go, show these things to James and to the brethren.” In Acts 15:13, it is said, “James answered,” without any other further addition to guard against confounding the two. So also in Acts 21:18. “Luke, who in Acts (as in his Gospel), up to the death of the Apostle James of Zebedee, brother of the Apostle John, continually distinguishes, by the manner of mentioning him, James the Less, the son of Alphaeus, from this James, uses, directly after his death (John 12:1-2), simply the name of James. So in the same chapter, ver. 17, and further in John 15:13, John 21:18.” There was, therefore, after the death of James of Zebedee, only one James who was celebrated and generally known; and this can be no other than the second Apostle of this name, James of Alphaeus. “Paul, in the Epistle to the Galatians, Galatians 2:9; Galatians 2:12, represents James, without further designation, as a highly influential man, a pillar of the Church; he even places him, together with Peter and John, as taking the place of the now martyred favourite disciple, James the son of Zebedee.” In Galatians 1:19, Paul, after speaking of his intercourse with Peter, says, “But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James, the Lord’s brother.” According to the simple interpretation, this passage declares that James, the brother of the Lord, was an Apostle. This is also confirmed by Acts 9:27-28. According to this passage, “Paul had intercourse in Jerusalem with the Apostles,—those who were then present in Jerusalem,—therefore, at least two. Now, Paul himself assures us that he saw Peter and no one else, save James, the brother of the Lord; so it follows distinctly, that James also, the brother of the Lord, is numbered by Luke (and consequently also by Paul) among the Apostles.” The Apostle James, however, is the son of Alphaeus, and cannot, therefore, be the brother of the Lord in the proper sense. But it is established that here the son of Alphaeus is designated as brother of the Lord; so by this the existence of a natural brother of the Lord named James is excluded. “It is entirely improbable,” says Wieseler, on Galatians, p. 77, “that Paul would here have designated the cousin of the Lord, James of Alphaeus, the Lord’s brother, if there had really been besides him a natural brother of Jesus bearing the name of James.” Jude designates himself in his epistle as the brother of James, and is sure of having by this means made himself sufficiently known. While Joses disappears from history, we have an account of Simon, which shows him in an important position, and in which he is expressly designated as the cousin of the Lord. “Hegesippus informs us, that after the death of James the Just, and the subsequent capture of Jerusalem, the Apostles came together and appointed Symeon, son of Cleophas, Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem.” Eusebius, B. 3, 11, and especially 32. This Cleophas (John 19:25) is plainly called by Hegesippus the uncle of the Lord, B. 3, 32, and especially 4, 22: he even, in the latter passage, makes use of the remarkable words, “But after James the Just had suffered martyrdom Simeon, the son of Cleophas, our Lord’s uncle, was chosen, whom all preferred, since he was the second cousin-german of the Lord.” “It is striking,” says Steiger further, “that in this manner we have four cousins of the Lord, who are called James, Simon, Judas, and Joses; while, as it is maintained, from the Gospel four natural brothers of the Lord are produced, who bear the same names.” This is certainly alone sufficient to show the erroneousness of the now current view. But that there are still more decisive reasons against it, we have already proved. Ver. 13. “And the Jews Passover was at hand; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” It is a matter of course, that Jesus went up with the whole company mentioned in ver. 12; for this company had been formed for the pilgrimage. Why did Jesus go to the Passover? The answer is implied in what He did there. It was not for the fulfilment of a religious duty incumbent on Him, as on all the others. We find nowhere any indication that Jesus visited the temple for His own edification. This, however, would be necessary. For the religious duty was not satisfied by the mere outward appearance. If Jesus was the Lord of the Sabbath, He was also the Lord of the feasts. If, according to Matthew 17:26, He was free from the temple tribute, so also was He from the visit to the temple. The principle of avoiding offence, Matthew 17:27, might in any case be overcome by other higher considerations. Of much more importance to Christ was the exercise of His Messianic calling, which, from the significance of the temple, as the spiritual dwelling-place of the people, could not there be carried on in a mere corner. The prophets already predict that the Redeemer is to come to the daughter of Zion. The temple had already been the principal place for the prophetic agency of the Old Dispensation; and only by way of exception, and under very peculiar circumstances, had the prophets appeared elsewhere. But the exercise of His calling being of importance to Jesus, the Passover was precisely that time most adapted for His stay in Jerusalem. For at this, as the chief feast, the whole people were assembled at the temple. This feast was also especially adapted for the public and solemn announcement of His reformation, with which the Saviour would begin His activity in the temple. For it had itself a reformatory significance. The putting away of the leaven preached to the people that they should purge the old leaven from their heart and life, 1 Corinthians 5:7. The eating of the unleavened bread required that they should endeavour after “sincerity and truth;” and the words, “Let your loins be girt about, and your lamps burning,” are an interpretation of this rite at the Passover. Ver. 14. “And found in the temple those that sold oxen, and sheep, and doves, and the changers of money sitting.”—“It is very remarkable,” says Quesnel, “that the first and last time that our Lord was in the temple after His baptism. He manifested there His zeal against the disrespect and desecration of which the Jews were guilty. Will not the example of the High Priest arouse the zeal of those who are clothed with His authority against so many desecrations of the churches, in which dwells the Divine majesty?” John’s account of the temple-purification, with all its independence, is yet so like that of Matthew (Matthew 21:12-13), that the thought obtrudes itself, that John wishes to point to this account, and thus to make known his purpose to supplement what Matthew had related concerning the act at the termination of Christ’s ministry, by the report concerning a similar transaction, which pertains to the commencement of the ministry. On the other hand, the first Evangelists are acquainted with the word which Jesus spoke in immediate connection with this act: Destroy this temple, etc.; Matthew 26:61; Mark 14:58. By this they testify also, indirectly, to the occurrence itself; and their reasons for not relating it can only be these, that of two similar events they usually omit one; but especially, that up to the last Passover of Jesus they restrict themselves to the account of His activity in Galilee. In spite of their close connection, the two facts have yet each their individual physiognomy. The one takes place at the first Messianic Passover of Jesus; the other at the last; both, on first entering the temple. In John, the Lord designates the desecrated temple as a house of merchandise, οἶκονἐμπορίου; in the first Evangelist, as a den of thieves, σπήλαιονλῃστῶν. That is peculiar to John, which he connects with this occurrence in ver. 17-22. It cannot be a matter of doubt, that these transactions do not bear their object in themselves, but are to be regarded as symbolical. Only on a superficial consideration can the abuses which existed in the outer temple be regarded as the immediate object of Christ’s attack. If we take into view the whole condition of things at that time, we shall see that it was a matter of comparative indifference whether a few buyers and sellers more or less transacted their business in the temple; a deeper knowledge of human nature shows that every kind of outward purification, unless preceded by an inward one, is entirely in vain. Of what avail is it to keep back for a time the water of a stream, when the source is left unobstructed? The fact, that Jesus at His last Passover found exactly the same evils which He had momentarily removed at His first, shows plainly the purposelessness of His act, when its significance is placed in its outward result. It has been shown in the Third Part of my Christology, that both transactions have reference to Malachi, and merely embody a twofold figure which is employed by him. Under the figure of a double purification of the temple, he announces a double purification of the theocracy. Then first appears the messenger of the Lord, who prepares the way before Him; and then the Lord Himself, even the Angel of the Covenant, suddenly appears, who purifies and refines the children of Levi, and draws near to sinners in judgment. Now, the Saviour announces by the first act, that in Him appears in its loftiest reality the idea previously represented by John, the grace of God, which calls sinners to repentance; by the second, that He will now unfold the other side of His nature, that He will no longer act as a prophet, but as Lord and Angel of the Covenant, and will destroy obdurate sinners. In John, the reformatory character is evident. Calvin designates it as “a prelude to the reformation to be effected by Jesus,” and says, “Ut omnes ad ejus doctrinam attenti essent, torpentes ac sopitas mentes novo et insolito facinore expergefieri oportuit.” The proof that the second act is not, like the first, a symbolical announcement of reformation, but an announcement of judgment, the embodied ἰδοὺἀφίεταιὑμῖνὁοἶκοςὑμῶνἔρημος in Matthew 23:38, was given in the Christology. The purification of the temple in Matthew forms the commencement of a whole series of discourses, symbolic actions, and parables, which all refer to the same subject. In these the Pharisees nowhere appear as the object of reformatory activity: the account is now closed, the reed is broken, and the judgment pronounced. If the symbolic action must have had the same meaning on both occasions, it could not have been repeated. Together with the common point of departure, Malachi 3:1, “Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in,” the first half of which is referred to in John, and the second in Matthew,—the Lord has also in view, on each of the two occasions, a particular passage of the Old Testament. In John, where the temple is designated as a house of merchandise, οἶκοςἐμπορίου, it is Zechariah 14:21, “And in that day there shall no more be the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts.” Aquila, according to Jerome, translated here directly, mercator, ἔμπορος. Jonathan: “Et non erit amplius exercens mercaturam in domo sanctuarii.” And if we are not permitted to take λπςπι directly with the meaning of merchant, but that rather the usage here finds place, according to which the godless members of the covenant-people are designated as heathens or uncircumcised, or specially as Canaanites or some other single heathen people, still we are not to refuse a certain right to the interpretation of merchant. The very fact that Canaanite means at the same time merchant, shows that among this people their unholy disposition made itself known especially in the predominance of material interests. In Zephaniah 1:11, where the fall of the covenant-people is announced in the words, “the whole people of Canaan is cut down,” the parallel clause, “all they that bear silver are cut off,” shows that the Canaanites are not chosen arbitrarily from the midst of the heathen nations, but that they are specially considered on account of their unholy greediness of gain, and their trafficking spirit, in which the degenerate people had become like them. In Hosea 12:7, the degenerate covenant-people is designated as “Canaan; the balances of deceit are in his hand; he loveth to oppress.” That the trafficking spirit is an inherited fault of the Jewish people, is shown by the experience of the present day, by the abuses which called forth the purification of the temple, and by the appearance of Pharisaism, which is only the spirit of traffic introduced into religion; they wish to carry on a profitable business even with God. If in this trafficking spirit we perceive the hereditary sin of the Jews, it will appear the more significant that our Lord chose these mercantile pursuits as the material for the symbolic action by which He represented the necessity of reformation. On the other hand, at the second purification of the temple, it is Jeremiah 7:11 which is referred to: “Is this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers (LXX. μὴσπήλαιονλῃστῶνὁοἶκόςμου: cf. Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46) in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord.” These latter words, which point to the impending judgment, show from what point of view, in this original passage, the temple is designated as a den of robbers. The whole chapter breathes destruction for the temple and the people, and reformation is no longer spoken of. It is said in vers. 14, 15, “Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by My name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim.” The first occasion for the advance of the Jewish spirit of traffic into the sanctuary in the more extended sense) occurs in Deuteronomy 14:24 sq. There, the permission is given to those at too great a distance from the sanctuary, to sell the portion of property which had fallen to the Lord’s share, and to procure for the money, at the place of the sanctuary, the oxen, sheep, etc., for the sacrifices and sacrificial repasts. It was sought to render it as convenient as possible for the buyers, until the market was removed at last into the outer spaces of the sanctuary itself. Especially at the feast of Passover must this traffic have exercised a highly disturbing influence. We perceive from 1 Samuel 1:21, according to which Elkanah went yearly to the sanctuary to offer the yearly sacrifice, and his vows, that at the Passover the people balanced accounts, as it were, with the Lord, and then offered the portion of the inheritance which had fallen to Him in the course of the year. When Augustine says, “Non magnum peccatum, si hoc vendebant in templo, quod emebatur ut offerretur in templo, et tamen ejecit illos. Quidsi ibi ebriosos inveniret,” etc., he has not sufficiently considered that the spirit of traffic was the bosom sin of the Jews, and that, among such a people, this practice must have had a particularly injurious influence, causing much passionate excitement and clamour, calling forth also much participation among those who were not immediately interested in it, and thus entirely driving away the spirit of devotion. Ver. 15. “And when He had made a scourge of small cords, He drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers money, and overthrew the tables.”—“It is to mock God,” says Quesnel, “when men come to commit new sins at the very place where they are to bewail and expiate their old ones.” The cords for the scourge, Jesus doubtless took from the sellers. It is not mentioned that He struck them with the scourge, nor was this necessary. It was a symbol only of the castigation which the practice merited, the embodied ἐξέβαλεν. The sheep are placed first intentionally, in order that the masculine πάντας; may be referred to the persons. That by “all” is meant those who are mentioned first in ver. 14, is shown by the additional clause, “and the sheep and the oxen.” If πάντας does not refer to these persons, then nothing is said of the sellers, with whom, however, Jesus had chiefly to do. The Berleburger Bibel remarks on the words, He drove them all out of the temple, “As He does inwardly also; for everything foreign must give way on His entrance into the heart.” That the expulsion of the sellers was not a proper miracle, is evident from ver. 18, in which the Jews demand that Jesus should justify His action by a miracle. In explanation of the effect, we must consider that Jesus had a powerful confederate in the consciences of the offenders—an evil conscience makes men cowards; that the privilege of the prophets was acknowledged among the people, and had been sanctioned by illustrious examples in the past, as that of Elijah; and that at this time the people were filled with a presentiment of a great impending reformation and overthrow of existing relations. But we must, above all, take into account the majesty of the person of Jesus, whose countenance then certainly shone like the sun, and His eyes were as a flame of fire. We have a parallel instance in John 18:6, where it is said of the priestly myrmidons, ἀπῆλθονεἰςτὰὀπίσωκαὶἔπεσανχαμαί. Ver. 16. “And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence: make not My Father’s house an house of merchandise.” Anton remarks, “These were little Tetzels; these He treated more gently, and did not cast out their merchandise.” But, in truth, Jesus did no otherwise with the sellers of the oxen and sheep. The scourge of small cords was only a symbolical expression of “Take these things hence,” though He doubtless expressed it verbally also. Substantially, the scourge applies also to the dealers in doves, and the verbal expression also to the venders of oxen and sheep. Even on this first exercise of His office in the sanctuary of the nation, Jesus calls God His Father; as in Luke 2:49, He said, with respect to His first visit to the temple, οὐκᾔδειτεὅτιἐντοῖςτοῦπατρόςμουδεῖεἶναίμε; The antithesis to the house of merchandise is formed by the house of prayer in Isaiah 56:7. The temple was a house of merchandise in another sense than that here chiefly meant; for sacrifices were bargained for, as well as dealt in. If among the Jews of the present day the exchange has taken the place of the temple, the difference is not very important, for the temple was a kind of exchange. Ver. 17. “And His disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of Thine house consumeth me.” In Psalms 69:9 it is said, “For the zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproached Thee are fallen upon me.” The two clauses of the verse are not in synonymous parallelism, but the second designates the consequences of the first: The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up; therefore the reproaches are fallen on me. For that the expression, “consumeth me,” does not designate the outward consequences of the zeal, but rather its inward intensity—equivalent to, it wears me away (Luther: I am zealous even unto death; with the remark: It is a mournful mood, so that the heart pines away, disappears, and is as it were consumed, as the moths consume a garment)—is shown by the parallel passage, Psalms 119:139, “My zeal hath consumed me, because mine enemies have forgotten Thy words.” In the former passage, the temple is regarded as the centre of the whole Israelitish religion. The zeal here is the zeal of love. Luther says: “He is not moved to the anger which He here manifests by hatred, but by a deep love to God, who has founded this temple for His glory, for commerce in the Divine Word, that in the Church men might learn how they could be saved, and could serve God. This made Him sad, to behold in His Father’s house such a horror and calamity that souls should be miserably ruined: with this He is angry, for He loved God.” The quotation of this passage from the Psalms is characteristic of the first cleansing of the temple in distinction from the second. It shows that the first transaction cannot be one absolutely peculiar to Christ; that it was typified by previous acts of righteous persons; and that in it a pattern is given for all believers and especially for all the servants of the Church. The passage could not have been quoted with reference to the second purification of the temple. For this did not form the summit of the activity common to all the servants of God (cf. Elijah’s declaration: I have been zealous for the Lord); but it belongs entirely and solely to Christ, the Angel of the covenant. The expositors of the Church call attention, with much earnestness, to the doctrine which is contained in these words for the ministers of the Church. Quesnel says, “Jesus teaches us that zeal for God’s house is, as it were, the peculiar virtue of pastors.” Luther: “All apostles and bishops have also attempted this, and still do. They very well know what it is, when they see that their faithful care, their toil and trouble, are all in vain, and some evil-disposed person comes and makes a noise, and breaks down in one day more than one could build or set up again in some years. He also will say, The zeal of Thy house hath eaten me up. For the more pious a pastor or preacher is, the more he feels this zeal, and the more he should feel it.” Calvin points out that, although the zeal must be common to all with the Son of God, it is not, however, permitted to all immediately to take up the scourge, and thus to attack abuses. For we have not the same authority, nor the same office. Ver. 18. “Then answered the Jews, and said unto Him, What sign showest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou doest these things?” These words of the Jews are the answer to the address of Jesus to the dealers in doves, who occupied the first place among them, and whose affair was adopted by the rest. “They had a certain reason for asking,” says Calvin; “for it does not behove a Jew, whenever there is anything faulty or displeasing to him in God’s temple, immediately to alter it.” In the meantime, the justification of Jesus was already implied in the imposing majesty of His appearance, and in the effect itself which He produced on this occasion. “Is it not a sufficient sign,” says Quesnel, “to effect such ready obedience, without any mark of authority, and to spread terror by a scourge of small cords?” Nevertheless Jesus granted the request, cf. ver. 23; only not to those who demanded it, because they were not deserving of it. Ver. 19. “Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” It is evident that these words are not to be referred, as they have been by many, on the ground of an erroneous view of ver. 21, merely to Christ’s death and resurrection, setting aside entirely all reference to the temple, usually so called. The reference to the material temple, is rendered necessary by the fact, that only on this hypothesis does the sign stand in close connection with the proceeding which it is to vindicate. It was with respect to the material temple that Christ had taken upon Him full authority; He can therefore appeal only to a fact in the future which will prove His authority over this temple. Further, the hypothesis, that Jesus, when He spoke these words, pointed to His body, is refuted by the circumstance, that then the Jews could not so have understood Him, as we find they did, not merely here in ver. 20, but also in Matthew 26:61; Matthew 27:40, and Mark 14:57-59. But if He did not thus do, by this temple could be understood primarily, only the temple in which the transaction had taken place. A third reason is, that it seems impossible to separate these words from those in Matthew 24:2, where our Lord, in reference to the material temple, says to the disciples, “See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you. There shall not be left here one stone upon another, ὃςοὐμὴκαταλυθήσεται.” Finally, it is said in Acts 6:13-14, ἔστησάντεμάρτυραςψευδεῖςλέγοντας, Ὁἄνθρωποςοὗτοςοὐπαύεταιλαλῶνῥήματακατὰτοῦτόπουτοῦἁγίου [τούτου] καὶτοῦνόμου· ἀκηκόαμενγὰραὐτοῦλέγοντοςὅτιἸησοῦςὁΝαζωραῖοςοὗτοςκαταλύσειτὸντόποντοῦτονκαὶἀλλάξειτὰἔθηἃπαρέδωκενἡμῖνΜωϋσῆς. The false testimony consisted in this, that the false witnesses laid the causality of the destruction entirely on Jesus. Thus much however follows from the passage, that Stephen understood the impending destruction of the temple to be announced m the declaration of our Lord, and that, therefore, he did not refer it only to the body of Christ. On the other hand, that we are not to stop with the reference to the material temple, is shown by the impossibility of this sense, as already made prominent by the Jews, and by the preposterous character of the declaration thus rendered; and that the reference, emphasized by John, to Christ’s body, His death and resurrection, really exists, is shown by the mention of the three days, and by the comparison of our Lord’s declaration m Matthew 12:39-40, according to which the sign of the prophet Jonah, or a repetition of it, should be given to the Jews. “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth;” and as Jonah afterwards appeared for I sign of judgment to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of man, after He has left the heart of the earth, appear for a sign of judgment unto this generation. Cf. Matthew 16:4 It has been already pointed out elsewhere, that we shall labour in vain in the solution of this sacred enigma, which he Saviour here presents before the Jews, so long as we fail to recognise the essential identity of the temple, the appearance of Christ in the flesh, and the Church of the New Testament. The meaning was there thus determined: “If you shall once (that which ye will do, ye shall do) destroy the temple of My body, and in and with it this outward temple, the symbol and pledge of the kingdom of God among you, then will I in three days raise up again the temple of My body, and in and with it the essence of the outward temple, the kingdom of God.” “That John,” it was remarked, “assumed a close relation between the appearance of Christ and the temple, is evinced already in John 1:14. That the identity of the outward temple and the kingdom of God was not far removed from the coarse understanding of the Jews, is shown by Mark 14:58, where the witnesses thus render the words of Christ: ὅτιἐγὼκαταλύσωτὸνναὸντοῦτοντὸνχειροποίητονκαὶδιὰτριῶνἡμερῶνἄλλονἀχειροποίητονοἰκοδομήσω. This rendering, apart from the malicious change of λύσατε into ἐγὼκαταλύσω, is correct, but not complete. Of the three references, two only are apprehended; the third, to the body of Christ, is overlooked. This is made prominent by John in his mode of intimation, as being that which is least clear; and only a misapprehension of his usual manner in such cases, could mislead one to the opinion, that he intended to deny the two other references. The signification of the temple is shown by the name, which it bore in its most ancient form, Ohel Moed,—the tabernacle of congregation, the place where God met with His people. Cf. Exodus 25:22; Exodus 29:43 : “And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and he shall be sanctified by My glory.” Numbers 17:4 (Heb. ver. 19): “In the tabernacle of the congregation, where I will meet with you.” Such a meeting was not merely a temporary one, when at the chief feasts the people assembled personally in the sanctuary. Rather does Jehovah ever meet with His people in the sanctuary. He is always there present, and ready to receive His own; and His own can come to Him spiritually and dwell with Him, even when personally they are far removed from the sanctuary. It is of significance in this reference, that in the prayer of Solomon at the dedication of the temple, 1 Kings 8:44; 1 Kings 8:48, it is promised, that the prayers of those also shall be heard, who are outwardly separated from the temple, but pray with the body and mind turned towards it. But Leviticus 16:16 is decisive; for, according to this, all the children of Israel dwell spiritually with the Lord in His tabernacle, which consequently is no other than an embodiment of the Church. Decisive, also, are many passages in the Psalms, in which it is designated as the highest privilege of believers, that they dwell with the Lord in His temple, and thus also dwell with Him, when they are personally far removed from it. Cf., e.g., Psalms 84:4 : “The bird hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, thine altars, O Lord of Sabaoth.” The bird and swallow are an emblem of believers in their weakness and helplessness. Ver. 5: “Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house;” where the dwellers in the house of God are not “its constant visitors,” but members of the household of God in a spiritual sense. Psalms 27:4 : “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” Psalms 23:6 : “I dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.” Psalms 15:1; Psalms 27:5; Psalms 61:4, “I will abide in Thy tabernacle for ever;” Psalms 63:2. In Psalms 52, a Psalm which, according to the superscription, was sung far from the sanctuary, it is said in ver. 8, “But I am like a green olive-tree in the house of God;” and according to Psalms 92:13, all believers are planted in the house of the Lord. All these passages serve for a commentary to the name Ohel Moed, and show that the meeting together was at the same time a dwelling together, the intercourse being an unbroken one. In the prophets also, we find the same representation. “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”—thus do the godless exclaim (Isaiah 33:14), when terrified by the mighty judgments of the Lord. They do so from the conviction, that all Israelites dwell with the Lord, or in His sanctuary, cf. Psalms 5:4; and explain this privilege, according to the experience they have just had of the character of the Lord, as an extremely dangerous one. The temple appears as the spiritual dwelling-place of Israel also in Matthew 23:38 : the house in which the Lord has hitherto dwelt with them is now to be left desolate, the presence of the Lord departing from it. The temple being thus the symbol and pledge of the connection of God with His people, it will appear quite natural that the temple should occur repeatedly as a mere emblem of the Church. We find such passages even in the Old Testament. In Jeremiah 7:14, the unbelieving covenant-people are upbraided for the assumption of the prerogative of the believing, of being the temple of the Lord. In Zechariah 6:12, it is said of the Messiah, “He shall build the temple of the Lord”—the Church. In Zechariah 7:3 also, the Church of God is designated by the name of the house of God. In Ephesians 2:19, believers are declared to be of the household of God; as formerly the Jews only were, but now are also the Gentile Christians. The fact that the temple is now destroyed, does not alter the case, since it was only a symbol. Cf. vers. 21, 22; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 2 Corinthians 6:16; 1 Timothy 3:15; 1 Peter 2:5. The connection of God with His people having formed the heart of the sanctuary, this must have been not merely an emblem of the Church, but at the same time a type of the advent of Christ, in which this connection was truly completed, and in which the Church received its necessary foundation. In Christ, God dwelt truly and really among His people. He took upon Him flesh and blood among them and from them; and the Church of the New Testament is only the continuation of His appearance in the flesh, since to His own He is the true Immanuel always unto the end of the world. This typical relation of the temple to Christ is indicated not only by John, John 1:14, but also by Paul in Colossians 2:9; Colossians 1:19. The word, “destroy,” is not to be attenuated into a mere prediction of that which will be. It is to be placed under the same point of view as the command to Judas, “What thou doest, do quickly;” and the word in Matthew 23:32, πληρώσατετὸμέτροντῶνπατέρωνὑμῶν. When the Jews changed λύσατε into ἐγὼκαταλύσω, they had rightly discovered that Jesus attributed to Himself a causality in this; their wickedness consisted in entirely setting aside their own participation. No one disappoints God. What the sinner will do, that he is to do. “From this we may learn,” says Anton, “how the counsel of God manifests itself in such cases. It seems as though the Almighty gave this and that entirely into the power of men, as was especially the appearance in the Passion of Christ. Then His enemies rejoiced, and thought, Now all will be right.” We may doubtless say, that there is a sacred irony in the word λύσατε. They think to put a finishing stroke to the work of Christ, and are themselves only the instruments in His hand. Ver. 20. “Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt Thou rear it up in three days?” It is generally acknowledged that the temple here meant, is that of Herod, which was a complete renovation of the former, extending even to the foundations; but was undertaken gradually and in portions, so that this temple is represented generally, not as a third, but only as a glorification of the second. Herod conceived the plan of this renovation in the eighteenth year of his reign, and finished it, according to the statement of Josephus, in Book 15, 11, 5, 6 of his Antiquities, in nine and a half years. But, doubtless, new embellishments were continually being added afterwards, so that the building of the temple never entirely ceased. This is sufficient to explain the assertion of the Jews here; which is, of course, not to be considered as a strictly historical account. It was their interest to make the time as long as possible. Ver. 21. “But He spake of the temple of His body.” The body of Christ is here put, according to the correct remark of Lampe, instead of His whole humanity, because over this alone was power granted to His enemies. If Christ is here designated as the true temple, as that to which the temple at Jerusalem is related only as the shadow to the substance, then in this is included the impending destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, or at least the removal of its essential quality; and thus the condemnation of those who dream of a restoration of this temple, since in the passages on which they found their dream, it is just this essential quality which is taken into view. On this side, our text is coincident with John 4:23, as was already perceived by Luther: “But now in the New Testament, God has erected another temple, where God will dwell; that is, the dear humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. There will God be found, and nowhere else. He calls Christ’s body the temple of God, wherein God dwells, in order that the hearts and eyes of all of us may be directed to Christ, that we may worship Him only who sits at the right hand of God in heaven. God is no longer bound to one place, as He was at that time, when He would dwell at Jerusalem, before the true temple, the Lord Christ, came; as is said also in John 4:23. The temple at Jerusalem has ceased to be; and now men may worship God at whatever place they may be, and turn their heart and eyes in faith to the person of Christ, where there is both God and man.” In harmony with our text is Revelation 21:22, “And I saw no temple therein; for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.” Here also Christ is the antitype of the temple, He, on whose advent the continued existence of the temple became impossible; because the emblematic residence of God among His people, which formed the essential characteristic of the temple, had found its truth in Christ, and will find it most perfectly in the New Jerusalem. John also, in John 1:14, hints at the typical relation in which the tabernacle and the temple stand to the appearance of Christ. When, elsewhere, the Church is represented as the antitype of the temple, there is no opposition to these passages; for the Church is the body of Christ, and in it are continued His theanthropic nature and rule. Not the Church in distinction from Christ is the temple of God, but the Church in so far as it is under Christ as its Head. Ver. 22. “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.” It is not said, that the disciples then first understood the declaration; but that then, when the fulfilment lay before them, it received a new meaning for them. The belief in Scripture is placed before belief in this declaration, according to the usage of Joh 7:38; John 7:42; John 10:35; John 13:18, and of the New Testament generally—belief in the Scriptures, viz., of the Old Testament: because the declaration of Christ received its full light and its correct meaning only by comparison with the Old Testament; without this solid basis, it would have been in suspense. The resurrection of Christ also appears as testified by the Old Testament in John 20:9 : οὐδέπωγὰρᾔδεισαντὴνγραφὴνὅτιδεῖαὐτὸνἐκνεκρῶνἀναστῆναι. According to 1 Corinthians 15:4, Christ rose on the third day “according to the Scripture.” That the Apostles based their assumption of the Old Testament witness to the resurrection on the authority of Christ, is shown by Luke 24:25-26; Luke 24:44. Yet the former passage, “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?” indicates that the resurrection is not witnessed to directly in the Old Testament, but rather comes into consideration as necessarily intermediate between the Passion and the glory of Christ. We are led to the same result by the saying of Peter, in 1 Peter 1:11, that the Spirit of Christ in the prophets testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. When the matter is regarded from this point of view, the Old Testament contains testimonies to the resurrection in great abundance. They are found, according to the declaration of Christ, in Moses—here we must especially consider Genesis 49:10; for without the resurrection, Christ cannot be the Shiloh, in whom Judah attains to the dominion of the world,—in the Psalms—e.g., in Psalms 110, where Christ appears, sitting at the right hand of the Almighty, as the ruler over His enemies,—and in the prophets. All predictions in the latter concerning the Messiah in His glory, as Isaiah 9, 11, and Micah 5, contain a guaranty of the resurrection. But those prophecies are especially to be considered, which place in contrast to the sufferings ending in death, the glory which should follow. In Isaiah 53 the atoning death of the Servant of God is clearly taught. If now, in spite of and by means of this, He attains to great glory, so that the heathen are sprinkled by Him, and kings shut their mouths at Him, then the resurrection is a necessary postulate. In Zechariah 9:9-10, the Messiah is represented first as the lowly, ςπι, and riding upon an ass; and then as He who speaks peace to the heathen, whose dominion is from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. Since the lowliness, according to John 12:10, John 13:7, and chap. 11, is to end in death, the resurrection forms the necessary bridge between the two conditions. Besides the specific Messianic predictions, there is also a wide region of typical prophecy of the resurrection, as Psalms 16, and of prophetic history. It is of significance that the New Testament comprises all the books of the Old Testament under the name of Scripture. It thus intimates that these writings, though widely separated as to time, and different in their contents and manner, are yet connected by a powerful bond of union, being “given from one Shepherd,” Ecclesiastes 12:11; it also points to inspiration, and the unconditional authority resting upon it, which “cannot be broken.” Every eclectic position towards the Old Testament is thus by this designation cut up by the roots. Vers. 23-25 form the transition to the conversation of Christ with Nicodemus, which, together with the purification of the temple, is the second great event in connection with Christ’s first Passover in Jerusalem. John, strictly speaking, gives an account of only these two facts. These verses serve only as a basis for the understanding of the conversation with Nicodemus. Vers. 24, 25. “But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for He knew what was in man.” They believed,—that was evident; but their faith was not a solid one, on which one might build. It was to be feared that they would not be stedfast when the storm of public opinion began to rush and loudly roar against them. That would apply to them which is written in Matthew 13:20. They endure only for a time; but when tribulation and persecution arise, then immediately they are offended. Luther says: “That faith is still a milk-faith, and a young faith, of those who easily and precipitately assent and believe; and when they hear something which does not please them, or which they did not expect, they straightway bound back again, and recur to their old dreams.” What a background of alienation from the true doctrine was still concealed behind the foreground of turning to Christ, and of faith, is shown by the example of Nicodemus, who at first could not reconcile himself to, and would know nothing of, the simplest of all requirements, that of regeneration. For such as are still” in inward dependence on public opinion, it is impossible long to offer a successful resistance to it. The words. He did not commit Himself to them, stand in close connection with, they believed on Him, and serve appropriately to limit it, and set it in the proper light. If their faith, which is nothing else but a confidence in Jesus, had been a well-grounded one, Jesus would also have trusted in them. The act of self-surrender must be a reciprocal one. That Jesus did not commit Himself to them, means, that in intercourse with them He maintained a certain reserve, keeping always in view that the friends of the present might in the future become His enemies, and, as Lampe remarks, “verifying in His own example the wisdom of serpents, which, in Matthew 10:16, He requires of His disciples.” The words presuppose that a dangerous opposition had already begun to show itself against Jesus, in harmony with ver. 18, the fact that Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, and with John 4:3, where, for the sake of security, Jesusremoves from Judea into Galilee, where the Pharisees were less powerful. These must very soon have become aware, that between their system and the doctrine of Jesus there was an irreconcilable opposition. Jesus knew all men, and knew what was in every man. We find a power of this kind in a much inferior degree in the prophets of the Old Testament. Luther says: “This the prophets indeed could do, since they sometimes knew by a revelation from God the proceedings and designs of one man towards another; even the designs of kings were not hidden from them, as it is recorded of Elisha, 2 Kings 6:8 sq. But this he did not have of himself, but it was revealed to him by God,—item, he could not do this of all men, nor know all the thoughts of a single man; therefore, also, he could not know all men.” It is God’s privilege to try the hearts and reins, Psalms 7:9; to know the hearts. Acts 15:8; and to understand the thoughts afar off, Psalms 139:2. In this privilege Christ must participate in full measure, because He is the only-begotten Son of God. “He knew the people better than they were known, not only by others, but by themselves.” “Christ,” says Calvin, “knows the very roots of the trees; we, on the other hand, know the character of the trees only by their fruits.” We are reminded by this how very much we should be on our guard against rocking ourselves to sleep in our self-sufficiency, since the judgment of Christ, according to which we shall be judged, may very easily be widely different from our own. A reflection of the gift of Christ here celebrated is certainly granted also to the Church: for, among the gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:10, is that of the discerning of spirits. Before him who has true faith many mists vanish, which conceal the true forms of persons from the world. “To this distinction of good and evil,” says the Berleburger Bibel, “even Christians otherwise simple may arrive, if they faithfully follow Christ, and are in earnest about it.” Even simple and uneducated Christians often cast piercing glances. But unconditional and unexceptional certainty is still a privilege of Christ alone, and the proposition still remains true: “de occultis non judicat ecclesia.” Meyer remarks: “The supernatural immediate knowledge of Jesus is often rendered especially prominent in John 1:49; John 4:17; John 6:64; John 11:4; John 11:15; John 13:11; John 21:17.” In this the Apocalypse is in harmony with the Gospel. “I know thy works,” is constantly repeated in the epistles to the churches. And in Revelation 2:23 it is said, “And all the churches shall know that I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works. Ver. 1. “There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.” That Nicodemus is mentioned as a representative of those who are spoken of in John 2:23-25, the striking; accordance of the address of Nicodemus to Christ with the declaration, “Many believed in His name, when they saw the miracles which He did,” leaves no room for doubt. And it is no contradiction to this, that we afterwards find Nicodemus among the number of the genuine disciples of Christ. For the Lord ascribed real faith even to them; and even if He did not commit Himself to them, the reason for this was probably not their insincerity, but their indecision—their dualism, according to which their decision might result either for one side or the other. In Nicodemus the good side obtained the superiority. Only in consequence of the conversation with Christ did he come forward in the number of those to whom Christ could commit Himself. The fact, that Nicodemus was a Pharisee, is of significance in this matter. It is the very characteristic of Pharisaism, that it knows no regeneration, but only a sanctity appropriated by fragments, in which the man has the primas partes, and God, in the main, only the regarding and the rewarding thereof. It was Pharisaism which had made the temple in a spiritual sense a house of merchandise, in which a profitable trade was carried on with God. Josephus says, that according to the doctrine of the Pharisees, it is for the most part (κατὰτὸπλεῖστον) in the power of man to do right or wrong; and they taught further, that it depends on mans will, to act virtuously or criminally. They enveloped themselves entirely in a self-made holiness. His position also as a “ruler of the Jews,” must have hindered, rather than promoted, the connection of Nicodemus with Christ. “When a man,” says the Berleburger Bibel, “is in great estimation, and all eyes are directed towards him, he has very great difficulty in becoming little, and in subjecting himself to others.” But this is not the only thing. In eminent positions, there is danger of one’s anxiously striving to preserve himself in harmony with the disposition of the circle over which he is, from fear of otherwise losing “the praise of men,” John 12:43,—to enjoy which, soon becomes a need to those in high positions. Popularity easily becomes the idol of rulers. Since the pharisaic spirit then governed the masses of the people, it must have been very difficult for the rulers decidedly to confess Christ, who opposed this spirit from the beginning. Cf. John 12:42.—Ἄρχοντες are, in general, those who exercise any authority. The word is used in this general sense of chief men; e.g., in John 12:42; Luke 14:1; Matthew 9:18, where the more particular intimation is given by Luke (Luke 8:41), that he was a president of the synagogue. But here it is not merely ἄρχων, but ἄρχωντῶνἸουδαίων, which could be said only of a member of the Chief Council of the nation. So also the phrase, “master of Israel,” in ver. 10. Even the mere phrase, οἱἄρχοντες, stands repeatedly of the members of the Sanhedrim, but only where the connection, or the case itself, renders the more particular definition unnecessary. So in Luke 23:13, the ἄρχοντες, according to their juxtaposition with the ἄρχιερεῖς, are the lay associates of the Chief Council. So also in Luke 24:20. In Acts 13:27, the ἄρχοντες can only be the members of the Sanhedrim; for it was these who condemned Christ. In John 7:26, also, the ἄρχοντες are the Synedrists. To the rulers of the Jews here, correspond the ἄρχοντεςτοῦλαοῦκαὶπρεσβύτεροι, in Acts 4:8, and the rulers of those who dwell in Jerusalem, in Acts 13:27. Nicodemus first appears as a member of the Chief Council in John 7:50. Ver. 2. “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 which Thou doest, except God be with him.” That John ascribes importance to the circumstance that Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, and perceives in this a characteristic memorial of the state of his heart at that time, is evident from the repeated reference to this circumstance in John 7:50; John 19:39. The reason of his coming by night we derive, with probability, from the parallel designation of Joseph of Arimathea, in that second passage—“being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews.” Any other reason can scarcely be thought of, if the coming by night was not a chance one. Cf. John 12:42 also; according to which, many of the rulers believed on Christ, “but because of the Pharisees they did not confess [their belief], lest they should be put out of the synagogue.” We perceive the root of this fear of man partly from John 2:23-25, partly from Christ’s conversation with Nicodemus itself. The fear of man can be overcome only where there is a living faith in Christ as the very Son of God, and Saviour of the world; and the foundation of such faith is a thorough knowledge of one’s own misery, which impels one to seek in Christ the healing of the deep wounds of conscience. The fear of man is often falsely condemned,—that being taken for ordinary cowardice and dread of suffering, which is only a result of the lower stage of faith. So long as this remains, reserve is quite in order. When Nicodemus had taken to heart the contents of this conversation, he came forward as a confessor. But we must not rest content with supposing that, in mentioning the coming of Nicodemus by night, John wished to refer only to his fear of man. It is quite in accordance with the manner of John, to perceive in this a symbol of the darkness which still enveloped the mind of Nicodemus, and which made itself known in this very circumstance. The Lord Himself appears gently to hint at this in the close of the conversation, in ver. 19, where He speaks of darkness in the ethical sense. Night also occurs as the emblem of spiritual darkness in the word of the Lord in John 11:10; and when in John 13:30, John says of Judas the traitor, “He went out, and it was night,” he evidently recognised in the external night a symbol of the spiritual night, where the light of grace does not shine, and in which begins the power of darkness. In such spiritual interpretation of the night, the Apocalypse of John coincides with his Gospel. Cf. besides, Ephesians 5:8, 1 Thessalonians 5:4-5, where the condition of those who live out of Christ is represented as darkness and night, but the condition of believers as light and day. Anton well remarks, “He would not himself have known that there was still so much darkness in him, if he had not in this conference come to the light.” That Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, does not necessarily imply that the disciples of Jesus, especially the three most intimate, were not with Him. It was not these, but the Jews, that Nicodemus had to fear. It seems probable that, at a strange place like this, the disciples would assemble around Jesus in the evening. On a later occasion, Jesus spent the night with the disciples at Bethany, Matthew 21:17 sq., Mark 11:11. Ver. 11 seems to intimate distinctly the presence of the disciples. By this remark is answered the question. From whence did John obtain so accurate a knowledge of the conversation? If we think of any one of the disciples as inseparable from Jesus, it is this one, especially in Jerusalem, where he had no business connected with his earthly calling. Nicodemus says, We know. Light is thrown on this plural by chap. John 2:23-25. Nicodemus appears as the representative of those who had believed on Jesus because they saw the miracles which He did. We are led to a real plurality also by the parallel use of οἴδαμεν in John 9:24-30. Anton renders the plural too ideally when he paraphrases it: “By right we ought to know it, and by right we might all know it; and thus then I will address the conscience of the others.” Yet there is in this an element of truth. Nicodemus certainly does not anxiously stop with those, of whom he knew by experience that they shared his point of view. Behind the acknowledgment of Jesus as a teacher come from God, there is concealed the request to Jesus, that lie would manifest Himself to him as a teacher—that He would impart to him the precepts, by following which he might attain to the Messianic kingdom. Only when this is perceived does the answer of Christ seem appropriate. That which here is only intimated, appears in a more developed form in Matthew 19:16 (Luke 18:18): “And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” From the same analogous case, we perceive also what kind of teaching it was that Nicodemus expected from Jesus: the application of certain extraordinary performances, whereby he might increase the already existing treasure of his holiness, and thus render himself a worthy candidate for the kingdom of heaven. It was a good beginning, when Nicodemus, on the ground of His miracles, acknowledged in Jesus a teacher come from God. He did this not in the sense of Rationalism, which exalted the teacher in order to set aside the king and the high priest, and in truth rejected not less the teacher. He recognised in the teacher one of absolute authority. The Messiah appears as the “Teacher of righteousness” in Joe 2:23;] and in Isaiah 4:4 it is said, “Behold, I have given Him for a witness to the people.” But when Nicodemus remained content with Christ as the teacher, especially the moral teacher, this was an unsatisfactory point of view, from which he could not solve the particular problem appointed for the members of the kingdom of God, viz., of regeneration. That in Christ Nicodemus recognised the Messiah, cannot well be doubted. He was one of those who believed in the name of Christ, John 2:23; and John would hardly have attributed such a faith to those who had not yet found the right answer to the fundamental question. When he salutes Christ as the Teacher (concerning the address Rabbi, which elsewhere proceeds from those who were perfectly convinced of the Messiahship of Jesus, see the remarks on John 1:39), only that side of the nature of Christ is rendered prominent, in harmony with his personal need, which had relation to the hearts of the covenant-people. Viewed from without, he may be at the same time Judge, Ruler, Lawgiver, and He who wholly reverses the relation of Israel to the heathen world. Ver. 3. “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee. Except a man be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Why does Jesus commence directly with regeneration? Chiefly on this account, because opposition to the view of Nicodemus led to this: It is not, as thou supposest, a question of some new fruits, but of new roots, of life; not of a moral reformation, but of a fundamental renovation; not of the adoption and following of single prescriptions, but of a new sphere of existence. But also, because the doctrine of human depravity, and the consequent necessity of regeneration, forms the basis for all other doctrines, which Christ, as the teacher come from God, had to communicate. Not until the need of redemption has been called forth by this doctrine, is there the proper receptivity for the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, of His atonement, and of the signification of faith. The Lord, Himself refers to this, when in ver. 12 He designates earthly things as more accessible than heavenly. “The knowledge of the depravity of our nature,” says Quesnel, “and the necessity of being renewed by Jesus Christ, are the first elements of the Christian religion.” The strong asseveration (cf. on ἀμὴν, ἀμὴν, at John 1:22) presupposes ignorance of this great truth, and resistance to its acknowledgment, as was intimated in the words of Nicodemus, and was fully discerned by Him who knew what was in man. It is a deeply humbling truth. On this account, the man resolves with difficulty on allowing its application. When it is accepted, all boasting is excluded. The entire edifice of imagined excellence falls into ruins. Everything loses its importance, which one believes himself to have worked out in a long life of rectitude. He is thrown back at once to the point at which he first entered into life. If we specially regard Nicodemus, this point was for him a truly tragical one; there was nothing left of him. The Jew, who as such already supposed himself to have a share in the kingdom of God (the Talmud, in the Tract Sanhedrin, adduces this very proposition: all Israel has a part in the future world)—the Pharisee, the separate, whose peculiar character consisted in regarding himself as better than other people—member of the Chief Council—the reputation of being a particularly virtuous man, and the zealous endeavour to be such,—all seemed to be suddenly consumed to a small heap of ashes. He must be born over again; it is as though he had not yet been born at all. Here the word of God verily proves itself to be sharper than any two-edged sword. The serious question arises, whether it were not better to renounce the kingdom of God, than to seek it at such a price. And one may indeed avoid, at an apparently easier price, such a vast requirement. Nicodemus certainly took serious counsel within himself, whether he should not retract his declaration: “Master, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God.” In the form in which the requisition is made, there is yet a certain indulgence. Jesus pronounces the sentence generally; He does not say directly, Thou must be born again. The Lord uses the more direct personal address in ver. 7. With respect to ἄνωθεν, there was a difference of interpretation even in the times of the Church Fathers. Chrysostom says, Some render ἄνωθεν by, from heaven; others, by from the beginning. Etymologically, both renderings are admissible. Ἄνωθεν, from above, Matthew 27:51, John 19:23, occurs in the sense of from heaven, in John 3:31; John 19:11, James 1:17; James 3:15; James 3:17; with the meaning of from the first, Luke 1:3, where it corresponds to the ἀπʼ ? ἀρχῆς in ver. 2, Acts 26:5, Galatians 4:9, where πάλιν and ἄνωθεν occur in connection with each other, as also in Wis 19:6. According to the latter rendering, ἄνωθεν calls attention to the fact, that an entirely new beginning must be made, in opposition to the opinion, that only a continued building on the ground of nature is needed. It favours this rendering, in the first place, that the δεύτερον in the answer of Nicodemus corresponds to the ἄνωθεν here,—a ground which cannot be set aside by such remarks as these: “Nicodemus understood only so much of the discourse of Jesus, that he comprehended that a second birth was meant;” or, “Nicodemus did not understand ἄνωθεν as δεύτερον, but not at all.” Moreover, the phrase, to come down, or come from above, certainly occurs; but it is doubtful whether it can be said: to be born from above;—from above must then mean, by an influence coming down from above. But it is of decisive significance, that all the parallel passages speak of a being born again,—none, of a being born from above. The Lord Himself speaks, in Matthew 19:28, of the regeneration of the earth, which presupposes the regeneration of the human race. Baptism is designated as the washing of regeneration in Titus 3:5. The ἀναγεννήσας in 1 Peter 1:3, ἀναγεγεννημένοι in 1 Peter 1:23, is of the more significance, since ἀνά in the verbs compounded with it, is akin to ἄνω, over again, denuo. Καινὴκτίσις also, in 2 Corinthians 5:17, corresponds to ἄνωθεν in the meaning of over again. Finally, the rendering of regeneration is the oldest: it is found in the ancient Syriac translation, and already in Justin Martyr, who wrote about half a century after the composition of this Gospel, and in his first Apology, § 61, thus quotes our text: ἄνμὴἀναγεννηθῆτε, οὐμὴεἰσέλθητεεἰςτὴνβασιλείαντῶνοὐρανῶν. From all this, there can be no doubt as to the meaning of ἄνωθεν. It contains the severest indictment of human nature, on whose soil no fruits of righteousness can flourish, and which needs an absolute transformation. Regeneration is distinguished from μετάνοια by this, that in it the requirement of a permutation into an entirely new being is laid down more rigorously, and addition to that which already exists is more distinctly excluded. Anton: “This way of proceeding is a heavy cross to man. He is not willingly in a school, where his nothingness is presented before him; for man wishes notwithstanding to be nonnihil, something. Ver. 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?” Nicodemus has been charged with a foolish misapprehension, being said to have understood the words of Christ of a second natural birth. Such stupidity would render it inexplicable, that Christ should have entered more deeply on the subject with him. He rather gives the answer, which will always be given by one who has passed a long life in the element of mere nature, even under the sporadic influences of grace, when the requisition is first made to him of a radical renovation of life. An elderly man is on the whole, and for the most part, what he is. He meets such demands with the consciousness, I am this; and they seem to him not much otherwise than if one should demand of a forest-tree that it should become a fruit-tree. He can, indeed, in detail, by the exertion of all his powers, and with the aid of God and His Spirit, with which Nicodemus could not have been unacquainted, strive to improve and mend himself; but to “be born,” to enter into an entirely new sphere of existence, this, according to his conception, is impossible. In order to this, his existence must begin entirely over again; he must come into the world as another, even from his mother’s womb, since the most of that, which has been afterwards developed and consolidated, is based on that which the man brought with him into the world; and since this, as a matter of course, is impossible, the requirement of regeneration is a visionary one, and He who has made it must take it back again. (Heumann: “This is, indeed, an impossibility. Am I then on this account to be excluded from the kingdom of God?”) The requirement is an impossible thing, because it contends against nature. When this has once attained to consistency, when all has assumed a fixed form, a total change is no longer possible. Thus must Nicodemus have judged, so long as he had not yet heartily believed, and become by faith a partaker of the whole riches of Christ, and had learnt by experience His divinity, the power of His atonement, and the might of His Spirit. Nicodemus says this, however, not as a cold rationalist, one who will ward off the truth from him at any price; he says it with a quaking heart. He has come to Christ, presuming Him to be the teacher sent from God. And the word of Christ has, indeed, raised a doubt on the surface of his heart, but in its inmost depths has strengthened his conviction. It has pierced like a flash of lightning into the night of his soul; it has found an ally in his conscience, which loudly assures him that this seemingly impossible thing must yet be, if he will see the kingdom of God. Ver. 5. “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.” The Lord repeats, against the contradiction of Nicodemus, what He had said before; but m such a manner that He more distinctly indicates the factors of the new life, which is the irremissible condition of a participation in the kingdom of heaven. There are decisive reasons for the supposition, that by the water, which is mentioned as one of these factors, is to be understood the water of baptism. Already, in ver. 22, we find the disciples of Jesus baptizing under His commission; and it is natural to suppose that the doctrinal basis is here given for this activity. In John 1:33, moreover, water and Spirit are likewise mentioned, and the water is that of baptism. The same is true also of Mat 3:11, and of ver. 16: as Jesus went up out of the water, the Spirit of God descended upon Him. What there occurred to Christ, is emblematic for believers. In Acts 2:38, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the Holy Ghost,”—in the same manner, water and Spirit, baptism and Spirit, are connected with each other. As here water appears as one of the factors, and as a fundamental condition of regeneration, so in a very similar relation appears baptism, in the passage closely connected with our text. Titus 3:5, where it is designated as λουτροῦπαλιγγενεσίαςκαὶἀνακαινώσεωςπνεύματοςἁγίου. Now, if these reasons decidedly forbid that we should here separate water from baptism (cf. besides, Ephesians 5:26, καθαρίσαςτῷλουτρῷτοῦὕδατος), there are again other reasons as distinctly in favour of the view, that the water here has a symbolical character, and typifies the forgiveness of sins. Water, as here used, is not to be distinguished from the water in a whole series of passages in the Psalms and prophets, in which it signifies the forgiveness of sins, which was already typified in the symbolism of the Mosaic law by material purification. David says, in Psalms 51:2, “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” The prayer is for the forgiveness of sins. The further unfolding of this prayer is given in vers. 9-11. In vers. 12-14 the impartation of the second thing is then prayed for, which necessarily follows from the granting of the first, the impartation of the sanctifying grace of God. As here, so also there, water and Spirit are in close connection with each other. If water there signifies the forgiveness of sins, then here also it has this meaning. In Isaiah 3:15, “So shall He sprinkle many nations,” the sprinkling evidently has the signification of absolution from sin. In Ezekiel 36:25 it is said, “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols (filth), will I cleanse you.” We have in substance the meaning of this passage in Jeremiah 31:34, “For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” To this first benefit is added, in ver. 26, as the second, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.” Here also water in the sense of forgiveness, and the impartation of the Spirit, go hand in hand. In Zechariah 13:1 it is said, “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.” It is evident that here also water signifies the forgiveness of sins. How now are these two views, that water, according to the one series of reasons, must signify baptism, and according to the other, the forgiveness of sins, to be united? The answer is: Water is baptism, and at the same time the embodied forgiveness of sins. For the essence of baptism consists in this, that it brings with it the forgiveness of sins. The water of baptism signifies the forgiveness of sins, but not in such a manner that this exists independently of it; and is only typified by it (as Olshausen is of opinion, that the water does not refer to the sacrament, but to the idea of baptism, to the inward occurrence of repentance in the soul), but so that the forgiveness of sins is connected with the water. The water appears in like manner with the Spirit as a factor of the new life. When this seems, in ver. 6, to be derived from the Spirit alone, we must supplement to this from ver. 5, that the Spirit, which is the positive factor of the new life, presupposes the water, as already in the Old Testament the forgiveness of sins is represented as the really fundamental benefit. The water is the seal of access to the Spirit. When the Berleburger Bibel thus paraphrases the sense: “If one should rely solely on his baptism by water, if he should neglect the new birth, and should not allow the renewing of the Holy Spirit to take place within him, then he could not enter into the kingdom of God,” this is not to unfold, but to tenfold, in the spiritualistic interest. The water is not here to be depreciated, but to be recommended with respect to the baptism shortly to be accomplished, and to be designated as the vehicle of the forgiveness of sins, the necessary precondition and the sure guaranty of the impartation of the Spirit. That the declaration of the Lord now before us, which was referred to baptism already with perfect confidence by Justin, Apol. i. 61, is opposed to the doctrine of the Reformed Church concerning baptism, is seen from the manifold attempts of. Reformed expositors, even of the best and most pious, to explain the water otherwise,—attempts on which the stamp of worthlessness is already impressed by the fact, that they have never been able to arrive at any agreement. According to Calvin, e.g., the water is the Holy Ghost Himself, who is thus named from His purifying and animating power; according to Lampe, it is the obedience of Christ, etc. Buddeus did not make use of too strong an expression when he called these expositions frivolas plane atque ahsonas. The prominence of the water must have been a fatal blow to the Pharisee in Nicodemus. Nicodemus was to reflect, remarks Anton, “for what purpose natural water is used, namely, for washing; and thus further to recognise what that filth must be, which must be first washed away.” Our declaration does not lose its practical importance, even for those who have already attained to regeneration of water and Spirit. “It is this new birth,” remarks Quesnel, “which gives us the right to turn unceasingly to the author of our new existence, and to the principle of our new life, and on every occasion to desire from Him His new Spirit.” Ver. 6. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” The presupposition is, that only the spiritual can be true members of the kingdom of God, which is spirit. But such a position cannot be attained by the way of nature. Of that which is fleshly only the fleshly, of sinners only the sinner, can be born. (Berleburger Bibel: “Thou hast indeed the wretched bodily birth in thee, but thou canst not by it enter into the kingdom of heaven.”) Therefore, together with the bodily, there is needed a higher, spiritual birth. The doctrine which our Lord here lays down, is clearly presented also in the Old Testament. Adam begets a son after his image, and in his likeness. Genesis 5:3; therefore, after his fall, a sinner like him. David says, in Psalms 51:5, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me:” he confesses, that even at his birth, yea, even at his conception, he was tainted with sin. In Job 14:4 it is said, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.” Cf. Genesis 8:21; Psalms 58:3. Philippi, in his Glaubenslehre 3, S. 200, says, “When it is said, that that which is born of flesh is flesh, by this is meant not merely the material human nature as the seat of the depraved human inclinations. This limitation is the less justified in the present connection of thought, since Nicodemus is the representative of Pharisaism, which, in opposition to Sadduceeism, did not seek after sensual pleasure, but after righteousness in good works; which legal striving must, therefore, likewise be comprehended under σὰρξ.” The σὰρξ, he continues, designates not only the sensuous human nature, but human nature in general, as comprising both sense and spirit, and indeed human nature in its present character; therefore, corrupt, spiritual-sensuous human nature. Hence in Galatians 5:19-20, sins of selfishness, as much as sins of sensuality, are adduced, as works of the flesh; and in Colossians 2:18, even the puffed-up mind of a hyper-spiritual ascetic, who is bent on annihilating his sensuality, is designated as a fleshly mind. From these reasons it is concluded, that “Σὰρξ signifies man as he is by nature, before regeneration by the Spirit;” or, as Wieseler says on Galatians 5:13, “σὰρξ is the sinful nature of man, both bodily and spiritual.” But when it is shown by such reasons that σὰρξ cannot possibly denote mere “sensuality,” that it comprehends the whole range of human corruption; yet thus, on the other hand, there is still wanting an answer to the question, why then the whole of the old man is thus, without further explanation, designated by the flesh,—a designation which, according to that rendering, cannot at all be justified as an a potiori one. Further, if every special reference to the bodily side of human existence is set aside in the use of σὰρξ, it is not explained, why, in Galatians 5:19-21, the series of the works of the flesh is opened and concluded by those very sins in which the reference to the bodily side is quite manifest; as fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, at the commencement,—drunkenness and revilings, at the end. That σὰρξ always has a special reference to the material nature, is evident also from this, that instead of flesh simply, the designation flesh and blood repeatedly occurs; cf. on John 1:13; and that body is repeatedly substituted for flesh, as in Romans 8:13 : εἰδὲπνεύματιτὰςπράξειςτοῦσώματοςθανατοῦτε, ζήσεσθε. According to Romans 8:10, the σῶμα even of the regenerate still remains the abode of sin, which from thence continually incites the spirit. This is explicable only, when greater importance is attributed to corporeality with respect to sin, than is done by those who understand by flesh alone the “sinful nature of man.” The “body of death” also, in Romans 7:24, and the “law in the members,” in ver. 23, are hardly compatible with such a conception. What is then the correct solution of the problem? Sin has its starting-point not in the flesh, but in the spirit. The temptation of our first parents was directed to the spirit. So also the temptation of Christ. Regeneration also must proceed from the spirit. The Apostle, in Ephesians 4:23, requires the renewing of the inner man, or of the spirit of the mind, in proof that from thence sin has taken its origin, that there is its real source. But what renders sin so dangerous for man, as a being of both body and spirit, is, that the impulses proceeding from the spirit make an impression upon the flesh, the material nature; that sin gradually becomes fixed in this, and from thence incites the spirit, making it at last a wretched slave, sold under sin. This is true not merely of lust and drunkenness—when the Apostle says, in 1 Corinthians 6:18, φεύγετετὴνπορνείαν. πᾶνἁμάρτημαὃἐὰνποιήσῃἄνθρωποςἐκτὸςτοῦσώματόςἐστιν· ὁδὲπορνεύωνεἰςτὸἴδιονσῶμαἁμαρτάνει, this is only spoken by way of comparison; in fornication, the body has the most direct and immediate part—it is true also of anger, pride, avarice, envy, etc. All these sins are accompanied by corporeal excitement, and transfer themselves, as it were, to the body. This is the truth contained in the physiognomy of Lavater, in the phrenology of Gall, and similar theories. If it were otherwise, the connection of the body and spirit would be reduced to a purely external, mechanical one; and it would also appear strange, that Holy Scripture designates sin with so much preference, according to its bodily expression. Sinful impulses exist in the material nature, also, in consequence of original sin: how otherwise could there be family sins, which can yet be propagated only by physical generation? We may see from the very stubbornness of such sins, how dangerous a part the flesh plays in the sphere of sin. Ver. 7. “Marvel not that I said unto thee. Ye must be born again.” Such wonder Nicodemus had expressed in ver. 4. Jesus, as the searcher of hearts, perceived that it still remained. But probably also it was to be read in his looks. The word Ye refers back to we know in ver. 2. Nicodemus had come forward as the representative of his associates in sentiment, and supposed that Jesus would accept in glad surprise, and without examination, the homage which these offered to Him. Jesus intimates, to his and their confusion, that with them as they are. He can have nothing whatever to do. Ver. 8. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” Luther: “As thou canst not by thy reason understand the wind, what it is; and although thou already distinctly hearest the roaring of it, yet canst not know or observe either its beginning or its ending—how far from thee it began, or how far beyond thee it ceaseth: so, much less canst thou comprehend by thy reason, how regeneration takes place.” That the point of comparison is singly and alone the incomprehensibility and that those are in error who assume a threefold point of comparison,—1. the free self-determination of the Holy Spirit; 2. the experience of His operation on the part of Man 1:3. its “nevertheless incomprehensible character;” that it is improper to draw a parallel between the “voice” of the wind, and the fruits of the spirit, or good works, and that the thought is simply this: Do not allow thyself to take exception to the undeniable fact of regeneration, because thou canst not comprehend how it takes place;—all this is shown by the Old Testament passage, Ecclesiastes 11:5, “As thou knowest not what is the way of the wind [Eng. Vers. spirit], or of the bones in the womb of her that is with child; so thou knowest not the works of God, that maketh all.” The bones can only be regarded here according to their invisibility; and so also, in the case of the wind, the point of comparison can be only its unaccountable, incomprehensible, mysterious character. It is not here intended to set a limit to scientific investigation with respect to the wind. If we should succeed in learning its general laws, this passage would still remain untouched. It is not the wind in general which is here spoken of, but this or that wind, and that which presents itself at first view, as is shown by the analogy of the second comparison in the Old Test. passage. Anton: “One may indeed know whether the wind comes from the east or from the west, and consequently whither it goeth; but no one can precisely determine where it first began, how far it shall at this time extend, or where it shall cease. And yet thou hast no doubt in the matter; thou dost not say on this account, I imagine that there is a wind. So the regenerate knows that he is changed, but he knows not how the change took place.” It is not intended to awaken a sense for the spiritual miracle by the indication of a miracle in the visible world, but the aim is only to give to the thought an intuitively intelligible expression.—Πνεῦμα occurs very seldom of the wind: in the LXX., Genesis 8:1; Ecclesiastes 11:5; in the New Testament, only Hebrews 1:7, and there not quite certainly. Here, however, the infrequent designation is chosen on account of the comparison with the Spirit, as whose symbol the wind occurs also in Ezekiel 37:9. Cf. Christology ii, S. 590. [Translation, iii. p. 54. On the same symbolism rests, besides Acts 2:2, also John 20:22, where the Lord breathes upon His Apostles, and says, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” The interpretation of the Spirit is wrecked even on the Old Test, passage, and then on the οὗτως. Πνέω also stands only of the wind, John 6:18, Revelation 7:1. The words, “where it listeth,” indicate that the motion of the wind is free, various, and incalculable. Ver. 9. “Nicodemus answered and said unto Him, How can these things be?” Ver. 10. “Jesus answered and said unto him. Art thou the master of Israel, and knowest not these things?” The teacher is more emphatic than where merely a teacher is spoken of. The article indicates, that in Nicodemus the ideal personage of the teacher of Israel has become concrete; the single member of this profession represents the whole of the profession. It is a similar instance, when, in 1 Samuel 17:58, to the question of Saul, “Whose son art thou?” David answers, “The son of thy servant Jesse,”—all the sons of Jesse being represented to Saul by David. So, also, when in Haggai 1:13, Haggai is called the angel of the Lord; and when Jesus, in John 10:11, says, “I am the Good Shepherd,”—i.e., in My person the Good Shepherd is represented. The reproving address of our Lord requires that the doctrine of regeneration should be clearly presented in the Old Testament; and the severity of the rebuke leads to the conclusion, that it refers not merely to a chapter of the prophetic theology, but to what could and should have been experienced even under the Old Covenant. And in reality the doctrine of regeneration is clearly presented in the Old Testament; and the fact, that Nicodemus knew nothing of it, ought the less to perplex us, since neither Pelagius knew anything of it, nor did Kant, nor did Wegscheider. The necessity of regeneration is founded in the fundamental conceptions of the Old Testament. A religion which teaches with such absolute clearness and exactness, on the one hand, the deep and innate depravity of the human heart, and, on the other, the loftiest ideality of moral requirements, cannot do without regeneration. Circumcision of the heart is only another expression for regeneration; and this is laid down even in the books of Moses, Deuteronomy 10:16; Deuteronomy 30:6, as the necessary mark of all true members of God’s people. Of Saul it is said, in 1 Samuel 10:9, “And it was so, that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart;” and of David, in 1 Samuel 16:13, “Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.” After his grievous fall, David says, in Psalms 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” He perceives that nothing can be effected by a mere reformation,—that it needs the development of the same creative power, which God’s Spirit once displayed, when in the beginning He moved upon the face of the waters. Regeneration as a doctrine and a fact is as old as the ancient Covenant itself. We meet it, as it were, bodily in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If it seems to be pointed out first in several passages prophetic of the coming of the Messianic period, this is explained by the circumstance, that not until this period were the conditions of regeneration to come fully into life, or the powers operating in it to attain to their fullest development. The principal passages here are: Ezekiel 11:19, “And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh,” in the place of the natural heart, which, with respect to God, is as hard as stone, insensible and unsusceptible; Ezekiel 18:31, Ezekiel 36:26; Jeremiah 4:4; Jeremiah 31:33. Whilst, therefore, in substance, the New Testament doctrine of regeneration is variously intimated in the Old Testament, with respect to the expression, regeneration, we find a pre-intimation of it only in two Old Testament passages: in Job 11:12, “For vain man would be wise, and the wild ass be born a man,” in the sense of, qui natus est onager, fiat homo per novani nativitatem; and in Psalms 87, the theme of which is, Zion in the future the birth-place of the nations; here they shall be born anew, as children of God and children of Abraham. Ver. 11. “Verily, verily, I say unto thee. We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.” The plural οἴδαμεν, here, corresponds to the plural οἴδαμεν in ver. 2, and stands in opposition to it; as can be the less mistaken, since the ὑμᾶς of the Lord, in ver. 7, referred to this plural, and since the οὐλαμβάνετε, οὐπιστεύετε, immediately following, also have regard to it. Now, since the plural there designates a real plurality, this must be the case here also. It cannot be doubted who is here meant, besides Jesus. “The divine messengers of former times, especially John the Baptist,” would have been more particularly designated. The conclusion that they are meant, can be arrived at only by expedients of which there is no intimation in the Scripture. The most natural thought is of the disciples personally present. We perceive Jesus to be accompanied by these always from John 1:40 onwards; they being designated as His followers by the ἀκολούθειμοι in John 1:44, cf. John 2:2; John 2:11-12; John 2:17, John 3:22. We can scarcely doubt that they were here collected around Jesus. The supposition, that Christ here spoke in the plural of Himself alone, according to the manner of princes, is opposed even by the form of the expression. The declaration contains nothing which has reference to Christ’s prerogative, but only what applies also to the Apostles, and what John elsewhere attributes to himself. Cf. John 19:35, and the introduction to 1 John—ὃἀκηκόαμεν, ὃἑωράκαμεν, ἀπαγγέλλομενὑμῖν,—and in Revelation 1:2, ὃςἐμαρτύρησεντὸνλόγοντοῦθεοῦκαὶτὴνμαρτυρίανἸησοῦΧριστοῦὅσαεἶδε, on which the remark is made in my commentary, “John does not speak of himself, but only witnesses to the word of God, as it was certified to him by the testimony of Jesus Christ. By the words, that he saw, his own invention, or the intermingling of a luxuriant subjectivity, is entirely excluded.” In the main, that only is expressed which the whole true Church of Christ may declare together with her Lord, and which especially every upright teacher may repeat after Him. The Lord expresses mainly a fact, a great privilege, which belongs to the Church, in opposition to the wisdom of the world with its lively speculations. The disciples could then already speak of regeneration from experience, and not as the blind of colour. The germ of regeneration had been already sunk deep in their hearts. That, in general, from the first commencement of their relation to Christ, they began to speak what they knew, and to testify what they had seen, is evident from John 1:42; John 1:46; so that the objection of Lampe to the conjoint reference of the declaration to the disciples, “sed illi nondum testabantur,” does not hold. To believe and confess, to know and to speak, to see and to testify, are closely and inseparably connected with each other. In the declaration, however, is implied a paraenesis. He who is tempted to bring forward his own fancies, must be terrified in view of these words of Christ. Ver. 12. “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly things?” A strikingly coincident parallel passage is Wis 9:16, καὶμόλιςεἰκάζομεντὰἐπὶγῆς, κιὰτὰἐνχερσὶνεὑρίσκομενμετὰπόνου· τὰδὲἐνοὐρανοῖςτίςἐξιχνίασε. The difference, however, is this,—that in this passage the earthly things belong to the sphere of nature, while in our text a distinction is made even between the earthly and the heavenly in religious matters. We can be in no doubt as to what is here meant by heavenly things, since the triple mention of heaven in ver. 13, plainly shows that we have there a further disclosure concerning this point. We must accordingly suppose doctrines like that of the divinity of Christ. That by earthly things is chiefly meant regeneration, is evident from the fact, that the Lord had previously spoken of this, ἔπονὑμῖν. Regeneration pertains to earthly things, notwithstanding that its operating principle, the Holy Spirit, vers. 5, 6, is a supernatural one. Its basis is insight into the natural character of man—his deep depravity. This is an earthly fact. He who has first clearly perceived this, and in whom, in consequence, a longing after a higher stage of existence has been awakened, he has already made an important progress in the understanding of regeneration. (It may also be said that ἐπίγειον is the recognition of the necessity of regeneration. Cf. ver. 7, ὃςδεῖὑμᾶςγεννηθῆναιἄνωθεν.) Essentially otherwise is it with heavenly things,—the divinity of Christ, ver. 13; the plan of redemption by Him, vers. 14, 15. These can be accessible only when clearness has been attained with respect to the earthly things. Experience shows that belief in the divinity of Christ and His atonement disappeared from the Church directly when it failed in the recognition of human depravity. The words, ye believe not, are not to be taken absolutely with respect to Nicodemus. For then the Lord would not have told him the heavenly things in what follows. This would be to preach to deaf ears. And then it must be taken into view, that from ver. 9 onwards, all remonstrance from Nicodemus ceases. He is dumb, because the truth has touched his heart. He by his silence says, with Job, “Behold, I am vile: what shall I answer Thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, but I will not answer; yea, twice, but I will proceed no further.” With this declaration, which must have struck the more severely, since Nicodemus had begun with the confession, that Christ is a teacher come from God, and had therefore bound himself to accept without examination what He offered him, the Saviour gave the last blow to the dying unbelief of Nicodemus. In the subsequent history, he is represented as a believer in Christ. We cannot doubt that he became so by means of the present discourse. The point of decision, however, is designated by his silence, which is the more significant, since the Lord had severely attacked him in vers. 10-12. Especially ver. 10, spoken to a member of the Chief Council, must have brought about a decision either for the one side or the other. Anton: “These must have been real thorns in the heart of Nicodemus; now, however, he is submissive and perfectly quiet. But Christ must proceed still further with him.” Ver. 13. “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven” (who will ascend to heaven). That the Lord does not here attest the certainty of His knowledge in religious matters (Meyer: “And no other than I can reveal the heavenly things to you;” De Wette: “To be taken in a metaphorical sense, of knowing—the bringing down, as it were, of that which is in heaven”), but rather passes thus from the statement of earthly things to the statement of heavenly things, in which the earthly have their roots, is evident, besides from the inadmissibility, to be proved directly, of the figurative rendering of the ascending to heaven, from the manifest reference also in which the triple mention of heaven here stands to the heavenly things, the ἐπουράνια. Among the heavenly things, the true divinity of Christ takes the first place in the doctrine of salvation. For this is the foundation of the atonement instituted by Him. On this rests the forgiveness of sins which is sealed by baptism, and on this also the impartation of the Holy Spirit. The divinity of Christ is here taught, after the pride of Nicodemus has first been broken, and thus the way has been prepared for faith in the divinity of Christ, and the atonement founded upon it (vers. 14, 15).—“And no man hath ascended up to heaven.” The meaning of these words, which have been in various ways incorrectly rendered, is indicated by the Old Testament passage, Proverbs 30:4, “Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended?” Vers. 2-6 here form a commentary to the motto: “If God be with me, I am strong.” The object is, by reference to human limitation and baseness, to invite to unconditional subjection to the revealed word of God, with which he only is justified in dispensing, who can do as God does. No man can ascend up to heaven, the abode of Omnipotence and glory; none can raise himself to the Divine power and majesty: we are rather banished to the base and poor earth. “And descended,” to effect those things which are afterwards enumerated: to gather the wind in His fist, to bind the waters in a garment, to establish the ends of the earth,—a descent like that in Genesis 11, equipped with the might of heaven. The question demands a negative answer, and, in meaning, the words, “no man hath ascended,” of our text, correspond exactly to, “Who hath ascended?” in the Old Testament passage. Anton: “The world has stood long already, and there have always been heaven-ascenders, climbing spirits, and daring minds (Genesis 11:4, ‘Let us build a tower, whose top may reach to heaven;’ Isaiah 14:13, ‘For thou saidst in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God’); but has any one ever once ascended? No one!” The questions are similar in Isaiah 40:12, “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?” etc.,—as much as to say, no man can do so; Job 38:12, “Hast thou commanded the morning?” vers. 29, 39; and so also many other declarations of God. From this passage we perceive,—1. That the Perfect has its usual signification; so that we cannot translate, with Luther, “No man ascendeth to heaven,” which would also be grammatically unallowable. 2. That the ascension is to be taken in its proper sense. In the original passage, something is evidently spoken of which is absolutely impossible to man. Who ever ascended into heaven, so that he no longer needed to pray: Om Father, who art in heaven? We are led to conclude a real ascension here, not more by this original passage, than by all the parallel passages. In the whole New Testament ascending up to heaven stands only of ascension in the proper sense. Cf. John 6:62, John 20:17; Revelation 11:12; Luke 24:51. In Ephesians 4:9-10, ἀναβαίνειν, which stands in direct opposition to καταβαίνειν here, refers to the ascension. We are led to the proper sense also by the antithesis of the descending, and by the usage of the Old Testament, in which ςμδ occurs of the returning of God to heaven, when in a passing manner He had made Himself known, in prelude to His appearance on earth in the flesh. Genesis 17:22; Genesis 35:13; Psalms 47:5; Psalms 68:18. If now, after the proofs adduced, we can think only of a proper ascension, which in the case of Christ had not yet taken place, and must, moreover, render the words, even according to the original passage, as an absolute negation, admitting of no exception, No man hitherto, or, no man ever; not, no one besides Me,—we must then supply at the close of the verse, “who will ascend to heaven.” The hypothesis of such an ellipse can be open to no objection, since the proposition, without such an hypothesis, would be contrary to the evidence, so that no ambiguity can arise from the breviloquence. We have then three periods: He was in heaven, for He came down from thence; He is in heaven; and He will be in heaven. That the declaration begins with a reference to the ascension, is on account of the original passage. Christ comprises together that which He here declares of Himself in ver. 16, in the designation of Himself as the only-begotten Son of God. By designating Himself as He who has descended from heaven, the Lord attributes to Himself a residence in heaven before His advent in the flesh, in harmony with what, in John 17:5, He says of the glory which He had with the Father before the world was; and in harmony also with John the Baptist, who in John 3:31 designates Him as having come from above, ἄνωθεν, and from heaven, ἐκτοῦοὐρανοῦ, and as on this account absolutely exalted above all that is earthly. That the words presuppose the true divinity of Christ, so that we cannot think of such a descent as that of angels (such an one would not be compatible with His birth of Mary; only God and man form no irreconcilable antithesis), is shown by the unmistakeable reference to the passage of the Old Testament, in which a descent is attributed to God, when He transiently appears on the earth, or there makes known His glory, in prelude to His advent in the flesh. So, e.g., Exodus 3:8; Exodus 19:11, “The third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai.” Numbers 11:17; Numbers 12:5; Isaiah 31:4, “So shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight for Mount Zion.” That the expression, which Jesus makes use of also in John 6:33; John 6:38; John 6:50-51; John 6:58 (cf. Ephesians 4:9-10), refers to the superhuman nature of Christ, even the Jews recognised in John 6:42. Why does Christ here call Himself the Son of man? Because His humanity was a veil, which concealed from short-sighted eyes the heavenly majesty which He claims for Himself; as much as if He said. Notwithstanding that I stand before you as a man; or, Thou seest Me, indeed, as an humble man, but, etc. This expression, however, by which the Lord concedes what is before the eyes, is itself adapted to remove the offence. It refers back to Daniel—cf. on John 1:32—where One like the Son of man, therefore like a man only on one side of His nature, appears in the clouds of heaven. That ὁὤνἐντῷοὐρανῷ can mean only, Who is in heaven, not, who was in heaven, is now again generally acknowledged. Winer (Gram. S. 305) says, “In the sense of, who was in heaven, it would nearly coincide with the sense of, who came down from heaven; but here something more special (and more emphatic) is to be declared (and the climax is not to be mistaken).” The words in brackets are to be struck out. There is no climax here. All three designations imply the same dignity. Each of itself leads to the conception of full divinity, which makes itself known in the past, the present, and the future of the Son of God. Not only the tautology is decisive against the interpretation, which was, but also the language. The participle Present, when unconnected with a Preterite or a temporal adverb, can stand only to designate the present, especially here, where the present evidently forms an antithesis to the past and the future. Heaven is here considered as the abode of God, as Aristotle says (in Tholuck, Sermon on the Mount, on Matthew 6:9), πάντεςτὸνἀνωτάτῷτῷθείῳτόπονἀποδιδόασι. To be or to sit in heaven, is always represented in the Old Testament as the Divine prerogative, and as equivalent to His holiness, and His abstractedness from all creaturely essence. Thus in Psalms 2:4; Psalms 11:4; Psalms 115:3, “But our God is in the heavens; He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased.” Psalms 103:19, “The Lord hath prepared His throne in the heavens; and His kingdom ruleth over all.” Ecclesiastes 5:2, “For God is in heaven, and thou upon earth,” He the rich, and we the poor; He the Almighty, and we the helpless. In 2 Chronicles 20:6, Jehoshaphat says, “Jehovah, God of our fathers, art Thou not God in heaven, and rulest not Thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen?” The Lord, by designating Himself here as He who as the Son of man also is in heaven, “intimates that He is conscious of the Divine glory which He enjoyed with the Father even when He walked the earth in the base form of a servant.” Coincident with our passage Isaiah 14:9, where Christ says, “He who seeth Me, seeth the Father.” In this duplex existence which Christ ascribes to Himself, His believing followers do to a certain degree participate. They are upon earth, and yet at the same time, through connection with their Head, in heaven. Vers. 14, 15. “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.” The Lord here proceeds to lay before Nicodemus the “heavenly things,”—in the preceding verse, His divinity; here, the atonement to be made by Him on this foundation. Anton makes some excellent remarks on the course which Jesus takes in the conversation with Nicodemus. “Our lost condition must on our part be the primum cognitum, the first thing that is perceived. Of this lost condition, on account of which we must be born again, Nicodemus had heard, in ver. 6. And this had become for him λόγοςἔμφυτος, an implanted word. Therefore was he now become so meek, and could also attend with a gentle disposition to τὰἐπουράνια, and not only bear them, but recognise that this is the medicine by which he must be healed; and that those who would be healed, and who would not perish, but instead of this, have eternal life, must adhere to this means. Nicodemus required to be brought in an orderly manner from one point to another, until the article of Christ could be confided to him. From this we see, that the article of Christ stands as it were before the door of all men; but man cannot advance to it ex abrupto, and as by a leap, but he must first be subdued and bowed down by the recognition of his depravity. But when man has entered into the knowledge of his depravity, then Christ also enters in with him, so that He confides to him the article of the Redeemer. And it is here to be admired, that though Nicodemus was at first inclined to resist the preliminaries of regeneration, he after this became still; on which account Christ confided to him the highest points, even that of His Passion.” The fundamental question which offers itself with respect to the present declaration of Christ is this: What is signified by the brazen serpent in the original passage, Numbers 21:1 In Wis 16:6, it is designated as the token of salvation, σύμβολονσωτηρίας. But little is said by this; the question being, in how far it was so. According to the current hypothesis, the serpent is said to be the “symbol of Divine saving power.” It is remarked, “In the Egyptian theology, it was of old a symbol of healing (saving) power. Among the Greeks and Romans, the serpent was the constant accompaniment or representative of the god of healing, and the most appropriate symbol of the healing art.” But such heathen conceptions are not without further indication to be transferred to biblical matters. Even if we should follow this hypothesis, it must at all events undergo a modification. The element of craft and wisdom in the serpent must be taken into view. That this characteristic element, which is rendered prominent already in Genesis 3:1, may also be applied in bonam partem, is shown by Matthew 10:16. Believers being called to the imitation of God, the fact, that the wisdom of serpents is required of them, implies that God also possesses this in the highest degree,—that He is specially ingenious with respect to the means of salvation for His people. But disregarding the objection, which the hypothesis of a symbolization of Divine power must call forth, that there is none such to be found in the entire Old Testament (the cherubim even were not such, but represented the earthly living creation), this hypothesis is wrecked on the circumstance, that in Numbers 21:8 it is said, “Make thee a Saraph, and set it on a pole.” There can be no doubt as to the meaning of Saraph. The serpent is not thus called “from the fiery red spots of its skin:” for ωψσ does not mean to burn, but to consume, and it is called the consuming because its poison is like the consuming fire, as for a similar reason certain serpents are called in the Greek,πρηστῆρες and καύσωνες. The Vulgate renders ωψσ correctly by serpens flatu adurens. Accordingly, it is the poison of the serpent which is especially to be regarded; but this is entirely left out of account, when in the serpent is perceived an emblem of the wisdom inventive of salvation, and superior to all noxious potencies. The Saraph can in a manner only obtain its rights—in correspondence with ver. 6, “And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people,”—by the hypothesis, that the brazen serpent, no less than the living ones, designates the noxious potency; the only difference being, that the brazen serpent is the noxious potency overcome by Divine power. It must be observed, that Moses does not take a living serpent, but a dead image thereof, for a sign of its conquest by the healing power of the Lord. From this point of view, the πηωπηωϊ in Numbers 21:9 (“And Moses made a serpent of brass “) is not an accidental alliteration; the fiery serpent is, as it were, hardened into dead brass. The setting up as a sign also is of significance. This was a δειγματίζειν, a θριαμβεύειν, Colossians 2:15. If the signification of the serpent in the original passage is determined, there can be no doubt also as to the point of comparison. It is manifest that remarks like this, “the serpent does not enter into the comparison, but only its erection,” owe their origin only to confusion. Christ is the antitype of the serpent, in so far as He has taken upon Him, and vicariously expiated, the most noxious of all noxious potencies—sin. That which was done to that lower inimical power, was a pledge that in the future an equally efficient aid should be afforded against this worst enemy; what was then done for the preservation of the earthly life, was a substantial intimation of that future working for the acquisition of eternal life. The conception, according to which Christ crucified represents conquered sin, occurs in a series of passages of the New Testament: Romans 8:3; 2 Corinthians 5:21, τὸνμὴγνόνταἁμαρτίανὑπὲρἡμῶνἁμαρτίανἐποίησεν; 1 Peter 2:24; and the germ of this conception is found clear and manifest even in the Old Testament, in Isaiah 53 Luther says: “This is to be lifted up, that He bore the colour of my poison on the cross, and yet in Him there was no poison.” In ὑψωθῆναι many commentators find a double sense: it is said to refer at the same time to the crucifixion of Christ, and to His glorification, for which the crucifixion prepared the way. But the reference to the crucifixion only is required by the preceding ὕψωσε; and in the Syriac, ζχσ stands in just the same manner of the crucifixion. The word ὑψοῦν always refers to the crucifixion in the discourses of Christ in John: cf. John 8:28; John 12:32; John 12:34 (otherwise in the Acts: τῇδεξιᾷοὖντοῦθεοῦὑψωθεί, Acts 2:33; Acts 5:31). A double sense is not, moreover, sufficiently indicated, and the parallelism between Christ and the serpent is injured thereby. It is said, Even so must the Son of man be lifted up. That the δεῖ refers chiefly to the prophecies of the Old Testament, among which is included the prophetic occurrence which the Lord here expressly adduces, is shown by comparison with the parallel passages. Cf. Matthew 16:21; Matthew 26:54; Luke 24:25-26; Luke 24:44; Luke 24:46; Acts 17:3. Indirectly, however, δεῖ applies to the Divine counsel. For the prophecies are a result of this counsel, and they are here regarded only in so far as they reveal this counsel. On this alone is founded the necessity for the correspondence of the history of Christ with them. The designation of Christ as the Son of man points to the human nature of the Redeemer, as the condition of His deepest humiliation and of His Passion; but at the same also to the glory lying concealed behind it. Cf. Christology, v. iii. p.89. Eternal life forms the antithesis to the temporal life which was gained by looking to the brazen serpent. This eternal life is obtained by faith, not merely in expectation, but in real possession. This is intimated by the Present ἔχῃ, in accordance with a series of intimations in other discourses of Christ in our Gospel. Cf. John 16:36, John 5:24, John 6:40; John 6:47; 1 John 5:12-13. Although the complete possession of eternal life belongs only to the future existence, yet the power of it reaches over to the present existence: cf. John 4:14; Hebrews 6:5. The practical result from the present declaration of Christ may be deduced in the words of Quesnel: “Ingrat, et ennemi de son propre bonheur, quiconque n’aime point ΰ tourner les yeux pour vous pour y adorer sa vie crucifiιe et y trouver la mort de ses passions.” Ver. 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.” It is of significance that in the second part of this verse, the fifteenth verse is repeated letter for letter. This shows that the main emphasis rests on these words, which in the preceding verse occupy a more subordinate position, being thrown into the shade by the deep significance of the objective fact of salvation, the redemption to be made by Christ: they state the theme for the last part of the discourse of Christ to Nicodemus, which places in a clear light the vast importance of faith, and drives it home to the conscience of Nicodemus. In the first part of the verse, a resumθ is given of the contents of vers. 13, 14, just as in ver. 15 the way is prepared for the section, vers. 16-21. The designation of Christ as the only-begotten Son of God, comprises what has been said in ver. 13 of the heavenly past, present, and future of Christ; and that which is here said of the loving gift of this only-begotten Son of God, resumes what is said in ver. 14. Thus is brought to light the inner connection of vers. 13 and 14, which seem to be merely in juxtaposition. They present the interdependence of the divinity of Christ and the atonement. Many modern commentators have supposed, after the example of Erasmus, that Christ’s conversation with Nicodemus ceases at ver. 15, and that from thence onwards John continues the discourse independently. But there is no proof of this. When Olshausen remarks, “That they are no longer the words of Jesus, is evident from the fact that all reference to Nicodemus is lost,” he has in point of fact only this reason for doing so, that Nicodemus, whose heart was most deeply touched in this latter part, does not again open his mouth. But this is perfectly explained by the remark made already in the Berleburger Bibel after Anton: “An anxiety to have part in God had now entered the heart of Nicodemus. Therefore he now becomes quiet, and loses himself entirely, so that we do not know what has become of him. He had been quite cast down by the former matter, his heart had been thoroughly searched; he therefore listened attentively and submissively, and perceived how necessary this only-begotten Son was for him. And though he might have made objections to this most of all, if he had wished to follow his depraved reason, yet now there was no contradiction in his mouth, because he perceived the truth and necessity of the thing. The fear of being lost had been fully developed in him. For Christ meets him now with loving and sweet words, though before He had spoken sharply to him; not as though the disposition of Christ induced this, but the disposition of Nicodemus required such an order, because he needed first to be subdued and humbled.” But it is opposed to the supposition, that from ver. 16 onwards John speaks in his own person, not only that no single certain, or even probable, instance can be adduced of such a continuation of a discourse of Christ (the γὰρ, which expressly connects the preceding words, must be regarded here), and that the credibility of the Gospel is seriously injured by it; but, still more, that the discourse of Christ has thus an incomplete character. It had commenced with an earnest appeal to the conscience, and we expect it to conclude in the same manner. The objective facts, the divinity of Christ and His atonement, are still in suspense, if they are not in the conclusion of the discourse stamped, as it were, into the mind. Faith generally, and especially in the discourses of Christ in John, occupies so important a position, that its significance is not satisfied by the brief intimation in ver. 15.—Κόσμος is properly the universe, the creation. Its limitation here to the human race, which, according to Genesis 1, forms the centre of the creation, is required even from the nature of the case. The limitation to the mundus electorum in the decisions of the Synod of Dort, and in the Swiss Formula Consensus, is opposed not only by the parallel passages, 1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9, where “all men,” and “all” without exception, correspond to the world here, but it is also absolutely irreconcilable with our text. Even the word itself is decisive against it; and further, as Heumann remarks, “It was not perceived that the Lord divided the world of which He speaks into two classes of men, namely, into such as on account of their unbelief would be lost, and those who would be saved by their faith; and teaches, that God has loved them both, and desires as much that one part of mankind should believe and be saved, as the other.” But the words are to call attention not merely to the greatness of the love of God, but at the same time also to the depth of our misery. This point of view is rendered prominent by Luther when he says, “By this He wishes to show the world the misery and need in which it is involved; namely, that its condition is such that it is altogether lost, and must remain eternally lost where Christ does not interpose with this sermon. Here is required another word and sermon than that which they had hitherto heard and learned from the law, and another power than that of men.”—“That He gave His only-begotten Son.” Luther: “His Son, who is as great as Himself, this is an eternally incomprehensible gift.” The assertion, that “μονογενής must have been put into the mouth of Jesus from the language of John,” is to be reversed. John, who alone uses this word (cf. what is said of it at John 1:14) of Christ, and alone also records that Christ used it of Himself, derived it without doubt from this discourse. It has an Old Testament basis, besides that in Zechariah 12:10 (cf. on John 1:14), in substance also in Genesis 22:2, where God says to Abraham, “Take thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest.” Coincident with this transfer of only-begotten from this passage, is the reference of ἠγάπησεν to the words, whom thou lovest. The typical significance of the occurrence is expressly taught, in harmony with the declaration of our text, in Hebrews 11:19 : ὅθεναὐτὸν (τὸνμονογενῆ, ver. 17) καὶἐνπαραβολῇἐκομίσατο, in a figure, i.e., as prefiguring Christ. So also the typical reference of the occurrence—which has its truth in this, that God does not require without giving; that when He requires the dearest, there is in this a pledge that He also will give His dearest,—lies at the foundation of Rom 8:32, where the Apostle verbally alludes to Genesis 22:16 : “Because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son.” That ἔδωκε does not refer merely to the incarnation, but principally to the atonement, is evident from the reference to ver. 14, and also from the reference to the type, where the words, “hast not withheld,” correspond to “gave” here. In Romans 8:32, παρέδωκεναὐτόν corresponds to ἔδωκε, without being on this account exactly equivalent in meaning. The completion of the gift of God was the resignation even to death. How is faith here related to regeneration in ver. 5? It is not identical with it, but its condition. Faith takes hold of the atoning death of the only-begotten Son of God. On this follow, in the case of those who are in circumstances like Nicodemus (how it is with children is another question), the forgiveness of sins and impartation of the Holy Spirit, which are embodied in baptism. Cf. Acts 8:12, ὅτεδὲἐπίστευσαν—ἐβαπτίζοντο; ver. 13, John 18:8; Mark 16:16; Ephesians 4:5. Acts 10:47, where the Holy Spirit is imparted before baptism, forms an exception, the reasons of which are obvious. Ver. 17. “For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world: but that the world through Him might be saved.” The triple mention of the world here, is no more accidental than the triple mention of believing in ver. 18. The object is not to oppose the Jewish opinion, which regarded Christ by way of preference as the Judge of the Gentile world; for everything in this discourse has a personal reference, and is intended to win the heart of Nicodemus. So also here, the words are to turn the heart of Nicodemus to Christ; so that he may resign himself to Him who has come from heaven for the salvation of the world, and for his salvation. It is to make him feel that here there is no new law presented before him, but a gospel, a free message. “O wondrous grace and goodness! O deepest love and kindness!” etc. It is not denied that the judgment is a consequence, but that it is the object of the mission of Christ. It cannot be the object; for if God had purposed only to judge, He could have done it without giving up His Son, and the latter would not have appeared in the form of a servant. Luther: “For such a judgment and sentence has been already passed by the law on all men, because they are all born in sin; so that they are already adjudged to death, and to the executioner with the cord, and nothing now is wanting but that the sword be drawn.” But on this very account, because God sent His Son to be a Saviour, the judgment must be passed on those who despise so great a benefit, and thus fill up the measure of their sin. Cf. vers. 18, 19, John 9:39. Quesnel: “The first advent of the Son of God is the advent of salvation. Unhappy he who renders it in vain, and even changes it into a judgment by his unbelief.” The passages in which Christ appears as the sent of God, occur in number only in the discourses of Christ and of John. As Christ’s designation of Himself as the Son of man always refers to Daniel, so does this expression invariably contain an allusion to the personal identity of Christ with the Old Testament Angel, or sent of the Lord. Cf. Christology 3, 2, S. 62, 63. The” Old Testament basis for the words, ἵνασωθῇὁκόσμοςδιʼ ? αὐτοῦ, is formed by Isaiah 52:10, “And all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” Ver. 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.” As Nicodemus has been allured to belief in what precedes, he is now pointed to the mournful consequences of unbelief, in order that he may be filled with horror of such a grievous sin.—“He is condemned already,” in the very act of unbelief, which excludes him from the only source of life and salvation, and causes the wrath of God to abide upon him, John 3:36. This, of course, does not exclude the entrance of an external manifestation of the judgment at a determined epoch. Matthew 25:31 sq.; nor that the judgment in this and the future world brings with it different stages of punishment, Revelation 20:15. Anton: “Here the man murmurs, and says: I thought, indeed, there would again be a judgment and condemnation. But to show that it is not necessary, and how wrong he is in this, Christ here adds an ὅτι—because he does not believe, not because he is a sinner, but because he will remain a sinner and will not believe. God has laboured to bring him to πιστεύειν, to faith; but because he will remain in unbelief, he is condemned. This, then, is the chief sin, that man does not believe. On this account he is lost; not because he has sinned as other men, but because he keeps his sins, and will not by faith renounce them.” With respect to faith in the Name, cf. on John 1:12. Ver. 19. “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Quesnel: “Nothing discovers more the corruption of an age, and gives more reason to fear the wrath of God, than when we see opposition to the light increase in the same proportion in which God bountifully diffuses it.” Love to our darkness is always concealed behind a false love of the light; and it is the great punishment of God on nations and individuals to give them over to this depraved sense, which takes light for darkness and darkness for light. “This is the condemnation;” it is the sin, and at the same time the condemnation, or the punishment. For that which is sin from one side, is from the other the punitive act of God, by which He adjudges to darkness those who love the darkness, and excludes from the light those who despise the light. They do not disappoint God, but rather, by their sins against them, fulfil the eternal laws of His being. On light and darkness, cf. John 1:4-5. The light is salvation, as it has come into the world in the person of the Saviour; the darkness is the wickedness of sin, and the evil inseparable from it. Men are represented principally by the Jews. Ἠγάπησεν refers to the experience which Jesus had already had, especially in Jerusalem. But the Aorist requires only, that the action be one that is already commenced. It is used not infrequently of general truths founded on empirical observations: Buttmann, Gram. S. 174, 5. Lόcke remarks, “It is said, Men loved darkness more than light. To love it absolutely would be devilish. So, according to John, there is in every one a spark, a feeling of need for the light.” But this remark is certainly not in the meaning of the Saviour. Of course a ratherness only is declared, but in the background there is a complete want of love to the light, and hatred towards it. The word μᾶλλον stands likewise in John 12:43, “They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God;” and it is evident, that they did not love the praise of God at all. When, in Genesis 29:30, it is said that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah, the very next verse, “And when the Lord saw that Leah was hated,” shows how this is to be understood: cf. Deuteronomy 21:15. Who, from Luke 18:14, κατέβηοὗτοςδεδικαιωμένοςεἰςτὸνοἶκοναὐτοῦἤγὰρἐκεῖνος, would conclude, that the Pharisee likewise shared in the justification, but in a less degree? or from 2 Timothy 3:4, φιλήδονοιμᾶλλονἢφιλόθεοι, that love to God is ascribed to these persons, but only in a less degree? The reason for despising the light is stated in the words, “because their deeds were evil.” In a certain sense, the deeds of all men are evil—so certain as the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth, and as all men are evil, πονηροί, according to the declaration of the Saviour, Matthew 7:11. But the words cannot be intended to have this sense here: they can refer only to decided and stiff-necked wickedness. The Scripture, immediately after it has recorded the depth of the fall of sin, in which the whole human race is involved, teaches, that notwithstanding this, there is still always an opposition between the unrighteous and the righteous those who surrender themselves unconditionally to their innate sin, like Cain and his descendants, and those who, in adherence to God, and by walking with Him, contend against it, as Abel, Enoch, Genesis 5:22; Genesis 5:24, the sons of God in Genesis 6:2, and Noah, of whom it is said in Genesis 6:9, “Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations: Noah walked with God.” In the same sense in which evil deeds stand here, occurs the phrase, evil works, in 1 John 3:12, where the evil works of Cain are opposed to the righteous works of Abel. This difference was especially perceptible among the covenant-people, whom the Saviour has principally in view here. In the heathen world it was less prominent. Although such differences occurred even here, yet in the great whole they were altogether buried ἐντοῖςἔργοιςτοῖςπονηροῖς, Colossians 1:21. Ver. 20. “For every one that doeth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.” He that doeth evil is, according to Knapp, qui peccatis indulget, qui vitiis dat operam; or, as the Berleb. Bibel says, “whose practice it is to defend the old idle ways, and who will not leave that which is not worthy that a rational being should depend upon it.” Light here is not used exclusively of the personal light Christ, but of all which is adapted to ameliorate the godless condition of the natural man, viz., of God and His revelation, the Church and its ministry. That the works should appear in their true character, is intolerable to him who is resolved to walk in the ways of sin. Inseparable from sin are hypocrisy and deceit, which call the evil good, and the good evil; so that darkness is changed into light, and light into darkness, the bitter into sweet, and the sweet into bitter, Isaiah 5:20. Such perversions of the truth are the stronghold of sin. A man cannot maintain himself therein, when it presents itself in its true form; and on this account he carefully avoids more immediate contact with the truth from above, and its bearers. On this account he hates the truth, when it seeks to gain access to him: he knows that sin cannot consist with it, and that his condition must be an intolerable one, if by contact with the light his sin is brought to light, Ephesians 5:13. Anton: “A man not desiring the elenchum becomes an enemy of the light, μισεῖτὸφῶς. This intimates that the light presses him hard, though it does not properly compel him. The light attacks the man, and the man attacks the light in return, and extinguishes it, becomes an enemy of light, an enemy of detection, an enemy of the elenchus; though at first he does not indeed think that he is an enemy. But when the time comes to proceed ad rem, then the enmity is revealed.” This is the great secret of the enmity of the world to the living God and His all-revealing word,—to Christ also, and His Church. Man can bear anything rather than the revelation of his true character, the consequence of which is, that he must hate and despise himself, when he has once resolved not to renounce his lusts and passions. Ver. 21. “But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.” To do truth is to do that which flows from the principle of truth,—q.d., to act in truth, Judges 9:16; Judges 9:19. Truth forms the antithesis to falsehood, pretence, and hypocrisy, with which wickedness is associated. To act rightly and to do truth are coincident: cf. Nehemiah 9:33, “Thou hast done right (truth), but we have done wickedly.” Here righteousness is designated as truthfulness in antithesis to ver. 20, according to which the wicked shun the light, in order that the true character of their works, which are covered over with falsehood and hypocrisy, may not be brought to light. For one to do truth, is above all things to acknowledge and confess his sin. In Psalms 32:2, he is declared blessed, in whose spirit, in this respect, there is no guile. Cf. the remarks on John 1:48. But we must not, with Augustine, stop here. The expression designates, generally, true moral earnestness,—a living in God, or in communion with Him; so that He is the efficient principle of all actions. The works being done in God presupposes that God is known. The Lord speaks to a member of the covenant-people, among whom God is present with His Spirit. In a member of this people, who is full of upright moral earnestness, there may be much weakness and much error; but the fundamental tendency of his heart is towards God, and therefore he may approach with humble confidence to the light, which, in the appearance of Christ, shone with previously unknown brightness, being conscious that he will not be put to shame by it, but will receive from it a good testimony. What is here said applies to the heathen only in so far as they had entered into connection with Israel,—an instance of which we have in Cornelius, Acts 10:2; Acts 10:4; Acts 10:35,—or, as by more immediate contact with the Church of Christ, they had been awakened and rendered capable of doing the truth. The φαῦλαπράσσων and the ποιῶντὴνἀλήθειαν are, moreover, not in mere juxtaposition. There is in men often, indeed usually, the strangest duplicity. They feel themselves, on the one hand, repelled, in so far as sin is mighty within them; and, on the other, attracted, in so far as a more noble moral aspiration stirs within them. So must it have been also with Nicodemus. He was in a state of indecision. He was to make the great choice between the two opposing principles, which contended within him. Jesus would hardly have laid vers. 19 and 20 before him if they had not concerned him; for here it is no locus of dogmatics which is treated of, but everything has a personal reference. If ver. 21 only applied to him, why did he come to Jesus by night? What is afterwards related of Nicodemus shows, that, with regard to the choice here left to him, he decided to come to the light, and now for ever took leave of that evil principle, which cried to him. The further from the light the better. The Section John 3:22-36 serves to show the general object of the Gospel, to prove that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and to lead to faith in Him, and thus to the possession of life in His name, John 20:31. It communicates the glorious testimony which the Baptist gave at the close of his course, to the disadvantage of his own honour, and in opposition to his disciples, who thought themselves bound to maintain this honour. This testimony had a special significance, a pretium affectionis for John, who had separated from his former master in order to become a follower of Jesus; and such a testimony impressed the last seal on his proceeding. Ver. 23. “And John also was baptizing in Ζnon, near to Salim, because there was much water there; and they came and were baptized.” The position of Ζnon and Salim is a matter of controversy. The following facts furnish a test of the different hypotheses. 1. Ζnon is to be looked for on the hither side of the Jordan. This is evident from ver. 26. 2. Ζnon was in Judea. For Jesus was staying in Judea, and the whole narrative shows that John was baptizing near to Him. His disciples have to do with a Jew in ver. 25. 3. Ζnon must have been situated in a district where water was scarce; for only if this were the case would the abundance of water at Ζnon have furnished a reason for John’s choosing this place. The words, ὅτιὕδαταπολλὰἦνἐκεῖ, would be incomprehensible in the neighbourhood of the Jordan or the Sea of Gennesaret. There, ten other places might have been chosen just as well. If we take these tokens into view, we shall immediately give up the current hypothesis (Von Raumer, Palδstina, S. 159), according to which Ζnon was situated 8 mil. passumn southwards from Scythopolis, in the plain of the Jordan. The authority of the Onomasticon does not by any means suffice to support such a confusing and impossible supposition. According to this, Ζnon was situated in Samaria, where the Baptist had nothing to do, and in the vicinity of the Jordan, where the abundance of water would lose all its significance. The key to the explanation of our text is furnished by Joshua 15:32. The section, vers. 21-32, enumerates the cities in the southern portion of Judea. It is said in ver. 21, “And the uttermost cities of the tribe of the children of Judah, toward the coast of Edom southward.” The conclusion of the list of these cities is formed by Shilhim, and Ain, and Rimmon, in ver. 32. That these cities were situated at the end of the southern district, on the borders of the desert, is shown, in harmony with their names, by Zechariah 14:10 : “All the land shall be turned as a plain, from Geba to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem.” That Geba was on the northern boundary of Judea is evident from the circumstance, that in 2 Kings 23:8, the whole extent of the kingdom of Judah is designated by the expression, “from Geba to Beersheba.” Rimmon in Zechariah corresponds to Beersheba here, as the most southern point. And in this region Rimmon may still be discovered. Von Raumer remarks in his 4th Edition, under the word Rimmon: According to Velde, Mem. S. 344, now Um er Rummamim, between Eleutheropolis and Beersheba. There are springs in the vicinity.” The LXX., according to the Codex Alex., render the three names by ΣελεεὶμκαὶἈὶνκαὶΡεμμών (cum καὶἈὶν charact. minore; Holmes). The two latter must have been closely connected from the beginning, and have afterwards become one place, to which the manner of writing in the Cod. Alex, probably refers. Even in Joshua 19:7, cf. 1 Chronicles 4:32, the copula is wanting, by which they are separated from each other in 15:32, Ain = Rimmon; in Nehemiah 11:29, the blending has become complete, for here we have En-Rimmon. It seems that our Ζnon represents a further progress, and that this name is contracted from En-Rimmon. Cf. on such “purely accidental and gradual abbreviations of proper names,” Ewald, § 275, S. 591. Αἰνών affords the last stage. If we thus refer to Joshua 15:32, the words, “because there was much water there,” have suddenly a great light thrown on them. The southern district was an arid country. Of what importance springs were there, is shown by Joshua 15:19. This is evident also from the circumstance, that the places are named from the water. This applies not merely to Ain, but also to ωμηιν. The name is manifestly connected with Siloa, �ωִׁ ?μֹ ?ηַ, emissio aquas, fons v. aquaductus, John 9:7. In aridity, remarks Ritter, Erdkunde 16, 1, 23, 28, the southern district forms the continuation of the Arabian Desert. How came the Baptist into this region? The general answer might be given, that his task was to go through the whole country, for he was the preacher of repentance to the whole people. But there is an intimation in Matthew 4:12 which will not allow us to be content with this general answer. According to this passage, the Baptist was delivered up, παρεδόθη—he was betrayed to his peculiar enemy, which in the Scriptures Herod everywhere appears to have been—by others. That the Pharisees were the betrayers, we learn from John 4:1. According to this, John was at the time of his capture in another territory than that of Herod. His being there delivered up, presupposes that he had already previously done something by which he had drawn upon him the enmity of Herod, We learn what this was from Matthew 14:4. John must have had time to follow the example of his predecessor Elijah, of whom we read in 1 Kings 19:3, “And when he saw that, he arose and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which is in Judah.” Like his predecessor, he retired to the borders of the Arabian Desert, probably in order under certain circumstances to penetrate, like him, into the desert itself. That he did not again return to the theatre of his former ministry, is clear, not only from the παρεδόθη of Matthew, but also from John 10:40, according to which John did not baptize at Bethabara after his stay at Ζnon, but only before it. We also expect from the declaration of the Baptist here in ver. 30, and from the words, πάντεςἔρχονταιπρὸςαὐτον, of his own disciples in ver. 26, that he will soon retire from public life. Everything here gives the impression, that we are on the eve of an impending catastrophe. The Baptist had probably come first into this region; and his presence occasioned Jesus to go there, in order to be near to John, to give him an opportunity of hearing the voice of the Bridegroom, ver. 29, and an occasion for his last testimony concerning Him. If the situation of Ζnon is correctly determined, light is thus cast at the same time on the scene of the temptation of Christ, which, as we have already proved, must fall into the period designated in ver. 22. The southern district borders on the great Arabian Desert, Von Raumer says, S. 176, under Beersheba, “Here, according to Robinson, the southern desert ends, and Palestine begins,”—in which the children of Israel were tempted, and Elijah, according to 1 Kings 19, of which we are always first to think, where “the wilderness” is spoken of, and to which especially the words, ἦνμετὰτῶνθηρίων, of Mark refer, particularly when compared with Deuteronomy 8:15 and Isaiah 30:6. Ver. 24. “For John was not yet cast into prison.” This remark presupposes that there was occasion for thinking otherwise, though there is none such in our Gospel. And regarding this fact merely, the remark is a very striking one. If John, according to ver. 23, was baptizing at Ζnon, it was a matter of course that he was not yet cast into prison. The solution of the riddle is given in Matthew 4:12. From this it might appear that the commencement of the ministry of Jesus was conditioned by the delivering up of John. Matthew had omitted the earlier ministry of Jesus. John hints at this, by remarking, after the account of a contemporaneous ministry of Jesus and of John, that John was not yet cast into prison. By this is meant, that the events recorded in vers. 22-36 are to be placed before Matthew 4:12. It is of significance that John does not afterwards record the imprisonment of John, which shows also the connection of his Gospel with that of Matthew. John 4:1-3 are supplemented by Matthew 4:12, and are clear only when this connection is recognised. A “correction of the synoptic tradition” is not to be mentioned. The words, ἀνεχώρησενεἰςτὴνΓαλιλαίαν, in Matthew 4:12, in complete harmony with John, intimate an earlier ministry; for only in this case could Jesus have been obliged to return to Galilee, John 2:14, when, in consequence of His ministry, enmity and danger had arisen in Judea, which He wished to avoid. John 4:1-2, gives only the commentary and completion to the ἀνεχώρησε. The words, Ἀπὸτότεἤρξατο, in Matthew 4:17, refer to the commencement of the ministry on the new theatre—the Galilean activity, which, according to John also, did not begin till that time; for the few days which Jesus had previously spent in Galilee after His baptism, do not come into consideration. There is no trace of any public preaching or κηρύσσειν during that transient residence in Galilee. In Judea, Jesus certainly developed such an activity, John 2:13 to the end of ch. 3; but Matthew contents himself with intimating that he is aware of it. He had not yet at that time become an associate of Jesus; and the Galilean activity of Jesus had for him, on account of the prophecy of Isaiah at the head of it, an especial interest. Ver. 25. “Then there arose a question on the part of John’s disciples with a Jew about purifying. The οὖν indicates that the discussion was occasioned by the nearness of the two baptisms. It is of significance that the discussion was started by the disciples of John. They evidently call a Jew (Ἰουδαίου is the best authenticated reading, not Ἰουδαίων) to account, who gave the baptism of Christ the preference over that of their master, and was either coming from or going to it. Cf. ver. 26, where the sentence, ἴδεοὗτοςβαπτίζεικαὶπάντεςἔρχονταιπρὸςαὐτόν, is the general statement which has just been proved by this particular case. “On account of purification “(John 2:6): whether it were to be sought in the baptism of Christ, ver. 22, or in the baptism of John, ver. 23. Ver. 26. “And they came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, He that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all come to Him.” It is difficult for them to yield up the honour of their master, and with it their own. Yet their opposition is not an absolutely fixed one; for they lay it before their Master that it may be removed, and seek help from him against their old man. If he is quite sure of his point they will submit; and it could scarcely have been a matter of doubt to them how he would declare himself; for they could not conceal from themselves that he had previously borne testimony to Jesus. The words, “and all come to Him,” are less in contradiction to those in ver. 32, “and no man receiveth His testimony,” than it might seem. Πάντες, as limited by the case itself, are all those in general, who wished to be baptized, but who, when compared with the great mass of the indifferent and hostile, formed only a vanishing minority. Ver. 27. “John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.” It is disputed whether this proposition refers merely to Christ or to John, or to both at the same time. But we must be content with John; for it can scarcely be doubted that ἄνθρωπος here is emphatic, containing in itself the ground of the axiom, and corresponding to” ἐκτῆςγῆς in ver. 31, to which it stands in all the closer relation, because the “man of the earth” occurs in the original passage, Psalms 10:18. The use of ἄνθρωπος and the reference contained in it to his inferiority of position, who must be content with whatever lot is assigned to him, is explained also by Ecclesiastes 6:10 : “That which he is, he hath long been named, and it is known that he is man: neither may he contend with Him that is mightier than he.” And the words, “given from heaven,” apply more appropriately to John than to Jesus, who, according to the following verses, comes from above, is God’s Son and representative on earth, and possesses what He has, not as a free gift, but as the emanation of His whole personality. We must therefore suppose, that in ver. 28 we have the application of the general proposition, as if it were said, “Because I am a mere man, I cannot be,” etc. It is not to be objected, that the jealous question of his disciples had quite prepared the Baptist to give an apology for Jesus; for the words of the disciples were indirectly a requisition on the Baptist to maintain his dignity against Jesus, and to fix the limits of his independent sphere towards that of Christ. Δύναται, is not the mere moral possibility, but λαμβάνειν, corresponding to the being given, designates a real receiving. A man may make many pretensions, but in fact he receives only that which is given him from above; and to strive after more than this, is a criminal and destructive undertaking. Ver. 28. “Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before Him.” As in John 1:6; John 1:33, so also here, an allusion is made to Malachi 3:1; cf. Matthew 11:10. That which in the original passage is said of the Lord, the Baptist refers to Christ, in harmony with the prophecy itself, in which He who is first called Adonai, is afterwards called the Angel of the covenant. “Behold, I send My messenger, and he prepares the way before Me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple; and the Covenant-Angel, whom ye desire, behold. He comes, saith Jehovah Sabaoth.” According to this, God the Lord will appear in the person of His heavenly messenger; which was fulfilled in the advent of Christ, in whom the Angel of the Lord, the λόγος, became flesh. With respect to ἐκείνου, the remark of Buttmann applies, on the use of the pronoun ἐκεῖνος in the Fourth Gospel (Studien und Kritiken, 1860, S. 510): “But it is not always the case, that the two demonstrative pronouns are united in such an antithesis in one sentence; but it does occur, that ἐκεῖνος stands alone. Then it is necessary that some other conception, whether it be a pronoun, or the subject contained in the verb, or the speaker himself, take as it were the place of the οὗτος, from which the ἐκεῖνος only distinguishes the other.” Thus οὗτος is here concealed under ἐγώ. Ver. 29. “He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegrooms voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled.” The words, ὁἑστηκὼςκαὶἀκούωναὐτοῦ, refute the current representation, that John avoided a closer relation to Christ; and show that, as would be a matter of course after his declaration, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh upon Him the sin of the world,” he eagerly received the intelligence of Christ’s words and deeds. It certainly seems, that in order to preserve his isolated position as forerunner, he did not enter into any closer personal intercourse with Jesus. But he maintained communion with Him by the medium of other persons,—of whom we must suppose the Apostle John before all to have been one, who had been pointed to Christ by the Baptist himself, and of whom it was to be expected that he would not break off the relation with his former master, but would avail himself of the proximity of the scenes of their respective ministries, to communicate to the old master out of the abundance of that which he had gained from the new. Coincident with the words, ὁἑστηκὼςκαὶἀκούωναὐτοῦ, is the fact, that this speech of the Baptist contains unmistakeable points of contact with Christ’s conversation with Nicodemus; which has been very incorrectly explained, by supposing a mingling in of the subjectivity of the Evangelist, or that he lent his thoughts and words to the Baptist. Cf. with the words, ὃοἴδαμενλαλοῦμενκαὶὃἑωράκαμενμαρτυροῦμεν, καὶτὴνμαρτυρίανἡμῶνοὐλαμβάνετε, in ver. 11, ver. 32 here; with ὁἐκτοῦοὐρανοῦκαταβάς, in ver. 13, ὁἐκτοῦοὐρανοῦἐρχόμενος in ver. 31; with ver. 36, ὁπιστεύωνεἰςτὸνυἱὸνἔχειζωὴναἰώνιον, ver. 15, ἵναπᾶςὁπιστεύωνἐναὐτῷἔχῃζωὴναἰώνιον, and with the second part of this verse compare ver. 18. In the ἀκούωναὐτοῦ of the Baptist, we have an express declaration in what way this coincidence is to be explained. If we suppose that the Evangelist has ascribed his own words to the Baptist, it is not explained why the points of connection are almost all with that conversation with Nicodemus, of which the mind of the Apostle was just at this time particularly full. The disciples of the Baptist may be divided into two classes. It was a Divine appointment, that his heart was prepared by intercourse with the better part, when this temptation met him. The standing designates the passivity of the friend, who has nothing to do, but to hear and to rejoice. With χαρᾷχαίρει compared ωεωΰωιω in Isaiah 61:10. The infinitive prefixed in Hebrew renders the verbal conception emphatic, Ewald, § 312; and the LXX. usually render it by the dative of the abstract noun derived from the verb. Joy is designated by χαρᾷχαίρει as the single feeling of the Baptist, in opposition to others which were expected by his disciples—joy, and only joy. The joy is fulfilled when it has reached its highest point, John 15:11, John 16:24; 1 John 1:4; 2 John 1:12. There is not here a placing together of figure and thing signified, so that the application would be given in the words αὓτηοὖν, etc.; but the bride is from the first Zion, the bridegroom Christ, the friend of the bridegroom John. It is not said, Such joy, or an equal joy, is now granted me; but, This my joy is now fulfilled; and accordingly, even in what precedes, John must have been he who rejoices on account of the voice of the bridegroom. The words, from ὁἔχων to νυμφίου, represent the relation in general; and the words, αὕτη, etc., declare that that which respects the position of John towards Christ has now just attained its complete realization, and lead to the conclusion, that his knowledge of Christ had immediately before received an accession, namely, by the communications of the Apostle John, and from what he had otherwise learned of Christ, in consequence of the close contact of their respective circles of influence. There can be no doubt that this declaration of John is based on the spiritual interpretation of the Song of Songs. The Song of Songs, which Josephus reckons without hesitation among the prophetical writings, is, together with the connected forty-fifth Psalm (cf. my Comm. ii. p. 118), the only part of the Old Testament in which the relation of Christ to the Church is represented under the figure of the relation of the bridegroom to the bride: the bride, λμδ, in Son 4:8-12; Son 5:1. We are led to the Song of Songs especially by the mention of the voice of the bridegroom: cf. Son 2:8, “The voice of my beloved”—what the voice of the bridegroom says, is recorded in vers. 10-14, after his appearance has been more exactly described—and ver. 2, “It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh; Open to me, my friend.” According to this passage, the voice of the bridegroom is to be considered as addressed to the bride. The voice of the bridegroom here is not to be traced to Jeremiah 7:34; Jeremiah 16:9; Jeremiah 25:10; Jeremiah 33:11. For there the voice of the bridegroom and the bride are inseparable, and both together designate the nuptial joy. From the Song of Songs also, John 5:1, was derived the friend of the bridegroom; for here the bridegroom addresses the friends, ψςιν. They are invited to participate in the loving intercourse between the bridegroom and the bride. This is a far more real reference than that to the Jewish Shoseben [= paranymph, companion], who had other things to do than to stand and hear the bridegroom’s voice. In Son 5:1, the same passage on which Revelation 3:20 also is based, we have all together—the bride, the voice of the bridegroom, and the friend. Only the strongest prejudice will after these details be able to deny the reference to the Song of Songs, in which Matthew 9:15; Matthew 25:1 sq.; Revelation 21:2; Revelation 21:9; Revelation 22:17, coincide with our text. Ver. 30. “He must increase, but I decrease.” The more the glory of Christ was revealed, the more also the inferiority of John. This was not, however, to him, as to his disciples (Berleb. Bibel: “This becoming of less account oppressed them, foe they thought it might involve them also. Such lofty notions lodge in our minds”), a cause of sorrow, but of joy; for his Saviour’s honour was to him of much greater importance than his own. As to the expression, compare 2 Samuel 3:1, “But the house of David waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker.” The must is founded on the Divine counsel, as revealed in the prophecies of the Old Testament. Cf. remarks on John 3:14. The Baptist has especially Isaiah 52:13 in view: “Behold, My servant shall—be exalted and extolled, and be very high.” Vers. 31, 32. “He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: He that cometh from heaven is above all. And what He hath seen and heard, that He testifieth; and no man receiveth His testimony.” The words, Ὁἄνωθενἐρχόμενος, do not designate a mission received from above—this the Baptist also had—but the possession of Divine nature. Cf. ὁἐκτοῦοὐρανοῦκαταβάς, ver. 13; ὁλόγοςσὰρξἐγένετο, John 1:14; and ὁκύριοςἐξοὐρανοῦ, 1 Corinthians 15:47. On the words, that is of the earth, the Berleb. Bibel says, “And not of heaven, but a natural child of Adam like me.” It has been incorrectly remarked, “ἐκτῆςγῆς, the first time, designates the origin or derivation; the second and third times, it determines the manner of existence and of speaking.” The words, ἐκτῆςγῆς, designate rather the immutability of the existence: he is and remains of the earth; and neither he himself, nor the wish of his followers, has power to alter the case. Entirely correspondent is ὁἔχωντὴννύμφην, νυμφίοςἐστί, who is and remains the bridegroom. And Isaiah 7:8-9, “For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son,”—he is and remains so. There is here an opposition to vers. 5, 6, where the king of Syria and Ephraim had expressed the purpose of extending their dominion over Judah. The thoughts of men rise in vain against that existence which is ordained by the Lord. The expression, ἐκτῆςγῆς, is from Psalms 10:18, “The man (cf. ver. 27, here) of the earth will no more oppress thee;” on which it was remarked in my commentary: ΰπεω has the subordinate ideas of feebleness and weakness, which is still more plainly noted by the addition, of the earth; q.d., he who is sprung from the earth, who belongs to it—the man of the earth as opposed to the God of heaven.” The antithesis to Ὁἄνωθενἐρχόμενοςἐπάνωπάντωνἐστί is formed chiefly by ὁὢνἐκτῆςγῆςἐκτῆςγῆςἐστι. But the words which are added as an inference, καὶἐκτῆςγῆςλαλεῖ, call forth another antithesis, in which the words ἐπάνωπάντωνἐστί receive their more exact definition from what follows; that is. He is above all in so far as He testifies what He has heard and seen. The Baptist also spoke not merely of the earth, he had higher aspirations; but his was only a partial and fragmentary knowledge and prophecy, 1 Corinthians 13:9; and notwithstanding these flashes of light, he remained on the whole bound to the earth in what he spoke. That in the main he belonged to this in his being and speaking, explains the fact of his later momentary perplexity with reference to Christ, Matthew 11. John also testified in a certain sense what he had heard and seen; his testimony of Christ had not been revealed to him by flesh and blood, but by the Father in heaven; but in the highest and fullest sense, there is only One who testifies what He has heard and seen—only One in whom this testifying is a well whose waters do not deceive—only the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father. Cf. on John 1:18. Participation in the Godhead, and the coming from heaven, is the necessary basis of such, true seeing, and hearing, and testifying. Out of connection with Him, all human witnesses are blind and dumb, even if here and there they catch a glimpse or a word. The words, “and no man receiveth His testimony,” form a strange and painful contrast to the preceding. The only true testimony, and no one receives it! All men from the first to the last, ought to throng towards it; and in view of this fact, the small number vanishes of those who do really receive it. There is here an antithesis to the words of the disciples of the Baptist, καὶπάντεςἔρχονταιπρὸςαὐτὸν. That which seems so much to the disciples, is in truth an inconceivably small proportion; which can be explained only by the fact, that the thoughts and intents of the heart of man are evil from his youth up. The words have, however, a still more personal reference to the disciples, as the Berleburger Bibel says: “This is seen also in you. For, though you belong to the better class in comparison with others, yet think how you have allowed yourselves to be prejudiced.” Several commentators, who were (unfortunately) preceded by Bengel, have assumed that from ver. 31 the Evangelist continues the discourse. Others have supposed that with the words of the Baptist are mingled, in a now no longer exactly distinguishable manner, the partly explanatory and partly amplifying reflections of the Evangelist. The ground, however, on which they support these hypotheses has been already removed in the remarks on ver. 29. Besides the authority of the Apostle, who ascribes all to the Baptist, and who represents him as speaking in the Present tense in vers. 32, 34, 35, it is positively against these views, that the discourse with which the Baptist retires from the stage and completes his testimony, makes an unsatisfactory impression without the necessary practical conclusion of an appeal to the consciences of his disciples, not less than the discourse of Christ to Nicodemus becomes a limbless trunk, if we suppose the Evangelist to speak from ver. 16. If we recognise that the Baptist had gone to school to his disciple, every ground is removed from such untenable assumptions. Ver. 33. “He who receives His testimony, sets to his seal that God is true.” That which the Baptist here says, is not spoken merely in general; but all is here, as in the conclusion of the conversation with Nicodemus, which is echoed here throughout, applied to the heart, and admonishes the disciples that they should relinquish the wrong position which they had assumed towards Christ. A thing is sealed in common life for two objects: either to render it inaccessible and to place it under seal, Matthew 27:66, or to confirm it. And thus there is in Scripture a double figurative and symbolical use of sealing. On the latter application of the seal, which alone can be regarded here, rest, e.g., the following passages: John 6:27; Revelation 7:2; Romans 4:11; 1 Corinthians 9:2; 2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13. In how far he who receives the testimony of Christ confirms that God is true, is declared in what follows, viz., because God is revealed in Christ, and speaks through Him. Bengel correctly says, “Cujus verbum est Messiae verbum,” John 12:44-45. According to this, he who makes Christ a liar makes God one also, who speaks through Him, 1 John 5:10. The disciples must be on their guard against such a great sin as this. Contrary to the connection with ver. 34, Olshausen says, “That God is true, performs all His promises, quiets all longing.” Ver. 34. “For He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure.”— ἀπέστειλεν is to be considered as emphatic. It refers to the Old Testament passages concerning the ξμΰκιδεδ. The words, from He whom to of God, do not offer a general proposition; for, thus rendered, they would not be suited to limit the sphere of Christ towards that of the Baptist, who was also sent from God; but they are equivalent to, This person whom God hath sent. Cf. ver. 17. If this is recognised, we are then justified in referring the words, οὐγὰρἐκμέτρου, κ.τ.λ., likewise to the present case, without supposing an omission of the pronoun. John proves that Christ speaks the words of God, or is His Revealer, by the fact, of which he had been personally assured by the appearance at the baptism: he had seen that at the baptism the Spirit descended and abode on Christ, John 1:33. As in John 1:34 he draws the conclusion from this fact, that Christ is the Son of God, so here, that He speaks the words of God. He does not, however, refer to that fact as in the past; but, on the ground of it, speaks rather of a continued relation—for God gives in the present case. ἐκμέτρου is to be considered so that the measure forms the point of issue. All others receive the Spirit only by measure, Romans 12:3 sq. He who does not receive the Spirit by measure, is therefore raised above the grade of created beings; for to have the Spirit without measure is a Divine prerogative. Ver. 35. “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand.” Augustine: “The Father loveth the Son, but as a father loves a son, not as a master his servant—as the only begotten, not the adopted son. What is meant by all things? That the Son is as great as the Father.” On the words, “The Father loveth the Son,” the Berleb. Bibel remarks, “As I sufficiently learned from the voice at the Jordan” Matthew 3:17, Οὗτόςἐστινὁυἱόςμουὁἀγαπητός. The love of the Father to the Son has for its immediate consequence the declarations: “Kiss the Son,” Psalms 2; and, “Woe to the people that despiseth Thee.” How must the disciples of John have been ashamed in view of the fact, that other affections had taken the place of love to Christ! That all things is to be taken in the strictest sense, is shown by the parallel passages: John 13:3; Matthew 11:27; Matthew 28:18, Ἐδόθημοιπᾶσαἐξουσίαἐνοὐρανῷκαὶἐπὶτῆςγῆς; 1 Corinthians 15:27; Revelation 1:18; and even by ver. 36, where, included under all things, the highest of all powers—the decision concerning salvation and condemnation—is especially ascribed to Christ. A limitation is the less admissible, since the proposition, in its unrestricted sense, is a direct result of the Sonship of God—the coming of Jesus from above, ver. 31, from heaven, which is the same as participation in the Godhead. These words, “and hath given all things into His hand,” had an express reference to the disciples of John. How terrible is it to set ourselves in opposition to Him who has all things in His hand, who can deprive us of all good, and at last of eternal life, and can bring upon us all evil, and at last “enduring wrath”! Must he not be an enemy to his own welfare, who does not make it the chief end of his life to enter into, and abide in communion with Him? Ver. 36. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that is not obedient to the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” This was the word with which the Baptist dismissed his disciples. We may hope that the result was the same as in the case of Nicodemus. Like the latter, they are silent, and lay their hand upon their mouth: “Once have I spoken, but I will not answer.” The opposite to faith is unbelief; but the latter is here designated as criminal disobedience: cf. Acts 14:2; Romans 11:30. The Son of God, as such, cannot do otherwise than demand faith; and woe to him who is not obedient to such demand.—“The wrath of God abideth on him.” This flows directly from the declaration that the Father loves the Son; for the love of the Father to the Son must take the form of unquenchable wrath towards those who despise the Son. The Berleb. Bibel, with many other expositors, gives the incorrect explanation: “The wrath of God abides on him, since it is by nature already upon him: no new condemnation is needed, for the old is sufficient, into which he has fallen in and with Adam, and is therefore by nature under wrath.” The thought is not, that the wrath which has already rested upon him, remains; but, that the wrath which he draws upon himself by disobedience to the Son has an abiding character. We are therefore not to read the Future, μένει. The preceding ὄψεται is quite sufficient to determine the time. The abiding wrath here corresponds to eternal life, and is the unquenchable fire in Matthew 3:12. The wrath, and the corresponding fire, pertain, according to the Baptist, in Matthew 3:1-12, to the future, the day of judgment; cf. especially ver. 7 (1 Thessalonians 1:10). Even in the Old Testament passage, Psalms 2:12, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry,” the wrath proceeds from the relation to the Son. To the abiding wrath here, corresponds ἡὀργὴεἰςτέλος in 1 Thessalonians 2:16. We have the representation of such an abiding wrath in Isaiah 34:10 : “It (the fire) shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation the land shall lie waste.” A contrast to the wrath which, after it has once commenced, abides for ever. is formed by the transient anger in the Book of Wisdom, Wis 16:5, where, with respect to the judgment of the serpents in the wilderness, it is said, οὐμέχριτέλουςἔμεινενἡὀργήσου: cf. also ch. Wis 18:20 of the same book, where, with respect to the judgment averted by Phinehas, it is said, ἀλλʼ ? οὐκἐπὶπολὺἔμεινενἡὀργή. Contrary to the ὄψεται and the parallel passages, De Wette remarks, “It is not a future, but an immediate punishment, beginning with the unbelief, and without doubt internal, consisting of the inward discord of the soul which is not at peace with God.” Olshausen was of opinion that the absolute permanence is expressed only conditionally, in case the disobedience did not cease. But it is not the sense of the Scripture that man can persevere in this disobedience as long as he pleases, and then suddenly bring it to a termination. There comes a decisive moment when the man has definitively fallen into disobedience, as is shown by the Scripture doctrine of the sin against the Holy Ghost. Since this may be at any moment, man is threatened at every instant by the danger of falling under the abiding wrath of God. Ver. 1. “When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John Ver. 2. (Though Jesus Himself baptized not, but His disciples,) Ver. 3. He left Judea, and departed again into Galilee.” The οὖν in ver. 1 forms the connection with the preceding narrative, the central fact of which was, that Jesus had, during His stay in the land of Judea, a greater concourse than John: cf. ver. 26. The hearing of the Pharisees is only adapted to be a motive to the action of Jesus, when we connect with it their inclination to dangerous, and even life-threatening persecutions. To such an inclination we are led also by the parallel passage, John 7:1, ΚαὶπεριεπάτειὁἸησοῦςμετὰταῦταἐντῇΓαλιλαίᾳ ?· οὐγὰρἤθελενἐντῇἸουδαίᾳπεριπατεῖν, ὅτιἐζήτουναὐτὸνοἱἸουδαῖοιἀποκτεῖναι. When Jesus, as soon as He is aware that it had come to the ears of the Pharisees that He made and baptized more disciples than John, straightway attributes this disposition to them, we cannot doubt that John had already become a sacrifice to their persecution; for if they had not in this way made known their disposition, the conclusion of Jesus would have lacked a sure basis. When it is said that Jesus, being threatened by the Pharisees, had left Judea and removed to Galilee, it is understood, that in Galilee the Pharisees had less influence than in Judea. This is explained by the greater proximity to the capital here Jesus kept indeed at a considerable distance from it, at the extreme southern corner of the country—but still more from the circumstance, that the Roman government, content with the payment of the taxes, allowed freer play to the efforts of the Pharisees; while Herod, on the other hand, had inherited opposition to Pharisaism as a family tradition, and, as a native prince, was better acquainted with its practices. The motive for the persecution of the Baptist by Herod was a purely personal one; for he had left him free until he had reproved his sin, and he had probably rejoiced over his struggle against Pharisaism. On the other hand, the pharisaic opposition to the Baptist was one of principle: it was based on the circumstance, that he made and baptized disciples; and towards Jesus, who made and baptized more disciples, their hatred must have been all the more violent. That which is here intimated by John, obtains greater definiteness directly that it is regarded as the supplement of Mat 4:12 (Mark 1:14), ἈκούσαςδὲὅτιἸωάννηςπαρεδόθηἀνεχώρησενεἰςτὴνΓαλιλαίαν. The παρεδόθη requires one to deliver up, and one to whom the delivery is made. The latter can only be Herod; and who is the παραδιδούς, can scarcely be doubtful even from Matthew. He is to be sought in Judea; for Jesus removes from Judea when He receives the account of the delivering up of the Baptist, evidently because the delivering power threatens Him also with danger. We learn that the Pharisees especially had reason to be embittered against the Baptist from Matthew 3:7, where he salutes them as γεννήματαἐχιδνῶν, and where the Sadducees occupy only a subordinate and parenthetical position. That which we conclude from Matthew is distinctly stated by John. That παραδιδόναι alone may mean to cast into prison, is not proved. The usage generally, and especially of Matthew, in whose Gospel παραδ. always means to deliver, give up, is opposed to this rendering; and it is also decisive against it, that on this rendering, a motive is wanting for the resolution of Jesus. That John was cast into prison by Herod, could not furnish a motive to Jesus to betake Himself out of Judea into Galilee, into the territory of Herod. And it is not merely a removal on the part of Jesus, but an escaping, a fleeing from danger. With this meaning ἀναχωρεῖν always occurs. Cf. Matthew 2:12; Matthew 2:14; Matthew 2:22, which latter passage is especially explanatory: ἀνεχώρησενεἰςτὴνΓαλιλαίαν, of an escaping to Galilee on account of danger threatening in Judea. The escaping of Jesus to Galilee is comprehensible only if John was there delivered up to Herod. But we have in Matthew also another distinct intimation that the Pharisees were accessory to the death of the Baptist, as, according to Mark 3:6, the Pharisees were connected with the Herodians in opposition to Jesus. In Matthew 17:12, the Lord says with respect to the Baptist, after He had previously been speaking of the scribes, οὐκἐπέγνωσαναὐτὸνἀλλὰἐποίησανἐναὐτῷὅσαἠθέλησαν· οὕτωςκαὶὁυἱὸςτοῦἀνθρώπουμέλλειπάσχεινὑπʼ ? αὐτῶν. Here it is evident that the Pharisees and scribes had had the primas partes in the catastrophe of John, so that the whole might be attributed to them. Judea was then the principal seat of God’s people, Galilee occupying only a subordinate position; and Jesus went to Judea soon after His entrance on His ministry, and remained there a number of months, until persecution compelled Him to retire. Jesus, by thus going out of the way of His enemies, taught by His example, as afterwards by His words, Matthew 10:23, that it is in some circumstances allowed, and is indeed a duty, to avoid persecution. Quesnel says, “There is a time to avoid the enemies of the truth, and a time to allow the truth to triumph over its enemies. It requires great grace not to err in this, and to do nothing untimely. It is not merely allowed to flee danger on occasion, but this is often God’s order for the furtherance of His glory, and therefore commanded. An humble withdrawal is often more difficult than a proud and glorious resistance. It is to follow God, when we do not expose ourselves to suffering, if the time be not yet come. The result of the life of a pastor will plainly show, whether he retires from fear, or from fidelity to his office.” The notice in ver. 2, that Jesus did not Himself baptize, but only by means of His disciples, is not to indicate a misunderstanding of the Pharisees—for whom the distinction was a merely formal one, and without importance—but to guard the reader against a misapprehension; q.d., I attribute the baptism simply to Jesus, although, etc. We are not to suppose that a false report had reached the Pharisees; for in John 3:22, the Evangelist himself attributes the baptism simply to Jesus; but what was a matter of indifference to the Pharisees, is not without interest in another relation. Jesus did not baptize individuals, in order that the truth may not be obscured, that He it is who baptizes all, even to the present day. Augustine says, “Ergo Jesus adhuc baptizat. Securus homo accedat ad inferiorem magistrum: habet enim superiorem magistrum.” Ver. 4. “And He must needs go through Samaria.” It is of importance to note, that the conversation with the Samaritan woman occurred on a journey; as also the conversation with the representative of heathenism, the Canaanitish woman, Matthew 15:21 sq., was occasioned by the circumstance that Jesus had for another object gone to her home,—ἀνεχώρησενεἰςτὰμέρηΤύρουκαὶΣιδῶνος. Jesus could not properly make missionary journeys into the Samaritan or heathen territory. That which He prescribes to His disciples applied also to Himself: ΕἰςὁδὸνἐθνῶνμὴἀπέλθητεκαὶεἰςπόλινΣαμαριτῶνμὴεἰσέλθητε· πορεύεσθεδὲμᾶλλονπρὸςτὰπρόβατατὰἀπολωλόταοἴκουἸσραήλ. Matthew 10:5. The opportunities, however, which were afforded Him on such occasions. He not only could, but must, make use of, in order to give to the Apostles and to the Church generally, not only by His teaching, but also by His deeds, a rule of conduct, and a pattern for their subsequent action. The beginnings of the whole subsequent development of the Church were necessarily made during the earthly life of Christ, in order to prevent the thought, that the work had afterwards received another direction than that originally intended. The conversation with the Samaritan woman, with the following context, is chiefly typical of that of which we have an account in the eighth chapter of Acts, which fact is of paramount importance in judging of the occurrence; or, if we mistake its prophetic, typical character, we may well doubt whether much resulted from it, since it appears that the tender germs, unfostered and uncared for, must soon have perished. The didactic element, not the immediate effect, is the main thing, as here, so also in the Old Testament, with regard to the mission of Jonah to Nineveh. Cf. Christology 1, S. 467 f. [Transl. i. p. 406 sq.] It was there remarked with respect to this occurrence, “The ministry of Christ in Samaria bears the same relation to the later mission among this people, that the single instances of Christ’s raising the dead do to the general resurrection. The Lord did not afterwards foster the germs which had come forth among the Samaritans; He in the meantime left them altogether to their fate. That prelude was quite sufficient for the object which He had then in view; and nothing further could be done without violating the rights of the covenant-people, to which, in the conversation as recorded by John, the Lord as expressly pays attention as He does in Matthew 10.” It must not be overlooked, that the occasion for the conversation with the Samaritan, as for the communication with the Canaanitish woman, was afforded by the fact that Jesus was compelled to go out of the reach of the Jewish opposition, since, viewed from this point also, the occurrence had a typical character. The obstinacy of the Jews causes the passing over of the Church to the heathen. Paul and Barnabas say to the Jews, in Acts 13:46, Ὑμῖνἦνἀναγκαῖονπρῶτονλαληθῆναιτὸνλόγοντοῦθεοῦ ?· ἐπειδὴἀπωθεῖσθεαὐτὸνκαὶοὐκἀξίουςκρίνετεἑαυτοὺςτῆςαἰωνίουζωῆς, ἰδοὺστρεφόμεθαεἰςτὰἔθνη. This course was already indicated in the prophecies of the Old Covenant. When the Servant of God says, in Isaiah 49:4, “I have laboured in vain, I have spent My strength for nought, and in vain; yet surely My judgment is with the Lord, and My reward with My God;” the Lord says to Him in ver. 6, “I will give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth:” in compensation for the stubbornness of the Jews, He gives Him the world for His inheritance. That the Lord Himself had this declaration in mind, to which, perhaps, the κεκοπιακὼς in ver. 6 already refers (LXX. κενῶςἐκοπίασα), is probable from the allusion to it in ver. 22, ἡσωτηρίαἐκτῶνἸουδαίωνἐστί; but especially from the designation of Christ as the σωτὴρτοῦκόσμου in ver. 42, which the Samaritans derive from the instruction of Christ, and which undoubtedly refers to this passage. Ver. 5. “Then cometh He to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.” According to ver. 8, Jesus did not enter the city itself; but here the environs are included under the same name. The case is similar in Genesis 13:12, according to which Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain of the Jordan,—i. e., in their region; for, from the following statement, that he pitched his tent toward Sodom, it is evident that he continued his nomadic life. That Jericho, in Matthew 20:29, comprises its environs, in which Jesus had rested, is shown by Luke 18:35. The Apostle characterizes the false nature of the Samaritans, by changing their city Sychem, by the alteration of a single letter, into a city of lies, ωχψ. It is but to speak superficially when one designates this as “unworthy trifling.” It is of the greatest effect when the truth is thus pointedly expressed. It is thus impressed indelibly on the mind and heart. Συχάρ is formed from Συχέμ, which, with Σίκιμα, occurs in the Alexandrine Version, and in Acts 7:16; and, in order to adhere as closely as possible to the common name of the city, it is not written Συχάρ, as also in σαβαχθανί, Matthew 27:46, χ is put for χ. We nowhere find any indication that the Jews made such a change in the name, Sychem; and this fact is not without significance. If “the common Jewish people” had already introduced such a witticism (Robinson, Reise 3, 1, S. 342 [Biblical Researches]), the Apostle would not have shown any sympathy with such vulgarity. The case itself requires him to have first made such a change in a sacred sense, to which numerous analogies may be adduced from the Old Testament. I have already referred, in my Contributions, Pt. 2, p. 26, to the change of Bethel into Bethaven by Hosea; of Baalzebul, the inhabitant of the heavenly dwelling, in 2 Kings 1:2, to Baalzebub, the fly-god; and of the name of the Mount of Olives in 2 Kings 23:13. But most strictly analogous is the name Achar, in 1 Chronicles 2:7; on which Bertheau remarks, “The Achan of the Book of Joshua has, by a slight alteration, become Achar, because it was an ςελψ to Israel.” We find the suggestion of this change already in Joshua 7:23, where it is said, “Why hast thou troubled us? the Lord shall trouble thee this day.” According to ver. 26, the valley received from the deed of Achan the name Achor, distress. It is a strictly analogous case, also, when Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 6:28, transforms ωψιν, the prince (Isaiah 1:23), into ρψιν, apostate. Lόcke objects, “If John had thus wished to inform us that he considered the whole nature of the Samaritans to be lying and deceit, why did he not intimate this by a single syllable to his readers? He must have done this the rather, since the subsequent representation betrays rather a favourable opinion of the Samaritans on the part of John.” But if John had directly explained the significance of the name Sychar, he would have ruined his design of giving an enigma on which the spiritual senses might be exercised. Such enigmas, without the solution added, we find also elsewhere in his Gospel; e. g., his designation of himself as the disciple ὃνἠγάπαὁἸησοῦς, which is evidently an interpretation of his name, John Jesus = Jehovah. In substance, we certainly have the solution of the enigma. The Samaritans, according to ver. 22, worship they know not what: here every essential knowledge of God, and interest in Him, is denied concerning them, in which all is said that can be said; and to this Συχάρ contains the commentary. By it their pretended descent from Jacob is declared to be a lie. But it might be maintained, with equal justice, that Matthew, on account of his narrative of the Canaanitish woman, entertained a “favourable opinion” of the heathen, as that John betrays “a favourable opinion of the Samaritans.” The real justification of the alteration of the name Sychem into Συχάρ, is contained moreover in Matthew 10:5-6. For when the Lord here forbids His Apostles to go to the Samaritans, as well as to the heathen, when He says, πορεύεσθεδὲμᾶλλονπρὸςτὰπρόβατατὰἀπολωλόταοἴκουἸσραήλ,—and when He classes them with the heathen, and together with these opposes them to the house of Israel,—in all this there is a most decided rejection of the pretensions of the Samaritans. John has done nothing more than to give this decision a pointed expression, in the same spirit in which Jeremiah changes the name Babylon into Sheshach, and the name of the Chaldaeans into Lebkamai, as the concentration of all that which he had prophesied of the future destiny of Babylon and the Chaldaeans. Sychar is designated as near to the parcel of ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph. This notice is not founded on a “false interpretation of biblical passages,” nor on “traditional improvement” of their contents; but it is taken simply from the Old Testament. It is said in Genesis 33:18-19, “And Jacob came safe to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padan-aram, and pitched his tent before the city. And he bought a parcel of a field, where he had spread his tent, from the cliildren of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for an hundred pieces of money (Kesitah).” Jacob remained at this place for a number of years, and Dinah here grew up from a child to a young woman. In Genesis 48:22, Jacob further says to Joseph, “Moreover, I have given to thee one portion [of land] above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.” “A portion of land” is here designated by ωλν, in allusion to the name of the city, near which the field was situated. The LXX. has taken the delicate allusion too coarsely, and has directly translated Σίκιμα. μχηϊι, which was better understood by John than by those expositors, who would lay to his charge a contradiction to the Old Testament, is the prophetical Prseterite. The future is as certain to the patriarch as the past. He speaks as the representative of the nation. In token of his love, Jacob rewards Joseph with the only piece of land in Canaan which at that time he could justly call his own. But since the Shechemites had appropriated the strip of land, the taking of it must necessarily go hand in hand with the giving. The last passage is Joshua 24:32, “And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem.” Ver. 6. “Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with the journey, sat thus on the well: it was about the sixth hour.” A well or spring of Jacob does not occur in the Old Testament; though we learn from it, that it was the custom of the patriarchs to dig wells,—this being narrated of Abraham in Genesis 21, and of Isaac in Genesis 26. Yet the existence of the well brings with it a certain probability that it was dug by Jacob. There can scarcely be a doubt, that the well still called Jacob’s is identical with the genuine “Jacob’s well,” which it is acknowledged to be by the Samaritans; Ritter 16, S. 648. “Its position,” says Ritter, S. 656, “with respect to the city, on the eastern side of which there is still a high road to Galilee, whither Jesus was going with His disciples, agrees so exactly, that all the circumstances are in favour of the identity of this ancient monument.” The digging of this well must have been attended with great labour and difficulty. Maundrell says, “It is hewn in a solid rock, and is about nine feet in diameter and a hundred and five feet deep, with fifteen feet of water.”[1] Now, how did such a work come to be undertaken in a region which, compared with the rest of Palestine, has a particularly abundant supply of water (Robinson, Researches, p. 393), “in the immediate neighbourhood of so many natural fountains, and in a place which at the present day is irrigated by brooks of running water, which descend from the fountain higher up in the valley?” (Robinson.) To this question hardly any other answer can be given than this: that the well was dug by one who, separated from the inhabitants of the country, wished to have his own supply of water, and at the same time, by the digging of the well, to prove his right of possession, of which the well would be a monument. The present Jacob’s well is half a league distant from the city; and the question arises, how the Samaritan woman came to fetch water from it, “when there were so many springs in the immediate environs, and when she must” have directly passed one of these springs midway.” It is only an evasion of the difficulty to suppose that the woman might not have dwelt in the city, but near to the well, or that the city may have been more widely extended; in opposition to which is not merely the fact, that there are no ruins between Naplous and Jacob’s well (Robinson, Biblical Researches), but, still more, the improbability that the Shechemites would have resigned to Jacob a piece of ground in the immediate vicinity of the city. The correct answer is afforded by the words of the woman herself. She is zealous for the honour of the well. It is a mark of piety that she is not afraid of the distance; in addition to which it may be remarked, that the very absence of any apparatus for drawing, shows that the well did not serve for common use. To her the water was sacred. Even at the present day, there is in Naplous, besides the Jacob’s well, a Jacob’s spring, to which “beneficial effects” are attributed, according to Barges, in a work to be quoted presently, S. 93. It was afterwards more convenient to transfer the sacred water into the city. Jesus was “wearied with the journey.” P. Anton says, “He was to bear the whole burden of life, as life has now become. Thus it is also with this weariness. And this believers love to read, when they are wearied, that they may think of their Head.” It must be especially taken into view, that Jesus was compelled to the journey which produced this weariness by the stubbornness of the Jews, and that the sorrow of His soul at this, “ye would not,” was still more the cause of His fatigue than the mere bodily exertion. This weariness must have placed vividly before His mind the words of the servant of God in Isaiah 49:4, and have called forth a desire for the promised recompense, a thirst for the souls of the ἀλλογενεῖς. Jesus seated Himself thus on the well. “The rest of Jesus Christ,” remarks Quesnel, “is as mysterious and as abundant in goodness as His weariness. He awaits a soul wearied in the ways of sin, in order to give it a rest, which it seeks not and knows not.” Thus is equivalent to, in consequence of this weariness; or, weary as He was, in this state of fatigue. After a preceding participial sentence, οὕτως serves to resume the same in the main sentence: Buttmann, S. 262. Other explanations of οὕτως are too far-fetched and forced; and passages like Acts 27:17 are too evidently analogous for mu.ch importance to be laid on the objection of Fritzsche, that οὕτως, when it resumes, always stands at the beginning. There is no logical reason for this; and the later position of οὕτως here, where it might have been omitted, softens the emphasis. It was surely not by chance that Jesus seated Himself directly on Jacob’s well. In a spiritual sense, He was Himself the well of Jacob; and that He had this in mind, is shown by ver. 10. It had therefore a symbolical significance that He took his seat there; and this is the more natural supposition, since the woman also was led thither by a religious motive. It is of not less significance, that in the Old Testament, Jehovah is represented as the well of Israel. Thus first in Deuteronomy 33:28, “And Israel dwelleth safely, only the well of Jacob.” The explanation, the well of Jacob is for Jacob, who is like a well, does not give an appropriate sense, for one cannot be declared to inhabit a well. God is also designated as the dwelling of Israel in the immediately preceding verse: “A Dwelling is the God of old, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” Cf. Psalms 90:1; Psalms 5:4. Jehovah is also represented as the fountain of living waters for Israel in Jeremiah 17:13; and in Psalms 36:9 it is said, “With Thee is the fountain of life.” That which applies to Jehovah, applies also, according to the conception of Christ which is stamped with especial distinctness on the Gospel of John, to Christ, in whom the Jehovah of the Old Covenant appeared in the flesh; and thus the thought was more natural of Christ as the true well of Jacob. The woman was seeking, at the ordinary Jacob’s well, “living water,” in a higher sense than usual; and Christ, by seating Himself on this well, indicated that the true living water was to be found only in Him, as the true well of Jacob.—“And it was about the sixth hour,”—therefore about noon. According to Bengel, the reason is stated in these words why Jesus was wearied, and why the woman sought water, and the disciples food. But, according to the analogy of Joh 1:40, John 19:14, and the whole character of the Gospel, the statement of the hour indicates rather the deep significance of the following fact. John certainly, in making it, has much less in view the fact itself, than its prophetic character. On this occasion, Christ for the first time actually proved Himself to be the “Saviour of the world;” and that this is the kernel of the fact, is significantly indicated by the closing words of the narrative. Ver. 7. “There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give Me to drink.” The words, ἐκτῆςΣαμαρείας, are not without significance; as likewise the designation of the woman, in ver. 9, as ἡγυνὴἡΣαμαρῖτις. The woman was from Shechem, as is evident from what follows; but she is not regarded here as a Shechemite, but as a Samaritan, as the representative of her whole nation. The words, “Give, Me to drink,” are to be taken, primarily, as understood by the woman. But that behind this another spiritual sense was hidden, is evident from the fact, that in the further course of the conversation the satisfaction of the bodily need, which certainly existed, is entirely disregarded. That which Jesus says of meat in ver. 34, applies also to drink; for His peculiar drink. His dearest refreshment, was the salvation of souls. This drink the woman, as the type of her nation, is to furnish Him by entering into the plan of salvation; and the living water which He properly desires, He will first Himself give, and then drink it from the well which He has formed. The passages of the Old Testament are analogous in which the services due to the Lord are represented by the symbol of nourishment offered to Him, as in the case of the shew-bread and the meat-offering. Cf. my work on the Lord’s day, S. 52 sq. In the New Testament, Matthew 21:18-19 : “Now in the morning, as He returned into the city, He hungered. And when He saw a fig-tree in the way, He came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it. Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig-tree withered away.” The hunger is here, primarily, bodily hunger; but this feeling passes over immediately into that of spiritual hunger. And this is exactly the case with respect to the thirst here; for the bodily necessity serves in both cases only as the preliminary stage of the spiritual. John 21:5 also is analogous. When Jesus there says to His disciples, “Children, have ye any meat?” His desire is for the spiritual meat which they are to afford Him, and the spiritual refreshment which they are to prepare for Him, by their walking in the Spirit. Cf. my Commentary on the Apocalypse, ii. 2, S. 183. The spiritual under-current in the double sense of the words was already perceived by Augustine: “Ille, qui bibere quaerebat, fidem ipsius mulieris sitiebat.” Quesnel says, “It is the divine thirst for the salvation of souls which chiefly oppresses Him, and which He causes to be served by the bodily thirst.” The Berleburger Bibel says, “Thou knewest well, O Love, that this woman would come to draw water; on which account Thou didst seat Thyself there, in order to have the pleasure of giving it to her. But what should she give Thee, O Love, to drink? Alas! says this wearied, adorable Saviour, I have sought destitute souls among the Jews, the people to whom I paid such high regard, but found scarcely any. Therefore I desired, O woman, that thou mightest be of the number, and mightest give Me to drink.” This connection of the request, “Give Me to drink,” with the fruitless ministry among the Jews, is especially to be regarded. The statement of our text points to John as an eyewitness. The Berleb. Bibel says, “There cometh a woman, a lost sheep. John speaks as though he still saw her.” We have here the first of the seven words of Jesus to the woman of Samaria. The number seven is certainly no more accidental than the ten commandments, the seven beatitudes, the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, the seven parables in Matthew 13, and the seven last words of Jesus on the cross. It shows that all is here numbered and weighed,—nothing opposed to the object of Jesus is introduced in the course of the conversation, the thread of which He retains in His own hand.[1] Ver. 8. “For His disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.” According to the current hypothesis, these words are to explain how Jesus came to make the request of the woman, “Give Me to drink.” But the disciples, had they been present, would scarcely have been able to draw water from a well more than a hundred feet deep, for which, according to ver. 11, there was no apparatus. It is certainly a very improbable supposition, that such an apparatus was part of their equipment for the journey, and that they had taken it into the city with them! The key to the ãὰ ?ñ is contained rather in the words, “the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans,” in the verse immediately following; and that the disciples were gone into the city accounts for the fact, that Jesus entered into conversation with the woman. To this we are led by their surprise on their return, ver. 27; which shows that their presence would have had a disturbing influence, and would have intimidated the woman. Jesus is careful to bring the conversation to a conclusion before they have returned. The Lord had probably sent them away purposely (as Abraham, in Genesis 22:5, dismisses his servants, and Jacob, in Genesis 29:7, seeks to remove the herdsmen to a distance); which conclusion is favoured by the circumstance, that the business which they transacted in the city might have easily been done by one or two. “O Love,” says the Berleb. Bibel, “Thou desirest to have no witnesses to the loving conference which Thou boldest with this woman, in order to persuade her to give herself up entirely to Thee.” It seems, however, that the statement, “His disciples were gone away unto the city,” is to be understood with one exception; viz., that John, whose presence was not disturbing, because he clung so entirely to Jesus, was present at the conference. That this is not expressly mentioned, is explained by the fact, that John everywhere in the Gospel seeks to hide himself; but, indirectly, the presence of John is attested by the exact and vivid account which he is able to give of the circumstances. If John was present, it is at once explained why, in Acts 8:14, it is John, together with Peter, the chief of the Apostles, who is deputed to the Samaritans. Ver. 9. “Then saith the woman of Samaria unto Him, How is it that Thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.” We must not suppose the woman to speak ironically, in order to dismiss the request, as Lücke remarks: “The woman of Samaria seems to wish to refuse, in an irritating manner, the service of drawing the water.” Jesus, who knew what was in man, would not have entered into further conversation with her, if she had not had a heart open and susceptible to the truth. She expresses her wonder that a Jew should request a service of love from her; and a background to such wonder is formed, without doubt, by the presentiment that one is here standing before her who is exalted above the common type of the Jews. She does not say, I cannot give Thee to drink because we are at enmity with the Jews, but she seeks only to know how it is that He requests such a service of her proceeding correctly on the assumption, that the request presupposes an acknowledgment of fellowship, no less than compliance with it. The Apostle also, whose remark it is, “for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans,” attributes the cause of the hostile relation to the Jews. It is friendly intercourse which is spoken of; for ver. 8 shows that the intercourse of trade is not excluded. This relation continues even to the present day; for Robinson says, the Samaritans do not eat, drink, marry, or have any intercourse with the Jews, except in matters of trade. Ver. 10. “Jesus answered and said unto her. If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee. Give Me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water.” The woman is wondering that Jesus, although a Jew, requests her to give Him to drink, and she here receives still more reason for wonder, when Jesus offers her to drink. It must have been evident to her, that here there was something which could not be measured by the rule of the common relation between Jews and Samaritans. In the definition of the “gift of God,” the expositors have generally resigned themselves to mere guess-work; but that no other than Christ Himself can be understood, is shown first by the Old Testament passage, Isaiah 9:6, “Unto us a Son is given,” LXX. υἱὸςκαὶἐδόθηἡμῖν. The existence of such a passage would be beforehand probable, because otherwise we should be in suspense as to the expression of Christ; and we are led especially to Isaiah 9:6 by the circumstance, that our Lord has already referred to this passage in John 3:16, in the words, ὸνυἱὸντὸνμονογενῆἔδωκεν. A second ground is afforded in what follows: “and who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink;” in which the Lord explains Himself more definitely. It is the person of Christ which is here spoken of, and therefore Christ must Himself be the gift of God. Calvin, with perfect correctness, remarks, “Posterius est quasi interpretatio prions. Hoc enim singulare Dei erat beneficium, praesentem Christum habere, qui vitam aeternam secum ferebat. Sensus clarior erit, si vice copulae particulam exegeticam supponas. Si scires donum Dei, nempe quisnam sit qui tecum loquitur.” It is, moreover, to be, observed, that it is not a special gift of God to the woman that is spoken of, as if “the benefit “were meant, of “God’s bringing her into connection with Him,” but it is a general benefit, of which the woman may become a partaker. On what account Christ merits to be designated as the gift of God to the human race, is evident from what follows, according to which He is the bestower of the highest of all gifts, the living water, by which alone the thirsty and fainting soul may be refreshed.—”Living water” [Eng. Vers. “running water”] stands for spring-water in Leviticus 14:5. In the spiritual sense, it designates life, a powerful, blessed existence, untroubled by obstructions. Life occurs in the same relation as living water here, in the parallel passages: John 1:4, ἐναὐτῷζωὴἦν; John 5:40, οὐθέλετεἐλθεῖνπρόςμεἵναζωὴνἔχητε; John 20:31. An explanation is given directly in Revelation 7:17 : “The Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters,” ζωῆςπηγὰςὑδάτων. The living water in our text is as it were explained here by life-water, water which consists in life. The same is denoted also in Revelation 22:1, “And he showed me, a pure river of water of life;” and in John 21:6, the water is life according to the express explanation of the writer. In Ezekiel 47, the effect of the water which proceeds from the temple in Zion, and flows through the desert into the Dead Sea, is described as life. The idea of life is also interchangeable with that of salvation: cf. Isaiah 12:3, where the wells of salvation are spoken of, which are to be opened in the time of the Messiah: cf. Psalms 87:7. In Isaiah 49:3, “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring,” the blessing corresponds to the water, and is equivalent to life and salvation; and the Spirit is mentioned as being the chief form in which the blessing is bestowed, the ground of all life and salvation for the people of God. In John 7:38 also, the living water does not itself denote the Holy Spirit, ver. 39, but the Holy Spirit is considered only as being the chief power by which the salvation or blessedness is effected. When Christ ascribes to Himself the full power of imparting living water, He claims for Himself that which belongs to no mortal, but to the Divine prerogative; for Jehovah alone is represented in Jeremiah 17:13 as the fountain of living waters for Israel. If we take this dignity of Christ into view, the depth of His condescension will the more sink into our hearts.—“This,” says Calvin, “is a wonderful instance of His goodness. For what was there in this wretched woman, that from a harlot she should suddenly become a disciple of the Son of God?” Ver. 11. “The woman saith unto Him, Sir, Thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast Thou that living water? 12. Art Thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?” The mode of address by κύριε is here new, and shows that a foreboding suspicion is rising in the mind of the woman, as to the high dignity of the person who is standing before her. The Berleb. Bibel: “This mode of address, Lord, shows that He had obtained a certain supremacy over her.” On the other hand, however, the woman is not yet able to enter into the meaning of Christ’s words, but she thinks, What can He mean by living water? This well is not accessible to Him. In this she has the advantage. In order to be able to give a better water. He must be greater than the patriarch Jacob. And how could this be possible? And yet there was in the manner of Jesus an imposing dignity, which did not allow her to give way to the thought of an empty assumption on His part; and in her perplexity, she asks Jesus Himself for enlightenment. When she calls Jacob the father of the Samaritans, she shows herself to be truly an inhabitant of Sychar, the city of falsehood. The rejection of this assertion is contained indirectly, as in Matthew 10:5-6 (Bengel: “sic sibi persuaserant Samaritani: falso, Matthew 10:5 sq.”), so here in ver. 22; for of real descendants of Jacob there could not be denied all essential knowledge of God, the sphere of which was extended as widely as the posterity of Jacob. The reasons which favour the heathen origin of the Samaritans, are laid down in my Contributions (Beitr. 2, S. 3 sq.). It is shown by Ezra 4:9-10, that at the time of their return from exile the Samaritans had not reached the pretension of a descent from Jacob; and that they afterwards averred the truth when this seemed more to their interest than a falsehood, is proved by the quotations in the Beitr. S. 6 sq. The physiognomy also of the present Samaritans condemns the assertion of their Israelitish descent. “Wilson says (in Ritter, S. 651), “Most of them have a strong family likeness; their features, especially, were entirely different from the Jewish, and they had much rounder forms.” But, nevertheless, “the family of the priest wished to trace their descent to the tribe of Levi, and all the rest to Ephraim and Manasseh.” Robinson likewise remarks, “The physiognomy of those we saw was not Jewish.” The detailed statement in the Contributions has been opposed by Kalkar (in Pelt’s Mitarbeiten iii. 3, S. 24 sq.), and Keil in his commentary on 2 Kings 17:24, who have anew asserted the opinion, that the remnant of the Israelites who remained in the country were amalgamated with the heathen colonists. The only proof, of any plausibility, which they bring in support of this opinion, is the following. According to 2 Chronicles 34:9, there was still in the cities, at the time of Josiah, a remnant of the Ten Tribes; and such is implied also by the expedition of Josiah into the former land of Israel, for the destruction of the monuments of the earlier idolatry, in 2 Chronicles 34:6, cf. 2 Kings 23:15-20. There were therefore, it is thus concluded, remnants of Israelites, who could mingle with the Samaritans, and who must have mingled with, and have been lost among them, since we find no trace of them afterwards. But this is a weak argument. Samaria is only a small part of the former territory of the Ten Tribes. That in the other parts there were still to be found remnants of the former Israelitish population, would have been sufficiently established a priori, even if it had not been historically attested; but, so far as we are able to follow these remnants, they have no connection whatever with the Samaritans. According to 2 Chronicles 34:9, they paid the temple-tribute at Jerusalem. According to 2 Chronicles 35:18, there came to Josiah’s Passover, besides Judah, whatever still remained of Israel. When Josiah, favoured by very peculiar circumstances (cf. Thenius, on 2 Kings 23:19-20), undertakes an expedition into the former land of Israel, in order in those parts of it not settled by the Samaritans to destroy the monuments of former idolatry in the ruins of the former cities (Bertheau on 2 Chronicles 34:6), we are led to the conclusion, that the kings of Judah regarded themselves as the legitimate heirs of the fallen Israelitish kingdom, and hence certainly made efforts to draw to themselves the remnants of the Israelitish population. Where these remnants afterwards were, whether they stayed unobserved in the country, and were afterwards amalgamated with those who returned from the Babylonish exile, or whether they migrated to Judah, it cannot be ours to prove. From the tenacity of the Israelites in the assertion of their national character, so abundantly proved by history, we are not justified in assuming on such slight grounds an amalgamation of the remnants of the Ten Tribes with the Samaritans. Experience shows that there is a great aversion to so complete a surrender of nationality, even among those descendants of Jacob to whom very little indeed remains of the real substance of national life. With the overthrow of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes was thrown down the wall of separation between them and Judah, so that they were again open to all the influences which came from thence; and thus it is the less probable that they would throw themselves into the arms of the Samaritans, in whom they would perceive only intruders. The θρέμματα comprise at the same time the servants, who must have accompanied the herds. In Genesis 12:16, the men-servants and maid-servants are enclosed on either hand by the herds, on which it was their duty to attend. Ver. 13. “Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: Ver. 14. 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 of water springing up into everlasting life.” All earthly happiness resembles water, which can only afford a transitory satisfaction. In the words, “shall never thirst,” the thirst designates the condition of wholly unsatisfied desire, of absolute godlessness; since in believers there is always a background, however deeply hidden, of satisfaction (“nunquam prorsus aridi;” Calvin). How necessary such a limitation is, is shown by the circumstance, that Jesus Himself, in John 19:29, exclaims διψῶ; and that, as an exemplar of His followers, He trod the darkest paths of suffering. The words, “shall never thirst,” receive the most glorious fulfilment in the kingdom of glory, as, with respect to the condition of the elect in the future existence, the heavenly blessedness, it is said in Revelation 7:16, οὐπεινάσουσινἔτιοὐδὲδιψήσουσινἔτι, and in Revelation 21:6, with respect to the time when God makes all things new, ἐγὼτῷδιψῶντιδώσωἐκτῆςπηγῆςτοῦὕδατοςτῆςζωῆςδωρεάν. But God does not give His people any mere “letters of credit for happiness;” for even in the troubled period of this life He is ever in Christ, “the well of life” for His people. And there is never a time when they wish they had not been born, or when they are tempted to put an end to their existence. The Old Testament passage is Isaiah 55:1, where, with respect to the Messianic salvation, it is said, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters;” a passage to which the Lord also refers in John 7:37, Ἐάντιςδιψᾷἐρχέσθωπρόςμεκαὶπινέτω, and where the words πρόςμε are added from ver. 3; also in Matthew 11:28; Matthew 5:6; cf. Christology 2, S. 379 [Translation, ii. p. 342]. The Old Testament passage, Isaiah 49:10 (cf. Isaiah 48:21), is also to be regarded: “They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor sun smite them; for He that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them;” to which the Lord also refers in John 6:35 : ὁἐρχόμενοςπρὸςἐμὲοὐμὴπεινάσῃ, καὶὁπιστεύωνεἰςἐμὲοὐμὴδιψήσειπώποτε. The water becomes a fountain: the gift of salvation, which comes primarily from without and from above, becomes immanent in the heart, and is as though it had an independent origin therein. In Son 4:12, the bride, the Church of God in the Messianic period, is already, in designation of the fulness of salvation and blessing which not merely flows towards it, but dwells within it, called “a spring shut up, a fountain sealed;” and in ver. 15, “a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.” The water of the well springs up into” everlasting life. It is represented as a well-spring, which, in distinction from the common springs, which rise only a few feet above the earth, reaches from the present to the future existence. In Revelation 22:1, the stream of the water of life proceeds “from the throne of God and of the Lamb:” here, whence it comes is designated; in our text, whither it goes,—the latter being grounded in the former. The water which comes from above must mount upwards again; as Burgensis has already remarked, “The Holy Spirit, as the author and the source of this water, dwells in heaven; hence it is no wonder if the water which He pours out upon the hearts of men springs up from earth towards heaven, yea, even to God, into everlasting life.” Ver. 15. “The woman saith unto Him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.” She does not know what the water is which Jesus offers her; but thus much she perceives, that it must be something very good, and that the desire for its possession will be satisfied. She is perfectly sincere in all this, and we lose the key to the position which Christ takes towards her, if we discover in her answer “a certain jesting ironical naivété. The woman brings the water which Jesus offers her the more into connection with the water of Jacob’s well, because this also, in her opinion, had not a purely natural signification, but was better and of more saving efficacy than the common water. Ver. 16. “Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.” Since Jesus, as is shown by what follows, penetrated into the relations of the woman, this direction can have this object only, to call forth the answer, foreseen by Christ, οὐκἔχωἄνδρα; and with this answer is connected the declaration of Christ, in which He made known His superhuman nature, and at the same time awakened the conscience of the woman, as the condition of the impartation of the living water. The word ἄνδρα must be considered as emphatic. The husband —this was the sore point of the woman, and her counterpart, the people of the Samaritans. P. Anton remarks, “The emotion was here aimed at which the Mystics very finely call momentum compunctionis; when the right aculei enter, when the right nail is driven into the conscience, this is compunctio. It was great wisdom in Christ also, that He pricks, as it were, only a single sore in particular, so that pain is caused at the same time in all the others.” The Berleburger Bibel says, “He places His finger on the wound, but with so much goodness and gentleness, that it seems as if He feared to give it pain. O what goodness to win sinners!” Ver. 17. “The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her. Thou hast well said, I have no husband: Ver. 18. For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.” Even the great number of husbands indicates that there lies hidden in the words, πέντεἄνδραςἔσχες, a charge against the woman, that even then her state was a sinful one. Add to this the εἶπένμοιπάνταὅσαἐποίησα of the woman in ver. 29, which can scarcely be referred only to her connection with the sixth man. It leads to the conclusion that the former marriages were dissolved by her own fault; for that it was a fivefold marriage-relation, is shown by the opposition to the present connection. The words καλῶςεἶπας and ἀληθὲςεἴρηκας refer to the objective truth of what is said by the woman, and disregard the circumstance, that she “hides her shame under the ambiguity of the phrase ἄνδραἔσχειν.” In that all the relations of life of a woman personally unknown to Him were clearly discovered to Christ, He thus proved Himself to be He, who even during His life on earth was in heaven, John 3:13. By a divine arrangement, the relations of her nation were portrayed in the inferior relations of this woman, and precisely on this account she was chosen by “Christ as its representative. She had had five husbands; and he whom she now had was not her husband, not having deigned to connect himself with her in marriage. So with the nation. It had previously been in fivefold spiritual marriage with its idols, and this marriage had been dissolved as frivolously as it had been concluded. The people sued for marriage with Jehovah; but this was denied them, because they did not belong to Israel. The declaration, “Thou hast had five husbands,” is in remarkable accordance with 2 Kings 17:24; according to which passage the king of Assyria brought colonists from exactly five nations, from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria; and of these five nations each had its peculiar divinity, or, according to the ancient language of the East, its husband, ver. 31. Josephus says, in his Antiquities, ix. 14, § 3, οἰδὲμετοικισθέντεςεἰςτὴνΣαμάρειανΧουθαῖοι . . . . ἕκαστοικατὰἔθνοςἴδιονθεὸνεἰςτὴνΣαμάρειανκομίσαντες—πέντεδʼ ? ἦσαν—καὶτούτους, καθὼςἦνπάτριοναὐτοῖς, σεβόμενοι. The coincidence of the relations of the woman with those of the nation is truly too remarkable to be passed by as merely accidental. With the words, “and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband,” is to be compared ver. 22, where legitimacy is denied to the connection of the Samaritans with their present God. So as to Συχὰρ in ver. 5, if the whole religious condition of the Samaritans is a lie, this must refer first and principally to the fundamental relation of the people to Jehovah. We have already proved that the Samaritan woman appears even in what precedes as a representative of the nation, and that the occurrence has a prophetic character; and therefore we may all the more expect to see in her circumstances a picture of those of the nation. That Jesus sat on the well in order to point to Himself as the true well of Jacob; that His first word, δόςμοιπεῖν, has a spiritual meaning; and that He offers the woman “living water” in the spiritual sense, we have already seen. With a terminology so symbolical throughout, the symbolical rendering of our passage, which does not prejudice the historical truth, but has it for its basis, is not opposed, but favoured, by the presumptive evidence. That the expounders of the New Testament have often a great dread of such renderings, is explained by the fact, that they have learnt so little in the school of the Old Testament, and on this account cannot free themselves from their “Occidentalism.” Of attempts to introduce again the antiquated allegorical explanation, we need not speak. Explanation of an allegory is widely different from allegorical explanation. Ver. 19. “The woman saith unto Him, Sir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet. Ver. 20. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” We are not to attribute to these words the object of changing the unpleasant personal turn of the conversation. The fact that Christ engages Himself so far with her, and ver. 29, where she confesses her sins with entire frankness, are decisive against this view. We are also not to assume that she here introduces a religious point, which was without significance in respect of that which was primarily in question, viz., her relation to Christ; as Calvin supposes, that since she had perceived Christ to be a prophet, she wished to be instructed by Him in general with reference to the true worship of God. The word of Christ has touched the woman too deeply, for her to follow the mere impulse of a general “religious curiosity;” and the question which she here broaches, has far rather a direct reference to her relation to Christ. She has recognised that Jesus is a prophet; but before she engages further with Him, she must obtain a clear view of that point which forms the wall of separation between Jews and Samaritans. If her fathers were right in maintaining that the true worship of all is restricted to Mount Gerizim, she must hesitate before entering into further conversation with a Jew, and therefore this obstacle must first be removed out of the way. The question is not of a mere isolated difference of opinion, but of a dogma, which excluded the Samaritans, whose representative the woman is here also, from the well of Jacob, from the life in God, and from access to Christ. On this mountain. She refers to Gerizim, which was in view. The temple which had stood there for some centuries (BeiträGenesis 2, S. 2 sq.) was destroyed by John Hyrcanus, and not rebuilt; but the sanctity of the place remained, and it was esteemed by the Samaritans as the centre of their religion. Even at the present day it is one of the five articles of faith of the Samaritans, that Gerizim is the Kiblah (Ritter, S. 650). Ver. 21. “Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe Me, the hour Cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.” Jesus intimates that the point of dispute between the Jews and Samaritans, on which the woman laid such weight, will in the future lose all significance. That which is so near its end, need not now hinder her from following the impulse of her heart, need not now stand as a dividing wall between her and Him who will give her living water. The words, believe Me, are connected with those of the woman, Thou art a prophet, and summon her to follow out this confession. The prophet is as such πΰξο, 1 Samuel 3:20, πιστός, Sir 48:22, where Isaiah is called πιστὸςἐνὁράσειαὐτοῦ, and 1Ma 14:41. With the words, the hour cometh, compare Isaiah 66:18, “It shall come (the time or hour) to gather all (heathen) nations and tongues: and they shall come, and see My glory:” with the hour to gather the heathen coincides the abolishing of the distinction of localities. In προσκυνήσετε both the Jews and the heathen are addressed. It is decisive against the assumption, that προσκυνήσετε applies only to the Samaritans, “who by their future conversion were to be released from their service at Gerizim, but not to be brought to the service in Jerusalem,” that on this view the thought would be a natural one, that the local obligation of worship would still continue for the Jews, while, according to the corresponding declaration in ver. 23, it was to cease altogether in the future. And, according to this view, the answer would not be a complete one; for the woman had not asked merely, where the Samaritans were to worship. God was to be Father to the Samaritans only in the future, when the hour was come; for in the present. He did not stand in the relation of fatherhood towards them. This is shown by the immediately following verse, where all essential knowledge of God, and all relation to Him, is denied to the Samaritans. Among the Jews, the relation of fatherhood had been already entered into in the Old Testament dispensation, yet among them also it attained its perfection only under the New Covenant. A deeper vital connection with God was established first by the Spirit of Christ. Yet we need not doubt that the name of Father was already current among the Samaritans; for it is to be considered, not merely that even the heathen said to their idols, “Thou art my father,” Jeremiah 2:27, but it is much more important that in the Books of Moses the name of sons of God is ascribed to the descendants of Jacob, Exodus 4:22; Deuteronomy 14:1; so that the use of the name of Father among the Samaritans was an immediate result of their usurpation of the title of the posterity of Jacob. The Old Testament basis for this declaration, as for that in Matthew 8:11, is Malachi 1:11 : “For from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same. My name shall be great among the heathen; and in every place incense shall be offered unto My name, and a pure offering: for My name shall be great among the heathen, saith Jehovah Sabaoth.” The words, in every place, form a contrast to the temple, mentioned in the previous verse. The prophet predicts that the appointment in Deuteronomy 12:5-6—“Unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to place His name there, this His habitation shall ye seek, and thither come: and thither ye shall bring your burnt-offerings, and your meat-offerings,” etc.—will lose its force in the future, on the advent of Christ. Michaelis: “In omni loco, in Assyria et Ζgypto, Jes. 19:18 sq., sicut olim in uno loco.” In the passage of Isaiah here cited it is said, [Isaiah 19:19,] “In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt,”—the altar here, and the sacrifices in ver. 21, belong to each other, so that we cannot suppose that the altar has merely a symbolical meaning, as being a reference to the altar in Jerusalem. Coincident with these declarations of Isaiah and Malachi is the prediction of the abolition of the Old Testament form of worship in Jeremiah 3:16, Daniel 9:27. This form involves the exclusiveness of the place of worship, so that this exclusiveness must cease so soon as the form of worship is abolished. In direct contradiction to the declaration of the Lord here and in ver. 23, by which every distinction of locality is abolished under the New Covenant, are the theories at present in vogue, of the future restoration of Jerusalem to be the centre of the Church of God, and its central sanctuary. The extent of our declaration from this point of view was already fully recognised by Bengel: “Samaritae non compulsi sunt Hierosolyma, Acts 8:14. Et quid postea opus fuit Cruciatis? quid opus est peregrinationibus? Locorum hie discrimen plane tollitur, cui intenti fuerant veteres, Numbers 23:27. Si discrimen manet, ubivis potius, quam Hierosolymis adorandum esse, haec verba innuunt.” Ver. 22. “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews.” As regards the present, our Lord continues, the Jews are right, and not the Samaritans. The object of worship is designated generally, but God alone is meant,—cf. Matthew 4:10 γέγραπταιγάρ,Κύριοντὸνθεόνσουπροσκυνήσειςκαὶαὐτῷμόνῳλατρεύσεις—q.d., we worship a God whom we know. The Samaritans knew not God, because He had not made Himself known unto them; for every real knowledge of God has for its foundation, that God has revealed Himself, and has by His deeds made Himself a name. Because the Samaritans had not this revelation of God in their midst, they were in want of all essential knowledge of God; notwithstanding their “monotheism, free from anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms,” they were not less than the heathen ἄθεοιἐντῷκόσμῳ. Their eclectic position towards the word of God, in adopting only the Pentateuch and rejecting all the other books of the canon, and, “consequently, being without the Divine revelation contained in the later books, especially also the firm and living development of hope in the Messiah,” was only a consequence and result of their fundamental deficiency, in that they worshipped a God who had not made Himself known in their midst, and had never taken a form amongst them, and who had never filled out the void of their sanctuary and of their hearts by the fulness of His presence. By this fundamental deficiency is explained also the fickleness of the Samaritans, their inability to suffer for their religion, and their inclination to all that savoured of innovation. “They did not tell the truth merely unconsciously, when they declared in their letter to Antiochus Epiphanes, in remarkable accordance with the declaration of our Lord, that their fathers founded ἀναώνυμονἐντῷΓαριζεὶνὄρειἱερόν. The feeling was stirring within them, that the God about whom they troubled themselves so much, notwithstanding all their boasting of His nearness, was a God afar off, and not Θεὸςἐναργής, ἐπιφανής, and that He had merely a traditional name, not one which had grown in a living manner out of the reality” (BeitrδGenesis 2, S. 21). Among the Jews, there was also much ignorance of God; but among them this was the fault of the individual. At all periods, even those of deepest degradation, there was among them a nucleus, a chosen few, who, on the ground of the Divine revelation, possessed an essential knowledge of God; while, on the other hand, among the Samaritans, the ignorance of God was one of first principles, radical and universal. But why did not the true God make Himself known to the Samaritans? why were they condemned to worship they knew not what? The answer is: Because they did not seek access to the true God in the manner prescribed by Him. During the continuance of the Old Covenant, the kingdom of God was bound to the sanctuary in Jerusalem, and to fellowship with the Israelitish nation. Instead of causing themselves as individuals to be received by circumcision into the Church of God, they desired to be an independent division of the people of God, with equal rights to the Jews, and, as such, to take part in the erection of the temple at Jerusalem. When this pretension was rejected, they threw themselves in the face of the Divine appointment by the erection of their own sanctuary. By such practices they shut themselves out from God and His revelation. The reproach, “Ye worship ye know not what,” now applies to the Jews not less than it then did to the Samaritans; for, since their rejection of Christ, God no longer knows them, and consequently they no longer know God. There is no Divine revelation in their midst, from which might be developed a true knowledge of God. In this proposition is given at the same time the answer to the woman’s questions in ver. 20. If the Jews alone were in possession of true Divine knowledge, the place of their Divine worship must also be the correct one; and if the Samaritans, with respect to the knowledge of God, were groping altogether in darkness, they could not be right with respect to the place of His worship. The woman had inquired, primarily, only concerning the place; but in substance the question applied to the entire relation of the religion of the Samaritans to that of the Jews. On this account, Jesus refers in His answer to the whole, by which the part is governed.—“For salvation is of the Jews.” It is the Messianic salvation which is spoken of, and not the “Messianic idea,” which some commentators, in their embarrassment, have put in its place. The proof that not the Samaritans but only the Jews know God, is furnished by the fact that salvation proceeds from the Jews, by which the seal of confirmation is affixed to the Jewish religion; and it is shown that only among them does God rule, and that, therefore, only among them there is the true knowledge of God. If it is established that the Messianic salvation does not proceed from Jews and Samaritans together—to which the Lord has already referred in the ἡμεῖς, by which He, the bearer of this salvation, places Himself, together with the Jews, on the one hand, but the Samaritans on the other; cf. the words, ὁΧριστὸςτὸκατὰσάρκα, Romans 9:5—it is established at the same time, also, that the Samaritans are excluded from the kingdom of God, within which alone He is known. For the kingdom of God and salvation are inseparable. That salvation is of the Jews, is testified by Old Testament prophecy from Genesis 12 onwards, according to which all nations of the earth should be blessed in the seed of Abraham. Cf. Genesis 49:10, Isaiah 2 and Isaiah 49:6—where God says to His servant (the true Israel, according to Isaiah 49:3), “I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth” (the expression points especially to this passage) Isaiah 60:1-3, Micah 4, and many other passages. “Salvation is of the Jews:”—this is now represented bodily before the eyes of the woman in Christ, after whose advent Samaritanism must be regarded as an anachronism, and was afterwards acknowledged to be so by the Samaritans, when they said, οἴδαμενὅτιοὗτόςἐστινἀληθῶςὁσωτὴρτοῦκόσμου, ὁΧριστὸς, by which they at the same time condemned their whole previous religious character. In like manner we might now say to the Jews, Ye worship, etc. For salvation is of the Christians, from the Zion of the Christian Church, Romans 11:26. The faith of Abraham, of David, and of Isaiah is not planted among the heathen by the Jews—who everywhere show themselves to be a dead tree and castaway branches, and no longer bear in themselves the signature of the living God, but of the idol mammon—but by the Christians, in prelude to the completion of salvation, which is to proceed, not from the synagogue, fast falling into ruins, but from the Church.—“Thus,” remarks Lampe, “the woman needed to be led over from her darkness before the true light broke in upon her, and to be humbled on account of her unworthiness, before the Redeemer of the world was made known to her.” It is evident that here also she has a representative character, and that the people of the Samaritans are represented to us in her. Ver. 23. “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.” Spirit forms the antithesis to all externalities—as, e.g., this and that locality, or the merely outward sacrifice—and truth is the inseparable accompaniment of spirit, since only worship in spirit is true worship, all else is a lie and pretence. All that man has of spirit, he has only by receiving his breath from God, Genesis 2:7; and since, in consequence of the apostasy, he has sunk into carnality. Genesis 6:3, he can by the effusion of the Spirit alone be raised into the domain of spirit. So long as the Spirit is not poured out, man remains incapable of rising into the region of spirit; and being in his natural condition, must necessarily draw down religion into the region of externality, in which alone he is at home. The worship of God in spirit and in truth is, on the one hand, still future, for Christ is not yet glorified, and therefore the Holy Spirit is not yet come; but, on the other hand, it belongs already to the present time, for the Word has already appeared in the flesh, and the New Covenant is germinating even under the Old Covenant. That God is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, is taught most emphatically even in the Old Testament. When Moses repeatedly designates it as the sum of all religion, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,” he thus transposes religion into the sphere of spirit, refuses significance to everything external as such, and degrades it to an instrument, a mere form, which has no value, if not filled by the Spirit. When Isaiah, in chaps. 1 and 66, so emphatically rejects the merely outward sacrifice, and other religious acts, as, e.g., the mere prayer of the lips (Isaiah 29:13), he has for his basis the proposition of our text. He desires spiritual virtues in opposition to merely external performances, which even on the threshold of revelation, in Genesis 4, are condemned by the rejection of the lifeless gift of Cain. Micah, in John 6:6-8, “opposes to merely external offerings, as alone pleasing to God, to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. It is the central thought of Psalms 50, that God, being a Spirit, cannot be served with external offerings as such: ver. 13, “Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?” For the very reason that He is a Spirit, spiritual offerings can alone please Him, such as a heart full of gratitude and love: ver. 14, “Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the Most High.” But though the end was so clearly perceived and set forth under the Old Covenant, yet still its attainment was very difficult; for under the Old Covenant the Spirit of Christ had not yet come, and the Spirit of God was not able to overcome in the great mass the degrading power of the flesh. In order to this, it needed to become, by an increase of potency, the Spirit of Christ. It was, indeed, difficult for one to maintain himself in the region of the Spirit, and it was very natural to sink down into the region of externality, where the flesh feels more at home and in its element. Still, it is of significance, that in the Divine law itself importance was ascribed to certain externalities during the continuance of the Old Covenant,—not, indeed, as though they had in themselves an atoning and justifying efficacy, but yet as being absolutely obligatory; e.g., attendance at the sanctuary, and the offering of spiritual under the form of bodily sacrifices. By such a concession—which was made to the sensuous consciousness in order to bring it at least to the beginning of the worship of God in spirit and in truth—a false estimation of externals became very easy. We perceive this even in the lively polemics with which psalmists and prophets opposed this danger, e.g., David in Psalms 15, 24. To regard everything external as only a means to an end, and to estimate it from this point of view, was, under the Old Covenant, in the power only of the elect few; and that it is still difficult at the present day, is shown, e.g. by the dreams of a restoration of Jerusalem. Ver. 24. “God is Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” The most direct Old Testament parallel to “God is Spirit,” is Isaiah 31:3, “The Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit.” Here, to be God, and to be spirit (not a spirit, though the thought is not essentially altered by this translation), appear to be inseparably connected. Quesnel remarks: “A spirit and a heart which are consecrated to God by a living faith, a sincere worship and humiliation before His greatness, an absolute subjection to and dependence on His will, a lively gratitude for His goodness and His benefits, and a burning zeal for His honour: this is the sacrifice which is worthy (so far as a creature can be worthy) of this eternal and infinite Spirit, and this absolutely holy and immutable will, which is God Himself. Without this sacrifice of the spirit and the heart by love, the outward offering which should be its sign, the effect and copy of it, is an empty sign, a deceitful image, a Jewish sacrifice.” It scarcely needs remark, that the present declaration of Christ is directed against the externals of worship, only in so far as these lay claim to an independent significance. If we should extend it farther, we should not promote, but destroy the worship of God in spirit and in truth; for man, as a corporeal as well as spiritual being, needs the external to lead him to the spiritual, and the spiritual life must be stunted if this support be withdrawn. Yet from the declaration of our text we derive the rule, that all accumulation of externals in worship, which so easily overmaster instead of stimulating the spirit, are to be avoided. Ver. 25. The woman saith unto Him, I know that Messias Cometh, which is called Christ: when He is come, He will tell us all things.” The woman feels that she cannot follow, and that she can gain an insight into the whole depth of the truth just announced only in connection with a comprehensive enlightenment of her religious consciousness, which she expects from the advent of the Messiah. She accordingly expresses her desire; and in consequence of this longing after Him, Jesus makes Himself known as the Messiah. In John 1:42 it is ὁΜεσσίας, but here Μεσσίας without the article, because the word had become a proper name, as also διάβολος and Σατανᾶς stand sometimes without the article. The appellative character of the name would of course be less observed by a foreigner. It has been thought striking, that the Samaritan woman makes use of the specifically Jewish name, Messiah, which was taken from writings (Psalms 2 and Daniel 9) which were not included in the Samaritan canon. But from the entire relation of the Samaritan theology to the Jewish, viz., of absolute dependence (cf. BeitrδGenesis 2, S. 28 sq.), it can scarcely be presumed that the name so current at that time among the Jews, had not become so also among the Samaritans. It is also to be observed that the Jewish apostates, who formed a main channel by which much accrued to the Samaritans from the Jewish fulness, had their principal seat in Sychem. Cf. Josephus, Antiquities 11, 8, 6: ΣαμαρεῖταιμητρόπολιντότετὴνΣίκιμαἔχοντες, κειμένηνπρὸςτῷΓαριξεὶνὄρεικαὶκατῳκημένηνὑπὸτῶνἀποστατῶντοῦἸουδαίωνἔθνους. And then it is to be observed, that the woman, in her need to cling to Christ, uses that name in preference, which, as she knew, was the current one among the Jews. Substantially, also, she does not go beyond the Pentateuch, for the coming of the Messiah is spoken of in Genesis 49:10; cf. remarks on John 1:9. The conception of the Messiah as a divinely enlightened Teacher points to Deuteronomy 18; the same passage on which the Samaritans at the present day found their belief in a Redeemer (cf. Barges, Les Samaritains de Naplouse, Paris 1855, p. 90), while they now refer the prophecy of Shiloh to Solomon (p. 91). The words ἀναγγελεῖἡμῖνπάντα strikingly accord with Deuteronomy 18:18, “And He shall speak unto them all that I shall command Him.” To the prediction of Moses, of a Prophet like unto him, also refers, in all probability, the Samaritan secret name for the Messiah, δωδα or δϊδα. We are not, with Gesenius (Carmina Samarit. p. 75 sq.), to render this name by conversor; for this interpretation rests on the false assumption, that ωεα in Hebrew often means to lead back. “We must rather render, with De Sacy (Notices et extraits, t. 12, p. 29, 209, Juyneboll. Chron. Samarit. p. 52), celui qui revient, the Returning One. The form ϊδα occurs also in the Samaritan as the participle of ϊεα (which in the Samaritan, Syriac, and Arabic always means to return), with the meaning of the returning, or specifically, the penitent. On the ground of the words, like unto me, the Samaritans regarded the Messiah as the returning Moses. On this view, they say that his name will begin with the letter M (Barges and elsewhere), and ascribe to him, who is to be but a man, an age of a hundred and twenty years (Jowett in Von Raumer, Pal. S. 145). Ver. 26. “Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am He.” This is the seventh and last word of Jesus. P. Anton: “Since she herself thus spoke of it, it was now time that Christ should draw tight the knot.” Among the Jews, Jesus proceeded cautiously, repressing His Messianic dignity. Matthew 16:20; the reason for which, according to John 6:15, was the political character of the Jewish hope in the Messiah. This reason did not exist among the Samaritans; and if the transaction was a symbolical one, having a prophetic character, the confession of Jesus as the Messiah would necessarily occur in it. The necessary conclusion of the occurrence was the declaration, “We know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world;” and this confession must have been preceded by the declaration of Christ Himself concerning His Messianic dignity. Ver. 27. “And upon this came His disciples, and marvelled that He talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest Thou? or, Why talkest Thou with her?” In Judea the disciples would not have marvelled that Jesus talked with a woman, but in Samaria, even if He talked with a man; and still more did they marvel at His conversing with a Samaritan woman. But we should remark the timid awe of the disciples in relation to Christ. “With which wonder,” remarks the Berleburger Bibel, “there was yet a holy reverence, so that they did not judge Him in this conduct, or put a false construction upon it.” Calvin draws from this behaviour of the disciples the instruction, “that we, when something in the works of God and of Christ does not please us, should not indulge in complaint and opposition, but should rather be modestly silent, until what is hidden from us be revealed from heaven.” Ver. 28. “The woman then left her water-pot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, 29. Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” The ìÞôé, perhaps (Buttmann, S. 213), is probably not the expression of her own doubt, but of modesty, and of acknowledgment of her entirely subordinate position. She does not wish to anticipate the judgment of the men, and thus to evoke their contradiction. Ver. 30. “Then they went out of the city, and came to Him.” It is a contrast of prophetic significance, that the Jews by their plots drive Jesus out of their country, while, on the other hand, the Samaritans come out to Him and invite Him into their city. The willing audience which the woman’s message finds, presupposes that the Jewish expectation, founded on Daniel 9, of the directly impending advent of the Messiah, had passed over also to the Samaritans. Ver. 31. “In the meanwhile His disciples prayed Him, saying, Master, eat.” The preparation of the food which had been bought occupied some time, and it was not ready until the Samaritans were already near. This explains the answer of Christ. The disciples urged Him to eat first of all, before engaging with those who were now approaching,—a request, the impropriety of which is evident from the circumstance that the woman had, for the sake of Jesus, left her water-pot. Ver. 32. “But He said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Ver. 33. Therefore said the disciples one to another. Hath any man brought Him ought to eat?” They spoke only one to another, for to Jesus Himself they dared not, in their bashful reverence, address such a question. Ver. 34. “Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.” “A spiritual pastor,” says Quesnel, “needs to have nothing at heart but the work of God and the salvation of souls. This is his delight, his food and his life.” Ver. 35. “Say not ye. There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you. Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.” According to some, the words, “there are yet four months, and then cometh harvest,” are a proverbial expression, which has this meaning: four months are usually reckoned from the sowing of the seed to the harvest. But it is opposed to this, that there is no trace elsewhere of such a proverbial expression , that then we do not perceive why it should be attributed to the Apostles in particular; that then the time of sowing would have been mentioned; and that in Palestine there are between sowing and harvest not four, but six months, the sowing beginning about the middle of October (Jahn, Archaeology i. 153), and the harvest in the middle of April (i. 332). We have therefore more probably before us an expression which the disciples had then just used. Since there were yet four months to harvest, their journey must have occurred about the time when the seeds were just sprouting; and in view of this, the disciples had just before made such a remark, not as economists, but as theologians, in order to indicate how strongly it is enjoined on man to persevere and hope, and how very important it is for him to possess his soul in patience, and thus in the same sense in which James (James 5:7) expresses himself: ἰδοὺὁγεωργὸςἐκδέχεταιτὸντίμιονκαρπὸντῆςγῆςμακροθυμῶνἐπʼ ? αὐτῷἕωςλάβῃπρόϊμονκαὶὄψιμον. Now, in contrast to this slow ripening of the earthly fruits, Jesus here, according to some, speaks “of the quick succession of sowing and harvest in spiritual matters.” But Augustine has already designated the contrast more precisely: “Vos quatuor menses computatis usque ad messem, ego vobis aliam messem albam et paratam ostendo.” It is the whiteness of the fields to harvest which is here alone spoken of; for, according to what follows, the harvest itself was to be gathered by the Apostles not until after the ascension of Christ. The antithesis is then to be thus rendered: In spiritual things further progress has been made than in natural; for while in the latter the seed is just springing, in the spiritual it is already white unto harvest. With the words, “Lift up your eyes, and look,” compare Isaiah 49:18, “Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee;” and likewise Isaiah 60:4. The coincidence is the less to be regarded as a chance one, since in the Old Testament passage it is also the increase of the kingdom of God which is spoken of. The words render it probable that Jesus pointed to the approaching Samaritans. As Lόcke correctly remarks, “Without something present which the disciples could perceive, the requisition to lift up their eyes would be scarcely conceivable.” But we must not stop with the Samaritans, but rather behold in their appearance the symptom of a general state of the world. Then also the declaration of our Lord, in Matthew 9:37-38, is more closely connected. Matthew 9:36-38 are also of general contents. The declaration of our Lord here, is to show, primarily, that it is now time not to eat, but to do the work of the Father. But with this is connected the design, which is more prominent in what follows, to fill the disciples with courage and joy in their mission, which was entered on with such favourable prospects. It is evident from this passage, that the visit of Jesus to Samaria occurred about the middle of December. The regular commencement of the harvest was the second day of the Passover, or the sixteenth day after the first new moon in April. From this time four months are to be reckoned backwards. Since Jesus went to Jerusalem to the Passover. His stay in Judea had been about eight months. Ver. 36. “And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal; that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.” It is true, Christ continues, that the fields are already white to harvest, but yet the harvest itself is not immediately at hand. To gather it in is not Mine, but your work,—a work rich in blessing for you, and in joy at the same time for Me, for whom the words of the Psalmist will then be fulfilled: Psalms 126:5, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” The distinction between the sower and reaper here intimates that the harvest will not begin until after Christ’s death; and it is in harmony with this, that the Lord was satisfied with this single visit, that He never made another to continue the work thus begun, and that He expressly forbade His Apostles to journey in the country of the Samaritans with the object of preaching the Gospel there,—facts which show that here it was the design only to give a prefiguration or prelude of that which should take place after Christ’s exaltation. The fruit which is gathered into eternal life is the reward of faithful labour, which is presented in eternal life. Cf. ὁμισθὸςὑμῶνπολὺςἐντοῖςοὐρανοῖς, Matthew 5:12. The καρπὸς here is the μισθὸς in the immediately preceding context, and the eternal life appears to be the place where the fruit, the reward, is hidden. Matthew 3:12; Matthew 6:26. Quesnel remarks: “The happiness of a worker is often closely connected with that of others; in working for them, he works for himself.” It is a part of the reward specially appointed for the Apostles, that they shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Ver. 37. “And herein is the true saying. One soweth, and another reapeth.” Jesus had previously distinguished between the sower and the reaper, and here this distinction is proved, or represented more clearly and sharply. According to the parallel passage, 2 Peter 2:22, ἀληθινὸς is the adjective to λόγος, and the words, “herein is,” are equivalent to, herein is verified, or, here applies. The saying (the sense of which is thus correctly expressed by Calvin, “Multos saepe alieni laboris fructum percipere”) is designated as true with respect to the present relations, in which it attains to its higher verity. The consideration that they reaped what Christ had sown, was to render the Apostles truly grateful, and very zealous in their harvest-work. Ver. 38.“I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: others laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.” On ἀπέστειλα Lampe remarks: “Your mission began with your calling, although it did not receive its completion until afterwards.” By “others” is meant Jesus alone; but He here represents a whole class, in exact analogy with Psalms 54:4, “The Lord is with them that uphold my soul;” on which it is remarked in my Commentary [Translation, ii. 220], “The Psalmist makes two parties, the opponents and the helpers, and is full of triumphing confidence as he sees the Lord upon the side of the latter. That the Psalmist must have had other helpers besides the Lord, we must not conclude from the plural. The plurality is an ideal circumstance; the plural denotes the class, the party, which in reality might have been embodied in an individual.” Psalms 118:7, “The Lord taketh my part with them that help me,” is also quite analogous. With κεκοπιάκασι, cf. κεκοπιακὼςἐκτῆςὁδοιπορίας, John 4:6. This was only the emblem of the distress and suffering which Jesus had to endure until the completion of His ministry. How bitter this suffering was, is evident from the fact, that what the disciples had to do and to suffer until their martyr-death appears so light in comparison, that it is not worthy of being spoken of. Ver. 39. “And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on Him for the saying of the woman, who testified. He told me all that ever I did. 40. So when the Samaritans were come unto Him, they besought Him that He would tarry with them: and He abode there two days. 41. And many more believed because of His own word; 42. And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world (the Christ).” The Messiah is represented as the Saviour of the world in that one of the few Messianic passages in the Pentateuch, to which the Samaritans were restricted, Genesis 49:10, according to which the nations shall adhere to the Shiloh, the peaceful, the peace-bringer. The proof that this passage was interpreted of the Messiah by the Samaritans, is adduced in the Christology, Th. i. S. 75, 6 [Translation, i. p. 6&]. Jesus must have presented Himself to the Samaritans as theSaviour of the WORLD,” since He entirely rejected their pretensions to have a part in the covenant, and to belong to the natural Israel, and placed them in the same category as the heathen, ver. 22. If salvation was of the Jews only, they could partake of it only in so far as it was destined for the whole world. The expression, σωτὴρτοῦκόσμου, is found nowhere else in the New Testament, except only in 1 John 4:14, where it is natural to suppose that John used it in allusion to our text. The Berleb. Bibel remarks, “Because they call Him thus, they must have learned the misery of the world.” ὁΧριστός is wanting in important authorities. Chap. John 4:43-54 The Second Manifestation of the Glory of Christ in GalileeVer. 43. “Now, after two days He departed thence, and went into Galilee. 44. For Jesus Himself testified, that a prophet hath no honour in his own country. 45. Then, when He was come into Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all the things that He did at Jerusalem at the feast: for they also went unto the feast.”—Καὶἀπῆλθεν is wanting in some important critical authorities, but the omission is probably to be explained from an attempt at abbreviation. The words καὶἀπῆλθεν take up ver. 3, and show that Jesus continued the journey which He is there said to have entered upon, but which was interrupted by His stay in Samaria. This word ἀπῆλθεν occurs more frequently in John than in any other New Testament author, and is also used with predilection in the Apocalypse. There was less occasion to add it than to omit it. The circumstantial mode of designating the acts of Jesus, corresponds to the high significance which John ascribes to His person, as, for the same reason, Matthew (Matthew 5:2) adds, ἀνοίξαςτὸστόμααὐτοῦ. Galilee, in ver. 43, is the rest of Galilee in distinction from Nazareth, and in opposition to it, as, in an entirely corresponding manner, John, in John 3:22, designates Judea as the land of Judea in opposition to Jerusalem. The Apostle could not certainly have so written if he had intended to give an absolutely independent account of the life of Jesus, instead of paralipomena to the three first Gospels, and especially to that of his fellow-Apostle Matthew. In what difficulties we become entangled if we do not acknowledge this fixed fact, is clearly evident from the helpless embarrassment into which most modern interpreters have fallen with reference to this passage. Nazareth, according to John also, is the home of Jesus, John 1:47, John 19:19, and therefore the place to which He had gone first on His return to Galilee. But after Matthew, in Matthew 4:13, had recorded καὶκαταλιπὼντὴνΝαζαρὰἐλθὼνκατῴκησενεἰςΚαφαρναοὺμ, John could, without danger of being misunderstood, use Galilee of the rest of Galilee, and πατρίς of Christ’s home,—the latter the rather, since Matthew 13:57, cf. Mark 6:4, Luke 4:24, served as a commentary to the words, ὅτιπροφήτηςἐντῇἰδίᾳπατρίδιτιμὴνοὐκἔχει, and showed that πατρίς here stands of Nazareth, the adopted city of Christ, and not of His native country. Even the circumstance that John speaks so generally of Galilee, without more precisely designating any place where Jesus established Himself, and also without mentioning any such in the following context—for the stay at Cana is manifestly only a transient one—is equivalent to a reference to his predecessor. Capernaum had been mentioned in Matthew 4:13 as the place where Jesus resided, with which John harmonizes, in stating that Jesus had already, on His journey to the first Passover, stayed several days at Capernaum, the residence of several of His disciples, John 2:12, and that in Capernaum dwelt the royal (servant), whose son Jesus had healed immediately on His first arrival in Galilee. It is quite natural to suppose that this person, who believed with his whole house, ver. 53, made every effort to induce Jesus to take up His abode there. If we have first gained a firm basis from comparison with the first Evangelists, the sense thus obtained is confirmed by a more particular consideration of the narrative of John; where even the declaration of Jesus in itself requires the reference to His adopted city, and not His native country. It is probable that He points back to an Old Testament fact—for the canon of the Old Testament is the peculiar province of the prophets, prophecy being extinct in the post-canonical period,—and no other can be thought of than this, that Jeremiah, on his visit to his native city Anathoth, received the direction, “Prophesy not in” the name of the Lord, that thou die not by our hand,” Jeremiah 11:21. On the basis of this passage Jesus formed the expression Himself; for there is no ground for supposing that it was a proverb current among the Jews. Further, if by πατρίς we understand native country, the sentence is not true, either in general—all the prophets before the exile prophesied in their native land, and did not pass beyond its boundaries—or in its application to Christ. In this we should necessarily understand the native country to be Galilee. But it was precisely here, where the Pharisees could not act freely, that Christ found most entrance, as is shown directly by ver. 45. The rulers of the people say to Nicodemus in John 7:52, when he takes the part of Christ, “Art thou also of Galilee?” According to Matthew 13:57, Jesus spoke the words, Οὐκἔστινπροφήτηςἄτιμοςεἰμὴἐντῇπατρίδικαὶἐντῇοἰκίᾳαὐτοῦ, when He was ill received on His visit to Nazareth; but this visit belongs to a much later period. An entire series of events lie, between the return of Jesus to Galilee, John 4:12, and this visit. In Luke 4:23, the Nazarenes say to Jesus: ὅσαἠκούσαμενγενόμεναεἰςτὴνΚαφαρναοὺμποίησονκαὶὧδεἐντῇπατρίδισου. Jesus had therefore already performed a number of miracles in Galilee. Here, on the other hand, the Galileans receive Jesus on the ground of that which He had done in Jerusalem; and according to ver. 54, the healing of the son of the royal servant was the second miracle only which had been performed in Galilee. That which Jesus had already declared here, in order to give a reason for His resolution not to take up His abode in Galilee, He repeated when the declaration received an actual confirmation on a visit which He made to Nazareth, for the very reason that it might come to the light, and that He might not, from a preconceived opinion, withhold from His home the blessing which was primarily due to it. It was certainly not without an object that Jesus did not put it to the proof immediately, but only at a time when His fame was already extended far and wide in Galilee, Luke 4:14. Salvation was to be offered to His native town under the most favourable circumstances. Lampe is of opinion, that it is not here said when Jesus made this declaration; for the Evangelist might properly have stated the ground of the resolution of Jesus in words which He spoke on another occasion, even on His later visit to Nazareth. This is of course possible; but yet it is natural that Jesus should thus directly justify Himself to His disciples, on account of His resolution not to take up His abode in Nazareth, and that He should repeat this declaration when it had been confirmed by the result. We perceive the reason why Jesus had no honour in His own city in Matthew 13:54-58. They had in view the inferior circumstances from which He had sprung, and were unable to rise to the recognition of a greatness which must be derived so absolutely from heaven, and which in their view lacked all earthly foundation. Ver. 46. “So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where He made the water wine.” These latter words contain the reason why Jesus turned first of all to Cana. It was the place in Galilee where, in consequence of the previous manifestation of His glory. He had already a point of support. That He went thither first, pointed to the fact, that a similar manifestation was to be expected from Him in the future,—a reference which was understood by the royal servant.—“And there was a certain royal [servant], whose son was sick at Capernaum.” Josephus, in his Jewish War, B. 7, ch. 5, § 2, calls the servant of the Parthian king sent to Titus, royal; and so likewise in his Antiquities, B. 15, ch. 8, 9, 4, he styles the servants of King Herod, whom he had shortly before called ὑπηρέτας. The sons of Herod were only tetrarchs; but that in common life they were frequently honoured with the royal title, is evident from Matthew 14:9, Mark 6:14. The name of this royal person, who according to ver. 53 believed, with all his house, is by some derived from Luke 8:3, where, among the women who followed Jesus and ministered unto Him of their substance, is mentioned Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herods steward. We should be referred more decidedly to this passage, if there did not occur in Acts 13:1, among the prophets and teachers in Antioch, one ΜαναήνἩρῴδουτοῦτετραάρχουσύντροφος. The royal servant had without doubt heard, besides the miracle in Cana, of all that Jesus had done in Jerusalem, ver. 45. Probably sick persons had already been healed there by Jesus. The difference of the royal servant here, and the centurion in Matthew 8 and Luke 7, is quite evident. There is an accordance only in the most general feature, that the request for a sick dependent is granted, and that this sick person is in Capernaum—according to Matthew the customary residence of Christ, and therefore the principal scene of His miracles, Luke 4:23. All else is different: the place where Jesus is addressed is there Capernaum, but here Cana; the time is here the first commencement of Jesus Messianic ministry in Galilee, there, after Jesus had already laboured for some time in Galilee; the relation of the sick person for whom the request is made—there a servant, here a son; the religion—the centurion is a heathen, the royal servant, as is especially shown by ver. 48, a Jew; and the degree of faith—in the centurion it is a rare energy of faith, while on the other hand the royal servant is censured on account of the weakness of his faith. Ver. 47. “When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee, he went unto Him, and besought Him that He would come down and heal his son: for he was at the point of death. Ver. 48. Then said Jesus unto him. Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.” The added τέρατα gives a more exact definition of the signs, and shows that it is miraculous signs that are meant. Signs and wonders were altogether necessary, and the appearance of Jesus cannot be thought of without them. Jesus Himself points the doubting Baptist to them in Matthew 11:4-5. He says, in ch. John 10:37 of our Gospel, “If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not;” and in John 15:24, “If I had not done among them the works which none other man did they had not had sin.” Among the Samaritans also, Jesus had proved His divinity in this manner. The argument which the woman brings forward for His Messianic dignity is this, “He told me all things that ever I did.” In this case, however, the signs and wonders were already before Him, and thus it brought a reproach on the royal servant, that he had not been led to faith by them, but that his heart still remained cold; for it was the signs and wonders which occasioned his coming to Jesus, especially the miracle performed at Cana. But although Christ blames the royal servant, as He does Thomas in John 20:29, yet there is in the background the granting of the request; and the answer is essentially different from that to the Pharisees who desired a sign of Him, πειράζοντες, Matthew 16:1. Ver. 49. “The royal [servant] saith unto Him, Sir, come down ere my child die. Ver. 50. Jesus saith unto him. Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way.” To live occurs repeatedly in the Old Testament of recovery from severe disease, because this is, as it were, the beginning of death: Isaiah 38:1; 2 Kings 1:2. Quesnel: “Remark the double miracle, which Jesus here performs by a single word: one on the distant body of the son, the other on the present heart of the father, who is himself healed of his unbelief, since he believed in the healing, which he did not see. The efficacy of the word of Jesus even in His absence, taught His disciples that His return to heaven need not injure their confidence in His aid.” Ver. 51. “And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying. Thy child liveth. Ver. 52. Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him. Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” The servants say yesterday, according to the Jewish division of the day, according to which the day ends at sunset, and the healing had taken place about one o’clock in the afternoon. Since the distance between Capernaum and Cana, the present Kefr Kenna, is about twenty-five miles, the royal servant could conveniently be in Capernaum on the evening of the same day according to our reckoning. Ver. 53. “So the father knew that it was at the same hour (the fever left him) in the which Jesus had said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house.” His former faith had reference to a single point, the healing of his son; but now he becomes a partaker of the general, saving, Christian faith. Ver. 54. “This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when He was come out of Judea into Galilee.” The word πάλιν, which is not absolutely necessary here, is a special favourite with John:—it occurs between forty and fifty times in his Gospel, while in the Gospel of Luke it is found only twice. In the Epistles of John it occurs only once, and in the Apocalypse only twice, which circumstance is characteristic in respect of the historical style. The words ἐλθὼν, etc., can refer to the second miracle only; for at the first Jesus came not from Judea, but from Peraea. We are therefore to understand, with the preceding statement, the words in this scene, or in Galilee; for that it cannot be the second miracle of all which is spoken of, is shown by ver. 45. The conclusion of the second group points back to the conclusion of the first, John 2:11. Bengel calls attention to the fact, that John gives a particular account of three miracles in Galilee—the two at Cana, and the feeding of the five thousand in ch. 6; and likewise of three in Judea—the healing of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, ch. 5, of the blind man in ch. 9, and the raising of Lazarus. He likewise records three appearances of the risen Lord, with an express designation of the last as the third, John 21:14; as, indeed, we are instructed by our text to mark the number. As John demonstrably elsewhere ascribes significance to numbers, we need not regard this as a mere chance.— Schweiger remarks: “What becomes of Jesus, or where He stays, no one can tell from this narrative John does not usually relate so inconsiderately.” From this it is seen that John refers to former accounts, from which what is wanting here must be taken. The representation becomes an enigma if we do not recognise this. And then also it does not seem strange that the disciples are so much in the background, not being mentioned again till John 6:3. That Jesus was accompanied by them at this time, we are sufficiently informed in the first Gospels. Contains the second journey of Jesus to the feast at Jerusalem, and whatever John washes to record of what occurred between it and the third journey, in supplementing the three first Gospels. When Jesus had the conversation with the woman of Samaria there were yet four months to harvest, therefore to the Passover, which, according to John 5:1, Jesus keeps in Jerusalem. The healing of the son of the royal servant followed soon after His arrival in Galilee. There is thus left a period of from three to four months, which must be filled up from the three first Gospels. Important events must have occurred during this time, the rather, since the imprisonment of the Baptist required Jesus to occupy his vacant place. John 5:1. “After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” Lόcke remarks, “Whenever John wishes to designate the immediate succession of time, he uses μετὰτoῦτο; but when the more remote succession, μετὰταῦτα.” One will, however, be disposed a priori to mistrust so minute a distinction; and this mistrust is shown, on closer investigation, to be well founded; for the distinction is wrecked directly on ver. 14, where, according to the theory of Lόcke, we should expect τoῦτο, since the relation of one fact only has preceded. Μετὰταῦτα, which is always used in the Apocalypse, is also the regular phrase in the Gospel, where μετὰτoῦτο occurs by way of variation, but only four times altogether. Μετὰταῦτα is found nowhere else so frequently as in the Gospel and in the Apocalypse. Matthew has neither μετὰταῦτα nor τoῦτο, and Mark only once μετὰταῦτα. It is a matter of controversy even to the present day, what is to be understood by the “feast of the Jews.” We must at once reject the opinion, that John himself does not designate any particular feast. It is opposed to this, that all the other feasts in John are distinct feasts; that the feasts govern his grouping of the narrative, as especially here the feast forms the beginning of the third group; and that the mention of the feasts in John has a chronological significance, so that he mentions the Passover even when Christ did not attend it. If now it is established that John means a particular feast, it is further evident, from the fact that Jesus went to Jerusalem to this feast, that only one of three great feasts can be thought of. For the celebration of these feasts only was connected with the temple; and from the object which Jesus had in His attendance, to exert an influence upon the people assembling to the feast—cf. remarks on John 2:13 His going up presupposes that of the people. Further, the words τῶνἸουδαίων, having reference to Leviticus 23:2, are never used by John of any other than the three great festivals ordained in the Law,—twice of the Passover, once of the Feast of Tabernacles. The very fact, however, of the attendance of Jesus is especially in favour of the Passover; for, according to the practice of the Jews at that time, the Passover was the only one of the three chief feasts which was regularly kept by the whole people at the temple. We are led to the Passover also by the passage, John 4:35, according to which, when Jesus went to Samana, there were yet four months to the harvest, which began with the Passover. which was therefore, at that time, the next of three chief feasts. But the main argument in favour of the Passover we give in the words in which it has been previously presented in the Christology. “The dispute is decided at once in favour of the Passover. if the article is to be regarded as genuine. That there are good authorities in favour of this conclusion, is evident from the fact, that Tischendorf has restored it to the text. The omission of the article might very easily have originated with those who did not know what to make of it. The feast must either be the feast par excellence, or the feast mentioned before. In the former case, it must be the Passover, which was shown to be. the one fundamental feast of the nation by the fact that it was instituted before any of the others, before the Sabbath itself, and even before the conclusion of the covenant on Sinai, of which it lay at the foundation (for proofs of the superior worth attached to the Passover, see Lund, jόd. Heiligthόmer, p. 974). And in the latter case, we are still brought to the feast of the Passover, as being the only festival mentioned before. Not only is it noticed at the commencement of the second group, which answers to that of the third, and comes very near to it, in spite of the distance between the two, in consequence of the striking similarity of the words employed (chap. John 2:13, And the Passover of the Jews was at hand; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem; chap. John 5:1, After this was the feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem ); but it also occurs a very short time before, in chap. John 4:45.Then, when He was come into Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all the things which He did at Jerusalem at the feast: for they also went unto the feast. But, even if the article is not genuine, we can only refer it to the Passover. For, as it is a priori impossible that there should be any uncertainty as to what feast it was, we must complete the passage (‘there was feast (not even a feast) of the Jews’) from the context. According to Winer, the definite article may be omitted ‘when the omission does not introduce any ambiguity into the discourse, or leave the reader in any uncertainty whether he is to understand the word definitely or indefinitely.’ This is the case here. Every unbiassed reader thinks at once of the Passover. The decision of this point rests upon what goes before, especially as the expression, ‘and Jesus went up to Jerusalem,’ precludes the possibility of any other being intended than one of the three leading festivals; and among these it is most natural to fix upon the Passover, inasmuch as this was the only one at which it was a universal custom to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The words, καθʼ ? ἑορτὴν, in Matthew 27:15 and Mark 15:6, are perfectly analogous; so perfectly so, that every other analogy is rendered superfluous in consequence. On the latter passage, Fritzsche observes:quamquam ἡἑορτὴ de quibusvis feriis in genere dicitur, tamen h. l. quum de Paschate agatur (Marc. John 14:1) καθʼ ? ἑορτὴν ad Paschatis feriis refem debet: singulis Paschatis feriis; and Lόcke (on John 2 p. 8) says: The formula κατὰδὲἑορτὴν is certainly used to denote the Passover, but only in connection with the history of the Passion. In itself, it leaves the feast undetermined. The applicability of these words to the passage before us is at once apparent.” Another important argument in favour of the Passover is derived from the parable in Luke 13:6 sqq. At the time when Jesus related this parable, three years—this is a round number, but at least two years and a half—of His ministry had already passed. According to ver. 8, the fig-tree was to receive a respite for another year. From this we obtain, in all, at least three years and a half, answering to the four Passovers of John, if a Passover be recognised in our text. Three Passovers besides this are expressly mentioned by John 2:13; John 6:4, and then the last. Finally, it is also of importance, that Irenaeus, the oldest among the teachers of the ancient Church, whose view of our text is well known, refers it decidedly to the Passover. He proves, in 2:39 (Bened. 22), that four Passovers fall into the period of the Messianic work of Christ. The first in 2:13 : “Dehinc iterum subtrahens se invenitur in Samaria, quando et cum Samaritana disputabat et filium centurionis absens verbo caravit. Et post haec iterum secunda vice ascendit in diem festum Paschae in Hierusalem, quando paralyticum, qui juxta natatoriam jacebat 38 annos, curavit, jubens ut surgeret et auferret grabbatum suum et iret.” These are the important grounds in favour of the Passover, against which the following argument has been principally urged:—“Jesus spoke John 4:35 in December: from John 6:4, however, it is evident that the Passover was still impending; consequently, a feast must be meant occurring in the period between December and the Passover, and this is no other than the feast of Purim.” But nothing even that is plausible can be objected to the view, that the Passover here is the second of the public ministry of Jesus; and that in John 6:4 the third. That then John passes over in silence a period of almost a year of the ministry of Jesus, proves nothing; for the opposition which Jesus had encountered in chap. 5, and the plots directed against His life, cf. vers. 16, 18, must have caused Him to hurry away from Judea. The occurrences in Galilee had been anticipated by the three first Evangelists, whose omissions it is everywhere John’s object to supply, and who had confined themselves to these occurrences. Cf. Christol. S. 184. The omission can appear strange to those only who do not correctly understand the relation of John to the three first Gospels. Ver. 2. “Now there is in Jerusalem, by the sheep-gate, a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.” The ἔστι need not be explained by supposing that the pool still remained after the destruction of Jerusalem. For it is not the pool in itself which is regarded, but the pool in its property as a sanitary institution, with its five porches. We also need not, with Bengel and others, conclude from the ἔστι the composition of the Gospel before, the destruction of Jerusalem, to which there are such strong opposing arguments. The Present tense may very well be such an one of presentiation, as occurs so frequently in the Gospel of John, John 1:44 sq., John 4:7—in general, certainly, of actions; and that the ἔστι is to be thus rendered, is shown by the following κατέβαινεν. The descent of the angel coincides with the property of the pool as Bethesda. That with προβατικῇ is to be supplied πύλῃ (although no other example can be adduced of such an omission), is evident from Nehemiah 3:1, The nearest gate to the sheep-gate was, according to Nehemiah 3:3; Nehemiah 12:39, the fish-gate; so that these gates probably received their names from the sheep-market and the fish-market, which were before them. The sheep-gate was particularly adapted to be the place of the sheep-market, because it was near the temple; and its locality is determined by the circumstance, that, according to Nehemiah 3:1, on the restoration of the walls and gates, it was built by the priests. The high priest, together with the priests, commenced the building for a pattern to the rest, and there can be no doubt that they built the part nearest to the temple. It was also natural that the building should commence here. “A porta gregis,” remarks Raschi, “inchoatur aedificatio murorum atque ibi etiam finitur.” Cf. ver. 32, according to which the last division of workers built the portion up to the sheep-gate. Further, on the dedication of the walls, the company of the priests went directly from the sheep-gate into the temple, Nehemiah 12:39-40. For the “prison-gate” belonged to the temple itself, corresponding to the golden gate, built up at the present day, leading to the mosque Sakhara (Von Raumer, S. 308). We are led to the same position for the gate by the statement in Nehemiah 3:1, that the tower Hananeel was in its vicinity; and that this tower was on the eastern side of the city, was proved in the Christology, in reference to Zechariah 14:10. The exact determination of the position of the sheep-gate, and thus of the pool of Bethesda, is of importance, in that there are in the same locality at the present day remarkable analogies to the pool of Bethesda. On the eastern side of the city there are still the medicinal baths of Hammam es Shefator Aines Shefa, concerning which Walcott and Tobler have shown, that they are fed from the large and deep reservoir under the rock of the mosque, which occupies the site of the ancient temple. Bitter, 16, 1, S. 387, 417. On the eastern side of the city, “on the eastern slope of the southern part of Moriah,” is also situated the fountain of Mary, which in its changes affords so striking a coincidence to the waters of the pool of Bethesda. “The fountain of the Virgin,” says Bitter, S. 454, 5, “is sometimes quite dry, and then suddenly gushes up again between the stones. An Arab told us, that the water comes from the spring under the great mosque. T. Tobler had already, in the winter months of 1815, frequently visited the same fountain early in the morning and late in the evening, in order to make more exact observations as to their intermittent appearances. He also, like Robinson, remarked the change of the water, which was usually two inches height of flood and ebb. But on the 21st January he remarked, what he had not seen before, a considerable gushing up of the water, which rose four and a half inches, and was connected with a gentle billowy motion. On the 14th March this bubbling up continued more than twenty minutes, till it attained its greatest height, when it gradually in two hours time resumed its original elevation: it rose at this time as much as six and a half inches, and on sinking back, presented a surface of mirror-like smoothness. The greatest altitude was remarked about three o’clock in the afternoon.” G. O. Schulz (Jerusalem, S. 89) mentions the popular legend, which is still among the Mohammedans connected with the intermittent fountain of the Virgin, that a hidden dragon produces its rising and falling.—ἐπιλεγομένη denotes an additional name. The fundamental signification, verba verbis adjicio, indicates that the pool had another, so to speak, natural name. The sacred name, here alone mentioned, which has not in vain seven letters, divided as usual into three and four, is, without doubt, the Aramaic αιϊηργΰ, house or place of grace Ἑβραϊστὶ refers to the language of the country at that time, the Aramaic, which was spoken by the Hebrews after their return from the exile). The insufficiently attested reading λεγομένη is opposed even by the character of the name, which has less that of a proper name than of an additional name. The genesis of the false reading is explained by supposing that those who made it did not perceive that here it is an added name which is spoken of, but allowed themselves to be led by the reasons which Lόcke adduces in favour of the false reading. “According to the usage of John, λεγομένη merits the preference. The other reading is an ἀπ. λεγ. in John, and in this meaning never occurs in the New Testament;” on which it may be remarked, that the corresponding ἐπικαλέομαι does so occur. In what sense did the pool receive the name of Bethesda? Olshausen thinks that “probably this building was an institution formed by charitable persons, and hence the name Bethesda.” But it was not the building that was thus called, but the pool with the building, which is represented as only a secondary consideration. There is nothing in the narrative about human love, but the contrary in ver. 7; and on the other hand, if we refer the name to the Divine love, Bethesda, q.d., place of grace, we have the explanation directly in ver. 4. It would, moreover, be very wrong to draw from the Βηθ a proof that the name refers primarily to the building: αιϊ occurs of all places (Gesenius, in the Thesaurus, No. 7), and especially in local names; as e.g. Bethaven, place of wickedness; Bethabara, place of transit. Ver. 3. “In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. Ver. 4. 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.” The enumeration in ver. 3 is completed in the number four. This, the mark of extension, occurs frequently in such enumerations in the Scriptures; as, e.g., in Genesis 24:35, Matthew 15:31. The withered are doubtless identical with the elsewhere so-called paralytics, who were such as suffered from palsy: cf. Matthew 12:10, Luke 6:6. They are probably mentioned last, because the sick man, who is subsequently spoken of, was one of them. The sick waited for the moving of the water. Tholuck remarks: “There is a gaseous spring of this kind in Kissingen, for example, which, after a rushing sound, about the same time every day, commences to bubble, and is most efficacious at the very time the gas is making its escape.” The affinity of the water with our mineral spring is intimated by notice of Eusebius in his Onomasticon (Ed. Clericus, Amsterdam 1707, p. 41), that one of the two pools which were shown at his time as those of Bethesda had a singularly red water, παραδόξωςπεφοινιγμένονδείκνυσιτὸὕδωρ. Jerome: “mirum in modum rubens.” With respect to the angel, Olshausen guards against “the current view, according to which the natural production of the phenomenon in the fountain by the powers of nature, is absolutely opposed to the supernatural production through the medium of an angel. But by tracing the phenomenon to an angel, the existence and co-operation of natural forces is not denied, but these forces are rather apprehended in their higher causality.” John would have recognised the angel in the bubbling at Carlsbad, not less than in the pool of Bethesda. “Circa balnea,” says Bengel, “frequens θεῖον, aliquid divinae opis est.” This is a mode of viewing natural relations which has become foreign to an age which, in its fundamental, atheistic tendency, has constantly directed its gaze to the causas secundas, to which apply the words spoken by Paul of the heathen, ἐλάτρευσαντῇκτίσειπαρὰτὸνκτίσαντα, and whose regard remains fixed on that “monstrum ingens cui lumen ademtum,” a Cosmos without God, a soulless nature. That the mode of consideration is that of the whole sacred Scriptures cannot be doubted, if we cast a glance at Matthew 6, according to which, God feeds the fowls of the air, and clothes the lilies; and at Psalms 29, which portrays the greatness of God in the tempest; at Psalms 104, which sings the praise of God in His works, which He has ordered with so much wisdom, that all His creatures are cared for, and which speaks of the cedar of Lebanon, which the Lord has planted; and at Psalms 147, where dragons and all floods, fire and hail, snow and vapour, storm-wind, fulfilling His word, mountains and all hills, fruit-trees and all cedars, are required to praise the Lord, who has glorified Himself in them. That here the Divine influence comes through the medium of an angel, makes no difference; for, according to the Scripture view, as far as the Divine operation extends, so far also extends the service of the angels, to whose department, according to Psalms 104:4, and Hebrews 1:7, belong also wind and flaming fire. The phrase, κατὰκαιρὸν, indicates that a higher law ruled in this matter. Phavorinus explains it by, κατὰτὸνεὔκαιρονκαὶπροσήκοντακαιρὸνκαὶχρόνον. Thus κατὰκαιρὸν occurs in the meaning of, at the appointed time, in Romans 5:6 (cf. Philippi); and further in Isaiah 60:22, κατὰκαιρὸνσυνάξωαὐτούς, suo vel opportuno tempore congregabo illos; Job 39:18, κατὰκαιρὸνἐνὕψειὑψώσει, Vulg.: cum tempus fuerit in altum alas erigit. It is said that the angel went down into the pool, because he showed himself to be active there (Winer, S. 367). When it is said that he who first stepped in after the troubling of the water was made whole of whatsoever disease he had, this is to be understood with the limitation which is afforded by the , nature of the case. Remarks like that of Lampe—“effectu nunquam fallente, quale quid nunquam in aquis medicatis observatum est”—are wholly foreign to the matter. On the contrary, the rule for the understanding of it is furnished by that, which, according to the testimony of experience, can generally be accomplished by a medicinal spring. It is only of such that the author intends to give an account: miracles belong everywhere in the Gospels only to Christ and His Apostles. The thought is this only, that the water had most healing virtue when it was in motion, and that remarkable cases had occurred of the cure of all kinds of diseases. A water which heals under all circumstances, could not be found in the Scriptures; for it would contradict the very idea of God Himself. A water which heals even without God, and indeed in opposition to God, is nothing else but an idol. Such water would also afford a contradiction to the declaration of the Lord in ver. 14, which places all diseases in relation to sin. If all diseases are punishment, there can be no absolute means of cure. That which has arisen in an ethical way, cannot be removed in a purely physical way. The limiting view is further required by the importance which the Apostle ascribes to the miraculous healings performed by Christ. If we press the literal statement, the fountain accomplished far more than Christ, who, according to John 15:24, did that which no other had done, and whose opening the eyes of the blind in John 9:32 is represented as without example. How necessary it is to understand the popular mode of representing the Scripture cum grano sails, and always to apply the rule which is furnished by the nature of the case—a rule which may be so easily lost in learned microscopic investigation, while the simple reader easily finds it—is shown, e.g., by the history of the plagues of Egypt. According to Exodus 9:6, all the cattle of the Egyptians die, and yet the immediately following plague, in ver. 9, smites beasts as well as men; as likewise the next plague of hail, which also, according to ver. 25, breaks all the trees of the field. He who, in his exposition, does not forget how it generally happens in case of damage by hail, will not deem it a contradiction, when in the following plague, John 10:5, the locusts devour every green tree of the field. P. Anton says: “It is the description of this house, and it is the description of the state of the Church here upon earth.” It is specifically the description of its condition under the economy of the Old Covenant, under which there was much disease, and the healing power was insufficient, so that Jesus had to interpose in order to remedy the deficiency. In the sick man who could not obtain healing at the pool of Bethesda, is an emblem of the people of the Old Covenant; and Jesus, by healing him, presents Himself to His Church as the true Bethesda, as He afterwards in chap. 9 makes Himself known as the true pool of Siloam. The number of the porches at the pool of Bethesda being five, is perhaps not without significance, or allows at all events of a suitable application. Five, a divided ten, is in the Scriptures a sign of incompleteness, of halfness, imperfection, and need of supplementation: cf. on Revelation 9:9. The words from ἐκδεχομένων to κατείχετονοσήματι are declared to be spurious by the majority of recent commentators. That inclination has exercised considerable influence on this decision, is evident from the single fact, that Lachmann, who regards only the external authorities, has adopted it in his text. Tertulllan (de baptismo, c. 5) read the whole passage; and that the omission in several critical helps rests only on internal evidence the same which has disinclined so many recently to the passage, is proved even by the one fact, brought forward by De Wette: “Alexandrine authorities only omit the passage entirely.” That the Alexandrine criticism had gained a bad report even in profane antiquity on account of its audaciousness, is shown by the proofs which Wolf has given in his Prolegomena in Homerum. It also lessens much the importance of the testimonies against the genuineness, that those from whom they proceed cannot at all agree in them. They are manifestly at one only in their object to remove something that is inconvenient, but as to the means they are quite at variance. Some leave out all from ἐκδεχομένων to the end, others only ver. 4. Others again mark this verse with an asterisk as a sign of addition, or with an obelus as a sign of spuriousness; and these are the critical signs which acquired a bad reputation even in matters of profane criticism. Even in MSS. which do not venture to render suspicious or omit the passage as a whole, there are many variations in the details. The assertion, that there is no ground of supposing the omission, is manifestly false. According to the rendering most natural to an unpractised expositor, the passage truly affords sufficient ground for its omission. If the appearance of the angel is taken to be a bodily one, and the literal statement is so pressed as to signify that for the first who went down into the water the pool proved itself to be an infallible means of cure, the temptation must have been very great, in the times of a still plastic theology, to meddle with words which must have been highly offensive to the Greek character, so thoroughly penetrated with the spirit of illumination. There are numerous analogies to such an attack, on dogmatic grounds, on the genuineness of Scripture. The Greek mind threw it overboard because it could not reconcile itself to its imperfect comprehension. And because some could not understand the angel of the waters in Revelation 16:5, they omitted the words, of the waters. For the same reason they set aside the speaking altar in ver. 7, and the speaking eagle in Revelation 8:13. Luke 22:43-44 was omitted on dogmatic grounds, and likewise νεκροὺςἐγείρετε in Matthew 10:8. It is of paramount importance, however, that the words are necessarily required by the connection. The name Bethesda, place of grace, requires an explanation in what follows,—the rather, since the Apostle has expressly declared it to be a merely additional name. Bengel’s position, “versus 7 banc periocham aperte prsesupponit,” must be acknowledged to be correct on every unbiassed consideration. The words ὅτανταραχθῇτὸὕδωρ there, refer back to ἐτάρασσετὸὕδωρ here, and ἐνᾧδὲἔρχομαιἐγώ to ὁοὖνπρῶτοςἐμβάς, κ.τ.λ. Against the assertion, that all that is necessary to know may easily be concluded from the seventh verse, it has been already urged by Von Hofmann, that it is in a high degree improbable “that the narrator, who has stated the site of the pool and the number of the porches, should be so sparing of his words precisely with regard to that which it is necessary to know in order to understand the occurrence, and should leave the character of the pool and its healing virtue to be guessed from the complaint of the sick man, which presupposes a knowledge of it.” It is further of importance to compare Revelation 16:5. It would be strange if the remarkable parallelism between the angel of the waters there, and the angel who moves the waters here, had been produced only by a gloss. Lόcke has urged against the genuineness of the passage, that “in the Gospel of John the angels appear only in the spiritual, ethical sphere as ministers of special Providence.” Such a separation, however, of the ethical and natural sphere is a modern invention, and entirely foreign to Holy Scripture. The material sphere forms no opposition to the “spiritual, ethical sphere;” but the condition of comprehensive action on the latter, is that the former be not inaccessible to the angels. The two angels in John 20:12 evidently performed material services. Bengel remarks on ver. 6 there: “Angeli sine dubio ministrarunt resurgenti eorumque alter lintea, alter sudarium composuit, cf. ver. 12.” The angel of the waters in Revelation 16:5, indicates that the angels take part in the opening and shutting of the fountains of salvation, to which also water in its proper sense belongs. In Revelation 7:2, it is given to the angels to hurt the earth and the sea. The angel who rolls away the stone from the tomb, Matthew 28:2, does not restrict his activity to the “spiritual, ethical sphere;” and as little does the angel who, according to Acts 12:23, smote Herod. According to Hebrews 1:7, the operations of nature are in the hands of the angels. Such a confinement of the ministry of the angels, whom the Scripture designates “ministering spirits,” with the widest compass of meaning, John could not have intended, even from his whole relation to the Old Testament, in which, e.g., the angel of the Lord smites the host of the king of Assyria, 2 Kings 19:35, and where the angels are represented as active in the plagues of Egypt, Psalms 78:49. Ver. 5. “And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.” The eight and thirty years passed in a diseased condition are represented as the possession of the sick person: cf. ver. 6, John 8:57, John 11:17. That the sick man was a paralytic—an expression which occurs only in Matthew and Mark, not in Luke and John—is evident from his inability to walk, and from the κράβαττος, Paralyticorum proprius, Mark 2:4, Acts 9:33. These thirty-eight years were brought already by Apollinaris, in his Catena, into connection with the thirty-eight years that Israel was under the curse during the journey through the wilderness. Since the sick man was in fact a type of the people of the Old Covenant, and represented the sick man Judah, the thirty-eight years are really remarkable: they serve as a hint at the resemblance of the former condition to the present; and for this reason only has John, as it seems, stated so exactly the duration of the sickness. Ver. 6. “When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had already a long time, He saith unto him, “Wilt thou be made whole?”—κατακείμενος is to be supplied with ἔχει. But this does not refer to his lying at the pool of Bethesda, but to his lying sick in general. We are not by γνοὺς to suppose information received from others. The appearances would render the long continuance of the sickness probable, and the certainty was afforded by the supernatural knowledge of Jesus. The only way to avoid mere guessing with respect to the object of the question of Jesus, “Wilt thou be healed?” is to adhere to the answer, which contains the confession of the sufferer that it is impossible for him to obtain healing. This is a necessary part of the case, because, otherwise, the question would have been natural, why Jesus healed at the healing fountain, and, so to speak, took upon Him the office of the angel. It must first of all be admitted, that the latter could not help the sick man. Ver. 7. “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, another steppeth down before me.” This answer also leads to the conclusion, that the case was no other with the pool of Bethesda than with our medicinal baths, it being merely an experiment that was tried there. For, if the water after the troubling had had an absolutely healing virtue, the sick man would have obtained help in some manner, or some one would have taken pity on him. But on account of the doubtful result, the matter was left to take its own course; and the sick man bore the delay all the more patiently, since the compassion which his situation called forth probably procured him the means of subsistence: cf. Acts 3:2. Ver. 8. “Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.” The same direction was given by Jesus to another paralytic in Matthew 9:6. The requisition to take up his bed, was for the object of rendering visible to the eyes of all the suddenly perfect cure, and of thus establishing the miraculous nature of the fact. Christ did not here, as elsewhere, require faith, because the sick man had not heard or seen anything of His works. “He will not reap where He has not sowed.” Calov, on the other hand, intimates, that under the command to rise, etc., there was the requisition of faith, and that the sick man answered this requisition. “He would not have attempted to rise, if he had not believed the word that he could rise.” Grotius, however, maintains the correct view thus far, that, for the reason stated by him, Christ did not require from the sick man a developed faith. The Berleburger Bibel remarks: “In this, Jesus granted it to us to know that the pool is an emblem of Himself, and that He is the tried pool, which must make us whole from all infirmities; and we, if we would only resign ourselves to Him, would be infallibly healed, however sick we might be.” Ver. 9. “And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the Sabbath.” Jesus doubtless healed not although, but because, it was the Sabbath. There was no danger in delay. He would certainly have found the sick man in the same condition on the following day. We perceive the object in the result: Christ healed on the Sabbath in order to manifest Himself to be the Lord of the Sabbath, and that an occasion might be given for the following discourse, in which He made a solemn confession of His divinity. Ver. 10. “The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the Sabbath day; it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.” According to the usual supposition, the Jews referred to Jeremiah 17:21 : “Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day.” But the Mosaic law is sufficient: “Thou shalt not do any work;” to which also Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 17:22, traces back the special precept. We shall not need to look beyond Moses,—the rather, since Jesus, by summoning Moses at the conclusion as an accuser against the Jews, not obscurely intimates that the Jews had brought forward Moses as an accuser against Him. Ver. 11. “He that made me whole, the same said unto me. Take up thy bed, and walk.” He appeals with perfect right to the authority of Him who had made him whole. This person has by the miracle proved Himself to be one who can command nothing that is ungodly. Ver. 12. “Then asked they him, What man is that which said unto thee, Take up thy bed, and walk?” “En malitiae ingenium,” remarks Grotius, “Non dicunt: quis est ille qui te sanavit, sed quis jussit grabbatum tollere. Quaerunt non quid mirentur, sed quid calumnientur.” Ver. 13. “And he that was healed wist not who it was: for Jesus had conveyed Himself away, a multitude being in that place.” These last words are not to give the reason for His disappearance, but to render evident its possibility. Jesus had lost Himself in the crowd. And yet there was probably also a reason in the presence of the multitude, as He wished to avoid a scene of excitement: cf. John 6:15; Matthew 16:16; Matthew 16:20. The miracle was not to remain concealed, for this would directly contradict its object. The contrary is evident also from the fact, that Jesus in ver. 14 makes Himself known to the man who was healed. But the deed was to work in stillness, on the minds of those who were in need of healing. “It is directly after such acts,” remarks Lόcke, “that Jesus is fondest of withdrawing, also, according to the Synoptics (a mode of designation which has come down to us from the period of Rationalism, and might very well be given up).” Ver. 14. “Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him. Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee.” There can scarcely be a doubt that the healed man had gone to the temple to give God the glory, to thank and praise Him for the cure which had been granted him: cf. Isaiah 38:19-22; Luke 17:15; Acts 3:7-8. If this was his object, the address of Christ had an admirable appropriateness to his state of mind. The words, “Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee,” like those which Jesus speaks to a sick person in Luke 5:20 (“Thy sins are forgiven thee”), are based on the conception that sickness has an intimate relation to sin, and confirms in this respect the doctrine of the Old Testament, which derives sicknesses also, together with death, from sin, as being nothing but the preliminary stages of death, and as included in it—the rather, since it is said. In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die; and which further threatens diseases as the punishment of sin. Leviticus 26:16; Deuteronomy 28:22 (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:30), and whose general doctrine of retribution, as it is confirmed by Christ in Luke 13:1 sq., and in the threatenings of judgment on Jerusalem, admits of no other view of sickness. Against those who have attempted to restrict the declaration of the text and Luke 5:20 to an individual case, I have already remarked (Beitrδge, Th. 3, S. 580 f.) as follows: “1. If such a reference existed, it would be more distinctly intimated. Since the view that all sickness is a punishment of sin was widely diffused, no one would understand the declarations otherwise than as general; and since the Lord did not prevent this apprehension, it cannot be founded in a misunderstanding. 2. If the declarations had an Individual reference, Jesus must have given a proof of His omniscience, which is not at all intimated. For no one will maintain that palsy is always the consequence of certain sins. 3. The restriction to individual cases is inadmissible on account of the character of the healings generally. Even if we had no express declaration of Christ concerning the connection of sickness and sin, the mere fact that He healed sick persons would have been sufficient to establish this connection. A sick man, whom Christ—not a Hippocrates, to whom superior skill is granted, but the Saviour—heals, is by this very act declared to be a sinner. If we tear away the connection between sickness and sin, we destroy the relation of the demoniac to the sick person, and remove that which is common to the two. In like manner, also, the connection is removed from the healing of the sick with the raising of the dead, which is based on the principle, that death is the wages of sin.” That John 9:2-3 affords no justification of the individual rendering, will be proved in the remarks on that passage. Calvin says: “This admonition teaches, that all evil that we suffer is to be attributed to our sin. We should give glory to God, that He, the best of fathers, has no pleasure in our misery, and on this account never treats us more severely than He is offended by our sins.” Quesnel: “We will learn from these words,—1. That sickness and suffering are the punishment of sin, and that hence the best remedy which can be applied against it is repentance and conversion. 2. That suffering is to minister to our instruction; and that, after the healing of the body or the soul, we must be in great humility and profound gratitude towards God.” To sin, here designates not the condition of the dominion of sin, but the requisition is directed against sin in general; to sin no more, is to be the fixed purpose and the ruling principle in the life of him who by God’s grace has been freed from severe suffering. When this purpose is alive, and is the ruling power of the life, divine grace grants forgiveness for that which, from human weakness, still remains of sinful character. The “worse” is not to be referred merely to the future existence, for the sick man had not experienced the full measure even of earthly punishment. No one is so miserable that he cannot be more so. Ver. 15. “The man departed, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him whole.” That we may attribute the best design to the healed person, is shown by the fact of his being healed (for Christ would not have healed a miscreant), and that he went immediately to the temple. He, innocent man, has no foreboding of the depth of pharisaic obduracy and malice. He wishes at the same time to show that he is grateful to Jesus, and to do his duty to his superiors, by pointing the Saviour out to them. He trusts that the impression of His Person will overthrow all their scruples. Ver. 16. “And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath day.” The words καὶἐζήτουναὐτὸνἀποκτεῖναι are wanting in very important critical authorities, and the unfounded prejudice of the critics for the shorter reading has led them to declare the words to be spurious. But their genuineness is favoured, 1. by the Old Testament passage, Psalms 37:32, “The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him;” 2. the mere word ἐδίωκον, without a statement of the manner of the persecution, is too vague; 3. the μᾶλλον, in ver. 18, presupposes that the Jews had already previously sought to kill Jesus. Lόcke thinks, “The words, genuine and appropriate in ver. 18, make here an unsuitable addition. How could persons versed in the law seek to kill Jesus for a violation of the Sabbath, which, besides, was not clearly made out?” But the matter had already gone so far, that the Jews had attempted His life (John 4:1-3); and already, at the first Passover. Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, and Jesus did not commit Himself even to those in whom there was already a beginning of faith. It was precisely with respect to the Sabbath that a special strictness prevailed at that time; and to bring this to bear upon Jesus was the more natural, since His proceeding seemed to have the character of a provocation. If they would not perceive in Him the Son of God, it was natural to apply here the Mosaic decision, according to which the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath day was stoned. Numbers 15. That the punishment of death was then inflicted for the slightest violation of the Sabbath, if committed purposely (for this was the point on which it depended),—e.g., plucking ears of corn,—is shown by Lightfoot on Matthew 12:2. Ver. 17. “But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” He answered them, to the charges which they had made against Him, in the direction indicated in ver. 16. Jesus does not here, as in Luke 13:15; Luke 14:5, enter into the question, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?” from a general human point of view. He bases His deduction on His wholly peculiar and individual relation to the Father. To present this fully before the chiefs of the people as a testimony for them, and, under some circumstances, against them, and to make a confession in reference to this, is the object for which He has brought on the whole conflict. If any other than the Son of God in the most peculiar sense should say, “My Father,” etc., it would be a great error. The necessity of rest does not exist for God, but it does indeed for man, who is rendered dull and stupid by unceasing labour, and needs the regularly returning day of rest, as a corrective of the injury done by the week. It is a confusing remark of De Wette, that Christ corrects the false opinion, that God has rested since the creation, by the idea of the continued creative or preserving activity of God. The thought of nature existing independently by the side of God, on which the failure to recognise the uninterruptedly continuous activity of God must be founded, could not enter the mind of a Jew. The proposition that God works unceasingly, on the Sabbath not less than on the other days, was common to the Jews with Christ. The rest on the seventh day in Genesis 2:3, as is expressly remarked, refers only to the creative work, and was always so referred by the Jews. It pertained only to the first Sabbath. The later Divine operation knows no distinction of days. That Christ called God His Father in a different sense from that in which He was so called by all Israel (Isaiah 54:7), was implied, as the Jews perceived, in the conclusion which He drew from this relation. Only on participation in the Godhead could be based the entire exemption from the sabbatic command to which Christ lays claim. This is the real point at issue. If the Jews had believed Jesus to be the Son of God in the fullest sense, they would not have commenced a dispute with Him. With the expression “hitherto,” cf. ἀπʼ ? ἀρχῆςκόσμουἕωςτοῦνῦν, Matthew 24:21. It indicates the uninterrupted operation from the beginning of the world to the present time, in which the act of healing just performed gave a testimony to the continuance of this agency. Quesnel: “Sublime defence against the charge of violating the Sabbath! It is marvellous how God causes the malice of the enemies of the truth to subserve the revelation of the sublimest truths of religion; and how He instructs His elect, while apparently He is speaking only to His enemies.” Calvin calls attention to the circumstance, that Christ, in justifying His action, justifies at the same time that of the sick man, in carrying his bed: “erat enim appendix et quasi pars miraculi, quia nihil quam ejus approbatio erat.” Ver. 18. “Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His own Father, making Himself equal with God.”—“Christ,” says Calvin, “has taught us by His example that we need never give way to the rage of the ungodly, but rather maintain God’s truth, so far as necessity requires it, against the will and the opposition of the whole world.” To His own Father here, corresponds His own Son in Romans 8:32. It is the Father in the special individual sense, as opposed to the general conception of fatherhood. Tholuck incorrectly remarks, “Although in the Old Testament, in some few passages (?), God is designated as the Father of the people, it was an unusual thing for an individual Israelite to employ this name. . . . . Hence the charge of blasphemy which the Jews bring.” [Eng. Trans, p. 152 sq.] It was not the use of the name of Father in itself which offended the Jews (cf., e.g., Sir 23:1; Sir 23:4, Wis 2:16, where the pious are reproached by the ungodly: ἀλαζονεύεταιπατέραΘεόν), but that Christ laid claim to such a fatherhood of God as involved a dispensation from the fourth commandment. This does not follow from the Divine fatherhood in the common sense, in which only the love like that of a father to a son is regarded, but involves a fatherhood in the most peculiar sense, and a claim to participation in the Godhead. Augustine: “Ecce intelligunt Judaei quod non intelligunt Ariani. Ariani quippe inaequalem Patri filium dicunt, et inde haeresis pulsat ecclesiam. Ecce ipsi caeci, ipsi interfectores Christi intellexerunt tamen verba Christi.” Ver. 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 doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” Jesus does not begin by proving His intimate and inseparable connection with the Father, which forms the theme of the whole following discourse, but leaves this till vers. 31-47. He leads them first deeper into His relation to the Father, develops the significance of this, and demonstrates that, in consequence of this relation, it is of the utmost importance to place one’s self in the proper relation to Him in whose power are life and death, salvation and perdition. The solemn oath-like asseveration, ἀμὴνἀμὴνλέγωὑμῖν, occurs three times in this discourse, and shows at the same time that here it is not anything doubtful, but absolute knowledge that is spoken of; and that here also it is things of paramount importance which are in question, for only with regard to such things are asseverations of this kind in place. As Heumann correctly says: “This strong and repeated asseveration shows, that what our Lord is now to bring forward is a most sacred truth, and that he who attacks this cannot be called a Christian.” Jesus can do nothing of Himself, because there does not exist in Him a self separate from the Father. The words, ἀφʼ ? ἑαυτοῦ, are to be understood as if enclosed in quotation-marks, since Jesus takes them from the mouth or the heart of His opponents. P. Anton: “The words, of himself, as used by the Jews, had a poison in them; and Christ means that this must be removed, for the case is no otherwise.” That He acted ἀφʼ ? ἑαυτοῦ, was the central-point in the accusations of His opponents. It was on His own authority, they asserted, that Christ had broken the Sabbath, and said that God was His Father. That the Son can do nothing of Himself is a high privilege, as it proceeds from His inseparable connection of essence with the Father. The possibility of acting of one’s self, dissevered from God, exists only on the lower stage of creation. Thus Satan, e.g., speaks lies ἐκτῶνἰδίων, John 8:44. As it is here said of the Son, that He can do nothing of Himself, so in John 16:13, of the Holy Spirit, that He does not speak of Himself. Quesnel says: “We will love this incomprehensible mystery, and, as true children of God, will strive to copy it, by acting not at all of ourselves, but in dependence on God and Christ, as the principle and pattern of our actions.” The activity of the Father and the Son is always coincident; for, as the Son can do nothing without the Father, so the Father also can do nothing without the Son. The words ἀφʼ ? ἑαυτοῦ are to a certain extent an interpolation, containing a side-thought, which does not enter into the following ἐὰνμήτιβλέπῃτὸνπατέραποιοῦντα: The Son can do nothing (of Himself), but what, etc.; or, “can do nothing” may be repeated before the ἐὰν. To the negative assertion is directly added the positive: for what He doeth, that doeth the Son likewise. The unity of essence with the Father on which the negative assertion is founded, includes also the positive. If Jesus stood in this relation to the Father, the Jews were greatly deluded if they supposed that they were maintaining the cause of God against Him;—without observing it, they were in the most proper sense among the number of those who fight against God. Calvin says: “Hic causae status est, quum illi in carnis aspectu defixi Christum contemnerent, jubet eos altius consurgere ac Deum intueri.” Ver. 20. “For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself doeth: and He will show Him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.” This showing, taken from the human relation of father to son, is not to be viewed as a dogmatic, but as a conceptional expression. Than these,—e.g., the healing of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda. The marvelling will attain its highest point at the resurrection and the last judgment, in which these greater things will culminate. Ver. 21. “For as the Father raiseth the dead and quickeneth, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will.” The Saviour declares Himself more particularly concerning the greater works. Herein is comprised the entire life-giving activity of the Redeemer. It is afterwards divided into its two halves,—that on this side the grave, ver. 24, and that beyond, vers. 25-29,—both introduced by the corresponding ἀμὴνἀμὴνλέγωὑμῖν, and limited with respect to each other by the use of the Present tense in connection with the Preterite of the one, and of the Future of the other. The words, “as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth,” are founded on Hosea 6:2, the only passage in the Old Testament in which, as here, raising up and quickening are immediately connected with each other: “After two days will He revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight.” (That it is not a mere rising which is here spoken of, but a resurrection, is shown by Simson, in his commentary on this passage. This is also favoured by comparison with the vision of Ezekiel in chap. 37, the parallelism of revivification, and the fact that life is mentioned as the consequence of the raising up.) As the conception of life in the Old Testament far transcends that of mere bare life, and is repeatedly interchanged with that of salvation—cf. e.g., Deuteronomy 30:20, where it is said of God to Israel, “He is thy life;” Psalms 36:9, where the Psalmist says to God, “For with Thee is the fountain of life,” q.d., in Thee not only bare life, but that also which really deserves the name of life, has its origin; Thou art the fountain of all salvation; Psalms 16:11, where life is connected with joy and pleasure, because a miserable life is not to be called a life: cf. on the Old Testament conception of life, the remarks on John 1:4—so also the Scripture carries the idea of death still further. It comprehends under it all those conditions of which it may be said, “Thou hast a name to live, but art dead.” This conception meets us, even on the threshold of revelation, in the declaration, “On the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die.” The miserable existence into which man fell from the moment of the apostasy is to be regarded as death. Death occurs thus also in Deuteronomy 32:39, “I kill and I make alive;” i.e., I deliver over to misery, and I lead to salvation. “The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up,” says Hannah in 1 Samuel 2:6, on the ground of her own experience, since she has out of deep misery attained to happiness. Cf. the passages dependent upon this, Tob 13:2; Wis 16:13. Recovery from severe sickness is designated in Isaiah 38:9 and elsewhere as a reviving, a form of death being recognised in disease. Israel, as fallen into deep misery, is beheld by Ezekiel in chap. 37 as buried in death; and the bestowal of salvation is represented under the figure of a resurrection. In Psalms 22:29, the miserable are represented as those who go down to the dust, who cannot keep alive their own souls,—as deceased persons, the living dead. We find the same conception in Psalms 48:14, “God guides us even in death,” q.d., when we fall into a helpless condition; Psalms 68:20, “God is to us a God of salvation, and the Lord delivers us from death;” Psalms 85:6, “Wilt Thou not return and revive us?” Psalms 80:18, “So will we not go back from Thee: only quicken us;” Psalms 71:20, “Thou, who hast showed us great and sore troubles, wilt return and quicken us,”—where trouble is manifestly represented as death. But certain though it is from these parallel passages, especially Hosea 6:2, that under the dead whom the Father raises and quickens are comprised the miserable, as being the living dead, yet it would still be arbitrary to exclude the dead commonly so called, since in the context there is nothing which hinders us from understanding the dead in the most comprehensive sense. It is meant to include both the dead in their graves, ver. 28, and those out of them, the walking corpses. The word ζῳοποιεῖ, He quickeneth, is to be taken with the same extension of meaning of the Son, as of the Father. It ends in the “resurrection of life,” in ver. 29; but it begins even in this life, when Christ delivers those who have fallen into deepest misery from the bands of such death, so that they pass from death unto life. The antithesis of the judgment, in ver. 22, shows that the awakening to the resurrection of judgment, ver. 29, is not comprehended under the quickening. The godless existence to which those awake, does not deserve the name of life. They fall under the “second death,” Revelation 20:14, which is still worse than the first. To the same result leads also the expression, “whom He will.” This requires a quickening which takes place with a selection, and which is therefore not imparted to all without distinction. If we should refer ζῳοποιεῖ, in so far as it is declared of the Son, merely to a spiritual quickening, we might separate the quickening by the Son from that by the Father. The words ὥσπερ—ζῳοποιεῖ refer manifestly to the Old Testament, as the alone warrant for a truth assumed to be already established and acknowledged, to which a new one is here to be added. In all passages of the Old Testament, however, it is not a spiritual quickening which is spoken of; and even in so far as this is considered, it must be understood as a transition from deep misery to salvation. A limitation to spiritual quickening is contradicted also by John 6:39, where ὃδέδωκέμοι corresponds to οὓςθέλει, and according to which, the life-giving activity of Christ will attain its highest point at the last day. The Present is here that which is frequently used in general sentences, when the declaration applies equally to the present and the future (Buttmann, S. 177), or when the action is to be designated in itself only, without determining the time. The words, “whom He will,” indicate that no other limit is set to the life-giving activity of the Son than His own will; so that thus he may be absolutely certain of life who only gains His favour, and that one’s whole energy should be directed towards this end, which is the only worthy end of human existence. It is a matter of course that the will is not an arbitrary will, but is governed by the law of Christ’s being, according to which He loves those who love Him, and grants life as the reward of faith. Ver. 22. “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.” To quicken and to judge are closely connected activities, so that he who exercises one must exercise the other. Thus, if the judging activity of God is exercised only through Christ, the quickening must also be exercised only through Him. Grotius: “Bene autem ponitur γὰρ, quia ejusdem potestatis est absolvere et damnare, et recte hoc additum, ut quos spes non moret malis coerceantur.” The judging here, in antithesis to the quickening, is the judgment of condemnation. Of the believer it is said, in ver. 24, “He Cometh not into condemnation.” In ver. 27 also, the execution of judgment forms the antithesis to the gift of life. In ver. 29, it is only the resurrection of the godless which is a resurrection unto condemnation. The judgment is completed at the last day. To exclude the last judgment, of which every reader must at once think, is purely arbitrary, and is opposed to vers. 24, 27, 29. As, however, the quickening activity takes its beginning in this life, ver. 24, so also the judging, ὁδὲμὴπιστεύωνἤδηκέκριται, John 3:18. That the judgment begins even in the present life, is shown also by ver. 30, and by John 9:39, where the Lord says that He is come for judgment into this world, that they which see not may see, and they which see may be made blind. When it is said that the Father judgeth no man, it is evident from the analogy of ver. 21 that the thought is, that the Father judges only through the Son. It is a priori inconceivable that God, who bore of old the name, “Judge of the whole earth,” is excluded from the judgment. Bengel: “Pater non judicat solus, nec sine filio, judieat tamen ver. 45, Acts 17:31, Romans 3:6.” Quesnel remarks: “To Christ belongs every visible and invisible judgment, special and general, for time and for eternity, by the withdrawal of grace or by the appointment of suffering. I acknowledge Thee and adore Thee as my Judge, O Jesus, Thou unlimited monarch of life and death. My lot is in Thy hands; for Thou givest us Thy grace according to the measure which Thou hast determined, and Thou appointest the punishment according to the measure and desert of our sins. Judge me, Lord, not in Thine anger, but in Thy compassion. Punish me in this world, not in the other; not by taking from me Thy Holy Spirit, or by driving me from Thy presence, but rather by withholding the outward pleasures of this life, and the miserable gratifications of this ruined world.” Ver. 23. “That all should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father who hath sent Him.” If the Son no less than the Father has life and death in His hand, the direct consequence is this, that the Son is to be not less honoured than the Father; and foolish and ruinous the position of the Jews, who professed to honour the Father, but persecuted the Son even to the death. This declaration must have descended with overwhelming force upon their heads. Bengel remarks on τιμῶσι: “vel libenter, judicium effugientes per fidem, vel inviti, judicis iram sentientes.” But that the honour here is rather that which is voluntary, is shown by what follows: ὁμὴτιμῶν, etc. If they will not comply with their obligation, they fall under punishment; if they will not freely give honour to Him who has life and death in His hand. He will be glorified in them in their destruction. If they will not sing His praise, they must weep His praise. Ver. 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 from death unto life.” Lόcke remarks: “The formula, ἀμὴνἀμὴνλέγωὑμῖν announces that the two propositions, which contain the principal declaration of Christ, are to be especially confirmed and emphasized.” Even in this is implied the essential difference of these propositions, of which the former (ver. 24) refers to the life-giving activity of Christ in this world, the other to the bestowal of life at the last day. P. Anton says, “How many asseverations occur one after the other in vers. 24, 25! Thus we may conceive how it must have seemed, when Jesus spoke this to the Jews, who would have killed Him on the spot if they could. And yet He discoursed to them so earnestly and so lovingly, after the manner of a helper, to set them right, to gain them over from their murderous lusts, and to free them from their false spirit.” The words, ὁτὸνλόγονμουἀκούων, refer to Deuteronomy 18:15 : “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto Him ye shall hearken;” and ver. 19: “And whosoever will not hearken unto My words, which He shall speak in My name, I will require it of him.” Heareth is therefore to be taken in the emphatic sense. He who hears merely outwardly, is as though he heard not. We are also not to be content with the mere outward hearing, because faith in relation to Him who sends is spoken of. It would be otherwise if it were written, ὁἀκούωνκαὶπιστεύων, cf. John 12:47. He who hears My word—it is evidently the sense—and by this means shows his faith in Him, etc. Likewise emphatic is ἀκούειν in John 8:43; John 8:47, John 9:27, John 10:3; John 10:8, and other passages. The λόγος here is different from the φωνή in ver. 25. The word is the Gospel, the voice is the Word of Power which calls to life the physically dead. The circumstance that the life is designated as everlasting, casts a deep shadow on this present life, causing it to seem like a dark valley of death; and is in harmony with the Apocalypse, throughout which the eye of faith is represented as looking beyond the troubled present to the serene and clear future. But we are not on this account to regard the possession here (ἔχει) as one of mere hope; for life, though it has its proper seat in eternity—as is also plainly shown by John 6:40, where life eternal is connected with the resurrection—stretches over into time: we taste the powers of the world to come, our conversation is in heaven. “His love can make the present time sweet as the eternal clime.” On the stretching over of eternal life into the present existence, cf. remarks on John 3:15. To the μεταβέβηκε here corresponds that which is said of the unbelieving in John 3:18, “he is condemned already.” The transition from death to life, from ruin to salvation, has already been made by the believer, who has received the powers of the world to come, and can rejoice in God his Saviour, though he is still afflicted with many of the issues of death, which do not disappear until he passes into the future state of existence. Cf. 1 John 3:14; Romans 6:13. Augustine compares Luke 15:32 : ὁἀδελφόςσουοὗτοςνεκρὸςἦνκαὶἀνέζησε, and remarks: “fit proinde jam quaedam resurrectio, et transeunt homines a morte quadam ad quandam vitam; a morte infidelitatis ad vitam fidei; a morte falsitatis ad vitam veritatis, a morte iniquitatis ad vitam justitiaei. Est ergo et ista quaedam resurrectio mortuorum.” Calvin: “Transitum a morte jam esse factum non inepte dicit, quia et incorruptibile est in filiis Dei vitae semen, ex quo vocati sunt, et jam in coelesti gloria per spem Christo consident, et regnum Dei in se habent certo constitutum Spiritus, qui in illis habitat, vita est, quae reliquias mortis tandem abolebit.” If the true fountain of life is in Christ, and if faith is a true connection with Him, the transition from death unto life must necessarily commence in this present existence, although it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Ver. 25. “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.” The dead are here the righteous that have fallen asleep. For life nowhere here stands of bare life, and the antithesis to life here is formed by the judgment in vers. 27. It is impossible to separate our declaration from vers. 28, 29, where all considerate expositors will admit the reference to the physical resurrection—as, e.g., Lόcke understands “the φωνὴτοῦυἱοῦΘεοῦ ?here of the λόγος in ver. 24; the dead who hear, of the spiritually dead, who hear and believe His word; and finally, the ζήσονται of the present ζωὴαἰώνιός.” The grounds on which a difference from vers. 28, 29 has been assumed are not tenable. Appeal is made, 1. to καὶνῦνἐστι. This, however, might stand just as well also in ver. 28, and is indeed to be supplied from our verse with ἔρχεταιὥρα. The words, καὶνῦνἐστι, which are also used in John 4:23 of a matter which presupposes the atoning death of Christ and the effusion of the Holy Spirit, apply to all great future developments of the kingdom of God even to the end of days, in respect of all that Christ will do until the final completion of His kingdom. All this has its ground and warrant in the incarnation and epiphany of Christ. Especially with respect to the resurrection, the applicability of the words, καὶνῦνἐστι, is attested by the instances of Christ’s raising from the dead, which were as a prelude to the future resurrection. These words, moreover, make only a secondary statement; for here, as in John 4:23, the substance of the fact is represented as purely future. This does not agree with the spiritual awakening, which was then complete when Christ spoke these words. 2. Appeal is made to οἱἀκούσαντες. This is said to make a distinction between those who hear and those who do not hear, which there is not in the case of the bodily resurrection. But it is a critical thing to found assertions of so much importance on the article. According to that which immediately precedes, all the dead—all those who have died in faith—hear the voice, by which even such a distinction is excluded. The article is rather to render prominent the thought, that to hear and to live are inseparably connected. The article designates the whole class of those who have heard, q.d., all who have heard. But it is decisive against the reference to the spiritual resurrection, that it is here the voice, and not the word, which is spoken of—mere hearing, not hearing and believing. Our declaration is thus distinguished from ver. 24, and accords with ver. 28. With respect to the voice, cf. John 11:43, καὶταῦταεἰπὼνφωνῇμεγάλῃἐκραύγασεν, Λάζαρε, δεῦροἔξω; 1 Thessalonians 4:16, where the φωνῇἀρχαγγέλου is spoken of; Mark 5:41; Luke 7:14; 1 Corinthians 15:52. The Old Testament passage is, as it seems, Ezekiel 37:7, “There was a voice (cf. John 1:25), and behold a noise, and the bones came near, bone to its bone.” What the voice, which was no other than that of God, said, is to be learned from the result. Usually in this passage the voice is identified with the noise; but the prophet clearly distinguishes the two by εδπδ. The hearing is a part of the pictorial representation; as also the call which Jesus makes to the maiden, the young man at Nain, and to Lazarus, had no significance for the dead, but only for the bystanders. Ver. 26. “For as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given the Son to have life in Himself.” In Himself; so that He is, no less than the Father, the fountain of life to believers, and that the words of Psalms 36, “with Thee is the fountain of life,” apply also to Him. To have life in Himself, and indeed in such fulness that His wealth is sufficient for all, far transcends the stage of the creature, and presupposes His full divinity. Augustine: “Manet ergo Pater vita, manet et Filius vita: Pater vita in semetipso, non a Filio; Filius vita in semetipso, sed a Patre.” Ver. 27. “And hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man.” Son of man in itself means merely man, and is used in this sense here. The transfer of the judgment, however, is founded not on the humanity in itself, but on the fact that the Son of God, to whom indeed áὐ ?ôῷ refers, is man, and that thus Christ is the God-man. On His incarnation is founded the right, which He alone possesses, to bestow life and to execute judgment. This is the reward of His humiliation in the flesh, and His obedience even unto death. A commentary on this is afforded by Philippians 2:6-11. Allusion is here made, as in all passages where Christ is designated as the Son of man, to Daniel 7:13-14, where the Messiah appears as the Son of man in the clouds of heaven, and absolute dominion being given unto Him, He receives authority to judge the whole world. Even in this passage the gift of dominion is represented as the reward of the incarnation, and it is on this account that Christ is designated as the Son of man. Christ cannot as such have obtained this character in heaven: it must have been appropriated to Him on earth. The appearance of Christ in the flesh, which is expressly foretold in Daniel 9, is here presupposed. The reason, “because He is the Son of man,” applies likewise to the bestowal of life. Bengel: “hic homo homines salvat, hic homo homines judicat.” That it is here specially declared of the judgment, is to be explained from the circumstance, that in Daniel the Son of man comes to judgment. The Son of man was the rock on which the Jews stumbled. In opposition to them, Christ says that He will come to judgment not merely although, but because. He is the Son of map. His very humanity is the ground, not only of His power to bless, but of His authority to judge. Ver. 28. “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in their graves shall hear His voice Ver. 29. 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.” In opposition to those who would refer these words also to the spiritual resurrection, Augustine briefly and well remarks, “Quid evidentius? quid expressius? Corpora sunt in monumentis: animte non sunt in monumentis, nec justorum nee iniquorum.” Marvel not at this: the Lord does not, in order to decrease their astonishment, oppose to the lesser wonder a still greater, but the renewed affirmation, that that which He has ascribed to Himself in vers. 25-27 will surely take place. In like manner, the requisition not to marvel stands before the new exposition of the same matter in the conversation with Nicodemus, John 3:7. This concluding exposition and confirmation is distinguished from vers. 25-27 by its close adherence to the Old Testament passage, Daniel 12:2 : “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” The hour is coming. This is not a mere assertion: Jesus showed His power over death by raising the dead, and afterwards by His own resurrection. He certainly would not have said this, if there had not been already facts which showed Him to be the conqueror over death. The raising of the daughter of Jairus occurred in the beginning of our Lord’s Galilean ministry, and the raising of the young man at Nain had probably also taken place. To John in prison (that the Baptist was already imprisoned we learned from John 4:1-3) Jesus sent word, as of a fact, νεκροὶἐγείρονται, Matthew 11:5. The roots of well-doing and evil-doing are faith and unbelief. Where there is faith, it must manifest itself in works, as our Lord teaches in Matthew 7:19-20, that the tree may be known by its fruit; and our Lord frequently renders works prominent, because with respect to faith one may be very easily deceived. Full justice had been done to faith in ver. 24, cf. John 3:15; John 3:18; John 3:36. Let us now cast another glance in recapitulation at the discourse of Christ from ver. 21. As the Father, so also the Son, has power to quicken and authority to judge; so that the Son must be not less honoured than the Father: vers. 21-23. Even in this present existence, His quickening power is shown in this, that He makes His faithful ones partakers of life (His judging activity in this life, which coincides with His saving, is passed over), ver. 24. But His power to quicken, and His authority to judge, will be most gloriously manifested at the last day, vers. 25-29. Ver. 30. “I can of Mine own self do nothing: as I hear I judge: and My judgment is just; because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of Him who hath sent Me.” This verse recurs to ver. 19, and forms the conclusion. That Jesus can do nothing of Himself—that the wall of separation which the Jews erected between Him and the Father exists only in their imagination—this is now quite evident after the comprehensive discussion of His relation to the Father. As I hear I judge: a judicial act was the healing of the impotent man; a judicial declaration, the word, “Arise, take up thy bed, and walk.” Jesus might have spoken of doing instead of judging; but He emphasizes the judgment, in reference to Psalms 72:1-2, “Give the king Thy judgments, O God, and Thy righteousness unto the kings sons. He shall judge Thy people with righteousness, and Thy poor with judgment;” and to Isaiah 11:3-4, where it is said of the Messiah: “He judgeth not after the sight of His eyes, nor reproveth after the hearing of His ears; but with righteousness judgeth He the poor, and reproveth with equity for the meek of the earth.” The judging according to that which He hears (from the Father) forms the necessary supplementary positive to the negative declaration in this passage, “nor reproveth after the hearing of His ears.” To seek not His own will, but the will of God, has been, as a penetrating life-principle, since Genesis 3, far beyond the common sphere of man, and only the God-man could thus truly speak of Himself. The Berleburger Bibel: “Even in such a person did God wish to show that it is a blessed thing to submit and not have one’s own will, and that in this God is graciously well pleased. To this submission we were not to be brought: it needed therefore that it should be displayed to us in the sublime person of Christ, whose example is animating. His will was dissolved and emptied into His Father’s will; His humanity was quite without itself—it was an instrument by which God worked. Such an obedient mind there has always been in the servants of God: Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? “Calvin, with respect to this whole declaration, remarks: “Christus hic de nuda sua divinitate verba non facit, sed ut carne nostra indutus est, se ab externa specie minime aestimandum esse admonet, quia aliquid habeat homine altius.” Ver. 31. “If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true.” Jesus had justified the founding of His Sabbath-ministry on the Divine example (vers. 19-30), by leading them into the depths of His relation to the Father. This was of the greatest significance. He places before His enemies the entire importance of the present question, bringing them to see, even if they did not purposely harden themselves, that it referred to nothing less than life and death; that it was thus possible that they might here commit a crime against Omnipotence, which could not be expiated but by their destruction; and that they might indeed be found to be such as in the most peculiar sense fight against God. It must greatly quicken our zeal in the investigation of the truth if we thus view the controversy in its whole circumference, and descend into its lowest depth. But seen as the Jews saw it, it was natural to object that the entire relation of the Father to the Son was a matter in suspense, having nothing in its support but the invalid self-testimony of Jesus, and resting at last on a mere assumption. This objection Jesus now meets in vers. 31-47. He shows that the asserted relation to the Father has the strongest proof in its support: the testimony of the Father Himself, which He has given in a threefold manner—by John, by the works of Christ, and by the prophecy of the Old Testament. The objection which Jesus here anticipates, is expressed in John 8:13 : εἶπονοὖναὐτῷοἱΦαρισαῖοι, σὺπερὶσεαυτοῦμαρτυρεῖς· ἡμαρτυρίασουοὐκἔστινἀληθής. When Jesus there answers, ver. 14: κἂνἐγὼμαρτυρῶπερὶἐμαυτοῦ, ἀληθήςἐστινἡμαρτυρίαμου, this is only in apparent contradiction to our text. It is implied in the nature of the case, that in the latter truth stands only in the judicial sense, in which that only is considered true which can be proved by the testimony of uninterested persons. Ver. 32. “There is another that beareth witness of Me; and I know that the witness which He witnesseth of Me is true.” That this other is the Father, is implied in the nature of the case. For, in respect of an inward relation in the Divine essence, God alone can give a valid testimony. That this other is God, is evident moreover from the verbal reference in which καὶὁπέμψαςμεπατὴραὐτὸςμεμαρτύρηκενπερὶἐμοῦ, ver. 37, stands to the words of our text, and from the parallel passages: John 8:18, “I am one that bear witness of Myself, and the Father that sent Me beareth witness of Me;” ver. 54, “If I honour Myself, My honour is nothing: it is My Father that honoureth Me;” and 1 John 5:9. To God also we are led by the words, “I know that His witness is true,” which refers anew to the secret connection of essence between the Son and the Father. If by the other we should understand the Baptist, we should thus too highly exalt the latter. The other cannot be the Baptist on this account, even that Jesus, in ver. 34, declares it to be beneath His dignity to ground Himself on a human testimony. By a reference to John also we obtain a wholly untenable antithesis between the testimony of John and the testimony of God, which He affords in the works of Christ. John is either of no significance here, or he is regarded as the Divine organ, so that it is not he who bears witness, but God by him. John himself, in John 1:33, grounds the significance of his testimony singly and alone on the Divine inspiration, which he had received. If, then, this other is the Father, vers. 33-35 cannot be regarded otherwise than as containing the first witness which the Father has borne to the Son by the mouth of John, the greatest prophet under the Old Dispensation. Those who apprehend the thought otherwise, create for themselves another by their own insertions, instead of following the real connection: Another bears witness of Me, and primarily indeed by John. Ver. 33. “Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth.” The circumstance that they had sent unto John, is significant, because in so doing they had acknowledged John in his prophetic dignity and as the Divine organ: cf. John 1:19. Since the deputation was an official one, it is natural to assume that we have here before us an official transaction, and that this is not merely a private conversation. In John 1:19 also it is the Jews who are spoken of; and yet the whole narrative shows that the deputation was from the highest national court, the Chief Council. Ver. 34. “But I receive not testimony from man: but these things I say, that ye might be saved.” John bore witness as a prophet; for if it had not been so, that which he spoke of Christ would not have had the dignity of a testimony, which exists only when one speaks that which he has seen and heard. Thus the testimony of John did not properly proceed from “a man,” but from the Holy Spirit, who spoke through the prophets. But since the Divine mission and inspiration of John was controverted by his opponents, since they gave him out to be a mere man left to himself, and the contrary could not be proved in a palpable manner—the Baptist not having performed miracles—in the present question his testimony was, so to speak, in a judicial sense that of a man. That this was the reason why Jesus declares that He will not insist on the testimony of John, as being that of a man, is evident from the fact, that afterwards the testimony of Moses is urged as perfectly valid, his Divine mission and inspiration being fully acknowledged by the opponents. How little it can be the object to depreciate the significance of John and of his testimony, is already evident from the high importance attributed to this testimony in chap. 1. An analogy is afforded by Isaiah 7:13, where Isaiah says to the unbelieving Ahaz of Judea: “Is it too little for you to provoke man, that you provoke also my God?” “When Ahaz,” it was remarked on this passage in the Christology [Eng. Trans, ii. p. 43],“ had before refused to believe in the simple announcement of the prophet, he sinned to a certain degree against man only, against the prophet only, by unjustly suspecting him of a deceitful pretension to a Divine revelation. But when Ahaz declined the offered sign, God Himself was provoked by him, and his wickedness came evidently to light.” The testimony of the works of Christ stands to the testimony of John in a similar relation to that in which the sign here stands to the mere announcement. In both there is the same Divine causality, but the degree of demonstration is different. But even though Jesus does not wish to lay great stress on the testimony of John, or to make it the central-point of His argument. He needs not to be quite silent concerning it, for this would be a severity towards His opponents. Perhaps they will, to their own salvation, cast aside their unfounded and criminal distrust of John, whose Divine mission, though it cannot be palpably demonstrated, is yet adequately attested to their consciences. Ver. 35. “He was a burning and a shining light; and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light.” In the symbolism of the Mosaic law, and in Zechariah 4, the Church of the Lord is represented under the figure of a candlestick. “The light,” it was remarked on this symbol in the Third Part of my Contributions (Beitrδge, S. 354), “can denote only the operations of the Spirit of God, the spiritual light, which is radiated “by the spiritually animated Church into the surrounding darkness.” Under the figure of lamps and candlesticks the Scriptures also represent individual believers, in whom the essence of the Church of God is particularized. Cf. Matthew 5:14-16, the parable of the ten virgins, and Philippians 2:15. John was the burning and shining light, in comparison with which, all others may be disregarded. The ἦν intimates that the ministry of John was already concluded. He was not then dead, but in prison; cf. John 4:1-3, where his imprisonment is referred to as having already taken place; and Jesus prophetically knows that the imprisonment will end in death, and that John will never again appear on the scene of his ministry. The ἠθελήσατε intimates the subjective inclination as opposed to a consent to the Divine order. They wished to rejoice while they ought to have been led to repentance by the light, and to worthy preparation for the advent of the Saviour. The πρὸςὥραν intimates that their joy in the light was only brief. At first, there went out to John, Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, Matthew 3:5; but when they saw what was his real design, and were saluted as γεννήματαἐχιδνῶν, etc., a strong hatred took the place of their rejoicing, and led at last to his being delivered up to Herod. The real reproach, however, is contained not in the πρὸςὥραν, but in the ἀγαλλιαθῆναι, in that they misused the forerunner and preacher of repentance in order to promote their sweet dreams. In his light: a part of the illumination brought by John, filled by the oil of the Holy Ghost, concerned the impending advent of the Messiah. This element they seized upon. They dreamed of freedom from Romish oppression, and of universal dominion, and did not consider that the Messiah must before all turn the energy of His righteousness against the house of God, and prove Himself primarily a consuming fire against the sin of the covenant-people. Ver. 36. “But I have a greater witness than 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.” We have here the second witness which God the Father (the Other, in ver. 32) bore to Christ. It is designated as greater than John in his capacity as witness, which is here alone regarded,—therefore than the witness of John, because it is more palpable, and admits of less objection. For, regarded in themselves, all truly Divine testimonies are alike. We best perceive what Jesus means by works from Matthew 11:4-5. They are not exclusively miracles. It is, however, implied in the nature of the case, and in the character of those against whom this proof is urged, that the miracles occupy unconditionally the first place; and this is denied by those only to whom such an emphasis on miracles in the Gospel of John would be inconvenient. That miracles are especially meant, is implied even in the reference to the starting-point of the whole conflict, the miraculous healing; at the pool of Bethesda. In John 7:21, “I have done one work, and ye all marvel,” the work is without doubt a miracle. The first place among the works is occupied by the raisings from the dead, to which the words καὶνῦνἐστι contain a hint. In no Gospel is so much weight laid on miracles as in the Gospel of John, or are there so many and emphatic declarations of Christ concerning the deep significance of His miracles: cf. John 10:25; John 10:32; John 14:11; John 15:24. This strong emphasis presupposes that the Gospel of John bears the relation of a supplement to other representations, which give a particular account of these miracles. Otherwise John himself would not have needed to be so sparing in this respect. Ver. 37. “And the Father Himself, who hath sent Me, hath borne witness of Me. Ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape. 38. And ye have not His word abiding in you: for whom He hath sent, ye believe not.” The witness of the Father can be no other than that which He bore, first, by John; secondly, by the works of Christ; and, thirdly, as is further amplified in what follows, in Old Testament prophecy. The expositors who imagine some other witness are left to mere guess work, and vacillate in uncertainty. The Father, moreover, was of necessity expressly mentioned also in respect of the works as He who bears witness, because otherwise it would not have been evident that the works are comprised in the witness announced in ver. 32. It is there the testimony of a person that was spoken of, but previously only the testimony of the works. We are led to the conjoint reference to John even by the Perfect μεμαρτύρηκε, in harmony with ver. 33, and in distinction from ver. 36. And in the case of John, the supplementary reference to God as the real author of the testimony was not less necessary than in that of the works. For in vers. 33-35 the testimony was designated only as that of John, and the ἄλλος in ver. 32 had therefore not yet received its full application. The words, καὶὁπέμψας—περὶἐμοῦ, consequently form the conclusion with respect to the two first testimonies, and at the same time form the transition to the third and last, the presentation of which begins in ver. 39. Before the Saviour passes to this third testimony. He points out, as it were parenthetically, the great loss of the Jews when they do not accept the witness which the Father bears to the Son. With the Son the Father also disappears from them, for they never stood in a direct relation to the latter—the Old Testament passages, where a hearing and seeing of God are spoken of, refer not to the hidden God, but to His Revealer, who in Christ became incarnate; and when they reject Christ, the real Word of God, they thus lose at the same time the true possession of the word of God altogether. The Jews under the Old Dispensation had repeatedly heard the voice of God. It had spoken to them from Sinai, Exodus 20:19; Deuteronomy 4:12, and through the medium of the prophets. They had likewise repeatedly seen His form, or a symbol of His presence. Of Jacob, the father of the race, it is said in Genesis 32:30, “And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel; for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” According to Exodus 24:10, the elders saw the God of Israel; and according to Numbers 12:8, Moses beheld the similitude of God. God manifested Himself to the whole people under the similitude and symbol of fire. Cf. Deuteronomy 5:4, “The Lord talked with you face to face in the Mount, out of the midst of the fire:” ver. 24, “And ye said. Behold, the Lord our God hath showed us His glory, and His greatness, and we have heard His voice out of the midst of the fire: we have seen this day that God doth talk with men, and He liveth:” John 4:36, “Out of heaven He made thee to hear His voice, that He might instruct thee; and upon earth He showed thee His great fire; and Thou heardest His words out of the midst of the fire,”—passages which are to be compared the rather, since in them, as in our text, the hearing and seeing are immediately connected with each other. Isaiah further, in chap. 5, sees the Lord sitting, therefore the εἶδος of the Lord; and Ezekiel also (chap. 5) beholds the glory of the Lord. All the Old Testament passages, however, refer not to God the Father, but to the Angel of the Lord, in whom the Logos is manifested in prelude to His incarnation. Cf. remarks on John 1:18. Isaiah saw the glory of Christ. When therefore the Jews do not accept the testimony of the Father to the Son, when they reject Christ, they thus dissolve all connection with God, and become ἄθεοιἐντῷκόσμῳ no less than the heathen. Never having stood in immediate relation to God the Father, when they now wantonly destroy the medium of connection with Him, there is nothing left to them but darkness, deception, and death, in which we see them buried even to the present day. If God be lost, all is lost. Moreover, by the rejection of Christ, they have not God’s word abiding in them; for Christ alone is the true and essential Word of God. Cf. on the Prologue. He who passes by Him, loses all real participation in the Divine word and revelation; for to him are left only disjecta membra, broken and unintelligible sounds. The word of God cannot be immanent in such an one, cf. Colossians 3:16; for to him it can stand only in a purely external, inactive relation. A proof of the truth of this declaration of Christ is afforded by the character of the Jews from the time of Christ up to the present. They have an entire codex of the Divine revelations, and yet they have not the word of God abiding in them. Cf. 2 Corinthians 3:14-16. Judaism bears the character of that which has lost its savour, which always makes its appearance where the salt of the Divine word is wanting.— The whole passage stands in inseparable connection with John 1:18, John 6:46, John 14:6, Matthew 11:27; and a criterion of the correctness of the exposition is furnished by its ability to bring these passages under one point of view. The profound significance of connection with Christ is everywhere prominent in them, because by it alone is there a medium of connection with the Father. On the words, τούτῳὑμεῖςοὐπιστεύετε, Lampe remarks: “πιστεύεινεἰςτινα significat honorem soli Deo exhibendum. Sed πιστεύειντινί, cum sit universalius, aliquando Deo, aliquando etiam hominibus convenit.” If they did not believe Him—which is an injury even to an honest man—how much less then in Him! Ver. 39. “Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me.” On the proof derived from the works, here follows the proof drawn from the miracles and prophecy of the Old Testament Scriptures. It is the third witness which the Other, ver. 32, has borne to Christ. The transition is made to this testimony at the conclusion of the parenthesis, in the reproach against the Jews, that they had not God’s word abiding in them, which is perceived in this, that they were unable to recognise Christ in the Old Testament, where He is so clearly revealed. The expression, ἐραυνᾶτετὰςγραφάς, refers to Isaiah 34:16 : “Seek ye out of the Book of the Lord.” By the Book of the Lord is here designated, not merely the collected prophecies of Isaiah, but the whole complexus of the sacred Scriptures, in which they were to be included,—the canon of the Lord, which was not yet closed at the time of the prophets, but was to be closed; so that the “Book of the Lord” exactly corresponds to “the Scriptures” here. On the ground of this prophetic passage, it was usual, as seems probable from John 7:52, to send an opponent to the Scriptures with an ἐρεύνησον. The καὶἐκεῖναί, etc., is the result which will follow, when the requisition ἐραυνᾶτε is complied with truly, and in the spirit of it. Instead of Kai might have stood a colon. In the Old Testament passage likewise the result is appended, which will follow on the investigation: “Seek ye out of the Book of the Lord, and read; no one of these shall fail.” The rendering of ἐραυνᾶτε as Indicative is opposed by the above passage, and by John 7:52, which is dependent on it. It further allows to the Jews what cannot be allowed them in this connection, immediately after ver. 38, which forms the transition to our text, from the proof derived from the works to that drawn from the Scriptures. And then also we should expect ὑμεῖς before ἐραυνᾶτε, instead of before δοκεῖτε.—Δοκεῖτε does not indicate a mere opinion or fancy opposed to the truth (Rothe, Stud. u. Crit 1860, 1, S. 67). As a ground for the ἐραυνᾶτε was not merely the fact that eternal life was contained in Holy Scripture, but also that the Jews acknowledged this, and were thus, from their own admission, in duty bound to comply with the requisition ἐραυνᾶτε: ὑμεῖς is emphatic. The Saviour must have shared in their conception, or He would not have based His demand upon it; for to make use of a mere argumentum ad hominem would have been unworthy of Him. But besides this, it is evident that Christ agrees with the Jews in the proposition that in the Scriptures they have life. The inspiration of the Scriptures and their having life are coincident; but inspiration is here taught in the most decided manner. Only by presupposing this could a Scripture testimony of Christ be spoken of—(such a testimony can come from God alone)—or could Moses write concerning Christ, ver. 46, or could it be a duty to believe in the writings of Moses, ver. 47. The Old Testament is regarded primarily as containing the law. The law itself promises life to him who keeps it. Leviticus 18:5 (cf. Romans 10:5). It has life in it in so far that it is a lamp to the feet, and affords the true and infallible pattern of moral conduct. The law is recognised most decidedly as bearing this character by our Lord and His Apostles. In Luke 10:25-27 the Lord answers the νομικὸς who comes to Him with the question, “Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” by asking in return what was written in the law on this point. The lawyer quotes as the sum of it, “Thou shalt love,” etc.; and the Lord answers, “Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.” When the Lord says that not one ἰῶτα or κεραία shall pass from the law; when Paul says, ὁνόμοςἅγιος, καὶἡἐντολὴἁγίακαὶδικαίακαὶἀγαθή, Romans 7:12; and when he speaks of ἡἐντολὴἡεἰςζωήν, ver. 10, it is implied that the Scriptures contain eternal life in so far that it can be offered in general by the law. But the law is not sufficient for eternal life. The direction must be added, as to where forgiveness for transgression and power for new obedience are to be found, or the pointing to Christ. But that with respect to these things also the Scriptures contain eternal life (cf. 2 Timothy 3:15), Christ here teaches as emphatically as possible. He brings the severe reproach against the Jews, that they have no taste for this part of the Scriptures. The proposition, that we have eternal life in the Scriptures, is common to the Jews with Christ. They differ only in this, that the Jews supposed they had enough in the law, while Christ, together with the law, lays stress on the Gospel contained in the Scriptures. In saying that the Scriptures testify of Him, the Lord refers to the whole range of the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. For here it is not Moses especially who is spoken of, but the Scriptures in general. Ver. 40. “And ye will not come unto Me, that ye might have life”—q.d., and yet, although the Scriptures speak so plainly, ye will not, etc. Allusion is made to Isaiah 55, especially ver. 3, “Come unto Me—and your soul shall live;” the same passage to which our Lord also refers in John 4:10; John 4:13-14, John 7:37; Matthew 11:28. Cf. Christology 2, S. 378 sq. But why do the Jews reject the testimony of the Scriptures, which are so highly esteemed even by them? Why will they not, on the basis of this testimony, come to Christ that they may obtain life? Our Lord answers this question in vers. 41-44: it is because they seek not the praise of God, but the empty honour of men. This is the sad solution of the riddle. After this digression, the Lord returns in vers. 45-47 to the testimony of the Scriptures. He especially sets before the Jews the testimony of Moses,—of him on whose authority (the fourth commandment) they had first brought the accusation against Him. Vers. 41, 42. “I receive not honour from men. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.” Jesus turns aside the reproach of ambition, which the Jews might, and indeed must, have brought against Him on the ground of the words, οὐθέλετεἐλθεῖνπρόςμε—the honour conferred by men can be of no consequence to the Son of God He has the honour of the only-begotten of the Father, and is therefore raised above all other honour He then brings against them the counter accusation that they have not the love of God in them, and therefore have not that which is laid down in their law as the foundation of all life and salvation. They manifest this want of love to God, in that they love not Him whom He has sent, of whom He has testified by His word and words, and who can say of Himself: He that seeth Me, seeth the Father. Want of love to God is still at the present day the deepest ground of diversion from Christ. Since ambition, or the taking of honour from men, has its ground in selfishness, or the want of love to God, Christ casts the accusation back from Himself upon those to whom it belongs. Grotius: “Emphasis est in illo ὑμᾶς. Qualem me putatis, vos tales estis.” Christ makes the charge not as a supposition, but on the ground of clear and certain knowledge, as He who knows all men, and knows what is in man, and before whom, as before God, all hearts are manifest. Ver. 43. “I am come in My Father’s name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.” The Lord proves His charge of the absence of love to God. John says, “He that loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen?” Thus also they showed their want of the love of God, in that they did not recognise as such the visible image of the Father; and in the future they will show it still further, in their readiness to welcome him who, without a mission from above, places himself in the centre of their national life. The words, “I am come in My Father’s name, and ye receive Me not,” acquire their full significance and their profound earnestness only when their reference to Deuteronomy 18:19 is perceived: “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto My words, which He shall speak in My name, I will require it of him.” The Name of the Lord is His glory as historically manifested. Christ comes in the name of the Father; so that the latter, not the abstract God, but as historically revealed, is He who fills the consciousness and determines all things: cf. Matthew 7:22; 1 Samuel 17:45; 2 Chronicles 14:11. The other comes in his own name, so that he is entirely sunk in himself, and the deeds and results proceeding from him. Why receive such an one? He who seeks his own, flatters and cajoles, refrains from all difficult requirements, demands no penitence or renunciation, because he well knows that in order to be able to live himself, he must let live. Salvation without repentance was, even under the Old Covenant, the watchword of the prophets out of their own heart. Bar-Cochba was wise enough to declare war against the hated Romans, instead of against bosom sins. How did Mahomet indulge the passions of his people, and how carefully did he avoid any conflict with the national spirit! Ver. 44. “How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from the only God?” To receive honour of another (Grotius: “plebs a primoribus, primores a plebe honorem venamini”) is represented here, as in John 12:42-43, as one of the most dangerous enemies of salvation. The fear of a conflict with the spirit of the time, of losing a good name, and of that pining and withered appearance, which it seems must come, when one is not raised and borne up by the recognition of his fellow-men, must stifle again the germs of faith. Only that mind can believe heartily which is fixedly intent on gaining the Divine approbation, and troubles itself not at all concerning the praise and blame of the ungodly multitude. Intentness on obtaining honour from men is especially distinctive of faith in times when an ungodly spirit has seized with great power on the masses—as in the times of Jesus the pharisaic, and now the rationalistic and democratic spirit. It is evident how important this declaration is for our own times. The desire to receive honour from men is very deeply seated in our theology; and not to break with the spirit of the age, but to mediate with it, is one of its most pressing cares. This is the worm that eats at its root, the curse that weighs it down. God is designated as the Only, in order to intimate His absolute glory, which shows the endeavour to find honour elsewhere than with Him to be absolute folly. Cf. John 17:3; Romans 16:27; 1 Timothy 6:15; Jude 1:4; Jude 1:25. The unity of God is even in the Old Testament a designation of His absoluteness, as in Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Jehovah,”—an only Jehovah, who has not His equal. As in ver. 5, the commandment of unconditional love to Him is founded on the unity of God—cf. Mark 12:29-30; Mark 12:32; for to the multiplicity of the heathen God’s, and the limited powers of each, corresponds the division of the heart; and to the unity of God, on the other hand, the requirement of entire love, the love of the whole heart, and the whole soul, and all the powers,—so here the demand that the honour of God be preferred to that of others, and the charge against the Jews of receiving honour from one another, is also founded on this. In Job 23:13 also, “But He is one, and who can turn Him?” the unity of God designates His absoluteness: He is almighty, because there are no other God’s besides Him. If there is but one God, there is but One to be feared in heaven and earth, and but One to love. Ver. 45. “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is that accuseth you, Moses, in whom ye trust.” The Lord had, in ver. 39, appealed against the Jews in general to the testimony of the Scriptures; here He meets them especially with the testimony of Moses, the revered lawgiver, on whose authority they had founded their accusation. Moses, in whom ye trust: it does not appear that the conception of a real intercession of Moses is here attributed to the Jews, but Moses is regarded as the representative of the law, which is meant substantially. Parallel with the trust in Moses is the supposition of having eternal life in the Scriptures, in ver. 39. We have the commentary in Romans 2:17-20; where to this trust in Moses corresponds the resting in the law as the certain representation of the will of God, the untroubled fountain of all knowledge and truth, and consequently a sure way to salvation. The Perfect tense, remarks Lücke, denotes that this trust in Moses existed among the people from antiquity. Ver. 46. “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me: for he wrote of Me.” Jesus had doubtless Deuteronomy 18:15-19 principally m view. Cf. on John 1:21; John 1:46; Christol. 1, S. 114. Ver. 47. “But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?” The emphasis is not on γράμμασι and ῥήμασι, but on ἐκείνου and ἐμοῖς. The antithesis is that of the ancient well established authority, and that now in process of formation. The discourse ends, like Psalms 95, with “a question of hopelessness” (Meyer). Ver. 1. “After these things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, of Tiberias.” Between the facts narrated in the previous chapter and those in the present, there is a period of nearly a whole year. According to John 5:1, Jesus went up to Jerusalem to the Passover, and there healed an impotent man at the pool of Bethesda; and here also, according to ver. 4, the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh. The circumstance that John thus leaps over an entire year, indicates that he did not intend to write a complete Gospel, but only a supplement of previous accounts.[1] To this result we are also led by the words, “Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee.” The starting-point of this journey cannot possibly have been Jerusalem, as Meyer, proceeding on the ground of an entire disconnection of this Gospel with the former Gospels, supposes,—showing in what difficulties such a disconnection is involved; it must have been a place on the Galilean shore of the lake. The πέραν in ver. 25 corresponds to the πέραν here; and Capernaum is especially indicated by the circumstance that the disciples return thither, ver. 17. And thither also the multitudes go to seek Jesus, for no other reason than because He was at home there. According to ver. 59, Christ holds a conversation with the people in the synagogue at Capernaum; but it is not Capernaum that has been spoken of in the immediately preceding context in John. In chap. 5 we find Jesus in Jerusalem; and in John also Capernaum is not designated as the constant residence of Christ, His ἰδύαπόλις, so that His return thither from Jerusalem is not understood as a matter of course. Capernaum has hitherto been mentioned only twice in John,—in John 2:12, when Jesus stays there a few days on His journey to the feast at Jerusalem; and in John 4:46, where Jesus is appealed to for help from Capernaum,—but any residence there is not spoken of. We find ourselves involved in insurmountable difficulty, so long as we isolate the Gospel of John; but this difficulty vanishes, when, in harmony with antiquity, we perceive that he wrote only paralipomena. In Matthew 4:13 it is related how that Jesus left Nazareth, and settled in Capernaum. In the three first Gospels the latter place is represented as His “own city,” Matthew 9:1, to which He returns from all His journeys. Matthew 8:5; Matthew 17:24, and which was exalted to heaven by being the peculiar abode of Him who came down from heaven. If we regard the four Gospels as a whole, it cannot be doubted that Capernaum was the starting-point of the journey; and then, too, it is understood as a matter of course, that Jesus returned thither from Jerusalem. When Matthew first mentions the Lake of Gennesaret, he calls it “the Sea of Galilee,” and afterwards commonly, in reference to this passage, “the sea” (in Matthew 15:29, once more ἡθάλασσαντῆςΓαλιλαίας). The Galilean prefers to use the most stately expression for his national sea,—this being recommended also by the double symbolical action in which Jesus tested His miraculous power over the sea in a small compass on this lake. Matthew is followed by Mark. He calls the lake, when he first mentions it, ἡθάλασσαντῆςΓαλιλαίας, Mark 1:16; and afterwards usually ἡθάλασσα; but in Mark 7:31, τῆςΓαλιλαίας. Luke refrains from designating the lake as sea constantly, and therefore purposely. He has in Luke 5:1, παρὰτὴνλίμνηνΓεννησαρὲτ, and afterwards ἡλίμνη, Luke 8:22-23; Luke 8:33. John here designates the lake first as the “Sea of Galilee,” in the interest of harmony with Matthew; and he then adds a second designation, “of Tiberias,” because this was the current name in foreign countries at the time when he wrote. In John 21:1 he speaks merely of the Sea of Tiberias, showing that this was the name which was best known by his first readers, and that he here mentions the Sea of Galilee only in connection with his predecessors. The city of Tiberias, built by Antipas, and named after the Emperor Tiberius, was well-known in the Gentile world. Even Pausanias knows the lake by the name of the Lake of Tiberias, λίμνηΤιβαρίς, and in Arabic it is called Bahr Tabarieh. The chapter begins, in vers. 1-13, with the account of the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, with which is connected, in vers. 14-21, an account of the miracle on the sea following on the feeding. The parallels of the two accounts are Matthew 14:13-36, Mark 6:30-36; and of the first alone, Luke 9:10-17. John gives an account of three miracles in Judea, and three in Galilee: cf. on John 4:54. From the deep significance which he attributed to miracles, it was natural that he should give a particular account of a number of miracles, even though on the whole he referred, with respect to these, to the former Gospels, which had treated of them, with a special preference. That he communicates the account of these miracles not merely for the sake of the discourses connected with them, but as facts in which Christ’s glory was manifested, and which served the general purpose of the Gospel, to show that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, is evident from the circumstance, that there were no extended discourses connected with the two first Galilean miracles. These two first miracles are certainly such as the first Evangelists pass by; and John, as it seems, selected them for this reason. That he makes up the number three by this particular miracle of feeding, and the miracle on the sea connected with it, which had been already treated in detail in the three first Gospels, seems to be occasioned not only by their pre-eminent greatness, but also because by this means a basis was obtained for the communication of the highly important discourses which were appended to the feeding, and of that which took place on the voyage across the lake, concerning which it is to be observed, that the immediately preceding miraculous displays formed a basis for the heavy claims which Jesus laid on the people in these discourses. But it must always be insisted on, that the miracle has an independent significance. And if we consider of what importance is the agreement of all four Gospels in so important a fact as the feeding, we shall have no hesitation in taking this to be a collateral object of John, to confirm the narrative of his predecessors,[1]—a confirmation which transcends its own sphere, and indicates, that where John is silent, his silence is that of presupposition and acknowledgment, and that everywhere, where he has not made it his object to communicate something almost entirely new, his purpose is to supply to the former narratives subordinate circumstances, which are only appropriate to a detailed account. Ver. 2. “And a great multitude followed Him, because they saw His miracles which He did on them that were diseased.” John, says Lampe, refers to the numerous miracles which Jesus had performed in this year after His return from Judea, and which for the most part had respect to the healing of the sick. Cf. Luke 8:27 sq., and Matthew 9, especially Matthew 9:35. He thus in these words presupposes and confirms the narrative of the earlier Evangelists. Ver. 3. “And Jesus went up into the mountain, and there He sat with His disciples.” The article in τὸὄρος is generic, and the meaning is substantially the same as into a mountain, as Luther translates. Thus τὸὄρος occurs unquestionably several times in the first Gospels,—e.g., in Matthew 5:1; Matthew 14:23. The article is used as in τὸπλοῖον, Matthew 8:23; τὸτελώνιον, Matthew 9:9; ἡοἰκία, Matthew 9:28. The preference of Jesus for mountains is perceived from the first Gospels. They are a symbol of the elevation of the mind to God. The mind striving towards heaven loves to have the earth beneath the feet. From John we learn the locality only in general: a mountain on the eastern shore of the Lake of Tiberias. The more exact designation of the spot is given only by Luke, who says in Luke 9:10 : ὑπεχώρησεκατʼ ? ἰδίανεἰςπόλινκαλουμένηνΒηθσαϊδά. This Bethsaida must be different. from that occurring elsewhere in the Gospels, for it can be sought only on the eastern shore of the lake; and the name even, Fish-house, would lead us to expect a plurality of places so named. Bethsaida near Capernaum is never designated as a city,—it was, probably, merely the fishery-suburb of Capernaum. The designation, Bethsaida in Galilee, in John 12:21, indicates the existence of another Bethsaida out of Galilee.In striking accordance with Luke, a second Bethsaida on the eastern shore is mentioned by Josephus and Pliny (in his Hist. Nat. 5, 15). Josephus says (De bello Jude 1:1:2:9, 1), that Philip built Julias in lower Gaulonitis; and also (in his Antiq. 18, 2, 1), that Philip made the village, κώμη, Bethsaida into a city, and called it Julias. He did not merely grant it the privileges of a city, but also increased the population. That Jesus was for some time alone with His disciples on the mountain, is evident from the fact, that He could hardly have ascended the mountain for any other object, and from the expression, “He departed again into a mountain,” John 6:15,—according to which, the mountain must have been the first time also a place of retirement. With this is connected the statement of Mat 14:13, “When Jesus heard of it. He departed thence by ship into a desert place apart.” The word ἀνεχώρησε, which John here avoids, he supplies in ver. 15. Some time must have elapsed before the “multitudes,” who went by land (Matthew 14:13), followed Him. Much confusion has been caused by referring ἐξελθὼν, in Matthew 14:14, Mark 6:34, to the disembarkation of Jesus from the ship, and thus intimating that the purpose of Jesus to go into retirement with His disciples was frustrated by the circumstance, that immediately on landing they found the multitude again before them. Ἐξελθὼν occurs in the first Gospels by no means pre-eminently of a ship, but with respect to the most various localities: cf. Matthew 13:1; Matthew 15:21; Matthew 24:1. We are to supply here, not, “from the desert place,”—for this is the designation of the whole region, cf. Matthew 14:15; Mark 6:35; Luke 9:12,—but, “from retirement.” When Jesus with His disciples came forth from His concealment. He found the multitude already before Him—προῆλθοναὐτούς, Mark 6:33. Ver. 4. “And the Passover. a feast of the Jews, was nigh.” This remark cannot refer to the following of the multitude in ver. 2; for that this consisted of those who were on their way to the feast, there is not a word to show. The cause of their gathering together is expressly stated in ver. 2; and no other is needed, since this is perfectly sufficient, and the usual one. As little also can the remark have a chronological significance. John has, of course, had the chronology in view; but it is his manner to give such remarks in connection with the practical significance of the event concerned: cf. John 4:35, John 2:13, John 7:2, John 11:55; and there is therefore only one point of view left from which the remark may be regarded, viz., that Christ is the antitype of the Passover, the true Paschal Lamb. Christ has accordingly, in view of the approaching Passover, arranged the feeding of the multitude with the purpose of connecting with it the discourses, the central-point of which is, that His flesh is meat indeed. Quesnel: “Since the Passover is nigh. He gives an emblem of the wondrous Passover which He is preparing for His Church for time and for eternity.” In favour of this view is the analogy of the last Passover of Jesus, at which He so expressly points to Himself as the true Paschal Lamb. In answer to the question, “Can John really have intended this typical meaning?” it is sufficient to refer to John 19:36, where John at once refers that which is written concerning the paschal lamb to Christ; and it is less reasonable to claim that John must then have declared his meaning more plainly, since he is particularly fond of giving mysterious hints. We have here the third Passover occurring during the ministry of Christ,—the first in John 2:13, the second in John 5:1. This is the only Passover between the baptism of Jesus and His passion, to which He did not go up to Jerusalem. At the second, the Jews had gone so far as to seek to kill Him (John 5:16; John 5:18); and since His hour was not yet come, and it was not obligatory on Him as a religious duty to attend the Passover. He went out of the way of danger. Ver. 5. “When Jesus then lifted up His eyes, and saw a great company come unto Him, He saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” Jesus did not see the approaching multitude from the mountain, but after He had descended from the mountain to the shore of the lake, certainly to find there the multitude, to which He wished to show Himself as the Saviour. To this conclusion we are led by ver. 15, according to which Jesus, when the people sought to make Him a king, departed again into the mountain; so that this was a place of retirement on the first occasion also. Jesus was there alone with His disciples. This has been already said expressly by Matthew, according to whom, Jesus, ἐ ?îåëèὼ ?í—coming forth from His solitude—saw a great multitude. According to ver. 22 in Matthew’s account, Jesus, after the feeding, was on the shore of the lake with His disciples, and constrained them to get into a ship; and when He had dismissed the multitudes. He went up into a mountain apart to pray. The narrative is here abridged, and must be supplemented from the first Gospels. John could make this abridgment because he reckoned on this supplementation; and it is not his fault if some find a difficulty in it, because they misapprehend his relation to the three first Gospels, notwithstanding the hints which he has so plainly given. The necessity of the supplementation is evident even from the fact, that the ground for the feeding—“This is a desert place, and the time is now past,” Matthew 14:15, Mark 6:35—is wanting here. To the words, “When He saw a great company,” here, correspond the words, “He saw a great multitude,” in Matthew 14:14. To this must be added first, “He was moved with compassion towards them,” and “He began to teach them many things,” in Mark 6:34, and “He spake unto them of the kingdom of God,” in Luke 9:11. Then follows, “And when it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals,” Matthew 14:15. Then the account in Matthew 14:16-17 of Matthew is here given more in detail. While Jesus, in Matthew, speaks to the disciples in general, He has here to do with Philip and Andrew; but we are not to think of a contradiction to the first Gospels. It is merely what occurs between the seeing and the speaking which is passed over; and the speaking to the disciples, no less than that in the interval, was occasioned by the sight of the multitude. Ver. 6. “And this He said to prove him: for He Himself knew what He would do.” Some empty the words of their meaning by the remark, that the proving here does not denote the trial of faith, but whether Philip had any useful information. But decidedly opposed to this is the usual conception of trial in the Scriptures. Lampe: “Jesus proves for the same object for which temptation is attributed to God in Genesis 22:1; Hebrews 11:17, in order that the secrets of the heart may be made manifest to the disciples themselves and to others.” The meaning may be measured especially by 2 Corinthians 13:5 : Ἑαυτοὺςπειράζετεεἰἐστὲἐντῇπίστει,—according to which the degree of faith is ascertained by examination. Decisive also are the parallels from the Old Testament, to be spoken of presently, in which, before the commencement of the miraculous works of the Lord, doubt in His miraculous power is to manifest itself, in order that the latter may afterwards shine all the more brightly, and unbelief and little faith may be all the more deeply put to shame. Even in the words of Jesus to Philip there is implied an evident insufficiency of human means to feed the multitude; and this is more distinctly stated in the account of Matthew, which this presupposes, where Jesus, on the request of His disciples—”This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves victuals,”—says: “They need not depart; give ye them to eat;” to which are suitably added His words to Philip: “(But) whence shall we buy bread?” (the ἀγοράσωμεν in opposition to the ἀγοράσωσινἑαυτοῖς of the disciples.) If it was thus fixed that Jesus would be the host, in view of the manifest insufficiency of natural means, the thought of a miraculous feeding was very natural to those who had living faith, especially since similar facts had already occurred, as the changing of the water into wine, and since they had before them the miraculous feedings of the Old Testament. Quesnel, therefore, correctly places the object of the temptation in this, “to free us from too low and human conceptions of His omnipotence.” Why does Jesus apply to Philip? He did not address the three most advanced disciples, because by these an answer might have been given which would not correspond to the object of the question, by which the character of human nature was to be brought to light. Among the rest Philip occupied a somewhat prominent position. He was called soon after the three first, John 1:43; and is also mentioned several times elsewhere in John’s Gospel, John 1:46-49, John 12:21-22, John 14:8-9. Ver. 7. “Philip answered Him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.” Philip does not stand the testing. Not a thought occurs to him of miraculous assistance. Vers. 8, 9. “One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peters brother, saith unto Him, There is a lad here, who has five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?” Andrew seconds Philip. There are traces elsewhere, also, of an intimate connection between the two (cf. on John 1:44-45); for Mark (Mark 3:18) places them in immediate connection in the list of Apostles; and in John 12:22, Philip communicates the desire of the Greeks to see Jesus to Andrew, and they go together to Jesus. Andrew is designated as the brother of Simon Peter in John 1:41, exactly as in our text, but in John 12:12 merely as Andrew. In Matthew 14:17 it is said, “We have here,” etc. In Mark 6:38, Jesus says, “How many loaves have ye? go and see.” The disciples inform themselves on this point, and then say, “Five loaves and two fishes.” From this it is probable that the bread was in the hands of others, for the disciples would certainly have known the extent of their own scanty store. That which is hinted at by Mark is expressly recorded by John. The Apostles had the five loaves and two fishes only in so far that they were to be had. From the manner in which Andrew speaks of the boy, he had no connection with the Apostles, but had followed the multitude in order to make a little gain. The apparently superfluous ἐν, which is hence sometimes omitted, is used for the same reason as the diminutive παιδάριον, to call attention to the insufficiency of the means. That one small boy can carry, must, as a matter of course, and without specification, be regarded as insufficient. The five loaves are common to all the Evangelists, as well as the two fishes; but it is peculiar to John that the loaves were of barley bread. Each of the four Evangelists has such peculiar traits, in proof that none of them has merely drawn from his predecessors. Barley bread occurs in Judges 7:13 as the poorest kind of bread (cf. Studer on this passage); and likewise in 2 Kings 7:1, Ezekiel 4:12. The fishes are to be understood as already prepared. Ὀψάρια, that which is eaten with bread, as a relish, occurs of fishes only in John—here, and in John 21:9-10; John 21:13. It is an usage of language in which the only fisherman among the Evangelists may be recognised, even as Amos, the husbandman, by his picture of rural objects. Fish forms the usual relish of fishermen, as we see in chap. 21. Ver. 10. “And Jesus said. Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.” The number is the same in all the four Gospels, and the ὡσεὶ, “about,” is also added by Matthew and Luke. The mention of the ἄνδρες as sitting down, in distinction from the ἀνθρώπους in the direction of the Lord, has light thrown upon it by the addition of Mat 14:21 : beside women and children (Mark, Mark 6:44, and Luke, Luke 9:14, have merely ἄνδρες). The men only were numbered, but the women and children also seated themselves, as is shown by the direction of the Lord. The grass is mentioned by Matthew and Mark. Matthew says that Jesus commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass. Mark mentions the green grass, which plainly shows how little right we have to attribute to Mark, who loves to communicate such slight features, a mere compilation not derived from an eye-witness. The mention of the green grass coincides with the indication of the time here in ver. 4. There is green grass in Palestine only in the early spring, for, as a rule, there is no rain from March to October (Von Raumer, S. 90). Robinson says: “During the summer the entire absence of rain soon destroys the fresh verdure of the fields, and gives the whole country an appearance of dryness and barrenness. The only thing that remains green is the foliage of the scattered fruit-trees, and sometimes also vineyards and millet-fields. The dark screen of the broad fig leaves and of the millet is truly refreshing to the eye amid the general dryness.” Ver. 11. “And Jesus took the loaves; and when He had given thanks. He distributed to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.” In Luther’s translation there is a double deviation from the original text. The words, τοῖςμαθηταῖς, οἱδὲμαθηταὶ, which he translates with the rest, have been introduced into the text from Matthew. Luther also translates: as much as he would, according to a reading, ἤθελεν, which is not at all supported by the MSS. Instead of εὐχαριστήσας, Matthew in Matthew 14:19 has εὐλόγησε, while at the second feeding in Matthew 15:36 he gives εὐχαριστήσας, as here. The verbs are frequently used interchangeably. Mark, e.g., at the second feeding in Mark 8:6-7, has εὐχαριστήσας for the loaves, and εὐλογήσας for the fishes. Matthew, in his account of the institution of the Supper, has εὐλογήσας in Matthew 26:26 in respect of the bread, and of the cup, in Matthew 26:27, εὐχαριστήσας, which Luke uses in Luke 22:19 of the bread. Cf. also 1 Corinthians 14:16. Εὐλογεῖν alone is used in such cases, as the interchange with εὐχαριστεῖν shows, in the sense of to praise and bless, corresponding to the Hebrew αψκ, for εὐλογεῖντὸνΘεόν. Luke 1:64; Luke 2:28; Luke 24:53. With this blessing upwards, however, is connected at the same time also a downward blessing, or a blessing on the use of the bread. This is indicated by εὐλόγησεναὐτοὺς in Luke 9:16, which cannot be a mere abbreviated expression for He thanked God for them: cf. Luke 2:34; Luke 24:50; Mark 10:16, where it is said that Jesus blessed little children. The same connection of blessing upwards and blessing downwards meets us in 1 Samuel 9:13, where it is said of Samuel, “He doth bless the sacrifice, and afterwards they eat that be bidden.” We are led to the same result also by the nature of the case. The effective point of the miraculous increase must manifestly be contained in the εὐλογήσας or εὐχαριστήσας; and that the blessing virtue was in the thanksgiving, is distinctly intimated here in ver. 23. The prayer which is sure to be heard is expressed in the form of praise and thanksgiving. John 11:41 is explanatory: ὁδὲἸησοῦςἦρεντοὺςὀφθαλμοὺςἄνωκαὶεἶπεν, Πάτερ, εὐχαριστῶσοιὅτιἤκουσάςμου. Here also the Lord expresses the request for a miraculous interposition in the form of thanksgiving. Jesus praises and gives thanks on occasion of the feeding, not as at the usual grace for meat, but because God has so wonderfully blessed the small provision. The same remark applies to the blessing and giving of thanks at the institution of the Supper, for here also it is the form in which the common food is changed into the supernatural. The expression of a request in the form of a thanksgiving which presupposes its being heard, is frequently used in the Old Testament. It was on this ground, e.g., that the thank-offerings, the ωμξιν, were at the same time precatory offerings,—the nation, to whom had been vouchsafed a revelation, having a God who hears prayer, and to whom they might approach in full confidence of being heard. Here, however, this form of thanksgiving had a special ground. Jesus, in the unity of His will with the Fathers, receives immediately that for which He prays, and may therefore always allow thanksgiving to take the place of prayer. That Jesus distributed the bread through the intervention of the disciples was already known to us from Matthew (Matthew 14:19); and John represents that which was done by the disciples as done by Jesus, exactly as in John 3:22, cf. John 4:2. It is thus less probable that the increase took place in the hands of Jesus only, but the miraculous power passed over from Him to His instruments. Augustine remarks: “majus miraculum est gubernatio totius mundi, quam saturatio quinque millium hominum de quinque panibus: et tamen haec nemo miratur illud mirantur homines non quia majus est, sed quia rarum est.” But Augustine, with perfect correctness, points out, that we should turn our eyes from the outward result as such to the infinitely more important symbolical, prophetic significance of the occurrence: “Non tamen sufficit haec intueri in miraculis Christi. Interrogemus ipsa miracula, quid nobis loquantur de Christo: habent si intelligantur linguam suam. Nam quia ipse Christus verbum Dei est, etiam factum Verbi verbura nobis est.” Now this symbolical meaning we may thus determine, that Christ, whose peculiar mission it was to be a Saviour to the souls of men, yet possesses a miraculous power of spiritual nourishment for His people, and that in the desert of this life He miraculously preserves and spiritually provides for His Church, not excluding outward expedients, but only allowing them a subordinate value. It is, so to speak, in order, that those who by their own fault have not experienced in their heart this power of Christ of spiritual nourishment, and to whom He has not become the bread of life, should entertain doubts with respect to the outward feeding. Ver. 12. “When they were filled, He said unto His disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” This command is given here only; the earlier accounts relate merely that the Apostles made the collection. The object of the command is given in the words of Jesus, that nothing be lost. The blessing which had come from the hands of God was not to be wantonly squandered. Frugality is a result and sign of gratitude. Yet this is not all; for the fact that all the Evangelists are so exact in their communication of the result of the collection, shows us that this had at the same time the object to bring to light the greatness of the miracle by which the Father sealed the Son, ver. 23. Ver. 13. “Therefore they gathered together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above to them that had eaten.” The remnants of the fishes are mentioned only by Mark, being considered by the others too insignificant to be mentioned; and even in Mark it is only the fragments of bread that are designated as κλάσματα. In respect of the bread he has κατέκλασε, in respect of the fishes ἐμέρισε, and in ver. 43—καὶἦρανκλάσματαδώδεκακοφίνωνπληρώματακαὶἀπὸτῶνἰχθύων—the κλάσματα are evidently fragments of bread, in distinction from the remnants of the fishes. Twelve baskets are mentioned by all the Evangelists, in distinction from the seven baskets at the second feeding. The baskets were probably found among the multitude, who had brought in them the provisions which they had already consumed. They were so frequently used by the Jews, that Martial (Epigr. 5, 17) calls the Jews in ridicule cistiferos. Since the five loaves with the two fishes, brought by the boy, probably formed the contents of one basket, that which was collected exceeded that which there was before the miracle about twelvefold. The accordance of the Evangelists and the great number of witnesses give this fact the greatest external authentication; and coincident with it is the confirmation which it has received by the experience of the miraculous power of Christ in feeding His followers through the course of so many centuries. We have now to cast a glance at the Old Testament types of this fact; and first of all must be considered the type of the manna and quails, which, according to ver. 31, occurs also to the people. That the locality is here also the desert (Ἔρημόςἐστινὁτόπος, Matthew 14:15, Mark 6:35) is not an accidental circumstance, but typifies the absolute helplessness of human nature. As Moses considers it absolutely impossible that the whole people should be provided with food, so our Lord purposely brings it about, that the Apostles express the same doubt, that thus may be manifest the character of human nature in its fallen state, and as it is always directed to earthly causes, and that the miracle may make the deeper impression from the contrast of the thought and the reality. In Numbers 11:17-20 the Lord expressed to Moses His purpose, in order to put to shame their murmuring, to give His people flesh to eat, and this for a whole month. Upon this Moses says in vers. 21, 22: “The people, among whom I am, are six hundred thousand footmen; and Thou hast said, I will give them flesh, that they may eat a whole month. Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them? or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to suffice them?” LXX. καὶἀρκέσειαὐτοῖς. Cf. here ver. 7. “And Jehovah said unto Moses,” it is said in ver. 23, “Is Jehovah’s hand waxed short? thou shalt see now whether My word shall come to pass unto thee or not.” Christ does not take the position of Moses, but that of Jehovah. Precisely as Moses is related to Jehovah, are the disciples related to Christ, in whom the Angel of Jehovah, with whom Moses had intercourse, has appeared in the flesh and has come unto His own. The weakness of the faith of Moses is enhanced in the unbelief of the people, of whom it is written in Psalms 78:19-20, “Yea, they spake against God: they said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness? Behold, He smote the rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed; can He give bread also? can He provide flesh for His people?” The manna also had a symbolical meaning. The object for which it was granted is thus stated in the Books of Moses himself, Deuteronomy 8:3, “That He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by all that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD.” By the manna, Israel is shown that God alone is his preserver, that the power of preserving does not inhere in bread, and that in all bodily and spiritual need he should look upwards for help. As intermediate between the feeding in the wilderness and Christ’s feeding the multitude, are to be regarded the increase of the scanty store of meal and oil of the widow of Zarephath by Elijah, in 1 Kings 17; the increase of the widows oil by Elisha, in 2 Kings 4:1-7; and the occurrence in 2 Kings 4:42-44. A man of Baal-shalisha brings twenty loaves of barley to the man of God, and Elisha says unto his servant, “Give unto the people, that they may eat. And his servant said. What! should I set this before an hundred men? He said again, Give the people, that they may eat: for thus saith the Lord, They shall eat and shall leave. So he set before them, and they did eat and left over, according to the word of the LORD.” In reference to this fact, Christ gives the command: συσαγώγετετὰπερισσεύσαντακλάσματα. Elisha does not work the miracle, he only predicts it. Like Moses at the feeding in the wilderness, he is entirely passive; and Christ does not take his position, but that of Jehovah. Chap. John 6:14-21 We have here the second seal by which the Father distinguishes the Son, the second miraculous act by which He proves His right to those high claims which He makes in the discourses which follow both the acts—claims which, though so great, can in view of the facts be regarded as mere assumptions only by the blindness of unbelief. The section has however, of course, together with this, its own independent significance. The fact recorded in it has a symbolical and prophetic character, and contains a rich mine of encouragement for the Church. The basis for the present symbolical action of our Lord is formed by Psalms 107:23-32 : “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in many waters; these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. For He spake, and raised a stormy wind, which lifted up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so He bringeth them to their desired haven. O that they would praise the LORD for His goodness, and His wonderful works to the children of men! Let them exalt Him also in the congregation of the people, and praise Him in the assembly of the elders.” According to many expositors, this Psalm portrays the continual course of Divine providence, the deliverances which God vouchsafes to the various classes of sufferers; and we should consequently understand the above section of sea-farers in the ordinary sense. But the beginning of the Psalm is decisive against this; the historical occasion of it being there expressly and purposely stated. According to vers. 2 and 3, it is to be sung by “the redeemed of the Lord, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy; and gathered them out of all lands, from the rising and from the setting, from the north and from the sea.” Such a situation occurs but once in the history of Israel. Under the Old Dispensation there was but one great national dispersion, that prophesied in Jeremiah 15:4 : “And I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth;” and but one great national gathering, that from the Babylonian captivity. If the Psalm refers to this, it celebrates the favour of the restoration of the people from captivity; and it is established that this whole section has a figurative character, the Lord’s chosen people delivered from captivity being represented under the figure of sea-farers, who by Divine grace have been enabled to withstand a great storm at sea, and to arrive at their destined haven. The deliverance of the Lord’s people is in this Psalm celebrated in a series, or, so to speak, in a row of varying pictures, of those who wandered hungry and thirsty in the desert, and are now suddenly brought to an inhabited city—of those who were bound in dark prisons, but are now liberated—of those who were sick unto death, but are now restored; and, finally, in this section, of those who have successfully encountered a great storm at sea. The sea is in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments a symbol of the world. Daniel, in chap. 7, beholds four great beasts come up from the sea, all different from each other, which were the empires of the world following one upon the other. In the Apocalypse (John 13:1) it is said, “And I saw a beast rise up out of the sea,” i.e., a king rise up in the world. The point of comparison is in the first place their massiveness. And then the constant unrest, in which the mass of the nations is like the sea, as Isaiah (Isaiah 57:20) says of the ungodly, the citizens of the kingdom of this world, “They are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest.” In Psalms 46:3 the principle of this unrest is represented as being pride, which, not content with the lot appointed by God, is continually seeking to excel others, and to usurp all to itself. And, finally, another point of comparison is the wild roaring which takes place from time to time, especially against the kingdom of God. “The waters therefore roar, are troubled,” it is said of the spiritual sea of the world in Psalms 46; and in Psalms 93 the Lord, in His calm omnipotent majesty, is opposed to the sea of the world raging against the Church. “The floods lift up, O Lord, the floods lift up their voice. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, the mighty waves of the sea.” Believers who are in the world are represented under the figure of those who voyage on the sea, and do business there as mariners, tradesmen, or fishermen. This is to indicate that their lot is a very exposed one. There is no calling more dangerous, or which so forcibly points upwards, as that of the seaman. The ships, “since many people are there brought together, having all the same object, danger, interest, and injury,” denote, in the symbolical language of Scripture, communities. In Isaiah 33:21; Isaiah 33:23, the ships signify states. Likewise also in Revelation 8:9, where, in the prediction of a great catastrophe which should devastate the world, it is said, “And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea (the sea of the world, meaning men) and had life died, and the third part of the ships were destroyed.” Here the ships are the symbol of the Church of God: and likewise in our Lord’s symbolical actions, which are based on the passage in the Psalms, the ship denotes the Church, which was of old collected in the ark. “We are all,” says Augustine, “in the ship. Some labour, others are only passengers; but all together suffer danger in the storm, and are delivered in the haven.” The winds in Scripture denote the sufferings and temptations appointed by God. Job, in John 9:17, complains of God that He breaks him with a tempest, and multiplies his wounds without cause. In Psalms 103:16 it is said, “For the wind passeth over him, and he is not, and his place knoweth him no more.” The wind is meant of sufferings, afflictions, diseases, which assail feeble mortals. In 1 Kings 19:11, the great and strong wind, rending the mountains, and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord, denotes the storm of temptations and afflictions which came upon the Church, and its representative the prophet, and to which at last even his rock-like nature threatened to succumb. The strong storm from the north in Ezekiel 1:4 typifies the Chaldean catastrophe. The winds which in Matthew 7:25 blow and beat upon the house, are an emblem of the temptations by which faith is exercised, and the solidity of the spiritual house is put to the proof. In Revelation 7:1, four angels stand on the four corners of the earth, and hold the four winds of the earth, that no wind blow upon the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree, to intimate that all afflictions come from the hand of God, and that it is He who withholds them, and sends them when they come to pass. “He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still:” this is the happy issue which is ever granted to the Church of God on earth; this is its great privilege above the world, on which the destroying storms of Divine judgment so often break, because it will not cry unto the Lord in its distresses, and because no thanks are to be expected from it after its deliverance. The times of quiet and refreshing are represented under the figure of a calm after a storm also in 1 Kings 19. The storm, earthquake, and fire, in which the Lord is not, are an emblem of the heavy afflictions in which the Lord conceals Himself from the Church, whose representative the prophet is to be considered; as Job so often complains in his sufferings that the Lord is no longer with him, when he expresses the wish, “Oh that I knew where I might find Him, might come to His seat!” as in Psalms 42 it is the Psalmists thorn of pain, that his enemies say unto him, “Where is thy God?”—the still murmuring encourages the prophet: after severe temptations there is the loving help of the Lord. Now, that which in the Psalm meets us as a figure, is here embodied by the Lord in a double symbolical action, the key and interpretation of which is given in the preceding figurative representation of the Psalm. It is a relation which occurs frequently elsewhere also. Even in the Old Testament the case is not infrequent, that what were only figures originally, were afterwards embodied by men of God in symbolical actions, inwardly or outwardly performed. Thus, e.g., the symbolical action which Jeremiah performs, when he receives the Lord’s commission: “Take this wine-cup full of fury at My hand, and give of it to all the nations to whom I send thee, that they drink, stagger, and be mad, before the sword which I will send among them” (Jeremiah 25:15-16), is founded on Isaiah 51, where the Lord says: “Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His fury. Behold, I have taken out of thy hand the cup of trembling; thou shalt no more drink it again, but I will put it into the hands of them that afflict thee. The symbolical actions of Jeremiah are usually based on such a figure in one of the older prophets.[1] But in the New Testament our Lord’s symbolical actions are, as a rule, founded on the figures of the Old Testament. His entry into Jerusalem, e.g., embodies the word of Zechariah, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.” The expulsion of the buyers and sellers from the temple gives a visible representation of the word of Malachi, “The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, and the covenant-Angel whom ye desire; behold, He cometh, saith Jehovah Sabaoth;” and of Zechariah, “There shall no more be a Canaanite, a merchant (one of Canaan, of the traffickers sort, and not of Judah), in the house of the Lord of hosts.” The cursing of the fig-tree, finally, is founded on the declaration of Micah (John 7:1): “Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits—there is no cluster to eat: my soul desires the early figs,”—the meaning of which is expressed by the prophet himself in the words, “The good has disappeared from the land, and there is none upright among the children of men;” and then follows a threatening of judgment. The shore of the Lake of Gennesaret, on both sides, had been already designated by Isaiah (Isaiah 8:23) as the principal scene of Christ’s activity, and we might expect that the lake itself would not be left unvisited. In a double symbolical action, performed at different times, it is represented as a type of the sea of this world. The first of these actions is described in the section, Matthew 8:23-27, to which Mark 4:35-41 and Luke 8:22-25 serve for a supplement. The occurrence typifies in the most significant manner the relation of Christ to His whole Church, and likewise to every individual soul. It is a prophetic act which is continually being fulfilled, and will be most gloriously verified at the end of days. Christ suffers His own to fall into manifold temptations. Often, by concealing His aid, He seems to sleep; but when little faith fancies it sees complete destruction palpably before it, and when it appears boundless folly even to hope, then He suddenly manifests His aid. The fact, that our Lord has embodied the figure of the 107th Psalm the second time in a symbolical action, proves how very much He desired deeply to impress this conception on the hearts of His disciples. The manifold symbolical elements could not be completely brought out in one action, and a second is therefore added as a supplement. This event, which occurs at the time of Jesus last Passover but one, and therefore at a time when the passion of our Lord, and the closely connected passion of believers in Him, already began to come into the foreground, is recorded by Matthew in John 14:22-31, by Mark in John 6:45-56, and by John in this section. (Luke does not touch on it, doubtless, because he was unable to afford any supplementary particulars.) Christ, who is the heart of all the three Gospels, leaves His disciples, who are on the unquiet sea of the world, threatened by the storms of temptation, and danger both inward and outward. He allows them to wait long for Him, but finally approaches, unrecognised at first by His disciples, and the danger vanishes. This event is greatly enhanced in view of the former one. Then Christ was present in the ship, though asleep; but now He is absent. Then it was day; but now the darkness of night increases the danger and the fear Christ’s absence, and especially His stay on the mountain, during the danger of His disciples, and the night, are the two most peculiar features of the narrative. Ver. 15. “When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take Him by force, to make Him a king. He departed again into a mountain Himself alone.” Calvin: “Volebant Christum rapere, h. e. violento impetu regem quasi invitum facere volebant.” He adds, “quare si probari illi cupimus, quum deferimus honorem, semper quid postulet spectandum est.” That the people wished to force Christ, shows that they had an obscure feeling of the incompatibility with His character of that ordinary royalty which they sought to impose upon Him. The omission of ðÜëéí in some critical aids is explained by the circumstance, that according to ver. 5, the first stay of Jesus on the mountain did not appear to be for the purpose of retirement. But we have already shown that this is mere appearance. The real object of the stay of Jesus on the mountain had been already stated by Matthew and Mark. After He had compelled the disciples, who could with difficulty part from their beloved Master, to embark alone. He had gone thither alone to pray for His disciples, that in the severe temptation to which He must expose them, their faith might not fail. The Church Fathers, especially Cyril and Augustine, already perceived in this withdrawal of Jesus to the mountain a prefiguration of His ascent into heaven, where He is at the right hand of God, and intercedes for His disciples, who are tossed about on the stormy sea of the world.[1] Ver. 16. “And when even was come, His disciples went down unto the sea, Ver. 17. And entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum.” The necessary supplement is afforded by Matthew and Mark, from whom we learn that Jesus had commanded the disciples to cross the sea without Him. As He so rarely parted from His disciples, and as they were so unwilling to go alone (He was obliged to constrain them), He must have had important reasons for this; and what these were, we learn from the result. Their departure took place before Jesus retired to the mountain; for He does not dismiss the multitude till after the Apostles have embarked, and then Pie goes to the mountain. John tells us first what Jesus did in view of the popular attempt to make Him a king, and then turns to the disciples. The ὀ ?øßá, or latter part of the evening, cf. Matthew 14:15; Matthew 14:23, was also the time when Jesus withdrew to the mountain. But it is mentioned here first that even was now come, because this was of significance to the disciples. To the statement that even was come is afterwards added: “and it was now dark.” It is under all circumstances a critical thing to embark on the deep without Jesus, but especially so when it is evening, and when the day has already declined, and the dark night is coming on with its dangers and fears. “And it was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them. Ver. 18. And the sea arose, by reason of a great wind that blew.”—“It is well said,” remarks Augustine, “that it was now dark, for Jesus was not yet come.” This it really was that made darkness dark to them; for if they had had the Light of the world with them, night would have been turned into day. Augustine perceives in this darkness a type of the condition which, according to the Scripture, will begin when the end of the world is at hand. “The more the end of the world draws nigh, the more do errors increase,—the more do fears, unrighteousness, unbelief, increase.” The sea arose, by reason of a great wind. “They stood still more in danger,” says Augustine, “from the doubt in their mind, than from being as to their bodies among the waves.” The outward danger is described more particularly by Matthew. “But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves; for the wind was contrary.” It is really said, that the ship was tormented by the waves,—that being transferred to the ship which was felt by those who were in it. Their condition was a hard one. The wind being contrary, they were obliged to row; and this was severe toil, which yet brought them little on their way. Mark, however, causes one ray of light to fall on this gloomy picture, when he tells us that Jesus, as He prayed on the mountain, saw them being thus troubled (ver. 48),—a trait which he doubtless received from Peter, who received it from his Master. By such seeing, Jesus made Himself known as He who once said: “I have seen the affliction of My people in Egypt,” Exodus 3:7; who also numbered the wanderings of David, and had all his tears in view, Psalms 56:8. Such a seeing of Jesus is guaranteed to the Church of all times, and especially in its deep distress at the end of days, by the fact, that the Son of man is at the same time the Lord of heaven. “He that hath formed the eye, shall He not see?” But this is not an idle seeing, it is the seeing of omnipotent love, which prepares help and brings it, when the time and hour have come which He has foreordained. Ver. 19. “So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid.” The ἐληλακότες, “when they had rowed,” is in harmony with the account of Matthew, that the wind was against them; and requires this fact. John has mentioned only the strength of the wind. The statement, ἐφοβήθησαν, “they were afraid,” likewise needs to be supplemented from the earlier accounts. The circumstance that Jesus addresses them on the ground of their fear, presupposes that their fear was not merely an inward emotion, but in some way made itself known. Matthew and Mark expressly tell us so. The former to ἐταράχθησαν adds, καὶἀπὸτοῦφόβουἔκραξαν. According to Matthew, the ship was in the midst of the sea, μέσοντῆςθαλάσσης. The more exact statement is given here, that they had rowed from twenty-five to thirty stadia. Josephus (Jewish War 3, 10, 7) makes the lake one hundred and forty stadia in length, and forty stadia in breadth. Robinson determines the greatest breadth of the lake to be about six English miles, but the breadth near Tiberias only five, which would correspond to the forty stadia. The ὡς added is characteristic. Lampe: “religiosorura sane testium est, nihil incertum etiam quoad minimas circumstantias ut certum definire.” The time of the coming of Jesus is more exactly stated by Matthew and Mark, according to whom Jesus came to the disciples on the sea at the fourth and last watch of the night, and therefore at the break of day. So long a time had Jesus passed in prayer, and the disciples in severe toil, distress, and anxiety! How often in the meanwhile had they called, “Watchman, is the night past?” It was the same watch of the night which is in Exodus 14:24 designated as the morning watch, when the Lord looked through the pillar of fire and cloud, and troubled the camp of the Egyptians, so that the Egyptians said: “Let us flee from the face of Israel, for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians:” it was also the time when the waters returned and covered the horses and riders, with all the host of Pharaoh. It is appropriate to the symbolism of the whole event, that the distress lasts through the whole night, and deliverance comes at the morning dawn, which is the natural type of salvation; as also it was not accidental, in that case of old, that the sea returned at the dawn of the morning, nor that the resurrection of Christ, that great emblem of all salvation to the Church, took place in the early morning, and occasion was given to the Church to sing, “Welcome to me the darkest night, If there the Saviour’s presence bright Beam forth upon the soul dismayed, And say, ‘Tis I! be not afraid!’” The symbolism is the same when David sings, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning;” and further, “I will sing of Thy mercy in the morning;” and when the sons of Koralh say from Zion, “God helpeth her at the morning dawn.” Jesus shows His power over the sea, first, by walking upon it in spite of its raging billows. He follows in this the example of Jehovah, who once of old walked upon the sea, as the Psalmist says (Psalms 77:19), “Thy way was in the sea, and Thy path in many waters, and Thy footsteps were not known.” The symbolical meaning of this occurrence was rightly perceived already by Augustine: “Although this ship is troubled by the storms of temptation, it yet sees its Lord and God walk upon the heights of the sea,—that is, upon all the dominions of this world.” So also Von Chemnitz: “The Lord will redeem His people at the fourth watch of the night,—that is, at the end of time, when the night of this world is almost at an end. In the meanwhile, the raging sea, however much it may murmur under the footsteps of the Lord, is yet compelled, willingly or unwillingly, to bear Him; even as, however much the heights of this world and its powers may rise, yet our Head treads upon their head.” To walk upon the heights of the sea is represented in the Old Testament as the high privilege of God. “He alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the heights of the sea,” Job 9:8. The fact that Jesus shares this privilege, shows that His Church may calmly, and with cheerful serenity, behold the raging of the sea. The disciples were afraid when they saw Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship. Whence this fear, instead of the exultant joy which we might have expected? John does not himself answer this question, and therefore refers, as plainly as if he had expressly done so, to his predecessors, in whom we do find the answer. Matthew says: “And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying. It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.” So also Mark. Apparitions were regarded as the heralds of impending destruction. It is significant, that the disciples at first mistook Christ, who came to put an end to all distress, for a harbinger of destruction. It reminds us that we are too shortsighted, and that often we do not measure appearances by the true standard; that our Saviour often comes in strange apparel; and that those very facts which seem to set immediate ruin before us, are frequently the heralds of approaching salvation, and that therefore we must be cautious about crying out for fear. Ver. 20. “But He saith unto them. It is I; be not afraid. Ver. 21. Then they wished to take Him into the ship: and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went.” If, according to the error of our times, and contrary to the custom of universal antiquity, we tear asunder the Gospel of John from the earlier Gospels, there may certainly be some hesitation in supplying the circumstance that Jesus really came on board the vessel. But if John’s presupposes the earlier narrative, he might content himself with intimating that afterwards the disciples desired to take Jesus into the ship. The statement, “they wished,” is opposed to their former fear, when Jesus drew nigh unto the ship: now they wished to take Him into the ship, and after they had done so, they were immediately at the land. A gross contradiction would be nowhere less in place than here, where all else is in harmony even to the minutest particular. The rendering, they wished indeed to do this, but it was rendered unnecessary, etc., etc., would be justified only if but stood in the place of and. The emblem also would have been entirely spoiled if Jesus had not entered the ship, for its central-point is the opposition of without and within. It was the peculiar revelation of Christ’s glory, that the very moment that He stepped on board the ship the wind was calmed, so that in a brief time the short remaining space was traversed. We are not, in accordance with the other Gospels, to suppose any further miracle than the calming of the wind. The words of Psalms 107—“He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof were still. Then were they glad because they were quiet; so He brought them to their desired haven”—here received a new fulfilment, being embodied in a fact, which is at the same time a prophecy, and as such is rich in encouragement. This, then, is the event, in so far as the Evangelists have it in common. The first Apostle of the Evangelists communicates another fact—the walking of Peter on the sea—which the others pass by, doubtless because he had fully imparted it, and there were no materials left to be gleaned. It comes between the word of Christ, “I am He, be not afraid,” and His coming on board the little vessel, which, though in itself so frail, became by His presence impregnable. Chap. John 6:22-59 Give an account of the conversation of Jesus with the Jews, which followed on the feeding, and in which Jesus pointed to Himself as the true bread. This and the subsequent conversation with the Apostles, John 6:60-71, are peculiar to John. Ver. 25. “And when they had found Him on the other side of the sea, they said unto Him, Rabbi, when earnest Thou hither?” According to ver. 59, they found Jesus in the synagogue at Capernaum. But on the other side of the sea: this was what surprised them, and the question was as to the manner in which He crossed the sea. The Jews speak six times, and Jesus answers six times, so that the conference is completed in the number twelve. The question as to the time, is at the same time also a question as to the manner. If Jesus had come to Capernaum at the same time as His disciples. He must have done so in a miraculous manner; for they had seen that Jesus had not embarked with His disciples, and that there had been no other ship there. But they were interested in the manner, in so far as they hoped that the miraculous power therein made known might be exerted in furtherance, not indeed of the salvation of their souls, but of their worldly prosperity. He whom the Sea of Tiberias must obey, could not be withstood by the sea of nations, and would be an excellent king to feed His people. This perverse disposition of mind, which prompted the question, explains why Jesus did not give them any answer, but proceeded at once to speak of other things. If they had put the question in the interest of their immortal souls, in order to learn of the saving power which Jesus had for these, the question would not have remained unanswered. Jesus would have expressly told them what He now admits by His silence, that He had crossed the sea in a miraculous manner, and therefore possessed the power to sway the troubled sea of their lusts and passions, and to conduct the ship of the Church into the haven of eternal life. But as they now ask in the interest of their lusts. He leads their minds from the external to the internal, from the thought of earthly food and outward prosperity to the true nourishment for the soul, that food of eternal life which had been typified by the outward food. Augustine: “Ille post miraculi sacramentum et sermonem infert, ut si fieri potest, qui pasti sunt pascantur, quorum satiavit panibus ventres, satiet et sermonibus mentes; sed si capiant.”[1] Ver. 26. “Jesus answered them, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you. Ye seek Me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.” The outward act of Jesus is an intimation of the powers and treasures which He possesses for the exercise of His peculiar calling—the impartation of eternal life, which is the only aim worthy of God’s people, and the only gift worthy of the true Saviour. He who does not in the miracles of Jesus see signs in this sense, but only the beginnings of an activity directed to outward earthly blessing, degrades at the same time both himself and the Saviour. Yet those Jews have still many associates in Christian lands, for it is temporal prosperity which most persons seek in Christ (Augustine: “Vix quaeritur Jesus propter Jesum”); and when this is withheld, they are offended. While they eat bread and are satisfied, they are grateful and faithful; but when trial comes, and the temporal is taken from them, then they fall away. This is a deeply-seated fault of human nature. Jesus here evinces Himself to be He who knows what is in man, John 2:24-25. That He does not express psychological conjectures, but speaks as He who tries the hearts and the reins, is shown by the lively asseveration, ἀμὴνἀμὴνλέγωὑμῖν (cf. at John 1:51), which recurs four times in this discourse, John 6:32; John 6:47; John 6:53, and always points to Jesus as He in whom we may place absolute confidence, because He speaks that which He knows, and testifies that which He has seen. Jesus here showed at the same time that He is unconditionally exalted above the people, and having nothing to seek from them, has no reason to flatter their perverse inclinations, to which course those are condemned, who come in their own name. Ver. 27. “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 the Father sealed, God.” As Jesus, when speaking to the woman of Samaria, passed over from the bodily to the spiritual water, so here He passes from the bodily to the spiritual bread. And so likewise here He designates Himself as the bread of life, as He had then designated Himself as the water of life. The meat which endures unto everlasting life here, corresponds to the water, which becomes a fountain springing up into everlasting life, in John 4:14. The meat which the Son of man gives is, according to ver. 33, Himself. He gives the meat, by giving an interest in Himself. The meat, in itself perishable. Matthew 15:17, cannot afford imperishable well-being, and is therefore of subordinate importance; and on the same line with the perishable meat lies all that which serves for the furtherance of the earthly existence. Calvin: “Noverat hominum sensus terrenis curis devinctos teneri.” Quesnel: “When we regard all worldly conditions, is it not true that we find there almost all men engaged solely in care for perishable food, or in thoughts of a still more perishable and vain happiness, as though it was for this that man had received life?” That they are to labour for the higher food, and thus to gain it, shows that faith—in which the work, according to ver. 29, consists—is no pillow for idleness, but demands a greater spiritual energy than the performance of so-called good works. It is indolence which keeps so many from believing. They will not rouse themselves from their natural state, which by use has become dear to them; they have a great aversion to the earnestness of repentance, which is the foundation of all true faith; and they shun the effort to collect their scattered senses from the many to the one object of faith. How inseparable working and struggling are from faith, and how far from it is all dead passivity, was typified even in primitive times by the wrestling of Jacob. Faith is also represented as work, ἔργον, in opposition to all false quietism, in 1 Thessalonians 1:3, where the parallel κόπος serves for explanation; and in 2 Thessalonians 1:11 also Paul speaks of the ἔργονπίστεως. In Philippians 2:12, he speaks of a working out of salvation. We are not to conclude from the word labour that faith is a human work, in direct opposition to ver. 44, according to which no one can come to the Son except the Father draw him, and to ver. 65. The working is not performed independently, but in dependence on God, who always grants the will and the accomplishment, Philippians 2:13. There can be no thought of an independent working in the domain of that revelation which even on its first pages declares the essence of piety to consist in walking with God, and this to be the only means of resistance against the might of the deep corruption which has come upon human nature in consequence of the Fall: Genesis 5:24; Genesis 6:9. Faith is not itself the meat, nor that which can nourish and refresh the soul,—this is Christ, ver. 35; His flesh and His blood, ver. 55,—but is only the precondition of the reception of the food, the praying hand stretched out to receive it. The benefits of salvation to be afforded by Christ are represented under the figure of meat and drink in Isaiah 55:1-2. The kernel of this salvation we learn from chap. 53. It is redemption and atonement by the Servant of God. Yet we are not to stop with this. It is rather the entire fulness of salvation in Christ which is designated, by which the hungry and thirsty soul is satisfied. The expression labour here, corresponds to the thrice repeated come and buy in Isaiah 55:1 : “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money: come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price.” That the coming and buying take place by means of repentance, which is the indispensable condition of a participation in salvation, is shown by what follows: cf. vers. 6 and 7.—“Which the Son of man shall give unto you.” They are required to labour now for the meat; and accordingly the future δώσει can refer only to the presupposition of the labour, and not to the passion and glorification of Christ: q.d., which the Son of man shall give you at once, so soon as you have performed the requisition to labour by faith, and its ground-work repentance. Christ designates Himself as the Son of man in reference to the Divine glory which, according to the original passage in Daniel, was hidden behind His lowly human appearance. Cf. at John 1:51. The fact of the human abasement of Christ formed a sharp contrast to the fact that He here represents Himself as the only bestower of the gift which is unto eternal life. Christ allows the contrast, but takes from it its strangeness by the reference to the prophecy of Daniel, in which the Son of man is at the same time the Lord from heaven.—“For Him hath the Father, God, sealed.” The expression, to seal, occurred already in John 3:33, in the sense of to confirm. The seal of confirmation which the Father has impressed on the Son consists in the works, John 5:36, which are so many signs. Christ is speaking to those who at the feeding of the five thousand had just been present at such a sealing, and who had also some knowledge of the miracle upon the sea, ver. 26. Luther: “The Father has hung His seal and bull on the Son. As though He should say: See to it, that ye adhere stedfastly to this. If another teaching comes, which would feed thee eternally, but has not that seal and these letters as Christ has, be on thy guard against it.” To the Father is added ὁΘεός, “to render more prominent the highest authority.” Ver. 28. “Then said they unto Him, What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” In explanation of the works of God here, may serve the sacrifices of God in Psalms 51:19, which are those required by Him, and well-pleasing to Him; this being shown by the antithesis to ver. 17, and the parallelism: cf. the ways of God in ver. 13. In Jeremiah 48:10, “Cursed is he that doeth the work of the Lord remissly,” the work of the Lord is that required by Him, and therefore well-pleasing to Him. The answer of the Jews testifies, according to the correct remark of Olshausen, “plainly of a certain spiritual understanding.” From the ἐργάζεσθε, labour, they rightly conclude that Jesus requires an effort on their part as the condition of obtaining the exalted good placed by Him in prospect. Those give too much meaning to the plural, who conclude from it that they at once thought of good works in the Jewish sense. They abstain from any judgment in reference to the more precise character of that which is to be done, washing first only to learn what Christ understands by it. To work the works of God is a specific conception, just as the sacrifices of God in Psalms 51 are specific, for only one sacrifice follows: “the sacrifices of God are a broken heart.” They ask what they are to do in this case, in order to be able to respond to the general requisition to do what is well-pleasing to God. They might as well have asked. What in this case is the work of God which we are to work? Christ meets them with a simple answer to their question, and not a correction of it, as though one, necessary work were opposed to their multiplicity of works. There is the less ground for such an opposition, since even the one work of faith comprises a multiplicity of acts and works; so that the plural would not refer to the ordinary Jewish works, even if the generic character of the expression should be denied. Ver. 29. “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.” Against those who hold that faith is here called a work of God, because it is effected by God, it has been already remarked by Lampe, that “the Jews had inquired concerning a work, which they wished to work.” What had not the Jews to do and to work in order to believe in Christ? What “great labour” (Luther sings in his sacramental hymn, “Jesus Christ our Saviour”—“Such mighty grace and favour the heart must seek oft with great labour”) was here imposed upon them? The Jew was obliged to break with ecclesiastical tradition, which presented before him a false image of the Messiah—with all the authorities, which had already at that time assumed a decided opposition to Christ—with public opinion, and with his own fleshly lusts—he must give the death-blow to his honour among men, and, what was the most difficult, to all dreams of his own excellence, and all claims to be, or to be able to do something, or to be of some account, of himself. (Calvin: “Fides nihil ad Deum affert, quin potius hominem vacuum et inopem sistit coram Deo, ut Christo ejusque gratia impleatur.” Quesnel: “The law of works, which only puffs up, is now reduced to the single law of faith, which humbles a man, and takes from him all ground of boasting.”) This was a work above all other works, a struggle for life and death. Luther: “This is taught by trial and experience, that to depend on God’s word, so that the heart is not terrified by sin and death, but trusts and believes God, is a much severer and more difficult thing than the Carthusians or all the orders of monks.” To believe in Christ was to give up all on which the heart had hitherto depended, to tear out from it the dearest “possessions of the heart” (Job 17:11). The Jew lost the communion of his people (John 16:2), of his kindred (Matthew 10:35), of himself (Luke 14:26). To believe was to renounce all that he had, and to return to the same condition in which he had come into the world. The Pharisees were the straitest of sects, but the endless multiplicity of their demands weighs lighter than a feather against the one work which Christ requires. Ver. 30. “They said therefore unto Him, What sign showest Thou then, that we may see, and believe Thee? what dost Thou work? Ver. 31. Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” The τίἐργάζῃ is the pointed Jewish answer to the ἐργάζεσθε. The Berleb. Bibel: “What dost Thou work? Here they wished as it were to present again and give back to Christ the word work: We return it, and say. What dost Thou work? So rude and insolent is man.” The point would be less fine if they had added the σύ, which is only carried on from what precedes. They have comprehended the greatness and difficulty of the demand which Christ makes upon them. In order to be able to require so much, and to make upon us the demand to give up ourselves, Thou must do much greater works in proof of Thy authority than Thou hast yet done. Thou requirest infinitely more than Moses, and yet Moses did a much greater work. Thy feeding cannot compare with the miracle of the manna. The Jews thought themselves very cunning in this requisition. They overlooked only one thing, that Christ’s miracles were only signs, which were to point them to the majesty of His person. It was their own fault that they had no regard to this, the real miracle. If they had had eyes to see (Deuteronomy 29:3), the manna of the desert, even in the unhistorical exaggerated representation of it which was then current (cf. the Book of Wisdom, and my essay. Misunderstandings with respect to the Manna, at the close of the treatise on Balaam), would have appeared to them as something very small when compared with the gift which was now offered them. For the very reason that Moses was nothing more than a poor frail man, he needed the stronger outward proofs that he was one sent of God. By indirectly making the demand on Christ to outbid the manna, they at the same time lead the matter back, as it were, unremarked, and with supposed craftiness, to that domain from which Christ had driven it in ver. 26. They wish to cause him to be a Messiah in the Jewish sense, who cares for the body, and lets “eternal life” go. Proceeding on the conception that the whole of the Old Testament is the word of God, it is of slight importance to ascertain where precisely the words quoted are to be found. The preference which is perceptible in the New Testament for such general forms of citation is always founded on this conception. It is said in Exodus 16:4, “Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you;” in John 16:15, “And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord gives you to eat” LXX.: Οὗτοςὁἄρτος, ὃνἔδωκενκύριοςὑμῖνφαγεῖν; in Psalms 78:24, “And He rained down manna upon them to eat, and gave them of the corn of heaven.” The Jews have in view all these passages together. As the quotation professes to be a verbal one, we are not to stop with the two former passages. The αὐτοῖς is from the Psalms. But we are not to stop merely with this, for it is not natural that the real fundamental passages should be left out of account. The highly emphatic words, from heaven, ἐκτοῦοὐρανοῦ, form the antithesis to the common earthly bread which they had eaten on the day before. The Berleb. Bibel: “From Moses we saw great signs from heaven, but from Thee only a little from earth.” In reference to this “from heaven,” Jesus, as first pointed out by Bengel, says seven times in what follows, that He came down from heaven, vers. 32, 33, 38, 50, 51, 58, 62. It was an anachronism to require bread from heaven, while this bread, to which the former was related as the shadow to the substance—this bread, to eat which is eternal life—was already in their midst. “So is it with an atheist,” remarks Quesnel, “who demands proofs of the Deity, although every day he meets with miracles, which having continued from the beginning of the world in a certain order and regularity, which they never disown, are therefore only the more wonderful than passing miracles.” Ver. 32. “Then Jesus said unto them. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.” Moses had indeed given bread from heaven, but not the bread, q.d., the true bread,—the bread, compared with which, all other bread from heaven is not regarded, being considered as not-bread. The true bread forms the antithesis to the perishable meat, which gives nourishment only to the body. The soul is represented even in the Old Testament, first in Genesis 49:6, as the λαεγ, the glory, the pars melior of man. Only that heavenly bread which nourishes this can be regarded as the true bread, of which the manna was prefigurative; and it is folly to demand this after the appearance of the antitype. When God is designated as the Father of Jesus Christ, it is implied in this, not less than in the Present δίδωσι in opposition to δέδωκε, that the feeding pertains to the present, and is in connection with the advent of Christ, or His epiphany, with which the proclamation of the Son by the Father is coincident, Matthew 3:17. Ver. 33. “For the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.” We are not to interpunctuate after ὁκαταβαίνωνἐκτοῦοὐρανοῦ, but must connect this, which is common to the heavenly bread of Mosaic times with Christ (it is said that the manna came down from heaven in Numbers 11:9, LXX.: κατέβαινετὸμαννα), with what follows, by which the new heavenly bread is distinguished from the old. We have the carrying out of the thought in vers. 49, 50. That ὁκαταβαίνων does not refer directly to Christ, but to the bread, is evident even from the answer of the Jews, which presupposes that Jesus had not yet pronounced concerning the identity of the bread and His own person, which He does first in ver. 35, then in ὁἄρτοςὁἐκτοῦοὐρανοῦκαταβαίνων in ver. 50, and ὁἄρτοςὁἐκτοῦοὐρανοῦκαταβὰς, vers. 41, 51. The participle Present also is opposed to the direct reference to Christ, for He has already come down from heaven; but the bread, the nourishing virtue proceeding from Him, comes down anew, whenever there are hearts capable of receiving it. Cf. the Future δώσει in ver. 27. The whole world apart from Christ is represented as lying in death, in harmony with the declaration, “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die;” for in the whole wide universe. He is the only point whence life proceeds. Cf. the remarks on the words, “in Him was life,” of the Prologue. There is, perhaps, in the life-giving bread here a reference to the death-bringing food of yore. In view of our incapacity to raise ourselves to the heavenly source of all life, it is a great grace that the life has come down to us, and is thus brought within our reach. On the words, “and giveth life unto the world,” the Berleburger Bibel says, “There they got the true wide horizon before them. It was necessary to say this to the Jews, for they applied everything to their nation. Thus they must be introduced into God’s wider circle. Such a Messiah must be so for the whole world.” Only the bread which gives life to the world, and imparts to all men a happy immortality, truly deserves the name of the bread of God, and not the manna, which only in a lower and imperfect sense is called in Psalms 78:25, “bread of the mighty,” bread from the region of the angels, or bread of heaven. Ver. 34. “Then said they unto Him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.” We have no reason, with some old expositors, to call this answer of the Jews an apple of Sodom. Even the address κύριε shows that they do not wish to mock, but are in earnest with their request. They do not know what this bread is in itself, but perceive thus much, that it must be something very glorious, and that Jesus sets before them something more exalted than the extolled manna of the desert. The similarity of the answer of the Jews here to the answer of the Samaritan woman in John 4:15, is explained by the fact, that it is the same Jesus who draws forth both the one and the other answer. On both occasions He had placed in prospect a glorious good—there a precious drink, here a precious food,—and not until He had called forth the expression of desire for it, did He explain the connection of this good with His own person. The πάντοτε refers to the transient character of the feeding which Jesus had just granted, and reference is made to πάντοτε here by πώποτε in ver. 35. Ver. 35. “And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst.” Luther: “These words should be written on the heart with golden letters, yea, with living letters (that would be better), so that every one might know where he should leave his soul, and where he was to go, when he should leave this world; or so that, when he went to bed, or rose in the morning, or did anything else, he might know this golden piece of art: Here in Christ stays my soul, so that I need not hunger nor thirst.” The bread of life is, according to ver. 33, the bread which gives life. There is nothing implied in the form of the expression that is inaccessible to the Jews. The good things of the Messianic kingdom had been already represented under the figure of a rich repast in Isaiah 25:6, “And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things.” “They shall not hunger nor thirst,” it is said with respect to the times of Christ in Isaiah 49:10. Cf. remarks on John 4:14. In Isaiah 55 the good things of Christ’s kingdom had been represented under the figure of a precious drink and a glorious feast: “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price. 2. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not? Hearken, hearken unto Me, and eat ye good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” To this passage, in which the Messianic salvation is represented as the only food which quenches hunger and thirst, the Lord distinctly refers, together with Isaiah 49:10. By the reference to these passages the circumstance is explained, that to the declaration that they shall not hunger, which alone stands in relation to bread, it is added that they shall not thirst. From Isaiah 55 are also taken the words, ὁἐρχόμενοςπρὸςμὲ: cf. ver. 3, “Incline your ear, and come unto Me: hear, and your soul shall live.” Even in ver. 1 of this original passage, solid food or bread is promised together with the drink, being implied by the exhortation, eat. To the words, οὐμὴπεινάσῃ, corresponds in the original passage, ωαψε, buy. The verb ωαψ does not signify to buy in general, but only that buying which procures the means of quieting the sense of hunger. Corn in Genesis 42:19 is called ωαψ, because it breaks or stills hunger. Calvin rightly emphasizes the words, “that Cometh unto Me: “neque enim quidquam incredulis prodest Christum esse panem vitae, quia vacui semper manent: sed tunc efficitur Christus panis noster, cum famelici ad eum accedimus ut nos impleat.” Ver. 36. “But I said unto you. That ye also have seen Me, and believe not.” The rendering of Meyer, “but I wish to tell you,” has no justification in New Testament usage. There can be no doubt that Jesus refers to some expression which had occurred in the present conversation, just as in ver. 65 He refers to a word which He had spoken in ver. 44; and this can be found only in ver. 26: “Ye seek Me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.” That this reproach amounts to that of unbelief is shown by ver. 29, where Jesus designates it as the task still to be performed by the Jews, that they should believe on Him; and by ver. 30, where the Jews concede the fact of their unbelief. What else was it but unbelief, when in that which had taken place, the healings of the sick and the feeding, they had perceived no sign, and when they had not been led by these to the recognition of that which was really essential in the appearance of Christ? To believe is nothing else but to recognise this, to perceive in Christ the Son of God, the Saviour, and the Bestower of eternal life. He who regards Him only as one who can procure for him some advantages in this life, is still in unbelief. This seeing of Jesus is shown, by comparison with ver. 26, to be not an ordinary seeing, which would form no contrast to their unbelief, but a seeing of Him in the exercise of His calling, and the full radiation of His Divine nature, as on the previous day, and at the feeding of the five thousand, when Jesus had taught, healed, and fed. By all these revelations of His character, which are continued in the Church, they had not been led to the knowledge of Him. These facts were to have been signs to them; but they had not been so, for how then could they have desired new and greater miracles from Christ? This desire shows that they had not yet penetrated into the miracle of His person. In the previous verse it is the glorious benefits which are laid up in Christ for human need that are spoken of; but here, alas! the Jews are excluded from these by their unbelief. To this is then added, in vers. 37-40, a further declaration concerning that which Christ vouchsafes to His followers, which is forfeited by unbelief in which is also included an urgent invitation to renounce unbelief. It treats at last of nothing less than the resurrection at the last day, and eternal life. Woe unto him who excludes himself from this by his unbelief. Ver. 37. “All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me: and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” Luther: “When the Lord says. Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out. He wishes in a gracious manner to image forth and portray Himself for us, in order that we may know how to regard Him. Thou art not to fear Him, or to think that He is an angry judge, who stands with a scourge behind the door, and wishes to judge thee or condemn thee; for He is the true Bishop of souls, a true teacher and a faithful pastor.” To the giving of the Father here (cf. ver. 65, John 10:29, John 17:12), corresponds the drawing of the Father in ver. 44. The Lord speaks the words, “All that the Father giveth Me shall come unto Me,” in view of the unbelief of so many, and to their shame. Unbelief thinks itself great, and imagines itself to be independent, and exalted above Christ, whom it refuses to acknowledge, whose claims it rejects, and on whom it sits in judgment. In opposition to this, Christ discloses another point of view. All that the Father has given Him comes to Him; and none can come to Him except the Father has given it him. The chief reason why they do not come to Him, is not in their own will, but in a decretive act of God, which excludes them from Christ, and thus from the source of all salvation. There is no absolute predestination taught in this. The declaration, Ye would not, Matthew 23:37, remains still in force. How else could Christ reckon to them their unbelief, as is the case throughout this discourse, as a moral offence? The decretive act of God is based on the position which they occupy. They shall not, only because they will not. But the relation is seen in quite a different light, and the pride of unbelief receives a powerful impulse, if this is represented as fate. These words, however, spoken certainly with the mildest accent, do not contain the main thought. This is contained rather in the words, “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out,” so certainly as in ver. 37-40 all has the object to present the glorious blessings which are laid up in Christ, and thus to allure some to faith in Him. The casting out is common to the discourses of Christ in John, cf. John 15:6, and in the first Gospels, cf. John 8:12, Luke 13:28. It is founded on the comparison of the kingdom of God, or the Church of Christ, with a building, a dwelling-house, full of light and pleasantness, but without the dark night, into which he is thrust who is not agreeable to the lord of the house. The words, “I will in no wise cast out,” refer here not merely to the first acceptance, but, as shown by vers. 39, 40 (cf. also John 10:28), to constant support and protection. Ver. 38. “For I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. Ver. 39. And this is the will of Him who hath sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.” With respect to the coming down of Christ from heaven, cf. remarks on John 3:13. Christ’s opposing the will of Him that sent Him to His own will, is with reference to the error of the Jews, who wished to erect a wall of separation between Him and the Father. In opposition to them, He renders prominent the fact, that it is not merely His will, but at the same time that of the Father, that His own should become partakers of everlasting bliss. That ἀπόλλυμι stands here with the signification of to lose, is shown by comparison with John 12:25, John 17:12, John 18:9. Christ loses none of those whom the Father has given Him, because He preserves, and guards them, John 17:12, and allows none to pluck them out of His hand, John 10:28. The resurrection at the last day is represented not as the whole, but as the completion, of the salvation which Christ imparts to His own. From the moment of their believing He is unto them the bread of life, and this life attains its perfection at the resurrection. (Bengel: “Hic finis est, ultra quem periculum nullum. Citeriora omnia praestat Salvator.”) Calvin, however, with perfect correctness, points out, that the emphasis on the resurrection presupposes, that until it takes place, the life of all believers is in many ways still tainted with death. The words, ἀναστήσωαὐτὸνἐντῇἐσχάτῃἡμέρᾳ, form a kind of refrain. They recur again in vers. 40, 44, 54. The words in which Christ subjoins the final decision should be indelibly impressed on, and be as a goad, to all hearts. The resurrection is here used in an emphatic sense. The ἀνάστασιςκρίσεως, John 5:29, is left out of account, as a resurrection which is no resurrection. We have here one last day, on which at the same time the resurrection of all the members of Christ takes place. The doctrine of a double resurrection of the righteous is opposed to the words of Christ, and it has also the Apocalypse, when correctly understood, not in its favour, but in opposition to it. Ver. 40. “For this is the will of My Father, that every one who seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” He who sees the Son, θεωρῶν, with the bodily eye during His appearance in the flesh, or with the eye of the spirit after He has ascended to heaven. The seeing is the precondition of faith. He who is to believe must necessarily have Christ placed before him. Faith, however, is not the necessary consequence of seeing; for we may see Christ, and yet not believe on Him, cf. ver. 36. “Eternal life” is that which makes the resurrection at the last day, which alone had been spoken of in ver. 39, so desirable. Although eternal life has its prelude even on this side the grave, cf.” remarks on John 3:15, yet here, where it stands in immediate connection with the resurrection, it is only its full realization in the future which is to be understood. Cf. the ἀνάστασιςζωῆς in John 5:29. Ver. 41. “The Jews then murmured at Him, because He said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. Ver. 42. 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?”—Γυγγύζειν has the meaning of to whisper only in John 7:32, but elsewhere in the New Testament always the meaning of to murmur; and this meaning is recommended here by the unmistakeable connection of this passage with those passages of the Old Testament in which a murmuring, γογύζειν, of the Jews is spoken of, in accordance with which, the word ἐγόγγυζον is to be regarded as provided, as it were, with quotation-marks. The Jews here verified, as the word intimates, their character as already known from the Old Testament. As they had before murmured against Jehovah, so now they murmur against Christ. Cf. Exodus 16:7-9, Numbers 11:1 : καὶἦνὁλαὸςγογγύζωνπονηρὰἔναντικυρίου; Numbers 14:27, where God says to Moses and Aaron: ἃαὐτοῦγογγύζουσινἐναντίονἐμοῦ, τὴνγόγγυσιντῶνυἱῶνΙσραηλ, ἣνἐγόγγυσανπερὶὑμῶν, ἀκήκοα. Cf. Psalms 106:25, Wisdom 46:7. 1 Corinthians 10:10 indicates that the expression is taken from the Old Testament: μηδὲγογγύζετε, καθάπερτινὲςαὐτῶνἐγόγγυσαν. We are not to suppose that here others came up, who were farther from Christ. The rising opposition is explained by the fact, that Christ now presents His claims more distinctly, at which those took offence who had been hitherto apparently well-disposed towards Him. They now first perceive what is His real design. And the circumstance that His opponents are here first designated as “the Jews” (cf. remarks on John 1:19), is explained by the fact, that they now for the first time fully manifested that disposition which afterwards brought the Jews in a compact mass into opposition to the Christian Church. The Jews understood the words of Christ perfectly well, as generally in this conversation it is not a question of misunderstandings, but of the offence which is taken at the words of Christ as correctly understood. They perceived that Christ, in His assertion of His having come down from heaven, ascribed to Himself a full participation in the Divine glory, and that on the ground of this glory He claimed an absolute superiority. This it was which roused their rebellious spirits. They would willingly have allowed Him the Messianic dignity, and even a certain divinity; but He was only to be the first among those in nature like Himself. His claim to be very God, and to be absolutely above them, was insufferable, and moved them to withhold any acknowledgment from Christ. Was He not a “son of man” like them, and, besides this, of mean origin? The supposed fact of His descent from Joseph, and whatever else was connected with this, at which the people of Nazareth had already taken offence, appeared to them to be a convincing instance against such presumption. At this apparent fact they directed their constant gaze, and took away their eyes from beholding the works of Christ, such as had been done by no other, and this before their seeing eyes. The Jews are here the representatives of the natural man, who is untouched by Divine grace. The words of Augustine point out the deepest ground of their opposition: “Panis quippe iste interioris hominis quaerit esuriem: unde alio loco dicit: beati qui esuriunt et sitiunt justitiam, quoniam ipsi saturabuntur.” He whose heart is filled with pride, who does not feel his own misery, and who needs no Saviour, his whole nature must rebel when Christ meets him with the words, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” Quesnel says, “The great truths confuse the weak, and render blind the wicked, while at the same time they console the humble children of God. A great number of dogs, which tear to pieces the preachers of the truth, or of swine, which tread them under foot, may not hinder the lambs and the doves from being fed.” Vers. 43, 44. “Jesus therefore answered and said unto them. Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to Me, except the Father, who hath sent Me, draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” The Jews thought that Jesus had given them offence by His intolerable assumption; but Jesus points out that the offence which they had taken, rests on an entirely different ground, viz., that they have not been drawn by the Father to Him, and have thus remained in their corrupt state of nature, in the stupidity and blindness of the flesh, which is incapable of perceiving Divine things, or of entering into relation to them. (Calvin: “ideo non sapit, quia insipidura vobis est palatum.”) Where there is not this drawing of the Father, there arise of themselves various erroneous conceptions and offences. Would that, instead of murmuring, they would rather open their hearts (Augustine: “nondum traheris? ora ut traharis”), that the Father may draw them to the Son, and thus render them partakers of eternal life! The drawing of the Father is connected with subjective conditions; for if it were not so, this conversation with the Jews would have no object. The desire of the soul must meet the attractive influence, the feeling of one’s own misery, the desire for redemption, the beseeching hand stretched out upwards. It is the fault of the Jews that they are not drawn, just as in Deuteronomy 29:4 it is said, “Yet the Lord hath not given you any heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day,” not to excuse, but to accuse the Jews. With the heart as it is by nature, swollen with conceit and pride, they cannot draw near to Christ (Calvin: “opus esse nova mente et novo sensu”); it must be their aim to obtain a new heart, which can come only by the gift of God. Lampe supposes, if it is certain that he who is drawn by the Father will attain to the resurrection, none can fall from grace. But if the commencement of the drawing is subjectively conditioned, its continuance also may be endangered by the ceasing of the subjective conditions. It is said in John 12:32, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me,” according to which, the drawing is also the work of the Son; and this is confirmed by ver. 46, here, according to which, there is no relation to the Father but that which is mediated by the Son. Even in the Old Testament passage, of which we are to speak presently, the drawing is attributed to the Messiah. It is attributed to the Father here, as the highest cause, for the reason that the Jews acknowledged the Father, and were labouring to raise a partition-wall between Christ and the Father. The drawing is here, and in John 12:32, taken from Son 1:4 : cf. my Commentary on the passage. There also the drawing designates an internal influence on the mind. There also the following is made absolutely dependent on the drawing: “Draw me, so will we run after Thee.” The two passages are further based on those dependent on the original passage, Jeremiah 31:3, Hosea 11:4. The words, ὁπέμψαςμε, intimate the ground of the drawing: He who has sent Christ, must also lead susceptible hearts to Him. The words, “And I will raise him up at the last day,” indicate of what great importance it is to yield to the attraction of the Father. The great question is here pending concerning blessedness or perdition. The resurrection is here also that of the righteous. The other scarcely deserves the name, for it is only the completion of death. Ver. 45. “It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every one therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto Me.” That which Jesus had said of the necessity of a renewal of the heart from above, as the condition of a participation in the Messianic salvation (Augustine: “Quare hoc dixi, o Judaei? Pater vos non docuit: quomodo potestis me agnoscere?”). He proves from the writings of the Old Testament, the authority acknowledged by the Jews, and which He here presents as raised above all doubt.[1] The declaration quoted pertains to one prophet only, Isaiah. The general formula of citation indicates that this individual case is only one link of a whole chain, or, as the Berleburger Bibel says, “The harmony of the prophets arises from the fact, that they all speak from one mouth.” As here the individual is generalized to an entire class, so elsewhere, in the phrases, γέγραπταιλέγειἡγραφή, etc., it is to the entire course of the sacred Scriptures: cf. John 13:18, John 17:12. When the prophets in general are mentioned, the attention is more withdrawn from the human instrument and directed to the heavenly Author, as for the same reason the prophet is frequently spoken of, with the omission of the proper name: cf., ex. gr., Matthew 1:22; Matthew 2:5; Matthew 2:15; Matthew 13:35. Entirely analogous is Acts 13:40, where one passage, Habakkuk 1:5, is quoted with the formula, τὸεἰρημένονἐντοῖςπροφήταις, and likewise Acts 7:42. In Isaiah 54:13 it is said, “And all thy sons (O Zion) shall be taught of the Lord.” There can be no doubt as to what is the principal subject of the instruction. The central-point of prophetic prediction in the second pail is formed by the advent and the atoning sufferings of the Servant of God. The real classical passage, the climax of the second part, is formed by the immediately preceding chap. 53, in which all the salvation of the world is made dependent on the atoning death of this Mediator. Chap. 54 stands in close connection with this chapter. It portrays the glory which should accrue to the people of God in consequence of the appearance of the Mediator. The LXX. translate: καὶπάνταςτοὺςυἱούςσουδιδακτοὺςΘεοῦ. They had already preceded in setting Θεοῦ instead of κυρίου. “Thy sons” is omitted here, because it did not come into account for the present purpose.—“Every man who hears and learns of the Father.” According to John 16:13, it is the Holy Spirit who guides into all truth. The Father, however, works, as through the Son, so also through the Holy Spirit. From Him at last cometh every good gift, James 1:17. Ver. 46. “Not that any man hath seen the Father, save He which is of God, He hath seen the Father.” Jesus had spoken in the foregoing verses of a drawing by the Father, and of a hearing and learning of the Father. Now this might easily be understood of an immediate relation to the Father, and then the mediation of Christ might seem to be superfluous. Christ here guards against this false apprehension. There is no other access to the Father but by the Son. He alone stands to the Father in an immediate relation. By communion with Him only can a relation to the Father be obtained: cf. remarks on John 1:18, John 5:38. We are not to determine the sense thus: that the drawing of the Father, the hearing and the learning of Him, proceeds no further than to lead to the Son,—the closer and deeper relation to the Father can be obtained only by the Son. The drawing of the Father is also through the Son, and is mediated by Him, as is shown by the original passage, Son 1:4, and John 12:32. “Without Me ye can do nothing, says Jesus in John 15:5. It would be in contradiction to John’s whole conception of Christ, and likewise also to the declaration of the Lord in Matthew 11:27, if the first and fundamental access to Christ could be obtained without Christ, to whom all things are delivered by the Father. There is no opposition here between seeing and hearing; but, together with all seeing that is not mediated by Christ, is also denied all immediate hearing, learning, and being drawn. The Lord indicates that He has spoken of the drawing of the Father, and the hearing and learning of Him, only in opposition to the character of human nature as left to itself, which can never come to Him, and in whose bands the poor Jews lay bound, but not in opposition to the mediation to be granted by Him, which is always to be understood where a relation to the Father is treated of, whose operations are all performed through the Son. Our verse forms at the same time the transition from vers. 44, 45, to the renewed declaration following in vers. 47-51, of the gifts and graces which are laid up in Christ for those who are hungering for salvation. Jesus is in this conversation always alike in the prominence He gives to the exceeding majesty of His own person, and so also the Jews in their attacks upon it. Ver. 47. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life.” The threefold repetition of the Amen with respect to the same subject is the less to be regarded as accidental, since even in the Old Testament the threefold repetition is frequently used for corroboration; ex. gr., in Ezekiel 21:32; Jeremiah 6:3. Jesus first presents here that which He grants to His own in unfigurative language (cf. John 3:15); and then in the following verse recurs to the figure of bread, peculiar to this conversation. The way has already been prepared for what is here said in the preceding verse. Ver. 48. “I am that bread of life.” The bread which gives life to the world, ver. 33. Ver. 49. “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. Ver. 50. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.” Jesus admits what the Jews had said in ver. 31, “Our fathers did eat manna in the desert;” but He points out the unsatisfying nature of this gift by adding: “and—are dead!” This does not apply to the true bread, which has come into the world. For the death of the Christian is not to be called a death,—“death has become a sleep.” “Your fathers, He says, and not ours; and by this He shows that He has a more exalted origin than they thought,” ver. 42 (Bengel). Ver. 51. “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.” That the words ὁζῶν have here their full meaning, and do not designate merely the personal bread in contrast to the material manna, is evident even from the declaration based upon them, “he shall live for ever.” and from ver. 57. This living nature can be predicated in its full sense only of God, and Christ could ascribe it to Himself only on account of His community of essence with the Father. God is repeatedly called the Living even in the Old Testament: Numbers 14:21; Deuteronomy 32:40; Joshua 3:10. The living bread is at the same time that which bestows life, ver. 57. Jehovah is frequently designated the Living in the Old Testament, with reference to the quickening power which proceeds from Him to His people. On Psalms 18:46, “The Lord liveth,” it was remarked in my Commentary, “The Lord is named living in contrast with the dead idols, who can do nothing, leave their own without support, given up to destruction. That David was living, showed that his God was also living. He is himself the living proof of His vitality.” So also on Psalms 42:2, “My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God:” “His God is not a phantom, which, itself dead, is also incapable of imparting life; He is the living, and consequently the life-giving: comp. the corresponding phrase, ‘The God of my life,’ in ver. 8, rich in salvation for His people.” Collateral with the declaration. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever, is this, If any man eat not of this bread, he shall die eternally. Wherever there seems to be life without this eating, it is but a concealed death, and will in due time throw off its disguise. Καὶὁἄρτοςδὲ: καὶ intimates the connection of the thought to be expressed with what precedes; δὲ, that it is not a mere repetition, but here takes a new turn. “Δὲ ?—says Winer, Gram. 393—is frequently used, where only something new, other and different from what precedes, but not entirely opposite, is added.” Καὶ here is not, as frequently, where it occurs in connection with δὲ, also, but and; cf. καί—δέ in 1 John 1:3. Now that which is new here is, that Jesus, while He had hitherto spoken of Himself as the bread of life, and this indeed even at the beginning of the verse, now designates more particularly His flesh as the bread which He will give. It seems that in this He refers back to the occurrences of Mosaic times. Moses had given to his people flesh as well as bread: cf. Psalms 78:19. As the antitype, Christ in His own person gives both at the same time, the true bread and the true flesh. The external authorities favour the omission of the words, ἥνἐγὼδώσω; and it is difficult to see how they came to be left out, if they formed a part of the original text. The addition, on the other hand, might easily be occasioned by the circumstances, that the early readers could make nothing of the mere expression, ὑπὲρτῆςτοῦκόσμουζωῆς; that ὑπέρ occurs with respect to the atoning death of Christ in Luke 22:19-20, τὸὑπὲρὑμῶνδιδόμενον, τὸὑπὲρὑμῶνἐκχυννόμενον, as also in John 10:11; John 10:15; John 11:51-52, and in many passages of the Epistles; and that, from a false apprehension of the first δώσω, and in untimely comparison of passages like Matthew 20:28, Galatians 1:4, they thought that this atoning death must be meant. The words, ὑπὲρτῆςτοῦκόσμουζωῆς, need no supplementation. They form a clause in apposition, which states the object for which Jesus gives His flesh as bread: ὑπέρ, in the interest of, for. Winer, Gramm. S. 342. We have the commentary immediately afterwards in vers. 53, 54, 57, 58, where life is represented as absolutely dependent on the eating of Christ’s flesh. But even if we allow the additional clause, ἥνἐγὼδώσω, to be genuine, we must not take it in the sense, that Jesus intimates that His flesh, before it can be offered for food, must first pass through the atoning death, or that only after the atoning death it will receive power to become the food of life; but we must understand ἥνἐγὼδώσω not of the sacrificial offering, but of the offering for food, so that the sense is entirely the same as if the words had been omitted: q.d., And I will indeed give or dispense My flesh. It is decisive in favour of the latter rendering of the words, if they are regarded as genuine, that in the following verses, where Christ carries out the thought here expressed, it is not His atoning death which is spoken of, but always the eating of the δώσω, corresponding to the first δώσω, nowhere its offering. There is not the slightest hint, that the eating of the flesh pertains purely to the future, as must have been the case if the atoning death were made a condition of it; but everything leads to the conclusion, that Jesus invites the Jews to eat His flesh even in the present. We may not say that even the first δώσω points to the future. Δώσει occurred even in ver. 27, because Jesus had to do with those who have not yet received the gift, and because the realization of the condition, the coming to Jesus, must precede the bestowment of the gift. But with this is interchanged in ver. 32 the Present δίδωσιν, in order to indicate that the gift is even now to be had, and in ver. 33 the bread of God is designated as that which gives, διδούς, life to the world. The Jews have certainly, in ver. 52, only the first δώσω in view (or if at the same time the second, only in the sense of the first), to which they correctly supply (φαγεῖν; for if bread or flesh is given, it is given only to be eaten. The thought that Jesus is speaking of a future feeding, which is to be rendered possible only by His death, does not once occur to these persons, who do not on this occasion misunderstand the words of Jesus, but oppose themselves to them as correctly understood. They ask. How can this man give us His flesh to eat? The flesh of Christ is, according to John 1:14, John 17:2, 1 John 4:2, His humanity. The flesh of Christ is, of course, not the cause of life in itself, but only as penetrated by the Divine essence. But this Divine essence alone could not have exercised the life-giving power, for the bridge of connection between it and the human race would have been wanting. Only Christ as God-man could be our Saviour. The Jews took offence at the flesh; they were scandalized that a man like them should make such disproportionate demands; but it is this very flesh which gives life to the world. The same cause produced the offence and the life. That which Christ here says of His flesh was prepared for in ver. 27, where it is the Son of man who gives the meat which endureth unto everlasting life. It was in opposition to the offence which the theanthropic nature of Christ gives to human thought, and especially to human inclination—in opposition to the pride, which cannot bear that a son of man should stand on an elevation absolutely unattainable by all others, and be absolutely different from them not in rank but in nature—and in opposition to the attempts which proceed from this source, to emphasize the impersonal divinity in Jesus only, and to represent this as the common good of all, and to render it prominent, as of great importance, that he cannot have the life who will not have His personal appearance,—that all salvation is connected with the historical God-man, the “historical Christ,”—and that there is here the representation of an idea, which is independent of the historical appearance; but that all life proceeds from an absolute self-surrender to this historical appearance as such, to which also those of the highest rank can stand in the relation only of recipients. In the interest of the exclusive reference of these words to the Lord’s Supper, it has been maintained (Kahnis on the Supper, S. 125): “When Jesus first speaks of an enjoyment of His person, and then of an enjoyment of His flesh, the latter is evidently meant to express a higher degree of communion than the former. Where Christ speaks of the enjoyment of His person, enjoyment is used metaphorically; but where He speaks of the enjoyment of His flesh, it is to be taken literally.” But it is decisive against such a view, that Christ everywhere speaks of that which could be realized in the present, that He requires the Jews to eat His flesh now, and that it is precisely this requisition which is refused by the Jews. Further, if such an opposition should exist between the enjoyment of Christ’s person and that of His flesh, how then could Christ, in ver. 57, return to the former, ὁτρώγωνμεζήσεται? The true connection is, that the words, “and the bread that I will give is My flesh,” determine more exactly where the nourishing and life-giving power in Christ is to be sought, viz., that it is inseparably connected with His flesh, or His human appearance. This was perceived with perfect clearness even by Luther, who says, among other things, “Thou shalt know of no other God, nor Son of God, but He who was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man, as the Christian religion teaches. And if any wish to separate Him from God’s Son, and to raise a wall between God’s Son and the Son born of the Virgin Mary, do not receive such a preacher, and do not listen to him, but say, I know of no God or God’s Son, but Him of whom the Creed says: I believe in Jesus Christ, etc. If he is not the man who was born of Mary, I will not have him. He wishes to anticipate these cavillers, and that our faith may depend and be fixed on the flesh and blood which they saw before them. Reason says. Flesh is flesh, make of it what you will; you cannot make anything else of it. So also say the Sacramentarians. But open your eyes, give your heart and your ears to it, and make a distinction between flesh, and the word, My flesh. He who speaks is Christ; and in this Christ is full, complete divinity. He did not wish to give His divinity merely, for this was impossible. For God has said, No man shall see Me and live; and thus it remains. God must therefore hide and veil Himself in order that we may be able to grasp and apprehend Him. He must conceal Himself in flesh and blood. This text is a thunderbolt against the fanatics. (So Luther calls those who give the rein to their thoughts, instead of directing them in love and devotion to the historical appearance of Christ.) We eat and drink His divinity in His human nature. He who thinks of God and seeks Him elsewhere than in this person, he has lost God and finds Him not, he wanders and loses Him; but he who seeks Him in the appointed way, meets with Him.” That the eating of the flesh of Christ here refers to the believing appropriation of His theanthropic personality, is a point in which Luther and Calvin are agreed. The former says, “To eat and drink of His flesh, is firmly to believe on Him.” With respect to the latter Lampe says, “Calvini ejusque sequacium constans haec sententia est, de manducatione solum spirituali in hoc loco agi.” This declaration was formally sanctioned by the Formula Concordiae. That the most natural sense can be no other than this, is evident from the fact, that this only could be accessible to those to whom Christ addressed the words, and that the requisition always appears as one that can be immediately complied with. But the two principal explanations,—that of the flesh of Christ to be given up to death, and thus prepared to be the food of life; and that of the Lord’s Supper, which latter from the middle of the fourth century was almost universal among the Church Fathers (Lampe: “Negari nequit Patrum maximum numerum nostrum locum de sacramentali manducatione intellexisse),—are not therefore to be entirely rejected. They are false only in so far as they are opposed to the first, which forms their starting-point and necessary basis. They have a firm point of support in the time when this conversation, together with the feeding on which it is based, occurred, and in the express reference to the significance of this time in ver. 4. If Christ, by giving His flesh to be eaten, is the antitype of the paschal lamb, the connection with His atoning death and with the Lord’s Supper cannot be mistaken. Jesus already gave His flesh to His own to eat: he who approached Him in faith, could by accession to His theanthropic personality obtain the death of his lusts and passions, and be glorified in His image. To Christ, however, the further development of His destiny lay even then clearly exposed. He has already mentioned His death for the salvation of the world in John 2:19, and especially in John 3:14-15. He speaks even in this discourse of His ascension to heaven, ver. 22, and of the betrayal of Judas, vers. 70, 71. If His flesh was to be prepared first by His death to be the food of life; if the corn of wheat must fall first into the earth, John 12:24; if He must be lifted up from the earth, in order to draw all men unto Him, John 12:32; and if the offering of His flesh as a sin-offering is the condition of the perfect salvation of the world, cf. Romans 8:3,—the reference to His atoning death can be erroneous only when it is opposed to an immediate enjoyment of His flesh. Likewise, if it is established that in the Lord’s Supper Christ grants to His own in a wonderful manner the enjoyment of Himself, this enjoyment must be included in the declaration so certainly, as here all that is spoken of by which the flesh of Christ is proved to be the life-food of the world, and as Christ, from His epiphany onwards, beheld with perfect clearness the whole of His work of redemption in all its particulars. Cf. the further discussion at ver. 53. Ver. 52. “The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying. How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” They contended among themselves—some absolutely denying the ability of Christ to give His flesh to be eaten, others merely expressing doubt and hesitation; some in an unqualified manner condemning Him and accusing Him of blasphemy, others more or less excusing Him, or wishing to suspend their judgment. The Jews understand Christ quite correctly, and the “Capernaitic eating” is a mere fiction of the expositors. Those who had grown up in the school of the Old Testament, and were accustomed to its figurative language, must have easily adopted the figurative expression, to eat the flesh of Christ, for, to receive into one’s self His theanthropic personality. We need only to refer to such forms of expression as “eat up my flesh,” in Psalms 27:2, to denote enmity; and to passages like Proverbs 9:5, where Wisdom says, “Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I mingle.” If the offence were founded on a misunderstanding, Jesus would have given some intimation of this. The fact that, in the following verses. He repeats in the strongest manner the propositions which were offensive to the Jews, and that He dismisses a large number of those who had been His disciples hitherto, without making any attempt to remove the offence by an explanation, shows plainly that this offence was caused by the substance and not the form of the declaration. In the fact, however, that Jesus does not avoid this offence, and that, in view of the danger of dividing the hitherto united band of His disciples, instead of breaking off the conversation, or directing it to other topics, He rather intentionally brings it to a point, we perceive that there must be here before us the cardinal point of Christianity, without which all the rest has no significance, and that the refusal to acknowledge in Jesus the absolutely central personality, is a fundamentally destructive error; so that nothing is lost in the departure of some because they cannot reconcile themselves to this, as is also implied in the highly emphatic assurance of Christ, that life can be attained solely and alone by the eating of His flesh. The οὗτος is used contemptuously,—“the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know,” ver. 42,—and on this rests the emphasis. The offence is founded on the circumstance, that Jesus, to all appearance a mere man, and indeed a man who has not where to lay His head, and in whom all that the eye of the natural man can see is lowly, claims for Himself the right and the power to penetrate all others with His individuality, and so to impress His image upon them, that He is all, and there is nothing besides left to them. Christ’s apparently ascribing too much to Himself is the rock of offence throughout this conversation: cf. especially ver. 41. And from this proceeds the conflict between Him and the Jews almost throughout the Gospel of John; as, ex. gr., in the preceding chapter, the point of controversy between the Jews and Jesus is this, that He πατέραἴδιονἔλεγεντὸνθεὸνἴσονἑαυτὸνποιῶντῷθεῷ, John 5:18, and as in John 8:53 the Jews ask, τίνασεαυτὸνποιεῖς; When Paul speaks of the σκάνδαλοντοῦσταυροῦ (Galatians 5:11; 1 Corinthians 1:23), the offence consists not in the death of Christ in itself, but rather in this, that a crucified one is said to be the power of God and the wisdom of God, 1 Corinthians 1:24. In the dialogue with the Jew Trypho, the chief offence which the Jews took at Christianity is represented as this: “they could not reconcile themselves to the idea, that Christianity sets up a second God by the side of the Creator of the universe” (Graul, The Christian Church on the threshold of the age of Irenaeus, Leipzic 1860, S. 64). The former messengers of God had directed the gaze of others away from themselves as weak and unworthy instruments; God alone was to be honoured, and He only was to be served. How retiring was Moses, the founder of the Old Covenant! He represents himself in his work as a poor sinner, who, before entering on his calling, was under sentence on account of his neglecting the circumcision of his son, and at the end of his career was, on account of his sin, excluded from the promised land, and only permitted to see it afar off. To the reproach of presumption he answers, that no one in the world can think less of himself. Numbers 12:3. None of the earlier messengers of God had ever claimed that the people should eat his flesh, and that he should impress upon them absolutely the stamp of his own individuality. All had desired only the reception of their message. In this state of the case, the position of Jesus would have been an entirely untenable one, if the Father had not sealed Him, and if there had not been presented in His works the proof of the credibility of His assertion, that He stood in an absolutely unique relation to God. Those who deny or depreciate the miracle of the feeding, or of the walking on the sea, destroy the absolutely necessary foundation for the claims which Christ here puts forth. Only where there existed such a basis could it be urged upon the consciences of the Jews, who had not, as we have, the experience for centuries of the life-giving power proceeding from Christ, to acknowledge these claims of Christ. Ver. 53. “Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.” Jesus says. Verily, verily: He solemnly assured them, and confirmed it as by an oath, that life is only to be found where His flesh is eaten and His blood is drunk; and that all which elsewhere gives itself out to be life, is only a wretched pretence, a whitewashed sepulchre, which appears outwardly fair, but within is full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Stier remarks, “At the same time, the definite separation and juxtaposition of flesh and blood speaks in the most significant manner of that death of which ver. 51 testified (?), since only a perfect death entirely separates the flesh and blood.” But always where flesh and blood occur in connection in the New Testament, they constitute the living organism. So here in John 1:13; Matthew 16:17; 1 Corinthians 15:50; Galatians 1:16; Ephesians 6:12, where the human nature is denoted by flesh and blood. In Hebrews 2:14, flesh and blood occurs of the human personality of Christ. Flesh and blood everywhere stands only where flesh merely might have stood, by which is commonly designated the whole human being. The σάρξ is the whole, the blood the conspicuous part, the soul of the flesh, as it is represented in the Old Testament: Genesis 9:4, “Flesh with its soul, its blood, ye shall not eat;” Leviticus 17:14, “The soul of all flesh is its blood;” Deuteronomy 12:23. We are led to conclude that αἷμαis not primarily the blood shed, but that which is in the flesh, by the fact, that in the really principal declaration in ver. 51, which is here only confirmed anew against objections, it is only the eating of the flesh which is spoken of. To the same result we are led also by the Saviour’s omission of the drinking, again in vers. 57, 58. There can then be no doubt that here such an eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood is primarily spoken of, as needed not to wait for the death of Christ, but at once came to life, so soon as susceptible minds were found. To the corrupt flesh and blood of the natural man is here offered, in the holy flesh and blood of the Redeemer, a means of salvation, to the use and operation of which no other condition is attached but that of eating and drinking, or of faith. To this end the Logos became flesh, that His theanthropic personality might penetrate and ennoble that of the common man. This is what is primarily declared, and this is the sense in which the Jews took, and were expected to take, the words of Christ. But we are not to stop with this. Jesus, to whom the future was always manifest, cannot have spoken without some reference to the Supper, to be instituted a year later. The hint is too strong for it to be regarded as accidental. The denial of the connection with the Supper was on the whole prevalent in the Lutheran Church, but yet the Lutheran sacramental hymns are full of references to this chapter. When Jesus says, Λάβετεφάγετε, τοῦτόἐστιντὸσῶμάμου, there is a striking accordance with the eating of the flesh here; and when He says, Πίετεἐξαὐτοῦπάντες· τοῦτογάρἐστιτὸαἷμάμου, this cannot without violence be separated from πίητεαὐτοῦτὸαἷμα, or from πίνωνμουτὸαἷμα, in ver. 54. It must not be overlooked that John passes over the institution of the Supper; and it is therefore the more natural to suppose that he has it in view in communicating this discourse of Christ, just as there is a reference to baptism, the institution of which by the baptism of Christ is likewise passed over, in the conversation of Christ with Nicodemus, John 3:5. John wrote for those who had before them the accounts of the earlier Evangelists concerning the institution of the Supper, and who constantly celebrated it in the appointed manner. The necessary consequence, that they referred the present words of Christ to the Supper, must be regarded as purposed by John. As the connection with the Supper, so also that with the atoning sufferings and death of Christ, presses itself forcibly upon our attention. The atoning blood of the Servant of God had been already represented in Isaiah 53 as the central-point of the redemptive work. “So shall He sprinkle many heathens,” Isaiah 52:15; “by His wounds we are healed,” Isaiah 53:5; “His soul shall give restitution,” ver. 10; “because He hath poured out His soul unto death,” ver. 12. Even the Baptist represents Christ as the Lamb which taketh away sin by His blood. According to the declaration of Christ, the New Covenant is founded in the blood of Christ, which is shed for many, for the forgiveness of sins. The Apostles likewise represent the sacred body of Christ, which was given to death and made sin for us, and His atoning blood, as the central-point of the Christian faith. They attribute the same effect to the crucified Christ and His atoning blood, which is here ascribed to the eating of the flesh of the Son of man and the drinking of His blood: Romans 3:25; Romans 5:9; Ephesians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:19; 1 John 1:7; Revelation 1:5; Revelation 5:9; Revelation 12:11. A complete disconnection from the Supper and from Christ’s atoning death seems the more inappropriate, if we take into view the significant hint in ver. 4: “And the Passover was nigh.” If Jesus, in view of the Passover, speaks of the importance of eating His flesh and of the partaking of His blood as the condition of life, the thought is very natural, that He has in view the paschal lamb as an offering and a sacrament,—the more so, since Christ has been already represented as the antitype of the paschal lamb in John 1:29; since in John 19:36, that which is said in the law of the paschal lamb is at once applied to Christ; and since Paul in 1 Corinthians 5:7 designates Christ as our passover sacrificed for us, and Peter in 1 Peter 1:19 calls Him the Lamb without blemish and without spot. Now, how are we to reconcile the grounds which favour these apparently opposite views? Some means must be sought by which these views may be brought into harmony with each other. When Jesus speaks of the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood, He understands primarily by this, a relation which may at once be formed, the giving up of one’s own natural life and being, and unconditional consecration to the Son of man, so that His holy flesh and blood take the place of that which is natural and unholy, and His theanthropic personality penetrates and ennobles that of the I ordinary man, so that he can say, “I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” We can obtain a clear conception of this in the case of the disciple whom Jesus loved, and who rested in His bosom. He had already truly eaten, before the atoning death of Jesus Christ, with the mouth of the Spirit, and had drunk His blood, and had become a different person, as one alive from the dead,—he had obtained different inclinations and impulses, different features, a different look, and a different step. But there were further developments before him, in which the eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood received a deeper meaning; and Christ had these developments already in view, when He with so much emphasis made all salvation dependent on the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood. After Christ had offered up His flesh upon the cross, and had thus earned new power of life for our flesh, which was pervaded with death, and after His sacred blood had there taken away sin. He became in a still higher degree the food of the soul. And this is the third stage in the Holy Supper: His “body, for us wounded,” and His sacred blood, were made, by an adorable mystery, and an ever-repeated miracle, the central-point of the Church. The enjoyment in the Supper forms no opposition to the purely spiritual enjoyment, as it is primarily taught here, but rather its highest degree—the condition of efficacious and lifelong realization of the demand, which Christ here expresses.[1] Only if the words of Christ refer directly and exclusively to the Lord’s Supper can the assertion of Stier be justified, that the Supper is to be understood absolutely according to this passage, and that Luther’s “exaggerated doctrine of the eating and drinking of unbelievers” is by it entirely refuted. The relation of the body and blood of Christ to unbelievers lies here without the circle of thought, not being in the same line with that purely spiritual appropriation, which is here the fundamental conception. In this misuse of the passage, he had, however, been preceded by the Reformed theologians. It was fear of this misuse which led so many Lutheran theologians to deny altogether the reference to the Supper. Ver. 54. “Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” Cf. ver. 40, where believing occupies the same position as the eating of the flesh and blood here. Ver. 55. “For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.” For ἀληθῶς Lachmann and Tischendorf read ἀληθής. But to the former a parallel is furnished by ἀληθῶςἸσραηλίτης in John 1:48, and ἀληθῶςμαθηταί in John 8:31; while, on the other hand, not a single exactly accordant parallel passage can be brought forward for ἀληθής. Ἀληθῶς or ἀληθής forms the antithesis to a merely imaginary food; ἀληθινός would form an antithesis to a lower food, like the manna. Substantially, however, the two amount to pretty much the same, for the inferior food may be regarded as merely mock food. According to vers. 27, 58, the Lord seems to have the manna really in view. By ἀληθῶς or ἀληθής, however, is at all events, together with the manna, all that which, apart from the flesh and blood of Christ, promises to satisfy human hunger and thirst, degraded to a mere mock satisfaction, in harmony with Isaiah 4:2 : “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not? Hearken, hearken unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Apart from the salvation brought by Christ, all else is, according to this passage, not bread, but such as does not serve to satisfy the soul. Ver. 56. “He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him.” Since the natural character of man and the nature of Christ are totally opposed to each other, a true and lasting union between them can be brought about only when the man gives up his nature and receives into himself the nature of Christ. The man must become Jesus-like, or his union with Christ will be only a vain pretence, which vanishes like a morning cloud. Our text is the fundamental passage with respect to dwelling in Christ. That which is here intimated is carried out in John 15:4 sq.; and that which occurs in the first Epistle of Joh 2:6; John 2:24; John 3:6, is to be regarded as its echo. In the Gospel this expression is not found, except in the passages designated. The distinction from the first Gospels is not a decided one, since they do not communicate the last discourses of Christ in the circle of His disciples, in which the main passage is found. Ver. 57. “As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me.” Christ brings the life, of which the original source is the Father, down to the human race, which since Genesis 3 is involved in death. To the words: On the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die, are, after Christ has appeared in the flesh, opposed these: In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt live. The discourse of Christ returns at its close to the generalness of the commencement. He here says again. He that eateth Me; not. He that eateth My flesh and blood. Ver. 58. takes up again the figure of the bread of the life as contrasted with the manna in vers. 48-51, and thus rounds off the discourse. Ver. 58. “This is the bread, which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat, and are dead. He that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.”— Ver. 59. “These things said He in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum.” The Conversations of Jesus with His Disciples at the Close of That with the Jews John 6:60-71 Ver. 60. “Many therefore of His disciples, when they heard this, said, This is a hard saying; who can hear it?” The disciples—those who already stood in a close relation to Christ—are opposed to those Jews who were only superficially touched. The disciples offered a great variety, as represented in the parable of the sower. It was not all who thus spoke, but only many. Jesus says in ver. 64: εἰσὶνἐξὑμῶντινεςοἳοὐπιστεύουσιν. The Apostles also were among the disciples, and formed the centre of a whole multitude of those who were deeply interested. Of the number of those who here took offence, many certainly returned repentant and ashamed, when, by the resurrection of Christ, the high demands were sealed and justified, to which they were now unable to reconcile themselves. Cf. vers. 61 and 62, and the words of Christ, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.” A hard saying is one repugnant, unpleasant, and offensive, in opposition to a tender, mild, and agreeable one: cf. σκληρὸνδὲἐφάνητὸῥῆμασφόδρα in Genesis 21:11, LXX.; and ver. 15 of the Epistle of Jude, περὶπάντωντῶνσκληρῶνὧνἐλάλησαν, where the hard speeches are those which are repugnant. The ground of their repugnant and offensive character was not their form,—for then they would have said to Christ: (φράσονἡμῖντὴνπαραβολήνταύτην, Matthew 13:36; Matthew 15:15,—but the matter itself. They had not obtained a deeper insight into their own character, their unfathomable corruption (cf. John 3:6, and πονηροὶὄντες, Matthew 7:11), and into the nature of Christ, His true divinity; and thus they cannot reconcile themselves to His being all and they nothing, and they rebel against the requirement to leave all and cleave to Christ. The remark, “And indeed the saying appeared hard to them, because they could not receive the thought of the death of the Messiah,” testifies of a complete misapprehension of the question. It is not His death that Christ has spoken of, but the eating of His flesh and blood as the necessary condition of life. He had adjudged all to death who do not obtain life by the eating of His flesh. The expression, Who can hear it? is—according to Jeremiah 6:10, LXX.: ἰδοὺἀπερίτμητατὰὦτααὐτῶν, καὶοὐδύνανταιἀκούειν, and Mark 4:33 : καὶτοιαύταιςπαραβολαῖςπολλαῖςἐλάλειαὐτοῖςτὸνλόγονκαθὼςἠδύναντοἀκούειν—q.d., who can understand it? As the object of hearing is to understand, a saying that is not understood is as though it were not heard; and here the unintelligible is the senseless, the absurd. The key to the understanding of the saying of Christ is the perception of one’s own misery, and of the Divine majesty of Christ. Those who have not this key must regard Christ’s demand as incomprehensible. Ver. 61. “When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples murmured at it. He said unto them. Doth this offend you? Ver. 62. [What] and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before?” The disciples whispered among themselves. Jesus did not hear them with the bodily ear, and needed not to ask; He perceived what they said in the spirit, as He who knew what was in man, John 2:25. Cf. with εἰδὼςἐνἑαυτῷ the expression, καὶἰδὼνὁἸησοῦςτὰςἐνθυμήσειςαὐτῶν, in Matthew 9:4 (before, εἶπονἐνἑαυτοῖς, they thought), John 12:25. There is an aposiopesis at the close of ver. 62: What shall ye then say? Shall ye still take offence? The ascension of Christ was adapted to cause offence only in so far as it furnished a proof that the weakness of the flesh, which was the ground of it, was assumed by Him freely and in loving condescension. Christ was proved to be the Son of God by the resurrection, and its consummation in the ascension, Romans 1:4; so that all appearance of presumption is completely removed, and a powerful counter argument is furnished to the declaration, “The son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know.” That this is the true seat of the offence, is expressly indicated by Christ in designating Himself the Son of man. Elsewhere also He opposes to the doubt and offence which proceeded from the lowliness of His human appearance, and the contempt which was based upon it. His resurrection, ascension, and glorification. Cf. John 2:18-19, John 8:28; Matthew 26:64. The word θεωρεῖν, which is an especial favourite of John, is commonly used of seeing outwardly. We have the commentary to θεωρῆτε in the words, βλεπόντωναὐτῶνἐπήρθη, in Acts 1:9. Cf. also Revelation 11:12, where with respect to the ascent of the two witnesses to heaven, which is a copy of Christ’s ascension, it is said: καὶἀνέβησανεἰςτὸνοὐρανὸνἐντῇνεφέλῃ, καὶἐθεώρησαναὐτοὺςοἱἐχθροὶαὐτῶν. Here the vision is evidently a bodily one. When the Son of man ascends, His ascension also can be only a visible one. The saying is directed to the disciples in general. It is sufficient that the ascension should take place in the presence of the disciples merely. Those who were present represent the entire body of the disciples. The expression, to ascend up to heaven, is always used in the New Testament of the ascension in the proper sense, the visible ascension of Christ. Cf. remarks on John 3:13. Even in His conversation with Nicodemus, Christ had referred to His ascension, and He also mentions it in John 20:17. For the very reason that he does not give an account of the ascension, John loves to communicate those expressions of Christ which relate to it, following the same course in this as with respect to Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. To the intimations of the ascension here, and in the other passages quoted (cf. also John 16:28), corresponds that in Revelation 11:11-12; on which it was remarked in my Commentary, “The form in which the triumph of the witnesses, after their apparent defeat, is here related, is derived from the history of Christ, whose ascension is typical of the lot of His followers.”—Ἀναβαίνω, used of Christ’s ascension, has reference to the prefigurative ascensions of the Lord and His Angel under the Old Covenant. In Judges 13:20 it is said, “And the Angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar, and Manoah and his wife saw it;” in Psalms 47:5, “God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.” The Lord rises to heaven, typifying the ascension of Christ, after He had made Himself known on earth in acts of omnipotence and love, and has prosecuted the cause of His people. Cf. also Genesis 17:22; Psalms 68:19.—“Where He was before.” The Lord had repeatedly said that He came down from heaven. In John 16:28 He says that He came forth from the Father, and is come into the world; but that again He will leave the world, and will go to the Father. According to chap. 1, the Logos was with God, Christ according to His Divine nature. Here the being in heaven, or with God, is ascribed to the Son of man on account of the unity of His person.[1] Among the diverse explanations, the most untenable is this: “You are offended at My words concerning My death; how much more will it offend you when I die!” It is not probable, a priori, that Christ would bring forward that which was only adapted to increase the offence. Jesus had not, according to the correct interpretation, previously spoken a single word concerning His death. It is assumed without reason that the disciples took offence at Jesus announcement of His death; while the object of the offence is, throughout this conversation, that Jesus, in spite of His lowliness, takes all from His followers, and gives all to Himself, and that He is not willing to be the first among equals, but the God-man. The words here cannot refer to the death, but only to the ascension, and indeed to a visible ascension. This does, indeed, presuppose the death; but His death could not possibly be designated here by that consequence of it which removes all ground of offence. The opinion, that the ascension of Christ would remove the offence only in so far as it shows that it is not a carnal eating of Christ that is spoken of,[1] is based on the fiction of a carnal misunderstanding of the words of Christ, while, as it has been already shown, the opposition is directed against the words of Christ as rightly understood. Finally, the interpretation of Stier: “Then will it be disclosed to you that, and in what way. My human corporeity, become heavenly and glorified, may be given to be eaten and to be drunk,” is founded on the incorrect assumption that Christ is speaking of a purely future eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood. Ver. 63. “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth. nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life.” If it is established that in ver. 62 Christ obviates the offence which the Jews took at His apparently assigning too much to Himself, even that wdiich absolutely transcended the sphere of man, and at His seeming to displace the boundaries between heaven and earth by His reference to His divinity, to be hereafter proved by the ascension, we shall expect here also a reference to the Divine nature concealed behind His appearance as the Son of man. A transition to a new thought would have been more distinctly designated; and if there be one here, the words receive a rhapsodical, fragmentary character, and the exposition enters into the slippery region of guess-work.—“The flesh” cannot possibly be the flesh of Christ. The whole impression of the preceding discourse, where Christ has so emphatically made life and salvation dependent on the eating of His flesh, would be destroyed, if He here at once denied all value to His flesh. If He had meant mere flesh in contrast with that which was penetrated by the Divine nature, He must at all events have said this more distinctly, since all depended on this point, and it was not this which caused the offence, but that Christ represented His flesh as bearing the Divine nature, or as deified. Everywhere else, when there is an antithesis of flesh and spirit, the spirit is the Divine principle, and flesh the lower corporeity, especially weak, sinful, and materialistic human nature. So in Isaiah 31:3, and in John 3:6, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Romans 8:5 : Οἱγὰρκατὰσάρκαὄντεςτὰτῆςσαρκὸςφρονοῦσιν, οἱδὲκατὰπνεῦματὰτοῦπνεύματος. Ver. 8: ΟἱδὲἐνσαρκὶὄντεςΘεῷἀρέσαιοὐδύνανται. Ver. 9: Ὑμεῖςδὲοὐκἐστὲἐνσαρκὶἀλλὰἐνπνεύματι, εἴπερπνεῦμαΘεοῦοἰκεῖἐνὑμῖν. The Spirit is here represented by Christ; q.d., the Spirit, as the resurrection and ascension will show, dwells in Me. That which Christ here ascribes to the Spirit, He elsewhere ascribes to Himself, as just before, and in John 5:21, Ὁυἱὸςοὓςθέλειζῳοποιεῖ. It is a fundamental thought in the Gospel, that life proceeds only from Christ. If therefore quickening power is here ascribed to the Spirit, this can be regarded as the case only in so far as He dwells in Christ, and passes from Him to His believing ones, who thus become θείαςκοινωνοὶφύσεως, 2 Peter 1:4, are received into the sphere of the Spirit, which is the Divine Spirit, and removed from the sphere of the flesh, to which all that is human apart from Christ is miserably banished. Christ has His name from the Spirit, being called the Anointed, as pervaded by the Spirit; and from the Spirit He has His origin: τὸἐναὐτῇγεννηθὲνἐκπνεύματόςἐστινἁγίου, says the angel to Mary. To possess the Spirit without measure is designated by the Baptist, in John 3:34, as the high prerogative of Christ. As Bleek remarks on Hebrews 9:14, “The πνεῦμα which is here spoken of, cannot be other than the πνεῦμαἅγιον, the Spirit of God, who is at the same time the Spirit of Christ, which already during His walk on earth dwelt in all His fulness in Him, was to Him at every moment His animating principle, and did not allow Him to be subject to the dominion of death. It is the same which in Romans 1:4 is designated as πνεῦμαἁγιωσύνης, by virtue of which Jesus is the Son of God, in opposition to the σάρξ, by virtue of which He is the Son of David.” And Philippi on Romans 1:4, “Πνεῦμαἁγιωσύνης is here nothing else than the higher, heavenly, Divine nature of Christ, by which or in which He is the Son of God.” This higher Divine nature of Christ is designated by πνεῦμα also in 1 Peter 3:18 : θανατωθεὶςμὲνσαρκὶζῳοποιηθεὶςδὲπνεύματι. In 2 Corinthians 3:17 Christ is called τὸπνεῦμα, in harmony with πνεῦμάὁΘεός in John 4:24, and with Isaiah 31:3, where the Divine essence, in opposition to that which is earthly and material, is designated by Spirit: “Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit.” To the Spirit represented by Christ, and incarnate in Him, is opposed the flesh, or humanity destitute of the Spirit. In what respect it profiteth nothing, is to be learnt from the first clause, viz., for the attainment of life. We have here the same thought which our Lord expresses in ver. 53, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, ye have no life in you,”—with this difference, that here this thought is suggested at the same time by the reference to the fact, that the Son of man is Spirit, but all others are flesh, of which it is the necessary consequence, that the quickening power can proceed only from Him. By this view only is brought into a clear light the manifest connection of this declaration with John 3:6, and Romans 8:5; Romans 8:8-9. Luther: “Christ calls all that flesh which is born of the flesh,—all the children of Adam, who come of the flesh, with the exception of the unique body of Christ, which was born not of the flesh, but of the Holy Ghost, as we confess in the Creed: I believe in Christ, who was conceived not of the flesh, but of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost has begotten Him, and penetrated His flesh with spirit.” That the life-giving Spirit dwells in Him, Christ proves preliminarily, until the great proof has been given by His resurrection and ascension, by the character of His words, spoken here and previously (λελάληκα, not λαλῶ, is the best authenticated and correct reading: Christ is speaking to His disciples, who had long been instructed by Him), which breathe out life and spirit as the breath of His personality. If He speaks such words as never man spake, John 7:46, and if His words have a life-giving and spiritualizing effect. He must indeed be spirit. Luther: “These words are really spirit, and lead a man into another world and state of being, and give him another heart and mind, so far above and beyond all reason, that the reason cannot comprehend it, although it would gladly do so.” According to a very old interpretation, by spirit is here designated a spiritual, and by flesh a literal apprehension. Even Tertullian says, “de resurrectione carnis per spiritum hic intelligi sensum spiritualem, per carnem autem carnalem.” On the other hand, as Lampe justly remarks, there is no proof that a spiritual sense is designated in the Scriptures by spirit alone. It is, however, still more decisive, that this exposition is based on the entirely unfounded assumption of a carnal misunderstanding of the words of Jesus. On the same foundation also rests the view of Kahnis: “The act which will terminate My earthly presence, and render My earthly body a heavenly one, will end the misunderstanding. Ye shall eat My body, but not as outward flesh, but as bearing My spirit, not My earthly, but My heavenly body as glorified in spirit.” The second incorrect basis of this view is the opinion, that Christ, in ver. 51 sq., spoke of a purely future oral enjoyment of His glorified body and blood. The Jews understood Christ quite correctly to make a requisition which was to be realized at once. Ver. 64. “But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray Him.” Jesus throws the fault of the offence back on those who wished to lay it upon Him: It is not My presumption, but your unbelief. A commentary to the words, “from the beginning,” is formed by the remark of the Evangelist, made of Cephas in John 1:43, and of Nathanael in John 1:48. The beginning of the relation into which Christ enters with individuals, forms the antithesis to a longer association, which gives occasion to psychological observations. Not from such did Jesus derive His knowledge, but from His participation in the privilege of Him who tries the hearts and the reins: cf. remarks on John 2:24-25. It is in vain to twist and trifle with the declaration that Jesus knew from the beginning who should betray Him. He could not have been the Logos appeared in the flesh, nor the Son of God, nor our Saviour, if it had been otherwise. His previous knowledge of the betrayal of Judas, far from determining Jesus not to receive him among the Apostles, must have rather occasioned His doing so. The circle of the Apostles would not have been the true representation of the Church, which it was to be, if Judas had not been included in it. It is a fact of the greatest significance, and admonishes us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, that it was one of those nearest to the Saviour who betrayed Him, in proof that nothing can avail but an unconditional surrender of the heart, and unceasing watchfulness and prayer. The opinion, however, that Jesus needed not to have furthered the crime of Judas by receiving him into His company, is founded on a misapprehension of the living moral plan of the world in God and in Christ, which even to the present day still involves those whose hearts are not right in circumstances in which the temptation comes to them, whereby their sin is developed and matured. Most murderers might have been quite respectable people under other circumstances. It was for Judas, if he would repent, the highest of all graces, but if not, his just punishment, that he was brought into proximity to Christ. It was not a fate which ruled over him: conversion was at any moment accessible to him. If he had sought it, he would have obtained salvation; but he was received into the number of the Apostles in the foresight that he would not seek it. The circumstance that the bag was entrusted to Judas, at which some take offence, in case Christ penetrated his character, presupposes his tendency to avarice. If we do not thus view the fact, Jesus must have had less psychological penetration than every advanced Christian. The development of sin is necessary for both conversion and judgment. Every one is still so led, that all must be manifest which is hidden in the depths of his heart; and it is not the manner of God to be careful not to awaken that which is slumbering in the heart, but His whole leading is designed to bring about a decision either for salvation or for perdition. Ver. 65. “And He said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto Me, except it were given him of My Father.” Therefore, in foresight of your unbelief, and in order to obviate the offence which might arise from it. The Lord refers to vers. 44, 37. Cf. οὐκἠδύναντοπιστεύειν in John 12:39. Unbelief loses its offensiveness when it is regarded from the point of view of a Divine appointment, a righteous Divine judgment. This gives the occasion for turning and plucking up the evil roots which call forth this judgment. Ver. 66. “From that [time] many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him.”—Ἐκτούτου occurs likewise in John 19:12. Ἀπῆλθονεἰςτὰὀπίσω refers to Isaiah 1:4, Psalms 44:18, where the turning back occurs with respect to Jehovah. Ver. 67. “Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?” This sudden introduction of the twelve Apostles, in their full number, shows that John presupposes the former Evangelists, who had recorded the appointment and names of these twelve. The Apostles are designated as the “twelve,” not because they happened to be just twelve, but from the significance of the number twelve. On the ground of the fact, that the sons of Jacob, the ancestors of Israel, were twelve in number, the number twelve appears repeatedly in the Old Testament as the signature of the covenant-people, the Church; and on the ground of this significance, the Lord called just twelve Apostles, who represented the Church of the New Covenant, the authorized continuation of the Old Testament Israel. In the Apocalypse the number twelve appears repeatedly as the signature of the Church of the New Covenant. Cf. my Commentary on John 4:4, John 7:4. Jesus asks the twelve, not as though He were in doubt, but, where so much unbelief has been acknowledged, a reviving conclusion is necessary; and He therefore asks in order to call forth a solemn confession of faith by the Apostles, who represent the believing Church of the New Testament, in opposition to Judaism, fast ripening into the synagogue of Satan. Ver. 68. “Then Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. 69. And we believe, and are sure, that Thou art Christ, the Son of (the living) God.” Peter answers in the name of the Apostles, not, as Lampe supposes, “ex solito fervere, quo solebat alios praevertere,” but as the called head and authorized mouthpiece of the Apostles, in the energy of the spirit of faith, on the ground of which this eminent position was assigned to him. The words, “To whom shall we go?” indicate, that if we tm-n away from Christ, wherever we may go, we shall only find death and certain destruction before us. The declaration, “Thou hast the words of eternal life,”—those which bring with them and give eternal life,—is the answer of the confessing Church to that of Christ, “The words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life,” in ver. 63. Christ’s words, because they are living, are also quickening. The clause, “we are sure,” added to, “we have believed,” indicates that faith is not blind, but is supported on established facts. The declaration, “Thou art Christ,” the Anointed, the bearer of the Spirit, is the answer of the confessing Church to that of Christ, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth,”—q.d., I make alive, because the Spirit is represented by Me. The added clause, “the Son of God,” refers to the immediately preceding, ver. 65 (cf. ver. 57), where Christ had designated God as His Father. The Christ is, as such, also the Son of God; but as there was a lower conception of Him, the addition was of importance.[1] The addition, τοῦζῶντος, is but poorly authorized, and was probably introduced from Matthew 16:15. If the authority had been better, it would have been recommended as genuine by the reference to ver. 57. It is a great thing to be the Son of the living God, whose fulness of life passes over to the Son. Lachmann and Tischendorf read ὁυἱὸςτοῦΘεοῦ. But though the authorities in favour of this reading are important, and it is also a natural supposition that the words, ὁυἱὸςτοῦΘεοῦ, have been brought hither from Matthew 16:15, we must still have some hesitation in giving up the latter reading. The peculiar expression, ὁἅγιοςτοῦΘεοῦ, which has no root in the Old Testament, and only imperfect parallels in ὃνὁπατὴρἡγίασεν in John 10:36, and in 1 John 2:20, where Christ is designated as ὁἅγιος, has probably been introduced from Mark 1:24, where the possessed man says, οἶδάσετίςεἶ, ὁἅγιοςτοῦθεοῦ (Origen has here υἱός, on the reverse, for ἅγιος), and from Luke 4:34. It would be strange if Peter accorded exactly with the possessed man in this expression, which is not found elsewhere in the whole New Testament. The expression has no support in the discourse of Christ, the echo of which we perceive elsewhere in this verse; and it also declares less than we expect. After all that which Christ has claimed, we expect a glad confession of His deity. It was the emphatic declaration of this that had caused the offence, and developed and matured the unbelief. In opposition to this, belief must also receive its full expression. The Holy One of God would testify only of a Divine mission, and therefore still less than the name Christ. Ver. 70. “Jesus answered them. Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?” Peter had spoken for the twelve, and the answer is directed to the disciples generally, but primarily to Peter. It is in him that our Lord elsewhere also opposes the confidence which borders on undue self-exaltation: cf. John 13:37-38; Luke 22:33-34; Matthew 14:28-33. Why does Jesus speak here of the betrayal of Judas? He wishes to put to shame the confidence of Peter, who had, as it were, given security for all, and to admonish all to watchfulness and prayer. Our Lord pursues a similar course at the last Supper: ἈμὴνHe there says, Matthew 26:21—λέγωὑμῖνὅτιεἷςἐξὑμῶνπαραδώσειμε. The feeling which prompts each of the disciples to say, μήτιἐγώεἰμι, κύριε, is that which He wishes to quicken in them. Quesnel: “Wondrous procedure of Jesus Christ, to leave the Apostles so long in such terrible uncertainty, while each had reason to distrust himself, and all were under obligation to judge no one, and not to suspect their neighbour of such a crime. Fear and distrust with respect to our weakness, the duty of watching our hearts and of observing ourselves, aversion to sin, and Christian humility, are the fruits of this disquietude, which God brings out of it by His grace.” Jesus calls His betrayer a devil, i.e., a man of absolutely devilish disposition. Διάβολός occurs in the Gospels, especially in that of John, and likewise in the Epistles of John and the Apocalypse, always only of the devil. As an appellative, it is found altogether only a few times in Paul: 1 Timothy 3:11; 2 Timothy 3:3; Titus 2:3; and there it has always the meaning of calumniator, which is not suitable here. Of Satan is, according to 1 John 3:8, every one that committeth sin. The wicked are represented as the children of Satan in John 8:44; cf. Acts 13:10, where Paul addresses Elymas the Magian as Son of Satan. Judas the betrayer is brought into special relation to Satan in John 13:2, according to which the devil put it into his heart to betray Christ. Our text accords still more closely with John 13:27 (cf. Luke 22:3), καὶμετὰτὸψωμίοντότεεἰσῆλθενεἰςἐκεῖνονὁΣατανᾶς. After he had put it into the heart of Judas, he himself entered in; and he, into whom Satan has entered, is himself an incarnate Satan. Perfectly analogous, however, is Matthew 16:23 (Mark 8:33), where Jesus says to Peter: Ὕπαγεὀπίσωμου, Σατανᾶ. There also Satan is a satanic man, an incarnate Satan. That Jesus does not address Satan himself, but Peter, who had for the moment resigned himself to him, is shown by the words, ὅτιοὐφρονεῖςτὰτοῦθεοῦἀλλὰτὰτῶνἀνθρώπων, which does not suit Satan, but only Peter. The parallel is here to be drawn the rather, since it is not John, but Christ, who speaks. In the preceding discourse, Christ had represented Himself as the life of believers, and had desired that they should eat His flesh and blood, and become partakers of His nature; and with this it corresponds, that He here ascribes the unbelievers and wicked to Satan. Christ and Satan are the two ruling powers. He in whom Christ is not formed, must finally assume the form in which Satan appears. Judas, in this respect, bears a typical character, being the first who matured into a devil. Ver. 71. “He spake of Judas of Simon, Iscariot: for he it was that should betray Him, being one of the twelve.” John only has communicated the name of the father of the betrayer. The surname Iscariot Ἰσκαριώτην, not with Lachmann Ἰσκαριώτου) is usually explained to mean, man of Karioth, a wholly obscure place in the tribe of Judah, of which we know only the bare name from Joshua 15:25. But there are serious difficulties connected with this explanation. Of the surnames of the New Testament, none refers to the place of nativity. For designations like ὁἀποἈριμαθαίας are not to be regarded as surnames. Usually these surnames have a theological character: cf. Acts 1:23; Acts 4:36. Especially is this the case with all the surnames of the Apostles. So of Boanerges, which Jesus gives to the sons of Zebedee, Mark 3:17; and so of the surname Peter. The surnames of the other Judas among the Apostles, Thaddaeus and Lebbaeus, have likewise a theological character, denoting the heartiness of the relation of love in which the Master stands to this Judas: bosom-friend, from ϊγ = ωγ, mamma, and diaphragm (darling). Since it is a fact that several of the Apostles bore significant names (one is Matthew, gift of God, surname of the former Levi; and another “the Zealot,” as surname of Simon, Matthew 10:4), and especially he, with whom the list of Apostles always begins, it is not to be assumed that the surname of Judas, with whom the list closes, and whom it was most natural to characterize theologically, has no such signification. The necessity of distinguishing this Judas from others of the same name, and especially the other Apostle Judas, is already met in another way, by giving the other Judas the name Lebbaeus, in the place of his proper name, together with the name Thaddaeus, and also by the designation ἸούδαςἸακώβου, by which he could and must distinguish himself from the other Judas, because the names Lebbaeus and Thaddaeus were only suitable to be used by others; and further, by the addition of the name of his father, Simon, to that of Judas the Traitor. The fact, that Ἰσκαριώτης also is added, where the interchange was already prevented by the addition Σίμωνος, as here, in John 12:4, and John 13:2; John 13:26, shows that this surname must have had another design. It is also of importance to note that there is no trace that Judas bore the name Iscariot before his betrayal. Jesus addresses him in Luke 22:48 merely as Judas. The name Iscariot means, the man of lies, ΰιωωχψιν. We have probably the root of the surname, which was given to the traitor after his deed and its sad consequence, in Proverbs 19:5, “A false witness, ςγωχψιν, shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape.” Here we have both the deed of Judas, —which he himself confessed, “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood,”—and his fate. The only objection that can be brought against this explanation,[1] that the inserted ω cannot be thus explained, is not decisive, since the ground of the insertion may be a euphonic one. A full and sounding form was desired. Ἤμελλεν does not designate his design to betray, but only the futurity of the fact: cf. John 12:4, and ὁπαραδώσωναὐτόν, ver. 64. Jesus on this occasion spoke, as it seems, for the first time of the betrayal of Judas. The assertion, however, that He had not thought of it before, is in manifest opposition to “from the beginning” in ver. 64, and to the true divinity of Christ, which does not permit the thought, that for a considerable time He had, without suspecting it, cherished a serpent in His bosom. That Jesus, whose foreknowledge must be kept in strict separation from His foreordination, nevertheless offered to the future betrayer all the benefits of His kingdom, in devoted love held intercourse with him, and made every effort to touch and gain his heart, is a fact which is still repeated, and without which Christ could not be the Saviour of the world. No one can be lost for whom Christ has not done all that can be done, and without the truth of the declaration, “Ye would not,” having been most clearly illustrated. Includes what took place on the last visit paid by Jesus to the Feast of Tabernacles, and from that date onwards to the final Passover. The narrative of ch. 7 refers to the former of those feasts; and ch. John 8:1 to John 10:21 records what occurred between the Feast of Tabernacles and that of the Dedication. The transactions at the Feast of Dedication are narrated in vers. 22-39. In vers. 40-42 mention is made of a short abode on the other side of the Jordan. The journey of Jesus to Bethany in order to raise Lazarus occupies ch. John 11:1-53; in ver. 54 Jesus goes back to Ephraim. The return to Bethany is in ch. John 12:1-12; the entrance into Jerusalem, vers. 12 seq.; and finally, the conclusion of the first part of the whole is found in vers. 37 seq. All in this section tends to prepare for Christ’s death on the cross. The hatred of the Jews is exhibited in its continuous growth; and Jesus increases that hatred, as if designedly, by the unintermitting assertion of the dignity of His person—an assertion which was a lasting offence to the Jews. These confessions and testimonies of Christ to Himself are a rich source of edification to faith; while the copiousness with which the Evangelist records the solemn vanity of the subterfuges resorted to by the Jews,—who, notwithstanding all the specious arguments which they adduced against Christ, fell under the desolating judgment of God,—is fruitful in instruction and warning. The latter holds good especially in reference to ch. 7, which places in lively presentation before us the natural man, hating and flying from Christ, loving and cherishing his sins, while denying that he does so, and wilfully transferring to the theological domain what belonged simply to the moral. “In this chapter,” says Anton, “we have a complete collection of judgments, one saying this and another that about Christ. Thus do the poor children of men fluctuate in doubt, and through their own fault; because they are not influenced in their contention by pure love of truth, with which they are only trifling. Let us judge ourselves accordingly.” John 7:1. “After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for He would not walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him.” Jesus had also previously betaken Himself to Galilee. He had remained there during the whole year, between the Passover of ch. 5 and the Passover of ch. John 6:4. But reference is only to the walking which took place after the event recorded in ch. 6; because with that was connected the representation of the “brethren,” who were discontented because Jesus kept Himself so long at a distance from Judea. The Jews in this passage were not Jews, as contradistinguished from Galileans: the name designates, as is shown in ch. 2, the whole people. But their rulers were the soul of the people; and they not only had their seat in Galilee, but exercised uncontrolled influence there; whereas in Galilee they were held in check by Herod: comp. on ch. John 4:1. “They sought to kill Him,” points back to ch. John 5:16; John 5:18. The fact recorded in that chapter formed a turning-point. The Jews were led by it to purposes of murder: and not merely under a transitory impulse, for they from that time kept that end firmly and steadily in view. The persevering and energetic hatred of the Pharisees, as recorded by John, is corroborated by the synoptical accounts of the mission of the emissaries who came about the same time from Jerusalem to Galilee: see Matthew 15:1 seq., John 16:1 seq.; Mark 7:1 seq., John 8:11 seq. In consequence of the movements of these Pharisaic spies, Jesus retreated into the region of Tyre and Sidon, Matthew 15:21. The present verse embraces in one the events of an entire half-year. We perceive in this condensation an indirect reference to the earlier Evangelists, who do in fact furnish the details that fill up the gap lying here before us. The whole supplement lies in Matthew 15-18. In ch. 14 he records the feeding of the five thousand, in harmony with our ch. 6, and the miraculous intervention of Jesus upon the lake. In ch. Matthew 19:1, he relates that Jesus finally left Galilee to go up to Jerusalem; and the setting forth must be identical with that of Mat 7:10, for after this also we hear of no more returning to Galilee. But Matthew, who before the passion limits his record of what took place to the events in Galilee, omits the residence of Jesus at Jerusalem during the Feasts of Tabernacles and Dedication, and all that is related in John down to ch. Matthew 10:39, bringing our Lord from Perea into Judea, in harmony with Matthew 10:40. “And it came to pass,” says Matthew, “that when Jesus had finished these sayings, He departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judea beyond Jordan.” That Judea lay for Jesus beyond Jordan, shows that He came direct from Perea. ΠέραντοῦἸορδάνου, is an expression used subjectively with reference to the position of the traveller; and it is the same in effect as the διὰτοῦπέραντοῦἸορδάνου of Mark 10:1, where the phrase is a standing geographical designation. The section of Matthew which furnishes the supplementary details to ch. Matthew 7:1, contains many allusions to the nearness of the consummation of our Lord’s destiny; so that we find ourselves at the threshold of the Passover. “From that time forth,” we read in ch. Matthew 16:21, “began Jesus to show unto His disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.” The fact of the Transfiguration, related in ch. 17, presupposes the near approach of the gloomy season of sorrow. It formed, as it were, a defence against the temptations of that season. A repeated pre-intimation of the coming passion is found in ch. Matthew 7:22 seq. Mark records the feeding of the five thousand, and the miracle on the sea, in ch. 6; the journey into Judea in ch. Mark 10:1. Thus what lies intermediate between these is the complement of our ver. 1. The various changes of place which are mentioned in this section, explain the περιεπάτειHe journeyed round. Luke gives the feeding in ch. Luke 9:10-17; and what is recorded in Luke 9:18-41, falls under John 9:1 in John. In Luke 9:51-56 he tells us that Jesus, “when the time was come that He should be received,” went up through Samaria to Jerusalem. The ungracious reception that He met with at the hands of the Samaritans, shows that He was going up to a feast: “because His face was as though He would go up to Jerusalem.” Here we have the parallel of our John 9:10. Jesus probably chose, on account of His delay in setting out, the nearest way; and as He travelled incognito, οὐφανερῶςἀλλʼ ? ὡςἐνκρυπτῷ, it is obvious that He would avoid the common way on which the Galileans went up to Jerusalem. They were in the habit of taking the longer way through Perea, in order to escape the attacks of the Samaritans. Luke appends a series of events, which belong to various times. In the main and in the leading events, he preserves strictly the chronological order, καθεξῆς, ch. John 1:3. But after having done this hitherto, so far as regards the main narrative—connecting, however, sometimes the order of events with the order of time—he gives here, before passing on to the narrative of the passion, a supplementary series of events, which he had not inserted chronologically. It is characteristic of this supplement, that the notes of time and place are everywhere undefined. And the harmony of the Gospels has been damaged much by violent attempts to enforce a chronological arrangement upon them, and to assign to a definite time things that belong to the most various periods, and are chronologically indifferent. See in Wieseler’s “Synopsis” a specimen of the difficulties and incongruities in which this theory involves the harmonist. It is not till ch. John 18:35 seq. that Luke resumes the order of time: there Jesus goes through Jericho to Jerusalem. Ver. 2. “Now the Jews Feast of Tabernacles was at hand.” The Evangelist marks the point of view which he occupied in constructing the account of ver. 1, and consequently gives the chronological limitation of the “walking” of ver. 1. The point of commencement was given in ch. John 6:4, from the time of the last Passover but one. The point of conclusion we have here. It is, in fact, until the next Feast of Tabernacles drew nigh. This, the last of the great yearly feasts, fell on the 15th day of the seventh month, and thus was divided from the Passover by half a year. The whole of the people, during this feast, abandoned their houses and dwelt in tents. The significance of this festivity was explained in Leviticus 23:42-43 : “Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt.” The people brought vividly before their minds at this feast the grace which God had manifested to them formerly while travelling through the wilderness; and thus also they invigorated their faith that their ancient God would safely conduct them through the distresses and dangers of the present, although He might still lead them through rough and perilous paths; that He would never withdraw from them the needful protection; and that their cause, however threatening appearances might be, would finally issue in triumph. Ver. 3. “His brethren therefore said unto Him, Depart hence, and go into Judea, that Thy disciples also may see the works that Thou doest.” Ver. 4. “For there is no man that doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly: if Thou do these things, show Thyself to the world.” Ver. 5. “For neither did His brethren believe in Him.” We have shown, in ch. John 2:12, that by the brethren of Jesus in the New Testament, we are to understand not literal brothers, but His nearest relations, the sons of Cleophas and Mary. This passage gives us the first seeming contradiction of that view. Three of the four cousins or brethren mentioned in Matthew 13:55, James, Simon, and Judas, belong to the number of the twelve Apostles. According to John 6:70, the collective twelve, already at that time, were assembled around the Lord. But here the brethren seem to be in open opposition to the Lord: they seek to dictate to Him; they are referred to by Him as in league and friendship with the world; and the Evangelist expressly says, that they did not believe in Christ. Accordingly, it seems clear that the brethren of Jesus must be distinguished from the cousins who were already among the number of the Apostles. We might, indeed, suppose that the brethren of Jesus here were other relatives than those who were received into the circle of the Apostles. Undoubtedly there were such relatives. In Matthew 13:55, besides the three among the Apostles, Joses is mentioned. In ver. 56 we read: “And His sisters, are they not all with us? “And the husbands of these sisters belonged, according to Old Testament and Jewish usage generally, to the number of His “brethren,” or relations of Jesus: comp. for example. Genesis 31:23; Genesis 31:37. But when we more narrowly examine this argument, we find that it is an unsatisfactory escape. It is not here as in Acts 1:14. There the enumeration of the Apostles had preceded, and that reckoning gives “with His brethren “a limitation: to wit, with those amongst His brethren who were not Apostles, such as Joses and the husbands of the sisters. But, on the other hand, there is no such limitation here thrown around them by the context; and there is no warrant for understanding by the brethren only a portion of the brethren. When we study the question fully, however, we find that there is no reason for excluding the three Apostles named from the number of the brethren. On the one hand, the words, “neither did His brethren believe in Him,” ver. 5, have been too rigorously pressed; and a worse meaning has been imposed upon the expressions of vers. 3 and 4 than rightly belongs to them. On the other hand, it has been overlooked, that in the apostolical circle there was as yet much imperfection. The manner in which the Lord, in ch. John 6:70, replied to the confident confession which Peter, in the name of all, uttered, “We believe that Thou art Christ, the Son of God,” points to the fact that this confession went beyond the real faith of the Apostles. The manner also in which He spoke of the treachery of Judas, intimated that germs of unbelief were still existing amongst the rest. The declaration which Christ then made, as the Searcher of hearts, finds its actual warrant and voucher in the circumstance we are now considering. The “brethren” do not refer to the fact that Jesus was under legal obligation to go up to the feast. They recognise in Him the Christ, the Son of God, in harmony with ch. John 6:69, who as such was elevated above all prescriptions of the law. They do not derive their argument from the law, but only and entirely from the mission of Jesus, from the dignity of His person, which must secure its full acknowledgment in the very centre of the people. They manifest likewise their zeal for the honour and for the honourable recognition of Christ. They perceive correctly enough, that Jesus could not, and should not, limit His influence to an obscure corner of Galilee; and that the Saviour of the world must manifest Himself to the world. Not many days afterwards, Jesus set His own seal upon the correctness of this assumption; for He went up to the feast in Jerusalem, and there publicly taught in the temple. In “If Thou doest these things, show Thyself unto the world,” the if does not express any doubt; but it only points to the inference, that the one must necessarily draw the other after it. The if has the same force as in 1 John 4:11 : “If God hath thus loved us, we ought also to love one another:” Romans 11:21. “Εἰ itself,” says Winer, “retains the conditional signification if even where, in point of meaning, it stands for ἐπεί, since; the sentence is, so far as regards the expression, conditional, if (such being actually the case), and the categorical meaning does not for the moment come into view.” Jesus contradicted His own mission, and thwarted His own Messianic work, by keeping Himself concealed so long. For a whole year and a half He had not emerged from Galilee. The brethren rightly perceived that this state of things could not go on any longer. The position which they here lay down, that “there is no man that doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly,” Jesus Himself, in ch. John 18:20, recognises as a sound one, and declares it to be a rule which He had followed. The error of the brethren—who set out with a right principle, that a continued separation of Jesus from the Temple, the house of God, the spiritual house of the whole nation, was morally impossible—lay simply and solely in this, that they attempted to prescribe to Jesus His time and hour. That they were so free in suggesting their thought, sprang from the fact that they knew Christ so familiarly after the flesh. Even Mary, in ch. John 2:4, was kept within her limits; and there, too, the hour was concerned. It were like making a blind man judge of colours, to introduce into the life of faith a strict and rigorous logical consistency. To pretend to dictate to the Lord, to master the Master, was a grievous fault, and one into which we are still ever liable to fall, when He manifests Himself otherwise than we think we have a right to expect. But in the case of all the disciples, and even of the Apostles, it was necessary that the Spirit should be first received; for “the Holy Ghost was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified,” ver. 39. We meet with many instances of infirmity among the Apostles which must appear incredible to one who does not know human nature. We have only to remember the word which Jesus, shortly before this narrative, was constrained to say to Peter when he, like these brethren here, was disposed to dictate to his Master (Matthew 16:23), “Get thee behind Me, Satan; thou art an offence unto Me: thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men;” and the request of the two sons of Zebedee, to sit one on the right hand and the other on the left of Jesus, Matthew 20:20; and the contention of the Apostles for pre-eminence just before the institution of the Supper. As it regards the specific words, “Neither did they believe on Him,” we must not forget that John, in ch. John 20:8, charges himself, and in ch. John 20:27 his follow-apostle Thomas, with unbelief; nor that Jesus, shortly before, answered the Apostles inquiry why they could not cast out the unclean spirit, by “because of your unbelief,” and, indeed, included them with the unbelieving and perverse generation. That faith and unbelief are not terms of blank contrast, is shown by the expression, “I believe, help Thou mine unbelief;” as also by John 2:11, where it is said of the disciples, that they believed in Jesus after the miracle in Cana of Galilee—as if they had not “believed on Him before, although, in ch. John 1:51, Jesus had said to Nathanael, Thou believest. According to John 11:15, the Apostles, who, as being Apostles, must have had faith already, are represented as being brought to faith by the resurrection of Lazarus. That the unbelief of the brethren must here be understood relatively, like the Saviour’s charge of unbelief directed against all the Apostles, Matthew 17:20, is established by Acts 1:14, where we meet with the “brethren” of Jesus among the believers immediately after the resurrection. The notion that the light of faith arose upon them first through the resurrection of Christ, is without probability: for we see them in the midst of the circle of the believers, a circle with which Jesus had surrounded Himself during His earthly life; and there is nothing to intimate that they had entered it later than the rest. Moreover, the resurrection of Christ was an event too recent for such an influence to be reasonably imputed to it. It would be amongst the cousins of Jesus, rather than amongst the other Apostles, that we should have expected to find such immaturity of faith. Strictly parallel with the account of their relative unbelief, is the rank which they invariably held in the lists of the Twelve: they are everywhere placed at the end; evidence that they were not till late such as justified their being called to the apostolical office, although we find them, ch. John 2:12, in the Lord’s company at a very early period of His mission. They had more to overcome than the others had. It is to this that the Lord’s word points. Matthew 13:57 : “A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.” Not only here, but also on another occasion, Matthew 12:46 and the parallels, they were disposed to dictate to our Lord. Let it not be objected, that the words which Jesus said to them scarcely suit the Apostles—“The world cannot hate you.” We have no trace that the Jewish zeal of persecution had ever included the Apostles in its range. Everywhere Jesus Himself, and alone, is the object of it. “They hated Me before they hated you,” ch. John 15:18, is an expression which indicates that there had been a time when their hatred was spent only upon Him. Their separation from the world was not yet complete. Whenever the disciples appeared elsewhere than in Christ’s company, they had nothing to fear from the world. It would be otherwise in the future, when the Holy Ghost should be poured out upon them, and glorify Jesus in them, and when they should in His power testify of the world that its works were evil, ch. John 15:19, John 17:14. But it may be argued that the brethren of Jesus went up alone to Jerusalem, while Jesus, doubtless at the head of His twelve Apostles, went up some time afterwards. On this supposition, therefore, the brethren cannot have belonged to the apostolic circle. But how can it be proved that our Lord at that time had His twelve Apostles with him? The fact that Jesus, according to ver. 10, went up to the feast, “not openly, but as it were in secret,” makes it improbable that He was accompanied on this journey by a train so numerous and so likely to excite attention. The only Evangelist who gives us any more detailed account of this journey, Luke, in ch. Luke 9:51 seq.,—says nothing of any such accompaniment of the collective Apostles. It would appear rather, from his narrative, that the Lord had with Him only His most confidential disciples. In Jerusalem, at the feast, Jesus had His twelve Apostles round Him. On the way from Perea to Judea He walked from place to place at the head of the Twelve, Matthew 20:17. Thus this passage furnishes no reason why we should recede from the results obtained from ch. John 2:12 in relation to the brethren of our Lord. According to the opinion of the brethren, Jesus ought to go to Judea for this among other reasons (καί), that His disciples might see the works which He did. These disciples were not the disciples of Jerusalem specifically, but the disciples generally. Only if His works were performed in the centre of the nation, where the whole of the people were gathered together at the feast, would they be visible to the whole generation of disciples. What was done in a corner was visible only to individuals; and even these had not all they desired in that respect: for they must have desired that the works of Jesus should be done in the fullest light of publicity, in view of the authorities, and before the wise and prudent, in order to silence the objection that Jesus could impose only on the masses, who could not test Him. A seal must be impressed upon the miracles of Galilee by the performance of similar miracles in Jerusalem. The objection that the Evangelists expression is obscure, recoils upon the expositors who have said so. Wherever obscurity is charged upon John, it is invariably the result of want of depth in the expositor. No man—the brethren say in ver. 4—doeth anything in secret, while he himself seeketh to be before the public. Jesus must, in harmony with His own assumptions as the Son of God and the King of Israel, seek publicity. He contradicted the purpose of His own mission by remaining long in private, by shutting Himself up in a corner, by persistently shunning the metropolis, where the thrones were set for judgment, Psalms 122, and which was the judicial tribunal for all the manifestations of the popular life. For eighteen months Jesus had not left Galilee. The brethren knew full well that such a state of things could not continue much longer. Παρρησία signified originally freedom of speech, and then generally a free and open nature: comp. John 11:54, John 18:20, where Jesus admits the correctness of the principle laid down by the brethren, and asserts that He had always acted on it. The only mistake was the assumption of the brethren that Jesus must come forth from His retirement now, that is, at the specific time which they would prescribe to Him. “If Thou do these things”—the works of His Messianic vocation—“show Thyself to the world:” the universal theatre was, for the Jewish people, Jerusalem; if Jesus appeared publicly there. He made Himself known to the world. Sin is no less a mystery than the divinity of Christ. The brethren, still lingering on the beginnings of their faith, had no presentiment of the depth and energy of the Pharisees hatred to Christ. They were themselves convinced of His Divine mission. They knew Him to be in possession of the most glorious means to establish His credentials. They hoped, therefore, that if He would only show Himself to the world, He would succeed in vanquishing the worlds enmity, and probably in obtaining the recognition of the High Council. On ver. 5, Heumann remarks: “They believed not on Him: that is, their faith in Him was not yet firm and strong enough; it had yet to contend with unbelief.” This lower position as to faith revealed itself, not in their leaving it undecided whether or not the works of Jesus were really Messianic (Lόcke), but simply and solely in this, that they would dictate to Jesus, and prescribe Him the time and hour. Living faith in Jesus as the Son of God shows itself in this, that it suffers Him to act and rule absolutely as He will. Ver. 6. “Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come; but your time is alway ready.” We may compare with this, ch. John 2:4, where Jesus says to His mother, “Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.” As there, according to the context, the hour was the time appropriate to our Lord for lending help in the emergency, so here the time is that which was appropriate for Him to go to Judea, to appear there in full publicity, and to manifest Himself unto the world. The Jews sought to kill Jesus, ver. 1. Thus the time for showing Himself to the world was also the time of suffering,—the time of His departure, of the decease which Jesus must accomplish at Jerusalem. Like the hour in ch. John 2:4, and in John 7:30, the “time” here points to Ecclesiastes 3:1, where time and hour are connected together: “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” The reference to this passage was an intimation that all the actions of Jesus were under the law of a Divine necessity. It was a folly that the brethren assumed the right to prescribe the period of a crisis of such universal significance. In these things Jesus could not regard His brethren upon earth, but only His Father in heaven. That here, as in the case of the οὔπωἥκειἡὥραμου, the phrase was not the Evangelists, but our Lord’s, is shown by the ὁκαιρόςμουἐγγύςἐστι in Matthew 26:18 : comp. also Mark 1:15. The reason of our Lord’s regarding His time as not yet come, has been explained by some to be this, that He did not wish to show Himself in Jerusalem until the number of His Galilean dependants had become so great in Jerusalem, as to deter the Sanhedrim from laying hands on Him there. But we find no trace whatever of our Lord’s having made His Galilean friends His prop and defence in Jerusalem. Ver. 10 gives us the true reason why His hour was not yet come. Jesus would not enter the city suddenly, and in a manner provocative of excitement, and thus hasten the catastrophe. It was not at the Feast of Tabernacles, but at the following Passover, that He was to accomplish His decease; and there still remained much that was important both to be said and to be done. Thus it was expedient that He should go up to the Feast of Tabernacles, “not openly, but as it were in secret.” Ver. 7. “The world cannot hate you; but Me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.” Jesus bore His witness not merely by His word, but by His whole life and work. Every glance at Him must have pierced the hearts of the degenerate rulers. With the brethren of Jesus, and with the Apostles generally, it was not so: in them the world saw much that bore affinity with itself. Ver. 8. “Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up unto this feast; for My time is not yet full come.” The Present, ἀναβαίνω, is to be carefully noted. His going up to the feast is not affirmed by Jesus, nor is it denied; it is left, so far as His words go undetermined. It was below the majesty of Christ to give at that time a more definite explanation. The requirement of the brethren was to the effect that He should go up with them to the feast. Jesus contents Himself with repressing this assumption. If He had said, “Not now, but after some days,” they might surely have imagined that their representations had produced some effect upon Him. It was precisely in the same way that our Lord acted towards His mother, who would have intruded into the matters of His vocation. He did not say to her that He would presently accomplish what she wished. How little merely “diplomatic” criticism avails generally, is shown herein particular. Instead of οὐκ before ἀναβαίνω, “the reading of most authorities” is οὔπω. But this reading is manifestly an intentional change, introduced by such as thought they could thereby obviate the seeming contradiction upon which Porphyry and others had laid so much stress, charging the Lord with uncertainty and caprice. Οὔπω does not harmonize with what precedes. If the Lord had intended definitely to intimate that He would go up later to the feast, He would have said, as we may suppose, “Go ye up now to this feast.” If we take into consideration the whole position in which the brethren stood with regard to Jesus, the style in which He spoke to them from the beginning, we shall be very far from thinking that He made them partakers of His secret, and admitted them to a privity with His design of going up at a later season to the feast. Such a confidence they had not deserved. He that exalteth himself shall be abased. Accordingly, we can do justice to the notion that there is here another specimen of John’s want of precision in language; and to Chrysostom’s supplementary νῦνμεθʼ ? ὑμῶν. Ver. 9. “When He had said these words unto them. He abode still in Galilee. 10. But when His brethren were gone up, then went He also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.” That Jesus went up afterwards to the feast had no reference to the law of the Old Testament, from which He, as the Son of God, was free; comp. on ch. John 2:12. The right point of view is that from which the brethren spoke. Jesus must manifest Himself unto the world. That Jesus did not set out until after His brethren, was, as it were, another way of saying “not openly.” The great mass of the people who went to the feast, entered Jerusalem before the first and great day of the festival. But this is not enough for the full explanation of the “not openly,” etc. Jesus left His brethren behind, in order not to appear surrounded by the whole body of His Apostles, an accompaniment that could not fail to excite attention; and then He did not choose the ordinary way of the pilgrims, which led from Galilee through Perea, but took His own course through Samaria. The difficulties which encountered Him on this road, Luke 9:51, etc., must have deterred most pilgrims. The way through Perea was, while somewhat farther, very much more pleasant. The ὡς softens the ἐνκρυπτῷ. His journey only resembled one that was private: the same softening force of the ὡς we meet with often elsewhere in the Gospel,—e.g. ch. John 1:40, John 11:18. To travel in perfect incognito would have been inconsistent with Christ’s dignity. Publicity was avoided, only so far as was required by His aim to avoid exciting any great stir, and to suppress all suspicion that He was thinking of the establishment of a kingdom. Ver. 11. “Then the Jews sought Him at the feast, and said, Where is he?” The Jews are not here placed in antithesis to the multitude of ver. 12; but the Ἰουδαῖοι represent the whole of the people, including the rulers, while the ὄχλοι designate a particular portion of the people, the multitude in opposition to the rulers. And since we are not justified in making the Jews here specifically the rulers, or generally those who were unfriendly to Jesus, we cannot understand the ἐκεῖνος, He, in a contemptuous sense. It was said with a different feeling, by different people, with different tendencies. Ἐκεῖνος occurs sometimes with an emphatic meaning, as “the celebrated, the illustrious one” (Buttmann, S. u. K.). Jesus was regarded as a prominent personage by all parties. The thoughts of all factions and sects were deeply stirred concerning Him. Ἐκεῖνος, which occurs in this Gospel remarkably often, no less than seventy times, occurs thrice in the Apocalypse. This may at the first glance seem strange; but it is the same with οὗτος, which is only found twice in the Apocalypse. Hence we see that the difference must be explained by the generic difference in the kind of writing, and learn how little is to be gained by a merely mechanical study in this department of criticism. Ver. 12. “And there was much murmuring among the people concerning Him: for some said. He is a good man: others said, Nay; but he deceiveth the people. 13. Howbeit no man spake openly of Him for fear of the Jews.” Why it was only a murmuring, we learn from ver. 13. The παρρησία, which is denied, there forms the counterpart of the γογγυσμός here. They did not dare to represent aloud and boldly their opinions, because the legitimate authorities had given no definitive utterance. Even they who felt in unison with the generally known enmity of the rulers, shrank from bluntly avowing their sentiments: partly because a change of mind on the part of the rulers was possible (comp. ver. 26); partly, and especially, because a vigorous assertion of open opinion, as such, and apart from the substance of that opinion, would have been regarded as an aggression upon the domain of the Pharisaic omnipotence. The people were not supposed to form any independent judgment. If the Pharisees had allowed that public sentiment to express itself when favourable to themselves, they would have exposed themselves to the effects of all the capricious changes to which that public sentiment was liable. So in our earlier empire, oppressed by the burden of despotism, political movements in favour of the government were no more open or tolerated than those which were opposed to it. The spiritual slavery in which the Pharisaic party held the people, is illustrated here in a very remarkable manner. That even the pharisaically-minded did not dare to give free utterance to their thoughts, is a circumstance that could not have been invented; it is a trait which was derived only from reality. The testimony of Josephus agrees perfectly in the general with our view of the Pharisaic oppressions; e.g. in the work on the Jewish War, I. v. 2, he says of Alexandria: “She ruled the rest, and the Pharisees ruled her.” They had all things in their hand; they persecuted and delivered, they bound and loosed whom they would. According to the Archaeol. 18. 1. 2, among the Pharisees themselves the younger durst not contradict the elder. Good is often used in the Old Testament for well-disposed. So, in 1 Samuel 2:26, it is said of Samuel. In Proverbs 2:20; Proverbs 14:29, the good are parallel with the righteous. In Ecclesiastes 9:2, the good as such are opposed to the sinners. On the “he deceiveth the people,” Lampe remarks: “They thus justify their scheming to put Jesus to death, because such seducers of the people were adjudged by the law to die, Deuteronomy 13:6.” Augustine: Dictum est hoc ad eorum solatium, qui postea praedicantes verbum Dei, futuri erant ut seductores et veraces, 2 Corinthians 6:8. For fear of the Jews: The Individual was afraid of the Whole. The term Jews here also signifies the mass of the people; but the Pharisees, especially the rulers, were the soul of this mass. Fear of the Jews was the power which restrained the tongues of the well-disposed: testimony also how far from consummate was the faith of these likewise. Perfect faith casts out fear. Ver. 14. “Now, about the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple, and taught.” Quesnel: “Here, then, the moment was come, the crisis appointed of the Father, which Jesus waited for, that He might declare Himself to the priests.” It does not mean literally the midmost day of the feast: all the days were “in the midst of the feast,” which fell between the first and the last. Bengel supposes,, that the day on which Jesus entered into the temple to teach was a Sabbath: Die Sabbati frequens proe coeteris medii festi dieus erat auditorium, et opportunus de Sabbato sermo, ver. 22. Ver. 15. “And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters (Scripture), having never learned? Γράμματα, of themselves, meant the sciences, literoe generally; and the term owed its use to the fact that writings, read and written, were the foundation of all learning. Acts 26:24. But, because among the Jews all science had reference to holy Scripture, the word γράμματα here is in reality identical with the ἱερὰγράμματα of 2 Timothy 3:15. The “having never learned,” had, so to speak, an official meaning: “inasmuch as he has never been in our high schools;” for only in these, according to the common opinion of the time, could any real knowledge be obtained (Cod. Sota in Lampe: Etsi quis in Scriptura et Mischna versatus est, neque tamen sapientibus operam dedit, is plebeius est). That Jesus had never frequented those schools, they very well knew; for he was a well-known person, ch. John 6:41 (Grotius: Nemo proeceptorum in discipilorum suorum grege eum viderat). The marvelling (comp. Acts 4:13) could have existed only if they failed to recognise who Jesus was. It must cease as soon as they should recognise in Christ the true Son of God. But, on the other hand, their marvelling might become the way and preparation for faith. Therefore our Lord offers them the key for the explanation of the wonderful fact. Ver. 16. “Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me.” We have to compare Deuteronomy 18:18, where God says, concerning the great Prophet afterwards to be sent, “I will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak unto them all that I shall command Him.” If that prophecy were here fulfilled, the fact must lose all its strangeness. Ver. 17. “If any man will do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself.” What Jesus said in ver. 18 was not a mere assertion. We may discern the reason of it in this, that it would make the fact of ver. 15 self-intelligible,—a fact for which the Jews, as their marvelling showed, had at least no other explanation. However, it was only appropriate that other evidence should also be appealed to. And foremost among other demonstrations must be this, that the Divine mission of Jesus approved itself to every one who was found walking in God’s ways. To do the will of God, is only another expression for that which is recorded in Luke 1:6 of Zachariah and Elisabeth: “They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” Doing the will of God cannot refer to any particular point; it embraces the whole domain of morals, and especially the grander mental requirements of the love of God and man. We may compare, in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 10:12, “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul?” and Micah 6:8, “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” In the New Testament, see Matthew 7:21, and ver. 23, where ἐργαζόμενοιτὴνἀνομίαν is the antithesis of doing the will of the Father in heaven; John 12:50; Luke 12:47; John 9:31, where to have the fear of God and doing His will are connected; and 1 Thessalonians 4:3. In Ephesians 2:3, the opposite of doing the will of God is doing the will of the flesh and of the mind. It is not said simply, “he that doeth the will of God,” but “he that willeth to do the will of God.” If it be so that the doing is impaired by much imperfection, yet the fundamental direction of the will must tend to perfect conformity with the will of God; the law of God must be the joy and delight of the heart; and to satisfy its requirements must be its meditation day and night: comp. Psalms 1:2; Psalms 119. The emphasis laid upon the willing here is opposed to the emphasis laid upon knowing by the Jews of that day. The prerogative of the Jews to be monopolists of the knowledge of the will of God, was set aside. Beyond that, there must be the most decisive inclination to do the will of God when known; the will of man must entirely and absolutely coincide with the will of God. The mere concert between knowledge and the will of God is an insufficient harmony. Anton: “He who would cultivate the γνῶναι (understanding), must also learn to amend his θέλειν, his willing. He who omits this latter, has nothing but a blind, foolish, evil-disposed nature. The people act as if they could not understand such things. It were better if they said. We will not understand them.” Calvin points to the fact, that the words contain a concealed condemnation of those who heard, a disclosure of the secret perverseness, etc., of their disposition, which kept them from access to Christ: Uno simul oblique illos perstringet. Nam unde fit, ut discernere nequeant, nisi quod rectae intelligentiae caput ipsos deficit, pietas scil. et studium obsequendi Deo. They came with a long series of stately arguments against Christ. He points to the fact, that all that was mere hypocrisy and idle words. The real reason of their conduct lay in the evil disposition of their hearts. Grotius: Sicut oculi de coloribus tum demum recte judicant, cum nullo pravo humore suffusi sunt. To the willing to do the will of God in this passage, corresponds, in ch. John 8:47, the being of God. He whose will coincides with the will of God, is of God, because such harmony can be found only in a spirit to which God has communicated Himself. The antithesis of willing to do the will of God, is the working evil of ch. John 3:20, with which the doing the truth of ver. 21 is parallel. To be willing to do the will of God, was a state and condition possible only within the limits of the covenant people. Only to them was opportunity afforded of knowing that will; of attaining that knowledge which is necessarily presupposed in the being willing to do it. Comp. Romans 2:18, γινώσκειςτὸθέλημα. . . κατηχούμενοςἐκτοῦνόμου: only under the law are those higher influences felt which can evoke that willingness; comp. on ch. John 3:21. The Gentiles, after the example of Cornelius, could attain to that willing readiness only through connection with the covenant people. Whosoever would lead souls to Christ—this is the practical result of our passage—should not tarry long about the specious arguments with which the natural man seeks to disguise the hateful perversion of his state of will; he should, above all things, strive to excite this willingness to do the will of God. Knowledge will then spring up of itself; the man will then be ashamed of the hypocrisy and the delusion by which he sought to transfer the purely subjective guilt of his opposition from himself to the object of his opposition. But why is it that the divinity of the doctrine of Christ is at once to be perceived, when there is simply a sincere will to do the will of God? The will of God is, for example, that man should perceive his misery and seek the forgiveness of his sins. Whoever has hidden this will of God in his heart, will with great joy receive the doctrine of Christ concerning His own eternal divinity, and the atonement which has its foundation in that divinity. Whosoever. on the contrary, gilds his own misery, and indulges in pride, must by this teaching of Christ be offended in the inmost secret of his soul. The will of God is, that we should love Him with all our soul, and with all the powers of our being. He who desires to fulfil this will, must with rejoicing seek the way to Christ, in order to find in Him the death of his lusts and passions, which the love of God must mortify and destroy. He, on the other hand, who is untroubled about the will of God, nourishes and cherishes these lusts and passions, and thereby loses the very key to the doctrine of Christ: he cannot make a beginning with Jesus, whose high utterances concerning Himself seem to him no better than mere pretensions. As the exemplar of perfection, as the living ideal of holiness, Christ must be dear and precious to all who desire to do the will of God; to all who desire it not, He must be hateful. He not only bears witness by His word; He testifies by His whole being against the world, that the works thereof are evil, ver. 7. He who will do these works must make it his great endeavour to disembarrass himself of that burdensome testimony, of that fatal embodiment of his conscience, by discrediting the witness to whom the homines bonoe voluntatis look up with hearty and longing love. That holds good in the fullest degree which was said in Wisd. of Sol. ch. John 2:12-14, concerning the relation of the ungodly to the ideal person of the righteous,—an ideal which was realized first in Christ: “Let us lie in wait for the righteous; because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings: he upbraideth us with our offending the law, and objecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education. He professeth to have the knowledge of God; and he calleth himself the child of the Lord. He was made to reprove our thoughts.” In the discourses of Christ the old man is everywhere drawn out of his hiding-place, and exhibited in all his abominable vileness. Take, for example, the Sermon on the Mount, the conversation with Nicodemus, or ch. 6, where Jesus makes all life depend on the eating of His flesh and blood, and thus absolutely decrees the natural man to death. This is very agreeable to all those who will to do the will of God, and who therefore—what is inseparably bound up with the other—hate the old man. But, on the other hand, it offends and exasperates those whose desire is to abide in the old nature of the old man. “New birth,”—how hateful a word to the natural man! This saying further shows what we must think of those who oppose “morality “to faith in the historical Christ. Every man is immoral or unmoral in the same degree as he is estranged from faith in the “historical Christ.” The virtues in which he probably seems to be rich, become, when closely scanned, shining sins. What Bengel says is true: Patris doctrina et filii doctrina eadem. Qui ergo consensionem cum voluntate Patris habet, doctrinam Filii agnoscet. Ver. 18. “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.” In formal connection with the “of myself” in ver. 17, the Lord points to a second way in which conviction of the divinity of His mission may be obtained. What was meant by seeking his own honour, the rulers of the Jews might discern in themselves, and all the rest of the Jews in the rulers. The receiving honours one of another, and not seeking the honour that comes from God alone, ch. John 5:44, comp. John 12:43, was then, as it is in all times of apostasy, when the love of God has grown cold, a fearfully wasting disease. Even His enemies were constrained to bear testimony to the Saviour, that this disease was not in Him. “Master,” said the Pharisees, in Matthew 22:16, to Jesus, “we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man; for thou regardest not the person of men;” probably with allusion to the very words of Christ in our present passage. That Jesus did not seek His own honour, but the honour of Him that sent Him, had from the beginning been confirmed by the relation which He had assumed towards the powers that regulated the popular life. This relation was that of the most express and unflinching opposition. But he who would receive honour must give honour, must flatter the spirit of the times, and must humble himself before its most prominent leaders and representatives. Had Jesus so acted, the Jews would never have sought to put Him to death. The saying before us gives us the standard by which all the ministers of the Church are now and ever to be judged. In its sense Paul says, 1 Thessalonians 2:4, “We thus speak, not as pleasing men, but God;” and in Galatians 1:10, “If I yet please men, I should not be the servant of Christ.” The opposite of the truth is the lie, 1 John 2:27. The opposite of the true man is the liar and the deceiver: comp. 2 Corinthians 6:8, ὡςπλάνοικαὶἀληθεῖς, as deceivers and yet true, Matthew 27:63. Not to be true is, at the same time, unrighteousness, since truth is an obligation to our neighbour, especially in religious concerns, where salvation and perdition are involved: comp. Isaiah 41:26, where he that speaketh the truth is defined to be a righteous man. Ver. 19. “Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill Me?” The Lord, after He had adduced the evidences of His own Divine mission, occupies Himself with obviating the objection against it which had been derived from His violation of the Sabbath commandment; comp. ch. John 5:9 : He that places himself in opposition to Moses, cannot be of God. The Lord formally meets the charge by a countercharge. Those who set Moses against Him, were themselves in gross discord with Moses. But vers. 21-24 show very plainly that the countercharge is only matter of form, and that the Lord’s real object was to obviate the objection. With the “Moses gave you the law,” we may compare Deuteronomy 33:4, “Moses commanded us a law,” where Moses himself speaks of himself, making himself objective from the position of the people. “None of you keepeth the law,” becomes positive, and is proved, in what follows: “Why go ye about to kill Me?” The expression was not one of hyperbole. The guilt was in the most proper sense a national one, in which individual men either actively participated, or passively by indifference and non-intervention. If the spirit of the law had been living and active in them, all Israel would, as in Judges 20:1, have risen up as one man against such blasphemy. “Thou shalt not kill,” was a commandment which made its strong appeal so soon as it became clear, as what followed made it clear, that the charge brought against Christ so vehemently was an unfounded charge. The law everywhere breathes the deadliest abhorrence of murder. “Keep thou far from a false matter,” we read in Exodus 23:7, “and the innocent and righteous slay thou not.” According to Deuteronomy 19:10, the innocent blood which was shed in the land of the Lord brought bloodguiltiness upon all the people. Just at the threshold of the giving of the law, Cain’s act was exhibited as a warning example to inspire horror. But here the theory in question was not murder in its ordinary form; the matter concerned was the entering into a murderous combination against Him in reference to whom Moses had said in the early revelation, “Whosoever will not hearken unto My words which He shall speak in My name, I will require it of him,” Deuteronomy 18:19. A more direct and determinate opposition to Moses could not be imagined. Ver. 20. “The people answered and said. Thou hast a devil: who goeth about to kill thee?” The multitude did not speak thus out of ignorance of the rulers designs: that they sought to kill Jesus was a notorious fact; comp. ver. 25, on which Anton says: “God ordained it that these should presently come and say. Is not this he whom they seek to kill? These blab out their secret, so that they are straightway convicted, and are made αὐτοκατάκριτοι. They would not say it in words, but it is seen as clear as day.” That is the way of the world: plain facts, which on other occasions they are proud of, they shrink from and disguise when they are alleged as charges from which they cannot otherwise escape. “Thou hast a devil,” was the chorus of the Jews when they were pierced in their consciences, and had no other means of defence at hand: comp. ch. John 8:48; John 8:52, John 10:20. There they said, “He hath a devil, and is mad.” This passage, however (comparing ver. 21), shows that it was not a mere phrase when the Jews declared Jesus to be possessed by an unclean spirit. In any case he was in a disturbed condition of mind; but they attributed the disturbance to possession by an evil spirit. The very wickedness of this allegation shows that the “people” here are not to be regarded as the opposite of the “Jews;” we must not suppose that they were well affected, and unacquainted with the murderous designs of the rulers,—against which notion vers. 21 seq. are also decisive. “A preacher,” says Quesnel, “must not expect to find himself justified before the people of the world. The most moderate complaint is, in their view, a new offence.” Ver. 21. “Jesus answered and said unto them, I have done one work, and ye all marvel thereat.” Jesus ignores their interruption (Grotius: When He was reviled. He reviled not again, 1 Peter 2:23, ad convitium docendo respondet), to show that it had nothing to do with the matter, and was a mere evasion. He gives the ground of His countercharge, and at the same time removes the charge out of the way. “One work;” that is, which comes into consideration with regard to the question then before them. Amongst so many excellent works which Jesus had shown them from the Father (ch. John 10:32), there was but one upon which they could found their charge: all the others were, by their silent admission, unimpeachable. The very fact of this matter of offence being an isolated case, made it extremely probable that the offence was only assumed. Θαυμάζειν here signifies an angry astonishment: comp. the ἐμοὶχολᾶτε, Are ye angry at Me? in the following verse. Διὰτοῦτο was by the fathers almost universally connected with the next verse; and this has found, even in modern times, some defenders, who appeal to the fact that John always elsewhere uses θαυμάζειν either absolutely or with the mere accusative, and that he is in the habit of beginning and not closing a sentence with διὰτοῦτο,—reasons which, as being merely empirical, have no decisive force. These facts do no more than establish the rule; they do not exclude exceptions to it. But, in itself, the connection of διὰτοῦτο with what follows is not inadmissible. It would then express that the allusion in vers. 22, 23 referred to the objection taken by the Jews: “Therefore know ye, or, I say unto you.” In this sense διὰτοῦτο is used in Matthew 18:23 : διὰτοῦτο (λέγωὑμῖνὡμοιώθηἡβασιλείατῶνοὐρανῶν. But the connection with what precedes, as first recommended by Theophylact, is most obvious; especially when we observe that in Mark 6:6 θαυμάζειν is used with διὰ: comp. τίθαυμάζετεἐπὶτούτῳ, Acts 3:12. Decisive in favour of this connection is ch. John 5:16, διὰτοῦτοἐδίωκοντὸνἸησοῦνοἱἸουδαῖοι; and ver. 18, διὰτοῦτοοὖνμᾶλλονἐζήτουναὐτὸνοἱἸουδαῖοιἀποκτεῖναι, where διὰτοῦτο refers, as it does in our present passage, to the position which the Jews occupied towards Christ as the result of this work. The assertion, that “John inexactly introduces the ὄχλος as receiving the answer, whereas the discourse continues addressed to the rulers,” rests upon the unfounded distinction, in ver. 15, between the “people” and the “Jews.” Ver. 22. “Moses gave you circumcision; not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers; and ye on the Sabbath-day circumcise a man.” We read in Leviticus 12:3, in an ordinance connected with the uncleanness of women: “And on the eighth day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.” But this simple mention in passing, Christ could not certainly have had in His eye. He pointed rather to the communication of the institution of circumcision in the course of Moses history. Now the institution was part of the Torah, the Law. And, after the law was given, the obligation of circumcision was based upon that law; so much so, that it would not have been binding if it had not been found in the Torah. This was the codification of all the revelations of God. Whatever, in the pre-Mosaic times, had permanent significance, must needs be taken up into the Mosaic law. And in this sense it might be said that circumcision was of Moses. Since the time of Moses it might be said to have been given by him. But the reason of its being here referred to Moses was, that Moses was here brought into the lists as against Christ. This same Moses, by the law of circumcision, invaded the Sabbath. According to the law, circumcision must always take place on the eighth day; it must therefore, under some circumstances, come into collision with the Sabbath. Consequently, the Lord showed that the Sabbath commandment must be taken with some allowance; that the ordinance was directed against selfishness, which would turn everything to personal advantage, and not against the help and labour of charity. But in an historical interest, and probably with a glance at the adversaries, and their question, “How knoweth this man the Scripture, having never learned?” (they would have been very well pleased if they could have alleged against Him even the semblance of ignorance in this matter), it is further said, that the reference of circumcision to Moses was not intended to deny its patriarchal derivation. To make the reason of the parenthetical clause this, that the value of circumcision was enhanced by its greater age, is out of the question. “Not that” stands for “the matter is not as if” (οὐχοἷον, Romans 9:6): comp. Philippians 4:11; Philippians 4:17; John 6:46; 2 Corinthians 1:24. Against the supposition that “I say, I think “is to be implied (Winer), the passage first quoted is decisive. Ἐκ serves to define the originator. Circumcision goes back to God; but primarily it was introduced into Israel by the patriarchs, who, on the ground of the Divine appointment, impressed upon their descendants the inviolable observance of this rite. Ver. 23. “If a man on the Sabbath-day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken, are ye angry at Me because I have made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath-day?” Kurtz rightly observes (Hist. of the Old Cov. i. 238, Clark’s Transl.): “Circumcision, which is to remove the growth of nature—that which is unholy and impure—from the principle and source of life, is, so to speak, to extend its power and influence through all the ramifications of life. It implies the obligation of withdrawing all the other relations of life from the dominion of nature, of circumcising the foreskin of the heart, of the lips, of the ear, etc.;” and we would add—what is the main concern, for the obligation is only secondary—assumes and confirms a state of grace to that end: comp. Deuteronomy 30:6. Meanwhile, true as this is, by circumcision only that individual member was primarily healed on which it was performed, and the selection of which is explained by Psalms 51:7, Job 14:4. It was translated from the natural condition of impurity (the Sept. render, in Leviticus 19:23, ςψμδ, foreskin, by ἀκαθρσία; according to the Arabic, this was the fundamental meaning of ςψμ: comp. Gesenius in the Thesaurus, sub voce) into that of purity, of ἁγιασμός and of τιμῇ, 1 Thessalonians 4:4. But the healing act of Jesus referred directly to the whole man. We must not, however, infer from the juxtaposition of circumcision and the physical healing of Jesus, that circumcision also had a physically sanitary significance: the point of comparison is more general than that. Circumcision bears in the law a purely religious character. The sanitary use of it was an invention of later times, in order to obviate the mockery of those who would not admit its religious character. Ver. 24. “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” Ὄψιν—which in the New Testament John alone uses, ch. John 11:44, Revelation 1:16—signifies, in his phraseology, only the countenance. And that this meaning must be adhered to here, is shown by the original passage of the Old Testament, Leviticus 19:15, “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment; thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour;” and Deuteronomy 1:17, “Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great;” Deuteronomy 16:19; Malachi 2:9. To the κρίνεινκατʼ ? ὄψιν here corresponds the βλέπεινεἰςπρόσωπονἀνθρώπων, in Mark 12:14. The countenance represents the person as such. They had judged according to the countenance, when they had shunned to come forward against Moses with his beaming face; but, on the other hand, they condemned Christ, standing before them in humble guise, “without form and beauty.” The second part of the saying rests upon Zechariah 7:9, “Judge the judgment of truth;” Sept. κρίμαδίκαιονκρίνατε. Anton is perfectly right in saying, moreover, that the real reason of their hard judgment of Christ was not zeal for the law: “The people cared nothing here for the law. The mask is put on with great readiness, only for the sake of escaping, and keeping Christ far enough off.” Vers. 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 this is the very Christ?” They of Jerusalem are not placed here in opposition or antithesis to the Jews of ver. 15, or the multitude of ver. 20; but John points to the fact, that Jesus in the whole of this scene had to do mainly with inhabitants of Jerusalem. It was quite natural that these should play the primas partes in a gathering within the temple; especially at the Feast of Tabernacles, to which the strangers came up in much smaller numbers than to the Passover. The allegation in ver. 19 applies rather to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Before a Galilean public Jesus would certainly not have uttered it in so general terms; but in capital cities sin is wont to become concentred, and to come earlier to its maturity: comp. Micah 1:5; Isaiah 1:21. So with the gross δαιμόνιονἔχεις. Ἀληθῶς, actually, indicates that the matter was hardly credible; and to this corresponds the following verse. Ver. 27. “But we know this man whence he is: but when Christ Cometh, no man knoweth whence He is.” We are not to suppose that they would maintain the rejection of Christ even against the rulers; but they adduce a reason to prove the impossibility of the assumption that the rulers had acknowledged Jesus as Christ. The words “no man knoweth whence He is,” cannot certainly have been intended to deny the derivation of the Messiah from David and from Bethlehem; that was too expressly attested by the Scripture, and recognised by the whole nation: comp. ver. 42; Matthew 2:5-6. They intimate, in perfect harmony with the Old Testament, that the Messiah had, besides His historical origin and life, a supernatural manner of existence; and that there was something in His manifestation which should absolutely transcend all human elements, and be past reduction to human standards. A manifestation or personality concerning which no man knows whence it is, must be such as goes absolutely beyond the region of natural causes and effects; and it is thus that the Messiah was always exhibited in the prophecies of the Old Testament: e.g. in Micah, ch. John 5:4, we read, “And He shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God;” in Isaiah 9:6 He receives the high names, “Wonderful, Counsellor, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace;” in Zechariah 9:10 He is represented as “ruling from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth;” according to Daniel 7:13, He cometh with the clouds of heaven; and according to Malachi 3:1, as the Lord to His temple. Of this wonderful nature, not explicable according to natural causes, they could not discern the mystery. All appeared to them to be after the ordinary manner, and even to fall below the highest standard of mortal greatness: comp. ch. John 6:62. The only failure in their reasoning was this, that they were utterly incapable of detecting His concealed glory. What they sought must have been there, and was there; but they lacked, through their guilt, the eye to perceive it. (Luther: “They must know, indeed, that He would have a marvellous course, as His mother had been a marvellous woman, and He had had a strange and marvellous advent.”) This concealment of the glory of Christ was as abundantly declared in prophecy as its reality was. We read in Isaiah 53:2 : “He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.” This concealment of His glory was necessary, in order that the heart alone might be able to find Him, and they might be kept from Him whose eyes had not been opened by a burning desire for salvation. So God conceals Himself in nature, that He may in nature be found only by those who seek Him. In reference to the cause of the offence which the Jews here took, Anton well remarks: “If all came from this, that these men would not give themselves thorough pains about the Messiah. They thought, if He comes, He comes; if we get to know Him, we get to know Him. If anything depends upon it, it will be sure to come. And yet they said, each one, I have done my part; I have stood there a quarter of an hour, and yet I have not been able to lay hold of it! Yea, verily, it was only right that thou shouldst not lay hold of it. Bow down thy knees, deal with God as God. Thou hast no earnestness, no humility, and no perseverance.” Ver. 28. “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, but He that sent Me is true, whom ye know not. Ver. 29. But I know Him: for I am from Him, and He hath sent Me.” In the first Gospels Jesus only once cries: His last cry upon the cross, Matthew 27:50; Mark 15:37. The affectionate John, especially adapted by his own tenderness for the expression of passion, often mentions the crying of Jesus: comp. ver. 37, ch. John 12:44; and, in harmony with this, the Angel in the Revelation, who represents Jesus, is introduced often as crying aloud, ch. John 7:2, John 10:3, John 18:2. Anton justly says: “A pitiful and piercing cry. Thus did the Lord pour out His grief at their blinded condition and dark conduct,” It is the same passion which is heard in the words, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” etc.—“Ye know Me, and whence I am.” Jesus simply repeats the words of His adversaries, that He may connect with them the direct opposite. In substance it is equivalent to, “ye think or assert that ye know Me, and know whence I am.” We must not suppose, with many expositors, that Jesus here attributes to His opponents an external knowledge of Himself. How much such an exposition must insinuate into the words, Augustine shows. The Jews had pretended absolutely to know Jesus. Had opposition to this been intended, the limitation of their knowledge to its own narrow sphere would have been more definitely expressed.—“And I am not come of Myself.” They restricted Christ entirely to the earth; on the other hand. He maintains His own divine mission. “But He that sent Me is true.” Ἀληθινός, true, points to the fact that in God there is no distinction between idea and actuality—that with Him there is no mere semblance. But God would enter into the mere domain of semblance, of truthless and unreal being, if Christ were not sent of Him; for He had by His works impressed upon Him His seal. Instead of ἀληθινός, we might read ἀληθής. If God is not ἀληθής, He ceases to be ἀληθινός for only the God who practises truth is the true God. The reference to the legitimation of His pretensions by act, as it is contained in these words, sets aside the semblance of Christ’s having opposed an assertion by an assertion. Christ is wont to appeal to this actual warranty of facts, when His opponents limit Him to earth, and deny His connection with heaven: comp. ch. John 5:36, “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 ch. John 6:27, “For Him hath God the Father sealed;” ch. John 10:25; John 10:32, John 14:11, John 15:24; 1 John 5:10. In the words, “whom ye know not,” many think they find a reason assigned why the Jews knew not Christ. Calvin: Significat non mirum esse, si notus Judaeis non sit, qui Deum ignorant: nam hoc est recte sapiendi initium, in Deum respicere. Others unfold the meaning thus: That they know not God they show by this, that they know not Him whom God hath sent, although they falsely pretend to know Him. We cannot know God without at the same time knowing Christ. But it is better to explain it thus: Whom ye know not, because ye, by rejecting Him whom God hath sent, have broken down the bridge; and thus the words declare the sad and tragical result of the misknowledge of Christ. To this points ch. John 8:19 : “Ye neither know Me nor My Father: if ye had known Me, ye would have known My Father also.” Comp. on ch. John 5:37, John 1:18, John 6:46, John 14:6; Matthew 11:27. We cannot err touching Christ without at the same time erring concerning God, and thus becoming godless. This is the deadly abyss into which those are plunged who thoughtlessly separate themselves from Christ. Rationalism has had to find this true, even as Judaism had. Like Judaism, it wanted to hold fast God, while it abandoned the historical Christ. Like Judaism, it assumed the guise of turning away from Christ out of love to God. But how quickly did it tread the path from Deism to Pantheism and Atheism; to show that the God whom it opposed to Christ, was in truth God no more. In the “I know Him, for I am from Him, and He hath sent Me,” lies the reason of the fact, that the failure to know Christ, on the part of the Jews, had for its lamentable result the failure to know God. No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him. Ver. 30. “Then they sought to take Him: but no man laid hands on Him, because His hour was not yet come.” The Jews were exasperated because Christ absolutely denied to them, but appropriated Himself, God; that God whose interests and affairs they asserted to be in their hands. Πιάσαι, to seize, is the watchword of the Jews throughout this entire section, vers. 32, 44, John 8:20, John 10:39, John 11:57. Matthew and Mark have instead κρατεῖν, which John does not use with such a meaning. Revelation 19:20 connects its phraseology with this of the Gospel. There the beast was taken who trod in the Jews footsteps in the endeavour to take Christ (in His members). On “His hour was not yet come,” comp. ch. John 2:4, John 7:6. Here the connection shows that the hour was the time for Jesus to be seized: comp. ch. John 18:12. “His hour was not yet come,” is said again in ch. John 8:20. The words are supremely full of comfort for all the servants of Christ: as they could not touch a hair of the Masters head, so they cannot touch a hair of the servants head until their hour is come. If this be so, they may be of good courage. And even when their hour is come, they are not in the hands of men, but in the hands of God. It is quite alien and inappropriate to say, that “the fear of that portion of the people who were more friendly to Jesus restrained His enemies.” What restrained them was rather the fidelity of their own consciences, under a Divine influence. When the hour was come, God caused that Divine influence to cease, and said again, as He said before the flood, “My Spirit shall no longer judge in man.” Then they seized and killed Christ, and in Him themselves. Ver. 31. “And many of the people believed on Him, and said, When Christ cometh, will He do more miracles than these which this man hath done? Amidst the waste of unbelief there was a refreshing breath of faith; a pledge for the Church of all ages, that her work shall never be entirely lost, that she never need say, “I have laboured in vain, and spent my strength for nought and in vain.” Humiles et pauperes salvos faciebat Dominus, says Augustine; He saved them then, and will save them in all ages. “Therefore we should scatter the seed, and patiently wait until in the course of time the fruit appears” (Calvin). The “many” here were the men who had the right will in ch. John 7:17. The conclusion of their argument was: “This must then be the Christ;” and in their speaking of Christ as yet to come, they place themselves in the position of the gainsayers: comp. ver. 27. The fact that Christ, when He should come, could do no greater works than His, was the proof to them that He must have already come. Ver. 32. “The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning Him; and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take Him.” The Pharisees are placed at the head, because the spiritual impulse proceeded from them; the high priests follow, because the sending was their official prerogative: the ἀρχιερεῖς, the high priests, with the other most eminent priests, the presidents of the classes of the priesthood, as the most prominent members of the high council. In ver. 45 the order is inverted. So also in ch. John 11:57. In ch. John 12:10, we have merely the ἀρχιερεῖς. The more concise specification of the council is found only exceptionally in the first Gospels: Mark 14:10, where the fuller description had just preceded, and John 15:10-11; Luke 23:4; Luke 23:23. The more full designation is throughout the common one. Ver. 33. “Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto Him that sent Me. 34. Ye shall seek Me, and shall not find Me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come.” Our Lord’s words are not addressed to the servants of the high priests, but—on occasion of the mission horn them, thus announced—to those with whom all has here to do, “the Jews,” “the people,” representing the whole mass. This is shown by the words, pointing to the people generally, “am I with you,” “ye shall seek Me.” He gives them to understand how foolish it was that they should not better use His now brief presence with them; that they should desire to put away from them Him who would quite soon enough leave them, removing from them with Himself all salvation, so that they should have abundant reason in painful longing to wish Him back again. (Grotius: Renuntiaturus legatiouem, quasi dicat: videte quomodo tractandus sit vobis legatus.) In the words, “ye shall seek Me, and shall not find Me,” we are directed first to Amos 8:12, “They shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it,” though they were then driving the prophet of God with contumely out of the land. Then to Proverbs 1:28, where Solomon makes insulted Wisdom say, “Then (when the consequences of their contempt fall upon them) shall they call, and I will not answer; they shall seek Me, and shall not find Me.” (Michaelis: Supponuntur autem hic, qui nonnisi ex sensu incumbentis mali, a quo liberari velint, sapientiam quaerunt. Si enim sincere ac serio quaererent, inventuri omnino essent. Ewald: In vers. 28-31, it is said that they shall in the hour of danger diligently seek despised wisdom; but, because they seek merely in anxiety and confusion, to no purpose.) The words, “they that seek me shall find me,” Proverbs 8:17, cannot be fulfilled here, because the seeking was not genuine. The passage in Proverbs is brought into still plainer parallel with this in John, when we observe that the Wisdom there spoken of is personal, the Angel of the Lord, who appeared incarnate in Christ: comp. on ch. 1. The passage is not at all appropriate to wisdom in the abstract. All points to a person who can both help and destroy. And that Christ refers specifically to this passage is all the more obvious, because He is elsewhere exhibited as Wisdom manifest in the flesh. Then we must compare also ch. John 5:2 seq. of the Song of Solomon. The bride, the daughter of Sion, had refused or delayed to admit the bridegroom, the heavenly Solomon: when she would afterwards open to him, it is too late—he is gone; she cannot find him, but the watchmen find her—the ministers of the Divine anger. It is said in ver. 6, “I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone; I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.” That we must not limit the quotation to Proverbs 1:28, but must include the passage in the Song of Solomon, is shown by the ὑπάγω, I go away, 1 withdraw, borrowed from it: this word in John’s account of the discourses of our Lord is so frequently repeated, and made so deeply emphatic, that we cannot but look for some Old Testament original of it. (Lampe remarks: “Familiare est nostro Evangelistae ὑπάγειν de exitu Christi”) Jesus thus declares Himself to be the bridegroom of the Canticles, and the Jewish Church to be the bride. The notion that the seeking and not finding denotes only an entire disappearance (Grotius: Si me quaeritis non comparebo), appealing to such passages as Psalms 37:10, Isaiah 41:12, is entirely refuted by these really fundamental passages of Proverbs and the Song of Solomon; and it is contradicted by the simple “Ye shall seek Me,” in ch. John 13:33, which plainly shows that the seeking has an independent meaning. It is objected against the interpretation which these original passages establish, that the Jews did not seek Christ. There are who solve the difficulty by thus interpreting; “Ye shall desire the Redeemer whom ye have rejected in My person.” But Meyer rightly observes that this interpretation relaxes the tragic strength of the passage, which lies in this, that after they had persecuted and killed Him as present, they would then wish Him back as absent, but in vain. There needs, however, no such violence. In the words, “Ye shall seek Me,” there is meant only that they would have sufficient occasion to seek Christ—that they would fall into the deepest distress. They would have reason enough to wish back Christ, whom they could now no longer endure, whose presence was now intolerable to them. Whether they afterwards actually wished Him back, or hardened their hearts against any such wish, is nothing to the point; although there might be many, even in those days of distress and sorrow, who attained, if not to thorough repentance, yet to sorrow and remorse, and to a certain longing for Christ. In the conscience of the Jewish people there was a voice that cried, as in the conscience of Judas, its type, “I have sinned in the innocent blood.”—“Where I am, thither ye cannot come.” On earth they have tribulation and distress, and to that heavenly glory from which Jesus beholds their ruin they cannot attain: there they cannot find a compensation for that which the earth denies to them. What was refused to Peter for the moment, ch. John 13:36, was refused to the Jews for ever. It is the privilege of the servants of Christ to be where He is: comp. ch. John 12:26, John 14:3, John 17:24. Luther: “Thus must Germany learn where to go and abide. All this will have its truth amongst us also, as we shall find.” Ver. 35. “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 Gentiles? Ver. 36. What manner of saying is this that he said, Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come?” By the “dispersed of the Gentiles,” is generally understood, after an inapplicable comparison of 1 Peter 1:1, James 1:1, the Jewish Diaspora. Some then assume that the Hellenes here are Hellenist Jews.; but this is contrary to the usage of the New Testament, where the ἕλληνες; are always the Greeks, in permanent contradistinction to the Jews, while the Greek-speaking Jews are always described as ἑλληνισταί. Others think that the Jewish Diaspora is really meant as the sphere of labour among the Greeks; but this introduces an inharmonious complexity into the passage, and hinders the true effect of the words in which the Jews express the thought that Jesus would entirely renounce His own people and turn absolutely to the Gentiles. The “dispersed of the Greeks” is rather the dispersion which consists of the Greeks themselves. The expression points to the great variety of countries which they entered into; and to the fact that they were not to be understood as Greeks in the stricter sense, but as including the countless peoples speaking the Greek tongue. The fundamental passage is Genesis 10:5, where, after the enumeration of the sons of Javan, it is said: “And by these were the isles of the Gentiles divided; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.” We must further compare ver. 32: “These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations; and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood:” Sept., ἀπὸτούτωνδιεσπάρησαννῆσοιτῶνἐθνῶνἐπὶτῆςγῆςμετὰτὸνκατακλυσμόν. The starting-point of these words was the prophecy of Christ, in which He exhibited in prospect the rejection of the Jews and the transference of the kingdom of God to the Gentiles; especially Matthew 8:11, where Jesus took occasion from the faith of the centurion to say, “And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness.” Their own interpretation, however, does not satisfy the Jews. They suggest it only as a question of doubt, and in ver. 36 they seem to regard the problem as one not yet solved. There must, consequently, have been in the words of Christ an element which was contradictory to their interpretation. This lies in the ὑπάγω that He added, “to Him who hath sent Me.” Earthly-minded themselves, they cannot follow Him: they leave these words out in ver. 36 without further ado; but their omission shows that they felt the inadequacy of their interpretation. Nevertheless, there lies in their apprehension of the Lord’s saying an element of truth; and that is the reason why John has adduced these words. The Jews cannot but feel the presentiment that Isaiah 49:4-6 is about to be fulfilled. There follows now, in vers. 37-52, what took place on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. Ver. 37. “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying. If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.” The last day of the feast could not have been the seventh, which was in no way distinguished, and on which the number of the victims sacrificed was less than on any other day. It could have been only the eighth, which, like the first, was pre-eminent above the others,—1. on account of the holy convocation. Leviticus 23:36; Leviticus , 2. through the cessation of all work, which gave it the name Azereth, Numbers 29:35 : on the six preceding days work was not absolutely forbidden, and they were only half feast-days. (In ch. John 19:31, that Sabbath is called a great one, which was distinguished above others by falling within the feast. In the Old Testament, comp. Isaiah 56:12, where they say, “And to-morrow shall be as this day, much more abundant;” where by the great day a noble one is meant, such an one as witnessed great things.) It has been objected that the feast proper consisted of only seven days (comp. Numbers 29:35), and that the eighth day was a specific festival; that all the sacrifices peculiar to this feast were appointed only for seven days; and especially that the bullocks, though specific festal sacrifices, were so distributed that the last seven fell on the seventh day, while the eighth day had only the offerings common to every feast-day, including even the new moon. But the reason that the eighth stood in a certain kind of independence was, as Philo tells us, that it not only fixed the conclusion of the Feast of Tabernacles, but marked also the conclusion of the whole festal year. Therefore the Azereth, or convocation, did not fall upon the seventh day, as in the case of the Passover; it was appointed for the following eighth day, which was also the reason why the sacrifices of the feast came to an end on the seventh day. The dignity of the day was not lessened by this, but heightened. But it is plain, notwithstanding this concomitant design, that the day belonged to the Feast of Tabernacles. In Leviticus 23 the duration of the feast is, on the one hand, limited to seven days, as in ver. 34; but, on the other, we read there of the eighth day of the feast, ver. 36. So in Numbers 29, on the one hand, we have in ver. 12, “And ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days;” but, on the other, in ver. 35, “And on the eighth day ye shall have a solemn assembly: ye shall do no servile work therein.” The first Feast of Dedication was, according to 2Ma 10:6, kept for eight days, in compensation for the Feast of Tabernacles, the festivity of which had been hindered by the enemy. Josephus says of the Feast of Tabernacles, Archgeol. iii. 10, 4: ἐφʼ ? ἡμέραςὀκτὼἑορτὴνἄγοντας. It has been further objected, that the ceremony of pouring out water was peculiar to the seven days of the feast, the ceremony which gave Jesus occasion to represent Himself as the giver of the true water. But, it is very doubtful whether this rite did not belong to the eighth day also. R. Jehuda, in the Gemara, maintains expressly, and without contradiction, that it did (Cod. Succa, p. 404). If it did actually cease with the eighth day, then it might be said that the symbol lasted seven days, and on the eighth was its interpretation. Moreover, it must not be overlooked that there is no express allusion to this rite; although the supposition that Jesus saw it before His eyes at the time, is very probable and very attractive. There is no force in the objection, that in the ceremony it was a libation, whereas Jesus spoke of drinking; for water has always its reference to drinking, and in the passage on which the rite was founded it is introduced only as an antidote to thirst. They drew water every day of the Feast of Tabernacles from the fountain of Siloam,—which had been consecrated by Isaiah, ch. John 8:6, into a figure of the kingdom of God,—and poured it upon the altar. This ceremony had nothing whatever to do with the passage, 1 Samuel 7:6, with which De Wette and others have sought to connect it. There the water poured out was a symbolical “Lord, have mercy:” comp. the “I am poured out like water,” in Psalms 22:15; and 2 Samuel 14:14 : “For we die, and are as water spilt upon the ground.” Simultaneous with the pouring out of water was the fasting and confession: “We have sinned against the Lord,”—the acknowledgment of evil as something deserved. But, on the contrary, the pouring out of water at the Feast of Tabernacles rested, according to the saying of the Talmud (Dachs, pp. 371-2), on the passage of Isaiah, “With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.” It was a remembrancer of this promise, and a prayer for its fulfilment. During the journey through the wilderness, deliverance had been announced in the form of the effusion of water. Hence Isaiah took occasion to exhibit the bestowment of future salvation under the same similitude. To give this passage of Isaiah a symbolical expression at the Feast of Tabernacles was obvious enough, especially as the passage referred to the guidance of the people through the wilderness, even as the feast itself was based upon that event. We have seen already, that this feast not only served as a remembrancer of benefits past, but that it was especially a pledge that God would graciously lead His people through the wilderness of this world, and safely guide them out of it at last. The feast was not only one of thanksgiving, it was also one of hope; and of this latter aspect of it, Isaiah 12:3 was the appropriate text. Jesus declares Himself to be the water of salvation, announced by the prophet Isaiah; and Isaiah himself gave the warrant for doing so. The connection of the springs of salvation with the person of the Messiah is plain, from the relation of ch. 12 to ch. 11, where all the salvation of the future is bound up with the person of the Messiah. And what Isaiah said in ch. 12 concerning the waters of salvation, receives its consummation also in ch. John 4:1, to which the words ἐάντιςδιψᾷ ?—πινέτω) definitely allude: comp. on ch. John 6:45, John 4:14. Our words have a warning as well as an attractive side. Luther: “That He might terrify them against carelessness, and make them take heed not to forsake Him. For when He goes away He leaves none behind Him but sin, sorrow, the devil, death, sweat, toil, and woe. He takes all that is good away with Him.” Ver. 38. “He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” That was first confirmed on the day of Pentecost. The transcendent fulness of the spirit and life in the young Church streamed forth outwardly with a mighty influence, of which we find no trace in the old covenant. Luther: “He that cometh to Me shall be so furnished with the Holy Ghost, that he shall not be merely quickened and refreshed himself, and delivered from his thirst, but shall be also a strong stone vessel, from which the Holy Ghost in all His gifts shall flow to others, refreshing and comforting and strengthening them, even as he was refreshed by Me. So St Peter, on the day of Pentecost, Acts 2:41, who, by one sermon, as by a rush of water, delivered three thousand men from the devils kingdom, washing them in an hour from sin, death, and Satan.” That was only the first exhibition of a glorious peculiarity which distinguishes the Church of the New Testament from the Church of the Old. She has a living impulse which will diffuse the life within her, even to the ends of the earth. (Lyser: Copiosa derivatio ad exteriores est indicium abundantiae interioris.) Although the quotation from the Old Testament need not be strictly literal, yet its most characteristic elements must be found there, else the reference to what the Scripture had said would have no special force. Then we have, 1. The flowing forth of the water. In the passages commonly adduced, such as Isaiah 58:11, we do not find this characteristic. They refer only to the personal possession of the water, the personal enjoyment of salvation. 2. The very peculiar mention of the body, or belly, κοιλία, must necessarily have been derived from the Old Testament. But both are found united if we go back to the Song of Solomon, to which Christ referred in ch. John 7:33-34, even as the New Testament generally is pervaded with references to it, all resting upon the assumption of its spiritual meaning: comp. my Commentary. In Son 4:12, the bride, the Church of God in the house of Messiah, is called, on account of her overflowing indwelling fulness of salvation, “a spring shut up, a fountain sealed “(Lyser, on the passage of John: Anima credentiura hic consideratur ut in fontem aquse vivae con versa); in ver. 15, “a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.” The idea of reference to these passages is all the more obvious because there had been allusion to them already in ch. John 4:14. The body or belly is in Son 7:2; and, just as here, with reference to the saving and quickening and invigorating power which proceeds from the Church: “Thy navel is a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor; thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies: ὀμφαλόςσουκρατὴρτορευτὸςμὴὑστερούμενοςκρᾶμα, κοιλίασουθιμωνιὰσίτουπεφραγμένηἐνκρίνοις.” In the navel—which, as part of the belly, represents the whole, as in the second member of the sentence—it is only the goblet-form that comes into view. Under the figure of a goblet always full of liquor, is exhibited the adaptation of the Church of the future, the people of God in the Messiahs time, to refresh the thirsty with the high waters of life. What the goblet full of liquor was to the thirsty, in the second clause the wheat is to the hungry. Ver. 39. “But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet; because Jesus was not yet glorified.” The water in the symbolism of Scripture can only be a figure of blessing and salvation; comp. my Commentary on Numbers 24:7; Son 4:12. This is the sense in which it is everywhere used in John’s phraseology: comp. on ch. John 4:10. In Isaiah 12:3, the passage which forms the foundation for all similar ones, the well of salvation is spoken of. But the transition from the common signification of the water to that interpretation which the Evangelist here gives, is mediated by Isaiah 44:3, where the water is first explained as blessing, and the outpouring of the Spirit is then associated with it as the greatest of all blessings. For the rest, the Evangelist does not say generally, and without qualification, that the water signified the Holy Spirit; but he only refers to the fact, that what Jesus had said concerning the water, found its fulfilment in the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. The Apostle did not design to say that the Holy Spirit—who is regarded here in His immanent influence upon the people of God and indwelling in their hearts—had absolutely never been present before the glorification of Jesus. Such a declaration would have contradicted the whole tenor of the Old Testament. David prays in Psalms 51, “Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me” (1 Samuel 16:13 records how the Holy Spirit came down upon David). The children of Israel vexed and rebelled against God’s Holy Spirit, Isaiah 63:10, whose presence in their midst was their high prerogative, their pre-eminence above the heathen world, ver. 11. Paul also, Acts 28:25, bears witness to the presence and dignity of the Holy Spirit under the old covenant. We cannot escape the difficulty by saying, “In the definite sense, as the Christian Spirit, He was not given.” The Holy Spirit generally is here spoken of, and not any definite aspect of the Spirit. The legitimate solution of the difficulty is this: “The difference, relative in itself, is uttered in an absolute form: because the advancement in the Spirits influence is so important that the earlier does not enter into consideration, and the word holds good, ‘The former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind,’” Isaiah 65:17. All that was said upon ch. John 1:17 is true here likewise. That the Holy Ghost comes so much more abundantly into mention in the New Testament, points us to the fact that a great change in this respect had taken place. The Old Testament speaks, in relation to the Spirit, always of a distant time. The more abundant effusion of the Holy Ghost belongs to the characteristic signs of the “end of the days.” The classical passage in relation to this whole subject, is Joe 2:28; and to this refer Isaiah 32:15, “Until the Spirit be poured from on high,”Isaiah 11:9, Isaiah 54:13; Jeremiah 31:33-34; Ezekiel 36:26 seq.; Zechariah 12:10; Daniel 9:24 (Christol. vol. iii.). The starting-point of the whole is the bestowment of the Spirit without measure on Christ, Isaiah 11:2, the fulness of which overflows upon His Church: He received not the Spirit for Himself merely, but as the Head of the Church, that He might be the new life of the human race. The Apostle speaks first of the Spirit, then of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is, in His nature, the Holy One. The idea of holiness is that of separation from the world, of absolute elevation above it. It belongs to the nature of the Spirit to be altogether supernatural. With the glorification of Christ the outpouring of the Holy Ghost stands historically connected: comp. ch. John 20:22; Acts 2:33. But how are we to understand that connection? The foundation of the change to which we have referred is the expiation and abolition of sin accomplished by Christ, Romans 8:3, and which is appropriated by faith. By this the wall of separation between God and man is removed, so that the Spirit, the bond of the Creator and the creature, may freely be imparted. In the fact of redemption accomplished, we find the root of the potency and influence of the Spirit. Immediately after the propitiation was effected, Christ utters the “Receive the Holy Ghost.” In ch. John 3:14-15, the redemption of Christ, His death upon the cross, appears as the foundation of the new birth of the Spirit. According to ch. John 3:5, the water, the pledge and medium of the forgiveness of sins, must go before the Spirit. And in the Old Testament the forgiveness of sins appears as the necessary condition of the impartation of the Spirit. David, in Psalms 51, prays first for the forgiveness of sins, vers. 5-11, and then for the renewed impartation of the gifts of the Spirit. In the classical passage, Jeremiah 31:31 seq., the forgiveness of sins is the fundamental blessing of the times of Christ, the foundation of the richer bestowment of the Holy Ghost: “I will put My law in their inward parts, for I will forgive their iniquities.” Before God can give. He must take away. The sins which separate between the people and God, Isaiah 59:2, must be removed; then, and not till then, can the internal grace of the Spirit be assured to the people, that it might become truly the people of God, that God’s name might be sanctified in it. Thus Jesus, after His glorification, distributes the good things which He first obtained in His sufferings. Ver. 40. “Many of the people, therefore, when they heard this saying, said. Of a truth this is the Prophet. Ver. 41. Others said, This is the Christ. But others said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Ver. 42. Hath not the scripture said, That Christ Cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was? Ver. 43. So there was a division among the people because of Him.” Some declared Christ to be the Prophet: comp. on ch. John 1:21. That does not mean that they assumed “decisively a distinction between the Prophet and the Messiah:” it only means that they left the question an open one. So much to them was certain, that the marks of the Prophet in Deuteronomy 18 would be present in Christ: whether also the other marks of the Messiah, as they are given, e.g. in Isaiah 9, 11, was still doubtful to them; and naturally so, as the kingly office of the Messiah lay in deep concealment during His condition of humiliation. Had it not been so, they would have distinguished between the Prophet and Christ. Others, who had a keener spiritual eye, and hence could discern the hidden glory beneath the form of a servant, beheld in Jesus at once the Christ. The former did not deny it: they only hesitated at once to avow it. The difference was only between a partial and a perfect apprehension of the truth. An absolute denial, therefore, encounters only the latter class. It does not deny the descent of Christ from David. The preceding, “Shall Christ come out of Galilee?” shows that they were thinking only of the local point of departure, and that the descent from David was only introduced as the basis for mentioning the place where David was: as and because of the seed of David, so also, etc., Christ must come out from Bethlehem, in order outwardly to exhibit the descent from David. (Comp. my Christol. vol. i.) Considering how plainly and decisively the Old Testament teaches the descent of Jesus from the stock of David, it would have been utterly impossible that He should have found acceptance if this point had been exposed to any doubt whatever. The certainty of the descent of Jesus from David was not only attested throughout the New Testament; it was also confirmed by the narrative of Hegesippus concerning the relatives of Jesus, whom Domitian summoned to Rome as the descendants of David: Euseb. Ecc. Hist. iii. 19, 20. Nor do they deny that Christ was born in Bethlehem. However that might be, it was not sufficient in their opinion to satisfy the prophecy of Micah in ch. John 5:1 : “And thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel.” In this they lay the stress upon go forth, àöà. They maintain that Christ must, according to this prophecy, not only be born in Bethlehem, but go forth from that place to His work. But Jesus came immediately from Galilee. They overlook, in their polemical zeal (Calvin: En quomodo soleant homines ex Scripturis ipsis, quae ad Christum manu nos ducunt, sibi obstacula struere ne ad Christum veniant), that Micah 5:1 was supplemented and limited by Isaiah 9:1, where Galilee is marked out as the district which was to be elevated by the manifestation of the Messiah from the deepest humiliation to the highest glory. Anton: “Thus they toss about like a football, although there was in the Scripture a passage so plain, declaring that out of Galilee a great light of the Gentiles should rise. They declared that He must come out of the town of Bethlehem; that also was true. But they should have observed both, and learned to combine them delicately. But they separate them entirely. In His coming from Bethlehem, the special circumstance was, that Bethlehem was but a little place; therefore they should not have spoken so scornfully about Galilee. For God does not act according to the measure of men’s vanity, but would draw men away from that vanity. Therefore all the circumstances touching Christ are so ordered as to bring us down from our heights. They themselves say here, ‘from the village of Bethlehem.’ And the prophet said, ‘Thou that art little; but thou shalt not in fact be little, because the Greatest will spring forth from thee.’ Thus they made their sad distinctions.” On “there was a division,” Quesnel observes: “Divisions there must be. It is abandoning and betraying the truth, to cease to defend it when it is contended against. Neither fear of offence needlessly taken, nor a false love to peace, should restrain the lovers of truth and stop their tongues.” Ver. 44. “And some of them would have taken Him; but no man laid hands on Him;” that is, because God’s secret influence restrained their hands until the hour of Jesus had come. Ver. 45. “Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them. Why have ye not brought him? 46. The officers answered, Never man spake like this man.” The mission of these officers was mentioned in ver. 32. John had since then adduced only a few of the words of Christ, a few leading statements out of longer discourses: comp. ver. 14, where it is said generally that Jesus taught. To the influence upon the officers here, corresponds that upon Judas band in ch. John 18:6. “This the officers themselves say,” remarks Anton; “by which we may gather that, if conscience had not urged them, they would not have said to their masters what they did. They very well knew that they would not curry favour thereby, but they said it nevertheless with true emphasis. Thus the things of God go on, however pressed down, step by step.” As it was with Christ, so also it is with His servants. Embittered opposition is never alone. It is everywhere accompanied by the acknowledgment of the men of good will, of whom there are always some to be found; and this recognition on their part serves, moreover, to bring into clear light the wicked will of the adversaries. “It is a strong word,” says Luther, “which they here speak in their humility. Highly do they honour the preaching of Christ, and joyfully or freely do they confess to His name. They know indeed that their masters want to put Him to death; but nevertheless they honour His word.” Ver. 47. “Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived? Ver. 48. Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?” Anton: “Thus again they wanted to insinuate their stratagem. But scarcely have they thus spoken, when a ruler comes out of their midst, and interposes his words. Thus they are put to shame.” Comp. also ch. John 12:42.— John 7:49 “But this people, who knoweth not the law, are cursed.” In Deuteronomy 27:26, we read the last and the most comprehensive of the twelve curses against the transgression of the law: “Cursed is he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them.” That curse refers to the practical obedience of the law; but, in those times of moral perversion, when an infinite number of commandments was introduced, the knowledge and the obedience of the law so far coincided, that only the learned could be free from the curse of the law: a result which ought to have been sufficient of itself to proclaim the impropriety of the principles from which it proceeded. The Pharisees regarded the dependence of the common people on Christ as a consequence of the curse which rested upon them. God had sent upon them, in righteous judgment, a mighty spirit of error, so that they believed a lie: just as Jehovah, in 1 Kings 22:23, sent a spirit of lying into the mouth of all the prophets of Ahab, in order to bring upon him the destruction which he deserved. Instead of ἐπικαταρατός, Lachmann reads ἐπάρατος. Here once more we see plainly how apt a mere external criticism is to err. Ἐπάρατοί is a change introduced by the copyists, who were accustomed to the usage of classic Greek authors. Ἐπικαταρατός never occurs in them; but in the Septuagint and the Apocrypha it not seldom stands for the Hebrew ΰψεψ, which is only thus rendered, and so in Galatians 3:10; Galatians 3:13. Ἐπάρατος never occurs in the New Testament, Septuagint, or Apocrypha. Vers. 50, 51. “Nicodemus saith unto them (he that came to Jesus by night, being one of them), Doth our law judge any man before it hear him, and know what he doeth?” It is first said of Nicodemus that he came to Jesus by night. That this observation was not intended merely to designate his person, but that it rather contrasted his former fear of man with his present confession and defence of Jesus, is shown, as by the analogy of the second remark, “which was one of them,” so also by ch. John 19:39, where with “which at the first came to Jesus by night,” corresponds what in ver. 38 is said of Joseph of Arimathea, “being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews.” The comparison with this passage is decisive also against those who are not disposed to find in these words a simple contrast with the earlier conduct of Nicodemus; but make them at the same time contain a reference to the fact that Nicodemus was not yet perfectly free in his declaration, but still embarrassed with some remains of his earlier timidity. The opposition of Nicodemus is more express than at the first glance it might appear; and the source from which it flowed was plain enough to be discerned by his colleagues, as their answer shows. That he did not more openly adhere to Christ, might be attributed with equal propriety to a prudent caution as to fear. He would bring an argument to bear upon his colleagues, which in their known principles they could not very well evade. Lachmann reads, ὁἐλθὼνπρὸςαὐτὸνπρότερον; Tischendorf merely, ὁἐλθὼνπρὸςαὐτὸν. “External authorities,” says Lόcke, “do not warrant either reading absolutely.” But internal reasons strongly recommend νυκτός. The other readings give a mere personal designation, and we have seen already that this was not to be expected alone. The mere “who came to Him” is too indefinite. The connection with the following—“who came to Jesus, although he was one of them”—disturbs the evident reference of the εἷςὢνἐξαὐτῶν to ver. 48. But πρότερον is probably a gloss, derived from the τὸπρῶτον in ch. John 19:38, which is found in several critical authorities, but in others was changed after the πρότερον, ver. 51. Nicodemus had been described in ch. John 3:1 as a member of the council. The “which was one of them” could not thus be a mere personal designation; but it pointed to the fact that the word in ver. 48, “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?” received, through the Divine appointment, an immediate and palpable contradiction in the person of Nicodemus. The members of the council had spoken contemptuously of the “people who knew not the law.” Nicodemus shows them that they themselves were exhibiting a shameful contradiction to the law. The law ordained, “Thou shalt not regard a false report,” Exodus 23:1. In Deuteronomy 1:16, it specially prescribed, to the judges, “Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother;” and ver. 17, “Ye shall hear the small as well as the great.” The law here at the same time lays hold of the organs of its own execution, and imposes rules upon them as a body. Ver. 52. “They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.” Much has been very wrongly said about the “almost incomprehensible errors of the Sanhedrim.” They only express themselves in a lively manner, as men do in common life, and when out of the schools. Their meaning was, that no prophet of any high mark, and no great number of prophets, had arisen in Galilee. The only prophet whose Galilean origin was generally acknowledged was Jonah of Gathhepher, 2 Kings 14:25. But if this had been objected to the council, they would have been but little embarrassed by it. They would have replied by some such proverb as our “one swallow does not make spring.” The Galilean origin of Nahum would not have been admitted as of any force. Why he, in his superscription, is called the Elkoshite, is a point controverted to the present day. The supposition that he was so called after some town in Galilee, rests simply and alone upon a statement of Jerome: Helcesi usque hodie in Galilaea viculus. Even should this supposition be right, there is nothing to prove that it was the current one in the days of our Lord. The witness nearest to that age, Jonathan, paraphrases the words in the prophet thus: “Nahum, of the family of Koschi.” Jerome says: Quidam putant Helcesaeum patrem esse et secundum Hebraeam traditionem etiam ipsum prophetam fuisse. Abenesra and Kimchi are not certain whether the denomination Elkoshite referred to his stock, or to his father, or to his country. Even if we assume the last, it is still doubtful whether Elkosh lay in Galilee. Finally, it is maintained by many that Elias sprang from Galilee. Had this been so, the supreme importance of that prophet—who in both Testaments always appears as the Coryphaeus of the collective prophets: comp. Malachi 4:5—might justify what has been said about the “almost incomprehensible error of the members of the Sanhedrim.” But the Galilean origin of Elijah cannot be demonstrated by the only passage that has been adduced to establish it, 1 Kings 17:1 : comp. with Tob 1:2. Elijah being there called “the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead,” the Septuagint regarded Tishbi as a place in Gilead. It translated: ὁἐκΘεσβωντῆςΓαλααδ. So also Epiphanius: ἐκΘεσβῶνἐκτῆςγῆςἈράβων. Tisbi is indicated by the clause, “of the inhabitants of Gilead,” to have been situated in Gilead; not that the prophet had the position of a citizen there, but dwelt m that place as a man without a home: his forefathers had immigrated to it. This explanation is favoured by the alliteration between Tishbi and Toshbi, ϊεωα not being written plene, as it is everywhere else, for the sake of it. The interpretation, “born at Tishbe, but dwelling in Gilead,” robs this alliteration of its significance; and it is opposed by what Keil refers to: “Had Elijah been born in Galilee, the mention of his birth-place would have been a sufficient indication for any Israelite; and the remark that he belonged to the inhabitants of Gilead would have been superfluous, since the object was not to furnish a chronological memoir of his life:” and. with this Thenius agrees. It is not easy to understand why it was that, whereas the birth-place of most of the rest of the prophets is mentioned, the place of residence also is given in the case of Elijah, and a place, moreover,” which is not alluded to distinctively anywhere in the narrative. The objection of the Pharisees was not altogether an imaginary one. Judea is, throughout the Old Testament, in all respects the land pre-eminently; while Galilee of the Gentiles, Isa. 8:23, has only a corner-place assigned to it. The temple in Jerusalem, the spiritual dwelling-place of the collective nation, is the centre of all prophetical operation. These facts established so much at least, that the labours of Jesus might not be restricted to Galilee; and this our Saviour admitted always in act. He had just before been teaching the people in the temple. But the Pharisees, in going beyond this, altogether failed to perceive that Galilee of the Gentiles was precisely the most congenial starting-point for Him who was come to seek the lost; and that, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, it was the dense darkness of this region which was so pre-eminently enlightened by the outgoings of the great Light. They acted like those who in all ages, and in this age, hide behind the fig-leaves of solemn arguments the rebellion which has its root in a perverted heart. With perfect right Bengel remarks: Ex stupenda eorum multitudine, qui pereunt, vix quenquam invenias, qui non uno alterove hujus generis πρώτῳψεύδει abreptus, veritatis salutaris efficaciam in se sufflaminet. The human heart is inexhaustible in the invention of such specious arguments, when the light from above shines into the darkness of his old nature. Instead of ἐγήγερται, Lachmann and Tischendorf read ἐγείρεται. This reading was an intentional correction, designed to set aside the historical difficulty, the “almost incomprehensible error of the Sanhedrim.” The Section of the Adulteress There can be no reasonable doubt that this section was not a component part of the original Gospel, but that it was introduced into it by another hand. It is wanting in so many and so important Codd. and MSS., that this of itself might be considered proof enough of its being spurious. We cannot, indeed, altogether and unconditionally agree with Bleek, when he says: “It is not to be thought of, that anxiety lest the Redeemers gentleness towards the adulteress might be abused by the unintelligent and thoughtless, was a sufficient reason why an entire genuine section of this Gospel should have been for many centuries, and in all parts of the Church, passed over in perfect silence, or actually struck out of the text of biblical manuscripts.” The supposed offence,—to which Augustine, although, indeed, with an “I suppose,” referred,—is so great, that the impossibility of thus explaining the omission cannot be maintained with absolute confidence: especially as we know that dogmatical objections have availed to the omission of other passages from the manuscripts: comp. on ch. John 5:3 seq. Meanwhile, what is given with the one hand is retracted with the other. Only well-grounded objection and offence could have had so pervasive an influence; and a narrative which furnishes such a stumblingblock could not possibly have proceeded from the Evangelist himself; and our exposition will make it plain that there is in the account a stumblingblock which no explanation will explain away. Internal reasons tend in the same direction as the external. We find none of the peculiarities of John’s style in the narrative; on the other hand, every verse of it presents, as our exposition will show, something decidedly alien to his style. It is very suspicious, for instance, that the δέ occurs in this short section no less than eleven times, heaped together in a manner of which there is no example elsewhere in his writings; while, on the contrary, his favourite οὖν is found only once. Moreover, all is at the very first glance intelligible and straightforward; we have none of that mystical dark-in-bright which everywhere characterizes John’s style, and none of that necessity to master the meaning of the writer by thoughtful reflection and pondering that we are accustomed to in his genuine productions. Nor is it without significance that the narrative interrupts the connection. Both before it and after it we have matter which directly refers to the question whether Jesus were the Christ, the Son of God. Then, again, John’s authorship is contradicted by the fact, that while the beginning of the account is borrowed from Luke, the motive of it was furnished by Paul. We have the starting-point in Romans 2:1, where the Apostle says to the Jews: “Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things:” comp. vers. 22, 23, ch. John 3:23 : “For there is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” These statements of the Apostle have here put on an historical vestment. Lampe cannot help observing that our narrative presents much similarity to the parable of the prodigal son. Expositors of the middle ages declare plainly that the woman here represented heathenism, to which the grace of God, slighted by the Jews, was assigned by Christ. The last and strongest argument is the offence we have already touched upon. If we look at the element of mercy in it, the narrative makes good what Lyser says: Tota historia est mirifice consolatoria afflictis conscientiis, si quidem vident, ne infamem quidem adulteram a Christo rejici, modo agat poenitentiam. The Saviour’s love to poor sinners meets us in a most attractive form; and the delight in judging others is most effectually condemned. But then, on the other hand, if we regard the account as history (and it must be so regarded if we receive it as from John), it does offer a very real and palpable stumblingblock; indeed, it is no less than offensive. Thinking only of his point, the author never reflected that what he gives in the form of history, must in that form awaken mistrust. “The narrative,” Hase strikingly remarks, “bears the ordinary stamp of the better apocryphal writers, who give one side of our Lord’s character aright,—indeed, display it gloriously,—but are wanting in that all-sided truth, which most effectually distinguishes between the actual occurrences of fact and the imagined incidents of fiction.” There can be no doubt that our narrative was originally written with the express purpose of being interpolated into the Gospel of John. We find the simple evidence of this in the verses, chap. John 7:53 to John 8:12, which obviously serve no other purpose than to connect this supposed fact with what precedes, and to insert it fairly in the Gospel. How diligently and skilfully the writer accomplished this task, is proved by the fact, that several manuscripts which treat the section itself as spurious or suspicious, nevertheless acknowledge these verses as the Evangelists; that Beza, who clearly perceived the spuriousness of the section, decided that these verses should be retained; and that Wieseler, with others, defends them still. It is going altogether on a wrong track to seek traces of the recognition of this passage elsewhere; for instance, in what Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. iii. 39, records of Papias: “He tells us also another history of a woman who was traduced before our Lord, as having committed many sins, which was contained in the Gospel secundum Hebroeos.” That narrative has nothing in common with ours. The Gentile-Christian tendency of the latter would be quite out of harmony with the Gospel of the Hebrews. The “many sins “there, and the one offence here, are clearly distinct and discordant. The διαβλήθεισα leads us to think of a penitent sinner, like her of Luk 7:36 seq., against whom her past forsaken and forgiven sins were wrongfully alleged. It could refer to no other charge than an unwarranted one. It is the mistake of an unscientific and partial criticism, to say that our narrative was “a morsel of oral tradition, which had an actual fact in our Saviour’s life for a foundation.” There is but one plain alternative: either John’s authorship, or a symbolical fiction which sought to gain authority by obtaining insertion in the Gospel of John. We have felt obliged to declare decidedly for the latter. If we take the design of the fiction into consideration, we must assign the date of it to a period in which the conflict with Jews and Jewish Christians was in full vigour. Only the most vivid polemical interest could have tempted any one to the bold expedient of usurping the apostolical authority, and putting interpolations into one of the holy Gospels. This requires us to keep within the limits of the second century, in which the conflict that gendered the pia fraus was most excited: comp. Graul’s “Christian Church on the Border of the Age of Irenaeus.” The fact that the interpolation found so much acceptance, points to a similarly early era. The Apostolical Constitutions towards the end of the third century, are familiar with our narrative in its integrity (John 1:2; John 1:24); and this is all the more significant, from the fact already demonstrated, that it was originally written in order that it might be incorporated with the Gospel in the very place which it now occupies, and that it never had an independent existence. Wherever it has been given in any other connection, it has been certainly detached from its original place. John 7:53. “And every man went unto his own house.” Here we have a bootless circumstantiality; and all the more out of place, inasmuch as John in this part of his Gospel is very sparing of words, and everywhere aims to record only those particulars which were adapted to place in a clear light the great conflict between Jesus and the Jews, Moreover, it is very uncertain to what the “every man” refers, whether to the members of the council, who had been spoken of in what immediately precedes, or to the people generally. Probably the author thought of both at the same time, when he set the whole scene before his eyes. We cannot exclude the people, since the narrative of the combination of all parties again, in ver. 2, seems to correspond to their separation in this verse. John 8:1. “Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives. Ver. 2. And early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came unto Him; and He sat down, and taught them.” TὸὄροςτῶνἘλαιῶν is found in Matthew, who wrote for the Jewish Christians; and in Mark, who depends upon him: τὸὄροςτὸκαλούμενονἘλαιῶν, in Luke, when he first mentions it, ch. Luke 19:29; again, after a considerable interval, in ch. Luke 21:37; and in Acts 1:12, with a closer specification of its position. In John the mountain is nowhere else alluded to; and, according to all analogies, he would not have spoken so simply and unconditionally of “the Mount of Olives.” Ὄρθρος, ὄρθριος, ὀρθρίζειν, is found only in Luke; John uses instead, πρωϊ, πρωϊνας, πρωϊνός, Revelation 2:28; Revelation 22:16. The words Ἰησοῦς—πρὸςαὐτόν were doubtless put together on the basis of Luk 21:37-38 : ἦνδὲτὰςἡμέραςἐντῷἱερῷδιδάσκων· τὰςδὲνύκταςἐξερχόμενοςηὐλίζετοεἰςτὸὄροςτὸκαλούμενονἘλαιῶν. Καὶπᾶςὁλαὸςὤρθριζενπρὸςαὐτὸνἐντῷἱερῷἀκούειναὐτοῦ. To the καὶκαθίσαςἐδίδασκεναὐτούς there are parallels only in the first three Gospels: comp. Matthew 26:55; Mark 12:41; Luke 5:3. The passage in Luke agrees best; and it is all the more obvious to assume that the interpolator had this before his eyes, because the rest is taken from Luke. Vers. 3, 4. “And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto Him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.” The “scribes” are never elsewhere mentioned by John, which manifestly could not have been accidental. Nor does he ever refer to the νομικοί ?. He always contents himself with the general designation of Pharisees. To his first readers Judaism was already seen in the distance; hence it was natural that he should enter as little as possible into the details of matters which were alien to them. The combination οἱγραμματεῖςκαὶοἱΦαρισαῖοι was probably introduced here from Luke 6:7 or John 11:53, where they occur in the same connection. In what distinctive character do the scribes and Pharisees come? Not merely as complainants, ver. 10, and as witnesses, whose business it was to make a commencement with the stoning. Acts 7:59 (comp. our ver. 7), but also in part as judges, who, before they pronounce their decision, would have the opinion of Jesus. This is plain from the fact, that at the head of them came the scribes, who were called jurists; from the mention of the elders in ver. 9; and from the question of Jesus, “Hath no man condemned thee?” in ver. 10. According to the Mosaic law, the adulterer and the adulteress were to die the death. Leviticus 20:10. That the adulterer in the present case had escaped, is a very shallow supposition. The narrative takes no account of what had become of him; it has to do only with the adulteress, because she gave the author the type of heathenism, which forsook the Creator and served the creature, Romans 1:25, and committed adultery with stone and wood, Jeremiah 3:9. The forensic term ἐπαυτοφώρῳ (Grotius: vox est Graeca forensis) does not seem to harmonize with the higher style of John. Ver. 5. “But Moses commanded in the law that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?” Concerning the punishment of adultery, Moses speaks in Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22. It is not without significance that in both passages not stoning, but death generally, is decreed; the latter passage, too, being in a context which introduces, before and after, stoning as the punishment of other offences: comp. vers. 21, 24. It appears that Moses, in regard to adultery, left the more exact specification of the mode of punishment to historical development, and the practice of the Jews was not in favour of stoning. In the Talmud, Sanhedrim, ch. vii. 4, we do not find adultery among the offences enumerated as punishable with stoning; and, according to x. 4, the adulterers were to be impaled. It has, indeed, been supposed that stoning was the common capital punishment in the law; and that as in certain cases it is expressly mentioned, Deuteronomy 22; and that the woman would not be lighther dealt with than the betrothed virgin, ver. 24. But this is unsound reasoning. Against the last instance Grotius remarks: Adulterium in sponsa gravius censebatur, cum in custodia mariti non esset. At any rate, it is certain that stoning was not expressly commanded in the law, as might be gathered from the language of those who here cite Moses. And thus there does appear on the face of the narrative such a contradiction to Moses as could not have proceeded from the scribes and Pharisees. Ver. 6. “This they said, tempting Him, that they might have to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground.” Wherein consisted the temptation? In the estimation of the author, the scribes and the Pharisees doubtless thought that they would entangle Jesus in a contradiction to Moses, as in Matthew 19:3 seq. It was supposed that Jesus, “the friend of publicans and sinners,” would pronounce a milder Judgment on the adulteress than Moses had pronounced; that He would make Himself worthy of stoning, by absolving one whom Moses condemned to be stoned. That this was their aim is shown by the result, which did not correspond to the expectations of the scribes, only so far as and because their conscience was appealed to. Were the matter in question here the execution of criminal justice, it is not probable that the Pharisees would have laid such a snare for Christ. They could hardly think that He would place Himself in such direct and manifest antagonism to Moses, that He would oppose him in his own domain, and thus assault, so to speak, the God who had sent him. The Lord had never given any occasion for such an opinion of Himself as that. But this interpenetration of the spheres of law and gospel pervades the whole narrative, which, on that very account, loses all pretension to historical truth. Why does Christ write upon the earth? We might, with many of the old expositors, compare Jeremiah 17:13, “Those who depart from Me shall be written upon the earth:” the earth, the place of perishableness; whosoever is only written or inscribed there, has no citizenship in heaven, does not stand in God’s book of life, and must pass away without a trace. Jesus, on that supposition, must have written the names of the complainants. But the fact that what He wrote is not recorded, but only that He wrote, shows that the matter of His writing was not of moment, and therefore that the explanation must not be thus fetched out of the depths of the Old Testament, which, moreover, would be out of harmony with the entire character of the narrative, but must be derived from the custom of the Greeks (the classical passage is Aristoph. Acharn. 31 Schol.), amongst whom he wrote upon the earth who trifled idly, or had nothing more earnest or important to do. Christ gave it thereby to be understood that He had no respect for the questioners with their demonstrative sacred zeal; that He did not think it worth His while even to answer them. This trait, however. which has been dwelt upon much as evidencing the historical character of the narrative, rather betrays, and that in a very plain manner, its want of historical truth. It seems hardly worthy of Christ’s dignity, to exhibit such a pastime of idle weariness. The contempt, the bitter scorn, the anger against the questioners, which this gesture would have expressed, suits better one of the old heathen philosophers in relation to his opponents than the Saviour of the world. Most incorrectly has it been observed, “Jesus would not give any reply to the crafty question, because civil legislation and the administration of justice were no part of His function while upon earth.” But Jesus does enter into the matter thoroughly in what follows; and that entire distinction belongs only to the expositors who have invented it, and has no support whatever in the narrative itself. Ver. 7. “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. Ver. 8. And again He stooped down, and wrote on the ground.” If the question was a judicial one—as the casting the first stone implies—then the supposed answer of our Lord was at least incautious. Consequences might obviously follow, and inferences be drawn, tending to the subversion of all justice. Judgment is the Lord’s; whoever exercises its functions, as judge or witness, stands in the position of God’s minister: there must be no intrusion of personal and subjective bias, but all must be according to the law and ordinance of God. Luther: “Whether the prince, or burgomaster, or judge, be a knave or a fool or not, I should remember nevertheless that God’s word has been put into his hand. If I hold such an office, and am myself a wicked fool, I should say, although I deserve to have my head taken off, yet I must judge all the same, and do right upon others.” The limitation, unwarranted in itself, of the ἀναμάρτητος to one class of sins, does not remove the difficulty of the case. (The word does not occur anywhere else in the New Testament: the Sept. has it in Deuteronomy 29:19 : ἵναμὴσυναπολέσῃὁἁμαρτωλὸςτὸνἀναμάρτητον; of innocent children in 2Ma 8:4.) A judge or witness who himself is living in adultery, is not the less on that account warranted and bound to punish adultery, or bear witness against it. But the error was the clothing this matter in judicial forms. The thought which hovered before the writers mind was good and genuinely Christian. Man, conscious of his own sinfulness, should abstain from all uncharitable judgment: comp. Matthew 7:1. And with special reference to the relations which the fiction had assumed or symbolized: the Jews should, in the knowledge of their own sinfulness, cease to condemn the Gentiles, and abstain from denying to them all capacity of salvation: comp. Romans 2:1; Romans 2:22-23; Romans 3:23. Ver. 9. “And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.” The Pharisees here betray a tenderness of conscience which is not in harmony with their general character, even as it appears in ver. 6; and which differs much from the temper of mind which the Jews before and afterwards manifest in this group. The narrative becomes still less probable, when we observe that amongst those present were both the judges and the witnesses. It would not have entered their minds to omit their official duty, in the feeling of their own sinfulness. The Pharisaic self-righteousness, in combination with this consciousness of their responsibility and rights, would have so influenced them, that they would have repelled the imputation of Jesus with indignation. Εἴςκαθεῖς, properly one by one —the preposition κατά becomes an adverb—is found elsewhere only in Mark 14:19 : comp. ὁδὲκαθεῖς, Romans 12:5. The “beginning at the eldest “seems suspicious. The elders themselves belonged to the whole to which the ἀρξάμενοι refers. The clumsy construction seems to point to some passage, applied without thorough consideration, in which the ἀρξάμενοι as active are distinguished from the πρεσβύτεροι as the passive: comp. Matthew 20:8. Such a passage we find in Ezekiel 9:6 : καὶἤρξαντοἀπὸτῶνἀνδρῶντῶνπρεσβυτέρων, οἳἦσανἔσωἐντῷοἴκῳ. There the elders are the representatives of the people, the civil and religious rulers. And, accordingly, we must understand by the elders in our passage also official persons clothed with authority. Moreover, in the Gospels, πρεσβύτεροι is always a designation of dignity. And this way points also the “hath no man condemned thee?” in ver. 10. To condemn was the business of the rulers and judges. One cannot well see why precisely the eldest, who have been introduced in order to deprive the whole transaction of its awkward judicial character, viewed as a true history, should have necessarily been the first to go out. The reasons which have been adduced on that side are far-fetched. The old were, among the Pharisees, certainly more hardened than the younger. With the judges, on the contrary, the reason lies on the surface. They were the men who had primarily to act, and the main guilt rested on them. None remained behind but Jesus and the woman. Jesus sat teaching in the midst of the people, when the scribes and Pharisees brought the woman in, ver. 2. What became of the people, was a question which did not trouble the author. Ver. 10. “When Jesus had lifted up Himself, and saw none but the woman, He said unto her. Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? Ver. 11. She said. No man. Lord. And Jesus said unto her. Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” The “condemnation” refers to the stoning. As the “eldest” had retired from her, the decision of the question was, as it were, devolved upon Jesus. He assumes the function of supreme judge; and with His “Neither do I condemn thee,” the matter was decided. The woman was dismissed with a formal acquittal. Now, if this narrative recorded an historical fact, it would have been very properly urged against the infliction of civil penalties on adultery. It would have given the authorities a direction ad illud scelus plane connivere, quo nullum gravius in generis humani societatem committitur—to connive at the vilest outrage that can be committed upon society. It would have established a glaring contradiction between the revelation given by Moses and that given by Christ. It is a mere subterfuge to maintain that Christ did not act here as a judge, that He did not trespass upon the domain of municipal justice, and that His decree was spoken only with reference to a question of pure morality. Even were we to allow this unfounded distinction, there would still remain a very questionable point on which a strong objection might be based. The Word of God breathes everywhere the deepest abhorrence of adultery. Christ also, in relation to this sin, is more severe even than the Pharisees: comp. Matthew 5:27. In 1 Corinthians 6:9, adulterers are unconditionally excluded from the kingdom of God. In Hebrews 13:4 we read, πόρνουςγὰρκαὶμοιχοὺςκρινεῖὁΘεός; and in Revelation 22:15, all whoremongers are “without.” Christ condemns the adulterers not less severely than Moses does; but He points out to them the way of repentance, and gives them the power to enter and walk in it. Nothing is said here about punishment and repentance; it is hinted only in an indirect manner by the μηκέτιἁμάρτανε, which plainly is borrowed from ch. John 5:14, that adultery is sin. But the woman to whom ch. John 5:14 was spoken, had already borne the punishment of her sin. It may indeed be said that “Christ reckons upon the deep impression produced by all that had occupied, and dismisses her with only an additional warning.” But that impression was a secret one, and Christ speaks not for the person alone, but for the Church of all time; and if our Lord had even in appearance dealt so lightly with the matter, He would have given some handle to that moral laxity which has ever been only too ready to show its special preference for this narrative. Consequently, this narration cannot be regarded as historically true. The originator of the fiction had doubtless no evil design. He imagined to himself the sinner as a penitent; but, thinking little about the morality of his fable, he has contented himself with indistinctly and darkly reprobating Jewish prejudice and bigotry. Better we could hardly expect from one who has been bold enough to insert his own production into the sublime work of the Apostle. Chap. John 7:37-52 belongs to the last day of the Dedication. The transactions between Jesus and the people on that occasion come to their close in John 7:44. Then follow certain transactions relating to Jesus, within the council, and occurring on the same day. Consequently, what we have in ch. John 8:12 seq. must be placed beyond the time of the feast; and with this harmonizes the fact, that beyond ch. John 8:12 there is no simple allusion which may be certainly, or even with probability, referred to the feast. A new note of time we obtain once more in ch. John 10:22. There we have the record of a transaction which passed at the Feast of the Dedication between Jesus and the Jews. The Lord evidently remained in Jerusalem during the interval between the feasts. Without more precise chronological specification, of no importance to the matter itself, John selects a few scenes of this interval, which were significant as explaining the relation of Jesus to the Jews, and in which he uttered words of all-comprehensive importance for the Church. There are three of these scenes which refer to the conflict between Christ and the Jews, on the question whether Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. Ver. 12. “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”—Οὖν in St John’s style merely marks the transition. They seem to attribute too much to it, who refer it to the fact, that the sitting of the Sanhedrim had issued in no result, the scheme of imprisoning Jesus having entirely failed. In that case, it must have been mentioned expressly at the end of ver. 7, just as in ch. John 8:20. Αὐτοῖς, unto them—those with whom in this series of events He commonly had to do, and with whom He deals, in ch. 7 down to John 7:44—the Jews. Jesus declares Himself here to be the light of the world, as in chap. John 7:37 the water of life. “It is,” says Luther, “a very offensive and very proud sermon that He gives them here, standing up before the great ones and learned doctors, and giving out that they were all blind fools in the darkness, while He, on the other hand, says of Himself: I am the light of the world.” Much must have already passed before Christ could speak of Himself as He does here, and generally throughout this whole part of the Gospel. He could not speak so unconditionally of Himself as the source of all salvation, and connect all things so absolutely with His own person, if he had not already, in words and deeds of power and love, let His nature beam forth, and prepared for Himself a name. The light of the world must needs be its Creator. Jesus, when He says, “I am the light of the world,” declares Himself plainly to be He who in the beginning said, “Let there be light.” In this “let there be light,” a pledge is given to the creature that this light shall shine. “Dedignabitur salvare” says Augustin, “qui dignatus est creare?” It is needless to spend time in forming hypotheses, externally accounting for the saying of our Lord, by the rising of the sun, the kindling of the lamps in the temple, etc. If anything significant of this kind had taken place, the Apostle would not have left us to guess about it. Explanations such as, “The light, that is, the possessor, representative, and bearer of Divine truth, from whom that light goes forth into humanity,” could proceed only from those who are not at home in the Old Testament. Light is in the Old Testament the common term for salvation: comp. on ch. John 1:4, and especially the passage there adduced, Isaiah 49:6, where it is said, in reference to Christ, “I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation unto the ends of the earth.” That the word light is used in the same sense here, is proved by what follows; for the light is said to consist in life: comp., with reference to the idea of life, the remarks on ch. John 1:4. And the same is plainly expressed in the specific original passages of the Old Testament. These are, on the one hand, Isaiah 9:1 : “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light “(the sun is called, in Genesis 1:16, the “great light;” Malachi foretells, in ch. Malachi 4:2, that with the coming of the “angel of the Lord “the saving “Sun of Righteousness “would rise on those who feared the name of God); “they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined,” where Christ appears as the light of the Jews; and, on the other hand, Isaiah 42:6; Isaiah 49:6. Jews and Gentiles are here combined together in the idea of the world. There can be no doubt as to the identity of light and salvation in these fundamental passages. The light in Isaiah 9:1 looks back to the darkness in Isaiah 8:22. This consisted, according to the express declaration of the prophet, in need and misery. “And He shall look upon the earth, and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.” Thus the light can be no other than salvation. The response of the Church to the Lord’s word here, “I am the light of the world,” is this, “Neither is there salvation in any other,” Acts 4:12. And in effect the Lord’s words in Matthew 11:28 seq. correspond also: Come unto Me, all ye who are troubled and heavy laden, and I will refresh you, etc.; the κἀγὼἀναπαύσωὑμᾶς, and the καὶεὑρήσετεἀνάπαυσινταῖςψυχαῖςὑμῶν, point back to Jeremiah 31:2, where Jehovah says, “Even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest;” proving also that Jesus assumed divinity to Himself. The light or salvation refers not merely to the external course. For men, created after the image of God, the foundation of all salvation is the union of the soul with God, the only true God, without possessing whom there can be no rest, or peace, or satisfaction. Where this union exists, the uttermost external tribulation cannot interrupt the enjoyment of salvation: comp. Psalms 4:7 : “Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased;” Psalms 42:9, where that enjoyment is disturbed, the man must be internally unsaved and miserable, though lying in the very bosom of outward prosperity. The sinner, under all circumstances, walks in darkness, 1 John 1:6; 1 John 2:11 : yet the word of our Lord must approve its truth even in the external course, which accompanies the internal condition and reflects it. The issue of “I am the light of the world” here, is the “Ye shall die in your sins,” in ver. 21. When Jesus represents Himself as the light of the world, He points to the deep night even of external misery which should come upon the Jews, as the consequence of their contempt and rejection of the light. In special reference to these, the formally general propositions are here spoken. Christ is the light for the whole world; not merely for the “world of elect,” as the modem reformed exposition imagines. The limitation which that exposition refers to Christ Himself, as if it existed in Him, lies rather in those to whom the light is offered: he that followeth Me: comp., for the results of spiritual following, on ch. John 1:44. The commencement of this following is faith: comp. John 12:36.—“Shall not walk in darkness” rests upon Isaiah 9:1, “The people that walked in darkness.” Lampe: “Thus formerly walked the Egyptians in darkness, when they persecuted Moses and Israel, Exodus 14:20. This judgment impended over all who, having darkened the light of the world, fall into reprobation and hardness, and, at the same time, external darkness. They only could avoid it, who should leave the blind teachers and follow Jesus.” Isaiah paints, in ch. John 8:22, the deep darkness of misery into which apostate Israel should fall in the future, and to which the manifestation of Christ should put an end. For those who scorned the only Saviour, the darkness continued, and even increased more and more. That which is here spoken in the form of a general sentence, Jesus, in ch. John 12:35, utters again with direct application to the Jews: “Yet a little while is the light with you; walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.” The general truth here declared has been confirmed in the destiny of the Jews; and it is ever receiving new confirmation in the destiny of people and of individuals to whom Christ is offered. To those who follow Him, Jesus approves Himself the light of the world in all ages; those who forsake are doomed inevitably to darkness, to internal and external ruin, and exclusion from salvation. Ver. 13. “Then said the Pharisees unto Him, Thou bearest witness of thyself; thy witness is not true.”—“The conflict of Christ with the Jews,” says Anton, “becomes more and more vehement. But this very antipathy declared that an illimitable distance must exist between His mind and their mind.” Man has a natural desire for the light. We read in Ecclesiastes 11:7, “Light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is to see the sun.” The assumption lying at the foundation of our Lord’s saying, that mankind before Him and without Him lay buried in darkness, stands in harmony with “in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die,” in Genesis 2:17; and its truth has been, ever since that great catastrophe, enforced upon every man by his own experience. Notwithstanding, the antipathy of the natural man to Christ is so great, that he would rather be deprived of the light, and draw down upon himself the judgment of darkness, than make up his mind to follow Him. The Pharisees proceeded on the assumption that Christ was mere man, and consequently they thought the ancient saying applicable in His case: “Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips,” Proverbs 27:2. A mere man, who speaks great things about himself, places himself absolutely in the position of one whose testimony is certainly not true. The higher he gives himself out to be, λέγωνεἶναίτιναἑαυτὸνμέγαν, Acts 8:9, the lower he is in reality. True greatness is ever more, and in all things, humble and modest; as Moses, Numbers 12:3, “was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth,” and as Paul declared himself to be the chief of sinners. The Pharisees did not reject—that would have been quite inconsistent—every testimony that any man might give concerning himself; they only protested against professions of the kind then before them; and the only error in their protest was, that they, through their own fault, were incapable in their darkness of discerning the true light in Christ. Jesus first justifies His own testimony, and vindicates its validity, vers. 14-16. He then shows that His testimony stood not alone, but was confirmed by the testimony of the Father in His works. Or, Jesus, 1. answers that the pre-eminence of His person gave value to the testimony which He bore concerning Himself, ver. 12; as also that, on account of the internal relation in which He stood to God, even in His judgment upon others. He was not capable of deceiving or being deceived. 2. He declares that His testimony stood not alone, but that it received corroboration from the testimony of the Father. Ver. 14. “Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of Myself, My record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and [otherwise, or] whither I go.” Jesus grasps and exposes the assumption on which the Pharisees judgment rested. To apply to Him that proposition, which held good in human affairs and with mere man, was as foolish as if they would apply it to God. He came down from heaven, and was going back to heaven: comp. on ch. John 3:13. His present form of servitude, which the Pharisees could not in their wretched superficiality look through, was only a veil and a sphere of transition. He was, as to Himself, beyond the region in which clouds, dimness, illusion, self-pleasing, and pride, disturb the vision and the judgment. “If the sun could speak, and say, I am the sun; and thou shouldst reply. No, thou mayest be the night, because thou bearest witness of thyself,—would that seem reasonable?” In the “Though I bear record of Myself” was intimated, and it was afterwards expanded, that this state of the case was not the true one; but that, concurrently with the testimony of Christ to Himself, there was another, that of the Father. The main point coming into notice here is the being of Christ, absolutely and sublimely elevated above all Imman things; but with the being there was also the simultaneous consciousness; and Christ was led to give prominence to His knowledge, that He might set over against it the ignorance of the Jews, which robbed their denial of His honour of all its force. Vers. 15, 16. “Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. And yet if I judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent Me.” Christ opposes His own judging to the judging of the Pharisees; and He does this, because His judgment—the rigorous opposition to the Pharisaic nature and doings which He had from the beginning been constrained to exhibit—had been the occasion of their judgment upon Him: comp. on ver. 26. The judging of the Pharisees was without any significance, for it rested only and always on superficial views: on the other hand, Christ’s judging was of fearful moment, on account of that oneness with the Father which made all His decisions right. Whosoever is condemned by Him, as the Pharisees were, must tremble, since the destroying stroke must necessarily follow His sentence; while, on the other hand, the judgment of the Pharisees upon Him was a mere beating the air, and had no other force than to lay bare its own superficiality and worthlessness. The judging after the flesh here corresponds to the judging according to the appearance in ch. John 7:24. Accordingly, the flesh is not the flesh of the Pharisees, their carnal mind to wit, but the flesh of Christ, His external human appearance, beyond which they, incapable of penetrating to the Spirit in His Divine nature, could not go, saying as they did, “Is not this the carpenters son? is not his mother called Mary?” etc., Matthew 13:55; and, “We know this man whence he is,” ch. John 7:27. To judge after the flesh is equivalent to judging after what the eyes see; and it was said of Christ, in Isaiah 11:3, that He should not judge “after the sight of His eyes.” 1 Samuel 16:7 also sheds light upon it: “But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for not what man looks upon (do I look upon); for man (natural man, forsaken of God) looketh upon the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” The “carnal passion” of those who judge here had no connection with the preceding words, in which all deeper knowledge of the nature of Christ is denied to them. It is in perfect harmony with “Ye know not whence I am, or whither I go,” that it is said here that only the lower side of His being was accessible to them. Indeed, that they could only judge after the flesh, was the result of their fleshly mind, comp. 1 Corinthians 2:14, bound always to the visible and palpable. But this fleshly mind does not come expressly into view. Augustin: Secundum carnem judicatis, quia Deum non intelligitis, et hominem videtis, et hominem persequendo Deum latenter offenditis. And Lyser: Cum enim secundum carnem plus in me non cernatis quam ψιλὸνἄνθρωπον: ideo judicatis me non posse mundi lucem esse. To judge concerning Christ after the flesh has ever been, and still is, the melancholy doom of those who have, by their own fault, robbed themselves of the means of forming a deeper judgment, and have thus entered the way of eternal ruin. The words, “I judge no man,” are a concomitant idea, which intimates that judging was not with Christ, as with the Pharisees, the proper sphere of His life: He came not to judge the world, but to save the world, ch. John 12:47. As the light of the world, He came to open the blind eyes and to save sinners, as the pattern of all His faithful servants, with whom judging is not the prominent work, but rather attraction, and the entreaty in Christ’s stead “Be ye reconciled to God.” (Beza: Ego vobis blande annuntio salutiferum nuntium, cum tamen meo jure utens ad inferos praecipitare vos possim.) Jesus does not disclaim a certain kind of judging, as many would supplement κατὰσάρκα: He disclaims judgment generally. Nor does He disclaim judging, during a definite period, viz. the present. For, on the one hand, that would have required fuller statement; and, on the other, Christ did actually exercise judgment in the present. “In the very words, ‘I am the light of the world,’” says the Berlenberg Bible, “there is concealed a secret judgment upon the darkness.” At the same time that Jesus says, “I judge no man,” He is judging the Pharisees; and in ver. 26 He says, “I have many things to say and to judge of you.” That the words mean, that judgment was not the proper vocation of His life, the proper element in which He moved, is shown at once by what follows: comp. also ch. John 5:22. There also judgment appears as the second and accessory thing. The first is the quickening, ver. 21. The judgment passes only upon those who blasphemously reject this saving power. It has its proper ground, not in Christ, but in the objects on whom the judgment proceeds; so that they may be said, as it were, to condemn themselves. Because Christ is not alone, but in inseparable union with His heavenly Father, so, like His Father, He tries the hearts and the reins; and the Jews are constrained to tremble before His judgment. Ver. 17. “It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. Ver. 18. I am one that bear witness of Myself, and the Father that sent Me beareth witness of Me.” Jesus had, up to this point, vindicated the validity of His own testimony. Here He intimates that this testimony was not alone, but that it was confirmed by the testimony of the Father. When Christ speaks of their law, He does not deny the obligation of that law upon His own followers, as it is taught everywhere in the New Testament, comp. Matthew 5:17 seq.; but He only signifies that they cannot evade or escape from the instances quoted from this law: comp. on ch. John 5:39, and then ch. John 5:45, John 15:25. The passages to which Jesus points are Deuteronomy 17:6, “At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death;” and Deuteronomy 19:15, “One witness shall not rise up against a man: at the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall the matter be established.” Jesus does not quote the words of the legal ordinance, but only gives their substance. Ἄνθρωπον is not found in the quoted passages, and therefore must have all the more significance. We have a conclusion a minori ad majus: “If according to the law the testimony of two men, who may be deceived, is sufficient, how much more the testimony of two Divine witnesses, who are highly exalted above all suspicion of error or deception!” Lyser: It might seem that the testimony of Jesus concerning Himself, although true, was without demonstrative power, since any one might say the same of himself. But it ought not to be forgotten that the utterance of Jesus had its support in the whole influence of His person and character, in the majesty and dignity of His manifestation, in the divine energy of His word, by which the officers of the council were so seized, that they said, “Never man spake like this man.” Quesnel observes: “Christ is the only one who would give testimony to Himself. Man, who of his own has nothing but He and sin, must always be more suspicious of himself than any other.” Even Christ did not bear witness to Himself until God had borne witness to Him in the most manifold ways; and until His gentleness, His love, His patience, His unselfishness, His freedom from all pride, etc., had become publicly known. On the “Father beareth witness of Me,” comp. ch. John 10:37-38 : “If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not; but if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe the works.” Ver. 19. “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.” It was not for a moment doubtful to the Jews whom Jesus referred to as His Father. It was the old controversy between Him and them, that they would not suffer Him to call God His Father in a particular and pre-eminent sense: comp. ch. John 5:18. They do not ask, “Who is thy father?” but, “Where is thy father? “And their question intimated that His “Father” was something Utopian, and that His conceit of being God’s Son was an idle fantasy, without any reality. Christ intimates to them that they, by the wicked position which they assumed towards Him, closed against themselves the way to the knowledge of His Father. Whosoever places himself in opposition to Christ, can never know the Christian and only true God, the Father of Jesus Christ; for Christ is the bridge to that God whom not to know is to be without life and without salvation: comp. on ch. John 1:18, John 5:37-38, John 6:46, John 14:6; John 14:9; Matthew 11:27; 1 John 2:23. In reference to the manner of the Jews coming, Quesnel remarks: “All may desire and seek the knowledge of God and His mysteries in humble and sincere prayer, or with a mind full of evil design and unbelief, as we see here and among the learned of this world.” And Anton: “Holy and penitent ones deal with such questions in humility: it is a crimen laesae majestatis divinae to act as these did.” Ver. 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 indication of the locality, as also the remark, “and no man,” etc., serves no other purpose than to mark off this scene from that which follows. There is no actual connection between the statement of the locality and the preceding discourse. That the treasury was a place where a great multitude of men were wont to assemble, John could not suppose that his first readers knew without being told. The specific description of the locality shows that if John, in the following scenes, deals more in the general as to place, this was the result of design, and not of ignorance. Only an eye-witness could connect with the memory of the circumstance the exact place: this having in itself no specific relation to what passed there. The διδάσκωνἐντῷἱερῷ is the general description. The Temple was the ordinary scene of Christ’s teaching. The treasury we know from Mark 12:41-44 (comp. Luke 21:1 seq.): there Jesus sat before the treasury, and saw how the people placed in it their gifts; here the treasury is named in a broader sense, including the spaces before it. According to many authorities, the treasury “consisted of thirteen brazen chests, destined to the customs and gifts.” But these chests into which the gifts were cast, were only, so to speak, the mouth or opening of the treasury, its communication with the outer world. “The treasury” must mean the locality of the whole temple-treasure, which is mentioned by the Aramaic name ὁκορβανᾶς, in Matthew 27:6. This treasury was as ancient as the sanctuary in Israel. Mention is made of it in Deuteronomy 23:19, again in Joshua 6:19; Joshua 6:24, according to which all the gold, etc., devoted in Jericho came into the “treasury of the house of the Lord.” David placed the silver and the gold and the vessels in the treasury of the house of the Lord, 1 Kings 7:51. In 2 Kings 12:19; 2 Kings 16:8, we read of gold which was found in the treasures of the Lord’s house, and of the house of the king. In 2 Maccabees 3 is recorded the attempt of Heliodorus to penetrate into the treasure-house in Jerusalem, τὸἐνἹεροσλύμοιςγαζοφυλάκιον. In ch. John 8:21-59, we have the second scene of the period between the Feast of Tabernacles and that of the Dedication. Ver. 21. “Then said Jesus again unto them, I go My way, and ye shall seek Me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come.” Lyser: “He would say: Ye plot and labour diligently day and night to put Me to death. But it needs not all this trouble: for I shall, after having finished the course of My work, of My own free will go away from you; I shall return by physical death to My Father, and at the same time with My Gospel take all My blessings with Me.” Jesus repeated in a more compendious form what He had said in ch. John 7:33-34. The literal coincidence was an intentional one. It pointed them to the firmness of the Divine counsel, and exhorted them to make this great theme the object of their meditation. As is usual in the Scripture, when such words are repeated, there is here a significant change of the expression. Instead of “and ye shall not find Me,” in that passage, we have here, “and ye shall die in your sins.” That “sins” in these is a generic idea, and that we must not refer it to any single predominant sin, is shown by “Ye shall die in your sins” ver. 24. In ch. John 9:41 also, “the sin” signifies the whole guilt of sin, which the Pharisees bore upon them; and in the same generic sense it occurs in 1 John 1:8. The sin of Pharisaic Judaism was concentred in the position which it assumed towards Christ, comp. ch. John 15:22; and so far there is truth underlying the view which understands unbelief by the “sin” here. Faith, according to ver. 24, can free from the penalty of dying in sin. Sin, the entire of guilt, proceeds unto death only when the means of salvation held out by God are rejected, when the “ye would not “enters; and through the peoples guilt their sin remained.—”Ye shall die in your sins “means, according to the current exposition, “that they should die without being released from their sins, bound up in them,” and so forth. But the originals in the Old Testament show rather that “in your sins “is equivalent to “for your sins: “the effect is in the cause. In Numbers 27:3 the daughters of Zelophehad say: “Our father died in the wilderness—he died in his own sin.” There the α is evidently the α of the cause: comp. Psalms 90:7. In Deuteronomy 24:16, “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for (in) his own sin,” the α corresponds to the preceding ςμ. In Ezekiel 18:26, “When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them (ςμιδν); for his iniquity (αςεμε) that he hath done shall he die,” α is interchangeable with ςμ, and α defines evidently the cause. The effect is rooted in the cause, or rests upon it. Sin appears as the cause of death or misery, even in the legal phrase, “bearing his sin or his iniquity,” Leviticus 5:1, and elsewhere. Knobel: “Bearing it, that is, in its power and effect, experiencing its consequences, and bearing its punishment.” Sin wilfully persisted in drags its victim to death. An inevitable doom is not here spoken of. Jesus says in the following words expressly, “if ye believe not.” He would only lay it on their hearts that it was high time for them to believe. Berl. Bibel: “He would thereby awaken their reflection and touch their hearts, that they might perceive their state before the end came.” Ver. 22. “Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith. Whither I go, ye cannot come.” The Jews do not bethink themselves of repenting, while they hear the severe exhortations and threatenings of Jesus; they rather assume the position which the Jews assumed in the time of Jeremiah. When the prophet denounced against them the judgments of God, they said, “We will walk in our own imaginations, and every one of us do according to the desires of his heart.” Instead of entering into themselves, they rather sought to convict Jesus of some inconsistency. The Jews did not really think that Jesus might kill Himself, nor must we regard their words as mere mockery. Christ had spoken of His going away as an act of His own free will, which would serve as an infliction of punishment upon His enemies, who would fall through His departure into inevitable destruction. How Christ could thus speak of such a going away, appeared to them incomprehensible. They thought they had Him unconditionally in their power. Only by killing Himself—which He, however, would certainly not do—could He reach a place which would be beyond the reach of their power. The mistake was, that they regarded the voluntary departure of Jesus as the opposite of the death which they designed for Him: it did not enter into their minds, carried away by a fancied independence, that they could be mere instruments in a higher hand: comp. ch. John 10:18, John 18:6, from which we perceive that, in a certain sense, Christ inflicted death upon Himself. Ver. 23. “And He said unto them. Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. 24. I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins.” Jesus does not reply to the interruption of the Jews, but carries further the thought that had been expressed in ver. 21. The antithesis of above and beneath is that of earth and heaven, as is shown by the explanatory second member, where the “of this world” corresponds to the “from beneath.” This is also the constant usage of Scripture: wherever we find the general contrast of above and below, it always refers to earth and heaven; comp., for example, Exodus 20:4, “which is in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath;” Psalms 50:4, “He shall call to the heavens above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people;” Acts 2:19, “And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath;” Colossians 3:1-2, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth;” Ephesians 4:9. To the ἐκτῶνκάτω corresponds, in Psalms 10:18, the man of the earth. The lower region, the earth, is from Genesis 3 downwards, the place of sin, and consequently of death. He who belongs merely and absolutely to the earth, cannot escape from sin, and from death, its necessary consequence. Only a relation to heaven can effect the souls freedom. Noah walked with God, and became, as the result, a righteous man among his contemporaries; and, in consequence of his righteousness, he escaped the judgment of death which came upon the whole collective earthly creation, Genesis 6:9. Enoch walked with God, and became accordingly partaker of eternal life, Genesis 5:24. Since in Christ the upper world came down into the lower, freedom from sin and from death can be obtained only through union with Him. To believe on Christ is the only means whereby we can be lifted above the lower regions of the earth, and consequently be delivered from that sin and death in which he is buried past recovery, who despises the saving hand stretched out to him. “Ye are of this world,” which since the Fall has lain in the evil one. Anton: “And thus we are sundered; there is a great gulf fixed between you, such as you now are, and Me.” This gulf could be filled up only in one way—by their believing that He was (ch. John 13:19), that is, that He was the absolute, the central Personality. The original Scriptures of the Old Testament show that this is the right interpretation: first of all, Deuteronomy 32:39, “See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no God with Me,” Sept. ἴδετεὅτιἐγώεἰμι; then Psalms 102:27, “But Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end;” Isaiah 41:4, “I am He,” ΰπιδεΰ; Isaiah 43:10, “That ye may understand that I am He; before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me.” Michaelis: Ens illud unicum summum et verum. All these fundamental passages refer to God. They all of them have at their basis the Divine name Jehovah, by which God is declared to be pure absolute Being; and by referring so directly to these passages, Christ arrogated to Himself no less than the full and perfect Godhead. So His enemies themselves understood it. If the Jews would not fill up the awful gulf in this the only possible way, they must die in their sins. A comparison with the original prophecy shows that these words primarily pointed to a national catastrophe, and were fulfilled in the destruction of the city by the Romans. The Good Shepherd, Christ, receives in Zechariah 11:4 the commission to “feed the flock of the slaughter,” the people abandoned to ruin. The mission of Christ is in that early prophecy, even as here, represented as a final endeavour to save the people, whom their sins, like the wind, bear away to destruction, Isaiah 64:6. In Zechariah 11:9, the Good Shepherd says, after His earnest endeavours had all been scorned, “I will not feed you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another.” Ver. 28 also points to a national catastrophe: comp. Matthew 23:37-38. Quesnel draws from our present passage this conclusion: “We must, by setting their fearful danger before them, constrain sinners to fly to the arms of Jesus Christ, the sinners only help.” Ver. 25. “Then said they unto Him, Who art thou? And Jesus said unto them. Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning.”—“From the beginning, that which I say unto you.” The following comment is altogether wrong: “Such terms as Light of the world, Pourer out of water, The Sent of God, were to the Jews simply indefinite ideas; they wanted to hear of the King of Israel, or the like.” The Jews were not in any uncertainty as to who Christ would make Himself: the ἐγώεἰμι was to them, expert in the Scriptures as they were, quite sufficient to make that plain. They would, by the question, “Who art thou?” only remind Him that they did not acknowledge Him in His assumed dignity; that there was still a question about this dignity, and consequently that the conclusions which He drew from it were unsound. They would, by their question, challenge Him to consider the whole matter once more, and to save Himself from such boundless and fearful presumption: comp. the τίνασεαυτὸνποιεῖς, ver. 53, and the σὺἄνθρωποςὢνποιεῖςσεαυτὸνΘεόν. Anton: “One could wish to think that there was in their question the beginning of submission and change of mind; as Saul’s conversion began with a question. Lord, who art Thou? But there is no Lord in the question of His enemies here.” In Christ’s answer we must,) as is now generally acknowledged, read ὅτι, since ὅτι gives no reasonable sense. Before or after the τὴνἀρχήν we must supplement, from the question, εἰμί, I am. Ἀρχή, in the New Testament, always means beginning (apart, that is, from the signification dominion, of which we take no account here); and it is used specifically of the beginning of created, things, of finite existence, of the world or creation: comp. on ch. John 1:1. The accusative is used as an adverb, “originally” (comp. Buttmann, p. 134); so that, in reality, τὴνἀρχήν is equivalent to ἀπʼ ? ἀρχῆς, or κατʼ ? ἀρχᾶς, Hebrews 1:10. The signification “altogether or absolutely” would take us out of the domain of New Testament phraseology, as also out of that of the Alexandrian version. In this latter, τὴνἀρχήν stands for “In the beginning,” Genesis 41:21; Genesis 43:20; Daniel 8:1. In classical usage, also, the signification “beginning,” or “originally,” is the first and most frequent. Schweighseuser, in the Lex. Herod., remarks: “Accusativus ἀρχήν adverbialiter positus proprie significat initio, principio, ab initio;” and he gives copious illustrations from Herodotus, such as John 11:28, ὡςἀρχὴνἐγένετο, as it was originally. In the beginning, in the creation of the world, Christ manifested Himself, or made Himself known, in the attribute which He arrogated, ver. 24 (comp. Hebrews 1:10); and so onwards throughout His whole administration in the history of the Old Testament. Christ is everywhere where Jehovah is, and His Angel. If we take the τὴνἀρχήν in this sense,—in special harmony with John’s phraseology, “In the beginning was the Word,” and “the same was in the beginning with God,” ch. John 1:1-2; ὃἦνἀπʼ ? ἀρχῆς, 1 John 1:1; ἐγνώκατετὸνἀπʼ ? ἀρχῆς, John 2:13-14,—then the “I am He” corresponds, by which Jesus, in ver. 24, identifies Himself with the Jehovah of the Old Testament: so also vers. 39, 40, in which Abraham is placed in relation to Christ; ver. 56, in which Abraham saw His day; ver. 57, in which Christ saw Abraham; ver. 58, in which Christ was before Abraham was, and that not in a latent being, but in such a being as was made known by manifestation. The τὴνἀρχήν here corresponds, then, with the ἀπʼ ? ἀρχῆς in ver. 44 concerning Satan. From the beginning of the world, Christ and Satan have been the two spiritual powers opposed to each other. The τὴνἀρχήν, then, finds its commentary in the πάνταδιʼ ? αὐτοῦἐγένετο, ch. John 1:3; the ἡἀρχὴτῆςκτίσεωςτοῦΘεοῦ, Revelation 3:14; and the διʼ ? οὗκαὶτοὺςαἰῶναςἐποίησε, Hebrews 1:2. It is without reason alleged against this interpretation,—which, to the shame of many ecclesiastical expositors, Fritzsche has had to bring out again, sum a rerum primordiis (cf. John 1:1) ea natura, quara me esse profiteor,—that such a manner of speaking would have been simply unintelligible to the Jews; for this objection is set at nought by all the other testimonies of Christ concerning His pre-human existence in this self-same chapter. The Jews had points of connection enough for it, if their hearts had only been right before the Lord: the entire Old Testament doctrine of the Angel of Jehovah, and the prophetic announcement that this Angel would one day appear as the Messiah, Malachi 3:1; Zechariah 11 : It has been shown in the Christology (vol. iii. Clark’s Translation), that the true understanding of the Old Testament facts here concerned was widely diffused amongst the Jews; and to these we must add the lofty predicates, rising into divinity, which are attributed to the Messiah in Isaiah 9:5, Micah 5:1; Micah 5:3; and the manifestation of the Messiah in the clouds of heaven, as the Lord of nature, as the Almighty Judge, in Daniel 7:13-14. Nor is there force in the objection, that this interpretation is discordant with the preceding question of the Jews, which referred not to the pre-existence but to the personality of Jesus: for the pre-existence was an essential element in the personality of Jesus; and our Lord does not limit Himself to the assumption of pre-existence, but at the same time declares that His being was absolutely congruent with that which He said concerning Himself, the καὶ referring to this congruence between the being and the words. But the ἀρχήν was the specific sting to the minds of His enemies. He made them feel that all opposition was vain, and that it could end only in their destruction. “Jesus,” says Quesnel, “a une vie, qui n’a jamais commencιe et que tous les efforts de ses ennemis nepeuvent faire finir.” Because Christ is the Alpha, He is also the Omega; because He was from the beginning on the scene, the end also must belong to Him. Let us now throw a glance over the explanations which soften this away. The rendering nearest to ours is, “I am that which I said unto you from the beginning.” But if we thus supply the εἰμί, before instead of after the τὴνἀρχήν, we encounter the following double difficulty. 1. The τὴνἀρχήν ought not then to stand in the beginning: the rejoinder, that it was placed first because of emphasis, would be valid only if it came after ὅτι; but this entirely forces the construction. 2. Instead of the Present, λαλῶ, it ought to have been the Perfect. The λαλῶ plainly points to the ἐγώεἰμι, by which Jesus had attributed to Himself divinity. And, further, the originally then receives no clear and sure explanation. It would be obvious to refer it to the beginning of His appearance amongst them; but Jesus did not then publicly proclaim Himself as the true and only Son of God. It was His aim first to approve Himself such in act. Against the interpretation favoured by Luther, “Principio (id vobis respondeo) me eum esse, qui vobiscum loquar,” Beza has observed, Haec expositio coacta est et frigidam sententiam parit: denique etiam Gr. codicibus repugnat, in quibus legitur ὅτι, non ὅς. Ἀρχήν also does not mean firstly, or at first. Finally, the interpretation, “Generally, wherefore do I speak to you?” adopts all possible artifice only to find an intolerable meaning. Ver. 26. “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 I have heard of Him.” After Jesus had answered their question, He enters into the psychological motive which had brought them forward. The word of Micah, ch. John 2:11, was here approved true: “If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy to thee of wine and strong drink, he shall even be the prophet of this people;” and that other, in ch. John 3:8, where Micah opposes himself to false prophets, and says: “But truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.” If Christ had made war against the Romans, whom they hated, instead of against the sins which they loved,—if He had directed the lightning-glance of His divinity against foes without,—the Jews would have admitted with joy the utmost that He declared concerning His own person. The fundamental repentance which He demanded was the real offence, and not the “I am He” of itself. They must contend against His divinity, because it was a consuming fire for their sins, in which they desired still to continue. “I have many things to say and to judge of you”—that is the reason why ye will not receive My declarations concerning My own person—“but,” etc. If what Jesus said rested entirely upon God, and if it was therefore absolutely true, all was placed in a new light, and it was reason, not for alienation and hatred, but for true repentance. Unreasonably comparing ch. John 16:12, some have thought that the “I have many things to say of you” refers to such things as Jesus could say, but would not say; whereas the true meaning is rather this: “I must also say and judge many things of you.” Jesus never shows Himself, in relation to the Jews, disposed to keep back or restrain anything. The strongest that could be said, He always tells them to their face. Here, in what immediately precedes, He had exercised this judgment upon them in the most earnest manner; and in what immediately follows He continues the same strain. Jesus does not say, “I speak unto you,” but, “I speak to the world.” This points to the fact, that what He here first speaks in a narrow circle, is not destined for that narrow circle alone, but has a significance for all ages; and that its being opposed and scorned temporarily was of little significance, since it was destined to run its course, and have its effect in ages to come. If Jesus was truly the light of the world, it was self-understood, that all things which He spake in the obscurest corner of Judea were spoken out into all the world. Ver. 27. “They understood not that He spake to them of the Father.” An interpretation of these words which makes the Jews appear senseless and stupid, cannot, in the nature of things, be the right one. From a theoretic inability on their part, Jesus would have delivered them by a more explicit declaration; but, instead of that. He threatens them, in ver. 28, with the punishment of unbelief. The meaning cannot therefore be, that they did not externally understand our Lord’s words. Throughout the whole of this portion of the Gospel, the accusation which the Jews made against Christ was, that He arrogated to Himself divinity. The seizing, and stoning, and putting to death—which is everywhere the Jews watchword—all rest upon this ground. In ch. John 5:18 they would kill Jesus, because He πατέραἴδιονἔλεγεντὸνΘεὸνἴσονἑαυτὸνποιῶντῷΘεῷ; and in ch. John 10:33 they raise the complaint against Him, σὺἄνθρωποςὢνποιεῖςσεαυτὸνΘεόν. But this mere external knowledge is not acknowledged by John as true knowledge. True knowledge only exists where there is devout sinking into the mystery full of grace and blessedness. But the father of whom they thought was not the true Father, but only an airy imagination of their own minds. With the Son they had also lost the Father. John—in deep grief at the perversion of human nature, which has no vision of the most comforting of all mysteries—charges them, not with theoretical inability, but with hardness of heart. The not knowing here is the same as that of- which Christ speaks in Matthew 11:25; and, in reality, ch. John 12:37 is in harmony with this: “Although He had done so many miracles among them, yet believed they not on Him.” And this shows how ver. 28 is connected with that which we now consider. There the Jews are threatened with the punishment of the unbelief which is here alleged against them. Vers. 28, 29. “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 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.” The lifting up refers to the crucifixion: comp. on ch. John 3:14 (Augustin: Exaltationem dicit passionis, non glorificationis, crucis non coeli: quin et ibi exaltatus est, quando pependit de ligno). It cannot be the glorification of Christ, because it was to be effected by the people. “Then shall ye know that I am He,” derives its more definite meaning from “If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins,” in ver. 24. They maintain and approve their unbelief by the lifting up of the Son of man, and therefore the result follows. In this connection, which manifestly speaks only of the relation of guilt and punishment, we must not think of a saving knowledge as intended; and we must reject all such remarks as these: “Whoever was susceptible, must have received from the martyrdom of this most holy servant of God such an impression as that he must acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah!” In their downfall and ruin the hardened Jews discerned that Christ was God. We must also reject the comparison with ch. John 12:32 : “And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.” Christ is not there speaking, as He is here, to exasperated enemies. Individuals of their number might be converted; but of the whole race (and it is that which Jesus has here in view) it remained true, that they accomplished their blasphemy, and fell under its doom. The knowing here spoken of is that which is enforced by facts; and it is indifferent whether or not those here meant pushed their self-blinding and self-hardening so far as to deny what was plainly made manifest. The words of our Lord rest upon an Old Testament foundation. We read in Exodus 10:20, “And ye shall know that I am the Lord,”—by the wonders and signs which I will perform on the Egyptians. But still nearer to our text is a series of passages in Ezekiel, in which “And ye shall know that I am the Lord” recurs continually as the burden of threatenings upon Israel. So, in ch. John 7:4, it is said, “And Mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.” And in ch. John 11:10 : “Ye shall fall by the sword: I will judge you in the border of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.” And in ch. John 12:20 : “And the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land shall be desolate; and ye shall know that I am the Lord:” comp. ch. John 6:7; John 6:13. By reference to all these sayings, Christ identifies Himself with Jehovah; and they are of importance, further, to our present purpose, inasmuch as they prove that the Lord here has only an enforced knowledge in view, and does not speak of a voluntary and experimental knowledge. We find parallels in the other Gospels,—for example, in Matthew 23:38-39; Matthew 24:2, where Jesus, after the disciples had shown Him all the buildings of the Temple, says, “See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you. There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” So Luke 19:40 : “And He answered and said unto them, I tell you, that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out,” where the stones are the stones of Jerusalem to be destroyed,—an allusion to Habakkuk 2:11, the only passage of Scripture, too, in which we have crying stones. The following “and I do nothing of Myself,” etc., for the present are merely an assertion to the Jews. The connection with “when ye shall have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know,” points to the fact, that one day the words would approve themselves true, in the terror of those who now made them matter of mockery. To the domain of doing belongs, according to what follows, the speaking also. “The Father hath not left Me alone,” that is, when He sent Me forth. That was the decisive point. If He accompanied Jesus then, it followed that He was with Him continually. The objection that this view does not suit the reason which Christ goes on to give, has no point; since that Christ always did what was pleasing to the Father, was grounded in His nature, and thus must have been foreseen and anticipated by the Father. We must compare with the ὅτιἐγὼτὰἀρεστὰαὐτῷπάντοτε, Isaiah 42:1 and Psalms 40:9. “If we, following His example, are always faithful to God,” says Quesnel, “we shall always have Him with us.” Jesus assuredly spoke what is written in vers. 28, 29, with the gentlest emphasis (Bengel: Haec summβ cum suavitate dixit dominus), so that those who still had any heart to feel must have felt it keenly, as indeed ver. 30 shows they did. The feeling was the same as that of Luk 19:41, where the Lord looked upon Jerusalem and wept over it. Ver. 30. “As He spake these words, many believed on Him.” A glance of light; comp. ch. John 7:31; John 7:46. How they gave expression to their faith, is not here expressly stated. Doubtless it was by some confession which they made in the presence of the unbelieving multitude. Vers. 31, 32. “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” The Lord’s address to them shows, on the one hand, that they were in earnest; and, on the other, that they were only as yet in the good beginnings. “If ye continue in My word “(comp. ch. John 15:7 : ἐὰνμείνητεἐνἐμοὶκαὶτὰῥήματάμουἐνὑμῖνμείνῃ) points to the perverting influences which would strive to alienate them again from His words. The parable of the sower, Matthew 13:20-22, furnishes a commentary on the dangers which threaten the seed of the word of God—trial and persecution (comp. “no man shall pluck them out of My hand,” ch. John 10:28), the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches. Quesnel: “Continuing therein means not merely to have a transitory taste of the word, not merely the loving certain truths, not merely practising part of them, and that externally: it does not mean a few moments, a few months, or a few years; it signifies the loving all His truths, the practising them steadily through the whole of life, and the making His law a joy and a delight.” On “ye shall know the truth,” the Berlenberg Bible says: “Some knowledge must certainly go before faith. But if we are faithful in that little knowledge, however little, we come through that believing obedience to a true and full knowledge; so that we do in the act of obedience learn what our duty is. Thus knowledge grows with fidelity.” The meaning therefore is, Ye shall know the truth more and more fully. That which in itself is only a gradual difference and increase, is here uttered in the form of absolute antithesis; because, in comparison of the knowledge which they should receive in the May of their future fidelity, their present knowledge vanished to nothing. The truth here is not merely theoretic and in the mind; but it is that which took flesh and blood in Christ, who said, I am the Truth. As they proceeded to know Christ more and more profoundly, they more and more profoundly would know the truth,—that truth for which, as for freedom, every man not entirely degraded experiences a fervent, natural longing; and that living truth would make, them free from the slavery of sin and error, while merely theoretical truth is to this end perfectly powerless. The same effect of emancipation which is here attributed to the truth, is in ver. 36 attributed to Christ. In the words, “shall make you free,”—primarily from sin, the true bondage, the worst of all bondage, but also from its reflection, the slavery of this world,—the Lord designedly throws an apple of discord amongst the Jews, who must have felt themselves greatly humbled to hear that they, the supposed Lord’s of the world, were to be first delivered from slavery by Jesus. This one word (Bengel: Semper id potissimum locutus est, quod oppugnaret praejudicia hominum) gave occasion to the most violent encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees which the Gospel records; in which Jesus calls them liars and children of the devil, and which reaches such a pitch of fury in the Jews, that they take up stones to stone Him. Lyser makes upon this the reflection, that the Gospel cannot always be preached in a gentle manner, but that sometimes its stiff-necked enemies must be vigorously and decisively contended against in defence of the truth. We have here the counterpart of that love and tenderness in which Jesus, as a pattern to His disciples on this same occasion, does not despise the germ of faith just beginning to be, but accepts it and nourishes it, and seeks by salutary exhortations to further it towards maturity. Ver. 33. “They answered Him, We be Abrahams seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou. Ye shall be made free?” Those who answer here are not specifically those Jews who had begun to believe in Jesus, but the Jews generally; the same to whom the áὐ ?ôïῖ ?ò in vers. 12, 21, refers, and with whom Jesus has ordinarily to do in this section, the superscription of which might be, Jesus and the Jews, What follows does not exhibit in them the slightest trace of faith. Jesus contends against hardened and exasperated enemies who would kill Him, who declare that He is possessed with an evil spirit, who take up stones to stone Him, and whom He terms liars and children of him who was the murderer of mankind from the beginning; John was far too tenacious of reality to ascribe faith to such a people merely on the ground of a superficial and transitory feeling; Christ, who knew what was in man, would not have expended upon such the address of ver. 31. “It is not to be. supposed,” says the Berl. Bible, “that they could spring back again so suddenly. Commonly such a change comes by degrees, when people are not faithful to their convictions.” The unbelieving Jews regard Christ’s words as if they were addressed to them. And this they do with good reason. In the words, “shall make you free,” they heard a severe attack upon themselves, an annihilation of all their high-minded pretensions, and a reduction of them as a people to the level of the Gentile world. To what end were they the people of God, if they were as much without the noblest of all possessions as the heathen themselves? Jesus had not spoken of external freedom, but of that which even a slave might enjoy. And, on that very account, the Jews could not have had political freedom in view, when they rejoined that they had never been in bondage to any. If their words are made to refer to political bondage, they have no semblance of truth in them whatever. They were at that time in bondage to the Romans; and their Scriptures in various places testify that the people of God had often fallen into external slavery. It was originally foretold to Abraham, that his seed should be strangers and servants in a land not theirs. Genesis 15:13. In Exodus 20:2 we read, “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” In the book of Judges we have one bondage following another in rapid succession. It is said of Nebuchadnezzar, in 2 Chronicles 36:20, “And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons; “and with reference to the Persian period, we read in Nehemiah 9:36, “Behold, we are servants this day.” Thus the Jews must have had something else m their thoughts when they said, “We were never in bondage unto any man.” To be free and to have dominion is a prerogative of the true people of God, which can never at any time suffer interruption, and which is not interfered with or suspended, even by external bondage. The true seed of Abraham are, according to Exodus 19:6, a “kingdom,” a sovereign people. Under all circumstances, their enemies shall be found liars unto them, or be subjected, and they shall tread upon their high places (Ex. 33:29); so that even to their conquerors the people of God give laws. They always mount very high, and never sink very low. Deuteronomy 28:13; Deuteronomy 28:43, “above only, and not beneath.” The true Church of God has never been enslaved. Even in its external bondage it has preserved its nobility and its superiority. Israel, under all circumstances, is “princess among the provinces,” Lamentations 1:1. We have only to think of Moses before Pharaoh king of Egypt, or Daniel in presence of the Chaldean king: this latter was a servant of that king, and yet in ch. 5 he is that king's lord and judge; the proud Nebuchadnezzar in ch. 2 falls down before him. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty and dominion. The heathen are, in spite of their external dominion, slaves; the members of the true Israel are ever, in spite of their external bondage, lords; comp. Lamentations 5:8, “servants have ruled over us,” and Ecclesiastes 10:7, “I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as Servants upon the earth,”—a perverted world, in which servants ride and masters walk. The book of Ecclesiastes often dwells on the thought that Israel, externally brought under the bondage of heathenism, still retains its absolute superiority over the heathen world, through the undisturbed possession of wisdom from above, through the word and Spirit of God. External power must in due time follow and sue unto wisdom, ch. John 7:11-12; John 7:19-20, John 9:13-18, “Wisdom is better than weapons of war,” etc. Thus the rejoinder of the Jews has a deep truth lying at its foundation. Freedom must never be measured or estimated by external appearances. True freedom and true pre-eminence can never be wanting to God’s people; were it ever to be so, the kingdom of God would be turned into a fantasy and a lie. But theirs was a twofold error. 1. In opposition to the spirit of the whole Old Testament, they referred that which belonged to the election, to the people as a mass of flesh and blood. The dominion of the world was guaranteed to the seed of Abraham as such; but in order to belong to the true seed of Abraham, quite other conditions are required than merely bodily derivation. 2. They overlooked the fact that, according to the testimony of all the prophets of Israel, the full height of the destiny of the people was to be attained first and only in Christ. “O vanity of the children of Adam,” observes Quesnel, “who boast themselves of their nobility, because they do not know their degradation through sin.” Their external bondage was not so insignificant a thing as the Jews would represent it. It was only the reflection of the loss of internal nobility on the part of the great mass of the people. Ver. 34. “Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto You, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” The Jews had arrogated freedom to themselves, and grounded their assertion on the fact that they were the seed of Abraham. Jesus now first shows that freedom does not belong to them, and then that they are not the true descendants of Abraham. (Bengel: Jesus exceptioni duplici Judaeorum inverso ordine respondet; et primum orationem de libertate pertexit, deinde de Abrahae liberis disserit.) With reference to the “verily, verily,” Lyser says: “He would speak concerning a great matter, and one which the Jews would hardly tolerate; therefore He most earnestly strengthens His word.” Underneath the general proposition, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin,” the specific one lies concealed, “Ye who commit sin are the servants of sin.” Jesus points them back from their empty pretensions to the naked reality. They boasted of their freedom, whilst they found themselves in the vilest slavery—the slavery of sin. It was this which Jesus held out against them, and not their bondage to the Romans: the question was not of external, but of spiritual dignity. Even the election were also subjected to the bondage of the Romans; and that came into consideration only indirectly, and as the reflection of the slavery of which our Lord here speaks. The slavery of sin had been indirectly referred to in Genesis 4:7; for when Cain was there admonished, “Thou shalt rule over it,” the idea was involved that Cain was in danger of being ruled over by sin. And it is directly treated of in Psalms 19:13, “Keep back Thy servant from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me.” These proud sins, in opposition to sins of infirmity, ver. 13, are those presumptuous and designed sins which are here personified as tyrants, and which accordingly strive to bring the servant of God under their unworthy bondage. And this passage of the psalm seems to lie at the foundation of our Lord’s saying, as well as of St Paul’s in Romans 6:14, It is all the more expressly related to our present text, inasmuch as it proves that the bondage of sin is a danger which threatens e.ven amongst the people of God. We may also compare 1 Kings 21:20, “And Ahab said unto Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he said, I have found thee, because thou hast sold thyself to do evil in the sight of the Lord “(Michaelis: Et mancipium es teterrimorum vitiorum). So also ver. 25, “There was none like unto Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the sight of the Lord.” Finally, 2 Kings 17:17, where it is said of the ten tribes, “and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger,” with allusion to Deuteronomy 28:68, “And there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen.” That which was there spoken of external slavery, is here transferred to the internal. St Paul has these passages of the Kings in view in the words of Rom 7:14, πεπραμένοςὑπὸτὴνἁμαρτίαν. Heathen philosophers also speak much about the slavery of sin. But the depth of this debasement they could not understand; and hence they thought that every man might defend himself from it by his own power, and by his own power deliver himself again. Ver. 35. “And the servant abideth not in the house for ever; but the Son abideth ever.” It has been observed without propriety, “First, there is described, in a general proposition of common civil life, the opposite relation of the slaves and the son to the house in which both are.” The servant is rather the slave in the sense defined, ver. 34,—a servant of this sort. The sentence is a universal one. But servants, in the ordinary sense, remain, according to circumstances, always in the house, so that the general statement does not suit them. The slave was, in the seventh year of his servitude, made free. But if he preferred to remain in subjection, the new relation was to be sealed by a rite prescribed in Deuteronomy 15:17 : “And,” it is there said, “he shall be thy servant for ever;” Sept. καὶἔσταισοιοἰκέτηςεἰςτὸναἰῶνα. But the statement of our passage is the less appropriate to the general relation, inasmuch as the violent ejection of the slave is referred to, and then only very seldom occurred. That which takes place with servants in the ordinary sense—viz. their being cast out when they are useless, as we see in the example of Hagar and her son, who was driven out of the house because of her evil conduct towards the son, while that son remained in it. Genesis 21:10; Galatians 4:30,—a case which probably was in our Lord’s view here—that takes place with slaves of this kind without exception. If the servant is to be taken in a spiritual sense, then the house must be taken in a spiritual sense, as the designation of the kingdom of God, which in the Old Testament was represented by a house, the Temple, constantly spoken of as the spiritual dwelling-house of the whole covenant people. (On the Temple as a symbol of the kingdom of God, consult my Beitrδge, 3:S. 631.) This spiritual house must be thought of here, especially as the second member, ὁυἱὸςμένειεἰςτὸναἰῶνα, refers to Psalms 23:6, “And I dwell in the house of the Lord for ever;” and Psalms 27:4, “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,”—where the house of the Lord is the Temple, as the ideal dwelling-place of the people of God, and the symbol of the Church. In 1 Timothy 3:15; 2 Timothy 2:20; Ephesians 2:19, the Church appears under the figure of the house of God. The servant is primarily and formally an ideal person, meaning no other than “whosoever committeth sin.” But the general proposition is uttered with special reference to the relations then existing between Christ and these Jews. The application is, “And so ye cannot abide in the house of God, because ye are such servants of sin.” If the servant is primarily an ideal person, then the son must also be an ideal person; in favour of which is Psalms 23:6, where not David is speaking, but the true Israel, thus a real multitude. Both reasons are against those who, like Lampe, understand here by the son Christ Himself, absolutely and exclusively. The son, in the spiritual sense, is he who stands to the Lord of the spiritual house in the same relation which the spiritual son sustains to the Father—that of the most internal fellowship of love; as, on the ground of this relation, Israel is in the Old Testament termed the son of God, e.g. in Exodus 4:22; Hosea 11:1 : comp. on the idea of Son of God my commentary on Psalms 2:7, where, amongst other things, it is said, “Where God in the Old Testament is represented as Father, where the subject is sonship of God, there is concise reference to His internal love as similar to that of a father towards a son: comp. passages which develop the comparison, such as Psalms 103:13.” The ideal person of the Son is here primarily represented by the actual person of Christ; but there also by those whom He has freed from the bondage of sin, and introduced into the inward and spiritual communion with God: comp. ch. John 1:12, “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.” The general proposition, applied to the case in hand, is this: The ungodly Jews will be cast out of the kingdom of God, and that kingdom abideth to Christ and His true members: comp. Matthew 8:12; Matthew 21:43. Anton: “Because they thought they belonged to the house of God absolutely, on account of Abraham and as his seed, Christ tells them to say nothing more about that. The evening of all days had not yet come. Such people as they were could not abide in the house of God; but the Son abideth ever, and all who have part in Him. This was their loophole: We belong to the kingdom of God nevertheless, we are members of the Church. But Christ says, This will not avail you. Although ye be for a while membra ecclesiae, ye must not allege that. It only adds to your great responsibility; since God received you into His house that ye might become pious children, but ye show what a slavish spirit is yours. Out of My house! for this must not go on always.” Ver. 36. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” This clause is connected with ver. 34, where beneath the general proposition the special one was concealed: “Ye, because ye commit sin, are servants of sin.” Ver. 35—which contains only a bye-thought, pointing to the ruinous consequences of sin, and the loss which it entails of the noblest of all possessions, participation in the wisdom of God—only comes into consideration so far as it must urge the Jews eagerly to desire the good that was offered to them in Christ. Thus, since ye are the servants of sin, ye are not free of the house, as ye think. Christ might have said. If I make you free. But He speaks of Himself as the Son, in order to point out that the sonship of which ver. 35 had spoken had its foundation in Himself, so that no man could be a partaker of it who stands not in living connection with Him: comp. ch. John 1:12. Berl. Bible: “Here the words rise to the Son, from whom all the other children of grace derive their birth and prerogatives.” The ὄ ?íôùò points the contrast to the imagined freedom of the Jews: comp. ver. 33. “My freedom,” says Quesnel, “is that in me which is most slavish and base so long as Thou dost not set it free. The more Thou leavest it to itself, the less free will it be.” Ver. 37. “I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill Me, because My word hath no place in you.” The Jews, in ver. 33, based their assertion that they were a free people on the fact that they were Abraham’s seed. If the premises had been true, then the conclusion would have been sound. To Abraham it was said, in Genesis 22:17, “Thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;” and also, “In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed,” Genesis 12:3; Genesis 22:18, by which the whole of the rest of the world was placed in dependence on the seed of Abraham, and laid at their feet. The seed of Abraham is a kingdom of priests, in Exodus 19:6. Of it Isaiah 61:5-6, speaks: “And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen, and your vine-dressers. But ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves.” They for whom such a dignified position is reserved in the future, must already in the present enjoy incomparable dignity. The error of the Jews lay, not in the high opinion which they had of the seed of Abraham, but in this, that they at once, and without any qualification, identified the lineal bodily descendants of Abraham with his seed. From this unspiritual view they ought to have been delivered by the history of the patriarch himself; for instance, in the example of Ishmael and Esau, “In Isaac shall thy seed be called,” Genesis 21:12. In order to true sonship of such a man as Abraham, more was required than the mere bodily descent; it was required that there should be a likeness to the father in that which was the centre of his being. Whosoever was unlike him in that, could not belong to his seed; whosoever was like him in that, was adopted into his seed;—even as in the Old Testament itself the way to this adoption was opened, and as the prophets announced that in future times it would be extended in the widest degree. Samuel, whom Eli, in 1 Samuel 3:6, calls his son, was his son in a truer sense than his own degenerate children. “My father, my father!” cried Elisha to Elijah, in 2 Kings 2:12. On the other side, Ezekiel, in ch. John 16:3, makes the Amorites the fathers of the degenerate members of the covenant people. Zechariah, in ch. John 14:21, speaks of the Canaanites in the house of the Lord. Isaiah, in ch. Isaiah 1:10, calls the princes of Israel princes of Sodom, and the people of Israel the people of Gomorrah, and thereby excludes them utterly from the people of the true seed of Abraham: comp. Jeremiah 23:14. The degraded people of the covenant are, in Hosea 12:8, termed Canaan. Jesus here admits to the Jews, that they were in a certain sense the descendants of Abraham; but He draws from the position which they assumed towards Himself, the conclusion that they were not his children in the true sense, and in that which alone came then into consideration; that they rather belonged to an altogether different father, whom He does not at once proceed to mention, in order to excite their suspense and attention. “The seed of Abraham My friend” (my lover), is the term given to the true Church of God in Isaiah 41:8. The love of God—not of God in the abstract, but of Him whose manifestation was in His Angel, who everywhere, from Genesis 16 downwards, meets us in the history of the patriarchs—is here declared to have been the nature and mark of Abraham, which must be reflected in all his seed. Whosoever seeks to kill Christ, the Angel of the Lord manifest in the flesh, cannot be partaker of Abraham’s nature, and cannot belong to Abraham’s seed. That they sought to kill Christ, had its reason in this, that His word did not abide and have its operation in them. This has been explained in various ways: for instance, “Because My word finds no room among you.” The meaning which this gives is appropriate enough. Quesnel: “The word of God requires an empty heart. A heart full of earthly plans, of carnal interests, of ambition; of avarice, of worldly occupations, of love to creaturely enjoyments, and of things that profit not, is not adapted to receive the evangelical seed.” But this exposition cannot be grammatically justified. Χωρεῖν has, in classical usage, a double meaning: 1. that of going; and 2. that of seizing. It occurs in the New Testament with both these significations, and with no other. The second does not yield here an appropriate sense; but the first, on the other hand, appears strictly in harmony, especially if we take going in the sense of going forward, as in Aristophanes the words χωρεῖδὴτὸπρᾶγμα are explained by the scholiast προκόπτειτὸἔργον. The going here, as also the running of 2 Thessalonians 3:1, ἵναὁλόγοςτοῦκυρίουτρέχῃ, forms the contrast to standing idle or still. The word of Christ among the Jews had no progress. It encountered mighty hindrances, which altogether baffled its progress. Ver. 38. “I speak that which I have seen with My Father; and ye do (do ye) that which ye have seen with your father.”—“Who does not shudder,” says Quesnel, “when he contemplates these two, who are so entirely opposite, and have no medium God or the devil? He who does not bring his life into conformity with the Mill of God is not His child; he gives himself up to be carried forwards to the will of the devil, and chooses him as his father.” The words, “that which ye have seen with your father,” point back to the scenes of the Old Testament, in which Satan is presented to us most vividly in his shameful acts,—the history of the Fall, comp. ver. 44; the Prologue of the book of Job; and the third chapter of Zechariah. The reading, ἠκούσατεπαρὰτοῦπατρός, sprang from misapprehending this allusion. “The pronouns μου and ὑμων,” remarks Meyer, with Lachmann and Tischendorf, following good authorities, “must be removed as clumsy distinctives.” But this very distinction is necessary to the clearness and emphasis of the saying. The expression is made more rhetorically keen by the omission; but this of itself must not be regarded as an advantage. The imperative do ye is parallel with the challenging πληρώσατε of Matthew 23:32, and the ποίησον of 42:27. Jesus will not hinder them in their work: if it is right to them, it is right to Him. While they do this, they act in such a manner as to bring God against them in His righteous judgment. Vers. 39, 40, 41. “They answered and said unto Him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them. If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill Me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. Ye do (do ye) the deeds of your father.” The answer of the Jews had for its design to provoke Jesus into a contradiction, and thus to find out whom He meant by the other father. But Jesus contents Himself, at first and preliminarily, by showing further that Abraham could not be their father. Yet in the end He all the more emphatically points to the fact that they have another father, and thus does not let go the thread out of His hand. Jesus says, “If ye were the children of Abraham, ye would do the works of Abraham;” and, “this did not Abraham.” We may refer the contrast to the difference between Abraham’s piety generally, and their impiety. However, as Jesus does not speak of the latter generally, but of their wishing to kill Himself, it seems more proper to look in the history of Abraham for some event which furnishes a direct and specific contrast. And we are pointed at once to Genesis 18, and the heartfelt joy with which Abraham received Jehovah or His angel, bowed himself towards the ground, and said, “My Lord, if now I have found favour in Thy sight, pass not away, I pray Thee, from Thy servant.” We are all the rather required to refer to that occurrence, in which, as here, there was a human concealment of God, because Jesus in ver. 25 points to the identity between Himself and the Angel of the Lord. But all doubt is removed by ver. 56, where Jesus most expressly refers to that event. “A man:” Jehovah and the two angels, who entered in unto Abraham in Genesis 18:16 (comp. Romans 5:15; 1 Timothy 2:5), are described as three men, on account of their appearance in human form. Ver. 41. “Then said they to Him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.” Jesus had once more hinted to them that they had another father than Abraham. He could not mean another human father: He Himself had admitted that they sprang from the stock of Abraham. But if He had a superhuman father in view, He denied to them not only the sonship of Abraham, but the sonship of God also. Hence they maintained this against Him. If God was not to be their Father, it was obvious to suppose that He meant the false God’s, especially as in the prophets the apostate people are often termed a brood of idolatry. But they thought they might easily repel this objection against them; and with perfect justice, because the external idolatry, which in the times of the prophets had been so great a danger, had long disappeared, and externally all depended now upon the true God. Whoredom is all impure commerce with idols. In the Old Testament it is sometimes exhibited as the genus, of which adultery is one species. In Judges 19:2 we read, “And his concubine played the whore against him;” and spiritual adultery is not seldom termed whoredom,—e.g. Exodus 34:15, “And they go a-whoring after their God’s;” Leviticus 17:7, “Devils after whom they have gone, a-whoring;” and Ezekiel 20:30-31, “Commit ye whoredom after their abominations? Ye pollute yourselves with all your idols.” The individuals who were infected with the national sin of whoredom or idolatry are represented as spiritual children proceeding from this impure connection. And this expression rests upon Old Testament grounds. In Isaiah 57:3 we read, “But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and of the whore.” The sorceress and the whore of that passage are apostate Zion; the adulterer is idolatry, or the idol. The individuals infected with idolatry are represented as the children who have sprung from the impure commerce of Zion with false God’s. The Lord says to Hosea, ch. John 1:2, “Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms, and children of whoredoms.” The wife, the congregation of Israel, is connected with the whoredom so far as she practised it, and the children so far as they sprang from it: comp. ch. John 2:6-7. In Hosea 5:7 we read, “They have dealt treacherously against the Lord; for they have begotten strange children.” The “one father” is opposed to the many fathers, which they would have if they were idolaters. In Jeremiah 3:1, “Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers,” we have the opposite to which “we have one Father, even God,” refers: comp. Isaiah 57:8, “where shameless Zion makes wide her bed,” that she may receive many adulterers, and “all thy lovers,” Ezekiel 16:37; and “committed her whoredoms with all,” etc., Ezekiel 23:7. Jesus designedly led them on so far, that they name God as their Father. This gave Him the right ground for the declaration that the devil was their father. Bengel, on ver. 41: Hujus nomen nondum exprimitur sed idem mox ut Judaei audent Deum appellare patrem suum, expresse appellatur, Diabolus. Ver. 42. “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 sent Me.” God could not be the Father of the Jews. “For if we truly love God, we entertain reverence for all those who speak to us by His commission, and we honour Him in His servants “(Quesnel). It is not in vain that, in the first table of the decalogue, there is appended to the commandments which directly refer to our conduct towards God, one which commands us to honour those who upon earth are invested with the likeness and reflection of His honour. The fulfilling of this commandment is the test of the fulfilling of those which precede it. He who does not honour those superior persons whom he sees, how shall he honour God whom he doth not see? At the head of all those who are the image or reflection of the glory of God, stands Jesus Christ. Whosoever does not love and honour Him with all his heart, shows thereby that his worship of God is a lie, and mere hypocrisy. Locus hic diligenter notandus est, nullam esse pietatem, nullum timorem Dei ubi Christus rejicitur (Calvin). “I came forth from God” points back to Micah 5:1, “And His goings forth were from everlasting, from the days of eternity,” where, in opposition to the human and lower origin of the Messiah, His Divine and higher outgoing is made prominent; the ἥκω, I come, which, apart from the Old Testament passage, has in it something strange and superfluous, points back to Malachi 3:1, “The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in; behold. He cometh, saith the Lord of hosts.” The words which follow in our text, ἐκεῖνόςμεἀπέστειλε, have their foundation in those words of Malachi concerning the Covenant Angel, the Messenger of God who is sent for the sake of the covenant. Ver. 43. “Why do ye not understand My speech? even because ye cannot hear My word.” Of hearing in the sense of understanding, see on ch. John 6:20. Their hearing was no better than not hearing, because it was only with the outward ear. Although λαλία and λόγος are lexically distinct, yet the one might just as well have been placed here in the stead of the other. It is only the variation of the expression, which caused the insertion in the second clause of λόγος, and of ἀκούειν instead of γινώσκειν. But it might have stood on ὅτιοὐδύνασθεγινώσκειντὴνλαλίαντὴνἐμήν. The whole stress lies upon “ye cannot.” It is a token of the deepest degradation when a man can no longer understand the truth: comp. Jeremiah 6:10, Sept. ἰδοὺἀπερίτμητατὰὦτααὐτῶν, καὶοὐδύνανταιἀκούειν; John 12:39, where the not believing is traced to the not being able to believe; Romans 8:7; 1 Corinthians 2:14. “Heaven,” says Quesnel, “is a strange land for the children of this earth; and the language of the mysteries is not intelligible to those who have only ears of flesh and blood.” To men’s fitness to apprehend the Divine truth, we may apply the saying, obsta principiis. The individual acts of voluntary rejection of the Divine word and suppression of good influences, result gradually in a condition of obduration; the frightful condition—whether the case be an individual, or a whole age, or a nation—of one who has a perverted and disordered mind, and is unsusceptible of faith; the deafness and insensibility of the soul to higher truth. When a people have reached that point, they are on the threshold of judgment, as Isaiah 6 shows, where, in ver. 9, such a condition as this is described; “And He said, Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.” Outwardly they should continue to hear the word of God; but there was a ban upon them that they could not understand it, and could not inwardly appropriate it to themselves. They will see, but they should not perceive. It is, alas, not to be denied that the condition here described—that of incapacity to apprehend Divine truth—is manifested in many of its symptoms amongst ourselves; that there is no intelligence in many for the clearest and most simple unfolding of sound doctrine; that their minds are so corrupt (2 Timothy 3:8) as to leave them unable to distinguish between right and left. Jesus had shown, in ver. 42, that the Jews could not be children of God. And He now prepares the way for the mention of their true father, as we hear it in ver. 44, by this description of their sunken spiritual state, which forms “the ground for the frightful conclusion that they were of the devil” (Stier). Ver. 44. “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do: he was a murderer from the beginninsg 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 the father of it.” Jesus now names the father to whom the Jews truly belonged, in contradistinction to their pretended sonship to Abraham and to God. What is it to have the devil for a father? Of course, it is self-evident that the physical derivation is out of the question. Jesus had, in ver. 37, admitted that, as to bodily descent, the Jews were the seed of Abraham. The relation is a spiritual one, in which Satan is the originator of an influence which man receives, and by which he is led. That we must not limit it to a mere similarity of disposition (Augustin: non nascendo sed imitando), but that real influences are included, is evident from the antithesis, “being of or from God,” It is also clear from Matthew 15:13, where the ungodly, specifically the Pharisees, are termed plants which the heavenly Father hath not planted, but the devil; Matthew 13:38-39, where the enemy who sowed the tares is Satan, who is represented as being master of the minds of his own, just as Christ is of His, and who is the author of their wickedness; John 13:2, according to which Satan injected wicked designs into the heart of Judas; John 13:27, where Satan enters into the traitor; Revelation 16:13, where it is written, “And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils which, working miracles, go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole world.” Thus influences proceed from Satan equally real with those which proceed from Christ. As with the children of God there is a seed, 1 John 3:9-10, so also there is with the children of the devil: ver. 9 of this passage might have its counterpart thus, “Whosoever is born of the devil committeth sin: for his seed remaineth in him; and he must sin, because he is born of Satan.” Men are placed in the middle between the good spirits which proceed forth from Christ, and the evil spirits, which proceed forth from Satan. The original passage which is the foundation of “Ye are of your father the devil,” is Genesis 3:15, where the wicked are denominated the seed of the serpent; the same passage to which the Lord referred in Matthew 13:39 : ὁδὲἐχθρὸςὁσπείραςαὐτάἐστινὁδιάβολος. The fact that Jesus presently afterwards makes express allusion to Genesis 3, removes all doubt upon this point. The immediate result of the spiritual relation of the child to the father is a fellowship of inclinations with the begetter, the seed of whom remaineth in the begotten. “The lusts of your father ye will do:” this is more fully developed in what follows. “He was a murderer from the beginning;” and they were seeking to kill Christ—to kill Him who brought to the whole human race life. He used lying in the service of his murder; and they were employing all the arts of lying to change the Son into a blasphemer of God, and to change themselves, in reality enemies of God, into men zealous of the Divine honour.—”He was a murderer from the beginning.” There is an element of truth in the notion revived by Lόcke, Nitzsch, and others, that when Satan is called a murderer from the beginning, there is allusion to the murderous act of Cain. This is evident from the comparison of 1 John 3:12; 1 John 3:15, and Revelation 12:3 (see my Commentary). And then the words, “Ye seek to kill Me,” in ver. 40, present a more direct parallel to Cain’s murder of his brother, than to the death which Satan brought upon our first parents; although it would be altogether wrong to argue that Satan, in the case of our first parents, only introduced a spiritual death, which does not enter into consideration here. For bodily death entered and passed upon the human race through the seduction of Satan: comp. Genesis 2:17; Genesis 3:19; Wis 2:24; Romans 5:12. But the reference to Cain’s murder must not be made the only one, or even the predominant one; rather than that, it must be altogether abandoned. His murder of his brother comes into view rather as one expression of the malignant principle which had been introduced into human nature through the first temptation; even as in Genesis that murder is considered as the fruit of the poisonous tree planted in ch. 3. It was the same spirit of murder which urged Satan to use the lie, “Ye shall not surely die,” in bringing men under the dominion of death, and which operated in Cain, and led him to destroy the life of his devout brother. The exclusive reference to Cain’s murder is refuted by many considerations. 1. Satan’s murder of man is placed in the strictest connection with his lie. Now, there is no lie in the case of the first fratricide; whilst, in bringing men first under the power of sin, the means used was the lie which suggested better possessions to be gained, and cast suspicion upon God. The words of Jesus, viewed simply, point to an event in the beginning of mans history which exhibited at once and together the spirit of murder and the spirit of lying. 2. The book of Genesis does not speak expressly of any co-operation of Satan in Cain’s act of murder. We have assurance of that co-operation only when we take that act in its internal connection with the earlier assault of Satan upon our first parents, when he was concealed behind the serpent. When our Lord is dealing with the Jews, He never propounds any secret doctrine. He always appeals to facts which are plain and patent in Scripture. 3. “Ye are of your father the devil,” is a sentence which points back to the seed of the serpent in Genesis 3:15. 4. The “from the beginning “points also to an event which belongs to the first acts of human history, and in which the first parents of the human race were involved. Certainly, it cannot be conceived but that the event here referred to was the first in which the devil declared himself to be a destroyer of man. Everywhere else in the New Testament the words ἀπʼ ? ἀρχῆς, τὴνἀρχήν, κατʼ ? ἀρχάς, refer back to Genesis 1-3 : comp. John 1:1-2; John 8:25; 1 John 1:1; 1 John 2:13; Matthew 19:4; Matthew 19:8; Mark 10:6; Mark 13:19; Hebrews 1:10. Genesis 4, with its murderous event, may, in the manner we have indicated, be included. But the exclusive reference to that event would be altogether without analogy. 5. Jesus says that Satan stood not in the truth, moved not in lit as his element, because there was no truth in him. This points to a notorious event in which Satan laid bare his truthless nature. But it is only in the history of the fall that we find such an event. 6. Jesus does not only call Satan a liar, but He also designates him the father of liars. But Satan could bear that designation only with allusion to that one scripturally attested lie of his which preceded all other lies upon earth. That was the lie of Gen 3:4-5. To “and the father of it,” corresponds “in the beginning.” “And he abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” The ancient interpretation, which referred the words ἐντῇἀληθείᾳοὐκἔστηκεν to the fall of Satan, 2 Peter 2:4, Jude 1:6, has been very properly abandoned. For, first of all, Ernesti’s remark is decisive, that ἔστηκα means only “I have taken my stand, I stand.” This signification is the only one which the Perfect bears, either in New Testament or in classical usage. And then, secondly, it is evident that the reason assigned in the latter clause does not suit the reference of the former clause to Satan’s fall. For that reason points to the lying conduct of Satan, who had already fallen. He stands not in the truth, maintains not himself in its domain, falls out of it when he opens his mouth, because there is no truth in him; the truthlessness of his nature has the truthlessness of his conduct as its result. If it is said that the ὅτι is here not to be understood aetiologically, but syllogistically, we have only to allege in answer the manifestly parallel aetiological ὅτι in the following clause The counterpart of “not standing in the truth” is the “speaking a lie;” and, with “there is no truth in him,” corresponds he speaketh of his own.” The general proposition, that Satan stands not in the truth, has its authentication in the special lie of his, which is recorded m the history of the fall; and it was uttered with direct reference to that lie. Anton excellently gives the reason of the characteristics of Satan’s and his children’s lying: “Evil cannot accomplish anything without the semblance of good.” In the words, “for he is liar (not a liar) and the father of the same,” ψεύστης, is the generic idea. The αὐτοῦ refers to ψεύστης, not to the more distant ψεῦδος; as is shown by its correspondence with the beginning, “Ye are of your father the devil;” as also by “I shall be a liar like unto you, in ver. 55. If we refer αὐτοῦ to the ψεῦδος, the point is at once broken. The Scripture gives a more profound idea of the lie than the natural man, in his superficial psychology, apprehends. It perceives a lie in many things, where the world only perceives honest conviction. Views and opinions which have been formed under the influence of lust and passion, do not cease to belong to the category of the mendacium voluntarium, although the liars themselves have no distinct consciousness that they are lying. But in the case of our text we must hold fast the idea of the voluntary lie. The lie of Satan, which the Lord had in view, was altogether and absolutely voluntary; and the lie of the Jews, who declared Jesus to be a Samaritan a demoniac, or a blasphemer, is everywhere exhibited as based upon views constructed in the interest of their lusts and passions. Ver 45. “And because I tell you the truth, ye believe Me not. And in this they plainly declared themselves to be the genuine sons of the father of liars. He does not say, “although,” but “because I speak the truth.” Whosoever on that account denies faith, must be altogether under the sway of the spirit of lying. Ver. 46. “Which of you convinceth Me of sin? And if I say the truth why do ye not believe Me?” The Jews might have rejoined, that Jesus did not speak the truth. But in the presence of so many great and glorious demonstrations of the divinity of His mission, they could base such an assertion only on the fact, that they could point out flaws in His character and conversation. If they could do this, then Jesus would urge no further claim upon their faith. For the truth of His great utterance demanded stainless holiness; inasmuch as the utterer of the truth is at the same time its objective centre. With Jesus it was quite otherwise than with the earlier organs of revelation, for these latter always declared themselves to be poor sinners. Moses, in Numbers 12:3, avows that no man could think more lightly of him than himself did. He records, without scruple, his own weaknesses and sins; e.g. that, in mere submission to his wife, he neglected the circumcision of his son, and that he was excluded from the land of promise as a punishment for his weak faith. But Jesus represented Himself as the light of the world, the Son of God, and the Jehovah of the Old Covenant manifest in the flesh. In that case, any the slightest moral stain would have been an impeachment of the truth of His pretension. It might seem to the Jews that they could prove against Him a violation of the Sabbath commandment. But such sins only were in question here as lay beyond the region of the controversial questions pending between Jesus and the Jews. According to the principles of the Jews themselves, and their own presupposition, the violation of the Sabbath ceased when Jesus was acknowledged as the Son of God; for the Son of God has, as such, power over the Sabbath. The absolute sinlessness of Jesus is not directly contained in the sentence we now consider—for there may be sin which cannot be proved against him who does it; but it is so indirectly—for Jesus could not have put such a question if He had not been conscious of absolute freedom from sin. De Wette rightly remarks: “It is a question of undeceiving self-consciousness, which has no contradiction to fear.” Thus the other passages of the New Testament are parallel, which attribute to our Lord that absolute sinlessness which never has been found since the fall within the domain of human nature; and which, as it was the immediate effect of His Divinity, so it was the proof of it: 1 John 3:5; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 1:19; 1 Peter 2:22. In the Old Testament, the absolute righteousness of Christ is represented as the foundation of His redeeming work. We read in Isaiah 53:11 : “By His knowledge shall my righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities.” By the prominence given to φγιχ, and by its immediate junction with δφγιχ, it was intended to show the strict connection which subsists between the righteousness of the Servant of God—who, although perfectly sinless, ver. 9, nevertheless bore the punishment of sin—and the justification which is communicated through Him. Ver. 47. “He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.” Jesus here answers the question which He Himself had thrown out in ver. 46. The counterpart of “not being of God” is “being of Satan.” Thus the proof is introduced of the statement, “Ye are of your father the devil,” and specially for the allegation that they belonged to Satan, as the father of all liars. Examples of being from God were given by Simeon, Anna, John the Baptist, the Apostles; comp. on ch. John 3:21. Those who were of God must of course be found within the limits of the covenant people, among whom the Lord, by His Spirit, is present. Ver. 48. “Then answered the Jews, and said to Him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?” The Samaritans are here regarded as unsound in faith, or heretics. And the heresy of Jesus they found in the fact that He, although a man, made Himself God, ch. John 10:33. “Thou hast a devil,” or evil spirit (comp. ch. John 7:20), refers to the enthusiastic manner in which He proclaimed His delusion. Similar charges had been alleged by the ungodly against the prophets of the Old Testament. In 2 Kings 9:11, the servants of his lord said to Jehu, when a prophet had been with him, “Wherefore came this mad fellow to thee?” “Every man that is mad, and maketh himself a prophet,” is the style in which a false prophet writes concerning the true. Vers. 49, 50. “Jesus answered, I have not a devil: but I honour My Father, and ye do dishonour Me. And I seek not Mine own glory: there is One that seeketh and judgeth.”—“How graciously and tenderly,” says Heumann, “does the Lord instruct the Jews who blasphemed Him, if peradventure they might by any means be won!” That which the Jews objected against Christ was unfounded. The seemingly eccentric in His nature was His zeal for the honour of God, which must suffer if the manifestation of the Father was not acknowledged in Jesus. To be indifferent here, to yield now to His enemies, would have been to surrender God’s honour to contempt. But, on the other hand, the Jews are smitten by the righteous judgment that they dishonour the Son of God. That protest they could not evade. The essential point in it is in the second clause, the æçôῶ ?í. It points back to Deuteronomy 18:19 : “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto My words which He shall speak in My name, I will require it (or seek it) of him,”—the same passage to which Jesus more than once elsewhere refers, comp. on ch. John 5:46. Peter, in Acts 3:22-23, quotes it expressly. Ver. 51. “Verily, verily, I say unto you. If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death.” Berl. Bible: “Here one might ask how it was that He uttered such an exclamation as this after such severe words. The answer is, that we see here what His proper work is. Judging and punishing is a strange work. From it He turns away again to that which is not a strange work, preaching His Gospel.” Jesus would attract them by showing what they would gain by giving up their perverse position; and at the same time warns them of what they would lose if they persisted in their unhappy state. The question was one of life and death, and for their own sakes they should earnestly think of it. Jesus declares most impressively that with Him, and only with Him, life was to be found; so that whosoever despised Him, would inevitably sink into death. The keeping of Christ’s words stands in contrast with the thoughtless forgetting of Jas 1:25; and there is manifest allusion to the standing Old Testament formula of keeping the word, commandments, ordinances, or law of Jehovah, on which all salvation and prosperity were made to depend: Exodus 15:26; Exodus 20:6; Leviticus 19:37; Ecclesiastes 8:2. “Shall not see death” points to Psalms 89:49, “What man is he that liveth and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?” The question of that verse finds its answer in Christ, and only in Him. He has abolished death, and brought to light life and immortality, 2 Timothy 1:10. Death, which is now the gate of life, is no longer to be called death: comp. ch. John 11:25. Augustin: Quid est mors? relictio corporis, depositio sarcinae gravis: sed si alia sarcina non portetur, qua homo in gehennas praecipitetur. Vers. 52, 53. “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 taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?” The Jews at once understood Him to mean merely bodily death. Moreover, they rightly took it for granted that Jesus, if He could promise His disciples freedom from death, must avow Himself to be absolutely exalted above dying; and thereby He elevated Himself above Abraham and the prophets, who all were subjected to death. Vers. 54, 55. “Jesus answered. If I honour Myself, My honour is nothing: it is My Father that honoureth Me; of whom ye say, that He is your God. Yet ye have not known Him; but I know Him: and if I should say, I know Him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know Him, and keep His saying.” The meaning of the words, “If I honour,” etc., is this: It will one day come to light that Christ is the Son of God; as the Father hath till now borne witness for His Son, so will He also in the time to come. How the Father glorifies His Son, they would one day in their own ruin find out. The God whom they arrogated to themselves, and whom they denied to Christ, would one day utter so loudly His “This is My beloved Son,” and “Depart from Me, ye evil-doers,” that their ears should be amazed. The δοξάζωνμε may be best referred both to the glorification visible to their eyes, comp. ch. John 5:36, John 10:25, John 11:4, and to the future glorification, ch. John 8:21; John 8:25, John 7:39, John 12:26, John 13:31,—the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of the Father, as the almighty Ruler over all His enemies. The glorification of Christ by the Father went on unceasingly; but the blind had no eyes to discern it. In this there was a new application of the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 29:3, after he had spoken of the wonders and signs of the Lord in Egypt: “Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.” Ver. 56. “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day: and he saw it, and was glad.” Jesus now approaches more closely the question of the Jews, “Art thou greater than our father Abraham?” He points to an early historical fact, in which His own superiority to Abraham was confirmed. “Your father”—thus does the Lord name Abraham, to shame the Jews, who were so perfectly unlike him spiritually whom they could call their bodily father—“Abraham rejoiced that he saw My day.” There can be no doubt that these words indicate the heartfelt and joyful longing of Abraham to see this day; so that Bengel rightly explains it: Gestivit cum desiderio. Ἀγαλλιάομαι indeed, means only rejoicing; but the idea of longing is imparted to it by its connection with ἵνα. These words describe Abraham’s hearty desire and longing for the revelation of the day of Christ; and those which follow describe the gratification of that longing. Bengel: Haec exaltatio praecessit visionem: et visionem comitabatur iterum χαρά.—“And he saw it, and was glad.” We must not here admit such explanations as that of Liicke, borrowed from Lampe: “Abraham in the heavenly life, as a blessed spirit with God, saw the day of the Lord, and rejoiced from heaven to see its fulfilment on earth.” For Jesus was wont to deal with the Jews out of Scripture; and cannot be supposed to refer here to a supposed fact which He could not establish by its authority. And the answer of the Jews in ver. 57 is against it; for that proceeds from the presupposition, admitted by Christ to be right, that the question was of an ancient historical intercourse between Abraham and Christ. Christ, in ver. 58, sets aside the argument of His not being yet fifty years old. Lόcke testifies against his own view, when he is obliged, in accommodation to it, to speak of “the foolish question of the opponents.” In my Christology (vol. i. Clark’s Trans.) these words were referred to the crisis when Abraham—as yet only Abram—received the promise, that “in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Behind Jehovah, who gave this promise, Jesus lay hid. The blessing of Jehovah for all the families of the earth was the day of Jehovah and of Christ—the day of His glorification upon earth. Abraham saw that day in spirit, when he received the promise. But the matter becomes still more simple, if we assume that Jesus referred to the manifestation of Jehovah to Abraham in Genesis 18. In ch. John 12:1, there is no manifestation of Jehovah spoken of, there is no seeing and being seen, but only, “And the Lord said unto Abram.” On the other hand, in ch. John 18:1, we read amongst the first words, “And the Lord appeared unto him,” properly “was seen; “and, in ver. 2, “And he lifted up his eyes and looked.” The reference to Genesis 12:3 fails to give any demonstration of the longing desire of Abraham to see the Lord, as well as of his joy after he had obtained that sight. But the reference to ch. 18 gives it abundantly. It is seen in the whole deportment of Abraham, which showed that he had partaken of a blessedness long desired, especially in the words, “My Lord, if now I have found favour in Thine eyes, pass not away, I pray Thee, from Thy servant.” Genesis 12:3 does not give any simple and clear view of the day of the Lord; but in Genesis 18 the day is that of His appearance, which stamped that day with a characteristic which distinguished it from all other days in the life of Abraham. That “My day” was substantially the same as “Me,” is shown by the sense in which the Jews understood it, and which the Lord did not deny to be the right one; for they regarded Jesus as having declared that Abraham had seen Him, and that He had seen Abraham. The demonstration that in Genesis 18 the Angel of the Lord, the Logos, appeared in company with two lower angels, has been given by me in the Christology (vol. i.). Jesus had already intimated His personal identity with the Angel of the Lord, first in ver. 25, and then again in vers. 39, 40. Ver. 58 would have no meaning if the allusion to Genesis 18 were denied; and Jesus had already referred to it in vers. 39, 40, a passage which is inseparably bound up with the present. Ver. 57. “Then said the Jews unto Him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?” The Jews well knew that Jesus was not so old; but they would show themselves unprejudiced in a matter about which a few lustrums more or less were of little importance. But there was also in this something like mockery. Lyser: Ultro annos aliquot addunt, ut sic tanto plus absurditatem dicti ipsius evincant. They name just fifty years, because that was the half of a century. Against the idea that Jesus was prematurely old, Bengel observes: Non est credibile Jesum propter angores prsematuram senectutis speciem contraxisse. Moses was a man sorely tried; and yet Ave read of him, in Deuteronomy 34:7, “His eye was not dim, neither his natural force abated.” Ver. 58. “Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.” If the Jews had misunderstood the Lord, His answer would not have been appropriate; for that answer ought to explain how it was that Jesus could have seen Abraham, although as the Son of man He was not yet fifty years old. The solemn preface of affirmation here marked that a truth was conceived of the most penetrating importance. Anton: “Peradventure this affirmation might make them ponder earnestly, ne ludant in re tam seria.” It is as clear as can be, that the question is here of a real and personal pre-existence; not of a pre-existence in the purposes of God, which could not by any means be a specific prerogative of Christ. A personal pre-existence is required by the fact, that the Lord here specifically refers to and answers the objection of the Jews; by the whole series of what the book of Genesis records concerning the manifestations of the Angel of the Lord in the primitive time; and by the analogy of ch. John 1:1; John 1:15. It is evident that there is much significance in the use of the two different words which signify being. The existence of Abraham, as of all men, belongs to the region of the becoming, werden; while Christ has being which is supremely exalted above all becoming. Lyser: Quantum discrimen est inter creatorem et creaturara, tantum inter Christum et Abrahamum. There is also a deep meaning in the “I am,” not “I was.” It points to that absolute Being which is not subject to any change, the prerogative of the Godhead alone. Analogous is the language of Psa 90:2, Sept. πρὸτοῦὄρηγενηθῆναισὺεἶ. There is allusion, doubtless, to the name Jehovah, Jahve, He that is what He is. The ἐγὼεἰμί points specifically to the ΰδιδ, which the God of Israel in Exodus 3:14 utters. Ver. 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.” The Jews understood Christ better than many immature and ill-instructed Christians, who substitute for the real pre-existence of Christ an ideal preexistence in the counsels of God, which was common to Him and all mortals. They applied to the case. Leviticus 24:16, “And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him.” From the species of cursing they rose, by a perfectly justifiable theological exposition, to the genus of desecrating the name of God. And of this Christ was guilty, in their estimation, because He had ascribed to Himself participation in the Divine nature: comp. ch. John 10:33, “For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” The Jews perceived that they must make their election between worshipping and stoning. Their choosing the latter was more true and sincere than a characterless middle position. “Jesus hid Himself “is generic; “He went out of the temple “shows how He accomplished it. According to the parallel of ch. John 12:36, ΤαῦταἐλάλησενἸησοῦς, καὶἀπελθὼνἐκρύβηἀπʼ ? αὐτῶν the καὶἐξῆλθε is equivalent to ἐξελθών. De Dieu rightly compares Job 29:8, “The young men saw me, and hid themselves; and the aged arose, and stood up,” where hiding themselves is equivalent to leaving the room. We may also compare Daniel 10:7, where it is said of Daniels companions, when he received the vision, “and they fled and hid themselves,” αδηαΰ; Mich.: Ita ut absconderent se. The hiding was there the fleeing. We must not think of any miracle in this matter. The dignity of our Lord’s demeanour was ethical here. “The retreat of Jesus Christ,” says Quesnel, “was humble, prudent, and instructive. He did not refuse to die for the proof of His divinity; He was soon afterwards a martyr in attestation of it; but He reserved Himself for a more shameful and a more cruel punishment, waiting for the time marked out of the Father, to make His death a sacrifice of obedience.” The last clause is an addition to the text as originally current; and its origin was well accounted for by Beza. The words ειελθὼνδιὰμέσοναὐτῶν are from Luke 4:30. The καὶπαρῆγενοὕτως was a gloss of the transcriber, who formed it with reference to the καὶπαράγων of the beginning of the next section. Parallel with the three manifestations of glory in Galilee, John reports three manifestations in Judea. That which now lies before us takes the second place among them, the first having been narrated in ch. 5. The third is the resurrection of Lazarus. Each of these manifestations represents an entire class: the first, the χωλοὶπεριπατοῦσι (the lame walk); the second, the τυφλοὶἀναβλέπουσι (the blind see); the third, the νεκροὶἐγείρονται, (the dead are raised up), of Matthew 11:5; and there is a progress discernible from the lower to the higher. The section opens with the narrative of the fact itself, the miraculous healing of the man that had been born blind, in ch. John 9:1-7. Then follows, vers. 8-34, the record of the plots to which this fact gave rise among the Jews. The design of the Evangelist, in his elaborate development of all their schemes, was to show how by their means the fact itself was placed beyond all doubt or suspicion, and how the enemies of Christ were obliged, by their very efforts to obscure His glory, to set that glory in a still more glorious light. To the physical healing of the man born blind, there is appended in ch. John 9:35-37 his spiritual healing; viz. his being quickened into faith by means of Christ, πτωχοὶεὐαγγελίζονται, Matthew 11:5. A challenging utterance of Christ concerning this spiritual healing excited a conflict between Him and the Pharisees; a conflict which first was concerned with spiritual blindness, vers. 40, 41, and then gave Christ occasion to develop His whole relation with the Pharisees, as it was illustrated by the great fact before them, ch. John 10:1-18. Then follows, finally, a record of the division which arose among the Jews in consequence of this saying of Christ, and of the fruit which His great miracle bore on one portion of the multitude, vers. 19-21. The section is declared to be one whole, complete in itself, by the fact that its last words, ch. John 10:21, refer to the healing of the blind, with which it began; so that the end of it returns back into its beginning. That John did not record this miracle merely because of the discourses connected with it, but that rather it had an independent interest of its own in his eye (comp. on ch. John 6:1), is abundantly proved by the minute particularity with which he has communicated the dealings of the Jews in relation to it. In this he could have had no other aim than to place the miraculous fact beyond all doubt. His object was not “to delineate the growing hatred of the enemies of Jesus;” this is manifest from ch. 9:31-12. Those who there first began the investigation are not to be classed amongst the “enemies of Jesus.” The whole record teaches us that the reason why John does not give so many detailed miraculous narratives as his three predecessors, was not that he attached a less importance to them,—a notion in itself inconceivable, when we remember that in none of the Gospels does Christ so expressly and repeatedly appeal to His miracles as in John’s,—but rather because he found that the three earlier Evangelists had abundantly provided for the preservation of the miracles. It was not his purpose to render them superfluous, but only to supplement them. But the series of detailed miraculous narratives which he also gives, serve as representatives of their kinds, and direct us to look in the first Evangelists for their completion. Ver. 1. “And as Jesus passed by. He saw a man which was blind from his birth.”— Παράγειν may mean either going farther or passing by. According to the first acceptation, the event about to be recorded is closely connected with the occurrence of the former section; according to the second, its chronological relation is left undefined. We decide in favour of the latter. Παράγειν, with the signification of going farther, occurs elsewhere only in combination with ἐκεῖθεν, Matthew 9:9; Matthew 9:27. This addition intimated, what otherwise the word would not have said, that it must not be taken in the usual sense of passing by: comp. Luke 18:37, where, instead of ὅτιἸησοῦςπαράγε, in Matthew 20:30, stands ὅτιἸησοῦςὁπαρέρχεται. If we take παράγειν in the signification of going farther, then two great conflicts with the Pharisees follow in direct succession. The Evangelist describes in ch. John 8:1 to John 10:21 what took place during the whole interval between the Feast of Tabernacles and the Feast of Dedication. John selects and makes prominent three scenes belonging to this period, in which the glory of Jesus was manifested, which were of special significance in regard to His relations with the Jews, and on occasion of which He uttered sayings of most comprehensive importance for His Church: the first in ch. John 8:12-29; the second in ch. John 8:31-59; and the third in our present section. It is not probable that the second and the third of these scenes bordered so closely on each other, without any resting-point between them. There is no force in the objection, that παράγειν must be a superfluous word, if it bears the meaning of passing by. It points to the fact, that Jesus did not seek an opportunity for the miracle, but that it presented itself to Him unsought. Nor must the and be pressed into the service of a close connection with what precedes. It is enough to refer to the junction by and between the body of the Gospel and the prologue, ch. John 1:19. The and only establishes generally the internal relation between the fact recorded in this section and the fact recorded in the preceding. Matthew 4:18 is very similar to this transition: περιπατῶνδὲπαρὰτὴνθάλασσαντῆςΓαλιλαίαςεἶδεδύοἀδελφούς. And, as there we must explain, when Jesus once was walking, so here also; and in the same period between the Feast of Tabernacles and the Feast of Dedication, Jesus passing by saw the blind man, as in ver. 8, described as a beggar. He probably sat in the spot where beggars were accustomed to resort—the neighbourhood of the Temple. That he had been born blind, was doubtless a notorious fact. He, a well-known person, might have perpetually announced it himself, in order to excite compassion amongst those who passed by. That Jesus saw the blind man, was made known probably by His looking at him; for, otherwise, the seeing would not be a known fact. He looked at him with a loving and significant glance; and by that means the attention of the disciples was directed to him. Ver. 2. “And His disciples asked Him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” It is an undeniable fact, that severe sicknesses are not seldom the consequences of great sins. Experience testifies it; and in the threatenings of God’s law against daring transgressors, sicknesses are expressly mentioned amongst many other evils: Deuteronomy 28:22; Leviticus 26:16. This is the basis of fact for the widely extended notion that all severe sicknesses, and generally all heavy afflictions, are the result of special and extraordinary transgressions. This current and popular opinion—which cannot but mislead to uncharitable judgment upon the sufferer, and Pharisaic self-complacency—we find the Pharisees arguing from as a settled axiom, ver. 34. In the book of Job it is represented by a trio of persons, in age and rank the chief figures round Job; whilst behind them the youthful Elihu, the representative of a new development of wisdom, introduces a better interpretation of evil. This book condemned that notion for ever; but it is not given to every man to penetrate its meaning and spirit; and thus the fallacy which it contends against has ever anew sprung up. It commends itself to low and common spirits by its simplicity and palpableness; it has the advantage of rendering it unnecessary to weep with those that weep; it saves a man from the obligation, when he looks at heavy affliction, of smiting on his breast and saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner; “it gives the natural man the comfortable feeling that he is so much better than the sufferer, as he is more fortunate. The disciples themselves could not disentangle themselves from this notion, to which they here give expression, just as Acts 28:4 represents the current view in the heathen world. Yet their question here shows that the feeling of its unsoundness was stirring in their minds. The disciples did not ask about sin generally, but about that sin in particular which, in its nature, would draw after it such and so fearful a punishment. Jesus was expected not only to say who had sinned, but also, when He had decided for the one or the other, to solve those apparently insuperable difficulties which the solution itself would encounter. Probably they were not without a secret presentiment that there was a third solution; but as yet they speak only after the current notion. That third explanation of the problem could not be entertained without impeaching the Divine righteousness; and the piety of the disciples was too living and pure to allow them to admire the thought of “a simply natural side of evil,”—a hypothesis which would place nature by the side of God as a second and independent power. Yet the first and second explanations were surrounded by many and great difficulties. The man born blind could not himself be chargeable as the cause of his own misery; for if he had been born in sin and shapen in iniquity, yet this was common to all mankind, and could not justify a punishment so enormous in his case, and so far exceeding the ordinary limits of mortal punishment. Nor was the sin of his parents sufficient to account for so great a calamity. It is the all-pervading doctrine of Scripture, that no man is punished unless himself guilty; and that only ungodly sons are involved in the doom of their parents. (Comp. Beiträge, Th. 3, s. 545.) Where there is a notorious transmission of bodily evil from parents to children, that transmission must be looked at from a quite different point of view: it must not be regarded as the punishment of guiltless children for the sin of their parents. The saying of Exo 20:5, “Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children,” is falsely interpreted when it is made to declare the punishment of innocent children on account of their parents guilt. There, children are spoken of who are like their parents. Onkelos was right in adding, quando pergunt filii in peccando pone parentes. There are two great classes exhibited: that of the ungodly, in whom the curse works onwards; and that of the pious, in whom the blessing works inwards. But this man born blind was generally known to be one who feared God. It is said in Deuteronomy 24:16, “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin.” It is true that this passage treats primarily of the rule which the Jewish magistracy were to observe, and not of the rule which God observes. But if Exodus 20:5 is made to refer to a common suffering of even guiltless sons, then the ministers of God would be obliged, in executing vengeance upon evil-doers, to include the children in the punishment. But, on the other hand, if Exodus 20:5 refers only to those sons who are connected with their fathers in the fellowship of guilt, then there must be a distinction between the heavenly and the earthly judge, and the latter must not involve the sons in the punishment of their fathers. For God alone is the “Trier of the hearts and reins;” God alone knoweth with certainty whether or not the root of sin is thriving in the children. After all that has been said, in the background of the disciples minds the question rose, And if neither of these sinned, how is the problem to be solved? Ver. 3. “Jesus answered. Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but (he was born blind) that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” The question here was obviously concerning such a sin as was the direct cause of this suffering. Augustin: Si ergo et parentes ejus habuerunt peccatum et iste habuit peccatum, quare dominus dixit: neque hie peccavit neque parentes ejus, nisi ad rem, de qua interrogatus erat, ut caecus nasceretur? Sinfulness is the general lot of mankind. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one,” is the language of Job 14:4. All suffering presupposes this common sin. It is not enough (with Anton) to refer to the “supreme dominion of God, who has power to use any man for any end of His own, being the absolute ruler; and therefore every creature is bound to yield himself up to that absolute rulers end.” An absolutely holy being could not possibly be elected to this end, that the works of God might be manifested in him. The Theodicée in relation to sufferings rests upon this, that all suffering must be first of all regarded as punishment, although we must not limit ourselves to this one-sided view alone. The Lord Himself declares, ch. John 5:14, Luke 5:20, that all sickness in particular stands in a direct connection with sin. All sicknesses are punishments of sin, our Lord teaches in ch. John 5:14. The Old Testament teaches us, and so does experience, that many severe sicknesses are the punishment of heavy sins. What is here taught is, that severe sicknesses and trials are not necessarily the results of specific transgression; so that we cannot absolutely and unconditionally argue from the calamity to the guilt. Man by his sinfulness has deserved every affliction; but in the distribution of sufferings other motives are in operation than the Divine retributive justice. Oftentimes those who are relatively the best, are visited with the severest dispensations of trial; so that the conclusion from the specific suffering to the specific guilt is always unjustifiable. The works of God in ver. 4 are not the works “which God has commanded,” but the works which God doeth. According to Genesis 1:2-3, Psalms 104:24, the expression must be pre-eminently referred to the works of creation. These works of God, which were once displayed in the creation, and are still going on in the preservation of all things, are here to become manifest anew: the whole body of those works are to be exhibited in this one particular example of miraculous healing. The man born blind could be cured only by a repetition of the creating energy of God. And parallel with this reference to the creating works of God, there follows the reference to Genesis 2:7 in ver. 6. The works of God are also works of Christ. The intimate and perfect connection between the Creator and the Redeemer is exhibited in ch. John 1:3 and John 8:25, according to which Christ was the agent also in the creation of the world. God’s works were to be exhibited not only in the bodily healing of the blind man, but also in the spiritual healing that followed. The former paved the way for the latter in the Divine purpose: comp. ver. 39. It was the spiritual cure that first shed the true light upon the infliction of bodily blindness. If the man born blind had not been tried with this calamity, he would probably not have been one of the “not seeing” in ver. 39; he would have been involved in the mazes of Pharisaic misconception, and might have been brought by Christ’s appearance not to sight, but to deeper blindness. Thus the punishment inflicted upon him, born in sin, by the Divine righteousness, was at the same time the greatest blessing, and the highest manifestation of the love of his God. It made it easier for him to abide in his simplicity, and to become a “babe,” the necessary condition of participation with Christ. Vers. 4, 5. “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.” Our Lord, while He prepared Himself to manifest the works of God in the blind man, and to approve on him the same power which once said, “Let there be light, and there was light,” refers here to the motive which dictated His act, and by the same saying gives His disciples an exhortation to redeem, with all diligence and all zeal, the time appointed for their own earthly labours. In ver. 4 there is an undeniable allusion to Ecclesiastes 9:10 : “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” “The duty of doing all that it is in any way possible to do, is based, in the second part of the verse, on the consideration that what is here left undone never is done; that the tasks appointed by God for this life, which are here unaccomplished, remain unaccomplished; and that the gifts and powers lent for this life should be used in this life” (Comm. on Ecclesiastes, p. 216, Clark’s Transl.) The “work” stands first in this original passage. Its applicability, even to Christ Himself, appears obvious, when we observe that He, when He says, “I must work,” has His own personality in view, and speaks of Himself in His actual life. What Christ did not do of the work of His earthly life, of His duty as the Redeemer, manifested in the form of a servant, and made in all things like unto us, could not afterwards be repaired. The night here corresponds in the original to Sheol. Accordingly, it appears to be no other than the night of death, towards which Christ was travelling with hasty steps. In harmony with this, the day would be the time of His stay upon earth. This also is confirmed by ver. 5, according to which the day is the time during which Jesus was in the world. Because the day is destined for labour,—comp, Psalms 104:22-23, “The sun ariseth; . . . Man goeth forth unto his work, and to his labour, until the evening,”—it is appropriate as marking the time for earthly work and business. But our present passage must not be viewed apart from ch. John 11:9-10, where the day is the time of happiness and unhindered work, and the night is the time of passion and suffering. And here also, therefore, we must take a broader view of the night; not making it begin with the moment of death, but with the entrance of the season of suffering, which ended all active work; when the vocation is no longer to do, but to suffer, the will of God. This also better accords with other passages of John, in which the night occurs with a symbolical signification: comp. on ch. John 11:9-10. The hortatory tendency of the words is evident from the reference to the original passage in Ecclesiastes. (Bengel: Johannes saepe describit Christum de rebus suis ita loquentem indefinite, uti convenit in quemvis pium in talibus rebus, c. John 11:9, John 12:24-25.) This shows that nothing is spoken of here that is specifically peculiar to Christ. Instead of ἐμέ, many MSS. read ἡμᾶς. This reading is not sufficiently supported; but it arose from the correct view, that underneath what Jesus said concerning Himself there was latent an exhortation to the Apostles. On the other hand, some have referred the words only to the disciples, misled by the difficulty which the saying presents when applied to Christ, and forgetting that He is here speaking in His proper and peculiar character as manifested in the form of a servant. This must be kept in view also in ver. 5. Christ, who is with His own always unto the end of the world, who reveals Himself to them, and dwells within them, is, even after His glorification, the light of the world. But that does not come here into consideration. Our text speaks only of the Christ who was found in the form of a man. Ὅταν, in the sense of “during the time when.” The light is healing and salvation: comp. on ch. John 8:12. And it was here peculiarly appropriate, inasmuch as in the case which gave occasion to this general utterance, misery appeared in the form of blindness, both bodily and spiritual, ver. 39. The practical conclusion was, “And therefore I may not be weary of sending forth the beams of My light.” In these words, too, there is an analogous joint reference to the servants of Christ: this is evident from “Ye are the light of the world,” in Matthew 5:14. That itself contained the strongest injunction to let their light shine so long as they were in the world. Ver. 6. “When He had thus spoken, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle: He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay.” The blind man, doubtless, knew that it was Jesus with whom he had to do, and that this Jesus had already miraculously healed many, else he would not have suffered the clay to be put on his eyes, or have followed the direction to go to the pool of Siloam, without uttering some objection like that which Naaman, 2 Kings 5:11, expressed under similar circumstances. In ver. 11 he answers the question, How were thine eyes opened? by saying, that a man called Jesus had made clay, etc. Doubtless the bystanders were very diligent in setting him right. The spitting occurs elsewhere in connection with other healing acts of Jesus, Mark 7:33; Mark 8:23. It signified, just like the touching of Mat 20:34, and the placing the finger in the ear, Mark 7:33, the going forth of healing power from the person of the Lord. That it was not the real conductor of this power, but must be understood symbolically, is plain, from the fact that it was not always applied; for example, not in the case of the blind men at Jericho, Matthew 20:29; Mark 10:46. But this present instance differs from all others in which the spittle occurs. Christ does not spit upon the eye of the blind man, but upon the earth, thus preparing a clay for His purpose. There must have been a special reason for this; and we are the rather led to regard this as a symbolical act, because the second circumstance, the sending to the pool of Siloam, bears so evidently a symbolical character. Genesis 2:7 gives us the key: “And the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” The allusion to that passage pointed out the great fact, that the creating work of God (ver. 3) was here renewed; and that the same creating energy which first called man into being, was manifested in this healing act. In the present case, the spitting—which has this in common with the spitting in the other cases, that it was the symbolical conductor of the quickening power of the Healer—corresponds to the in-breathing of the breath of life at the creation. As by means of this the dust became a living being, so by means of the spittle the dust received a healing and quickening power. Ver. 7. “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.” The blind man did not obtain his sight until he had first washed in the pool of Siloam. There would doubtless be many friendly people among the bystanders who would be glad to guide him thither. But as the pool was in the immediate neighbourhood—the beggar sat probably near the Temple, comp. Acts 3:2—and in the way which he had daily to take, he might indeed have gone thither alone. Strictly translated, it runs, “Go, wash into the pool of Siloam;” and the reason is plain enough, as whatever was washed away entered the pool. And it is not without purpose that the expression is “pool of Siloam.” The name Siloam properly belonged only to the spring, the present Fountain of Mary, “whose waters flowed through a subterranean canal, circuitous, and 1750 feet long, into the brook of Siloam “(von Raumer). We read in Nehemiah 3:15 of the pool of Siloah, ωμη; and ηωμη in that passage corresponds to the preceding ηςιο. That the name Siloam was originally appropriated only to the spring, is made abundantly plain by many passages of Josephus. In Book i. 4, 1, of the work on the Jewish War, he says: καθήκειμέχριΣιλωάμ· οὕτωγὰρτὴνπηγὴνγλυκεῖαντεκαὶπολλήνοὖσανἐκαλοῦμεν; and in ch. ii, καὶἔπειταπρὸςνότονὑπὲρτὴνΣιλωὰμἐπιστρέφονπηγήν. The fountain of Siloam is referred to alone twice in the Old Testament, in Isaiah 8:6 and Nehemiah 3:15. It is of great importance to the understanding of our present passage, that the signification of the name should be held fast. It may be, so far as its form is concerned, either a passive formation from Piel, the reduplication of the second letter of the root being omitted (Ewald, § 156, h), or, which is better (Ewald, § 155, d), an adjectival form like ιִ ?μּ ?εֹ ?γ, born, ωִׁ ?λּ ?εֹ ?ψ, drunken, “not as a simple participle, but as an independent adjective further modified.” They are “words which give the idea of an internally fixed and abiding characteristic or property; and thus they are primarily a strengthened form of the simple participles and adjectives.” The participle Pahul ωָׁ ?μεεּ ?ηַ denotes one who is on an occasion sent; ωִׁ ?μεεֹ ?ηַ, on the other hand, a missionary, one whose mission is permanent. Accordingly, the spring did not derive its name from its sending out water; but the passive signification decides the form. And ωμη, too, which is used in Nehemiah 3:15 instead of ωμεη, has a passive signification—that generally of a projectile weapon, missile. The notion of Rodiger, that the word signified emissio aquae, aquaeductus, rests upon the theory, already shown to be wrong, that the name properly belonged to the canal or the pool. The sent required a sender. If the stream of water was called Sent, the fountain must have been the Sender; as we read in Ezekiel 31:4 of the Nile, “and sent out her little rivers (conduits) unto all the trees of the field.” But if, as we have shown, the name originally was appropriated to the spring, then there must be in the background a sender independent of the water. To understand this Sender, with Ewald, as an indefinite Christ, “sent forth, flowing freely, streaming abundantly,” would be appropriate enough if we found ourselves in the domain of idolatry, which makes God’s of all things, and not in the domain of living faith in a personal God. To us the Sender can be no other than He who generally “sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills,” Psalms 104:10, where we have simply a commentary on the name Siloam, just as we also have in Psalms 18:17, “He sent from above.” And thus viewed, the name Silchim, which we find in Joshua 15:32 with Ajin (comp. on ch. John 11:23), stands in connection with Siloam. In the dry and parched south country, the springs were pre-eminently regarded as messengers of God. This one was, according to Josephus, sweet, and flowed abundantly; he further seems to intimate that this last property gave it its name. Isaiah, ch. John 8:6, recognises in it, and in the power of blessing which was concealed under its insignificance, a figure of the kingdom of God in Israel; whilst, in opposition to its soft flow, the “waters of the river, strong and many,” were a figure of the kingdom of this world. The very remarkable fluctuations which befell the fountain must ever have turned attention towards its supernatural origin and design. Ritter, in the Erdkunde, xvi. 447, says, “The Itinerarium Burdig. in the year 333 mentions this spring, which flowed through six days and six nights, but on the Sabbath neither by day nor night. (Hence Pliny, H. N. xxxi. 18: In Judaea rivus Sabbatis omnibus siccatur.) Jerome is more definite on Isaiah 8:6. The fountain Siloam lies at the foot of Mount Zion; and its waters do not flow regularly, but only on certain days and hours: then, however. with great tumult, rushing out of hidden caves and holes in the most hidden rocks.” The sudden rise and fall of water in the Mary Fountain, of which William of Tyre says, “interpolatum habens fluctum” (comp. on these fluctuations the remarks upon ch. John 5:2; Ritter, p. 456), is even to the present day a mystery; Robinson, 11:158. Josephus alludes to the abundant flow of the fountain Siloam, at the time of the siege of Titus, as a miracle, τέρας; de Bell. Jud. v. 9, 4. “On the ground of these phenomena the Mohammedans attached great value to the brook Siloam: they joined it with Zemzem, and made these two the fountains of paradise:” Ritter, p. 450. It has been also observed upon ch. John 5:2, that many attributed the perturbations of the waters to a dragon concealed within. What is there said concerning the angel who moved the water, is in harmony with the name of Sent. This explanation of the name of the fountain of Siloam furnishes us the key to the fact of our Lord’s having sent the blind man to the pool which was formed out of that fountain. That humble messenger, with its beneficent power spreading around, in Isaiah a symbol of the kingdom of God, was a type of the supreme Divine Messenger; and it is to be observed in relation to this, that it is in John that Christ is described continually as the Sent of God. (Grotius: Christus ubique se vocat missum a patre, c. John 3:17; John 3:34; John 5:36; John 5:38, et alibi passim, unde et ἀπόστολος dicitur, Hebrews 3:1.) As in ch. 5 Jesus represents Himself and His Church as the real pool of Bethesda, so He declares Himself here to be the real Sent one, or Siloam; without much demonstration, but infinitely rich in blessing and invigoration for the people of God. And that the symbolical meaning of the act might not be missed, John adds the Greek explanation of the name Siloam. Everywhere, when he appends such an interpretation, he has a deep reason for it; he never does so merely for the sake of etymology: comp. John 1:39; John 1:42-43. Calvin excellently expresses the idea which is stamped upon the whole transaction: “In the person of one man the condition of our nature is delineated; we are all of us from our mothers womb deprived of light and vision, and the cure of this evil is to be sought for only in Christ.” Siloam is all the more appropriate as a type of Christ, because our Lord dispenses His benefit through the water of baptism, to which Augustin referred the waters of Siloam: Lavit ergo oculos in ea piscina, quae interpretatur missus, baptizatus est in Christo. Water appears in ch. John 3:5 as one of the indispensable factors of participation in Christ and His kingdom. And we may regard as applicable to the pool of Siloam what Peter says in 1 Peter 3:21 : ὦκαὶὑμᾶςἀντίτυποννῦνσῴζειβάπτισμα. We shall now make some general remarks touching our Lord’s miracles of healing on the blind. In harmony with what Isaiah, in ch. Isaiah 35:5, prophesied of the time of the Messiah, “Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped,” these specific miracles assume a pre-eminent place among the wonderful works of Christ. As His individual restorations of the dead to life were types and pledges of the universal bodily resurrection of believers at the end of the world; so the restorations of sight to the blind were primarily signs and pledges that blindness, and generally all the physical misery which sin has introduced, are to be removed by Christ. Then these healings give consolation and hope to that state of abandonment and helplessness which in the Old Testament is so often represented by blindness,—the point of similarity being the inability to find the way: Deuteronomy 28:29; Isaiah 59:10; Job 12:25; Zephaniah 1:17. Whenever we find ourselves without counsel and help, we should look up to Christ as the Saviour of the blind. But the main point is, that the healing of the bodily blind was the pledge of the healing of spiritual blindness. This was included by the prophet Isaiah, as is plain from the fact, that this prophet so often speaks of spiritual blindness and deafness, e.g. in ch. Isaiah 29:18, where it is said of the time of the Messiah, “And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness;” ch. Isaiah 42:18, Isaiah 43:8. Christ speaks often of spiritual blindness: in John 9:39; John 9:41 of this chapter, and in Matthew 15:14; Matthew 23:16, etc. He thereby gives us a hint as to the point of view from which we are to regard the healings of the physically blind; that we are to derive from them inexhaustible assurance that He can and He will cure all our spiritual maladies. The connection between physical and spiritual blindness appears in this narrative more definitely than anywhere else. Jesus, in vers. 35 seq., heals also the spiritual blindness of the man born blind; and we mark that the bodily healing was the means to that higher end, the instrument for the accomplishment of the spiritual cure: comp. especially ver. 39. The final result was, that the man born blind received “the enlightened eyes of the heart,” Ephesians 1:18. Augustin, therefore, was quite right: Si quod significat hoc quod factum est cogitemus, genus humanum est iste caecus: haec enim caecitas contigit in primo homine per peccatum, de quo omnes originem duximus non solum mortis sed etiam iniquitatis. In vers. 8-12, there is a record of the impression which the event produced in the immediate circle of the healed man’s friends. The result of the whole was, that they could find no way of escaping the acknowledgment of the fact: they had been most intimately acquainted with the personal history and case of the blind man, and to their declaration concerning the matter every reasonable doubter must look for confirmation and decision. Ver. 8. “The neighbours, therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was a beggar, said. Is not this he that sat and begged?” In relation to the Pres. Part. θεωροῦντες, we may apply with propriety Ewald’s remark (§ 168) concerning, the Hebrew participle: “It is, like the Infinitive, altogether a noun in this, that it does not recognise that slight beginning of distinction in time which exists in the verb.” The λμιγςιεμτπιν in Job 42:11 perfectly corresponds, as also Job 20:7. So also with the participles καθήμενος and προσαιτῶν. “That he was a beggar,” equivalent to “in his capacity as a beggar.” The fact of his being a beggar intimates at the same time his bodily calamity; for the blind only were, as a rule, beggars by profession: comp. Mark 10:46. The less authenticated reading τυφλός (“that he was blind”) sprang from a forgetfulness of the fact that begging presupposed the physical calamity. Ver. 9. “Some said. This is he; others said. He is like him; but he said, I am he.” Bengel remarks on “He is like like him:” Quidvis prius fingit et putat humana ratio quam miraculum factum credat, John 5:18; Acts 2:13. Sed eo magis confirmatur veritas. Vers. 10, 11. “Therefore said they unto him. How were thine eyes opened? 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 received sight.” The healed man’s own declaration had set aside all doubt as to the identity of his person; and now the investigation turns to the manner and process of the cure. The opening of the eyes refers, according to Hebrew phraseology, not so much to the material member, as to the sense of sight. It has been incorrectly inferred from the words, “a man that is called Jesus,” that the blind man had never known anything of the celebrity of Christ. But his description is to be explained by the fact, that he everywhere adheres firmly and simply to that which he had himself experienced; while the willingness with which he submitted to the treatment of our Lord can be accounted for only on the supposition that he was well acquainted with His fame, and that the report of His specific deeds had reached his ears. The reading εἰςτὸνΣιλωὰμ is better supported than εἰςτὴνκολυμβήθραντοῦΣιλωάμ, which seems to have been surreptitiously brought in from ver. 7. But yet it is not impossible that the former reading originated in an effort at compression, and in a comparison with Luke 13:4. Ἀναβλέπειν is thought by many to mean, not seeing again, but looking up. It must, however, be understood, as it is commonly used concerning the restoration of the blind, as for instance in Matthew 11:5; Mark 8:25; Luke 18:43. Seeing is to man the normal condition. And, therefore, even of a man born blind it may be said, when he is brought into this normal condition, that he has come to see again. Ver. 12. “Then said they unto him, Where is he? He said, I know not.” Jesus had withdrawn, after accomplishing the cure, for the same reason that made Him convey Himself away when He had restored the sick man of thirty and eight years: comp. on ch. John 5:13. They inquired where Jesus was, probably that they might question Himself concerning the point which afterwards they consulted and decided upon with the Pharisees. The violation of the Sabbath by Christ’s miraculous healing had already, at an earlier period, given offence, comp. ch. John 7:23; and hence this circumstance came all the more readily to their minds. In vers. 13-34, the investigation of the matter before the Pharisees is narrated. Ver. 13. “They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind.” Berl. Bib.: “Let us to the learned with this matter—it is for them to investigate. They must know all about it, for it belongs to them. But this was a mistake. They brought a man born blind, but now enlightened, to those who were stone blind still, to men who were bent on increasing in their blindness, and who made the light itself darken them all the more.” The Pharisees here denote the parley: comp. on ch. John 1:24. They were here represented by individual notabilities. The neighbours aimed primarily only to come to a sure judgment in a controversy which interested themselves; and therefore they brought the man to those who were held to be the most competent judges, to the “seers” of ver. 39, to those who knew how to distinguish things that differed, Romans 2:18. There is no trace here of any “spiritual judicial investigation on the part of the supreme judicature;” and ch. John 7:32 seq. is essentially different. Here the Pharisees are everywhere spoken of; there the ἀρχιερεῖς, the chief of the priests, are coupled with them, and in ver. 45 even occupy the first place, while the mention of the servants, and of Nicodemus as one of their number, in ver. 50 (comp. ch. John 3:1), lead to the supposition of the Sanhedrim. Lόcke remarks, “John denotes the Sanhedrists also, in ch. John 7:47, merely by the word οἱΦαρισαῖοι. But the more exact definition had in that case preceded already. Nor can ch. John 11:46 be adduced as in point: for in ver. 47 the species follows at once upon the genus. The blind man lay under no external obligation to go with them. But he went willingly, because he had a good conscience, and was perfectly ready to bear testimony to the truth, and to do honour to his Healer. The healed man of ch. 5 went, according to ver. 15, voluntarily, and announced to the Jews that Jesus had made him whole. Ver. 14. “And it was the Sabbath-day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes.” The circumstance here noted was the specific reason why they should bring the matter before the Pharisees. The actual fact they themselves had found to be established. But this was in conflict with the violation of the Sabbath, and they knew not themselves how to solve the contradiction. The preparation of the clay was not introduced in vain: this was held to be a work. Jesus had certainly of set purpose chosen the Sabbath for His work of healing: comp. on ch. John 5:9. He designed to give matter of offence to the Pharisees, who, by their exaggerated severity in the externalities of the Sabbath festival, sought to compensate for their lacking spiritual service (Augustin: Sabbatum carnaliter observabant, spiritualiter sistabant). And He would teach the people how the Sabbath was really to be used. His polemic in act was not directed against Moses, but against the caricature into which Pharisaism had turned the Mosaic Sabbath. Berlenb. Bible: “The Sabbath was a rest from evil, as also from servile works, which centre in ourselves. But it was not to be a day of rest when the honour of God and the furtherance of our neighbours’ good were concerned.” Ver. 15. “Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them. He put clay upon mine eves, and I washed, and do see. This was again the second time, after the questioning by the neighbours, ver. 10. They hoped that he would yield to pressure, and be induced to change his declaration according to their mind. But his answer remains steadily consistent, and that was a token of his truth. Ver. 16. “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.” So plain and palpable was the miracle, that there was a contradiction arising even in the midst of their own party. Those who originated this contradiction were such as Nicodemus, ch. John 7:50; and ch. John 12:42 also, according to which even many of the “rulers” believed on Him, is in strict harmony with our present passage. But the opposers were, as Lampe remarks, inferior to the rest, not only in number, but also in zeal: they assumed the position of a vanishing minority. They omitted the violation of the Sabbath, because it could not be concealed from them that there was a great difference between the Mosaic and the Pharisaic Sabbath. But they did not assert that difference: they contented themselves with laying stress upon the fact of the miraculous healing. Ver. 17. “They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes t He said, He is a prophet.” The Pharisees are the subject of λέγουσι as is shown by the πάλιν, which refers to ver. 15. And this of itself proves that the questioning had a hostile intent: for the Pharisees were, as a mass, hostile. The interrogations everywhere proceeded from enemies. The dissent was only partial, and it is not further referred to. The matter, in spite of the dissentients, took its course. “That he hath opened thine eyes,” is equivalent to “What thinkest thou in reference to it? for whom boldest thou him on account of it?” The question touched the fact first, and then the judgment upon the person. The Pharisees hoped that the healed man would give them in this matter a handle for reaching the fact in a circuitous way. If he was not absolutely sure that Jesus had accomplished the act by supernatural divine powers: if he let fall anything about the possibility of secret means and magical arts, they would have had something to use in their purpose. But his brief and plain declaration, “He is a prophet,” disconcerted their hopes. Ver. 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.”—“They act,” says Calvin, “as if one should seek to extinguish a flame by his breath.” The Jews here, comp. on ch. John 1:19, are identical with the Pharisees in the preceding. They now sought to extract something from the parents of the healed man; and this was the third stage. And here also the result was, that the more they investigate the miracle, in order to bring it into doubt, the more they place it beyond suspicion. They did not believe until they had called the parents,—not as if they would then have believed. The meaning is, that unbelief led them to this procedure. Very frequently an end is specified which is not in itself the ultimate one, but only in a certain relation important, so that the end lying behind it is left unnoticed: comp. Matthew 1:25; Daniel 1:21; Beitr. Th. i. s. 66, 67. Ver. 19. “And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he, now see?” There are three questions here, which the parents answer in their order: Is he your son? Do ye dare still to maintain that he was born blind? And if so, how has he obtained his sight? Vers. 20-23. “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. 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 he put out of the synagogue. Therefore said his parents, He is of age, ask him.” The parents plainly declare the truth on the first two questions; on the third they do not venture to commit themselves, but they point to their son as trustworthy. The expression συνετέθειντο, “they had determined among themselves,” refers rather to a party concert than to a formal decree of the Sanhedrim. Ch. John 16:2 shows that the latter had not yet been arrived at; proving, moreover, that the Apostles themselves had not yet been cast out of the synagogue. It was quite in harmony with the cunning policy of the Pharisees, that they first exhibited the excommunication afar off, giving signs that it would come to that, so that every one might take due heed. If they had been precipitate in rushing to conclusions, they might have excited a resolute opposition. The report of a decree which was to be passed sufficed to awe and terrify fearful minds. The New Testament mentions only one kind of excommunication,—exclusion from the synagogue, and generally from the fellowship of the people of God: ἀφορίειν, Luke 6:22; ἀποσυνάγωγοι, John 12:42, John 16:2. This first decree was followed directly by the second,—the punishment of death. That the Mishna, in agreement with the New Testament, contains only one kind of excommunication, has been shown by Gildemeister, Blendwerke des Rationalismus, 1841. The fourth stage now follows in vers. 24-34. The Pharisees, on the challenge of the parents, “ask him,” assault the man born blind afresh. They press upon him more rigorously, and seek to extract from him a more agreeable answer. But in vain. The boldness of the healed man increases as he penetrates more fully their design. He deals with them in such a manner that they must at last cast him out. Ver. 24. “Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner.”—“Give God the glory” is derived from Joshua 7:19, where Joshua says to Achan, “My son, give, I pray thee, glory (Sept. δὸςδόξαν) to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto Him; and tell me now what thou hast done; hide it not from me.” We give God the glory when we, out of reverence for His authority, tell the truth, even though the truth lead to our own shame and destruction. Augustin shows what lay in the background of this pious phrase: Quid est da gloriam Deo? nega quod accepisti. Hoc plane non est gloriam Deo dare, sed Deum potius blasphemare. Vers. 25-27. “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. 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 it again? will ye also be his disciples?” This question contains a latent reproof. Such would be the only justification of the repeated questionings. But of this ye will not think. Vers. 28, 29. “Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is.” We have no proof whatever that he is “of God,” ver. 33; “a teacher come from God,” ch. John 3:2. Ver. 30. “The man answered and said unto them, Why, herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes.” The γὰρ gives the motive of the rejoinder which he makes, and of that expression in his countenance which said, “I must contradict you.” The Hebrew λι very often marks such a style of referring to the force of circumstances: Genesis 29:32; Exodus 3:12. Vers. 31-33. “Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth His will, him He heareth. Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.” The οἴδαμεν points to the source of all true knowing in Israel—the Holy Scriptures. There we often find the declaration that God heareth not sinners, but heareth only the righteous who fear Him: for example, in Job 27:9, where it is said of the hypocrite, “Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him?” in Psalms 66:18, “If I have regarded iniquity in my heart (had it in my eye), the Lord would not hear me;” Proverbs 15:29, “The Lord is far from the wicked: but He heareth the prayer of the righteous;” Isaiah 1:15; Isaiah 59:2-3. The blind man had doubtless heard this little word from his devout parents, and had kept it in his heart. So the ἐκτοῦαἰῶνοςοὐκἠκούσθη is an Old Testament reminiscence: comp. Isaiah 64:3. Ver. 34. “They answered and said unto him. Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out.” The “born in sin” points to Psalms 51. But the appended “altogether” hints at an aggravated original sin, which was to be inferred from his having been born blind. We must not make this casting out an excommunication; for those with whom the blind man had to do were not able or inclined to execute this. We have shown that it is erroneous to understand ver. 22 of an already fixed decree to excommunicate the disciples of Jesus. If even the Apostles themselves had not been excommunicated, it is hardly likely that they would proceed to a formal sentence upon the blind man, who had never vet known and acknowledged Jesus as the Christ. The casting out suggests the place where the transaction occurred: comp. Acts 7:58; Acts 13:50. Doubtless there was another casting out in prospect, of which this one was the earnest and prelude: comp. ver. 22; 3 John 1:10. It was that which gave it the significance which ver. 35 presupposes. In vers 35-37, it is recorded how the blind man was led by Christ to faith. Ver. 35. “Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him. He said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” Jesus had at first intentionally withdrawn from the healed man; the act was to exert its influence in his soul like leaven. The Pharisaic opposition was to fan the feeble flame of his faith. And when this was done, “Jesus the good Shepherd sought the poor sheep.” The significance of the expression Son of God must not be measured according to the notions of the blind man—we can hardly determine what these would be, because deeper views by the side of the more superficial were made current by the sayings of the Old Testament, and by the explanations of the Baptist—but according to the nature of the case, and the teaching of Christ. Faith in the Son of God might have existed—so far as its beginning goes—where the degree of knowledge was as yet very weak. The reality was more powerful than the notion of it. The influence of the Holy Ghost leads the well-disposed and submissive far beyond themselves. Ver. 36. “He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? The καὶ which begins the answer has baffled many. But here, as in ch. John 14:22, Mark 10:26, Luke 10:29, it proceeded only from the lively impulse to connect the answer immediately with the question. The blind man had a presentiment of the meaning of Jesus question, and therefore he entered into it so vividly. Ver. 37. “And Jesus said unto him. Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee.” The seeing here must refer to what then was passing, the then present meeting; for when he was healed, the blind man had not seen Jesus. That the two points are kept distinct by καὶ ?—καὶ ?—not only, but also—is to be explained by the dignity of the Person, and the greatness of the favour which had befallen the blind man. Ver. 38. “And he said, Lord, believe. And he worshipped Him.” We must not conclude from this proskynesis, that the healed man had any clear knowledge of the full divinity of Jesus. There can be no reasonable question, indeed, that it had a religious significance. John never uses the word in any other sense. But the worship which, according to Matthew 4:10, is due only to the Lord God, was not only rendered to Him directly, but also to Him in the person of those who bore His image, of His representatives, of the holders of His gifts and offices: comp. my commentary on Revelation 19:10. And we can infer from this proskynesis only that the healed man discerned in Christ a true bearer and representative of the divine glory. Ver. 39. “And Jesus said. For judgment I am come into this world; that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind.” Jesus made what had taken place the basis of an utterance which excited a conflict betwixt Him and the Pharisees. The universal truth which He here declared, had had its exemplification both in the blind man and the Pharisees, Jesus did not speak only to His disciples, but had all who were present in His view. And as the Pharisees would necessarily take offence at His saying, we may conclude that our Lord foresaw it, and spoke intentionally. Κρίσις is, in ch. John 3:19, the judicial act, and κρίμα the product of it. To both portions of the company, what had passed was a judicial act; both received their rights: those who sought the path found it, according to the rule which Wisdom in Proverbs 8:17 laid down, “I love them that love me, and those that seek me early shall find me.” The declaration that Jesus came into the world for judgment, is not contradictory to ch. John 3:17, where it is said that God sent not His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world through Him might be saved; for in that passage it is only the first and proper design of the mission of Christ that is spoken of. And here, in harmony with that passage, the saving work upon those who see not takes precedence of the destroying work upon those who see. But, at the same time, that the seeing become blind, must be regarded as a design, because it is the necessary consequence of the manifestation of Christ. Consistently with this saying, our Lord, in Matthew 11:25, thanks God, not merely that He had revealed truth to the babes, but also that He had hidden it from the wise. The result, therefore, must accordingly have been one desired and willed by Himself. When the blinding of the wise was placed under the point of view of a Divine judgment, this removed an objection which might be taken—namely, that the chief representatives of Judaism and its culture turned away from Jesus,—those chief men who were beyond all others, as it seemed, fit to test the evidences of His Divine mission. When Jesus spoke of His coming into the world. He pointed to the fact that His existence as the Son of man was preceded by another Divine and glorious existence: comp. on ch. John 1:9. “That those who see not might see: “this was witnessed in the man born blind. In the “Lord, I believe,” the man who had been hitherto blind attained to spiritual sight; for he had been up to this time spiritually blind. He had grown up without cultivation, a simple and mere man. But that which was on the one hand a lack, was on the other an advantage. He knew nothing, but he did not boast himself of his knowledge; and did not, in his proud dependence upon knowing, close his heart against the wisdom from above. And as soon as the Saviour made Himself known as such, he worshipped Him.—“And those that see might be made blind.” The seers were then the Jews, in relation to the Gentiles: comp. Romans 2:18-20. Israel had seen much, and his ears had been opened, Isaiah 42:20. When this seeing was connected with humility, it was an advantage and a help. But side by side with the advantage, there was also the danger. Among the Jews, again, the Pharisees were the seeing, whom Paul had in view pre-eminently in the passage above alluded to. They were the representatives of the Jewish culture and learning. But their always limited knowledge was attended by its companion, dimness and obscurity. They boasted themselves of their miserable knowledge; shut their “minds against the wisdom from above; and assumed the position of judges where it behoved them only to adore. Thus the manifestation of Christ could be to them only a dispensation of blinding. Not only did it make their blindness manifest, but it also increased that blindness; in their embittered opposition to it, they lost the elements of truth which still had survived in their knowledge. The darkness of antichristian Judaism was infinitely more profound than that of the pre-Christian. It everywhere exhibited the plainest traces of a consummate judgment and doom. The truth that the preaching of the word of God, where it meets with perfect unsusceptibility, is followed by a righteous Divine judgment of deeper blindness, and by ruin as its result, had been plainly declared in Isaiah 6:10, where the Lord says to the prophet, as the representative of all His servants in His kingdom down to Christ, “Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.” The apparently universal sentence contains a limitation in its reference to the relations then presented before the Lord. Those who see not are of the kind of the blind man; those who are such, not merely objectively considered, but also in their spirit, τῷπνεύματι, Matthew 5:3, and in their consciousness see not; those who bitterly feel their lack, and carry about with them a sense of longing for help from above. Those who see are of the Pharisees kind, who boast of their seeing, as generally is the case with them, and presume upon it. There are among those who see not, such as do not attain to seeing through Christ; and the not seeing has its own peculiar dangers and hindrances—such, for instance, as dull indifference. So there are among those who see, such as make, like Nicodemus, their seeing an advantage, to whom their intellectual knowledge forms a bridge to the spiritual. But this remains always and everywhere true, that the seeing is not itself an absolute good. Our saying points emphatically to the great dangers of culture and knowledge in all ages—dangers, however. which are specially great in times when knowledge has taken a direction estranged from God. According to the general interpretation, the seeing are such as are reputed, or repute themselves, to see, but do not see in reality. This interpretation is not only opposed by the plain expression, in which the Saviour speaks simply of those who see, but also by a series of parallel passages which are obviously written and to be read under the same aspect. To the seeing here correspond the wise and prudent in Matthew 11:25. They were manifestly those who, in opposition to the uncultivated multitude, were enlightened; those who had the key of knowledge, Luke 11:52. When the Lord, in Matthew 9:12, says, Οὐχρείανἔχουσινοἱἰσχύοντεςἰατροῦἀλλʼ ? οἱκακῶςἔχοντες, it is plain that the whole are not those who fancy themselves whole. They are those who keep themselves far removed from a manifest life of sin. The parable of the prodigal son places this matter clearly before our eyes. But behind the relative soundness there may lurk concealed a much worse disease. There is the danger of forgetting that the soundness is only relative; and of coming to despise the true means of help for the deeply hidden malady and peril. So even in Luke 5:32, where the Lord says, Οὐκἐλήλυθακαλέσαιδικαίουςἀλλὰἁμαρτωλοὺςεἰςμετάνοιαν, the righteous are not merely the imaginary righteous. The Pharisees were really righteous in relation to the publicans and harlots, and the Jews in relation to the Gentiles; but such righteous persons “who need no repentance,” Luke 15:7, are, as is emphatically shown in Ecclesiastes 7:15-17, in many respects worse than open sinners, because they will not admit the regeneration, because they are always filled with pride and presumption, and everywhere inclined to act as judges and condemn others. Beneath the plus there is concealed, in all such quasi-righteousness, a most miserable minus. Such a righteousness, although not a mere imagination, may under certain circumstances prove a great and insurmountable obstacle to salvation. Ver. 40. “And some of the Pharisees which were with Him heard these words, and said unto Him, Are we blind also?” Jesus was here, as usual in His exits, surrounded by an immense multitude: comp. ch. John 10:19-21. Among these were found a number of Pharisees who were wont to follow the Lord as spies, and watch all His steps and movements: Luke 11:54; Luke 14:1. These well understood that the declaration of Jesus bore the character of a challenge, and was meant for them. They also rightly discerned that, if they were to become blind through Christ’s manifestation, it must follow that they had been before, although in a certain sense seeing, yet in another and more important sense, blind; just as in Matthew 15:14 they were exhibited as blind leaders of the blind, apart from their relation to Christ, through which they only became more blind. For nothing but such a previously existing blindness could, as being misunderstood and denied, bring down upon them the judgment of blindness. And it was this charge on the part of Christ that excited the pride of the Pharisees to the extreme of rebellion. But this moral perturbation was itself a proof how well grounded was the reproach. “It was a manifest sign of their blindness,” says Quesnel, “that they knew not that they were blind.” It is altogether a mistake to interpret, “They thought they were reckoned amongst the not seeing, who stood in need of spiritual help from Jesus.” Such intellectual misunderstandings among the men who “saw,” are at once to be rejected. The weakness of the Pharisees was always in the spiritual domain. Ver. 41. “Jesus said unto them. If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.”—“Jesus,” observes Lyser, “does not retract what He had said, but rather charges them with a double blindness; one through which they saw nothing in spiritual things, and another through which they did not understand that they Mere blind.” This deeper blindness Jesus had already, in ver. 39, laid to their charge, so that He here only sincerely holds fast what He had there asserted. “If ye were blind,” is accordingly equivalent to “If ye merely suffered under that simple blindness which is the universal disease of human nature, blind from the birth,” “ye would not have sinned,” that is, no special sin, none of all-penetrating significance: comp. ch. John 15:22; John 15:24. That Jesus does not intend to withdraw natural blindness from the region of sin, is shown by “your sin remaineth.“ Accordingly, the “ye would have no sin “is equivalent to “no abiding, unpardonable sin.” The “your sin abideth” forms the antithesis to “his righteousness endureth for ever.” which, in Psalms 112:3; Psalms 112:9, is said concerning the devout man; it is parallel with “it shall not be forgiven, neither in this world nor in the world to come” of Matthew 12:32, and “ye shall die in your sin “of John 8:21. As in this last quoted passage, so in the present one, sin means the aggregate guilt of sin. And with the sin the corresponding wrath of God bears a permanent character: comp. ch. John 3:36. The ïὖ ?í, which Lachmann brackets and Tischendorf omits, occurs so disproportionately often in John, that Greek transcribers must have felt a strong inclination to strike it out. Our Lord takes occasion, from the conflict with the Pharisees to which the healing of the blind man had given birth, to establish His whole relation to them. In ch. John 10:1-18, He exhibits Himself as the good Shepherd, in opposition to them as wicked shepherds. And this relation of opposition rests upon an Old Testament basis. Jeremiah, in ch. Jeremiah 23:1-8, places Messiah the good Shepherd in contrast with the evil pastors who destroyed and scattered the sheep of the Lord’s pasture. There the wicked pastors are primarily wicked kings (see the Christology on the passage); but in the time of Christ the place of these was taken by the Pharisees, in whose hands was for the most part all the civil authority that still existed. Ezekiel follows Jeremiah in his prediction concerning the prophets of Israel, ch. 34. Destruction is prophesied against the wicked shepherds, the perverse rulers of the people; and salvation is promised to the lost sheep of Israel through the Lord, who would Himself assume the pastoral office over them, and guide them by His servant David. There we read in ver. 23, “And I will set up one Shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even My servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.” Jeremiah and Ezekiel are followed by Zechariah in ch. 11. Israel, devoted by God’s judgment to destruction, appears there as a flock doomed to slaughter. The angel of the Lord takes to himself the shepherd office over the poor, and arouses himself to deliver them from the evil pastors who lead them to destruction. But the rebellion of the wicked shepherds, and of the flock also, constrain him to give up his charge to the full misery which only through him had been hitherto averted. To these prophecies of the Old Testament, our Lord’s discourses in the other three Evangelists often recur. With allusion to them. He declares Himself to be sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and exhibits Himself as the good Shepherd, Luke 15:1-7. John 10:1. “Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that entereth not by the door into the sheep-fold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.” With reference to the “verily, verily,” Quesnel observes, “All is truth in the words of Jesus Christ. But when He points expressly to that fact, it shows either that what He says is of especial importance, or that the human spirit is especially prejudiced against it.” “With this high assurance,” says Heumann, “our Lord never begins a discourse.” And the strict connection of what here follows with what had preceded, is plain from this, that the αὐτοῖς, to them, in John 10:6, refers back to ch. John 9:40. The people of God frequently appear in the Old Testament, following Psalms 23, under the figure of a flock; e.g. in Micah 7:14, Ezekiel 34:31, “And ye My flock, the flock of My pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord God.” As the members of the Church of God are the sheep, so the sheep-fold is the kingdom of God. The door is the Divine calling: that this is with God, Christ continually declares throughout the Gospel of John especially, and grounds upon it His own authentication; e.g. ch. John 5:36-37, John 6:29, John 7:28-29, John 8:42, and compare what is said upon ch. John 3:17.—“I came from God, neither came I of Myself, but He sent Me:” whosoever can say that with Christ, enters through the door into the sheep-fold. Who those are that go not in through the door, is made clear by Jeremiah 23:21, where it is said, with reference to the false prophets, “I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran; I have not spoken unto them, yet they prophesied;” and in Jeremiah 23:32, “Yet I sent them not, nor commanded them; therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord” (comp. also ch.Jeremiah 14:14, Jeremiah 27:15, Jeremiah 29:9); and also by Ezekiel 13:2, where the false prophets are said to “prophesy out of their own hearts,” and to “follow their own spirit:” comp. John 10:17. The Divine mission is also in Romans 10:15 made prominent as the indispensable condition and foundation of ministry in the word: πῶςδὲκηρύξωσινἐὰνμὴἀποσταλῶσι. What is here said with formal generality, must be taken concretely according to the matter in hand. For the general propositions are, in this and the following verses, uttered with reference to the definite relations of those to whom our Lord is speaking. He that entereth not in by the door, and is consequently a thief and a robber, is the Pharisee who, like the false prophets of old times, set himself up as a spiritual leader of the people on his own impulse, and without any Divine vocation. How the existence of a Divine call may be known, the Lord teaches us in Matthew 7:16, where He says in reference to the Pharisees, the false prophets of the present, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” These fruits consist in pure doctrine and in holy life. Where these are not found, but instead of them error, pride, ambition, avarice, there can be no Divine vocation. And the Pharisees had on the present occasion sufficiently shown what their fruits were, and consequently how the matter stood with regard to their Divine vocation. They had striven to extinguish the pure light of the act of God accomplished by Christ: they had placed themselves as obstacles between Christ, the highest Sent of God, and the people; they had shown themselves to be blind, who yet maintained that they saw. It is altogether confusing to suppose that Christ is the door, and to support this by saying that in ver. 7 He expressly so expounds it, in consequence of the misunderstanding of His hearers. That verse is not the exposition of our present parable, but introduces a new one. Nor is it the door of the sheep-fold that is there spoken of, but the door of the sheep; not of the manner in which vocation to service in the kingdom of God is obtained, but membership or fellowship in the kingdom of God.—“The same is a thief and a robber.” The worst thieves and robbers are those who seize upon the possessions of the kingdom of God, who deal dishonestly with the truth and with the salvation of souls; and this is done by all who thrust themselves without vocation forward as guides in the kingdom of God. We read of wicked priests in Hosea 6:9, “And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of the priests murder in the way to Shechem;” that is, they are not better than common murderers who lay in wait for poor wanderers in the way to Shechem, that led across the mountain range of Ephraim. He that causes many to stumble at the law, as in Malachi 2:8 is charged upon the priests, steals and robs from the people their noblest goods, more precious than gold and much fine gold. Ver. 2. “But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.” The undertone is, “And thus I am the true Shepherd, because I have entered in through the door of Divine vocation, and have been sent to the lost sheep of Israel by God.” All Christ’s ministers and under-shepherds must test themselves by what Christ, their Master, here says concerning Himself. “We have in these words,” says Quesnel, “the tokens and properties and obligations of a good pastor. The first is his legitimate entrance through the internal vocation of Jesus Christ; that is, through impulses which proceed from His Spirit, aims which tend only to His glory, motives which seek only the good of His Church and the salvation of souls, the accomplishment of the will of God, perfect consecration to His service, and the benefit of the least of His sheep.” Ver. 3. “To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.” The porter is God, who opens to the true Shepherd, Christ—in whom the ideal person of the good Shepherd is realized—an entrance into men’s hearts. The expressions of ch. John 6:44 furnish a commentary here: “No man can come to Me, except the Father, which hath sent Me, draw him; “as also ver. 45: “Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto Me.” We must not suppose that such a comparison with a door-keeper is unworthy of the Divine Being. It is not God in His personality who appears under the figure of a porter; but God as exercising a specific function and influence. And how low the Scripture goes in such comparisons, is shown by Hosea 5:12 : “Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah as rottenness,” where not God in Himself, but in His destroying energy, is compared to the moth and the worm. So also the comparison with a lion, in ver. 14, is embarrassing, if we forget that it only refers to a specific action. Acts 14:27 gives us a parallel, so far as the expression goes, ὁθεὸςἤνοιξεντοῖςἔθνεσινθύρανπίστεως; John 16:14. It is not so obvious to refer the porter to the Holy Ghost; that would point us rather to counsel and teaching. But it is according to the doctrine of Jas 1:17, where every good gift is finally traced up to God for its origin. We are indeed taught by chap. John 16:13 that it is the Holy Ghost who leads us into all truth. But the Father worketh, as through the Son, so also through the Holy Ghost. It is clear, however, that the activity which is spoken of here is not assigned to God in contradistinction to Christ: this is evident from what was said upon ch. John 6:44, and is further confirmed by Acts 16:14, where the same activity is attributed to the Lord that is, according to Acts 16:15, to Christ. Here lies the truth of the remark of Cyril and Augustin, that Christ is His own porter. But a direct reference to Christ is as inappropriate as a direct reference to the Holy Ghost. That the sheep hear the voice of the good Shepherd, is an immediate consequence of the fact that the porter opens the way to Him. “And He calleth His own sheep by name.” His own sheep are not here placed in contrast with other sheep that are not His. For all sheep, as such, are His own, and in this lies the reason of that tender relation in which He stands to them, as contradistinguished from that of the hireling whose the sheep are not, and who consequently has no care for them, ver. 12; and especially from that of the thieves and robbers, ver. 11, for whom the sheep have value only so far as they can gratify their selfish desires upon them. At the foundation of all lie those passages of the Old Testament in which Israel is represented as the peculiar possession of Jehovah: comp. on ch. John 1:11. And these passages concur all the more expressly with our present one, inasmuch as Jehovah appeared in the flesh in Christ; and even in the Old Testament, not all the bodily descendants of Israel were the possession of God, but only the devout, the true Israelites: comp. on ch. John 1:48. To “He calleth them by name” corresponds in ver. 14 the “I know My sheep.” The name is the expression of the personal individuality. If the good Shepherd knoweth each, it shows that the individual named is more to Him than a mere member of the species, and as such insignificant; but that he is in himself an object of the discerning and loving regard of his Lord, as Jesus in ch. John 20:16 summed up all that Mary was to Him in the naming of her name. This is the peculiar significance of the mention of the name throughout the whole Old Testament, wherever it there occurs. On Psalms 147, “He telleth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names” (comp. Isaiah 40:26, “that bringeth out their host by number: He calleth them all by names”), it is remarked in my commentary, “Counting is connected with naming, which presupposes a thorough knowledge of the nature and peculiarity of the stars (and a loving regard of them), the reflection of which is the name.” In Exodus 33:12; Exodus 33:17, “I know thee by name” is parallel with “thou hast found grace in My sight.” In Isaiah 43:1, “I know thee by name” is followed by “thou art Mine.” “And He leadeth them out:” ἐξάγει is a pastoral expression. He leadeth them out that they may find pasture, ver. 9, “and want nothing,” Psalms 23:1, but have life and abundant sufficiency. That which Jesus here says concerning His sheep, who hear His voice and yield themselves up to His care, forms at the same time His account and explanation of the fact that the greater portion of the people rejected Him. Had this rejection been perfectly unanimous. He could not have been the true Messiah. The existence of an election was the necessary seal set upon His Divine mission. And this election is expressly mentioned as early as Zechariah 11:11. In opposition to the wicked shepherds and those adhering to them, concerning whom it is said in ver. 8, “And My soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred Me,” ver. 11 declares, “And so the poor of the flock that waited on me knew that it was the word of the Lord.” On this my Christology remarks: “From these words it appears that the labours of the good Shepherd were not entirely vain, but that a little band of true disciples attached themselves to Him. These (the ἴδιαπρόβατα, who follow the true Shepherd, John 10:4, but flee from the hireling shepherd, ver. 5, who know the true Shepherd, ver. 15) are described as those who observed Him, who continually directed their looks to Him, and did all things according to His will and direction.” Ver. 4. “And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.” Instead of πρόβατα, Lachmann and Tischendorf read Travra. This is not spoken of “the living and affectionate fellowship which subsists between the guides appointed by Christ over God’s people, and God’s people themselves; “but Christ alone is the good Shepherd. On “and the sheep follow Him” rests Revelation 14:4, “These are they who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.” Ver. 5. “And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.” The stranger is the Pharisee, and, as represented by him, all the enemies of Christ, the good Shepherd. The stranger is the intruder, whose own the sheep are not, and who hence has no heart towards them. Our expression contains a prophecy of the perfect separation of the Church of Christ from the synagogue entirely ruled over by Phariseeism. In the time when John wrote, this prophecy was already accomplished. Judaism was in direct antagonism to the Christian Church: comp. on ch. John 1:19. In Revelation 2:9; Revelation 3:9, the former is exhibited as the synagogue of Satan. The strangers, consequently, afterward returned with their teaching into the bosom of the Christian Church. “A good shepherd,” says Quesnel, “is never forsaken of the elect sheep. They know, through the light of the chief Shepherd, and by the marks which He has given, how to distinguish true pastors from thieves and robbers.” And Anton observes: “The sheep would be ill off if spiritual discretion were made dependent upon marvellous strange things, unheard-of novelties, knowledge of Latin, and the like. I know what presses on my soul, what can satisfy my hungry soul; and thus I know when it is shown me the true salvation from its misery.” But the essential antithesis here is between Christ and the stranger. The true servants of Christ come into view only so far as Christ Himself is manifested m them, and is known by His sheep. Ver. 6. “This parable spake Jesus unto them; but they understood not what things they were which He spake unto them.”—Παροιμία occurs in none of the Evangelists but John: the others have παραβολὴ, which he never uses. As ξωμ is translated in the Septuagint by both these words interchangeably, we cannot assume that there is any real distinction between them. We read, in Matthew 21:45, “And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard His parables, they perceived that He spake of them.” The Pharisees doubtless perceived the same thing here. They must have been the exact opposite of the “seeing” which described them in ch. John 9:39—they must have been absolutely stupid-if they had not marked that Jesus would represent Himself as the good Shepherd, and them as the strangers and thieves and robbers. This would all the less escape them, inasmuch as the present incident was only one single act in a conflict which was personal throughout, and m which all referred to the antithesis between Christ and the Pharisees; in which all His symbolical language was not uncommon, but moved within the domain of the Old Testament, and found its commentary in passages of the Old Testament already often adduced,—only although they felt the sting, they could not in the essential matter understand Him, or the meaning of His words: comp. on ch. John 8:27. They were without the true insic.ht into their own wickedness and misery; and consequently it was altogether unintelligible to them how they could be described by Him as thieves and robbers. They were without the true insight into the dignity of Christ; and consequently what He said concerning Himself as the true Shepherd was altogether impenetrable. Thus Augustin gives what is essentially the true meaning: Christum negando nolebant intrare servandi sed foris remanere perdendi. There is a total misapprehension at the bottom of the following remark: “The Pharisees did not understand what He spoke to them allegorically; and therefore (οὖν) Jesus found Himself necessitated to explain to them the main point, on the right understanding of which all depended,—that is, what was the meaning of the door.” It was not our Lord’s custom to explain His parables to His enemies: that He reserved for the disciples alone. Ver. 7 cannot contain the interpretation of the door in ver. 1; for it does not speak, like ver. 1, of the door of the sheep-fold, but of the door of the sheep. Ver. 7 does not usher in an exposition of the first parable, but an independent second discourse. Οὖν must not, especially in John, be pressed so hard. It very often marks nothing more than a transition. But if its full meaning must be laid upon it, then their not understanding is by it declared to be the reason why Jesus continued to impress upon their hearts the same truth in another form. Ver. 7. “Then said Jesus unto them again. Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.” Wherefore does Jesus give them in a different shape, and a second time, the truth which they had shown themselves incapable of understanding? Ch. John 9:39 gives us the answer. He would thereby make the judgment of their blindness more complete. And this obviously did not exclude the saving influence of His words upon individual susceptible minds, comp. ver. 21; and then we must remember that the words addressed to them were not designed for them alone. They belong to the Christian Church of all ages. The “verily, verily,” points back to ver. 1, and shows that this is a truth corresponding to that which was there spoken, which to deny or to detract from in any degree is blasphemy. Lampe: Hoc unicum fundamentum omnis fidei, omnis spei, omnis consolationis electorum est. That the door of the sheep is the door for the sheep, the medium of their entrance into the sheep-fold, the means of their participation in the kingdom of God and its blessings, is shown plainly by vers. 8-10, especially ver. 9. This last gives the precise explanation of the sense in which Jesus terms Himself the door of the sheep. Expositors would never have thought of understanding by the door of the sheep the door to the sheep, had not the unlucky identification of the door in ver. 7 with the door in ver. 1 blinded their eyes to what is as clear as the day. There is, indeed, a connection with the door in ver. 1, but it is to be looked for rather more deeply. In ver. 1, Jesus had spoken of the door for the shepherds,—that is, their divine vocation; here He speaks of the door for the sheep,—that is, Him who was chosen of God. The door and the door correspond. In Christ’s mission from God lies the assurance that without Him there can be no entrance into the kingdom of God. Grotius has rightly given the connection of this verse with the other: Superiore similitudine non exposita aliam affinem orditur. And so also Heumann: “But when he says, ‘Then said Jesus unto them again,’ he gives us to understand that the Lord by a new discourse would show them who He was; that is, as Peter showed, in Acts 4:12, that there was no other than Himself by whom they might attain salvation.” When Jesus here says, “I am the door,” He places Himself in opposition to the Pharisees, who gave themselves out to be the door, and thereby denied that Christ was the door. The following verse shows this still more clearly. Ver. 8. “All that ever came before Me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.” Before He further dilates upon the clause, “I am the door of the sheep,” our Lord denounces and repudiates those who were His rivals in the honour of being the door; just as underneath the very words, “I am the door,” there lay the denial, “ye are not.” After repelling them, He reassumes the “I am” in ver. 9. “All,” or “as many as” came before Me, excludes all notion of a rhetorical or popular manner of speaking. “Who came before Me,” that is, supplying from what goes before, as the door of the sheep; and this supplement is confirmed further by the fact that this negation is presently followed in ver. 9 by the positive declaration, “I am the door.” Anton is perfectly right in saying, “Since shortly before in ver. 7, and presently afterwards in ver. 9, the ἐγώεἰμι, stands—and Christ thus opposes Himself to them—the context shows that He speaks of later messiahs, who only mock their souls, but do not supply them with what they need and long for.” The supposition of some of the fathers, as Chrysostom, that the clause must be limited to those who pretended to be messiahs, such as Theudas and Judas of Galilee, contains an element of truth. But we must not so much think of these obscure deceivers as of the Pharisees. Herod sought, in a certain sense, to set himself in the place of Christ. His temple-building had reference to Haggai 2:7, and proceeded from the design of bringing the desired “end of the days” into the present time: comp. my Christology on the passage. But it was in a much more extensive manner and degree that the Pharisees usurped a messianic position. In the properly spiritual domain, there was no room left for Christ to act. He served them only as the means for the subversion of the Roman dominion; and if He aimed at anything beyond that, they rose against Him in fanatical hatred. They had already exalted themselves into the dignity of door of the sheep: they opened and shut, at their own caprice, the door of the kingdom of God: comp. Matthew 23:13, and John 9:22. They claimed for their human ordinances an absolute authority; they bore themselves, not as servants, but as masters and fathers. Matthew 23:8-10. The Temple was always to them the centre of the Church; the Mosaic sacrificial system, which was entirely in their hands, and had, under their perverseness, lost its original character, was to them quite sufficient for the purposes of atonement; and whosoever questioned that, or the central position of their high priest, was to them an accursed heresiarch. As they constituted the then existing manifestation of antichrist—just as afterwards the Roman power—the conflict between them and Christ was a conflict of life and death for dominion; and the declaration, “I am the door,” must necessarily have been here encountered by the same negation which is heard so plainly and expressly in Matthew 21:38. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves. This is the heir: come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. Such a manifestation had never existed before the Pharisees. Moses and the Pharisees, to whom the Manichees foolishly made our present passage apply, arguing from it that they were not sent from God, August, c. Faustum, i. 2, c. 4, never made any pretension to being the door of the sheep; they made themselves no more than servants of God who showed the way of salvation, only organs and media of Divine influence. Quite otherwise was it with the Pharisees, who arrogated for their human traditions and for themselves an absolute authority, and who exalted themselves into rulers of the faith. When we limit the apparently too general expression, which manifestly the connection restricts to the wicked shepherds of Israel in Zechariah 11:8,—the counterpart of “I am the door,”—we are saved from the necessity of a series of untenable suppositions. The absence of πρὸἐμοῦ in many Codd. is only a clumsy attempt to turn aside the blow from Moses and the prophets. The assertion that “the expression is popular, and not to be pressed,” which is refuted by the ὅσοι added to the πάντες, is only an indirect confession of helpless embarrassment. The remark, that “the most obvious limitation which we can make is to the contemporary order of teachers,” has in the εἰσί no support; for those who had borne the same character at an earlier date are thieves and robbers: the condemnation is not passed upon their historical existence, but upon their permanent character. And such a restriction yields no real advantage, since it must come into collision with the claims of John the Baptist. Finally, to assert that the expression is unusually harsh becomes quite needless so soon as we understand that, according to a true exposition, only the Pharisees were included in it—they being the only ones who among the Israelites pretended to be masters of faith. We have then the counterpart in Matthew 23 and Matthew 7:15, where the Pharisees are termed ravenous wolves; in Matthew 9:36, according to which the people in the time of the dominion of the Pharisees were like sheep without a shepherd. The ἦλθον points to the fact that the Pharisaic usurpation had begun before the coming and manifestation of Christ; the εἰσί, to the fact that it still continued in the present time. Yet, as we have already shown, the εἰσί is not to be limited to the manifestations of the present. Thieves and robbers: equivalent to destroyers. Grotius compares Jeremiah 23:1, “Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture! saith the Lord;” and Ezekiel 34:2-3, “Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock.” Through God’s providence it came to pass that, in the last days of the Jewish state, Pharisaism degenerated into an open and common character of robbery. In the words “but the sheep did not hear them,” the sheep are the true members of God’s people: comp. on ch. John 1:48. Prophecy in the Old Testament distinguishes between the sheep and the goats: Ezekiel 34:17, comp. Hitzig. The man born blind gives us an exemplification of this sentence: all the persuasion of the Pharisees was thrown away upon him; they had to tell him, “Thou art his disciple; “and he definitively turned away from them, saying, “Lord, I believe,” and worshipped Christ. The Pharisees showed themselves to be thorough thieves and robbers by their machinations to separate him from Christ, the door of the sheep, the only source of salvation, and to bring him over to their own side. He becomes, as it were, a symbolical person, the representative of the not-seeing class, who are made to see by Christ, and by Him snatched from the vengeance of “those who see.” In the conflict of Christ and the Pharisees over this individual soul, the whole contrast comes out in full character. Ver. 9. “I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”—“I am the door” returns with strengthened emphasis after the wolves in sheep’s clothing have been repelled,—those wolves who had pretended to be themselves the door. By going out and in, Deuteronomy 31:2, Ps. 131:8, or, as it less frequently occurs, in the inverted order, Deuteronomy 28:6, Jeremiah 37:4, Acts 1:21, the phraseology of the Old Testament describes the whole commerce of life as it moves in the two spheres of the household and publicity. The unrestrictedness of the going out and in, points to the fact that, through their relation to Christ, the development of life has a free course opened before it. Jesus, assuring this unrestricted freedom by His guidance and guardianship, exhibits Himself as the true Joshua, according to Numbers 27:16-17; as the true David, 1 Samuel 18:16; as the true Solomon, 2 Chronicles 1:10, where Solomon says to the Lord, “Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people.” Finding pasture is afterwards explained by having life, and more abundantly. We may comp. Ezekiel 34:14, “I wall feed them in a good pasture;” Isaiah 40:11. All that the verse contains belongs, according to the unforced interpretation of the passage, not to the shepherd, but to the sheep. Ver. 10. “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” The thief is the Pharisee. Stealing, killing, destroying, are equivalent to fundamental destruction and ruin in spiritual and bodily respects: Matthew 23:14 shows that the latter is not to be excluded. Under the dominion of Pharisaism, the people of God were in every sense ἐσκυλμένοικαὶἐρριμμένοιὡσεὶπρόβαταμὴἔχονταποιμένα, Matthew 9:36. The original passages are Jeremiah 23:2, Ezekiel 34:2-3. When Jesus pledges to His sheep abundance, He exhibits Himself as the good Shepherd of Psalms 23, whose flock can say, “I want nothing,” ver. 1; “my cup runneth over.” ver. 3. Ver. 11. “I am the good Shepherd: the good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep.” The words, “I am come that they might have it abundantly,” in their reference to Psalms 23, return back from the figure of the door to the earlier figure of ver. 2, that of the good Shepherd, which the Old Testament makes still more familiar. The Lord first lays down the general proposition, “I am the good Shepherd,” and then developes it down to ver. 18, showing in what way He will approve Himself to be the true Shepherd. The article primarily notes the ideal person of the good Shepherd embodied actually in Christ. Luther’s translation, “a good shepherd,” is less inexact than on the first glance it might appear. But when Jesus presupposes this ideal of the good shepherd to be known to His hearers, He indirectly points to the Old Testament, on the expressions of which alone such a knowledge could rest. We must not limit ourselves to those passages of the Old Testament which refer—like those of Jeremiah 23, Ezekiel 34, and Zechariah 11, already considered—directly to the Messiah as the Shepherd of Israel. We must include in our range also those passages in which we read of David being a shepherd and feeding his flock,—of David, who should gloriously reappear in his greater descendant, 2 Samuel 7:8; Psalms 78:70-71; 1 Chronicles 11:2. So also the passages in which Jehovah appears as the Shepherd of Israel, Psalms 23; Isaiah 40:11; Ezekiel 34:11. That which the Lord in the Old Testament did to His people. He did by His Angel, His Mediator. Thus was His countenance turned upon His Church; and it was manifested in the incarnate Christ. In Christ, David and Jehovah are at once and at the same time exhibited, as is remarkably seen in Micah 5:4, where we read of Messiah as proceeding from Bethlehem, and_ thus belonging to the race of David: “And He shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God.” The great King of the lineage of David is so intimately one with God, that the whole fulness of the divine power and glory belongs to Him. If we ask what the passages were which the Lord had particularly in view, we must think first of Eze 34:23, “And I will set up one Shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even My servant David: he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd;” and then of Psalms 23. To this latter points, not only the “abundantly” of ver. 10, which is the positive side of the Psalms negative “want nothing,” but also the ὁκαλός. In Psalms 23 there is the full detail of all that a good shepherd does in all departments; this is the very essence of the Psalm. The Lord the good Shepherd is its theme. After Jesus had laid down this theme, He proceeds at once in its development to the supreme expression of His shepherd-fidelity, the most effectual means by which He approves His care of the sheep—the sacrifice of His life for them. All circumstances around concurred with the time to bring this near to His thoughts. As it respects the former, the wolf was directly before His eyes (comp. ver. 12); He had to do with those who were already concerting their plan to put Him to death, and to get the sheep in their own power. And as it respects the latter, the narrative has reached the last half-year of the life of Jesus: “Yet a little while am I with you.” He had said in ch. John 7:33, “And then I go to Him that sent Me:” comp. ch. John 8:21. The words are, “The good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. The expression, “laying down the soul for any one,” does not occur anywhere else independently in the New Testament. It is never found in profane writers; nor is it familiar to Hellenistic usage. It must be referred back to the Old Testament, and specifically to Isaiah 53:10, where it is said of Christ, “when He shall make, or place. His soul an offering for sin,”—that is, give His soul, for placing often stands in Hebrew for giving;—when He shall give up His soul as an offering for sin, or when He, the servant of God, shall present it as a sin-offering. This will be plain, if we consider: 1. Its Hebraistic character. We cannot tell what to do with the expression, if we do not take it back to the Hebrew. According to Lόcke and De Wette, θεῖναι is used in the sense of layingaside; but this is too negative. Manifestly the Hebraism place for give has passed over into the New Testament Greek; and this is confirmed by the parallel δοῦναιτὴνψυχὴναὐτοῦ, Mark 10:45; Matthew 20:28. 2. That the unusual phrase occurs in this one discourse of Christ no less than five times, with such evident design and such emphasis as cannot be explained save on the ground of its being a direct reference to an important passage of the Old Testament. 3. That the phrase is used by our Lord always, as by Isaiah, concerning His sacrificial death: comp. John 15:13 with this. The ὑπέρ of itself means only for, to the advantage of. But the expression, general in itself, obtains a more specific sense by its reference to the fundamental passage, Isaiah 53:10. There the offering of the soul of Christ is termed ΰων, satisfaction or compensation. He provides for the sins of men, which could not be forgiven without an equivalent, the offering which the sinners themselves could never have found,—and thus effects the justification of sinners before God. Christ is here said to lay down His life for the sheep: in ch. John 3:16, on the other hand, we read of the love of God to the world. But the benefit reaches only the sheep, equivalent to those who believe in ch. John 3:16. Thus in a certain sense it was displayed only to the sheep. But in another sense the whole world partakes the benefit, inasmuch as the way stands open to every one to become by faith one of the sheep. What our Lord says here is a sign to His servants also. “Those,” says Lyser, “who forsake their flocks in the time of persecution or pestilence or war, are reckoned amongst the hirelings, as we shall hear.” Vers. 12, 13. “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.” It is altogether wrong to make the hireling signify the Pharisaic misleader of the people. The Pharisee was rather the wolf: comp. Matthew 7:15, where the Pharisees are called λύκοιἅρπαγες. The sheep, the believers, were entrusted to the hirelings. But this will not suit the application to the Pharisees, to whom, in ver. 1, all Divine mission was denied, and who were described as thieves and robbers. If the Pharisaic leaders of the people were this hireling, who would be the wolf from whom the hireling should have protected the sheep? The hireling is no real antithesis to Christ, but merely an imagined contrast. It is equivalent to, “If I were a hireling, I should fly.” The person, here primarily only an imagined one, comes into reality in those ministers of the Church of Christ who fly at times and under circumstances when, according to Christ’s example, they should lay down their lives. They show thereby that they were not actuated by higher motives when they assumed the pastoral office,—the functions of which, until the time of danger came, they discharged with more or less semblance of propriety,—but only by motives of low selfishness. Augustin: Quis est ergo mercenarius? Sunt in ecclesia quidam praepositi, de quibus Paulus apostolus dixit: sua quaerentes, non quae Jesu Christi. Quid est sua quaerentes? non Christum gratis diligentes, non Deum propter Deum quaerentes, temporalia commoda consectantes, lucris inhiantes, honores ab hominibus appetentes. The good shepherd, the wolf, the hireling, are the three persons who are for ever recurring in the history of the Church: comp., in reference to the wolf. Acts 20:29. The wolf is the manifest enemy of the life which is from God, of that life which constitutes the substance of the Church: the hireling is the indifferent one, “serving his own belly;” and it is specified as the token of the hireling, that the sheep are not his own. As the hireling forms primarily only the antithesis of Christ, it is therefore presupposed that the sheep are Christ’s own. The Lord thus arrogates to Himself what in the Old Testament is appropriated to God alone: comp. on ver. 3, Psalms 95:7, “For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand;” Psalms 100:3, “His people, and the sheep of His pasture.” But this mark appears to refer to the faithful shepherds, as well as the unfaithful, of the Church apart from Christ, to the class “hirelings.” This, however, is only in appearance. The faithful shepherds are incorporated with the “chief Shepherd,” 1 Corinthians 12:12; they feed the flock in His stead, 2 Corinthians 5:20, and in His Spirit; therefore not ἰσχροκερδῶςπροθύμως, but προθύμως, 1 Peter 5:2. The property of their chief Shepherd, whose interest absorbs their life and energy, is in a certain sense their own property. The τὸἐνὑμῖνποίμνιοντοῦΘεοῦ of 1 Peter 5:2 seems to point to the internal connection between faithful pastors and their flocks, as resting upon their connection with Christ. Accordingly, the flocks are spiritually bound up with or contained in the pastors, as these are in Christ; and hence in the Apocalypse we find the churches addressed in the persons of their official ministers, called angels. Whether a man is a true shepherd or a hireling, becomes palpably certain at the time of crisis and danger; but he who looks deeply will discover it before that by many symptoms. Instead of τὰπρόβατα at the end of ver. 12, αὐτά might be the reading. But the employment of the noun gives more prominence to the fearful circumstance. Petty transcribers might have been puzzled by the fact that the pronoun comes first, and is then again followed by the noun: hence they have omitted either the αὐτά or the τὰπρόβατα. Christ, in that He did not, like a hireling, forsake the sheep in the presence of the wolf, and flee, presented Himself as the antitype of David; who, when he was tending his father’s flock, did not retreat before the lion and the bear, but manfully opposed them, and delivered the sheep from their hands at the peril of his own life, 1 Samuel 17:35 seq. Vers. 14, 15. “I am the good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine. As the Father knoweth Me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down My life for the sheep.” After Christ has distinguished Himself from the hireling, ver. 11 is resumed, with a parenthesis which gives the reason of His self-sacrifice: the tender relation of love, the internal fellowship, in which Jesus stands to His sheep, forms the foundation of the words, “I give My life for the sheep.” This relation is described by the terms knowing and being known; according to a phraseology which frequently occurs in the discourses of Jesus as recorded by the other Evangelists. In Matthew 25:12, the Lord says to the foolish virgins, Οὐκοἶδαὑμᾶς, I know you not; to those who merely cried Lord, Lord, in Matthew 7:23, Οὐδέποτεἔγνωνὑμᾶς, I never knew you. The present τίθημι, is recalled by the reference to the τίθησι of ver. 11. And this was the more obvious, inasmuch as the sacrificial death of Christ was at that time approaching with swift steps. Ver. 16. “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one fold, and one Shepherd.” Rupert von Deurtz rightly observes, that Jesus said this in order to intimate that He did not stand in need of the Jews faith; even if they did not believe, yet He had other sheep which He would bring into the same fold. He was richer than they thought. In Isaiah 49:1-9, the calling of the Gentiles had been brought into close connection with the unbelief of the Jews. There the idea was, that the Lord would give to His servant the heathen for an inheritance, in compensation for rebellious Israel. In ver. 4 we read, “Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent My strength for nought, and in vain; yet surely My judgment is with the Lord, and My work with My God;” in vers. 5, 6, “And now, saith the Lord that formed Me from the womb to be His servant, to bring Jacob again to Him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and My God shall be My strength. And he said. It is a light thing that Thou shouldest be My servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation unto the ends of the earth.” And this point of view is all the more appropriate here, inasmuch as Jesus is speaking primarily to embittered enemies, who prided themselves on their unbelief, and thought that they would thereby baffle His schemes. The glance which our Lord throws, in the interval between the two announcements of the sacrifice of His life, upon the future conversion of the Gentiles, presupposes that this very sacrifice would be the means of their conversion. In ch. John 11:52, John 12:24; John 12:32, also, we find the reception of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God placed in connection with the death of Christ as its cause. The “power” of which He speaks in Matthew 28:19, and which He makes the basis of His command to the disciples to go and disciple all nations. He received as the reward of His sufferings. In Ephesians 2:13, the bringing nigh of the Gentiles who were once afar off, is said to be “through the blood of Christ.” And in the prophecies of the Old Testament, the “sufferings and death of the servant of God are represented as the efficient cause of the return of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God. According to Isaiah 52:13-15, all the peoples of the earth, and all their kings, are exhibited as reverently submitting to the servant of God on the ground of the redemption accomplished by Him. In ch. Isaiah 53:10-12 we read: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him: when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed. He shall see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong.” That the death of Christ was something more than a mere calamitous event, than merely what He encountered in the way of His calling as a necessary infliction from the wrath of His enemies; that it had a propitiatory and substitutionary significance, is proved by these earlier passages of the Old Testament. But it is also explicitly contained in the present declaration of our Lord, who bases the reception of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God solely upon His own death. How can this be understood otherwise, than that by the death of Christ the hitherto closed way of access to the treasures of the mercy of God was opened? Sheep are always, in the discourses of Christ, the faithful members of the kingdom of God, the company of believers. When the Redeemer here speaks of sheep existing among the Gentiles, we are not to think with Grotius of such as were of a gentle nature, and as might encourage the hope that they would not despise the proffered Gospel. The solemn word of Christ in ch. John 3:6 opposes any such view of the natural preparations of a portion of the Gentiles: “that which is born of the flesh is flesh.” It ill accords with the picture given by the Apostles of the earlier conversation of the converted heathen, Ephesians 2:1 seq. (dead in trespasses and sins; by nature children of wrath), John 4:17; 1 Peter 1:14, etc. Sheep they are called, not on account of any inherent fitness or preparation, but rather on account of the divine election, as κατὰτὴνἐκλογὴνἀγαπητοὶ, Romans 11:28, comp. Ephesians 1:4-5. In a strictly similar manner the Lord, Acts 18:10, says to St Paul in Corinth, “I have much people in this city.” When it is asserted that “the other sheep are not the Gentile masses,” the remark is correct; but it is equally true that the individual believers could be secured only through the masses having an entrance into the kingdom of God laid open to them. Instructive in this relation are the parables of the sower and the nets in Matthew 13; as also the parable in Matthew 22:1-14, which issues in the words, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” According to ver. 10, there are “bad and good” too in the Church which is to be gathered even from among the Gentiles. In that Church the Lord detects those who have not on the wedding garment. The analogy of the earlier economy leads to the conclusion that the kingdom of God under the new covenant will bear a mixed character. The great separation and sifting will take place only at the συντελείᾳτοῦαἰῶνος, the end of the present dispensation. Sheep from another fold are not spoken of; but other sheep who are not of this fold. There is but one fold, ἡαὐλὴτῶνπροβάτων, ver. 1, the kingdom of God, without any distinction between the Old Testament and the New. The Gentiles are introduced into a fold which had existed from Abraham’s time. Those from among the Gentiles who are children of God by election, belong, ch. John 11:52, to the dispersion, which is placed in opposition to the fold, and are called out from that dispersion by Christ. According to Matthew 8:11, many were to come from the east and the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God. According to Romans 11:17, there is only one olive-tree into which the Gentiles are grafted. According to Ephesians 2:12, the Gentiles are admitted into the commonwealth of Israel, from which they had been previously excluded. The habitual doctrine of the Old Testament is that of one congregation or Church of God, one Israel, into which the Gentiles were to be adopted in the time of the Redeemer. Abraham, in Genesis 17:5, is termed the father of many Gentile nations. Zion is declared in Psalms 87 to be the birth-place of the peoples. The reception of the heathen into the fellowship of Israel is thus described by Isaiah, in ch. Isaiah 44:5 : “One shall say, I am the Lord’s; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel.” In Isaiah 19:18, the converted Gentiles speak the language of Canaan. In Micah 4:2, many Gentile nations say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; for the law shall go forth of Zion.” In Zechariah 8:23, ten men of all the languages of the nations take hold of the skirt of one man that is a Jew, saying, “We will go with you; for we have heard that God is with you.” The Lord has other sheep. The converts from among the Gentiles are His before they are converted. This right to the heathen meets us in Psalms 2:8 : there the Lord speaks to His Anointed: “Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.”—“Them also must I bring:” that is, into this fold; and, as Bengel rightly supplements from the context, “through My death: “comp. ch. John 11:52. Many explain, “bring or lead as the shepherd, who goes before the sheep that follow, ver. 4.” But then there would not be one flock. Nor must we forget, “they shall hear My voice:” He bringeth them; for He calleth them to come into the fold; they hear His voice, and there is but one fold and one Shepherd. The interpretation bring is supported also by ch. John 11:52 : the συναγάγεινεἰςἕν there corresponds to the ἄγειν here. If they are brought into the fold, they are also brought together into one. The fold is the place of congregation. The δεῖ, must, points to the Divine counsel; which we must not hesitate to accept here, inasmuch as it was manifestly exhibited in the prediction of the Old Testament. “And there shall be one fold, one Shepherd.” Bengel: Haec unitas gregis, haec unitas pastoris coepit postquam bonus pastor animam suam posuit. The original scriptures are Ezekiel 34:23 : “And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even My servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd;” and Ezekiel 37:22; Ezekiel 37:24 : “And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all. And David My servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in My judgments, and observe My statutes, and do them.” These passages primarily refer to the abolition of the distinction between Israel and Judah, the union of both under Christ the good Shepherd; but that is only the special application of the universal truth, that the Redeemer of the future, the great Son of David, would seek all that was lost, and unite again all that had been divided. The Saviour does not arbitrarily enlarge the sense of those sayings; but He gives them a theological interpretation, while He carries back the specific meaning to its universal ground. Vers. 17, 18. “Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might 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.” The Jews thought they had Jesus in their own powder. That their attempt on Him was so easily successful, might naturally be perverted into a proof that His assertion of an internal union with the Father was based upon nothing but presumption. Jesus opens to them another aspect of the matter. In spite of their seeming independence, Christ shows that they were only passive instruments of His own will. His death He fore-announces as that of a voluntary self-sacrifice for the salvation of the world. It did not disturb His relation to the Father, but was rather the outflow of that relation. The declaration to Pilate, in ch. John 19:11, proceeds from the same ground as that of the present declaration of Christ. That which Pilate thought, “I have power to crucify thee,” the Jews on the present occasion thought also. And it is in perfect accordance with the present utterance, that Jesus, in ch. 18, before He permitted Himself to be taken, demonstrated by an actual and visible proof that He could, if He pleased, deliver Himself from His enemies; as also that upon the cross, when He both willed and knew the fulfilment of all things. He surrendered up His spirit into the hands of the Father, ch. John 19:30. But the expression we now consider had also another meaning; it was designed for the assurance and consolation of the disciples in the temptation which the death of Christ would bring to their faith: He would not die an enforced death, but offer Himself up voluntarily for the salvation of the flock. “Therefore My Father loveth Me:” love was the opposite of that wrath of God, of which the Jews regarded Christ’s death as the proof and sign. “In connection with the therefore,” says Anton, “we must observe what Isaiah says about the pleasure of the Lord prospering in His servants hands, because of the offering of His soul.” In ch. Isaiah 53:10 we read: “When His soul shall make an offering, He shall see His seed.” And especially Isaiah 53:12, where, after the prediction of the glorious and divine recompense, it is said to be “because He hath poured out His soul unto death.” “That I might take it again:” this is the design of the sacrifice. Jesus dies not simply In order to die, but that He might rise again and found His kingdom upon the earth: comp. ver. 16, John 12:24. The object of the Divine love was not the death of Christ in itself, but the death which He voluntarily underwent to this end. Augustin says, on the laying it down: Ego illam pono: non glorientur Judaei, saevire potuerunt, potestatem habere non potuerunt. Ἐξουσία is not authority here, but power, as in ch. John 19:10; Luke 22:53. The signification of an authority derived from another is not in the word itself, so much as in the word interpreted by the context. The context does not here give it such a meaning. The ἐξουσίανἔχω is immediately connected with the ἀπʼ ? ἐμαυτοῦ. But this absolute independence is not asserted as in the presence of the Father; but only in view of those who would take away the life of Jesus. This “commandment:”—to lay down My life, and to take it again. Vers. 19-21. “There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. And many 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!” Here we have the issue and compendium of the whole section from ch. John 9:1. The narrative of the healing of the man born blind explains it all; and to this fact the last words refer. Πάλιν points back to ch. John 9:16. There is no reason for limiting the Jews here merely to the Pharisees. It is not in itself probable that the present multitude consisted only of that party. The greater number were offended at Christ’s words. “They were,” says Anton, “words such as entered into the heart of the Israelite theology; but they were words such as had retained nothing of that theology but the outward form, and therefore they understood them not.” Δαιμόνιονἔχει (ch. John 7:20, John 8:48), and μαίνεται, He hath a devil, and is mad, are related as cause and effect. That they really meant possession by a devil, is proved by the following words, “Can a devil?” etc. But here, as ordinarily, there were found such as laid the words of Christ to heart, moved by the observation of the work which formed the starting-point of these words. They clung at first to a merely negative judgment, but there was more in the background. “Jam istorum ocull coeperant aperiri,” says Augustin. The Raising of Lazarus We begin here with the investigation of the question whether the sinner of Luke 7, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the sister of Lazarus, were different persons, or only different designations of the same person. The result of this inquiry is of great importance in the explanation of the present section. The more ancient material for its solution Deyling gives in his Observ. Sac. iii. 291 seq. Clemens Alexand. assumes only one anointing, which he ascribes to the woman who was a sinner. Tertullian says that the sinner, by the Washing of Christ’s feet, presignified and presymbolized His burial, and therefore identifies her with the sister of Lazarus. Origen (Tract. 35 in Matt.) remarks: “Many think that the four Evangelists have written concerning one and the same woman.” He himself declares against this opinion, though it was the current one of his time. The reason which he lays most stress upon,—“It is not to be thought that Mary who loved Jesus, the sister of Martha, who had chosen the better part, was a ‘sinner of the town,’”—exerts with most people a strong influence, although its force is destroyed by what the Saviour, who came into the world to save sinners, the friend of publicans and sinners, in Luke 7, says to the Pharisee Simon. (Lόcke, for example, says: “The word ἁμαρτωλός, in Luke 7:37, is so fatal to the identification, that a single glance at this hypothesis is quite sufficient.”) Irenaeus has been without reason quoted in favour of the distinction between the sinner and Mary. But Chrysostom, in the sixty-second Homily on St John, treads in the footsteps of Origen. “Mary,” he says, “the sister of Lazarus, who anointed Christ, is not the harlot, but a different person, honourable and excellent.” While to the Greek Church, with her predominant spirit variously touched by the heathen Greek morality, it must have been exceedingly hard to reconcile herself to the theory which identifies the sinner and Mary the sister of Lazarus, that theory found in the Latin Church, especially in consequence of the authority of Gregory the Great, absolute and universal acceptance. In the Breviary it is taken for granted that what is said of the sinful woman, of Mary Magdalene, and of Mary the sister of Lazarus, refers to one and the same person. The antiphone to the Magnificat in the Feast of St Mary Magdalene (22d July) runs thus: “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners; and He who did not scorn to be born of the Virgin Mary, did not count it unbecoming to be touched by Mary the sinner. This was that Mary whose many sins were forgiven because she loved much. This was that Mary who was thought worthy first of all to see Him who was raised from the dead.” In the Catholic Church of France there arose, in the seventeenth century, a very strenuous opposition to this theory. The defenders of the identity appeared, in the domain of learning, to be altogether vanquished. This went so far, that in a whole series of dioceses, with Paris at the head, the new editions of the Breviary were issued without those portions of the office of St Mary Magdalene which referred to Luke 7 and the sister of Lazarus,—a remarkable instance of the freedom which has always more or less opposed in that Church the intolerance of dead uniformity. Bat soon after this change a reaction took place, and the old Catholic view regained the predominance. In the theology of the churches of the Reformation, the current hypothesis was that the three persons were distinct. This was supported, among others, by Lyser, Calovius, and Bengel. It needs no proof that, with men of such views as theirs, the Pharisaic bias against the “sinner” exerted no influence. It was not until the Rationalist period that such a bias began to manifest itself again, and then a sentimental element entered into the question. A strong feeling of repugnance displayed itself against admitting the censorious Simon “into the loving company and household fellowship of the brother and sisters in Bethany.” If the sinner, Mary Magdalene, and the sister of Lazarus were identified, their family circle must be regarded with an essentially different consideration from that usually accorded. Martha must be connected with her husband, the repulsive and harsh Simon. Mary, whom we have been accustomed to regard as a silent soul involved in meditation, who has opened her pure heart to the Redeemer, “as the tender flowers silently unfold themselves to the sun,” becomes “a wild and tameless woman;” who first found in Christ stillness for her passions, and convulsively clings to Him still, lest the calmness of the waters of her soul should be exchanged again for tempest. Probably, too, Lazarus has undergone a similar development. He eats, after having led the life of the prodigal son, in the house of his brother-in-law, the bread of mercy; and she loves him, not on account of any natural worthiness to be loved, not as the type of those who continue in the grace of baptism, but like Him who has come to seek and to save that which was lost, and rejoices when He has found it. To some it is hard to accept all these changes. Others will love Bethany all the more, if an honest investigation should establish that the old idyllic view has rested upon illusion. It would then yield them pure consolation in the consideration of their own circumstances, and in the remembrance of melancholy passages of their own religious development. There have not been wanting those who have sought to mediate between these opposite views. At their head is Grotius, who on Matthew 26:6 maintains the identity of the sinner in Luke 7 with the Mary of Lazarus, but doubts whether this latter Mary were identical with Mary Magdalene. The reasons which he alleges for the now generally admitted identity of the anointing in Matthew, Mark, and John, and the now generally renounced identity of the anointing in Luke 7 with theirs, we shall proceed to consider; for the presentation of this argument forms an excellent preparation. “In Matthew and Mark,” he says, “everything coincides. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the accounts agree that the occurrence took place at a feast in the house of Simon; and that the woman came with an alabaster box of ointment, ἀλάβαστρονμύρου, from which she anointed Jesus. Matthew, Mark, and John agree that this took place in Bethany, at a feast; that the ointment brought by the woman was very precious; that she was therefore blamed among the disciples (John mentions Judas) as guilty of waste, under the pretence that the expenditure might better have been devoted to the poor; that Christ defended the woman, with the intimation that the honour had reference to His burial. These details are too specific and peculiar to have concurred at different times. Again, Luke and John agree that the woman washed Christ’s feet, and wiped them with the hair of her head, which was certainly so singular a proceeding, as not to allow the supposition of being repeated. Let it be added, that John gives this token as characteristic of Mary the sister of Lazarus, that she was the person who washed the feet of Jesus, and wiped them with her hair. But a thing which happened more than once, could hardly be mentioned as a sufficient distinguishing mark of any one.” We shall now proceed, first, to examine the reasons alleged against the identity of these seemingly different persons, and then proceed to an exposition of the reasons in favour of that identity. 1. It is asserted that chronological data will not allow the anointing in Luke to be one with the anointing in Bethany; and therefore that the sinner cannot be identified with the sister of Lazarus. “The anointing recorded in Luke,” says Bengel on Luke 7, “took place in a Galilean town before the Transfiguration, indeed before the time of the second Passover; while the other anointing took place at Bethany, six days before the third Passover.” But this argument rests upon the unsound hypothesis, that chronological principles must alone rule the order of events in the Gospel of Luke,—a view by which Bengel was so far led astray, as to assume that there was a double pair of sisters Mary and Martha, one Galilean, Luke 10, and another of Bethany, and which in other respects has introduced such inextricable confusion. Luke announces, in Luke 1:3, that he purposed giving the events in their order. But the analogy of the book of Judges teaches us that we are not to extend this purpose to every detail. The author of that book says, in the first words of it, that he intended to write what took place after the death of Joshua. But he then forthwith, throughout the first chapter, recapitulates events that occurred during Joshua’s life, which were of importance for the right understanding of events which took place after his death; and in Luke 2:6 seq. he returns back to the times of Joshua. The words, “And it came to pass after Joshua was dead,” at the beginning, were designed, therefore, only to lay down the rule, which would admit of exceptions where circumstances rendered them necessary. So also is it with Luke. The beginning and the end of his Gospel relate events in their chronological succession. But in the middle, after he has brought down the history to the verge of the Passion, between the active work and the sufferings of the Redeemer, we have in ch. Luke 9:57 to Luke 18:34, an entire circle of events which he did not purpose to adjust chronologically; thereby intimating, that in this section everything bears an indefinite character, so far as time and place are concerned,—a testimony against those who would enforce chronological rules upon matter that obstinately resists them. In this part of Luke’s Gospel, which is not fettered by chronology, and which is justified by the consideration, that in Holy Scripture everything gives way to edification, stands the narrative of the visit of Jesus to Mary and Martha, ch. Luke 10:38 seq. In reference to the chronological position of this visit we are left perfectly free: the writer gives us not the least intimation. But the same Spirit from whom proceeded the interpolation of this whole chronologically unconnected mass, manifests its influence in various ways, even in those parts which are chronologically connected. Luke even in them also combines the succession of time with the connection in the nature of the events: he introduces parentheses, and places things related by their character in juxtaposition. Such a parenthesis occurs in the narrative of the feast in the house of Simon the Pharisee, concerning the sinner and her anointing, ch. Luke 7:36-50. This is not an arbitrary supposition: it rests upon plain and obvious grounds. The narrative is given as an appendix to the Lord’s declaration in ch. Luke 7:34 : “The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!” The Pharisaic offence at “the friend of publicans and sinners,” could not be better exemplified than by this narrative. The catchword ἁμαρτωλός serves to connect the event related in its chronological sequence and the interpolation with each other. Thus the account of Luke’s anointing is perfectly free as to its chronological place: what that place is, must be found in the other Evangelists. Luke says nothing about the time of its occurrence. 2. “Martha and her sister,” it is said, “were of Bethany, but Magdalen of Galilee.” But there is no contradiction here. The name Magdalena certainly points most probably to Magdala as the home of Mary, and thus of Martha also,—a place mentioned in Matthew 15:39 as on the west coast of the sea of Gennesareth, a few miles from Tiberias, and now el Medschdel. The free communication between Jerusalem, in a certain sense the metropolis of the whole people, and the country, easily explains how Martha came to Bethany. Simon may have made her acquaintance at one of her visits to the feasts. With the change of her dwelling, the change of her designation would concur. The original name we know not. Martha, “the lady,” was certainly not her original name, but the honourable designation which was given her when she became the mistress of the rich Simon’s household affairs, just as in earlier days she who was called as a virgin Iscah (Genesis 11:29), obtained as Abraham’s wife the name of Sarai, “my dominion,” honourable lady. In Jerusalem the name Martha would not have been very distinguishing, only having value within the house; but it was quite sufficient for the little village of Bethany, where there was only one lord, the rich Simon, whose property was there, and also one “lady.” Mary had remained in Galilee, and there led a life of sin. After the Lord had cast seven evil spirits out of her, she had followed Him in His travels through Galilee, Luke 8:1-3. She could not separate from Him with whom she had received the death of her sinful passions. He had become the magnet of her life. Darkness came upon her inner being when she no longer saw this light. About half a year before His death Jesus had left Galilee. During the entire period between the last Feast of Tabernacles and the last Passover, He remained in Jerusalem and its neighbourhood (Bethabara and Ephraim). Mary had accompanied Him in the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, Matthew 27:55-56; Mark 15:40-41; Luke 23:49; Luke 23:55; John 19:25. What should she do in Galilee, when the “great light” which had risen upon the darkness of that country had retired from it? Nothing remained for her then but the remembrance of her sins. When Mary went to Judea, she was directed to take up her abode with her sister. There she could “sit still in the house,” and show that the words of Pro 7:11 no longer applied to her (“she is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house”); she could at the same time continue her communion with the Healer of her soul. The visit to the sisters which Luke 10:38-42 records, took place during the time of our Saviour’s abode in Jerusalem after the Feast of Tabernacles. That Jesus often went to Bethany, we learn from the history of His last days, when He was wont to pass the night in that village, after spending the day in Jerusalem. In Bethany Lazarus also had found a new home. That he abode in the house of his brother-in-law, and such a brother-in-law, leads us to the conclusion that he had adopted a similar course to that of his sister Mary; and this is confirmed by the special love that Jesus bore to him, Matthew 18:10-14; Luke 15:4-7; Luke 19:10. That his position in the house of his brother-in-law was a humble one, we may gather from the conduct of the latter to his sister-in-law; and we have a direct assurance of it in the parable concerning Lazarus. This parable, which Jesus probably delivered on the same occasion, forms the counterpart to the transaction between Jesus and Simon touching Mary Magdalen. 3. “If Luke,” it is urged, “meant the same woman, why does he designate her by different names, and speak no otherwise in chs. 7, 8, 10 than if he intended to introduce to us three different women? In ch. Luke 10:38 he speaks of Mary the sister of Lazarus as of one unknown, while in ch. 8 he had already referred to the Magdalen. Mary the sister of Martha is never termed Magdalene, and Mary Magdalene is never termed the sister of Martha or Lazarus.” This argument is at first glance very plausible; but it loses its force when we remark that the Evangelists, in their communications concerning the relations of Mary and Martha, were under a certain degree of restraint. As to the reasons of this reserve, we are left to conjecture. One reason was probably a regard for Gentile readers. In the writings of the Old Testament we meet with only exceptional instances of such regard—for instance, in the preacher Solomon. These writings were, as a whole, ignored by the Gentile world. But it was otherwise with the writings of the New Testament. They were written in the language then universal; and the tendency of the Christian Church, from the beginning, was to make incursions upon heathenism, while the Church of the Old Testament was content to maintain its own existence. The result corresponded with the design. It was natural that the spirit of defence in heathenism would fasten its keen observation on the written archives of the new religion, and use them in its own service. This being the case, it seemed perilous to lay open very explicitly the life of Mary; it might be surrendering to the rude mockery of the Gentiles one of the leading persons of Christianity, and with her the Christian cause itself. It seemed more appropriate to give mere hints, so that only the deeper investigators might understand the whole connection of things, which would remain hidden from superficial readers. A second design was, as it seems to us, one of pious respect to Martha. It was not desirable to expose to all the world the strange household relations in which she stood as the wife of Simon the Pharisee. But whatever view we may take of the reasons of it, the fact of an intentional reserve lies clearly before us; and with it the argument we now consider falls to the ground. Luke introduces to us in ch. Luke 7:36, “a woman which was a sinner.” That he knows her name, but will not mention it, is shown by what immediately follows, where he retrospectively, and with a secret hint, alludes to her name. When in ch. Luke 8:1 seq. he returns again to the chronological order, he makes mention of “certain women which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities,” placing at their head Mary Magdalene, “out of whom went seven devils.” There we have the “sinner.” But even in this gentle and prudently hinted solution of the mystery which the previous section presents, we have the same reserve again. The expression, which had already occurred in Mark 16:9, retains a certain ambiguity, so that it might be explained of an “infirmity,” a merely bodily infliction. The sin is at the same time disguised under the veil of this expression. Matthew and Mark record the anointing in Bethany as performed by “a woman.” That they know the name, and that it was concealed only for the time, is plain from the fact that they record the declaration of Christ, “Verily, verily, I say unto you. Wherever this Gospel shall be preached in all the world, there shall this that this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her.” Name and memorial are inseparably connected together. In John’s account of the last feast in Bethany, the giver of the feast is designedly unmentioned. “They,” it is said, “made Him a feast.” Lazarus was not the host; for he is expressly mentioned as one of the guests. Who the host was, is indirectly contained in the remark that “Martha served;” that is, according to New Testament phraseology, played the hostess. That Martha was married, is plain from her name: she appears as the head of the house in Luke 10:38, “A woman named Martha received Him into her house;” she requires of Mary only that she should lend her co-operation, and help her in her many cares as the mistress of the house. Bengel properly compares 1 Corinthians 7:32 seq. If Martha was the hostess, her husband must have been the host. His name had been mentioned already in Matthew 26:6, “When Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,” and in Mark 14:3. But there Martha is not mentioned, and the name of Mary is also wanting. John, on the other hand, omits to give the name of the host, although well known to him. We see that all the Evangelists have it in view, that the unpleasant family relations of this house should not, at the first glance, be laid bare, Simon is in Luke plainly mentioned, but not the husband of Martha. Luke isolates him, in order to show his title to make his comment. Never are Simon and Martha brought together in the narratives. We are obliged to supply the inference that he was the husband of Martha. The same design appears in John also, in the circumstance that in ch. Luke 19:25 he suddenly introduces the name of Mary Magdalene, without giving the reader any further intimation about her, without giving any answer to the obvious question as to her relation to Mary the sister of Lazarus. For the great mass of readers this relation was, for the time, to remain uncertain. For this there was probably another reason, in addition to those already suggested. Many readers would find more edification in these things when distributed among several persons, than when united in one. And the Evangelists would not prevent this. But, at the same time, care was taken that the true relation of things might be known by those to whom their occurrence in one person would not be an offence, but yield edification, who were thoroughly free from the Pharisaical spirit of Simon,—a thing more difficult than to many it might appear. That the Apostles themselves were not altogether free from this spirit, is plain from the fact that Judas was able to infect them with his murmuring displeasure. Had not Mary been a “sinner,” this would not have been possible. 4. “It is said concerning the sinner of Luke, that she was a woman in the city. The Mary of Lazarus, on the contrary, dwelt in Bethany, which is by Luke himself, in ch. 10, described as a village.” But there is no real contradiction in this. The connection in which Luke communicates the narrative of the sinner in ch. 7, as a mere appendage to the assertion that Christ was the friend of publicans and sinners, independently of all chronological sequence, of itself intimates that external relations would be given only in the vaguest generality. Exactness would in such a case be not an advantage, but a defect. Where the account was so general, Bethany might appropriately be spoken of as the suburb of “a city.” The article does not denote a definite city, but stands as often generically—the city in opposition to the country: so the mountain in Matthew 5:1, is really a mountain, and thus translated by Luther; and the ship of Mat 9:1, a ship. Bethany was a suburbium of Jerusalem: according to John 11:18, it lay “nigh to Jerusalem,” only 15 stadia removed; and the citizens had there their resort, according to vers. 19, 45, 46, and the narrative of the feast, Luke 11:37 seq. The property of Simon was related to the city, as a detached country-house to a village. Jesus was wont to retire there to spend the night during His last week. As here the city, in a wider sense, includes its surroundings, so Jericho is used for the district of Jericho in Matthew 20:29. Jesus had spent the night in the neighbourhood of the city. When he left that lodging, a blind man met Him near the city who sat and begged, according to Luke 18:35, who does not here contradict Matthew, but only, as a later writer, gives the more exact details. 5. “The sinner” comes, as Augustin says, first to Jesus, and obtains through her humiliation and tears the forgiveness of her sins. This seems to show that she must be distinguished from the sister of Lazarus, with whom Jesus at the anointing in Bethany was already well acquainted, and who was the only sister-in-law of Simon the leper, at whose house the feast was made. But Schleiermacher, in his work upon Luke, has shown in what difficulties we are entangled, if, deceived by appearances,—which here result from the fact, that Luke takes a particular incident in the life of the sinner, and interweaves it into a complete exhibition of Christ’s life,—we assume that the sinner had been hitherto a perfect stranger to Jesus and the circle into which she entered. “Is it indeed probable,” he asks, “that a respectable Pharisee at a great feast would have permitted entrance into the guest-chamber to a person whose reputation was so foul, and so justly foul, in the whole neighbourhood? The person who should venture on and accomplish such an act—without being rejected with abhorrence and removed, or appearing in a very adventurous and ridiculous light—must, on the one hand, have had a right to be there, and to enter among the guests, and, on the other, have stood in some well understood relation to Christ Himself.” The appearance as if the sinner now for the first time obtained forgiveness of sins, has arisen from the fact that Jesus defends her against the attack of her Pharisaic brother-in-law; as also that she had been constrained by the uncourteous conduct of this brother-in-law towards Jesus to give a new expression to the fulness of her heart’s love and gratitude towards Him, and thus to retrieve the Christian honour of the house. To Simon the Pharisee, Mary is never anything but a sinner. A supernatural gift he has never himself experienced in his own heart, and so can never acknowledge it in another. In opposition to his spiritual rudeness, Jesus confirms to the humiliated Mary, before all the guests, the forgiveness of her sins. A similar position to what he assumed towards his sister-in-law Mary, Simon assumed towards his brother-in-law Lazarus. The parable concerning Lazarus, which Jesus delivered probably at the same meal, is the counterpart of the colloquy between Simon and Jesus concerning Mary Magdalene. That this parable had a historical basis, was shown by the Fathers. If we deny the connection between John’s Lazarus and the Lazarus of the parable, we pave the way for modern destructive criticism, which uses the parable in order to bring into suspicion the historical truth of the narrative of John. It is a striking circumstance in itself, that any name is mentioned in the parable. This occurs in no other parable of the New Testament. But if Jesus had purposed to use a name, He certainly would not have used this one in particular, which must have made all think of the Lazarus so nearly related to Himself, if He had not had this same Lazarus in His eye. With the historical Lazarus, who dwells in the house of his brother-in-law, a rich man, and eats at his table, the Lazarus of the parable has this in common, that he satisfies himself with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table: the historical relation is presented to us here only with a poetical clothing. The Lazarus of the parable dies, and goes into Abraham’s bosom: and the starting-point for the poetry lies in the history itself. And even for the resurrection of the historical Lazarus we have a point of connection in the parable. It is said in Luke 16:31, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if one should rise from the dead.” This passage has close affinity with John 11:46, where we read, after the record that many believed in consequence of the resurrection of Lazarus, “But some went to the Pharisees, and told them what Jesus had done.” We may well assume that Simon was among the number of these. Even the name “leper,” which he bears in Matthew and Luke, awakens no favourable prejudice towards him. A man would not continue to be designated by such an opprobrious name, after being healed of the disease, unless his spiritual nature suggested a certain analogy with that disease. And what is recorded of him in Luke 7 excellently suits this name. If after the resurrection of Lazarus he retained the same disposition towards Christ which that narrative displays, where he denied to the guest obtruded upon him the most common courtesies, we may well rely upon it that he was the centre of what is recorded in John, ver. 46. Thus, probably, from the same house in which Mary sat at Jesus’ feet, and Martha served Him with joyful heart, where Lazarus dwelt whom Jesus loved, proceeded the first impulse to the Saviour’s death. It is obvious to assume that Simon nourished a mortal hatred towards Him who had disturbed the peace of his house, Matthew 10:34. Finally, even the five brothers in the parable belong, as Bengal perceived, not simply and solely to the region of fiction. The originals might well have sat at this same table. We have, in Luke 11:37 seq., yet another scene which seems to belong to this same feast. A Pharisee there also invites Jesus to his table: not a Pharisee like Nicodemus, but, as the conversation at the table shows, one of the ordinary stamp. There we have certain quite peculiar relations in the house of this Pharisee, such as could scarcely have been found in any other than the house of Simon. This circumstance leads us only to identify the house, in which probably the scene also of Luk 14:1-24 is to be placed, where Jesus is invited by one “of the chief Pharisees” to eat on the Sabbath. But while the latter scene probably belongs to the time of the abode of Jesus in Jerusalem, before the journey into the country beyond Jordan, John 10:40,—the same time in which the visit of Jesus to Mary and Martha, Luke 10, falls,—in Luke 11:37 seq. there are definite reasons which lead us to the last meal in Bethany,—namely, the fact that, according to ver. 49, this meal must have occurred in the last days of our Lord; and again, the coincidence of the discourses which Jesus uttered against the scribes and Pharisees with Matthew 23. The description of the vivid conflict of Jesus with His fellow-guests, the Pharisees and scribes, in ver. 53, 54, assures us of the originals of the rich man’s five brothers. This further sets aside the remark of Bengel, “Simon the Pharisee doubts whether Jesus were a prophet; Simon the leper could not doubt, in the presence of Lazarus raised up.” That he could doubt, is clear from John 11:46, according to which eye-witnesses of that resurrection told the Pharisees with an evil motive what Jesus had done; and that he did actually doubt, from the combination of the parable of Lazarus with this passage. That there must be a connection between Luke 16:31, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead,” and John 11:46, has forced itself upon the convictions of many expositors. Stier, for example, remarks on the latter passage, “Now Luke 16:31 has its impressive fulfilment;” which proceeds, however, upon the unfounded supposition that the parable of Lazarus belonged to an earlier period. The possibility of the doubt in itself could not, however, be denied. A Pharisee like Simon is a poor psychologist when the light side of human nature comes into question. He judges all things according to his own perverted heart, and after the fashion of his party, so rich in wiles and self-deception. A preconcerted plan between Jesus and the three Christian members of his household was to the cunning Jew the solution of the whole problem; and, in fact, he could not go further who was morally so low as not to recoil from the supposition of such a concerted scheme. 6. “The Pharisee Simon says, in Luke 7:39 : This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him; for she is a sinner. According to this, the sinner was till now unknown to Jesus, while the Mary of Lazarus had stood in the nearest relation to Jesus long before the meal at Bethany.” But we have already shown in what perplexities we involve ourselves, when we assume that this woman then for the first time entered into the presence of Jesus and the circle which joined Him around the table. The objection, however, is robbed of its point by observing that the word prophet here only includes the idea of holy man, and sent of God; and that the knowing here, as often, is not a merely superficial and purely theoretical knowledge, but real and practical—such a knowing as that of Isa 63:16, where Israel says to God: “Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer; Thy name is everlasting;” as also that of Hos 13:5. Simon does not stumble at Christ’s theoretical ignorance, but at the fact that He ignores and pretermits the earlier sinful course of this woman. It is not said in vain, “When the Pharisee, which had bidden Him, saw it.” It was as a Pharisee that Simon took offence at the conduct of Jesus. The whole narrative is recorded as an adjunct to the remark that the Pharisees took offence at “the friend of publicans and sinners.” If the knowing here is understood of being acquainted with the mere fact, Simon does not interpose as a Pharisee, and the connection with ver. 34 is lost. According to our view, we have here a distinct parallel to Matthew 9:11 : “And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto His disciples. Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners’?” 7. “At the anointing of Luke 7 no one murmured on account of the waste of the ointment; only the Pharisee thought within himself that Jesus, if a prophet, would not have let this woman touch Him; but in John 12. Judas murmurs on account of the waste of the precious substance, and Christ defends this act. In Luke, Christ instructs Simon in the nature of true love as the undeceiving sign and assurance of justifying faith, and announces to her who had anointed Him the forgiveness of her sins. In John there is nothing of all this.” But there is no contradiction here: nothing more than agreement and supplementing. The narrative of Luke was required by its object to bear a partial character. He gives it only as an illustration of the Pharisaic complaint against Christ as the “friend of publicans and sinners.” Weisse (die evang. Gesch. ii. s. 143) has rightly stated this one-sided characteristic of the narrative: “The peculiar essence of the narrative is brought out by the parable of the two debtors, with the appended application. Jesus would plainly show how a converted sinner—that is, one who knows and repents of her sins—is of more value than such righteous persons as have never attained to a true consciousness of their sinful condition.” A second scene which was enacted at the anointing—that which contains the displeasure and murmurings of the disciples, as already recorded by Matthew and Mark—it did not comport with Luke’s object to introduce. This scene stands in an internal connection with the former, as we have already intimated. After Simon’s assault upon the woman had been decisively repelled by our Lord, there arose a murmuring against her even in the circle of the disciples. These were disposed, after she had been so highly exalted by Christ, to prepare for her a slight humiliation; for they themselves were as yet not quite exalted above the prejudice excited by the fact that she had been such a sinner. John almost expressly points to the representation in Luke, when he describes the anointing in words taken from that Gospel; and he then supplements Matthew and Mark by the information that the centre of the opposition to Mary in the apostolical circle was Judas the traitor. This gives a very significant contribution to the understanding of the transaction. It suits well the character of Judas that he should come to the help of Simon, and lead up another seemingly justifiable assault against Mary. Simon and the son of Simon understand each other. The others, or at least several among them, are carried away by the specious argument; they exhibit the relics of a Pharisaical spirit still within them, and which could not be destroyed and entirely disappear until the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The collision between the believing and the unbelieving portion of the guests, inevitable at such a time of intense excitement, gave occasion to Jesus, during the progress of the meal, to deliver the parable of Lazarus,—in consequence, probably, of offensive allusions which Simon made to the disparagement of his brother-in-law, as he had formerly done in the case of his sister-in-law. And with all this there is abundant room also at this feast for what is recorded in Luke 11:37 seq. The intimation there, that the conflict began with the commencement of the feast, ch. Luke 11:38, completely coincides with Luke 7:45-46. We might expect a plenitude of events at a feast which occurs in the eventful period of our Lord’s last days. 8. Finally, “The sinner in Luke,” it is affirmed, “cannot be identical with Mary Magdalene. For what is said of the latter—that Jesus cast out of her seven spirits or ‘demons’—does not infer a life of sin, but rather a derangement for which she was not responsible. Where demons are introduced, possession, as commonly understood, is meant.” But the demons do not stand in any particular relation to possession: they everywhere signify the “angels of Satan,” Matthew 25:41, Revelation 12:7, whose ministry he uses for all his evil works. This appears most plainly in 1 Timothy 4:1, where the teachings of error are termed “the doctrines of demons,” thus ascribing to them an influence in the purely spiritual domain; and from 1 Corinthians 10:20, it is evident also, where the Gentiles are represented as sacrificing to demons, and not to God, and those who partake of Gentile sacrificial feasts as entering into the fellowship of demons. Here also the demons appear as presiding over a moral region, and from whom a kind of moral contagion proceeds. When James, ch. John 2:19, says, “The demons believe and tremble,” he evidently has in view the whole of the “spiritual powers of wickedness,” Ephesians 6:12. And when our Lord, in Matthew 9:34, describes Satan as the “prince of the demons,” He doubtless meant all the powers of evil spirits which exist apart from Satan, and not one individual class of them. We are led to the same result by the fact that the expressions, “evil spirits,” Luke 7:21, and “unclean spirits,” Matthew 10:1, Luke 4:33, Mark 3:11, are used interchangeably with demons. These expressions are too general to allow of their being restricted to any special classes of evil spirits. Moreover, to these “unclean spirits,” identical with the demons, there is expressly attributed by our Lord, in Matthew 12:43 seq., an influence in spiritual things: “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, etc.; then goeth he and taketh to himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself.” Thus the Lord speaks when depicting the growing depravation which would follow upon the beginnings of repentance among the Jews, who, in consequence of the manifestation of Christ, would degenerate into a “synagogue of Satan.” This passage is all the more important, since here, and in the whole New Testament only here, we find the seven demons or unclean spirits of Mary Magdalene recurring. But the fact remains, that throughout the Gospels the demons are commonly introduced with reference to so-called possession; while, on the other hand, the morally evil influences which come from hell are referred directly to Satan, who, for example, put it into the heart of Judas to betray the Redeemer, John 13:2, and enters into Judas, Luke 22:3. But this is explained by the consideration, that moral surrender to the dark powers, as being the more awful, leads the thought more obviously and directly to that “old serpent,” whose working was manifested in the moral region at the first commencements of human history. No unchangeable rule can be deduced from this. Even as possession in Acts 10:38 is referred directly to the devil, so in certain circumstances moral degradation may be represented as resulting from the influence of demons. The reason why this was the case with Mary Magdalene, we have already indicated. Thus there was a veil thrown over her former melancholy condition. These, then, are the reasons which may be urged against the personal identity of the Sinner, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the sister of Lazarus. It remains that we exhibit the positive arguments which support the hypothesis of that identity. If Mary Magdalene and the sister of Lazarus are made two persons, the latter was not present at the crucifixion, had no connection with the embalming (Mark 16:1; Luke 23:55 seq.), and was not amongst the witnesses of the resurrection. The place which we should assign to the woman so inwardly bound to the Lord, to Mary the sister of Lazarus living so near as Bethany, is everywhere appropriated to Mary Magdalene. At the cross there is only one Mary present, the wife of Cleopas, besides Mary Magdalene and the mother of Jesus, John 19:25. At the entombment of Jesus we miss the sister of Lazarus all the more, as she had, John 12:7, already presymbolized the burial of the Lord. Was she likely to have left the actual embalming to the hands of others? As Peter regularly stands at the head in the lists of the Apostles, so does Mary Magdalene when women are mentioned. This place of honour is given her in all the four Evangelists. Thus it is in the enumeration of the women who followed Jesus m Galilee, Luke 8:2; in the narratives of the crucifixion, Matthew 27:56, Mark 15:40; Mark 15:47; of the entombment, Matthew 27:61, Mark 16:1; of the resurrection, Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:9, Luke 24:10. The only exception is John 19:25. There, Mary the sister of the Lord’s mother is mentioned before Mary Magdalene. But this was done evidently to avoid sundering her from the previously mentioned mother of Jesus, who naturally took precedence of Mary Magdalene, and formed the centre of the occurrence there mentioned. How absolutely Mary Magdalene took the first place in John’s Gospel, is plain from ch. John 20:1; John 20:18, where she alone is mentioned, and those who accompanied her are left unmentioned. Now, if we distinguish Mary Magdalene from the Mary of Lazarus, and from the sinner of Luke, we lose all reason for such a distinction—the uniformity of which, however, shows that it, like the distinction of Peter, must rest upon some definite fact, and some express word of our Lord connected with that fact. For the isolated Mary Magdalene there remains no reason but this one, that Jesus cast seven devils out of her; but this is not sufficient. We need some fact which exhibits Mary as more than merely suffering and receiving. The anointing and the glorious commendation which Jesus gave her on occasion of it—this is the true solution of the mystery of the distinction of Mary Magdalene. The anointing in Bethany is recorded by Matthew, Mark, and John. We might naturally expect that Luke also would include it. For it was in reference to it that Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you. Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in all the world, this also that this woman hath done shall be told for a memorial of her.” But Luke contains this memorial, only if we recognise the identity of the sinner in ch. 7 with Mary the sister of Lazarus. John, in ch. John 11:2, gives it as a characteristic mark of Mary of Lazarus, that she anointed the Lord, and wiped His feet with the hairs of her head. But this token would lose its distinctiveness, if we suppose that another woman, the sinner in Luke 7, had performed the same act; and this passage excludes the notion of a double anointing on the part of Mary herself, for here only one anointing is spoken of. Had there been two, then, in the time that John wrote, the anointing recorded by him in ch. 12, and already before him by Matthew and Mark, would not less than the earlier have passed out of remembrance. John must then necessarily have separated off the one from the other. Moreover, we are otherwise involved in the greatest difficulties by the assumption that the one Mary anointed twice. What, once performed, was an expression of deep and true feeling, must partake, on repetition, of another and forced character. The whole transaction of the anointing is perfectly intelligible only if we combine all the elements which on the one hand occur in Luke, and on the other in John, as forming its conditions; and thus assign to it one motive, and rescue it, once only performed, from all imputation of extravagance on the part of Mary. The things to be assumed are, that Mary had been a sinner, and had found mercy through Jesus; that our Lord had given to her, feeling so deeply as she did her own un worthiness, the very highest proof of His love in the resurrection of her brother; that Jesus was dishonoured by the master of the same house that had received such a deliverance; and that thus a mighty impulse had been given to show “that gratitude had not died out upon earth,” and that Simon had not infected the whole house with his leprosy. This house was disinfected by the savour of Mary’s ointment from the pestilential vapours with which Judas had previously filled it. If it had before represented the germ of the synagogue of Satan, now it became a type of the future Church of Christ. Mary was urged the rather to present the very utmost in honour of Jesus, and to go to the very verge of the extravagant, inasmuch as she knew that the sufferings and death of Jesus impended, that she was paying Him the last honour—a circumstance to which our Lord expressly gives prominence for her justification: comp. ch. John 12:7. The hypothesis of two distinct anointings is encountered by the insuperable difficulty of both having occurred in the house of a Simon; but his designation, on the one hand, as a Pharisee, and on the other as a leper, presents no contradiction, but rather the reverse. By what figure could Pharisaism be better designated or described than by that of leprosy, by which man in a living body becomes an offensive and abhorred thing? Both anointings, further, took place at a feast, and both have in common the highly characteristic circumstance of the wiping of Jesus’ feet with the hair of the anointer’s head. But the Evangelists have so carefully ordered their expressions, that he cannot err who very carefully follows their hints. There are phenomena here which are very characteristic in regard to the relation of the Evangelists generally. The later writers adopted the most characteristic expressions of the earlier, thereby as good as expressly citing them, while declaring their purpose to be only supplementary; just as, in the narrative of Moses, his manner when returning to the same object is not expressly to adopt the same words again—which would not suit the popular character of Holy Writ—but to connect the latter with the former by verbal repetition, mingled with inserted supplementary matter. Luke borrows the very peculiar ἀλάβαστρονμύρου, “an alabaster box of ointment,” from Matthew 26:7, Mark 14:3, and intimates thereby that his anointing is the same with that of Bethany. John indicates the identity of the anointing related by him with that of Matthew and Mark, by adopting from the latter the commercial expression πιστική, unadulterated (Mark 14:3, νάρδουπιστικῆςπολυτελοῦς; John 12:3, νάρδουπιστικῆςπολυτίμου). On the other hand, by the literal adherence to Luke 7:38, in ch. John 11:2, he intimates that the anointing by Mary, recorded by him, is identical with the anointing by the sinner in Luke 7. (John 11:2, ἦνδὲΜαριὰἡἀλείψασατὸνκύριονμύρῳκαὶἐκμάξασατοὺςπόδαςαὐτοῦταῖςθριξὶαὐτῆς; Luke, τοὺςπόδαςαὐτοῦκαὶ ?—ταῖςθριξὶ ?—αὐτῆςἐξέμασσε—καὶἤλειφεντῷμύρῳ). How closely John adheres to Luke, is emphatically shown by the fact that his “who wiped His feet with her hair” is explicable only by comparison with Luke. John thoughtfully refers the wiping, not to the ointment, but to the feet. The precious ointment, which was rubbed in, could scarcely be regarded with any propriety as the object of the wiping. This points to water or the like: comp. ch. John 13:5. But nothing of this kind has been mentioned in John; nor can the mystery be solved but by a comparison with Luke. According to ver. 38, Mary washed the feet of Jesus with her tears, and dried them with the hairs of her head: comp. ver. 44. John could not have written thus, had he not designed that the supplement should be taken from Luke; unless the notion of the Fathers be the correct one, that the Evangelists form a four-sided whole. The account in Luke on the one side, and of John on the other, mutually supplement and are necessary to each other. The questions which force themselves upon us in Luke, How came Jesus in the house of the Pharisee, who displayed so unfriendly, yea, so decidedly inimical a feeling towards Him? What could have induced such a man, who stood in absolutely no internal relation to Him, who denied Him the commonest courtesies which a host shows his guests, to invite Jesus; and what could have induced Jesus to accept the invitation? How came the sinner in this company?—are questions which receive their answers in the narrative of John. But in his narrative also there are many things which compel us to go back to Luke. If we regard the family circle in Bethany as limited to Lazarus and his two sisters, we can hardly understand the mixed company which was assembled there for condolence, and cannot see why Jesus did not at once go to the house, but remained outside at a distance; why Martha goes out to Him there; why she secretly calls her sister; and why that sister goes out without letting her company know the reason of her departure. Only when we regard the evil-minded Pharisee Simon as standing in the background, whose friends have met the personal acquaintances of Mary and Martha for the purpose of condoling, can we understand what is written in ch. John 11:46 : “But some went to the Pharisees, and told them what Jesus had done.” The intimation, “but Mary sat in the house,” with its reference to Proverbs 7:12, is seen in its true light only when we recognise in the Mary of John the sinner of Luke. To this we are led also, that Mary has so large a quantity of precious ointment at her disposal. This ointment was not provided by Mary originally for the anointing of Jesus. It was already before in her possession; for otherwise the complaint would not have been that she had not sold the ointment, but that she had bought it instead of giving the money to the poor. Christ says in her justification, that she had kept the ointment against the day of His burial, John 12:7, in opposition to the declaration of Judas, that she ought to have sold it. This possession of ointment infers a previous life of vanity. And the otherwise unaccountable wiping with her hair is only then rightly intelligible, when we consider that Mary had formerly made the hair of her head minister to sin, so that the present use of it was an act of penance: comp. 1 Peter 3:3. Both the ointment and the hair are similarly united in Jdt 10:3. There we read that Judith, when she prepared herself to go to Holofernes, in order to attract him by her arts, “anointed herself with precious ointment, and braided the hair of her head.” There is an analogy also with the women who, in the wilderness, dedicated their precious mirrors, previously the instruments of their vanity, to the service of the sanctuary, Exodus 38:8. So also the tears of her eyes and the kissing of Jesus’ feet would refer to an earlier misuse both of her eyes and of her lips. The early Fathers noticed all these things. Gregory the Great says, in his 33d Homily on the Gospels (the passage is found in the Romish Breviary): “It is manifest that the woman, who had formerly abandoned herself to evil courses, applied the ointment to the perfuming of her flesh. What she had shamefully provided, she now worthily dedicated to God. With her eyes she had sought earthly vanity, but now she wept with them in penitence. With her mouth she had spoken proudly [but see rather Proverbs 5:3; Proverbs 7:13], but now she kissed with it the Lord’s feet.” That the Mary of Lazarus, like the sinner, had led a passionate career, is intimated by John 11:32 : “When she saw Him, she fell down at His feet, and said, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” Martha had used the same words; but the passionate falling at the feet of Jesus is peculiar to Mary. Here it is to be observed, that the preference for a place at the feet of Jesus is a tender bond, which connects the sinner of Luke with the Mary of Lazarus: comp. Luke 7:38; Luke 10:39; John 11:32; John 12:2. That was the place most desirable to the state of her feeling, most appropriate to the profoundness of her inward sorrow. Also the coincidence between “which toucheth Him,” in Luke 7:39, with the words spoken to Mary Magdalene, “Touch Me not,” John 20:17, is not without significance. But it can here be only hinted at. How strictly the accounts of the anointing interpenetrate and complete each other, may be further seen clearly in one small speciality. According to Matthew 26:7, Mark 14:3, the woman pours the ointment on the head of Jesus. According to John 12:3, Mary anoints the feet of Jesus. There can be no contradiction here, inasmuch as Matthew 26:11, Mark 14:8, show that the anointing only began with the head, and had a more general character; and the quantity of the ointment requires us to assume that it was more general. The reconciliation we have in Luke. The feet there are the main concern. But there is an indirect allusion to the head in “My head with oil thou didst not anoint,” in the words of Jesus to Simon. It belonged to the polemical character, so to speak, of the anointing, that she began with the part of the body which Simon had omitted to anoint. Then she turned to the part which the heart’s feeling of the “Sinner” must have thought of most. Do we lose anything if we recognise in the Mary of Lazarus the “woman that was a sinner?” Gregory gives us the answer to that question: “If I think of the penitence of Mary, I can better weep myself than say anything. For who has so hard a heart, that the tears of this sinner cannot soften it to repentance?” The raising of Lazarus is recorded only in the Gospel of John. The silence of the other Evangelists need not perplex us, even if there were no specific reasons for it. Niebuhr (Geschichte Assurs und Babel, s. 6) says: “The Oriental historian is extremely precise in the chronological frame, but in the proper historical narrative very imperfect; so that omission of the most important incidents is no impeachment of his truth.” The historical books of the Old Testament share in this peculiarity of Oriental historical writing; so that we need not wonder at finding it reproduced in the New Testament, where it was all the more natural, from the fact that the Divine plan provided for the supplementing of the earlier Evangelists by the later—just as in the canon of the Old Testament the Chronicles were introduced as supplementary. In the books of Kings, for instance, the combination of the tribes of the wilderness against Israel, under Jehoshaphat, is passed over in silence; a circumstance the deep importance of which we learn, not only from the historical account in 2 Chronicles 20, but also from the psalms referring to it, 47, 48, 83, which confirm every feature in the account of the Chronicles. Viewed in the light of our own historical writings the silence of the books of Kings is all the more unintelligible, inasmuch as nothing less than the very existence of God’s people was at stake, and the wonderful deliverance which was vouchsafed to Israel was rich in edification for all generations of the people. So also in 2 Kings 21 there is no trace of the carrying away of Manasseh to Babylon, nor of his conversion and restoration. The omission of the former point is all the more striking, since his carrying away captive was the punishment of Manasseh’s guilt, on which the writer has dwelt at length. John expressly says, in ch. John 20:30, John 21:25, that it was not his design to exhaust the infinite treasures of the acts of Christ’s life in his narrative, but only to make prominent some of them. This declaration holds good of all the Evangelists. This is supported by the fact, that the first three, apart from the history of the Passion, remain mostly in the Galilean domain; and that Matthew expressly announces his intention to do so. If the Evangelists aimed only at an eclectic treatment, we might expect that the assertion, “the dead are raised up,” in Matthew 11:5, would be illustrated by the communication of at least one example in each Gospel. Luke has only two instances of the raising of the dead; the others are content with recording only one of these. The resurrection of Lazarus was assuredly an event of high importance. Yet we must be careful not to exaggerate that importance. We must not overlook the fact, that all miracles are essentially alike, and that it is altogether wrong to measure their greatness, as it were, by the ell. The Lord Himself, at the healing of the man born blind, ch. John 9:6, declared that it was a creative work, and thus that in reality it was on a level with the raising of Lazarus. If we observe that this very miracle formed, according to John, the occasion of the final catastrophe in the life of Jesus, it is not to be overlooked that also, according to John, the matter stood so, that even without this miracle that final catastrophe must have come. Ch. John 11:8 is sufficient to prove this. The raising of Lazarus was not the essential cause of the catastrophe, but only the accidental cause. Let us turn now to a consideration of the special reasons which have been adduced for the silence of the first three Evangelists. We must first repel the notion that their silence sprang from ignorance of the event. The Lord went to the scene of Lazarus’ resurrection in the company of His disciples, and Matthew was one of these. The three Evangelists record that feast of Simon which, according to John, stood in close connection with the raisins of Lazarus. The anointing of Jesus at that meal was based upon that fact as having already occurred. But all doubt is removed by the parable of Lazarus in Luke, especially by the close of it, the connection of which with 11:46 has forced itself always upon expositors. How little right we have to infer ignorance from silence in their narratives, is plain enough from Matthew 26:61; Matthew 27:40, Mark 14:57-59, compared with John 2:19. The first two Evangelists do not record the event contained in John, but they afterwards refer to it. They have more show of reason on their side who explain the silence of the first three Evangelists by reference to Lazarus as being still alive. If these Gospels were written in the last days of the Jewish state, in which, as the Epistle to the Hebrews shows, excitement against the Christians had reached a very high pitch, the resurrection of the narrative might have led to a renewal of the danger which, according to John 12:10, threatened the risen life of Lazarus. That personal regards were not without influence upon the inspiration of the Gospels, we have already seen in the example of Mary and Martha: another example Heumann refers to: “The first three Evangelists do not publish that Peter was the disciple who cut off the servant’s ear. All three relate the fact; all three knew that Peter did it; but none of the three mentions him.” We must not, however, forget that this only amounts to possibility, and that the hypothesis is not adequately supported by a historical basis. Nor can we account for the omission by explaining that the first three Evangelists restricted themselves to the Galilean region until the Passion week. Matthew leaves that region in ch. Matthew 19:1. Luke might, in that portion of his Gospel which is not fettered by chronological law, have as well related this fact as the parable concerning Lazarus. This reason is not, indeed, without some force. The communications relating to the time from the departure from Galilee to the festal entrance in Jerusalem, are in the first Gospels in the highest degree imperfect, as is evident from the fact that in Matthew they occupy only two chapters. But the chief reason must doubtless be looked for in another direction. The great men of the Old Testament were instructed to change their voice. Among David’s psalms, for example, there are those which, like the sixteenth, lead us into the mysterious depth of the life in God, and the characteristic name of which is ξλϊν, secret; and there are also those in which he condescends to the simple, plain alphabetical psalms, in which we find only a collection of proverbs. This twofold manner we find also in connection with our Lord and His Evangelists. The mysterious side of His nature was presented more especially in the metropolis, where He had to do with “those who see.” For a colloquy like that with Nicodemus there could have been found in Galilee no immediate occasion. This double-sidedness of our Lord’s manifestation rendered it necessary that the Gospel should not be written by any one single writer. The vocation of each Evangelist had reference to that only which was to him accessible. For the deep and mysterious that disciple had a special mission whom Jesus loved, and who lay on His bosom, as Christ in the bosom of the Father It was not merely in the Divine plan for these writings that John was reckoned on and provided. In the apostolical circle also they looked upon him from the beginning as designed for this; and we cannot suppose that John’s Gospel took the Church by surprise. The narrative of the raising of Lazarus belonged to the class of things reserved for John. That the mysterious character which it bears has its ground in the event itself, and not in the mere record, is plain from the comparison of the perfectly plain narrative of the healing of the man born blind in ch. 9, as also from the narrative of ch. John 4:43-54, which is nearly related in its character to the first three Evangelists. We can hardly imagine the history of Lazarus’ resurrection told in the manner of the first three Evangelists. It belonged essentially to the “spiritual Gospel.” Let us now investigate the meaning of the event before us. It had this in common with all the miracles and signs of Christ—to serve for the glorification of the Son of God, ver. 4. But its individual and specific purport was, to typify and represent the future resurrection of the dead. Christ issues no mere bulls, or letters of simple authority. All that He will perform in that other world. He had already, during His earthly life, pretypified and symbolized in act; having by that type and symbol given an assurance of that which hath not yet appeared. We have here, as it were, the embodiment of the utterance which our Lord gave in ch. John 5:25; John 5:28-29 : “The hour cometh, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and those that hear shall live. The hour cometh, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; those which have done good, to the resurrection of life.” The καὶνῦνἐστι of ch. John 5:25 expressly points (see the commentary on the passage) to this typical significance of our Lord’s resurrection acts: and thus the early Church interpreted them. Vers. 23-27 of the present chapter, which can be understood only in this point of view, have special relation to the present event. The raising of Lazarus constitutes the climax of the pledges, given in act, of the future resurrection. Jesus reawakened the daughter of Jairus, just dead, upon the very couch where her spirit departed; and the young man of Nain, on his way to the grave; but He here signalizes His absolute dominion over death, by calling back to life one who had been four days dead, and in whom corruption had already begun to take place. The chronological position of this event corresponds with this internal relation which it bears to the other resurrections. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/hengstenberg/ Ver. 2. “It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.” Hitherto it had been said only that Mary and Martha belonged with Lazarus to the same place. Thus it was necessary to define still more closely the relation in which he stood to them. That he is described as the brother of Mary, and only indirectly as the brother of Martha (the latter having been mentioned as the sister of Mary), is not to be explained only by the circumstance that Mary was the one last spoken of. Lazarus stood nearer to Mary as an unmarried sister, than to the married sister. Hence also in ver. 45 (if the current reading is the correct one) it is said of the Jews, that they came to Mary to testify their sympathy. She is therefore regarded as the chief mourner. The Mary whose brother Lazarus was sick, is thus described as the same with the person who anointed our Lord. This way of mentioning it presupposes that there never occurred more than one such anointing: the token would otherwise have had nothing characteristic in it. The Aor. Partic. indicates the “closed past” (Buttmann). John afterwards touches upon the anointing in ch. 12; not giving a full detail, but merely adding one particular that had been passed over by the rest. To this account we cannot refer the ἀλείψασα; for the object evidently was to describe Mary to the readers by a sign already well known to them. Nor can the ἀλείψασα be explained as referring to tradition. John in no one instance can be proved to have referred to traditional reports. All that he presupposes is found in the first Gospels. Nor does the ἀλείψασα countenance those who assume a double anointing by Mary: the participle cannot be made to mean, “who once more anointed the Lord.” The anointing of the Passion week was, at the time John wrote, long past; and the fact that he afterwards touches upon it is left out of sight. But a double anointing by Mary is decisively set aside by the circumstance that the ἀλείψασα would not have been sufficient for the purpose of separating between the earlier and the later, since the former also would belong to the region of the past. It might be thought that, according to the view now given, ἦν would not be the reading, but ἒστι; but this objection is obviated by the remark, that the leading idea is contained in the words, “It was Mary, whose brother Lazarus was sick;” and that the words ἡἀλείψασα—αὐτῆς do not contain more than a subordinate clause, “that Mary who was well known by the anointing which she afterwards performed.” Ver. 3. “Therefore his sisters sent unto Him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick.” The degree of the sickness is not indicated. That was rendered needless, inasmuch as their mission to Christ of itself proved that all human aid was valueless, and that it was a sickness “unto death,” ver. 4. The message to the “Lord” declared that they were not uttering a request; but that they were content to state the case, and leave it to the Lord to do as seemed good to Him. But that a certain request lay concealed under these words, is evident from “whom Thou lovest;” hinting the thought that Jesus, who had already come to the help of so many persons not directly connected with Himself, had now in the case of a dear friend a manifest call to interpose with His aid. Heumann supposes that “the good sisters knew not as yet that the Lord was omniscient, and needed no intimation of theirs.” But the message should not be regarded in the light of information, so much as in the light of a request. Quesnel observes, “A sinner, who feels his unworthiness and his misery, should often come to Jesus with the same words, following the example of these two sisters: Lord, he whom Thou lovest is sick.” Ver. 4. “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.” Jesus shows that He is better acquainted with the circumstances of the sickness than the sisters were who sent Him the message. He not only knows that it exists, but can explain also its origin and its end. “Jesus said’—to whom is not mentioned. It seems obvious, in the nature of things, that He spoke primarily to the messengers, who were not to be sent home without answer; and this is confirmed by ver. 40, where Jesus, speaking to Martha, appeals to this word as having been spoken to her, as well as by the earlier ver. 22, for Martha could have founded the hope which she there utters only on that declaration of Christ. The whole transaction between Christ and Martha in vers. 24-27, takes it for granted that Christ had already given His utterance as to what would first of all befall her brother. But ver. 12 shows that the Apostles were also present; for it speaks of their knowing the fact of Lazarus’ sickness. The åἶ ?ðåí is designedly used in this indefinite manner, in order to intimate that the word of Christ was not intended for this or that person. The object of the declaration required the greatest publicity. The assurance of Jesus’ foreknowledge of the issue of the sickness—which assurance was thus certified by as many witnesses as possible—was part and parcel of the miracle. Only thus could the thought of happy accident be obviated. The words do not expressly say that Jesus would raise up Lazarus. They rather seem to imply that He would heal the man who was sick unto death. Not until Lazarus’ death had become a reality is it clearly expressed that Christ will raise up the dead man; then it is made plain that “not unto death” refers to a permanent condition of death,—a transitory death not being termed such,—just as in Matthew 9:24, “The maiden is not dead, but sleepeth (not dead, as others die).” (Heumann: The Lord speaks of a death by which Lazarus should be lost to his sisters.) Mary and Martha had already this illustration from the fact, when the message arrived; for Lazarus was already dead. Of the four days that Lazarus is said to have been in the grave when Jesus raised him, two must be reckoned for Jesus’ continuing in the place where he was, ver. 6, one was occupied in carrying the message, another by the journey of our Lord; so that Lazarus must have died shortly after the departure of the messenger, and have been, as was the custom amongst the Jews, almost immediately buried. When the messenger returned, he had been already two days in the grave. The road from the Jordan to Jerusalem took about seven hours: five for the plain from Jericho, two from Jericho to the Jordan. It leads over Bethany, and thus required for Christ as well as the messengers not much over six hours. Bethabara lay in all probability in the same position as the pilgrims’ baths placed there as a memorial. Jesus knew that Lazarus was already dead. He must have intentionally so ordered this message, that the sisters could not at once understand its meaning. It seemed at first thought that Jesus had erred,—that, in fact, He supposed Lazarus would not die at all. This semblance of error was designed to evoke the energy of their faith. As soon as the sisters were firmly established in the living faith that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, ver. 27, the true interpretation of His words dawned upon their minds. What Jesus says holds good of every mortal sickness of believers, and was intended so to do: for everything here has, in connection with the obvious sense, a symbolical and typical character. The sickness of believers does not lead to permanent death: it tends rather to the glorification of the Son of God in their resurrection. But so long as the time has not yet come when Jesus should finally demonstrate Himself to be the Son of God, and give the last pledge of His hidden power to raise the dead, it was necessary that some palpable glorification of the Son of God should be given as an earnest; and that the present occasion was selected by our Lord for the purpose of giving such assurance, is evident from a comparison with ch. John 9:3.—“This sickness is not unto death” may be illustrated by Isaiah 38:1, where it is said of Hezekiah, that he was “sick unto death.” And the passages are all the rather analogous inasmuch as in that case also the sickness, which was in itself mortal, became a sickness “not unto death” through the intervention of a messenger sent from God. If we observe that the meaning is here also, “This mortal sickness is not unto death,” the passages become very closely related. It is first said that the sickness should be for the glory of God; and then this is more expressly defined, that the Son of God should be thereby glorified. The Jews placed the glory of God and the glory of Christ in absolute opposition, just as unbelief and half-belief do even to the present day. Christ teaches us that the honour of God coincides with the honour of His Son; that it is effectually secured only by the glorification of the Son. Bengel: Gloria Dei et gloria Filii Dei una gloria. It is for us to purge out all the Rationalist leaven in respect to this which still remains among us. Ver. 5. “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.” We have here, on the one hand, the motive assigned for the saying of Jesus in ver. 4, which presented the prospect of Lazarus’ deliverance from death; and, on the other, the motive for His subsequent act, in journeying towards Jerusalem for the purpose of accomplishing that saying. That the latter is not to be excluded, is evident from the “Our friend Lazarus,” etc., which our Lord says to His disciples, ver. 11. That gives His friendship to Lazarus as the motive of the journey. Ἀγαπᾶν is used, and not φιλεῖν, as in ver. 3, because women are the first mentioned. Ἀγάπη is the love which does not so much rest upon individual inclination as upon the purely ethical basis, and which accordingly does not find its expression in tenderness. That the relation even of the Son of man to women was under certain restrictions which were not observed towards men, and that these restrictions were in force until the ascension, is shown by a right interpretation of the μήμουἅπτου which Jesus speaks to one of the women here alluded to, that is Mary, who would, in the passion of her fervour, prematurely overstep these limits. As it respects the order of the three persons, Lazarus takes the last place, because death for him who dies in faith is not an evil, or, if an evil, one which is followed by an abundant compensation. It was not Lazarus who sent to Christ,—he doubtless rejoiced in the prospect of being received into Abraham’s bosom, Luke 16:22,—but his sisters. Martha could not be sundered from Lazarus, as she was most severely affected by his death: comp. on ver. 2. Thus Martha must come first. Ver. 6. “When He had heard therefore that he was sick. He abode two days still in the same place where He was.” The love of Jesus was approved, not in His tarrying two days, but, in spite of that tarrying, by the fact that He afterwards, without any regard to the machinations of the Jews, journeyed into Judea. The ìÝí is not followed by the äὲ which usually corresponds with it, in order to make the direct introduction of the contrast more striking. Wherefore did Jesus abide two days where He was? The answer is given by ver. 15. Christ there expresses His joy that He was not in Bethany before Lazarus’ death; because the raising him from the dead would tend more certainly to strengthen His disciples’ faith than the healing which would have resulted from His being present. Thus it was for the same reason, to give opportunity for a stronger development of His miraculous power, that Christ here delayed. If He had set out at once, He would have reached when Lazarus had been dead two days. The reason why He would go later to Bethany is given by the words of Martha in ver. 39. The dead man was to be raised up at the time when corruption begins generally to do its vigorous work. This gave occasion to that climax in the resurrection-acts of Christ which the Gospels set before us. But was not this delay a hard one to the poor sisters? Those who maintain this will find difficulties enough in almost everything else. In all ages the Lord has been pleased to subject His people to more severe probation than this. He spares not the flesh, that the spirit may thrive. And this we see plainly cared for here. Jesus had previously given the sisters the staff of His promise. And it was a high grace that He, before the fulfilment of the promise, accustomed them for a while to fight against fear in dependence upon His word. Nor is it to be overlooked that they themselves, as well as the universal Church, derived benefit from the enhancement which the miracle gained from delay. Moreover, we must throughout the entire narrative direct our regard rather to the whole work of Christ, than to His personal relation to Mary and Martha, which only subordinately comes into view. How many faithful sisters have to give up their brother for ever, so far as this life is concerned, and not merely to wait for his restoration a few short days! We have here an exhibition beforehand of what was to happen to all. This gives the true key to the whole narrative. Ver. 7. “Then after that saith He to His disciples, Let us go into Judea again.”—Ἔπειτα and μετὰτοῦτο are often connected in the classical authors. The tautology does not indicate remissness of style, but directs attention to the strange circumstance that Jesus afterwards did that which, if He intended doing it at all, it seemed that He should have done at once, and suggests reflection upon that circumstance. This impressed the Apostles themselves. At the first, as Jesus did not set out at once, they had inferred that He had done what He purposed to do from a distance. From this agreeable delusion they were unexpectedly aroused by the summons to this perilous journey. Jesus does not say, to Bethany, but to Judea, in order to suggest what made the journey perilous, and to excite the opposition of the disciples. He had left Judea in order to place Himself beyond the reach of the persecution with which His enemies threatened His life. That He, in going to Judea, was going to Bethany, was self-understood, according to vers. 3 and 4, and needed not therefore to be expressly mentioned. Ver. 8. “His disciples say unto Him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone Thee; and goest Thou thither again?”—Íῦ ?í, so recently. In order to make their dehortation more forcible, they bring what had lately happened into the immediate present. Vers. 9, 10. “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.” Jesus repels the objection of the Apostles, by showing from His own indwelling higher knowledge that the journey would be without danger. Heumann is essentially right when he says, “The time in which He should (could), according to His Father’s will, teach and preach, and work miracles unhindered, He terms His day of twelve hours; and at the same time gives it to be understood that this day would be followed by a night, the time, namely, when He should fall into His enemies’ hands, be condemned to death, and die a death both shameful and painful.” Jesus does not give, as it were, a comparison and its application, but the figure and the application run into each other. It follows that we must not seek to distinguish between what belongs merely to the figure and what to the application; but that each individual trait belongs to the matter in hand, and all has a double meaning. The lower sense is very clear. The “light of the world” is the sun, according to Genesis 1:15-16. Men stumble generally in the night alone. When this occurs exceptionally in the clay (Isaiah 59:10, “We stumble at midday;” Hosea 4:5, “And thou stumblest in the day”), extraordinary circumstances must be assumed which have caused the day to be turned into night, Job 17:12. These exceptions are not here taken into account, and the rule only is regarded. Βλέπει and ἔστινἐναὐτῷ correspond to each other. The light of the sun is in a man, because the eye receives it into itself, and thus enables him to avoid the obstacles in his path. Now let us look at the figurative meaning. How far the day and the night come into consideration is shown in the clauses, “because he seeth the light of this world,” and “because the light is not in him.” Accordingly it is intimated that the day is light, the night is darkness. But light is in Scripture the ordinary image of salvation, night of an unsaved state. Now the Lord says the time of salvation is not quite run out, and therefore now there is nothing to fear. But a time will come when it shall have run out, and then danger will ensue. Day and night are contrasted also as the time of help and of helplessness in ch. John 9:4. So also the night is introduced in ch. John 13:30 : “And it was night” when Judas went out. There can be no question that the words have something mysterious in them; that the external night is to John here the symbol of spiritual night, when the light of the sun ceased to shine, when therefore the power of darkness began, and the hour came for successful assault upon the people of God. As descriptive of an unsaved state, night is used also in Revelation 21:25; Revelation 22:5, where it is said of the kingdom of glory, “And there shall be no night there.” The grievous interchange of day and night, to which the militant Church is here subjected, will there cease for ever. A like distinction of a twofold time for Christ and His disciples, a time of safety and a time of suffering, occurs also in Luke 22:35-36. Jesus does not speak of the day generally, but of the twelve hours of the day. The fact that He thus represents safety as the characteristic of the entire day down to its perfect close—so that he who only walks generally in the day has no more cause of fear in the twelfth hour than in the eleven preceding—leads to the conclusion that the day, or the time of salvation, still continued, and would continue, during the whole journey, although very near its close nevertheless. (Bengel: Jam longe processerat cursus Jesu; jam multa erat hora, sed tamen adhuc erat dies.) Elsewhere in John we have stress laid upon the hour: comp. ch. John 7:30, John 8:28. So also in Luke 22:53, with which passage this stands in a close internal connection. Lyser: Necclum adesse horam passionis, de qua ad pontifices et seniores dicit: haec est vestra hora.—Προσκόπτειν, λωμ, in the Old Testament, is generally used without any moral meaning, but only of proceeding onwards. But the former is here necessarily required by the connection of the figurative with the proper meaning. The antitype of the “light of this world,” the sun, is the saving grace of God. This appears under a similar image in Job 29:3, where Job says of the time of his prosperity, “When His candle shined upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness.” In Isaiah 9:19 we read: “The sun shall no longer shine upon thee, but the Lord shall be thine everlasting light.” And in Revelation 22:5 : “They need not the light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light.” There the sun is the figure of the saving grace of God, which is now in the most real sense imparted to the Church. Even in Jesus there was at the time of His suffering “no light.” Because the sun of salvation was gone down in His heaven, He knew not how to counsel or to save Himself. And, looked at in a higher sense, we have here a general proposition which is spoken primarily with reference to Christ and His disciples (Bengel: τις, indefinite pertinet hoc ad discipulos, qui etiam sibi timebant; with reference to the extension of it to the disciples, we may compare Luke 22:35-36), but which has also a universal applicability. The separation between the time of unhindered active vocation and passion, as seen in Christ, recurs also among His disciples. There is a time which comes also to them, when they see not the light of the world, and no light is in them; when they must say, “Now there remains for me no more than to lie down in my suffering.” “And since, then,” says Lyser, “every man’s day at last goes down, we must not, when we see that the time is come, withstand, but say. Thy will be done, O Lord; Thou hast given life, and Thou hast power to take it; Thou wilt for it give life everlasting. The hairs of our head are all numbered of Thee. Meanwhile, let it be our comfort, that it lies not in the power of the devil, or of the ungodly world, to make our sun go down, but only in the hand of God. He has given to the day twelve hours, and of not one of these can our foes rob us against His will.” Ver. 11. “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.” The circumstantiality at the beginning was intended to guide the reader before he proceeds further to reflect upon the meaning of this mysterious word of Christ. It serves the same end which probably was served by a pause in the Lord’s oral colloquy with His Apostles, and in the Psalms by Selah. After their Master had obviated the disciples’ objections to the journey. He gives the reasons which induced Him to take it. He says, “Our friend,” in order all the more to excite the Apostles’ sympathy. This our friend shows that the relation between Christ and Lazarus must not be regarded in the same light as human friendships generally, such as that between David and Jonathan, but that it belonged entirely to the Christian sphere. Individual friendship would not have been common to Christ and His Apostles. Bengel is not correct here: “Christ says this at a time when Lazarus was just dead.” Lazarus had died three days before. But Jesus says this now for the first time, because it is His will to go now and reawaken him. He is, however, perfectly right when he proceeds: “No man had given Him information of the death, and yet Jesus knew it.” The description of the death of believers as sleep has been derived into Christian phraseology probably from the present passage, and Matthew 9:24. The answer to the question, “Why did not Jesus speak at once of death and the resurrection, and thus prevent the misunderstanding of the Apostles?” is simply, that Christ intended by this word to introduce a milder view of death, as a mere falling asleep. (Augustin: “The Lord awakened him from the sleep of the sepulchre with the same ease with which thou arousest a sleeper from his bed.”) The scriptures of the Old Testament not seldom exhibit death under the image of sleep: e.g. in Jeremiah 51:17, “They shall sleep a perpetual sleep;” Job 14:12, “So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.” But Daniel 12:2 is the only preparation among all these passages for the New Testament phraseology. The others do not include the idea of awaking out of the sleep; but only the sealing up of life and strength. But this one is adapted to fill us with contempt of death, the terror of which beset the saints of the Old Testament. Vers. 12, 13. “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.” The disciples would not indeed have misunderstood Christ’s meaning, if the saying of ver. 4 had not made it obvious that the sickness of Lazarus would not issue in death, but that it would be removed by the healing power of Jesus. Accordingly, they could hardly understand how the actual death of Lazarus should be meant by κεκοίμηται. They supposed that the Lord brought about a salutary crisis from a distance, as He had done on several other occasions: comp. ch. John 4:49 seq. That Christ’s miraculous power had to do with the supposed sickness, was a supposition all the more natural, as Jesus could in the ordinary way have had no knowledge of the fact. Supernatural knowledge and supernatural action go hand in hand. Under these circumstances, the journey seemed to them without object; and they had not been so completely pacified respecting its danger by Christ’s assurance, as not to desire still to be relieved from it. (Calvin: They gladly lay hold of this occasion for flying the danger.) What the words of Christ, “But I go to wake him out of sleep,” meant to express, was indeed still very obscure to them; but as they conceived themselves to be quite certain as to the Lord’s intention in using the word κεκοίμηται, they did not give themselves much trouble to investigate further the sense of the other words. Suffice that they had found reason sufficient for dissuading Him from the journey, which they persisted in thinking a fatal one. Anton: “Among these disciples was John, the narrator of this circumstance, and a sharer in this opinion. But now he is ashamed of it.” Vers. 14, 15. “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.” Jesus rejoices that He had not been there; because His disciples would derive more confirmation to their faith from the resurrection of one who had been long dead, than they would have derived from the healing of a man sick unto death. “That ye may believe” is the explanation of “for your sakes.” Faith is as it were when it grows, and not before. At every new stage of faith, that which preceded is regarded as belonging, so to speak, to the region of unbelief. Ver. 16. “Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow-disciples. Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” How necessary it was that the Apostles should be thus strengthened in faith, this word of Thomas shows. He believes in Christ, otherwise he would not have desired to go with Him unto death, (That μετʼ ? αὐτοῦ refers to Christ, and not to Lazarus, is proved by the connection with ver. 8. Only with a living person can one die. If any doubt remained. Matthew 26:35 would remove it.) But that Thomas, notwithstanding the assurance of Jesus in vers. 9, 10, is so convinced that He is going to meet His death, shows that there was still in him an evil alloy of unbelief, a contest between doubt and confidence. The word of Christ has less force and effect upon him than the evident fact of the fierce hatred of the Pharisees, who wanted nothing more than an opportunity to get Him in their power. There is no reason whatever for the supposition that Thomas bore the corresponding Greek name Δίδυμος in addition to this Hebrew name. The words, “called Didymus, or twin,” rather give the explanation of his original name. It is the same in ch. John 4:25, where ὁλεγόμενοςΧριστός is equivalent to “which is in Greek Christ;” as also in ch. John 1:39, the ὃλέγεταιἑρμηνευόμενον. John usually gives such explanations of names only where the name is important to the matter in hand: compare on ch. John 9:7. And the reason of this is obvious: explanations of ordinary names would be, as a rule, extremely insipid. In the present case we are led to expect something important, from the fact that no less than three times we find it said of Thomas, “who is called Didymus,” ch. John 20:24, John 21:2; these two instances occurring so near to each other as to show that something significant in the meaning suggested the repetition, more especially as John is a writer who measures every word. Accordingly, there can be no doubt that the name Thomas, which never occurs in the Old Testament as a proper name, was imposed upon the Apostle by our Lord as descriptive of his character, and that the words “called twin” were designed to point to this significance in his name. Many such characteristic names are found in the Old Testament, especially in the prophets (comp. on ch. John 1:43); and we also find them among the Apostles (comp. on ch. John 6:71). The Apostle who is always in the lists paired with Thomas, Matthew, bears a name which belonged to him as a disciple, and referred to his relation with the Lord. His original name was Levi. But what is the meaning of the name Thomas? It signifies one at sight of whom we are reminded of twins.—ϊΰν occurs only as a plural in the Old Testament; an ἀνὴρδίψυχος, a double-minded man, James 1:8, comp. δίψυχοι, in ch. John 4:8. Inward discordance is, alas, common to all who still live in the flesh; but the vehement disposition of Thomas brought his double-mindedness into special exhibition, so as to make him an apt exemplification of an undecided character. The proper key to the name is found in Genesis 25:23-24 : “And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manners of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger. And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb:” Sept. τῇδεἦνδίδυμαἐντῇκοιλίᾳ. Thomas had his Esau also, the firstborn, and his Jacob—the old and the new man. But this reference to the passage in Genesis is not only humiliating; there is in it consolation also for Thomas, and for all of whom he is the type: the elder must at last serve the younger, and this was gloriously exemplified in the later self-sacrificing character of the missionary Thomas. The interpretation we have given is confirmed by the fact that it gives a sufficient reason for the appendage, ὁλεγόμενοςΔίδυμος, which does not indeed always accompany the name of Thomas. In the two earlier passages the affix is added to the name under circumstances which especially display the undecided character of Thomas: the word of doubt in ch. John 20:25 belonged to the one twin, to the other the energetic confession of faith in ver. 28. In ch. John 21:2, Thomas is paired with Simon Peter,—the man of rock and the man of double-mind—unity and doubleness. This juxtaposition points out to us what we are by nature, and what we ought more and more to become by grace. We have now, in vers. 17-44, the narrative of the raising of Lazarus. Vers. 17, 18, 19. “Then, when Jesus came, He found that he had lain in the grave four days already. (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.” As to ἔχειν, ver. 17, see the notes on ch. John 5:5. The ἀπό, ver. 18, is used of distance from a place. This peculiar phraseology is found in the New Testament—besides the Gospel, where it occurs in ver. 8 of the disputed chapter 21.—only in the Apocalypse, ch. John 14:20. The use of the πρό, in ch. John 12:1, is analogous, as well as its employment by the Sept. in Amos 1:1; Amos 4:7. The statement of the distance of Bethany from Jerusalem serves to explain the following statement, viz. that many sympathizers came thence to the house of mourning. It is said that Bethany was nigh to Jerusalem. John’s design required him only to observe that such was at that time the relation between the two places: whether that relation still continued, was in itself an indifferent matter. It can hardly be inferred from the ἦν that John meant to speak of Jerusalem and Bethany as already destroyed: in that case it must also be inferred from ch. John 18:1, that John spoke of the garden as having disappeared: comp. also ch. John 19:41. Quite parallel is “Nineveh was a great city,” Jonah 3:3, which does not mean to say that it was no longer—the continuance of Nineveh in the time of the author is an assumption which lies at the basis of the book—but only that Jonah found it ch. It is clear that the Jews, in ver. 19, are not the “Jewish party in opposition to Jesus.” The position of affairs in the house requires us to suppose that the company was a mixed one, and so we find by the result it was: comp. on ch. John 1:19. The words are literally, “to those about Martha and Mary.” The phrase was originally employed in classical Greek only of eminent persons, who were surrounded by attendants; its use as a mere circumlocution was a later debasement. The New Testament never sanctions this degenerate use. In Acts 13:13, those around Paul are the Apostle and his companions; a mere pleonasm is not to be thought of in John. The expression points to the fact that the house was an important one, and that we must regard Mary the mistress, in whose honour her sister partakes, as surrounded by a number of female servants; and the connection with the name Martha is in favour of the same view. Esther 4:16 throws some light upon it, where Esther says, “I also and my maidens will fast.” The mistress and the maidens make up one whole. In harmony with the αὶπερὶΜάρθαν we have the statement of ver. 20, that Martha, the real centre of a circle, knows at once of the arrival of Jesus, while Mary, who only virtually partakes of her dignity, has heard nothing about it. Ver. 20. “Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met Him: but Mary sat still in the house.” Connecting with this the parallel, Luke 10:39, we must explain “sat as usual in the house.” (Berl. Bible: “Here John refers us to Luke 10:39, he having written after Luke.”) It forms a contrast to Proverbs 7:12, where it is said of the adulteress: “Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.” This had been true of Mary in former days, but now, after her conversion, she is all the more anxious to live in still seclusion. That word of the Old Testament had now become a sharp goad (Ecclesiastes 12:11). It is probable that Martha had secretly been informed of the arrival of Jesus, ver. 28, so that neither Mary nor those around her knew of it. This secrecy sprang from the internal relations of the house at the time. Vers. 21, 22. “Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give it Thee.” If Thou hadst been here—at the time of the sickness. It is a clear misapprehension to suppose that Martha, in ver. 21, utters a reproach against Jesus. The word of Christ, in ver. 4, forms the foundation for vers. 21 and 22. That word guaranteed, if Jesus were present, the healing of the sick man, as Jesus Himself admits in ver. 15; but if Lazarus died before His coming, it guaranteed the resurrection of the dead man. Martha does no more, therefore, than give expression to her faith in the word of Christ. That He would be able to make good even this word, which would indeed involve very great things (ὅσα), she could all the less doubt, inasmuch as His miraculous power had already approved itself in raising the dead, and given practical demonstration that even death, the most awful of all our enemies, had no power against Him: and the νεκροὶἐγείρονται, Matthew 11:5, had already had its glorious illustration. And Calvin’s remark as to the utterance of Martha’s hope being the result of wandering, rests upon a total misunderstanding of the matter. This charge would be well-founded only if Jesus had not given the word of ver. 4 as a staff for her hope. Then, indeed, she must have been contented with the consolation common to all believers; and then it would have been wild presumption to expect anything extraordinary for herself. And such presumption would not have been rewarded by the granting of an irrational request. Jesus makes trial, before He proceeds to verify His word, in ver. 4, whether the subjective conditions necessary in the two sisters (represented by Martha) for the realization of that word are present in them; or rather, as the presence of those conditions was taken for granted by His words, He gives her opportunity of expressing herself satisfactorily on the matter. Her faith that the power of Jesus could call back the dead to earthly life, she had already freely spoken out in ver. 22. But that was not enough. It must be clearly established that she also stood firm in the fundamental truth as it respects the resurrection. This was all the more important, as the whole transaction was to have a symbolical meaning; as Jesus purposed to exhibit in it a prelude of the general resurrection at the end of the world,—a practical demonstration of the power by which He will then call back all believers from death to life. This colloquy between Martha and Christ has, as it were, a liturgical significance. Nothing occurs in it which does not hold good of all who bury their beloved dead. There is no allusion in it to the recalling of Lazarus back to this poor earthly life. Assurance of that had been given in ver. 4. Jesus tests first Martha’s faith in the resurrection itself, vers. 23, 24; and then He requires her to confess, in the presence of the Church represented by the Apostles, her faith in Himself, as the author of the resurrection. Vers. 23, 24. “Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto Him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” The “Believest thou this?” of ver. 26, is in effect to be understood also in ver. 23. This is evidenced by the answer of Martha, who recognises in the address of Christ a demand for her faith in the great article of the resurrection of the dead. Jesus propounds the objective Divine truth; and it is for Martha, as the representative or mouth of all believers, to avow her faith in it. Primarily, she represents her sister with herself. That the examination into her subjective standing-point of faith is not here the great matter, but only the bringing into exhibition a faith which was present and known to Jesus, is plain, from the circumstance that our Lord does not pursue the same examination with Mary. The whole transaction was intended to be significant for all ages of the Church of God upon earth. The ἀναστήσεται, “he shall rise again,” cannot, in the Lord’s mouth, refer to a return into the sphere of the present miserable earthly life. This is shown by the answer of Martha, as well as by the current Christian and Jewish phraseology. In this it signifies the transition into a new glorious condition, which lies beyond the present existence of men. Ver. 25 altogether excludes the reference to a mere restoration to life: the ζωή, the ζήσεται, accord not with the present state of existence. The New Testament teaches a twofold stage of being in that other world: the one which begins for believers with their departure from this life; the other which begins with the last day. To the former refers what the Lord said to the thief on the cross; as also John 14:2-3; John 13:36; John 17:24; Revelation 14:13, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth;” John 7:9-17, John 14:1-5, John 15:1-4. To the latter refer, for example, Matthew 19:28; John 5:25; John 5:28-29; John 6:39-40; Revelation 19:9; Revelation 21:22. In the Revelation the two stages are often combined in the unity of life or salvation, e.g. ch. John 2:7; John 2:10; John 2:17, John 3:5. That the former may be included under the term “resurrection,” is evidenced by Revelation 20:5, where it is expressly described as the first resurrection. There can be the less objection to this, inasmuch as the figurative use of the resurrection holds extensively, and in various ways, throughout the Scripture; every transition from misery to blessedness, from a lower to a higher condition, being described by the terms: comp. my commentary on Revelation 20:5. Martha, in her answer, here looks alone on the second stage of blessedness, the resurrection at the last day; and it cannot be doubted, taking the current phraseology, and especially ch. John 5:25; John 5:28-29, into view, that Jesus pre-eminently referred to the same. But that in connection with this. He has also the former in view,—that the resurrection here means the whole of that future life—that we consequently have here the basis of the “first resurrection” in the Apocalypse,—is plain from ver. 25, where Jesus unites resurrection and life inseparably together, so that the sphere of the resurrection must be just as extensive as that of life. If there is, according to the most unambiguous and oft-repeated declarations of our Lord and His Apostles, a life, a blessedness, before the commonly so-called resurrection, so must there be also a resurrection before the resurrection commonly so-called, or before the last day. With such an all-comprehending meaning the resurrection occurs in Matthew 22:30. For the idea of resurrection is there also, according to ver. 32, as extensive as that of life. But it is the first stage which is in that chapter predominantly in question. For when we read there (and also Mark 12:25), “In the resurrection they are as the angels in heaven,” we must not refer the ἐνοὐρανῷ to the angels; in that case the οἱ must have come first, as many MSS. in Mark have interpolated the οἱ before ἐνοὐρανοῖς. We must rather construe ἀλλʼ ? ἐνοὐρανῷεἰσιὡςἄγγελοι: but in heaven are as the angels. The explanation of Fritzsche and others, “But they are as the angels of God in heaven (are),” is not so obvious; and the reason which is made to sustain it, “that in the New Testament the Messianic kingdom for the dead recalled to life is not heaven, but on this earth itself,” rests, according to the intimation already given, upon a partial apprehension of the truth. It is the first stage of the resurrection which is especially regarded, because, among the blessed spirits in heaven, the inappropriateness of marriage is especially prominent. Philippians 3:20 is parallel: ἡμῶνγὰρτὸπολίτευμαἐνοὐρανοῖςὑπάρχει. The blessed spirits, in their resurrection, attain to the place where already, during their earthly life, their proper home was. Vers. 25, 26. “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth, and believeth in Me, shall never die. Believest thou this?” From the resurrection the Lord turns to its Author and Agent. “I am the resurrection and the life.” Christ is the antitype of the tree of life in Paradise: he that eateth of Him shall live for ever. He is the resurrection and the life, not only as the giver, but as the procurer of both. The root is His atoning death, by which He hath assuaged the wrath of God and vanquished death, 2 Timothy 1:10; Hebrews 2:14. It reads, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Jesus is this already virtually, according to His indwelling power; just as, according to ch. John 1:4, the life was in Him before He appeared in the flesh. But not until the resurrection will the power already existing in Him approve itself in act. Bengel is not correct here: Ego praesens, non adstrictus ad longinquum. Noli putare, Martha, te differri in longinquum. Mors cedit vitae ut caligo luci, protinus. The recall of Lazarus to this wretched life stood in no direct and immediate connection with the words, “I am the resurrection and the life;” it had to do with them only so far as the power immanent in Christ, which will one day effect the resurrection and life, had its prelude in Lazarus’ restoration. In the Old Testament we find that all salvation, whether in the world to come or in the present world, is connected with the name of the Messiah. Of the Messianic age we read in Isaiah 25:8, “He will , swallow up death in victory, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces,”—the tears which flow with peculiar bitterness on account of death. In ch. Isaiah 26:19 it is said, “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs (light or salvation), and the earth shall cast out the dead.” According to Daniel 12:2, in the Messiah’s days “many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” That the “life” of believers begins immediately after death, is proved by the parable of Lazarus. The poor man is, according to Luke 16:22, carried, when he dies, by the angels into Abraham’s bosom, where he is comforted, ver. 25. The distinctive character which hell with its torments bears in that description—the wide gulf which is firmly established between the one and the other, go to prove that life also in that world must bear a not less distinctive character. If life, according to this parable, which stands in a near and peculiar connection with the event before us, commences with the departure from the present state, the resurrection also, which goes hand in hand with it, must have a similar beginning. Resurrection and life are, in Hosea 6:2, connected together; and both as describing the transition from a miserable to a happy existence. Πᾶςὁζῶν, whosoever liveth, forms the antithesis to κἂνἀποθάνῃ, though he die, and must therefore refer only to the natural life. The οὐμὴἀποθάνῃ, shall not die, corresponds to the ζήσεται, shall live; and thus the dying here cannot be used in the ordinary sense, as in the κἂνἀποθάνῃ, but with an emphasis: death, which is no more than the transition to true life, is not death at all. The two members of the clauses are an advance respectively on each other’s meaning. In the former, life after death is assured to believers; in the latter, it is declared that they shall not die at all. The death of which Jesus speaks in the former clause, accommodating Himself to our common phrase, is, when more clearly viewed, no real death. There is not here any distinction of two classes. It is true that the former clause holds good only of those who, with Lazarus, are already dead; but for living believers like Martha, both clauses are valid. Jesus, however, has the living primarily in view. The ζήσεται of itself shows this. His design is to arm His living believers against all the terrors of death. Ver. 27. “She saith unto Him, Yea, Lord: I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.” Martha does not avow her faith distinctively in Jesus, as the resurrection and the life, but as the super-worldly (comp., in reference to “coming into the world,” on ch. John 1:9) Redeemer and Son of God. If He be this—if the triple honour which Martha ascribes to Him be truly His, then it is sufficiently plain of itself that He must be the resurrection and the life. Quesnel: “Nothing in respect to Christ seems incredible or transcending hope, when we have a living faith in His divinity; but the whole building falls to the ground when this foundation is disturbed.” Martha says, “I have believed.” The perfect (comp. ch. John 6:69) is significant, as showing that she does not now attain for the first time to that faith, but is only avowing the faith which she already possessed; that, consequently, it is not His design to produce faith in her soul, but only to give her opportunity to confess the faith she had. Ver. 28. “And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee.” Why did not Martha earlier give Mary information? It was natural that at first she was wholly possessed by the thought of going out to meet Jesus, and of strengthening her faith in the promise sent to her (ver. 4), by beholding Him, and hearing His words. As soon as her heart had received this invigoration, she hastened at once to her sister. “Secretly,” leads to the inference that, among those who according to ver. 19 were present, many were included who stood in a hostile or alienated relation to Christ. In Martha’s purpose these were to be kept aloof. God’s purpose, however, was different from hers. All who were in Bethany should be present at the miracle. “The Master is come.” Quesnel: “Jesus had no other name in this family than Lord and Master; for it was a family of faith and of obedience.” That Jesus called for Mary, was the necessary consequence of His presence, and of the end of His coming, according to ver. 4. Those out of love to whom the miracle took place, must needs be present to behold it. Ver. 29. “As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto Him.” Mary, says Quesnel, leaves without delay comforters who were a burden to her grief, in order to find out the true Comforter. It is only at His feet that we can find a consolation that penetrates the heart. Ver. 30. “Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met Him.” Why did not Jesus come to the place? It appears that He remained outside, in the neighbourhood of the sepulchre. For it is evident from what follows, that the sepulchre was very near the village. The Jews followed Mary on her way to Jesus, supposing that she was going to the place of sepulture: therefore that must have been near to the place where Jesus was. Our Lord’s conduct on the occasion was shaped by the unequal character of the visitors at the house. The mixed multitude were to be present at the raising of Lazarus (ut tam grande miraculum quatriduani mortui resurgentis testes plurimos inveniret, Augustin), but yet Jesus would not go to the scene accompanied by such a crowd. They were to be present, but it must be without any seeming or direct arrangement on His part. He would come into contact with them at, but not before, the performance of the sacred act. Ver. 31. “The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there.” Ver. 32. “Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying unto Him, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” There is not the most distant hint of any reproach here. Reproaches are not lightly uttered against the Lord by one who sits at His feet. The words of Mary are the very same which Martha had spoken in the former part of her first address, ver. 21. Doubtless the sisters had often interchanged this kind of observation with each other. To the second part of Martha’s address corresponds Mary’s prostration: comp. the προσκυνοῦσακαὶαἰτοῦσάτιἀπʼ ? αὐτοῦ, Matthew 20:20. This form of supplicating the salvation which ver. 4 had placed before her vision, was appropriate to the forgiven sinner, whose consciousness was anew and most vividly affected by a sense of unworthiness in the presence of that new manifestation of grace which was especially intended for her: comp. the “Lord, I am not worthy” of the centurion, in Matthew 8:8. The whole deportment of Mary evidences her firm confidence in the miraculous power of Jesus, which, according to ver. 4, He must put forth upon her dead brother, though it had not pleased Him to put it forth upon her brother while sick and alive. Vers. 33, 34. “When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They say unto Him, Lord, come and see.” It has long been fully established that the ἐμβριμᾶσθαι can denote no other passion than that of holy anger. That the phrase accepts no other meaning, is confessed even by those who, not knowing how otherwise to evade it, enforce another signification upon the word here. Lόcke, for example, says: “The lexical definition of a scholiast upon Aristophanes, Equit. 851, βριμᾶσθαιτὸὀργίζεσθαικαὶἀπειλεῖν, is accepted by all lexicographers. If we hold to the strict meaning, then Jesus was angry, and saw Mary and the Jews weeping with displeasure.” The ancient Greek expositors, who had still before their eyes the living phraseology, gave the verb the signification of anger. “Only this interpretation, that of loud and violent indignation, is the literal one that ἐμβριμᾶσθαι accepts,” Gumlich asserts and amply proves in his exhaustive tractate on the resurrection of Lazarus (S. and K. 1862). But the indignation of our Lord could not have been directed at the weeping of Mary and the Jews: this is plain from the fact that Jesus Himself afterwards wept. The same reason decides against the assumption that Jesus was wroth with and strove against His own emotion, excited by the weeping of those around him; an assumption which is also refuted by the consideration that there is nothing recorded of any such preceding involuntary emotion on the part of our Lord. Moreover, it would then have been more in keeping that He should have composed rather than excited Himself. No further illustration is necessary to show how little any thus or thus originated anger is worthy of Jesus the Saviour, who sympathizes with us in our infirmities. His vehement wrath being occasioned by the weeping, it must have been excited only by that which caused this weeping. And that was no other than the great enemy of the human race. Death. To this our thoughts are at once directed by the words which follow the mention of our Lord’s deep feeling. He asks, “Where have ye laid him?”—a question which is the introduction to His actual advance towards Death, and His wresting from him the prey which he had carried off. The anger was manifestly the internal feeling which precedes the act of revivification, and in which that act had its psychological root. It is not the passion which brings about the resolution of Jesus; that, according to ver. 4, had been long fixed. The weeping around Him was only a subordinate factor. It would be altogether out of harmony with the Divine dignity of Jesus, to regard Him as raised solely by the weeping to so high a state of emotion, and to the sublime act that followed upon it. The weeping could not be wanting; but it was only one of the subordinate circumstances: the Lord’s determination was already formed. The Redeemer’s wrath will appear all the more appropriate when we consider that the event had a symbolical meaning; that Lazarus was the representative of all believers fallen asleep; and that we have here the pledge and assurance of the abolition of the last enemy, ἔσχατοςἐχθρὸςκαταργεῖταιὁθάνατος, 1 Corinthians 15:26. It may be objected that the auger seems to be directed against a personal enemy; but such an objection comes very flatly. We are accustomed, in the Old Testament, to see impersonal and transitory powers assuming life, personality, and form, in order that their defeat and destruction may be all the more effectually exhibited: comp. e.g. Hosea 13:14. Jesus, according to Matthew 8:26, not only threatens the wind and the sea,—to abate the force of this analogy, it may be pleaded that the act was symbolical, living powers lying concealed behind the wind and the sea: comp. on ch. John 6:14-21,—but He rebukes the fever also in Luke 4:39. If we take into view the whole Scripture doctrine, it will be plain that behind death also there is concealed a personal enemy. Death, according to Genesis 2:17; Genesis 3:19, came upon the human race through the deceit of Satan: comp. the book of Wisdom, ch. John 2:24. Our Lord calls Satan a murderer from the beginning, ch. John 8:44; and in Hebrews 2:14 Satan is described as the ruler of death himself destroyed by Christ. Thus, when our Lord advances against death. He at the same time advances against Satan. Death and the devil are in the Scripture view inseparably connected. Jesus was angry in spirit. A comparison with Mark 8:12, Luke 10:21, John 13:21, Acts 17:16, παρωξύνετοτὸπνεῦμααὐτοῦἐναὐτῷ, will show that τῷπνεύματι, defines the passion to have been an internal one, and consequently full of force, in contrast with emotions which are merely put on for appearance, or go no lower than the surface. The nil is, in the Old Testament, the seat of all strong passions: Genesis 41:8; Proverbs 25:28; Psalms 34:19. The remark that “the spirit, as contradistinguished from the soul, the seat of natural human sensibility, is here named as the sacred domain in which that violent emotion was exhibited,” will not stand the test of the passages we have quoted. It is a mistake also to conclude from the τῷπνεύματι that the anger of Jesus was restricted to the inner spirit. It is rather self-understood that His passion, which had its proper seat in the spirit, must have had an external expression,—as generally the measure of the internal strength of an emotion is the measure of its outward utterance,—otherwise it could not have been matter of historical record. Vatable rightly observes: Vultum mutavit Jesum et vocem et gestum prae dolore. “And was troubled.” Τάρασσειν occurs in the New Testament, so far as it refers to men, always and only of mental emotions; and it must here, in opposition to those who think of a “bodily shivering,” all the rather be referred to the spiritual sphere, inasmuch as the ἑαυτόν is defined by the preceding τῷπνεύματι. Ἐτάραξενἑαυτόν is the same as ἐταράχθητῷπνεύματι ch. John 13:21, with this difference, that in the other instance the emotion was more passive, while here it is active and intentionally called up. Jesus excites Himself to an energetic conflict with the wicked enemy of the human race. Any reference to the Divine nature of Christ, and His elevation above all mere passivity of physical emotions, as resting upon that Divine nature (Augustin: Turbaris tu nolens, turbatus est Christus quia voluit. In illius potestate erat sit vel sic affici. And even Lόcke: “A purely involuntary emotion would be too passive for the Johannine Christ”), is not to be sought in the ἐτάραξενἑαυτόν. The same would be said of a human hero, who roused himself to a sharp contest. Isaiah 42:13 gives us some illustration: “The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man. He shall stir up jealousy like a man of war; He shall cry, yea roar; He shall prevail against His enemies.” If we explain the active sense of the emotion by reference to the Divine nature of Christ, there is no reason why the same active verb was not used in ch. John 12:27, John 13:21. The question which immediately follows the Lord’s excitement, Where have ye laid him? serves only to introduce and prepare for the act which flowed from it, and has, as it were, a liturgical significance. We can no more conclude from His asking the question, that Jesus knew not the place of sepulture, than we can conclude from Where art thou? in Genesis 3:9, that God knew not the retreat of Adam. How little our Lord’s questioning generally was based upon His ignorance (as if He asked because He knew not) we have seen in ch. John 6:6, and still more clearly in the style in which the disciples going to Emmaus were questioned, Luke 24:17-19. If Jesus, at a distance, and without any human information, knew that Lazarus was dead,—if He was so sure beforehand that the sickness would issue to the glory of God, and that the journey would be without peril to Himself,—if we move in the sphere of miracle from the beginning to end of this whole transaction,—it seems a strange transition to another sphere when Christ is made to ask information about the burial-place becau.se He knew it not. (Augustin: Scisti quia mortuns sit et non ubi sit sepultus?) We have already seen that our Lord had remained in the neighbourhood of the sepulchre, and this of itself proves that He was acquainted with it. The question was not intended to furnish Him with information upon a matter in which He was ignorant; it served only to define the boundary between the domain of the Son of God and that of men, who have to transfer as it were their dead to Him, being unable to accomplish aught themselves. Men can only lay their dead in the grave. One alone can raise from the dead. The Κύριε, Lord, reflects the impression of the dignity of His person which the deportment of Jesus had created in the mourners’ minds. The “come and see” is seemingly a reminiscence of Psa 66:5; Psalms 46:8, springing from the impulse to use Scripture language in solemn moments; and the very words were all the more carefully preserved by the narrator, because those passages in the Psalms—“Come and see the works of God: He is terrible in His doings toward the children of men;” and, “Come, behold the works of the Lord, who doeth wonders in the earth”—were to receive a new confirmation. The ἔρχουκαὶἴδε can scarcely be used indifferently here, seeing that John everywhere else uses it with a significant reference. Ver. 35. “Jesus wept.” Gumlich rightly observes that both His wrath and tears were occasioned by one thing, death. That Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus is proved by ver. 36, on which Heumann, holding the opinion that the tears had another cause, is obliged to say, “The Jews were mistaken, when they supposed that He wept over the death of Lazarus.” Surely there is no need to seek diligently for any other reason than the same which called forth the tears of all who were present. Had there been any such reason, the weeping of our Lord would have been carefully distinguished from that of all others. Death and tears are connected in the Old Testament, e.g. in Isaiah 25:8,—“He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it,”—a passage with which ours stands in close external connection; for here Jesus pours out the tears in order to make that saying true, in order that He might be able to wipe away all other tears. It is thrice recorded that Jesus wept: in this passage,—over Jerusalem,—and in Gethsemane, Hebrews 5:7. Δακρύειν, only here in the New Testament, is milder than κλαίειν: it signifies only that tears filled the Lord’s eyes. That literal weeping was not in itself improper for Jesus, is evidenced by Luke 19:41, Hebrews 5:7; but it is out of keeping with the present case, because our Saviour’s tone is pre-eminently active, and the excitement of sympathy with the suffering race of mankind serves only as a foundation for His rigorous resolve to come to the rescue of that race. In Gethsemane it was otherwise. There the tone of our Saviour was predominantly passive. So also was it when He wept over Jerusalem, when He was enforced to give it up to ruin. But in the present instance, the tears which are devoted to the misery of mankind as exemplified in Lazarus, are preceded by the wrath of His spirit against the wretched enemy of mankind. With the weepers Jesus had not wept. When He saw them weeping—the only thing by which they could exhibit their love to the deceased He, the only one who could do more than that, was angered in spirit, preparing Himself for practical help. This shows us, by the way, that in circumstances when human help may be of service. He who can be helpful should not spend much time in inactive tearful sympathy. But when He comes to the very place and abode of death, He gives Himself up to softer sensibility, that He may by His pattern sanctify sympathy. (Augustin: Flevit Christus, fleat se homo. Quare enim flevit Christus, nisi quia flere hominem docuit.) But in the Lord this sympathy does not so much accompany the vigorous assault on death, as form part of its foundation. Lampe’s remark, repeated by Baur and others, is based upon a thorough misunderstanding: “There was no reason for weeping over Lazarus, who, as Jesus certainly knew, would now be awakened to God’s and His own glorification.” Lampe concludes, that the Lord must have wept over the Jews; Baur decides for the spuriousness of the narrative. They overlooked the fact that the weeping of Jesus was the necessary postulate of His action, even as all the miracles of Christ proceeded out of a similar profound emotion of soul. A cold or stony-hearted raiser of the dead would belong to the region of fiction. The living Saviour could only as a helper approach the place of corruption; and only with tears in His own eyes wipe away the tears of ours. Vers. 36, 37. “Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?” That the exclamation and question of the Jews proceeded from sincere hearts, and that they had some foundation of truth—the thought, to wit, that Jesus at the death of Lazarus could not consistently maintain a purely passive attitude—is evident from the influence which both have, according to ver. 38, upon our Lord. His indignation at the enemy is excited by it afresh. That shows that the Jews had given prominence only to one element in the matter, which has still its force when those die who love Jesus. Both His love and His power warrant the supposition that He cannot be in such a case simply passive, but that He must recall them to life. Certainly there is concealed behind the “Behold how he loved him!” the question, “How has he then thus let him die?” And behind the question of ver. 37, another, to wit, “If he could have done so, why did he not?” But that they do not put these secret questions in the spirit of reproach, is shown by the fact that the reverence which, at this crisis, impressed the most violent minds, hinders them from speaking out what they think. It is not in itself sinful to question in uncertainty and awe the ways of God and His message, provided only the hand be laid on the mouth, and the questioner does not murmur, or make himself a judge. This latter is that sinning with the tongue against which, in all the unsearchable providences of God, we have to be on our guard. We cannot doubt, however, that there was something else latent in their thoughts. “Will he not even now give some further demonstration of his love and power?” The thought was only a germ, and did not take expression; but that it was there, is proved by the influence which the Jews’ words excited upon our Lord. The question of ver. 37 could be answered by every one only with Yes. They believe in the opening of the eyes of the blind man; and that was so absolutely a creative work, that He who could perform it could also heal a man sick unto death. Why do they not rather mention the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter, and the young man of Nain? Because they simply confine themselves to an event that had occurred only a short time before, and in their own midst; and the rather as, in the present case, it was primarily the healing of a sick man that was concerned, and not the raising of a dead one. Ver. 38. “Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself, Cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.” The new access of our Lord’s indignation is chiefly excited by the words of the Jews. They tend to renew and quicken His zeal against the fearful foe of the human race. “Because Christ,” says Calvin, “does not come to. the grave like an idle spectator, but as a strong hero, who prepares himself for war, it is not to be marvelled at that He is again angry; for He sees only that awful tyranny of death which He is come to vanquish and destroy.” And Gumlich well observes, “The finished act of the miracle was the goal, at which alone the Lord’s displeasure would find its perfect solace, and His zeal its perfect satisfaction.” Ver. 39. “Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto Him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.” It is a very unfortunate supposition which some have hazarded, that Martha did not believe the Lord purposed to restore her brother’s life when He came to the sepulchre, but only desired to see the remains of His friend once more,—a design from which therefore she dissuaded Him. The right view is, that Martha, by reference to the corruption begun, would place before Jesus the greatness of the work which He designed to accomplish. We see by what follows what end she wished to attain. She would thereby give occasion to Jesus for a new confirmation of His promise, and thus strengthen her own faith: “Lord, he already stinketh: I believe, help Thou mine unbelief.” Death and corruption seem to the natural reason to lie beyond the domain in which even miraculous power may display itself; and believers have evermore to struggle against the same natural reason. It is more especially vigorous in Martha here, inasmuch as the crisis of decision was immediately impending. “The sister of him that was dead:” the most vehement conflict would naturally begin in her mind, at this moment of supreme decision, because she was most nearly affected. She, whose heart and soul were directed entirely to the dead man, would be specially affected by the signs of corruption. That “he stinketh” was only her inference—cannot be proved by “he hath been dead four days.” For this latter gives the reason of the witnessed fact: he stinketh, as it could not be otherwise with one who has been four days dead. The ἤδηὄζει must necessarily have been an actual truth. For—that is the reason why the Evangelist records the expression. It was intended to show emphatically the greatness of the miracle. But even if it be made a mere inference, the ἤδηὄζει asserts still its actual truth. “The reason,” remarks Gumlich, “for Martha’s confident assertion is, in fact, so plain, that nothing but the vain imagination of a miracle before the miracle prevents its being seen.” From the words “by this time he stinketh,” as connected with ver. 44, it has been justly concluded that the body was not embalmed. And this bears testimony to the faith which Mary and Martha reposed in the word of their Master, ver. 4. They did not bury their brother after the manner of the Jews, ch. John 19:40, because they hoped that he would not permanently inhabit the grave. Ver. 40. “Jesus saith unto her. Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?” Jesus affords the desired help to the rising unbelief of believing Martha. In the presence of corruption He renews His promise. “If thou wouldest believe” refers only to vers. 23-27. There Jesus had based the demand for faith, not on the confirmation which the present case would afford to His miraculous power, but on His own person, and on His own absolute power over death. The words, “thou shouldest see the glory of God,” refer solely to ver. 4. Only there do we find mentioned that glory of God which was to be manifested in Lazarus. The seeing God’s glory points us back to Isaiah 40:5 : “And the glory of God shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” Ver. 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.” The old covenant furnishes repeated instances of prayer offered in the form of anticipated thanksgiving. “The Church is distinguished from the world by this, that she does not pray in the way of experiment; she rests in her petitions on God’s word and promise; so that she can ask in faith without wavering, James 1:6.” This is the explanation of the fact that in the Mosaic economy there were no specific prayer-offerings; these were latently involved in the thank-offerings, which we not seldom find presented amidst circumstances of sorrow, when they could refer only to a deliverance expected, and not a deliverance attained. (See further in my Treatise on Sacrifice.) The anticipatory confidence which, even in the Old Testament, gave birth to this form of petition from the lips of believers, was infinitely more appropriate to Christ on account of His unity with the Father. Looking away from the mere form of the petition, Jesus here announces that He will perform, in the strength of God, the work which present circumstances brought before Him. It is not the hearing of any former prayer that is referred to. No such prayer is alluded to; the actual granting of the prayer does not in any sense follow until ver. 44, which altogether excludes the notion that Lazarus had here already begun to rise from the dead and live again. Accordingly, the words can be explained only on the ground of that anticipating confidence which was already inwardly assured of the actuality of the future salvation from death. We have something similar in Psalms 54:6, where David in the midst of his distress expresses a full confidence of deliverance: “I will freely sacrifice unto Thee; I will praise Thy name, Lord, for it is good;” and also Psalms 56:13. Ver. 42. “And I knew that Thou hearest Me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me.” Our Lord refers to 1 Kings 18:37, where Elijah says, “Hear me, O Lord, hear me; that this people may know that Thou art the Lord God.” The express petition, uttered in the form of confident assurance, was not designed to obtain the granting of the request; it might indeed have been omitted, since the relation of Jesus to God was so intimate and perfect that no express utterance of a request was ever needed: every the slightest wish of His soul, every glance of His eye, was regarded; and to Him the words of Isa 65:24 applied in their fullest sense, “Before they call, I will answer.” It is not signified here that His prayer generally is, in relation to God, superfluous,—this would contradict Mark 6:46, which shows that Jesus went up to the mountain to pray, Luke 9:28, etc.,—but prayer as formally expressed in words. So far as concerned His relation to God, “He lifted up His eyes” was enough, and more than enough. Something analogous to these high prerogatives of Christ we find in the experience of advanced saints, Romans 8:26. There is even among mere men a stage of sinking into God, in which the words of prayer rather recede and are lost. The ἀκούειν of itself shows that, not prayer generally, but a certain kind of prayer, is declared to be unnecessary. That Jesus on this occasion did, however, express His prayer in words, was solely on account of those who were around; in order that the connection between the sequel and the person of Christ might be abundantly clear, and thus faith in His Divine mission might be wrought in their minds. That which our Lord here says in the form of address to God, He might, as in ch. John 12:30, have said in the form of an address to the multitude. But that, on the present occasion, would have been less solemn, and less befitting the sublimity of the crisis. The effect of the Lord’s act upon the standers-by, was produced by the circumstance that they were raised with Jesus into the posture of prayer; they were elevated to that prayerful sentiment which was the habitual frame of Christ, the ceaseless breathing of His soul, and which made the present form of words the most appropriate to Himself.—Πάντοτέ, ever,—whether I expressly put the petition or not. Ver. 43. “And when He thus had spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.” In regard to the cry of Jesus here, that holds good which He had said in regard to the praying, ver. 42. The loud voice, the outward demonstration of confidence and decision (comp. on ch. John 1:15), was intended only to symbolize to those around the connection between the will of Jesus and the resurrection act. The parallels in the other Evangelists, Mark 5:41, Luke 7:14; Luke 8:54, in which Jesus utters His cry on occasions of raising the dead, show that the call was addressed to the dead man, and that the revivification was simultaneous with that call. Comp. also ch. John 5:25, according to which the dead shall hear the voice of God. Further, as Lόcke observes, “If we compare ver. 43 with ver. 11, the δεῦροἔξω is the moment of revival itself.” Lampe’s objection, that Jesus addressed Lazarus not as a dead man, but as a living, is dismissed by a reference to Ezekiel 37:4 : “Ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” There also the dead were addressed. That which Jesus here does, is the type and prelude of that which He will do at the last day. This is shown by the connection of our passage with ch. John 5:28-29. Ver. 44. “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.” The grave-clothes that bind the dead express the consolatory assurance that the departed has now rest from his hard toil upon the earth, which lies under the Lord’s curse. They say symbolically what Isaiah said in words: “They enter into peace, they rest upon their beds.” The hands and feet were bound by them, for a sign that, with death, the painful toil of hand and foot is over; as Paul Gerhard sings, “The head, and hands, and feet rejoice, that rest has come at last.” The grave-clothes proper were there besides. The wrappings, which are here expressly limited to the hands and the feet, were added over and above the shroud; and as they served no practical purpose, but had only a symbolical use, their binding was of a looser nature, and the raised man could, although not without some trouble, move forward a few steps. By the supposition that each foot was specially bound about, the significance of the whole is lost. Why then would the word “loose” have been used? The napkin corresponds to these grave-clothes. It had its origin in Genesis 3:19 : “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground.” It intimated that the dead had departed from labour and sorrow. Genesis 3:17, Psalms 90:10, Revelation 14:13, and out of “great tribulation,” Revelation 7:14; that they “rest from their labours.” According to chap. John 20:7, the napkin was “on the head.” Accordingly ὄψις, the face, is here used as pars pro toto. It covered the forehead, on which the sweat stands. That the eyes were covered, is plain from the words, “Loose him, and let him go,” which refer to the napkin also, and show that the napkin was a hindrance to going. Nor is it a mere accident that the countenance is here designated by a word which is derived from seeing. In the “let him go” it is not signified that Lazarus went alone to the house, which would have been unnatural. They were to let him go, inasmuch as they were to remove those bandages which they had laid upon the supposed dead man. The “let him” refers to the restraints which they had caused, and which were the only ones left, after Jesus Himself had removed the main hindrance. As in ver. 34 the burial is ascribed to the whole company present, so here with the unloosing.—“Death, sin, devil, life, and grace are all in His hand. He can save all who come to Him—that is the great practical result which the whole narrative teaches.” In vers. 45, 46, we have the effect of the miracle upon the people around. Ver. 45. “Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on Him.” It does not mean many of the Jews who had come to Mary, τῶνἐλθόντων, but many Jews (among those present generally) who had come to Mary. It is taken for granted that they had not all come to Mary. What is alone intimated here, receives its illustration from the relations of the household as we have explained them. Mary had come solely on Simon’s account. Mary is mentioned, and not Martha, because the latter, the mistress of the house, could not be separated from Simon. The believing acquaintance had come to Mary in the first place, and only subordinately to Martha, who in this point of view depended on Mary. And we must suppose that they brought with them the beginnings of faith. When they saw what Jesus had here done, their germ of faith was more fully developed; comp., for a similar process and use of faith, the remarks on John 7:5. But we may also assume that οἱἐλθόντες here stands irregularly for τῶνἐλθόντων—as an abbreviated relative clause. Mary would in that case be mentioned as the chief mourner. (In favour of this a whole series of analogies may be adduced from the Apocalypse: comp. Winer and Buttmann.) We have a similar construction in ch. John 1:14. But such irregularities seldom occur in the simple historical style; and the fact that only Mary is mentioned here, differently from ver. 19, leads to the grammatically obvious interpretation. That αὐτῶν, in ver. 46, refers to those who came to Mary, is a construction which will not harmonize. But we must suspend our judgment. Ver. 46. “But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.”— ἐξαὐτῶν—if we adopt the former of the explanations offered upon ver. 45, τῶνἸουδαίων,—some of those who, in contradistinction to those who came to Mary, had come to Martha, in her character of mistress of the house and wife of Simon, probably in concert and co-operation with that Pharisee (Luke 7, “chief of the Pharisees”), Luke 14:1. Grotius remarks: Impios hos fuisse necesse est, quod genus hominum ne conspecta quidem mortuorum resurrectione resipiscere solet, Luke 16:31. “He contrasts them, as untouched and uninfluenced, with the many believers; and gives it plainly to be understood that their zealous information occasioned the assembling of the synagogue, and the bloody counsel of Caiaphas.” Bengel: Citius cedit mors virtuti Christi quam infidelitas. Death yields to Christ’s virtue sooner than unbelief. The difference in disposition among the Jews had not appeared during the course of the event itself. The majesty of Christ had, for the time, overcome their unbelief. But it afterwards betrayed itself among those whose minds were unfriendly; and ch. John 12:10 probably gives us the true solution of the manner in which the matter was solved. Then the rulers of the Jews resolve to kill Lazarus as well as Jesus. This presupposes that they had found some fault in him. Doubtless they imagined some preconcerted plan between Jesus and the family in Bethany. In ver. 47-53 we have the plans which were devised by the Council in consequence of this event, and their result. Vers. 47, 48. “Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him; and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.” Anton: “When God displays His greatest works before the world, the world is provoked to the highest pitch of bitterness and wrath.” For ἀρχιερεῖς and Φαρισ. see on ch. John 7:32. The precedence of the high priests shows that by the Pharisees are meant the Pharisaic party among the assessors of the council. Συνέδριον here signifies a session. The word was chosen in allusion to the nomen proprium of the supreme spiritual authority. This proper name does not occur in John, as it does in the first Evangelists and the Acts; just as he omits to mention the scribes and the νομικοί. Having the most accurate acquaintance with Jewish institutions, he always avoids expressly alluding to them. Thus he names not the Sanhedrim, but describes its sitting by a word which alludes to the proper name. “What shall we do?” is the ordinary question of those who are pondering: Judges 21:16; 1 Samuel 5:8; Jonah 1:11; Acts 4:16. Here it is strictly, What do we? Since the circumstances are urgent, and demanding instant action, and since there can be no doubt that something must at once be done, the present and the present of the indicative is strictly appropriate. The proper motive of the opposition to Jesus was, among the Pharisaic members of the high council, a different one from that exhibited in ver. 48. It was, in one word, that which Matthew 27:18 gives, where it is said of Pilate, “He knew that through envy they had delivered Him.” Compare what was said on ch. John 10:8 concerning the true character of the conflict between Christ and the Pharisees. But this self-seeking ground of their hatred to Jesus they cannot lay bare. They make pretence of another reason, and represent it as if they were alone actuated by love to the people. The specifically Pharisaic reasons were the less brought forward because the council had in it many Sadducee members, and the influential high priest himself belonged to that party. Had the Pharisees urged any of their own characteristic arguments, some such conflict might have arisen between the two parties as Acts 23:10 records. They therefore abandoned the domain of theology, and contented themselves with such political arguments as were common to the Sadducees with themselves. Their anxiety was not altogether baseless. Although the kingdom of Christ was not of this world, yet at that time of general excitement insurrectionary movements might easily have connected themselves with His appearance (comp. John 6:15); the Romans might give a political interpretation to events which had in them no political meaning, entirely ignorant as they were of the spiritual character of the new kingdom. Characteristic in this view is Pilate’s “Thou art a king then?” The intelligence of the Jewish Messianic expectations had at that time penetrated far and deep in the heathen world. Percrebuerat toto Oriente vetus et constans opinio, esse in fatis ut eo tempore Judaea profecti rerum potirentur, says Suetonius (Vespasian, iv.); and Tacitus (Hist. v. 13) speaks in the same style (comp. Christol. iii. 2). And as these expectations bore a political character, it was obvious that the same political character would be referred to the historical appearance of the Messiah. Nor was it a contradiction that those who longed for the Messiah as a deliverer from the hateful Roman dominion, were disposed to league against Christ on account of the danger threatened from the Romans. For Christ would never from the beginning yield Himself up as the instrument of their insurrectionary schemes; and they, on their part, were not inclined to lose what they had in favour of a passive Messiah, who would not favour them in their dearest desires. Of any spiritual victory over the heathen world which Christ was preparing for, they had no presentiment. But what they did in order to prevent the ruin of the Temple and the destruction of their national existence, precisely brought about that ruin and destruction. (Augustin: Temporalia perdere timuerunt et vitam aeternam non cogitaverunt; ac sic utrumque amiserunt.) “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate,” says the Christ whom they rejected in Matthew 23:38, and history has approved His word. Lyser: “As the Evangelist tells us that Caiaphas unwittingly prophesied concerning the fruits of Christ’s death, so we may say of these counsellors that they unwittingly prophesied concerning the future destinies of the Jewish people.” In the prophecies of the Old Testament, the rejection of the good Shepherd is followed by the wasting of the land, and the destruction of the people, Zechariah 11; and, according to Daniel 9:24-27, the consequence of the murder of the Anointed was that the greater part of the people became a prey to the army of a strange prince, which, an instrument in the hand of an avenging God, should utterly destroy the fallen city and the desecrated Temple. “The Romans will come:” comp. Jeremiah 36:29, “The king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land;” Daniel 9:26, “And the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary”—he that shall come being a non-theocratic ruler coming from without. To these passages the Pharisees here refer. We have shown in the Christology that the passage in Daniel was generally understood of an impending destruction of Jerusalem. Αἴρειν, to take away, remove, destroy (comp. John 19:15; John 19:31), so that the place, as such, and the people should no longer exist. The ὑμῶν preceding the place is to be well noted; those who omitted it were ill-advised. That the word place here of itself signifies the Temple, cannot be established from 2Ma 5:19,—ἀλλ̓οὐδιὰτὸντόποντὸἔθνος, ἀλλὰδιὰτὸἔθνοςτὸντόπονὁκύριοςἐξελέξατο,—for it is only the connection with ver. 15 that makes the place the Temple in that passage. But “our place” can only be the Temple. It is the habitual style of the New Testament not to mention the city so much as the Temple, the seat and dwelling-place of the entire people. In the books of Moses we read of the “tabernacle of the congregation,” the place where the Lord had communion with His people, and dwelt with them. Psalms 84:4 refers to the Temple, “The sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself;” and so also ver. 5, where the Israelites are spoken of who dwell in the house of the Lord; Psalms 27:4; Psalms 23:6; Psalms 61:5; Psalms 63:3. The Temple is called in Isaiah 64:10 our holy and beautiful house. “Your house” the Lord in Matthew 23:38 calls the Temple, referring to these Old Testament passages. If Jerusalem is included in our present passage, it can only be on account of the Temple. Place and people correspond to each other. The Temple was the spiritual centre and the soul of the people. Were the Temple gone, there would be no people. Israel is an ἔθνος, as a people among the peoples; ὁλαός, as the elect people. Τὸἔθνος could hardly be used concerning Israel without some addition like ἡμῶν here. If ἡμῶν had been wanting, it must have been τὸνλαόν. The Pharisees feared that the Romans might say, with the sons of the wilderness, in Psalms 83:5, δεῦτεκαὶἐξολεθρεύσωμεναὐτοὺςἐξἔθνους. Anton: “They thought only of the ruin ad extra; about the ruin ad intra they made no question.” Vers. 49, 50. “And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them. Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.” The name of Caiaphas is the same as Cephas, the difference being merely that between the Syriac and the Chaldee pronunciation. The same change of forms is found in the name of the town Kaifa (v. Raumer, s. 156), called by William of Tyre Porphyria, which was probably a translation of Kaifa. Caiaphas was only a surname: his proper name was Joseph. Josephus says, in Antiq. xviii. 2, 2, καὶἸώσηποςὁκαὶΚαϊάφαςδιάδοχοςἦναὐτῷ and in xviii. 4, 3, καὶτὸνἀρχιερέαἸώσηποντὸνκαὶΚαΐφανἐπικαλούμενονἀπαλλάξαςτῆςἱερωσύνης. No doubt Joseph took the name Caiaphas when he entered on his office: it was, properly speaking, his official name. It designated the high-priesthood as the rock on which the edifice of the theocracy rested. Caiaphas bore that name at the very time when Jesus gave it to the first of the Apostles, the rock on which He built His Church. It may therefore be assumed that the Lord had a polemical object in giving Simon his new name, setting against the imaginary rock the true one. Consequently the name Cephas was a declaration of war against the religion of the times, and an announcement of a new building to be set up: comp. ch. John 10:8. The remark that Caiaphas was high priest that year occurs three times, vers. 51, 58, 13. Josephus gives evidence of the frequency with which the high-priesthood changed hands during his time, Antiq. xviii. 2, 2; and it is a remarkable fact, that several high priests, and specially the immediate predecessors of Caiaphas, had enjoyed the dignity only one year. “And not long after, having displaced this man, he appointed Eleazar, the son of Annas, the high priest; and the year having passed, he gave the high-priesthood to Simon, he having held the dignity not more than one year, Joseph,” etc. The more the high-priesthood became the centre of the national existence, the more it became the interest of the Romans to provide that single persons should not establish their roots too firmly. The words, “being high priest that year,” stand in special and plain relation to these facts. Although Caiaphas administered the high-priesthood during several years (in connection with which it is to be remembered that Vitringa, Obs. vi. 13, 2, has suggested doubts as to the continuance in office ascribed to him by Josephus), yet every year the people expected a change; and if he remained in office after the current year, it was only for the next year that he was supposed to hold it. Very characteristic is the delicate reference to these peculiar relations of time, which are not recorded so much as taken for granted. Eusebius, H. E. 1, 10, recognised these relations, but he apprehended them too vaguely. Caiaphas, according to Acts 5:17, belonged to the party of the Sadducees; and that very circumstance, doubtless, enabled him to retain his office longer than others. The rough manner peculiar to this party may be discerned here. “Ye know nothing at all, nor consider,” seems to be a rather needless impertinence. He might have begun his answer to the question, “What do we?” without any such rough introduction, by the simple words, “It is expedient for us.” We have here only a single example of that which Josephus says generally in the Jewish War, ii. 8. 14: ΚαὶΦαρισαῖοιμὲνφιλάλληλοίτεκαὶτὴςεἰςτὸκοινὸνὁμόνοιανἀσκοῦντες, Σαδδυκαίωνδὲκαὶπρὸςἀλλήλουςτὸἦθοςἀγριώτερον. It is usually explained, “Ye consider not that it is expedient for us.” But it is better to give ὅτι the meaning for or because: first, the objection that they had spoken inconsiderately what they had said, “What do we?” then the establishment of this objection, by showing them that the course to be taken, about which they were in doubt, was plainly marked out. In the two other passages, where ὅτι follows διαλογίζεσθαι, Matthew 16:8 and Mark 8:16-17 (in John, διαλογίζεσθαι, occurs only here), the ὅτι does not bear the signification that, but means because, and is independent of the verb. Even in Luke 5:21, the διαλογ. stands without direct connection with the verb. The notion that διαλογίζεσθε is not appropriate, as connected with ὅτι, gave occasion to the reading λογίζεσθε. First comes ὁλαός, the people in their specific character and dignity; then ὅλοντὸἔθνος, the people in mass, in opposition to the one man. Ἔθνος is like βει, the most comprehensive designation. It means, properly, host or crowd, and is used by Homer even of swarms of flies. Ὁλαός, δςν, is the preferential name of Israel, because the people of God were the only people in the fullest sense, as united by an internal bond: the heathen were μΰςν, οὐλαός, according to Deuteronomy 32:21, 1 Peter 2:10, because they were without the true and real bond of unity, fellowship with God. Vers. 51, 52. “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.” What Caiaphas said flowed, as is evident, from an evil fountain, and had a wicked intention; but John regards the Divine influence that was upon him as so overruling his words, that the spiritual ruler of the covenant people should express his bad purpose in such words as might most aptly utter a profound truth. He who, with John, believes in a living God, whose secret operation pervades the hearts of the ungodly, scarcely needs the express assurance that the Evangelist gives. Without the Divine influence, another instead of Caiaphas might have delivered the sentiment, or Caiaphas might have been able to express his opinion in words which could not have admitted a sacred interpretation. In the προφητεύειν there is regarded only the Divine suggestion or inspiration, which had for its foundation the fact that Caiaphas was the high priest at the time. It was appropriate and so ordered that he, in that office, should bear testimony to the true propitiation which the true High Priest would effect by His representative death. It was a parallel to this when Pilate, the holder of the civil authority, was constrained to bear witness, in the superscription on the cross, that Jesus was King of the Jews, and to reply to those who urged the change of this inscription, that “what he had written he had written.” Pilate was under the same Divine guidance as that which here makes Caiaphas prophesy. And it was also a parallel, when the people cried out, “His blood be on us and on our children,” Matthew 27:25; when the high priests and scribes mocked Christ on the cross, with words which they, as it were involuntarily, borrowed from Psalms 22, and by which they spoke their own condemnation, Matthew 27:43; when the soldiers, to fulfil Psalms 22, must cast lots upon the vesture of Christ, ch. John 19:23. In regard to all these things, the “not of himself” holds good, as well as the positive answering to this negative, that the persons concerned prophesied, without on that account being prophets. For more appertains to the being a prophet, than such momentary and partial influences. It is noteworthy that John does not, like Caiaphas, say ὑπὲρτοῦλαοῦ, but ὑπὲρτοῦἔθνους. He could not have made Caiaphas say anything but ὁλαός when speaking of the Jews: comp. ver. 50, John 18:14. He himself speaks from the standing-point of his own time and the Church of Christ. Then the distinction between ὁλαός and τὰἔθνη had vanished: comp. Isaiah 42:6; Gesenius, Thes. i. v. βει. Another people of God had taken the place of the Jews, 1 Peter 2:10; Revelation 18:4; Revelation 21:3. The Jews were only an ἔθνος, like the rest. That the Jews were in question here, is evidenced by the article pointing to the word of Caiaphas. But this delicate distinction itself shows how faithfully John reproduced the expression of the high priest. In ver. 52 John supplements the saying of Caiaphas, which, in its divinely-designed meaning, contained the truth indeed, but not the whole truth. In relation to the “children of God,” that is most fully applicable which was remarked upon the sheep not of this fold, ch. John 10:16. The children of God scattered abroad are not single believers, or individuals predisposed to believe, who were scattered amongst the unbelieving Gentiles, but the Dispersion generally. This has been, since Genesis 11, the essential character of the whole world of heathenism, as the kernel and centre of which the children of God here appear: the abandoned refuse of them, not predestined to become children of God, are not taken into account. The correctness of this view is manifest from the original passages in Genesis 10:5; Genesis 10:32, compared with John 7:35. Local dispersion is here regarded only as the reflection of the internal dispersion. From the tower of Babel the bond of fellowship was broken which previously united the human race, and all had been dissolved and confused. With the external dispersion, the most decisive separation of temper and spirit between the several national personalities runs parallel. The commencement of the regathering was made in the Old Testament by the call of the Israelitish people. That created a centre of aggregation. Christ gathers into this fold the scattered sheep of the Gentile world (comp. on ch. John 10:16), and that by His atoning death, the result of which was, that “a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues,” enter into the fold. A fundamental passage in the Old Testament is Isaiah 49:6, where the Lord says to His servant, “It is a light thing that Thou shouldest be My servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth.” But Isaiah 56:8 still more closely touches our present passage. There we read, after the reception of the “sons of the stranger” into the kingdom of God had been spoken of, as it would take place in the Messiah’s days: “The Lord God, which gathereth the outcasts of Israel, saith. Yet will I gather others to Him, besides those that are gathered to Him” (LXX.: συνάγων and συνάξω). Ver. 53. “Then, from that day forth, they took counsel together for to put Him to death.” Among the Pharisees as a party, the death of Christ had been long decided on, ch. John 5:16; John 5:18, John 7:1; John 7:19; John 7:25, John 8:37; but the council itself only now adopted that resolution, and from this time onward plotted for its accomplishment. Thus they realized, remarks Lampe, the type of Joseph’s brethren, who took counsel concerning his death. Genesis 37:18. Vers. 54-57. Jesus, who would die at the Passover as the paschal lamb, repairs, on account of the persecution which threatened Him, to Ephraim. Ver. 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.” We learn from Acts 21:24; Acts 21:26, that this cleansing consisted primarily in external ceremonies; but more reflecting souls regarded these as only the symbol of the sanctification of hearts, James 4:8; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 3:3. The law contains no specific injunction with regard to this purification before the Passover. But the propriety of such a preparation, for the highest and holiest of the feasts, was obvious in the nature of things; and it was, moreover, sanctioned by a series of historical types, which taught the doctrine, that every approach to God, and every reception of His grace, must be preceded by a worthy preparation. In Genesis 35:2, Jacob says to his people, when he would go with them to Bethel to celebrate Divine service, “Be clean, and change your garments.” In Exodus 19:10-11, we read: “And the Lord said unto Moses, Go unto the people and sanctify them (Sept. καὶἅγνισοναὐτούς) to-day and to-morrow, and let them wash their clothes, and be ready against the third day; for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai.” In Joshua 3:5, Joshua says to the people, “Sanctify yourselves (Sept. ἁγνίσασθε), for to-morrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” That the doctrine lying at the basis of all these passages was applied also to the Passover, we learn from 2 Chronicles 30:16-20. There we read of an exception in favour of those whose circumstances would not allow them to be cleansed and prepared for coming to the Passover. “If the Jews,” says Lyser, “during several days prepared themselves for eating the shadowy and transitory Passover, with what earnest prayer and careful examination should Christians approach the mysterious table on which the true Passover of the New Testament is exhibited!” comp. 2 Corinthians 7:1. Ver. 56. “Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the temple. What think ye, that he will not come to the feast?” These questions start from the fact of the seclusion of Christ. According to their tenor, “the mixed multitude, who in religious matters are full of variations and uncertainty,” doubt whether Jesus will or will not come to the feast: that He will not come, seems the more probable supposition. “Wait only a while, ye good people,” says Lyser, “and ye will see with what publicity and stately dignity He will enter your city.” In John’s record of the impression which the seclusion of Jesus made upon the people, there is evident a certain gentle irony. It was somewhat as if they had been dubious whether the sun, for the moment hidden behind the clouds, would ever come forth again. We have two questions before us: What think ye about his concealment? Do ye think that he will not come to the feast? (comp. Winer.) If we assume only one question, and explain it, “What can be the cause that he does not come to the feast?” we disturb the connection with ver. 54, and overlook the chronological relations. It was still a long time to the feast, and Jesus might yet come. Nothing is in harmony with this but the question whether the Lord would come at all. Ver. 57. “Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where He were, he should show it, that they might take Him.” The “also” is not to be overlooked. In the preceding we saw the impression which the concealment of Jesus made on the multitude. Here we have the measures which the spiritual authorities were thereby induced to adopt. Not merely the people, but their religious rulers also, deduced from the transitory seclusion of Jesus the inference that He desired to withdraw altogether from publicity; and they therefore proceeded against Him in the full confidence that their measures, even if they failed of any tangible result, would at least stamp Jesus as an impostor shunning the light. How must they have been confounded when our Lord suddenly appeared among them free and unrestrained! Ch. 12 is occupied with the occurrences of the last six days before the final Passover of Jesus. First, we have in vers. 1-8 His anointing in Bethany. John’s narrative does not profess to record the incident as a whole, with all its attendant circumstances; but only to give a series of supplements to his predecessors. He briefly sums up the fundamentals of the event, and as much as possible in their words. His additions are: the specification of the time of the supper; its connection with the resurrection of Lazarus; the name of the woman who anointed Christ; the name of the particular disciple who stimulated the opposition to Mary’s act in the circle of the Apostles, connected with a remark upon the motive of that disciple. Ver. 1. “Then Jesus, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom He raised from the dead.” The narrative connects itself with the end of the previous chapter by οὖν. Jesus confounded the thoughts and machinations mentioned in ch. John 11:55-57, and which had their origin in His seclusion, by His actions: at the right time He came forward with the utmost publicity, and thus overturned all their notions. With reference to πρὸἓξἡμερῶντοῦπάσχα—about six days before the Passover—comp. on ch. John 11:18. Which way did our Lord take from Ephraim to Bethany? John does not say: we must therefore assume that the former Evangelists had given an account of this; and our expectation is found to be warranted. They all agree that our Lord in His last journey to Jerusalem passed through Jericho: comp. Matthew, in which the account of this last journey begins ch. Matthew 20:17, and goes on to Matthew 20:29; Mark 10:46 (the beginning of the narrative in ver. 32); Luke 19:1 (the beginning in ch. John 18:31). John’s predecessors also give us the reason why Jesus took the circuitous route through Jericho: the time of seclusion, John 11:54, had run out; and Jesus would now enter Jerusalem in full publicity. To the stately entrance which He contemplated, a large retinue was necessary. To gather these together, our Lord took the road leading through Jericho, which was in the high pilgrim-road through Perea. As soon as Jesus joined this track, great multitudes of people began to surround Him, Matthew 20:29 : comp. Mark 10:46; Luke 18:36; Luke 19:3. These crowds, who doubtless came to Jerusalem the same day on which Jesus entered Bethany, spread there the report of His coming, set the whole city in commotion, and were the occasion that many came to Jerusalem even on the Sabbath; and that still more fetched the Lord on the ensuing day. The circuitousness, therefore, of the road gives no difficulty. Probably Jesus during the last time did not remain in Ephraim, but sought out the perfect solitude of the wilderness which lay between Ephraim and Jericho: comp. on ch. John 11:54. How are the six days to be reckoned? The word Passover is, in the law, used only of the paschal lamb, and in Matthew and Mark only of the paschal meal. If here also in John it describes the whole festival, we must assume that the festival took its beginning from the meal, the name of which passed over to the whole week. Ch. John 13:1 makes this certain. There the “feast of the Passover” commences with the paschal meal; and the definition of the time there is all the more decisive, as the account is connected with our present one, and refers to the same feast. The paschal meal belonged to the evening of the fourteenth of Nisan, which, according to Jewish reckoning, begins at the same time the fifteenth Nisan. The paschal meal fell then on the Thursday evening. If we reckon six days backwards, Jesus came to Bethany on the evening of the Friday, the eighth of Nisan,—which, according to Jewish computation of time (Leviticus 23:32), also began the ninth of Nisan,—before the rest of the Sabbath had begun. The first day went from the Friday evening to the Saturday evening; the second from Saturday evening to Sunday evening, and so forth. The “Supper” of our Lord must belong to the day of His arrival; for otherwise the words “on the next day,” ver. 12, would be meaningless,—a thing which, in John’s chronological style, is inconceivable, and more especially here, where the Evangelist defines precisely those points in the Passion week which were left undecided in the first Gospels. The “Supper” of Bethany was, doubtless, the principal meal of the Sabbath-day. The entrance into Jerusalem followed on the Sunday: the second or next day extended, according to Jewish reckoning of time, from Saturday evening to Sunday evening. Jesus tarried in Bethany at least thirty-six hours. It has been erroneously urged, that the chronology in the text interferes with the sanctity of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is still among the Jews preferred for the enjoyment of feasts. But the food was prepared previously; and even the tables must have been arranged in order before the Sabbath began. Nor does the fact that guests came from Jerusalem militate against the feast having been on the Sabbath. The ecclesiastical district of Jerusalem extended beyond the walls. “Lightfoot, in the Hor. Heb. p. 73, cites a mass of passages from Jewish writers, which establish that Bethphage was altogether regarded as if it had been situated within the walls of Jerusalem. The wall was thus considered as pushed outwards; and Bethany was no more than a Sabbath-day’s journey for the citizens of Jerusalem, although it was no less than fifteen stadia” (Wieseler, s. 435). The narrative of Luk 24:50-53, compared with Acts 1:12, makes it clear that Bethany was not more than a Sabbath-day’s journey from Jerusalem. Accordingly, the Sabbath would not throw any impediment in the way of the Jews’ coming to Bethany in order to see Jesus, as recorded in ch. John 12:9-11. The other Evangelists make no express mention of the sojourn of Jesus in Bethany before the entrance into Jerusalem. But they do not imply that He passed by that place without spending the night; which is rendered improbable by the fact, that in their own accounts Jesus went out to Bethany every evening of the last week of His life upon earth: Matthew 21:17; Mark 11:11-12; and especially Luke 21:37. Jesus had spent the previous night with Zaccheus in Jericho: thus He had already made a long day’s journey when He reached Bethany. It is not probable that He first passed by Bethany and went to Jerusalem, and then returned back to the former place. There is a distinct intimation of the sojourn in Bethany before the entrance into Jerusalem in Mark 11:1 : “And when they came nigh to Jerusalem, εἰςΒηθφαγὴκαὶΒηθανίανπρὸςτὸὄροςτῶνἘλαιῶν, unto Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives;” and Luke 19:29. Bethphage and Bethany form in these passages a geographical unity. Bethphage, alone mentioned in Matthew 21:1, is placed first in order, to intimate that Jesus had already left Bethany behind Him. Mark’s introduction of the latter word intimates that the Evangelists knew more than they narrate—that Jesus made Bethany His point of departure that day. The hint in Mark and Luke is fully developed in John. But for what reason did the earlier Evangelists omit expressly to record the sojourn of Jesus in Bethany before the entrance into Jerusalem? The answer is simply, that their accounts had no point of connection with that sojourn, and did not require it for the sake of supplement. Luke had already, in Luke 7, independently of chronology, narrated the anointing, as an illustrative appendage to our Lord’s designation of Himself as the friend of publicans and sinners. Matthew places the account of it in ch. Matthew 26:6, etc., immediately before that of the treachery of Judas. He gives it without any reference to time. The τότε, corresponding to τότε in ver. 3, comes in ver. 14. So also with Mark in ch. Mark 14:3-9. Their narratives of the anointing are in both these Evangelists parenthetical insertions, without reference to time. They separate the account of the consultations of the high priests from that which records Judas’ offer of himself as their instrument. Both Evangelists subordinated chronological sequence, interrupting it in order to insert for a purpose an event which they had both reserved. But the reason why they mention the fact just where they do, is not what many, following Augustin, assume, viz. that Judas, in consequence of the anointing, and the waste which Jesus permitted, was filled with hatred and anger, and conceived the project of the betrayal. That Judas derived his instigation to treachery from that event is a mere fiction, for which there is no definite ground in the narrative. And it is decisive against this hypothesis, that Matthew and Mark do not mention Judas—whom John alone names; but they must have mentioned him had there been such a connection between the two events. The first two Evangelists place the story of the anointing immediately before the account of Judas’ treachery, in order to make more prominent the darkness of the traitor, in contrast with the light of Mary. The avarice of Judas, who sold Christ for thirty pieces of silver, is the perfect opposite of the ἀπώλεια of Mary upon Christ’s person. She gives what she has in perfect sacrifice, probably the last relics of her substance (comp. the ὅεἶχεναὕτηἐποίησε, Mark 14:8); Judas, on the other hand, turns Christ Himself to gold. John only assigns here to the residence in Bethany, which the other Evangelists leave chronologically indefinite, its appropriate and true place in our history. Bethany is described as the place where Lazarus was: he, since his resurrection, was the principal person in Bethany. The circumstance that he was there probably occasioned Jesus’ going—the remembrance of the miracle would thereby be freshened; it occasioned the feast which celebrated that event; and attracted the concourse of multitudes who came to seek Jesus, ver. 9. The fact that Jesus had called Lazarus from his grave, brought to Him the crowds which fetched Him from Jerusalem, vers. 17, 18. The description of Lazarus, on this mention of him, has a solemn amplitude, which was intended to arrest the reader’s attention to this person, and his high importance. Many copyists did not understand this. Hence some of them omitted ὁτεθνηκὼς as superfluous; others, for the same reason, ὁἸησοῦς. Ver. 2. “There they made Him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with Him.” The phrase “making a feast” is commonly used of a greater and more special repast: comp. Mark 6:21; Luke 14:12; Luke 16:17. And the feast before us was of that kind. It served to celebrate the resurrection of Lazarus. The coming of Jesus was doubtless expected. All things had been prepared for the feast, and the guests had been summoned. That Martha played the hostess in her own house, is shown by Luke 10:38; Luke 10:40 : comp. Matthew 8:15; Mark 1:31. It would not have been becoming for an eminent woman to have discharged such a service in another house than her own. Martha, the housewife, who had under her a company of servants, waited even in her own house only because the circumstances were extraordinary. Where “the Master” is present, who in ver. 26 says, “If any man serve Me, him will My Father honour,” it is perfectly becoming that the mistress should serve. That Lazarus was among the guests, had a theological significance: it was a demonstration of the truth and greatness of the miracle. Perfect reinstatement in the former life—and not merely the change from death into the state of a sick man—was required by the symbolical significance of the event. Ver. 3. “Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.” The whole conduct of Mary is, as Chrysostom remarked, that of a “broken-hearted soul.” Wichelhaus (Comm. on the Passion-history) observes, “She must have been similarly affected as the sinner of Luke 7.” That she anoints the feet of Jesus, that she unlooses her hair, to do which was held among the Jews a great disgrace, that she wipes with it the feet of Jesus—all exhibit her as the sinner and the penitent. Wichelhaus, who acknowledges all this, seeks in vain to prove that ch. 11 records a great transgression on the part of Mary. The nard, to which Pliny assigns the first place amongst unguents (H. N. xii. 26: de folio nardi plura dici par est, ut principali in unguentis), is mentioned only by Mark of the earlier Evangelists. Matthew speaks only in general of a costly ointment. The pound here corresponds to the “alabaster box” of Matthew and Mark. According to the metrological investigations of Boeckh, λίτρα was not merely a weight of twelve ounces, but also a measure for liquids. A vessel which contained twelve ounces of water was the libra mensuralis, the metrical pound for liquid; and the ointment boxes were probably so made as to contain just one such metrical pound. Πιστικός is not, with many, to be understood in the sense of liquid; for an adjective derived from πίνω never occurs, and, moreover, potable in the sense of liquid would be a strange application of the word. It must rather be interpreted, with the old Greek expositors, that which might be trusted, real, genuine. The word πιστικός is not to be found in classical authors; for in the passage commonly adduced from Aristotle’s Rhetoric, πειστική is the reading now generally acknowledged. Yet we find in an Attic inscription (Boeckh, Corp. Inscript. i. 382), a ΠιστοκράτηςΠιστικοῦ, both proper names of father and son, probably meaning the same. In later Greek, πιστικός was the supercargo, to whom the ship and its freight were entrusted; and then the man who stood representative of the company, and was bound to make provision for it. It was probably an expression of common life, and specifically a commercial terminus technicus. This interpretation is made the more probable by the fact that nard was so frequently adulterated. Pliny, xii. 26, says: Adulteratur et Pseudonardo herba . . . Sinceruni quidem levitate deprehenditur. Again, xiii. 1: Conveniet meminisse herbarum quae nardum Indicum imitentur, species novem a nobis dictas esse: tanta materia adulterandi est. Tibullus speaks of the nardus pura; and in Galen we find the expression ἀκέραιον applied to it. Pliny, xii. 26, assigns to genuine nard the value of a hundred denarii to the pound. Butthat could not have been its highest price; for Pliny gives to nard the supreme place among unguents, but at the same time mentions another species which he declares to be worth from 25 to 300 denarii: comp. ver. 5. Vers. 4, 5. The ἐκτῶνμ. αὐτοῦ refers to the οἱμαθηταὶαὐτοῦ, not as a correction, but as supplementary. That Judas was only the originator of the complaint, is plain from the reproof administered to more than one in ver. 8. What Judas alleges is so specious and plausible, that the record of the other Evangelists may easily be believed as quite natural. “For luxurious and prodigal feasts,” says Wichelhaus, “such an anointing might have been appropriate; but what end could such luxury upon Jesus serve? What reasonable man would not have agreed with Judas in this censure?” Merely for distinction from the other Judas, the Σίμωνος alone would have been sufficient. The surname Iscariot, the man of lies, is added, because it was now that Judas declared himself to be essentially what that name signified; he disguised his covetousness and lust of thieving under the semblance of pious care for the poor: comp. ver. 6. “Who should betray Him “has also its special significance here. While he in his avarice was exhibiting his anger against this expression of love to Jesus, he was proving himself a worthy candidate for betraying Jesus through avarice. Three hundred pence or denarii, nearly ten pounds, was to these disciples a large sum. It is characteristic of Judas, the type of later money-making Jews, that he so accurately knows the price of a thing with which he had nothing to do. Even if we had not the narrative of John, this valuation of the ointment, which Mark also gives, would of itself have pointed to Judas. Ver. 6. “This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.”—Βαστάζειν always in the New Testament means to carry; so even in ch. John 20:15, where the bearing is only by the context determined to be a carrying away. Βαστάζειν itself never stands for appropriating, or spending on itself; nor is the ἐβάστασε pleonastic, if we take the verb in its usual meaning of carrying. The new element lies in the τὰβαλλόμενα, which specifies the contents of the common bag, and shows that it was filled by affectionate gifts. This new appendage to the sentence required a new verb. That Judas had the bag is remarked also in ch. John 13:29; whence we see that this bag served both for the supply of the necessities of the company, and for charities to the poor. The contributions to this common stock came, according to Luke 8:3, principally from women. As Judas had the bag and carried these contributions, he had good opportunity for appropriation. Obviously, he must have often given occasion for such a suspicion; but his fellow-disciples, observing the law of love, had kept down this fearful suspicion, receiving his justification, however little plausibility it might have. After his betrayal, all these grounds of suspicion returned to them in full force. It can scarcely fail to be acknowledged, that the provision of this bag stands in some relation to 2 Chronicles 24:8, the only passage in which the Septuagint employs γλωσσόκομον. There we find that, by command of king Joash, they made a chest, and deposited it in the forecourt of the Temple; that all the princes and all the people brought joyfully their Temple tribute, ἐνεβαλονεἰςτὸγλωσσόκομον: comp. βάλλειν, used of throwing gifts into God’s treasury, Matthew 27:6; Mark 12:41; Luke 21:1. Jesus explains, in Matthew 17:26, that He, as the Son of God, was rightfully free from the obligation of Temple tribute. By adopting as a pattern the institution in 2 Chronicles 24, He arrogated to Himself what in that passage was devoted to Jehovah. The negative in Matthew 17, and the positive, rest upon the same ground. It was in the most proper sense a Divine chest, and theft from it was robbery of God. Christ appointed this provision as a type and example for His Church. Origen calls the ecclesiastical poor-steward ἐκκλησίαςἔχονταγλωσσόκομον. We do not read that Jesus gave the bag into the charge of Judas: probably he pressed himself into this service, and Jesus suffered it to be so. But how could He have done this, when, as the Son of God, He knew what was in man, ch. John 2:25, and had, in particular, penetrated the heart of Judas from the beginning? (Comp. on ch. John 6:71.) Lampe answers this question with perfect propriety: “It is part of the adorable ways of Divine Providence in regard to sin, that sinners are placed in circumstances in which their wickedness must break out.” Jesus let Judas have the bag, not although he was, but because he was, a covetous man. The promise contained in the petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation,” like the promises contained in all of them, applies only to the sincere and rightly disposed. That Judas was not one of these, was manifested by the fact that he forced himself into the keeping of the bag. Had he been honestly disposed, he would, considering his bias to covetousness, have been anxious to keep himself as far from money as possible. But as he served avarice, it was part of his doom that the bag was committed to his hands. Criminal records present in relation to this the most manifold analogies. Most transgressors become such by opportunity presented to them. That which slumbers within them is often aroused by remarkable concatenations of events pointing plainly to the finger of God’s providence. To keep them back from such temptation would not make them better; it would only hinder their sin from reaching maturity, and showing its full fruits, which is the condition of thorough reformation if this be still possible, and the foundation of judgment if not. To doubt that Jesus marked the defalcations of Judas, is to doubt of His Divinity. The abomination of covetousness He had probably often dilated on to His disciples, with express reference to Judas. Having done that. He did all. Since Judas had no hearing ear, the Lord would not violently break in upon the development of his sin. He must fulfil his destiny. Ver. 7. “Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of My burying hath she kept this.” The gentleness of Jesus in His reproof shows that, as the other Evangelists expressly record, the murmuring was shared in by such as had no evil thought, and required to be gently dealt with. Burial is not the interment itself, but the preparations for it. The day or the time of burial was already come, inasmuch as the death of Jesus was immediately impending. We are not justified in having recourse to the notion of a providential arrangement of circumstances, or to explain the keeping and the using of the ointment “as an unconscious prophetic act,” and to go on with Stier: “Mary designed only to pay the Lord a tribute of honour appropriate to the feast, and does not, for her own part, think of any burial or embalming.” We may rather regard it as on all accounts probable that the thought of the impending death of Jesus filled Mary’s soul, and was the reason why she reserved for future use the ointment, which otherwise she would have sold for the good of the poor. What Jesus had already plainly declared in Galilee, Matthew 16:21; what He had so expressly told His disciples at the outset of the present final journey. Matthew 20:17, Mark 10:32-34, Luke 18:31-34; what was not unknown even to His enemies, Matthew 27:63—could not have been concealed from Mary, occupying the position which she did. She who hung on the Lord’s lips, Luke 10:39, had hidden this deep in her heart. The extravagance of her honour to Jesus sprang in part from the consciousness that it was the last honour she would do Him, the last expression of her thankfulness for all that He had done for her, the unworthy. This consciousness must be appealed to as the only moral justification of her act. The mere providential significance of the act would not be sufficient for that purpose. The reading ha ἵναεἰςτὴνἡμέραντοῦἐνταφιασμοῦμουτηρήσηαὐτό is, notwithstanding its high authentication, a mere correction introduced by those who supposed the ἐνταφιασμός could only be effected on the person of one already dead. It is opposed by the preceding narrative in John and the other Evangelists, according to which the whole of the ointment was then and there expended (it was the waste of it all that was the main element); by Matthew 26:12, Mark 14:8, according to which Mary anointed Christ beforehand; by Mark 14:6, where the ἄφεςαὐτήν forms a clause of itself; as well as by the current use of ἄφες, ἄφετε, in the Gospels, which usually indicates a brief despatch. Ewald explains, “Let her keep it for the day of My burial.” But αὐτό too evidently refers to the μύρου, as Mark 14:8 also vouches. Τηρεῖν is used precisely as in ch. John 2:10. Ver. 8. “For the poor always ye have with you; but Me ye have not always.” Jesus alludes to Deuteronomy 15:11, “For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying. Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy in thy land,” with which ver. 4 there does not stand in contradiction, “there shall be no poor among you;” for there it is asserted that, on the whole, wealth and well-being should be the rule, which would naturally admit exceptions. That the “Me ye have not always” does not contradict the “I am with you always,” needs no demonstration. The words of Jesus show that we must be on our guard against admitting the common utilitarian principle too largely in the Church. What, looked at in the light of this principle, appears to be waste, may have its full justification as the expression of thankful love and glowing devotion. A deeper consideration will make it plain that this seeming waste often accomplishes more than those applications of money which plainly proclaim their practical uses. The cathedrals are not less necessary than the parish churches to the maintenance of Christian worship. In vers. 9-11 we have the excitement which the coming of Jesus produced in the city. Ver. 9. “Much people of the Jews therefore knew that He was there: and they came not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom He had raised from the dead.” It is plain enough that the word Jews here is not used with a hostile meaning, but that only their nationality is thereby denoted: comp. on ch. John 1:19. Persons are here spoken of who are under an attraction to Christ. These were found especially amongst the strangers who came up to the feast (comp. ver. 12); for the people of the place would have had earlier opportunities of seeing Lazarus. If Jesus tarried thirty-six hours in Bethany, there was ample time for their coming. The report of His arrival in Bethany was doubtless soon spread in Jerusalem by those who had accompanied Him. Vers. 10, 11. “But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death; because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus.”—“Lazarus also,” no less than Christ, ch. John 11:53. Such a thought, albeit transitory, came to the high priests when they observed the great excitement of the people: ἐσείσθηἡπόλις,—which Matthew, in ch. Matthew 21:10, remarks concerning the entrance of Christ,—was already true here. The fact that they wanted to kill Lazarus, shows that they regarded the miracle of his resurrection as a concerted scheme, just as the Pharisees endeavoured to set aside the greater fact of the resurrection of Christ by an imputation of deceit. All that Christ gained was so much lost to the high priests. In ὑπῆγον, which simply corresponds to the ἦλθον of ver. 9, Lampe sees too much meaning, when he makes it signify the people’s forsaking the priestly chair to express their contempt of the priests Chap. John 12:12-19 The Entrance into Jerusalem The Apostle first gives the chronological specification which was wanting in the earlier Evangelists. Then he briefly sums up, down to ver. 15, what they had already written on the subject. To this resumé he appends his own contribution. First comes the remark, that the connection between this event and Zechariah 9, already observed upon by Matthew, was not perceived fully until Christ was glorified; then the relation it bore to the resurrection of Lazarus; and finally, how the Pharisees were affected by the whole proceeding. The arrangement of the whole section can be understood only when we perceive that the Apostle first recapitulates, and then supplements. Vers. 14, 15. “And Jesus, when He had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass’s colt.” Why did Jesus, just at that time, enter so majestically into Jerusalem, with His passion before Him, and, as it were, beginning that passion by entering? The following section gives the answer. It will show that Christ demonstrated Himself by His sufferings to be King; that His death was the means of the realization of His dignity and attainment of His dominion; that by His death the prince of this world was to be cast out; and that Christ should, when He was lifted up from the earth, draw all men unto Him: comp. vers. 23, 24, 31, 32. This strict connection between the sufferings and the dominion was set forth in the prophet Zechariah. There the King cometh meek or afflicted, and riding upon an ass; and in this character of sufferer He speaks peace to the Gentiles, and obtains dominion over the whole earth. The entry of Christ into Jerusalem had also, apart from the prophecy of the Old Testament, to which Matthew and John place it in relation, its own independent significance, otherwise we should hardly be able to understand the fact that Mark and Luke do not expressly intimate its connection with the prophecy. That our Lord enters Jerusalem in this festal manner, was intended to exhibit Him as now about to assert that royal dignity which until now He had in a measure concealed. But that He enters upon an ass was intended to symbolize the manner in which He would assert His royalty: to wit, in the way of humility that He ever pursued, as an example for His Church, which should never forget that her Head rode forward upon an ass when He assumed His kingdom upon earth. The ass signifies the Cross aspect and condition of the Church. The old Gentile Romans, who, according to Tertullian, called the Christians asinarii, in allusion to this event, understood it better than superficial expositors, who want to make the ass a symbol of peace. Into that same city which David and Solomon had so often entered amidst a retinue of proud horsemen, and upon magnificently caparisoned mules and chargers, the Lord now entered upon a borrowed ass, a pitiful “ass’s colt,” never before used for riding on. The trappings were represented by the poor garments of His disciples; His retinue consisted of those whom the world accounted mere rabble, upon whom the wise Pharisees and rich men of Jerusalem looked down with contempt. To him who had no eye for the glory that was concealed beneath, the whole matter must have seemed a pitiful comedy. That the ass was not in the East essentially more honoured than amongst ourselves, is proved by the Son of Sirach, ch. Sir 30:24 (Sir 33:25), as also by the original passage in Zechariah, where the riding upon the ass is conjoined with the predicate ςπι, which can mean only afflicted. That a king should ride upon an ass at all, was, in the East, a thing unexampled; but here the King, as such, in His royal progress, rides upon it, and indeed upon a mere ass’s colt. The remembrance of this should be our encouragement when the Lord’s sad humiliation upon earth is reproduced in the providential course of His Church, and our warning against seeking too high things as His people. It should also be a caution to those who are always so ready to magnify every little stumbling-block in the Scripture into an argument against its divinity. Even in Scripture the Lord wears the garb of a servant; and in reference to it also holds good the word, “He comes riding on an ass’s colt,” as also, “Blessed is he that shall not be offended in Me.” The remarkable εὑρών, having found, altogether inappropriate had Jesus brought the ass with Him from Bethany, has an entire history behind it, which John, who omits all merely subordinate circumstances, and presupposes details as known, almost in express terms tells us to seek in the earlier Evangelists. The watchword, with the whole history resting upon it, is found in those earlier writers: comp. Luke 19:30, εὑρήσετεπῶλονδεδεμένον; ver. 32, ἀπελθόντεςδὲοἱἀπεσταλμένοιεὗρονκαθὼςεἶπεναὐτοῖς; Matthew 21:2; Mark 11:2; Mark 11:4. Mark and Luke mention only the young ass. The mention of the she-ass occurs only in Matthew, whose eye is ever keenly directed to the minutest details which exhibit fulfilment of Old Testament scripture. The original in Zechariah 9:9 runs fully thus: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation (saving Himself); lowly, and riding on an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.” The variations here have been usually, but very superficially, explained on the ground that John cites from memory. But then they would not have been omissions; the quotation would not then have so literally coincided with the original as it does, apart from the first words, where the change, as will presently be seen, is an intentional one. The reason of the variation was rather the Evangelist’s design to direct attention to the main point which John had in view in narrating the accordance between the prophecy and its fulfilment, the riding upon a young ass. The lowly it was the less necessary to reproduce, because in the original it was covered by the “riding upon an ass.” Instead of the “Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion,” in the original, John has “Fear not, daughter of Zion.” But, so far as the meaning goes, the “Fear not” does not vary much from the original. The matter of the joy is here especially the redemption from the power of an oppressor, the Gentile power. This is shown by the connection with ver. 8, “And no oppressor shall pass through them any more, for now have I seen with mine eyes.” Accordingly, the “Fear not” is latent in the “Rejoice.” Lampe: Non nudum gaudium praecipitur, sed tale quod praecedentem timorem exactorum excipiebat. The “Rejoice” is only the negative translated into the positive. But John did not introduce the change in his own fashion simply; he rather derived the “Fear not” from Isaiah 40:9 : “O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength: lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God;” and at the same time, from Zephaniah 3:16, a passage dependent on this of Isaiah: “In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not; and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack;” with ver. 15 preceding it, “The Lord hath taken away thy judgments, He hath cast out thine enemy: the King of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more.” The change of the “Rejoice greatly” can all the less be fortuitous, inasmuch as Matthew also has introduced a remarkable variation upon these same words. He has instead, from Isaiah 62:11, εἴπατετῇθυγατρὶΣιων, pointing in a most suggestive manner to the connection of these passages, and weaving the isolated utterance of Zechariah into the great tissue of passages dwelling on the same theme. We can, indeed, hardly doubt that John decidedly chose the universal formula of citation, καθώςἐστιγεγραμμένον, in order to intimate that in his view the single passage of the original took its place in the midst of a much Avider and larger connection. The “Fear not” denotes, according to the original passages, the absolute security of salvation. The miserable and lowly condition in which Zion lies as it were buried, and the apparent omnipotence of her foes, must not mislead her, and abate her confidence. The daughter of Zion must not fear, in spite of the lowliness of her King, and in spite of His sufferings. That which might seem to warrant fear, will in fact serve to remove it for ever. The King will vanquish the world, not merely despite His deep humiliation, but by the very means of that humiliation. Even to the present day He is then greatest when He seems to be least; and still with His disciples death is the way to life. Just when they are sinking deepest into the depths, the “Fear not” is most applicable to their case. John, quoting the Old Testament passage, must, in harmony with the phraseology of the Apocalypse, behold another daughter of Zion, still continuing to exist in the Christian Church, concealed behind that daughter of Zion whose destruction was impending when Jesus entered (indeed, the weeping over Jerusalem recorded by Luke, ch. Luke 19:41, was among the circumstances of the same entry), and was accomplished when John wrote. The μὴφοβοῦ, as spoken to the common Zion, would have been meaningless. The true daughter of Zion meant by the Evangelist was for the moment represented by the multitude who cried Hosanna. It consisted really of those from among the Jews who believed in Jesus. And these were increased by believers from among the Gentiles. Both the exclusion from Zion and the adoption into Zion proceeded according to a spiritual principle. That in the time of the Evangelist the separation from the external Zion was perfectly accomplished, is shown by the manner in which John speaks concerning the Jews: comp. on ch. John 1:19. Ver. 16. “These things understood not His disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things unto Him.” There is a similar remark in ch. John 2:22. The opened understanding, and the glorification of Christ, stood in the relation of cause and effect. That event gave the Apostles an entirely new standard. They saw that beneath the deepest humiliation the highest glory might be hidden; that greatness could not be measured by the ell, but must be estimated according to a spiritual standard. Moreover, the outpouring of the Holy Ghost was connected with the glorification of Christ, ch. John 7:39, John 14:26; and that great gift raised the Apostles to a higher stage of knowledge and perception. Till that time their eyes were holden by their carnal Messianic expectations. The present event had too poor an aspect to allow them to discern in it the royal entrance of the King, who should speak peace to the Gentiles, and whose kingdom stretched from sea to sea, from the Euphrates to the ends of the earth, Zechariah 9:10. But when they learned to discern spiritual things spiritually, and to understand the hidden process of the Redeemer’s power, and the great difference between the kingdom of Christ, with its concealed glory, and the kingdoms of this world, their eyes were opened, and they obtained an insight into the connection between prophecy and fulfilment. The ἐποίησαν includes especially the action of the people just recorded, and which also belonged to the fulfilment of the prophecy,—especially the Hosanna in correspondence with the designation of the Messiah as πεως, saved of God, in the prophecy. What Christ, and at His command the Apostles, did, cannot be brought under this point of view; because that Was done with the design to bring the prophecy to its fulfilment. But we may include the free action of the Apostles, which rested not upon the command of Christ, and did not recognise the reference to any prediction; as also the circumstance, that they found the ass, and that the owner of the ass suffered them to take it away. The relation which John sustained to the earlier Evangelists will not allow us to limit the ἐποίησαν merely to what he recorded: we may, and Ave must, borrow the supplement of his account from his predecessors. Ver. 17. “The people therefore that was with Him when He called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record.” The next verse shows that their testimony did not rest upon their own personal eye-witness, but upon what they had heard from others. The same is made plain by ver. 12, according to which “the multitude” consisted of those who had come from abroad to the feast. But these could not have been eye-witnesses of the resurrection of Lazarus: they were at the time of that event far away from Jerusalem. Luther, translating “but the people who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of the grave, and raised him from the dead, published the fact,” follows the incorrect reading ὅτε (Vulg. quando), which sprang from the false notion that μαρτυρεῖν must needs infer the testimony of an eye-witness. Luke 19:37 gives us the general foundation for all that is peculiar here. Ver. 18. “For this cause the people also met Him, for that they heard that He had done this miracle.” The people here are identical with the people of vers. 17, 12. The supposition of another and different crowd is altogether baseless. In ver. 17 we have what the people did after they had joined Christ; in ver. 18, what they did when they came out to meet Him. Ver. 17 brings in a supplement to ver. 13; ver. 18, a supplement to ver. 12. The êáß does not “distinguish between the crowd already accompanying Him and that which came to meet Him,” but points to the fact, that the resurrection of Lazarus was not only the matter of their praise who met Jesus, but the very reason that they came at all. Ver. 19. “The Pharisees therefore said among themselves. Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him.” Among themselves is the same as to each other: the mere thoughts of the heart cannot be matter of historical record. That John was so well acquainted with the projects of the Pharisees (comp. ver. 10), suggests a middle person, who had some common relation to the disciples and to the Pharisees. And we naturally think of Martha as such—the wife of Simon—who must have heard in the family circle of her husband much that would otherwise have been concealed, Θεωρεῖτε is not to be taken as a question: comp. Acts 21:20. The Apostle rejoices over the embarrassment of the Pharisees: this is the only point of view in which we can regard the verse. Paraphrases like that of Grotius—“We must adopt stronger measures to carry out the decree of the council”—spring from a total misapprehension of John’s design. Everywhere we see that he takes pleasure in recording the opposition brought to bear against Jesus, and the shame to which his Master’s enemies were always put. In the contest between evil and good, the saying, “Ye see that ye prevail nothing,” must always hold from age to age. Ver. 24 shows that the deepest prostration of the good cause can never make this doubtful. We have an Old Testament parallel in 1 Samuel 24:21, where Saul is obliged to say to David, “And now, behold, I know well that thou shalt surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in thine hand:” comp. ch. 1 Samuel 23:17, where Jonathan says, “And thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee; and that also Saul my father knoweth.” The relation of Saul to David was a kind of type of the relation of the Pharisees to Christ. The representatives of a bad cause have the secret consciousness that they fight against God. Therefore they must needs lose heart on every fresh reverse. That here also “This spake he not of himself” holds good—that the Apostle regards these words, which were extorted from the enemies of Christ, as a kind of prophecy, is plain, from the connection in which the succeeding narrative so manifestly stands with these words: Yea, verily, ye do nothing at all; all the world goeth after Him—not only the Jews, but even the very Greeks! These last were already sending their deputation; and as the result of their request, Jesus, in ver. 32, utters the word, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.” Bengel here observes: A hyperbole springing from indignation. If the whole world, say they, were ours, it would desert us to go after Him. There lies in their words something prophetical. Chap. John 12:20-36 Jesus and the Greeks It was a remarkable coincidence, that on the very day when Jesus took leave of the Jews, and withdrew into seclusion, certain Greeks expressed the desire to see Him; and that Jesus was led by this desire to announce the near approaching extension of His kingdom among the Gentiles. Like the wise men from the east at Christ’s birth, these Greeks are to be regarded as types and representatives of the heathen world, destined to be received into the kingdom of Christ. But Bengel is not altogether right in describing the proceeding as “prelude of the transition of the kingdom of God from the Jews to the Gentiles.” Such a transition never in fact took place. This is proved by a glance at the multitude shouting Hosanna from among the Jews in the preceding section. Believers from among the Gentiles did not take the place of the Jews generally, but of the unbelieving mass of the Jewish people. The stem of God’s kingdom consisted of believers from the Jews, and into this stock the Gentiles were to be grafted: and it is this which the coming of the Greeks pretypified. That the scene occurred in the Temple, is evident from the circumstance that this was the ordinary scene of Christ’s work in the last days: comp. Luke 21:37, but specially from Luke 21:36, compared with Mark 13:1. Ver. 21. “The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.” Why did they apply to Philip in particular? His name gives the answer; he was the only one among the Apostles who bore a Greek name. Greek name and Greek culture went hand in hand. The respectful request κύριε shows that they were deeply concerned for the attainment of their desire. Κύριε is certainly the word which Mary uses to the gardener; but only at a crisis when she thought that she was dependent on him in a matter of supreme importance to her. The Greeks did not venture to go straight to Jesus Himself; they thought they must take hold of the skirt of him that was a Jew, Zechariah 8:23, like the Gentile centurion who sent the elders to Jesus, Luke 7:3. Their special desire had reference to a private and confidential colloquy. As Jesus taught openly, they might easily enough see Him in passing. But that kind of seeing was not of much value in itself. Ver. 22. “Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus.” Philip and Andrew are united also in ch. John 1:45. That Philip did not venture himself to go directly to Jesus, that he first lays the matter before Andrew, and takes counsel with him,—whence many expositors have deduced the doctrine that it is expedient in difficult cases to resort to the counsel of at least one trusted friend,—shows that there was a For and Against in reference to the wish of the Greeks. As it respects the For, the participation of the Gentiles in the kingdom of Christ was unanimously attested by the whole of prophecy. Compare, for example, Isaiah 4:4-5 : “Behold, I have given Him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. Behold, Thou shalt call a nation that Thou knowest not, and nations that knew not Thee shall run unto Thee;” with ch. Isaiah 56:3; Isaiah 56:7. According to the first personal Messianic announcement, Genesis 49:10, the people should gather to Shiloh. Christ had predicted, in the most express manner, the extension of His kingdom to the Gentiles, Matthew 8:11; He had held intercourse with the Gentile centurion, with the woman of Canaan, and with the Samaritan woman. But, on the other side, Christ had communicated to His Apostles the command not to go in the way of the Gentiles, and to enter no city of the Samaritans, Matthew 10:5; He had said to the woman of Canaan, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel;” He had just before the present occasion, Matthew 10:16, represented the calling of the Gentiles as dependent on His own atoning death, and thereby indirectly declared, that until His death the wall of partition which separated Him and His people from the Gentiles should continue. Thus it is explained why Philip first talked over the matter with Andrew, and that the two proffer no specific request to Jesus, but simply report to him the wish of the Greeks. The answer of Christ was a negative. The exclusion of the Gentiles was, until His atoning death, which broke down the middle wall, the rule. This rule admitted, indeed, certain exceptions, in order to pretypify the calling of the Gentiles. But this design had been already subserved; and it was specially befitting that the separation should be maintained inviolate now at the end, in order that the distinction between the two ages should be distinctly marked. It does not follow from Philip’s consulting Andrew about the request, that the latter was the more spiritually advanced. Yet there are not wanting passages in which Andrew is the more prominent: Mark 3:18; Mark 13:3; Acts 1:13. There his name follows those of the three most confidential disciples of Jesus. Ver. 23. “And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.”—“To them” Andrew and Philip. There is no trace of any reception of the Greeks; on the contrary, the specific reference to the disciples, in ver. 26, shows that Jesus had to do with them alone. Moreover, the final result of Christ’s answer tends to this one thing, that the time for the admission of the Gentiles was not yet come. The criticism which asserts that “it is quite uncertain here whether the desire of the Greeks was granted, and to whom the address was uttered,” falls before a deeper consideration of the text.—“The hour is come:” the Gentiles therefore must only wait a little longer with patience, since, with the glorification of the Son of man, their union with Christ was immediately connected; and this is the issue of the whole discourse in ver. 32. As to the reason why our Lord here and elsewhere speaks not of the time generally, but of the hour, Beza makes a very subtle remark,—which will, by the way, serve to show with what propriety the Erlangen critic asserts the time to be come for dismissing the old veterans in exegesis to the rest they have merited: “The word hour seems more expressly to denote that providence of God which is not only universal, but most specific in all things, and especially in the mystery of our salvation: that providence in which God has ordered from eternity, not only the years, months, days, but even the most minute portions of time; and certainly this doctrine, as it is most sure, and harmonious with the nature, power, and will of God, so it most wonderfully confirms us in our faith and patience, in opposition to distrust and impatience.”—“That the Son of man may be glorified” has its commentary in ch. John 17:5, “And now glorify Thou Me, O Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” It pertains to the glorification of Christ, according to what follows, that He has much fruit, ver. 24, that He draws all to Himself, ver. 32; but that is not the proper essence of that glorification, which is rather the ceasing of the servant form, and His reception into the glory of the Father. Bengel gives us here the correct view: Apud Patrem, c. xvii. 5, et in conspectu omnis creaturae. Christi glorificatio et gentium conversio in unum tempus incidit. Ver. 24. “Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” In what has preceded there was the fact that the glorification of Christ was immediately at hand; here we have the hour of its accomplishment: the essential way and means to it, its inevitable foundation, was death. But because this was contrary to all natural reason, and because the disciples’ minds would recoil from it, and all the more as Christ’s suffering was the prophecy of their own, calling upon them also per aspera ad astra, therefore Christ here set out with a strong preliminary encouragement. In His words there is a remarkable blending of figure and fact. The spiritual seedcorn is Christ. That His death was absolutely necessary in order to His bringing forth much fruit, and drawing all to Him, ver. 32, has its foundation in the expiatory, vicarious significance of His death: comp. ch. John 10:11; John 10:15. In the fact of the atonement accomplished by Christ, the whole process of His dominion has its root. Isaiah 53 clearly taught that doctrine, especially in ver. 10: “When His soul hath made an offering for sin. He shall see His seed.” The thought is this, that in the sacrificial death of the Servant of God there was a quickening power; on that death He would found His living Church. “It bringeth forth much fruit” points back to Isaiah 11:1, where the branch out of the root of the stem of Jesse, the Messiah appearing primarily in humiliation, should spring forth and bear fruit; as also to Ezekiel 17:23 : “In the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it (the tender twig, ver. 22); and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit.” Vers. 25, 26. “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be: if any man serve Me, him will My Father honour.” Following Christ’s pattern, all His servants also must willingly sacrifice all things to their calling; and thus shall they all share His glory. The two verses form a parenthesis. All the Gospels show it to be Christ’s manner to avail Himself of any opportunity to represent Himself as the pattern of His disciples. The death of Christ is distinguished, on the one side, from the voluntary offering up of life on the part of His servants. It is only Christ’s death that has consequences for all the world, brings forth much fruit, and effects that all are drawn to Him; the results of the death of His servants are only personal, in that they themselves attain eternal life, go where Christ is, and are honoured by His Father. But in the most general and comprehensive fact—the necessity of spiritual self-sacrifice, and death being not loss but gain—the Lord and His servants are alike. And it is only this general aspect of the matter that is here regarded. Expressions bordering on those of ver. 25 had been earlier uttered by our Lord, according to the other Evangelists; evidence how important it was, that this great thought should be deeply and indelibly engraven on the minds of the disciples: comp. Matthew 10:25-26; Matthew 10:39; Luke 45:26.—“He that loveth his life,” his soul: that is equivalent to “He that loveth his own individual existence,” himself. The soul is not here used, as in Matthew 10:28, Luke 12:22, in antithesis to the body; but it represents the whole person. In Matthew 16:24 we read, ἀπαρνησάσθωἑαυτόν, and then follows, “for he that will save his soul,” etc. Thus the soul is there also paralleled with the self. That in Luke 14:26 a man’s own soul is the man himself, is plain from the juxtaposition of these persons throughout, the father, the mother, etc. In the Old Testament the soul is frequently used for the whole personality: e.g. in Genesis 14:21, “Give me the persons (the souls), and take the goods to thyself;” Exodus 1:5 : comp. Acts 2:41. The ground of this phraseology is to be found generally in the fact that the soul, as the breath of God, Genesis 2:7, the “honour,” Genesis 49:6, is the better part of man, and hence well fitted to represent the man. But here there is probably a specific reason for designating the whole person as the soul, in the fact that the subject here is the preservation or the loss of the life; now the soul and the life are closely allied in Scriptural phraseology. The position contemplated is that in which the soul or the individual existence, and the calling or duty assigned of God, are opposed to each other. Now the first and chief commandment, to love God with all the soul, excludes all love to the individual I; the individual I, so far as it places itself in opposition to the vocation, must be hated. This hatred, directed not against the soul in itself, but against its undue claims, is at the same time the truest love to our own soul and life. It assures the soul of a secure place there where her proper home is alone to be sought. Μισεῖν means simply hate; to love less it never means, either here or elsewhere in the Scripture. The father and mother, and so on, must, according to Luke 14, when they come into conflict with our relation to Christ, not merely be less loved, but be hated and energetically cast away. “In this world,” which is so poor in true professions, which can give and take away so little, and to give up for which the future world with that eternal life which alone is worthy of the name of life, is the greatest of all follies. In ver. 36 we have first, in the words, “If any man serve Me, let him follow Me,” the duty which is to be discharged by His servants; then the reward. In a certain sense, there is a serving of Christ predicable of the laity. But that official service is here meant, appears first from the circumstance that the address is directed to the special and peculiar servants of God in His kingdom; but still more clearly, in the second place, from the succeeding words, “There shall also My servant be.” Διάκονος always denotes an official position: comp. Matthew 22:13; 2 Corinthians 3:6; 2 Corinthians 6:4. Grotius rightly remarks: “He here silently terms Himself a King who has many servants, for the administration of the things of His kingdom.” “Let him follow Me:” in the way of self-denial and consecration of life. Matthew 10:38 gives us a commentary on ἐμοὶἀκολουθείτω: “Whoso taketh not up his cross and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me;” John 16:24, “If any man will follow Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me,” where ὀπίσωμουἐλθεῖν corresponds to the διάκονεῖν here. Beneath this challenge, “Let him follow Me,” there lies a concealed promise. It is taken for granted that the way of the servants, no less than the way of their Master, is a way of the cross, to the voluntary assumption of which cross the ἀκολουθείτω is a challenge. In this aspect of it, Mark 10:38-39, is parallel, where Jesus foreannounces to the sons of Zebedee that they will drink the cup which He drank, and be baptized with the baptism with which He was baptized.—“And where I am, there shall also My servant be:” the commentary on this is ch. John 14:2-3, John 17:24. Christ takes His servants up into those heavenly dwellings whither He had gone before to prepare their place. As soon as they make their exit from this miserable life, they come to Him in Paradise, Luke 23:43, into the condition of heavenly blessedness, 2 Corinthians 12:4 : comp. ver. 2. Of any intermediate condition, or Hades-life, the Lord knows nothing: comp. 2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23. Ver. 27. This saying of our Lord is connected with ver. 24. In very deed, the dying of the seedcorn is not so light a matter. The soul of our Lord in the prospect of it was deeply troubled. But it must be so; it could not be otherwise. It was inseparably bound up with the great work that Christ was bound to accomplish. This trouble and this death, therefore, were the way to glorification. The words ἡψυχήμουτετάρακται are taken from Psalms 42:6, ἱνατίπερίλυποςεἶ, ψυχή, καὶἱνατίσυνταράσσειςμε, Why art thou disquieted? ver. 7; ὁθεόςμουπρὸςἐμαυτὸνἡψυχήμουἐταράχθη: comp. ver. 12; Psalms 43:5. To the same psalm, the expression of David’s deepest lamentation in his misery, the Lord also refers in Matthew 26:38, Mark 14:34. We obtain anything like insight into the nature and ground of this trouble of the Redeemer, only when we have obtained a right perception of the significance of His death. If the death of Christ was merely an “event” or “calamity” which befell Him in the way of His vocation, He would have gone to encounter it with cheerful confidence. Otherwise He would have stood on a lower level than His own martyrs, Ignatius, for example, who wrote in the prospect of death, “It is glorious to give up the world to go to God, that I may have the sight of His face; let me be the food of beasts, so I may find my God. I am God’s corn; I shall be crushed by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may become the pure bread of Christ.” But that Christ’s death was something altogether different from a death of self-sacrifice in the ordinary sense, is shown by ver. 24, according to which the full power for the extension of His kingdom has its root in the death of Christ; and vers. 31, 32, according to which the Redeemer conquered, by His death, the prince of this world, and draws all men to Himself, abolishes the wall of partition which had hitherto excluded the Gentiles from the kingdom of God. The root and centre of the work of Christ is everywhere the vicarious expiation accomplished by His death; and with this was inseparably connected His bearing for us the wrath of God. John describes Him in ch. John 1:29 as the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. In ch. John 3:14 Christ sets Himself forth as the antitype of the serpent in the wilderness, inasmuch as He assumed unto Himself the most deadly of all deadly energies, sin, and vicariously made atonement for it. In ch. John 10:11 seq. our Lord refers to Isaiah 53:10, where the Servant of God is said by His death to make satisfaction. According to Matthew 20:28, Jesus gives His soul a ransom for many; He presents for the sins of the human race, which could not without satisfaction be forgiven, a satisfaction which the sinners themselves could never have given, and thus effects and provides for the justification of sinners before God. God made Christ sin for us, 2 Corinthians 5:21; He sent Him as a sin-offering, Romans 8:3; He is the propitiation for our sins, Romans 3:25. We have in this passage the prelude to the conflict of Jesus in Gethsemane. The trouble here, and the trouble there, form a unity: one key unlocks both. But we have elsewhere remarked, with reference to that fact: “The problem to be solved is this, not how this bitter anguish generally, and specifically this anguish as coming just before His death, should lay hold of the Redeemer, but how this anguish should declare itself to be the supreme degree of the fear of death: the Lord prays for the removal of this fear of death; the fear of death extorts from Him the bloody sweat. Nothing of this kind is found recurring in the death of any Christian martyr or confessor. And yet this very circumstance makes the infinite difference between the Redeemer and His servants. The sting of death is sin. The more free man is from sin, the sweeter to him is death, as the way to the Father. The only solution of this is the vicarious significance of the sufferings and death of Jesus. If our chastisement was upon Him in order that we might have peace, then in Him must be concentrated all the horror of death. He bore the sin of the world, and the wages of that sin was death. And death, therefore, must to Him assume its most frightful form. The physical suffering was nothing in relation to this immeasurable suffering of soul which impended over the Redeemer, and the full greatness and depth of which He clearly perceived. Therefore, in Hebrews 5:7, a fear is described as that which pressed with such awful weight upon our Lord. When God freed Him from that, He saved Him from death. Thus, when the suffering of Christ is apprehended as vicarious, and accordingly as voluntary, all the accompanying circumstances are easily enough understood. Then we can understand the sudden transition in tone and feeling from that of the high-priestly prayer to that of the conflict in Gethsemane. With equal freedom the Redeemer responded here to the one and there to the other side of His destiny. Then also we see how it was that the Redeemer, far from being surprised by the agony or overpowered by its prospect, provided everything with reference to it, and took the most advanced disciples with Him, that they might be witnesses of His infirmity, and also of that which He effected for us.” Thus Augustin remarks with perfect correctness: “Christ’s perturbation tranquillizes us, and His infirmity makes us firm;” and Beza: “The cause of this, the most awful and horrible distress in the mind of Christ, was the sense of the Divine wrath, than which nothing more terrible can be conceived.” If the perturbation had had no actual significance, if it had been merely a variation of weakness, Jesus would not have given it such express and careful utterance. Τίεἴπω is the expression of consideration, and intimates that the matter had two aspects; that what was recommended as desirable on the one hand, was on the other very doubtful: comp. Matthew 21:25-26; 1 Corinthians 11:22. The “What shall I say?” standing first, softens the following “Father, save Me from this hour,” shows that it was only under one aspect that the deliverance was desired, and that not without hesitation, thus paving the way for the following retractation. There is no reason for understanding the “Father, save Me from this hour” interrogatively. Stier very justly opposes this by saying, “To our feeling there is something discordant, at this time of profound spiritual emotion, in a prayer which just questions. Shall I ask this request?” There is nothing inappropriate in the fact, that in the midst of this circumscribing agony, the anguish of His soul expressed itself in an actual supplication. This is the most obvious interpretation; and were it otherwise doubtful, it would be confirmed by Matthew 26:39, where Jesus prays that the cup might pass away from Him. And Hebrews 5:7 is decisive against the interrogatory theory: there we read of strong crying and tears being offered to Him who was able to save Him from death. “But to this end came I unto this hour:” διὰτοῦτο, that My soul might be troubled. The anguish which evoked this supplication of Jesus, “Save Me from this hour,” was the very reason why this hour, the time of anguish, came upon Him. It was the basis of the work of redemption. Christ must endure horror, that we might be delivered from horror. That which constituted the design for which the hour was appointed, could not be the occasion for the prayer that it should come to an end. The διὰτοῦτο is important, because it exhibits the inmost connection between the agony of Christ and His atoning work. Those who explain the trembling after the manner of Lόcke,—“as a sacred law of nature: death has a horror for man, especially death as coming upon young and fresh life,”—have to make their very beginning with the διὰτοῦτο. The petition, “Father, glorify Thy name,” is fully apprehended when we regard it as the counterpart of the request, “Save Me from this hour,” as well as in connection with “Therefore came I unto this hour.” Glorify Thy name by causing that My soul-anguish and My death be not in vain, but that it serve to My own glorification, the salvation of the world, and the extension of Thy kingdom. Let Me suffer what I must suffer—let Me tremble and agonize, so that only this fruit may finally come from My sufferings. Since this request was a definite and absolute one, it has for its foundation the assurance that the Lord would in this manner glorify His name. The deepest depth of this suffering is for Christ the way to glorification. Ver. 28. “Father, glorify Thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” God glorified His name by the works which Christ accomplished by His power, the resurrection of Lazarus being the last; and He would further glorify His name by prospering the suffering and death of Christ to the end of His glorification, and the spread of the kingdom of God over the whole earth. According to ver. 29, the people heard thunder; and the question rises, whether the voice from heaven here was identical with the thunder, or whether there was some articulate voice distinct from the thunder. We decide in favour of the former view. There is no reason for assuming any voice shaped into words. Among the concomitants of the sound, immediately after “Glorify Thy name,” the thunder did expressly say what John gives as its meaning, in connection with which it is not accidental, that after οὐρανοῦ the λέγουσα is wanting. 1 Samuel 12 presents the nearest analogy. There we have not a voice of the Lord separated from the thunder, but the thunder itself, following at an unusual time; and in immediate connection with the words of Samuel is the voice of the Lord. In ver. 18 of that chapter we read, “So Samuel called unto the Lord, and the Lord gave thunder (voices) and rain that day; and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel,” To describe thunder as the voice of the Lord, was only following the example of the Old Testament. Seven times it is so termed in one Psalm, Psalms 29. In Job 37:4 we read, “He thundereth with the voice;” and in Psalms 18:13, “The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave His voice:” comp. also 1 Samuel 12:17; Exodus 9:23. If John had intended that we should distinguish clearly between the thunder and the voice, he would have recorded both in separate terms. But there is no trace of any such distinction. On the contrary, John points expressly to the fact, that the thunder and the voice were one and identical. He records that the multitude heard the voice, and said that it thundered. Thus the people recognised the voice itself as thunder. There is not the slightest hint that the people heard less than what took place; that on account of the dulness of their ears they received the impression only of a rumbling noise, but did not apprehend the articulate voice. The multitude heard no articulate voice at all. Accordingly our Lord speaks, with allusion to what they had heard, of a voice, and exhorts them to lay that voice to heart. Thus the thunder spoke, even to those who heard nothing besides the thunder. John himself intimates that only thunder was there, when he uses the ἐδόξασα and δοξάσω, words used with allusion to thunder, and thunder as repeated, χεμεϊ. The name, son of thunder, given by Jesus to John, Mark 3:17, assumes and was based upon a sense of the symbolical language of nature. It is natural that the son of thunder should assign its true significance to the thunder, and that he should regard it less prosaically than, for instance, Stier, who remarks, “Mere thunder as the voice of the Father over His Son, were something altogether unworthy: with him who does not feel that, we have no disposition to argue.” Certainly we do find in Scripture heavenly voices without thunder: comp. 1 Samuel 3; Matthew 3:17; Matthew 17:5; Acts 9:4; Acts 22:7. But we cannot find there any satisfactory instance of a connection between thunder and the articulated voice of God. In Exodus 19:19, we read that Moses spoke, and God answered with His voice; but according to ver. 16, that voice was thunder; for the voices and the lightnings are there placed in juxtaposition. The idea of an articulate voice of God combined with the thunder at the giving of the law (praemissa tonitrua, quae attentionem quasi excitabant et deinceps articulatae voces), rests simply upon the expositor’s caprice. The articulate voice there belongs to Moses alone, who comes forward as the interpreter of God, and is legitimated as such by the thunder. What Moses, according to Exodus 19:25, uttered, could only have been the same ten commandments which, in ch. John 20:1, are referred back to God, who sanctioned Moses, as His speaker and representative, by the “voices” of thunder. In Exodus 20:11), the people ask that Moses might speak to them alone, and not, as aforetime, with the accompaniment of the terrifying thunder-speech of God. True that in Deuteronomy 5:4 we read, “The Lord talked to you face to face in the mount, out of the midst of the fire.” But how that is to be understood, that the Lord spoke only by the “voices” of thunder, while the words spoken were those of Moses, is plainly declared in ver. 5: “I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to show you the word of the Lord, saying.” That Moses with reference to the ten commandments acted the part of an interpreter, is shown by the “saying,” which is immediately followed by these ten commandments. In Revelation 10:4, the voices of thunder are introduced with specific meanings. But here also we may say there is a specific meaning: it is marked by the circumstances under which the thunder is introduced. If in that passage of the Apocalypse the thunder itself seems to speak, that belongs only to the vision. In all other Apocalyptic passages the thunder itself is the voice of God: ch. John 4:5, John 8:5, John 11:19, John 16:18. Throughout the whole of Scripture there does not occur a single instance in which articulate speech is introduced, concealed beneath the thunder. Thunder is in its nature, and the impression it produces upon every human heart, not merely in general a revelation of the glory of God, but a revelation of a threatening and terrifying character. Dread is the sentiment which always responds to it. This was the character it bore at the giving of the law. It proclaimed to the people that their God was a jealous God, who would inexorably visit their sins upon them. It presented to them the alternative between obedience and judgment; and it pointed to the great truth that whosoever should break the law must die. So also in Psalms 18, 29. According to Psalms 29:7, the voice of the Lord divides with flames of fire; the thunder appears to be the symbolical threatening to the world, and therefore at the same time a symbolical promise to the Church of God oppressed by the world. In the Apocalypse, which it is obviously natural to compare with the Gospel of John, the thunder always has a polemical character; it has always a reference to terrible judgments, whether these are only threatened as to come, or actually accomplished: comp. ch. John 4:5, John 8:5, John 10:3, John 11:19, John 16:18. That here also the “voice” has not only an imposing, but also a threatening character; that it aims at the glorification of God’s name by the subversion of the enemies of God and His Christ, is shown by ver. 31, where the thunder is introduced as a premonition of judgment upon this world and its prince. Vers. 29 and 30 form an interlude. But Jesus immediately restores the connection. While in vers. 31 and 32 He more fully develops the meaning of the thunder. He comes to the thought which forms the direct answer to Philip and Andrew, the indirect answer to the Greeks: that the time was at hand when there should be closer relations with the Gentiles. That time, however, not being actually come, the wishes of the Greeks could not be granted. Had not the intervening words of the people been spoken, Jesus would at once have begun with ver. 31. Thus the close of the answer to the Gentiles is formally and primarily a part of the answer to the people. Ver. 29. “The people therefore that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said. An angel spake to him.” The people regarded at first only the material phenomenon. But what this did not deny—under the circumstances of the occasion, the force of which, as at the raising of Lazarus, must have excited and carried away the minds of all, what it could not have denied—the deep significance of the material phenomenon, some individuals expressly declared in words, thus interpreting the general feeling of all. (Doubtless the saying “it thunders” was spoken not without agitation; and nothing would be more perverse than to interpret them as speaking of common thunder. In the “angel” the Divine energy and presence is embodied to them: comp. on ch. John 5:4. They think that God gave Christ His testimony by the thunder, and thus assured Him of the answer to His prayer. Ver. 30. “Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of Me, but for your sakes.” The answer of our Lord has regard to the áὐ ?ôῷ, spake to Him. He points them to the fact that He, in the internal relation in which He stood to the Father, needed no such external token; and that they should think rather of themselves. Thunder is a solemn sign of the time: woe to him who does not understand and lay to heart this sign. Its voice announces a judgment: he who does not receive its warning will, in that judgment, fall. That which is in ver. 31 only hinted, finds its more full explanation, so far as it referred to the Jews, in vers. 35, 36, 44-50. Ver. 31. “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” We have in ver. 31 the exposition of the voice’s meaning. It announces that there is to be a judgment held upon this world. This judgment proceeds primarily on the prince of this world; but that it does not end there—that it at the same time proceeds upon those who are one with him in spirit and act—those who are of their father the devil, John 8:44—is plain from the fact that, before the prince of the world, the world itself is mentioned as the object of judgment (Stier is manifestly wrong: “The ungodly world is itself in a certain sense judged in its prince, when it is saved”); more especially from ver. 30, which warns the Jews against falling in the judgment; and vers. 35-44 seq. Ver. 32 shows that the judgment has its root in the death of Christ. There Christ represents Himself as, in consequence of His death, drawing all men to Him; but this positive energy must have the negative one of judgment as its inseparable concomitant. Christ cannot draw to Himself without at once condemning the prince to whom they had previously belonged, and who will not let them go unless he is judged and stripped of his power, and at the same time themselves whom He receives, so far as their indwelling sin is concerned, the extirpation of which in judgment is the condition of their being drawn to Christ, to whom they could never come in the spotted garment of the flesh. Judgment and salvation go hand in hand. The death of Christ has a condemning significance in two ways. First, as to those who receive it in faith: a condemning sword pierces their soul; the pain of penitence is the prerequisite of faith; the condemnation of their sin, which was accomplished upon the cross, approves its saving power in them only When they have gone through this severe discipline. And then the death of Christ has its judicial significance for those who reject it in unbelief. The destruction of Jerusalem had its root in the death of Christ: the blood of the Redeemer was upon them and their children. He who counts the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, Hebrews 10:29, is doomed to eternal condemnation. Psalms 97 exhibited the manifestation of Christ under the judicial point of view. “The appearance of Christ had a judicial significance also for those among the Gentiles who obeyed the Gospel: the nothingness of their past existence was thereby made manifest; and profound shame took the place of the pride with which they had despised Zion. Among those who would not acknowledge this ‘The Lord reigneth,’ that side of the judgment which is here prominent came into force.”—“The prince of this world:” thus Satan is named only in the last discourses of Jesus in John; first here, and then in John 14:30, John 16:11. This dignity is attributed to him only where its subversion is immediately in prospect. As regards the fact, Matthew 4:8-9 corresponds, where the devil shows Christ all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and says to Him, “All these things I will give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” What he promises to give, he must himself possess. Then, again, the description of the devil in 2 Corinthians 4:4, as “the god of this world,” is in strict keeping; but especially Ephesians 2:2, where Satan is described as the prince who has power over the air. The air, corresponding to the τοῦκόσμουτούτου of the preceding verse, the atmosphere of the earth, denotes the influences of Satan everywhere surrounding man, who breathes an air, as it were, infected by Satan. The imagination and desire of the human heart is evil from youth up: there lies the foundation of Satan’s power. That power does not rest upon any right of Satan which even God is bound to respect: the notion of such a right is opposed to all Scripture. But the being subjected to his power is only the deserved punishment and necessary consequence of sin; so that with the cause the effect also must cease. Man is too weak and insignificant to assume anything like an independent middle position between God and Satan. He must walk either with God or Satan. Since the fall, he has been reduced to bondage under the devil. But through the manifestation of Christ, and especially through His atoning death, the power of sin has been broken. Since that event it has been a great, anachronism when a people or an individual remains subject to the broken power of Satan. From the time that sin was atoned for on the tree, punishment has ceased for all who enter into the new order of things; new powers of life have been provided and given to them. And thus Satan has now nothing in them.—“Shall be cast out:” not from dominion, but from the world; for that is the word which immediately precedes, and we are led to that also by the corresponding ἐκτῆςγῆς, from the earth, in ver. 32. The removal of Christ from the earth, which thus seems to exclude Him from dominion over it, wall have for its consequence the removal of Satan from the earth. The ἐκβληθήσεταιἔξω, the exclusion of Satan from the world, is virtually contained in and implied by the death of Christ on the cross. The realization of it goes on from stage to stage, until, in the casting of Satan into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:10 marks its consummation. A very important crisis in that realization is the binding of Satan in Revelation 20:2, the destruction of the Gentile power which was the firmest bulwark of Satan on the earth. But that realization actually began with the death of Christ. From that time it was demonstrated that powers were energetic against Satan which the human race had never before known. Here Satan is cast out of the world; in Revelation 12:7-9 he is cast out of heaven, as the result of the victory which Christ had won over him through blood and death. The difference is only a formal one. For that Satan cannot maintain himself in heaven, means in the Apocalypse simply that his power is broken through the blood of Christ, ver. 11. Everything mighty is translated into heaven. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth.” According to the current interpretation, there lies in these words a double meaning: they are made to refer at once to the crucifixion and to the exaltation; and the crucifixion itself is regarded as the beginning of the glorification. Bengel: “In the cross itself there was already something tending to glory.” But we must reject this double meaning, and adhere to the simple reference to the death of Christ. This is demanded by the explanation of the Apostle in ver. 33; it is suggested also by the interpretation of the Jews in ver. 34: they find in the ὑψωθῶἐκτῆςγῆς the contrary of their expectation concerning the Christ, that He would μένεινεἰςτὸναἰῶνα, abide for ever; and Christ confirms that interpretation, by warning them to avail themselves of the light which would only a short time remain among them. The relation to ver. 31 also demands such an exposition: by the same event which seemed to assure to the prince of this world his authority over it, he would in reality be cast out; and by the same event which seemed to displace Christ altogether from the earth. He would be exalted into supreme dominion over it, and enabled to draw all men unto Himself. To combine and include reference to the glorification, is to oppose the symbolism of the cross. The high place is to him who is hanged not a demonstration of honour; it points to the fact that he is no longer worthy to be found on earth, that earth rejects him, and that he is devoted to the vengeance of God: comp. Deuteronomy 21:23, “He that is hanged is accursed of God;” and in our Lord’s discourses the ὑψοῦν always refers to the crucifixion, never to the ascension; comp. on ch. John 3:14, John 8:28. There is no trace throughout the New Testament of any hint that makes the cross a symbol or type of Christ’s exaltation. The Old Testament passage, Isaiah 53:8, refers to a violent death, “He was cut off out of the land of the living:” comp. Acts 8:33. In ver. 24, dying simply, and as such, corresponds with the being lifted up from the earth. “I will draw all men unto Me:” the Gentiles also, whom hitherto the prince of this world had held so entirely in his own power: comp. ch. John 10:16. With the πάνταςἑλκύσωπρὸςἐμαυτόν (Lampe: He thus teaches, that those whom Jesus draws are at the same time drawn away from the head and body of which they had been previously part and members), the answer to Philip and Andrew, and indirectly to the Greeks, is completed: Ye shall come to Jesus, but the time is not yet quite come. The corn of wheat must first fall into the earth. The power of the prince of this world, who has hitherto been, so to speak, your legitimate sovereign, must first be broken by My death. Then will the Gentiles experience My attracting power. The drawing power exists for all: unbelief is the only thing which can exclude from this glorious benefit, ch. John 3:15-16, and here, ver. 36. Anton: “Not, indeed, as if man could not oppose, for the will of man is free; but yet it is so mighty, that where a man will withstand it, he must do violence to himself in order to get the victory.” He also remarks, in reference to the drawing of Christ: “That which, in ver. 24, is the grain of seed bringing forth fruit—but on the condition of its first dying—becomes here the drawing. For that drawing did not take place until after the death; but after Christ’s death it proceeded with power: men’s minds and hearts were mightily moved. When the world thought that they had now extinguished His name, the attraction of that name first began: and we must not regard this as if that attraction was merely to be the result; but that it was the influence of His death, as of a causae meritoriae, to which the Lord refers and declares: I will thus draw men to Me; I will now stretch out My hands unto them.” The drawing of Christ does not consist merely in the power of attraction which His death itself exercises: as Anton remarks, “Then will My death powerfully draw men’s minds, and lay on their hearts the tenderest obligation.” The main point is rather the drawing of the Holy Spirit, who was to be obtained by the atoning death of our Lord, and who reveals to the heart the meaning of that death: comp. ch. John 7:39. Ch. John 6:44 alludes to an internal attractive power; and in ch. John 16:8 Christ says that He would exercise, through the Holy Ghost, the power here described. Ver. 33. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.”—Σημαίνειν is simply to point out, and does not signify merely “hint.” So in Acts 11:28; Acts 25:27; Revelation 1:1, and always in the Sept. and the Apocrypha. Ver. 34. “The people answered Him, We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou. The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man?” The Lord says, in Matthew 8:11-12 : “And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven: but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This word of Christ was, in the closing scene of His public life among the Jews, realized in a visible manner. Greeks come and desire to see Jesus. Jesus declares to them, as the representatives of the Gentile world, that the time would soon come in which He would draw the Gentiles to Himself. The Jews who were present derive from the reply which He made to the Gentiles a reason for their opposition. Jesus warningly points them to the fact, that there was a little space yet left to them; that soon the light would be removed, and that then darkness would come upon them in its might. The opposition of the Jews sprang from a malignant will. That the abiding for ever formed no real contrast to the being lifted up from the earth, the words of Christ themselves might have shown them, in which the being lifted up from the earth appears as the mere point of transition, as the foundation of His glorification, of the casting out of the prince of this world, and of the extension of His dominion over all the earth. The same they might have learned from the Old Testament. In Isaiah 53 the vicarious propitiation and death of the Messiah appears as the necessary basis of His abiding for ever: “When Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed. He shall prolong His days.” And in Daniel himself, to whom they appealed, the violent death of the Messiah is foreannounced, ch. John 9:26. Through suffering to glory is the law which approved itself in the lives of all the great men of the Old Testament, the types of Christ, and pre-eminently of David. That it was with them a mere subterfuge, or a prejudice resting upon a sinful disposition, and not from any scruple which honest minds felt at the thing itself, is plain from the fact, that Christ, in His answer to their objection, does not in any way enter into it, but only exhorts them to know the time of their visitation. (Anton: “After the manner of the so-called learned, they wrested a single little word against the evidence of the whole matter.” Quesnel: “The law announces the humiliation and death of the Messiah, as well as His glory, and the duration of His kingdom; but self-love holds fast that which flatters its vanity and effeminacy, passing by what does not accord with its notions and fleshly inclinations.”) They said, We have heard out of the law. The passage they had in view is in Daniel. That they quoted this by the name of the law, demonstrates that this book, as a portion of the canon, had for them a binding force, and that they durst not oppose this surer authority in deference to the doubtful authority of Christ, who opposed it by His words: comp. on νόμος, ch. John 10:34. The full meaning of their reference to the law, here emphasized, we see in ch. John 9:29 : “We know that God spake to Moses (Daniel); but as to this man, we know not whence he is.” Our passage shows that, among the Jews of the time of Christ, the book of Daniel had the fullest canonical authority, which indeed Josephus confirms in many places. “We have heard:” what the Scripture said was then known rather by hearing than by reading. The idea of Christ’s abiding for ever occurs in many passages of the Old Testament. In Isaiah 9:5 He is termed the “everlasting Father” (Luther: “who for ever nourishes His kingdom and Church “); in ver. 7 it is said, with reference to the Messiah, “Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end—from henceforth for ever.” According to Psalms 110, the Messiah is a high priest for ever. According to Daniel 2:24, the God of heaven would establish a kingdom which should never be abolished. And in Daniel 7:13-14, it is said of Him who cometh in the clouds like the Son of man, “His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away.” Compare, in relation to the eternity of His government, Psalms 72:5; Psalms 72:7; Psalms 72:17; Psalms 89:37-38. That the Jews singled out from these passages that of Daniel, is evident from the fact that there only the Messiah is described as the Son of man. They said, instead of Christ’s “I must be lifted up,” the Son of man must be lifted up, in order to make more emphatic the contrast between what Christ had uttered concerning Himself, and that which is said concerning the Son of man in Daniel. And they held themselves all the more justified in making the substitution here, because Christ had so often, and so lately as the introduction to the last discourse, in ver. 23, described Himself as the Son of man, with allusion to that passage of Daniel. But the appeal to this alone cannot explain the substitution. This is evident, especially from “Who is this Son of man?” which points to the difference between the suffering; Son of man whom Christ would enforce upon them, and that eternally glorious Son of man referred to in Daniel, whom alone they would receive, and know nothing of any other.— Δεῖὑψωθῆναι, must be lifted up. Jesus, in fact, had said so much, when He declared the lifting up from the earth to be the necessary condition of His dominion over it. Ver. 35. “Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you: walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.” Anton: “Christ says that there was no time now for sophistry and circumlocution with such phrases. It was a solemn matter. O how differently should they demean themselves in the residue of their little time, and not while it away with affected contradiction! O how should they seek at once for refuge to the light, to shield themselves against the coming darkness!” On light and darkness, equivalent to salvation and ruin, see ch. John 8:12. The light proceeds from Christ; but the contrasted darkness shows that the light in itself does not denote the person of the Redeemer. The light did not cease to be among them precisely at the crisis of Christ’s death. (Bengel: lux ipsa manet, sed non semper est in vobis.) This is evident from the great movement at the day of Pentecost. The limit of grace, which, according to the Lord’s saying, yet remained to them, did not consist merely in the two days which intervened between these words and the Saviour’s death. First must the atoning death of Jesus and His resurrection unfold their power, and that which is spoken of in ver. 32 become true of the Jews also. Nevertheless, the period of light to the Jews was drawing swiftly to its close; and their giving up the Lord to death was the beginning of that end. In that act they invoked His blood on themselves and on their children. The time during which the light was with the Jews here corresponds to the time of their visitation in Luke 19:44. The walking stands opposed to an idle and indifferent rest. It denotes activity; and in what way activity should approve itself under existing circumstances, is shown by the “believe in the light” of John 12:36. Instead of ἕως, whilst (compare the ἕωςἡμέραἐστί, John 9:4), many important witnesses have here and in ver. 36 ὡς. But there is no other example of such a use of ὡς, or anything like it. St Luke, Luke 19:43, exhibits more fully the meaning of the darkness here: “For the day shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side.” Yet that is only the external side of the darkness. With the external exposure to ruin, the internal want of salvation goes hand in hand. The fundamental place in the Old Testament is Jeremiah 13:16. The prophet says there, in view of the Chaldean catastrophe: “Give glory to the Lord your God, before He cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, He turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness”—“and (that ye may know what this darkness means) he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth,” into what an abyss of misery he may fall: comp. ch. John 11:10; Proverbs 4:19, “The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.” Ver. 36. “While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide Himself from them.” So long as ye have salvation, believe in the salvation, and in its representatives and instruments. Sons, in the sense of adherents, is a phrase common to Christ throughout the Evangelists: Matthew 8:12; Matthew 12:27; Matthew 13:38; Mark 2:19. In Luke 16:8 we read of the children of light, υἱοὶφωτὸς, by the side of the children of this world. In ch. John 8:59 it is said, “Then Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the Temple.” But the case there is essentially different from the present. There Jesus concealed Himself because the Jews wanted to stone Him. He retired from the presence of a transitory danger, and thus His retreat was only a transitory one. But here there was no danger impending; and the concealing Himself was a definitive one. He retired into secret, that the catastrophe might not take place before the time. He was to suffer and die, and He would suffer and die, as the paschal lamb. It is to be assumed that Jesus from this time onwards retreated altogether from public life. This helps to define the chronological relations of vers. 20-36. We have already seen that the entry into Jerusalem belonged to the Sunday. On the following day, that is, Monday, Jesus cursed the fig-tree on the way from Bethany to the city, Mark 11:12. When, in the early morning of the next day, Tuesday, He went again to the city, the disciples saw that the fig-tree had withered away, Mark 11:20. On this day Jesus entered the Temple for the last time; and that which is here recorded must have happened on the same day: for the detail, see Wieseler. St John gives here no chronological specification, because the time might be gathered with sufficient certainty from his predecessors. There were now only two days to the Passover. These He spent in the circle of His disciples. The Old Testament original of “He went away and hid Himself” is Deuteronomy 32:20 : “And He said, I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a froward generation, children in whom there is no faith.” Chap. John 12:37-50 We have here the concluding word of the first of the four groups which make up the main portion of the Gospel. It falls into two parts. In the first the Evangelist himself speaks. He makes observations upon a problem which sprang out of the facts recorded in the first portion: How could the unbelief of the Jews be accounted for? Must it not operate against the Divine mission of Jesus? In order to obviate this arising scruple, the Apostle first declares that this unbelief, far from witnessing against Christ, had been foreannounced in the prophecy of the Old Testament, and was to be viewed in the light of a Divine punishment upon the perverseness of the people, vers. 37-41. He then shows that this unbelief was only partial: many believed on Jesus, not only from among the people, but from among the rulers, although they did not make open avowal, because of their servile dependence upon men. In the second part of this concluding word, the Apostle introduces Jesus Himself as speaking. He has at the end, in ver. 36, the concluding word which Jesus addressed to Judas before His departure, but broken off in the middle. Here he communicates the second part of it. Jesus represents Himself as the true representative of the Father, and the only Saviour; proclaiming the judgment which must be hereafter the inseparable attendant of unbelief. This is the appropriate winding up, as of the whole relation in which Jesus had stood to the Jews, so also of the evangelical record of that relation. The division of what was originally united, the Evangelist must the rather have determined on, because the fundamental thought of the whole of the last discourse had been fully contained in vers. 35, 36. Vers. 39, 40. “Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again. He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.” Therefore, on account of the Divine decree announced by Isaiah in ch. 53. The ὅτι then introduces a second reason, or an elucidation of the former one, from the mouth of the same Isaiah: comp. ch. John 5:16; John 5:18; Matthew 24:44. The forced supposition, that διὰτοῦτο refers not to what precedes, but to what follows (when, according to the correct remark of De Wette, we might have expected a δέ or καί of transition), sprang from a false apprehension of vers. 37, 38, which regards that passage as intimating only the fact of the Jews’ unbelief. Rightly says Anton: “For again has Isaiah ex eodem fundamento spoken.” The cited passage of Isaiah, ch. Isaiah 6:10, runs according to the original: “Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.” The quotation is not very strictly literal, but accords in reality nearly enough with the original. The address is there directed to the prophets; but he seems there to be only an instrument of the Divine decree, and that which is imposed upon him or the collective servants of God whom he represents, must be referred back to God. It lay in the scope of the Evangelist to make prominent this Divine causality; for it was his purpose to exhibit the unbelief of the Jews under the aspect of a Divine decree and judicial infliction. Properly speaking, the first person ought to have been used instead of the imperative, “I have blinded.” But then it would have been too obviously natural to take the prophet as the subject, the rather that in the original of Isaiah he is the person to whom the words are addressed. Therefore John used first the third person; but that he selected it only for the reason assigned is shown by the fact that he uses the first person in the conclusion, ἰάσωμαι, or, according to another reading, ἰάσομαι. This is not an instance of “negligence;” but it shows, on the contrary, how precisely, down to the least minutiae, everything is ordered in John’s Gospel. Guilt was upon the Jews. But that they might not imagine that they defeated Christ’s plans by their unbelief, and overturned the evidence of His mission, prominence is given to the Divine causation, in connection with their perverse determination. What they would not, they should not, might not, and could not. Situated as they were, everything that furthered the faith of the well-disposed only strengthened them in their unbelief. That is the Divine penalty, the doom which ruled over them, and hurried them to their destruction. Ver. 41. “These things said Esaias, when he saw His glory, and spake of Him.”—Áὐ ?ôïῦ refers back to ver. 37. The distinction from the Lord, ver. 38, who is still the subject in ver. 40, is all the less necessary because John, as he himself says in this verse, beheld Christ in the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Isaiah saw “the Lord” sitting on His throne. He says in ver. 5, “Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” But, according to the tenor of the Old Testament, all visible manifestation, all revelation of the Lord, is made through His Angel, the brightness of His glory; and this was seen manifest in Christ in the flesh.—“And spake of Him:” thus that also refers to Christ, which in ver. 40 was quoted from Isaiah as the Lord’s own act. It was He, therefore, who blinded the eyes of the Jews, etc. The Jews, while they vainly imagined that by their unbelief they discredited His cause, and stamped Him as a “deceiver,” were falling under His condemnation. The refutation of the Jews’ delusion, that Christ must be a false Messiah because they held Him to be such, becomes here a cutting irony. We must be on our guard against supposing that the words here have no express reference to the case in hand, and bear only a cursory relation to the state of the Jews. The fundamental idea of the whole passage is the penalty of obduration, which the Lord threatened upon His apostate people; and the Lord, who held that doom over them, was no other than Christ Himself. That which He Himself brought to pass, could not be brought into evidence against His claims. Vers. 42, 43. “Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on Him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” The unbelief of the Jews, it has been hitherto unfolded, could not be urged as an argument against Christ’s Messiahship. But certainly it pertained to the confirmation of the Divine mission of Christ, that faith in some should be found mingled with unbelief in others. For the people of the covenant could never sink so low as to rise up as one man against the most glorious manifestation of their God. With this consideration in his mind, the Evangelist has all along diligently set over against the outbreaks of unbelief in the majority, the expressions of faith in the few. And here he points to the fact, that this necessary condition of the Divine mission of Christ was present. Not only among the people (Augustin: Eorum autem qui crediderunt alii usque adeo confitebantur ut palmarum ramis acceptis venienti occurrerent, etc.), also among the rulers,—who had specially hard difficulties to overcome, in whom the perverse national tendency was concentrated, and who from their position were most likely to be affected by prejudices,—many believed on Christ; and although through the fear of men they were restrained from making open confession, yet their faith bore witness to the impressive majesty of the appearance of Christ, and the mighty drawing of the Father to the Son: comp. ch. John 6:44. By ἐπίστευσαν, they believed, John’s phraseology allows us to understand only a true faith. That was the only faith which would enter suitably into the design of the Evangelist here. That their faith, indeed, had not attained its full energy, was shown by their shrinking from confession. But this was the condition of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea for a long time, whose faith, however, afterwards broke through all impediments: comp. on ch. John 3:2. When Augustin observes, Principes hos habuisse ingressum fidei, quo si profecissent, amorem quoque humanae gloriae superassent,—what he says is true, though onesided. Even weak faith must make confession. The strong emphasis laid in Matthew 10:32-33 upon the necessity of confession, shows that we are wrong in supposing that confession comes with the gradual strengthening of faith. The faith that makes no avowal, cannot attain its full power. And he who forgets the obligation to confess, is in danger of extinguishing his faith, in order to fly from the admonitions of his conscience.—“Lest they should be put out of the synagogue:” comp. on ch. John 9:22. The praise of men is, according to ch. John 5:44 (comp. 1 Thessalonians 2:6), the honour which springs from and is bestowed by man: the praise of God is the honour which comes from God. How must the image of God have become dim in such a man! God is, in His Old Testament name Jehovah, Existence, the personal necessary Being, out of whom all is nothingness and death, the only One about whom man need care, and for whose favour man should struggle. Men, whose name is weakness, cannot assure us of anything, cannot really hurt or really profit any. Vers. 44, 45. “Jesus cried, and said. He that believeth on Me, believeth not on Me, but on Him that sent Me. And he that seeth Me, seeth Him that sent Me.” There can be no doubt that John here communicates a discourse actually delivered by Jesus. There is absolutely no proof that He puts words into our Lord’s mouth (see on ch. John 3:16); this was forbidden by the deep reverence which he entertained for his Lord. Here it is also opposed emphatically by the ἔκραξε, which refers to the Lord’s manner of uttering His discourse, just as in ch. John 7:28; John 7:37. When this hypothesis is supported by argument drawn from the unoriginal and almost recapitulatory character of the discourse, we have only to remark, that while, on the one hand, this discourse is not formally a composition from the earlier recorded words of Christ in John, from which it has not verbally borrowed a single expression (ver. 48 even touches upon Luke 10:16; and there is no Johannaean parallel for the καὶμὴφυλάξῃ in ver. 47), on the other hand, to have given anything materially new would have been scarcely appropriate in a final discourse of our Lord. Vers. 35, 36 bear evidently the same character of material dependence on earlier words combined with formal independence. It has been further argued, that there is wanting here the organic connection which is observable elsewhere in the Lord’s discourses as given by John; but to us it seems that it must be the fault of the expositor if the clear process of thought is not here traced. The analysis is as follows: I am the truly Sent, ver. 44; and the visible image of the Father, ver. 45; and because I am this, I am the Saviour of the world, ver. 46; and on this account unbelief—although the proper design of My mission is not judgment, ver. 47—must, in the nature of things, bring on judgment: the rejected word of God, which offers the most glorious of all benefits, eternal life, must recoil in judgment upon the heads of those who scorn it in My lips. “For I have not spoken of Myself; even as the Father said unto Me, so I speak.” In these words, in which the end of Christ’s discourse returns to the beginning (οὖν), the Jews received a measure by which they might mete their future—their future in this world, and their future in the world to come. A profound woe lies concealed behind them. The book of Judges, ch. John 2:1-5, presents us something strictly analogous. There a word of the angel of the Lord to the collected Israelites, without any specification of the historical relations, and of the organ through which the angel spake, is inwoven into the introduction, in which the author of the book, with his own hand, exhibits the points of view under which the time of the Judges is to be regarded. When did Jesus speak these words? As John gives no note of the time, we must naturally think of the nearest point of connection; and with this agrees the entire character of the discourse, which J. Gerhard thus describes: “Christ would, in this grave and serious attestation, publicly take farewell of the ungrateful and unbelieving Jews, and throw the whole blame of their judgment upon themselves alone.” Thus we have here the continuation of the former part of ver. 36; and the words, “These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide Himself from them,” would have stood after “Whatsoever I speak therefore,” etc., in ver. 50, if the Evangelist had not thought it appropriate to close his Epilogue by a portion of the concluding words of Christ. This view is supported also by the consideration, that vers. 35, 36 are too brief for the solemn crisis of His departure from the people; and then, that the figure of light and darkness which was employed in vers. 35, 36, returns again at once in ver. 46, after Jesus, in vers. 44, 45, had laid the foundation, by a reference to His own dignity and His unity with the Father, for the testimony that in Him light was given to the people, and that with His departure darkness would come upon them. “He that believeth on Me, believeth not on Me, but on Him that sent Me.” The Jews sought to isolate Christ, and to erect a wall of partition between Him and the Father: We believe not thee; we believe only in God; and because we believe in Him, we will know nothing of thee. Entering into this their delusion, Jesus says,—he believeth not on “Me.” Ewald, who makes our Lord intimate “that, when He demanded faith in Himself, He did not thereby demand faith in Himself as a mortal man, but pure faith in God and His word”—changes the meaning into its direct opposite. Jesus denies here, as in Mark 9:37, all distinction between Himself and God. The clause in ver. 45 is peculiar to this concluding word; and it is explained by what was observed upon ch. John 1:18. To believers and unbelievers the Father was in Christ exhibited; and this was the cause of the downfall of the Jews, that they had seen the Father in Christ, and had blasphemously fought against Him: comp. on θεωρεῖν, ch. John 6:40. Bengel is wrong here: Ea visione, quam fides comitatur. Ver. 46. “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on Me should not abide in darkness.” Light and darkness signify here, as in vers. 35, 36, salvation and ruin. Jesus came into the world as the personal salvation, that whosoever believeth on Him should not abide in that darkness, which involves all who have either not known Christ, or are without Him: comp. on ch. John 1:4, John 8:12. Ver. 47. “And if any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”—Φυλάξῃ (keep not) is much better authenticated than πιστεύσῃ (believe not). The expression is borrowed from the language of the law: comp. e.g. Exodus 12:17; Exodus 15:26. By the use of this language Christ places Himself on a level with the Supreme Lawgiver. The keeping His words forms an antithesis to the utter rejection of them. In the ἀκούσῃ we must not include a believing adherence. The Lord has to do in these words only with the decidedly unbelieving. To the μὴφυλάσσειν here, corresponds the μὴλαμβάνειν in ver. 48. “I judge him not:” in harmony with ch. John 3:17, this simply asserts that the proper vocation and position of Christ is not that of a judge, but that of a Saviour; that the judgment only unfolds itself subordinately and of itself, growing out of the rejection of the Saviour. Judgment has not its root in Christ, or in any joy He feels in pronouncing sentence; it has its root rather in the unbeliever, and in the wicked relation which he assumes towards the truth from God. He is αὐτοκατάκριτος, Titus 3:11. But on that very account the judgment is only the more unavoidable; and it is simple folly to suppose it can ever be escaped. Ver. 48. “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 day.” The catastrophe of Jerusalem was to the Jews a prelude or type of this last day. Then did the apparently impotent word of Christ come up against them like an armed man. Here, as in ch. John 8:50, there is allusion to Deuteronomy 18:19. Ver. 49. “For I have not spoken of Myself; but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.” It is frivolous to make a distinction between the εἰπεῖν and the λαλεῖν. The union of the two words only indicates emphatically that all things whatever Christ spake He spake under the commission of the Father. Ver. 50. “And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto Me, so I speak.” This commandment, the fruit of the doctrine sent from Him, when it is believingly received and embraced in the heart. The practical result is, that Christ has nothing to leave to the people, which, on account of its unbelief. He must abandon, but death and destruction. In rejecting Him they had renounced the Father; and the insulted word of the Father must work its influence upon them, until it should leave them neither root nor branch. For them it was the worm which never dieth.[1] Chapters 13-17 The first four of the seven divisions of the body of this Gospel relate how Jesus wrought the works of Him that sent Him while it was day: the last three describe His departure. The first of these three, ch. 13-17, records how Jesus loved His own to the end; relates how, in the prospect of His passion. He prepared His disciples for His coming departure, thus furnishing for His Church of all times a rich treasure of consolation. The Old Testament types of this portion are: Deuteronomy, in which the departing Moses set before his people the memory of the way; the sayings of Joshua before his death, ch. 23, 24; and the “last words of David,” in 2 Samuel 23, model of the departure of St Paul from the elders of the Ephesian Church, in Acts 20. In the early part, the narrative of what passed at the Last Supper, John bears only a supplementary relation to the earlier Evangelists. From ch. 14 onwards he communicates what his predecessors had altogether passed over; they having modestly recognised the limits of their gift and vocation, and not having ventured on the province of that disciple who formerly lay on our Saviour’s breast, and was initiated beyond the rest into His mysteries. Ch. 13 falls into three parts: the feet-washing, vers. 1-20; the conversation touching the traitor, vers. 21-30; the discourse to the disciples after the traitor’s departure, vers. 31-38. The Feet-Washing Ver. 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.” The δέ points to the circumstance that we have before us, not a new book, but only a new section of it. That the connection is formed by an adversative particle, places the severity of Jesus against the Jews in contrast with His love towards His own. This first verse gives the sketch; vers. 2 seq. give the completion. The εἰδώς, knowing, here, is resumed in ver. 3. As we cannot in that verse interpret “because,” but only “although He knew,” so we are constrained to interpret here. This will appear the obvious interpretation, when we consider that the motive of the transaction is indicated by the words, “as He loved His own,” etc. If we understand, “because He knew,” there arise two motives for this action, placed unconnectedly together, which is scarcely tolerable. If we understand, “although He knew,” we have first a reference to the hindrance which existed to the last display of love, and then, in “because He loved,” a reference to the living principle through which that hindrance was overcome. Ἀγαπήσας alone contains the motive: the εἰδώς, placed before it, points to what opposed the motive, and must be vanquished by the energy of that love. The proof of love which Jesus now at the last gave to His disciples, beams out in all the richer light, because Jesus was clearly conscious that His transition into a state of glory was near at hand. That, notwithstanding this knowledge, He so profoundly abased Himself towards His disciples, and washed their feet, must fill us: with thankful and adoring love. It was as if God had from heaven itself come down to wash the feet of sinful mortals! And this He did to men who immediately before had been contending for a pitiful scrap of worldly honour! “Can any one,” says Heumann, “who reads this history, retain a spark of pride in his heart? Or if he, notwithstanding what he reads, remains proud, is he not unworthy of the name of a Christian?” We must not understand “having hitherto loved His own;” for the hitherto, which would form the antithesis to εἰςτέλος, is not in the text; the “in the world” looks back to the “out of the world,” and refers to the perilous position in which the disciples would be found after the impending departure of their Lord (comp. ch. John 17:11 : “I am no longer in the world; but these are in the world, and I come to Thee.” Grotius: Quos relicturus erat in hoc rerum salo. J. Gerhard: “Because they still remained in the world, in the valley of tribulation, where they must expect nothing but trouble”),—leads expressly to the love which manifested itself in this last proof, and by which Jesus strengthened their hearts beforehand to meet the coming sorrow. We must therefore assume that ἀγαπήσας indicates His love in general, while ἠγάπησεν points to the particular act of love which now sprang from that source.—Ἀγαπᾷν can of itself signify only the affection of love. But as this can be known only by the action that expresses it, such an action is indirectly indicated in the ἠγάπησεν. That this ἠγάπησεν must be primarily referred to the act of washing their feet, is evident from the words “before the feast of the Passover.” The other tokens of love which are recorded in this section are part of the feast itself. Yet we may appropriately regard the remaining evidences of love as supplementary to the feet-washing. “To the end” seems to show that the Evangelist so regarded them. There is no difficulty in this, when we consider what followed as only the unfolding of what had been already displayed in the washing, and furnishing a commentary upon it. If we separate them, the εἰςτέλος loses its significance. The remaining acts of love, which were assuredly confirmations of the tender affection of the Lord towards His disciples, would then fall beyond and after the τέλος. We cannot argue that the supreme proof of His love. His death, lay nevertheless beyond the “end” here mentioned; for the words here refer to the love displayed to His own, and not to that which was manifested by the Saviour of the world. It remains that we examine the chronological note at the beginning of the verse, “before the feast of the Passover.” Remembering John’s manner in giving marks of time (comp. ch. John 12:1), we cannot doubt that his words here refer to the event which he was about to record, primarily to ἠγάπησεν, or to the “riseth” in the nanrative; or that the feet-washing occurred in the time before the paschal feast. “Before the feast” either means nothing (and that can the less be assumed, inasmuch as John is the only one of the Evangelists who follows definite chronological leadings, all his other notes of time being thoroughly precise, such as that of the six days before the Passover in ch. John 12:1; on the following day, ver. 12), or it points to the fact, that the transaction to which this note of time refers, the feet-washing, belongs to the time immediately before the beginning of the paschal feast; that between the feast and the washing nothing else intervened; that, with the completion of the washing, the Passover immediately began for those here concerned. If we give up the closest proximity of the feast, we are left to most arbitrary hypotheses as to the time. We have no more reason to refer it to the day before than to any other day. But considering the high importance which the Evangelist himself attaches to the events here recorded, the feet-washing and what was connected with it down to ch. 7, it is inconceivable that he would leave them chronologically indefinite, with absolutely no note of time; and more especially as they have been treated with very exact chronological precision by the other Evangelists, themselves much more careless on this point. It is plain that the last meal of Jesus, to which all in John’s thirteenth chapter relates, was, according to those earlier Evangelists, the paschal meal; and that Jesus partook of it at the same time with the Jews, entirely according to the law and the universal custom of the feast. (Wichelhaus has thoroughly settled this point in his Leidensgesch.) If the Evangelist had had the design, attributed to him by many, of subverting this chronological decision of his predecessors, he could not have acted more perversely. He would have opposed to their chronological precision an absolutely vague indefiniteness. That “before the Passover” means “immediately before” (just as, in Luke 11:38, πρὸτοῦἀρίστου refers to what immediately preceded the mid-day meal), has been well shown by Lange, who argues that such specific acts as the rising from the table, ver. 4, are not reckoned by days, but by hours and moments. Accordingly the sense here must be, that immediately before the beginning of the feast He rose up. Having settled that this action took place immediately before the paschal feast, the further question arises as to when the feast itself began. It is to be taken for granted that the most important time of the feast, that of the fourteenth Nisan, cannot be excluded from the paschal period. Those who have attempted to do so have been labouring, under a misapprehension. That which gave its name to the whole feast must necessarily have been included within its limits. But the question is, whether the feast had its beginning literally with the commencement of this meal, or whether, as Wieseler and Wichelhaus maintain, the slaying of the lamb must also be included. We decide in favour of the former view, and assume that the beginning of the feast coincided with the beginning of this meal. The very idea of the feast is in harmony with such a view. Ἑορτή always corresponds in the New Testament to the Hebrew ηβ, and is never used save of joyful festivities, in which the people rejoiced before the Lord. The root ηββ signified originally to dance, then to celebrate a festivity: “derived from the sacred choruses and dances with which the feasts were wont to be observed” (Gesenius). The joy which was accordingly associated with the idea of the feast, was based upon the presupposal of an accomplished atonement, obtained in the Passover through the slaying of the lamb. The great day of atonement, notwithstanding its profound importance (Leviticus 16:31), was never termed a feast any more than our Good Friday falls under the Scriptural notion of a feast. The paschal feast was further, according to Isaiah 30:29 (comp. Exodus 12:42), a night-feast, and did not begin until darkness had set in; but the slaying of the lamb took place while it was yet day. The same passage of Isaiah shows that feast and song were always inseparably connected. According to Psalms 81:2-4, the feast pertained to the domain of the moon, and was begun with shouting and song: comp. 2 Chronicles 30:21-22. Finally, the feast is always called in the books of Moses the feast of unleavened bread. But the eating of the unleavened bread began, according to Exodus 12:18, not till “the evening,” the evening which opened the fifteenth Nisan, Leviticus 23:6. On the fourteenth Nisan, between the two evenings—that is, in the afternoon—there was indeed a Passover to the Lord; but that was the paschal sacrifice, not the paschal feast, with which we are here concerned. The two are carefully distinguished in Numbers 28:16-17, “In the fourteenth day of the first month is the Passover of the Lord. And in the fifteenth day of this month is the feast:” comp. also 2 Chronicles 35:17. It may therefore be regarded as fixed, that the paschal feast had its commencement with the paschal meal. But what defined the actual commencement of the meal? Having so entirely spiritual a character, we may assume that its commencement was not a material but a spiritual one; and we can the less doubt this, inasmuch as its conclusion is expressly described to have been a spiritual one: ὑμνήσαντες, Matthew 26:30. The meal had its specific liturgy, which Jesus did not dispense with, so far as it adhered to holy Scripture, as the ὑμνήσαντες itself shows. The meal had indeed its unvarying introductory words. All that took place before the moment when these were spoken, was regarded as “before” the feast of the Passover, although immediately preceding and introducing it. The further question arises. Did the Lord’s act of washing take place before the beginning of the paschal meal, as thus indicated? It may be argued from vers. 2 and 4, that the supper, and consequently the feast, had begun before the feet-washing. But the fact of the time having come, does not prove the beginning of the meal or of the feast; that depended on the liturgy, and the actual eating which then immediately followed. The καὶδείπνουγινομένου (Tisch.: not γενομένου) points to the circumstance that in a certain sense, not coming into consideration here, the supper was already come. (Meyer: “While they were in the act of keeping the supper.”) The supper was not yet; it was about to begin. The translation of the Vulgate, coenβ peractβ, and Luther’s “after the supper,” would not be justified even by the reading γενομένου. But we can positively demonstrate that the feet-washing preceded the actual beginning of the supper and of the feast. That the washing of the feet was customary at all greater feasts, was a result of the Oriental equipment of the feet, the Oriental climate, and the Oriental habit of reclining at the table, which brought the feet into contact with the neighbour. To give the guest no water for his feet was, according to Luke 7:44, regarded as something altogether unusual, and as a great indignity. The word of our Lord, in ver. 10, shows that the washing of the feet was a necessity at the feast. Least of all could it have been omitted at the paschal feast; that would have been in the fullest sense a profanation. The very nature of the case demonstrates that the feet-washing preceded the actual meal; this is attested by the whole of Scripture, wherever the matter is mentioned, from Genesis 18:4; Genesis 19:2, downwards. Classical antiquity affirms the same thing. Not only was the washing of the feet “usually” performed before the meal; it was so always, and without exception. We gather from vers. 4, 5, that the apparatus for the feet-washing was quite prepared, but had not as yet been used. This leads us to the conclusion that our Lord’s act had a specific reason; and that, in fact, He did what others had omitted. And those who had neglected the act must be sought within the circle of the disciples. The master of the house had only yielded his chamber to the Lord. He did not, as in Luke 7, act the part of the host. In this last feast our Lord Himself occupies the place of entertainer: comp. Matthew 26:17. The master of the house was always bound to his family at the paschal season. Those expositors who hold the independent nature and significance of our Lord’s act, are much embarrassed by the presence of the materials for washing; Lampe, for example, following the example of Euthymius, represents Jesus as having asked for these things at the hands of the host, etc. That would have had to be recorded, if the act had been one of independent origination; but as we see the reverse, we may fairly infer that the feet-washing was, so to speak, accidental in its origin. In respect to the Lord’s act, it must be taken for granted that no other washing had preceded. Now, if it is a settled point that such a ceremony was absolutely necessary before the beginning of the feast, then must the present one have occurred before “the supper” began, and consequently before the Passover. It would have been most inappropriate for Jesus to wash over again the feet that had been washed. “He did not,” says Schweitzer, “superfluously rewash their feet: there would have been nothing but an artificial example in such an act, as it would not have been an act of necessity.” The fact that our Lord rose up from the table, ver. 4, shows that He assumed the place of others whose business it was to wash the feet, but who had pretermitted it. If He had had the independent design to wash the feet of His disciples. He would not have seated Himself at the table. And the act itself leads to the same conclusion. His washing their feet would have had, viewed apart from some specific occasion for it, a far-fetched and romantic character; and the objection which Weisse, for instance, urges against it as a “tasteless humiliation” (he remarks that he could find no edification in it, as it would have to every unbiassed feeling a touch of theatrical design in it), would, on such a supposition, be not altogether unfounded. Ewald remarks, on that theory: “A strange thought was seen suddenly to take possession of Christ’s soul;” and Lόcke observes: “Here all was unusual; the Master of the house performs the act Himself, and by performing it interrupts the supper.” We cannot but see the confusion of all these observations; and that, by renouncing any specific reason for the Lord’s act, they lose the only key to its interpretation. By recognising the, as it were, accidental occasion of the feet-washing, we get rid of the notion that Jesus apparently prescribed a rite to be observed in all times; and we are then justified in distinguishing between, the eternally valid principle of the feet-washing, and the form of its expression as influenced by passing circumstances. If we ignore the fortuitous origin of the act, we can hardly refute the argument of Weisse, that as the symbolical rite never became a sacred usage of the early Church, the historical truth of the narrative may be impeached. Finally, the assumption of a special reason for the act is strengthened by the urgent manner in which our Lord requires of His disciples that they wash one another’s feet. It is obvious to infer that He exhorted them to perform in future, after His example, the service that they had just neglected. So also the emphatic exhortations to brotherly love, vers. 34, 35, shine out in brighter light when we consider that the Apostles had recently incurred the blame of neglect in that particular. So far we draw our materials from John himself. But our view is enlarged if we compare the nearest predecessor of John among the Evangelists, Luke, with whom he everywhere has more contact than with any other. He relates, in ch. Luke 22:7-23, the events of “the day of unleavened bread, when the Passover must be killed,” in chronological order, and in harmony with his two predecessors. Then, in the manner with which in him we are familiar, he adds a supplement not chronologically connected with what precedes, vers. 24-38. There he narrates a contest that took place among the disciples as to who of them should be greatest, and the words which our Lord addressed to them in consequence. But we cannot imagine this contention to have occurred after the beginning of the supper: such a supposition would be utterly inconsistent with the solemn tone in which Jesus commenced the feast. But neither can we imagine it before the commencement of the feast, at a time so full of solemnity, unless we suppose that some circumstances surprised them into it, that something in the state of matters gave direct occasion for the contest. That occasion we must not seek in the selection of places at the table (Lichtenstein); it must rather be sought in the fact that a service was expected by some which was not rendered. This will appear evident from the exhortation of ver. 26, which refers to this contention: “He that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.” We infer from this that the greater among the Apostles, those who were by the Lord distinguished above the rest, and were the appointed “pillars,” with Peter at their head, had expected from the lesser Apostles a service which these had not rendered. The words of Jesus, ver. 27, show that that service was no other than the washing of the feet: “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.” These words of Luke stand in undeniable connection with ver. 4, where Jesus assumes the garment of a servant, in order to wash the disciples’ feet. If the serving of Jesus, which in Luke is exhibited as the corrective of the disciples’ reluctance to serve,—a reluctance which gave occasion for the contest,—was actually this washing of the feet, the disciples’ refusal to serve must have been no other than their having declined to wash each other’s feet. The matter then stands thus. Jesus had seated Himself at the table, and probably Peter enjoyed the honour of washing His feet. After this was done, he, with the other disciples interioris admissionis, also sate at the table, expecting that the “younger” would spontaneously assume the function of feet-washers for all the rest. But pride evoked pride. The younger Apostles, following a quick impulse, seated themselves also at the table. Thus a situation of deep embarrassment was the result: murmuring and contest. Who would be the first to rise up again? Jesus put an end to the embarrassment, by arising from the supper and washing the feet of His disciples. How much sorrow was caused by this fatal contention in the circle of the disciples, is shown by the fact that Matthew and Mark pass over it altogether, while Luke and John touch it only by way of hint. If our Lord’s washing occurred immediately before the beginning of the last paschal meal, John is in perfect harmony with the other Evangelists. Such a harmony every one must certainly expect who only remembers and carefully considers the general relation in which John stands to his predecessors. He also will be incapable of doubting that in John the last supper and the Lord’s death must fall within the paschal feast. This is the goal to which all that precedes tends. Jesus always withdrew from His enemies until the Passover was come; He goes up to the capital when the feast draws nigh, entering it on the day when the lambs were set apart. Ch. John 19:36 points the same way, where Christ appears as the antitype of the paschal lamb. Vers. 2, 3, 4. “And supper being ended, (the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him,) Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from God, and went to God; He riseth from supper, and laid aside His garments; and took a towel, and girded Himself.”—Καὶδείπνουγινομένου in ver. 2 means literally, “And the meal being about to begin.” Καί announces the further development of what was given in epitome in ver. 1. The meal needed no more exact definition, as, according to the connection with ver. 1, it could only be understood as that which the other three Evangelists had made familiar, and which opened the paschal feast. Tob 2:1 is similar: “In the feast of Pentecost there was a good dinner prepared me, in the which I sat down to eat.” There a good meal is spoken of quite indefinitely; but the connection shows that the chief meal of the feast is meant. The passage is also further analogous, inasmuch as the ἐγενήθηἄριστον there also indicates the meal by its material preparation. It follows in ver. 4: “Then, before I had tasted of any meat, I started up.” In harmony with this parallel passage, Heumann paraphrases our text: “When the last supper was provided for, and stood ready on the table.” In ch. John 21:20, the article secures to the feast its definite character, just as here the relation to ver. 1 does: τὸδεῖπνον, the generally known and celebrated meal. The scope of the remark that Satan had already put it into the heart of Judas to betray Jesus, must first be interpreted by the epitome of ver. 1, and then by the words of ver. 3. Vers. 2 and 3 serve for the development of the words of the epitome, εἰδὼς—πατέρα. Accordingly, the already determined treachery of Judas is here referred to only as involving the near approach of the death of Jesus, and, as connected with it. His approaching departure to the glory of the Father. That Jesus, in the prospect of that glory, abased Himself so deeply, and assumed, as never before, the form of a servant, showed the energy of His love to His own. Vers. 31, 32 also support this view. There the betrayal of Judas appears as no other than the prelude of the glorification of Christ. If, in interpreting the words, “the devil having now put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot,” we omit to connect them with the first and third verses, we are left to mere conjectures, and the result must be a wide variety of opinions. But, dealing with them as above, vers. 1-3 present much simplicity and transparency of thought. The Apostle gives the utmost prominence to the circumstance that the demonstration of Christ’s love derived its deepest significance from its having been exhibited at the end, at the period when His glory was about to attain its consummation, in which it might have been supposed that thoughts of greatness would leave no room for any other. A secret Kyrie eleeson is always, however, the undertone. While the Apostle so strongly illustrates the humble love of Christ, he at the same time mourns over the proud φιλονεικία of himself and his brother-disciples, whose darkness was only shone upon by the clear brightness of Christ’s example. That is the proper key to the striking accumulation of the expressions. That Satan at that time had already put it into the heart of Judas to betray his Master, was an internal fact of which the Searcher of hearts alone could be cognizant. But, inasmuch as it here enters as an historical element, it is to be taken for granted that the internal fact had already assumed an external form, and become known to man. Now, the other Evangelists expressly record this to have been the case; they prove that Judas had already concluded his compact with the high priests. Matthew 26:14-16; Mark 14:10-11; Luke 22:3-6. John would have appealed to these passages, had the question been put to him, How knowest thou this? It is plain that he had in view the passage of Luke, his immediate predecessor, for there also the trafficking of Judas with the chief priests is referred to Satan. The narrative in Luke begins with the words, “Then entered Satan into Judas, surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve,” words to which John, in ver. 27, also expressly alludes. He reserves, however, the very strong expression used there for the last stage. According to Revelation 17:17, it might have been stated that God put it into his heart. Satan everywhere serves only as the instrument of the plans of God. What Judas did, like all the works of the ungodly, stood under the secret direction of the Supreme. The sin belonged to himself. Since he would not separate from it, and be converted, in spite of all the means freely vouchsafed to him, he was compelled to be the involuntary instrument of the plans of Satan first, and then of God, whose servant even Satan is; and when he had done this, he was to be thrown away, and go to his own place. As his personal definition, to distinguish the traitor from the other Judas among the Apostles, Σίμωνος was enough. The Ἰσκαριώτου was added only to stamp the traitor with infamy: comp. on ch. John 6:71, John 12:4. On ver. 3 Heumann observes: “This must not be viewed as if John repeated in ver. 3 his first εἰδώς in ver. 1, ‘although He knew.’” His amazement at this act of Jesus constrained him to say again what he had said already, and thus to excite the attention of his readers: “I say it once more, that He, knowing that His Father had made Him Lord of all lords, and that He was about to enter heaven in full triumph, nevertheless humbled Himself so much as to wash the feet of His disciples.” The δέδωκε, “gave,” is used by anticipation; the brief space of time which elapsed between the present and the bestowment of His power is ignored: compare the “will straightway glorify Him,” ver. 32. That the πάντα, “all things,” is to be taken in its full comprehensiveness, is evident from Matthew 28:18, “all power is given unto Me in heaven and upon earth:” comp. Hebrews 2:8. The consciousness of Jesus, that He had come forth from God, must have been pre-eminently vivid at the time when His return to God, and to the glory which He had with Him before the world was, immediately approached. He laid aside His garments, ver. 4,—so far, that is, as they were an hindrance to the act He was about to perform. This, of course, applied only to the outer garment. That Jesus girded Himself with the napkin, is evident from ver. 5. That was specifically the equipment or habitus of a servant. In Luke 17:8, we read of a servant to whom his lord says, “Gird thyself, and wait upon me.” That our Lord so formally prepared Himself for the act, not only had reference to the end He proposed, but served also to realize vividly before our eyes the depth of His humiliation. The matter might have been accomplished without all this formal preparation. But then the humiliation of the disciples would have been less profound, and the admonition less penetrating. Only on the consideration we have mentioned can the careful detail of the Apostle’s description be understood. Vers. 5, 6. “After that He poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded. Then cometh He to Simon Peter: and Peter said unto Him, Lord, dost Thou wash my feet?”—“He began” points to the circumstance that the act had to be performed over a wide circle. The ἔρχεταιοὖν, in its reference to ver. 5, suggests that Jesus began with Peter; which has been denied only in the interests of a narrow and petty opposition to the Roman Church. Ver. 5 says in general, that Jesus began to wash the disciples’ feet. Ver. 6 adds with whom He began; and the οὖν is specifically connected with the ἤρξατο: thus He came, or thus beginning He came. It is probable, on other grounds, that our Lord began with Simon Peter. The order of precedence among the Apostles, in which Peter always had the first place (comp. Matthew 16:18), could hardly, on such an occasion as this, have been ignored by Christ. And that would have been all the less appropriate, inasmuch as Peter had doubtless assumed the first place in the contention. When Christ commenced the feet-washing with him, it was all the more keen a humiliation of his aspiring natural man. Even the protest of Peter leads to the conclusion that Jesus commenced with him. Every other disciple would doubtless have protested in the same way; and if, through modesty, one or other had kept silence, the impetuous Peter would doubtless have in some way interposed. As the Lord had placed him at the head of the Apostles, he had, in a certain sense, a right to be their representative. But in that case the explanation which ensued between Jesus and Peter would have taken place before; we can understand it, as it lies before us, only on the supposition that Peter began the series. “But,” observes Heumann, “as the Lord commanded the first to let it be so, the others kept silence when their turn came; however astonished, they nevertheless submitted obediently to receive the service which the Lord performed.” Peter was not wrong in resenting the Lord’s humiliation in washing his feet. So long as he did not recognise the symbolical significance of this action, it must have seemed to him altogether abnormal and unaccountable; and even if he had come to the full consciousness of his own guilt and obligation, it must have seemed to him a too severe punishment that the Lord should dedicate Himself to so degrading a service. But any such symbolical meaning he would not, and could not, assume on his own suggestion. The Lord Himself must declare it. When He had done so, Simon Peter’s opposition was withdrawn. All is here correct enough; and the censure which the expositors are generally disposed to cast upon Peter has no foundation. Ver. 7. “Jesus answered and said unto him. What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.” Jesus intimates that there was a mystery in the matter. “Hereafter;” some light came to Peter through the following explanation of our Lord. Yet that was not sufficient. He did not thoroughly understand it until his fall had taught him to know the depth of his sinfulness, and to see how needful it was that he should be washed of Christ; until, in fact, he obtained through the Holy Spirit, whose outpouring depended on the glorification of Christ, the deepest insight into his own misery and Christ’s abundant benefit. Ver. 8. “Peter saith unto Him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him. If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me.” Peter continues to protest. The Lord’s allusion to the fact of a mystery was not sufficient to overcome his opposition. In order to that, he must at least have some elementary knowledge of what the mystery was. And that knowledge the Lord now gives him by His answer. The bodily washing was a type of the spiritual washing away of the defilement of sin. This alone saved it from being unnatural and unworthy of Christ, and made it for the Apostles no longer a piercing rebuke, but actually an evidence of the supreme love of their Lord. Jesus, whose name signifies that He would save His people from their sins, is only then truly in His element. Both things must concur in our estimate of the reason for the act: reference to the Apostles’ omission of the service to each other, and this spiritual meaning. The latter justifies the act in its real signification, the former justifies its form. That the washing must be understood in its spiritual sense, which the Israelites were prepared for by the Levitical washings—these having regarded external impurity as the figure of sin, so that the purifications were symbolical acts that typified what must take place on sin—is plain from the circumstance that nothing more is said about washing the feet, but only of washing generally; as also from the result that is said to follow from the not being washed by Christ. To have no part in Him means to have nothing to do with Him, to be excluded from all communion with Him: Joshua 22:24-25; 2 Samuel 20:1; 1 Kings 12:16; 2 Corinthians 6:15. Entire exclusion from the fellowship of Christ can befall only those who refuse to seek for spiritual cleansing from Him. With this agrees the undeniable reference to Psalms 51:4, which the saying of our Lord contains. David there prays to God: “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” When Jesus arrogates to Himself what is there supplicated from God, He assumes to Himself a Divine dignity. That passage in the Psalm teaches us also that the washing here refers directly to the bestowment of forgiveness (νίπτειν is equivalent to ἀφιέναιἁμαρτίας, Mark 2:10, Matthew 9:6, which the Pharisees rightly regarded as arrogating a Divine prerogative), and not primarily to sanctification. Ver. 9 gives us the comment on ver. 4 of the Psalm: the blotting out of iniquity corresponds to the washing. “In the preliminary petitions, vers. 3, 4, 5, the subject is the main and prominent blessing in the forgiveness of sins. And the unfolded supplications are occupied primarily only with this, vers. 9-11. Then in vers. 12-14 the Psalm turns to the second gift, which necessarily follows from the communication of the first, the impartation of the sanctifying grace of God.” But though the washing has primarily nothing to do with sanctification, yet Jesus, when He arrogates to Himself the power to forgive sins, indirectly assumes also the power of creating a pure heart; for He by the former places Himself in the province of God, with whom the commencement in justification is, according to Psalms 51, inseparably connected with the termination in holiness. The word about washing must have found an immediate response in Peter, who, in Luke 5:8, cries, “I am a sinful man, O Lord.” The law of Moses has such a severe word as this (Numbers 19:20): “But the man that shall be unclean, and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation.” As certainly as Christ is the thrice Holy One, so certainly the man born and bound in sin remains separated from Him by a wide gulf, unless He should fill up the great gulf by the forgiveness of sins. When here the being washed by Christ is made the fundamental condition of all fellowship with Him, we are thereby assured that the knowledge of sin, and the desire to be washed from it by Christ, are the first principles of all Christianity. “Whatever purity a man may flatter himself that he has,” says Quesnel, “unless Jesus purifies us, we are unworthy of His fellowship, of the communion of His body, and of the glory of His new life.” That the basis of the doctrine of the water of forgiveness is the blood of the atonement, we learn from ch. John 19:34-35; 1 John 5:6. The forgiveness, therefore, which Jesus imparted during the continuance of His earthly life, must have had an anticipative character. Ver. 9. “Simon Peter saith unto Him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” We must supply: If the matter is so, then wash, etc. Peter had but recently, in the contention, found how mighty sin was still in him. It was natural that he should lose all consciousness of what he already possessed through the grace of his Master, and that he should come to Christ as one who generally had not yet been washed from his sins, 1 Corinthians 6:11. Therefore Jesus must remind him of the condition of grace in which he stood. Vers. 10, 11. “Jesus saith to him. He that is washed needeth not, save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For He knew who should betray Him; therefore said He, Ye are not all clean.” Jesus had already transferred the matter into the spiritual domain. “He that is washed” must mean only “He that is washed in a spiritual sense.” First comes the universal proposition, and then the specific application of it to the disciples. Purity appears here as the consequence of the washing; and as, according to ver. 8, the bestowment of forgiveness of sins was signified by that washing, so purity must consist in the possession of forgiveness. How had the Apostles become clean? According to ch. John 3:5, and the other passages of the New Testament which we have there alluded to, the basis of that blessing was baptism. But this, in their case, required supplementing, inasmuch as it was the baptism of John, which could only imperfectly attain its end by assuring the future forgiveness of sins (Mark 1:4). This supplement the Apostles attained through their relation to Christ: comp. ch. John 15:3. They were led thereby to repentance and faith; and their faith led to forgiveness of sins, Acts 10:43, and the purification of the heart that rests upon forgiveness, Acts 15:9. In consequence of their faith, the Son of man, who had upon earth the right to forgive sins, absolved them from their sins: because they were believers in Him, they became righteous in Him. They could say with David, “Blessed is the man whose iniquity is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” To the washing of the feet, ever coming into contact with the dust and soil of earth, corresponds in the spiritual domain the forgiveness of sins to which the man in a state of grace is liable, from the fact that he, by nature a sinner, dwells among a people of unclean lips—such sins as result from the mere daily walk in a corrupted world. The Apostles were men of sincere heart; they hated sin as those who had obtained forgiveness; and when, in their own despite, and to their deep sorrow, they were surprised into it, they had an intercessor with the Father, Jesus Christ, 1 John 2:1, who, if we confess our sins, as Peter confessed them here, is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanses us from our unrighteousness, 1 John 1:9. —“But not all” was intended to pierce the conscience of Judas, whom the Redeemer did not give up until the last good impulse had died within him. Jesus must exhaust all the means of love and discipline, however plain it was that through the guilt of his obduration all would be in vain. Therefore He washed his feet also, for a sign that He still stood ready to wash even him spiritually from his unrighteousness. But the word was not spoken for Judas alone. In common with the later sayings of our Lord concerning the traitor, it serves to obviate the natural suspicion that Jesus, without observing it, had nourished a viper in His bosom,—a fact that would have been an argument against His true divinity. The clearly discerned and plainly foreannounced treachery weighed nothing against, but rather in favour of, the claims of Jesus as the Son of God: comp. ver. 19. Jesus thereby declared that He possessed the Divine prerogative of searching the heart and the reins. The Evangelist himself makes this emphatic in ver. 11. Vers. 12-17. Our Lord’s feet-washing presents a twofold aspect. It was, on the one hand, an act of ministering love, which had for its object the performance of that literal bodily washing which the pride of the disciples had left unaccomplished. On the other hand, the feet-washing symbolized the forgiveness of sins assured through Christ. When our Lord went on to impress it upon the Apostles that they should copy the example given by Himself, that must of course be interpreted only of the former of these elements. The latter—the washing of forgiveness—was peculiar to Christ. It rested on His divinity. No one man can spiritually wash another. Admonitory appeals, and attentive watchfulness over others’ sins, have nothing to do with this washing; moreover, the danger incident to this is so great, Matthew 7:3, that we cannot suppose it to have been recommended and made a duty in so absolute a manner. It was all the more obvious that the former—the setting an example of brotherly service—was the true interpretation, inasmuch as our Lord’s act was occasioned, in its formal aspect, by the Apostles’ own deficiency, and was really intended to have the significance of a pattern. Beza remarks, that by God’s grace it had been given to the Apostles to respond in their conduct to the Lord’s present requirement: this is attested by the Acts of the Apostles, in which there is no trace of the contentions that were formerly so rife, and also by their epistles. Ver. 13. “Ye call Me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.” The nominative is not used instead of the vocative: but öùíåῖ ?í signifies to name. When the Apostles spoke of Christ, they were wont to say: The Master said this, the Lord did this. The article must be emphasized. The Master and the Lord simply: here we are carried beyond the mere human nature. Absolute dominion over others in spiritual things would be a sinful claim, unless made by one who partook of the Divine nature. Vers. 14, 15. “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.” The washing is here to be taken in its literal sense. A spiritual meaning has no foundation; and it is obviated by reference to the disciples’ omission of the material washing, as well as by the Lord’s own present act. That which they had now omitted they must do in the future, moved by the example of Christ. That there are circumstances under which it is a duty literally to wash others’ feet, is plain from 1 Timothy 5:10. Among the disciples themselves there might arise occasions for it. But the commandment must be understood with a certain reserve. Beneath the specific injunction there lies the universal precept which it symbolically exhibited—the precept of self-sacrificing love, to which no service is too mean. The form of the expression given to this precept is taken from the act then performed. If this is acknowledged, it will appear plain that the literal fulfilment does not by any means satisfy the injunction; indeed, that the literal fulfilment might be under certain circumstances a violation of the precept. The literal feet-washing is by it enjoined upon them only as a ministry of love. But that it is now as it were only in the relation of the woman to the man. Gomarus has well observed, that in our part of the world it is not so much the feet as the shoes that require the cleaning. The washing of the feet would be among us a burden: it presupposes the Oriental manner of clothing the feet, and the propriety that resulted from it. Where the feet are among the covered parts of the body, decency demands that they should not be uncovered before strangers. As a symbolical act, and as an exemplification of ministering love, the washing of the feet is not inadmissible. But it is not here commanded. There is something strange and forced in such an injunction. The ancient Church was rightly advised, and followed a sure instinct, in giving it up. . Ver. 16. “Verily, verily, I say unto you. The servant is not greater than his Lord; neither he that is sent greater than He that sent him.” The name Apostle (he that is sent) Jesus confers in Luke 6:13 upon His twelve disciples. From the fact that the Lord uses that name, we gather that the phrase, general in its form, is used with a special reference to the disciples. Ver. 17. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” The doing is emphasized by the Lord in a manner similar to this in Matthew 7:21; Luke 6:46; Luke 12:47. In vers. 18, 19, the Lord obviates the danger of their referring what was said for the Apostles alone, to the traitor found amongst them. Ver. 18. “I speak not of you all; I know whom I have chosen: but, that the Scripture may be fulfilled. He that eateth bread with Me hath lifted up his heel against Me.” I speak not of you all: this points to that which, in ver. 10, Jesus had said concerning the Apostles’ state of grace, and to the exhortation of vers. 13-17 based upon it. Vainly has it been attempted to place in opposition things immediately connected together. Only those who in essentials are pure, can mutually wash each other’s feet. The choosing spoken of here cannot be any other than that spoken of in ch. John 6:70, “Have I not chosen you twelve?” and there is in fact no reason to understand the choosing otherwise than as the reception into the number of the Apostles. Grotius paraphrases: Non de omnibus bene spero. Novi intime eos, quos mihi in comites elegi. The knowing is opposed to the partial not knowing which might seem to be inferred from the treachery of Judas: comp. ch. John 6:64 and ver. 11 here.—“I know whom I have chosen” involves that Jesus had not received the traitor among His Apostles through ignorance. With this negative is connected the positive, “but (I have chosen him) that,” etc.: comp. ch. John 9:3; “but (he was born blind) that.” Jesus chose Judas that he might betray Him, and that thus the Scripture might be fulfilled, according to which such a man belonged to the necessary surrounding of the Redeemer. Had our Lord not chosen Judas, the nature of the world, as it has been exhibited in the scripture quoted, would have been imperfectly represented in the apostolical circle; and this again would have been an unfaithful type of the Church in its later development. Judas belongs to the apostolical circle no less than Peter and John. We should miss something essential if there had been no Judas among the Apostles. We might, following Matthew 26:56, Mark 14:49, John 19:36, supplement τοῦτογέγονεν. That would only come to the same thing. The τοῦτογέγονεν would refer to the fact of the choice of Judas by Christ. The passage quoted is from Psalms 41. The subject of that Psalm is the suffering Righteous One, not specially David. That which is there said of him must pre-eminently be fulfilled in Christ, in whom the idea of the Righteous One became a reality. When, then, after the wickedness of the open enemies has been depicted, we read in ver. 10, “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me”—like a beast which strikes out against its master and feeder—there is at the foundation the general truth, that in the world of sin the righteous man cannot but have false friends; and this truth must have its realization in Christ. The quotation is according to the original text. The Septuagint has: ὁἐσθίωνἄρτουςμου, ἐμεγάλυνενἐπ̓ἐμὲπτερνισμόν. That Christ did not regard the passage as directly Messianic, is plain from the fact that He omits “in whom I trusted,” which would not have been appropriate to Him who knew what was in man. That the μετἐμοῦ, does not merely denote the fellowship of eating, but the eating with Christ as the host, is evident from the original, where the words run, “who eateth My bread.” From the relation in which Judas stood to Christ, he was, like all the Apostles, nourished by Christ: comp. ch. John 12:6, and Matthew 26:17, where the Apostles ask, “Where shall we provide Thee the Passover?” (Bengel: Jesus est ut pater familias inter discipulorum familiam); and finally from ver. 26. Ver. 19. “Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am He.”— Ἀπάρτι from this time onwards (instead of the ἀπάρτι, Matthew 26:64, Luke has, ch. Luke 22:69, ἀπὸτοῦνῦν), points to the fact that Jesus would still recur often to the same subject. Some interpret “just now, now at once.” But New Testament phraseology furnishes no certain example of this interpretation (comp. ch. John 1:51); and we have no reason for departing from the ordinary meaning, as our Lord does often return to the subject of the betrayal. The foreannouncement of it not only obviates an obvious argument against Jesus; in connection with that foreannouncement, the betrayal becomes a positive argument in His favour.—“That I am;” that is, the absolute, the central personality: comp. on ch. John 8:24. For to that alone does it belong to try the heart and the reins, and to know the hidden before it is evolved in act. At the basis lie those passages of Isaiah, in which Jehovah proves His true divinity by His prediction of the future, such as ch. Isaiah 43:11-13. Ver. 20. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth Me; and he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me.” Jesus had given to His disciples the pattern of self-humiliation, and had pressingly urged them to follow that example. The expression here is directly connected with this. Vers. 18, 19 in reality bear a parenthetical character. Its position at the close of the whole transaction requires us to assume that the Lord here returns to the act from which all had started, which had been the central subject, and with which all thus closes; and that He, glancing at the treachery of Judas, would fortify the other disciples in their fidelity by a reference to the dignity of their vocation. There is no evidence whatever that the treachery of Judas would have been a temptation to the remainder of the Apostles. The son of perdition they looked upon only with amazement and grief. That the Apostles might not mistake the real dignity of their vocation, in consequence of His exhortations to humility, Christ here at the conclusion points expressly to that dignity with designed allusion to an earlier utterance, Matthew 10:40 (comp. Mark 9:37; Luke 10:16), the continued validity of which seemed to be endangered by those words of exhortation. It is to this seeming danger that the “Verily, verily, I say unto you,” with its express assurance, refers. Berl. Bible: “This is said for consolation to those who must have received a severe lesson before.” But we must not limit ourselves to the notion that Christ here exhibits the other side, in order to obviate misunderstanding of the lesson of humility. The two views are not placed in juxtaposition; but the consciousness of the dignity of their vocation must rather bring with it a willingness to humble themselves. He who is penetrated with the conviction that he is in the enjoyment of a divine mission, will not be ready to contend about the trivial honours of this world; he will freely surrender them to him whose worldliness of spirit finds nothing better to desire. True spiritual pre-eminence puts an end to all common ambition, and has below its feet all such questions as, whether one should wash the feet of others, or be washed. To contend about such pitiable matters is below its dignity. The Lord’s word here stands in close connection with Luke 22:28-30, and finds there its commentary. Jesus, after He had commended the humble service of love and self-enunciation to His disciples by word and example (the feet-washing), now refers them to the dignity of their vocation, and shows them that they are called to high honour. That remained, notwithstanding their obligation to self-abasement; indeed, it rendered them all the more disposed to such humility. For all honour which the world could offer, would be in comparison only contemptible. Lampe observes on “whom I shall send:” “Christ, although preparing Himself to suffer, nevertheless foresees His dignity as King of the Church; and as such He will have His legates, whom He will send.” The Apostles were only the first in the great company. We have here the basis of the designation of ministers in the Apocalypse, as the angels of the Church. The principle from above is here as expressly as possible declared in relation to office in the Church. Lampe, the Reformed theologian, remarks: “The servants of God in the congregation of the Old Testament, as well the extraordinary like the prophets, as the ordinary like the priests, were regarded as sent of God. The same expression was transferred to the ministers of the New Testament, as well the extraordinary, the most eminent of whom were therefore called Apostles, as the ordinary, Romans 10:15, who therefore were called angels, Revelation 2, 3. The ἐάντιναπέμψω is intentionally general, in order to intimate that the sending of Christ would not be restricted to the Apostles.” Chap. John 13:21-30 The feet-washing is now followed by our Lord’s discourse concerning His betrayer. The ταῦταεἰπών at the beginning places this in immediate juxtaposition with the address which Jesus had delivered to His disciples after the washing was finished, and Jesus had resumed His seat at the table. Matthew and Mark coincide upon this. According to Matthew 26:21, Mark 14:18, Jesus uttered the words, “Verily I say unto you, One of you will betray Me,” immediately after He had placed Himself at the table with the twelve, and the supper had begun. Matthew and Mark point not indistinctly to the fact, that our Lord’s words concerning the traitor were closely connected with the commencement of the feast; Mark especially, who to the εἷςἐξὑμῶν appends ὁἐσθίωνμετʼ ? ἐμοῦ. Ver. 18 in John shows what that connection was. “He that eateth my bread,” in the Psalm, was, as it were, realized in act at the beginning of the meal. Such a special occasion is demanded for the “troubled in spirit,” ver. 21. Luke omits the colloquy touching the traitor, and, instead of it, inserts another omitted by his predecessors, and which belonged to the end of the feast. We have already observed that, after the ἀπάρτι in ver. 19, a series of our Lord’s utterances concerning the traitor was to be expected. There was a particular reason for that one which Luke records. It was to occasion the departure of the traitor, who, although he must be present at the institution of the supper, would have been altogether out of place during the subsequent outpourings of our Lord. That the words concerning the traitor in Luke closely resemble the earlier ones, is quite natural, as it is a designed repetition for a particular purpose. In the Old Testament we often find in such cases the echo-like recurrence of the same words: as may be observed, for example, in Psalms 42, 43. But Luke’s words are too closely connected with what Jesus had uttered at the supper, to allow us to suppose that he arbitrarily inserted them. Not only the πλὴνἰδοὺ comes here into consideration,—which, in spite of all that Wichelhaus says, cannot be regarded as an appendage of Luke, without throwing some suspicion upon his genuineness,—but also the τοῦπαραδιδόντοςμε in its undeniable reference to the τὸὑπὲρὑμῶνδιδόμενον. That what is recorded by Luke in ver. 23 does not harmonize with the period after the institution of the supper, is an assertion which could be made only by those who take an incorrect view of the previous transactions concerning the traitor. Ver. 22. “Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom He spake.” They looked at each other, not so much to detect the traitor in any other face, as to see whether in others’ countenances they saw any suspicion of themselves. How weak is the flesh, how deceitful the heart, and how deeply had fallen many even of the believers of the Old Testament! This gives the point of connection for Matthew 26:22-24. The Lord’s word then, ver. 23, “He that dippeth his hand with Me in the dish, the same shall betray Me,” not only contains a more specific designation of the traitor, but, in its repeated reference to Psalms 41, gives prominence to the indignity, that one of His table-companions should betray his Lord. Mark makes this very emphatic in ch. Mark 14:20 : “It is one of the twelve that dippeth with Me in the dish.” Here follows, from John 13:23-29, a scene peculiar to John, the communication of which was the reason that he made mention of the incident concerning the traitor. John 13:21-22 serve only as an introduction or point of connection with what the other Evangelists had already recorded, and which is here briefly resumed. That which John communicates in John 13:23-29 is, as it were, his own private property. He alone could have imparted from the first source, and therefore the Evangelists who preceded him left it unmentioned. Ver. 23. “Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved.” That the words “whom Jesus loved” occupy the place of a proper name (Heumann: “a title, a designation, by which John desired to be known”), appears from its being repeated often (ch. John 19:26, John 20:2, John 21:7; John 21:20), as well as from its being used in circumstances in which the love of Jesus is not under consideration. They are a paraphrase (as Bengel tells us) of the name of John, which signifies “him whom Jehovah loves.” In the love of Jesus, the Jehovah manifest in the flesh, the pious wish became fulfilled from which the denomination arose. Meyer objects that it ought in that case to have been, not “whom Jesus loved,” but “whom the Lord loved.” But John speaks of Jesus as the Lord only twice before His resurrection, ch. John 4:1, John 6:23. Jesus, on the other hand, is the standing name. That was the name which belonged to the Son of man, Jehovah manifest in the flesh. To have designated himself as pre-eminently the disciple whom Jesus loved, would have been presumption on John’s part (Grotius very incorrectly: Hac modesta circumlocution e se designare solet Johannes)—he would have shown himself a “babbler who on all occasions boasted that none of the other disciples were so highly esteemed as himself”—if this pre-eminence had not, like the primacy of Peter, rested upon some declaration of Christ Himself, and thus been removed out of the region of self-complacent fancy. Lampe’s remark, “That he was much beloved by Jesus, was the conclusion he drew from the strong love towards Jesus with which he felt his own heart filled,” is more specious than true. In all probability Jesus gave this declaration in the form of an interpretation of the name John, which even by this interpretation became a “new name.” This is confirmed by the fact that Jesus on other occasions stamped the spiritual character of His Apostles by the imposition of a second name: comp. on ch. John 6:71, John 11:16. Where the proper name itself only needed to be expounded, it was obvious to retain it, and to sanctify it by an interpretation given. The place which John assumed at the table, on the bosom of Jesus (comp. on ch. John 1:18), was symbolically significant: it stood in close reference to his name; and thus rested doubtless on an appointment of Jesus. Larape is wrong here: “The Papists will find it hard to justify the primacy of Peter; John takes here the first place, not only at the table, but also in the heart, of Christ.” Peter and John have each after his kind the first place in the apostolical circle; and both, inwardly bound to each other, were altogether without envy at each other’s preeminence. Peter, between whom and the Pope of Rome there is no solid bridge, so that there is not the least necessity for explaining away the pre-eminence which the Lord gave him, is placed at the head with reference to the energy of action. The profoundly internal John, with his depth of love, his inwardness and devotion, stands nearest to the heart of Jesus. We may say, that because the relation between John and Jesus took the form of a relation of love, and was so far partial in its character, he was not called to the primacy, however necessary love was to that primacy: comp. ch. John 21:15. Ver. 24. “Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom He spake.” The present νεύει is characteristic. The scene, which he himself witnessed, and with which he had particularly to do, is immediately before the Apostle’s eyes. That a mere beckoning was sufficient, implies a closer relation between John and Peter, such as is attested by many other passages: ch. John 20:2, John 21:7; Luke 5:10; Luke 22:8; Acts 3:4; Acts 8:14. Lachmann’s text reads: καὶλέγειαὐτῷεἰπὲτίςἐστινοὗλέγει. Here again we may learn a lesson of caution in relation to this text. The beckoning presupposes that Peter, in his position at the table, could not communicate with John by word. The λέγει comes into contradiction with this. The εἰπέ is unpleasantly ambiguous. The obvious view of it would be that John should speak of his own accord. Then arises the difficulty as to how John came to know, or how Peter could take it for granted that he knew. According to another view, the “say” is equivalent to “ask.” But then we should expect αὐτῷ, and “say” in the meaning of “ask” is strange. The reading arose doubtless from the difficulty felt in appreciating the spiritual rapport between John and Peter, and in understanding how a request could be made by a mere nod. Peter was not urged by curiosity. He, the man of action, who cut off the high priest’s servant’s ear, thought that there was something here also for him to do. That Jesus entered into his desire, served to answer the end indicated in ver. 19. According to this, Jesus could not end with “One of you shall betray Me;” He must before the betrayal mention the name of the traitor, although it was preliminarily left in the keeping of the disciple whom Jesus loved. He would, in committing it to John, commit it to the whole apostolical circle, to the collective Christian Church. Ver. 25. “He then, lying on Jesus’ breast, saith unto Him, Lord, who is it?”—Ἐπιπεσών points to a certain violence in the act, a strong impulse of affection, which the disciple of love must have felt when the Lord said, “One of you will betray Me.” The reading of Lachmann’s text, ἀναπεσών, sprang from an inconsiderate comparison with ver. 12 or ch. John 21:20, in which passages the word refers to the habitual place which John occupied at the supper, and not this particular act. The address Κύριε shows, that with John the tenderness of affection did not impair the awe of reverence. Ver. 26. “Jesus answered. He it is to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when He had dipped the sop. He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.” Why did Jesus take this method? Not merely that He might be understood by John. If He could say softly the words ἐκεῖνός— ἐπιδώσω), He might just as easily have softly pronounced the name. The purpose of our Lord was rather, by this intimation of the manner of the betrayal, to make more emphatic the horror and the abomination of that act. He thus realized in act the words of Psa 41:10, “He that eateth my bread,” which He had quoted in ver. 18, and to which in ver. 21 He had referred. Outwardly viewed, that which Jesus did was an expression of paternal favour to Judas. The other disciples, observes Bengel, doubtless thought that Judas was fortunate beyond them. It need not be proved that this was not mere semblance; and nothing can be more foolish than to speak of it as a “cunning designation by an act which had the force of a token of friendship and goodwill.” Although the act had a complaining and condemnatory significance, it was doubtless, at the same time, a declaration that Jesus had not yet quite given up Judas, that He was still ready to receive him again into the fellowship of His love. He must and He would touch his heart once more, if haply he might yet be susceptible of better emotions. Besides John, to whom Jesus had previously given the commentary on the symbolical act, Judas also knew the meaning of the sign. His conscience gave him the interpretation, especially as Jesus had already alluded to that passage in the Psalm. In order, however, to be absolutely certain, he asked Jesus, according to Matthew 26:25, “Master, is it I?” and Jesus answered him, “Thou hast said.” This colloquy between Jesus and Judas must have proceeded softly, and so that no one perceived it except John, who had been already made acquainted with the secret, and thus was especially observant. This is on other accounts probable. Jesus could not have unmasked the traitor before all the Apostles without exciting the utmost commotion in their minds, and especially occasioning some premature explosion on the part of Peter. It is made necessary also by vers. 28, 29. That Jesus could exchange these words with Judas in private, renders it necessary to suppose that the latter sate near Him at the table. Probably Peter was first in the series on that side, and Judas ended it on the other; so that in one respect he was the nearest to the Lord, in another the most distant. This is supported by the fact that in all the catalogues Peter takes the first place and Judas the last: comp. Matthew 10:2-4; Mark 3:16-19; Luke 6:14-20. The ψωμίον of itself points to bread. In later Greek, ψωμί was bread; and Suidas remarks, ψωμὸςὁἄρτος. That it was a morsel of bread, is plain also from the frequent reference to the passage in the Psalm, “He that eateth my bread.” We have here such an allusion to the paschal rite as forbids us to separate this feast from that of the Passover. In the paschal meal there was a sop called charoseth, made up of figs, nuts, and other fruits compounded with wine or vinegar. In this sop the householder dipped pieces of unleavened bread, and was followed in the act by the rest of the company. The sop was not a continuation into the paschal feast of a custom belonging to an ordinary meal; it belonged entirely to the paschal feast. It had a symbolical meaning. It represented the fruits of the blessed land to which the partaking of redemption gave them a right; just as in the law the benefits of nature were always conjoined with the grace of redemption. Matthew 26:23 refers to this dish. If we refer it to the common bread of the daily meal, there is no connection with that passage. There remains no material to be dipped into. Ver. 27. “And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.”—Ôüôå serves to give prominence to the frightful crisis. The allusion, in the “Satan entered into him,” to Luke 22:3, is all the less doubtful, as this peculiar phraseology never again occurs in the same way, either in reference to Judas or for any other purpose. In Mark 5:12, Luke 8:32, it is used of bodily possession. There is an apparent opposition here, but it is only a formal one: it only intimates, that now first the word used by Luke reached its fullest truth. We ought not to say that Luke wrote “less exactly.” “There were two stages,” says Lampe, “of which it in a special manner held good that the devil entered the heart of the traitor: the first in the preparation for the betrayal, and the second in the accomplishment of it.” As the indwelling of Satan, so also the indwelling of God by His Spirit, has its several degrees; and as the phraseology is relative, it may be used of the several crises of possession. The only question is as to the point from which we take our departure. The basis of the expression used by Luke and John was the word which Jesus had used at an earlier period, ch. John 6:70 : “Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?”—an incarnate Satan. Why did the final decision follow so close upon this sop? The colloquy recorded by Matthew between Jesus and the traitor is presupposed by John. It belonged to the sop, as a commentary upon it. The foundation of the entrance of Satan into the traitor was formed by the absolute assurance that he was detected. In the interest of his design he had overcome the shining evidences which Jesus had earlier given of His Godhead, otherwise the betrayal would be inconceivable: he who would betray the Son of God, must first be convinced that He is not the Son of God. The divinity of our Lord now suddenly shone out in the demonstration that He gave of His possessing the Divine prerogative of searching the heart and the reins. Not uttering a supposition, but with absolute assurance, Jesus says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, One of you shall betray Me.” The rays of Divinity now beam still more brightly upon Him. By sign and word the Lord says to him. Thou art he who eateth My bread, and betrayeth Me. Then should he have been pierced to the heart, as Achan was in Joshua 7; and all the more, as Jesus was at the same time attracting him, and declaring to him by this very sign that he was not yet struck out from the number of the twelve, and that there still remained space for his return. But he would not; and the vehement effort which he made to close his heart against heavenly influences, must at the same time have opened the door to the influences of hell: yea, he must have derived the very strength for that resistance from his union with those powers of evil. As it is said of David that he strengthened himself in his God, so Judas strengthened himself in Satan. This crisis decided his fate for all eternity. The word, “What thou doest, do more quickly,” does not command Judas to do anything generally, but to do more quickly what he will do, and must. He shows thereby that He does not fear the act of Judas; that His impulse to suffer, and to finish the work which the Father had given Him to do, was stronger than the impulse which Satan had given to Judas; that His desire for the salvation of the world was more vehement than Judas’ desire for the reward of his sin. Judas sees himself by this word of Jesus profoundly degraded. He has not power over his Master, as he had imagined he would have, and soothed his vain thought thereby, like many others who follow in the footsteps of Judas; but his Master uses for His own purpose the designs of the traitor. Vers. 28, 29. “Now 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 we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor.” This remark has so far actual circumstantial interest, as it shows what a thorough hypocrite Judas was, and how little the evidence of his treachery could be gained in a natural way. Even now the eyes of his fellow-disciples are not opened, so firmly had he closed all the issues of his heart, and watched over his words and looks. “No man knew” besides the disciple whom Jesus loved. This limitation is given by ver. 23. If the letter is pressed, Judas himself must be made unaware of it. The supposition here referred to will appear “senseless and wild,” only if we inadequately depict to ourselves the situation, and sunder the meal here described from the paschal feast. “For the feast” is more fully explained by ch. John 13:1, which shows that only that part of the feast was meant which followed the opening of the Passover. Jesus had, in the anticipation of His passion and death, taken no care for the remainder of the feast. His disciples had doubtless been surprised at that; and it was all the more natural that they should refer the Lord’s present words to that fact, as the things needed would be required in the next morning. It has been asserted, that to buy in the night of the Passover would have been a violation of the enjoined rest of the feast. But at the feasts, when men were to rejoice before the Lord, they were less rigorous than at the Sabbath. The law itself, in Exodus 12:16, permitted on the first day of the feast the provision of food which was forbidden on the Sabbath. The immense multitudes of people in Jerusalem at the feast, and the wide variety of needs arising from it, caused doubtless a certain relaxation of rule after the great feast, in order that the remainder of the festival might be worthily cared for. In view of such pressing and decisive necessity, we may be sure that some resource must have been discovered for relief. “Necessity breaks law:” the Talmud gives express evidence as to how provision was made for buying during the feast, Tract. Sabbath, c. xxiii. 1. A difficulty arises only if we separate the meal in John from the paschal feast. In that case there would have been no urgency in the buying. Needless trouble has been raised as to the offices for buying and selling being open. The paschal feast certainly did not last elsewhere longer than that of the Apostles; and the sellers, who are always ready enough for gain, especially the Jewish, would not delay to open their stores. Others thought that Jesus commanded Judas to give something to the poor: that is, for the same object, the procuring of provision for the further need of the feast. There were doubtless many whose slender resources were exhausted by the expenditure of the journey and the first part of the feast. It was the office of gratitude for the grace of redemption sealed in the Passover, to take charge of such as these. According to the prescription of the law, the people were to rejoice before the Lord in the great feasts, and to receive personae miserabiles into the fellowship of this joy, by hospitality and alms. Deuteronomy 16:14 : “And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates:” comp. ver. 11, John 12:12. This injunction had, as we may take for granted, been observed by Jesus at the earlier feasts which He had attended; and that circumstance would render the supposition more natural. Quesnel: “The Redeemer sanctified the feast by mercy; and He teaches us that we should give more liberal alms on those days on which God more richly dispenses His gifts. That is only a righteous requital; but all the advantage is on our side.” But the supposition of the text was obvious only if the feast in John was the paschal feast: the distribution of alms at such an otherwise unseasonable time would be accounted for as a necessary appendage of the feast. Under ordinary circumstances, the time—it being night—was altogether inappropriate. But the paschal night was the most excited of the whole year—the only one which, in this regard, was equal to the day: comp. Isaiah 30:29. The supposition about Judas’ errand would have been, on any other night, “senseless and wild.” Ver. 30. “He then, having received the sop, went immediately out; and it was night.” Instead of εὐθέωςἐξῆλθεν, Lachmann and Tischendorf have ἐξῆλθενεὐθύς, following preponderating witnesses. The ὅτεἐξῆλθε, which many add at the end of this verse, omitting it at the beginning of ver. 31, is essential to that verse, since it gives emphasis to the connection between the utterance of Jesus and the departure of Judas. In ver. 30, however, it is superfluous and disturbing. John connected the receiving of the sop with the departure of Judas, because there was a link of causation between them. The εὐθύς is pressed too far, if we draw from it the conclusion that he went out at that precise moment. The εὐθύς soon after, in ver. 32, teaches us that, as also that of ch. John 6:21. Such an instantaneous departure cannot be conceived; for by it Judas would have betrayed himself before all the other disciples. It would have been just the same as if one among ourselves should withdraw from the rank of communicants: indeed much more surprising, when we consider the legal strictness of the Old Testament. He could not have gone away before the most holy feast of the nation—the feast on which their participation in redemption depended—reached its conclusion in the song of praise. The external reasons which forbade this were reinforced by a special internal reason. Hypocrites, like Judas, are particularly scrupulous in the observance of religious usages. He would not assuredly act like an ordinary knave, who tramples on all restraints; that would have been out of harmony with his whole past life: he concealed his wickedness under the garment of devotion; and the thirty pieces of silver were a slight and accidental matter to him. He would have forsaken his part, and have acted in opposition to that delusion by which he soothed his conscience, had he wantonly broken through the sacredness of the festal circle. There are also other reasons which assure us that Judas was present at the institution of the sacrament. Luke 22:21-22, are of decisive import in relation to this. There, after the institution of the Supper, Jesus says: But, πλήν, behold, the hand of him that betrayeth Me is with Me on the table. So also “they all drank of it,” Mark 14:23, after the mention of the Twelve just preceding, vers. 17, 20. Further, the passage in the Psalm, on which our Lord lays such decisive stress, “He that eateth My bread hath lifted up his heel against Me,” would not have had its complete fulfilment if Judas had not partaken of the holy meal. So also the symbolical character of this first supper must not be left unconsidered in respect of this: there must have been present some representative of those who should eat and drink unworthily, and to their own condemnation, 1 Corinthians 11:29. The matter, then, must be viewed thus: after the transaction touching the traitor, and the completion of the paschal feast, followed the institution of the sacrament, which required only a few moments: Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:17-20. When we consider the record given of this by the first three Evangelists, and the strictly corresponding account of Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, we shall not need any further reason why John passed it over in silence. It was for him to supplement his predecessors; and they had already perfectly communicated these proceedings. After the institution of the sacrament, Jesus brought back the discourse to the traitor, Luke 22:21-22, in order to occasion his departure, whose presence during the confidential utterances that were to follow would have been disturbing. Judas’ going out followed after the psalm of praise had been sung, and consequently the official feast had ended. The intercourse of our Lord with His disciples now assumed a freer character; and Judas, the business agent of the society, could retire without exciting much attention, more especially as our Lord’s word, “What thou doest, do quickly,” furnished him with a cloak for his disguise. The view we have taken is further supported by the consideration, that after ver. 30 we cannot find any room for the institution of the sacrament. Vers. 31-35 are most closely connected with the departure of Judas. Peter’s word, in ver. 36, “Lord, whither goest Thou?” refers to ver. 33, and allows no interval. With ch. John 14:1 we enter upon the last discourses of our Lord to His disciples, and we cannot imagine any interval during the utterance of them. In ch. John 13:36 we are, according to the other Evangelists, beyond the song of praise; but the holy supper must, from its express explanation as given by our Lord, and from the nature of the case, have preceded that psalm. That Judas partook of the supper, may with perfect propriety be regarded as the ecclesiastical view. It is supported by the far greater number of the more important authorities among the Fathers, as well as in the middle ages. As to the opinion of the Lutheran Church, the remark of John Gerhard is very characteristic: qui aliter sentiat nemo mihi notus. Those who have differed have been led by two classes of motive: some based upon ecclesiastical discipline (held by many Reformed theologians), and some based upon sentimentality (held by most moderns, with Neander at their head). Wichelhaus has most fully exhausted the historical material. He argues against the participation of Judas, on the ground that the known character of such a transgression as Judas’ would necessarily exclude from the communion of the body and blood of Jesus. This is certainly not without force; but it is outweighed by another consideration still more important, namely, that the first supper had a symbolical significance, and was a prospective exhibition of the sacrament of all future times. Nothing more was absolutely necessary than the protest against him, and that was given with abundant force. Nor is it to be overlooked that the feet of Judas were washed with the rest. Now, if we press the argument of ecclesiastical discipline, the washing of his feet would be equally a stumblingblock. Signifying as it did the forgiveness of sins imparted by Christ, it would not seem to have been appropriate to Judas. But if we regard him as the type of those who, notwithstanding the proffer of the washing away of their sins by Christ, perish in their guilt, we find no further difficulty. Wichelhaus argues further: “According to Matthew, ch. Matthew 26:25, Jesus had designated Judas, before the collected disciples, as the traitor; consequently he could not have remained any longer; and it is impossible that a detected traitor should have partaken of the sacred supper with the other Apostles.” But all that he says about the “collected disciples” is an interpolation of his own. Matthew says nothing about it. All he thinks of is, that Jesus uttered the words, “Thou hast said.” That had to him an apologetic meaning. It was sufficient if only one among the Apostles besides Judas heard it. That Jesus spoke it before all, is in itself highly improbable; and John intimates the very contrary. The remark, “It was night,” has no chronological importance. The whole festival was a night festival: comp. Exodus 12:8; Exodus 12:42, “This is that night of the Lord, to be observed of all the children of Israel in their generations.” It belonged to the domain of the moon, and not to that of the sun: comp. “in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast-day,” Psalms 81:4. It began αςψα, after the light of the day had entirely departed. That had to do with the nature of the festival. The Lord arose upon His people in the night of their misery, as the Sun of their salvation. The night signified their Egyptian oppression, as the type of all oppression which the people of God should ever have to endure from the world. Now, if the night mentioned in this verse had no chronological meaning, it had a symbolical one. What night meant from the moment when Judas went out—it existed, indeed, before his departure, but its full significance came out only with that—may be seen in what has been observed upon ch. John 9:4-5, John 11:9-10. In harmony with the symbolism of the paschal feast, the night signified the dark passion-season for Christ and His disciples, which really began with the vers. 31-38, departure of Judas. Chap. John 13:31-38 With the departure of Judas began the profound humiliation of Christ. It was beyond all things needful to strengthen the disciples against the temptation that would spring from His abasement. Jesus did this by intimating, in John 13:31-32, that suffering and abasement would be for Him only a short point of transition to supreme glory. Ver. 33. “Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek Me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you.” From the contemplation of His glory, Jesus again descends to His disciples. That which He here tells them, forms the foundation for the solemn exhortation of vers. 34, 35. He would, by allusion to the impending separation, render their minds tender and susceptible, that they might receive the exhortation, and shut it up in their heart. That which, when leaving them, He had so emphatically laid on their hearts as His last request, they would never dismiss from their thoughts.” This exhortation brings the holy supper to its conclusion. It began with uncharitable contention; it ends in the exhortation to love. It was appropriate that our Lord, when He would exhort His disciples to love, should use the most affectionate address, τεκνία, never elsewhere occurring in all the Evangelists (τέκνα only once, Mark 10:24 : comp. Matthew 9:2; Mark 2:5 : comp. παιδία, ch. John 21:5), but which finds a kind of echo in the First Epistle of John. And it was all the more appropriate, as our Lord lays down as the foundation of His precept of love—as I have loved you.—“Ye shall seek Me:” especially in the times of trial and tribulation. This word, as parallel with what Jesus had spoken to the Jews (comp. John 7:33-34, John 8:21), points to the fact that even for the disciples, and for the faithful members of the Church, the ceasing of the bodily presence of Christ would be grievous and hard to be borne. Christ would be unapproachable to the Jews; and so He would be, in a certain sense, to His disciples, until they were received one by one into the heavenly glory, and He should return in visible form: comp. Acts 1:11. Assuredly, Jesus did not leave His disciples orphans; He came to them by the Paraclete; He is still and ever with them, present in the midst wherever two or three are gathered together in His name. But all this is not full compensation for His personal presence; does not hinder Christ from appearing as one who has gone away, ἀποδημῶν, Matthew 25:14; does not prevent His disciples from desiring, during the interval until His return, to see one of the days of the Son of man, Luke 17:22; and does not cause that, during this whole season, the fundamental tone of Christendom should not be sorrow. But it was profitable for them that it was so. Wrestling faith was thereby excited (comp. ch. John 20:29), and thus the best preparation secured for seeing Him in person. Jesus says, “Yet a little while am I with you.” This is to be referred to the short space until His imprisonment. The intercourse of the risen Lord with His disciples was essentially different from all His former intercourse, and led the way to that entirely spiritual communion which began after the Lord’s ascension, This is the only passage in which Jesus spoke to His disciples concerning the Jews. Elsewhere He uses the designation only in the conversation with the Samaritan woman, with Caiaphas, with Pilate. We have here the germ of the Johannaean phraseology: comp. on ch. John 1:19. Just here, after the institution of the sacrament of the new covenant, before the mention of the new commandment, and where there is a sharp distinction made between the disciples and the enemies of Jesus, the designation is quite in place. How carefully John distinguishes between his own words and the words of Jesus, may be gathered from the fact that the Jews are never mentioned save here, without the Evangelist himself coming forward in his own person to use the name. Vers. 34, 35. “A new commandment I give unto you. That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.” It is an arbitrary and baseless notion, that the love of the disciples to each other is here supposed to be the compensation, as it were, for the bodily absence of Christ. We have already exhibited the right connection with ver. 33: that verse is the soil for the seed of the present ones. It would also be a mistake to make the new commandment here the New Testament first and great commandment, as Ebrard does: “That same single new commandment which the New Testament brings in as a necessary supplement “of the ten precepts of the Old Testament.” The first and great commandment is even in the New Testament the love of God. That brotherly love is made prominent here, had its reason in the contention which had preceded. Knapp rightly observes (De novo praecepto Christi) that there is here a silent condemnation of the disciples, who had been unfaithful in some degree to this obligation of love. What they had neglected, while Christ was with them, they were, after His departure, all the more diligently to observe. A comparison with the Lord’s saying in ver. 15, which has a manifest reference to the φιλονεικία of the disciples, shows that here also there is such a reference as the undertone. The Old Testament foreannounced Christ as a new Lawgiver, Isaiah 2:3; Isaiah 42:4. The difference between Christ and Moses in this domain appears in this, that Christ here comes forward independently as a Lawgiver, while Moses ordinarily referred back his laws to Jehovah, and represented himself to be only a mediator. In a certain sense, all the laws of the New Testament are old laws. The law of the Old Testament has eternal value, and belongs to the Church of the New Testament no less than to that of the old: comp. Matthew 5:17-20. In a certain sense, all the commandments of the New Testament are new. Even the first and chief commandment of the Old Testament, the precept of the love of God, shines forth in new brightness now that Christ has brought the Father near to us, and in the manifestation of His love laid the foundation for ours. It was to the disciples as if they had never received this precept before. Also the precept of brotherly love, the love of our neighbour, was in the Old Testament so clearly and rigorously set forth, that, viewing it merely as a commandment, it could not be more expressly enjoined. To love our neighbour as ourselves, Leviticus 19:18, is just the same precept in the New Testament as in the Old: Mark 12:31; Matthew 22:39. Yet this commandment also has, in a certain sense, become new. First, it has received a new foundation in the love of Christ. The Lord has saved the expositors from speculating as to what the newness of the law consisted in, by adding, “as I have loved you.” Christ exhibits the commandment as a new one, after He has come to the perfection of the manifestation of His own love, and His departure from the disciples was impending: comp. ver. 33. Secondly, in internal connection with the newness of the foundation stands the new limitation of the sphere of this love. In the Old Testament the neighbour is, according to grammatical and historical exposition, the member of the covenant established on Sinai, the fellow-partaker of the Old Testament covenant benefits. In the New Testament he is the member of the covenant sealed by Christ,—the new commandment here consequently corresponds to the new covenant of which Christ had spoken in the institution of the Supper,—the fellow-partaker in His redemption, the brother in His love. This is a relation which before Christ had never been in the world, and of all the bonds of love it is the most binding and internal.—Ἀλλήλους refers to the true disciples of Christ, ἐμοὶμαθηταί ver. 35. Primarily the Apostles were meant; but these were the representatives of all believers: comp. ch. John 17:11. But that which primarily was spoken of the stricter bond of Christian brotherhood, involves also the indirect obligation to the most universal love of man; just as the love of Christ to His own disciples, which is here set before us for our imitation, rests upon the foundation of His universal love to the world. Even under the Old Testament they were to love the stranger as themselves: this proves that the Pharisaical gloss on the precept of the love of their neighbour, which certainly in the letter referred only to fellow-Israelites, was not according to the mind of the Lawgiver. If we are to love the Christian brother as Christ loves him, so we are to love all men because Christ loves them, and died for them. Nevertheless, the violation of brotherly love is a heavier guilt than the violation of the universal love of man. The measure of the guilt is the greatness of the love of Christ. The commandment is at first nakedly laid down, and then, after the reason given for it, it is repeated with an inserted καί, which refers to the reason given: ἵνα, καθὼςἠγάπησαὑμᾶς, καὶὑμεῖςἀγαπᾶτεἀλλήλους. The displacement of the ἵνα does not militate against this view, which is simple, and recommended by the comparison of ver. 15. We find the same elsewhere, e.g. in ver. 29, and 2 John 1:6. Acts 4:32 may be compared with ver. 35; and what the heathen used to say of the Christians (Tertull. Apol.): “See how they love one another.” Vers. 36-38 coincide accurately with what the other Evangelists record of the same event. We have here, in John 13:36, the starting-point of the whole incident, which in the others is wanting. The question of Peter here refers to the words of our Lord, not communicated by the other Evangelists, immediately after the departure of Judas. And our Lord’s answer here, “Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now, but thou shalt follow Me afterwards,” connects itself with vers. 31, 32, in Matthew. That the answer there also issues from Peter, harmonizes well with the fact that, according to John, the Lord’s words were primarily addressed to him. John communicates the former part of that answer, Matthew gives the remainder in ver. 33. John supplements the answer of Jesus by the words placed at the beginning, “Wilt thou lay down thy life for My sake?” What Peter replied, Matthew had already recorded: hence John omits it here. As to the particulars of time, there is no essential difference between John and Matthew. The τότε of the latter, in its reference to the καὶὑμνήσαντεςἐξῆλθονεἰςτὸὅροςτῶνἐλαιῶν, leaves us ample space in the interval between the hymn with which the Passover began, and the arrival at the Mount of Olives. Those only are embarrassed by it who place the departure of Judas, with which vers. 31-38 in John are immediately connected, before the institution of the supper, and the hymn that marked its commencement. Mark adheres closely to Matthew; he gives only what the Lord had said concerning the cock-crowing, but in a rather more detailed form. The address of Jesus to Peter in Luke, ch. Luke 22:31-32, forms the continuation of Matt., vers. 31, 32. That Peter, besides the words quoted by Matthew and John, added further, “Lord, I am ready to go with Thee to prison and to death,” is quite in harmony with the vehemence of his character. He cannot do full justice to the absoluteness of His devotion and willingness to sacrifice himself; and he is all the more impetuous because a still voice within his inmost soul whispers to him that he has not yet the needed strength. This voice he thus strove to silence. To the threefold assurance of his readiness for self-sacrifice (John: Lord, why cannot I follow Thee now? I will lay down my life for Thy sake. Matt.: Though all men shall be offended because of Thee, yet will I never be offended. Luke: Lord, I am ready to go with Thee, both unto prison and to death), corresponds the threefold denial in the Lord’s reply, and in the event. The same heaping of affirmation we find at the denial itself in Matthew 26:74. Ver. 37. “Peter said unto Him, Lord, why cannot I follow Thee now? I will lay down my life for Thy sake.” As Peter could not follow Christ, so likewise he was ignorant of himself, and estimated his own strength far too highly. True self-knowledge could come to him only in consequence of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit searcheth all things, the deep things of God, and the deep things of the human heart. Nevertheless, Peter was like the young eagle, which is beginning to stir its wings. Of such stuff were the martyrs formed, when the full possession of the Holy Ghost was added. The spirit was already willing, though the flesh was weak: the strength was small, the will was good. Aug.: Quid in animo ejus esset cupiditatis videbat, quid virium non videbat. Ver. 38. “Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for My sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied Me thrice.” When Jesus disclosed to Peter his real weakness, He assured him at the same time of the means of his recovery, after his fall, which would lead him to a much profounder knowledge of himself. That fall was itself a demonstration of the Divine omniscience of his Master, and must therefore have assisted to strengthen his faith. When he heard the cock-crowing, he must have remembered the word of Christ. The Lord’s words in ch. John 13:36-38 had concerned Peter alone. Here He turns directly to the disciples in general. The abruptness of the transition originated, in a series of many manuscripts, the clause which overwhelming authority decides to be spurious, καὶεἶπεντοῖςμαθηταῖςαὐτοῦ (Luther: and He said to His disciples). The transition is all the more startling, as Peter did not in the foregoing assume the character of representative of the Apostles, but appeared in his own personal relations. Further, the beginning, “Let not your hearts be troubled: believe in God, believe also in Me,” and the sequel, in which all the resources of consolation and strengthening are suggested, presuppose that immediately before great dangers had been referred to, by which the disciples were threatened. Looking at John alone, that was not the case. In ch. John 13:36-38, the Lord had to do with Peter alone; and it is not of external danger that He spoke, so much as of moral aberration. In John 13:31-35 the Lord had certainly spoken of His departure; but He did not there allude to the disconsolate condition into which the disciples would, as a consequence, fall. He had exhibited that departure to them in John 13:31-32, under a cheerful aspect; and in John 13:33-34, connected with it the exhortation to love. How little chap. 13 furnishes the foundation of ch. 14, may be noted from the fact, that expositors can by no means come to agreement as to the connection between “Let not your heart be troubled,” and what precedes. Lampe’s embarrassment betrays him into the remarks: “His mercy is so great, that before His people call upon Him He answers them, Isaiah 65:24, and proffers consolation to those who have not in their thoughts the hope of experiencing it.” Accordingly, we are driven to suppose, that between ch. 13 and ch. 14, there is a link which the predecessors of John, whom he everywhere only supplements, will supply, and which will form the starting-point and the key to the encouragements that now follow. We are especially referred to Luke, as the immediate predecessor of John, to whom his supplementary details are generally most directly attached. In Luke we have the middle clause surprisingly supplied. The Lord there, in ch. Luke 22:35-38, turns from Peter to the disciples generally. He reminds them that, through the grace of God so visibly overruling them, they had hitherto prospered; that no distress and no need had invaded them, Luke 22:35. He tells them that now another time was coming, when God’s manifest grace would be withdrawn—a time of need and danger—enemies around them, and nowhere a friend—everywhere persecutions, hardships, and dangers, Luke 22:36. He points in Luke 22:37 to the reason of this change: the days were to come to their Master of which the prophet Isaiah had written, when He was to be “numbered with the transgressors;” and shows them that if their Head suffered, the members must suffer also; that their Head suffered only in consequence of that power which had been given to darkness, and that the members must encounter the same. It would have been unnatural that the servants should be prosperous while the Master suffered and died. The disciples had misunderstood the word, “Let him that hath no sword, sell his coat and buy one,” which in a proverbial form only expressed the thought that a very perilous period was at hand, which could not be met but by the most energetic and effectual means of defence, and in which they would have to sacrifice all in order to withstand the pressure of their foes. They supposed, though dubiously, with the feeling that they might be altogether wrong, and with the wish that the Lord would open to them the right understanding, that a defence with external weapons was recommended to them: “Lord, here are two swords,” The Lord says, “It is enough;” thereby intimating that His words were to be taken with some qualification, and that their defence must be sought in an altogether different region. For if two only were enough, swords of that kind generally must have been useless. Against the forces of the High Council nothing could be effected with two swords. And with this rejection of the wrong weapons of defence against the impending danger—of weapons that would have no value in a contest in which the real opponent is the “prince of this world,” ver. 30, is immediately connected the exhibition of those true and spiritual weapons which our chapter presents. It is enough: the visible sword is not to be your defence, but simple faith. Sursum corda. Seek your help above, from your God and your Saviour. This explanation of the starting-point of our Lord’s words in this chapter is of no slight practical importance. The imperilled situation in which the disciples were placed during the sufferings of Christ, is typical for the Church of the last days. Then will power be again given to darkness; the world will again go such lengths as to crucify Christ afresh; His Church will be threatened with danger on all hands; and the grace of God, which had through such long periods been with her, will seem rather to retreat and be concealed. Now this chapter teaches us how we must conduct ourselves at such a time; with what weapons we are to defend ourselves against the threatening danger; and what those helps are on which we may surely rely. The whole chapter bears a consolatory character, in harmony with Isaiah 50:4; Isaiah 61:1, Matthew 11:5, according to which it is the proper vocation of Christ to strengthen the feeble, to bind up broken hearts, and to bring glad tidings to the poor. The exhortations scattered here and there to love and to keep His commandments, vers. 15, 21, 23, are only subordinate: they only point by the way to the moral conditions on which the realization of His consolations and promises is suspended; they give the preparatory prospect of the unfolding of this most important aspect, the thorough exhibition of which could not be wanting in the Lord’s last sayings in another connection, and thus serve as a link between the consolatory and the hortatory portions of the farewell discourses. They have precisely the same position which ver. 18 assumes in Psalms 103,—a psalm which, in its fundamental tone, is thoroughly consolatory. That “Let not your heart be troubled” is here the ground-tone of the whole discourse, is shown by the recurrence of these introductory words towards the close, in ver. 27. We have evidently here a complete whole connected and rounded. The three interruptions of the disciples—of Thomas in ver. 5, of Philip in ver. 8, of Judas in ver. 22—do not disturb the connection; the Lord’s discourse does not derive from them a character of irregularity; but they only give Him occasion to develop more fully what was in His original plan. The first interjection, that of Thomas, was excited by our Lord Himself. The clause placed at the outset, “Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God, believe also in Me,” is developed through the exposition of those individual grounds of encouragement for the troubled heart, and of those individual means of defence against distress and danger, which are provided of God in Christ. The first thing is, that to the disciples of Christ heaven is sure; that no power of this world can exclude them from eternal life: turning to this refuge, they can look calmly at the confusion of things upon earth; their tribulation, because temporal, is light: “Who can rob us of the heaven which the Son of God gives to our faith?” The departure of Jesus is all the less grievous to them, because it enabled Him to prepare them places in heaven, and because, when their hour is come, He will return to receive them into their eternal inheritance, vers. 2, 3. But they are not only referred to the world beyond: into the confusion of this world shine down the clear lights of the Divine grace from above; and even in the time of their perilous pilgrimage upon earth, they are enriched with the best possessions. The second in the series of encouragements is this: They have in Christ the certain way to heaven, the assured preparation for eternal life; and the being obliged to renounce the world, robs this present being of all its importance, and empties it of all real substance. In Christ the Father has been made known to them; in the world of shadows the truth has shined, and in the world of death life has been revealed; and, united to Him, they can never fail of their participation in His glory, vers. 4-11. The third consolation: They need not fear, that with the departure of Christ His works will cease. That departure will rather, as being His entrance to the glory of the Father, enable them in His power to do yet greater works: the apparent end of Christ’s manifestations of His power will in reality be the beginning of them, vers. 12-14. The fourth: If they must, in the coming hard conflict with the world, be without the visible presence and assistance of their Lord, He will instead send them another Intercessor, the Spirit of truth, vers. 15-17. The fifth: They need not fear that Christ will disappear from them. He would leave His people only for a short time; He would then come back again; and that not, as before, in a visible form, but secretly, and in such a manner as to be manifest only to His own; yet with a much more deep and effectual influence, so that His coming back brings true life with it, vers. 18-24. The sixth: The disciples must not despond because their understanding was as yet so dull, and because they had failed to penetrate the depths of truth. This defect the Holy Spirit would supply, whom the Father would send in His name: the same Comforter who was before promised as a Helper in the conflict with the world, is now promised as a Teacher, vers. 25, 26. Finally, the seventh consolation: The peace of Christ, ver. 27, where, after exhausting all grounds of encouragement, the “Let not your heart be troubled” returns again. After all this, the announcement of the departure of Christ to the Father would be no more grievous, but joyful. Christ passes thereby from the form of a servant into the full fellowship of the Divine glory, ver. 28. The conclusion of all is the declaration, that the catastrophe presented in the prospect was now very near at hand, and the summons to the disciples to go forth with their Lord to meet it. We must suppose, that after “Arise, let us go hence,” they arose and departed: this is evidently included. In such cases of request and performance the Scripture is often concise and condensed: so, for example, in Genesis 4:8, what Cain said to Abel is omitted, so that the supplement must be sought in the sequel: comp. Exodus 19:25. In Isaiah 8:2 we have a strictly analogous case. In our present passage we may find a particular reason for so brief a hint, in the solemn and stately character of the discourse of these chapters having something of a poetical tinge. If the Evangelist had not intended us so to understand him, he must needs have made some cautionary remark. The summons of itself excludes the idea of other discourses having been afterwards uttered in the same locality. It is inconsistent with the dignity of Christ, and the solemnity of the occasion, to assume that He followed arbitrary impulses, such, for instance, as Gerhard and others suggest, who compare it with the broken words of separating friends. Jesus repeats the “Rise, let us go hence,” afterwards in Gethsemane, Matthew 26:46; and there the departure follows hard upon the summons. Concurrently with the request to arise, the discourse itself reaches its full close in ch. 14, issuing in a formal word of farewell: comp. especially ver. 28. We gather from this, that the discourse could not have been carried on upon the same scene; and that, if other words were to follow, these would have a new starting-point, and belong to a new locality, which suggested new impulses, and formed as it were a new station, different from that of the last supper. Here we have one terminus, the departure from the feast-chamber; the other is in ch. John 18:1, the passage of the Cedron. What intervened must have been spoken in the way from the chamber to the brook; and with this agrees the circumstance, that the vineyards on the road would give appropriate occasion for the representation of Himself as the true Vine (comp. John 4:35), and that the words, “He lifted up His eyes to heaven,” ch. John 17:1, suggest that the prayer was offered under the open heaven. So much of the way as led through the agitated city, the streets of which were in the evening especially excited, was probably passed in silence; outside the city, before that anxious passage of the Cedron with which John in ch. John 18:1 expressly links the discourses of ch. 15-17, Jesus stood and gathered the disciples around Himself. Robinson (vol. ii. 33) remarks with reference to this locality, that before the valley reaches the city, and opposite its northern part, it broadens into a space of considerable extent, which is built upon, and contains olive and other fruit trees. He adds, that at this place it is crossed obliquely by a path which leads from the north-eastern corner of Jerusalem over the northern part of the Mount of Olives. Ver. 1. “Let not your heart be troubled: believe ye in God, and believe in Me.”—“These words,” observes Gerhard, “contain the sum of what was to be said; they are the theme which Christ would place at the head and bring in again at the close, that the main scope of the whole discourse might be perfectly clear.” The words are an allusion to Psalms 42:5 : “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God.” There can be the less doubt of this, inasmuch as the Lord frequently elsewhere refers to this passage: comp. on ch. John 12:27. Jesus Himself says in ch. John 12:27, “Now is My soul troubled;” and in ch. John 13:21, it is said of Him that “He was troubled in spirit:” consequently He cannot have required in His servants anything like a stoical apathy, which is ever the sign of a withered and hardened heart; but only that their sorrow should never have the dominion over them. It must be observed that He is here speaking not to such as were enjoying a perfect tranquillity,—so that the dehortation would refer to a dismay possible in the future,—but to souls that were profoundly moved and disquieted. To these His exhortation is, that they should not remain in their disquietude, but rise through it to that consolation from above, the necessary condition of which is a previous sorrow, such a sorrow as dead insensibility can never know. Christians have tender hearts, and therefore deep sorrows; but they have also the privilege of consolation from above. But the dehortation and the exhortation have here—as a comparison of the original Hebrew, and especially the sequel of the chapter, show—a predominantly consolatory and encouraging significance: Ye need not disquiet yourselves, ye have reason to believe. The original refers only to God. That God, however, was not the abstract God which could not be the object of true faith and living confidence; but rather the God who had been revealed through the ages, and had dwelt in their midst, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses. That God had now in Christ become perfectly revealed; and that gave the Believe in God an altogether new significance. (Bengel: Fides antiqua in Deum novo quasi colore tingitur in Jesum Christum credendo.) Each of the two clauses suffices in itself: Believe in God and Believe in Me. The juxtaposition is only apparent. The God whom they were to trust was the Father of Christ; and the Christ whom they were to trust was the true revelation of God: they who believed in Him, believed on Him that sent Him, ch. John 12:44. If Christ and the Father are one, ch. John 10:30, it is indifferent whether we place our confidence in God or in Christ. The form of juxtaposition, as of counterparts, is adopted in order to obviate the misunderstanding which would sunder God from His manifestation in Christ, and assign to Christ only a subordinate place. But, strictly speaking, the two clauses include and are the equivalent of each other. The passage, Exodus 14:31, is in a certain sense analogous: “And the people believed the Lord, and His servant Moses.” Faith was reposed in Jehovah, who was revealed through Moses, and in Jehovah, who wrought great deeds by Moses. Here also the juxtaposition is merely apparent. Jehovah sundered from Moses would not be Jehovah, but an empty idea of the imagination, which could not be the object of faith and confidence. Another Old Testament parallel Isaiah 2 Chronicles 20:20, where Jehoshaphat says to the oppressed people, “Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper.” There also Jehovah is not the abstract God, but, as the appendage shows, the God who dwelt among the people; and, in His organs the prophets, assumed, as it were, flesh and blood. Those who would separate the clauses which are here inseparably connected together, who would hold to the “Believe in God,” but give up the “Believe also in Me,” are involved in a ruinous error. A God sundered from Christ dwells in inaccessible light—not to be apprehended, and utterly obscure. Faith, however, can apprehend only a God become incarnate; which explains the fact, that Deism everywhere in history appears as the mere forerunner of Atheism, and as nothing but a developing Atheism. But more: as the πιστεύετε denotes rather the privilege than the obligation of believing, it is of great significance that God sundered from Christ has nothing left for forgiveness or bestowment. All the Divine gifts which are individually enumerated in the sequel are bestowed through the medium of Christ; God has poured upon Him all the fulness of His gifts; and He has reserved nothing more that He could give to those who come to Him without the mediation of Christ. They are worthily dealt with in that they are sent away empty. It is the appropriate punishment of that pride which is offended by the lowliness of Christ. (Calvin: Pudet superbos homines humilitas Christi. Ideo ad incomprehensibile rei numen evolant.) That the πιστεύετε is in both instances to be taken as imperative, is now all but universally acknowledged. (The Vulgate is incorrect: Creditis in Deum et in me credite; so Luther and the English translation.) The relation of the positive to the negative, with the comparison of Psa 42:6, Exodus 14:31, and 2 Chronicles 20:20, are sufficient to prove this to be the correct view. Πιστεύετε is after εἰςἐμέ emphatically repeated, in order to point to the supreme dignity and importance of Christ, who is not introduced as a simple adjunct, but is on a level with the Father as a proper and real object of faith. Luther: “Ye have heard that ye should trust in God; but I would show you how you may come to that faith, so that ye may not set up for yourselves another idol under His name, after your own devices. If ye would assuredly come to Him with true faith, ye must come to Him in Me, and through Me: if ye have Me aright, ye have Him aright.”—’This saying shows us, on the one hand, that characteristic of our nature which everywhere and always inclines to fear and despondency; and it also shows us, on the other hand, the dignity of Christ, who in the fulness of love takes upon Himself our infirmity, who, Himself then going to meet Satan and death, yet is so sublimely exalted above His own suffering, that He can come to His disciples’ help with consolation, and arm them against danger and dread. In vers. 2 and 33 we have the first ground of consolation, the allusion to life eternal. This is very fittingly made the first, inasmuch as eternal life is the supreme benefit, for which every other paves the way. That He would give His people eternal life, Jesus had from the very beginning declared emphatically: comp. ch. John 3:15-16. Then again it must be observed, that however glorious the gifts and graces are which Christ gives to His disciples in the present life, their condition in this life is, after all, a transitory and changeable one. The Divine gifts and influences themselves may suffer many interruptions. The sun often hides himself behind the clouds. The Church of Christ must be disciplined by the cross. There is one star of hope, however, which shines, and shines steadily, in always equal clearness. To this the Lord had pointed His people before, in the prospect of coming troubles and persecutions, Luke 6:23 : “Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven.” St Paul recommends this as an excellent defence against fear, in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 : “For our light affliction, which endureth but a moment, worketh for us,” etc.; and so in the Epistle to the Hebrews, ch. John 11:26. When once this hope is firmly rooted in the mind, the soil is at the same time and thereby prepared for the scattering of the seed of other consolations. He to whom the end is sure, cannot before the end, and in the way to it, be forsaken and lost. The heirs of eternal life must be kept by God, during the time of their pilgrimage, like the apple of His eye. Ver. 2. “In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” The Father’s house is His heavenly abode. Comp. Deuteronomy 26:15, “Look down from Thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Thy people Israel;” Isaiah 63:15, “Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of Thy holiness;” Psalms 33:13-14, “The Lord looketh down from heaven: He beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of His habitation He looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth;” 2 Chronicles 30:27, “Then prayer came up to His holy dwelling-place, even to heaven.” Comp. further, Psalms 20:7; Psalms 68:6; Jeremiah 25:30. The earthly Temple, the tabernacle of congregation, the place where God is wont to hold communion with His people, where He dwells upon earth and receives His people as guests, has its antitype in heaven: comp. Psalms 11:4; Hebrews 9:24; Revelation 7:15; Revelation 11:19; Revelation 14:15. There the supreme God, who in all times and in all places is the dwelling-place of His people,—whether upon earth or in heaven, Psalms 90:1; Deuteronomy 33:27,—has His sacred abode, in which He dwells not alone, but receives to Himself all His saints after the cares and the conflicts of life. “Many mansions:” so there is room there for you all, when the prince of this world shall leave you no more place upon earth: comp. ἔτιτόποςἐστί, “yet there is room,” Luke 14:22. Luther: “If they will not suffer you to be citizens and neighbours, or even guests, but would have all the world for themselves, let them have the world, but know that ye shall nevertheless have mansions enough.” Many the mansions must be, since the Father’s house will contain not only the multitude which no man can number, Revelation 7:9, of the saints made perfect, Hebrews 12:23, but also the ten thousands of angels, Deuteronomy 33:2; Hebrews 12:22. Allusion to the many gradations of dignity in that future life (Augustin: Multae mansiones diversas meritorum in una vita aeterna significant dignitates) introduces a discordant and foreign element into the passage. Here we can think only of what is common to all: if the earth has no more place for you, there is room enough in heaven. The phraseology reminds us of Gen 24:23; Genesis 24:25. To the servant’s question, “Is there room in thy father’s house for us to lodge in?” Rebekah answers, “We have both straw and provender enough, and room to lodge in.” The allusion can be the less doubted, inasmuch as what follows, “I go to prepare a place for you,” stands in undeniable relation to that narrative: comp. ver. 31, where Laban says, “Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; wherefore standest thou without? for I have prepared the house.” Sept. ἐγὼδὲἡτοίμακατὴνοἰκίαν. We see from such an allusion as this, what high value the Old Testament had in the Saviour’s estimation. From a matter of common history there He derives here the words for the presentation of a supremely important truth. There is a real parallel, though not verbal, with these many mansions, in Matthew 25:34, where Jesus speaks of that kingdom which had been prepared for the blessed of the Father from the foundation of the world. “If it were not so, I would have told you,” is, in another form, the same as “Verily, verily, I say unto you,” in ver. 12. The disciples might absolutely rely upon it; and in this confidence might count it for nothing that the earth seemed to have no more place for them,—comp. ch. John 16:2; Revelation 13:17,—and that the cry, ἆρον, ἆρον, John 19:15, was lifted up on all sides against them. For He who gave them this assurance was the only True Being He of whom it is written, “There was no guile found in His mouth,” Isaiah 53:9, comp. 1 Peter 3:22; and who assuredly would not deceive His disciples with fallacious hopes. Heaven is an unknown land. It will be hard for men to obtain it by letters of commendation. If these are to have any value, the person who issues them must be absolutely confident, and enjoy an unlimited amount of personal confidence. Anton: “Here He speaks to His intimates. So great was their faith, that they believed what Christ said must be true, however hard they might find the application of it.” There can be no doubt that after “I would have told you” there must be interposed a period. If the connection is made, “If it were not so, I would have told you that I go to prepare a place,” the going away to prepare a place is declared to be needless. But, according to ver. 3, Christ does actually go to prepare it. The ὅτιπορεύομαι, which is found in some considerable manuscripts, sprang from a false punctuation, and with a more correct punctuation must vanish. If we place a period after εἶπονἂνὑμῖν, the on, can be justified only by a forced interpretation. That Christ goes away to prepare a place, is no apparent reason why there exist many mansions. That the fact of there being many mansions does not exclude the Lord’s work in preparing them, may be illustrated by the narrative of the patriarchal times, already referred to. Rebekah had said, “There is room to lodge in;” and yet Laban afterwards, “I have prepared the house, and room for the camels.” The room may be there; but before it can be occupied, obstacles must be removed, and arrangements made. In what way did our Lord provide a place for His people? He tells us Himself, in ch. John 16:10. By His departure to the Father He obtained that righteousness which is the essential condition of entrance into the Father’s house. By the propitiatory virtue of His sacrifice of His life for the sheep, ch. John 10:11, the partition between heaven and earth was done away. Eternal life was won, when Christ, the antitype of the brazen serpent in the wilderness, took sin upon Himself, and expiated it as a substitute, ch. John 3:15. But with the atoning sufferings there was connected, in order to the preparation of heavenly places, the resurrection and ascension of the Redeemer. He must first enter as our πρόδρομος, our Forerunner, into eternal glory, Hebrews 6:20. The Head must be in heaven before the members can enter there. To be in heaven is to be with Christ. We can conceive of the glory of believers only as the participation in His glory, as their assumption into glorious fellowship with Him. Our entrance into the glory of heaven being thus made so entirely dependent upon Christ, His atoning sacrifice and entrance into glory, it follows, that in the times before the Christian economy this entrance was not fully opened, and that the pious of the Old Testament were only in a state of preparation. Christ first perfectly abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light, 2 Timothy 1:10. The paradise in which, according to Luke 23:43, the penitent thief was to be with Christ, was opened first by Him. He who receives and retains in his heart the full force of this text, must attain to an estimate of temporal things quite different from that which is held by the world. He has in himself an inalienable heritage which infinitely transcends all earthly good. St Basil, when the prefect of the Arian emperor threatened that he would persecute him by land and sea, and tauntingly asked him where he would abide then, said, with allusion to this passage, “Either under heaven or in heaven.” Luther answered Cardinal Cajetan in a similar way: “If the earth has no place for me, yet heaven will.” Ver. 3. “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” Here we have the third thing: the abodes are there; Christ prepares them; and He receives His own to Himself. That which is here said of the coming of Christ, receives illustration from the example of Stephen. He, at the hour of his death, Acts 7:55, beholds the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. In his last word, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” he addresses Him as present, and yields to Him his soul, that He may introduce it into heavenly glory. We have here the comforting assurance that the Lord is personally present at every deathbed of believers; and in harmony with this assurance, we have countless records of dying experience, in which faith has been in such energetic exercise as to become sight. To set aside this consolatory truth by any qualifying interpretation, is wrong; nor is there any reason for doing so, since, according to vers. 18 seq., the entire life of believers is pervaded by manifestations of the Lord; and it is to be understood as self-evident, that He accompanies His own through the valley. The angel of the Lord, who appeared to Abraham in a bodily prelude of His incarnation, says, in Genesis 18:14, “At the time appointed I will return unto thee, and Sarah shall have a son;” and that He fulfilled His word, is manifest from ch. John 21:1, “And the Lord visited Sarah, as He had said.” If, at the hour of birth, the Son of God is near, why should He not much rather be near in the hour of death? The Lord teaches us, in Luke 16:22, that in the last hour the heavenly powers are especially active: the angels carry Lazarus into Abraham’s bosom. The other interpretations have sprung from the fact, that men have taken “I come again” separately from “and receive you unto Myself” (with which, however, it is so inseparably connected, that there is not even a comma between them), and have then compared with it other passages in which the coming of the Lord is spoken of, interpreting this by those. It is obvious, from the nature of the case, that the coming of the Lord is a manifold and various coming; for He is the Living One. Where a cold faith thinks only of an indefinite working from afar, there a living faith apprehends a real coming down from above. Here we have not simply a figure derived from sense, but the actual truth of the matter. The Lord, according to Revelation 2:1, walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks: He is everywhere present in His Church upon earth, and everywhere in ceaseless activity. And it is a fundamental view of the Apocalypse, that wherever He works He comes. With the coming of ver. 18 seq. the coming of our present passage has nothing to do. There it is not the receiving the disciples home that is spoken of, but rather the tokens and manifestations by which Christ declares Himself to His people during their pilgrimage to be the Living One. The eschatological interpretation (Origen: “He means His second coming from heaven;” so Lampe: “He speaks of His final coming visibly in the clouds of heaven,” Acts 1:11) overlooks the fact that the Lord’s utterance was primarily addressed to the Apostles, and that we must include here only what was an advantage to them personally; and it forgets the connection with the word spoken to Peter, ὕστερονδὲἀκολουθήσειςμοι, ch. John 13:36. There is no reason why we should rob ourselves of the gracious consolation which this declaration of our Lord reserves for the time of our departure; we should rather receive it into our heart, and overcome by it all the terrors of death, which then assumes a friendly aspect, when we know that the Lord accompanies it, to take us to Himself.—“And receive you unto Myself:” heaven is made heaven really and truly only by our entering there into the most direct personal fellowship with Christ, whom upon earth we loved. Luther: “So that ye have most assuredly, both at once, the mansions in heaven and Me with you for all eternity.” Christ Himself, without any veil, and without any medium, without anything that in our present life interposes between Him and us—that is the profoundest desire of the soul in this valley of tears. And that desire will be satisfied when He shall come and receive us home to Himself. “After Christ,” observes Lampe, “had, in vers. 2 and 3, shown that eternal salvation was connected with this going away. He now enumerates the several benefits which the disciples would have to expect upon earth through Himself and for His sake.” First, in vers. 4-11, to His people, through their knowledge of Him the way is open to heavenly blessedness, and to that glorious house of the Father. To be in possession of the right way to heaven, is a precious consolation in our present troubled life; through that we are enabled, in this miserable world, to wait patiently for the blessed time when we shall reach the house of our Father and the presence of our Lord. Ver. 4. “And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.” Jesus here passes over to the exhibition of the second ground of encouragement. The emphasis must be laid on the way. This is evident from what follows, where the way is spoken of simply and alone, not the place to which Jesus was going. Hence it does not refer to the way Christ Himself was taking, but to that way which His disciples must enter in order to reach His presence. We are led to the same conclusion by the relation in which the way stands to the last words of ver. 3, “that where I am, there ye may be also;” as also by the whole tenor of the thought in vers. 2 and 3, which is this, that heaven is not for Christ alone, but also for His disciples. The abbreviated reading, ὅπουὑπάγωοἴδατε, τὴνὅδον, which gives a very uncouth construction, is not essentially different from the common one, since even in it the emphasis lies upon the way. Perhaps it was a right apprehension of this that led to the abbreviation. The way is not generally the way to God, but the way to the Father’s house; the way, therefore, to eternal life, the method and manner of attaining it. That Christ Himself, or faith in Him, was that way, the disciples had had abundant occasion to learn. The Lord had at an earlier time emphatically and repeatedly so declared: for example, He had, in ch. John 5:24, said, “He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life;” in ch. John 6:40; John 6:47, “He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life;” in ch. John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth on Me shall never die.” He had in the words immediately preceding declared it to be Himself who would prepare for His people mansions in eternal life, and then receive them there. In such a connection, no other way to heaven could occur to the disciples’ thoughts than Himself. The definite words in which a knowledge of the way to heaven was here attributed to the disciples, were intended to expose to them the uncertainty in which they still remained, to give occasion for further instruction upon it, and to ensure for that other instruction a ready access. The taking their knowledge for granted served here the same purpose as, in Revelation 7:13, the question by which the knowledge of ignorance was communicated, and occasion taken to impart instruction in the most effectual way. “Ye know,” however, maintains its truth; and there is no reason for assuming, with Lampe, that Jesus attributed to them a knowledge of that which they might and ought to have known. The disciples knew more than they supposed. (Augustin: Sciebant discipuli, sed se scire nesciebant.) As certainly as they believed in Jesus, so certainly had they recognised in Jesus the true way to heaven. But their sorrow had thrown for a moment a cloud over their knowledge, and this cloud the Lord now sought to disperse. Ver. 5. “Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know not whither Thou goest; and how can we know the way?” It is not without significance that the words “called Didymus” are not added, as in ch. John 11:16, John 20:24, John 21:2. It shows us that Thomas does not here exhibit his own peculiar spiritual character, but only expresses what was common to all. Accordingly, he does not speak in his own name, but in the name of all; and Jesus, in ver. 7, presupposes that it was the general spirit that spoke in him. Circumstances were already beginning to be such, that the differences between the man of rock and the man of doubt were done away. “All ye shall be offended because of Me this night,” said Jesus, Matthew 26:31, and this offence even now began to be developed.—“We know not whither Thou goest” must be more carefully interpreted than it has been by most expositors. Christ must have spoken altogether in vain to His disciples, if they had not understood that He was going to heaven, to the glory of the Father. He had, indeed, in so many words, told them that He was going to the Father’s house; and that that Father’s house was heaven, every child in Israel knew full well. “He that dwelleth in heaven” was, on the basis of Psalms 2, one of the most common designations of God. But the understanding of the disciples was only external. They were altogether sunk in grief at the departure of their Master, and in anxious solicitude on account of the abandonment and danger that impended over them. Heaven had become to them an unknown land; they could not spiritually accompany their Master on the way that lay before Him. And on that very account they could, in a realizing manner, apprehend the way for themselves to heaven. If the way of Christ was obscure, their own would be obscure also. Only when with clear glance they could accompany their Lord into the regions of light beyond, were they in a position to discern in Him the plain way to heaven. When the heavenly glory of Christ was obscured to them, their eyes were necessarily holden that they could not discern the shining path, the way of holiness, Isaiah 35:8, which would guide them from this world to the next. This way is no other than Christ Himself; and he who has not penetrated to a clear perception of the heavenly glory of Christ, must also lose His track upon earth. Berl. Bible: “The clearness of knowledge may, in the dark hour, be much dimmed. Christ the sun, however, is there, although behind the clouds.” Ver. 6. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” When our Lord calls Himself the way, that means more than merely the guide. “The example,” says Luther, “of Christ is very precious, but it is too high for us, and we cannot follow it. I must have a firm and sure bridge which will carry me over.” The word “I am the way,” points to the fact that he who would enter heaven must be baptized and lost in Christ, so that not he himself shall live, but Christ in him. Jesus does not only show the way: He is the way. Only in absolute union to His person, only in the most internal fellowship with Him, can heaven be attained. This shows us the deep misery of our fallen nature, which of itself is altogether excluded from heaven. “Many paths paved by Divinity lead to happiness” is the maxim of the world; Christ declares these many ways to be only bypaths and ways of error. He teaches only one way Himself; and to know only, one, is the note and badge of His disciples. The “particularism,” the individuality, which is now, under the dominion of rationalism, so much scorned, is the signature of the Christian Church. “With this one stroke,” says an old expositor, “Christ rejects all the worship of the heathen, of Mohammedans, and Jews outside the Church;” and, we would add, the delusion of all deists, freemasons, and rationalists. “Here is,” says Luther, “another marvellous thing; and this is what St John is evermore urging, that all our doctrine and believing must tend to Christ.” “A Carthusian monk makes a way in which he would reach to heaven: I will forsake the world as wicked and impure; I will go into a corner, fast every day, eat no flesh, and plague my body; such vigorous spiritual life God will regard, and by it save me.” The rationalist thinks that, in a way of righteousness much less anxiously sought out, he will attain to heaven. But the true Church of Christ knows, with Him, no other way than He Himself. The words, “and the truth, and the life,” must essentially intimate the same thing. For the clause, “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me,” refers back to “I am the way.” Accordingly, the clause intervening must present the same relation under another expression: I am the way, because the truth and the life. This is important in the consideration of many expositions given of the words, especially of καὶἡἀλήθεια. That exposition is the only right one according to which the truth does not remain apart from the way and the life: the only idea of truth appropriate here is that in which Christ, as the truth, is at the same time the way and the life; just as all definitions of the way are inadmissible which remain apart from the idea of truth and of life. Hence “I am the truth” cannot refer to the truth of words, but only to the truth of being, from which indeed truth of words necessarily flows. I am the truth is the same as, I am Jehovah; for Jehovah, Jahve, means the Being, the pure absolute existence, independent of which all is delusion, in whom all must participate who would be partakers of that Being which is the only source of all creaturely existence. “I am the truth:” thereby the Lord primarily places Himself in opposition to all that is created, to the world and all that therein is. But the exclusiveness refers in a certain sense even to the Father and the Holy Spirit. To men, Christ is the truth; if, passing by Him, they would seek the truth in God or the Spirit, they find nothing but delusion and a lie. Only in Him is the Father and the Holy Ghost accessible to man as the truth. If Christ is the way. He must also in this sense be the truth; and were He not the truth in this sense. He could not be the way. No man can win heaven who does not, in personal union with the personal truth, attain to redemption from the miserable delusion of the present world, from the shining impiety of its virtues, the wretched phrases of its truths, the hollowness of its inspirations, and the hypocrisy of all its views. If Christ is the truth. He must also be the way. He who is baptized into the truth, and penetrated by it, he who is taken lip into the fellowship of the personal truth, has heaven opened to him,—that abode of truth which is the absolute opposite of the vanity and the lie which from the Fall has set up its seat in the earth. The Old Testament passage in which the word truth occurs in this sense is Jeremiah 10:10 : “But the Lord is the true God, He is the living God, and an everlasting King.” Jehovah as truth (Michaelis: Veritas in re) forms here the contrast to the false gods, whose nature is nothing else than deception and nothingness. That passage is seen the more certainly to be connected with this one, from the circumstance that there also the truth is conjoined with the life. There it is the effect of the truth of God that before His wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot abide His indignation. This shows that truth does not there mean truth of words, but truth of being. That which is there uttered of Jehovah, is here appropriated by Christ to Himself; as truth is to lie, in Romans 1:25, the relation of God is to the idols. The truth of God means there, that He is as such the possessor of all true being, and that out of Him there is nothing but vanity; whence the necessary consequence is, that he who would be a partaker of the truth must partake of it only in fellowship with God. In ch. John 1:14, Christ is spoken of as “full of grace and truth;” by that very word He is exalted above humanity, and placed in the Divine sphere, whose high prerogative it is alone to possess the truth. In Revelation 3:7 we read, “These things saith He that is holy. He that is true.” There we cannot limit the meaning to the truth of words. That truth of being is signified, may be inferred from the fact that truth is there in juxtaposition with holiness, absolute supremacy above all that is created. In Revelation 19:11, Christ as the True One is the antithesis of Psa 116:11, “All men are liars,” who deceive those who trust in them, and cannot help those who hope in them. The truth of the nature of Christ, which is based upon His almightiness and true divinity, appears there as the guarantee of His Church’s victory. In 1 John 5:20, the True One is simply and as such identified with the true God; Christ is there first termed “He that is true,” and then designated the true God and eternal life. As Christ is the truth, so also He is the life: comp. on ch. John 1:4. He who is not in fellowship with Him, has only the semblance of living; in reality he is dead, a walking corpse. Truth and life go hand in hand. Where truth is—true being, without the alloy of delusion and untruth—there is also life, and thence vanish all the miserable restraints which compass about on all sides the existence which is fallen into delusion and the lie. There is no reason why we should restrict the coming to the Father to another world. Its meaning rather is generally a relation to the Father. Where such a relation is entered into, the way also to the Father’s house is opened: it were impossible that He, after the pilgrimage of life is over, should leave those without who once belonged to Him; just as, on the other hand, it were impossible that those should enter the Father’s house who never stood in any such personal relation to Him during their life upon earth. The words mean this: No man cometh to the Father, and therefore to the Father’s house. That this phrase must be regarded as expressing generally a relation to the Father, is shown moreover by ver. 7, where knowing the Father corresponds to coming to the Father here; and with the negative the positive runs parallel: every man who receiveth Me cometh to the Father, and so to the Father’s house. This saying of our Lord is full of consolation. No crosses, no tribulations, however severe, can rob Christians of the confidence that they have in Christ, the way, the truth, and the life; that they are in Him redeemed from the oppressive empire of vanity, under which the soul that thirsts after true possessions, τὸἀληθινόν, Luke 16:11, is condemned, and from the thraldom of death, which has ever from the Fall compassed man about in all its variety of forms; that they are in the way to that heaven which has come down to earth in the truth and the life, and to which truth and life aspire back as their home. Those things which cannot deprive us of the truth and the life and the heavenly way, are in reality not afflictions; they are, indeed, if they tend to bring us into nearer connection with the truth and the life, to be esteemed rather as “pure joy,” James 1:2. This is the right spiritual estimate of all the trials of life and all suffering in the world, which indeed are hard to human nature, and against which human nature continually rebels. Ver. 7. “If ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also: and from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him.” Luther: “If ye had known Me. This knowledge of Christ is not that of which St Paul speaks, the knowing after the flesh; but it is the knowing how to regard Him, what we have in Him, and how we may enjoy Him. This is not attained by high-minded hypocrites, but by the lowly, contrite hearts and troubled consciences; and by them not without care and trouble, so that “they must concern themselves mightily about it.” “If ye had known Me” intimates that the disciples had not yet pressed into a perfect knowledge of Christ, and therefore of the Father; of the Father who perfectly reveals Himself in Christ, the express image of His person, in whom, as St Paul says, Colossians 2:9, the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily. “From henceforth ye know Him:” this shows that, objectively considered, this knowledge of God was assured to them by the manifestation of Christ in the flesh, and their internal communion with Him; the necessary consequence being, that, in their willing docility, this knowledge was to all intents and purposes already fundamentally in them. “If ye had known Me” certainly required some following qualification, otherwise there would have arisen a contradiction with ver. 4 (the way ye know); and the disciples would have been placed on a level with the Jews, to whom Jesus in ch. John 8:19 said, “If ye had known Me, ye would have known My Father also.” The objective character of the γινώσκετε—that it primarily refers to a knowledge offered—is shown by the fact that ἑωράκατε, ye have seen, is added, this being afforded directly by the manifestation of Christ. That which was intended first of all to soften the asperity of the blame, and to save the disciples from the painful feeling which the parallel with the unbelieving Jews would have excited, served at the same time as an admonition that they should ponder what was given them, and not, by a denial of the knowledge already imparted, sink down to the low and melancholy level of the Jews, who, dishonouring the Son, had lost the Father also. Ἀπάρτι, from this time forward, ch. John 13:19. The now does not mean the then present moment, but the time since they had learnt to know Christ. The Lord divides the existence of the disciples into two halves, formerly and now. The line of demarcation in their life was their relation to Christ. Before they had seen and known Him, they knew not the Father; in Christ they had learnt to know the Father, and thus gained the certain way to the Father’s house. In 1 Corinthians 13:12 also, ἄρτι occurs in the sense, not of a moment, but of a period. If the γινώσκετε is at once referred to a subjective knowledge, we must either, with Lampe, interpolate an exposition, “Ye begin now to know;” or, with Lόcke, we must give it a future application, and extract from it the- consolatory assurance, “that the hour is not now far distant, when the former ignorance of the disciples would be exchanged for clear know ledge.” Against the latter view it may be observed, that the present, γινώσκετε, and still more the perfect, ἑωράκατε, evidence that a knowledge is meant which the disciples already enjoyed. (Both are united, as here, in the passage of Demosthenes cited by Winer: ἀνθρώπῳὅνἡμωῖςγινώσκομενοὔθʼ ? ἑωράκαμενπώποτε.) But ver. 9 excludes all doubt. There Jesus mourns that Philip had denied the knowledge already imparted. That such a knowledge was intended, is shown also by the word spoken to him in ver. 8, which on any other supposition is unintelligible. Ver. 8. “Philip saith unto Him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.” The Apostles had hitherto seen Christ only in the form of a servant, in the humiliation under which the glory of the Father was profoundly hidden. At the Transfiguration it was only transitorily shone through; and that sublime spectacle was witnessed not by all the disciples, but only by the most advanced. Under these circumstances, it was natural that the disciples, having in their view the prophecies of the Old Testament, which always presented a prospect of the glorious revelation of the glory of the Lord, Isaiah 40:5, and having further in their view the impending severe trials and dangers which would demand a mighty auxiliary for their faith, should be unable altogether to reconcile themselves to the fact that they were so absolutely referred to Christ in regard to their relation to the Father, and should feel a disposition to ask for a revelation of the Father besides that of Christ, in order to their invigoration in their perilous path, more especially as their spiritual eye was not yet strong enough to discern the glory which was hidden under so thick a veil of humiliation. Their rising desire was gratified when the concealed glory of Christ burst through in the resurrection, in the ascension, and in those great victories which the Church through Christ gained over the world, ver. 12. Then the Father was plainly and obviously shown to them; although not in the way here desired by Philip, beside Christ, but in Christ. That which was natural and excusable in the Apostles, if not altogether justifiable, ver. 9, because it sprang from the dimness of their vision, which could not discern the glory behind the form of a servant, would be now, after the means for sharpening the spiritual vision have been afforded through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and when we have before us the glorious evidences and tokens of the ascended Lord, and of His triumph through the Christian ages, a melancholy anachronism. Where a similar desire now arises, it springs from a less excusable source. Christ must dwell in the heart by faith, if His spiritual glory is to be beheld. That man in whose heart, through his own fault, He has not taken up His abode, has eyes which see not, and ears which hear not. It is his righteous punishment that he is excluded, as from the Son, so also from the Father. The Apostles exhibit their faith in Christ in this, that they ask of Him to bring about the manifestation of the Father which they desire. And they are all the more justified in putting that request, because in the earlier days of their predecessors and types, such a manifestation of the glory of the Lord was vouchsafed to the elders of Israel for the strengthening of their faith: comp. Exodus 24:9-11. They did not consider that the mediator of the old covenant was, unlike the Mediator of the new, a weak man, who needed to exhibit to the representatives of the people an authentication direct from God, and who needed himself to be invigorated by such a manifestation to his faith. To desire such a revelation under the New Testament, was a virtual denial of the divinity of Christ, which could not but meet with such an earnest rejection. This refusal, however, could not be absolutely severe, but rather full of tenderness, inasmuch as the revelation of the Father in Christ had not yet finished its course and reached its consummation. Καὶἀρκεῖἡμῖν points to the fact that they had not reached full satisfaction through any revelation of the Father in Christ which they had yet beheld: comp. 2 Corinthians 12:9. Ver. 9. “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, Show us the Father?” Jesus could not possibly have cut off all immediate relation of believers to the Father, and required that the Father be sought only in Himself, if it were not that the being of the Father and the being of the Son perfectly coincided with each other, and the whole fulness of the Gospel dwelt in Himself bodily, and the Father had poured into Him all the riches of His essence. Otherwise, it would have been a betrayal both of the Father and of the believers. The Supreme God cannot give His glory to another; and the human heart thirsts for God, for the living God, nor can it be satisfied with any quasi-god, with any mere “divine being.” The appeal by name served to prick the disciple’s conscience, and to remind him that he had become alius a seipso, an alien to himself. Bengel rightly deduces from the Lord’s utterance here the inviolable rule: In omni cogitatione de Deo debemus Christum proponere. The duty, however, is subordinate here. The main thing is the consolation, the great grace, that the God who in Himself is a hidden God, has become perfectly revealed to us in Christ. “Have I been so long time with you,” has now for us become a much wader and more comprehensive truth. Ver. 10. “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? the words that I speak unto you, I speak not of Myself: but the Father, that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.” The two clauses, “I am in the Father,” and “the Father is in Me,” denote only the same relation under two aspects. From this it follows that the two clauses which serve for the illustration of that relation,—and of which the former formally refers to the “I am in the Father,” the latter to “the Father is in Me,”—do, in reality, refer to both. It might just as well have stood, “The words which I speak, speaketh the Father Himself; and the works which I do, I do in the Father.” The explanation is at the same time proof. This is shown by a comparison with such parallels as ch. John 10:37-38. The demonstrative argument in the words of Christ is seen in ch. John 7:46, where the servants of the high priests say, “Never man spake like this man,” and ch. John 6:68-69, where Peter says to Christ, “Lord, Thou hast the words of eternal life,” and bases upon the words of Christ his faith that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. Christ Himself, ch. John 6:63, demonstrates from His words that He shared the Divine nature: “The words which I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” With regard to the works, comp. on ch. John 5:36, John 10:25-26. These works are not exclusively the miracles proper: every act of Christ is, as an outbeaming of His nature, demonstrative of His unity with the Father; yet the works have their climax in the miracles, because these form the most palpable evidence of the saying, “I and the Father are one.” The “dwelling” or abiding indicates habitual indwelling, in opposition to a merely transitory influence and operation, such as men enjoyed under the Old Testament. Ver. 11. “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very works’ sake.” Heumann: “O how would the disciples be humbled by this address, in which our Lord spoke in such a manner as if He doubted as to their faith in Himself!” With this we must compare ch. John 10:38. His disciples ought first of all to believe Christ’s utterance as to His relation to the Father, as it was delivered by the impression of His whole personality. But if they were in circumstances which would not allow of this, they should at least believe on account of the works. In connection with these might, as in ver. 10, the words have been named, the whole sum of His spirit-breathing, life-breathing discourses, in contradistinction to the mere utterance concerning His being one with the Father. But the Lord falls back upon the works alone, because these furnished the most palpable evidence. The works themselves: this points to the fact that these alone were sufficient for demonstration. Luther: “This is the style in which St John and St Paul, before others, teach in this matter, firmly uniting together Christ and the Father, in order that we may learn not to think anything about God apart from Christ, and to hide and wrap ourselves in His Christ. Here is a beautiful word and sermon for the Apostle Philip, in which not only is he answered, but the fluctuating thoughts of all men; for the whole world and thyself are here told by the Lord: Wherefore wilt thou seek God otherwise than in Me, or desire to see and hear any other word and work than that which I speak and do?” In vers. 12-14 we have the third ground of consolation. Christ had finally, with express emphasis, referred to His works. Out of the consolation there sprang up to the disciples a new element of sorrow. These works must, it seemed to them, cease with the departure of the Lord. Left to their own poverty and impotence, they must, in opposition to the unfriendly word, fare but miserably. That was about to be removed which had given some measure of firmness to all. It is against this grief that their blaster here consoles them. The works would not cease with His departure; they should rather, in consequence of His departure, rise to a higher level of energy and significance. He who should be elevated to the glory of the Father, would, by His disciples, perform yet greater works. They should only ask; and out of His inexhaustible riches they should obtain all that their necessities might demand. Ver. 12. “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: because I go unto My Father.” This vigorous assurance shows at the outset how far beyond the horizon of the disciples lay the promise that followed. The Lord had, in ch. John 5:20, described the works which He performed during His earthly life as the mere prelude to greater works. The greatest deeds which, in the Old Testament, were ascribed to the Messiah, were at this time scarcely even inaugurated. He was to be the light of the Gentiles, Isaiah 42:6; and to rule from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth, Psalms 72:8; Zechariah 9:10; all kings were to worship Him, all the heathen serve Him, Psalms 72:11. The root of Jesse, which stood as an ensign to the nations, the Gentiles were to seek unto, Isaiah 11:10. Of all this there was as yet but the faint anticipation. And the great Messianic work of grace and judgment upon the Jewish people, as foreannounced by the prophets, was as yet far from accomplished. Instead of the hundreds of believers from among the Jews who were assembled during the Lord’s life, 1 Corinthians 15:6, many myriads were won by the preaching of the Apostles after the Lord’s resurrection, Acts 21:20. And as it regards the judgment upon them, the withering of the fig-tree of the Jewish people took place only in symbol shortly before the departure of Christ; and the actual rooting up of those plants which the heavenly Father had not planted was left to the future, to be the work of the exalted Redeemer, and to those prayers of believers which should evoke His work; for, according to Matthew 21:21, the withering of the fig-tree appears as the work, in this sense, of the believers themselves. The antithesis is, in fact, not between Christ and His disciples, but between the humble and the exalted Christ. His disciples accomplish their works only as the organs of the ascended Lord, and by His assistance. The whole power of performance is here expressly placed in the disciples’ faith in Christ; in the words “because I go to the Father” it is based upon the glorification of Christ, and the omnipotence connected with it; in ver. 13, whose ποιήσω refers back to the ποιήσει of ver. 12, Christ alone is exhibited as acting, while the co-operation of the disciples is referred to their prayer. Without Me, said the Lord in ch. John 15:5, ye can do nothing. The Apostles are not specifically spoken of, but generally all who believe in Christ. We are therefore justified to seek the fulfilment of these words in the whole course of the history of the Christian Church. With “The works that I do shall he do” we must compare Mark 16:17-18. There the works are individually enumerated. But we must regard that enumeration as only an individualizing. Behind these palpable signs stand others, which are more concealed and less obvious, but in reality much greater: the miraculous power which Christ will assure to His people for the conversion of individuals and nations, for the effect of regeneration in a world corrupted to the very centre, for their victory over the whole hostile force of the world, and over its prince who wields that force. That of this we are especially to think, is plain from “greater things shall he do.” In reference to miracles, commonly so called, Christ was not surpassed by His disciples; on the contrary, they were considerably inferior to Him. But in what domain we are chiefly to seek the works here spoken of, ch. John 12:32 teaches us: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth” (this corresponds to the “going to the Father” here), “will draw all men unto Me.” Hence the great work which was to be accomplished after the exaltation of Christ, and in the power of that exaltation, was the conversion of the world, specially the heathen nations. Further, in ch. John 10:16, where our Lord thus exhibits the result of His atoning death, and the great task to be fulfilled after it: “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: these also must I bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” So also we may compare Matthew 28:18-20. There the Lord bases upon the “power” given unto Him in heaven and earth as the result of His atoning passion, the injunction, “Go ye forth and disciple all nations,” and promises that He would be with them to the end of the world for the accomplishment of a work immeasurably surpassing all human power. We have also an illustration of the “greater works than these shall he do” in the Apocalypse, which depicts the marvellous victory of Christ and His members over the Gentile world and its prince; compare particularly, ch. John 17:14 : “These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for He is Lord of lords, and Kino; of kings; and they that are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful.” But the proper commentary on our text is furnished by a word spoken some days before to the disciples. Matthew 21:21-22 : “Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this that is done to the fig-tree, but also, if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” This passage is closely connected with that we are considering. Ver. 22 absolutely coincides with ver. 13. They have in common also the introduction by “Verily,” and the emphasis laid on believing. We see from this that the greater works were to consist in the victory over Jerusalem, and over the Gentile secular power then concentrated in Rome. It needs no proof that the fig-tree signified the Jewish people; and, of course, what they were to do must have referred to an antitypical action in something else, since the natural fig-tree was already destroyed. “This which is done to the fig-tree” must have referred to something yet to be done to its counterpart. So also, in connection with the fig-tree, the mountain must have had a symbolical meaning: nor can this be obviated by the suggestion that this mountain is spoken of; for a specific fig-tree was also spoken of. This fig-tree, this mountain, were sanctified into symbols of hostile powers. The mountain, in contradistinction to the fig-tree, can only be a symbol of Gentile temporal power. In the Old Testament, mountains are used as the ordinary symbols of kingdoms. In Zechariah 4:7, the great mountain is the Persian empire, which was in an attitude of opposition to the building of the Temple. In Jeremiah 51:25, the mountain which endangers the whole earth is the Chaldean empire. So the mountain here is the universal empire that then was, that of Rome. The sea is, according to the common symbolism of Scripture, the sea of nations: comp. on ch. John 6:14-21; Revelation 8:8-9, out of which the universal empire had arisen mightily in the time of its prosperity, but into which it now sinks back again through the faith of the disciples and the power of Christ. Revelation 18:21 is parallel, where we read, with reference to the Roman empire, and in allusion to Jeremiah 51:63-64 : “And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.” On the ground of the same passage in Jeremiah, our Lord, referring to the then ruling power, had already spoken, Matthew 18:6, of those who offended His little ones being cast into the sea with millstones. The foundation of the doing works like Christ’s, and still greater works, is to be found in the “going to the Father.” What follows is only the further development of the idea, that Christ’s work would not cease with His death; that the disciples need not fear that they would sink back into the darkness when the light of His works, which during His earthly life had irradiated them, was withdrawn; and that they would not be left to the consequences of their own impotence. The independence of the clause is confirmed by a comparison with ver. 28, where the “I go to the Father” stands in a similar independent position, and where the “My Father is greater than I” develops the consolatory meaning lying in those words. The independence of the clause in ver. 13, “And whatsoever ye shall ask,” etc., is plain from Matthew 21:22, which accurately corresponds with this present saying. So also, from the repetition in ver. 14, Jesus was going to the Father, into the glory which He had with Him before the world was, ch. John 17:5; and He therefore could most mightily assist His disciples in the performance of greater works than He Himself, in the days of His servant form, could accomplish. To go to the Father was to enter into His glory, Luke 24:26; and this glory could not but have a most pervasive influence upon His people below. When Jesus went to the Father, the grief of the disciples must be turned into joy, and their despondency into confidence. The departure of their Lord, which seemed to make them helpless, and abandon them an easy prey to the wolves, was the very condition and foundation of their power and of their victory. It made their Master’s omnipotence available for them. “How should we not expect something more glorious from the exalted than from the humbled Christ?” Luther: “Christ going to the Father means, that He is exalted to the Lord above, and placed on a royal throne at the right hand of the Father, all power and authority being subjected to His sway in heaven and in earth. And ye shall therefore have the power to do such works, because ye are My members, and believe in Me, so that ye shall be in Me and I will be in you. Now I am weak, because I yet walk here below in this flesh; and do slighter and less considerable works, only raising a few from the dead and healing a handful of Jews; and I must submit to be crucified and slain. But afterwards, when I have been crucified, have been buried, and have risen again, I shall make my great leap from death into life, from the cross and the sepulchre to eternal glory, and Divine majesty and power; and will then, as I have said, draw everything to Me, so that all creatures must be subjected to Me, and I can say to you. Apostles and Christians: Thou, Peter and Paul, go and overturn the Roman empire, if it will not receive My word and obey Me; for it must either receive the Gospel, or stumble over it to ruin.” This present saying of our Lord is not merely rich in consolation; it also gives occasion to rigid self-examination on the part of the Church and of individual Christians. Christ has here given solemn asseveration, that whosoever believeth on Him shall do works like those which He did while on earth, and even greater works. Therefore, when these works are found wanting there must be lack of faith: as Augustin says. Si ergo qui credit faciet, non credit utique qui non faciet. The complaint, which is now so common, over the corruption of the world, the feeble wail of despondency over the unbelief of the age, must be abashed before this utterance of our Lord. Christ sits for ever at the right hand of the Father, equipped with irresistible arms against all His enemies. But “faith faileth upon earth.” There is, indeed, a difference of seasons in the kingdom of God; there are times in which power is given to the darkness; and, doubtless, such a time is that wherein we live. But our saying avails even for such times as these. The greater is the opposition, the more plainly is it the task of faith to do “greater works,” and the richer is the aid which is given from on high for the accomplishment of this task. Ver. 13. “And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”—“And,” when I have gone to the Father; or, in virtue of My departure, through which I shall be received into the fellowship of the Divine omnipotence. The connection with ver. 12 shows that petitions are referred to here which have relation to the things of the kingdom of God: their effect is the performance of the works. Prayer directed to that object is for ever being answered; although the arrangement of the time and hour must be left to the wisdom of Him who sitteth at the right hand of the Father, and although the answer may be impeded by many weaknesses and defeats on our part. To the name all expressions and revelations of the nature converge: comp. on ch. John 1:12, John 2:23, John 5:43, John 12:13. It corresponds to the memorial, or memory, to the historical personality. He who would pray to Christ in such a way as to be heard, must not set before his eyes a phantasy of his own imagination: he must represent to himself the corporeal form of the historical Christ, in the outlines which the Apostolical Confession of Faith presents to us; he must thoroughly renounce all idealistic refuges. Christ has, by His deeds upon earth, made unto Himself a glorious name (comp. Isaiah 63:14); first of all, by those which He performed in His state of humiliation, and since by the victorious course of eighteen hundred years in His Church; and whosoever would pray to Him with acceptable prayer, must in faith embrace the whole fulness of these manifestations of His name. Experience bears witness that prayer dies out in feebleness, precisely in proportion as the name of Christ is obscured to the mind by doubt. He to whom the prayer is directed is designedly not named, because it would be matter of indifference, after Christ had gone to the Father, whether petitions were addressed to Him or to the Father. Both would come to the same thing; for, as Christ is in the midst of the throne, Revelation 7:17, prayer truly offered to the Father is offered to Him, and prayer offered truly to Him is offered also to the Father. That supplication cannot be presented to the Father, as contradistinguished from Christ, is plain from the τοῦτοποιήσω. If there were an alternative in the case, this expression would oblige us to assume that the prayer was to be addressed to the exalted Christ. The ποιήσω) here refers to the ποιήσει in ver. 12. Luther: “What He had said about their doing greater works. He again appropriates to Himself.” This was to the disciples, altogether penetrated by the consciousness of their impotence, not discouraging, but full of consolation. It might appear that the sphere of the Lord’s action and the sphere of the disciples’ action were different; but this distinction vanishes when we observe, that even in those cases in which the act seemed to belong to Christ alone (such as the destruction of Jerusalem), the disciples were actually co-operating by their prayer, and that, on the other hand, there could be no work done by the disciples alone without the effectual aid of Christ.—“That the Father may be glorified in the Son:” the aim of the acting of Christ is primarily His own glorification. But this reflects back on the Father. When it is seen that the Son can do great things, says Theophylact, He is glorified who hath begotten such a Son. Ver. 14. “If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it.” We have here an express repetition, which, with its ἀμὴνἀμὴν, at the beginning, springs from the same source. It is intended to furnish supplication with a yet firmer ground of confidence. Luther: “Our Lord Christ foresaw that this article would go hard with human reason, and that it would be much assailed by the devil.” Comp. Psalms 62:12 : “God hath spoken once, yea, twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God.” God said it not once only, but confirmed it by a second assurance, that all power was His. So also in 1 John 2:14, repetition has the effect of stronger assurance. The ἐγώ, which Gerhard describes as a word of majesty, gives great prominence to the supreme authority of Christ in His exalted state: it is as it were, I to whom all power is given in heaven and upon earth. Luther: “What ye ask, I will do: this is as much as to say, I am God, who may do and give all things.” In vers. 15-17 follows the fourth ground of consolation. Christ had foreannounced to His disciples, that they would be brought before judgment-seats, and princes, and kings. The contemplation of this must have invested His departure with every element of sadness. Their confidence in their conflict with the world had hitherto rested upon the fact, that they had Him in their midst as their champion and advocate. They were themselves ἄνθρωποιἀγράμματοίεἰσινκαὶἰδιῶται, Acts 4:13. What should they be able to attempt and accomplish after the departure of the Lord, when the contest with the world grew more and more fierce? The sorrow and anxiety of this prospect our Lord obviates here by His consoling word: He would send His people another Advocate in their process against the world,—an Advocate who should, during all the ages of the militant Church, abide with them, assist their infirmity, and conduct their cause with full efficiency—the Spirit of truth. Lampe thinks that the promise of the mission of the Holy Ghost was appropriately connected with the preceding, because in it was given the power for the accomplishment of the greater works. But the fact is, that with regard to the greater works, the disciples were referred not to the Holy Spirit, but to the power of the glorified Christ. The Holy Spirit appears here only in His proper function, as Intercessor, Advocate, or Comforter. Ver. 15. “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” This is the condition to which the fulfilment of the promise now to be given is attached. What is here, where the main point was consolation, only hinted at, is further dilated upon in ch. 15. And the hint given here leaves it to be expected that such a moral hortatory portion of the last discourses of our Lord was to follow. For if fidelity in the love of Christ, and in the observance of His commandments, is of such pervasive importance, surely it was not enough to deal with it only in the way of a brief and passing intimation. Jesus here most vitally and thoroughly connects together love to Himself, and the fulfilment of His commandments. He acknowledges no love which does not find its expression in the observance of His laws. These cannot be separated from the person: they are so many conditions, under which alone communion with His person is possible. On the other hand, our Lord recognises no fulfilment of His commandments which is not an outgoing of personal love to Himself. He condemns every other kind of fulfilment which springs only from temporal interest, from fear of punishment, from deference to public opinion, as mere illusion. It is expressly declared that love is the condition of all obedience to His commandments, and must approve itself in that obedience. “My commandments:” Moses was not wont to speak thus. It implies the oneness of nature between Christ and the Supreme Lawgiver. Hence, in unison with this, we mark the intentional use of the same expressions which are used in the Old Testament with reference to Jehovah: comp. especially Exodus 20:6, “And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments;” Deuteronomy 7:9, “The faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him, and keep His commandments, to a thousand generations;” ver. 11, “Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments which I command thee this day to do them;” Psalms 103:17-18, “But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness unto children’s children, to such as keep His covenant, and to those that remember His commandments to do them;” Psalms 25:10. The two expressions of the Mosaic law come nearest to our passage. There the keeping of the commandments of God appears both as the guarantee and as the outflow of love to Him, as its inseparable attendant. The commandments of the Old Testament were also the commandments of Christ; and they are included by Him when He speaks of His commandments. For He had solemnly recognised them, and exhorted His Church inviolably to keep them: comp. Matthew 5:17-20. But He did not simply receive them externally into His Gospel; He has everywhere modified, supplemented, and established them: comp. on ch. John 13:34. All old things in Him became new. For example, the first and greatest commandment of the Old Testament, that of the love of God, takes here, as we see in ch. 15, the form of a commandment to love Christ, who first loved His disciples; whilst the commandment to love our neighbour takes the form of a commandment to love the brethren who are sharers of the redemption in Christ. All Old Testament ordinances and precepts are baptized in Christ, and new-born in Him. Ver. 16. “And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever.” Jesus does not supplicate His Father as a servant, but as the Son, to whom He can deny nothing. If we remember the τοῦτοποιήσω, and the “because I go to the Father,” in which Christ arrogates to Himself an absolute participation in the Divine glory, we might expect it to follow, “And I will send you another Intercessor,” as we find it actually in ch. John 16:7 : ἐὰνδὲπορευθῶ, πέμψωαὐτὸνπρὸςὑμᾶς. But the phrase our Lord used received its character from the design, everywhere apparent (comp. ver. 13), to refer everything in its last issues to the Father, who was not, as it were, constrained by the mediation of the Son, but was to be brought nearer by Him to the spirits of men—infinitely nearer than He stood to them under the old dispensation. Luther says: “Christ asks the Father, not in His Divine being and nature, in which He is equally with the Father almighty, but because He is true man, Mary’s son.” But the Angel of the Lord also, the Logos, supplicated the Lord on behalf of His Church upon earth, Zechariah 1:12; and the Lord assured Him that He was heard. “Another Intercessor:” Luther: “For I cannot be ever with you below in this manner. If I am to enter into My glory, and spread My kingdom by your means, I must die, and go to heaven, and leave you behind Me.” It seems at the first glance startling, that the sending of the Holy Ghost is here made conditional on the love of Christ and the keeping His commandments, while in 1 Corinthians 12:3 it is said, that no man can call Christ Lord but by the Holy Ghost. We have not, however, here to do with the mission of the Holy Ghost in general, but with His mission in a distinct relation, as the Paraclete, and as the Helper in that great process which the Church is ever vindicating against the world. In regard to the Paraclete, expositors are very diverse. According to one party (Origen, Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, Theophylact, Luther), the word, which is used of the Holy Ghost only in the last discourses of Christ given by St John (comp. ver. 26, John 15:26, John 16:7; of Christ, in 1 John 2:1), means comforter, consoler. According to another, it is a judicial expression to designate advocates in judicial processes. The upholders of this interpretation appeal to classical Greek usage,, which is best explained in the treatise of Knapp, De Spiritu Sancto et Christo Paracletis (Opusc. t. i.), where παράκλητος, from παρακαλέω, to summon to aid, is used of those who, whether as agents or as influential friends, undertook the cause of those who stood before the judgment-seat. But the interpretation Comforter has no trivial arguments in its favour. We read in Acts 9:31, concerning the first Christian congregations, καὶτῇπαρακλήσειτοῦἁγίουπνεύματοςἐπληθύνετο, “and by the comfort of the Holy Ghost were multiplied:” comp. ch. John 6:1; John 6:7, John 7:17. There the Holy Ghost is a comforting, encouraging Spirit. It is obvious to assume that we have here an exposition or paraphrase of the name Paraclete; and that He was called Paraclete on account of His consolation. Further, the verb παρακαλέω is never used in the New Testament for summoning to aid; and therefore παράκλητος could not be derived from it as an adjective of passive signification, advocatus. It is always used in the sense of speaking to, or encouraging and comforting—in so many instances, indeed, amounting to more than a hundred, that the exclusiveness of this meaning can scarcely be accidental. In Acts 28:20—the only place adduced by Knapp in support of the meaning, summon to aid—the common interpretation is appropriate: comp. ch. Acts 24:4. Finally, παρακαλεῖτεπαρακαλεῖτετὸνλαόνμου, λέγειὁθεός, is the beginning of the second part of Isaiah, to the commencement of which, especially ch. Isaiah 40:3-5, the New Testament repeatedly refers, and everywhere with the view that its fulfilment belongs to the time of the new economy: comp. on ch. John 1:23, John 2:11. St Luke, in ch. Luke 2:25, alluding to this παρακαλεῖτε, describes Simeon as προσδεχόμενοςπαράκλησιντοῦἸσραήλ. It is hard altogether to sunder this παράκλητος from that παρακαλεῖτε. The Son of man had hitherto fulfilled and realized this παρακαλεῖτε: after His departure, the Holy Spirit would take His place. These are very plausible arguments; but their weight is overbalanced by those which support the other interpretation. And first, the form is of decisive importance. Derived from the 3 Perf. Pass, it bears a passive character; παράκλητος can no more mean Comforter than κλητός can mean Caller. That the older Greek expositors attributed an active signification to this form, is a fact not sufficient to outweigh this argument. Nor is it of much moment that Aquila and Symmachus, in Job 16:2, use παράκλητους where the Hebrew speaks of comforters, translated by the Septuagint παράκλήτορες and Symmachus παρηγοροῦντες. For even the παράκλητος, passively accepted, expresses the idea of supporting. The second argument is, that we ought not, without due consideration, to forsake the classical Greek usage, in which παράκλητος always occurs in the sense of advocate-at-law. This has all the more force, inasmuch as the word bearing this meaning, and with it a series of other judicial expressions, had passed over into the Rabbinical phraseology; with the same meaning it is frequent in the writings of Philo (comp. Carpzov. Exerc. in Ep. ad Heb., p. 155; Loesner, Observ. ex Phil., p. 496),as also we find it in the epistle of Barnabas, who, in § 20, describes the wicked as πλουσίωνπαράκλητοι, πενήτωνἄνομοικριταί. In the document of the Church of Vienne (Eusebius, Hist. Ecc. v. 2) παράκλητος is used to designate one who represents the person of another in a judicial process. The passage is all the more remarkable, because it furnishes the first instance of an allusion to St John’s sayings concerning the Paraclete, and because it goes on the supposition that they mention the word Paraclete with the meaning then current among Greek writers. Vettius Epagathus requests, when certain Christians were brought before the tribunal, that he might be heard ἀπολογούμενοςὑπὲρτῶἀδελφῶν. This was refused him, and he was himself executed. It then goes on: ἀνελήφθηκαὶαὐτὸςεἰςτὸςκλῆροντῶνμαρτύρων, παράκλητοςΧριστιανῶνχρηματίσας, ἔχωνδὲτὸνπαράκλητονἐνἑαυτῷ, τὸπλεῖοντοῦΖαχαρίου, ὅδιὰτοῦπληρώματοςτῆςἀγαπῆςἐνδείξατο, εὐδοκήσαςὑπὲρτῆςτῶνἀδελφῶνἀπολογίαςκαὶτὴνἑαυτοῦθεῖναιψυξήν. He receives the name of the Christian’s Paraclete, not because he addressed comfort to them, but because he came forward as their advocate and intercessor; and he proved by this courageous intercession that he had within himself the Paraclete promised by Jesus to His disciples, who therefore was not to be a comforter, but only an intercessor. The Christian’s conflict with the world presents itself in many ways under the aspect of a judicial process; and it was with reference to this aspect of it that Jesus had already previously promised His people the assistance of the Holy Ghost. In Matthew 10:17-18, He had predicted to His disciples, that “they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues, and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake. But when they deliver you up,” our Lord continued, “take no thought how or what ye shall speak; for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.” Here we have the full Paraclete, as he appears in classical writers, the agent and pleader at the bar; only the name παράκλητος is wanting. The parallel saying in Mark 13:9-11 is all the more appropriate in this connection, inasmuch as it occurs in a discourse which our Lord had delivered shortly before, on the Tuesday before the feast, and thus only two days previously. If we understand Paraclete in the sense of comforter, it is hard to account for the narrowly restricted use of the word. As in our passage the Paraclete is promised to the disciples in connection with their relation to the world (comp. ver. 17), so also, in ch. John 16:7, the promise of the mission of the Paraclete is connected with predictions of the world’s persecutions (comp. ver. 1). Generally there is no passage in which the idea of representative or advocate is not appropriate. In ch. John 15:26, the Holy Spirit is called the Comforter only in reference to ch. John 14:16 : the same Person, whom I have promised to send as your advocate in the severe conflict with the world, will render you great assistances also in other respects. In 1 John 2:1, Christ Himself exercises the function of an advocate for His own people with the Father. Christians have a hard double cause to carry through with God and with the world; and in neither can they succeed without a powerful representative. That such a relation of advocate to clients is not limited to classical usage, is shown by Job 29:12-17. Job describes himself there as availing himself of his powerful position for the defence of the poor and the miserable in the judgment, as a true Paraclete. Hence, as there are reasons so decisive for giving the term Paraclete the meaning of advocate and intercessor, we must not be inclined to allow much weight to those weaker reasons which favour the signification comforter. The argument which rests upon the meaning of the word παρακαλέω in the New Testament is set aside by the remark, that the noun, as such, irrespective of its derivation, was imported and accepted from the then current judicial phraseology.And this observation has all the more weight, inasmuch as John, the only Evangelist in whose writings the word Paraclete occurs, is precisely the one who never uses the παρακαλέω elsewhere so common in the New Testament,—a remarkable testimony, also, in favour of the unity and connectedness of his writings. The coincidence of the term with the παρακαλεῖτε of Isaiah 40:1, we cannot regard as other than fortuitous; and must also assume, that in Acts 9:31 we have not an exposition of the name Paraclete, but only an allusion to it. When our Lord says, “He will send you another Paraclete,” it does not lead necessarily to the conclusion that He had hitherto actually and effectually approved Himself their advocate. The meaning may be this: Be not afraid of the persecutions, the judicial processes, which threaten you in the world, whether the Jewish or the Gentile world. If I cannot be your παράκλητος in them, I will provide for you another advocate in My stead. Yet there had been occasions when Jesus had, in a certain sense, literally shown Himself their judicial advocate: comp. for example. Matthew 12:1-8. And then the whole contest with the world may be regarded as a judicial process with it, as we find in the Old Testament the epithets of legal contention are applied frequently to all contests, so that the idea of the Paraclete is enlarged to mean help in every kind of conflict with the world. A yet further extension, to mean help in every other kind of difficulty, cannot be established here. Paraclete and process are inseparably connected. The first fulfilment of the promise lying before us we find in the fourth chapter of the Acts. The Apostles were asked, before the high council, by what authority and in what name they did those things. Peter answered the question, “filled with the Holy Ghost,” ver. 8. The members of the high council wondered at what they heard, and were unable to reconcile it with the position and education of the Apostles, so mightily did their Advocate make His presence and aid known, ver. 13. The εἰςτὸναἰῶνα, equivalent to πάσαςτὰςἡμέραςἕωςτῆςσυντελείαςτοῦαἰῶνος, Matthew 28:20, gives us the comforting assurance that the promise was given to the Apostles not as individuals, but as representatives of all believers; that, so long as the world lasts, the Paraclete will discharge His function in the Church; and that the Church, in her conflict with the world, need never despair, however superior may be the world’s numbers, dignities, and endowments. “Wherefore,” says Luther, “there is no wrath, or threatening, or dismay; nothing but confident laughter, and sweet consolation in heaven and upon earth.” Ver. 17. “Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” The Spirit of truth is the Spirit to whom the truth belongs, who possesses it as His own, ch. John 15:26, and who imparts it to those to whom He is given, ch. John 16:13; 1 John 4:6. The Spirit approves Himself as the Paraclete, by imparting the truth to those whose cause He defends in their severe process with the world. Of all weapons, this is the noblest. This will bring the Church finally and triumphantly through all beleaguerments. Truth is mightier and nobler than all science, than all hair-splitting reasonings, than all specious eloquence, than all cunningly conceived speculations. On their possession of this truth rested the confident fidelity to their confession displayed by the confessors of the faith, independent of all external relations, and unshaken even in the presence of death. It was the basis of that joyful acceptance of martyrdom, by which the Church made such an impression on the world. He who has a firm hold on the truth, knows that his interests and his person are hidden above, and that all his discomfitures are but the passage to victory. Luther: “Hence let it be to thee no small consolation; for there is nothing upon earth that can so comfort in the time of need, as for the heart to be confident in its cause.” But the truth not only evidences its influence upon the spirit of its confessors; it also impresses the world. From the Fall downwards the world has been overrun with lies; yet it can never evade the influence of the truth. The uncreated Divine image retains still some measure of its prerogatives. Truth makes its sure appeal to the conscience. The world cannot, so long as it maintains itself to be the world, become partaker of the Spirit; for that Spirit it has no receptivity: its eyes, defiled by sin, cannot perceive Him; and therefore it is excluded from the independent possession of the high and noble blessedness of truth, access to which can be obtained only through the Spirit. For the truth belongs to God alone, and can become the heritage of the creature only through the Spirit, who is the bond between the Creator and the created. The truth impresses the world; but proper access to that truth is sealed against the world, because it cannot receive the Spirit. Believers, however, perceive and know the Holy Ghost by intimate communion, and not afar off. The example of the world shows that no discernment of the Spirit can be attained at a distance; and it is because the Spirit is immanent within them, that believers are established in the possession of the truth. The world has also its own πνεῦμα, the spirit of lying who proceedeth from Satan, Matthew 13:38-39; Acts 16:13. That spirit the world knoweth and seeth, although it is no less immaterial than the Spirit of truth. Hence we must not seek the reason for His not being seen, and not being known, in the fact of the immateriality of the Spirit of truth (Grotius: Mundus non curat nisi ea quae oculis corporeis conspiciuntur; quale non est ille spiritus); but only in this, that the eyes of the world were beclouded and holden by sin. Berl. Bible: For no man can know God, unless he is converted from his sins. In the double present, γινώσκετε, and μένει, our Lord, abstracting from all relations of time, places the character of His disciples and the character of the world in contrast. But in order to obviate misapprehension, the timeless present is accompanied at the close by the future ἔσται, to show that the whole matter belongs to the domain of futurity. Many copyists could not appreciate this delicate turn: hence they displaced ἔσται by ἐστίν. In vers. 18-24 we have the fifth ground of consolation: Christ comes again. Ver. 18. “I will not leave you comfortless (orphans); I will come unto you.” Our Lord does not place His own coming in opposition to the coming of the Holy Ghost. He does not say, I Myself will come; for even in the Divine Spirit it is He who comes to His disciples. He says positively, I come, that the disciples might not fall into the comfortless notion that they would not henceforth have to do with Him directly, and that the Holy Ghost would interpose as a separating medium between Him and them. He gives them, the assurance, that even after His departure they would remain in the most immediate connection with Himself. The evidence that Christ, even after His return to the Father, held personal intercourse with His disciples, in harmony with this promise, and therefore that the being in the Spirit furnished only the basis of this intercourse, we find primarily in the appearances of the risen Lord, but also in the history of Stephen, who, according to Acts 7:55-56, saw the heaven opened, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and who, in ver. 59, said to the immediately present Redeemer, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit;” and in ver. 60, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” Then the Apocalypse, the first chapter of which records a manifestation of Christ to the Apostle; a manifestation which, however, presupposes the ἐγενόμηνἐνπνεύματι, ver. 10. How little the Spirit is to be regarded as a restricting medium of partition, which precludes the Lord from any direct operation upon earth, is shown by the history of Saul’s conversion, in which Christ comes to the persecutor without even any preliminary reference to the Holy Ghost at all. What coming of Christ is here spoken of? Certainly not His return at the end of the world; for in that case He would have left His disciples long orphans, and the consolation would have been comfortless enough. According to ver. 19, the coming was soon to begin; and the characteristic distinction, “the world seeth Me not,” would not be at all suitable to the eschatological return, inasmuch as at His final coming all the nations are to be gathered into His presence. Matthew 25:32. Nor can the manifestations of the risen Lord exclusively be meant; for the Redeemer does not speak of what should be the prerogative of a few elect, but of what should be the portion of all His believers in every age and continually: comp. especially the μονὴνπαρʼ ? αὐτῷποιησόμεθα in ver. 23, which cannot be referred to the appearances after the resurrection; and generally vers. 21 and 23, which, taking their whole contents, cannot, without great violence, be limited to those appearances of the risen Lord, as is all the more evident if we compare the strikingly coincident parallel in Revelation 3:20. There the Redeemer stands before the door of every one who belongs to the number of His people; and His coming notes a relation, the effect of which runs through the whole earthly existence of believers, “like heaven upon earth, and the brightness which irradiates the night.” The promise, “I will not leave you comfortless,” was but very imperfectly fulfilled in the manifestations of the Lord occurring in the interval between the resurrection and the ascension. It points to a permanent connection. On the other hand, we must not by any means exclude those intermediate manifestations of the risen Lord. When Jesus says here, in ver. 19, “Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me,” every one must refer the words primarily to the appearances after the resurrection, especially as these have that characteristic mark in common with all later spiritual manifestations, that the world does not participate in them, but that they belonged exclusively to believers: comp. Acts 10:40-41, “Him God raised up the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God.” This view is confirmed by the parallel passage, ch. John 16:16; John 16:22, which may well serve as a comment upon our ver. 19. But the appearances of our risen Lord must not be excluded; and all the less as the result of the coming of Christ here in ver. 19 is seen to be the invigoration of His disciples, a result which notoriously first followed at the resurrection of their Lord. When the risen Redeemer first appeared to His disciples, they rose immediately from the death of languor and despondency: comp. Psalms 72:15. It is evident that a false apprehension of the resurrection has placed in opposition things which are in fact perfectly accordant. When Christ arose with a glorified body. His appearances were a type and prelude of that living intercourse which, according to Matthew 18:20; Matthew 28:20, is to subsist between Christ and His Church to the end of the world; and what in Acts 1:3 is recorded as historical fact, bears at the same time the character of a prophecy, which in its fulfilment runs through all the ages of time. Only thus is it to be explained, that St Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:7-8, places the manifestation of that which was given to himself after the ascension on the same level with the manifestations of the risen Lord before the ascension. Here we have the real secret of the strength of believers in their conflict with the world, which in number and equipments far preponderates. It is their concealed intercourse with that Jesus to whom all power in heaven and earth is given, that enables them to look down upon the earth far below their feet. When the waves of the world’s wrath run high, they say to Him, “Be not a terror unto me; Thou art my hope in the day of evil,” Jeremiah 17:17. God in the Old Testament bears the honourable appellation of the God of the orphans, Psalms 68:6; He is described as one with whom the fatherless findeth mercy, Hosea 14:3; and also with special reference to His suffering Church upon earth. This His high title God will make good, so far as concerns the disciples, and especially the Apostles, through Christ, with whom all the treasures of His mercy and power are laid up, and who, in Old Testament prophecy, was once called the Everlasting Father, Isaiah 9:6. Their orphanhood, their abandonment, their misery, must not make them dispirited; it must rather fill them with deeper joy. For the greater their orphanhood, the more confidently might they rely upon the consolation of the Father of the fatherless. The orphan condition of the Apostles lasted from the beginning of the passion to the resurrection. It was the type of conditions which are ever recurring in God’s dealings with the whole Church and its individual members. When these circumstances occur, it is “our duty to weep with our mother as fatherless, and to lift up our hands to our Father” (Quesnel). Then will the word be fulfilled to us, as it was formerly to the Apostles: I have forsaken thee for a small moment, but with great compassion I will gather thee. Ver. 19. “Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me: because I live, ye shall live also.” That the world which was to be excluded from seeing Christ is primarily the unbelieving Jewish people, is shown by ch. John 7:33, where Jesus says to the Jews, “Yet a little while am I with you: ye shall seek Me, and shall not find Me.” To see Christ no longer is the climax of all misery: for in Him is the fountain of all true joy; and when He departs, the Divine judgments throng in on all sides. The words, “Because I live,” etc., are the foundation of the promise that the disciples should see Christ. In the life of Christ Himself lies the guarantee that His disciples should live. But the condition of that life was, that they should see Him. Seeing Christ and living are, with the Apostles, everywhere and inseparably one and the same: He is the centre of their being. When they see Him not, they are as dead in a living body. The life of Christ must develop itself in His disciples further and further until the joyful resurrection: comp. ch. John 11:25. But, according to the connection, that life alone is here pre-eminently meant which unfolded itself in the Apostles immediately with the resurrection. Life is, in the Old Testament, wherever there is contentment and joy: comp. Job 21:7; Proverbs 16:15. According to some critics, the present, ζῶ, stands here instead of the future. But that would involve the necessity of the present being substituted afterwards for the future, ζήσεσθε. Jesus had described Himself in ver. 6 as the life. There is, therefore, no ground whatever for an enfeebling interpretation. Jesus not merely will live, but He is, under all circumstances, the Living; and in the fact that He lives is the pledge given that He will live, and that His disciples shall live with Him. Berl. Bible: “Life is His essential nature; dying is a strange thing, but now necessary to Him.” That which is a strange thing can only be transitory. In Luke 24:5-6, the angels say to the women, “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen.” Christ did not become alive again—the ἠγέρθη does not accord with that—but He is the Living One under all circumstances; and in the fact that He is always the Living One lies the ground of His resurrection. In Acts 2:24, Peter says concerning Christ, “Whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be holden of it.” The impossibility rested upon this, that He was the essentially Living. The ζωῆςἀκαταλύτος which, according to Hebrews 7:16, dwells inherently in Christ, elevates Him above the law of death. In Revelation 1:18, we read that Christ approved Himself the “Living One” by the overcoming of death. The life of His disciples is the necessary consequence of the life of Christ. As the Living, He is also the life-distributing: He cannot rest until He has vanquished for His people death in all its forms, and abolished it utterly. In the Old Testament God is called the living God, for the consolation of His people who sink into death. David thirsts for the living God, Psalms 42:3, because, as such. He was the God of his life, ver. 9, distributing life to His own. But as the Living One is the source of life to His own, so He is the source of death to His enemies. Because He liveth, they must die. The first form of that death is their seeing Him no more. Ver. 20. “At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you.” Primarily the day of the resurrection; yet this only as the beginning of a whole period of time, during which the annunciations of this resurrection continued. By the resurrection, and the manifestation to the disciples connected with it, was actual demonstration given that Christ is in the Father, and that He stands in the most intimate and essential fellowship with Him: comp. Romans 1:4. The disciples learnt this by living actual experience, from the fact that the life of the Father manifests itself in Him. As by the resurrection it was demonstrated that Christ is in the Father, comp. ver. 10, so also it was proved that the relation of the disciples to Him was not an imaginary one, but a real one; that He was truly the life of their souls: comp. Galatians 2:20. That could He be, only if He is actually the only Son of God. But, as it regards the latter point, their knowledge depended not upon a mere inference. Concurrent with this conclusion, was the flowing of Christ’s life into them at His resurrection. Only by this communion of His life could a true assurance arise that they were in Him and He in them. Luther: “I had not such power in me before, for I was, like others, under the devil’s power, and under the fear of death. But now I have another spirit, which Christ gives me through the Holy Ghost; by which I trace that He is with me, and that I may scorn all the threats of the world, death, and the devil, and joyfully glory in my Lord, who lives and reigns for me in heaven.” Ver. 21. “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.” Lampe remarks: “The expression is changed. Earlier He had addressed the disciples; now He proceeds to speak in the third person, because the promise of His coming which precedes, specifically concerned His disciples, but this concerns all His people.” Instead of specifically, we would say especially. That Lampe distinguishes too nicely, is shown by the ἐμφανίζειν in ver. 22. As the impartation of the Holy Spirit, ver. 15, so also the manifestation of Christ, is conditional on love to Christ approving itself in the keeping of His commandments. The high reward promised must fill with glowing emulation towards this obedience. What under one aspect is recompense, is under another the consequence of Christ’s manifestation. But before that manifestation there must be the full bias and earnest effort of the soul to keep His commandments. Christ cannot manifest Himself to an indolent and careless soul. The καὶτηρῶναὐτὰς more closely explains the having: it points to the fact that our Lord did not mean the unreal and merely outward remembrance of the law. To refer the ἔχων to this latter, and assume that the καὶτηρῶναὐτάς is an appendage, equivalent to “He that not merely has My commandments, but also keepeth them” (Augustin: Qui habet in memoriβ et servat in vitβ), would scarcely be in harmony with the emphasis of the Johannaean phrase. Grotius rightly compares (on ἔχειν) ch. John 5:28, where it is used concerning the vital and real possession of the word of God. Christ Himself shows how the merely external having is, when closely considered, no having at all. Matthew 13:12 : “But he that hath not, from him shall be taken away that which he hath.” The ἐκεῖνόςHe and no other—intimates that the human heart is eminently prone to yield itself to the delusions of a mere semblance of love to Christ, of a mere love of feeling and fancy. The love of the Father comes into consideration only as the foundation of the love of Christ; and this only as the foundation of its form of expression, its manifestation, which involves in itself the fulness of all blessedness, and is the foretaste of eternal happiness, enabling the soul to say, in the time of affliction, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me.” Ver. 22. “Judas saith unto Him, (not Iscariot,) Lord, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the world?”—“The disciples,” says Lampe, “did well in confessing their ignorance, and in asking questions for their further instruction. Their questions bring us excellent fruit, because they gave the Lord occasion to add further explanations and encouragements.” “Not Iscariot:” that was obvious of itself. But care for the honour of the true Judas, to whom it was a severe grief to have a name like the traitor’s, required that provision should be made against the possibility of ever so fleeting a confounding of the two persons, by keeping them absolutely distinct. Matthew, in Matthew 10, takes pains to avoid naming the true disciple by his name of Judas: he introduces him by a double surname, Lebbeus and Thaddeus, and makes the former take the place of his proper name. Mark also calls him Thaddeus in ch. Mark 3:18. Luke, in the Acts, describes him as Judas the brother of James, at a time when Judas Iscariot was already dead, and confusion was not possible any longer. The paraphrastic name in Matthew and Mark, and the addition Ἰακώβου in Luke, sprang from the same reason as the “not Iscariot” here. “How is it,” what has happened? (Lachmann omits the καί; but it has been struck out here on the same grounds which secured its omission in ch. John 9:36): there must, in his opinion, something extraordinary have taken place, indeed some fatal incident must have interposed, that Jesus should limit His revelation to His disciples, and withdraw it from the world. Christ’s universal dominion, as predicted by the prophets, and so many earlier announcements of our Lord Himself—for example, that He would draw all men unto Him, and that many should come from the east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God—appeared to him to be altogether out of keeping with such a word as this. There would have been much to reply, indeed, to such a difficulty. For example: that Jesus did not renounce His absolute victory over the world by not revealing Himself to it; that the exclusion referred only to the world which should refuse to abandon its wickedness; and that Christ would adopt the most effectual means of redeeming it from that sinful nature. But Jesus limits Himself in His answer to one thing. After express repetition of the encouraging promise to His disciples. He indicates that the world excludes itself from participation in this glorious promise, inasmuch as it does not fulfil the absolute and unchangeable condition on which it is suspended. Thus nothing had taken place; no hindrance had occurred to baffle the Lord, constrain Him to change His plans, and give up His vast enterprise; the world simply made itself unworthy of so high an honour. We may compare Ecclesiastes 7:10 for the τίγέγονεν: “Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these?”—what has brought in this fatal change? Stier is not quite correct in making it the only word uttered by this Judas. It must be placed in connection with ch. John 7:4. There the “brethren” of Jesus say to Him: “If Thou doest these things, show Thyself unto the world.” The view is very common, that in the mission of Jesus a revelation to the world was necessarily given; that it is not enough if a little company in quietness enjoy His manifestations. The nearest connections of Jesus after the flesh were least satisfied with the notion of a seeming dominion in a corner. But by the appeal, “Lord,” Judas shows that he laid his scruples humbly at his Master’s feet. Ver. 23. “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 make our abode with him.” The promise which had been given in ver. 21 to the disciples, receives here an addition. Not He alone comes, but the Father with Him, and with Him the inexhaustible fulness of all consolation, the most abundant compensation for the impending departure of Jesus, the Son of man. The love of Christ and the performance of His commandments is, as for the individual, so also for the churches, the measure of the participation in this glorious manifestation. To deal lightly with the least among the precepts of Christ, is wilfully to fight against our own blessedness. “The soul,” says Quesnel, “which aspires to be the Temple of the Sacred Trinity, must have, as it were, an eternal longing to do His will.” What holds good of the soul, holds good also of the Church. The μονὴνπαρʼ ? αὐτῷποιήσομεθα points to “that I may dwell among them,” Exodus 25:8; Exodus 29:45-46 : compare Ezekiel 37:27, “My tabernacle also shall be with them.” The beginning of the true fulfilment of these Old Testament sayings was the revelation of Christ in the flesh (comp. on ch. John 1:14); its eternal realization we shall find in the new Jerusalem: here have we the middle fulfilment. In the parallel place, Revelation 3:20, the reference to the Canticles comes out more prominently than even here, where, however, the tender and internal tone points the same way. Ver. 24. “He that loveth Me not keepeth not My sayings: and the word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father’s which sent Me.” He “keepeth not My words,” and therefore the Father cannot love him; we cannot come to him, and make our abode with him. Thus nothing has “taken place,” but the world excommunicates itself. The saying, “and the word which ye hear,” etc., gives the reason wherefore the not keeping Christ’s commandments entails such ruinous consequences. If Christ’s word goes back to the Father’s authority, then arise in full power all those sayings of the Old Testament in which the keeping of the commandments of God is exhibited as the condition of fellowship with Him, from Genesis 18:19 downwards. Compare particularly Leviticus 26:3, “If ye walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do them;” vers. 11, 12, “And I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be My people;” Deuteronomy 7:12 seq., Deuteronomy 28:1; Deuteronomy 28:15. And the reference to these passages of the Old Testament shows further, that, over and above the application to individuals, the application to religious communities must not be forgotten. In the proportion in which they are filled with zeal for the obedience of the words of Christ does the Father love them, and make His abode among them. When this zeal dies out, the Father with Christ retires, and leaves nothing but darkness behind. This the Jews were to find out in sad experience, to which the word of Christ primarily refers: comp. ch. John 15:20. In vers. 25, 26, we have the sixth consolation. With the thought of their Master’s departure, the thought of their own immaturity must have painfully risen in their consciousness. “Ye are yet without understanding,” the Lord had not long before said to them, Matthew 15:16. Even as disciples and learners they felt themselves insecure, and thought they could not go on without the guidance and further instruction of their Teacher. And now, after the departure of Christ, they were alone to represent His cause. How should they step forward as teachers who had scarcely as yet clearly and sharply seized the very first elements of Christian doctrine, who were always stumbling at unsolved mysteries, and encountering difficulties everywhere? comp. ch. John 16:25. They might well indeed cry out, with Jeremiah, “Ah, Lord, I know not how to speak: I am young.” The Lord now intimates to them that His departure would not be, as they vainly supposed, the end of His instruction among them; but that, in the mission of the Holy Spirit, He had provided them with an abundant compensation for His own departure. Vers. 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.” The words, “These things have I said unto you,” indicate that the discourse of Christ to them was drawing near its end. They do not primarily refer to the whole of His discourses during His public ministry, but to the discourse which He was then uttering. Yet this particular portion was a representative of the whole. In this last discourse of Christ there was, as in all the former, much that remained obscure to the disciples; they did not yet feel themselves satisfied; everywhere there were chasms in their knowledge, and riddles unsolved. It was in view of the scruples and difficulties which this fact caused, that Christ uttered the present consolations. This promise is essentially different from that of vers. 15-17. There the Holy Ghost was promised to them as an advocate in their conflict with the world; here, as the teacher who should save them from their ignorance. Here also the Holy Spirit is a Paraclete, an intercessor or advocate. But this designation was only to indicate the identity of the Helper in both cases: “the same whom I earlier promised to you as an advocate in your process with the world.” We are not at liberty to assume that the original idea of an advocate at the bar is enlarged into that of one who, under difficult circumstances, speaks in behalf of another. For it is not a Helper in their teaching office that is primarily promised to the Apostles—one who should speak for them to others—but one who should help them out of their ignorance. There is, however, no reason whatever for the assumption, that the specific idea of an advocate is here weakened down to the very general one of an assistant or helper. The term Paraclete never occurs in so general a sense. In ch. John 16:7, where He is named again, He is, as in ch. John 14:16, the advocate in the process against the world; and in ch. John 16:13, where our promise recurs, and is further unfolded, it is not the Paraclete who is mentioned, but the Spirit of truth. This shows plainly that the Paraclete here only lays down the stepping-stone for ver. 16, indicating that the Holy Spirit was a person already known to them by what had been spoken before. If this is forgotten, all that is characteristic is removed from the idea of the Paraclete. “The Holy Ghost:” comp. on ch. John 7:39. “In My name” indicates that the mission of the Holy Spirit has for its foundation the historical personality of Christ (comp. on ver. 14),—all that comes to mind when we hear the name Christ, all that He did and suffered upon earth, of which the atonement accomplished by the Redeemer’s suffering and death is the great result: comp. on ch. John 7:39. Before Christ had, by His passion and sacrifice, made Himself a glorious name, the Holy Spirit could not be sent forth. We have here Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together, as in Matthew 28:19, where the name, the measure of personality, is attributed to the Holy Spirit no less than to the Father and the Son. The sending from the Father is here spoken of the Holy Ghost, even as in ver. 24 of the Son. That the teaching is not explained simply by the bringing to remembrance that follows, as many of the older expositors thought, in their polemical zeal against the Romish Church; that the teaching is either the generic notion, which includes the specific reminding, or refers to the impartation of new elements of instruction, with which the bringing instruction already received from Christ to mind was to go on concurrently,—is plain from the parallel passage, ch. John 16:12-13, according to which the teaching function of the Holy Ghost was far to transcend that of a mere remembrancer, and to refer to very much that Jesus Himself could not tell His disciples, because they were not able to bear it. The limitation of the teaching to the mere bringing to remembrance, is in opposition to the fact as we find it throughout the books of the New Testament. The doctrinal substance of the Apostolical Epistles, and of the Apocalypse, cannot by any means be referred back to the discourses which Christ delivered during His life upon earth; although the germs and principles of all, down to the minutest details, were contained in them. But it is self-evident that the teaching office of the Spirit could not come into contradiction with the reminding office; as also, that the promise is here given primarily to the Apostles, through whose instrumentality the Holy Spirit imparted His instructions to the churches of all ages. Assuredly the Divine Spirit continues still His teaching function in the Church; but it is limited now to the penetrating ever deeper into the meaning of that which Christ and His Apostles taught. That the promise here primarily referred to those who received it, and was mainly limited to them, is obvious from the second member of it. The reminding function of the Holy Spirit could be exercised only upon those who had been the companions of Jesus during His life upon earth. But the teaching and the reminding offices go hand in hand. That the “will teach you all things” was, as to essentials, closed with the completion of the canon, is made obvious by the “show you things to come,” in ch. John 16:13, which manifestly found its fulfilment in the book of Revelation. For us, the consolation here given assumes a different form from what it had to the Apostles. As the result of its fulfilment to those to whom it was primarily given, we have received the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, and in them the remedy of all our ignorance; especially as, depending upon the promises given first to the Apostles, we may be confident that we are not left to ourselves in its interpretation, but that the Holy Spirit will continue His teaching function by the exposition of the truth of Scripture. Here is the never-ceasing prerogative and pre-eminence of the Church before the world; with all the boasted advancement of its science, the world is left to the natural ignorance of man, and deals in the dark with the highest problems of life. The bringing to remembrance was obviously not to be of a merely mechanical or internal kind; but such as at the same time opened up a deeper understanding. Bengel rightly observes, that in these last discourses of our Lord, so faithfully reproduced by St John, we have a document of the fulfilment of this promise itself. In ver. 27 is the seventh and last consolation—the promise of peace. Enemies all around them, sheep in the midst of wolves—such was the position of the disciples on the departure of Christ. Nevertheless, Christ guarantees to them, and through them to the Church of all ages. His peace. This is, at the first glance, and to the judgment of carnal reason, an absurd promise; and yet it has its reality, and experience confirms its truth. Ver. 27. “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Peace is the condition of one who is not hurt by enemies. We must not set in the place of peace a mere state of prosperity. The original Hebrew ωμεν, from ωμν, to be whole, denotes the condition of one who is unhurt by inimical influences, by those hostile powers which, from the Fall downwards, have hemmed in human life on all sides,—human nature, “beset with original sin, infirmity, distress, and death.” But εἰρήνη never has, even ostensibly, any other meaning than that of peace, which is the meaning entirely in harmony with the derivation of the word. The antithesis of εἰρήνη, according to ch. John 16:33, is θλίψις, tribulation or oppression.—Ἀφίημι is here, as in Matthew 22:25, used of that which one leaves behind on departing. Christ seemed as if He was about to leave His disciples nothing but an inheritance of warfare and oppression: comp. ch. John 15:18-21; but, when we look closely into the matter, He really leaves them peace. The words, “My peace I give unto you,” intimate that this peace would rest upon His positive influence, and spring directly from Himself. First comes the paradox, that after His departure they would have peace; then more definitely the source whence that peace would come, which, indeed, was slightly indicated in the ἀφίημι. The explanation, that “Jesus did not take away the peace of His disciples with Him, but rather gave them of His own peace,” devises a peace which the disciples had independent of their Lord, and overlooks the fact that it is not said, “your peace,” which such an antithesis would have required. The severest trials awaited the Apostles; nevertheless, they found themselves more and more in a condition of peace. For, 1. They were, through Christ, established in the possession of eternal life, and no enemy could rob them of that blessed state and experience. 2. Hostile oppression was a disturbance of their peace only to human apprehension, and so far as fleshly sensibility went; in reality, it furthered their religious welfare, helped to prepare them for eternal life, and was therefore a concealed benefit of grace. And during their tribulation the Lord was peculiarly near to them; then more than usually He fulfilled His own word, “We will come to him, and make our abode with him.” Had they much tribulation in their hearts, the consolations of Christ all the more quickened their souls. 3. Oppression, persecutions, and contempt, bore, even upon earth, only a transitory character. Final victory over them all was guaranteed, ch. John 16:33, and, in the confident expectation of that victory, their momentary degradation could not overmuch affect their hearts. The death of Christ seemed essentially to peril the peace of the disciples: comp. Luke 24:17. But after His resurrection, the Lord welcomed them with the greeting, Peace be unto you! ch. Luke 20:19, Luke 21:26, and thus intimated that the promise given to them before His departure had begun its accomplishment. This is a type of the ever recurring dealings of our Lord with us. The most perfect realization of the words, “My peace I give unto you,” belongs to the perfect kingdom of God. That the promise of peace stands here just at the end, probably has allusion to the circumstance, that men were wont to utter the wish of peace at the time of separation: comp. 1 Samuel 1:17; 1 Samuel 20:42; 2 Samuel 15:9. In the place of the impotent wish, the saving efficacy of Christ’s promise comes in. The objection, that Christ is not immediately departing from His disciples, but they go along with Him, has no force. We sometimes take farewell more than once. Here this takes place at the close of the last and highest festival, at the end of their last mournful interview, before the stress of conflict with the prince of this world begins. “Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” According to the current exposition our Lord here says, that He does not give peace, or gifts generally, as the world gives them, delusively; that is, merely seeming peace and hollow blessings. But such a thought would thus be very imperfectly expressed. We must not arbitrarily introduce the idea that the world’s peace is an illusion or an empty phrase, and that its good things are only the semblance of good things. Nor do we clearly see that there is any antithesis of Christ’s peace as the true. But the main point is, that with its principle of selfishness, the world does not like to give at all, not even its seeming peace and its seeming good things. Especially in relation to the disciples, who come prominently into view here, the world must be regarded as manifestly and only hostile. The key to the right interpretation is found in ch. John 16:33, “In the world ye shall have tribulation:” this is all the more obvious, inasmuch as we have there the last farewell of Christ to His disciples, just as here we have the preliminary farewell. Tribulation, θλίψις; that is the world’s gift in regard to all the disciples of Christ. For them it has nothing better. It seems, indeed, sometimes as if Christ also had nothing better for them; as if He left them, without help, a prey to the oppressions of the world. There lies the essential sharpness of the sting; that was the strong temptation to which the Baptist had sometime been exposed. But in reality it is far otherwise. As the world gives them tribulation, so He gives them peace: only this is required, that His disciples should know how to appropriate that peace, that they should take a spiritual estimate of things, and await the right time. The ὑμῖν belongs also to the καθὼςὁκόσμοςδίδωσι. Instead of as, we might read equally well what. The difference in the gift connects with it also a variation in the manner of giving, an unfriendly or a friendly. The tribulation which the world inflicts upon the disciples of Christ, is with a touch of irony described as a gift, in reference to those good gifts which they ought to have been ready to give. Such a use of the word giving is often found in the Old Testament: for example, in Deuteronomy 32:6, “Do ye thus requite (give) the Lord, O foolish people and unwise?” 1 Samuel 24:18, where Saul says to David, “Thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil:” I, who should have given thee that which was good, have instead thereof brought thee a wicked gift: comp. my commentary on Psalms 7:5. The recurrence of μὴταρασσέσθω indicates the conclusion of the grounds of consolation. After the Lord has so powerfully and in such various ways comforted His disciples. He can now go further, and declare that they ought to rejoice over that which had been the source of their deeper sorrow. Ver. 28. “Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for My Father is greater than I.” Christ exhibits His return to the Father as a matter of joy to the disciples, first of all on the ground of their love to Him; but what would redound to His honour would serve at the same time their best interests. He enters into a condition of eternal glory, which will allow Him to fulfil the high promises that He had made to them in the previous words. That He made prominent the former point, had respect to the sentiment of the disciples, that it was the obligation of their love to mourn over His departure. But if reference to the good of the disciples had not been in the background, Christ would not have added “and come again unto you” to the “I go away.” That would have had no meaning, if the personal interests of Christ alone had been involved. If, on the other hand, there is a latent reference to the salvation of the disciples, these have their due significance. Through His departure to the Father, who is greater than He, He can fulfil His promise of return. This return, in which He would impart to His disciples much more than He had imparted during His earlier earthly life, was to be a result of His assumption into the glory of the Father. That the personal interests of the disciples were in the background, and that they were coincident with those of Christ Himself, is shown by the relation in which “ye would rejoice” stands to “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,” in ver. 27. There the subject was solicitude about their own danger, and therefore the corresponding joy must have reference to their own salvation, Quesnel is perfectly right in saying, “The interests of Jesus Christ ought to be dearer to us than our own. But we cannot seek His things without at the same time finding our own.” Christ does not demand of His disciples that they should i rejoice. He knew that their love was not yet purified enough for that. But when He says to them that they ought, if they loved Him, to rejoice, the result was doubtless attained that their sorrow was mitigated. So from us He does not demand at once that we should rejoice when our beloved are taken away. He leaves nature its rights; He has sympathy with our weakness, which is bound up with the best elements of our nature. It is the healthy development of love, that it is first blended with earthly admixtures, and only by degrees sublimates itself into the pure heavenly flame. In a certain sense, every one who dies in the Lord may say to his friends what Christ says here to His disciples. Every believer goes at his departure to His Redeemer, and thus into the glory of the Father. That the Father was greater than Jesus, makes His departure to the Father matter to be rejoiced in, only if Christ in His departure was received into the fellowship of the glory of the Father (comp. ch. John 17:5). If I shall be with My Father, I shall be greater than I am now. It is clear from this, that Christ is not here set over against the Father in His original essence, nor in His human nature generally; for this shared the exaltation to the Father’s right hand, whereas a condition is here meant which was laid aside by going to the Father. But He is placed in opposition to the Father according to His entire personality, as the Christ come into the flesh, and in the form of a servant, as He was then incorporate and lived among men. The Arians had no right to use this passage in the interest of their doctrine; on the contrary, the assumption of Christ into the supreme glory of the Father, as it is here taught, serves most effectually to refute their error. Equality in glory presupposes, and is based upon, equality in essence. According to Lücke, the word, “For My Father is greater than I,” must express, “not the transitory human consciousness of the Redeemer in His earthly humiliation,” but “the essential, indissoluble consciousness of His subordination to the Father.” But indeed the going to the Father made no difference in that essential consciousness. But only such a being greater can be attributed to the Father as came to an end when Christ went home to Him. Other explanations, such as “God can better protect you than My earthly presence with you,” or “the Father is a mightier defence than I am,” are negatived by the consideration that Christ’s going to the Father is primarily exhibited as a matter of joy and advantage to Christ Himself. “If ye loved Me” plainly shows that the disciples were to rejoice on Christ’s own account at His departure to the Father. Ver. 29. “And now I have told yon before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.” Comp. ch. John 13:19. “I have told it yon” refers to the departure of Christ, and His return to His disciples, as this had its glorious beginning in the resurrection. Of like significance with the ὑπάγωκαὶἔρχομαιπρὸςὑμᾶς, is the πορεύομαιπρὸςτὸνπατέρα. For the going of Christ to the Father must have its announcement or declare itself in His resurrection and glorification. The prediction, therefore, refers to the suffering of Christ, and His entrance into His glory, Luke 24:26. After the Lord had strengthened His disciples. Himself doing that which He appointed Peter to do, “Strengthen thy brethren,” Luke 22:32, He can challenge them to go forth with Him to the decisive conflict. Vers. 30, 31. “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.” In relation to the prince of this world, comp. on ch. John 12:31. “As often as we hear this name,” says Calvin,” we should be ashamed of our wicked condition. For, let men vaunt themselves as they may, they are the devil’s slaves, and no better, until they are born again through the Spirit of Christ.” Those who boast of their free spirit, and of being freethinkers, are entangled in their own great folly. It is well for them to say, “We will not have this man to rule over us;” but that does not make them free, and they are enslaved still in the most abject bondage. “When the people of the world,” says Quesnel, “follow their passions, they think they are doing their own will; but in reality they are only, on the one hand, obeying the will of the prince of this world, whose desires and plans they execute, and, on the other, they serve, through the overruling power of God, His plans, and do His will, which is, and must evermore be, supreme over that of His creatures.” Satan never approved himself more fully the prince of this world, than when he incited the Jews and the Gentiles to contend against the Son of God. Judas was in the confederacy of the multitude: comp. ch. John 18:3. But Jesus introduces us into the concealed background of the manifestations of his life, the mere external part of which is all that the world in its melancholy superficiality beholds. Before His profound glance Judas vanishes, the Roman soldiers vanish, the servants of the high priests and Pharisees vanish, and one only remains, whom they, with their superiors, serve as poor unconscious instruments,—the prince of this world, who sets in motion their schemes and their arms. This view of the matter gives us to perceive, on the one hand, the full solemnity of .the conflict, and urges us to take the whole armour of God, since in such an assault we can do nothing by our own power (comp. Ephesians 6:11-12); on the other hand, it is full of encouragement, since, when Satan is on the scene, we may be very sure that God will be on the scene likewise. In Luke 22:53, again, our Lord refers to Satan what the Jewish rulers undertook against Him with seeming success. All rested upon this, that power was given to the darkness. So also, in ch. John 8:44, He had indicated Satan as the proper originator of the assaults of the Jews. In ch. John 6:70, too, the traitor was connected with Satan. But we must not limit our thoughts to Satan’s manifestations in the persons of his instruments. We are led to perceive that Jesus had to do immediately with the enemy himself, by the parallel of the temptation at the outset of our Lord’s ministry, and by Revelation 12:7-9, where Christ is in direct conflict with Satan and his angels. At the agony in Gethsemane, which preceded the appearance of Satan in his instruments, we must regard Satan himself as actively engaged. There, as formerly in the beginning, he assaulted Christ as a tempter. In the present passage the prince of this world and the Redeemer are in contest; in the parallel passage of the Apocalypse, ch. John 12:7-9, Michael and the dragon contend: these are only different names of the same persons. “Michael and Satan are the proper factors of history. All others, however they may push themselves forward, and however much also they may draw upon themselves the eyes of a shortsighted world, are but subordinate agents and instruments.” (Comment, on Apocalypse, Clark’s Trans.) This note on the Apocalyptic passage holds good here also. The obscuration of the true nature of this conflict involves the greatest peril. The spiritual eye of the believer must be open to discern the real opponent. “He hath (indeed) nothing in Me” (οὐκ is not superfluous; the double negation strengthens the emphasis—absolutely nothing): this is to be interpreted by reference to the ἄρχων, the meaning being regulated by the fact that Satan is called the regent of this world. The having is accordingly that of a ruler and possessor; and the ἐνἐμοί marks the territory of the possession. The reference to the prince of this world makes the mere ἔχειν equivalent to the ἔχεινἐξουσίαν, the having authority, in ch. John 19:11. Christ was absolutely beyond the domain of his authority, because He was not of this world, which since the Fall has been subject to the dominion of Satan, and consequently by a righteous judgment exposed to his assaults: comp. on ch. John 12:31. To be in constrained subjection to Satan is the wretched lot only of the children of Adam; Christ is in His divine nature sublimely elevated above it. But in His obedience to God, and in His acceptance of the work of redemption committed to Him—which demanded that He should submit to Satan’s assault for one moment, that He might vanquish him for ever—our Lord would not evade or withdraw from the contest. “He hath nothing in Me:” these words are in fact equivalent to “I am not of this world,” to which the domain of Satan was limited, but “from above,” ch. John 8:23; the cause and the effect are here both intimated.—“Hath nothing in Me:” One only upon earth could ever utter these words. All who come into being according to the ordinary course of nature, are, in consequence of sin, Satan’s subjects. But this One, who voluntarily placed Himself before the enemy, and confronted all his power, broke down his dominion for all those who should become one with Himself through faith. “Hath nothing” absolutely nothing, points primarily and obviously to the Lord’s perfect freedom from sin. But His divinity is thereby assumed. A sinless man is an unreality; as certainly so as Adam, according to Genesis 5:3, begat a son in his own image and likeness. Lόcke is wrong here: “The reason why Satan had no power over Christ lay in this, that Christ had overcome the world, and already glorified it.” The true reason was no other than this, that Christ was not of the world, and that there was in Him nothing of that element which gives Satan his power over the world. This being sin, the reason why Satan had nothing in Him was simply this, that He was “holy, and undefiled, and separate from sinners,” Hebrews 7:26, and therefore absolutely apart from the human race, and “higher than the heavens.” Our Lord uttered the words, “he hath nothing in Me,” as a protest against those erroneous conclusions which have been drawn, or might be drawn, from the fact that He seemingly became subject to the power of Satan. Luther: “My suffering this, is not because I am not strong enough for Satan, whom I have so often cast out.” Lampe: “Not through any flaw in Him, but through the exuberance of His love; not through the power of the devil, but the will of His Father.” “But that the world may know;” the world which lieth in the wicked one, but which includes in itself the yet future children of God, ch. John 11:52, who through faith in Christ are to be drawn out of the world and introduced into the Church of God, ch. John 3:16. It is only under this aspect that the world comes here into consideration. The world embraces all the children of Adam; all are by nature children of wrath, Ephesians 2:3. Nevertheless there is here a great distinction. There is a world which is capable of being drawn, ch. John 6:44, John 12:32, does not serve its prince with perfect joy, but sighs to be free from his dominion. This is the aspect of the world that comes into view here. The world only on its susceptible side, and not the hardened, it is the design of the Lord to enlighten and bring to true knowledge. The true reason why our Lord confronted Satan and submitted to his assaults, was His love to His Father, and the great commission entrusted to Him. The Father gave Him this work to do out of love to the world (comp. on ch. John 3:16); and the Father’s motive was no secret unshared by the Son. But while He also loved the world, it was primarily out of love to the Father that He accomplished the work of redemption. That He entered into the contest with Satan under these particular circumstances, in this so to speak dramatic form,—so that the Church has bequeathed to her a passion-history with all its affecting and heart-piercing crises, and can, on the basis of that history, celebrate a passion-week,—took place in order “that the world might know,” etc., that there might be given to it the true and urgent impulse to behold and meditate upon the scene. The words, “Rise, let us go hence”—which must be preceded, not by a full stop, but by a comma—contain, in the form of a command to the disciples, the intimation of what was to be done in order that the world might know, etc.; they are equivalent to, “Therefore I will set forth with you, that I may encounter the assault of the prince of this world.” Ἐγείρεσθεἄγωμεν· ἰδοὺἤγγικενὁπαραδιδούςμε: thus Jesus speaks, according to Matthew 26:46, in Gethsemane immediately before the arrival of Judas. He designedly repeats the “Rise, let us go,” when the conflict directly impends. On the ἐγείρεσθε Augustin remarks: Discumbens discumbentibus loquebatur. The word in Matthew 26 also signifies rising up in opposition to sleeping and continuing to rest. The fifteenth and sixteenth chapters contain the discourses which our Lord uttered shortly before His passage over the brook Kedron; the seventeenth chapter contains His prayer to the Father. In His discourse to the disciples, the Lord first unfolds, in the section before us, the threefold relation in which they stand, first to Him, then to one another, and lastly to the world. The Lord first gives to His disciples a commentary upon the first table of the Decalogue, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” That, under the New Testament, takes the form of abiding in Christ. Since the existences or natures of the Father and the Son perfectly coincide and cover each other, Jesus could not, in a separate section, adjust His disciples’ relation to the Father specifically. As they stood with respect to Himself, so they stood with respect to the Father; should they abide in Him, they would abide in the Father. Then, in ch. John 15:12-17, He turns to the second table. The commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” takes, in the kingdom of Christ, the form of Christian brotherly love. After the Lord had determined His people’s relations to Himself as their Head, and to each other as brethren (Augustin: “For on these two commandments of love hang all the law and the prophets”), He sheds light upon their relation to the world, and what they would have to expect from it, and what resources they would be able to use in defence against its enmity. The sections are clearly and sharply demarcated. The first is separated from the second by the concluding formula in ver. 11; the second from the third by the concluding formula in ch. John 15:17. The third is distinguished from that which follows by the circumstance that the watchword world—which in the beginning of the section, is used with intentional frequency, in order to point attention to the theme which now begins to be treated—twice recurs at the end. And that all things down to the most minute are here ordered and sure, appears from the fact that, in the first section, the watchword abide occurs precisely ten times, as J. Gerhard long ago observed (μείνῃ, in ver. 11, is a false reading); that in vers. 12-17, which are entirely devoted to love, there are seven characterizations of that grace, the seven further being divided as usual into four and three: ἀγαπᾶτε, ἠγάπησα, ἀγάπην, ἀγαπᾶτε—φίλων, φίλοι, φίλους; that in the third section κόσμος also recurs seven times, the seven being divided into five at the beginning and two at the end—a division of seven which elsewhere accompanies that into four and three. We cannot attribute this to chance, especially as this kind of reckoning occurs so frequently, not only in the Gospel and the Apocalypse of St John, but also in the Lord’s discourses, as recorded by the first three Evangelists. We have only to refer to the petitions of the Lord’s prayer, the benedictions, and the seven words on the cross. Ver. 1. “I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman.” In vers. 1 and 2 the relation is sketched in its general outlines; from ver. 3 onwards with specific reference to the disciples. The not observing this order of thought misled De Wette, who remarks that the fruitfulness of the branches is an idea that comes in too soon at ver. 2, and which, in the appropriate order, should follow ver. 5. Calvin gives the actual force of the figure of the vine thus: “He teaches that the life-sap flows only from Himself, whence it follows that the nature of men is unfruitful, and void of all good.” So also Gerhard: “He would, by this figure, denote the most intimate union between Himself and His disciples, and all believers in Him.” When Christ describes Himself as the true vine, He intimates the existence of false vines. These may be either the natural vines, according to the remark of Meyer and others: “Christ declares Himself to be the reality of the idea which is only symbolically exhibited in the natural vine; the material growth of the earth is not the true vine, but only its type and figure;” or the false vine is a spiritual power which promises life but does not bestow it, as Beza says: “He speaks of the true vine as that which alone has in itself that quickening life, and is alone able to communicate it, in opposition to all other means for the securing of spiritual life, which are altogether false and delusive.” This last dew is the only right one. It is in itself improbable that Christ would designate Himself the true in opposition to a common vine. That earthly things are only types and symbols of the heavenly, is indeed a theosophic idea, but not a scriptural one. It would be more suitable to Dionysius Areopagita than to the Redeemer. In ch. John 1:9 Christ is termed the true light, not in opposition to the natural light, but in opposition to spiritual lights, like John the Baptist, imperfect and transitory. Christ is the true bread in chap. John 6:35, not as opposed to ordinary bread, but as opposed to the manna. The good (that is, the true) shepherd the Lord is termed in ch. John 10:11, as the antithesis, not of ordinary shepherds, but of the wicked rulers and guides of the people, the Pharisees. The visible world has, according to the scriptural view, its own proper significance in itself, and it must not be degraded into a mere shadow and type. We can all the less doubt that the comparison points to a spiritual vine, because in the Old Testament Israel often is introduced as such, and because his destination to be a true vine is contrasted with his lamentable degeneracy, which needed grafting again, and renewal. This was promised in Christ. Israel, the vine of God, is the fundamental idea of Psalms 80. Concerning degenerate Israel we read in Deuteronomy 32:32, “For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter.” Hosea says, in ch. John 10:1, “Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself; according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars,” etc. According to Isaiah 5:2; Isaiah 5:4, the Lord planted His vineyard with the choicest vine, and “looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.” In Ezekiel 19:10-14, Israel is a vine fruitful and full of branches, which was destroyed by the wrath of God. But the real original, to which the Lord here refers, even as in Matthew 21. He refers to the parable of the vineyard in Isaiah 5, is Jeremiah 2:21, “Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto Me?” LXX.: ἐγὼδὲἐφύτευσάσεἄμπελονκαρποφόρονπᾶσανἀληθινήν, πῶςἐστράφηςεἰςπικρίαν, ἡἄμπελοςἡἀλλοτρία. There we have the same antithesis between the true and the false vine. Since Israel is changed from a true to a false vine, another true vine must be substituted: such an one as should not be strange to Israel, but in which Israel finds again his true nature, as the Messiah is in Isaiah 49:3 mentioned as He in whom Israel would attain to his destination, and in whom the idea of Israel would be realized. The false vine is not Israel generally, but Israel after the flesh, 1 Corinthians 10:18; Israel degenerate from its true nature, and not gathered again into Christ its head. The thought is, that salvation does not come from out of the people themselves, but from above, from fellowship with Christ, who has been placed in its midst: comp. Romans 9:31; Romans 10:3. The true vine is Christ, or the Church in its absolute dependence on Christ; the false vine is the Jews establishing their own righteousness, and all those who tread in their footsteps, all communities which separate from the Head, and sever salvation from its absolute dependence upon Him. We may find a commentary on this passage in the beautiful golden vine over the gate of the Herodian temple, “a marvel both of size and of art to all beholders,” as Josephus says, Ant. xv. 11, 3: comp. also Bell. Jud. v. 5, 4, where we read, “The gate had also golden vines upon it, from which depended clusters as long as a man;” and the thorough description of this vine in the Mischna Cod. Middoth, c. 3, 8. Our Lord convicted of error the Pharisaic notion concerning the vine, which in His own time was the prevalent interpretation, and at the same time He pointed to the real truth which was contained in the figure. Christ is the true vine only, in the first place, as opposed to Israel after the flesh, the synagogue of Satan (Quesnel: “The Church does not bear bitter fruit like the synagogue”), which became such because it assumed to have life in itself, and would not derive it from connection with Christ as the Head of the Church. “I am the true vine,” our Lord cries out, through all ages of the Church, in opposition to those who either altogether or partially establish their own righteousness, and would set up in the Church other sources of life than those which it derives from connection with Him as its only and living Head. “And My Father is the husbandman: “the husbandman here is identical with the vinedresser, the d ἀμπελουργός of Luke 13:7; Luke 13:9; γεωργός is the general term. We may seek explanation in Genesis 9:20, “And Noah began to be an husbandman (Sept. γεωργός), and he planted a vineyard.” There the work of the husbandman is the general designation, including, as a specific branch, the planting of the vineyard. No mention is made of any owner of the vineyard or the land; the husbandman only is mentioned, because here possessorship is not referred to, but labour. That this labour had, first of all, the planting of the vine for its object, is shown by the example of Noah. And it corresponds, in” the Divine vineyard, that the Father had sent His Son into the world, and caused Him to take flesh of our flesh. It may be questioned, however, whether that function of the husbandman is here alluded to. In the succeeding verses we read only of two works performed by the husbandman, the cutting off of unfruitful branches, and the cleansing of the fruitful. And that the Divine act which corresponds to these is not attributed to the Father in opposition to the Son, is evident, as Chrysostom and Augustin noted, from ver. 3, where the purity of the disciples is derived from the word which Christ had spoken; while, as it respects the cutting off evil branches, ch. John 5:22 is decisive, according to which the Father had given all judgment to the Son. Jesus terms Himself the vine, not with respect to His whole being, but only one aspect of it. He is the vine, inasmuch as He is immanent in the Church. But, so far as He rules over the Church, He is, along with the Father, the husbandman. Ver. 2. “Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” It may seem strange that our Lord should speak of branches in Him that bear no fruit; it is manifest that those are meant who have never borne fruit at all. It might seem that these could not be regarded in any sense as branches, especially as the beginning of fruit-bearing is, according to ch. John 6:29, faith in Christ. Yet Quesnel’s observation is perfectly true, that “the good and the evil branches belong alike to the stock.” The matter is resolved by the actual offer of the grace of Christ, and the voluntary acceptance of that grace. So long as this is proffered, and until Christ punishes the rejection of His gifts by exclusion from His kingdom (comp. ver. 6), the unbelieving and the wicked are branches in Him the vine. Predestinarianism, indeed, is much embarrassed by “in Me,” as may be seen in the commentaries of Calvin and Lampe. What is spoken of is the unfruitful branches actually being in Christ the vine, and not their thinking themselves, or others thinking them, to be so. The matter is an actual offer of the gifts of Christ, and the assurance of the possibility of a full participation in them: an offer and an assurance which result in nothing only through the fault of those who receive them. “Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit: “the Jewish branch is primarily meant; as by the contrasted fruit-bearing branch we are to understand primarily the Apostles, and the Christian Church having its germ in them. That even the Jews were a branch in Christ the true vine, is as certain as that, according to ch. John 1:11, when He came to the Jews, He came to His own property. Accordingly, they belonged to Him from God, and by absolute right. It was because the Jews, in spite of their not bearing fruit, their unbelief and their enmity, were still a branch in Christ, that a final attempt was to be made after the death of Christ, and through the sending of the Paraclete, to win them: ch. John 15:26, John 16:7-9. Those with whom this final attempt was vain, and who persisted in their stiffnecked rebellion, were cut off. But the evidence that Jesus had primarily in view the Jews, when He spoke of the branches not bearing fruit, is found in the fact that the same thought recurs in ver. 6, where the reference to Ezekiel 15 places the allusion to the Jews beyond doubt. Further, that the general proposition, “Every branch in Me that beareth fruit,” etc., refers first of all to the Christian Church, as existing in the germ of the apostolic company, is shown by ver. 3. But it is manifest that the reference of the unfruitful branches to the unbelieving Jews goes on parallel with this. A comparison of Jer 8:13 leads to the same result: “I will surely consume them, saith the Lord: there shall be no grapes in the vine, nor figs on the fig-tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things which I have given them shall pass away from them.” There also we have the taking away; and the reason, the not bearing fruit, is common to both. In regard to this latter, we may still further compare Deuteronomy 32:32, where it is said of the people of Israel, “Their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter;” Isaiah 5:2, “And He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes;” Micah 7:1. Speaking of the Jews, John the Baptist uttered the general declaration, “Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire.” The same words, with reference to the same people, are spoken by our Lord in Matthew 7:19. For the αἴρει, we may compare Luke 13:7; Luke 13:9. There the fig-tree which was to be cut down is the Jewish people; and the αἴρει has also its parallel in κακοὺςκακῶςἀπολέσειαὐτούς, in Matthew 21:41. The branch bearing no fruit in our passage, is in Matthew 21:19 the fig-tree bearing only leaves. In Romans 11, the olive-tree is another parallel to the vine; the ἐξεκλάσθησανκλάδοι corresponds to the αἴρειαὐτό, as we find it stated of the Jews in Romans 11:19. The reference to the Jews in our present passage will hardly be misapprehended, if we bear in mind that the last discourses of Christ in the first Evangelists, and especially in Matthew, are predominantly concerned with the judgment which was to befall the Jews on account of their unbelief. The alliteration between αἴρειν, to take away, and καθαίρειν, to purge, goes for nothing, as it exists only in the Greek, and the verbs themselves have nothing in common. (Bengel: Graceful rhythm, although καθαίρω is not, like καταίρω, from αἴρω.) That even the fruit-bearing branches also need purging, points to the deep and thorough corruption of human nature. Calvin: “He mentioned the purging, because our flesh abounds in superfluous and noxious vices, and is only too fruitful of them.” The means of the cleansing are manifold; and many other passages of Holy Scripture, as well as experience, make it plain that, among those means, tribulations are prominent. Many therefore suppose them to be mainly intended. But that here we must think of the purifying power of the word, is clear from ver. 3. Luther: “In what way that purifying comes, and what the purification truly is by which they are incorporated into Christ as living branches, He plainly shows, when He adds. Now ye are clean, etc.” All other means are but subsidiary to the energy of this first and main instrument. Ver. 3. “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.” The Lord had, in vers. 1 and 2, spoken generally. Henceforth He speaks with specific application to the disciples. He says here, first, that they, for the present, belong to the second of the two classes indicated in ver. 2. That was consolatory to their minds; but consolation was not our Lord’s real end. The Lord’s admission that they were clean, forms only a transition to the following exhortation to abiding in Him, which is the real pith of the whole section, as is plain enough from the word being repeated ten times. As soon as they forget the abiding, they fall back into the former class. Thus it was equivalent to saying, “Now ye are indeed already clean; but—” Lόcke’s “Be ye therefore without fear, ye will never be cut off,” misses altogether the right point of view. The purity here corresponds to the fruit-bearing in ver. 2. That it was only a commencing purification which they had received, is shown by the relation to ver. 2, where it is seen to be a process continually going on in the fruit-bearing branches: by the following words, in which the urgent exhortation to abide in Christ rests upon the consideration that there were still in them impure elements which struggled to get the mastery again; and by ver. 13, according to which Christ must, even for His disciples, lay down His life, and deliver them by His blood from their sin. The source or cause of the purity of the disciples is stated to be the word which Christ had spoken to them. That excludes every notion that they had acquired their cleansing by any efforts of their own, or any inherent righteousness possessed. The Father, in whom, according to ver. 2, the purifying energy has its final source, wrought it in them through the word of the Son. It is not any single word that is intended, as some think, who appeal to ch. John 13:10 as that word; but the sum of all that which Christ had spoken, as Peter said to Him, “Thou hast the words of eternal life.” In ver. 7 corresponds “and My words abide in you,” where the ῥήματα is but the expansion of the λόγος in our present passage. Out of the word of Christ sprang that faith to which, in Acts 15:9, the purification of the heart is ascribed. Thus the word is the final and proper cause of purity. To the word of Christ a high importance is here assigned; and we are therefore led to set our affection upon it, to meditate upon it day and night, and absolutely to submit our wills to its influence. We are warned against the deceitfulness of modern theology, which assumes to be censor and judge of the word which cleanses us, and wrests and perverts it every way. It is the direct consequence of the importance here attached to the word, that Christ has taken care that it should be transmitted to His Church in an uncorrupted and pure form. As the complement of the word which Christ Himself spoke immediately to His disciples, we have, according to ch. John 16:13-14, that which He has communicated by His Spirit for the Church of all ages. Ver. 4. “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.” To the fact uttered in the preceding verse, is now adjoined an exhortation. Then the Lord develops the motives which must afford the disciples an argument to abide in Him: that abiding alone makes them capable of bearing fruit, vers. 4, 5. Not abiding, is to fall under the Divine judgments, ver. 6. He who abideth may pray with assurance of being heard, ver. 7. He enters into an intimate fellowship with the Father and the Son, ver. 8. He receives the portion of that which, to the Apostles, was the best and highest good—the love of Christ, ver. 9. Then, after the nature of this abiding is still further explained and developed, ver. 10, there follows the concluding formula, ver. 11, “Abide in Me.” It is shown by what follows that the disciples could not do this of themselves, and of their own power: “Without Me ye can do nothing.” But they could, like Judas and the Jews, close their own hearts; they could wickedly hinder the efficacy of the means employed by Christ in order to their abiding; and they are here urgently exhorted not to do that. The main instrument by which Christ effects our abiding, is, according to ver. 3, His word. Their preservation could be secured only by the same means which wrought the beginning. In the fundamental passage relating to our abiding in Christ, John 6:56, we read, “He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me, and I in him.” There the means of abiding in Christ appears to be, that we incessantly receive the flesh and blood of Christ, and thereby more and more tame and discipline and render divine our own flesh and blood. This factor goes hand in hand with the Word of God. That Christ should be more and more evidently formed within us, is the tone and substance of the Word of God. Everything in it points to that Christ attaining a full life in us. The emphasis thrown upon “abide in Me” by our Lord, serves for the refutation of the doctrine of the indefectibility of grace. If this were a sound doctrine, our whole section would have been needless. The ten times repeated abiding, shows that there is not merely an abstract possibility of falling, but the most urgent danger of falling, against which we need to be every moment on our guard. “And I in you.” Some explain this as if the exhortation were here continued: Do your diligence, that I may be able to abide in you; by your own abiding, so demean yourselves, that I may still abide in you. But it is simpler to take it thus: (So I also abide in you. Ch. John 6:56 confirms this view. Only the μείνατεἐνἐμοί has a hortatory meaning; as is plain from the fact, that the motive and inducement presently introduced refer to that alone. As, in the reason urged for the abiding in Christ, all fruit-bearing is made dependent upon that abiding, this is a, strong denunciation of fallen human nature, which out of its own resources can produce only sin or delusive virtue; and therefore it is a direct refutation of all Pelagianism. Ver. 5. “I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without Me ye can do nothing.” The first words do not contain a mere repetition. The words which had been formerly spoken generally are now specifically applied to the relation to Christ and His disciples, in order to draw the conclusion, that they can bear fruit only in fellowship with Him. “Ye are the branches” does not imply that the disciples were the only branches. It is rather equivalent to saying: My relation to you is that of the vine to the branches. This does not exclude the fact, that with them there were, and after them should be, other branches. That there were other branches, and that the Jews in particular were such, is shown by vers. 2 and 6. The absolute relation of vine to the branches, which Jesus assumes in declaring His relation to His disciples, His thus making Himself to be unconditionally the source of all spiritual powers of life,—presupposes and rests upon the basis of His divinity. Augustin: Quamvis autem Christus vitis non esset nisi homo esset: tamen istam gratiam palmitibus non praeberet nisi etiam Deus esset. “Without Me ye can do nothing” leads to the deep corruption of our nature, and presupposes the πονηροὶὄντες in Matthew 7:11, and “that which is born of the flesh is flesh” of ch. John 3:6. Thence will appear at the same time the necessity of the closest adherence to the vine, and of the firmest continuance in a state, to relapse from which is to fall back again into the old impotence. Augustin: Non ait, sine me parum potestis facere, sed nihil potestis facere. Luther: “Thus there is a heavy sentence pronounced upon all life and action, however; great and glorious it may seem to be, which is out of Christ: man can do nothing, and be nothing, out of Him.” Ver. 6. “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, and they are burned.” In the former words the abiding in Christ was commanded, on the ground that it alone would capacitate them to bring forth fruit. The not bearing fruit is a miserable lot. Here the exhortation assumes a still more solemn character: the fire is the issue of not abiding. “If any man abide not in Me”—whether it be that he never made a beginning of fruit-bearing, or that he afterwards fell away again, and thus relapsed into the state of the not-bearing branch, ver. 1. The limitation to the latter part of the alternative is negatived by the fact that there is reference to the words, “Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit,” ver. 2, which evidently here have their full development; as also by the fact that Jesus, in the whole verse, has primarily in view the unbelieving Jews, who were as certainly branches in Christ, as they belonged to the people of God: the Jews had originally stood in a relation to Christ He was their divinely-appointed Shepherd, and they His flock; but they did not abide in Him, they violently sundered themselves from Him. A comparison with Ezekiel 15 makes this allusion to the Jews indubitable. There the Jews appear under the image of a degenerate and wild vine, which was fit for nothing in the world but to be burnt: “Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work? or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon? Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel.” We are led to the same result by the parallel with the last discourses of Christ in Matthew, which for the most part refer to the Divine judgment impending over the degenerate people. Especially we must bear in mind the symbolical treatment of the fig-tree that bore no fruit, but leaves only, Matthew 21:18 seq., Mark 11:12-14; as also the parable of the vineyard, Matthew 21:33, Mark 12:1 seq. As this last refers back to Jeremiah 5, so our present parable rests upon Ezekiel 15. It is obvious, however, that the reference to the Jews is only the primary one, and not the sole. The Lord speaks, indeed, to such as have already become Christians. But that there is a certain latitude of interpretation, which will refer the not abiding, or the falling away, to the Gentiles who were to be called into the kingdom of God, is taught by the parable of the guest who had not on a wedding garment: comp. also Romans 11:22, “But toward thee goodness, if thou continue (ἐὰνἐπιμένῃς) in His goodness; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.” This apostasy shall increase in a special manner towards the final period of the kingdom of God. That the τίς designates rather an ideal person than an individual, a unity which embraces a real plurality of persons, is shown by the following αὐτά in the plural, which in the καίεται returns back into the ideal unity. It is not accidental that our Lord here uses the third person; not saying, “If ye abide not in Me,” although immediately afterwards the direct address returns in ver. 7. This serves to intimate that the not abiding and the cutting off of Judas would not apply to any other of the Apostles; that to the remainder belonged rather the promises addressed to such as should abide in Christ. The two aorists, ἐβλήθη and ἐξηράνθη, emphatically indicate that the guilt is at once followed by the decree of punishment, although the execution of that doom may be a little longer delayed. The πλψϊδ of the Mosaic law strictly corresponds. The soul that broke the Divine command is cut off at the moment of the breach itself. The being cast out refers to exclusion from the kingdom of God: comp. Matthew 8:12, “But the children of the kingdom ἐκβληθήσονται (ἐκτῆςβασιλείας) into outer darkness.” Matthew 21:43 gives us a commentary on the ἐβλήθηἔξω, so far as Jesus had the Jews in His eye when He spoke: “The kingdom of God shall be taken from them, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” The guilt corresponding to this retribution we have in Matthew 21:39 : “And they took him, and cast him out of the vineyard.” They thrust the Lord of glory out of the vineyard, and as the penalty they are now themselves thrust out; or, at the moment when they did this, they did really cast themselves out: comp. also Luke 20:16. The ἐξηράνθη has here the same meaning as in the case of the fig-tree, which signifies the Jewish people, Matthew 21:19. It points to the solemn fact, that with severance from Christ all life and prosperity cease. The first evidence of this is in the spiritual and ecclesiastical life, which dies away. What a fearful change has passed upon Judaism, in regard to this, since the rejection of Christ! How saltless and vapid has everything become! But the withering has its reference also to outward prosperity. All bloom and every sign of well-being passed away with the rejection of the Messiah. The plural συνάγουσι, βάλλουσι, is significant: it can refer only to the instruments of the Divine judgment, and shows that that judgment is to be executed by men. Lampe: Hoc judicium non immediate a Deo infligitur. Pater amputavit palmites: sed plures sunt qui eos colligunt. Comp. Isaiah 13:3, “I have commanded My sanctified ones; I have also called My mighty ones for Mine anger;” and the Lord’s own word, “Where the carcase is, there shall the eagles be gathered together,” in which the eagles point to the Roman standards. If we carefully note the double plural, we shall not hastily with Stier interpret the fire as meaning the “great furnace at the end of the world.” It signifies rather the Divine judgment, as in Deuteronomy 32:22 : “For a fire is kindled in Mine anger” (here fire is evidently expounded as wrath), “and shall burn unto the lowest hell; and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.” Just before, we read, “And I will move them to jealousy with those that are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.” The executioners of the Divine judgments are, throughout the chapter, the Gentiles. The Baptist had early threatened the Jews with the fire of Divine judgment in case they scorned to be baptized by Christ with the Holy Spirit, the sole preservative against the fire. Matthew 3:10-12. So also the Redeemer Himself in Matthew 7:19. In the Apocalypse the fire is commonly the fire of the Divine wrath: comp. my commentary on ch. John 4:5, John 8:5, John 14:18. The material fire in Matthew 22:7, “And he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, καὶτὴνπόλιναὐτῶνἐνέπρησε is only the embodiment of this spiritual fire. That we must not here think primarily of the fire of hell, the final manifestation of the fire of the Divine wrath, is shown by the original passage in Ezekiel, ch. 15. There the fire is that of the Divine judgment by the hands of the Chaldeans; and the material of the fire is not individuals as such, but the catastrophe has a national import. The final form, however, of this fire is of course the fire of hell, Matthew 5:22; Matthew 25:41; Matthew 13:40; Matthew 13:42. The general doctrine is this, that their relation to Christ involves those in heavier guilt and punishment who cease from His fellowship, and who thereby sink back into a condition which is far worse than that of those with whom He never entered into any such relation. The truth of this declaration of the Redeemer was demonstrated not only in the Jews, but also in many early flourishing Christian communities and peoples, which were consumed by the fire of the wrath of God because they failed to abide in the Vine. Ver. 7. “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” A new motive. To have the privilege to pray with acceptance is a high prerogative; and the condition of that privilege is abiding in Christ. To “if ye abide in Me” is appended, “and My words abide in you,” in order to impress it upon the disciples that they must attach supreme importance to the words of the Lord, and give them all their due. It was through His words that they came to Christ, and their retaining His words that would decide their abiding in Him. He who deals frivolously or capriciously with Christ’s words, who partially rejects them, or evades them by one-sided interpretation, deceives himself if he thinks that he abides in Christ. Lachmann’s reading αἰτήσασθε, instead of αἰτήσεσθε, is condemned by the fact that the imperative never occurs in that form. The future is in ch. John 16:26 the same as here; and the imperative was doubtless adopted through failure to understand the passage. If we lose sight of the strict and inseparable connection of these words with those which follow, we may suppose that the future yields no appropriate meaning—as if every man might ask what he would; and consequently the imperative, giving an authority for such asking, would seem necessary. But if we pass on immediately to “and it shall be done,” it becomes manifest that the words speak of petition that may be granted. The limitation to “what ye will” is given by what precedes. Supplication for temporal good, for instance, cannot proceed from one in whom Christ’s words abide, Luke 12:15; his mind is set, and set wholly, on the true riches. Augustin: Aliud volumus quia sumus in Christo, et aliud volumus quia sumus adhuc in hoc seculo. Here, however, we must think especially of such asking as is concerned with the universal interests of the kingdom of God; for the Lord is not so much speaking to individuals as to the Church as such, represented by the Apostles. If the Church abides in Christ, she cannot fail of victory over the world, particularly the Jews, and then over the whole power of heathenism: comp. on ch. John 14:12. All the Church’s power, as outward, is dependent on her internal relation to Christ. If all is well there, her enemies need cause no alarm. Ver. 8. “Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit: so shall ye be My disciples.” We have here also a motive to abiding in Christ. For, according to what has preceded, the bringing forth fruit is dependent on that abiding. But this has here a double blessed result. First, the Father is glorified by it, on whose ground the fruit is borne (Bengel: Multitudo uvarum honorifica est vinitori); and this is of itself a blessed thing, fruitful in the reward that follows: comp. ch. John 13:32. And then, secondly, they thereby advance more and more into the blessed condition of the disciples of Christ, whose most characteristic token is the bearing much fruit. In the sermon on the mount, we have the glorification of the Father set forth as a motive to zeal in good works, Matthew 5:16. In regard to ἐδοξάσθη, the proleptic aorist, comp. Winer. Before γένησεσθε, we must supplement ἐντούτῳ. Beza: Ita glorificabitur Pater meus, et ita demum eritis mei discipuli, si multum fructum attuleritis. Some expositors interpret, “Thereby My Father is glorified in your bringing forth much fruit, and becoming My disciples.” But, in harmony with the figure, the exhortation refers only to the bearing of fruit. The result that they become disciples in relation to Christ, is simply parallel with the result that the Father is glorified: comp. ver. 1; ch. John 8:31 also is in favour of the co-ordination, ἐὰνὑμεῖςμείνητεἐντῷλόγῳτῷἐμῷ, ἀληθῶςμαθηταίμούἐστέ . As there, so here also, the Lord makes the becoming disciples a promise. Ἀληθῶς may have passed over from that passage to this. The ἐμοί is also an argument for the co-ordination of Christ with the Father. The becoming disciples also could scarcely with propriety be made the condition of the glorification of the Father. The reading γένησθε originated in an incorrect notion concerning the dependence of ἵνα, which only in a few exceptional cases is connected with the indicative future. The saying teaches us that the final end of our actions should be the good pleasure of God and His glory, and that we cannot more effectually attain that object than by zeal in good works; and the fact that these are dependent on our abiding in Christ, should urge us continually to adhere to Him. Further, we are taught that we may only then assure ourselves of our intimate relation to Christ, when there is in ourselves that inseparable result of abiding in Him, the bearing of fruit. Ver. 9. “As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you: continue ye in My love.” The last motive: Abiding in Christ is the only means of retaining the highest good, Christ’s love. “As the Father hath loved Me:” the love of Jesus receives its highest significance in this, that it is the reflection of the Father’s love to Him. The love of Him whom the Father loveth as His Son, should be preserved as the apple of our eye. The word is, “hath loved Me,” because only those demonstrations of the Father’s love to the Son which had been openly witnessed come here into consideration. “My love” can be only the love of Christ to His people, not the love of His people to Him. They would abide in this love, if they did not, like the Jews, constrain Him through their apostasy to withdraw His love from them; or, in other words, if they kept His commandments, ver. 10. Strictly parallel with this is, in Romans 11:22, the “continuing in His goodness,” not losing it through apostasy. Christ’s love is suggested also by a comparison of the abiding in the vine, “in Me,” ver. 4. Accordingly, here also the discourse must refer to abiding in an objective person. Ver. 10. “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.” That the ἀγάπῃμου is the love of Christ to His people, is evident from the corresponding ἀγάπῃἐμῄ in ver. 9. Consequently, the love of God also at the end must be the love of God to Christ, not the love of Christ to God. To this we are led also by ch. John 10:17 : “For this cause My Father loveth Me, because I lay down My life.” The laying down the life there corresponds to the keeping the commandments of God here. This was manifested especially in the fact, that Christ, in obedience to the will of the Father, presented the atoning sacrifice. “Even as I have kept,” etc., hangs on ver. 9. As Christ’s love to His people is the reflection of the Father’s love to Him, it is natural that its maintenance should rest on the same condition. We have here generally a thought which is the counterpart of ver. 9. To the exhortation of that verse, urging the disciples to continue in the enjoyment of His love, is here appended an indication of the means in order to that continuance. Ver. 11. “These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” Properly “might be in you,” not “might remain;” it is ᾖ, not ìåßíῃ. My joy, in contradistinction to your joy, can only be the joy of Christ in His disciples or over them; especially as the interpretation, “My joyfulness may be in you,” is opposed altogether by the phraseology. The joy of Christ is described as being in His people, inasmuch as it is a transcendent passion or affection, which penetrates its object, and sinks into it entirely. In the Hebrew, verbs expressing joy are frequently connected with á. In the same way as joy is spoken of here, it is spoken of also in Luke 15:5; Luke 15:7; Luke 15:10. Comp. Ephesians 4:30, according to which the Holy Ghost is grieved by the sins of the elect. But there are Old Testament passages which expressly illustrate it: such as Psalms 45:9, where it is said, in reference to the bride of the Divine King of the future age, “Out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad;” Isaiah 62:5, “As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee;” and Zephaniah 3:17, “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save. He will rejoice over thee with joy, He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing.” The joy of the disciples keeps pace with the joy of the Redeemer. That joy is fulfilled when it attains its climax: comp. on ch. John 3:29. It therefore means, “And the highest joy shall be yours.” The climax of all joy is the consciousness of being and abiding in Christ: comp. Son 1:4, “The king hath brought me to his chambers. We will be glad and rejoice in thee. We will remember thy love more than wine.” We have here the concluding formula of the first part of Christ’s farewell discourses. That which He lays down as the design of His words (comp. ch. John 16:1; John 16:33), which exhort to abiding in Him, is at the same time a motive to that abiding. Who must not wish that Christ may be able to rejoice in him? And who would rob himself of his own joy, which rises or declines in proportion as Christ’s command to abide in Him is responded to? There follows now, in vers. 12-17, the New Testament supplement of the second table of the law. As in the former section abiding was the watchword, so now it is love. Jesus bases the commandment of Christian brotherly love upon the type and example of His own love, ver. 12. The greatness of His love He exhibits by intimating that it urged Him to lay down His life for His friends, ver. 13. To such great love they were to respond—this is a second motive—by obedience to His commandments, especially that of brotherly love, ver. 14. His love, however, did not declare itself merely in His sacrificial death; it finds expression also in this, that He makes His friends sharers and fellow-partakers of His knowledge of the mysteries of God, ver. 15; and this was all the more a reason why they should return His love by faithful obedience, especially in reference to His commandment of brotherly love. And they should further be urged to love by the consideration, that Jesus, vers. 16, 17, who elected them, and therefore had the right to impose the conditions of their relation to Him, specified as those conditions that they should bring forth fruit, and specifically that they should love one another. Thus we have here three motives: the example of Christ; the obedience to which they are bound by His love; and the fulfilment of the condition under which their election was vouchsafed to them. Ver. 12. “This is My commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” This is My commandment: that is, in regard to your relation to each other. By ἀλλήλους the domain is indicated in which this commandment is all in all. If we fail to bear in mind the limitation prescribed by the context, we must needs interpret it by saying that brotherly love is only a single expression of a generally renewed and right Christian spirit, that it shows in one point the goodness of all, and that therefore this commandment is in a certain sense the only one. Augustin: “Where there is love, there must be faith and hope; and where there is brotherly love, there must be also the love of God.” But the Scripture is not wont to speak thus; it does not place thus in the background the first and great commandment. We read in Romans 13 that “love is the fulfilling of the law;” the connection teaches us—especially ver. 8, “Owe no man anything, but to love one another: he that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the law”—that the fulfilment of the law is meant so far as it refers to our relation to one another. Ver. 13. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” The injunction of brotherly love had been grounded on the love of Christ to His disciples. The strength of His own love our Lord here further declares, and thus points to the strength of the obligation entailed, and the height of the demand which gratitude urged. “He teaches us,” says Quesnel, “as our Master, our love to the brethren; to copy the love which He bears to us.” If I have loved you to the extent of sacrificing My life for you, ye must also have a fervent and self-sacrificing love to each other. We have the unfolding of the same thought in 1 John 3:16, Ephesians 5:1-2. Jesus here speaks of the laying down of His life, in allusion to Isaiah 53:10 : comp. on ch. John 10:11, where the sheep correspond to the friends of this passage. That the death of Christ comes into view as a sacrificial death, is evident from the reference to a passage in the Old Testament that treats of the sacrificial death of the servant of God. A death of mere devotion is quite unsuitable here. Christ did not save the life of His disciples by dying for them. Even Hiss friends need an atoning sacrifice (“And hath given Himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God, προσφορὰνκαὶθυσίαν,” as we read in Ephesians 5:2). So active is sin and the corresponding wrath of God. The friends here are, however, to be distinguished from the sinners and enemies of Rom 5:8; Romans 5:10; and Lόcke’s remark, that “only because He in His love thinks of sinners as friends, does He die for them,” fails to meet the case. What Paul there wrote, St John could not here have written. The Apostles to whom Christ is here speaking were not sinners and enemies in the sense in which St Paul there speaks of sinners and enemies. “Greater love:” love is here spoken of in relation to the disciples, who were already friends. Hence there is no propriety in the objection that has been urged, viz. that love to enemies and dying for them was greater. In relation to friends, the offering up of life is the greatest demonstration of love. Luther says: “He is so gentle and tender to them, that He speaks into their heart this last commandment that He leaves them; impressing upon them that they should consider and think how He loved them, and what He had done for them. This is My commandment: I lay it upon you, and demand it as the return of My great and unspeakable love, if indeed ye would that men should know you for My disciples.” Ver. 14. “Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” We have here a second motive. In the preceding verse, the injunction of brotherly love had been based upon the example of Christ. Here it is based upon the obedience which the disciples of Christ as His friends are bound to render. As friends He treats His disciples, when He gives up His life for them; as friends they should approve themselves, by fulfilling His commandment, and thus loving one another. Ver. 15. “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.” The practical reasoning runs as in ver. 14. Christ treats His disciples as friends, not only by dying for them, but also by the free communication of all that which He had heard of the Father. Such love they should requite by fulfilling His commandments, especially that of loving one another. Δούλος is here the antithesis of φιλός: a servant and nothing more, a mere slave. The absolute dependence of the disciples on Christ can never cease: even as friends, they still are servants: comp. ch. John 13:13; John 13:16, and here, ver. 20. Εἴρηκα refers to what had just been spoken. The Lord had, at an earlier period termed the disciples friends, Luke 12:4; but now the relation of friendship had reached its point of consummation through the perfected revelation of the Divine counsels, mysteries, and doctrines. “All things:” this is spoken generally, and does not exclude the fact that there was very much to be imparted to the disciples at a later period, which they were not as yet able to hear (comp. ch. John 14:26, John 16:12-14), as also that there was much which our Lord withheld from the disciples, as generally transcending human capacity, and having no tendency to further them in the way of salvation. Suffice that Jesus withheld nothing from them through lack of love; and the limitation which Calvin expresses is plain from the nature of the case: “Nothing of those things which concerned our salvation, and which it imported that we should know.” The expression implies obviously the absolute supremacy of the person of Christ, and the infinite interval between Him and His disciples. What endless love was it, that the eternal Son of the Father should communicate to poor mortals those mysteries which He possessed through fellowship with His Father; and how urgent the obligation to requite that love with obedience! The form of expression suggests the similarity of Jer 21:10. The Old Testament revelation was a prelude of the revelation perfected in the Son, Hebrews 1:1; and the rather, as even in the prophets it was the Spirit of Christ who spake, 1 Peter 1:11. Vers. 16, 17. “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 My name. He may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another.” A new reason, the third. The disciples did not choose Christ, but Christ chose the disciples. Therein lay the propriety of His laying down the conditions of discipleship. One fundamental condition is, that they bear fruit; and it was therefore necessary that they should love one another, for brotherly love is part of the fruit of discipleship. The choosing here, as in ch. John 6:70, John 13:18, is the assumption into the number of the Apostles. And the enumeration among the faithful was of course included. To ask whether the election referred to the Apostles or to the believers, is as perverse as to ask whether in 1 Samuel 16:13 the gift of the Spirit, common to all believers, is spoken of, or the royal charisma. When applied to all believers, the term refers only to the Christian privilege or state, as such. The ordaining marks the high and independent prerogative of assigning their lot. The word ὑπάγειν, “that ye should go,” is not superfluous; but it points to the fact that Christianity is such a continuous movement of life. The bringing forth fruit embraces at once the good works which are common to all believers, and those which were peculiar to the apostolical office. That it here stands specially connected with Christian brotherly love, is manifest from its connection with what precedes; and in ver. 17 it is expressly asserted. The words, “that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He may give it you,” forsake the main thought, and indicate, by the way, what would abundantly encourage the disciples in the fulfilment of the duty of their vocation to bring forth fruit. The fruit would approve itself to be abiding—as fruit that does not perish, but has the best results (comp. 1 Corinthians 15:58, “knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord”)—by this, that it would place the disciples in the blessed condition of offering acceptable prayer, and prayer that would always be answered: comp. on ch. John 14:13 and John 16:23. By their fruit they would show themselves to be the genuine disciples of Christ; and to such the Father can deny nothing which they ask in the name of His Son. That every offence against love affects injuriously the offering of acceptable prayer, had been many times impressed upon them by their Master: comp. Matthew 6:14-15; Matthew 5:23, and Peter’s words in 1 Peter 3:7. Ver. 17 serves at one and the same time as the complement of the thought in ver. 16, and as the final formula for the whole section, corresponding to the close of the first section in ver. 11. The relation of the disciples to Christ, to each other, to the world, are the three fundamental points which needed establishment, definition, and adjustment. Our Lord comes to the last in ch. John 15:18 to John 16:11, not as it were fortuitously, as if the injunction of brotherly love naturally suggested the hatred of the world. That is only the formal link of connection between the two sections, which does not affect the independent import of this latter. Still less are we to suppose that the hatred of the world is introduced merely to strengthen the motive, or add one to the motives, to enforce the exhortation to brotherly love contained in the previous section. (Lampe: Tacite novo argumento praeceptum amoris fraterni stabilitur. Illis enim potissimum incumbit, ut vi unita fortiores se reddant, quibus multi et timendi hostes imminent.) There is nothing to warrant such a view; and the introduction of it tends greatly to imperil the independence of a section so important as this. It was of the greatest moment that the disciples should rightly apprehend their relation to the world—that they should be rightly persuaded at the very outset that they would have nothing to expect from the world but hatred and persecution—and that they should know the reason of this. Otherwise the “strangeness” of it, 1 Peter 4:12, would have led them into great temptations. In ch. John 16:1, the Lord declares that the aim of His communication was expressly to obviate temptations from that source. If the disciples knew from the beginning what they had to expect from the world—if they discerned it as a necessity, based upon the relation of the world to Christ and to the Father,—then persecution, whenever it set in, could have no strength to mislead them as to their Master’s cause; it would rather strengthen their faith in Him who had so clearly and expressly set before them what they had to expect from the world. But the Lord does not limit Himself to a description of their danger, and a development of its necessity: He refers the Apostles also to the help which they might look for; and the Church has, from the day of Pentecost downwards, gloriously realized that promise. The formal articulation of the section is seen in the circumstance, that according to the common division of seven into five and two, the watchword world occurs five times at the beginning, and twice at the close. It may be distributed thus: the hatred of the world and its cause generally, vers. 18-25; and the preliminary reference to the help to be afforded in encountering it, vers. 26, 27. Then in ch. John 16:1-4 we have the climax of the hatred, its paroxysms (to use Bengel’s expression); and thereupon, in vers. 5-11, the still more developed reference to the sending of the Paraclete. In ch. John 15:18-25, the arrangement is as follows: the Lord first, in vers. 18-20, exhibits the hatred of the world towards His disciples as the necessary fruit of their hatred to Him; then, in vers. 21-24, He refers back their hatred to Himself to their hatred to the Father; and finally, in ver. 25, He points to the fact, that the Jews, the portion of the world then before His eyes, only fulfilled, through their hatred to Him, the predictions of the Old Testament Scripture. Ver. 18. “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you.” That γινώσκετε is imperative, the corresponding μνημονεύετε in ver. 20 shows. The Lord’s meaning refers to a living knowledge, which alone is able to furnish effectual aid against the assaults of temptation. If the world first hated Christ, its hatred must have rested on some essential principle of necessity; and true Christians must be conscious of a strong willingness to submit to a hatred which is the inseparable concomitant of membership in Christ, and the absence of which infers the absence of that union. Augustin: “Thou refusest to be in the body, if thou declinest to bear with Christ the hatred of the world.” Bernard: “Do not the members follow the body? If we receive good things from our Head, why should we not also endure evil? Do we wish to reject the troublesome, and communicate with Him only in the pleasant? It is not a great thing that the member should suffer with the Head, when with the Head it will be glorified.” Luther: “Had they not first hated Christ, they would not now hate me. But because they hated Him who died for them, what wonder that they oppose me: what am I in comparison of the Lord?” He who duly considers that the world hated Christ before it hated himself, will not, when the world’s hatred presses him hard, yield to the temptation to think that Christ might have spared him these heavy assaults, and to murmur because He has not. He will rather regard his trial as the seal of his union with his Lord. In the world the Lord saw primarily that phase of the world with which the disciples had pre-eminently to do Judaism. This is proved by the present, μισεῖ, in reference to the disciples; by the perfect, μεμίσηκεν, in reference to Christ; by the sequel, wherein Jesus speaks of those who had heard His discourses, and had seen His works; by ver. 25, where the Lord refers to those who were subject to the law; and by the ἀποσυναγώγους, in ch. John 16:2. He introduces here a new principle of division, to which a Jew would find it hard to reconcile himself. Hitherto Judaism and heathenism had confronted each other. Now, however, the contrast is simply between the world and the Church; and unbelieving Judaism, in spite of the law, and circumcision, and the Passover, must needs sink into a subdivision of the world. But obviously the Jews were only primarily meant. The idea of the world embraces in itself “all nations,” all the children of Adam who have not, by union with Christ, been redeemed from their natural ruin and regenerated, and by abiding in Him maintained their new estate. Ver. 19. “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” The hatred of the world does not aim at human weakness in the disciples. It is evoked rather by their good side, that which they have specifically Christian, the image of Christ stamped upon them. In this the world beholds something strange and repulsive; something unfamiliar and intolerable, because it, in act and reality, is a continual protest against the world. On “the world would love its own,” Luther says: “But He speaks as to matters concerning the Gospel. Here they all agree together Pilate, Herod, Caiaphas, Judas, and all devils—against Christ and His people, however otherwise at enmity among themselves. Towards each other, apart from Christ, they are such friends as dogs and cats; but in all that concerns Christ they are quite unanimous in their hatred.” With all subordinate differences, there remains ever an absolute concord in the essential matter. The election manifests itself in this, that Christ impresses upon those who, like others, were children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3), His own stamp; renews in them His own image; imparts to them thoughts, inclinations, and tempers, altogether different from those of the world, springing from a source quite other than that opened by the fall. Thence arises a contrast which has no parallel, and which conceals beneath it no latent principle of unity. If the hatred of the world springs from the source thus indicated, it ought not to be matter of dismay, but rather to be rejoiced in as a sign of election, the highest prerogative of man. Ver. 20. “Remember the word that I said unto you. The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also.” The saying, “The servant is not greater than his lord,” had been spoken, ch. John 13:16, in another connection: the disciples were not to fail in or shrink from those manifestations of love in which their Master had preceded them as their example. This was His primary meaning; but the translation of this watchword into another region would be all the more easily understood by the disciples, inasmuch as Jesus had once before, Matthew 10:24, used it in precisely the same way. The τηρεῖντὸνλόγον must mean, following the parallels, retaining the word in mind, as opposed to a thoughtless forgetfulness, and a scornful rejection of it: comp. ch. John 8:51-52; John 8:55, John 14:15; John 14:21; John 14:23-24, John 15:10. The Lord places the condition and the result in juxtaposition, and leaves it to the Apostles to decide which of the two propositions assumed is the existent state of the case, and so to shape their prognostic of the future. If we include the past and the present, then the Lord’s word continues thus: “As they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; as they have not kept My word, but rather on account of it have laid snares for My life, ch. John 8:37, so will they not keep your word, but rather on account of it place your lives in danger. Thus ye see clearly what ye have to expect from them; and when the peril shall come, ye must not think it a strange thing, and take it ill.” It is plain from the “all these things” of ver. 21, which cannot of course refer simply to “they wall persecute,” that beneath the alternative at the close, there is an announcement of snares and various dangers impending. When the Lord speaks of the Apostles’ word as not kept, it is clear that He speaks of them as Apostles, as appointed ministers of the word, and not merely as representatives of believers. J. Gerhard: “He subjoins the mention of their word, that He may fortify them against the offence of their Gospel being despised when they should preach it.” Luther hits the practical point well: “It is not fit that the Head should wear a crown of thorns, and the members sit upon cushions. Therefore let it not seem strange to you; for thus it is with Me.” The Saviour had, in vers. 18-20, opened up to the disciples a consolatory aspect of the sufferings which they had to expect from the world: they suffer “for My sake,” as Christians. We perceive the strength of this consolation by examining Acts 5:41 : “But they went from the presence of the council rejoicing, ὅτικατηξιώθησανὑπὲρτοῦὀνόματοςἀτιμασθῆναι:” comp. also 1 Peter 4:16. But the consolation was not yet perfect. There remained yet another important stumblingblock. Did not the matter stand as all the authorities, and the immense preponderance of the people, thought,—on the one side Jesus and His disciples, on the other side God and the Jews? This stumblingblock our Lord takes, in vers. 21-25, out of the way. The persecution which the world, or the Jews, directed against the disciples for the name of Jesus, rested upon ignorance of that God in whom they boasted, ver. 21. For as Jesus had approved Himself the Sent of God by His words, full of spirit and life, their hatred of Him was a hatred of God, His Father, as well as of Christ Himself, vers. 22, 23. And all the more, as His works, such as no other had done, ver. 24, had gone hand in hand with His words. The matter, therefore, stood thus: on the one side the disciples, Christ, the Father; on the other the world, with its princes, the Jews, who, by their rejection of Christ, had been transformed from the Church of God into the synagogue of Satan. Who would not rejoice to suffer at the hands of the world, in the fellowship of Christ and of the Father? Ver. 21. “But all these things will they do unto you for My name’s sake, because they know not Him that sent Me.” The ἀλλά points to the introduction of a new thought. Now that new thought we do not find in the “for My name’s sake,” equivalent to “on account of My historical manifestation and personality” (compare διὰτὸὄνομάμου, Matthew 10:22; Matthew 24:9; ἕνεκενἐμοῦ, Matthew 5:11). For it had been already taught in vers. 18-20, that Christ was the cause of the hatred of the world against His disciples. The new element lies rather in this, that the matter of vers. 18-20, the persecution for Christ’s sake, is referred to ignorance of the Father as its primary source, and thus the disciples are saved from the solicitude of thinking that the Father was against them. If the Jews had known the Father, they must have loved Christ, whom the Father had sent, and in whom He had revealed Himself. Ver. 22. “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin.” That the Jews, by their hatred to Christ, had revealed their ignorance of the Father, Christ proves first by His words, which exalted Him far above the level of mortality, and demonstrated that the Father had sent Him, and that the Angel of the Lord, whom the Old Testament magnified, had appeared in Him in the flesh. By the side of this proof from the words, comes in the proof from the works, in ver. 24. The καὶἐλάλησααὐτοῖς is badly translated by Luther, “und hδtte es ihnen gesagt,” and told them. “And had spoken to them” refers rather to the whole substance and body of the discourses of Christ during His ministry, which had loudly and always protested against their separating Him from His Father. He was by them declared to be the Sent of the Father; for the words which He had spoken were spirit and life, and consequently argument of His superhuman life: comp. on ch. John 6:63; “Thou hast the words of eternal life,” ver. 68; the avowal which the servants of the high priests were constrained to make, that never man spoke like this man, ch. John 7:46; and the testimony to His discourse, in Matthew 7:28-29, “The people were astonished at His doctrine: for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” The words and the works constituted the double evidence which Jesus adduced, as here so also in ch. John 14:10, for His being in the Father. In Luke 10:23-24, He said to His disciples, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things which ye see: for I say unto you, that many prophets and kings desired to see the things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear the things which ye hear, and have not heard them.” There our Lord appeals to the great double evidence of His words and His works to attest His heavenly origin. The ἦλθον has no independent meaning, but is connected with ἐλάλησα, and should not be separated from it by a comma. According to the connection with what precedes, where the Lord had spoken of the unbelief and hatred displayed by the Jews towards Himself, the words, “If I had not come and spoken to them,” must mean, “If they had not been unbelieving, in spite of My having spoken to them, and demonstrated and made plain My Divine mission by My discourses.”—“They had not had sin;” that is, no sin of such all-penetrating importance: comp. on ch. John 9:41, “If ye were blind, ye would not have sin.” The universal disease of the human race scarcely comes into consideration, in comparison with this sin of unbelief in Christ, as attested and legitimated by His words. That this is, strictly speaking, the only sin, is involved in the fact that its essence is a guilty contempt of the only remedy for sin. Augustin: “For this is the sin by which all sins are retained; whosoever has it not, to him all sins are remitted.” A disease for which there is offered a sure remedy, can scarcely be regarded as a disease. In ch. John 16:9, also, the not believing on Christ appears as the climax of all sin, and in a certain sense the only sin. So also, in Matthew 11:20-24, where Jesus condemns the cities in which He had performed most of His wonderful works, and declares their guilt to have been incomparably greater than that of Tyre and Sidon, cities notorious for their heathenish abominations, greater indeed than even that of Sodom.—” But now they have no cloak for their sin.” For sin before Christ there was a πρόφασις, an excuse, that of ignorance. Acts 17:30, 1 Peter 1:14 : men knew not, and could not know, better; on which account in the Old Testament there is foreannounced a future restoration to the greatest sinners, doomed by the judgments of God to temporal destruction. This kind of excuse has indeed only a relative significance; but an excuse of that relative kind was expressed by the term πρόφασις. The antithesis here gives the preceding “had not had sin” its limitation and precise meaning; such sin as much may be said to apologize for, cannot in the fullest and deepest sense be called sin. Without this limitation, these words, “they had not had sin,” would have been a contradiction to the law and the prophets of the Old Testament, would have been inconsistent with the Divine judgments preceding Christ, and with the language of Rom 1:18. Ver. 23. “He that hateth Me, hateth My Father also.” This is not merely asserted here by Christ. It is rather an inference from that which had been laid down on the former verse. Since Jesus had by His words approved Himself the Son, it followed that the hatred displayed against Him was displayed against the Father also. The Jews professed that they loved God, and that on the ground of that love they hated Christ; the God, however, whom they loved was not, a true God, but a phantom which they named God. This was as certain as it was that Christ’s words had declared Him to be the Son. The fact that they rejected Christ, in spite of all His words so full of spirit and truth, detected their hypocrisy, and showed them to be manifest enemies of that Father whom they professed to love. Ver. 24. “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.” We have here the second proof of the proposition, that the Jews by their hatred of Christ had displayed their ignorance of the Father, and their hatred of Him. It lay in this, that Christ by His works had most amply declared Himself to be the Sent of the Father. That the Jews hated Him, in spite of His works, was a sin in comparison of which all former sin sank into insignificance. “Which none other man did” may be compared with Matthew 9:33, where the multitudes cried on account of the healing a dumb and deaf man under demoniac influence, “It was never so seen in Israel.” The miracles of Jesus acquired, through their connection with the dignity of His person, an absolute supremacy over all that had been wrought under the Old Testament; apart from the fact that some individual miracles—such as the healing of the man born blind (ch. John 9:32), and the raising of Lazarus—had no parallel or approximation in the Old Testament. Ver. 25. “But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law. They hated Me without a cause.” The Lord now obviates another objection, which might be drawn from the Jews’ enmity against Him, by pointing out that they were, and would be, only instruments in the fulfilment of that which was written in the Old Testament Scriptures, and consequently that their hatred would serve only as an authentication of His claims. It was an Old Testament fundamental principle, that no righteous man, and least of all the Christ, would fail to encounter the hatred and persecution of the world. Accordingly, Christ would not be Christ without the hatred of the Jews. So also, in ch. John 12:38-39, the opposition of the Jews to Christ was regarded in the light of a Divine appointment, through which the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy was brought about. Seen from this point of view, the hatred of the Jews should have no power to dishearten, but rather to fill with the highest joy. We see in it the presence of the Divine hand, impressing upon Christ the seal of authentication. The ἀλλά points to the circumstance that a new point of view in regard to the hatred of the Jews is opened up. Accordingly τοῦτογέγονεν must be supplemented: comp. John 19:36, and probably also John 13:38, Matthew 26:56, Mark 14:49. The name of the law is here, as in John 10:34, John 12:34, referred to the entire Old Testament, because the remaining books divide with the Mosaic the whole. “In their law;” so that thus the criteria of the Messiah, given in the law, were such as they were obliged to accept and be regulated by. In reference to the ἐμίσησάνμεδωρεάν, we may collate the following passages of the Old Testament. First, Psalms 35:19. There the suffering just man says, “Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me; neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause:” Sept. οἱμισοῦντέςμεδωρεάν. Then, again, the fourth verse of Psalms 69, which is so often cited and applied to Christ. There the suffering Righteous One says, “They that hate Me without a cause (Sept. again, οἱμισοῦντέςμεδωρεάν) are more than the hairs of Mine head; they that would destroy Me, being Mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty.” It will be seen that these two passages have in common “hating me without a cause,” and “enemies wrongfully.” These verbal resemblances and parallels, which are peculiar to the Davidic psalms of the Righteous One, have the effect of indicating that they are links of a great chain, parts of a great descriptive painting. So, finally, Psalms 109:3, “They compassed Me about also with words of hatred; and fought against Me without a cause:” Sept. ἐπολέμησανμεδωρεάν. In this psalm too the suffering Righteous One speaks. “That the singer had in view, at the same time, the family of David, and especially Him in whom it would reach its crown;—that the psalm, as it proceeded from David, so also went back to him (in his offspring), and kept him ever in view,—cannot be doubted when we compare the last verse of the psalm with the first of Psalms 110, and with the fifth verse of the same. Here it is the help of the Lord, which He sends to His anointed in His sufferings; there it is the glory which He sheds upon the saved one. Here we see how He stands at the right hand to save him from those who condemn his soul; there we hear Him saying the great word, Sit thou at My right hand.” This connection of the 109th Psalm with the 110th throws a wonderful light upon the remaining psalms of David which refer to the suffering Righteous One. The quotation here is designedly combined from the three passages quoted. From the first two we have the hating; the third is indicated by the fact that the verb there is in the preterite. The co-reference to this passage is of importance, inasmuch as there the final reference to Christ, which is rather concealed in most of the passages which treat of the suffering righteous, appears most expressly and plainly, Ver. 26. “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me.” Jesus had hitherto fortified the disciples against the hatred of the Jews, by reminding them that it fell upon them on account of His name; that the hatred which they felt for Him had His Father also for its object; and finally, that this hatred subserved the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. A new element now enters. It might have been supposed from the previous considerations, that Jesus had already now finished with the Jews. But this issue would have been at variance with the prophecies of the Old Testament, which were not satisfied by all that had been yet attained. According to those prophecies, the calling of a special election was as necessary as the rejection of the mass. Hence our Lord intimates that the work of salvation among the Jews was not sealed and closed; and that He would oppose to their hatred such a power in the Paraclete as should subdue many into submission. The Christ of truth, coming from the Father, would with victorious power break down the opposition of many. Thus the disciples were prevented from making the enmity of the Jews a source of despondency. These words concerning the Paraclete do not point back to ch. John 14:26—that saying is not taken up again until ch. John 16:13—but to ch. John 14:16, where the question is the same as it is here, the warfare against an unfriendly world. The Holy Ghost is the Paraclete only inasmuch as He in this conflict lends His aid. The idea of the Paraclete is elucidated in 2 Timothy 4:16 : “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me.” The human paracletes, or judicial advocates—which service in ancient times was discharged not merely by counsellors, but also by distinguished friends—had forsaken the Apostle; but, instead of them, the heavenly Paraclete had faithfully stood by his side Christ, that is, by the Spirit whom He sent. The ὑμῖν must be carefully noted.It shows that the Holy Spirit is considered here as having His indwelling in the Apostles, and not as simply exerting His immediate influence upon the minds of those to whom they preached the word. So, in ch. John 16:8, it is only a false interpretation which finds anything like a direct relation of the Paraclete to the world. This is evident from the preceding πρὸςὑμᾶς in ver. 7. We may compare the “filled with the Holy Ghost” in Acts 4:8; and Luke 24:49, where the Lord, after His resurrection, says to His disciples, “And, behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high;” and also Acts 1:8, “But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you;” and ch. John 4:31. There is a distinction in ver. 27 between the testimony which the Holy Spirit would bear in His function as Paraclete by the lips of the Apostles against the opposing world, and the Apostles’ own testimony, which would refer to the historical facts as such, and which they would bear as intelligent and honourable men: compare the same distinction in Acts 5:32, where Peter says, “And we also are His witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him.” There, however, the two testimonies are inverted. Those that obey are the Apostles. As here, so also in our Lord’s word. Matthew 10:20, “It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you:” the organ altogether retires behind the efficient Spirit. Quesnel brings out the practical element in these words with much force: “What have we to fear? The Spirit who is in the Church and dwelleth in our hearts, is stronger than the spirit which dwells in the world and in the ungodly. We labour in vain when we seek to overcome error by merely human means, without the assistance of the Spirit of truth.” That the Holy Ghost finally proceedeth from the Father, the original source of all power, was a truth of such importance, so encouraging and quickening to the disciples, before whom Christ stood in His humble servant-form (compare “The Father is greater than I” in John 14:28), that the words “from the Father” are immediately expanded into “proceedeth from the Father,” in order to give this point its full prominence. Both were very important,—the proceeding from the Son, on which the emphasis falls in “whom I will send from My Father,” and the proceeding from the Father; but the latter was under their present circumstances so important, that it might not be lightly despatched with a mere “from the Father.” Calvin: “Nor in the face of such great forces, such and so impetuous assaults, would the testimony of the Spirit suffice, unless we were persuaded that He came from God.” The explanation of the fact that the Spirit is, on the one hand, sent by Christ, while on the other He proceeded from the Father, is to be sought in the fact that He was sent by Christ, from the glory of the Father. The ἐκπορεύεται, taken in connection with the preceding πέμψω, shows that we have not to do here with eternal relations in the Godhead, but with the mission of the Spirit to the Apostles. The present, ἐκπορεύεται, is the timeless tense that stands in a general sentence: when He goeth forth, it is from the Father that He goeth. The more specific idea is given by the preceding future. There can be no reference to the going forth of the Spirit from Genesis 1 downwards, through the whole period of the Old Testament economy (comp. Isaiah 63:11). The Spirit in this speciality—as Paraclete, as Spirit of truth (comp. ch. John 14:17)—was specially linked to the atoning death of Christ; He was not yet in the world, because that Christ was not yet glorified: comp. ch. John 7:39. The Spirit of truth, the Paraclete, was what Peter lacked, says Augustin, when he was terrified by a little maid, and uttered his triple denial: “He giving His testimony, and making His witnesses most resolute, took away all fear from the friends of Christ, and converted the hatred of His enemies into love.” Ver. 27. “And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning.” This is a second power for subduing the hatred of the Jews: which, indeed, derives its true significance from its strict connection with the first preceding it. This double testimony—that of the Holy Ghost and the historical—now goes on in the Church concurrently. But the thorough study and use of the latter is not so simple as in the apostolic age; and it demands a profound research. The present, μαρτυρήσει, is fully explained by the future that immediately precedes. The Lord places Himself in the future: “Ye then bear witness.” We have a commentary on “from the beginning” in Mark 1:1; Luke 1:2; Acts 1:21. The beginning was the first manifestation of Christ: comp. 1 John 1:1, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, declare we unto you.” The fifteenth and sixteenth chapters contain the discourses which our Lord uttered shortly before His passage over the brook Kedron; the seventeenth chapter contains His prayer to the Father. In His discourse to the disciples, the Lord first unfolds, in the section before us, the threefold relation in which they stand, first to Him, then to one another, and lastly to the world. The Lord first gives to His disciples a commentary upon the first table of the Decalogue, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” That, under the New Testament, takes the form of abiding in Christ. Since the existences or natures of the Father and the Son perfectly coincide and cover each other, Jesus could not, in a separate section, adjust His disciples’ relation to the Father specifically. As they stood with respect to Himself, so they stood with respect to the Father; should they abide in Him, they would abide in the Father. Then, in ch. John 15:12-17, He turns to the second table. The commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” takes, in the kingdom of Christ, the form of Christian brotherly love. After the Lord had determined His people’s relations to Himself as their Head, and to each other as brethren (Augustin: “For on these two commandments of love hang all the law and the prophets”), He sheds light upon their relation to the world, and what they would have to expect from it, and what resources they would be able to use in defence against its enmity. The sections are clearly and sharply demarcated. The first is separated from the second by the concluding formula in ver. 11; the second from the third by the concluding formula in ch. John 15:17. The third is distinguished from that which follows by the circumstance that the watchword world—which in the beginning of the section, is used with intentional frequency, in order to point attention to the theme which now begins to be treated—twice recurs at the end. And that all things down to the most minute are here ordered and sure, appears from the fact that, in the first section, the watchword abide occurs precisely ten times, as J. Gerhard long ago observed (μείνῃ, in ver. 11, is a false reading); that in vers. 12-17, which are entirely devoted to love, there are seven characterizations of that grace, the seven further being divided as usual into four and three: ἀγαπᾶτε, ἠγάπησα, ἀγάπην, ἀγαπᾶτε—φίλων, φίλοι, φίλους; that in the third section κόσμος also recurs seven times, the seven being divided into five at the beginning and two at the end—a division of seven which elsewhere accompanies that into four and three. We cannot attribute this to chance, especially as this kind of reckoning occurs so frequently, not only in the Gospel and the Apocalypse of St John, but also in the Lord’s discourses, as recorded by the first three Evangelists. We have only to refer to the petitions of the Lord’s prayer, the benedictions, and the seven words on the cross. John 16:1. “These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended.” We find here expressed the ultimate aim of all that had been said from ch. John 15:18 onwards, and the point of view is shown under which all must be viewed. The design was, namely, to obviate the offence which the hatred of the Jews could not fail to occasion, especially as authority and scientific knowledge were on their side. “These things” does not refer merely to the foreannouncement of their hatred; it includes also everything that had been said to place their hatred in the true light, as well as the help which had been promised in the sending of the Paraclete. “That ye should not be offended” leads us into a circle of ideas which the first Evangelists had already exhibited as realized. In them we have seen the hatred of the world becoming to the disciples a sore σκανδάλον, the source of a perilous temptation to apostasy from Christ,—comp. Matthew 13:21; Matthew 24:9; Matthew 26:31-33,—a temptation which had already hard beset the Baptist, Matthew 11:3. Chap. John 16:12-33 After the Lord had regulated the Apostles’ views of their fundamental relations. He now turns to His specific farewell discourse. This character we find in John 16:12-15. As Moses, when he departed, pointed to Joshua, Deuteronomy 31:23, so Jesus pointed to the Holy Ghost, who should lead His disciples into all the truth. With this is connected in John 16:16 an allusion to His immediate departure, and that seeing Him again which should follow upon it. So also the words of Christ in John 16:20-28, anticipating the question of the disciples as to the meaning of these words, lead back, according to the explanation given, into the track of the farewell discourse, inasmuch as they point to the impending departure of the Lord, and the advantage which should accrue from it to the disciples. So also the third paragraph, occasioned by the interruption of the disciples, bears a farewell character; it predicts to the disciples their approaching dispersion, but intimates that such calamities should never have the power to depress their spirit. The fact that in John 16:12-15, just as in John 16:7-11, the Holy Spirit is the subject, has misled many expositors, leading them to think that a new section does not begin here. We have already pointed out, that, with John 16:11, there is a conclusion first of the section ch. John 15:18 to John 16:11, and then also of the whole discourse from ch. John 15:1 onwards. There is, indeed, a connection between the discourse beginning with John 16:12 and the general strain of the whole, inasmuch as here the internal work of the Spirit’s edification follows the Spirit’s operation as it respects the word. But that is only the connection of transition from one section to another; it serves only to connect what follows with the general body of the one discourse, and to show that it is not an absolutely new commencement that follows. That the work of the Holy Spirit, spoken of in John 16:12-15, is essentially distinguished from that of Joh 16:7-11,—and, therefore, that the link of connection is not very strict,—is plain from the fact that, in ch. 14, these two operations of the Holy Ghost are exhibited as totally distinct. As John 16:7-11 of this chapter refer back to ch. John 14:15-17, so John 16:12-13 refer back to ch. John 14:25-26. Ver. 3. “And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor Me.” The Lord here opens up another encouraging aspect of their case, in reference to the persecutions predicted in ver. 2. Calvin: “That the Apostles might scorn with lofty minds their blind fury.” Ver. 4. “But these things have I told you, that, when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you.” The ἀλλά in the preceding verse stated why they would do these things; here it states why the Lord spoke of it. Ταῦτα refers, as in ver. 1, not simply to that which the disciples had to suffer from the world, but also to those consolatory suggestions which Christ had opened to them in regard to their sufferings. In what immediately preceded, the prophecy of their future suffering had been lightened by a prospect of joy. Our Lord had certainly before spoken to His disciples of their coming persecutions, Matthew 5:10; Matthew 10:17; but it had been to them as if He had not so spoken,) the blessed present having prevented their thoughts from lingering upon His words. The announcement never exerted a penetrating influence upon them until now, when Jesus, Himself on His way to death and deeply moved, addressed it to His deeply moved disciples; and when, without admixture of other elements. He made it the matter of one great division of His last discourses, placing it, by a fundamental and, as it were, systematic treatment, in an altogether new light. That Jesus, indeed, had earlier, and in a variety of ways, spoken to them on the same subject, is not only evident from the testimony of the first Evangelists, but is also obvious of itself, since His three years’ intercourse with the disciples must have furnished Him many opportunities for such discourse, and, according to the fundamental views of the Old Testament, especially the Psalms and the prophecies of Jeremiah, the way of the disciples through a world of sin could not be other than full of thorns. Their Master had not from the beginning spoken it in so affecting a manner, because He was yet with them, and Himself defended them, ch. John 17:12, executing the office of their advocate in their conflict with the world, ch. John 14:16. But now, when His departure was at hand. He must tell them more definitely, in order that, when the persecution should arrive. His word might take the place of His personal presence. Vers. 5, 6. “But now I go My way to Him that sent Me; and none of you asketh Me, Whither goest Thou? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.” The Redeemer now begins to lead on their thoughts to the consolation which, as the expansion of ch. John 15:26, He would assure to them in the presence of an unfriendly world. The transition is made by äÝ, because in the preceding verse the presence of Jesus with His disciples had been finally spoken of. But any external connection with what goes before is not to be sought. Peter had in ch. John 13:36 asked, “Whither goest Thou?” But the Lord here means another kind of asking, such as would take pleasure in the subject, and spring from a heart never weary of hearing about it. The disciples ought in consistency to have besought Christ again and again to tell them of heaven, and the glory which He expected to enter there. This questioning would have been all the more reasonable, as on their adequate views of this subject rested all their joy in the prospect of the world’s hatred and persecution. Thither, where He was going, He would fetch His disciples, that they might be received into the fellowship of His glory, ch. John 14:3-4; thence He would send them power to perform the greatest works, ch. John 14:12; from heaven He would send the Holy Spirit as their advocate in their process with the world, and as their abiding teacher; from thence He would manifest Himself to them, clothed in the glory of the Father. But these questions had no impulse in their minds. They were altogether carried away by their sorrow at His departure. Ver. 7. “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.”—“I tell you the truth” (Bengel: mentiri nescius): comp. ch. John 14:2, “If it were not so, I would have told you.” Jesus makes it express and emphatic that He tells them the truth in this matter; because, as the sadness of the Apostles shows in ver. 6, the matter seemed to be very different. Bengel is not right when he says that there is here a double function of the Paraclete, towards the world in this passage, and towards believers in ver. 12. As Paraclete, the Holy Ghost has but one office: to assure to the Apostles, and generally to all the faithful, help in their conflict with the world. The πρὸςὑμᾶς must be carefully noted. It shows that the Holy Spirit is regarded here only as indwelling in the disciples, and not as a power which, in connection with them, works upon men’s minds. The ὃνἐγὼπέμψωὑμῖν, in ch. John 15:26, is strictly corresponsive. Wherefore was the Paraclete to come only after His departure? The answer is, because Christ was to procure for them and minister to them the Holy Ghost only through His atoning death; and He could be imparted only to those who were reconciled to God through the blood of His Son: comp. what was said upon ch. John 7:39, John 12:32. According to Galatians 3:14, the sending of the Holy Ghost required as its condition that Christ should become a curse for us. J. Gerhard: “The corn of wheat falling into the ground produced this among other fruits, the gift of the Holy Spirit, John 12:24, in token whereof Christ after His resurrection breathed on the Apostles, and said, ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost,’ ch. John 20:22.” Why did Jesus do this only after His resurrection? Manifestly because the Holy Spirit was a blessing obtained by His passion. Anton: “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not divided; and no one Person can, without violation of the Divine holiness, work good in man without the Redeemer’s atoning entrance into heaven.” That was the true reason. On the other hand, that the presence of Christ in the flesh placed a wall of partition between the disciples and the Holy Spirit, is an altogether unfounded idea, though Augustin led the way in it: “What is therefore If I go not away the Paraclete will not come but this, that they could not receive the Spirit so long as they persisted in knowing Christ after the flesh?” Ver. 8. “And when He is come. He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” We have here the leading features of the preaching which the Apostles, under the influence of the Spirit, were to engage in. The meaning of the present verse must first of all be sought in its own terms. The further expansion in vers. 9, 10 can be regarded only as the touchstone of the interpretation found independently of it; especially as the Lord’s saying in those verses can be rightly understood only on the basis of a right understanding of our present passage. The world, after what has preceded, must be regarded primarily in its Jewish manifestation: that is, the Jews. So Heumann stated it rightly: “The Lord here sets before the Apostles only their first apostolical work, since they were to urge upon the Jewish people the sin of their past unbelief, and were to convert a great multitude of them.” So also the later preaching among the heathen population of the world had essentially the same foundation of principles. Yet these sustained a certain modification, inasmuch as the Apostles had not to apply their preaching to those who were already unbelievers, but simply to those who did not believe. The Jews were to be reproved because of their already present unbelief; but it was to be set before the Gentiles how great would be their sin and guilt if they did not believe, and thus despised the only remedy for their sins. In reference to the righteousness and the judgment, the heathen were to receive exhortations, in order that they might place themselves right, appropriate the righteousness, and escape the judgment, instead of the condemnation or reproof that the Jews required, who had already placed themselves in an attitude of contempt. The sin can be only, according to ch. John 15:22; John 15:24, unbelief in the manifested and gloriously authenticated Redeemer. For that was there pointed out as the single great sin of the Jews. Augustin: “He put this sin before all the rest, as if it were alone: because, this sin abiding, all others are retained; and, this sin departing, all others are remitted.” This sin would be mightily detected in them, and pressed upon their consciences, by the Holy Spirit’s demonstration accompanying the Apostles. The righteousness must necessarily belong to the same to whom the sin belonged, that is, the world: else we are left to random conjecture. The righteousness of Christ would never have been thought of here apart from ver. 9; nor can that verse justify such an interpretation of the present passage. Still more remote is the righteousness of God, to which not even ver. 9 gives the slightest semblance of plausibility. But the righteousness cannot be regarded as having grown in the soil of their hearts to whom it belongs: from their hearts only the sin proceeds. By the preceding mention of sin, every notion of “a righteousness of their own,” ἰδίαδικαιοσύνην, Romans 10:3, is excluded. Their righteousness must rather come to them from without. And whence it comes we gather from the foregoing words, “He shall convince the world of sin.” If the sin, according to ch. John 15:22; John 15:24, consisted in this, that they believed not in Christ, then the righteousness could be theirs only through their believing in Christ. The prophecies of the Old Testament Scriptures had, in the most various forms, referred to a righteousness coming from above, which would be part of the prerogatives and blessings of the Messianic age; so that there is no ground for the objection that this interpretation of the passage is a premature intrusion into the specific phraseology of St Paul. “In His days,” we read, Jeremiah 23:6, “Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is His name whereby He shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness.” The Messiah was to bear the name of “The Lord our Righteousness,” because He would be the channel through which the righteousness of God would flow to His people, and become our righteousness. According to Daniel 9:24, the Messiah was to bring in an “everlasting righteousness.” Isaiah says, in ch. Isaiah 53:11, “By His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities.” And in ch. Isaiah 45:24-25, “Surely shall one say. In the Lord have I righteousness and strength; in the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory:” comp. further, ch. Isaiah 45:8; Psalms 85:11. To this righteousness, which indeed belongs to the people of” God, but did not grow up in the soil of their own nature, the Lord’s saying in Matthew 5:6 refers, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled,” which again points us back to Isaiah 4:1. And as the sins and the righteousness belong to the world, so also does the judgment. It can be no other than the condemnation which falls upon the world, and primarily upon the Jews, when they persist in the sin of unbelief towards Christ, and will not become partakers of the righteousness which springs from faith in Him. Around these three centres, in fact, revolves all the preaching of the Apostles to the Jews after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. For the περὶἁμαρτίας we may compare, for example. Acts 2:22-23, as also ch. Acts 3:13-15. For the περὶδικαιοσύνης, ch. Acts 2:38, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,” and ch. Acts 4:12, “Neither is there salvation in any other;” Acts 5:31, Acts 8:37, Acts 10:43, Acts 13:38-39, “Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.” For περὶκρίσεως we must compare ch. Acts 2:19-21; and “fear was upon every soul,” in Acts 2:43, with ch. Acts 3:23. In all other parts of the New Testament, ἐλέγξειν stands for a reproving charge, the conviction which impresses guilt upon the conscience, and is everywhere used only of moral crimination. So ch. John 3:20, John 8:46, Revelation 3:19. In 2 Timothy 4:2, ἔλεγξον and ἐπιτίμησον go together. In Titus 1:13 we read, ἔλεγχεαὐτοὺςἀποτόμως. In James 2:9, ἐλεγχόμενοιὑπὸτοῦνόμουὡςπαραβάται. Hence the ἐλέγξειν has always to do with transgressors, and this is its meaning in our present passage. Its reference to righteousness and judgment has also a reproving tone. It is directed, as the preceding “of sin” shows, against those who were involved in unbelief, who through their guilt robbed themselves of righteousness, and, unless they repented, would fall into condemnation. That the ground-tone of apostolical preaching after Pentecost was conviction and reproof, is evident from its result in Acts 2:37, “pricked in their heart,” and the affrighted “What shall we do?” In Bengel’s note, “He who is convicted of sin, afterwards passes over into the righteousness (of Christ), or shares (with Satan) condemnation,” the bracketed words are unwarranted interpolations from ver. 9. Vers. 9, 10. “Of sin, because they believe not on Me: of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more.” The righteousness forms the antithesis to the sin (δέ); the judgment, the antithesis to the righteousness (δέ). The ὅτι is—“with reference to the fact that,” John 2:18. In the first clause, it means “consisting in this, that;” in the second it is equivalent to “thereby attained, that;” and in the third, once more “consisting in this, that.” Righteousness consists not in the going of Christ to the Father, and His not being seen by His disciples; but through this the righteousness was obtained for us. The form which the statement assumes is explained by reference to the state of the Apostles’ minds. That which filled them with the deepest grief would bring to them the wholesome fruit of righteousness; and was therefore, rightly viewed, not matter of sorrow, but of joy. It is not “because they see Me no more,” but “because ye see Me no more.” The appearances of the risen Lord are here taken no account of, because they were of a transitory character, and served only as means to an end, viz. the full conviction of the Apostles. The judgment is, in ver. 8, that which impended over the unbelieving Jews, in case they should continue in their unbelief. And that here also we are to understand, beneath the judgment already accomplished on Satan, a latent reference to the judgment threatening the Jews, is plain from the “convince the world,” which must be the supplement of each clause, and in harmony with which the mention of the judgment upon Satan must have a condemnatory meaning for the world and the Jews. In fact, the already executed judgment upon Satan, the prince of this world, contains in itself a denunciation of judgment upon the κόσμος of his subjects, provided they do not in good time release themselves from their bond of subjection to him, which they can do only through faith in Jesus Christ. Augustin: “Let those who follow him who is judged, take heed lest they be hereafter judged like their prince, and condemned.” Quesnel: “Blind men, who still cling to the world and set your hopes upon it, what will become of you when your prince is already adjudged to eternal punishment?” The judgment upon Satan was accomplished through the death of Christ, comp. on ch. John 12:31; and with Satan the world itself is virtually condemned. In ch. John 12:31, the world, as the object of the judgment, is mentioned before the prince of the world. That world can, however, escape through penitence the execution of the suspended sentence; it may by faith pass over into the domain of another Prince, of Him who hath judged the prince of this world. It is a perilous thing to continue a subject of an already condemned prince, and to refuse submission to Him who hath condemned that prince. If the prince of this world is judged, the cry rings out, “Save yourselves from this untoward generation,” Acts 2:40—a generation which has Satan for its lord, ch. John 8:44. The judgment upon Satan was not actually consummated but by the atoning death of Christ; but here it is regarded as already accomplished, κέκριται, because it was immediately at hand, and because it would be an actually effected judgment when the Holy Spirit should begin to exercise His reproving function. Ver. 12. “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” It is not “I might have,” but “I have;” and it leads to the conclusion that Christ could not now say it to them on account of their weakness, but that He would say it at a later period. The Spirit of truth, who should impart it to them, would give what He received of Christ, John 16:14; and through that Spirit Christ therefore would speak to His disciples. The Revelation of John, which was included under this promise, and itself formed a considerable part of its matter, is in ch. Revelation 1:1 referred back to Christ as its author; and the Spirit in whom John found himself when he received the revelation (ch. Revelation 1:10) was only the medium of the reception of the contents which sprang from Christ, and, finally from God. In ch. Revelation 1:10, Revelation 19:10, Revelation 22:16, the substance of the Apocalypse is directly said to be derived from Christ. Of what nature were the many things which Christ had yet to say to His Apostles? It appears from a comparison with ch. John 15:15, that in all great essentials the revelation already imparted through Christ had a certain completeness, and that the supplement promised through the Holy Ghost could refer only to specialties. What follows, shows that among the many things the future destinies of the Church occupied the first place. One instance we have in the revelation which St Peter recorded in Acts 10, concerning the reception of the Gentiles into the kingdom of Christ. So also there were to be further revelations concerning the great facts of our Lord’s passion, resurrection, exaltation, which should be based upon these facts, not yet accomplished, themselves. Those to whom Christ had yet much to say, were manifestly the same to whom He had already spoken many things. And as these were the Apostles, we, have no right to go beyond their circle for the fulfilment of the great promise of future communications; and Beza was quite justified in his zeal against those who “dare to continue into long ages after the Apostles’ death, the revelations which our Lord promised to the Apostles whom He Himself chose.” Βαστάζειν does not mean “apprehend.” The sense is, that the Apostles must not generally be overweighted. Their weakness required that the truth should be gradually imparted to them, as the Lord, in Luke 12:42, required that the wise householder should divide the food in due season, ἐνκαιρῷ. Much of that which they had already heard was not less beyond their apprehension than what had been hitherto withheld (comp. ver. 25). The victory of Christianity over the power of heathenism was not in itself harder to “be understood than its victory over Judaism. But the Lord contents Himself with depicting the latter point in lively colours; He speaks of the victory over Gentile powers only in hints: the full expansion of the truth He reserves for the Apocalypse, after the catastrophe of Jerusalem had already taken place. These disclosures, prematurely imparted, would have been to the Apostles only a useless burden; they would have been only distracted, by matters of no immediate practical significance, from the point to which now their attention should be supremely directed. Matthew 23:4 furnishes a comment on the βαστάζειν: Jesus says of the Pharisees, “They bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, δυσβάστακτα, and lay them on men’s shoulders.” Jesus would not lay doctrinal burdens upon the shoulders of the Apostles which they could not yet bear, and in this He gave His Church a pattern: we also, following His example, should avoid overloading. J. Gerhard is wrong in saying, that by naming the Spirit, Christ gives the reason why the Apostles could not bear what He had yet to say,—because they were yet carnal. The Spirit of Christ would tell them what Christ did not, simply because, after the Lord’s departure, He would take His place. Ver. 13. “Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come.” P. Anton: “As He will rebuke the world upon the three points of which we heard in ver. 8, so He will not forget His other office. He will lead you into all truth.” That the “you” must refer only to the Apostles, has been shown in our remarks upon ver. 12. On this point Tholuck says: “The persons addressed are no other than the witnesses to the truth of ch. John 15:17,—those to whom vers. 17, 18 apply,—for whom He primarily prays in ch. John 17:9, the rest being prayed for in ver. 20.” We would add, that what is here meant is not the quickening of truths already present in the minds of the individuals (so that 1 John 2:27 might be brought into comparison); but the first impartation of truths not yet made known. This is evident from the reference to ver. 12, according to which we can only include matters which Christ had not yet spoken of. It is plain also from the words which follow, “He will show you things to come,” where we may, from the species, infer the kind, the revelation of hitherto unknown mysteries. The Apostles laid the most decisive claim to be the organs of such revelation. “Regarding this promise,” says Grotius, “the Apostles say. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.” Acts 10 records an important revelation made to Peter. John, in the Apocalypse, declares himself to be the organ of high revelations. With regard to the revelations and prophetic position of Paul, see 2 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 3:3; Galatians 1:1; Galatians 2:2. It has been shown in my Commentary on the Apocalypse (Clark’s Transl.), ch. John 1:1, John 18:20, that for the reception of new truths there is no other organ than the prophetic; and that this organ, under the New Testament, is intimately connected with the Apostolate, forming a portion of its prerogatives. We find no trace in the New Testament that any disclosures of secret truth, important for the whole Church, were made beyond the circle of the Apostles; or any revelations which affected the doctrine or the future destiny of the whole Church. What we read in the Acts of the manifestations made to other prophets, bears always a very subordinate character; we never read that they were the organs of any great and new revelations. It has been maintained, entirely without reason, that the truths into which the Spirit of truth should lead them were not to be more closely defined. They were simply all those which first were clearly expressed in the Apostolical Epistles and Apocalypse, and concerning which the discourses of Christ had given in the Gospels no adequate disclosure. That the Apocalypse in particular occupies an important place among them, is plain from the triple ἀναγγελεῖ, in vers. 13, 14, 15, and from the corresponding high importance which, in the Apocalypse itself, is ascribed to its revelations and teachings. The promise given, as we have seen, to the Apostles alone, would have been wavering and useless, if it had not resulted in documents from which we might gather the nature of the disclosures communicated to them. Only by the presence of such archives could the appeal of enthusiasm and heresy to this promise be foreclosed and cut off. (Augustin: All the most senseless heretics, wishing to bear the name of Christians, have sought to give, by occasion of this passage, an evangelical colouring to lies against which man’s common sense rebels.) The apostolical writings, the monuments of the fulfilment of this promise, form, notwithstanding their apparent independence, an organic whole, in the instruction of which the Spirit of truth has provided for all the needs of all ages of the Church. Stier’s assertion, that this passage is not strictly a proof of the infallibility of the Apostles, inasmuch as the promise essentially belongs to us all (1 John 2:27), is based upon an opinion which we have already rejected, viz. that the promise was given to all believers generally, while it was really given to the Apostles alone, who were consecrated as the organs of the establishment of the whole treasury of the truth needed by the Church. On the same false foundation rests the Romish view, which refers the saying to a revelation running through all ages of the Church. The Spirit would lead into the whole or the full truth, inasmuch as He would supplementally add what Jesus during His life had not communicated; and bring to their remembrance that which He had spoken to them. The difference between the two readings, ἐιςπᾶσαντὴνἀλήθειαν (for which Mark 5:33 speaks), and, ἐιςτὴνἀλήθειανπᾶσαν, into all truth, and all of it, touches not the sense. That the Spirit would lead them into all truth, is grounded upon this, that He would not speak of Himself, but speak that which He had heard. The Spirit cannot absolutely speak of Himself, because He exists in the most intimate communion of nature with the Father and the Son; because it belongs to His essence to be the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. Augustin: “He will not speak of Himself, because He is not of Himself. But whatsoever things He shall hear. He will speak: whatsoever He shall hear of Him from whom He proceedeth.” That which is self-understood is, however, here emphatically stated, because there is a false “spirit,” which speaks of itself, and on that account can lead not into truth, but only into error. (Luther: “His preaching would not be like a dream of man, like that of those who bring matter of their own,—such things, to wit, as they have neither seen nor known. But He would preach such things as had a foundation under them; that is, what He received of the Father and Me.”) That was the spirit who was active in the false prophets of the Old Testament: comp. Jeremiah 23:16, “Thus saith the Lord of hosts. Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart [Michaelis: ‘Ex corde suo tanquam principio oriundam,’ corresponding to the ἀφʼ ? ἑαυτοῦ here: in ver. 26 they are called ‘prophets of the deceit of their own heart’], and not out of the mouth of the Lord:” comp. Isaiah 14:14; Isaiah 14:27; Isaiah 9:14. In 1 Kings 22:21 this spirit appears personified, in harmony with the character of the vision, and offers to deceive Ahab, by being a lying spirit in the month of all the prophets of the calves. In Zechariah 13:2, the Lord promises, “And also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.” That this spirit still existed in the times of the New Testament, and that there was needed a rampart against him in the Spirit who should not speak of Himself, and in the trustworthy monuments of His revelation, is plain from Matthew 24:11; Matthew 24:24; Revelation 16:13-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:2. As the “not of Himself,” so also the “what He hath heard,” points back to the Old Testament. “That which was heard” was the term by which the true prophets (see Isaiah 53:1; Obadiah 1:1) designated their announcements, in order to express that they had nothing to communicate which they had not received, and thus to arrogate to themselves absolute authority. In Isaiah 28:9, the prophets take their taunting word out of the mouth of the mockers, who cried, “To whom shall he teach ωׂ ?ξεςδ?” the comment on which is ch. John 21:10 : “That which I have heard of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you.” Of whom the Spirit heareth, is not here declared, because the main point primarily was to emphasize His hearing. According to John 21:14, He hears primarily from Christ; according to John 21:15, what He hears goes back to the Father. Against those who at once supplement “of the Father,” Kling rightly observes: “If we suppose the Spirit hearing, as it were by the side of the Son, from the Father, the whole relation is disturbed, and the subordinate and false position of the Greek Church theory is assumed.” “And He will show you things to come.” Τὰἐρχόμενα—here we have the most distinguished species of the class. “Things to come” is an expression which a series of prophetical passages in Isaiah use to designate the events of the future, which form the object of prophecy: ch. Isaiah 41:22-23, Isaiah 44:7, Isaiah 45:11. Τὰἐρχόμενα, so far as they were peculiar to the revelation given to the Apostles, can be only the future destinies of the kingdom of God. We are led to this conclusion by the original in Isaiah, where, on the ground of the revelations made by the prophets concerning the future of the kingdom of God, the false gods are tauntingly challenged: “The things that are coining and shall come, let them show unto them.” Nor is it very difficult to determine what theme those future revelations to the Apostles would mainly dwell upon. Concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, the Lord had Himself given clear prediction; so clear and perfect, that the boundary line was reached which separates between prophecy and history. Hence we expect disclosures concerning the history of the Church, in its relation to the Gentile secular power. This had been lightly indicated by our Lord as the second hostile agency; even as it is exhibited in the scenes of the crucifixion, which bear upon them a symbolical character. In Matthew 21:21, the Lord sets over against the fig-tree of the Jewish people the symbol of a mountain for the Gentile power, to remove which was the task assigned to the faith of the Church. In Matthew 10:18, “And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles,” the Lord gives an intimation of the persecutions which threatened the Church from the heathen world, and of the judgment upon it which would ensue. In Luke 21:24, He speaks of the times of the Gentiles being accomplished, following upon the judgment upon Jerusalem. In Matthew 18:6, there is a reference to Jeremiah 51:63-64, where Jeremiah gives to Seraiah, going to Babylon, the command to read his prophecy: “And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates: and thou shalt say. Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her; and they shall be weary.” And this shows that, behind the reference to events immediately coming, there lay concealed a reference to the Gentile powers, which would one day in a more serious manner offend the little ones: comp. Revelation 18:21. These hints we expect to see expanded by the Holy Ghost, and with a precision, luminousness, and practical force, somewhat corresponding to the pattern given in our Lord’s description of the catastrophe of Jerusalem. If this be so, Stier’s observation is quite correct: “And now let him who hath ears to hear, hear what the Spirit saith to the churches, through the bosom-disciple in Patmos, who was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” The Church and the Gentile power are the theme of the Apocalypse. I observed in my commentary on that book as follows: “It is remarkable that this promise of our Lord should have been found in the Gospel of John. The intimations of what was to come, given elsewhere than in his writings, are only of an occasional scattered description. They are to be met with chiefly in Paul, who did not belong to the apostolic circle as it then existed. If we were to conceive of the Apocalypse dropping away, we should at once feel that the promise of Christ had found no adequate fulfilment. Even from the analogy of the fulfilment given to the parallel declaration, ‘He will bring to your remembrance whatsoever I have said to you,’ as it is to be found in the Gospels, especially in those of John and Matthew, we are naturally led to expect a book specially devoted to the announcement of what was to come; and this so much the more, as the prophecy of the Old Testament presented the type of something independent and complete. The Gospel itself thus looks beyond itself to another book, that should be peculiarly occupied with the revelation of things to come, as these belonged to the many things of which the Lord had said to His disciples that they could still not bear them.” Our Rationalist criticism cannot confront the Lord’s declaration in this passage; more especially after having, as it has, contended against the genuineness of the Second Epistle of Peter, the only book springing from an original Apostle, which, apart from the Apocalypse, contains a detailed foreannouncement of future things: comp. 2 Peter 2:1 seq., and the allusion to this passage in the Epistle of Jude, vers. 17, 18. Ver. 14. “He shall glorify Me; for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you.” The Holy Spirit would glorify Christ, inasmuch as He would impart revelations which could not be explained from natural causes, leading the mind up beyond the human domain into the divine. This importance could not be attached to the doctrines generally, so much as to those special disclosures of the future. That these are more particularly to be considered here, is plain from the repetition, here and ver. 15, of the ἀναγγελεῖ, the triple recurrence of which serves to demonstrate what deep significance our Lord attached to these revelations of futurity. Grotius’ observation is correct: “By this He will show forth My glory, inasmuch as through Me future things will be fore-announced to My people.” In a long series of passages in the second portion of Isaiah, it is shown to have been the design of the many predictions of the future contained in the book, to demonstrate that Jehovah was God, or to glorify Him: see ch. Isaiah 41:25-26, Isaiah 43:9-11. As those prophecies were to serve for the glorification of Jehovah, so those of which our passage speaks were to serve for the glorification of Christ. They would show that to Him was applicable the word spoken, in Daniel 2:22, concerning Jehovah: “He revealeth the deep and secret things; He knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with Him.” The world would, in consequence of the confirmation which these prophecies should receive, say, as Nebuchadnezzar said, Daniel 2:47, “Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret.” All that the Holy Spirit would communicate, should return back to Christ, and serve to His glorification. The Holy Spirit receives His disclosures from Christ (comp. Revelation 1:1; Revelation 22:16); and that they really belonged to Him, is plain from the fact that an actual knowledge of the future is found only within the domain of the Christian Church. When heathen Rome was still dreaming of immortality, the Christian Church, taught by the Apocalypse, was as surely persuaded of its impending fall, as if it had already sunk before its eyes. The saying we now consider suggests to us that we should reverently dwell upon the Apocalypse, and, if we find in it obscurities, reflect upon the dimness of our own vision. If we do not take this book into the account, it is hard to indicate how the promise was fulfilled. We cannot then point to any apostolical revelations or disclosures of the future which contributed in any striking manner to the glorification of Christ. The prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem were not such; for the Son of man had already, before the Spirit’s revelations, preoccupied that theme. Nor the predictions of the end of the world; for the glorification ensuing was to be of a practical kind, and to serve to the extension of the Redeemer’s kingdom upon earth. Thus, the communication of the Holy Spirit that should glorify Christ must move in the same circle as the predictions of the Apocalypse. In harmony with our passage is the high significance which that book ascribes to its own prophetic revelations (comp. ch. Revelation 19:10, with my commentary): there also the disclosures which the spirit of prophecy makes are referred back to Christ (compare my remarks on the same passage, ch. Revelation 22:16); further, the prophetic testimony of Jesus, according to that book, culminates in the Apostles. With ἐρχόμενα, compare ἃμέλλειγενέσθαιμετὰταῦτα, Revelation 1:19. Ver. 15. “All things that the Father hath are Mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you.” Jesus now shows how great things the Apostles had to expect in the Holy Spirit’s revelation of the future, by declaring that, in this matter as in all others. His domain was co-extensive with that of the Father; so that nothing Was inaccessible to Him, nothing going beyond His own sphere. The “of Me” needed this explanation all the more, inasmuch as the Old Testament had always most decisively referred the disclosure of the future to God alone, exhibiting it as His supreme and sole prerogative. In harmony with the present passage, the Apocalypse in its very first words refers itself to God as its original: “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him:” comp. also ch. Revelation 22:6. The triple ἀναγγελεῖὑμῖν, “will show you,” must have had the effect of making the Apostles anticipate with the most anxious expectation the disclosures which were foreannounced with such deep emphasis. When they subsequently recalled this promise, and reflected who among them would be the instruments of these high revelations, the three, Peter, James, and John, would be the most prominent; for these three had been on every occasion distinguished by our Lord, and were among the Apostles “the greater.” Of these three, again, that disciple who leaned on the Lord’s bosom seemed the most adapted to the revelation of these deep mysteries, Amos 3:7. His self-renouncing, contemplative, mystical peculiarity, placed him in the forefront. Ver. 16. “A little while, and ye shall not see Me: and again a little while, and ye shall see Me; because I go to the Father.” The Lord utters here the proper farewell word. But He veils it in intentional mystery, in order that the difficulty which it presented to the understanding of the disciples might give opportunity for further explanation. The connection with what precedes is made plain by ver. 7. The sending of the Holy Ghost had His going to the Father, His death and His resurrection, for its condition. The double μικρόν, a little while (comp. Isaiah 10:25, Haggai 2:6), shows that we must interpret it of events which belonged to the immediate future. As the former, the not seeing, manifestly referred to the death of Christ, which was close at hand, so we must understand the second of an event which was the next in order of those then under consideration. For that reason alone we must prefer applying it to the resurrection (Bengel: In universum quatriduum) rather than to the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. That the latter event does not satisfy the Lord’s meaning seems plain, further, when we consider that at the Pentecost the disciples did not see the Lord, saving in a figurative and spiritual sense; whereas in the resurrection they saw Him literally, and that literal seeing preceded the other. The reference to the resurrection is, as Stier remarks, “incontrovertibly established by the simple antithesis between ὄψεσθε and οὐθεωρεῖτε; if the one takes away the bodily visibility, the other must give it back again.” Moreover, the ὄψομαιὑμᾶς in ver. 22 corresponds to the ὄψεσθέμε in our present passage. If this latter might indeed in itself and in another connection be referred to the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, yet the former could not, since we hear nothing of a Christophany at the Pentecost. But it must not be overlooked that these terms, ὄψεσθε and ὄψονται, are used in Matthew 28:7; Matthew 28:10, Mark 16:7, when recording the Apostles’ seeing their risen Lord; comp. the ὤφθη in Luke 24:34; Acts 13:31; 1 Corinthians 15:5-8. But the verb ὄπτομαι is never once used with reference to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It is, generally, never used elsewhere save to express an actual personal beholding, πρόσωπονπρὸςπρόσωπον, face to face, 1 Corinthians 13:12 : comp. Acts 20:25; Revelation 22:4. The clause “Because I go to the Father,” gives the reason of both assertions, “A little while, and ye shall not see Me,” and “again a little while, and ye shall see Me.” Christ could not go to the Father otherwise than by that bodily death which made Him invisible to the disciples. But since going to the Father was the same thing as entering into His glory, therefore the resurrection was inseparably connected with the death. He who was thus going to the Father could not be holden by the bands of death. But the resurrection necessarily involved His appearance to His disciples; only through it would the death and resurrection produce their fruits. He went to the Father before the day of the ascension came: concerning the ascension, He says in ch. John 20:17, not ὑπάγω, but ἀναβαίνωπρὸςτὸνπατέρα. The resurrection, which was not merely a revivification, but a glorification also, showed that He had already gone to the Father. The omission of the words ὅτιὑπάγωπρὸςτὸνπατέρα, in several important MSS., may be explained partly by the difficulty of the sense, and partly by the fact that Jesus in ver. 19 omits these words. But their genuineness is vouched for by their recurrence in ver. 17. That the Apostles took the clause from ver. 10, and attached it arbitrarily to clauses with which it originally had no connection, and that they thus even wilfully aggravated the difficulty of the passage, is in the highest degree improbable. The words are here absolutely indispensable; for they alone give the Lord’s saying its character of inexplicable mystery: the mere “A little while, and ye shall not see Me; and again a little while, and ye shall see Me,” they would have been able to interpret, even as they had not failed to understand, according to ver. 22, the very similar declaration of Christ in ch. John 14:19. It was the ὅτιὑπάγω, “because I go to the Father,”—to the present day so full of embarrassment to expositors,—which made the saying hard to be understood by the Apostles. These words of themselves were not difficult. The thought had become familiar to them in the Lord’s discourses: comp. ch. John 7:33, John 13:33, John 16:10. The difficulty arose from its being connected with what went before by ὅτι, “because.” The former of the two clauses might be naturally so explained. “I go to the Father, and ye see Me no more,” had been said in ver. 10. But that the going to the Father should at the same time be the reason of their seeing Him again, was what the disciples could not understand; and the obscurity of this point was diffused over the whole. It was all the worse, as the matter concerned the most important catastrophes, which were immediately impending, and as they were robbed of that understanding of these important declarations which they thought they had. But their Master would exorcise their spiritual discernment, and therefore designedly threw this stone of offence in their path. Luther remarks on the double “little while:” “Thus there is here on earth an everlasting change going on among Christians. Now dark and night, presently it will be day.” Vers. 17, 18. “Then said some of His disciples among themselves, What is this that He saith unto us, A little while, and ye shall not see Me: and again a little while, and ye shall see Me: and. Because I go to the Father? They said therefore. What is this that He saith, A little while? we cannot tell what He saith.” The proceeding is a natural one. First, they ask one the other what Jesus could mean; for they suppose that the cause of their not understanding might possibly be an individual defect in themselves. As they receive no satisfactory reply, they come to the conclusion, that in these words there was a mystery not to be solved by any of the company of the disciples. They do not venture to carry their difficulty at once to Christ; they are ashamed of their ignorance, and fear to augment their Master’s sorrow, by exposing their slow progress in the school of His instruction. The “little while” which they single out, and all that was immediately connected with it, was not preeminently the obscure part of His words, but the pre-eminently interesting to their minds. They would fain have an explanation concerning every part of an announcement which placed in the prospect a doubly momentous catastrophe. Their desire was all the more urgent, inasmuch as their half-won understanding had been abruptly taken away from them by the clause which the Lord had added. How important the μικρόν was, and how it formed the centre of all the disciples’ thoughts, may be gathered from the fact, that in vers. 16-19 it occurs no less than seven times, which was certainly no more accidental than the threefold repetition in vers. 13-15 of ἀναγγελεῖ. Ver. 19. “Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask Him, and said unto them, Do ye inquire among yourselves of that I said, A little while, and ye shall not see Me: and again a little while, and ye shall see Me?” That this knowledge on the part of Christ belonged to Him, as knowing what was in man, ch. John 2:25,—that is, that the Apostles had in no way given outward intimation of their determination to ask Him,—is plain from ver. 30, where the disciples concluded that Jesus knew all things, from the fact that His answer anticipated their question. The Lord designedly omits, in the repetition of His saying, the words, “because I go to the Father,” which involved the greatest difficulty, and a difficulty which could hardly be removed at present; He limits Himself to the elucidation of the two former clauses, to understand which, as the “What is this that He saith?” shows, was the point of most immediate concern to the Apostles. Ver. 20. “Verily, verily, I say unto you. That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.” The strong affirmation at the beginning was intended, in the first place, to dissipate at once the illusion that events might take another and more favourable turn; but it must be regarded, at the same time, as equally belonging to the latter clause of the verse. Heumann: “Believe Me once more, when I affirm it most solemnly, that your sorrow will be followed by the greatest joy; and when that sadness shall come upon you, fail not to remember, in your distress and anxiety, what! now so solemnly affirm to you.” “A little while, and ye see Me no more,” is thus explained as meaning such a withdrawal as would cause deep sorrow to the disciples. Accordingly, it was plain to them that Jesus was speaking concerning His impending death; and the rather, as θρηεῖν, θρῆνος, were used especially of lamentation for beloved persons departed: Mark 2:18; Mark 11:17; Luke 23:27. The words, ἀλλʼ ? ἡλύπηκ.τ.λ., echo Psalms 30:12 : comp. also Esther 9:22. Vers. 21, 22. “A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and our joy no man taketh from you.” According to the express exposition of our Lord Himself, nothing is to be imported into the figure of the bearing woman beyond the immediate transition, in which the deepest sorrow is followed by the highest joy; and the edifying meaning which the saying has, when thus simply viewed, is rather lessened than augmented by the other deeper significations which are sought in it. In the Old Testament, the image of the bearing woman is everywhere viewed under one aspect, that of sorrow; and the other, that of joy following, is not included: comp. Micah 4:9-10; Isaiah 26:17; Jeremiah 4:31; Hosea 13:13. Thus there is here an extension of the figure which is already familiar in the older Scriptures.—“And your heart shall rejoice” is taken from Isaiah 66:14. The words, “and your joy no man taketh from you,” point to the fact that their seeing Christ again would be, in contradistinction to or contrast with the transitory sorrow which the not seeing Him would cause, a source of imperishable and everduring joy and rejoicing. That their seeing Him again would be only transitory, the Lord had very explicitly intimated, when He referred the Apostles, in ver. 13, to the Holy Ghost; but this transitory seeing would be sufficient to lay the foundation of an abiding joy. From that time it would be true, “In whom, though ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory,” 1 Peter 1:8. We see in Luke 24:52-53, that the ascension was not an interruption to the joy of the disciples: as surely as their Head was in heaven, so surely would it stand firm that He would be with them unto the end of the world: comp. Acts 1:11; Acts 3:21. Ver. 23. “And in that day ye shall ask Me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you.” Jesus had in the previous words answered the question of the disciples before it had been put. Here He takes into view the condition of the disciples, out of which the necessity for asking had arisen. The day is here the day when Jesus would see His disciples again, and they should see Him; but this day is, in the Old Testament manner, regarded as the beginning term of a new epoch, in which the Apostles should be elevated above the low position which they had hitherto occupied. From the moment of their first seeing Him again, the Apostles were exalted into a new being. This developed itself, however, by degrees. That the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost did not constitute a new beginning, is plain from the fact, that on the evening of His resurrection the Lord said to His disciples, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” ch. John 20:22.—“Ye shall ask Me nothing” stands in obvious connection with the purpose of the disciples, perceived by Jesus, to ask Him in ver. 19: comp. ver. 30. That lower position of spiritual insufficiency and impotence from which their question sprang, would cease from that day: they would no longer need to seek instruction in that external way, wherein it could be only very imperfectly obtained; but approach to God, the source of all true internal perception, would be opened up to them, according to the predictions of the Old Testament, which foreannounced such an unmediated knowledge of religious truth: comp. Isaiah 54:13, “All thy children shall be taught of God;” and Jeremiah 31:34, “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying. Know the Lord; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord.” “Whatsoever ye shall ask” must be referred, as the “ye shall ask Me nothing” shows, specially to matters of uncertainty in their knowledge (Bengel: “Ye shall not need to ask Me; for ye shall clearly know all things”): comp. James 1:5, “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally; and it shall be given him. Yet the promise goes beyond this specific reference: whatever ye may ask in those circumstances in which, during the time of your imperfection, ye were wont to ask Me; and in all other cases: comp. Matthew 21:22.—“In My name:” this intimates that, in order to prayer being answered, the petitioner must have the whole historical personality of Christ before his eyes; that he must go to a God not concealed, but manifested in Christ; that in his prayer he must sink into and be absorbed by what Christ hath done and suffered for us, grounding upon that all his hope of acceptance: comp. on ch. John 14:13-14, John 15:16. In Matthew 21:22 it is not “in My name,” but “believing.” Ver. 24. “Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” The Lord does not here throw any reproach upon His disciples. The reason that they had not hitherto asked anything in His name, was that that name had not yet been perfectly unfolded in all its meaning; that the main elements of its development, the atoning sufferings, the resurrection, and the glorification of Christ, were still in the future. Jesus must first perfectly exhibit Himself as a Saviour, before faith in His name could perfectly exert its power. Here, as frequently elsewhere (comp. for example, ch. John 1:17, John 7:39), the opposition which is in fact only relative is uttered absolutely; to intimate, that in comparison of their future confidence in the name of Jesus, that which they had already exercised was scarcely worthy of regard. From the very beginning of the disciples’ relation to Christ, there had been in their prayers an element of trust in the name of Jesus. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to whom alone the Jews turned—began to recede before the Father of Jesus Christ; and in consequence of that fact, the disciples’ prayers had acquired a new element of inwardness and depth. But in comparison of their future prayer, in the name of Jesus, that was not to be regarded or remembered. The advancement was not merely matter of subjective joyfulness: that was only subordinate. The true root of the higher prayer was the elevation of the objective significance of the name of Jesus; that of itself would result in higher personal joy. From the time that Christ gave His life for His friends, ch. John 15:13, and for their salvation sat down at the right hand of God,—or, to use Luther’s phrase, “atoned for sin, strangled death, ravaged hell, and opened heaven,” His name would become to them, in quite a new sense, the pledge and guarantee of their prayer being heard. They would then have to do with a propitiated God, at whose hands all their prayers would be sure of immediate acceptance. The Father cannot withstand the name of Christ made perfect (comp. the τετέλεσται, John 19:30), when it is urged before Him. Luther: “When that name is complete, and everywhere preached, there will be new prayer and new worship in all the world; ye will then pray in My name to good purpose, and the virtue of My name will be proved by your prayers being mightily heard and answered.” Their full joy was to be the antithesis of their former imperfect joy. It would grow out of their prayer being perfectly granted. Ver. 25. “These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father.” That which is here spoken must be regarded as parallel with what was, in vers. 23, 24, held out to the expectation of the disciples: for, in vers. 26, 27, the Lord recurs to this latter. There was a strict connection between the disciples having an entirely different access to God generally and specifically in the domain of knowledge, and His words to them becoming clear and transparent: before, those words had been full of obscurities and unsolved mysteries; they had had to say, with Ezekiel’s hearers, “Doth He not speak parables?” and everywhere they had been obliged to put questions, the answers to which were not always satisfactory. But they would be translated into an entirely new life; and both those results would follow from the Lord’s being able to say to them, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”—“These things” refer primarily to vers. 19 seq.; but really they refer to the whole course of our Lord’s previous teaching. Everywhere they had encountered manifold obscurities. Not only in the Gospel of John, but often in the other Gospels, we find this illustrated: for example. Matthew 13:36; Matthew 15:15 seq., Matthew 16:5 seq. For παροιμία, corresponding to the Hebrew ξωμ, primarily a figurative saying, then generally any difficult and obscure saying, comp. the remarks on ch. John 10:6. Παῤῥησία is boldness in speaking, then generally any open and unfettered speech: comp. ch. John 11:54, John 18:20. Our Lord’s words in ch. John 11:14 come nearest as illustration: “Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.” Before He had said, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth.” It was not that Jesus would change His speech: the change would pass upon the disciples, who would see clearness where they had formerly seen only obscurity. They were to be raised to a higher position; and to them, therefore, the Teacher would be quite different. The hour of this passage is identical with the day in ver. 23, the time of the resurrection. That was the date of the elevated condition of the disciples. The Lord’s prophetic promise referred especially to the words which He would speak as the risen Redeemer: comp. Luke 24:44; Acts 1:3. But it includes also all the earlier words. These recurred after the resurrection anew to their minds: comp. ch. John 14:26, according to which the Holy Ghost would bring to remembrance all that the Lord had told them. Then it seemed as if Jesus was saying all anew; everything obtained a new meaning and force for them. We may add, that Jesus also spoke to them through the Holy Ghost: comp. vers. 12-14. Jesus names the Father as the matter of the communication He would make. Everything in religion goes back to Him. His domain embraces at the same time that of the Son and the Holy Ghost: “Of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things,” Romans 11:36. Vers. 26, 27. “At that day ye shall ask in My name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God.” The words are not, “I will not pray the Father for you,” but, “I say not that I will pray the Father for you.” This only means that the emphasis does not fall absolutely upon His intercession; that it was not needful that He should first render gentle the Father’s countenance; that they would have not only the Son, but the Father also, unconditionally on their side. Grotius: Praetereo hoc quasi minus eo, quod jam inferam. They were to pray in the name of Christ, involved in Him, and wrapped up in His atonement: therefore they would have not merely a merciful Saviour, but a merciful Father also. It is perfectly clear that the Lord does not here deny, or exhibit as needless, that intercession for His own which is elsewhere so expressly insisted on: comp. ch. John 17:9; 1 John 2:1; Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25. That rather is indirectly confirmed by the “in My name.” How could the Redeemer assume an attitude of indifference towards the details of the life and needs of those who, trusting to His accomplished work, come as suppliants before God? He does not take away from the disciples the prospect of His intercession, which was so consolatory to their minds; but it was His purpose to open, in connection with that, another and a second source of consolation and joy. Anton excellently remarks: “He would remove everything out of the way. For man is so constituted as willingly to turn everything into gall and bitterness; and this is true even of the intercession of Christ. That intercession is an excellent consolation! But then man comes to think that the good God must have a hard heart if He must needs be urged and impelled by an intercessor; and thus the coarsest idea of intercession is interwoven into the material of Christ’s intercession. That was one main reason of the subsequent multiplication of many intercessors besides Christ. For they said we must have as many intercessors as we can. One land has this, another that; one town this, another that: thus the blessed Lord is dealt with as if He were a Saturn. No, the fault was not with God, that ye so dealt with the matter. I tell you ye must not so think of My intercession as if the Father were not Himself well disposed, but must first be coerced into kindness. No, He Himself loveth you, and Himself ordained My intercession. He appointed the way of acceptable prayer, that ye might know whence to draw your confidence. But ye must not take away the blessedness of it again.” The love of the Father is here grounded upon the disciples’ love to Jesus, and their faith in Him. But this love which has their faith for its condition, was preceded by another love which appointed the atonement, and opened up the way to faith: comp. ch. John 3:16; 1 John 4:19. To those who stood only under the government of this love, our Lord would never have said, “I say not that I will pray the Father for you.” In that case, the intercession of Christ occupies the foreground: that intercession, of which we read in Isaiah, “He will make intercession for the transgressors,” Isaiah 53:12. Then the propitiation of the wrath of the Father, coexisting with His love, was necessary. Ver. 28. “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.” As in ver. 16, so here again at the end of this part of the discourse, our Lord speaks words which prepare the way for His farewell. The point of connection is provided by the last words of the preceding verse. Luther: “That He might show what that going to the Father meant. He says, ‘ I leave the world,’ that thus the disciples might mark that He now spoke somewhat more clearly than before. In the same way also, after the resurrection, He spoke of it (Luke 24:44), and said, These are the things which I spoke unto you while I was yet with you.’“ Jesus left the world at the moment of His death, and did not return to it in His resurrection. The existence of the risen Lord belonged to another world, and His appearances transitorily broke through the limits which generally distinguish the two spheres of existence. Vers. 29, 30. “His disciples said unto Him, Lo, now speakest Thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that Thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask Thee: by this we believe that Thou earnest forth from God.” The words of the Apostles in ver. 29 have special reference to the more than ordinarily clear and simple saying of Jesus in ver. 28. They are heartily rejoiced at their own understanding; they congratulate themselves that they can gladden their Master by the declaration that they understand Him. They recognise, in their thus understanding, a foretaste of the fulfilment of the promise given them in ver. 25, to which they verbally refer. Anton: “Now they breathe freely, and inhale the fresh air. The disciples did well in that they did not complain alone, but told freely out their lightened feelings. To be always complaining is no virtue. And as they had affected their Master with their sorrow, so they would now rejoice Him with their little glimmer of joy in faith. And not with one little word alone do they attest their recovery; they three times as it were lift up their voices. And this is appropriate to thankfulness. These are the offerings of the lips that praise Thy name, O God.” In ver. 29 the Apostles had referred to the conclusion of Christ’s words; in ver. 30 they go back to its beginning again, which was to them not less consolatory than the end. By anticipating their question by His instruction, ver. 19, Christ had manifested Himself the possessor of omniscience, the καρδιογνώστης, Acts 1:24; Acts 15:8, Jeremiah 11:20. In this they behold, recurring to the close of the Lord’s discourse, a great assistance to their faith in His saying that He came forth from God. These words of the disciples stand in no connection with ver. 23. There it was promised that they should not find it necessary to ask Christ; here the matter is, that Jesus did not need to be asked by the disciples. Ἐντούτῳ, properly “in this, by this.” The effect upon their minds is thus traced to its cause. Vers. 31, 32. “Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.” It makes no essential difference whether we take ἄρτιπιστεύετε as a question or as a declaration. For, even in the former case, Jesus concedes to His Apostles that they do now believe, and only warns them not to lay too much stress upon that uncontestable fact (comp. ver. 27, ch. John 17:8). The question simply intimates that all was not yet quite right with their faith, that there was some reason why they should not so very confidently build upon it: Are ye so absolutely assured that ye now believe? The interrogatory construction is favoured by a comparison with ch. John 6:70, John 13:38, where our Lord tests the confident faith of Peter by a similar question. If we drop the interrogation, and make it a simple affirmative, the antithesis seems too violent, Jesus could hardly declare the Apostles absolutely to have faith, and then forthwith, without anything intervening, attach to it a prediction of their utter weakness. ‘The announcement of their coming infirmity was not designed solely as a reproach. According to ch. John 18:8, our Lord Himself paved the way for the flight of His disciples. It was, as it were, in the order of things that their company was scattered. Christ must die for them and rise again before they were to be equipped with invincible assurance and boldness. Cowardice in the cause of Christ could be objected to only after His death and resurrection. To require that the Apostles should have sacrificed themselves for Christ before He had sacrificed Himself for them, would be to demand from a child the work of a man. The word σκορπισθῆτε points back to Zechariah 13:7, and suggests the Lord’s recent quotation of that passage and application of it to the Apostles, Matthew 26:31-32. The passage contained in it an element of consolation, since there was connected with their dispersion, both in the original passage and the quotation, the renewal of the bond between the Shepherd and His scattered flock. Τὰἴδια, the individual refuges of the disciples, in contradistinction to the one rallying-point, Christ. For “leave Me alone,” comp. Matthew 26:56. Μόνος points to Psalms 22:21, where the Righteous One cries, “Deliver My soul from the sword, My darling (My only one) from the power of the dog.” Ver. 33. “These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” We have here the close of the whole discourse continued in ch. 15, 16. That discourse had for its end, after the hortatory portion, to lead the disciples to perfect peace in Christ. Abiding in Christ, brotherly love, stedfast fortitude amidst persecutions of the world, were all conditions on which was suspended the enjoyment of peace in Christ. This peace includes assurance against all hostile powers: comp. on ch. John 14:27. The having is not to be referred so much to the state as to the consciousness of it. To the having peace corresponds the θαρσεῖν, he of good cheer. The words of Christ should lead them to the confidence that all the hosts of their enemies could not touch them. But the subjective consciousness of peace must rest upon the objective possession of that peace which Christ hath obtained. Nενίκηκα is anticipatory: the great work of redemption, now to be accomplished, and by which the victory was to be achieved, is regarded as done (comp. on ch. John 12:31-32). By similar anticipation, we have ἐνίκησαν in Revelation 12:11, and νενικήκατε in 1 John 4:4. “A good sermon must have a good prayer” (Luther). This prayer, which forms the climax of our Lord’s last discourses to His disciples, has been termed the high-priestly prayer of Christ. And rightly so, in as far as we have here the most amply unfolded intercession of Jesus for His people. Intercession for the congregation was one of the most essential functions of the high priest, Leviticus 9:22, Numbers 6:22-27. But that Jesus, by this prayer, prepared Himself for the high-priestly act of atonement has no warrant in ver. 19; and the prayer itself stands in no demonstrable connection with the redeeming sacrifice of Christ. According to the current exposition, Jesus first prays for Himself, vers. 1-5; then for His Apostles, vers. 6-19; and finally for those who should believe on Him through their word, the Church of all ages. But this distribution is not satisfactory; it takes too much account of the mere form of the prayer. In vers. 1-5 there is a petition for the glorification of His people concealed beneath the prayer for His own glorification; and on the principle of this distribution, vers. 24-26 present no slight difficulties. The Lord here returns back from believers generally to the Apostles; and the petition for the heavenly glorification of these Apostles, as it is contained in this conclusion, shows plainly that the previous petition was not general, but specifically referred to the Apostles, and those who should believe through their word. To the same conclusion we are led by the fact that in vers. 6-23 the word κόσμος occurs with unusual and plainly intentional frequency, while everything seems to point to the general position of Christians in the world. A more correct distribution will be as follows. At the beginning, vers. 1-5, and at the end, vers. 24-26, the Lord prays that His people may have the great benefit and blessing of the kingdom of God, eternal life, the heavenly glorification, the foundation of which was His own glorification. In the middle, vers. 6-23, He prays to the Father on behalf of His people, that they might have help in the perilous position in which they would be found in the world, during the days of their pilgrimage on earth; His prayer being first for the Apostles, and then for all believers. Ch. 14 offers a perfect analogy. There the Lord first directs the Apostles’ thoughts to the certainty that heaven was theirs; and then He speaks of the Divine assistance and grace which they should receive during the time of their pilgrimage. What the Lord there promises. He here prays for. That the whole refers to the disciples, we gather from ver. 13, where the end of the prayer is represented to be their establishment in perfect joy. It is of some importance for the understanding of this prayer, that we should not study it as an outpouring of the Son’s heart to the Father; we must rather regard it as having much to do with the edification of the disciples: comp. ch. John 11:42. If Jesus had had only to do with the Father, it would have been enough that “He lifted up His eyes to heaven;” the needs of the disciples would not have been unfolded before us in such detail; the supplications on- their behalf would not have been so minute, and so constantly referred to their grounds. Augustan says: “Not only the direct preaching of such a Teacher, but also His prayer to the Father for them, served for the edification of His disciples.” Lampe: “The confirmation and salvation of these disciples was the primary scope of these prayers.” Schmieder: “His words were not only an effusion of the heart to the Father, but also a pondered and careful exposition for the disciples.” Between this high-priestly prayer and the conflict in Gethsemane, as recorded by the first three Evangelists, there might seem at the first glance to be an irreconcilable opposition. It has been said, that whosoever was able to pray as Jesus prays in John, and was so confident of his victory over the world and his own glorification, could not possibly have immediately afterwards fallen into such trembling and despondency, into such bitterness of death. Either of the two might be imaginable, but not both together. But this contradiction vanishes at once, so soon as we apprehend the true significance of the conflict in Gethsemane. If our Lord struggled and suffered for us and in our stead, if the chastisement of our peace was laid upon Him, then in Him also it was necessary that all the horror of death should be concentrated. He bore the sin of the world, and the wages of that was death. Death must therefore appear to Him in its most fearful form; and the rather as our Representative alone could look profoundly into the depths of sin. The physical suffering was nothing in comparison to this immeasurable suffering of the soul. And if the struggle was vicarious, and thus voluntarily assumed, the suddenness of the transition should not seem strange to us. It is not our task to trace and explain the connection between His different emotions. With equal freedom, the Redeemer was equal now to the one, and then to the other, aspect of His destiny. Then we likewise understand how it was, that, with such clear consciousness. He went forth to encounter this conflict; how, far from being surprised by it, or being overcome by its agony. He prepared all things beforehand, left behind the rest of the Apostles, while He took with Him the three most advanced, as witnesses for the Church of all ages; how fie went, as it were, ex professo to suffer and struggle, even as at the beginning of His manifestation He was not fortuitously encountered by Satan, but led by the Spirit into the wilderness that He might be tempted of Satan. That St John has altogether omitted the conflict in Gethsemane, is at the first glance strange. He himself was, with Peter and James, a witness of this struggle; and that it was of the greatest moment to the Church, is evident from the very fact that the three were taken by our Lord to behold it. But the anomaly vanishes as soon as we rightly discern the relation of St John to the three first Evangelists, and the supplementary character of his Gospel. The more momentous the event was, the more obvious it was that the first Evangelists should record it with the utmost circumstantiality, thus leaving for the fourth no Paraleipomena. The transition to St John’s silence is seen in the comparative brevity with which Luke records the incident. He sums up briefly all that the two Evangelists had already communicated, inserting only three facts peculiar to his account: first, that the disciples slept through sorrow; then, that an angel from heaven appeared to the Redeemer, and strengthened Him; finally, that His sweat fell to the ground like drops of blood. While St Matthew draws from the unexhausted fulness, we see in St Luke the end of the historical material. St John could not, according to the design of his Gospel, repeat. Instead of that, he gives all the more perfectly the high-priestly prayer of our Lord, which his predecessors had not ventured to touch, it having been regarded from the beginning as reserved for St John. Ver. 1. “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said. Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee.” The circumstantiality with which the prayer of our Lord is introduced bespeaks its high significance. That He lifted up His eyes to heaven is more than once recorded: ch. John 11:41; Mark 7:34; Matthew 14:19. On all these occasions, Jesus was in the open air; and in that position the upward glance would be more conspicuous. There is not, indeed, in the words themselves actual demonstration that our Lord pronounced His last discourses under the open heaven. The eyes may obviously be lifted up to heaven within a chamber; and so we find. Acts 7:55, that Stephen lifted up his eyes to heaven in the midst of the council. The expression, however, suggests it; and we have already, on other and strong grounds, proved that Jesus did speak in the open air. The hour is in itself indefinite: the sequel alone will furnish its more precise specification. (Augustin: He shows that all time, and all that in time is permitted to be done or suffered, was appointed by Him who is above subjection to time.) Accordingly, it was not the hour of the passion, but of the glorification. In His spirit, the suffering was already past. The word is more fully uttered in ch. John 12:23 : “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.”—“Glorify Thy Son:” glorify Me because I am Thy Son, from whose nature the perfection of glory is inseparable, and who only for a season could renounce that glory. The Divine glory attended the Son of God even in His state of humiliation (comp. ch. John 1:14, John 2:11), and manifested itself most variously in His deeds: comp. ch. John 11:4, John 13:31, John 12:28. But it was a deeply concealed glory; and the Son of God prays that now this concealment might cease, that His glory might beam forth again in its original brightness. The Father was to glorify the Son, that the Son might glorify the Father: the glory of the Father, and the blessedness of believers given with it, was the final goal. The êáß after ἵ ?íá is spurious: it weakens the idea, so important in the present connection, that the glorification of the Son here comes into consideration only as means to an end. The glory of the Father could not of itself know any addition: His being glorified, therefore, can only refer to men’s recognition of that glory. But men’s knowledge and acknowledgment of His glory required Christ’s glorification as its condition. It has its various gradations and degrees. But it is evident from what follows, that the Lord here contemplates the highest gradation of it—the perfected knowledge of the glory of God in eternal blessedness. But the idea, “that Thy Son also may glorify Thee,” could not remain in this generality. It points forward by its very mysteriousness, left to conjecture, to a closer definition of its meaning. Luther: “It is also to be observed in this text, how Christ ascribes it to Himself that He alone was the man through whom the Father must be glorified. That goes clean beyond all creaturely degrees.” Ver. 2. “As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him.” Jesus first justifies His request concerning His glorification. It was in perfect harmony with that glorification that God had given Him the power to impart eternal life to all His people. This power He could exercise only when He had Himself entered into His glory; His saints could be nowhere but where He was; their glory should consist in beholding His glory, ver. 24, ch. John 14:2-3. Καθώς here is used just as λΰωψ in Psalms 51, “When Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba;” Micah 3:4. Primarily it is only correspondence that is meant, but the causal connection lies in the background. For ἐξουσία, compare the remarks on ch. John 10:18. The giving Him power is to be regarded as simultaneous with the sending of ver. 3. It was the recompense which should crown the work, and the prospect of which would inspirit to its performance. As the Father gave the Son His power, so He must place Him in that condition in which He could exercise it. The power given is over all flesh, inasmuch as no man absolutely and of necessity is excluded from the range of it. The limitation of that power is in every case the result of the fault of individuals, who reject the salvation provided for all: comp. “Ye would not,” Matthew 23:37. Πᾶσασάρξ embraces the whole of mankind, corresponding to the κόσμος, ch. John 3:16; the ἐνπαντὶἔθνει, Acts 10:35. In Matthew 24:22, Luke 3:6, Acts 2:17, 1 Corinthians 1:29, πᾶσασάρξ is used to express the idea of the entire human race. Men are so denominated, in contradistinction to purely spiritual natures: comp. the πνεῦμασάρκακαὶοὐκἔχει, Luke 24:39. Strictly, the words run, “That all which Thou hast given Him” (nominative absolute), “He may give them.” The summing up of all believers into one ideal unity makes still more emphatic the impartation of salvation to all of them, without exception. “As many as Thou hast given Him” corresponds with “whosoever believeth in Him; just as the κόσμος in ch. 3 corresponds with the πᾶσασάρξ. All are given to Christ who do not wilfully seal their hearts against faith. The limitation cannot be in God, else would the bestowal of power over all flesh be illusory. But it is referred back to God, because He judicially excludes unbelievers from salvation, and judicially makes believers partakers of it. The eternal life which is here spoken of can belong only to the sphere of the other world; for it is such an eternal life as was still future to the Apostles, whom the Lord had always pre-eminently in His eye. Further, it was only the eternal life of the other world which was absolutely dependent on the glorification of Christ. The conclusion in ver. 24, corresponding with the beginning, leads to the same result; as also does ch. John 14:2-3. But, apart from these clear and definite reasons, in the nature of things we must refer this eternal life to the other world. The expression itself suggests it; and there are only a few passages in the discourses “of our Lord in St John which bring eternal life into this present state. Generally they are in harmony with the words of our Lord in the other Evangelists, where the ζωὴαἰώνιος is everywhere limited to the other state: comp. Matthew 19:29; Mark 10:30; Luke 18:30, where the ζωὴαἰώνιος is appropriated to the αἰώνἐρχόμενος. Recent exposition, instead of recognising in the few passages of this Gospel exceptions to the rule, has fallen into gross exaggeration, and not shrunk from the assertion, that the Gospel of John contradicts, on the one hand, the other Evangelists, and on the other the revelation of the Apocalypse: compare my commentary (Clark’s Transl.). In ch. John 6:40, John 11:25, the resurrection and life are inseparably united; and in ch. John 4:14, John 5:39, John 6:54, John 12:25, eternal life is strictly referred to the other world. Luther: “This power over all that liveth, such authority to give eternal life, belongs to no creature: the creature may receive it, but God’s power alone can give eternal life. For even the angels, though they live eternally, cannot impart eternal life.” Ver. 3. “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” Jesus not only has to give a reason for the “glorify Thy Son,” but He must also show that His own glorification would be the condition of the Father’s. The latter He does now. If the Father places Him, in harmony with the authority given to Him, in a condition to give eternal life to His people, the goal of the Father’s glorification would be thereby attained. For the essence of eternal life is to know God as He is, and that is the only true glorifying of Christ: to give Him His honour, is simply to acknowledge the glory that He has. The knowledge of God has, indeed, its beginnings in the present life; but in its full truth it belongs to the life to come: there we shall first see God as He is, 1 John 3:2; there first know Him as we are known, 1 Corinthians 13:12. If eternal life consists in the perfect knowledge of God, or the beholding of His glory, ver. 24, the foretaste of this knowledge must be the substance of spiritual life in this world, the only essential element in it, the highest goal to which we should in this world aspire. Those who neglect in this life to labour after this goal, rob themselves of eternal life. The nature of eternal life is at the same time the way to eternal life. “To know Thy power,” it is said, in Sir 15:3, “is the root of immortality.” The added clause, “the only true God,” is instead of a reason: because Thou art the only true God. To see Him as He is, must be the only absolute felicity. As the only true God, He is Jehovah, the pure, absolute Being, out of whom there is nothing but illusion and shadow; to know this essential God, and in that knowledge to be united to Him, is the only true life for His creatures. The original passage for the designation of God as the Only One (comp. ch. John 5:44; Romans 16:27; 1 Timothy 1:17; 1 Timothy 6:15-16; Jude 1:25), is Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God is one God.” One God is not merely an antithesis to common polytheism, but declares that out of Him no true being exists, that He is the one and all; it annihilates all imagination of independent strength, Habakkuk 1:11, and the deification of riches. Job 31:24. As in the original passage, and in our Lord’s saying based upon it, Mark 12:29-30, the unity of God is the ground of the command to love Him above all (comp. Matthew 4:10, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve,” where the μονῷ is inserted from ver. 4 of the original in Deuteronomy), so here it is the ground of the doctrine that to know Him is eternal life. If God is the Only Being, He alone must be loved. He alone must be served, in Him alone our honour is to be sought; He is alone the source of living water, Jeremiah 2:13; of life, Psalms 36:10; He is the life, Deuteronomy 30:20, and to know Him is eternal life. Besides Deuteronomy 6:4, we may compare Job 23:13, “He is one, and who can turn Him?” There, from the unity of God, His irresistibility, the absoluteness of His omnipotence, is argued. As there is none beside Him, whoever has this Being against him must fall. The ἀληθινός is parallel with the μόνος: the one serves for the elucidation of the other. Because He is the only, therefore He is the true, God; and because He is the true God, therefore He is the only one. That being which is simply true, is alone the Divine; all other being is infected with illusion and untruth: compare my commentary on the Apocalypse, ch. John 3:7, “These things saith the Holy One and the True.” As the truth of His being is here parallel with its oneness, so in that passage and Revelation 6:10 the truth is parallel with the holiness, that is, with the absoluteness, of that being. The truth of being is in antithesis to the lie, the deceitfulness, the delusion, the vanity, and the hollowness which cling to all created things. When God is declared to be the only and the true God, His unity is declared only in regard to everything out of Himself: it does not exclude the Son, who shares His honour, but the world, and the false gods which it invents. This is plain, from the fact that it is not the abstract Godhead which is declared to be the only true God, but the Father of Christ. Anton: “It is inclusive, and only in opposition to Allotria.” By the ἀληθινὸνΘεόν, the reason for which the “glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee,” was urged, is made complete. The appendage, “and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent,” was necessary, in order that the Apostles—whom the Lord, according to ver. 13, had always in view—might not misunderstand the words concerning the only true God. He Himself must be named, as being, not only in time, but also in eternity, the only medium of the knowledge of the one true and only God. That Jesus is not placed, as it were, in juxtaposition with God, after the Mohammedan manner—“There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His prophet”—but as participator in the essence and in the honour of the one only God, is plain from the fact that the full knowledge of Christ is reserved for eternal life, which presupposes His superabounding glory. It is evident also from this, that the knowledge of Christ is, not less than the knowledge of the Father, made one with eternal life itself. This presumes that He is, not less than the Father, holy and true: comp. Revelation 6:10, where these predicates are given to the Father, with John 3:7, where they are given to Christ. In 1 John 5:20, Jesus Christ is taken up into the region of the Only True: the Father and the Son together form the opposite of idols. The predicate of Truth is first assigned to the Father; and then it is said of His Son, Jesus Christ, “This is the true God, and eternal life,” in order to show that in Him the Father is perfectly revealed, and that in Him all the Father’s fulness is. Luther says: “Since He bases eternal life upon the knowing Himself with the Father, and says, that without the knowledge of Him no man can attain unto eternal life, and thus that it is one and the same knowledge by which He and the Father are known, He must perforce be of the same essence and nature with the Father: that is. He must be the selfsame true God, yet a Person distinguished from the Father.” “Whom Thou hast sent “points to the Old Testament Angel of the Lord, like unto God: comp. on John 3:17. That we are not to think of a mere mission, like that of the prophets, but of that sending which was from heaven to earth, is plain from ver. 18. Our Lord does not say, “Me, whom Thou hast sent,” but, making Himself objective, “Jesus Christ.” This was the name which He bore upon earth in His state of humiliation, “the man Christ Jesus,” 1 Timothy 2:5. Its use suggested evidently, that He whom the disciples saw before them in the form of a servant, would in eternal life assume an altogether different position. For the same reason, it Was our Lord’s good pleasure, in those passages which treat of His future glory, to designate Himself the Son of man: comp. ch. John 12:23. And how wont He was to speak of Himself in the third person, is seen, for example, in Matthew 11:27. Luther: “This I have often said, and now say it again, that when I am dead it may be thought of, and men may learn to avoid all teachers, as sent and driven by the devil, who set up to talk and preach about God, simple and sundered from Christ. If thou wouldst go straight to God, and surely apprehend Him, so as to find in Him mercy and strength, never let thyself be persuaded to seek Him elsewhere than in the Lord Christ. In Christ begin thy art and study; in Him let it abide firm; and wherever else thy own reason and thinking, or any other man’s, would lead thee, shut thine eyes and say, I must not, and I will not, know of any other God than in my Lord Christ.” Vers. 4, 5. “I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work 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.” After Jesus had grounded His prayer for glorification. He repeats His request, now declaring that the condition on which that glorification was suspended was fulfilled, and that work finished, for the performance of which He relinquished the state of glory belonging to His nature, and assumed the form of a servant. Schmieder: “After our Lord had expressed the final design of the glorification, which He had asked on His own behalf,—to wit, the glorification of the Father in men, through the communication of eternal life to man, He takes up once more the prayer for glorification, setting forth first the ground of His warrant to urge this prayer now, and declaring wherefore the hour of glorification had now actually come.” For “I have glorified Thee,” comp. ch. John 13:31-32; Matthew 9:8; Luke 7:16; Luke 13:13. While Christ revealed His own glory. He at the same time bore witness to the glory of the Father; He raised His people with a mighty hand out of their indifference towards Him, made them lift up their hearts to Him, and consecrate themselves to His service; even as to the present day the way to the glorification of God is only through Christ. Luther: “The Lord Christ, when He was upon earth, so glorified the Father, that He made His praise, honour, and dignity great. And it is the whole life and being of a Christian man, as it was of Christ Himself, to exalt the honour and glory of God alone, to know and to magnify His grace and goodness.” To the ἐπὶτῆςγῆς corresponds the παρὰσεαυτῷ, that is, “in heaven.” When the Lord says, “I have finished the work,” He anticipates what still remained of it, which was to be accomplished in the next approaching hours. It was not really fulfilled until the Lord could say, “It is finished.”—Σύ, Thou, forms the antithesis to ἐγώ, I. Righteousness required that the Father should glorify the Son, who had glorified Him. On account of the antithesis to ἐγώσε, we must point μεσύ, πάτερ, not με, σύπάτερ, as in ver. 21; also, there must be a comma between σύ and πάτερ. The address, “O Father,” recurs four times; besides “Holy Father” in ver. 11, and “Righteous Father” in ver. 25. From the glory, the restoration of which Jesus here prayed for, we must distinguish that glory which was inseparable from His nature, which indwelt in Him, even during His humiliation (comp. ch. John 2:11, John 13:31), and which ever and anon beamed forth in His words and in His deeds. Even in the case of believers, there exists this difference between a glory inseparable from their nature (comp. vers. 10, 22), and that added glory, which will be theirs only in the future life. His transfiguration was a prelude and earnest of Christ’s heavenly glory. With the παρὰσεαυτῷ, compare the ἐνσεαυτῷ, in ch. John 13:32. This shows that Christ would be taken up into the fellowship of the Divine glory itself. The παρὰσεαυτῷ is explained by the antithesis to ἐπὶτῆςγῆς. It served to introduce the universal designation of the place of the glorification. “Before the world was” (compare “before the foundation of the world,” ver. 24), involves Christ’s participation in disunity; for, before the world was, was only God? To be before the world, is, in Psalms 90:2, the Divine prerogative: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting. Thou art God:” comp. on ch. John 1:1. The angels belong to the κόσμος; their creation is included in Genesis 1:1, even if it does not fall under the work of the six days. With “which I had with Thee before the world was,” we may comp. what Proverbs 8:22, etc., says concerning Wisdom having been with God in the beginning of His way, before His works, before the earth was, before the mountains were established, when He prepared the heavens. In harmony with our present passage, Jesus, in ch. John 8:25, also claimed for Himself a Divine glory before the world was. Luther: “Here is once more a stern and clear text for the divinity of Christ against the Arians, although they have thought to make a hole through it. He says plainly, that He had possessed His glory, and had been one with the glorious nature of the Father, before the world was made. What that was, believers will estimate. For before the world was, nothing could be but God alone; since between God and the world there is no middle thing, all must be either the Creator Himself or a creature.” After Jesus had prayed to the Father that He would, by the glorification of His Son, open the way to heavenly glory for His disciples. He turns to the petitions which refer to the procedure of the Apostles in the world. In vers. 6-11 He lays the foundation for these petitions, by mentioning the peculiarly near relation in which they stood to God, vers. 6-10, and that they needed His help in their perilous situation in the world, ver. 11. Then, in the latter part of ver. 11, He utters the petition. Ver. 6. “I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world: Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me; and they have kept Thy word.”—“I have declared Thy name” immediately suggests Psalms 22:23, “I will declare Thy name unto my brethren.” The name of God is usually His historically manifested glory. Here, where the name is present before the manifestation, the nature of God Himself is described as His name, inasmuch as it contains in itself the germ of the actual manifestation: comp. on ver. 11. “God is known in Judah, His name is great in Israel,” we read in Psalms 76:2. God had ever, in the Old Testament, made Himself, through His acts, a glorious name, Isaiah 63:14. But these revelations of the name were, in comparison of that effected through Christ, of so little account, that the name of God had hitherto, as it were, not been made known. The men form the antithesis to the Father and the Son in the previous verse. “Whom Thou hast given Me” refers not to eternal predestination, but to election in time. They were given at the moment when they attained to faith. The design of the words, “Thine they were,” etc., was formally to pave the way for the petition in ver. 12, and in effect to turn the disciples’ hearts to God. God could not forsake them, even because of the love which He bears to all His creatures; how much more, then, would He defend them as believers, as those who had maintained their state of faith! “Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to Me.” Both these were true, even of Judas: comp. ver. 12, where he also is numbered among those whom the Father had given to the Son. But because the third thing was in him wanting—the keeping God’s word—the first and the second lost their force, yea, were changed in his case into a condemnation and a curse. “Thine they were:” that is, as men, as belonging to the κόσμος, as Thy creatures. If we do not interpret this by referring to τοῖςἀνθρώποις and to ἐκτοῦκόσμου, we are left to mere conjecture. We may compare Genesis 1 and Genesis 2:7, and “In Him we live, and move, and have our being,” Acts 17:28, and “We are His offspring,” ver. 29. The universal providence of God rests upon the creative relation; and that universal providence is the foundation of the special care which He has of believers. The Psalmists constantly refer to their relation to the Creator for the strengthening of their faith in the saving and helping mercy of God. In Psalms 22:10-11, the singer dwells upon the fact, that God had been the sufferer’s God, even from his earliest infancy, and exults that He will not leave him or forsake him. “Thou preservest man and beast,” it is said in Psalms 36:6 : how much more His saints! In Psalms 104 the greatness of God, in His care for all creatures living on earth, is exhibited, in order to invigorate the Church’s confidence in the final victory of God’s people over the world. In Psalms 145:9 we read, “The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works:” over all, therefore how much more over His people! Our Lord Himself took pleasure in reminding’ His disciples of God’s goodness in caring for all His creatures: comp. Matthew 6:26; Matthew 10:29-31. In these passages we have His own comment upon “Thine they were.” But it cannot mean that they were once the Father’s, but not the Son’s. That would be at variance with ver. 10, according to which the Father can have nothing that the Son has not; and with vers. 5 and 24, according to which the Son, before the foundation of the world, shared the glory of God; and with ch. John 1:3, which shows that all things were made by the Word. Augustin rightly remarks: “Were they ever the Father’s, and not the only-begotten Son’s; and had the Father ever anything which the Son had not? Far be it. Assuredly God the Son had once that which He had not as man the Son.” But it was not here the question to exalt the prerogative of the Son. Jesus would lay all His own in the arms of the Father. “And Thou gavest them Me:” hence they have become Thine in an altogether different sense from that in which they were Thine as men. They were Thine as men: how much more are they Thine as Christians! In the third clause we find the word of the Father mentioned, and not the word of Christ; and this points to the fact, that the relation to Christ is here referred as involving in itself the deepened inwardness of the relation to the Father. Luther: “In their being My disciples, and hearing My word, they hear and keep not My word, but Thine.” To the keeping of God’s word, in this passage, corresponds, in ch. 15, the abiding in Christ. Where this third is wanting, the first two foundations for trust in the grace of God are robbed of all their strength. Vers. 7, 8. “Now they 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 Me.” We have here the further development of “Thou gavest them Me,” and “they have kept Thy word.” They have become, in the fullest sense, God’s own; and therefore He cannot withdraw from them His help. Ver. 9. “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine.” He does not say, “I pray not not for the world,” nor “I pray not in the same sense;” but generally, “I pray not for the world.” This shows that the world, as such, is simply shut out from the grace of God; that to pray for it would not be according to the will of God; that 1 John 5:16 holds good of the world, “There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.” The world may be viewed under two aspects. First, there is the susceptibility of grace, which, despite the depth of the sinful depravation of Adam’s race, still remains in it. Of the world in this sense, Jesus says, “I came not into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world:” comp. ch. John 1:29, John 3:17, John 4:42. Viewed under this aspect, the world is the object of Christ’s intercession. The disciples themselves were won from the world. But the world may also be viewed as ruled by predominantly ungodly principles. Of the world in this sense, we read in ch. John 14:17, that it could not receive the Spirit of truth. To pray for the world, thus viewed, would be as vain as to pray for the “prince of this world.” It is an object not to be prayed for, but to be prayed against. To it apply all those objurgations in the so-called cursing psalms, which our Lord so emphatically and so repeatedly quoted and acknowledged as the word of God. Of that world Psalms 79:10 says: “Let Him be known among the heathen in our sight, by the revenging of the blood of Thy servants which is shed.” To it applies the word of Rev 6:10 : “And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” Luther gives us what is in all essentials the right view: “But how can the two be reconciled. His not praying for the world here, and His commanding us, in Matthew 5, to pray for our enemies? The answer is ready: to pray for the world, and not to pray for the world, must both be right and good. As the world now stands, and as it rages against the Gospel, He will in no way have it prayed for, that God should wink at and suffer its evil nature and ways; but we must pray against it, that God would hinder its projects, and bring them to nought. So Moses did, Numbers 16:15, against Korah and his company: he was very wroth, and said unto the Lord, Respect not Thou their offering. Thus Christ shows us here the two companies: the first and small one, which keeps and must preach the word of God; and the greater one, which aims to thwart that little flock in everything.” Similarly Quesnel: “The world, that corporation of the wicked, which stands fast and ever will stand fast, though individuals of its members may be snatched from it, remains under the curse, and is treated as under the ban, as having no part in the sacrifice of Christ, and therefore none in His intercession. What an idea this must give us of the world!” Ver. 10. “And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine; and I am glorified in them.” Only “all Mine are Thine” belongs to the present matter. “All Thine are Mine” is, added only to place in full light the inwardness of the fellowship on which “all Mine are Thine” rests: it is equivalent to “even as all Thine is Mine.” So also, in Matthew 11:27, the clause, “No man knoweth the Son but the Father,” does not immediately belong to the matter in hand, but serves only as a basis of support for “No man knoweth the Father but the Son.” Luther remarks: “It were not so much to say. All Mine is Thine; for every man may declare, that whatever he has is God’s. But it is much greater when He inverts it, and says. All Thine is Mine; for no creature of God can say that.” We have an elucidation of “All Thine is Mine” in Revelation 5:12. There the ten thousands of angels cry, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.” The seven ascriptions correspond with the sevenfold praise of God in ch. John 7:12. Christ was glorified in His people, inasmuch as they perceived and acknowledged, beneath the veil of His servant-form, the true Son of God; and even on that account they became the object of more gracious care to the Father, who beholds His own honour in the honour of His Son: comp. ch. John 11:4. Luther: “By the world I am obscured, dishonoured, and condemned; but they, My disciples, because they hear the word that I am sent of Thee, and that I have all that is Thine, glorify Me. Thereby I am revealed and plainly set before them, so that they regard Me altogether differently from the world, even as Thy Son, the eternal and true God. No possessions and no honours in the world are to be compared with this, that He will be glorified in the infirmity of our poor flesh and blood, and that God the Father is so highly honoured and well pleased when we magnify and honour the Christ.” Ver. 11. “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, that they may be one, as we are.” From the reference to the worthiness of the disciples the Lord turns, in the words “I am no more in the world, but come to Thee,” to the necessities of their condition. That which is here simply hinted is in ver. 12 seq., after the petition uttered, more largely developed. Thence we see that the world is here regarded as a tempting power, and that the words “I am no more in the world” were intended to suggest that the defence which they had hitherto enjoyed would be withdrawn through the departure of Christ, near at hand, and therefore anticipated as already come. It is not a contradiction that Jesus here says, “I am no more in the world;” while elsewhere He says, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world,” and, “Wherever two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” This latter presence with His disciples belongs to a higher order of things. He is now no longer with them in the world; He visits them from above. This belongs to the domain of the πάτερἅγιε. The holiness of God is His absolute supremacy over all things created and temporal (comp. my comm. on Psalms 22:3; Revelation 4:8; Clark’s Trans.). An erroneous notion has been entertained, that by the holiness of God is meant His condescension and mercy; and for this the designation in Isaiah, “The Holy One of Israel,” has been appealed to. But the idea of love is there imported simply and alone by the relation of status constructionis. The Holy One of Israel is the Sovereign God, separate from all that is creature, and independent of all that is creaturely, the absolute and unending One, who belongs to Israel, and from whom an endless fulness of power, in opposition to the world, flows to Israel His people. The passage in Hosea 11:9 is no stronger as an argument: “I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city” I will not be like men who go in and out of the city. The idea of mercy lies no more in that of the Holy One, as such, than in that of God; although freedom from human outbreaks of wrath is certainly included in the notion of separation from everything creaturely. But here the holiness of God, as the connection shows, comes into consideration only as excluding every idea of want of power. Calvin: “That out of His heavenly glory He may help our weaknesses. The whole prayer tends to this, to prevent the disciples’ minds from sinking, as if their condition would be worse on account of the bodily absence of their Master.” As the Holy One, God has absolutely in His hands the means of granting what was prayed for. The allusion to the Holy Father intimated to the disciples, that the departure of Jesus, their Protector in the past, need not fill their souls with anxiety. They were given over to a mightier One, who could do and who possessed all things. We may compare “My Father is greater than I,” in ch. John 14:28. What Jesus in His state of humiliation petitioned of the Father, the disciples might all the more confidently expect, inasmuch as He Himself entered into the fellowship of the Father’s glory: comp. ch. John 1:5. The ᾧδέδωκάςμοι, “through Thy own name, which Thou hast given Me,” is now pretty generally acknowledged to be the right one: that of οὓς, which Luther [and the English translation] follows, sprang from a misapprehension of the meaning. The ᾧ, by attraction for ὃ, which many authorities substitute, points to Exodus 23:21. There Jehovah says concerning His Angel, “My name is in Him” (comp. Christ. vol. i.). The Angel, in whom was the name of God, was the Angel on whom it was incumbent to make a name for God—whose nature is repugnant to being nameless—by manifesting through His glorious acts the nature of God dwelling in Him. The name was, as it were, proleptically used for that aspect of the Divine nature in which the name of God culminates, which impels Him, as it were, out of Himself, and moves Him to manifestation and impartation of Himself: comp. on ver. 6. The addition only makes more expressly prominent that which already lay in ἐντῷὀνόματίσου. The name of God is His character as forming history. His nature as issuing into manifestation; and the unfolding of this name is to be sought only in Christ (comp. ver. 6): only in Him has God a name. The disciples stood in no direct relation to the Father; they belonged to the Father only through the Son; they were kept in the name of the Father, only in so far as the name of the Father was at the same time the name of the Son. Around the name of God in Christ the disciples had gathered. This name alone builds up the Church. In this centre the Holy Father would keep His people. If they should fall out of that name, the Church would cease to exist. According to the connection with what precedes, the world was the power which would make every effort to rend the disciples from the name of the Father and of the Son, thus destroying their unity. Against their persecutions and seductions the Saviour appeals to the power of the Father: asking of Him what He Himself in the fellowship of the Father would do. That the name of the Father is to be conceived as actually indwelling in Christ,—that we must not interpret it, “which Thou hast given Me to declare”—is evident from the original text, Exodus 23:21. There “My name is in Him” indicates equal Divine glory. For the words were used to enforce a warning against dishonour done to Him: “Beware of Him, and obey His voice, provoke Him not; for He will not pardon your transgressions: for My name is in Him.” The proclamation of the name of the Lord was not incumbent on that Angel; it was His rather to make for God a glorious name by His acts.—“That they may be one, as we are.” The unity of the disciples among themselves was only secondary; it was not to be independently laboured for, but it was to approve itself as real when God fulfilled the petition here uttered. That unity would be precious only if it was not enforced, but should grow out of their abiding in the name of God and Christ, just as spontaneously as the union between the Father and the Son. The type of all those attempts at unity which should be substitutes for this natural union, we have in the Babel of primitive times. That tended only to increase division. He who looks more deeply will not be deluded by it. Luther: “But it is no other than that which Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:12, and many other passages, says, to wit that we are one body in Christ; not merely of one opinion or one thought, but of one nature. But this we can attain in no other way than by this, that God keep us in His name: that is, that we abide in the word which we have received concerning Christ. For the word holds us together, so that we all abide in one Head, and depend on Him alone. The devil tries hard to break this bond, and by his cunning devices to rend us away from the word.” Vers. 12-15 serve for the further justification of the prayer mattered in ver. 11. The watchword “keep” recurs in ver. 15, and marks the conclusion. Vers. 12, 13 dilate upon the element of need, which was briefly hinted at in ver. 11. Vers. 14, 15 return to the element of dignity, which was dwelt upon in vers. 7-10. The disciples are committed to the care of the Father, for Jesus leaves them, vers. 12, 13; they are the bearers of the word of God, and as such worthy of His protection, vers. 14, 15. Ver. 13. “And now come I to Thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves.” After “But now come I to Thee,” we must supply in thought, “and Thou must. Holy Father, keep them in Thy name;” and then follows the statement of the reason why Jesus commits them so emphatically to His Holy Father. Ôáῦ ?ôá, these things, refer to the “Holy Father,” etc. “In the world,” yet being in the world, before My departure. Before He leaves the world, He says this for the consolation of the disciples whom He leaves behind Him. Luther: “Therefore He would by these words show them another secure place, where He would be much better able to keep them and save them; that is, with the Father, to whom He is now going, in order that He may receive all things into His own hands, and be able always to be with them, although outwardly and in the body He might be absent.” “My joy:” that is, the joy which I prepare for them, by means of the prayer which I offer in their hearing and for them to the Holy Father; just as “My peace,” in ch. John 14:27, meant the peace which I give unto them. Joy is here, as in ch. John 14:28 (ch. John 15:11 is not to be compared), the opposite of the sorrow which the disciples felt at the impending departure of Christ. The joy which Jesus provided for them, by committing them to the keeping of the Father, who was greater than He, would be perfect. That resulted from the fact that He to whom they were committed was the Holy One. Vers. 14, 15. “I have given them Thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” That Christ had given them the word of God, was the reason, on the one hand, of the world’s hatred, as between Christ’s people and the world a wall of separation had been set up by that word; and, on the other hand, of that committal of them to the protecting power of God which is pleaded for in ver. 15. The fact that the world hated them would serve to recommend them to God; it was the confirmation of their sincere relation to God. If they had not the word of God in themselves, the world would love them. They might not be taken from the world; partly because they themselves must, while yet in the world, be prepared and matured for eternal life (ver. 17, and the γνωρίσω, ver. 26); and partly because they must first fulfil the mission entrusted to them for the world, ver. 18 (comp. Philippians 1:24, and “Ye are the salt of the earth”). Elijah cried in deep despondency (1 Kings 19:4), “It is enough: O Lord, take my life.” That Jesus did not pray the Father that He would take His disciples out of the world, was to warn them beforehand not to pray as Elijah did, when the hatred of the world should pierce them bitterly. Τηρεῖν with ἐκ is found only here and Revelation 3:10 : the construction is explained by noting that the idea of delivering from is included in the preserving. The ἐκ of itself shows that πονηροῦ is not the designation of a person, but of a domain of evil; that we must therefore not think of the great enemy, but only of evil generally: Luke 6:45; Romans 12:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:3, where τὸπονηρόν corresponds to the wicked men of ver. 2; 1 John 3:12; 1 John 5:19. It is decisive against taking πονηροῦ as masculine, that here, as well as in the Lord’s Prayer, there is an undeniable allusion to Genesis 48:16, where Jacob says, “The Angel who redeemed me from all evil,” ὁἄγγελοςὁῥυόμενόςμεἐκπάντωντῶνκακῶν, a passage to which we may trace a reference in 2 Corinthians 1:19; 2 Timothy 4:17-18; 2 Thessalonians 3:2-3. It is all the more difficult to establish that Satan was here meant, inasmuch as throughout the prayer the Lord has to do with the world, and never, with Satan. As τοῦπονηροῦ is capable of two meanings, it is obvious that we should adopt that one for which the context decides; and the context here introduces, not the one spirit of evil, but the evil spirit of the world. The evil comes into consideration here, more especially as assuming the character of an inward temptation; to this we are led by the correspondence between “from the evil” and “in Thy name.” Schmieder: “The petition. Keep them from the evil, and the petition, Keep in Thine own name, stand in the strictest connection. Keeping them in the name of God, is keeping them in that which sanctifies; preserving them from the evil, is preserving them from that which would desecrate or rob them of sanctification.” But the pressure of persecution on account of the word. Matthew 13:21, is not to be excluded. The world lieth in wickedness, 1 John 5:19 : this evil besets the disciples of Christ in two ways, by two temptations which go hand in hand. That which they have to suffer from the evil in the world, may easily mislead them into making an end of their difficulties, by admitting the evil into themselves. In vers. 16-19, Jesus prays the Father that He would sanctify the disciples, and gives the reason of this prayer. Vers. 16, 17. “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth.” Ver. 16 repeats what had been already said in ver. 14. We may suppose, therefore, that these words are not inserted for their independent meaning, but serve as a foundation for the prayer ensuing in ver. 17. The disciples belong not to the world, because they are sundered from the world by the word of God given to them, ver. 14, by Christ. The Father, therefore, is prayed to make this separation from the world perfect and real by the continual operation of that word. To sanctify is to separate from the world, and translate into the region of God—to consecrate. The σου after τῇἀληθείᾳ (Thy truth) is, according to preponderating testimonies, spurious. Bengel has made the remark that we often hear of the truth in John, but never of the truth of God. Ἐντῇἀληθείᾳ is explained by the subsequent ἐνἀληθείᾳ, from which it must by no means be severed: comp. ἀληθῶς, ver. 8. Now, since ἐνἀληθείᾳ is always used adverbially (in 3 John 1:3-4, “walking in truth” is “truly, truthfully walking”), the article “in the truth” must be taken generically; the truth forms the antithesis of semblance and defectiveness: comp. on ch. John 3:21. We find ‘‘the truth” for “truth” also in 1 John 1:6. The addition “Thy” in the present text (σου) sprang from a misconception of the adverbial character of “in truth.” The Codex Vaticanus omitted the article from a right apprehension of this. And Luther also retained this right apprehension, although he followed the incorrect reading σου: “And that in Thy truth, so that it may be a sound and right sanctification,—as also St Paul speaks in Ephesians 4:24, in justitia et sanctitate veritatis, that is, in a right, pure, and true holiness.” We might, indeed, be disposed to interpret “in truth” as hinting a contrast with Old Testament sanctifyings, which only accomplished an external holiness, “sanctifying to the purification of the flesh,” Hebrews 9:13. But such a reference in this connection would be far-fetched. We are obliged to refer it to the imperfect sanctification of which the Apostles were already the subjects. “They are not of this world,” in ver. 16, means, expressed positively, “They are now already holy;” and “in truth” intimates that this already existing holiness yet lacked its perfect reality: comp. ὁἅγιοςἁγιασθήτωἔτι, Revelation 22:11.—“Thy word is truth,” and therefore the ground of true sanctification. The word, by means of which the first separation from the world was effected (comp. ch. John 15:3), is also the means by which this separation must be brought more and more to its true and perfect consummation. Ver. 18. “As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.” We have here a new motive to the fulfilment of this petition. The disciples were, in ver. 6, viewed as Christians; now they are viewed as Apostles. They were all the more in need of true sanctification, since they were destined for a mission to the world. If they themselves should be infected with the spirit of the world, they would not be able successfully to accomplish their mission. The καθὼς—κόσμον is not a superfluous parallel. He who sent His Son into the world must take care that, by the true sanctification of His messengers, the end of His Son’s mission into the world should be attained. So also, in ver. 16, “Even as I am not of the world” is more than a mere parallel. Christ’s effectual separation from the world was the ground of the sanctification of His disciples. The Apostles had already received their mission: the Lord had Himself called them Apostles, Luke 6:13, and given them the full authority pertaining to their office, Matthew 10:1. Ver. 19. “And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” The Father must assure to the disciples the means of true sanctification; because otherwise the Son would have vainly assumed His great undertaking. The thought of the preceding verse returns here in another form. To the sending Christ into the world, corresponds in this verse Christ’s sanctification of Himself. The present is used, because the self-consecration which was to reach its climax in the Redeemer’s atoning death still continues. (Calvin: This sanctification, although it pertained to the whole life of Christ, yet was most eminent in the sacrifice of His death.) The exclusive reference of the words to the impending sacrificial death (Bengel: Sanctifico me, mortem crucis tolerans), disturbs the connection with “As Thou hast sent Me into the world,” which furnishes a comment on “I sanctify Myself,” otherwise indefinite of itself; and it disturbs also the connection with ch. John 10:36. As there, so here also, sanctification is separation to the service of God in His kingdom. The only difference is, that in ch. 10. He who separates is God, while here it is Christ who separates Himself; and in that passage it may be observed that the sanctifying is simultaneous or coincides with the entrance into the world. “For them:” Christ sanctified Himself for the whole world, and His vocation He entered on as a Redeemer of all men; but the Apostles here come prominently into view, because the Lord is now praying for them, and their relations were central: comp. ver. 20. In ch. John 15:13 also, the atoning death of Christ is exhibited as undergone specifically for the Apostles. After His prayer for the Apostles as to their position in the world, the Lord, in vers. 20-23, turns to the petition for believers in the same relation: comp. the ὁκόσμος in vers. 21, 23. The transition to this part of the prayer we see in ver. 18, where the Lord had spoken of the sending of the Apostles into the world. Ver. 20. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word.” As to the present participle πιστευόντων, comp. the remarks on ch. John 9:8. All faith in the Church is dependent on the word of the Apostles, the oral or the written; the written, after the death of the Apostles, having of course greatly preponderated in influence over the oral. Following the analogy of the Old Testament, which is everywhere based upon written documentary archives, the Lord must doubtless have had the writings of the Apostles in view. The corruption of so-called oral tradition at that time infected all departments. Our Lord strenuously resisted it, everywhere turning men’s thoughts from human ordinances to Holy Scripture: “it is written” was with Him the constant solution. This being the case, how can we suppose that He would have relied for the diffusion of truth in His Church upon a mere oral tradition? We have the earliest historical commentary upon the saying of this passage in Irenaeus iii. 1: “We have not received the knowledge of the plan of salvation from any others but those who delivered the Gospel; that Gospel which they had first preached, and afterwards, by God’s will, handed down to us in writings, to be the pillar and ground of our faith.” Ver. 21. “That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.” The second ἕ ?í is opposed by the most important testimonies; and it is condemned by a comparison with ver. 11. There also the being one is made a result of being in God and Christ: the unity has no independent significance; but comes into consideration only as far as it is the necessary result of being in God and Christ. The second ἕ ?í was introduced into the text in consequence of a failure to recognise the truth, that being one and being in the Father and the Son are correlatives, and cover each other. The fact that their union absolutely rests upon their being in the Father and the Son, contains a striking warning against all enforced and self-made unions. Anton: “This wants more than a mere palliative, like the hundreds of union-writings which have been put forth by empirics in our days. All these are only Pelagian workmongering, that introduces worse confusion. The hurt must be healed by one only Physician, the true High Priest.” Real union consists in this, that we become “partakers of a divine nature” through fellowship with the Son, and in Him with the Father, 2 Peter 1:4. Where divisions appear, they must be rectified, not in themselves, but in their root—an interrupted relation to Christ. “All religion,” says Quesnel, “all the counsels of God, point to unity. Jesus Christ is Himself, through His incarnation, the centre and the bond of that union. The whole fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him essentially and perfectly through the word; and He dwells spiritually in true Christians through faith and love.” The second ἵ ?íá, “that,” resumes the first. The third is not co-ordinated to these, but serves to indicate the ultimate design which the being of believers in Christ subserves; it furnishes the Church with a power that overcomes the world, and thus serves to realize the end of Christ’s mission into the world: comp. ch. John 3:16. If believers are in the Father and the Son, of one heart and one soul, if the life of Christ is continued in them, that must impress the world. The Church is mighty in its aggression upon the world, in proportion as “I dwell in the midst of her” holds good, in proportion as she approves herself to be the tabernacle of God among men: comp. on Revelation 21:3. The world judges the Teacher by His disciples, the Lord by His servants. When human impulses and passions rule in the Church, she cannot fail to go astray from Christ. But when His image is reflected from the Church, when she presents fruits which grow not in the rest of the world, the world may be induced to recognise in Him the Son of God, who has stamped His image on His people. In the faith that the Father hath sent Christ, the world renounces itself and its own character. Ver. 22. “And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.” The honour of the Son is to be one with the Father, who shares His nature with Him. From the Son this honour, consisting in unity, passes over to believers, who become one in this, that Christ lives in them. Galatians 2:20, Philippians 1:21; that they eat His flesh and drink His blood, ch. 6. Their unity among themselves is their glory, only inasmuch as it rests upon their unity with Christ. Unity enforced by despotic power and the arts of policy confers no glory.—“Whom Thou hast given Me,” before the world was, ver. 5. For the honour of unity with the Father is the foundation of that collective heavenly condition spoken of there. Schmieder speaks otherwise: “The glory which the Father had given Jesus consists in this, that the Father had already appeared in the Son, and so appeared that the Son spoke words which the Father had given Him, and performed works which the Father wrought through Him, and which no other man could perform.” It will be best, following J. Gerhard, to unite the two: “That beatific communion between the Father and the Son, and also between the Divine and the human nature in Christ.” The second phase of giving honour, here has the first as its basis. That the first cannot be excluded, is evident from ἐντῷὀνόματίσουᾧδέδωκάςμοι in ver. 11, with its allusion to Exodus 23:21. Ver. 23. “I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me.” The words, “that they may be perfected into one,” resume the thought of ver. 22, in order to connect with it the statement of the end which this unity would subserve, the glorious result which would accrue from it: “And if they shall thus become one, the world will thereby know,” etc. It is added, that this unity, in order to the attainment of that end, must be a perfect one—“perfected into one,” that is, all merging into this unity. A blessed residuum of the unity which Christ prays for is even now present in the Church, notwithstanding all appearances. But Christ’s people are as yet far removed from perfect oneness, and on that account the influence of their unity is only imperfect and partial. No other way, however, leads to the consummation of this oneness, but a sinking deeper into Christ; and the conflict which seeks to remove the obstacles to this deeper sinking into Him, is often more helpful to unity than the attempts to establish an enforced unity. From the prayer for their preservation in time, our Lord turns, in the conclusion, which corresponds with the beginning, to a prayer for their eternal salvation; first the prayer itself, ver. 24, then the ground on which it is urged, vers. 25, 26. Luther: “This is the last but the most comforting thing in the prayer, for all who hang upon Christ, that thus we become confident as to what we have to hope for in the end, as to where we are to find our final rest, we who are in this world, poor and despised, and without any continuing city.” Ver. 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 foundation of the world.”—Οὓςδέδωκάςμε (Cod. Alex, and Vat. ὃδέδωκας, summing up the many into an ideal unity: comp. the πᾶν in ver. 2), primarily the Apostles: comp. ver. 6, John 14:2-3. According to vers. 20-23, however, the prayer really extends to all believers generally, although to the Apostles there was assured a specially distinguished place in the Divine glory, Matthew 19:28. The strength of this “I will” lies not in itself (comp. Mark 6:25; Mark 6:35, the will spoken in prayer appears, by that fact, to be conscious of its limitation), but in this, that it is the Son of God who here speaks. That which He absolutely declares to be His will (differently in Matthew 26:39), must also be the will of the Father. To behold the glory of Christ, and of the Father in Him, is, according to ver. 3, the essence of eternal life; beholding it, we become partakers of it. It is not here “the eschatological union of Christ with His people when He comes back in the clouds of heaven” that is meant; rather the blessedness into which the believer is introduced at the moment of death: compare on ch. John 14:3, John 11:23. “Thou gavest,” according to the current interpretation, is used by anticipation: the Lord regards Himself as already installed in the glory for which He had prayed in ver. 5. But the words, “because Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world,” show that we must think of a giving before the world was, abstracted from the temporary interruption which it suffered through the incarnation. It is equivalent to “which Thou, in love, gavest Me before the foundation of the world.” “Thou gavest” corresponds to “I had” in ver. 5. This ἔδωκας referred to a glory given before the world was, and confirms what we said upon the δέδωκας, in ver. 22, against those who would refer it merely to the Son of man. Vers. 25, 26. “O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee: but I 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.”—“Righteous Father” stands in this elevated discourse for “Father, Thou art righteous,” Revelation 16:5; and what follows is, by a constructio ad sensum, continued in such a manner as if these words had preceded. The righteousness of God approves itself in this, that His procedure stands in harmony with His being and action: comp. 1 John 1:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:6-7; Hebrews 6:10. The righteous one is not the “rightly disposed:” that is rather ιωψ, ὅσιος, comp. on Revelation 15:4. We have here the ground for the request in ver. 24. God must in His righteousness mark out His own before the world by the impartation of eternal glory. The reason given cannot go beyond the matter of the request. Thus we must not, after “the world hath not known Thee,” supplement “therefore must Thou exclude them from eternal life;” but that which is said of the world here serves only to set the disciples in brighter relief by its shadow. That the world cannot attain to eternal life, is indeed involved indirectly in the passage. This follows from the reasons which our Saviour gives for His prayer concerning the eternal life of His people. “I have known Thee:” Jesus places the world first in opposition to Himself, because the knowledge which the disciples had received” flowed from Him as the source. In their knowing that God had sent Christ, they knew at the same time the Father, who in Christ revealed Himself, whose name dwelt in Him, ver. 11.—“And will manifest:” the work of Christ in His disciples will go on; they are to be raised to a higher stage; and, in consideration of that, the father will overlook their present imperfection. Schmieder: “In the disciples there was still a not-knowing, which must first be done away. But our Lord covers this by the promise that He will further reveal in them the Father’s name. This pledge redeemed them from the deficiency still marked in them.” The “I will manifest” was fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ, and the instructions following that event; in the presence of the risen Lord ever with His people; and in the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. The clause with ἵνα gives the design of the manifestation: if this design were attained, God would not deny them eternal life. That would be to deny His own love, and to dishonour Christ, who dwelt in them. “That the love wherewith Thou lovest Me might be in them:” that Thou mayest love them with the love with which Thou hast loved Isle. “In them:” according to the connection, common in Hebrew, between verbs or nouns of passion with the object of the passion, by means of α: comp. on ch. John 15:11. The Second Group of the Second Division, the Sixth of the Whole: The Sufferings, Death, and Burial of Our Lord First, we have, in ch. John 18:1-11, His betrayal and capture. Here also St John gives only supplementary details. He passes over the kiss of Judas, the address of Christ to the band after His capture, and also the transaction with the young man, which is peculiar to St Mark. On the other hand, he explains how Judas came to seek Jesus in this place; describes more specifically the band of the captors, according to their several elements: he first communicates—and that is the proper centre of his description—the procedure of vers. 4-9; first mentions the name of the disciple who smote off the ear of the high priest’s servant, and the name of that servant; and supplements the words addressed to the disciples according to St Matthew. All that St John has in common with the other Evangelists serves only for the introduction of what is peculiar to himself, and is therefore recorded as briefly as possible. Ver. 1. “When Jesus had spoken these words, He went forth with His disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which He entered, and His disciples.”—“He went out:” there was not any point of departure mentioned in the preceding chapter: we must derive it therefore from the πέραν. He went from this side Kidron to the other. As the passage of our Lord over the Kidron is immediately connected with His last discourses, ch. 15-17 (ταῦταεἰπών), these discourses must have been uttered in the neighbourhood of the border, on this side: compare the introductory remarks on ch. 14. The brook Kidron is mentioned only here, in the New Testament: χείμαρρος, flowing in winter,—a description which perfectly suits the peculiarity of Kidron. “Nine months of the year the Kidron is without water” (v. Raumer). William of Tyre says, “The brook Kidron, swollen by rains, was wont to flow in the winter months.” We have a comment on the name Kidron, troubled, in Job 6:16, where Job compares his faithless friends to brooks: “What time they wax warm, they vanish; when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.” The reading τῶνΚέδρων for τοῦΚέδρων sprang from the ignorance of copyists. St John, who everywhere goes back to the text of the Old Testament, cannot possibly have so written it, as the Hebrew name Kidron has nothing whatever to do with cedars. Lachmann retains τοῦΚέδρων, in token that the external reasons for this reading are at least of equal force with those which sustain the other; and the internal reasons are altogether in its favour. Josephus knows nothing of the brook of the cedars: he always uses ὁΚεδρών, or merely Κεδρών: compare the passage in Wetstein. While he declines the name χείμαρροςΚεδρώνος, Antiq. viii. 1, 5, the more Hebraizing John avoids this by inserting the article: so, in 2 Samuel 15:23, 1 Kings 15:13, τῶν, instead of τοῦ, must be attributed to the transcribers, since no one who had the original before him could have so written. And the true reading there is not destitute of all external testimony: see Holmes. St John gives prominence to the passage of the Kidron probably with some reference to 2 Samuel 15:23, where David, in his conflict with his rebellious subjects, went over the Kidron: ὁβασιλεὺςδιέβητὸνχειμάρρουνΚεδρών. The garden, here alone mentioned, in which Jesus, according to the abundant testimony of the first Evangelists, overcame death for His people, is the counterpart of that garden in which the first Adam succumbed to death. Augustin: It was fitting that the blood of the Physician should there be poured out, where the disease of the sick man first commenced. The property to which the garden belonged is called, in Matthew 26:36, Mark 14:32, Gethsemane. St John does not mention the name (any more than St Luke), because the first two Evangelists had made it known. These give the name; St Luke designates the place as on the Mount of Olives; St John places it beyond the Kidron. Ver. 2. “And Judas also, which betrayed Him, knew the place; for Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with His disciples.” The owner of this place must have stood in a special relation to Jesus: this is evident, not only from His free resort to the garden, but also from the narrative of the young man in Mark 14:51-52. The young man must have belonged to the family of the owner of the garden. This is plain from his clothing—in a cold night he had on only a linen garment—which did not permit him to be taken away from the place. Sympathy for Jesus, at the time of His imminent danger, must have led him suddenly from his bed into the open air. Curiosity could not have been the motive: in that case the Evangelist would not have mentioned the matter, which was worth recording only as showing that the Apostles had ground for flying. Πολλάκις, oft, cannot refer only to the few days immediately preceding the Passover. Jesus kept Himself, during the whole time between the Feast of Tabernacles and the last Passover, in Jerusalem and its neighbourhood. Yet it seems that in the last days before the Passover, Gethsemane was the special abiding-place; that He spent there the nights of Monday and Tuesday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Wednesday and Thursday; that He withdrew thither during the last two days before the festival for still seclusion; and thence sent the disciples into Jerusalem for the preparation of the Passover. If this were so, we have the reason why Judas was so sure of finding Him there. On the day of the entrance into Jerusalem, on Sunday, Jesus, according to Mark 11:11, returned with the Twelve to Bethany. In reference to the next day, we read, in Mark 11:19, “And when evening was come. He went out of the city.” It is certainly not accidental that St Mark does not here, as in ver. 11, say, “to Bethany,” but “outside the city.” St Luke gives, in ch. Luke 21:37, a general notion of the locality where Jesus spent the remaining nights after Sunday: “And at night He went out, and abode in the mount that is called the Mount of Olives.” Certainly Bethany, according to St Luke, belonged also to the Mount of Olives, ch. Luke 19:29. That we must not stop there, however, but regard him as having Gethsemane also partly in view, is shown by a comparison with ch. Luke 22:39-40. What determined our Lord to change His abode, is not clear. Probably greater nearness, probably also the household relations in Bethany. Judas knew the place; that is, in regard to the matter now concerned, as the abode of Jesus. Jesus went designedly to the place which Judas knew. The time for hiding Himself from His enemies was past: His hour was come. He must afford the traitor an opportunity, that He might show that His surrender to death was voluntary. Ver. 3. “Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns, and torches, and weapons.” There can be no doubt that by the band Roman military were meant. Σπεῖρα is used everywhere in the New Testament only of Roman troops: comp. Matthew 27:27; Acts 10:1; Acts 27:1. Chiliarch (comp. ver. 12) is everywhere the name of a Roman military authority; and when we find the σπεῖρα connected with the chiliarch, a cohort with its tribune is meant: comp. Acts 21:31; and Josephus, Antiq. John 19:2-3, ἦσανεἰςσπείπαςτέσσαρας, οἶςτὸἀβασίλευτοντιμιώτεροντῆςτυραννίδοςπρούκειτο, καὶοἵδεμὲνἀπῄεσανμετὰτῶνχιλιάρχων, Jud. Bell. xi. 11, 1. The band is here the cohort which was employed for such purposes as the present, and during the feast was stationed in the Temple. Josephus says, in Antiq. xx. 5, 3: “When the feast called Passover was come, on which it is our custom to provide unleavened bread, and a great multitude of people from all places having come together to the feast, Cumanus feared that some insurrections might occur, and therefore gave orders that a cohort of soldiers with their weapons should be established in the court of the Temple, in order to quell any such insurrections as might arise (καταστελοῦνταςτὸςνεωτερισμὸνεἰἄρατὶςγένοιτο). But the same thing was wont to be done by his predecessors in the government of Judea at the feasts.” In his work on the Jewish war, he says of the Castle Antonia (v. 5, 8): “But where it was connected with the Temple, there were steps by which the watchers (there was always a legion of Romans there) went down armed, and planted themselves in the courts at the feasts, to observe the people, that no uproar might arise.” In these two passages of Josephus we have a commentary on our present text, with its article. It is otherwise with the band, ἡσπεῖρα, in Matthew 27:27, Mark 15:16 : comp. John 19:2. There it is the cohort which kept watch at the Praetorium, Pilate’s residence, the earlier royal castle of Herod in the upper city. The chief station of the Roman troops, the παρεμβολή, in Acts 21:34; Acts 21:37, was the Castle Antonia. From this a watch was provided, both for the Temple at the time of the feasts, and for the Praetorium when the procurator was in Jerusalem. These circumstances are clearly stated in Josephus (de Bell. Jud. v. 5, 8: compare the remark of Reland in Haverkamp’s edition). There was always an entire legion in Antonia. There is no reason for assuming that it was a mere detachment of the cohort which was sent. If the hierarchs would be safe, they must guard against the possibility of the matter becoming noised abroad, and a great insurrection among the people ensuing: comp. Matthew 26:5. How numerous were the dependants of Jesus, especially among the Galileans then present at the feast, was shown by the entrance into Jerusalem. A mere detachment would not have required the presence of the chiliarch. He had reason enough for taking his whole force, in order to provide for all the contingencies which, amidst a people already excited, could scarcely be foreseen. It was important to suppress all thought of opposition at the outset by an imposing display of force: once suffered to begin, there was no end to its possible effects. Time had already been when the crowds of the people took Jesus by force and would make Him a king, John 6:15. The first three Evangelists do not give so much prominence to the part played by the Roman military. In effect it was not of extreme importance in itself. Even in St John we see that, down to the leading away of Jesus to Pilate, the Jews were the main and independent actors. But it may be shown that the earlier Evangelists do take for granted the intervention of the Roman soldiers. The double style of arms of itself hints at this: partly with swords and partly with staves, Matthew 26:47; Mark 14:43. It is improbable that the reason of this twofold equipment lay in the fact that swords fell short; in the highest degree improbable also, that the Romans would have tolerated, by the side of their militarily accoutred power, another force also in arms. To bear arms in travelling, as a defence against robbers, was permitted to individuals. But we find no trace of any Jewish force in the Temple provided with arras. More of this was not to be thought of; the first readers of St Matthew must have understood the intervention of the Roman military when the double armour was mentioned. Further, our Lord’s word concerning the twelve legions, Matthew 26:53, appears to suggest that Roman soldiers had to do with His capture: the twelve lemons of angels form a contrast with the fragment of a Roman legion. Mark 14:51 points also to Roman military: there it is said of the young man who followed Christ, καὶκρατοῦσιναὐτόνοἱνεανίσκοι. This description will not suit the servants of the high priest: these were certainly for the most part old men. On the other hand, the Roman military were commonly regarded and spoken of as juvenes, juniores, juventus: see ἤδηἐπιλελεγμένωντῶνἈχαικῶννεανίσκων in Polybius, adolescens in Cic. pro Milone, and other passages in Schleussner. But we shall not trust ourselves to inquire, whether by the sinners in Matthew 26:45 we are to understand, with Grotius, the Gentiles (comp. Galatians 2:15; and ἄνομοι, in Acts 2:23, 1 Corinthians 9:21); or whether the κουστωδία in Matthew 27:65 was the Roman Temple watch, the use of which, in order to the watching of Jesus’ sepulchre, Pilate permitted to the Jews, and which he spoke of as standing at their disposal: “Ye have a watch.” But extremely important are the passages, Luke 22:4; Luke 22:52, where the commandants of the Temple are spoken of in the plural, the στρατηγοῖςτοῦἱεροῦ. The Jews had only one captain, στρατηγός, of the Temple, whose position was so eminent, that in Josephus he is mentioned immediately after the high priest, and a son of a high priest was invested with this dignity: comp. Antiq. xx. 6, 2; De Bell. Jud. ii. 17, 2. In the Acts, St Luke mentions only one chief captain, whose only following were the “officers,” ch. Acts 4:1, Acts 5:24;Acts 5:26, στρατηγὸςτοῦἱεροῦ: this excludes the notion of several captains of the temple at other times than the Passover, and of these the Acts of the Apostles speaks. How then can the plurality of captains in Luke 22:4; Luke 22:52, be otherwise explained, than that the one captain belonged to the Roman military stationed in the Temple at the time of the Passover? It will not suffice to say, that by the plural στρατηγοί is meant the Jewish commandant with his officers. Appeal may be made to Josephus, Antiq. xx. 9, 3, where, however, the secretary of the Jewish commandant is referred to: for στρατηγός always means one who in a subdivision of troops was clothed with the highest authority,—not the officer, but the chief captain; and this notion is further opposed by the concurrence between our present passage and Luke 22:4. With regard to the high priests and Pharisees, comp. the remarks on John 7:32. Although it was full moon, the torches and lanterns were thought necessary in order thoroughly to investigate the dark spaces of the trees in the garden and the house. The most obvious matter here is the betrayal of our Lord with a kiss. St John hints at such an act, although he does not narrate it, but presupposes it to be already known. He describes Judas twice—the repetition would serve to point attention to the note of description—as he who betrayed Him, ὁπαραδιδοὺςαὐτόν, vers. 2, 5, the participle used in the Hebrew manner: comp. on John 9:8. Thus we expect, even according to St John, an act of betrayal. The indication which he gives has its comment in Matthew 26:48-51; Mark 14:44-45; Luke 22:47-48. Further, the remark in ver. 5, “And Judas also, which betrayed Him, stood with them,” is, if we do not supplement St John from the other Evangelists, a needless and irrelevant one. It repeats only, and in an inappropriate place, what had been said already in ver. 3. It leads to the thought, that Judas had separated himself from the band, though that is not here mentioned; and it stands in specific relation to the προήρχετοαὐτούς, “went before them,” of St John’s immediate predecessor, St Luke, ch. Luke 22:47. The words expressly intimate the fact, that the scene was already over with the kiss of Judas. Judas had first come forward from among the number of his confederates; now Jesus comes forward after Judas had gone back again into their ranks. Only from misapprehension has it been thought that vers. 4 seq. conclude the idea of Judas’ kiss having preceded. On the other hand, it is perfectly clear that we can imagine it to have taken place only before ver. 4. Ver. 4. “Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon Him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye?”—Εἰδὼς is used here as in ch. John 13:1 : “as He knew,” or “although He knew.” That Jesus, notwithstanding this knowledge, presented Himself to His enemies, is made prominent to His honour. Humanly speaking, it was to Jesus perfectly impossible to evade His capture. This is quite obvious. But the Evangelist proceeds from the assumption that supernatural means were at His disposal; and it was to His glory that He did not use these supernatural resources: comp. Matthew 26:53, where our Lord Himself says, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve lesions of angels? Ἐξελθών: this must refer only to our Lord’s advancing beyond the circle of the disciples, or out of His concealment. For that Jesus did not withdraw from Gethsemane, is evident from ver. 3, according to which Judas with his band entered into the garden; as also from ver. 26, where one of the servants of the high priest says to Peter, “Did not I see thee in the garden with him?” Therefore the band must have penetrated, just as here the word ἐξελθών is used also in Matthew 14:14, Mark 6:34 (comp. on John 6:3). The question, “Whom seek ye?” is uttered on account of the answer; and to that answer was to be appended the command of Christ to let His disciples go,—a command enforced by the previous miracle of Christ’s power. The express commission of the band went not beyond the taking Christ prisoner. This appeared to the high priests something so great, that they seem not to have spent a thought on the disciples. But it was obvious that the multitude, when their special duty was discharged, went beyond the letter of their function, and, in order to act in the spirit of the rulers and to deserve their thanks, laid their hands on the Apostles also.” The “rulers of the Temple” who were with them were justified by their position in acting independently thus. Jesus would now suppress that desire, the presence of which the soldiers’ treatment of the young man also reveals. The same narrative of the young man shows that it was only our Lord’s interference that saved the Apostles from imprisonment. The Apostles they durst not touch; so they would at least lay hands on one belonging to the wider circle of the Lord’s dependants. Ver. 5. “They answered Him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am He. And Judas also, which betrayed Him, stood with them.” The band declare their commission in the same terms in which they had received it. Although the sign which Judas gave them, and perhaps in part their own earlier knowledge (comp. John 7:32; John 7:45), assured them who it was that stood before them, yet the words “We seek thee,” by which they would have been placed in direct personal relation to Jesus, would not pass their lips. Here was the beginning of the terror which presently afterwards threw them on the ground. In the word ἐ ?ãþ åἰ ?ìé, the Lord uttered forth the dignity of His person. Accordingly He struck the multitude like a flash of lightning. Jesus thereby declared Himself to be He of whom the prophet said, “And He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked;” and who says Himself, in Isaiah 49:2, “And He hath made My mouth like a sharp sword.” This was the earnest of that which is, in Revelation 1:16, written of the exalted Redeemer, “And out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword;” as also of what, in 2 Thessalonians 2:8, is written to depict the destruction of antichrist by the Redeemer at His coming, “Whom the Lord Jesus will destroy by the breath of His mouth.” If Jesus had not tempered the power of His word, its effect would now also have been annihilating, like the word spoken in the might of God by Elijah, 2 Kings 1:10; 2 Kings 1:12; by Elisha, 2 Kings 2:24; 2 Kings 5:27; and by the Apostle in Acts 5:5 (“And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down, and gave up the ghost”),—although these were only feeble men. But the influence of our Lord’s word was precisely what the end designed required it to be. Jesus must and would be taken, but His disciples must go free. For this it was enough that His captors knew with whom they had to do. This was needful also, in order that all inferences drawn from His capture to the disparagement of His divinity should be obviated, and that the voluntariness of His surrender to death should be fully established. That which Christ here did was sufficient to show what He could do, and what in due time He will do. Augustin: “He says I am, and casts down the ungodly. What will He do as Judge who did this when judged? What will He do as reigning who did this as about to die?” We have already observed that the notice “Judas stood” serves only for the connection of St John’s narrative with that of the first three Evangelists. We are lost in difficulty if we attempt to assign a meaning to these words without going beyond the sphere of St John’s own narrative. If with Meyer the words are regarded as merely a “tragical point in the description of this assault, without any further significance,” they could not—even apart from the fact that, according to ver. 3, they were perfectly useless—have stood here. Their position precisely where they are admits of only one explanation. They were intended to obviate the false notion that the word “I am He,” addressed to the captors, was to say anything unknown to them; and to intimate the fact that the scene with the traitor had already preceded. On that account, also, the words “who betrayed Him” are here repeated. Ver. 6. “As soon then as He had said unto them, I am He, they went backward, and fell to the ground.” The Evangelist speaks of the whole multitude; and Leo (Serm. i. do Passione) rightly observes: “Which word struck down that band, gathered up of all the most ferocious people, as if with a lightning stroke, so that all those fierce and terrible threatenings fell at once.” If we contemplate the whole scene aright, we shall discern no difference between Jews and Romans, between those who had already a secret dread of Jesus, and those who knew nothing about Him, or looked down upon Him with the deepest scorn. The lightning flash struck all alike, the courageous and the presumptuous as well as the fearful. If St John saw the matter otherwise, it was not worth his trouble to communicate it. “They went backward,” ἀπῆλθονεἰςτὰὀπίσω), is the πρεβεΰηεψ which prophets and psalmists declare concerning the ungodly driven backwards by the omnipotence of God: Isaiah 42:17; Jeremiah 46:5; Psalms 35:4; Psalms 40:15; Psalms 129:5. These words, “They went backwards,” introduced as it were with the marks of quotation, are the theological description of the effect of Christ’s word; “they fell to the earth” are the natural description. We have an analogy in the various descriptions of the potion which our Lord was presented with on the cross. St Matthew describes it theologically, on the ground of the passage in the psalm, as “vinegar mingled with gall,” ch. Matthew 27:34; St Mark physically, as “wine mingled with myrrh,” ch.Mark 15:23. The falling to the ground was the form in which the retreating before Christ’s word manifested itself. Ver. 7. “Then asked He them again. Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.” After His object in confounding them was attained, our Lord, the Lion and the Lamb, speaks to them in a milder tone. He Himself gives them courage to accomplish the ta.sk they had undertaken; whilst, however, what they had just experienced would restrain them from transgressing the strict limit of their commission. “Jesus of Nazareth,” they uttered in low tones. But when they found their task done, when they had bound Jesus, they give up all their fear, and are ashamed of their earlier cowardice. When the heart is far from God, the work of hardening goes on apace, so soon as the sensible impression is past, and God withdraws again into silence. This was most impressively manifested in the history of Pharaoh. Vers. 8, 9. “Jesus answered, I have told you that I am He. If therefore ye seek Me, let these go their way: that the saying might be fulfilled which He spake. Of them which Thou gavest Me have I lost none.”—Ἵναπληρωθῇ: it took place, or Jesus so acted: comp. John 15:25, John 19:36; Mark 14:49. That which our Lord, in ch. John 17:12, utters in the form of fact, referred to the whole of His life upon earth, and by anticipation included the whole space down to His death: it was in fact a prediction which, in this act of our Saviour’s preservation, found its fulfilment. Jesus, in ch. John 17:12, spoke of His care for the salvation of His disciples’ souls. The external protection which He here vouchsafes must therefore be regarded in connection with that: the disciples were not yet strong enough to endure the internal temptations which would have assailed them in imprisonment. They could not suffer for Christ before Christ had suffered for them. The greatness of their spiritual danger we see exemplified in the example of the, most advanced of all, Simon Peter. The fall out of which he rose again might have been for the “little ones” an irreparable one. The external protection afforded by our Lord derived its main significance from the connection between their temporal danger and their spiritual. From purely external danger the Lord never protects His people. He predicted to Peter that He Himself would provide martyrdom for him. Ver. 10. “Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it, and smote the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.” The earlier Evangelists speak of one of the disciples: St John first mentions the name. But the other Evangelists lead us obviously to think of Peter, who, according to Luke 22:33, said, “Lord, I am ready to go with Thee to prison and to death:” comp. Matthew 26:35; Mark 14:31. Their not naming Peter appears to be accounted for by the fact that they wrote in his lifetime, which, in the case of St Mark, an ancient tradition expressly states, representing his Gospel to have been composed with the co-operation of that Apostle. St John, writing long after Simon’s death, was free from the restraint of that consideration. That two of the disciples were furnished with swords—doubtless for protection against the robbers who made the roads very unsafe, Luke 10:30—is recorded by St Luke, Luke 22:38. The weapon which Peter bore must have been for a purpose permitted by the Lord; otherwise He would have earlier obviated the misunderstanding of His words, “And he that hath no sword, let him sell his coat, and buy one,” Luke 22:36 (compare the introductory observations to ch. 14), with a more full instruction. Peter was to fail, in order that the Lord might have occasion in rebuking him to instruct the Church of all ages; and He found an opportunity, through Peter’s act, of putting forth His miraculous power, and thus of proving that He voluntarily surrendered Himself to the hands of men. The multitude set themselves, after Christ’s words, to seize Him, or had already laid hold on Him. This presupposal of Peter’s deed must be inserted from the other Evangelists: Matthew 26:50; Mark 14:46; Luke 22:49. Ver. 12 here records the act fully accomplished, after the obstacle of the interruption was set aside. Peter’s act requires the preceding scene for its explanation, especially when we remember that Roman military were present. That gave him to understand the power of his Lord. It was hard for him to understand how, possessed of such power, his Master would suffer Himself to be taken. He thought that if he boldly made a beginning of the assault, the Lord would be stirred up to make a glorious end of it. The δοῦλος here does not belong to the ὑπηρέτας of ver. 3: comp. ver. 18, where a distinction is made between them. The ὑπηρέται are officials: accordingly, in ver. 12, they are called “officers of the Jews.” They belonged to the people. Malchus was only a private servant of the high priest, and was not therefore officially present. Simon’s stroke fell upon him probably because, though having no official warrant to be there, he was present, and made himself prominent as the officious tool of his master. It has been assumed, probably without any reason, that Peter’s design was to cut off the head of the obtrusive servant of the high priest. His external unsteadiness, rather, made him prudently limit himself to cutting off the ear. But it was the Lord who so guided his hand that he did not become an unintentional murderer, “and suffered him to do only so much harm to the servant as was necessary in order that He might have opportunity to do good to His enemies, to instruct His disciples, and to edify all the world.” That the ear was not quite cut off, seems evident from the fact that, according to Luke 22:51, Jesus healed him by simply touching it. St Luke alone expressly mentions this healing. But it is taken for granted in the circumstance common to all the Evangelists, that Peter was not seized, and not even his sword taken away: comp. ver. 11. Nor would Jesus have allowed it to go so far, if He had not had the healing in view. The intimation that the ear was the right ear, is common to St John with his immediate predecessor, St Luke. St John first mentions his name. How he came to do that is explained by vers. 16 seq., where we find that he knew the high priest, and went in and out of his house. He recognised in Malchus an old acquaintance: according to ver. 26, he knew his family connections. The other Evangelists may have heard the name of the servant, but St John alone had any interest in communicating it. Malchus means king. Josephus (Bell. Jud. i. 14, 1; Antiq. xiii. 5, 1) mentions an Arabian king Malchus. The celebrated heathen philosopher Porphyry was called Malchus; and his other name, Porphyrius, was only a translation of it, Suidas: “Porphyry, who wrote against the Christians, was called king.” Jerome (in Wetstein) says: “There was there a certain old man named Malchus, a Syrian by nation and language, whom we might call in Latin king.” Probably he was the head servant of the high priest, his chamberlain: probably called Malchus in sport, as the king of the servants—a name that then clung to him. That proper names in those days often had such a natural origin, is shown by the name Pannychis, pertaining to a concubine whom Herod gave to Archelaus (Joseph. Bell. Jud. i. 25, 6). Ver. 11. “Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?” St Matthew gives more copiously what our Lord said to Peter: ch. Matthew 26:52-53. John supplements it by communicating the allusion to one word which our Lord had spoken in the conflict of Gethsemane not recorded in his Gospel (comp. Matthew 26:42). This word appropriately fits the close of the Lord’s words in Matthew: “Thus it must be.” The cup which God gives is in the Old Testament the destiny which He appoints. Upon the expression which Christ on this occasion uttered, rests the practice of the collective Church of Christ in the midst of the persecutions which the authorities may inflict. Chap. John 18:12-27 Jesus before Annas and Caiaphas—Peter’s Denial With John 18:27 the narrative of our Lord’s appearance before Caiaphas is closed, without our being told what occurred in it. This is all the more remarkable, as, according to St John himself, something very decisive must necessarily have taken place there. The examination before Annas was altogether of a preliminary character, and, as Jesus declined to answer the question of the high priest, led to no result. That Jesus must have been condemned to death before Caiaphas, to whom in ver. 24 He is led away, is plain from ver. 14, where, in allusion to the event now being prepared for, it is mentioned that Caiaphas had earlier counselled the Jews that it was good for one man to die on behalf of the people. It is plain also from the transactions before Pilate, which rest upon the supposition that the Jewish verdict of death had already taken place. The rulers of the people first desire that Pilate would, without further ado, confirm this condemnation, ver. 30, and are induced, by his persistent refusal, to raise a complaint; returning afterwards, when Pilate declared their charge to be unfounded, to their original demand, that Pilate must confirm the sentence they had decreed, ch. John 19:7. We are here as good as expressly pointed back to the earlier Evangelists. We are led to expect that we shall find in them a chasm concerning the transactions before Annas, which explains why St John so particularly describes what was comparatively of less importance; as also, that we shall find in them a selected and exhaustive account of the transactions before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrim, which relieves St John’s silence of its strangeness. This expectation is found to be satisfied. The resultless appearance before Annas is entirely passed over in the first three Evangelists; on the other hand, they record the transaction before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrim with a minuteness which allows nothing to escape. But St Luke gives a point of connection for St John’s narrative in Luke 22:61, where we find our Lord with Peter once more in the court, and the “without” and the “below” cease, which, according to Matthew 26:69, Mark 14:66, had separated him from his Master. John 18:24 gives the solution of this difficulty. That St John, on the other hand, takes for granted what had been narrated by the first three is plain, apart from the other reasons we have assigned, from the fact that, while nothing had been said in vers. 12-27 of any co-operation of the Sanhedrim, but the high priest only was mentioned, in ver. 28 we are suddenly met by a plurality, ἄγουσι, αὐτοί; and in ch. John 19:6; John 19:15, the “high priests” are spoken of, the term used currently by St John as a concise description of the High Council: comp. on ch. John 7:32. From the position which the High Council everywhere in St John assumes in relation to Christ’s interests (comp. e.g. ch. John 11:47-53; John 11:57), we are naturally led to suppose, that by them with Caiaphas the matter was decided. The denial of Peter had been thoroughly described by the first three Evangelists. But St John must return to it, because that event could not, without the communication of the events before Annas, be adjusted in its historical connection. At the same time St John, touching as lightly as possible what they had narrated, adds only a few notices. In regard to the chronological position of Peter’s denial, St Luke forms the transition to St John. While in St Matthew and St Luke the things concerning our Lord and Peter are simply narrated together, without regard to the sequence of time (the fact that Jesus is first spoken of refers not to time, but His dignity), we perceive from St Luke that the three denials of Peter had already taken place before the Sanhedrim assembled: comp. ch. Luke 22:62; Luke 22:66. “Concerning the penitence of Peter,” says Bengel, “St John presupposes what the other Evangelists write.” If his Gospel was meant to have an independent position and significance, it could not possibly have broken off here. Ver. 14. “Now Caiaphas was he which gave counsel to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man should die for the people.” Compare ch. John 11:50. To the unconscious prophecy which Caiaphas had uttered (compare ver. 51) St John now refers, because the fulfilment of that prophecy was now prepared for,—a fulfilment in which Caiaphas played no insignificant part. And this observation leads also to the same conclusion, that the high priest in what follows could be only Caiaphas. Ver. 15. “And Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. That disciple was known unto the high priest, and went in with Jesus into the palace of the high priest.” The article before ἄλλος owed its origin to an unseasonable comparison of ver. 16, and probably also ch. John 20:2. The article must be given up. It would mark out this disciple as known to the readers. But how was he thus known? St John everywhere represents that only as known which had been found in the first three Evangelists. But these knew nothing of another disciple here. It cannot be doubted that the other disciple was John: that alone gives the reason why his name was not mentioned. Peter and John elsewhere appear as united: compare on ch. John 13:24. Judging from the entire character of John and his relation to Christ, we might have expected that he, beyond all the other disciples, would, with Peter, have refused to be separated from the Lord. Under the cross we find the disciple whom Jesus loved, John 19:26. After the resurrection he runs with Peter to the sepulchre, and faster, too, than Peter. As the “other disciple” he describes himself, just as here, in ch. John 20:2-4; John 20:8. So far back as ch. John 1:35; John 1:41, he is the unknown disciple by the side of one whose name is mentioned; and the manner in which he there concealed and yet revealed himself, has much affinity with what we find here. That tendency to keep his own person as much as possible in the background which pervades the whole Gospel, culminates at its close in the οἴδαμεν, “we know,” which has given the expositors so much trouble. We are led also to think of St John, by the circumstance that he alone, of all the Evangelists, shows any interest, in keeping with his being “known to the high priest,” about the relations of the high priest’s house: he intimates the relationship between Annas and Caiaphas, ver. 13; mentions the name of the high priest’s servant whose ear Peter smote off; refers to another among the servants of the high priest who was related to Malchus, ver. 26; speaks of the portress, ἡπαιδίσκηἡθυρωρός, where the other Evangelists mention only a maid, μίαπαιδίσκηπαιδίσκητίς; and in ver. 18 specifies the fire of coals around which the servants of the high priest were gathered in the cold night. The language speaks of acquaintanceship, not of kindred. Acquaintances and kindred are distinguished in Luke 2:44, and so also often in the Old Testament, Job 19:13; Job 42:11. St John stood in some relation to the high priest himself, not merely to his servants. This is here expressly said; in ver. 16 it is emphatically repeated, and all is in strict harmony. St John goes without any ado into the palace of the high priest. No introduction was needed for him; he had free access. To the servants he must have been a person of some eminence. They venture to say nothing against him, nor against Peter while he was there. The maid admitted Peter at his word; and that she did this somewhat unwittingly, is plain from her subsequent attack on Peter. How the acquaintance originated can scarcely be conjectured; human relations are manifold. But the character of St John leads to the obvious supposition that it rested on religious grounds. Searching for goodly pearls, John had earlier sought from the high priest what, after he had gone through the intervening station of the Baptist, he found in Christ. With what eyes he had formerly regarded the position of the high priest, is indicated by the fact, that as a disciple of Christ he nevertheless assigned to the word of the high priest a prophetic significance, ch. John 11:51. John, by his internally devout nature, had so attracted the good-will of the high priest, that he did not wholly cast him off even after he had gone over to the true High Priest. Nor had John entirely abandoned him. Real love cannot be so easily rooted from the heart; and it is characteristic of St John to retain, τηρεῖν, a pious regard to earlier relations. In the love which hopeth all things, he might hope yet to win the high priest to Christ. Moreover, we find among the Apostles one, whose surname, ὁΖηλωτής, Luke 6:15, Acts 1:13, shows that he had gone through a similar process of development. And the life of St Paul furnishes some analogies. Ver. 16. “But Peter stood at the door without. Then went out that other disciple, which was known unto the high priest, and spake unto her that kept the door, and brought in Peter.” Expositors condemn Peter for having, in his weakness, ventured so much. Even Calvin says: “As Christ had declared by His own voice that He spared Peter and the others, it would have been far better to groan and pray in some obscure corner, than to go openly before the eyes of man when he was so little firm.” That may be true; but love vanquishes reasoning, and after all Peter following Christ is dearer in his denial, than if, without denying, he had remained in some obscure corner. It must have been a mighty and irresistible impulse which urged Peter to follow Christ. He had more to fear than all the others; for it was he who had smote off the ear of the high priest’s servant, ver. 26. That made his situation peculiarly dangerous; and explains how it was that he was embarrassed by addresses which under other circumstances would have been regarded as harmless mockery. At the time of the outrage, our Lord’s healing act had restrained the servants from attacking Peter. But it was very natural that the act was revived in their remembrance. Since Peter had not a good conscience in relation to that act, and had been by the Lord Himself reproved, it must have been all the more natural that he should expect to suffer for it. What John said to the portress is not told, because it may be inferred from what she thereupon did. Genesis 4:8 is similar: “And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass when they were in the field.” What Cain said to Abel, “Let us go into the field,” is to be supplied from what follows. Vers. 17, 18. “Then saith the damsel that kept the door unto Peter, Art not thou also one of this man’s disciples? He saith, I am not. And the servants and officers stood there, who had made a fire of coals (for it was cold); and they warmed themselves: and Peter stood with them, and warmed himself.” When was it that the maid spoke to Peter? Obviously not directly after she had admitted him,—for then her objections would rather have been urged against his entering at all,—but after John, whose person she respected, had gone away. John doubtless accompanied his Master to Annas, and records what he has concerning that interview from personal knowledge; he probably also went with Him to Caiaphas, so that the narrative of this examination which we have in the first three Evangelists was derived from his testimony. We must not connect ver. 17 with ver. 16, but with ver. 18, which is only then properly understood when it is regarded as supplying the circumstances under which the colloquy in ver. 17 took place. The fire of coals and its surroundings had a close connection with the first assault of the maid; and it was not accidental that all the assaults upon Peter took place near this fire. She was bent upon bringing the Apostle—whose entrance she could not prevent—into embarrassment before the whole company of the servants, and thus making herself also an important and interesting personage. She was in possession of a secret; she alone was aware that Peter had entered through the intercession of John, whom she knew as a follower of Jesus; whom but another disciple would he have introduced? And she might, with the official feeling of a portress, come forward (St Luke’s καὶἀτενίσασααὐτῷ, Luke 22:56, is very remarkable) to demand, as it were, a warranty after he had entered instead of before. Thus St John is in full harmony with the other Evangelists, according to whom the first attack and the first denial of Peter took place while he warmed himself. The matter was at the outset harmless enough. Yet it is not right to say that Peter was afraid, where there was no great reason to fear. It might, in further course, have taken a very critical shape for his safety. “Thou also,” says the maid, with allusion to John, and indicating the ground of her suspicion: “John, who brought thee in, is a disciple of this man; thou also assuredly art the same.” The despondent spirit which led to his denial on this occasion was not inconsistent with the courage with which he cut off the high priest’s servant’s ear, ch. John 18:10. That act did not spring from the tranquil courage of faith; it was the courage of a naturally strong feeling, which had lost itself in circumstances of momentary excitement. As everything natural has its risings and fallings, so also has the merely natural feeling. Hero and coward, in the ordinary human sense, are not pure opposites. Circumstances altered the ease. Then Peter had been stimulated by a glance at his Lord, whose demonstration of miraculous power he had just witnessed in the prostration of the multitude. But now, when he saw that Lord so powerless, his courage fell. This was needful in order to his humiliation. Thus only could he become a true Peter, when his confidence in his own natural strength was utterly taken away. The fire had been made by the servants of the high priest, in the expectation that they would have to wait out the night while the examination proceeded. Considerable time must elapse while the members of the High Council were being assembled. The co-operation of the Roman soldiers went no further than the bringing Jesus, and delivering Him up in the palace of the high priest. After that, the responsibility of watching Him rested with the Jews. Tobler, writing from Jerusalem, says: “There are occasionally outbreaks of winter down to May. We sat in the evening trembling with the frost, wrapped up in mantles. The fact that Peter warmed himself in the palace of the high priest on the third of April, is quite in keeping with all modern observations of the weather, as well as with the customs of the inhabitants. On the third of April 1837, after sundown the temperature was +6° R.” The servants stood: this seems to be opposed to the record of the other Evangelists, according to whom the servants were sitting, Matthew 26:58, Mark 14:54, Luke 22:55. But standing and sitting doubtless alternated; moreover, the first Evangelists also speak of the ἑστῶτες, Matthew 26:73; παρεστῶτες, Mark 14:69-70. Nor is there any contradiction between Peter’s standing in this account, and his sitting outside in the court. Matthew 26:69, when the maid came and looked at him. The standing here forms the transition to his going out into the porch in Matthew 26:71. The excitement caused by the question induced Peter to rise up. It has been rightly observed that Peter, playing the bold man, and mixing among the soldiers as one of themselves, laid already the foundation for his subsequent denial. Ver. 19. “The high priest then asked Jesus of His disciples, and of His doctrine.” Not Annas, but Caiaphas, questioned Jesus. Annas presided, as it were, over the council at the examination; but the strictly judicial function could not be committed to him by Caiaphas. The greater the injustice was, the more important it became not to violate judicial forms. Caiaphas doubtless was instructed and inspired by Annas, but formally Jesus had to do with him alone. The question concerning the disciples coincided with that concerning the doctrine; the second served to explain and define the first. We gather from the answer of Christ, that the matter in question was not that He should indicate the persons of His disciples—as a culprit might be required to name his confederates—but rather that He should show the relation He bore to His disciples. But that was one with His doctrine, and upon His doctrine that relation rested. It was of importance to provide materials for the charge to be brought before the High Council—that Jesus made Himself the Son of God and arrogated Divine authority, and in this presumption elevated Himself above all legitimate authority, gathering around Himself a crowd of disciples, who, as such, were the enemies of that authority. It was of equal importance in order to their providing material for the second charge before the Roman Forum,—that Jesus made Himself a king, and thereby set Himself up against Cesar: comp. Luke 23:2. If we regard the two questions as perfectly distinct, the answer of our Lord leads to embarrassment; for in that case it refers only to the second question. Vers. 20, 21. “Jesus answered him, I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing. Why askest thou Me? ask them which heard Me, what I have said unto them: behold, they know what I said.” Jesus declines answering the high priest’s question. The reason of that refusal must not be sought in His design to withdraw from the interrogation altogether. Before the assembled Sanhedrim He at once declared Himself to be the Son of God; before Pilate He avowed His royal dignity. His silence had rather an admonitory character; it gave the high priest to understand that he was not worthy of any reply, because he did not seek but flee from the truth. It sprang from the same reason that led to the silence at the outset before the council, Matthew 26:63, Mark 14:61; the perfect silence before Herod; the refusal to answer Pilate, after he had made it plain that he desired not to serve the truth, but his own personal interest, ch. John 19:9. The high priest set out with the determination to allow no entrance to the truth. He resolved, under all circumstances, to deliver Jesus to death, ver. 14. His questions had no other design than to provide materials for accusation and sure impeachment. When the authorities assume such a position, there is, looking at them alone, no room for the duty of confessing (1 Peter 3:15 takes for granted a certain measure of good-will); and it would have been unworthy of our Lord’s dignity to commit Himself to a fruitless colloquy with the high priest. The duty of confession came later for our Lord; that is, when, before the Sanhedrim in open session, He was solemnly and publicly asked by the high priest whether He were the Son of God; as also by the human authority, “Art thou the King of the Jews?” Then our Lord stood before the great tribunal, and before the world. In Pilate there was a certain measure of good disposition; he had not, to such an extent as the high priest, closed the avenues of his heart against all good emotions. To have spoken to the heart of the high priest would have been perfectly vain. He had firmly resolved to give no access to the truth. The objective fact of our Lord’s teaching, however, was plain enough: it needed no confession to make that sure. For the “good confession” which our Lord had to make before His death, a more fitting place and time would come afterwards. The words in which Jesus accounted for His silence intimate that there was no secrecy in question, and that what was public might be known in another way. This answer of our Lord threw the high priest out of his course. The end of his investigation was to obtain material for the charge to be brought against Him in the council. Upon this he had firmly reckoned: how firmly we may gather from the fact, that the insufficiently prepared testimonies of the witnesses at the great examination led to so impotent a result. Matthew 26:59-60; Mark 14:55-59. The difficulty which the first Evangelists present—the reconciling the character of Christ’s enemies with their defect of foresight in this instance—finds in St John its explanation. For παῤῥησία, see on ch. John 11:54, John 7:4; John 7:26. Ἐνσυναγωγῇ: the article is wanting, because no particular synagogue was to be indicated. In itself the article would not be inadmissible for the generic noun; but here it could not have been used, since in ἐντῷἱερῷ it marks out the Temple specifically. Jesus had taught in the synagogues of Galilee, as is evident from a series of passages in the first Evangelists, and John 6:59. The Galileans were then present at the feast, and it was easy therefore to ascertain certainly what Jesus had taught in their synagogues. In Jerusalem He had always repaired to the Temple. The reason of this was, that He always sought the utmost possible publicity, and everywhere, as much as in Him lay, spoke to the world. “Whither the Jews always resort:” that characterized the Temple, in contradistinction to the synagogues. In harmony with this passage, our Lord, in Matthew 23:38, speaks of the Temple as the house of the Jews. Three times in the year, according to the ordinance of the law, all the males were to appear in the Temple, in the house of “convocation,” in the place where God was wont to hold intercourse with His people, Deuteronomy 16:16. The words, “In secret have I said nothing,” point to Isaiah 45:19. There Jehovah says, in allusion to the prophecy communicated by Him, “I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth;” to the parallel clause the Lord refers in Matthew 10:27. If He sometimes taught in a narrower circle, and there unfolded “the mysteries of the kingdom of God,” Matthew 13:11, He did this only on account of the want of susceptibility in the multitude; He uttered nothing to His disciples which He did not in another form and at another time publicly teach, nothing that was by those disciples to be kept secret. This is evident from Matthew 10:27, in harmony with our present passage. Augustin: And even this, which seemed to be spoken by Him in secret, in a certain sense was not spoken in secret, inasmuch as it was not so spoken as to be concealed by those to whom it was spoken; but rather so that it might be everywhere proclaimed. Ver. 22. “And when He had thus spoken, one of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, Answerest thou the high priest so?” In Matthew 5:39, the verb ῥαπίζειν occurs for striking on the cheek; the same is probably its meaning here also. The blow on the cheek, as inflicted for a supposed offence, may be compared with 1 Kings 22:24, where the false prophet Zedekiah smote the true prophet Micaiah. The servant probably had in view that passage of the law, Ex, Exodus 22:27, which St Paul quoted under similar circumstances, Acts 23:5. Ver. 23. “Jesus answered him. If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou Me?” According to Deuteronomy 25:2, the judge alone might inflict blows en the wicked man worthy to be beaten. Our Lord doubtless spoke these words in a low and gentle tone. It was His love that did not reckon it below His dignity to convict this servant of his evil. Quesnel: “To speak on such occasions with truth, with gentleness, and with righteousness, is much harder than to present the other cheek.” The word of Jesus to a servant, as well as that to the high priest, shows that St John’s Christ also knew how to condescend from His high dignity. Ver. 24. “Now Annas had sent Him bound unto Caiaphas the high priest.” Here again the high priest is Caiaphas, in contradistinction to Annas. The οὖν was dropped from the text by those who thought it inappropriate, because it excluded the possibility of taking ἀπέστειλεν in a pluperfect sense; by others, it was expunged in favour of δὲ or καί. Between Annas and Caiaphas, as already shown, there was locally only a courtyard; or rather Jesus was with Caiaphas as soon as he left the apartments of Annas. And while He was with Annas He was still in the palace of the high priest, Luke 22:54; indeed, in a certain sense, He was with Caiaphas himself. Matthew 26:57, Mark 14:53; not merely because he was the occupant of the house, but also because the examination was had before him. But because Caiaphas had honoured Annas by placing the prisoner before him, and caused the examination to be conducted under his honorary presidency, Jesus might be said, as in ver. 13, to have been led to Annas, so also in this verse to have been sent from Annas to Caiaphas. St John adheres to the forms of expression which Annas and Caiaphas themselves used. The δεδεμένον here indicates that Jesus was not at once led from the apartments of Annas before the Sanhedrim, but that a certain period of waiting intervened. With the present statement, which informs us that Jesus was led from Annas to Caiaphas before the second and third denial of Peter, agrees that of St Luke, who relates that on the third denial our Lord turned and looked upon the Apostle. Accordingly He was, on the third denial, with Peter in the court. Between the second and the third denial there elapsed, according to St Luke, about an hour. During this time our Lord must have remained standing in the court. Such a longer continuance in the court is also demanded, by the fact that the High Council did not assemble until it was day, Luke 22:66. Ver. 25. “And Simon Peter stood and warmed himself: they said therefore unto him. Art not thou also one of his disciples? He denied it, and said, I am not.” In ver. 17 τοῦἀνθρώπουτούτου, here αὐτοῦ, as in ver. 26. Jesus, at the second and third denial, was in the court. The αὐτοῦ points to the Lord as present. The entrance of Jesus into the court probably gave occasion for the renewal of the assault upon Peter. According to St Mark, the initiative was taken again by the same maid who stirred the matter at the first. On the former occasion she had addressed Peter; now, repelled by him, she addresses the bystanders. According to St Mark, “another maid” spoke to those around, “This man also was with Jesus of Nazareth.” According to St Luke, “another” spoke to Peter on the matter, “Thou art also of them.” St John embraces the various persons introduced by the others in one εἶπον, “they said.” Apart from the statements of the Evangelists, it is obvious that, in the midst of the idle circle, whose thoughts naturally were fixed upon the business that laid upon them this disagreeable night’s service, one word begat another, and the several scenes were hastily enacted, one being made prominent by one Evangelist, another by another. Vers. 26, 27, “One of the servants of the high priest (being his kinsman whose ear Peter cut off) saith. Did not I see thee in the garden with him 1 Peter then denied again; and immediately the cock crew.” The third denial was a scene composed of sundry incidents. An indifferent word spoken by Peter probably gave occasion for the beginning of the encounter. This enabled them to detect the Galilean; and the first three Evangelists agree in giving prominence to this moment. A relative of Malchus then joined in the attack; he said he saw Peter in the garden with Jesus. This is St John’s account. That many were mingled in the assault, is indicated by St Matthew and St Mark, when they speak of those who stood around. Chap. John 18:28-40—Christ before PilateIn communicating his facts concerning the interrogation in the dwelling of Annas, and the examination before Caiaphas and the High Council, St John refers back to his predecessors in the narrative, contenting himself with indicating the place where their record is to be inserted; but, in the present section, he has the material for essential supplements, so that he indeed first gives us a complete view of the whole transaction. Here also, however, he is in reality only supplementing, as is very plain from ch. John 18:28, as also from ver. 33, where Pilate’s question to Jesus, “Art thou the King of the Jews?” is based upon the charge brought by the Jews as related by St Luke; and from ver. 40, where “they cried again” refers to an earlier cry recorded only by St Mark; and from ch. John 19:2, where a comparison with St Luke alone tells us where the soldiers obtained the royal staff. Ver. 29. “Pilate then went out unto them, and said. What accusation bring ye against this man?” Pilate is supposed to be a personage well known, from the earlier Evangelists. The first among them describes him, when he is first introduced, in ch. Matthew 27:2, as the Roman governor, like Josephus, Antiq. xviii. 3, 1, “Pilate, the governor of Judea,” and adds his pranomen Pontius. He was the fifth in the list of the Roman procurators of Judea. Concerning the character of Pilate, Philo gives some remarkable information in the Legatio ad Caium (Opp. p. 1033). According to him, he was a proud and obstinate man: ἦντἠςφύσινἀκαμπήςκαὶμετὰτοῦαὐθάδουςἀμείλικτος. The threat of the Jews to appeal to Caesar in a certain matter provoked him to the uttermost; for he feared that this opportunity would be taken to bring to light all the other offences of his government: the bribes he had taken, the misappropriations he had permitted, the deaths he had inflicted without law or justice, and the intolerable severity he had in many cases manifested. His unquiet conscience came into sharp conflict with his proud and wrathful nature, which made submission exceedingly hard. We have here the key to Pilate’s conduct in the matter of Jesus. The two accounts are mutually supplementary. Pilate had a great desire to decide righteously concerning Jesus, since in this case his great passions, covetousness and ambition, were not played upon. The person of Christ made upon him a deep impression. His better nature came out, when he had standing before him personal innocence and righteousness. But his energy was subdued by the consciousness of his earlier crimes, which did not permit him entirely to break with the Jews. While in the end he was obliged to give way, the energy of his character went so far as the circumstances would allow, as we see in the obstinacy with which he persisted in his attempts to save Jesus, and at last in the superscription on the cross. Pilate goes out to the rulers of the Jews. He had not been long in his office before he had occasion to learn that nothing was to be done with the Jews, unless concessions were made to their religious views. He had been obliged to yield to their petition, πηρεῖναὐτοῖςτὰπατρία (comp. Josephus, de Bell. Jud. ii. 9, 2, where Titus says to the Jews, “We have kept your country’s laws”), after he had received evidence of the ἄκρατοντῆςδεισιδαιμονίαςαὐτῶν (Joseph. Bell. Jud. ii. 9, 2; Antiq. John 18:3; John 18:1). The address which Pilate made to the Jews gave them to understand at once that they would not attain their greatly desired object, to make him confirm without further ado their sentence of death. An illustration of this we have in Acts 25:16, where Festus says to the Jews, who long for judgment upon Paul: “It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and have licence to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him.” Pilate was previously acquainted with the cause of Jesus. He knew, according to Matthew 27:18, that the rulers of the Jews had delivered Him out of envy; that they who constituted themselves His judges were at the same time a party; and that the question was that of a judicial murder. The warnings of his wife, who doubtless dreamed about what had occupied her thoughts much before she slept, shows that, and in what sense, the cause of Jesus had been talked about in Pilate’s circle. Ver. 30. “They answered and said unto him. If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee.” The Jews demand of Pilate that he should make of his judicial dignity a merely formal use, relying on their integrity, and mindful of the fact, that a short time before the power of life and death was still in their hands. On κακοποιός Beza says: “Guilty, not of a vulgar crime; but what kind of crime, that is, blasphemy, for which they condemned Him, they do not say.” Together with blasphemy, they have in their eye the assumption of royal dignity: comp. Luke 23:2. On παρεδώκαμεν, comp. Matthew 27:2. Vers. 31, 32. “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 any man to death: that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which He spake, signifying what death He should die.” Pilate refers them to the Roman law, the decision of which was, Ne quis indictβ causβ condemnetur: no man could be condemned but on the ground of a formal judicial process. If the Jews would not have that, they must judge Him according to their own law. The judging includes the execution. Since the matter was one of life and death, and criminal cases were withdrawn from Jewish authority, the answer of Pilate was in plain fact a rejection of the wishes of the Jewish rulers. That we must so regard it, is shown by a comparison with ch. John 19:6, where Pilate says to the Jews, “Take him, and crucify him.” That this must be understood with the qualification, “if ye can and dare,” is plain from the fact, that the punishment of the cross was not a Jewish but a Roman punishment. But Pilate used the ambiguous word κρίνειν, judge. It is probable he did this designedly. Probably his intention was to involve the Jews in a snare. If they took this seeming permission, he had them in his power. They lost then the advantage which they had over him. How dangerous, under certain circumstances, the independent execution of a capital sentence might be, is seen in the narrative given by Josephus (Antiq. xx. 9, 1). The younger Ananus, the son of Annas, took advantage, as high priest, of a favourable opportunity, when the governor Festus was dead, and Albinus his successor was not yet come, to put to death James and some others. But he was charged with this before Albinus, who threatened him, in an angry letter, with punishment. The result of it was, that he was deposed by King Agrippa. That the Jews, notwithstanding the passionate fury with which they were wont to be led away,—as, for instance, in the case of Stephen’s martyrdom. Acts 7:57,—made no use of Pilate’s seeming permission, but rather contented themselves with prosecuting the matter further before the Roman tribunal, is regarded by the Evangelist as the work of God’s influence, who thus brought about the accomplishment of that which Jesus had earlier spoken touching the manner and circumstances of His own death. The punishment of the cross was inseparably connected with the Roman condemnation, as stoning was with that of the Jews. To the manner of His death, Jesus had referred in ch. John 3:14, “The Son of man must be lifted up;” ch. John 8:28, John 12:32. That the Evangelist had this last passage in view, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me,” is plain when we reflect that he had there added the observation, “This He said, signifying what death He should die.” The mere hints of the passages in St John need, however, the commentary which is found in the sayings of Christ, found only in the three Evangelists: Matthew 10:38; Matthew 16:24; Matthew 20:19; Mark 8:34; Mark 10:21; Luke 9:23; Luke 14:27. On the ground of these more precise utterances, St John explains that the less distinct sayings recorded by himself refer to the crucifixion. God so ordered all, that the word of Christ as to the manner of His death was fulfilled. But this word of Christ rested upon an actual necessity. The Gentiles must take part in the death of the Redeemer, in order that that death might be exhibited as the collective guilt of the human race, even as it was the pre-intimation of what one day the degenerate Church of the Gentiles would independently strive to do against Christ, and has already begun to do. The death of the cross has a profoundly edifying significance. It gave occasion to reveal overcoming power in its most effectual manifestation. Christ as the atoning sacrifice is therein most luminously set forth, Galatians 3:1. How the bearing of the cross was typical for the self-denial of believers, Jesus Himself had often taught. Ver. 33. “Then Pilate entered into the judgment-hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto Him, Art thou the King of the Jews?” Pilate had set the alternative before the Jews, either to bring a formal accusation against Jesus, or to judge Him according to their own law. They declined the latter; and we may suppose they adopted the former. St John, who brings the matter down to the point when the accusation must come forward, but does not record it, points back as certainly as if he said so to his predecessors. We find what is here presupposed in Luke 23:2, the words of which are strictly applicable here: “They began to accuse Him, saying. We found this fellow forbidding to give tribute to Cesar, saying that he himself is Christ a king.” With these last words are connected the recurring question of Pilate to Jesus, “Art thou the King of the Jews?” St Luke records only two words as to what followed the question: Jesus answered, “Thou sayest it.” St John gives the transaction fully. Pilate repairs with Jesus into the praetorium, to avoid being disturbed in the investigation by the uproar of the Jews, the θόρυβος peculiar to them. Matthew 27:24; Acts 21:34 (“And when he could not know the certainty for the tumult, θόρυβον, he commanded him to be carried into the castle”). The ἐφώνησε suggests that Jesus had hitherto stood outside the praetorium, otherwise Pilate would have needed only to go in to Him. For an illustration of the “called,” we may refer to the “commanded him to be carried into the castle” in the passage just quoted. That the calling might take place through the instrumentality of others, is evident from ch. John 11:28. It appears that St John, who did not depart from Jesus, followed Him into the palace: there was no prohibition which hindered the Jews from entering; they had refused to enter only for a reason that had no force to him. The exact report which St John gives of the proceedings within the praetorium, leads to the conclusion that he was present at these proceedings. The publicity of all Roman legal procedures allowed no man to be excluded who was disposed to witness these proceedings. As the Jews were under the necessity of bringing forward a formal charge, they could not limit themselves to the offence which had led to His condemnation in the council—that of assuming to be the Son of God; this had no force whatever in a Roman forum. It was necessary that they should have a political offence to urge; and the fact that Jesus had arrogated royal dignity, gave them some assistance in this matter. Lampe is wrong in asserting that Jesus only in consequence of the Jewish charge vindicated to Himself a kingdom. The entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem had for its end the enforcement of His kingly authority, and He exhibits Himself as a King in Matthew 20:20; Matthew 20:23; Matthew 25:34; Matthew 25:40. The word of the malefactor, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom,” shows that Jesus had earlier represented Himself as a King. The royal prerogative was inseparable from the Messianic. But the Jews degraded the kingly authority of Jesus into a lower sphere. They charged Him with political sedition, and thus, like Potiphar’s wife, laid upon Him their own sins. But Pilate knew with whom he had to do, and gave our Lord opportunity to defend Himself against the charge. The Thou beginning the sentence certainly intimates a contrast between the appearance of Jesus and the idea of kingly dignity; but Lampe observes, in opposition to those who think that Pilate spoke in a tone of mockery, that Pilate was from the beginning seized by a holy awe, of Jesus, which effectually restrained every movement of scorn, and impelled him fundamentally to investigate the Saviour’s cause, and bring His innocence to light. Ver. 34. “Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of Me?” Jesus was present throughout the whole of this transaction with the Jews. The Roman law required this, and it is not only affirmed by the first Evangelists, Matthew 27:12, Mark 15:4 seq., Luke 23:14 (ἐνώπιονὑμῶνἀνακρίνας), but attested by ver. 33 here, according to which Jesus had been with the Jews all this time before the praetorium. Our Lord’s question, therefore, was not intended to give him explanation of anything that he did not know, but rather to move and awaken Pilate’s conscience. It was designed to excite within him distrust of the Jews’ accusation. Had Jesus been the King of the Jews in the sense in which the accusation had so termed him, Pilate himself must have found it out: seditious movements and insurrections could not well be concealed. But, as he must admit that nothing of that sort had come to his knowledge, he, who knew the complainants well, would attach very little importance to their assertion, but investigate the matter independently of them, and especially give attentive heed to the explanation of Jesus Himself. Ver. 35. “Pilate answered. Am I a Jew? “Thine own nation, and the chief priests, have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?” Pilate confesses that he has no personal knowledge of Jesus, that the matter hitherto had moved altogether in a Jewish sphere; and that there was nothing against Jesus but the allegation of the Jews. Since he is far removed from attaching final and decisive importance to the Jewish charge, he asked the Lord Himself what He had done. Thus the answer of our Lord had gained its end. Ver. 36. “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.” Jesus is not speaking of the nature of His kingdom, but simply and alone of its origin. Augustin: He does not say, But now is not My kingdom here, but hence. Lampe: To be erected indeed in the world, but not of the world. To “of this world” and “hence” is opposed “of heaven:” comp. ch. John 8:23 and James 4:1, where “hence” forms a contrast to “from above,” ch. John 3:17; comp. “earthly,” ἐπίγειος, James 3:15. Bengel: “Whence it is, that is from heaven, He does not plainly say; but He hints it when He says that He had come into the world.” The best comment on the words of Christ is furnished by the original passages of Daniel, on which it rests. The four universal kingdoms of Daniel are followed by a fifth of absolutely heavenly origin, the Messianic kingdom, which, on account of that origin, was all-comprehensive and eternal. It is all the more obvious that we must have recourse to that passage, inasmuch as Jesus ever has it in His eyes when speaking of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. We read in Daniel 2:34-35 : “Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together; . . . and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.” Again, ver. 44: “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all” these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” Finally, ch. John 7:13-14 : “I saw in the night-visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him (by the Ancient of days) dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.” To the last quoted prophecy our Lord refers also in Matthew 28:18, “All power is given unto Me.” There is perhaps no passage of the Old Testament to which the Lord so frequently alludes as this (comp. my Christology, vol. iii.). The word of Jesus, “My kingdom is not of this world,” has often been perverted in the interests of a theory which would sunder the state from the dominion of Christ. Rightly understood, the passage subserves the very opposite purpose. The kingdom that sprang directly from heaven must have absolute authority over all the earth, and it will not submit to be put into obscurity or into a corner. The necessary consequence of the saying, “not of this world, not from here,” is what we find written in Revelation 11:15 : “The kingdoms of the world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Anointed; and He shall reign for ever.” In the original of Daniel, all peoples are represented as serving this kingdom. It does not occupy, by the side of this world’s kingdom, a sphere sundered from it, and not occupied by it; but it breaks that power down under itself. The fact that all the Evangelists so carefully relate the Lord’s assumption of His Kingship before human authority, is explained only on the ground that He is, as the Apocalypse styles Him, the King of kings, and that kings and states do not exist with Him, and concurrently with His kingdom, but are absolutely under His authority. Christ does not say to Pilate, “My kingdom has nothing to do with yours;” but He intimates that His kingdom, not being of earthly origin, could not be contended for or against with earthly resources. Pilate would perfectly understand what was enough. The accusation was of political insurrection, of a course of conduct like that of the Egyptian, Acts 21:38; Theudas, Acts 5:36; and Judas the Galilean, ver. 37. If Jesus kept aloof from all such courses, if He expected the foundation of His kingdom only “from heaven,” “without hands,” then He was either a harmless enthusiast, or that for which He gave Himself out, in which case all opposition to Him would be blasphemous and vain: the word of Gamaliel would hold good, “But if it be of God, ye cannot overturn it, lest haply ye be found fighting against God.” The reference to Pilate’s question, “Art thou the King of the Jews?” exhibits the βασιλεία, the kingdom, not In a passive, but in an active sense: meaning “My kingly power, My dominion.” So also “kingdom” is used in Revelation 1:6; Revelation 11:15; Revelation 12:10; Revelation 17:18. “My servants,” not the angels. Matthew 26:53, for these belong to a heavenly region; but here servants, ἐκτοῦκόσμου, are spoken of: they are rather the disciples of Christ, who, not reckoning the abortive act of Peter, never did anything of this kind; or the servants whom Christ would have in the future for such a case. The latter is better, as in the Gospels the disciples are described as the ὑπηρέται of Christ. It does not say, “They would have fought,” but “they would fight,” Vulg. decertarent; for the surrender to the Jews was not yet complete: it was then only perfect when Pilate fulfilled the desires of the Jews, comp. John 19:16. Ver. 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 voice.” Jesus had declined to be a king in the Jewish sense; it was not His ambition to be a king. Yet He had spoken of His kingdom. This was ground enough for Pilate’s deeper investigation, although he was convinced that there was nothing politically dangerous in Christ, and that the matter Was more that of the man than of the judge. Οὐκοῦν, so, is conclusive with regard to the foregoing words: Accordingly, thou art then a king. The notion of an “ironical by-meaning” is altogether to be excluded. In all Pilate’s intercourse with Jesus, there is not the slightest trace of mockery. The impression of Christ’s person was so powerful, that such feelings could not but be suppressed. Jesus answered, “Thou sayest it, that I am a king,” according to My own declarations: so let it be; I have nothing to oppose to this, but avow Myself freely and publicly a king. This was the “good confession” which Jesus witnessed before Pilate, 1 Timothy 6:13. Luke 22:70 is similar: “Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of God? He said unto them, Ye say that I am.” The point before on, is to be rejected in both cases. For the avoidance of ambiguity a “this” would, according to that pointing, have been necessary after “ye say,” since λέγω commonly has what is said connected with it by ὅτι. Certainly the formula σὺλέγεις of itself affirms perfectly and unambiguously; but, considering the high importance of the confession of Christ, it was proper that the object of the avowal should not be derived from what precedes, but that it should be expressly stated: Yea, I am a King. According to the current exposition, Jesus, in the words, “Therefore was I born,” etc., defines more closely the nature of His kingdom. Bengel: To a kingdom of this world is opposed the kingdom of truth. Lόcke: “Assuredly I am a King, but My kingdom is the truth.” But in fact there is not the slightest reference to the kingdom. The words refer rather to the prophetic office of Christ. Our Lord, after having avowed His royal dignity, turns the discourse from a subject which Pilate could scarcely apprehend, to another aspect of His nature and vocation which would be easier of apprehension to Pilate. It is true that the right understanding of this would serve materially to make the kingship more intelligible, and to place it in a true light. He who describes the immediate end of His mission to be the annunciation of the truth, would not be a king in the ordinary sense, in that sense in which the Jews had falsely charged Him with assuming it; nor could He condescend descend to involve Himself with mere political insurrectionary movements. The transition from the kingly to the prophetic office of Christ was all the more obvious, inasmuch as Isaiah, ch. John 4:4, described the Messiah as at once the Witness and the Leader and Lawgiver of the nations: the μαρτυρήσω here evidently refers to the witness there. So, in Revelation 1:5, Jesus Christ “the faithful Witness” distinguished from Christ “the Prince of the kings of the earth.” If we would set in a closer connection the two offices of testimony and ruling, we cannot do that without establishing the fact that the testimony paves the way for the dominion. But in the present colloquy, that would have required to be more clearly intimated. On μαρτυρήσω, comp. John 3:32-33. The words, “for this end was I born,” of themselves point beyond the common sphere of humanity. No one born in the ordinary way of mortals could ever say that he was born for any particular destiny or vocation. The other words, “for this end am I come into the world,” do the same still more emphatically: they show that the being of Christ in time and upon earth was preceded by another being. Jesus came into the world in order to bear testimony to the truth, that truth about which Gentile thinkers had made so much stir, but which could be truly known only through the communication of Him who came down from a higher sphere, and testified what He had seen and heard: comp. ch. John 3:31-32. In the words, “Every one that is of the truth,” the Lord turns, like Paul before Felix and Festus, from the judge to the man. Bengel is wrong here: “Jesus here appeals from the blindness of Pilate to the intelligence of believers.” Under the general statement we incline rather to see, “If thou art of the truth.” The very fact that our Lord entered into such close conversation with Pilate, of itself shows that he must have stood in some relation to the truth. Jesus made no answer to Herod, Luke 23:18; His answer to Caiaphas, at the first hearing in the chambers of Annas, was a refusal, vers. 20, 21; before the High Council He at first kept silence; and the answer which He at length gave, under the high priest’s adjuration, was manifestly meant only for publicity. Pilate was the only one with whom He really held discourse; and the circumstance that He afterwards denied him an answer, ch. John 19:9, shows that previously, and while He did enter into discourse with him, there was something in him yet to be worked upon. He then freely presented the side of his nature which gave a point of connection for the truth. But at the moment when he gave the preference to his own lower interest, Jesus turned away from him. The portion which Pilate had in the truth was this especially, that he did not count himself good, and did not, like the Pharisees, justify himself. He was a man of the world, but he had no desire to be or to appear anything else. He was no hypocrite: like Nathanael, he was free from guile, ch. John 1:48. Although he did not think much of the sin which he admitted, yet it sometimes enforced itself upon him: when he came in contact with personal truth, he was seized with its awe; and the desire stirred within him to unite himself with that truth, and so reach a higher element. “Every one that is of the truth:” the truth appears as a domain from which those spring who, in any sense whatever, partake of truth. A similar kind of expression we have in “of nothing and vanity,” Isaiah 40:17; “of nothing,” Isaiah 41:24;” of vanity,” Psalms 62:10; ἐκτοῦπονηροῦ, of the region of evil. Matthew 5:37; ἐξἐριθείας, Romans 2:8. In 1 John 3:19, “being of the truth” refers to the full possession of truth, as that is the privilege of Christians. In our present passage, the limitation is given by the connection. It cannot mean, in this context, the full possession of truth—that could be attained only by the testimony of Christ—but only a susceptible disposition. The beginning of this was in Pilate. But in order to be of the truth, he must have released that disposition from all its entanglements, and mightily striven against the impulses which would check it. That he failed to do this was his condemnation. Jesus speaks categorically: “Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice.” Accordingly, the man who loudly boasts of his striving after truth, and yet heareth not Christ’s voice, but glories in the free spirit of his illumination, is not of the truth, is no philosopher, but the opposite. Ver. 38. “Pilate saith unto Him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.” That the question “What is truth?” was not uttered by Pilate in the spirit of desire to know, but that it was intended to break off the colloquy, is plain from the fact that Pilate with those words departed. He observed, like Felix, Acts 24:25, that his heart was going where he was loth to follow; and that he might easily be brought to a point where he must outrage all his dearest inclinations. The question thrown out, “What is truth?” was to serve, as it were, for a justification of his breaking off a conversation that took a disagreeable turn. Talking about truth ends in nothing; about it there must be many opinions, and so many heads so many minds. It was not the language of a theoretical sceptic—the historical character of Pilate contradicts that—but of a worldling who, entirely given up to the “real interests of life,” or to his passions, had lost the sense for truth, and had taught himself to regard it as a mere chimera. Every heart swayed by passion, or filled with avarice and ambition, asks internally like Pilate, although all are not as sincere as he was, in openly uttering their despair as to truth. Concerning truth, that holds good which is said of wisdom in Wisd. of Son 1:4;” For into a malicious soul wisdom shall not enter, nor dwell in the body that is subject to sin.” The three words “What is truth?” were for Pilate full of destiny. By them he put away that truth from himself which so graciously and invitingly appealed to him. By them he laid the foundation for the suicide by which, according to the report of Eusebius, who appeals to Greek historians, he ended his days under the Emperor Caius. Pilate declined the truth. But he could not defend himself against its representative; and he who was not very scrupulous at other times about an act of injustice, more or less, strove hard to save Him, but always with the reservation that his own existence was not imperilled. Here again we see, that “being of the truth” was not absolutely far from him, and that he stood higher than Herod or Caiaphas. Doubtless he uttered the question “What is truth?” with a certain sorrow, with the consciousness that he, such a man as he was, sold under sin, was obliged to put the question, but that he was to act so contrary to it. The words “I find no fault in him” are a point of coincidence with Luke 23:4. Between these words, and what in ver. 39 he said to the Jews, lies the sending to Herod, which St Luke alone records. St John could immediately add the “but ye have a custom,” especially as Pilate, according to St Luke, had, after He was sent back, again declared Christ’s innocence. Ver. 39. “But ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the Passover: will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews?” The first three Evangelists had already recorded, but most copiously St Matthew, the free choice offered between Jesus and Barabbas. St John briefly touches it, and only to preserve a point of coincidence with his predecessors. It is perfectly plain that the proposal of Pilate was not free from additional wrong. Only the guilty were interceded for. In this way he would at once save Jesus, and give the rulers an opportunity of retreating honourably out of the matter. His own guilty conscience permitted him not to oppose these rulers decisively. But they were only rendered more obstinate in their demand by a proposition, the motive of which they divined. “At the Passover:” Bengel rightly observes, “Therefore that day was the Passover; and on that day the congregated people asked Pilate.” The opinion which makes Jesus to have stood before Pilate at the early morning of the day between the two evenings of which the Passover was to be slain, is altogether irreconcilable with this “at the Passover.” The earliest beginning that we can assign to the Passover was the time of the slaying of the paschal lamb, Leviticus 23:5, which must now have been already past, since we here find ourselves already in the sphere of the Passover. But, according to the first three Evangelists, who substitute feast for Passover, Matthew 27:15, Mark 15:6, Luke 23:17, we are already on the other side of the first paschal meal, for this began the feast: comp. on ch. John 13:1. To the same result we are led by the meaning of the usage. There can be no manner of doubt that the prisoner in it represented Israel. He served first of all as a remembrancer of the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt: that was the aspect which alone, as it regards the Romans, was exhibited. But with this there was connected the external aim, to express the hope that the Lord, through His redeeming grace sealed by the Passover, would one day again deliver His people from the bondage of earthly power. But the deliverance of the children of Israel, which this usage commemorated, followed on the 15th. Israel went out after the Passover was not only slain, but eaten. That fact rested upon the necessity of the case: the objective exhibition and the subjective appropriation of redeeming grace formed the root of the exodus. It formed also the basis of their hope in their future deliverance from this world’s power. This deliverance rested upon the atoning blood: comp. Zechariah 9:11, “As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent out thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.” Thus there can be no doubt that the usage belonged only to the 15th Nisan, and consequently that St John, in perfect harmony with the other Evangelists, refers the examination of Jesus before Pilate to the 15th Nisan. The only possible escape from this, that Pilate in this case anticipated what properly belonged to the feast, is rendered impossible by Mark 15:8. This shows that the initiative in reference to the release of a prisoner was taken by the people. The request of the usual release of the prisoner was a parenthesis quite independent of the transaction, and of which Pilate skilfully availed himself. Pilate speaks of the King of the Jews. “His perverseness in intermingling exasperating mockery by this King of the Jews,” belongs only to the expositors. Pilate intimates to the Jews that they would act against their own interests, if they persisted to extremity against Jesus. In the eyes of the Romans He was the representative of the Messianic hope of the Jews, and this would be in Him mocked and hung upon the cross. If passion had not blinded the rulers, they would have adopted every expedient to obviate such a scandal. The scorn which the Roman soldiers afterwards would manifest against Jesus, would in His person fall upon the Jews. But in the background there lay a presentiment of Pilate, that Jesus was actually the King of the Jews, and that therefore they were outraging their most sacred treasure in delivering Him up to him for crucifixion. Ver. 40. “Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.” The word “again” is of no small moment in regard to St John’s relations with his predecessors. No earlier cry is mentioned by St John, nor does he give us the antecedents for any such cry. We cannot admit De Wette’s observation: “It may be referred to vers. 30 seq., where indeed no crying is mentioned, but where it may be supposed.” For there Pilate had to do only with the rulers: the people are not introduced until the transaction connected with the release of the prisoner. St John refers here specifically to St Mark: the “again” stands in a similar connection with the “again” of Mark 15:13, “They cried again, Crucify him,” and, like this, points back to Mark 15:8, the only passage where mention had been made of any loud cry of the people, “And the multitude, crying aloud, began,” etc. (Fritzsche: Πάλιν belongs to the clamour raised in ver. 8, not to the words pronounced with a loud voice.) The πάντες of St John (comp. μαμπληθεί in St Luke, ver. 18) serves as a confirmation of the statement of St Matthew, that Pilate placed Barabbas with Jesus before the people for their choice, with the supposition that the decision would be in favour of the light, when they saw opposed to Him the utter blackness of the other. They certainly would not have been so unanimous in favour of Barabbas; the voices would have been very discordant, if this alternative had not been simply set before them. Barabbas, according to the accounts of the Evangelists, had nothing in him that could recommend him particularly to the people. Such a wretched representative of their national hope they would not have chosen, if their choice had been entirely free. John 19:1. “Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged Him.” Between this verse and the preceding lies Matthew 27:24-25, the mention of Pilate’s washing his hands; as between ch. John 18:39-40, the message of Pilate’s wife, Matthew 27:19. After the popular will had been uttered in so express a manner, Pilate yielded to it. He paved the way for the crucifixion when he gave up Jesus to be scourged. But he hoped to be able to restrain in the midst of its course the punishment itself. When he presented to the people the sad image of suffering innocence and righteousness, he thought they would be smitten by it. That was the reason why he permitted the soldiers to indulge all their mockery of Jesus, to which the scourging had given them a kind of right. The more deeply He was humbled, the more tragical the spectacle was which He exhibited, the better would Pilate’s end be subserved. “It is a poor policy,” says Quesnel, “when we undertake to win the world, and at the same time indulge them with part of what they desire; and when we think to satisfy our duty by denying them the other part. Fidelity cannot divide itself in relation to God.” Crucifixion was usually preceded, among the Romans, by scourging, which was so painful and horrible, that the delinquents not seldom gave up the ghost during the process. Heyne has devoted a special treatise to the question, cur supplicio addita fuerit virgarum soevitia (Opusc. iii.). The true reason was, the determination to heap upon the malefactor all kinds of torment. This we learn from Josephus, who mentions the combination of scourging and crucifixion in several passages. In the Antiq. v. 11, 1, he says the malefactors were scourged and tormented in every possible way before death. In another passage, De Bell. Jud. ii. 14, 9, scourging is mentioned as the prelude of crucifixion: “And taking others, they led them to Floras, whom having scourged with rods, he crucified.” The scourging inflicted by Pilate was evidently of this kind. As the question in St John concerned only life and death, we may suppose, after the attempt in ch. John 18:39 had ended, that the scourging was the introduction to the penalty of death. The same is evident from a comparison of Matthew and Mark, where the scourging is the preliminary of the crucifixion: Matthew 27:26, “And when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified;” Mark 15:15, “And so Pilate, willing to content the people, delivered Jesus, when he had scourged Him, to be crucified.” As also in our Lord’s own fore-announcement of His passion, Matthew 20:19, “And shall deliver Him to the Gentiles, to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify Him;” and Luke 18:33, “And they shall scourge Him, and put Him to death.” There is no sufficient reason for distinguishing the scourging of Matthew and Mark from that of John. The difference in the expression, there φραγελλοῦν, the Latin fiagellare, here μαστιγοῦν, the genuine Greek expression, is of little moment, since in our Lord’s prediction, Matthew 20:19, we have μαστιγοῦν. St Matthew chooses the official term, since the execution itself was now in question. The historical portion of the scourging is, in Matthew, and Mark, and John, the same; the only difference being, that the former pass over the fruitless attempts of Pilate to arrest the natural course of things, and disturb the connection between the scourging and crucifixion. The assertion, that in the first Evangelists the scourging follows the sentence, while in St John it precedes it, is altogether erroneous. The Evangelists mention no other sentence than that which in fact was uttered in the scourging. The formal sentence of death spoken, according to St John, by Pilate afterwards, they pass over as less important. It is misleading to connect the scourging in St John with Luke 23:16, where Pilate says to the Jews, “Having punished him, I will let him go.” There the matter was only of a disciplinary infliction, which Pilate offered to the Jews. What that infliction was to be is not plainly said, because nothing depended upon it: he desired only to pave the way for the Jews to retire with honour from the matter. The loud demand of the people, which, according to St Mark, was independent of the other transaction, and took place while Pilate was making the overture to the rulers—their loud and increasing cry that he would release a prisoner as usual, had such an effect upon Pilate, as to make him withdraw the proposition he had made, and adopt other means which seemed to present themselves for the same end. When these means failed, he reverted, according to Luke 23:22, to his earlier proposal, but could obtain no hearing for it. St Luke alone gives us the account of Pilate’s fruitless proposal. He omits the scourging. But that he did not omit it through ignorance, we learn from ch. Luke 18:33. The more terrible the scourging was, the more miserable was its contrast with Pilate’s “I find no fault in him.” But such contradictions are unavoidable, when a man with a guilty conscience, assailable at all points, attempts to withstand the evil of others. We, however, must never forget that Jesus endured the scourging for us: “He voluntarily withdrew from heavenly joys, and clothed Himself with all sorrows and agonies, that He might take away the sorrows of man and fill him instead with joy.” Ver. 2. “And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on His head, and they put on Him a purple robe.” The thorns declared that the dominion, of which the crown was a symbol, should cost Christ, who attained it, dear. This was the truth, and therefore the crown of thorns in Christendom has been always regarded with deep interest. As certainly as the crown was the crown of a king, so certainly was the purple robe a royal robe, and the idea of a soldier’s mantle is quite out of keeping. St Luke does not mention the mantle; but in ch. Luke 23:11, he relates of Herod, “And Herod, with his men of war, set Him at nought, and mocked Him, and arrayed Him in a gorgeous robe (ἐσθῆταλαμπραάν), and sent Him again to Pilate.” There we have an answer to the question where the Jewish soldiers obtained the royal robe (Herod says, in Josephus, Bell. Jud. i. 23, 5, to his sons, δίδωμιὑμῖνἑσθῆταβασιλικήν). On the renewal of the judicial investigation before Pilate, it had been laid aside, as below the dignity of the occasion; but when Jesus was handed over to the soldiers, they put it on Him again. St Luke speaks of a gorgeous or resplendent robe; St Matthew of a “scarlet robe” (χλαμύδακοκκίνην, ch. Matthew 27:28); Mark 15:17 (πορφύραν) and St John speak of a purple robe. There is no contradiction in all this. Λαμπός does not signify white, but splendid or magnificent: it was therefore the most general designation. It simply says that the robe was a gorgeous robe—as may be supposed, an old one laid aside. That there is no contradiction between purple and scarlet, we learn from two passages in the Apocalypse: ch. John 17:4, “And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour;” and ch. John 18:16, where one and the same garment is called both purple and scarlet. Purple is the more general, scarlet the more specific, designation. Braun (De vestitu sacerdotum, i. 1, c. 14) has shown that in all ancient times, purple, as the leading colour for magnificent garments, often included in it the scarlet colour. When the soldiers laid on Jesus, and as the suffering Jesus, a purple garment, they unconsciously bore witness to the truth. For Christ is the “Prince of the kings of the earth,” Revelation 1:5; the “King of kings,” John 19:16; and the foundation of that dominion was laid in His sufferings. Ver. 3. “And said. Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote Him with their hands.” The words ἤρχοντοπρὸςαὐτόν, received by Lachmann into the text after the Codex Vatic, appeared to many transcribers superfluous. But it serves to tell us that they in the most formal manner came before Him, in order to pay Him the obeisance due to royalty. The motive which induced the soldiers to practise their mockery is revealed in the words of the salutation. King of the Jews. They did not mock the presumption of Jesus. It was the kingdom of the Jews itself that they laughed at. The soldiers regarded Jesus as the representative of the Messianic hope of the Jews. They would turn into ridicule those royal hopes which were known far in the heathen world,” more especially as those hopes took an external direction, and aspired to the dominion of the whole earth. The soldiers represented the Gentile world turning to scorn the lofty pretensions of the Jews. But there was here a remarkable irony of fate. The mockery, “Hail, King of the Jews,” was to change soon into awful earnest. “And they smote Him:” according to Matthew 27:29-30, with the reed which they had placed in His right hand as a royal sceptre, but which He had declined to accept. Lampe: “It had not seemed good to the Saviour so far to respond to their wickedness as to receive this reed in His hand He could, without disparaging His decorum, suffer indignities, but not perform them. Wherefore, when He refused to retain the reed in His right hand, they inflicted blows upon Him with it.” These indignities presuppose that the condemnation had in fact taken place; and if the scourging had the significance which we have assigned to it, that was certainly the case. Only one who was condemned could be handed over to the violence of the soldiery. When Pilate surrendered Jesus to the scourge, he in fact pronounced thereby His condemnation. In the ordinary procedure of justice, the verbal condemnation should have preceded the scourging. But this did not take place, because Pilate was not without hope that he could restrain the punishment in its course. He wished to avoid the indecency of recalling a formally uttered sentence of condemnation. But as that hope was frustrated, he was obliged afterwards to pronounce the formal sentence. Ver. 4. “Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them. Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.” Here first it is definitely established that Pilate caused Jesus to be led into the praetorium to be scourged, and that there, where the watch was stationed, the indignities of vers, 2, 3 were inflicted. That Pilate once more led Him out, was itself a proof that he held Him innocent, because he otherwise would have made no further attempt to move His accusers in His favour. In the case of one who was pronounced a delinquent by the authorities, the crucifixion followed immediately on the scourging. On “I find no fault in him,” Grotius remarks: “That is, not even so much fault as would warrant his being beaten with rods. Thus he condemned his own iniquity.” Ver. 5. “Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them. Behold the man!” Pilate preceded, that attention might be first directed to him and to his words, and that the impression of his words might not be damaged by a glance at Him whom they persecuted with such obstinate prejudice. Then he caused Jesus to come before them, Φορέω, as distinguished from φέρω, indicates that the crown of thorns and the purple robe then belonged to the proper costume of Christ. The subject in λέγει needed not to be mentioned, because it was plain enough that not Jesus, but Pilate, was the speaker. “Behold the man:” look once more on this man, this man who is man no more, Isaiah 53:3, a worm and no man, Psalms 22:7, in His deepest misery lustrous with innocence and righteousness, silent and patient in His sufferings, like a lamb led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that is dumb before her shearers. Pilate thought, judging others by himself, that they would need only to look upon Him in His humiliation, so full of innocence, and their hatred would pass away. But Pilate forgot two things: first, the abyss of wickedness opened up in those who stand in a near relation to religion, without admitting its transforming influence into their hearts; and then the all-penetrating influence which bigoted ministers of religion exercise upon the laity, when the latter are not armed against them by true religion. Ver. 6. “When the chief priests therefore and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them. Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him.”—“Take ye him, and crucify him,” is only a vivid form of refusing to be their tool: comp. ch. John 18:31. Ver. 7. “The Jews answered him. We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.” The Jewish rulers were emboldened by the spirit of concession which they already found in Pilate, who surrendered a man whom he pronounced innocent to the scourging which was reserved only for the guilty, and who supplicated them in favour of Jesus, when he ought to have enforced his own authority, and manfully defended against them the cause of innocence and righteousness. Thus, when their political accusation had come to nought (Grotius: Not being able to establish the crime against the Roman authority, they urge their own law), they return back to the position which they had taken at the beginning, ch. John 18:30, and demand that Pilate should condemn Him on their decision, whether he himself found Him guilty or not. They do not concede so much to Pilate as to point out the passage in the law which they had in view. That passage was Leviticus 24:16, which decrees that the blasphemer of God shall be punished with death. It was the same judicial decree on the ground of which Jesus before the high priest was adjudged to die. He had there, on the adjuration of the high priest, that He should say whether He was the Son of God, answered in the affirmative. Thereupon the high priest declared, “He blasphemeth;” and the council decreed, “He is guilty of death,” Matthew 26:63 seq. With “He made himself the Son of God,” comp. ch. John 5:18, “He called God his Father, making himself equal with God.” The claim to be the Son of God fell under the category of blasphemy only if it were a presumptuous claim. This was the sense in which Pilate took the words of the high priest; and if it had been untrue, Jesus would not by His silence have confirmed it as the right sense. That the members of the Sanhedrim were in earnest as to this claim of Sonship—that they regarded it as including the assumption of divinity, is plain from ch. John 10:33. There the Jews accused Jesus of blasphemy; of blasphemy consisting in this, that though he was man, he made himself God. Ver. 8. “When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid.” His present fear was distinguished from the former only by the more. Even before then he must have feared that he should draw down on himself the vengeance of God. Pilate had been already alarmed, when he thought he had to do only with a man under the special protection of Heaven. The words of his wife, “Have thou nothing to do with this just man,” sank deep in his heart. But now that, according to the declaration of the Jews, Jesus made Himself the Son of God, a new aspect of the case was opened, and he might dread being in the fullest sense a θεομάχος, a fighter against God. What Jesus, according to their statements, had uttered concerning Himself, he could not lightly dismiss from his mind. “He remembered,” says Heumann, “His wonderful works, and with deeper reflection than before; he bethought himself that Jesus was a holy man, to whom lying and deception were impossible.” The impressions of Christ’s person, the majesty which shone through all His deep humiliation, led Pilate involuntarily to think of something beyond the sphere of mere humanity. He did not think of a son of the gods, of one dei cujusdam filius. The unity of God, a truth ineradicably implanted in the human mind, never entirely disappeared in polytheism; and this unity became more and more prominent in the period of the decline of Gentile culture. Pilate, in regard to this, like his centurion, Matthew 27:54, Mark 15:39, stood very much under the influence of the people among whom he had dwelt so many years. His conscience had been before this much wounded. He now feared, that by new guilt he should involve himself in the immediate judgments of Heaven. Ver. 9. “And went again into the judgment-hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer.” Pilate went into the praetorium, and led Jesus with him. The auditory outside seemed to him too profane for the introduction of this question. That “Whence art thou”? could have but one meaning, “Belongest thou to heaven or to earth? art thou God, or mere man?” is now generally acknowledged: comp. ch. John 7:28, John 18:36-37. What our Lord in the latter passage said concerning His kingdom, that it was not of this World, not from below, applied also to His person. He was not, like ordinary men, ἐκτῶνκάτω, but ἐκτῶνἄνω, ch. John 8:23. To the πόθεν here corresponds the ἄνωθεν in ver. 11. Pilate designedly put the question in this general form. A holy fear restrained him from putting it more directly. He felt that in the region he now entered he was at a loss, and must reveal his inaptitude. Wherefore did not Jesus answer Pilate? The reason must be the same which occasioned the silence before Annas, before the council, and before Herod; as also the silence on the accusations of the rulers before Pilate, of which Matthew (vers. 12, 13) and Mark (vers. 4, 5) make mention. The supposition, that “Jesus kept silence because a heathenish notion of Sonship to God was in question,” is, apart from the fact that it rests on a groundless supposition, wrong, simply because it severs our Lord’s silence here from its connection with His other silences. Like the rest before whom Jesus kept silence, Pilate no longer deserved an answer. He had earlier declined to be led by Jesus into the knowledge of the truth, because he would not sacrifice the passions with which his soul was filled: comp. ch. John 18:38. His whole bearing had shown that his personal interest was first in everything, and that he listened to the cause of right only so far as this consisted with his own interest. Jesus looked through his soul, and knew that he was incapable of practically following even the truth that he knew. There was no obligation incumbent upon Him to avow His divinity before the world. He had already solemnly avowed Himself to be the Son of God before the council. The “good confession” which Christ was to witness, and had already witnessed before the Roman power, touched not His divinity, but His world-embracing kingdom as based upon that divinity. Thus Jesus could and must make good on this occasion the prophetic word concerning the lamb which opened not its mouth, Isaiah 53:7. And all the more as, to the deeper glance, there was even in His silence an answer to Pilate’s question whether man or God. “He showed,” says Heumann, “by this silence the dignity of His person, and that it rested with Himself whether He would answer or not, while He by no means admitted Pilate to be His judge.” Further, if He laid no claim to divinity, it would have been His duty to have absolutely repelled the allegation of the Jews, that He made Himself the Son of God. That would have been to give God His honour. His silence said, “I am from above, but thou art not worthy that I should admit thee into the mystery of My nature. For thine heart is not right before God.” The silence was more significant than words. The “from above” was uttered in it; and at the same time an emphatic intimation of Pilate’s insincerity, who belonged to that large class of whom these words have been used: “A man of the world is often touched by Divine deeds and Divine teaching, as we see in King Agrippa and the governor Felix, Acts 24:24; Acts 26:28; but, as the Lord says in Matthew 13:22, worldly thoughts choke the word, that it brings forth no fruit.” How entirely our Lord’s silence was justified, is manifest from the deep effect it produced on Pilate, here as well as in Matthew, vers. 12, 13,—an effect which it must have produced, inasmuch as assumed dignity is ever rich in words, while only true greatness can bear to be held in suspicion or denied. Ver. 10. “Then saith Pilate unto Him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?” Pilate certainly did not speak in the sensitive and excited tone of offended dignity. (Lampe: “Threatening anger is plainly opposed to the preceding fear.”) That would have been contrary to the whole position which he assumed towards Jesus; and, moreover, his impression of Christ’s majesty was too deep to allow it. He simply desired, half imploringly, to have from Jesus an explanation of the marvellous fact, that He thought him worthy of no reply who held, nevertheless, His life in his hands. “Power to crucify” precedes the “power to deliver,” because the beam in the balance decidedly vibrated that way. The scourging had already taken place, which was the prelude to crucifixion, and Pilate’s attempt to soften the rulers had already failed. The order has been inverted in many MSS., simply from a notion that the right of the magistracy was strictly “jus vitae et necis.” That the emphasis fell upon the “crucify,” is shown by what follows: “Thou couldest have no power over Me.” Ver. 11. “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.” To the question Jesus had given no answer. Against the express denial of His dignity He must utter a protest. The words “Thou couldest have . . . given thee “declared that Pilate, to whom Jesus was apparently in submission, was in truth only an instrument in a higher hand which ruled over the destiny of Jesus; and that to it, not to him, was Jesus subjected. “Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shapeth it?” Isaiah 10:15. The imaginary lord was thus reduced to a servant, not only of the Father, but of the Son, between whom there was the fullest concert. To this connection between the Father and the Son points the relation in which the ἄνωθεν stands to the πόθεν of Pilate. Grotius: Inde scil. unde ortus sum, tacite enim hoc indicat. Stier: “In this heavenly ἄνωθεν there is at the same time a late answer to the previously unanswered question as to His origin.” The matter is not here the authority of the magistracy. Stier regards these words as a support for the “unassailable theory of the Divine right of the powers that be;” but the question was rather, as the reference to Pilate’s words shows, the material power which Pilate as the representative of earthly dominion had over Jesus, whom no one as it seemed could wrest from his hands. The leading thought is followed by an undertone.” “Therefore:” that is, because thou hast obtained power over Me only through a special Divine ordering. The fact that Pilate had only a permitted power over Jesus, as, on the one hand, it overturned the conclusion which Pilate drew from his power in favour of his superiority, so, on the other hand, it served for his apology. He had not, like the Jews, voluntarily entered into the matter; he was by Divine destiny connected with it, he himself knew not how, and would with all his heart have been free from it. All the enemies of Jesus, Herod and the Jews, no less than Pilate and the Gentiles, did against Him “what the hand and counsel of God had determined before to be done,” Acts 4:27. Even the act of the traitor Judas rested on a decree ὡρισμένον, corresponding to the δεδομένονἄνωθεν here. But when a man against his wall is involved in a matter, the Divine causality is in the foreground; when he deliberately seeks it, the human is predominant. In regard to this, Exodus 21:12-13 is very instructive: “He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall surely be put to death. And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee.” The murderer no less than the manslayer stands under the decree of God, but no one would think of comforting an impenitent murderer by referring him to this Divine destiny. It was not until his brothers had attained to a penitent sense of their fault, that Joseph represented to them for their consolation the Divine causality, Genesis 50:20. As soon as the Jews repented, they also had presented to them the Divine causality. Till then their minds must be directed to their own guilt alone. Our Lord does not acquit Pilate of guilt. The contrast presented to him was only a relative one. The relative admeasurement of guilt, according to its various grades, the allusion to the guilt of Israel, as deeper than that of the heathen, recurs often in the discourses of our Lord in the earlier Evangelists, Matthew 10:15; Luke 12:48. When Jesus established the measure of Pilate’s guilt. He declared Himself to be His judge’s Judge, and intimated to him the place which He Himself would occupy at the great day of universal judgment. “He that delivered Me to thee” must be, according to the comparison with Pilate, which leads us to expect that here person is set against person, as also according to ch. John 18:28, Caiaphas , not however Caiaphas as an individual, but as the representative of the Jewish people, whom Pilate opposes to himself in Matthew 27:24, and who cried out in ver. 25 (πᾶςὁλαός), “His blood be on us, and on our children.” Caiaphas was accordingly an ideal person as it were, the representative of the Jewish national spirit as it then was, in harmony with the representative position which the high priest assumes in the Old Testament. According to Leviticus 4:3, the sins of the high priest were reckoned to the people: “If the priest that is anointed sin according to the sin of the people.” In Zechariah 3:1, the high priest appears before the Lord burdened with the sins of the whole people. Aben Ezra, on Leviticus 4:3, says: Ecce pontifex maxiraus sequiparatur universo Israeli. Ver. 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 speaketh against Cesar.”—Ἐκτούτου, as in John 6:66, from that time onwards. Before ἐζήτει there might, as in ver. 8, be placed a μᾶλλον. Its omission rested upon the idea, that in comparison of his present striving, the earlier came not into consideration. John could have known this only in case Pilate had shown the earnestness of his present endeavour in a very demonstrative manner, coming out from the praetorium to the Jews. How he showed it, we are not told. The Jews perceived that a change had come over Pilate, and that with their present means they could not accomplish anything more. They now laid hold on their most perilous weapon. They set simply before Pilate the alternative of giving up Jesus, or of losing himself. They threatened him, not ambiguously, with an accusation before Cesar.—”Friend of Cesar” was then the highest title of honour with which the high Roman officials, after praiseworthy government, were rewarded: comp. Wetstein on this passage. To be not a friend of Cesar, not to sacrifice all other interests to his, was the gravest charge against a man like Pilate, and one which the suspicious Tiberius was always sufficiently inclined to listen to. (Tacitus, Ann. iii. 38: Majestatis crimen omnium accusationum complementum erat. Suetonius, Vita Tib. c. 58: Qui atrocissime exercebat leges majestatis.)—“Speaketh against:” Jesus had declared Himself to be a King, and thereby, according to the assertion of the Jews, raised Himself into competition with the power of Cesar. The matter primarily moved in the sphere of words, and the ἀντιλέγειν preserves therefore its ordinary meaning. The Jews spoke really according to the mind of the Roman imperial power. We have nothing to do here with the inability of Cesar to apprehend the true nature of the kingdom of Christ. To the pretensions which the imperial power maintained, the kingdom of Christ actually stood in direct contradiction. This is plain from the conflict of life and death which arose afterwards between the imperial dominion and the Church of Christ, as well as the description of that conflict in the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse. Jesus was to be condemned, but only after His innocence had been made as clear as day, and acknowledged by the judge in the most decisive manner, and in repeated ways. To attain this double end, there could have been chosen no more fitting instrument than Pilate, free from the malignity of the Jews, yielding to the impressions of truth, and filled with a certain zeal to put it in the true light; but yet too weak to enforce it at the price of his own interests or place. Ver. 13. “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 the Hebrew, Gabbatha.”—Τῶνλόγωντούτων is the most approved reading: every word was to Pilate an arrow. Τούτωντῶνλόγων seems to have come from ver. 8. Pilate, according to ver. 9, had gone with Jesus into the praetorium, in order that he might there speak to Him quietly. Ver. 12 requires us to assume that he then came forth to the people, and made known to them his full design to set Jesus at liberty. After his conscience had received that deadly blow from the Jews, he went back into the praetorium, and hastened Jesus out. The condemnation must be spoken under the open heaven, in the presence of the accused. That the judgment-seat of the Roman governors stood in the open air, according to the tenor of our narrative, is proved by Josephus, De Bell. Jud. ii. 9, 3: “Pilate having sat down on the judgment-seat in the great stadium, summoned before him the people,” etc. There he is speaking of Cesarea. In section 4 he speaks of the same thing at Jerusalem, around which “the people gathered themselves together with uproar.” But still more explicit Isaiah 2:14; Isaiah 2:8. This passage shows, that when the procurator came to Jerusalem, the judgment-seat was placed before his dwelling, the old royal castle of Herod, identical with the praetorium here. We are presented with the same scene as here. Τοῦ before βήματος is omitted by Lachmann. Everywhere else in the New Testament this word has the article; but in two of the passages quoted from Josephus it is without the article. A judgment-seat might be mentioned, because, when the procurator left Jerusalem, the βῆμα also was taken away: the βῆμα, therefore, had not so permanent a character as the court of justice. We see in Matthew 27:19, that Pilate, during the previous transactions with the people, had intermittently occupied the judgment-seat. When St John approaches that crisis of universal interest, the proper pronunciation of Christ’s doom by Pilate, everything becomes momentous to him: he designates places by their two names, the Greek and the Hebrew, or Aramaic, and specifies the day and the hour. The Greek and the Aramaic names indicate the same place under different relations, yet so that these two relations are fundamentally connected. The Greek name points to the Mosaic work, which in its beauty indicated the dignity of the judgment: comp. Revelation 4:6. The Aramaic name indicated the elevation of the place, suggesting the fact that absolute submission was due to the word of the judge. Λιθόστρωτον (we find the word in Josephus, Bell. Jud. vi. 1, 8) strictly means inlaid with stone generally, but was specifically used for Mosaic tessellation. Gabbatha signifies hill. The town, which is called in Hebrew Gibeah, Josephus mentions frequently under the name Gabbatha. So Antiq. v. 1, 29: “There is a tomb and monument of him in the city of Gabbatha.” In vi. 4, 2, he says of Samuel, “Coming thence afterwards to Gabbatha:” comp. viii. 12, 4, 5, xiii. 1, 4. Josephus, Bell. Jud. v. 2, 1, calls Gibeah in Benjamin Γαβαθσαούλην, adding the explanation, “this means hill of Saul.” The only difference, that Josephus spells it always with one β, is of small moment; for, apart from the fact that the reading Γαβαθᾶ is not altogether unsupported, the reduplication of the letter might have been introduced for a euphonic purpose, the original word being otherwise harsh. So there is in the Hebrew a purely euphonic dagesh forte. Hence for the same reason we have μαμμωνᾶς instead of μαμωνᾶς, in a number of manuscripts of Mat 6:24. The opposite we find in the case of the name ςַ ?εεָּ ?δ which the Septuagint translate Γάζα. There were other localities around Jerusalem which bore the name of hill, as the hill of the lepers, Jeremiah 31:39. Iken’s objection, that the name was too general, equally applies to Λιθόστρωτον; and, moreover, the specific characterization of the place was given in the preceding ἐπὶτοῦβήματος. These names were appropriate only in the immediate neighbourhood of the judgment-seat. When they spoke elsewhere of these localities, the reference to the βῆμα, or the connection with it, required to be expressly mentioned. According to the analogy of Λιθόστρωτον, we might expect that the word Gabbatha would be a general designation. The hill probably was an artificial one. Ver. 14. “And it was the preparation of the Passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!” The exact specification of the place is followed by that of the time. First the day of the week: “it was the preparation of the Passover.” These words have been differently understood. According to some, they say that it was the preparation of the Passover, the day of preparation, on which the paschal lamb was provided; according to others, that it was the preparation for the Sabbath in the Passover feast. The latter interpretation is the correct one. Παρασκευὴτοῦπάσχα cannot mean the preparation for the Passover. Τὸπάσχα meant either the paschal lamb or the whole feast. On that supposition, it must have signified the feast day of the paschal feast. But the word never occurs with that signification. Further, παρασκευή never is used for the day that preceded the feast; only for the day that preceded its one Sabbath. Bleek has not been able to adduce the slightest proof that this word, and the corresponding Aramaic ςψεπϊΰ, was ever employed to designate the day before the feast. There lies the point of the discussion: failing to prove this, the cause is lost. In the New Testament, παρασκευή is always the proper name of a week-day, the Friday. If the word was also used for the preparation days of the feasts, how was it that the preparation day of the Sabbath was always called the preparation day, or preparation day absolutely, ἡπαρασκευή, or παρασκευή, without the word Sabbath being ever added?—an addition which was all the more necessary, because all the passages which speak of the day of preparation refer to the feast, and ambiguity was therefore unavoidable. The passages are Matthew 27:62; Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54; John 19:31. St Matthew says, “The next day that followed the day of the preparation.” He means thereby the Sabbath,—a strange note of time, if it were not quite settled that “day of preparation,” standing alone, was synonymous with Friday. St Mark explains the day of preparation as “the day before the Sabbath.” He gives his Greek readers this explanation of a term which in Jewish phraseology was more limited than its sound. But elsewhere than in the New Testament we find the same phrase. Joseph us, Antiq. xvi. 6, 2, mentions an edict of Augustus, which gave the Jews certain exemptions on the Sabbath, and “on the day of its preparation from the ninth hour.” There the word is used for the Friday; although Josephus or the edict explains it for Gentile readers, as being the day before the Sabbath, because the simple παρασκευή would have been unintelligible to them. So also in the language of the fathers, παρασκευή is always Friday: comp. Clem. Alex. Stromata 7; Dion. Alex, in Kouth, Rell. Sac. s. ii. p. 385, and other passages in Suicer. The word is also expressly quoted as the Jewish phrase. Synesius in Epistle 4 says, “It was the day which the Jews term preparation.” Thus the use of the phrase is absolutely on our side. The opposite view has here no ground to stand upon. Bleek has skilfully concealed the point on which all depends; but even he is obliged to confess, “that the expression in this form is not found elsewhere.” The argument is not in the least degree weakened by the allegation, that the first day of the paschal feast, as being equal to the Sabbath, demanded its preparation. That would have force if the word bore only an appellative character,—if it had not been, in Jewish phraseology, the proper name of the last day in the week but one. Our opponents appeal to the fact, that in the Jewish writings any is frequently used for the eve of the feasts, and especially of the Sabbath. But there is no proof that ςψα, evening, corresponds to παρασκευή, preparation day. Inasmuch as ereb is used of the eves of the feasts, but preparation day always denotes the day before the Sabbath, the two words, which are not coincident in meaning, have nothing in common. The Jewish word for παρασκευή is ςψεαϊΰ, which had never any other meaning than that of the day preceding the Sabbath, and was simply the name of the week-day: Buxtorf, Lex. c. 1160. This same word is used by the Syriac translator for the word παρασκευή. In Syriac it so decidedly and so exclusively denoted the Friday, that the Syrians termed Good Friday the day of preparation for the Passion: comp. Castelli, Lex. (ed. Michaelis), p. 673. It has been maintained that St John, if he had regarded the first feast day as the day of death, would not so indefinitely have designated as the Friday in the Passover that day which might have been any other of the seven feast days, especially here, where he is so exact in his record, that he defines the very hour. But what precedes had determined the day, in harmony with the first three Evangelists, who in regard to this point leave no room for doubt: comp. on John 18:28; John 18:39. Here the emphasis falls upon the determination of the day of the week, which had not yet been given. It has again been asserted, that to regard the preparation day of the Passover as the preparation day for the Sabbath in the Passover, must always have the air of a forced evasion of a difficulty. But this assertion rests upon the supposition, already overturned, that παρασκευή signified preparation day generally. As soon as we settle it that the word standing alone meant the day before the Sabbath, the Friday, the ambiguity is at once removed. The parallel passages adduced by Reland (Antiq. Sac.) have then their full force. The pseudo-Ignatius, in the Epistle to the Philippians, c. 13, speaks of the Sabbath of the Passover, that is, of the Sabbath which fell in Easter, which in the Christian Church took its beginning in the week preceding the Monday of the resurrection. Socrates, Hist. Ecc. v. 22, speaks of the Sabbath of the feast, τὸσάββατοντῆςἑορτῆς. Once more, it has been maintained to be unimaginable that the first day of the feast should be designated a preparation day. Now if the first day of the feast had been simply and as such denominated a day of preparation, it would have been something strange; for its character as the first feast day infinitely outweighed its character as a day of preparation. But it must be remembered, that whatever was peculiar to the day as the first of the feast, was now already over. For the rest of the day its characteristic as the preparation preponderated; or, at least, this characteristic might fitly be taken into consideration, especially as the Evangelist’s design was to indicate the day of the week, and as such the day was only the παρασκευή. Moreover, while the main end of the statement was a chronological one, we may suppose that it was intended further to pave the way for the record that the Jews, in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross during the Sabbath, came to Pilate and asked that their legs might be broken and they taken away. Finally, appeal has been made to the Jewish regulation, according to which the first day of the feast might never fall on the second, fourth, and sixth day of the week: nor on the last, the Friday, because in that case the first feast day would have been a mere preparation for the Sabbath. Ideler gave currency to this argument (Handb. der Chronologie i. S. 521); but it has been long since established that that Jewish decision was not extant in Christ’s time, or centuries later. After Baronius maintained this, Bochart thoroughly proved it (Hieroz. i. 562, ed. Rosen. 638), Bynaeus taking the same view. In the Talmud mention is frequently made of a case in which a feast might fall on the day of preparation; and Abenezra says, “Both in the Mishna and in the Talmud we may see that the Passover might come sometimes on the second, fourth, and sixth day.” It may be proved also from Epiphanius, that this regulation was a recent one. The determination of the hour follows that of the day: “it was about the sixth hour,” ὥραἦνὡσεὶἕκτη, or, according to Lachmann, ὥραἦνὡςἕκτη. Mark 15:25 says, “It was the third hour, and they crucified Him.” St John does not contradict this; but he supplements it. His statement was not to be isolated; it was in his design to be combined with that of his predecessors. St John had the records of the three Evangelists, in all their details, before his eyes; he never corrects them, but everywhere supplements. The two statements, when combined, furnish the result that the sentence of Pilate and the leading away to crucifixion fell in the middle, between the third and the sixth hour, that is, about half an hour after ten. The ὡσεὶ or ὡς in St John intimates expressly that he did not mean precisely the sixth hour, but that the sixth hour is only referred to as the period in the day. The idea of a contradiction has sprung only from the fact that the two Evangelists were supposed to have substituted the current hour in the place of the hour as the time of the day. The supposition that among the Jews the day was divided into four periods, each of three hours, rests not only upon the declarations of Maimonides and of the Talmud; it cannot be said that the division of the day was of late origin. That it existed in Christ’s time, is made extremely probable by the analogy of the division of the night into four periods, each of three hours: comp. Mark 13:35; Luke 12:38. It is still more forcibly suggested by Matthew 20:3-4. The reason why there is here a transition from dawn to the third hour, from this to the sixth, and from the sixth to the ninth, can only have been that the day was actually divided into spaces of three hours. We are led to the same result by the fact that, in the whole history of the crucifixion in the Gospels, only the third, sixth, and ninth hours occur, and that generally in the New Testament these hours are much oftener mentioned than the intervening ones. The fourth and the fifth hours, for instance, never occur in the New Testament; and the tenth only once, John 1:40, where it was the highest personal interest of the Evangelist to define with exactitude. Further, this supposition alone explains the fact, that precisely in connection with those hours which mark the quadrants of the day, the ὡσεὶ or περὶ is so often used: comp. Matthew 27:46; Luke 23:44; John 4:6; Acts 10:3; Acts 10:9. The intermediate time between the third and the sixth hour seems also in the nature of the case the most suitable. If we adhere to the third hour, the space is too much narrowed for the transactions before Pilate, and we come in conflict with the statement not merely of Mat 27:45, but also of Mark himself, Mark 15:33, that with the sixth hour the darkness began. As the darkness coincided with the crucifixion, as it was the answer in act to the crucifixion, and the concomitant mockery of the Jews, we can hardly suppose that Jesus at the commencement of the darkness had been hanging three hours on the cross. On the other hand, if we advance to the sixth hour, space is too much narrowed for the crucifixion itself. Pilate said to the Jews, “Behold your King.” Here also we must renounce the notion of mockery, which would so badly have served Pilate’s ends; this would ill accord with the disposition of the wretched man, who, drawn hither and thither, this way by his conscience, that way by his interest, certainly was but little inclined to “sport with the King of the Jews.” Jesus was assuredly a representative of the Messianic hope of the Jewish nation. According to Pilate’s secret presentiment, He was yet more; and he could not, even at the moment of uttering the sentence, hold out to the Jews a more powerful motive to bethink themselves and stay their fury, than this, “Behold your King.” Ver. 15. “But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Cesar.” The double ἆρον here, like the αἶρε, Luke 23:18, Acts 21:36, points to Deuteronomy. Gesenius: Formula solennis Deut. ubicunque jubetur supplicium, haec est δψςξχψακαςψϊ. Comp. John 13:6, where it is said of false prophets, and John 17:7, Sept. καὶἐξαρεῖςτὸνπονηρὸνἐξὑμῶναὐτῶν, John 19:9. The ἆρον was the judicial expression of their demand, which as such bore in it its own motive; σταύύρωσον signified the form in which, under present circumstances, the supposed requirement of law might be satisfied.—“We have no king but Cesar:” they renounce their hope, that they may be rid of its hateful representative: comp. Acts 17:7. But their word had a deeper significance than they themselves meant; and therefore it was recorded. When they despised Christ their true King, and delivered Him up to death, they ceased, in fact, to be God’s people and kingdom, and sank entirely under the power of this world, which God used for the execution of His wrath upon them: comp. Luke 19:27. Lampe: “They elected Cesar to be their king; by Cesar they were destroyed, and that in the time of the Passover.” Ver. 16. “Then delivered he Him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led Him away.”—Παρέδωκεν obviously must not be understood of material delivery over; it is equivalent to χαρίζεσθαίεἰςἀπώλειαν, Acts 25:16 : comp. ver. 11. A comparison with that passage shows that in the expression there lies a complaint against Pilate. According to the Roman law he acted unjustly, but still more so according to the law of God, which commands the ruler, “Ye shall not respect persons in judgment,” Deuteronomy 1:17. Παρέδωκε here is distinct from παρέδωκε in Matthew 27:26. Here it denotes the last and definitive delivery, as it followed upon the solemn judgment; there it was the actual delivery, as it was expressed by the scourging. St Matthew has omitted the attempt of Pilate to undo the sentence which had been actually uttered by the fact of the scourging; he has omitted also the formal pronunciation of the sentence. Despite the seeming humiliation of Jesus under Pilate, the transactions before him yielded a result which furthered the Divine plan of salvation. Jesus was to die for the sins of the world; but His innocence and righteousness must be attested by the judge himself who condemned Him to death. Pilate’s triple “I find no fault in this man;” the declaration that he would be innocent of the blood of this righteous man; the adoption of all means that might have been available to rescue Him, down to the very moment when he pronounced the sentence; the message of his wife;—all these things utterly destroy the very root of the disparaging conclusions that might be drawn from the condemnation of our Lord. We shall now cast a closing glance over the series of events that took place before Pilate. They present no real difficulty, still less any contradictions. Matthew and Mark are most brief; Luke and John communicate each his peculiar details with considerable minuteness. But in the matter common to all the Evangelists, we have a sure guide by which we can adjust the position of what is peculiar to each, so that the order is never arbitrary or doubtful. John 18:29-32 forms the beginning. Then follows Luke 23:2. The Jews, repelled in their request that Pilate would, without further ado, confirm the judgment they had pronounced, bring their accusation against Jesus, that He stirred the people to sedition, and hindered them from giving tribute to Cesar, saying that He Himself was Christ a King. This accusation was the point of connection for the question, common to all the Evangelists, “Art thou the King of the Jews?” From St John we gather that Pilate put this question to Christ after he had taken Him into the praetorium. The Lord’s answer is communicated by the first three Evangelists only in its central words, σὺλέγεις. St John records previously the explanations which Jesus had given Pilate touching the nature of His kingdom before that decisive answer. Then did Pilate, convinced of His innocence, betake himself with Jesus to the people outside, and speak for the first time the words afterwards twice repeated, “I find no fault in this man,” John 18:38; Luke 23:4. The rulers are not pacified by that declaration; they renew, with increased vehemence, their allegations: Luke, Luke 23:5. Pilate challenges Jesus to defend Himself, but He answers nothing, so that Pilate greatly marvelled, Matthew 13:14; Mark, Mark 13:5. In the accusation of the rulers, mention had been made of Galilee. Pilate takes up that word, hoping that here would be an opening for his own extrication from the embarrassment. He asks (Luke) whether Christ were a Galilean; and on finding that it was so, sends Him to Herod. After Christ’s return from Herod, Pilate, according to St Luke, summons the rulers of the people together, and declares a second time, “I find no fault in him;” but offers, that the hateful offence of false accusation and unrighteous judgment might not seem to rest with them, to inflict corporal punishment on Christ, and release Him. So far we follow St Luke. Now all the Evangelists concur. That the people’s voice might be raised in favour of the accused, Pilate makes use of the popular cry, heard, according to St Mark, just at this moment, and before the answer to the proposal of chastisement could be given, demanding the release of a prisoner; and he gives them the choice between Christ and Barabbas. The conciseness with which St John touches this momentous event suggests that it had been already exhaustively treated by his predecessors. Between the proposal of Pilate and the answer of the people must be placed the message from his wife, which is peculiar to St Matthew. After this attempt had failed, Pilate a third time, despairing of the matter now, says, “I find no fault in him,” Luke 23:22, and repeats his earlier proposition to dismiss Jesus with chastisement. But His enemies redouble their clamour, Luke, Luke 23:23. Still Pilate did not give all up. He declared by a symbolical action, the washing of his hands, that he would release himself from all responsibility. The multitude, regarding nothing but the readiness to fall into their plans which Pilate’s words betrayed, declare themselves prepared to take the whole responsibility upon themselves, Matthew 24:25. Then follows the scourging, Matthew 24:26; Mark 15:15; John 19:1. Then come the indignities perpetrated by the soldiers, Matthew 24:27-31; Mark 15:16-20; John 19:2-3. Then Pilate renews his attempts to influence the people in favour of Jesus,—attempts which St John records in John 19:4 seq.; and, finally, when these availed nothing, the formal and final sentence. Chap. 19:17-30—The Crucifixion John 19:17-18 sum up briefly what the earlier Evangelists had recorded, to serve as a point of connection for what is peculiar to St John. Then there is a copious narrative of four facts, which either the other Evangelists altogether omit, such as the committal of the Lord’s mother to the care of John, or in which St John has made remarkable additions: the superscription on the cross, the division of the garments, and the vinegar offered to drink. Ver. 19. “And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF , THE KING OF THE JEWS.”—Τίτλος, titulus, was the judicial name of the superscription. That St John gives the technical term, is in harmony with the significance which he attached to the whole matter. Naturally, the superscription was written and placed on the cross only at Pilate’s order. “The King of the Jews:” a voice in Pilate’s heart spoke in favour of His being so in reality. He had already done enough at the bidding of the Jews. In the consciousness of his injustice to Christ, he would not further afflict Him by charging Him in His death with making a presumptuous claim. Yet the determinations of men, especially of such men as Pilate, in whom diversified motives and impulses cross each other, are not to be reckoned upon. That this resolution, however, was held firmly, in spite of the counter influence of the Jews, was regarded by St John as resulting from the influence of God, who holds the hearts of men in His hands. Lampe: We believe that Pilate piously wrote this title under a certain Divine impulse. Ver. 20. “This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.” The observation that many of the Jews witnessed this, was not intended as a confirmation of the fact; but to intimate that Jesus was proclaimed the King of the Jews before many witnesses. The three languages were significant to St John, inasmuch as their concurrence testified that the King of the Jews, as such, was at the same time the King of the Gentiles (comp. on John 1:50); that through Him the prophecy of Japhet dwelling in the tents of Shem, Genesis 9:27, and of Shiloh whom the nations would obey. Genesis 49:10, were accomplished. Calvin: The Lord thus declared that the time was at hand when He would make everywhere known the name of His Son. As it regards the order of the languages, the Greek precedes the Latin in St Luke also; but there is this difference, that the Hebrew comes last in his account, while in John it takes precedence. The inverted order may be most simply accounted for as due to St John’s preference for the Hebrew. Ἑβραϊστὶ occurs four times in the Gospel, twice in the Apocalypse, but nowhere else in the entire New Testament. Neither of the two Evangelists professes to follow the actual order of the languages. It is probable that the Latin was really the first, as the tongue of the rulers of the land (the reading of Cod. B., Ῥωμαϊστί, Ἑλληνιστί, sprang from- the erroneous supposition that John must needs follow the actual order, as in the original title); then the Greek followed, as the actual language of the country; and finally the Hebrew. St Luke placed the Greek first, because he wrote primarily for Greeks (Theophilus); and St John gives it the precedence of the Latin, because it was the more generally diffused language. Vers. 21, 22. “Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not. The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written.” The representations of the Jews were made to Pilate, who was not himself present at the crucifixion, before the Lord was led away, when the superscription was just prepared. The whole section, vers. 19-22, does not stand to vers. 17 and 18 in the relation of sequence, but of juxtaposition. The superscription had been written and attached to the cross before Jesus was led forth. Ἀρχιερεῖς is used by Josephus, just as it is by the Evangelists, to designate all priests of the higher rank: comp. e.g, Antiq. xx. 7, 8; Bell. Jud. iv. 3, 6. But often as the ἀρχιερεῖς are mentioned, the addition, “of the Jews,” is found only here. We must seek therefore some special occasion for it. Evidently the high priests of the Jews stood in a peculiar relation to the King of the Jews,—a relation which explains the motive of the high priests. Between them and Christ a strife of life and death for dominion had been going on: comp. on John 10:8, Matthew 21:28; Matthew 27:18, according to which the high priests delivered Jesus for envy. In this rivalry between the high priests of the Jews and the King of the Jews, we may discern the impulse of that bitterness which led them to rob Christ of the honour which had been given Him by the superscription of Pilate. Pilate’s answer, ὃγέγραφα, γέγραφα, doubtless suggests that obstinacy of character which Philo attributed to him (τὴνφύσινἀκαμπής). Still, as the preceding transactions show how little he was able, under the pressure of a guilty conscience, to persist in the object he set out with, we may justly refer his unbending determination in this particular point to the secret overruling of God, which secured that on the cross, where Jesus obtained the right to His dominion. He should be proclaimed King. Lampe: “As this title was written in the three cardinal languages of the world, so in a short space His kingdom was announced to all nations in the same tongues.” What is expunged is as good as not written. Hence “I have written” is equivalent to “It must be so.” Vers. 23, 24. “Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also His coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves. Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith. They parted My raiment among them, and for My vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.” All the Evangelists mention the division of Christ’s garments, because this, of itself a less important circumstance, contained a fulfilment of the prophecy in Psalms 22:19. The interest which they all felt in this proceeding sprang from their sure conviction of the inspiration of the Old Testament, which of itself would attach significance to otherwise indifferent coincidences. The relation of the incident to the passage in the psalm was so plain, that the first three Evangelists held it needless to quote it (for the quotation in Matthew is spurious). In his allusion to the coincidence between the prophecy and its fulfilment, John goes more into detail; he testifies that inspiration in the Old Testament extended to the minutest matters, and that the overruling of Divine Providence is in these minute details of special moment. Now, as the individual words of the psalm were requisite to this object, he cites the passage itself. That passage speaks, in its first clause, of the division of the garments; in its second, of the lot cast for the μαεω, the long vesture, after the removal of which the body was left naked; so that it involves a climax: Job 24:7-10; Psalms 35:13; Esther 4:2. Both were strictly fulfilled. The soldiers divided among themselves the other habiliments of Jesus: the covering of His head, the girdle. Matthew 10:9, Acts 1:13; the shoes, John 1:27; the coat, Matthew 5:40; and then cast lots for the outer vesture. That which is here detailed St Mark hints at in John 15:24, “And when they had crucified Him, they parted His garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take.” Accordingly the lot was, at least in part, of such a kind, that one obtained something, while others obtained nothing. Strictly speaking, it is not “what every man should take,” but “who should obtain something.” As the value of the four parts was unequal, the first distribution also was probably by lot. That four soldiers were usually employed in these matters by the Romans, is plain from many sources: e.g. Acts 12:4; Philo in Flaccum, p. 981. John alone describes the vesture which the Son of man wore. And in harmony with his description, the glorified Christ appeared to him in a similar vesture, ἐνδεδυμένοςποδήρη, Revelation 1:13.—“Throughout,” so that the web went through the whole, and no seam was visible. Before ἵναπληρωθῇ we must interpolate, “This came to pass,” or, “They must do this.” “This, therefore, the soldiers did,” forms of course the transition to the following scene. The act of the soldiers, however, in itself indifferent, would not have been made prominent by such a transition-formula, had not their act stood under the disposal of a higher power, which gave it importance. Apparently all is come to an end with the Redeemer. “The distribution of the garment served,” as Luther says, “for a sign that everything was done with Christ, just as with one who was abandoned, lost, and to be forgotten for ever.” The soldiers doubtless, during this act, continued their mockery of the King of the Jews; and the matter, doubtless, derived its attractiveness rather from this pastime than from any material gain. We have here the continuation of the mockery in ch. John 19:2-3. But the deed itself was under the hand of Providence; and, concurrent with the profane irony, there was a sacred irony upon the irony. In vers. 25-27, Jesus commits His mother to John. This record is peculiar to the fourth Evangelist: it would seem as if the others regarded it as his property. The question arises, where we are to place the incident; and the most obvious thought is, that it occurred towards the close, as only on the border between life and death would our Lord have committed His mother to any other keeping. Moreover, the μετὰτοῦτο, in ver. 28, would mean nothing, if the following occurrence were not in immediate connection with that we now consider. But that following occurrence, according to the express remark of John, fell in the near neighbourhood of the Saviour’s death. Accordingly, the word which Jesus here addressed to His mother and to John must take the fourth place among the Seven words spoken from the cross: the first, “Father, forgive them;” the second, “This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise;” the third, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” The sacred design in the number Seven will be seen, when it is observed that it is obtained here only by combining the records of the four Evangelists; so that their origin was not due to any artistic arrangement on the part of the several writers. Of these seven utterances, four were spoken in the near approach of His death, and had an immediate reference to it. Ver. 25. “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.” According to Matthew 27:55-56, at a certain distance from the cross of Jesus there stood “many women,” among whom Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee, are mentioned. Mark, in ch. Mark 15:40-41, names also three women: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the younger James and Joses, and Salome; the same therefore, with this only difference, that the name of James has the appendage τοῦμικροῦ, and instead of the mother of the sons of Zebedee her name is stated. The appendage, “the less,” was rendered necessary by Salome being mentioned instead of the mother of Zebedee’s sons. There were only two prominent men with the name of James. The elder of these was the son of Zebedee. Thus Matthew, who introduces the mother of the sons of Zebedee, needed not to define more particularly the lesser James. John omits his own mother, the mention of whom would have been somewhat of an interruption in this scene, and substitutes the mother of Jesus, who forms here the centre of all. The two others are identical with those mentioned by the other Evangelists: this we might be led to expect, by the fact that Matthew and Mark certainly named those only who had a certain claim to be distinguished from the rest. The further difference in the order resulted from the mother of Jesus being mentioned first. She could not be otherwise than at the head; and her sister would naturally follow. Thus Mary Magdalene, who in all the other enumerations of holy women takes precedence, must needs have on this occasion the last place. To Mary the mother of Jesus was now fulfilled the word of Simeon, Luke 2:35, “And a sword shall pierce thy own soul also:” the same sword which, according to the prophecy of Zec 13:7, was to smite and pierce the Shepherd of the Lord. Grotius aptly regards her presence at the cross as a prophecy of the Christian boldness which was to be exhibited even by the weaker sex.—“And His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas:” since we have no instance of actual sisters bearing the same name, the sister must be sister-in-law. The term sister is frequently used for near relations: Tob 8:4; Tob 8:7; Tob 7:4, compared with Tob 7:2; Job 42:11. The designation had its specific reason, probably in the circumstance that after the death of Cleophas the two families were blended into one. The sons of this Mary are recorded by Matthew and Mark as being James and John. Accordingly Mary could be only the wife of Cleophas, which is indeed the most obvious relationship implied in the term. Cleophas is mentioned here only in the New Testament; but he must be identical with the Alphaeus mentioned by Matthew, Mark, and Luke: for James, who in Matthew 27:56, Mark 15:40, is called the son of Mary, the wife, according to John, of Cleophas, was, according to Matthew 10:3, the son of Alphaeus; as also according to Mark 3:18, Luke 6:15, Acts 1:13. The difference is to be explained by the fact that the name was originally Aramaic, and took the form ηַ ?μְ ?τַ ?ι. Now the η might be translated variously in the Greek: compare the analogies in the Septuagint, which Gesenius has collected under the letter η in his Thesaurus. Whether the Cleophas of Luk 24:18 is the same name, may be doubted: it may have been a contraction of Κλεόπατρος. If he had been the same man as is mentioned in Luke 6:15, the Evangelist would not in the same Gospel have adopted another Greek name. But if the two names were originally the same, that would be a reason why he should choose another Greek form, in order that personal identity might not be supposed to be implied. Mark 2:14 shows us that the name was a current one: there we have another Alphaeus, the father of Matthew. We are led to suppose that Cleophas or Alphaeus was already dead, from the circumstance that Mary is everywhere else indicated by her maternal relation. Supposing him to have died early, we can understand how Mary with her sons came into a close relationship with Joseph the husband of Mary, who would represent a father to them. The James and John of Mar 15:40 can be no other than those whom he had mentioned in ch. John 6:3, and with them Judas and Simon, also therefore sons of Mary. If it was not Mary mother of our Lord, but another Mary, who, according to Mark 15:40, was the mother of these sons, then we must not think, in Mark 6:3, of literal brothers of Jesus, but only of nearest kindred: comp., concerning the brothers of Jesus, the remarks on ch. John 2:12, John 7:3. Many suppose that four, and not three women, are mentioned here. The (unnamed) sister of the mother of Jesus is supposed to be Salome the mother of John, and Mary wife of Cleophas to be a different person. But that this is a mere learned device, is rendered exceedingly probable by the simple circumstance, that the Christian Church has from the beginning regarded them as three in number. Where, in the earlier Evangelists, a great number of women had been previously mentioned, and then individuals are specified, three, and never four, are alluded to in connection with the cross. Hence we may naturally expect that here also three, and not four, are alluded to. Only on the supposition that Mary wife of Cleophas was the sister of our Lord’s mother, can we account for the postponement of Mary Magdalene, who everywhere else takes the first place among the women, as uniformly as Simon Peter takes the first among the Apostles. The καὶ also could be omitted only if there was no ambiguity. It could not possibly have been wanting if a description had preceded which required that the name of the same person should follow to make it clear. If the sister of the mother of Jesus and the wife of Cleophas are two persons, then the former lacks a name, and the latter is introduced without a reason given for the introduction. Nor is there ever given the slightest intimation of a relationship betwixt John and our Lord. The manner in which our Lord committed to him His mother leads to the conclusion, that a relationship of affinity did not subsist between the two. Finally, among the three Marys, here designedly placed in juxtaposition, we are not justified in interposing another, especially such a characterless and indefinite personage as this “sister of the mother of Jesus,” about whom neither the earlier Evangelists nor St John give us any the slightest information. Ver. 26. “When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple standing by whom He loved, He saith unto His mother, Woman, behold thy son!” The fact that the women in Matthew 27:55 looked on generally from afar, does not exclude the supposition that it was permitted to the mother of Jesus to approach nearer to the cross, especially as the Lord’s mother did not belong to the circle of the women mentioned there. The address “Woman,” occurring also in ch. John 2:4, is explained by Matthew 12:48, where Jesus says emphatically to those who announced the arrival of His mother, “Who is My mother?” and intimated that, in the things pertaining to His vocation, into which His mother would intrude, the relation between them altogether receded. Thus here also the term woman suggests that at this crisis His relation to His mother retreated altogether in comparison of the high commission given Him by His Father to redeem a sinful world. We must carry this, however, no further than as teaching us that no such relation must hinder us from the discharge of our duty. We must not forget that, in the latest moments of His earthly existence. He, as a pattern to us, cared for His mother. He had honoured His Father by childlike obedience, in deference to the fourth commandment; and He honours His mother by careful provision for her external need.—“Behold thy son” presupposes that Mary had no sons besides Jesus. To honour parents by faithful care of them, is not merely the duty, but the privilege also, of children; and if she had had other children, Jesus would have infringed upon that privilege by committing His mother to John. He would have left His disciples but a poor pattern of the sanctification of the relations appointed of Heaven, if He had thus absolutely placed Himself in independence of those relations. The duty of the sons would have remained, even if the supposed brothers of Jesus had at that time been in a state of unbelief. Moreover, this supposition is based on a false exposition of ch. John 7:3 : certainly the “brethren of Jesus” are a few weeks afterwards, Acts 1:14, in the number of the believers; and He who knew what was in man, who saw the future developments of the character of Peter and Judas from the beginning, would have fallen under the reproach of shortsightedness, if He had taken their mother from them on the ground of their temporary unbelief, and committed her for ever to another. The actual mother of the “brethren” of Jesus, Mary the wife of Cleophas, had been mentioned just before. On the words of Christ to His mother and John, the Berlenberg Bible justly says: “Thus it is not opposed to the mind of Christ, when we extend the commandment for parents and children further than its mere letter.” Our Lord’s design was not to provide for John, but to provide for His mother. He begins with her, and gives her a son, because as a feeble woman she needed that protection; and when He said to John, “Behold thy mother,” this meant only that he was to pay her, from that time forward, the respect due to a mother. The result shows this. Mary does not take John, but John takes Mary to his house. Quesnel’s remark springs from an entire inversion of the order: “The holy Virgin receives all Christians as her children in the person of John. This property over us gives us the right and the confidence to place all our interests in her hands.” Ver. 27. “Then saith He to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.”—“From that hour” must be taken literally; but “to his own house” intimates that Mary was from that time the honoured companion of his home. The too literal view assumes that John had a house in Jerusalem, while ch. John 21:1 shows that His abiding home was Galilee; and further, that he at once led our Lord’s mother to his own house, which is contrary to John 19:34, and in itself unnatural, Bengel’s remark is wrong here: “The sword had now sufficiently penetrated the soul of Mary: now she is guarded against seeing and hearing the most bitter things, the darkness, the abandonment of God [but both had already taken place], the death.” It is the duty and the right of the nearest friends to abide until the last breath. It would have been severity towards His mother, and towards the disciple whom He loved, had He sent them both away. In vers. 28-30, we have the potion of vinegar which was given to our Lord. It was customary to provide for those who were to be crucified a malefactor’s potion, which should mitigate their pains, and still their horrible thirst. The vessel containing such a drink was, according to John 19:29, already there before Jesus said, “I thirst.” Matthew, in ch. Matthew 27:34, describes the potion theologically as vinegar mingled with gall, because he sees in it a fulfilment of prophecy, Psalms 69:21, “They gave Me also gall for My meat; and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink.” This description of the potion is a delicate and veiled quotation. As to its physical nature, it says—as every one must see who admits the reference to Psalms 69:21, according to which the words “gall and vinegar” must have, as it were, quotation marks—only this, that the potion was at once sour and bitter. Mark, who everywhere devotes a special observation to externalities, describes the potion in its physical quality, “And they gave Him to drink wine mingled with myrrh.” The myrrh was designed to make the drink bitter, and rob it of its flavour. Galen (in Wetstein) says of myrrh, ἔχει, πικρίαν. Accordingly, we must regard the wine as bitter vinegar. This drink was offered to Jesus by the soldiers before the crucifixion, but He rejected it: “And having tasted. He would not drink,” Matthew 27:34. It is significant here that the Lord first tasted: this pertains to the reason for rejecting it. In the bitter and sour wine, the entire relation of the ungodly to Jesus was exhibited; to Jesus, who through them and for them suffered. When He repelled this drink. He uttered His condemnation of this position, and rejected it as unworthy of Him. But this rejection can be viewed only as preliminary; and it intimated that an acceptance of it was afterwards to follow. Jesus, according to the psalm, must actually drink, but the circumstances stated there were not yet in existence. It is said, “In My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink.” Thus the thirst must first be experienced. Luke mentions the vinegar in ch. Luke 23:36-37. According to his statement, the soldiers mockingly offered Jesus during the crucifixion the vinegar as His royal table-wine; and made much of the misrelation in which the malefactor’s potion stood to His assumed royal dignity. This scene is peculiar to Luke. Matthew mentions the vinegar a second time in ch. Matthew 27:48, “And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink.” Mark 15:36 is parallel. According to both, this incident followed hard upon the word which Jesus uttered about the ninth hour, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” and His death immediately followed. This is the same occurrence which John here touches, as immediately preceding the death. He adds the important clause which first places the whole incident in its true light, that they gave Him this to drink in consequence of His cry, “I thirst.” Ver. 28. “After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.” The knowledge of Christ that all things were now fulfilled, was the motive which impelled Him to introduce that one last circumstance still wanting to the perfect fulfilment of Scripture. The question whether “all things” refers generally to the work which Christ was to accomplish, or to the predictions of it contained in the Old Testament, tends to divide things internally united. The work to be done by Christ was, in its fundamental principles, perfectly foreannounced and described in the Old Testament. That reference to the prophecies is not to be excluded, is shown by the following words, “that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” So also in Luke 22:37 : “For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished (τελεσθῆναι) in Me, And He was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning Me have an end.” So also Luke 18:31, Revelation 17:17, which set aside the remark of Bengel, “τελέω refers to things, τελειόω) to holy Scripture.” The real distinction between the two verbs is this, that τελειοῦν is the stronger, and marks perfect fulfilment. Τελειοῦν is related to τελεῖν, as μλμεϊ, in order to fulfil, entirely to fulfil, Jeremiah’s word in 2 Chronicles 36:22, is related to μξμΰεϊ, to fulfil the word of the Lord through Jeremiah, in 2 Chronicles 36:21. That, on the other hand, reference to the work committed by God to the Son of man, to all that which He had undertaken to do and suffer, is not to be excluded, needs no other proof than that this was the obvious interpretation of the words. Moreover, we must observe the relation in which the τετέλεσται, here and in ver. 30 stands to the last word of Psalms 22, ςωδ, “He hath done it,” corresponding with the relation of “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me” to the beginning of that psalm. The work of God must be regarded, therefore, as what was finished: comp. ch. John 17:4, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.” “All things” receives a limitation in what follows: one point was in reserve, one thing which was yet wanting to the full fulfilment of Scripture, and therefore to the accomplishment of the work of God; hence all things with the exception of one point. The idea is evidently this: Jesus knew that all was accomplished, that one thing only failed as yet. In order to bring in the fulfilment of this one thing, He uttered the word “I thirst;” and when this was also fulfilled. He said again, “It is finished.” According to John, Jesus uttered the word “I thirst” in order to introduce a fulfilment of Scripture, the word of Psa 69:21. To such a theological reason we are independently led by the declaration of the Evangelist. There can be no doubt that the “I thirst” was literally true. The most burning thirst was wont to torment the crucified. But in the immediate approach of death, our Lord would not assuredly have first desired to drink; He could not possibly have dedicated yet one of His sacred seven words to the relief of a mere bodily craving. That Jesus uttered the word in order to the fulfilment of a passage in the psalm is a stumbling-block only to those who, on the one hand, have surrendered the principle of the high import of the Old Testament, which Christ regarded as Divine down to its ἰῶτα and κεραία, and who, on the other hand, fail to discern that that word of the psalm utters a general truth, so that the incident retains its importance even for those who altogether look away from the psalm itself. That passage most luminously exhibits the position which the world assumes to the Sufferer, to righteousness suffering through the guilt of the world. In ver. 20 we read, “Reproach hath broken My heart, and I am full of heaviness; and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.” After the enemies had brought the Sufferer so low that He was broken down in body and soul, they ought to have been amazed at the work of their hands, and their hatred should have turned to inward pity. But they give the Sufferer, instead of the refreshing potion, gall and vinegar. The situation here, presented is dependent on the passage in the psalm, and yet at the same time independent of it. Jesus says in His suffering, which He endured for the world, “I thirst.” What do they give Him in His thirst? Vinegar. This potion, presented to malefactors, was a benefit; presented to righteousness suffering incarnate, it was a harsh and bitter insult. To close His career with such a symbolical action was all the more appropriate to our Lord, inasmuch as what then took place was not an isolated thing, but reflected the attitude which the world would assume to Him in succeeding ages. The more vividly we see, in our own time, the counterpart of this offer of vinegar, the less reason have we to deal critically with it here as a symbolical action, and the less propriety is there in evading it by all kinds of forced exegesis. The better way is to turn it all to our profit. Quesnel: “See there the mortifications and amenities which men have to offer Him who gives His life for them. A vessel of vinegar for the blood which He shed for them. After this, can we complain of the ingratitude of men, and of the small consolation which we sometimes receive from our own friends?” Ver. 29. “Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His mouth.” Meyer’s remark here is erroneous: “Ὄξος is sour soldiers’ wine, posca. John says nothing of the stupefying draught which Jesus rejected.” It is against the soldiers’ wine which expositors have invented, that besides the vessel with vinegar, the sponge also and the reed were in readiness. This shows that the provision was made for malefactors. Of any “stupefying draught” the other three Evangelists are quite unconscious. The potion must have been another and a worse one than mere soldiers’ wine, otherwise the design for which our Saviour said “I thirst” would not have been accomplished, and Psalms 69:21 would be quite unsuitable. The necessary consequence of Meyer’s view, “In Psalms 69:21 the offering of vinegar is the act of scorn and wickedness, which does not suit here,” is sufficient, at the same time, for its refutation. Instead of the reed, κάλαμος, in Matthew, John mentions specifically the hyssop. This would have been a refinement, if he had not viewed the hyssop with a theological eye. It is striking also, that instead κάλαμοςὑσσώπου, he says barely ὑσσώπος. This of itself gives us reason to suppose that here there is an allusion to a passage of the Old Testament in which hyssop is mentioned, but not the reed of hyssop. The hyssop is in the Mosaic law (comp. Hebrews 9:13), and in Psalms 51:9, which comes strictly into consideration here, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean,” the symbol of expiation. (Comp. my Commentary on the Psalms, and Egypt and the Books of Moses.) To the Evangelist the hyssop with the sponge of vinegar, the hyssop of mockery, forms a memorable contrast to the hyssop of atonement; and he regards it as a Divine arrangement that the reed was no other than a branch of hyssop. Celsius gives us the most complete explanations of the natural history of hyssop (Hierobotan. i. 407). In the Talmudic tract Succa, hyssop is mentioned among the branches which were used at the Feast of Tabernacles. Abulfadli (in Celsius) says that it reached nearly the height of an ell. The cross being so low, this was sufficient. Ver. 30. “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said. It is finished: and He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost.” That was accomplished which the prophecies of the Old Testament had foreshown as the work of Christ, to accomplish which was incumbent on Christ in His state of humiliation, incumbent on the Son of man: comp. Luke 18:31, “All things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished” (τελεσθήσεται). The limitation to the state of humiliation is obvious, from the fact that our Lord uttered it on the cross, where that humiliation had its end. “It is finished,” peculiar to John, forms the foundation for Luke’s last word of our Lord, “Father, into Thine hands I commend My spirit.” Lampe: “For the Father could not keep back from His bosom one who had so perfectly done the will of His Father.” To these last words, as recorded by Luke, corresponds the “gave up” here, παρέδωκε. “Gave up,” without mention of Him to whom, is as it were an express allusion to that last word, in which the imperfect expression finds its interpretation. Bengel well says: “There are seven words in the four Evangelists, all of which not one has recorded. Whence it is plain that these books are, as it were, four voices, which produce symphony when heard together.” Chap. John 19:31-37 The Apostle relates here what ensued after the death of Jesus, and before He was taken down from the cross. John is silent as to the miraculous natural phenomena which were connected with the death of Christ, because he had nothing of his own to add to them. He records only what the others had omitted, that the legs of Jesus were not broken, like those of the malefactors crucified with Him; that one of the soldiers pierced His side with a lance; and that forthwith blood and water came thereout: three facts to which he assigns a high importance. Vers. 32, 33. “Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that He was dead already, they brake not His legs.” Jesus, according to ver. 30, had said in the presence of the soldiers, “It is finished,” had then bowed His head, and given up the ghost. Looking therefore at John alone, we should not infer that the soldiers came to Jesus with the design of breaking His legs. We are led to the opposite by marking that they did not come to Jesus until they had broken the legs of the two malefactors. Jesus was the chief person. If they had originally the intention of breaking His legs, they would have made their beginning with Him; or if they took the persons in order, Jesus must have come between the two in the operation. Their leaving the natural order must have had a specific reason. Accordingly, the note of the soldiers seeing that Jesus was already dead, can only mean that this confirmed their previous observations. A comparison of the other Evangelists leads to the same result. According to these, the centurion, and “those who were with him,” were deeply impressed by the death of Jesus, Matthew 27:54, Mark 15:39, Luke 23:47. The intention of the piercing could not have been to ascertain the reality of Christ’s death; for the soldier was no professor of medical jurisprudence. It could only have been to hasten the death, in case it had not, as circumstances seemed to indicate, taken place; and, as His death was absolutely probable, in a manner less rough than that of breaking the legs. With this design, the thrust would naturally be directed to the heart; for there, it was well known, was the seat of mortal wounds. Galen (in Wetstein) says: “That the piercing of the heart necessarily brings death, is among things universally acknowledged.” Sextus Empiricus: “Piercing the heart is a cause of immediate death.” So also Quinctilian. That blood and water came forth (Lampe: “We must hold to the letter: blood first flowed, then water, so limpid that it might be seen by John and others around to be different from blood”), seems by what follows to have been something extraordinary, indeed miraculous. We might therefore expect that analogous facts are not to be found; nor is it strange that the responsa of the medical faculty in reference to our passage are so unsatisfactory. What Tholuck adduces goes far enough to show the conditions in human bodies which, under peculiar circumstances, might bring about the result here recorded. If more could be done, it would be possibly a disadvantage to the design of the Evangelist. Ver. 35. “And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true; and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.” That the assurance refers to all the three points in the preceding, and not to the third alone—that the bones of Jesus were not broken, that His side was pierced, and that blood and water came forth,—is shown by the connection with vers. 36, 37, which, by γάρ, refer also to the two former incidents. But the Evangelist had the third matter in view pre-eminently; for the assurance is directly connected with it. The two former facts were so simply material, and of themselves probable, that the assurance, as referring to them alone, would seem almost superfluous. In connection with the third, on the contrary, deception of an excited fancy might easily be asserted. There was something unusual, under these circumstances something miraculous: that in the Lord’s case blood and water came forth, symbols of the atonement and justification which His death obtained for us, was to the Apostle sufficient reason for saying so emphatically that he, the reporter, was not a credulus, but a fidelis. The assurance designedly takes a triple form. On ὁἑωρακώς Bengel says: “Hence it appears that John clave inseparably to the body of Jesus after His death.” In regard to the perfect μεμαρτύρηκε, comp. on ch. John 1:34. Testimony is called true, in opposition to a statement which rests upon delusion or lie. Ἵνα introduces the design of the assurance so expressly given in the preceding words. There must be supplemented from the context, “This I say,” or, “These things are written:” comp. ch. John 20:31. In the same elliptical way, ἵνα is used in ch. John 1:22, “Who art thou? (we ask thee,) in order that we may give an answer.” Πιστεύειν is used for believing generally, not for believing in the truth of a fact stated: comp. ch. John 20:8 and ver. 31, where, instead of the simple believing as here, we read, “Believe that Jesus is the Christ.” Πιστεύειν not seldom occurs in John with this comprehensive meaning: ch. John 1:7; John 1:51, John 11:15. Ver. 36. “For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of Him shall not be broken.”—Γάρ justifies the connection which the preceding words established between the truth of the recorded facts and believing. Ταῦτα refers to those preceding facts generally. One of these, however, is prominently stated: “They brake not His legs.” This was brought about in the providence of God, who caused Jesus to die before the soldiers came to break the bones, that in this way an utterance of the Old Testament might be fulfilled. This correspondence between prophecy and fulfilment is itself a strong motive to faith. By scripture is here meant, as in ch. John 13:18, Mark 12:10; Mark 15:28, an individual passage of Scripture: it is equivalent to τὸγεγραμμένοντοῦτο, Luke 20:17; Luke 20:37. Scripture is whatsoever is written and is found in the Book simply. “That the scripture might be fulfilled” is equivalent to “that what is written might come to pass.” John was not looking at the passage, Psalms 34:21 : for there the bones of a living righteous man are spoken of; there the singular ὀστοῦν is not used; and the αὐτοῦ is wanting. We expect in relation to this something beyond what is common to all saints. The allusion was rather to two passages which treat of the paschal lamb: Exodus 12:46, “Neither shall ye break a bone thereof,” Sept. καὶὀστοῦνοὐσυντρίψετεἀπ̓αὐτοῦ; and Numbers 9:12, “Nor break any bone of it.” John easily substitutes συντριβήσεται for συντρίψετε, συντρίψουσι, that their application might be more obvious to the Antitype, in regard to which the Evangelist makes most prominent the Divine causality. The view that the paschal lamb was typical of Christ is not found only in 1 Corinthians 5:7. In ch. John 1:29 of John’s Gospel, Christ is the Antitype of the paschal lamb: ch. John 6:4 also points to Christ as the true Paschal Lamb. Jesus declared Himself to be the Paschal Lamb, in that He withdrew before His enemies until He could die at the Passover; as well as by instituting the Supper in the place of the Jewish feast. For a clear apprehension of the connection between this Mosaic ordinance and the fact we now consider, it is necessary that we should look at the design and significance of that ordinance. There can be no doubt that it was intended to obviate the profanation of the paschal lamb. No violence was to be offered to it: nothing which might tend to obliterate the distinction between the all-holy sacrifice of the Lord and a common sacrificial animal. In Micah 3:3, the greediness is described of those who, not content with eating the flesh, broke the bones asunder that they might find out everything eatable. Such greediness was to be excluded from the holy meal. Exodus 12:46 leads us to a similar reason of the ordinance: “Neither shall ye break a bone thereof” is there preceded by, “In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth aught of the flesh abroad out of the house.” Both fall under the same law: the lamb was to be treated with sacred respect, and not as a common sacrifice. So also in Numbers 9:12, “They shall leave none of it until the morning, nor break any bone of it.” The parallel clause leads to the same reason of the ordinance. If any part of the holy lamb remained over, it was not to be used as common food, nor given to other persons; it must be burnt. If we thus discern the reason of the Mosaic ordinance, the passage we now consider has some light shed on it. It was the same divine decorum which forbade all indignity to be offered to the typical paschal lamb, and hindered all indignity from being offered to the Antitype. To the distinction between the typical lamb and common sacrifices in relation to the breaking of the bones, corresponds the distinction between Christ and the two malefactors. Ver. 37. “And again another scripture saith, They shall look on Him whom they pierced.” The passage is Zechariah 12:10. For an exposition of its meaning and its connection with the fact before us, we refer to the Christology (vol. iii. Clark’s Trans.). John here contemplates only the piercing (ἐξεκέντησαν, as here also in Revelation 1:7 : see on that passage), not the penitent looking at the Pierced One, which referred to another time. The Evangelist had recorded three facts in the preceding verses, as suited to work faith. Only in regard to two does he, in vers. 36, 37, suggest how fitted they were to produce this effect, as realizing what, according to the Old Testament, was to befall the Christ. In regard to the third fact, the issuing of water and blood is without such an intimation. The reason of this absence cannot have been that the Apostle attached less importance to it. We saw in ver. 35, that it was upon this event that John laid the chief stress. The reason was rather, that the Evangelist regarded the import of this event as perfectly plain, so that he could leave the reader to discern it for himself; even as the Christian Church of all ages has detected it without difficulty. This reason for silence may be supported by many parallels: for example, the three Evangelists omit referring to Psalms 22 in their record of the distribution of the garments; and John, in ver. 18, does not quote Isaiah 53:12. Blood and water flowing from the side of the Redeemer dead upon the cross: what that signifies, no Christian heart can ever doubt. The blood is the blood of atonement, which is exhibited in Isaiah 53 as the centre of the work of redemption: comp. on ch. John 6:53. The water signifies, in the symbolism of the Old Testament, the forgiveness of sins, which is shown to have its ground in the blood of atonement, by its being placed after that blood. We have the interpretation in 1 John 1:7, “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin,” where the cleansing pertains to the water. So also in 1 John 5:6 : “This is He who came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood:” water without blood would have been forgiveness without satisfaction, according to the doctrine of those who regard the death of Christ as a mere event or concomitant. Revelation 1:5 is also parallel, “Who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His blood;” and John 7:14, “Who washed their garments in the blood of the Lamb:” the washing signifies the attainment of the forgiveness of sins, through the appropriation of the blood of Christ. These parallels are of all the greater importance, as they are John’s own: at the same time there is a reference to the two sacraments of the Christian Church. The water signifies baptism, which is connected with the forgiveness of sins, comp. on ch. John 3:5; the blood points to the holy communion, comp. on ch. John 6:53. Chap. John 19:38-42—The Burial of Jesus It is peculiar to John’s account of this, that Joseph of Arimathea came forward publicly with his confession of Christ, which Mark in the τολμήσας, Mark 15:43, had only slightly intimated; and that Nicodemus co-operated with Joseph in the interment of Jesus. He further gives the particulars of the spices, the statement that the sepulchre was in the neighbourhood of the garden, and that this was the reason why they placed Him there. The rest is simply taken up from the earlier Evangelists, in order to add these additional traits. “Wonderful power of the death of Christ!” cries Quesuel, “which gives courage to avow Him in His deepest humiliation, to those who, when He was performing His wonderful works, came to Him only in secret.” Ver. 39. “And there came also Nicodemus (which at the first came to Jesus by night), and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.”—“Who came to Jesus by night” (comp. on ch. John 7:50) corresponds with what had been said about Joseph in ver. 38. Lampe: “They had been fellows in the imbecility and fear of faith; now they are fellows in the fortitude of love.” The myrrh and aloes point to Psalms 45:9. There it is said of the apparel of the great King, in the day of the joy of His heart, in the day of His espousals to the Gentile world (comp. ch. John 12:32 : “And I, if I am lifted up, will draw all men unto Me”), that all His garments “were of myrrh and aloes”—nothing but myrrh and aloes: they were so fragrant, that they might have been nothing else. The figure of the psalm becomes here incorporated in a symbol. In respect to the abundance of the material, comp. 2 Chronicles 16:14. There it is said, that Asa was laid “in the bed, which was filled with sweet odours, and divers kinds of spices.” Ver. 40. “Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.” The ὀθόνια, linen clothes, with which the whole body was enveloped, are to be distinguished from the κειρίαις in ch. John 11:44, these having been mere bands, which pertained only to the hands and feet, and which were there connected with the winding-sheet. Only in the case of our Lord are ὀθόνια mentioned: comp. Luke 24:12; John 20:6-7. Ver. 41. “Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.” The place must naturally be taken with a wide meaning. The circumstance that the sepulchre had never been used before is made so emphatically prominent by the Evangelists (Matthew, “in his new sepulchre;” Luke 23:53, “wherein yet never man lay:” John takes “new” from Matthew, and “never man yet” from Luke), that it must have been regarded as an important fact. They discerned in it a Divine hand, so ordering it that the Prince of life was never laid in a place of corruption. Something analogous we may note in the “new cart,” with the “two milch kine on which there hath come no yoke,” whereon the ark of the covenant was to be brought back from the Philistines, 1 Samuel 6:7. Ver. 42. “There laid they Jesus therefore, because of the Jews’ preparation-day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.” The meaning is not that they intended afterwards to remove Him again, but that, under these circumstances, the nearness of the sepulchre decided in its favour; whereas otherwise there would have arisen a keen emulation among the disciples of Christ. The reason for choosing the nearest place, was simply the proximity of the Sabbath. How entirely different would it have been if the following day, beginning with the evening, is regarded as the first day of the Passover! Thus the interment of Jesus would have been almost simultaneous with the slaying of the paschal lamb. In the Divine care of the body of Jesus, there has always been observed a type and pledge of God’s care of the Christian Church, when brought to the lowest point. The circumstances were all the more significant, as Isaiah in ch. 53 had made the honourable burial of the servant of God the beginning of His exaltation The Resurrection: The Seventh Group of the Whole Gospel; The Third of Its Second Part: The Resurrection In ch. John 20:1-18, John learns in the empty sepulchre to believe in the resurrection, and the risen Lord appears to Mary Magdalene. Ver. 1. “The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.” The plural τὰσάββατα, which often occurs in the Sept. and in Josephus as well as in the New Testament, was supposed to point to the high dignity of the day. It is the pluralis excellentiae, of such wide use in Hebrew. The Sabbath is termed in Isaiah 58:13 “the holy of the Lord.” From a similar cause it sprang that all days of the week were distinguished by their relation to the Sabbath (the one day, or first day, μία, of the Sabbath, and so forth); and that the Sabbath, for instance in Luke 18:12, embodied in itself the whole week. It is incorrect to say that the Sabbath of itself signified the week. The first day of the week was peculiarly appropriate for the resurrection, inasmuch as on it the creation of the world had begun, and light had been brought into being. With the resurrection of Christ a new creation began, and a new light went forth into the darkness. “Cometh Mary Magdalene:” Matthew 28:1 mentions Mary Magdalene and the other Mary; Mark, besides these, Salome, John 16:1. Luke is most copious; he mentions, Luke 24:10, with Mary Magdalene Joanna, now first appearing in his Gospel, and Mary mother of James, and “others with them:” comp. Luke 23:55, Luke 24:1, according to which those women went to the sepulchre who had remained together watching the interment (his predecessors had mentioned as such Mary Magdalene and the other Mary), and “certain others with them.” The whole circle of Galilean women, as might have been expected, joined the pilgrimage. John, who everywhere, and especially in the narrative of the resurrection, is extremely sparing in the communication of what was already known through his predecessors, touching it only so far as was necessary for the introduction of his own peculiar contributions, goes no further than the mention of Mary Magdalene, who also with his predecessors is the central personage, and always is placed first. But we find in John a definite allusion to the fact that he passed over the others only for brevity. That lies in the οἴδαμεν, we know, in ver. 2, which cannot without the utmost violence be interpreted otherwise than “I and the women who went out with me.” Ewald remarks, with strict propriety: “That Mary Magdalene went out alone to visit the sepulchre is in itself improbable, and at the same time opposed to the older narrative, besides being out of keeping with his own bent in ver. 2.” The impossibility of sundering Mary Magdalene from the other women becomes very plain when we note Luke 24:10. There, in conjunction with the others, she brings the Apostles the report; just as, according to Matthew and Mark, she came together with them to the sepulchre. The fact that John does not mention the intention with which Mary and her companions went to the sepulchre, is as good as an express allusion to his predecessors, according to whom the women went out to anoint the body of Jesus: Mark 16:1; Luke 24:1; Luke 23:55. Mary came early, while it was yet dark at the sepulchre. This statement, and Luke’s “very early in the morning, ὄρθρουβαθέως are supposed to contradict Mark’s “at the rising of the sun.” Certainly his ἀνατείλαντοςτοῦἡλίου can be interpreted only as orto sole. But this does not imply that the sun had fully risen. Many passages in the New Testament, and the frequently occurring ἀνατολαί in classical writers, show that the rising of the sun was an act not limited to one moment. The sun is really risen, though the disc of the sun may not be visible in the heaven; for the dawn is created by it before it rises. Mark precedes his sunrise by the remark “very early,” and shows that he meant only the first glimmering of dawn. His ch. John 1:35, καὶπρωῒἔννυχαλίαν, furnishes a comment on this λίανπρωῒ. Fritzsche: Mane, multa adhuc nocte = bene mane. In the ἔννυχον there, we have a parallel to the σκοτίαςἔτιοὔσης. Mark speaks of the sunrise in the broader sense, as opposed to dark night; but John does not say “when it was yet night,” but only that the light of day had not yet altogether dispelled the darkness. It was precisely the time which Homer describes by κροκόπεπλοςἠώς: comp. Eustatius ad Horn. xi. p. 181, “having something of the night’s darkness remaining, although the sun’s rays shed upon it a golden tinge.” In the nature of the case we should expect neither perfect darkness nor perfect light. In the Old Testament, the dawn was consecrated as a symbol of transition from misery to happiness, from suffering to joy: Isaiah 58:8, comp. Isaiah 58:10, Isaiah 47:11, John 8:20; Hosea 6:3; Hosea 10:15; 2 Samuel 23:4, and specifically Psalms 22:1 : there the hind of the morning is the suffering righteous, to whom salvation is come. There seems to be a special reference to this psalm, the same which throughout the crucifixion both our Lord and His apostles had continually in view.—“Unto the sepulchre” must, from what follows, be to the sepulchre, not into it: comp. ch. John 18:28; Mark, ver. 2, ἐπὶτὸμνημεῖον; Luke 24:1, ἐπὶτὸμνῆμα. Yet the preposition εἰς was designedly chosen. If Mary had not actually visited the sepulchre itself, the Evangelist would have used ἐπί instead: comp. εἰσελθοῦσαι, Luke 24:3; ἐξλθοῦσαιἀπὸτοῦμνημείου, Matthew 28:8. John had mentioned the stone in connection with the resurrection of Lazarus, John 11:38, but not in connection with our Lord’s sepulchre: Anton: “An instance to show that John refers back to the other Evangelists. For he had said nothing before of any stone. He knew that it was a matter well known to believers through the earlier accounts.” Ver. 2. “Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid Him.” The women had received a command to carry to the Apostles the angels’ report concerning the resurrection, Matthew 28:7, and especially, as Mark 16:7 adds, to Peter as their head. According to Luke 24:9, they reported all that they had learnt at the sepulchre “to the eleven, and to all the rest.” As it is improbable that all these,—not only the Apostles, but all other believers,—were assembled in one place, we have to assume that they divided the commission among them. It then was obvious that to Mary Magdalene, who everywhere takes the first place among the holy women, would be assigned the communication of the angels’ message to Peter, especially named by the angel, as well as to his faithful companion, the disciple whom Jesus loved. According to Luke, the message embraced all that he records in vers. 3-8,—that they found not the body of Jesus in the sepulchre, that two angels appeared to them in their anxiety, and announced to them the resurrection. John, however, contents himself with communicating the first part of the message—the fact that the women found the sepulchre empty. This is in harmony with his pervading habit of touching lightly what his predecessors had narrated; and of introducing their details with the utmost brevity, and merely as a basis for incorporating and adjusting his own independent matter. If it were a matter of condensation, then the narrative of the appearance of the angels, and the transitory manifestation of our Lord Himself in the way (Matthew 28:9), must have been postponed to that of the report of the sepulchre being found empty. This last reproduced what the women had seen with their bodily eyes, and stated on personal evidence a firm fact; those other reports moved in a sphere where excited imagination might play a considerable part. The question in them was one of an ὀπτασία, Luke, ver. 23, that certainly might have objective significance, but in regard to which it was needful to be very guarded. The really central matter in the message of the women seems to be that which John alone selects, that of Luk 24:24, where the disciples of Emmaus say: “And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said; but Him they saw not:” this latter word intimates, in harmony with Matthew 28:9, that the women had asserted that they had seen Jesus. The Apostles gave full acceptance only to that part of the message, only to that which every one with a sound eye to the testimony must have believed. The remainder awakened only presentiments and indefinite hopes. Until further confirmation it was not spoken of, a mere rumour, λῆρος, Luke ver. 11. But we may prove from John himself that Mary Magdalene must have said more than what he so briefly communicates. The facts reported by him point us to the supplement which we find in Luke. It is stinking at the outset that Mary runs. Accordingly she must have already experienced something which did not paralyse her feet, but gave them wings. Further, if Mary had nothing further to report, she would have come weeping to the Apostles. But she does not weep till ver. 12, when that seems to be vanishing from her which she had thought she held fast. If Mary, besides mentioning the fact which was evident to her sense, the emptiness of the grave, had not alluded to some explanation of that fact which she believed she had received, the conduct of the two disciples is hardly to be accounted for. The report of Mary must have deposited in them the germ of a faith in the Lord’s resurrection; but that could not have been the case if she merely reported the emptiness of the sepulchre. For the fact that the sepulchre was empty furnished no evidence in favour of the resurrection; it was rather evidence to the contrary, since the resurrection of Jesus was inseparably connected with His making Himself known to His disciples. If the words of Mary had not given the two disciples some ground of hope, why did they run so fast to the sepulchre? How was it that John should record the circumstance, indifferent in itself, that he outran Peter and came first to the sepulchre, if their difference of speed did not reveal a difference of sentiment with regard to the report received by Mary,—a prelude to the subsequent difference in their faith and wonder? The running of the two men presupposes a germ of faith in the Lord’s resurrection; a germ which was implanted solely by the report brought to them through Mary. Without some such faith they would have gone to the sepulchre, if they went at all, with faltering steps and downcast faces. In the disciple whom Jesus loved this germ was more energetically developed through the influence of that personal and individual love to Jesus which distinguished him beyond all the other disciples. So also the fact that John came to a mature faith in the resurrection while still in the sepulchre, ver. 8, assumes that the message of Mary had already given him ground for hoping it. With “they have taken away,” etc., we may compare Luke 24:3, “And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus,” provided we include ver. 4, according to which they were in consequence filled with grief and anxiety: “And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout.” What Mary here said was the result which observation with the natural eye would lead to. That she knew how to distinguish accurately between the sphere of lower sense and that of the higher, itself awakens in our minds a prejudice in favour of her trustworthiness. Ver. 3. “Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre.” Luke, after mentioning the cold reception which the women with their message met with at the hands of the Apostles, Luke 24:11, says in Luke 24:12, “Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre;” he singles out Peter from the rest. John completes his account by adding that he was with Peter. That Luke knew more than he recorded, is plain from ch. Luke 24:23, when the disciples of Emmaus say, “And certain of them that were with us went to the sepulchre.” If Peter accordingly did not go alone, we might naturally enough suppose that John would go with him: for these two appear everywhere, and in Luke particularly, united in the most perfect manner (compare on ch. Luke 13:24); and certainly there was not one in the whole company of the Apostles more disposed than John to faith in the resurrection. Luke limits himself to the mention of Peter, simply as being the head of the Apostles. John of course had a personal interest in recording his participation. Ver. 4. “So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.” Augustin: “After he had said that they came to the sepulchre, he returns back to say how they went.” We have here John’s supplement to Luke’s word, “Peter ran.” That it may be very plain where his more copious and exact narrative is to be inserted, John takes almost all the words of the summary account in Luke, and adapts his additions to them: Luke says, that Peter ran to the grave; John, that Peter and John ran, the latter faster than the former: Luke, that he stooped down and beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves; John uses the very same words, so that there can be no idea of mere accident in the matter: Luke speaks of the linen clothes alone; John says, that the napkin did not lie with the linen clothes: Luke, that he went home (ἀπῆλθεπρὸςἑαυτόν); and John uses the very same words, “went away again unto their own home” (ἀπῆλθov πρὸςἑαυτούς). If we attach their real value to these designed allusions, we shall not be misled by John’s ver. 8, “And he saw and believed,” in its plain reference to Luke’s ver. 11, “And they believed them not.” Now, says John, the earlier unbelief of the disciples gave way in the case of at least one of those disciples. It was not fortuitous that John in this way linked his narrative to Luke among the three Evangelists. Matthew breaks off his account of the holy women, after recording how the Lord appeared to them, and gave them a commission to the disciples; Mark still earlier, after his communications on the appearance and commission of the angel. Both fail to narrate the reception which they and their tidings concerning the resurrection and their message met with from the Apostles. Luke alone of the three Evangelists mentions this. Now, as it was John’s design to furnish supplements to the first three accounts, it was natural that he should take up the thread where that Evangelist laid it down who had carried the common narrative furthest. There was all the more reason why John should refer to Luke, because Luke had not, like the other Evangelists, passed over in silence the event which John wished to record fully, the journey of the two to the sepulchre, but had related it imperfectly; so that it was of moment, in order to obviate the semblance of contradiction, to take up the earlier account again, and to indicate the places where the additions were to be inserted. What made John run faster? We must reject all such external reasons as the more advanced age of Peter. If the difference had rested upon that ground, it would have been a trifling thing to mention. It is opposed also by the analogy of the following incident, where John yields in turn to Peter: John does not go into the sepulchre, Peter does. If in this the difference must be referred to the spiritual sphere, so also in the case of the running. The true interpretation will approve itself true, by referring both differences between the two Apostles to the same grounds. The reason why John ran faster was this, that he was the disciple whom Jesus loved. Personal love to Jesus, which kept pace with the love of Jesus to him, gave wings to his feet. (Quesnel: John must outrun Peter; we must be loved before we can love or run.) If the matter had been one of duty in his vocation, had there been anything to do or to suffer for Jesus and His Church, Peter would certainly not have been behindhand. Hence the reason was the same for which the Lord committed His mother, not to Peter, but to John. The Apostle had, in fact, in ver. 2, all but expressly assigned the reason, by there designating himself the disciple whom Jesus loved, ὃνἐφίλειὁἸησοῦς—φιλεῖν, stronger than the ἀγαπᾷν, used elsewhere. Ver. 5. “And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in.” Luke had used the words, “And stooping down, he beheld,” etc., of Peter. John., taking up the same narrative, does not purpose to correct Luke: that would have been contrary to all analogy. He simply intimates that this was what was common to him and Peter; and then, in ver. 6, introduces supplementarily the statement of that in which Peter anticipated him. Peter, too, had naturally first looked into the sepulchre, and had then entered into it, in order to investigate the matter more closely. The ὀ ?èüíéá, linen clothes, with which the whole body was swathed: comp. on John 19:40. Why did not John go at once into the sepulchre? His tender feeling, the gentle inwardness of his love to Christ, feared a shock. He left it to the stronger and bolder Peter to make the first essay. As soon as this gave a satisfactory result, he followed after. John here records his own weakness with the same openness as, in ver. 4, he records his strength. Vers. 6, 7. “Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was about His head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.” Luke says, “the linen clothes laid by themselves (alone).” This μόνα would have been very hard of explanation, if we had not John’s commentary on it: it might seem, so to speak, as if he had expected a supplementary commentator. Θεωρεῖν, in contradistinction to the mere βλέπειν, signifies the more careful view which was secured by approaching nearer. The significance of this circumstance, so minutely recorded, out of which, according to ver. 8, John’s faith derived its strength, has been well stated by Lampe: “It was because He who altered the condition of the grave did nothing in haste, but designedly, and for a specific purpose, unwound the bandages from the body, and disposed them decently in their several places.” Ver. 8. “Then went in also that other disciple which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw and believed.” We must not interpret, “He believed what Mary had said about the emptiness of the grave,” as, strangely enough, Augustin, Luther, and Bengel do. (Augustin: “What did he see, what did he believe? He saw the empty sepulchre, and believed what the woman had said, that He was taken away from the sepulchre.”) For that would have required to be more specifically stated; it is opposed to the emphatic meaning of the term believe, especially in the writings of John (comp. on John 19:35); and it is not in keeping with the parallel words of Luke concerning Peter, “wondering in himself at that which was come to pass,” θαυμάζωντὸγεγονός,—wherein there was at least a dawn of faith, and which shows, as Calvin says, that something greater and higher came into his mind than mere wonder. But we must not at once explain, “He saw and believed that Jesus was risen.” That also would have required to be more expressly declared. The faith here meant must needs be a faith in Christ absolutely, in the same general sense as the word πιστεύειν is used also in ver. 25. The faith developed here was faith that Jesus was the Christ the Son of God, ver. 31, and that which Thomas avowed, ver. 28, “My Lord and my God:” comp. the πεπίστευκας, in ver. 29, which is based upon this word of Thomas. Faith in the resurrection was involved in this broader faith; it was a part of the whole. Faith in Christ is an empty delusion, if there is no faith in His resurrection, which is the immediate effect and evidence of His Messianic dignity and Divine Sonship. That so slender a circumstance evoked faith in John, is explained by the fact, that this event had in a variety of ways been prepared for:—by the intelligence of Mary Magdalene; by all his experiences of the Divine dignity of Christ; by decisive foreannouncements of His own resurrection; by all that which in the Old Testament was predicted (as in Psalms 110; Isaiah 53; Zechariah 9:9-10) concerning Christ, as the Ruler over all His enemies, as entering through sufferings into His glory, as dividing the prey with the strong, as attaining a dominion over the earth, extending to its utmost bounds. Had not these solid grounds been existing, John might have been charged with the reproach of credulity. So also he would have been amenable to the charge of incredulity if he had not believed: compare what Jesus says, Luke 24:25, to the disciples of Emmaus, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.” In ver. 9, the Apostle himself points to these foundations of his faith. If we compare “He saw and believed” with the words to Thomas, “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed”—to which they have an undeniable allusion—we must perceive in them the Apostle’s self-accusation, that he believed not altogether without seeing, that he still required some small hold on the visible, and that for a season he had still doubted whether the Divine nature of his Lord would declare itself in the resurrection. We might draw from this self-accusation of the Apostle the conclusion that, apart from the Apostle’s hardness to believe, the manifestations of the risen Lord would have been altogether needless. But, even as it was becoming that the Apostles should believe in the resurrection without these appearances of the risen Redeemer, it seemed, on the other hand, good to Him to confirm this faith by actual evidence, and thus to give it such mighty power as to overcome the world, so that the Apostles, strong in its strength, might go forth and convince all men. So is it ever with faith generally. It must be present before experience; but if it were not surely and variously confirmed by experience, it would soon become feeble, and die by degrees. “The singular ἐπίστευσε,” observes Meyer, “serves to satisfy his own personal experience, never to be forgotten, of that crisis; but it is not to be regarded as excluding Simon Peter’s simultaneous faith.” But this singular concurs with another singular, the θαυμάζων which Luke says of Peter: he attained to a developed faith, while Peter went no further than wonder. “He believed” gives probably a key to the fact, that the disciple whom Jesus loved had no specific manifestation vouchsafed to him, while one was vouchsafed to Peter. We may, however, seek it in the pre-eminence of Peter himself. Ver. 9. “For as yet they knew not the scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.” The Apostle gives the reason why he then first believed in the resurrection, and that he required to see in order to believe, notwithstanding the existence of such abundant and express utterances of the Old Testament in relation to the resurrection, which, it might have been supposed, would have from the beginning rendered it a certainty to them all. It is true that the scripture loudly proclaims the resurrection, hut that scripture Was not understood or known by these disciples, entangled in subjectivity; just as even now the Scripture testifies and declares much that we do not know and understand until Divine dispensations to us, and manifold experiences, sometimes very bitter, or richer communications of the Holy Spirit, raise us to a higher spiritual intelligence. John speaks here only of the foreannouncements of the resurrection as contained in the Scriptures of the Old Testament: comp. Luke 24:25-27; Luke 24:44-47, where Jesus similarly, speaking of His resurrection, points to the prophecies of the Old Testament. Our Lord’s own declarations concerning His coming resurrection are not simply apart from and with “Scripture:” they are to be regarded only as interpretations and deductions drawn from it, and were declared to be such when uttered: comp. the äåῖ, Matthew 16:21, Luke 9:22, with Luke 24:26; Luke 24:44. He had, before His resurrection, as after it, done no more than open their understanding to comprehend the Scripture, Luke 24:45. The “knew not” must not be too absolutely taken. It only says that the disciples’ knowledge of the scripture had no such living power as of itself to lead them to faith. We must accept “they knew not” with the same slight modification as “they believed not,” ch. John 7:5 (comp. on that passage). John is particularly partial to the expression of a relative contrast in an absolute form: comp. on John 1:17, John 7:39. Compared with the knowledge which the Apostles afterwards attained, their present knowledge scarcely deserved the name. Seen from the point he then occupied, it seemed to have vanished. The Apostle makes with deep humiliation his confession here. The scripture was in itself so clear, and Jesus had, before His passion, so thoroughly and so impressively expounded it to His disciples, that it was incomprehensible how he had first to see in order to believe! But the seeing would never have led him to faith if this “not knowing the scripture” had been an absolute ignorance, Ver. 10. “Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.” The disciples waited at their homes for further intelligence. However certainly John believed, he also waited for further intelligence of the Redeemer. For He had given His disciples certain assurance that, presently after His passion, He would see them, and they should see Him again: ch. John 16:16; John 16:22. This promise, with all others like it, had now become matter of living expectation to John; in some sense also to Peter. Πρὸςἑαυτόν in Luke, πρὸςἑαυτούς; here, the only instances in which this peculiar phraseology occurs in the New Testament: explained by the fact that the dwelling is regarded as part of the dweller, so that he who comes home comes to himself. Because the expression was so entirely peculiar and strange, John adopted it into his language. It seems like an express reference to Luke, like a declaration that he was supplementing that Evangelist. In the narrative of our Lord’s appearance to Mary Magdalene, vers. 11-18, John dilates upon what Mark, in Mark 16:9, had already briefly hinted: “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.” That the appearance in Mark is not that of which Matthew 28:9 speaks, but that in our text, is plain from a comparison of ver. 10 in Mark with ver. 18 here. Hastening to the end, he passes over the former in silence; because that manifestation had been less important, more transitory and superficial, and not adequate to produce in the minds of those who were favoured with it a perfectly undoubting faith. The “first” in Mark does not exclude that earlier manifestation: it notes this one only as the first among those mentioned by him. This is evident from the relation between the first and the after that in ver. 12, and the afterward, ver. 14. Ver. 11. “But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and, as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre.” The disciples had run to the grave: Mary Magdalene came more slowly. She remains there, after the disciples had gone away: they went away so soon, doubtless because it was their task to carry intelligence to their fellow-Apostles, and with them to wait for that manifestation of the risen Lord which had been promised to the whole apostolical circle. Peter and John had both received a joyful influence from the sepulchre: Peter marvelled, John believed. Mary, on the contrary, weeps, notwithstanding that the Apostles had communicated their impressions to her. The result of the whole gave no satisfaction to her. The reason of this could be only that she had earlier been more favoured; and had expected, therefore, that the Apostles would have been more favoured also. She had seen, in company with the other women, a vision of angels who announced Christ’s resurrection; on the way home she had seen the Lord Himself, although only in a transitory way. Now she has nothing but the empty grave, before which she indulges in sorrow, especially as the Apostles had seen nothing more. She is thrown into doubt as to her earlier experience, and this doubt breaks her heart. Her weeping for Jesus, however, is heard: first the angels become visible to her again, and then Jesus Himself appears to her. Ver. 12. “And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.” The angels appear as the answer to Mary’s weeping. This sets aside the question, How was it that Peter and John did not see the angels? The weeping was the condition not merely of their being seen, but also of their appearing. The angels had nothing more to do in the sepulchre. This is evident from their position, their sitting. Bengel: Sedentes quasi opera perfunctos,—sitting as having done their work. They appear there only because Mary seeks the living among the dead. That they sat on the place where the Lord had lain, one at the head, and the other at the feet (comp. Psalms 34:8, “The angel of the Lord encampeth about them that fear Him, and delivereth them”), intimated to her that no impiety had been permitted here: when God’s angels kept their guard, no impious hands could enter. It was appropriate that the angels in the New Testament should serve Him who, in the Old Testament, is exhibited as the Head of the angels, the Angel of the Lord, the Captain of the Lord’s host, Joshua 5. They appeared at His birth, after His temptation, in Gethsemane, at the resurrection, at the ascension.—Ἐνλευκοῖς, in white, is found elsewhere only in Revelation 3:4-5. In every other place of the New Testament, white garments are mentioned. White was the colour of glory, its symbolic shadow: comp. on Revelation 4:4. The white garments of the angels correspond to the name of “holy ones,” that is, glorious ones, which they bear in the Old Testament. Vers. 13, 14. “And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.” Mary, although invigorated by the aspect of the angels, could not at once be comforted. Her heart desires to see another, to see Jesus Himself. Had not that taken place which is recorded in Matthew 28:9, the vision of angels alone would have been sufficient for her satisfaction. That her heart longed for more was made plain by her very action, as she turned away from the sepulchre and the angels towards the side whence, if He should appear at all, Jesus would come. She sees Jesus standing, and knows not that it is Jesus. The reason of her not knowing must not be sought in Mary alone. What Mark says, ch. Mark 16:12, with regard to the two disciples of Emmaus, holds good here: Christ appeared to them and to her in another form, ἐνἑτέρᾳμορφῇ. So also ch. John 21:4, where Jesus appears to the disciples by the Galilean lake, and they knew not that it was Jesus; whereas, in His two manifestations to the apostolic circle in Jerusalem, Jesus at once made Himself known. Analogies are found in the angel-manifestations of the Old Testament, especially Judges 13:16, where we read, “For Manoah knew not that it was the angel of the Lord,”—a passage to which John, in ch. John 21:4, literally alludes. The reason of their not knowing was not simply the weakness of spiritual vision in Manoah and his wife; but especially this, that the angel of the Lord would not, until afterwards, announce himself plainly as such: comp. ver. 17-21. In consequence of this, “Manoah knew not that it was an angel of the Lord,” ver. 21. Glorified corporeity is distinguished from ordinary corporeity, in that it serves the spirit absolutely, and assumes at its desire various forms of manifestation. Jesus would not at once be known to Mary, otherwise than in Matthew 28:9. This time, the voice was to be the token of recognition. It was in the name Mary, into which He condensed the whole relation in which He stood to her soul, that He would be made known. He would, at the same time, teach His Church of all ages, that in the guidance of His people He might be expected to assume many strange appearances, and that He would often be present among those who were still bemoaning His absence, and weeping for His presence. Ver. 15. “Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing Him to be the gardener, saith unto Him, Sir, if thou have borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away.” When Mary knew not Jesus, it was obvious that she should first think of the gardener: garden and gardener pertain to each other. What she says to the supposed gardener is not so much the real meaning of her heart, as the expression of her glowing desire to have her Lord again, were it only His dead form. The êýñéå, Sir, which in its respectfulness goes beyond the position of the gardener, must be explained by the consideration that she thought herself dependent upon him for what was her dearest treasure. Ver. 16. “Jesus saith unto her, Mary! She turned herself, and saith unto Him, Rabboni! which is to say. Master!” The Mary! which Jesus here spoke went deeper into her heart, and was thus much more fitted to remove all doubt in the reality of the resurrection, than all that was said at the first manifestation. The superscription of this was the “Fear ye not,” and its characteristics were strangeness and suddenness. The women ventured to touch His feet and worship Him. But here Mary, in the overmastering love of her heart, would actually embrace Him. The στραφεῖσα here, compared with the ἐστράφηεἰςτὰὀπίσω, ver. 14, shows that the former turning was only partial. Now, when she knows Jesus, she turns away entirely from the sepulchre and the angels towards Him. Rabboni, here only and Mark 10:51, is ψαεο, a dialectical variety of Rabban with the suffix. In process of time the suffix lost its meaning, like the pronoun in the Dutch Mynheer, and the Evangelist rightly omits it in the interpretation he gives. The address Rabboni is in harmony with the place at Jesus’ feet which Mary loved; that was the place of a disciple in relation to her Master. It was natural that she who was formerly too masterless and free, should be especially thankful that she had found in Jesus the great Master. Ver. 17. “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.” The “Touch Me not” presupposes that Mary was in the act of touching the Lord, for He would refuse only that which was proffered. Ἅπτεσθαι is always used in the Old Testament of bodily touching; in Luke 7:39 it is used specifically of Mary in relation to Jesus; and as there is nothing to limit the meaning here, we may regard the Lord as forbidding bodily touching as such. The women in Matthew 28:9 embraced the feet of Jesus, and He forbade them not. The disciples are challenged by the Lord in Luke 24:39 to handle Him, ψηλαφήσατέμε; and to Thomas He said, “Reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side.” Therefore the reason of the prohibition must be sought in the personal character of Mary, and in the passionate nature of the touch which sprang from that character. Mary would embrace the Lord. She thought that the limits which had formerly existed between her Lord and herself (many very incorrectly make her suppose that she could continue to act towards her Lord “in the old style of confidence”) were, now that the Saviour had passed into another form of existence, removed; and that she might now give free course to her feelings, without fearing the admixture of anything human in her sentiment towards her Lord. But the Lord repelled her. “Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father:” My glorification is not yet perfect; the partition still remains in part which the infirmity of human nature erected between you and Me; but soon, when I have gone to the end of the way which I have now entered, this partition will be withdrawn. Every one will be able to express, without any reservation, love to Him who sitteth at the right hand of the Father. The ascension appears here, as in Mark and Luke, to be a stage of the Redeemer’s course quite distinct from the resurrection, while inseparably connected with it and its necessary complement. John mentions the ascension thrice, in ch. John 3:13, John 6:62, and this passage. His silence, therefore, as to the historical event must not be considered as implying an acquaintance with it,—an ignorance which his relation to Mark and Luke, apart from every other consideration, renders it impossible to maintain. Matthew does not record the ascension; and yet he mentions, ch. Matthew 26:64, comp. Matthew 28:8, Christ’s sitting at the right hand of God, which presupposes the ascension. If, in opposition to all the Evangelists, we make the resurrection simply the restoration of Christ to life as before, then the ascension assumes the character of a new stage, and it is difficult to understand how any Evangelist could omit the record of it. But if, on the other hand, we admit that Christ rose in a glorified body, the resurrection and the ascension are, as it were, one, and bound up together. The latter event, in that case, must take place so soon as Christ had sufficiently attested His resurrection, and given the instructions and commissions which rested on the resurrection. Anton: “The resurrection placed the Redeemer in a new kind of life. Therefore He could not remain upon earth; but there was an ascension to come.” It was all the less necessary for John to narrate the fact of the ascension, as his predecessors had given the narrative in a very complete manner. The prohibition is followed by a commission. Mary must go to the Apostles, and give them information of the approaching ascension of the Redeemer. Why did the Lord send them intelligence of His approaching ascension, and not of His resurrection already accomplished? Why does He say nothing about His appearing in their midst, and His manifold intercourse with them afterwards? The answer is, that the essential consolation of the resurrection lay in the ascension which was connected with it, by which Christ would enter into the full possession of His Divine glory, and thus be able in the most effectual manner to care for His disciples and help His Church. Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father is the proper and all-sufficient consolation of the Church. Not until He should be with the Father, who was greater than He, ch. John 14:28; not until the Father had glorified Him with the glory which He had before the foundation of the world, ch. John 17:5, could He equip His disciples with irresistible might. The appearances of the risen Lord, far from being excluded by this message, which only gave prominence to the great central fact, were all the more to be expected after that message. If Christ was truly going to His Father, it was needful that He should give His disciples, before His departure, indubitable proofs that the bands of death could not hold Him. The entire position of the Apostles demanded that Christ should appear in their midst. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, pretermits the appearances of Christ to the women, in token that the faith of the Church could not be based upon them; that they were only the prelude of the proper fundamental manifestations. But if our Lord had pre-announced His appearances in the apostolic circle, they would have lost that character of abruptness which it was manifestly appropriate that they should bear. Jesus says, “I ascend,” not “I will ascend,” in order to intimate that His whole being already tended towards the ascension, which would have immediately taken place had it not been necessary to give the Apostles demonstration that He had risen, and to leave with them His last injunctions. Our Lord here for the first time calls His disciples brethren. This He did primarily with allusion to Psalms 22:23, where the Righteous One delivered from the bands of death says, “I will declare Thy name unto my brethren.” But this designation had a deeper reason. It pointed to that more profound fellowship between Jesus and His people,—a fellowship created by that redeeming death of which the resurrection was the seal. Christ having given His life for them, translated them from friends into brethren, ch. John 15:15. Anton: “Christ used this term first after His resurrection, because the resurrection was the seal of the atonement with its satisfaction, so that they might be assured now of their fellowship with Christ and in Christ. Although He has gone into glory, He makes His disciples already, as it were, sharers of it; He clothes them with His dignity, and is not ashamed to call them brethren (Hebrews 2:12).” How full of consolation this new designation was to be, the sequel shows. As brethren they were the partakers of that glory which He had obtained by His death; His God, who received Him into that glory, became their God. He does not say “to our Father, to our God,” because He was Christ’s God and Father in a different sense from that in which He was their God and Father. He was their God only because He was Christ’s God and they Christ’s brethren. Augustin: Naturβ meum, gratiβ vestrum: Mine by nature, yours by grace. Ver. 18. “Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken these things unto her.”—Compare Mark 16:10 Chap. John 20:19-23 Now follows, in vers. 19-22, the appearance of Christ in the midst of the disciples. The appearances of the risen Lord had a twofold end: 1. To give assurance to His disciples of the reality of His resurrection; and 2. To communicate to them the new authority which He had obtained by His atoning death. Both ends are expressly noted by Luke, Acts 1:3 : 1. He was seen, during forty days, in many manifestations and acts which gave infallible proof of His resurrection. 2. He spoke to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, this being a more comprehensive statement of the second design. This twofold design explains how all the four Evangelists, without being on that account in any respect imperfect, might restrict themselves to individual manifestations; indeed, it shows that they must have given prominence severally to individual manifestations, or otherwise they could not have avoided the accumulation of like narratives,—a repetition which they all show themselves careful to avoid. The two essential points noted above are found in them all; and as almost every individual appearance involved both, they might very well distribute them as they have done. After the appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene, followed His appearance to the two disciples who were journeying into the country. This Mark, ch., Mark 16:12-13, summarily narrates, and places it between the appearance to Mary in the morning and the appearance to the Apostles in the evening of the day of resurrection. Luke gives the narrative in all its fulness. According to him, the appearance was in the late afternoon of the day, ch. Luke 24:29. About the same time occurred the manifestation to Peter which is passingly mentioned by Luke 24:34, and which Paul alludes to in his narrative of the appearances of our Lord, 1 Corinthians 15:5. He places it at the head, and before that to the Twelve, the appearances to the women being carefully excluded. That interview with Peter could not have taken place when the two went out of Jerusalem to go to Emmaus, for they knew of no other authority for the resurrection of Christ than the rumour of the women, Luke 24:22 seq. And when they returned in the evening to Jerusalem, and entered the apostolic circle, it had occurred; for the Apostles met them with the intelligence that the Lord was risen indeed, and had appeared unto Simon. We now come to the appearance of Christ on the evening of the day in the circle of the Apostles. This is recorded briefly by Mark, ver. 14, copiously by Luke 24:33-43, and by John in the present passage. In the statements as to time there is a perfect agreement. According to Mark, the Apostles were at the table when Jesus entered into their midst. Luke mentions no time; but Jesus, in his account, asks, “Have ye anything to eat?” and the Apostles have at once in readiness a little fish and honey. According to John, the occurrence fell in the evening. The suddenness, unexpectedness, and unearthliness of the appearance, all make prominent; the trait that it took place when the doors were shut is peculiar to John, but is required by the statement of Luke, that the Apostles thought they saw a spirit. The words of our Lord to the Apostles have two elements of importance. 1. He demonstrated to them the reality of His resurrection, and that gradually: first offering Himself to their sight, then challenging their touch, and finally asking them for meat. 2. He gave them the authority of their vocation, and at the same time the spiritual powers which that vocation presupposed. Luke’s account is limited to the first of these points, because he reserves the authority committed to the Apostles for Christ’s final interview with them before the ascension. John, on the other hand, refers to Luke for the former point,—what is there copiously stated, vers. 37-43, he touches briefly, ver. 20: after “He showed them His hands and His feet,” inserted merely to adjust the position of what Luke recorded, we are to understand, as it were, “and so forth.” He further supplements him, according to his characteristic thoroughness, by dwelling on the second point in vers. 21-23; while afterwards, for the same reason which made Luke abbreviate, he passes over in silence the final interview before the ascension. Out of the several incomplete narratives a perfect one may easily be formed. The Lord enters with the customary greeting, “Peace be to you,” which from His lips, and under these circumstances, had unusual significance. Then He convinces the astounded Apostles of the reality of His resurrection, which they must be assured of before the mission resting upon it could be committed to them. Thereupon He repeats the “Peace be unto you,” assuredly with stronger emphasis, as introductory to His commission, which would bring upon them so much care and danger; and with the communication of this commission, and the gifts and prerogatives necessary to it. He concludes. Ver. 20. “And when He had so said, He showed unto them His hands and His side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.” Luke, in vers. 24, 40, mentions the hands and the feet; John, the hands and the side. Since the side is mentioned only on account of the wound (comp. ch. John 19:34), the hands and the feet must have been introduced for the same reason. The wounds received by our Lord on the cross were, to the Apostles, demonstration that they had not now to do with an unessential φάντασμα or “spirit,” but with the selfsame Jesus who suffered for them on the cross. A comparison of John with Luke leads to the firm conclusion that our Lord’s hands and feet as well as His side were pierced, which Bδhr, Hug, and others, show to have been usual at crucifixions. As the εἰρήνηὑμῖν points back to ch. John 14:27, so does ἐχάρησαν to ch. John 16:22, “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, χαρήσεται.” Ver. 21. “Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.” The first “peace” was directed to the disciples; the second to the Apostles. Before He gave them their commission, our Lord assured His servants of their protection against all their enemies. This peace, guaranteed to them in respect to their office, had its foundation in the fact of the resurrection; and, as connected with that, or immediately springing from it, the Lord’s speedy assumption into the full participation of the glory of the Father. Instead of πέμπω, the other word, ἀποστέλλω, might, in itself considered, have been used: this is evident from the name of the Apostles, and ch. John 17:18. But there is an intentional variation in the word, in order to avoid placing the mission of the Apostles on a level with that of their Master. That this sending was so directly connected with their assurance of the resurrection, reminded the Apostles that the significance of the resurrection extended far beyond the narrow circle of those to whom the Lord announced Himself as risen; that it was a resurrection �cumenical and for all the world; that the great concern would now be to enter upon the work of spreading the Gospel to the ends of the earth, according to the manifold predictions of the prophets; and that they must not think to enjoy in passive contemplation the blessedness obtained for them, but gird up their loins, and take up the sword, for contest with all the powers of the world. The mission of Jesus now had its end; and its end was the beginning of the mission of the Apostles. (Calvin: “His own course being fulfilled, He commits the same functions to them, who should govern the Church to the end of the world.”) Jesus does not say, “I will send you,” but “I send you.” With their own conviction of the reality of the resurrection began in them a new life, which should urge them mightily forth into the world. The day of Pentecost only brought to consummation what was already begun here. It was not the Feast of Pentecost, but the resurrection announced to them, that Jesus had already referred to as the great crisis and turning-point in ch. John 16:23; John 16:26. Ver. 22. “And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” The breathing here stands in relation to Genesis 2:7, where Jehovah breathes into the first man the breath of life, and thus man becomes a living soul: Sept. καὶἐνεφύσησεν. By this allusion our Lord places Himself on a level with Jehovah Elohim, with Jehovah who there possessed the fulness of divinity. The same πνεῦμάζῳοποιοῦν which there went forth from Jehovah Elohim, and produced in man the Divine image, proceeds here from Christ, in order to reinstate the Divine image, first in the Apostles, and then in those who should believe through their word, ch. John 17:20. The relation to Genesis 2:7, which speaks of an immediately effectual inbreathing, such as at once created a “living nature,” shows that our Lord’s act here was not of merely prophetic significance—that it did not simply pretypify what was to become a reality on the day of Pentecost. We are led to the same result by the present πέμπω in ver. 21, as well as by the nature of the case: it could not be otherwise than that their conviction of the truth of the Lord’s resurrection should be a great turning-point in the life of the Apostles, and that with this crisis they would receive an advanced susceptibility, and a concurrent enlargement of the influence of the Spirit. What they now received was the preliminary and condition of what they were to receive at Pentecost; according to the Lord’s word, “Unto him that hath it shall be given.” The beginnings of the Holy Spirit were imparted according to the universal law of our Lord’s operation, viz. to perform in prelude and earnest, while still upon earth, all that He would afterwards in heaven perform universally, even down to the resurrection of the dead, “in order,” says Quesnel, “that we may know that He is the real ground of all, in His true humanity.” If the breathing was an actual impartation, how was it with Thomas, not present on this occasion? The answer is, that those who were present received in and with the breathing the Holy Ghost; but that the influence was not necessarily bound to the symbol which was its medium. The great essential was living faith in the resurrection. When Thomas uttered the words, “My Lord and my God,” he also was made partaker of the Holy Ghost, or rather he must already have been partaker of the Holy Ghost, to utter the words at all: comp. 1 Corinthians 12:3. Had it not been for its profound and important relation to Genesis 2:7, Jesus would probably have altogether omitted the symbolical action. The essential factor was not the proper breathing, but the resurrection and faith in Him who rose. We have here an interpenetration of personal grace and official grace; of such as was common to all believers and such as was peculiar to the Apostles, and, as represented by them, to all the bearers of ministerial office in the Church. That the former is not to be excluded, the relation of the act to Genesis 2:7 plainly shows: as there, so here also, the act was one which pertained to the human race. That the second is not to be excluded, is plain from the connection in which “Receive the Holy Ghost” here stands, on the one hand, to “I send you,” ver. 21, and, on the other hand, to the remitting and retaining of sins in ver. 23. Such a combination of personal and official grace often occurs in the Old Testament: for example, in the case of Saul, 1 Samuel 10:6; 1 Samuel 16:14; and David, 1 Samuel 16:13. Quesnel: “The Christian receives the Holy Ghost only for himself; priests and bishops for others also. It is a frightful thing in the Church, to be in office a channel of the Holy Ghost, and an instrument of the wicked spirit through disorderly and carnal living.” Ver. 23. “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.” Jesus would fill His disciples with the consciousness of the dignity of their vocation, that they might make it the labour of body and soul worthily to discharge its functions. They should in Christ’s place have the authority to remit and to forgive sins. The former is the main function, the proper end of the spiritual office. “But if,” says Anton, “a minister of the Gospel is despised in the administration of this grace, it turns from the ἀφιέναι to the κρατεῖν. The remitting takes place primarily in the case of those who believe and are baptized; the retaining in the case of those who are unbelievers, and accordingly reject baptism.” But then both functions are more generally exercised in the continuous history of the Christian Church. Examples of the remission are furnished by Cornelius and his house, Acts 10:47-48, and the man of Lystra, Acts 14:8-10 : examples of retaining. Acts 8:20, where Peter says, “Thy money perish with thee;” Acts 13:10-11, where Paul condemns Elymas, as in ch. John 18:6 the Jews of Corinth. He who has to do with office held in the Holy Ghost, is cut off from all appeal. Strictly speaking, it is Christ who “hath the key of David; who openeth, and no man shutteth; who shutteth, and no man openeth,” Revelation 3:7. But Christ has given this key to the ministry in His Church, and placed in their hands the decision of salvation and perdition. But the foundation of this high authority is the Holy Ghost. The office in the Church holds it only so far as it possesses the Holy Ghost. When not led by the Holy Spirit, its remission and its retention are of no moment. Thus the high prerogative assigned to its representatives cannot lead to self-exaltation, but rather to fear and trembling. That which is here conferred on the whole apostolical circle, and in it to the ministerial office of all times, had been already prospectively conferred on Peter, Matthew 16:19, as the centre of the apostolical circle. The remitting here explains the loosing in Matthew; the retaining here, the binding there. In Matthew, both had their comment in the preceding, “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Accordingly, it is only admission into the kingdom of God, and exclusion from it, that is meant; and if this be so, the binding can only be the retaining of sins that exclude from the kingdom of God; the loosing only the forgiveness of the same, and the consequent admission into the kingdom of God. Chap. John 20:24-29 The Second Appearance to the Apostles This appearance is to be regarded as the complement of the former, since it had special reference to that one among the Apostles who still doubted of the Lord’s resurrection. Many have been disposed to transfer it to Galilee. But it is in itself improbable that the Apostles had set out for Galilee before the end of the seven days’ feast; and then ver. 26 intimates that they were in the same place where they received the former manifestation, “when the doors were shut,” showing, as in ver. 19, that their fear of the Jews continued,—a fear which would not have been felt in Galilee. Finally, the conviction of the Apostles as to the reality of the resurrection seems always to pertain to Jerusalem, the manifestations in Galilee having another end; and as Thomas’ unbelief was the only reason for this new visitation, his conviction its only result, we should not, without urgent argument, leave Jerusalem and betake ourselves to Galilee. Thus this manifestation formed the conclusion of the Apostles’ abode in Jerusalem, removing every further reason for that abode. On the Sabbath the Apostles were resting there, according to the law: the first day of the week was spent by them in calm celebration of the resurrection, and of the first visit of the risen Lord, by which this day was for ever sanctified. To sanction this celebration the Lord appeared again in their midst on that day, and on none of the intervening days, thus accomplishing the last work which remained to be done in Jerusalem. On the second day of the week they set out for Galilee, awaiting there the manifestation of their Lord. It has been often assumed that the disciples reported to Jesus the unbelief of Thomas. But when could this have taken place? Was it in some visit not revealed? But such a visit could not have occurred in Jerusalem, since the object to be attained there, the full conviction of the Apostles, was perfectly gained by the two visits that are narrated; and that it did net take place there, is in controvertibly plain from ch. John 21:14, according to which only two appearances of our Lord to the Apostles belong to Jerusalem. Or was it on occasion of this second visit itself? But this second appearance had this unbelief of Thomas for its ground, and presupposed it. If we assume that the Lord previously knew nothing of his unbelief, we do away with the meaning of this manifestation, we abolish the distinction which existed between the appearances in Jerusalem and those in Galilee, and we cannot enter into the real design of our Lord’s previous reference to the seeing Himself in Galilee. Ver. 25. “The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe.”—” We have seen the Lord: “this is the summary only of their report. It is self-understood that they told him the whole occurrence. But he, in his hardness to believe, accused them of credulity. Τύπος is impression, trace. In the second clause, τόπος is more suitable (Grotius: τύπος, videtur; τόπος, impletur), and the rather to be preferred, as it is so easy to account for the substitution of τύπος. Thomas’ affirmation has three members: the number three is often in the Old Testament the mark of emphasis, e.g. Ezekiel 21:32. Thomas had doubtless seen the crucifixion in common with the rest: this we may infer from the vivid impression made upon him by the image of the Crucified. According to Luke 23:49, there stood beside the women πάντεςοἱγνωστοὶαὐτoῦ, at a certain distance from the cross. That John alone is mentioned as being present, may be explained by the fact that to him a word was addressed. Thomas does not mention the feet, because the hands and the feet were one whole to him; and the experiment on the hands would suffice. Vers. 26, 27. “And after eight days, again His disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said. Peace be unto you. Then saith He to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side: and be not faithless, but believing.” It must incline in favour of Thomas that he was found again in the midst of the disciples. The declarations of his fellow-disciples doubtless made a deeper impression upon him than he was willing to allow. “Eight days:” this is, in Luke 9:28, the definition of a week, the time ἀπὸσαββάτουἐπὶσαββάτον. Thomas had demanded three things: the first and second are here inverted, because Thomas’ emphasis lay upon his touching; he did not depend upon his eye alone, since that might be deceived by a φάντασμα: comp. Luke 24:39. But the perception through the hands might not be omitted, because the whole declaration of Thomas was to be perfectly reproduced. That the Lord knew what he had said, was a more convincing demonstration of the reality of the resurrection than any seeing and feeling; hence all further thought of them vanishes from Thomas’ mind, and he at once bursts into the cry, “My Lord and my God.” With the “hither” the Lord offered him His hand. “Behold” is the antithesis to feeling, and must be thought of as emphasized. Although Thomas believed not, ver. 25, yet he was not on that account an “unbeliever.” The term ἄπιστος denotes a settled state of unbelief. It is not altogether correct to speak so much of the unbelieving Thomas. He would have ceased to be Thomas if he had become an unbeliever. It was the vibrating between faith and unbelief which obtained him his name. The Lord does not say, “Be not unbelieving,” so much as “Become not unbelieving.” He must turn from the evil way which, continued in, would lead to unbelief as its goal. Ver. 28. “And Thomas answered and said unto Him, My Lord and my God.” It runs εἶπεναὐτῷ: therefore “My Lord and my God” is a concise expression of deep feeling, instead of “Thou art my Lord and my God.” We have here the first passage in which Jesus is expressly by His disciples called God,—a confession which was soon to be the common one of the whole Christian Church; as Pliny, in the Epistle to Trajan, records that the Christians sang hymns to Christ as God. Thomas utters here, as his confession, only what Jesus had constantly set before His disciples as His doctrine. When, for example, He said to Philip, ch. John 14:9, “He that seeth Me hath seen the Father,” and ver. 10, “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me,” He taught that the existences of the Father and the Son were perfectly co-extensive, and that in Himself dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead. Much vain industry has been spent in evading this confession of Thomas, by those who do not accept the doctrine of Christ’s divinity. He addressed to Christ precisely the same words which are elsewhere addressed to the supreme God: e.g. Psalms 35:23, “Stir up Thyself, and awake to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and Lord,” ὁθεόςμουκαὶὁκύριόςμου, Sir 1:1, Ἐξομολογήσομαίσοι, κύριεβασιλεῦ, καὶαἰνέσωΘεόν. We are in a sphere in which the boundary between God and the creature is drawn with the most rigid precision: comp. Deuteronomy 6:4; Mark 12:29-30. The address of Thomas would have been blasphemy if there had been in the Father’s essence anything that came not to manifestation in the Son. That Thomas, in the excitement of the moment, passed from one extreme to another, cannot be asserted by any one who observes that Christ accepted his invocation at once. (Calvin: Never would He have suffered that the honour of the Father should be wrested and transferred to Himself.) “Thou hast believed,” referring to Himself, shows that to recognise in Christ the Lord and God, and specifically His own Lord and God, is the necessary condition of faith. (Calvin: He emphatically calls Him his own twice, to show that he spoke from a living and solemn sense of faith.) To talk of an “exaggerated cry,” is altogether out of the question, in relation to a Gospel which everywhere discloses a tendency to place the divinity of Christ in the clearest light. Ver. 29. “Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Christ recognises therefore that faith also which has sight for its condition. That He will receive to Himself the well-disposed though weak in faith, that He will help their unbelief by actual demonstration, is a blessed truth, of which His treatment of Thomas is a most consolatory pledge. But the Lord places higher that faith which is present and energetic before sight comes. Thomas is here blamed for not exhibiting that faith. John had seen but little; and yet he reproves himself for not having believed without seeing: comp. ver. 8. The case was much worse with Thomas. He had, in the testimony of his bother Apostles, received such help for a faith grounded upon the word of God, that if the faith had been in any sense strong within him, he would not have required any further seeing. As then, so now, it becomes believers to believe without seeing: compare the saying of Peter, which alludes to this word of our Lord, 1 Peter 1:8. But then, as now, it pleases Christ to crown and confirm that faith by making Himself known in many ways as its Lord and God. Faith would languish if its actual experience were in continual contradiction to it. The Aorist participles are to be explained by this, that the process is represented as a closed one, and the μακάριοι is its result. Chap. John 20:30-31 These two verses are not the conclusion of the whole book, but the conclusion of the main body of it, extending from ch. John 1:19 downwards. The closing chapter 21 corresponds to the prologue in ch. John 1:1-18. So also the Apocalypse has introduction, body, and conclusion. If we forget that we have here only the conclusion of the body of the Gospel, ch. 21 must become a mystery. These verses, 30, 31, as a conclusion of the whole Gospel, would in their brevity be out of harmony with the diffuseness of the prologue, as also with the conclusion of the Apocalypse, ch. Revelation 22:6-21. The body of the work needed a conclusion, such as we have it here, in order to mark it off from the epilogue, which must needs declare itself to be such by its position. We expect such a conclusion all the more, inasmuch as we find that in the body of the Gospel itself there is such a conclusion, ch. John 12:37-50, dividing between the first four groups and the last three. John 20:30-31. “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name.” The words πολλὰ ?—μαθητῶναὐτοῦ are in allusion, like ch. John 12:37, John 10:32, to Psalms 78:11-12. We must not limit the signs to demonstrations given by the risen Lord to His resurrection; for there is nothing to indicate such a restriction, and a comparison of ch. John 12:37 and John 21:25 declares against it. But we must not, on the other hand, exclude those infallible proofs of the risen Lord: for they fall under the idea of the σημεῖα which Jesus did; they are testimonies in act that Jesus was Messiah: comp. Acts 1:3, where the appearances of the risen Lord are described as τεκμηρία. (Hesychius, τεκμηρίονσημεῖονἀληθές; Suidas, ἀληθινὸνσημεῖον.) Moreover, these appearances have just before been recorded, and reference to them therefore seems obvious. The included reference to the resurrection alone makes “in the presence of His disciples” intelligible. Only the manifestations of the risen Lord were restricted to the Apostles: all the earlier σημεῖα belonged to a much wider circle, although the disciples were present at them, and indeed, as witnesses chosen of the Lord, ch. John 15:27, must have been present. We must seek this specific reason for the words “in the presence of His disciples;” otherwise “in the presence of all the people,” Luke 24:19, would have been the more obvious record. Ch. John 21:1 also leads us to include the resurrection and its demonstrations. Τοῖςμαθηταῖς there obviously points back to ἐνώπιοντῶνμαθητῶν here. The σημεῖα which this Gospel copiously records are ten in number, which was certainly not fortuitous: seven before the resurrection,—three in Galilee, and four in Judea; and three after the resurrection,—the appearance to Mary Magdalene, and the two appearances among the Apostles. That the “signs” are here made distinctively prominent without including the words, is in harmony with the strong emphasis laid upon the ἔργα, the works, throughout John’s Gospel, ch. John 5:36, John 10:38, John 15:24. A reason may be found for it in the fact that the three earlier Evangelists had made these words prominent in their records. By this observation he intimates that he had written not the Gospel, but a Gospel; and suggests that the supplement of what he failed to record, because it was perfectly given by his predecessors, should be sought in their narratives. On the connection between the concluding words of the Evangelist and the preceding events, Bengel aptly remarks: “To the mention of the faith of Thomas, is very appropriately attached a commendation of faith to all, as the scope of his book.” The connection is all the closer, as Thomas had believed on the evidence of a “sign.” The Conclusion of the Gospel The introduction of the Gospel, ch. John 1:1-18, goes up to the eternal existence of Jesus. In the conclusion, now lying before us, John communicates what refers to the continuation of His Divine-human being in the Church, founded upon His death and His resurrection. So also Matthew and Mark closed their Gospels with an express reference to the missionary work of the Apostles. This closing chapter forms a transition from the Gospels to the Acts. First, in vers. 1-14, we have the missionary work of the Apostles, and their heavenly reward. Then, in vers. 15-17, the institution of Peter in his pastoral office; in 18-23, the prediction of their final departure made to the two most eminent Apostles, Peter and John; and finally, in vers. 24, 25, the proper epilogue, in which John announces himself as the author of the Gospel, affirms his own trustworthiness, and alludes to the reason why he had communicated only a selection of facts. The notion that ch. 21 is a postscript has sprung from a lack of insight into the construction of the Gospel. It leads to the assumption of a fortuitousness in the composition which is altogether unworthy of the apostolical character, and inconsistent with the tenor of this Gospel; and it altogether fails to give any reason why the Apostle did not strike out the conclusion in ch. John 20:30-31, after the addition of the postscript had rendered it unsuitable. Ver. 1. “After these things Jesus showed Himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise showed He Himself.”—“After these things;” μετὰταῦτα, the transition formula so common in John: comp, ch. John 2:12, John 5:1; John 5:14, John 6:1. The ἐφανέρωσενἑαυτόν (comp. φανέρωσονσεαυτόν, ch. John 7:4) intimates that the risen Lord was ordinarily inaccessible and invisible to His disciples; that He had entered into a manner of existence altogether different from His earlier life: compare the ἐφανερώθη in Mark 16:12; Mark 16:14. Jesus had earlier manifested forth His hidden glory, ch. John 2:11; now His person has become hidden, and it never could be discovered or met unless it voluntarily came forth from its seclusion. To the manifestation here corresponds the appearance in the midst when the doors were shut, ch. John 20:19; John 20:26. Both intimate plainly that the present corporeity of Jesus was altogether different from the former. He who could appear with closed doors was not confined to the region of sensible observation; He was then only manifest when it pleased Him to enter that domain, so that the dim eyes of flesh (Job 10:4) might be able to discern Him. The disciples at the two former appearances were the Apostles, and so were they here. The sea of Tiberias; a denomination peculiar to John among the Evangelists: comp. on ch. John 6:1. Ἐπί is literally as in ch. John 6:19, and means simply “on the sea.” The bank is, in Biblical phrase, on or over the waters; hence ςμ very frequently in Hebrew: e.g. Psalms 1:3. And as ἐπί is here Hebraistically used, so ἀπὸ in ver. 6, corresponding to the Heb. ξο of the cause. The second ἐφανέρωσεν is not to be supplemented by ἑαυτόνHe showed Himself—but, in allusion to the first Galilean sign, ch. John 2:11, by τὴνδόξαναὐτοῦ. The mention of Nathanael in ver. 2, pointing to that same first sign, is in favour of this view. The word, needing its object and standing without it, represents as it were an express reference to that first sign. “He showed Himself thus, οὕτως, is not a needless diffuseness of narration, but intimates by its circumstantiality the importance of the facts and the attention they claim. It is the manner of Scripture, from Genesis downwards, to draw attention to the importance of events by this kind of repetition and circumstantiality. Thus “he lifted up his eyes and looked” is always, as in Genesis 18:2, said when the matter is of great moment, and attention was to be drawn to its importance. So in John we have, for example, “These things therefore the soldiers did,” ch. John 19:24. Both seem to stand for a Nota Bene. According to Matthew 28:7, the angel gave the women a commission that they should go tell the disciples, “Behold, He goeth before you into Galilee.” That the going before does not mean going earlier than they, but a going before them as Pastor and Guide, is plain from a comparison with the Lord’s saying in Matthew 26:32, the fulfilment of which the angel announces to be at hand. (Fritzsche: Ecce jam fit quod declaratum est, προάγει. This verb, in the sense of preceding any one. Matthew 21:9, Mark 11:9, Luke 18:39, is used as here with the accusative of the person. Matthew 2:9, Mark 10:32, καὶἦνπροάγωναὐτοὺςὁἸησοῦς.) “I will go before you” forms in Matthew 26:32 the antithesis to the scattering of the flock caused by the death of the Shepherd; but this meaning it could have only on the supposition that the going before was His leading the regathered flock to Galilee. If, therefore, we perceive that the gathering of the flock was, according to Matthew, to be the condition of Christ’s going before them, and to precede the departure into Galilee,—if He was to lead His gathered flock to Galilee, after having gathered them simply and alone by revealing Himself to them, and convincing them of the reality of His resurrection,—then we must assume that the silence of Matthew as to the manifestation of Christ, recorded by the other Evangelists, in the midst of the Apostles on the evening of the day of resurrection in Jerusalem, was not due to his ignorance of the fact, but to his design to give prominence to those records by which Isaiah’s prophecy, quoted in his ch. John 4:15-16, concerning the glorification of the neighbourhood of the Galilean sea, might be shown to have been fulfilled. On the other hand, in perfect harmony with the commission quoted by Matthew 28:10, “Go tell My brethren that they go before Me into Galilee,” the manifestations of the Lord in Jerusalem, as recorded by John, were limited in their design to the full conviction of the Apostles that Christ was risen; with the single exception of ch. John 20:21-23, where something is said that must have been spoken emphatically at the first meeting with the Apostles. The proper intercourse with the Apostles, the “speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God,” Acts 1:3, was reserved, even according to John, for Galilee. We have here the beginning of that discourse concerning His kingdom. The contents of this chapter are well described by those words of Luke, in Acts 1:3. Ver. 2. “There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of His disciples.” All the names mentioned here are introduced with a definite reason. In the case of Simon, his surname Peter hinted that reason. The first of the Apostles could not be wanting; and it is in keeping with this, that in the entire narrative he has the first place. Hence he necessarily opens the list. Why Thomas was associated with him, is shown by the clause “called Didymus:” comp. on ch. John 11:16. The key to the mention of Nathanael is furnished by the clause “of Cana in Galilee.” That could not have been intended to make Nathanael more known; for in ch. 1 it was not said that Nathanael was born in Cana, although immediately after the narrative of the meeting between Christ and him we read of the marriage at Cana. Nathanael of Cana was important to the Evangelist, as a representative of the first miracle by which Jesus manifested forth His glory in Cana: comp. ch. John 2:11. Our present manifestation forms the counterpart of that first Galilean miracle. This end is kept in view by the additional clause, “of Galilee.” If it had been intended only to note the origin of Nathanael, that would have been inadequate or needless. There was no Cana out of Galilee; and Cana had been three times mentioned as Cana of Galilee, ch. John 2:1; John 2:11, John 4:46. Considering how economical of repetitions the Evangelist is, we cannot regard this as merely a repeated statement of Nathanael’s country. The clause was almost equivalent to an express reference to the earlier passages. Why the presence of John and his brother is expressly mentioned, is explained by their designation as “sons of Zebedee.” Zebedee is never elsewhere mentioned in the Gospel of John. With the same appellation of sons of Zebedee (the indefinite expression, οἱτοῦΖεβεδαίου, is here designedly used in order to intimate that a more exact definition of their relation is found elsewhere), these two brothers appear in connection with the first fishing at the commencement of our Lord’s ministry, the counterpart of which is the fishing in this chapter, deriving its interpretation from the earlier one, and having “I will make you fishers of men” in common with it: comp. Matthew 4:21-22; Mark 1:19-20; Luke 5:10. The two unnamed brethren must at any rate have been Apostles; for μαθηταί stands before and after, ver. 14, of the disciples in a narrower sense, the Apostles; and Apostles were especially concerned in this fishing, which symbolized their future apostolical work. The reasons which are discernible for the mention of the five names lead us to suppose that the silence preserved as to the names of the other two was not a disparaging silence. They were not named, only because there was no particular reason for it; and to have named them would have been to obscure the design in the naming of the five. For the rest, they are as good as named; and the Evangelist might reckon upon their being detected. When Peter went a fishing, his brother Andrew would needs accompany him: comp. Matthew 4:18; Mark 1:29; Luke 6:14; John 6:8. And where Andrew was, there we should expect Philip: comp. ch. John 1:45, John 12:22; Mark 3:18. The latter we might expect with all the more confidence, as he was connected also with Nathanael or Bartholomew by a very close bond: comp. John 1:46; Matthew 10:3; Luke 6:14. The high importance of this event is indicated in the artistic grouping of those concerned in it. The number seven is divided, as commonly in the Apocalypse, into three and four. At the head of the three stands Peter; Thomas, the divided, in the middle; on one side of him the man of rock, on the other Nathanael, the true Israelite without guile, ch. John 1:48. At the head of the four stand the sons of Zebedee, with Peter, the Apostles of the more intimate circle. The seven are moreover divided again: Peter at the head, then three pairs. The number seven is fixed; but that it was not a fortuitous number, is plain from the details of this grouping. Similarly exact is the grouping in Revelation 6:15. Other examples of the significance of number in the Gospel of John have been collected in my Commentary on the Apocalypse (vol. ii. Clark’s Trans.). The seven represented the collective apostolical circle (comp. ver. 14), with Paul included, so far as he was later received with full rights into this circle. They were a majority; only four of the Apostles were wanting; and the more intimate circle was complete. It is remarkable, that in the catalogue of the Apostles, Matthew 10:2-4, the seven here numbered as present take precedence of the absent ones.—“And two other of His disciples” may be compared with “and two of His disciples,” ch. John 1:35. Ver. 3. “Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him. We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing.” It was shown, in ch. John 1:43, that Matthew 4:18-22 does not indicate the Apostles’ having entirely abandoned their vocation. They still pursued it, so far as their new vocation left them time. Augustin refers to Paul, who, with all his superabundant apostolical labour, victum manibus suis transigebat. From the resurrection to Pentecost there was an interval to the Apostles wherein they might appropriately seek their maintenance with their own hands. Gregory the Great says justly, however: “Peter returned to his fishing, but Matthew did not return to his tax-gathering. There are things which cannot be applied to altogether without sin, to which after conversion we cannot return.” “They went forth” from the town in which Peter resided: Capernaum, according to Matthew 17:24; Matthew 17:27; Bethsaida, the fishing town of Capernaum: comp. on ch. John 6:3, according to ch. John 1:45. “Immediately:” εὐθύς (comp. ch. John 13:32, John 19:34) appeared superfluous to many transcribers, and hence was omitted. But it intimates, in keeping with “all the night” in Luke 5:5, the long continuance of the fruitless labour. If the Apostles as soon as they met, thus before the coming of night proper, entered the ship, their unrewarded labour must have lasted through the night. Πιάζω occurs in John six times, besides this passage, and ver. 10; never in the first Gospels. The detail with which the incident is recorded, has in it something “un-Johannean,” if we fail to discern the symbolical character of the whole; but that symbolical design gives weight to things otherwise inconsiderable. The argument, that John must in that case have expressly declared this symbolical character, is ungrounded; for here, no less than in the record of the blighted fig-tree, of which no interpretation is given, the symbolical meaning is plain enough to all thoughtful and reflecting readers, and such only had John in view. The Old Testament gives us, with regard- to this, a plain hint, in Ezekiel 47:9-10 : comp. on ch. John 1:43. If the fishes there were men, to be brought to life by the Messianic salvation, then the fishers could only be the messengers of that salvation, who gather the living into the kingdom of God, and lead them into the fellowship of the Church. The word which our Lord spake at the first fishing, ‘‘ I will make you fishers of men,” applies to the present fishing; for John always presumes upon the records of the three Evangelists being known. We have a key also in the parable of the net in Matthew 13. Accordingly the sea signifies the world, the net the kingdom of God, in its capacity to receive men into itself. But the demonstration that we have here before us an allegory in act, lies in this, that the narrative only in this point of view is clear, luminous, and significant in every particular; and that thus only it is suitable to the character of an epilogue, to which only that pertained which was transitional from the Gospel to the history of the Acts. If we reject the spiritual interpretation, the narrative of vers. 1-14 has certainly a strange aspect; and we must, if we would be sincere, confess that we would rather pass over it. The emphasis would then fall upon the fact that Jesus generally manifested Himself to His disciples, and not upon the communications which He made to them; nor can we then see precisely why the narrative stands in the epilogue; and moreover, the demarcation is disturbed which separates the appearances of Jesus in Galilee from those in Jerusalem. The doubts which have been entertained as to the genuineness of ch. 21 have their root in the inability to discern this spiritual meaning,—an inability natural enough to those who are not trained by the exposition of the Old Testament to understand the New. Those who yield to such doubts, however, are obliged to confess, that the record is throughout and entirely Johannean in its cast. That Simon Peter’s energy took the initiative in regard to this ordinary fishing, was an intimation that he would take the lead of his brethren in the spiritual fishing also. But when he only intimates his own firm resolution, expecting the free determination of the rest, we are led to presume that his precedence would not be in the spiritual domain a primacy of tyranny; that it was not one established formally by rule, but that it was to result from that pre-eminence of energy which would attach the others to himself in free subordination and joyful recognition of the gift imparted to him by the Lord.—“And that night they caught nothing:” on the first fishing Simon said, “We have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing.” As the fact was in both cases brought about by Divine disposal, we are led at once to assume that it was eminently significant. A passage in the Old Testament, which is here as it were dramatically expounded, gives us the solution. In Isaiah 49 the prophet depicts, vers. 1-3, the vocation and destiny which the Lord appointed to His servant, the Messiah. In ver. 4 he exhibits the contradiction between the mission and its result: the people of the covenant, to whom it was first addressed, requite that faithful labour with ingratitude! “Then I said, I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nought and in vain:” Sept. Κενῶςἐκοπίασα, καὶεἰςμάταιονκαὶεἰςοὐδὲνἔδωκατὴνἰσχύνμου. In compensation for refractory Israel, the Lord gives His Servant for an inheritance the heathen, who also in Ezekiel are the proper object of the fishing: the fishes there also are won from the dead sea of the heathen world. The historical commentary is found in the Acts (comp. especially ch. Acts 13:46), and in Romans 11:9-11, according to which Israel as a people despised the Gospel salvation, and only a small proportion of individuals received it. Night signifies, in the symbolism of Scripture, an unsaved state—comp. on ch. John 13:30, John 11:9-10—and thus here the fruitlessness of work. Weitzel (in his valuable treatise On the Testimony borne by the fourth Evangelist to himself, S. and K. 49) gives us the right interpretation, when he sees in the fact a “type of the long fruitless labour of the original Apostles among the Jews, after the first sudden pentecostal successes.” An objection has been raised against this view, that it represents the abundant success among the Gentiles as vouchsafed to the original Apostles, whereas it was vouchsafed to Paul; but Galatians 2:9, which is appealed to, affords no support to that notion, inasmuch as that verse only treats of a temporary arrangement. Peter in Rome, John in Ephesus, proved that the contrary was the truth. The impossibility of the permanent limitation of the original Apostles to the Jews, is evident from the conclusion of Matthew’s Gospel. Moreover, the entire contrast between the original Apostles and Paul is based on error. We have already shown that the disciples present at this fishing represented the collective apostolical circle, and that as including Paul with his abundant labour, which was vouchsafed to him only as a member of the body combined under Peter as its head. Ver. 4. “But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore; but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.” Morning is the type of dawning salvation: comp. on ch. John 20:1; Psalms 30:6; Psalms 59:17; Psalms 90:14; Psalms 143:8. For πρωΐας, comp. ch. John 18:28, John 20:1, in both cases πρωΐ. We have in Matthew 27:1 the full πρωΐαςδὲγενομένης literally. That passage and Matthew 20:1 are the only two besides this in the New Testament where πρωΐ occurs; and both times in a connection where the guilt and the rejection of the Jews are spoken of, when the new day of Christ’s glorification breaks among the Gentiles: comp. ἡἀποβολὴαὐτῶνκαταλλαγὴκόσμου, Romans 11:15; and τῷαὐτῶνπαραπτώματιἡσωτηρίατοῖςἔθνεσι, Romans 11:11.—“On the shore:” the combination of ἔστη and εἰς is as in ch. John 20:19; John 20:26. Here Jesus stands on the margin. At the first fishing, Luke 5:4, He went up into the ship; in ch. John 6:19, He came to the disciples on the sea. That He here remained standing on the bank, points to the fact that now, withdrawn from the sea of the world. He belonged to another stage of being. To Him applied what will one day be true of all His people, “There was no more sea,” Revelation 21:1 (compare my commentary on this passage). That He was on the bank, and His disciples on the sea, was an illustration of His word, ch. John 17:11, “I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world.” In the parable of the net, in Mark 13, the margin signifies in ver. 48, according to ver. 49, the future state, the “end of the world.” “The disciples knew not that it was Jesus:” so precisely of Mary Magdalene, ch. John 20:14, “And she knew not that it was Jesus.” Here again our Lord appeared “in another form,” because it was not His will to be recognised at once. In this manner the impression upon the disciples would be deepened; at the same time they would be led into a perception of the truth, that Jesus was always with them, although their eyes might not always be able to discern Him. Ver. 5. “Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered Him, No.”—Τέκνα: thus does the Lord address the disciples in Mark 10:24. Παιδία is distinguished from this here. Τέκνα might be adults; παιδία, on the contrary, designates the age of childhood: comp. Luke 1:80, to τὸδὲπαιδίονηὔξανε, Luke 2:40; 1 Corinthians 14:20. Παιδία is the term by which age addresses youth, authority those subordinate, and wisdom the ignorant and inexperienced: comp. 1 John 2:13; 1 John 2:18. Jesus here by the term παιδία assumes the position of καθηγητής, Matthew 23:8, which was appropriate to Him, especially in relation to the fishing of His Apostles. The diminutive form gives the expression a certain tenderness. Προσφάγιον, what was eaten with bread. Jesus condescends to the language of the fishermen who ordinarily ate only fish with bread: compare what was said upon ὀψάριον, ch. John 6:9. This last word could not be used here; for that in John always signifies the individual article of food eaten with the bread, the single fish: comp. ch. John 6:9, δύοὀψάρια, ver. 11, and vers. 9, 10, 13 of the present chapter. But here the general idea of food eaten with the bread was meant. “Have ye any meat?” μὴ stands where a negative answer is presupposed or expected (Winer, 453). Jesus shows by the style of the question that He knew how the matter was, and indeed wished it otherwise. The οὔ of the disciples, confirming His supposition, is followed by an intimation of the way in which they might alter the state of things. That Jesus put the question for His own sake, that He would have fish for Himself, is shown by a comparison with Luke 24:41, and yet more definitely by ver. 10, where, after the state of things was changed, He caused the fish to be brought forward which the disciples had taken. As formerly He hungered for the fruit of the fig-tree, so now does He hunger for the fishes which the disciples might have taken, but had not; not for the natural fishes as such,—the risen Redeemer had no need of bodily food, and vers. 9, 12, 14 show that that would not have been wanting to Him,—but for the men whom the fishes signified: comp. ch. John 4:7, where our Lord says to the woman of Samaria, “Give Me to drink.” Jesus would spiritually eat of the food which the disciples had provided, and they, on the other hand, should eat of His food. Ver. 6. “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 the multitude of fishes.” The ship signifies the Church, the net her missions. The left side is, in the Divine fishery, the side of the Jews, the right side that of the Gentiles. The right is the better hand, and therefore the right side is the good side. The meaning of the name Benjamin, the son of the right hand, is, “His father loveth him,” Genesis 44:22, and, “the beloved of Jehovah,” Deuteronomy 33:12 : compare my commentary on Psalms 80. In Genesis 48 the youth on whom the right hand was laid is more blessed than he on whom the left. “The right hand,” says Gesenius (Thes. éîéï), “boni ominis erat.” Because the right hand is the better. Matthew 5:20, the Lord places His sheep on the right hand and the goats on the left. The multitude of the fishes here represents the “great multitude which no man could number, out of every nation, and tribe, and people, and tongue,” Revelation 7:9. That the disciples without hesitation acted on the suggestion of the Unknown, shows that His being had for them an imposing majesty. Ver. 7. “Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now, when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher’s coat unto him (for he was naked), and did cast himself into the sea.” The thoughtful John first recognises the Lord; the energetic Peter, who on another occasion. Matthew 14:28, said, “Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on the water,” casts himself into the sea to reach Him. We see here that the primacy of Peter had its limits, that it extended no further than the energy of action came into consideration. As here, so certainly in later times, he heard John, and in many things listened to him in his Christian vocation. Ὁκύριός: John so designates Jesus before His resurrection only twice: comp. on ch. John 13:23. Thus he names the risen Saviour also in ch. John 20:18; John 20:20; John 20:25; John 20:28, and several times in the sequel of this chapter. Διαζώννυμι occurs in John only here and ch. John 13:4-5. The middle voice signifies “Gird oneself.” Τὸνἐπενδύτην is the accusative of closer definition, so frequent in Hebrew: comp. τὸνἀριθμόν, ch. John 6:10 (Winer). It does not mean that he drew on the garment, but that he girded himself in it: therefore he was already clothed with it. “He was naked” explains this girding: the connection shows with what restriction we must take the “naked.” It can refer only to the circumstance that Peter was not provided with the outside garment, the ὑποδύτης. The ἐπενδύτης (comp. ἐπενδύσασθαι, superinducere, 2 Corinthians 5:4) intimates by its very name that it took a subordinate place in the clothing. That naked stands often for slight clothing, needs no further demonstration: Grotius has done all that is necessary to show that the idea of absolute nakedness is to be repelled, even if Genesis 3:7; Genesis 3:21 were not sufficient. Peter had on him a mere wrapper. Theophylact says, “a linen shirt, such as the Phoenician and Syrian fishermen were wont to wear.” This in his labour he had worn ungirt; but now he girded himself, the better to swim. Swimming is suggested by the “throwing himself into the sea.” As to any further preparation of his person in order to appear fitly before the Lord, the text says nothing, whatever the expositors may say. The Apostle enters into this detail because this sudden decision of Peter symbolized the gift which was afterwards developed in the government of the Church. With the same impetuous promptitude with which he threw himself into the Galilean sea, he afterwards threw himself into the sea of the world. Always to be first, not to leave the initiative to others, and even to restrain those who take it, seems to be one of the first marks of a vocation to govern the Church. Our verse might be applied to the present spirit of church government in evangelical Germany. It cannot be in this respect according to the heart of Jesus; were it so. He could not have placed Peter at the head of His Apostles. Ver. 8. “And the other disciples came in a little ship (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits), dragging the net with fishes.”—Γάρ explains and justifies the disciples’ having come, without following Peter’s example, to shore. So slight was the distance from the land, that the difference between them could not be great. Their justification is completed by the σύροντες, “dragging the net.” Peter did right in leaving the ship, and the others did right in remaining. The exact statement of the distance on the lake corresponds to that in ch. John 6:19. John here, as in Revelation 21:17, measures by ells. The peculiar use of ἀπό with the meaning “distance from” is only found in John, in the Gospel and the Apocalypse: comp. on ch. John 11:18; with the “about fifteen furlongs off” corresponds very strictly the “as it were two hundred cubits” here. Πλοιάριον is here used; previously πλοῖον. We find the same interchange between the two words in ch. John 6:17 seq. Ver. 9. “As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread.”—Ἀνθρακιαί is only here and ch. John 18:18. On κειμένην, comp. ch. John 2:6, 19, 29; on ἐπικείμενον, ch. John 11:38. Ὀψάριον is used by John only of single fishes; and the one fish is suggested by the single loaf. John describes simply in genuine historical manner what he with the rest found. As to whence the fire of coals, the fish and the bread, came, he keeps silence; just as in ch. John 20:19; John 20:26 he limits himself to saying that Jesus came when the doors were shut, without travelling beyond the sphere of his observation to enter into the question as to how the Lord came. The supposition that Jesus provided these things as men do, rests upon a misconception of the new sphere in which the risen Lord moved. If Jesus was, in truth, “The Lord,” there is no reason for bringing down the fact by such explanations into the region of ordinary life. Jesus, who, according to ch. 6, fed thousands in the days of His flesh with five loaves and two fishes; at whose command, according to Matthew 17:27, Peter caught the fish with the stater in its mouth; who, at the first Galilean miracle, turned water into wine,—retained here also the name of “Wonderful,” which the ancient prophecy had given Him. Ver. 10. “Jesus saith unto them. Bring of the fish which ye have now caught.” John speaks of the fishes, ἰχθύες, vers. 6, 8, 11. Jesus describes the same thing by another word, προσφάγιον, ver. 5, ὀψάρια here. The difference had some significance. The disciples spoke as in the style of fishermen; Jesus for him who was to eat. He regards the fish only in the light of food. Why did the Lord cause His disciples to bring of their fish?—not that they might serve, together with the one fish which already lay on the fire of coals, for the disciples’ repast. The symbolical character of the whole incident opposes this; as also does ver. 13, which shows that the disciples ate only of that one fish and one loaf which were provided already before the landing of the net. That important circumstance, further, would not have been omitted. Manifestly the end was answered, when the fish, or rather one representing the whole, was brought to Jesus; for nothing more was done with them. The fishes were regarded under the aspect of food, as the very term used has shown. But materially the Lord did not eat of them any more than the disciples. This shows that they bore a symbolical character. If they represented men or nations gathered into the kingdom of God, then our Lord’s eating was simply spiritual: it signified the Lord’s participation in the fruit of His servants’ labours, the joy which their labour would provide for Him in the future: comp. Jeremiah 15:16, “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart,” where eating is equivalent to the finding pleasure in it, as the succeeding words show. Ezekiel says, ch. John 3:3, concerning the Divine revelation, “Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness.” This spiritual eating which His disciples were to prepare for Jesus, was to be the condition on which their own eating should depend. So Isaac ate of his son’s venison before he blessed him: that was the condition of the paternal blessing, that he should first show himself a son by providing the venison; and in the enjoyment of the venison the blessing was uttered. Ver. 11. “Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken.” The same word, ἀνέβη, is used, Mark 6:51, for entering the ship. Peter must first go up into the ship, in order to release the net which adhered to it. He performed this task, doubtless, not alone: he, however, was the chief personage; and his act only is mentioned, because he was the centre of the spiritual fishery which was here symbolized. In this spiritual fishery the drawing of the net to land signified, according to Matthew 13:48-49, the “end of the world,” and what will take place then. Accordingly, Peter here represents not the mere individual apostolate, but at the same time the whole ministry of teaching and preaching, which has continued that apostolate from age to age. The net full of fishes represents not merely the “first-fruits of the Gentiles,” as they were gathered in by the Apostles themselves, but the whole “fulness of the Gentiles,” their πλήρωμα, Romans 11:25, as it is to be gathered down to the end of the world: comp. Matthew 24:14. It follows from this as a direct consequence, that we must not limit our views here to the Apostles as individuals. That the number one hundred and fifty and three must have a deep significance, is urgently felt by all who discern the symbolical meaning of the whole; otherwise the minuteness of specification would have a character of pettiness: comp. Bengel. It is bootless to object that the historical character of the chapter must suffer if we make the number here of any importance. For the distinction between the great fishes, which alone are reckoned, and the little ones, is a mere passing allusion; so that there is a certain latitude allowed here for theological speculation. The deep meaning of the number was acknowledged in ancient times. Jerome suggested that there were a hundred and fifty-three kinds of fishes, and that it was thereby signified that the Church was a net which received of every kind. But it cannot be established that any one in ancient times counted precisely that number of genera; not to say that such an enumeration was current at the time (Lampe), which however it must have been on that supposition. Then again there is absolutely no analogy for such a natural-historical allusion. All such secret hints in John’s Gospel and in the Apocalypse remain within the domain of Scripture. Grotius perceived rightly that the number had some connection with 2 Chronicles 2:17 : “And Solomon numbered all the strangers that were in the land of Israel, after the number wherewith David his father had numbered them; and there were found an hundred and fifty thousand, and three thousand and six hundred:” comp. 1 Kings 9:20. On the “strangers,” Kimchi remarks: “The remnant of the Canaanites, who were no longer given over to the worship of false gods.” It has been shown, in the commentary on Zechariah 9:7 (Christology, vol. iii. Clark’s Trans.), that proselytes were here spoken of; and that the reception of strangers in Israel during David’s life was a type of the future entrance of the fulness of the Gentiles among the people of God. As our present passage is related to 2 Chronicles 2:17, so is Revelation 13:18 related to Ezra 2:13. Without the Old Testament key, both passages entirely baffle us. The objection, that John omits the six hundred of the calculation in Chronicles, has but little force. John counts one fish for every thousand; and therefore an incomplete thousand would go for nothing. Τοσούτων, so great in number: comp. on ch. John 12:37. The “net broken” stands in no antithesis to Luke’s “and their net brake,” ch. John 5:6. There it was only its being in danger of breaking,—a danger which, as we read, was at once obviated. But here also there is the urgent danger of breaking, as is evident from the τοσούτωνὄντων. Where all is significant, this trait also is of moment. Grotius discerned in it a “presage of the wonderful unity of those who should be gathered into the Church by the labour of the Apostles.” Of this we can the less doubt, because already, in John’s time, the word σχίσμα was also established to denote divisions in the Church (comp. 1 Corinthians 1:10; 1 Corinthians 11:18; 1 Corinthians 12:25), and is used in John’s Gospel itself for spiritual discord: ch. John 7:43, John 9:16, John 10:19. The words are of very considerable importance, as we are all too much inclined to look at the divisions which seem to exist, and to forget the bond of unity that is there. We need not take refuge from the visible in the invisible Church, any more than we need fly from the past and the present into the “millennial reign.” The net was never broken, οὐκἐσχίσθη; and it is better for us to purge our eyes, that we may see the unity which still obtains in the Christian world. One Lord, one Spirit, one baptism, one Holy Scripture, the common heritage of the three confessions of the ancient Church,—all these show that, despite all σχίσματα, springing from the τοσούτωνὄντων, the necessary concomitants of so many nations with all their peculiarities brought into one fellowship, there is yet an indissoluble bond of unity that encircles the whole Christian Church. Ver. 12. “Jesus saith unto them. Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst ask Him, Who art Thou? knowing that it was the Lord,”—Δεῦτε: comp. ch. John 4:29. Ἀριστάω signifies here, as in Luke 11:37, and like ἄριστον, Matthew 22:4, Luke 11:38; Luke 14:12, the chief meal of the day, the midday repast. This was never in ordinary life bound strictly to the hour; and the symbolical character of all here makes the precise hour of the less importance. An “early morning meal,” however, is unsuitable to the meaning of the event. The phrase and the symbol here go hand in hand, and both point to something later than the early repast. It was only to the mid-day meal and the supper that guests were wont to be invited.—Ἐξετάζειν is stronger than ἐρωτᾶν: although the disciples were sure that it was the Lord, yet they would gladly have heard from His own lips, for blessed confirmation and more full assurance, had not the Lord’s majesty restrained them. In the presence of that majesty, the question seemed to them to have a derogatory character. The ἐτόλμα shows that the words εἰδότες, κ.τ.λ., were to represent the question, not as superfluous, but as unbecoming. They durst not demand satisfaction of the Lord, as of an indifferent person. Ver. 13. “Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise.” Jesus came at the head of the disciples, from the net brought to the shore to the fire of coals. After the disciples had received Him as their guest. He took the place of host. Grotius: “He showed Himself to be Paterfamilias to the Church, whose it was to give every man his portion.” The feast which He gave them consisted only of one fish and one loaf; the loaves were in those days small, and the fish was not a large one. This was sparing hospitality (Bengel is wrong: “satiavit omnes”), if we forget the symbolical character of the whole; rather the scantiness of the fare was intended to intimate that its end was not in itself, but that it signified something different, something higher. It has been regarded as meaning, that Jesus provides for His disciples in the present life (compare “The labourer is worthy of his hire,” Matthew 10:10); but such an interpretation is far from satisfactory, inasmuch as it makes Christ’s hospitality but small towards His people; and moreover, it is altogether refuted by the fact that the meal did not take place until the net was drawn to the shore. We must therefore carry the interpretation into the next world. The meal signified the heavenly reward of faithful labour: compare “Great is your reward in heaven,” Matthew 5:12, and “He that reapeth receiveth a reward, and gathereth fruit unto life everlasting,” ch. John 4:36. This heavenly reward is often introduced under the figure of a feast, which Jesus provides for His people, Luke 12:37; Luke 22:30, “That ye may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom;” Matthew 26:29; Matthew 22:1 seq., Matthew 25:10; Revelation 7:17; Revelation 19:9. The Apostles here received not merely a symbol, but also an earnest of that heavenly feast. Regarding this entirely symbolical meaning, we understand how it was that the breaking of bread was wanting, Luke 24:30; and more than that, the benediction and thanksgiving: comp. ch. John 6:11. These took place only in feasts which were limited in their design to themselves. Here, where the meal represented benefits which were not to be imparted until a future state, they would have been out of keeping. The purport of the entertainment also explains the circumstance, that Jesus Himself did not eat: He did not say, “Let us dine;” but, “Come and dine.” The Apostles all the while spake not a word. They knew that they had to do with the majesty that must be waited for to begin. Silence was appropriate to this meal; speech would have obscured its symbolical meaning. The feast interpreted itself. Ver. 14. “This is now the third time that Jesus showed Himself to His disciples after that He was risen from the dead.” In this connection the disciples are the disciples in the stricter sense,—the majority of the apostolical circle, represented by their most eminent members. To them Christ had appeared only twice before—on the evening of the resurrection, and eight days afterward. The manifestation to Mary Magdalene, to Peter, to the Emmaus disciples, come not here into view. John enumerates only the manifestations which were granted to the apostolical college. He further indicates, that there were afterwards other appearances, which John, however, would not record. John counts elsewhere also, ch. John 2:11, John 4:54, which latter passage has close affinity with the present, so far as the expression goes. Even when he does not expressly enumerate, he evidently attaches much importance to number; as is plain from the fact, that he narrates three miraculous occurrences in Judea, four in Galilee,—seven in all. On ἐγερθεὶςἐκνεκρῶν, comp. ch. John 2:22, John 12:9; John 12:17. Chap. John 21:15-23 Jesus commits to Peter the care of His flock, and exhorts him to labour after that love which is the necessary condition of the worthy discharge of his duty. He foreannounces also by what death, in the discharge of that duty, he should glorify God, and answers his question as to the end which would befall his fellow-disciple John. With this general glance at the future development of the Church, is fitly connected his institution in office whom Jesus, when He first met him, ch. John 1:43, described as the rock on which He would build His Church. Ver. 16. “He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me”? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him. Feed My sheep.” The second question differs from the first, in that Jesus omits the “more than these.” Peter again substitutes for ἀγαπῶ his φιλῶ. Not until he had done this twice, does our Lord take up his φιλῶ into His question, as if in recognition of it. Πάλιν is connected with δεύτερον also in ch. John 4:54. “Again” indicates that Jesus went beyond the first question;” a second time” points forward to the third in ver. 17. The reading πρόβατία, here and ver. 17 is merely an imitation of ἀρνία. Πόβατίον is not known in the Old Testament, or in the Septuagint, or in the Apocrypha. Everywhere we have only πρόβατα and ἀρνία: the latter in the Sept. of Jeremiah 50:45, and Psalms 113:4; Psalms 113:6. Ver. 17. “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 knowest that I love Thee. Jesus saith unto him. Feed My sheep.” Jesus asks thrice, because three, the first number of completeness, is the signature of emphasis: therefore for the same reason that John in ch. John 19:35, gave a triple assurance of the fidelity of his narrative. As in the Old Testament the number three, in a number of cases, occurs with this meaning (comp. e.g. the priestly benediction, the triple Holy in Isaiah 6), and as the New Testament presents undeniable instances of the same (comp. 2 Corinthians 12:8), there is no reason to assume any special reference to the triple denial of Peter. There is but a connection of form between the two; and in the case of the denial, the number three was the number of completeness. Peter is grieved. The triple question of his Lord showed that there was a distrust of his love, and Peter felt how well-grounded that distrust was: comp. “I am a sinful man, O Lord,” Luke 5:8. But though with sorrow, he can also with confidence appeal to the Searcher of hearts for the sincerity of his love. That Jesus, by a threefold repetition, and therefore with the strongest emphasis, represents love to Himself as the great requirement for feeding the flock of God; that He does not mention the love of God, which in the Old Testament law is the one thing supreme,—can be explained and justified only on the ground of Christ’s perfect and absolute divinity: not acknowledging His divinity, “we cannot but regard it as an invasion of the rights of Him who will not give His honour to another. Concurrently with “Lovest thou Me? our Lord speaks only of His sheep, while in the Old Testament the flock of Jehovah is always spoken of.—“Lord, Thou knowest all things,” absolutely transcends the creaturely sphere. To know all things is ever in the Old Testament the prerogative of God: comp. e.g. Psalms 7:10. That Jesus shared this prerogative, Peter had variously experienced in fact. We have a parallel generally in ch. John 16:30, where the Apostles say, “Now we know that Thou knowest all things:” comp. also ch. John 2:24. Ver. 18. “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 shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.” The delivery to Peter of his office is followed by a foreannouncement of the sufferings which he would have to endure in the discharge of it, and of the issue which was reserved for him: Luke 9:31; 2 Peter 1:15. The foreknowledge of this departure was part of Peter’s preparation for his duty; it served also to still in him all lust of dominion, to extinguish in him all desire to “lord it over God’s heritage,” 1 Peter 5:3 : moreover, it drove him to seek from above all needful help for so perilous an office. (Grotius: “How difficult an office he received! The matter was one that involved the sacrifice of liberty and life.”)—Νεώτερος, younger, is the comparative: the point of comparison must be sought only in the γηράσῃς that follows, “became old.” Accordingly the whole period is included from the present until old age, and the death of crucifixion to ensue. “Thou wast,” ἦς, is to be explained on the ground that Jesus looks back over Peter’s life from its end. If we overlook this, and refer the ἦς, not to the ideal, but to the actual past, the whole long and important space between the youth of Peter and his death fails to come into view. The expression would also be somewhat harsh, since it was in this very interval that Peter’s girding himself was so momentous for the Church, while the girding of the actual past was not brought into consideration. “Thou girdedst thyself” stands in undeniable relation to the girding of himself in ver. 7. In that act the Lord beheld a symbol of the unrestrained energy with which Peter would strongly and independently execute his vocation. Men gird themselves when they go to labour or travel (Buchner: “We gird ourselves when we prepare and raise ourselves to undertake something difficult”): comp. “Let him gird himself and serve me,” Luke 17:8; Exodus 12:11, 2 Kings 4:29; Acts 12:8, where the angel said to Peter, “Gird thyself, and put on thy sandals.” In Proverbs 31:17, the girding the loins runs parallel with strengthening the hands. The opposite of “Thou girdedst thyself, and wentest whither thou wouldest,” is, “And another shall gird thee, and lead thee whither thou wouldest not.” The contrast must be simply the general one between independence or unrestrained energy, and dependence or passiveness. To substitute binding for girding is in itself inadmissible, as girding is never used in that sense; and it is further opposed by the antithesis. We then read “shall bring,” not “shall lead:” in order to make the passiveness more emphatic, comp. the φέρειν in relation to Christ on His way of suffering, Mark 15:22. The “Other” is not expressly defined. The only point was to express the contrast of autonomy, or self-rule, and heteronomy, or the rule of others. The “not willing” refers to the sensitive flesh, shrinking even in those most advanced in the spiritual life: comp. Matthew 16:22-23. We have not yet remarked on the ἐκτενεῖςτὰςχεῖράςσου. Were this not there, we should have only the general antithesis of activity and passiveness, self-rule and the rule of others. But “Thou shalt stretch forth thine hands,” standing first, points to the special fact in which the heteronomy and the passiveness would be shown. We cannot doubt that his crucifixion is meant; for the Crucified is speaking to Peter, whose feelings had been ineffaceably impressed by the outstretched hands which he had so lately seen. Any other interpretation must tend to embarrassment; no other outstretching of the hands can be safely thought of. The stretching out of the hands is elsewhere noticed as a characteristic of crucifixion: compare the classical passages in Wetstein. Artemidorus mentions, as belonging to crucifixion, τὴντῶνχειρῶνἒκτασιν; and Plautus says, Dispessis manibus patibulum cum habebis. Finally, the “Follow Me” points to the cross, vers. 19, 22, compared with ch. John 13:36, where Jesus had said to Peter, “Thou shalt follow Me afterwards:” thus we have here the unfolding of the hint already given there. The Lord makes prominent this particular point in the crucifixion, because in it impotence and restriction were most clearly exhibited. The hands are the instruments of action; they being bound, all action ceases. Passiveness being the state generally indicated, this must also, in the crucifixion, be made prominent. If “thou shalt stretch forth thine hands” refers to the crucifixion, we have a clue to the meaning of “another.” The punishment of the cross was specifically Roman, ch. John 18:32. The Romans inflicted it on Christ; and His servants would have to endure it at their hands. This utterance is referred to by Peter in his second Epistle, ch. John 1:14. We must not interpret that of any new revelation. Peter combines the event we now dwell upon with the circumstances of time. But still plainer Isaiah 1 Peter 5:1, where he, in prospect of martyrdom, terms himself the μάρτυςτῶντοῦΧριστοῦπαθημάτων. Then had the fulfilment of this present prophecy already begun. The Epistle was written from Babylon—that is, Rome in its capacity as an enemy of the people of God—at a time when Satan already went about as a roaring lion seeking whom he might devour, ch. John 5:8. Witness of the sufferings of Christ was the Apostle, inasmuch as he would represent those sufferings in a living image. The crucifixion of Peter is attested to us by the most trustworthy testimonies; among others by Tertullian, who says, Petrus passioni Dominicae aequatur: compare also Eusebius, Hist. Ecc. ii. 25. Peter was, so far as we know, the only one among the Apostles who suffered the same death as our Lord. The appearance to James, which Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 15, forms the complement to that which here concerns Peter, and presently afterwards John. (Compare, for the chronological position of this appearance, my treatise on the Supposed Contradictions in the Narration of the Resurrection of Jesus and the Appearances of the Risen Lord.) This manifestation to James probably referred to the departure which he also had to expect. Ver. 19. “This spake He, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He saith unto him, Follow Me.” We have the explanation of “glorify God” in Matthew 5:16, “that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” God is glorified in the joyful death of martyrs, which can have its source only in Him, and apart from Him cannot be found. It appears that John had Peter’s saying, 1 Peter 4:16, in his eyes: “But if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; let him glorify God on this behalf,” δοξαζέτωδὲτὸνθεὸνἐντῷὀνόματιτούτῳ. Martyrdom in which Christian virtue exhibits its highest bloom, appears there also to be a glorification of God. The ecclesiastical use of the phrase “glorify God” for the death of martyrs evidently sprang from this passage.—“By what death:” this cannot refer to violent death generally, but to the special kind of death; for only such a kind of death is referred to as would serve to glorify God. The genus was not death generally, but the death of martyrdom. The species of death was crucifixion only.—“Follow Me” must primarily refer to the external following, to the fact that Peter was then and there to follow Christ’s steps: this is plain from the ἀκολουθοῦντα in ver. 20. According to that verse, the following was such as might be seen. But, on the other hand, it is obvious that “Follow Me” must also be understood of a following in the way of the cross. To this we are led by the connection, thus only established, with the words that preceded; to this we are led also by the obvious parallel of Mat 10:38, “Whosoever taketh not up his cross, and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me,” a word which must involuntarily have occurred to Peter’s mind when he heard the “Follow Me,” the rather as the Lord had repeated it in prospect of His own passion. Matthew 16:24; by the fact that we cannot see any sufficient end in the mere external following, which would have been without meaning to the reader, and alone would not have been mentioned by John; and finally by ver. 22, where “Follow thou Me” forms the opposite of another destiny which awaited John. The seemingly discordant views are reconciled by the assumption that the Lord primarily meant an external following, but that this had a real symbolical significance, and was to foreshadow Peter’s imitation of Christ in the death of crucifixion,—an assumption which is all the more obvious, as the whole chapter bears so pre-eminently a symbolical character. This view, represented by Grotius, will satisfy the grounds of both interpretations. The typical following would mitigate the later actual fellowship of the cross to Peter, and quell in his work all emotion of pride. In it was given to him the most emphatic memento mori. With regard to the two points in our Lord’s words of prophecy to Peter, J. Gerhard remarks: “In the first Christ sets before him His own example in feeding the flock; in the second, His own example in the endurance of death.” Ver. 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?” As Peter followed Jesus, John also followed unbidden. He understood the words of Christ; and by his following also he expressed, without dictating to his Master, his own willingness to suffer martyrdom, with especial allusion to “whither thou wouldest not” spoken by the Lord to Peter. Peter turned when he heard some one following (on ἐπιστραφείς, comp. ch. John 12:40, Revelation 1:12 : this last passage leads to the conclusion that he had special occasion to turn. Bengel says: “He had begun therefore to follow”); and when he saw John, he was seized with a desire to have him as his companion in martyrdom, according to the saying, dulce est solamen miseris socios habere malorum. And as, in his own case, the prediction of the cross had followed so soon upon the triple “Lovest thou Me?” bethought that the disciple who stood in a peculiarly affectionate relation to Christ might lay more special claims to martyrdom than himself; and therefore he made a faint endeavour to obtain from the Lord a decree to that purpose. This was his only fault. Peter did not desire to impose upon John a death of martyrdom against his will; but the fact was, as Anton says, “Peter perceived that John would go with him.” In the words, “whom Jesus loved,” “which also leaned on His breast at supper, and said. Lord, which is he that betrayeth Thee?” John points to the facts on which the question and the desire of Peter were based. The triple number gives perfectly the motive which impelled him. First, “whom Jesus loved:” we have already shown that this formula arose out of a signification of the name of John which Jesus Himself had uttered. John could not content himself with that, however; since, as he had often used the phrase as a mere personal designation, it would not have been sufficient of itself to explain Peter’s motive. The second is, “which also leaned on Jesus’ breast at supper:” ἀναπίπτειν is always used by John of placing oneself at table: comp. ch. John 6:10, John 13:12; as also in the first three Evangelists. We must therefore adhere to the same meaning here: “which also placed himself near Jesus’ breast at supper.” In the passage alluded to, John 13, the ἦνδὲἀνακείμενοςεἷςἐκτῶνμαθητῶναὐτοῦἐντῷκόλπῳτοῦἸησοῦ, in ver. 23, corresponds with the present; not the ἐπιπεσὼνἐπὶτὸστῆθος of ver. 25. We have already remarked, that the place which John occupied at the table betokened the altogether peculiar internal relation of love subsisting between his Lord and him. But the Apostle now adds in the third clause a reference to an occurrence which had exhibited, and that with regard to Peter also, the greater intimacy between Christ and John,—to the incident of ch. John 13:23-25, where Peter used the instrumentality of John in asking the Lord about the traitor. Anton’s observation here is of profound practical application: “Because the kinds of suffering, especially of bodily suffering, vary, men fall into making comparisons about it. Why should I suffer this? Why not the other? One ought not thus to look at the other. For the tempter obtains great power when children of God make such comparisons. Here is something to be guarded against diligently!” Ver. 21. “Peter, seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?” What will this man receive or suffer? He who stands so near to Thee and me will not surely be separated in death from Thee, or from me: comp. 2 Samuel 1:23. The cautionary and repelling word of Christ throws light upon the question: the blame does not fall upon the curiosity, but upon unauthorized interference. Ver. 22. “Jesus saith unto him. If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me.” Jesus gives His express utterance concerning the end of John’s life; and beneath “If I will,” etc., lies concealed “I will.” The conditional form was introduced simply because Peter, who had ventured to prescribe laws to Christ, was not worthy to receive His utterance in the direct form. The language is that of majesty, which “suffers no invasion of prerogative, even from those standing nearest: comp. ch. John 2:4; Matthew 12:48. But the repulse was only formal. Jesus, who always entered so kindly into the wishes of His disciples (Bengel: “The Lord never inflicted a pure repulse upon His friends, however unreasonably they might ask”), did in fact respond to Simon’s request for a declaration as to the future of his fellow-disciple. His utterance was interpreted as such not only by the “brethren,” ver. 23, but also by John himself. To the same conclusion we are led by its correspondence with the utterance concerning Peter. On θέλω, Bengel says: The power of Jesus over the life and death of His people. Μένειν, remain, could in this connection only have referred to abiding in this life: comp. 1 Corinthians 15:6; Philippians 1:24-25. The coming of Jesus could not have had an individual meaning in relation to John; not the coming to take him in the hour of death, ch. John 14:3, for in this sense the Lord came even to Peter. But we must find a sense in which John remained, and Peter did not, until Christ came. If the coming was one of universal import, we must needs think at once of the Lord’s coming in judgment upon Jerusalem, concerning which He had said, Matthew 16:28, “Verily I say unto you. There be some standing here who shall not taste of death until they see the Son of man coming in His kingdom:” comp. Mark 9:1; Matthew 24:34, which teaches that that generation was not to pass before the sign of the Son of man would be seen in heaven. Peter fulfilled his course in martyrdom some few years before that catastrophe: John, on the other hand, survived that great and solemn coming of Jesus. Meanwhile, we must not limit ourselves to this first phase of the historical coming of Jesus. When the Lord spoke of John’s remaining until He should come. He seems to have intimated that soon after His coming John should depart. But that will not suit the coming in judgment on Jerusalem; for John survived that event nearly thirty years. Further, it appears that the link between the abiding of John and the coming of Jesus was not a merely external one; but that before his departure John was to do his own part in connection with the coming of Christ. Now there was nothing of this sort in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem. But it is altogether decisive, that John actually survived a second coming of the Lord, which could not therefore be excluded. In his lifetime fell the beginning of the great conflict between Christ and Rome. With the Roman persecution, as it, under Domitian, partook of an ecumenical character, followed simultaneously the coming of the Lord. This is one of the fundamental principles of the Apocalypse. That book is occupied, after its first verse, with that “which should shortly come to pass.” According to ch. Revelation 1:3 and Revelation 22:10, the time was near. “I come quickly,” the Lord declares, ch. Revelation 22:7; Revelation 22:12; Revelation 22:20,Revelation 3:11, Revelation 2:5; Revelation 2:16. On Revelation 1:1 it was observed: “‘The keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.’ ‘I am with you always unto the end of the world.’ Of these truths, the ‘shortly coming to pass’ and the ‘I come quickly’ of this book are the necessary consequence. The boundless energy of the Divine nature admits here of no delay. There is nothing of quiescence or indolent repose in God. His appearing often to linger is merely on account of our shortsightedness. He is secretly working for salvation and destruction when He seems to us to be standing aloof” (Com. on Rev. vol. i. p. 47, Clark’s Transl.). At the same crisis, when the world came with its prince, the Lord came. In this second historical coming of Christ, John was himself pars aliqua. He was the herald of His coming; and that he might be such, was the reason that the Lord willed that he should tarry. Yet not that alone: the Apocalypse is included in the coming of the Lord. In it He came with His consolation to His people, groaning under the oppression of the world’s power. That was the specific purport of the Apocalypse. Hence Ben gel says, with perfect propriety: “To Peter the cross, to John that great Apocalypse, were in mystery promised here.” Bengel also says on “Follow Me:” “The future is involved in the imperative. Do thy part: leave to the survivor his.” It is only a following in the most pregnant sense that is here assigned to Peter: the following of Christ in the way of the cross, in the more general sense, pertains to all Christians; and that John’s desire, as expressed in his following with Peter, was satisfied, and that he was also a partaker of the cross of his Lord, is evident from Revelation 1:9-10. With “Follow thou Me” the colloquy ends. Here, as in Luke 24:31, it might be said, “And He vanished out of their sight.” Ver. 23. “Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but. If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?” The λόγος rested upon the assumption that the coming referred to was the last coming, that with which the παλιγγενεσία was connected, Matthew 19:28 : thus it was as to those then living the period of the great change, 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, and of the rapture into the air, 1 Thessalonians 4:17,—passages which probably had their influence upon the formation of this opinion. The Apostle opposes to this opinion that there was a difference between not dying and surviving till the coming of the Lord; he intimates that there was to be a coming of the Lord before the end of the present world, so that one might live till the coming of the Lord, and then afterwards die. Heumann touches the right point here: “John teaches his readers what return of the Lord was not to be understood here. Since, that is, some Christians supposed that the Lord was speaking of His coming to the general judgment, concerning which an angel said at the ascension, ‘This Jesus will in like manner come again as ye have seen Him go into heaven,’ Acts 1:11, and inferred therefore that John would not die, but remain in the world until the last day, and then be taken up with all other surviving believers into heaven, John here testifies that Jesus had not said that he would not die. He gives it to be understood, that he, like his fellow-Apostles, would die, and consequently not survive to the last day, and the coming of the Lord in judgment; and that they therefore erred who understood the Lord’s words of that His final coming.” John describes Christians as “brethren.” The bond of brotherhood girded the disciples of Christ from the time that the Lord had termed them His brethren, ch. John 20:17. Αὐτῷ: What is said in relation to any one is in a certain sense said to him, although the words were primarily addressed to another. It is after the manner of the Old Testament: comp. e.g. Genesis 20:2, “And Abraham said of Sarah his wife. She is my sister.” Chap. John 21:24-25 Concluding Formula of the Gospel John 21:24. “This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things; and we know that his testimony is true.” Lampe: “He names himself simply disciple, as his constant custom is.” Τούτων, ταῦτα, can refer only to all that from the beginning of the Gospels down to John 21:23. What Lampe further says must remain true: “Then he adds, ‘This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things;’ which cannot be defended from the imputation of falsehood, if any other than the Apostle affixed this chapter.” In the οἴδαμεν the spirit of John is one with the spirit of his readers: compare “When ye are gathered together, and my spirit,” 1 Corinthians 5:4, and 3 John 1:12, “Yea, and we also bear record; and ye know that our record is true.” The profound conviction of the truth of his testimony, of which the Holy Spirit was the source, ch. John 14:26, filled him with the assurance that it would be acknowledged as true by all who were of the truth. Not only he knew it, but the Church, all Christendom upon earth, knew it. That John’s confidence did not delude him, has been proved by the experience of all ages. All brethren, John 21:23, all sincere Christians (compare ἡμεῖςπάντες, ch. John 1:16), have ever set to it their seal. This enlargement of personal conviction into that of the Church is extraordinarily frequent in the Old Testament. Habakkuk, for example, speaks throughout his third chapter as the microcosmos of the whole community. In the New Testament all those passages are analogous where the Apostles speak of themselves in the plural, as Romans 1:5; 2 Corinthians 1:8 seq.; 1 John 1:1 (Winer). For the reason of this so-called pluralis majestaticus is the central position of the Apostles—the fact that they were not so much individual persons, as the epitome of the Church: compare the τὸἐνὑμῖνποίμνιοντοῦΘεοῦ, 1 Peter 5:2, which makes the shepherds include as it were the flock. According to 1 John 1:3, the object of the Apostle’s declaration and teaching was, that his readers should walk in fellowship with him, and through him with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. There also we are met by him as a central figure. The theory of another author adding his postscript, which has no ground whatever to rest upon, is refuted by the impossibility that this Gospel could have been issued without some such conclusion as we have in John 21:24-25; by the unmeaningness of οἴδαμεν in the mouth of one unknown; by the present participle ὁμαρτυρῶν, and the singular οἶμαι, John 21:25; by the close affinity between this assurance of the truth of a testimony and ch. John 19:35; by its relation with 3 John 1:12; finally, by the correspondence of this concluding formula for the whole Gospel with the concluding formula of the main body in ch. John 20:30-31, and the circumstance that in both formulae there is contained the hint that the Gospel was only a selection from a much more abundant mass. John 21:25. “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.” Instead of ὅσα, quoecunque, which points to the great mass of things omitted, many MSS. have the simple ἃ. On “which Jesus did,” comp. ch. John 2:23. John in all his books makes frequent mention of writing. For καθʼ ? ἕν, comp. Acts 21:19; and for οἶμαι, Genesis 41:1, Sept. Objection has been needlessly taken to the singular “I suppose,” because John never speaks in the singular. For there is really here no speaking in the first person, no actual obtrusion of his own personality: οἶμαι means no more than “so to speak.” Κόσμος is the whole world as such, and not in a moral sense. On χωρεῖν, hold, comp. ch. John 2:6. Heumann is right in interjecting, “which we four Evangelists have not written;” for John everywhere takes his three predecessors into account. Here he is speaking generally of what had not been written. Much has been idly said about “hyperbole quite foreign to John’s simplicity and thoughtfulness.” But there is no hyperbole here. Internal, transcendent greatness, simply takes the array of the external—takes dimensions of space; after the precedent of Amo 7:10, where Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, says to Jeroboam, “Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words:” it is not large enough; they find no place therein. That the external here only represents the internal—that we must distinguish between the thought and its clothing, is plain from the οἶμαι, opinor, “I suppose.” Bengel: “οἶμαι, opinor; the amplification is softened by this word.” The idea is that of the absolute unfitness of the world for the spiritual acceptance and use of a perfect history of Christ. Hyperbole could be alleged only if this unfitness were other than absolute. We may find many analogies in the Apocalypse (compare my Commentary). There is no more exaggeration here than in the verse of Luther’s well-known hymn, “And were the world,” etc. There also spiritual greatness is made to assume the dimensions of space. Wetstein rightly observes: “Coronis evangelio imposita respondet τῷπροσώπῳτηλαυγεῖ in principio, i. 1, 2, 3.” The world which was made by Christ is even for that reason too small to hold the perfect knowledge of Him,—all that might be said of Him. How weighty is the practical conclusion which may be drawn from the fact, that precisely these words form the conclusion of this Gospel and of the Four, of all that is delivered in the Gospel verbally written! How anxious should we be to receive this fourfold Gospel into our hearts!